Saturday this blog completed two years of existence and I didn't remember. I just stopped to think about it a few minutes ago and I don't even remember what remind me of that. Am I having a serious problem of amnesia? Well, I didn't remember, and no one else did it either. So what? Let's keep moving, let's keep blogging!

I didn't plan any especial post about it, and now it's too late. And I'm too worried about other things to think about making something special. Let's see what I can do. I love cats, but it isn't Friday. I love chocolate too, but I didn't have time available to make some brigadeiros. I should have made a selection of my favourite entries no? What do you think? Any other idea?

While you think about it, watch something funny, like the Chaplin short comedy The Kid Auto Race in Venice or the Méliès' classic Le Voyage Dans La Lune. Or download them here and here.

Posted by Bibi at 04:22 PM in Blogging, Cinema | Comments (12) ||

Penny Postcards: a nice collection of vintage American postcards, divided by State. These postcards cost 1¢ to mail. Postage was temporarily raised to 2¢ from 1917 to 1919 to cover the cost of World War I & from 2925 to 1928.

PS.: Hey Idelber, I think you are going to like of those vintage postcards of New Orleans.

Posted by Bibi at 03:04 PM in History, Vintage | Comments (1) ||

Canada at Scale: Maps of our History.

The maps in this exhibition reflect the evolution of cartography in our country: Aboriginal peoples, European colonial powers, Canadians, governments, private industry and academics all produced precious maps. Although some are less appealing aesthetically, they nevertheless are significant as testimonies to the beginning of map printing in this country. From the astrolabe to computers, the history of our country and evolution in technology are laid out before us. They are on the scale of human will and dreams.

Posted by Bibi at 02:56 PM in History ||

Modern Pin-up: pin-up pictures of French models by Virginie Notte. The photographer has a very nice portfolio, full of cool pictures, some NSFW. She has more interesting works at other part of his portfolio, at Modern Freaks, take a look there. (via Sexe, love 'n gaudriole)

Posted by Bibi at 02:20 PM in Photography, Photography, Pin-ups ||

The Slate asked to a handful of designers to create lurid new book jackets for classics from The Iliad to Animal Farm. Check the results here. Yes, you got me, I can't resist to pulp book covers. As Slate says, "Classic pulp covers are glorious and garish, rich with saturated color and sexual innuendo", and isn't great? (via Drawn)

Posted by Bibi at 01:19 PM in Books, Illustration, Pulp | Comments (2) ||

Gopher Broke is a wonderful a very funny independent short film from Blur Studio, written and directed by Jeff Fowler. A hungry gopher hatches a clever plan to get a quick snack, but, as you can imagine, the things don't happen as he planned. I saw it a while ago, before the Oscar nomination, at the Sundance Film Festival. This amusing animation always make me laugh, and I can do it again, thanks to Jerome that uploaded it at Vimeo. Thank you Jerome! ( via Por fin es viernesss)

Posted by Bibi at 01:01 PM in Animation, Fun, Fun, Video ||

Whitney Music Box: a musical realization of the motion graphics of John Whitney as described in his book "Digital Harmony".The thirteen variations of the music box are the result of Whitney's idea of harmonic relationships, based on audio, graphics and programming.

The animation and the music were composed by Jim Bumgardner. He has more info about it at KrazyDad: While Whitney was interested in turning musical ideas into motion graphics, I’m doing the inverse — turning one of his key animation ideas back into music. Here is what Whitney said about it:

An early intuition about how to control total dynamics led me to activate all graphic elements through a motion function that advances each element differentially. For example, if one element were set to move at a given rate, the next element might be moved at two times that rate. Then the third would move at three times that rate and so on. Each element would move at a different rate and in a different direction within the field of action. So long as all elements obey a rule of direction and rate, and none drifts aimlessly or randomly, then pattern configurations form and reform. This is harmonic resonance, and it echoes musical harmony, stated in explicit terms. I tried this procedure in several films, and was gratified by the consistency of the confirmation it demonstrated.
– John Whitney, “Digital Harmony”, pp. 38

(via Hoemro)

Posted by Bibi at 11:54 AM in Animation, Audio, Music ||

"Poets . . . shed not only the red blood of their hearts but the white blood of their souls,” proclaimed Jean Cocteau. Le sang d'un poète (1930), aka The Blood of a Poet was the first film written and directed by Jean Cocteau. It was also starred by him. The film is a surrealistic experience, it's also one of the best expressions of poetry as a film, it's a dream as a film, it's about the power of metaphor and the relationship between art and dreams, it's a realist documentary of unreal events and it's also a homage to the memory of Pisanello, Paolo Uccello, Piero della Francesca, Andrea del Castagno, who where all painters of insignias and enigmas. It's a masterpiece, a must see.

You can watch it here. The texts are in English, but it has the original audio in French, without subtitles. And I'm not going to post the video embed here, because the film has 50 minutes. I hope you enjoy it. Read more about it at The Missing Link, Senses of Cinema, Jean Cocteau Website and Movie Martyr.

Update: Ok, time is over, the film is no loger available there, but, if you liked it or have any intrest in it, my sugestion is buy the new DVD released by The Criterion Collection.

Posted by Bibi at 06:00 PM in Cinema, Video | Comments (5) ||

The The British Library is doing an excellent work in a project called Turning the Pages™. Turning the Pages is the award-winning interactive program that allows museums and libraries to give members of the public access to precious books while keeping the originals safely under glass.

Turning the Pages allows visitors to virtually 'turn' the pages of manuscripts in a realistic way, using touch-screen technology and interactive animation. They can zoom in on the high-quality digitised images and read or listen to notes explaining the beauty and significance of each page. There are other features specific to the individual manuscripts. In a Leonardo da Vinci notebook, for example, a button turns the text round so visitors can read his famous 'mirror' handwriting.

Until now there are 15 fantastic book rarities online - all links below are for users with broadband connections:

- Andreas Vesalius' De Humani Corporis Fabrica - A landmark in medical history, Vesalius's stunning 16th century anatomy.

- Alice's Adventures Underground - The original Alice, written and illustrated by Lewis Carroll.

- Diamond Sutra - The oldest printed 'book', view the Diamond Sutra, printed in China in 868.

- Elizabeth Blackwell's Curious Herbal - Classic of botanical illustration, Elizabeth Blackwell's remarkable Herbal.

- Golden Haggadah - Glorious Hebrew prayer book, the lavishly illustrated Golden Haggadah.

- Golf Book, an illustrated manuscript - Flemish masters in miniature, the superb so-called 'Golf Book'.

- Jane Austen's History of England - Jane Austen's early work, the History of England in her own hand.

- Leonardo da Vinci notebook - Sketches by Leonardo, see the genius's personal notebook.

- Lindisfarne Gospels - Pinnacle of Anglo-Saxon art, the priceless Lindisfarne Gospels.

- Luttrell Psalter - Glimpses of Medieval life, selections from the famous Luttrell Psalter.

- Mercator's Atlas of Europe - First Atlas of Europe, compiled by Mercator in the 1570s.

- Mozart's Thematic Catalogue - Mozart's musical diary, with 75 audio excerpts.

- Sforza Hours - Masterpiece of the Renaissance, beautiful images from the Sforza Hours.

- Sherborne Missal - Outstanding 15th-century church book, the wonderful, and weighty, Sherborne Missal.

- Sultan Baybars' Qur'an Baybars' magnificent Qur'An, epitome of sumptuous Arabic calligraphy.

There are more 3 rare books at this page: Wellcome Apocalypse, Nujum al-'Ulum (Stars of Sciences) and On Cutaneous Diseases by Robert Willan.

Posted by Bibi at 04:55 PM in Books, History, Science, Science | Comments (4) ||

Airigami - The art of folding air in specially prepared latex balloon sculptures by Larry Moss. Vincent van Gogh used paint. Auguste Rodin worked in bronze. Larry Moss shapes air with the use of balloons. Ballons! Balloons are not the toys they were when you were a kid. This serious art makes a serious impact. Neat stuff! (via placeboKatz)

Posted by Bibi at 01:22 PM in Art, Sculpture ||

Cartoon Modern has a very nice article about the short animation The Information Machine produced by Charles Eames and designed by Dolores Cannata in 1957.

Throughout the Fifties, UPA would regularly host open houses and screenings to introduce the broader artistic community to their brand of animated filmmaking. Industrial designer and filmmaker Charles Eames was so impressed by the studio’s work after attending one of these events that he purchased stock in UPA. By the mid-Fifties, Eames was also exploring ways of incorporating more animation into his own films. The Information Machine: Creative Man and The Data Processor (1957) was the first completely animated film produced by Eames. It was commissioned by IBM Corporation’s design director Eliot Noyes to screen in its pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair.

Read the complete article with pictures at Cartoon Modern, download the animation at Internet Archive or watch it (or below).

Posted by Bibi at 12:56 PM in Animation, Technology ||

Spanking Toons is a site dedicated to spanking images on comics and cartoons. It's a pay site, but there are few free images in 4 galleries. The first two contains Lil' Abner Comics, Georges Levis, Oh! Wicked Wanda, Milo Manara, Barbarella, Superman among others and it's NSFW. The galleries 3 and 4 contains Little Dot, Little Audrey, Wendy, Richie Rich, Gloria, Prince Valiant among others. (via Cartoon Brew)

Posted by Bibi at 11:57 AM in Comics ||

Come chocolates, pequena;
Come chocolates!
Olha que não há mais metafísica no mundo senão chocolates. Excerpt from "Tabacaria" by Fernando Pessoa

76 years ago, Pessoa was already right: eat chocolates! A new study says that Chocolate may boost brain power - Stimulating effects might increase mental performance.

"Chocolate contains many substances that act as stimulants, such as theobromine, phenethylamine, and caffeine," Dr. Bryan Raudenbush from Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia noted in comments to Reuters Health.

"These substances by themselves have previously been found to increase alertness and attention and what we have found is that by consuming chocolate you can get the stimulating effects, which then lead to increased mental performance."

Now I have even more excuses to eat more chocolate. (via Slashfood)

Posted by Bibi at 11:29 AM in Food, Food, Science, Science | Comments (1) ||

Two episodes of "Clan of the Fiery Cross" from the Adventures of Superman at Radio Nostalgia Network, from the 40's. This will take us up through episode 12 of 16 in this series that attacks hatred and racism.

More Superman at Superman Cartoons.

Posted by Bibi at 10:43 AM in Audio ||

The site of the artist Kita Usagi is all in Japanese, but who cares? The gallery is full of cute works of illustrations, crafts, fashion, accessories for your kitchen with kawaii drawings and stuff more, almost all available to sale. For me, the best of his (her?) works are the photographies with tiny bunny toys - and that was the reason that attracted me to the site. (via Spy's Spice)

Posted by Bibi at 10:03 AM in Art, Photography, Photography ||

Make your own stuffed Kiwa hirsuta with the instructions of mediatinker. The plush toy isn't anatomically correct in every detail, however the PDFs with patterns and instructions are free and were released under a released it under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike2.5 License. After saw that Blue lobster I want all my plush toy lobsters in a blue version. (via Quiddity)

Posted by Bibi at 09:22 AM in Animals, Toys ||

Hey cinema lovers, the soundtrack of the wonderful epic 1900, also known as Novecento, is available tow download at Rato Records. Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci in 1976, the casting has an impressive list of great actors, like Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda, Francesca Bertini, Laura Betti, Donald Sutherland, Burt Lancaster and Alida Valli. The soundtrack was brilliantly composed by Ennio Morricone. Watch the film and listen to the soundtrack after.

Posted by Bibi at 08:58 AM in Cinema, Music ||

The photographer Gregor Podgorski made a fabulous work of interpretations of Michelangelo's Pietà. The work entitled La piéta has 96 versions of the sculpture and it's available as a book too. How can someone resist to that Smurfs Pietà? Don't forget to see the other pictures of Podgorski too. (via Art Nudes)

BTW, the pictures of La piéta contains nude, so NSFW.

Posted by Bibi at 04:26 PM in Photography, Photography ||

Websites as graphs: HTML consists of so-called tags, like the A tag for links, IMG tag for images and so on. Since tags are nested in other tags, they are arranged in a hierarchical manner, and that hierarchy can be represented as a graph. I've written a little app that visualizes such a graph. Try this awesome tool here (it requires java). Take a look also at some of the results available at Flickr (and join with a screenshot of you site). (via Waxy)

Posted by Bibi at 04:03 PM in Internet, Tools ||

Veronica Ibarra's work addresses issues related to animal equality (equal consideration for all sentient beings) and speciesism (undervaluing of someone or of his/her interests because he/she belongs to a certain species). The Spanish vegan artist makes cute and engaged short films, like the super cute The little bird flies away and the visual collage All this and more, and photographic works, like the cooking set. She has been actively involved in animal equality since 1994. (via andreaxmas)

Posted by Bibi at 02:34 PM in Animals, Art, Photography, Photography, Video ||