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Thursday 28 March 2013

Katrien De Blauwer






Katrien De Blauwer
Eisenstein believed that film montage could create ideas or have an impact beyond the individual images. Two or more images edited together create a "tertium quid" (third thing) that makes the whole greater than the sum of its individual parts.
Montage theory: Eisenstein

Rebecca Horn







Mechanischer Körperfächer (body fan 2) - rebecca horn

"the fan suits my body -- i carry it and i balance it on my shoulders so that head and shoulders constitute the central axis of the two semi-circles -- starting position -- the two semi-circles of the fan close over my head -- when i move my body's balance, the two semi-circles change their horizontal starting position and begin to turn -- one semicircle turns in fron of my body, the other one behind it, so that my body becomes the fixed axis for the semicircles -- when the rotation is slow,  just sections of my body can be seen by turn -- when the two semicircles rotate fast, they close in a transparent circle."

  -- rebecca horn
via flash art n. 46-47, june 1974

Pose of the week


Salabhasana (Locust Pose)

When practised with attention to the distribution of movement, this posture is the most fundamental of backbends. It engages the extensor muscles of the body in a patterned way, developing an even tone, while at the same time encouraging a release of the flexor muscles. It is the only back bend to to act this way, making it and important posture for restoring the balance between flexion and extension. 
The muscles used here are the hamstrings and gluteals to extend the legs, the erector spinae to extend the spine and the lower trapezius to anchor the scapular down. The difficult places to move from, as with most backbends, are the hip joint and the thoracic spine. Pursuing the extension needed to much from the neck and low back, which most people can do with ease, when practicing these back bending movements is pointless.  
When movement comes from the hip joint, the lumbar will be protected, but this can only happen if there is enough length and release in the iliopsoas muscle and the iliofemoral ligament. If you attempt to lift against resistance from the hip flexors, you will likely find yourself compressing the lumbar and trying to bend from another easily accessible place, the neck.

Remember, as always, it is not how far you bend that is important, but how well distributed your pattern of movement is. 

(image found here) 

Wednesday 27 March 2013

The Strew of Salt and Oil (Buttermilk, Cornmeal)

Because my grandmother made me
the breakfast her mother made her,
when I crack the eggs, pat the butter
on the toast, and remember the bacon
to cast iron, to fork, to plate, to tongue,
my great grandmother moves my hands
to whisk, to spatula, to biscuit ring,
and I move her hands too, making
her mess, so the syllable of batter
I'll find tomorrow beneath the fridge
and the strew of salt and oil are all
memorials, like the pan-fried chicken
that whistles in the grease in the voice
of my best friend's grandmother
like a midnight mockingbird,
and the smoke from the grill
is the smell of my father coming home
from the furnace and the tang
of vinegar and char is the smell
of Birmingham, the smell
of coming home, of history, redolent
as the salt of black-and-white film
when I unwrap the sandwich
from the wax-paper the wax-paper
crackling like the cold grass
along the Selma to Montgomery road,
like the foil that held
Medgar's last meal, a square of tin
that is just the ghost of that barbecue
I can imagine to my tongue
when I stand at the pit with my brother
and think of all the hands and mouths
and breaths of air that sharpened
this flavor and handed it down to us,
I feel all those hands inside
my hands when it's time to spread
the table linen or lift a coffin rail
and when the smoke billows from the pit
I think of my uncle, I think of my uncle
rising, not falling, when I raise
the buttermilk and the cornmeal to the light
before giving them to the skillet
and sometimes I say the recipe
to the air and sometimes I say his name
or her name or her name
and sometimes I just set the table
because meals are memorials
that teach us how to move,
history moves in us as we raise
our voices and then our glasses
to pour a little out for those
who poured out everything for us,
we pour ourselves for them,
so they can eat again.
Jake Adam York, "Grace"

Matthew Brandt



Matthew Brandt

Mix Tape


1. People Get Ready -- The Impressions
2. Through & Through -- My Bubba & Mi
3. Froggie Went A Courtin' -- Bob Dylan
4. Born in Hard Luck -- Chris Bouchillon
5. Wish You Were Here -- Lia Ices
6. Funky Malaguena -- Snooks Eaglin
7. Green Garden -- Laura Mvula
8. Ana - Los Saicos
9. Rain Dance -- Valerie June
10. Leap frog -- Louis Armstrong
 

Friday 22 March 2013


Louise Mills.
Two bubbles found they had rainbows on their curves.
They flickered out saying:
"It was worth being a bubble, just to have held that rainbow thirty seconds."
Carl Sandberg.

Landen Metz




Landen Metz

Found here

Important stuff...


Sugar, not fat, exposed as deadly villain in obesity epidemic

It's addictive and toxic, like a drug, and we need to wean ourselves off it, says US doctor 

Sugar – given to children by adults, lacing our breakfast cereals and a major part of our fizzy drinks – is the real villain in the obesity epidemic, and not fat as people used to think, according to a leading US doctor who is taking on governments and the food industry.

Dr Robert Lustig, who was this month in London and Oxford for a series of talks about his research, likens sugar to controlled drugs. Cocaine and heroin are deadly because they are addictive and toxic – and so is sugar, he says. "We need to wean ourselves off. We need to de-sweeten our lives. We need to make sugar a treat, not a diet staple," he said.

"The food industry has made it into a diet staple because they know when they do you buy more. This is their hook. If some unscrupulous cereal manufacturer went out and laced your breakfast cereal with morphine to get you to buy more, what would you think of that? They do it with sugar instead."

Read the full article here
(, health editor at The Guardian)