Paul, the wine guy, presents his Flickr set Understanding art for geeks. My first impression was a big shock, and I asked to my buttons: what the hell? After three of four images, my artsy side went to walk and my geek side started laughing of the hilarious (explantions) combinations. Paul explains classic paintings using (classic) expressions and commands of geek knowledge. He chose a classic Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David for All Your base are belong to us, a Gerard Dou painting for RTFM, Second Life explaining Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights", and there it goes. (via MetaFilter)

Related Posts:
M. C. Escher
Bosch Universe
Italian Painters: 1200-1750
Vincent van Gogh Anniversary
All your base are belong to us
René Magritte: the Illusion of Reality
Hieronymus Bosch's birds papercraft
Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment and Design

Posted by Bibi on January 24, 2008 04:44 PM in Art, Culture, Fun, Fun, Geek ||

From the University of Delaware Library an exhibition in Special Collections curated by Iris Snyder: From Verne to Vonnegut - A century of science-fiction. Books, articles and more books of early works in science fiction, magazines, dystopias, aliens and others.

Read also:
Jules Verne

Posted by Bibi on September 29, 2007 02:21 AM in Books, Culture ||

For centuries woman with a different behaviour were called witches. Some were too clever for men, other had a strong political or religious powers, there were some of those "witches" that didn't want to follow the "rules" dictated by society. And there were some that called themselves witches. With all those beliefs, our culture created an image of an evil and ugly witch.

That's why I think that the blog Sexy Witch is more than welcome. As the title says, it's a blog about sexy witches. There you will find witches of all types: elegant, attractive, pretty, cute, hot, naughty or femme fatales; real life witches; people dressed up as witches: for Halloween or fancy dress balls; fictional witches: witches in novels, plays and poems; movie witches; cartoon witches; witches in art: carved, painted, sketched and engraved: they are all here, or will be in time. I would like to add also: pin-up witches and many NSFW witch images.

By the way, I'm been always a fan of the TV series Bewitched, one the reasons why I believe in sexy witches. Don't miss the Ava Gardner, Sexy Witch.

Posted by Bibi on September 28, 2007 07:29 PM in Blogs, Culture, Pin-ups ||

The Root of All Evil?, directed by Russell Barnes, is Channel 4 series about religion with Richard Dawkins. Aired in January 2006, it's divided in two parts: Episode 1 - The God Delusion, the same name of Dawkin's book, and Episode 2: The Virus of Faith.

The God Delusion explores the unproven beliefs that are treated as factual by many religions and the extremes to which some followers have taken them. Dawkins opens the programme by describing the "would-be murderers . . . who want to kill you and me, and themselves, because they're motivated by what they think is the highest ideal." Dawkins argues that "the process of non-thinking called faith" is not a way of understanding the world, but instead stands in fundamental opposition to modern science and the scientific method, and is divisive and dangerous.
In The Virus of Faith, Dawkins opines that the moral framework of religions is warped, and argues against the religious indoctrination of children. The title of this episode comes from The Selfish Gene, in which Dawkins discussed the concept of memes.

The blog El catoli-cinismo uploaded the two episodes at Google Video with Spanish subtitles: The God Delusion (47 min) and The Virus Of Faith (47 min). I blogged about them at Videos with Bibi, and that means one more place to watch them, or watch the first episode, The God Delusion, embed below. (via Naranjas de Hiroshima)

PS.: this post is a homage to my Chris Cynical-C Blog, who is back from yet another vacation in Las Vegas, and loves blogging about Richard Dawkins.

Posted by Bibi on September 22, 2007 10:35 PM in Culture, Video ||

Once more it's time to celebrate the International Talk Like a Pirate Day. And I will do it on my way, sharing links, since I don't have any pirate costume.

Catster and Dogster users are also participating of this special day, submitting the pictures of their furry fellows dressed as pirates, with the tag "pirate", on Dogster and Catster.

Getting to Know ... International Talk Like A Pirate Day: an interview with Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summer and John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur, the founders of Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Many Books has a nice collection of Pirate Stories of digitalized books in the public domain to read on-line or download, available in many formats.

Photos from International Talk Like A Pirate Day on Flickr. Explore all the previous images or go directly to the 2007 photoset.

Pinup Pirate illustration created by the deviantART artist agrivaine (ChrissieA).

Pirate Pinup: the picture above is a self portrait by the Flickr user Danielle.

Pirates Of The Caribbean 1 and 2 in 30 seconds and re-enacted by bunnies, presented by Starz Bunny Club Exclusive, created by Angry Alien Productions.

Polite Dissent made a great list of comic-book pirates (and pirate comic books) to celebrate the day. (via Pen-Elayne on the Web)

Post Like a Pirate is a pirate translator which also posts directly on Twitter, Myspace or send by email the translated text.

Réunion de piratesses: a collection of illustrations created by several artists to a contest created by the French illustrator Delfine, on her blog, which theme was "fille de pirate" (daughter of pirate). Take a look at the illustrations and on the Hors concours illustration of the contest if you speak French.

The Pirate Pin Up Arrr Mates, the Sexiest Pirate Pinups 'n the Seven Seas. Sexy picturs of pin-up dressed as pirates, or something like that. The picture on the top is from one of those girls, Molly Roger.

Watch the classic silent film The Black Pirate with Douglas Fairbanks at Videos with Bibi, and the special "Talk like a Pirate Day" films Dancing Pirate and Captain Kidd.

WordPress users can Piratify Your Blogs using the Text Filter Suite Plugin. It turns yer blog into pirate-speak on Talk Like a Pirate Day! (via The Mystery of the Haunted Vampire)

The YouTube profile Offcial Wench hosts 23 videos of Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket. The last video added, Pirates of the Burning Sea, introduces the video game, "Pirates of the Burning Sea" for the release party in Seattle, Washington on September 19th. You can watch their video Pirates And Ninjas bellow.

Pictures of The Pirate zombie pin-up model. As a good pirate she has a parrot.

And the original Talk Like A Pirate Day site. It has some cool stuff, games and many other links.

Previous posts with pirates:
Devout Dolls
Talk Like A Pirate Day
Courts métrages Annecy
Piratical and Privateering Books in English

Posted by Bibi on September 19, 2007 08:55 PM in Animation, Books, Cinema, Culture, Events, Fun, Fun, Photography, Photography, Pin-ups, Video ||

Morning Sun: a film and a website about Cultural Revolution. A very interesting site with full of information of the Cultural Revolution and its changes in the Chinese culture, with articles, photographs, posters, paintings, artwork, artifacts, audio, badges, videos, suggestions of links and books.

A range of techniques and perspectives are used in the Morning Sun website to reflect on the origins and history of the Cultural Revolution (c.1964-1976). We approach the period not from a simplistic linear perspective, but from a panoptic one, encompassing a broad overview while allowing the user to focus in on individual histories, narratives and events that reveal the complex contradictory forces that led to an era of unrivalled revolutionary fervor and political turmoil.

Related posts:
Chinese Pamphlets
Chinese Pop Posters
Chinese Public Health Posters
Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages
Vintage Chinese Propaganda Posters

Posted by Bibi on September 19, 2007 03:28 PM in Culture, History, Politics, Politics, Posters ||

A very coloured collection of Vintage Matchbook Labels from the 1950s and 1960s, from East Europe: Czech, Hungary and Estonia. The Flickr set was created by Linzie Hunter, who had a hard work, "painstakingly boring" work as she said, of uploading 93 images. (via Papel Continuo)

Related posts:
American Matchcover Collecting Club
Vintage Vegas
Matchbook Museum
Matchbox collection
Dotpattern

Posted by Bibi on September 19, 2007 01:31 PM in Culture, Vintage ||

Robert Berry, from the great pop culture site retroCRUSH, made a list of The Top 10 Greatest Super Villain Costumes Of All Time. The list includes: the Catwoman, Ming the Merciless, Black Manta, Poison Ivy, Dark Phoenix, the Riddler, Galactus, the Green Goblin, Harley Quinn and Doctor Doom.

Contradicting the provisions, my vote for super villain costume of that list doesn't go to Catwoman, it goes to Poison Ivy. My suggestion to that list: the French arch-villain character Fantômas, one of the most well dressed villains I've ever seen.

Of course he also made a list with the twenty Coolest Super Hero Costumes. The Phantom, The Shadow, Wolverine, Green Lantern, Spider-Man and even the costume of the Japanese superhero Ultraman are on the list. Not my favourite, the super kitsch Spectreman. I loved the TV series when I was 8 and I keep some good (=funny) memories of it.

Read also: The Top Ten Lamest Superheroes of All Time, The greatest comics and Canadians comic heroes, Pulp Heroes, International Superheroes, Sexual orientations of comics characters.

Posted by Bibi on September 19, 2007 02:56 AM in Comics, Culture ||

Stamps for sending a letter to outer space: The Stamp Collector's Guide to the Galaxy.

Ufology and philately share at least one thing: a passion for collecting, whether it be news clippings on unexplained cases or first day covers. From the mid-1970s onwards ufologists have had plenty of opportunities to combine these passions in the form of flying-saucer stamps.

The stamp collection of Luis R Gonzalez Manso includes a British Dalek stamp. (via The Cartoonist)

Posted by Bibi on September 14, 2007 10:08 PM in Culture, Weird, Weird ||

To celebrate the 10 years of making toys, the ToyFare magazine made a list counting down the 100 best toys of the decade: 10 Years, 100 Toys:

From 1997 onward, toys only got better and better as companies continued to raise the stakes and collector tastes continued to mature. From #100 to #1, these are the figures whose articulation, sculpt, playability and overall cool factor had us in a perpetual state of regression. The rules were simple: it had to have come out in 1997 or later, and no re-issues of toys made pre-1997 were eligible. (Sorry, Imperial Shuttle.)

There are toys of Harry Potter, Captain America, Darth Vader, Batman, Legolas, Buffy, Muppets, Alien, Lara Croft, Chewbacca, Superman, Robocop, Balrog, Godzilla, Iron Man, Indiana Jones, Space Ghost and many other well known characters. Even a Bruce Lee is on the list. However, been a fan of Tim Burton's creations, for me the best choice was Jack Skellington. By the way, where is El Kabong and South Park action figures on that list? (via Toysrevil's I Like Toys)

Posted by Bibi on September 13, 2007 04:41 PM in Culture, Toys ||

Let's put some shine on this blog with pictures of saucy girls. Vintage Girlwatchers is a site about the girlie magazine from 1950's Girl Watcher and related. According to the description: This site exists to celebrate and preserve books and magazines about girlwatching and girl-photography from the fifties and sixties. The "celebration" includes two complete scanned Girl Watcher magazines, photography magazines - the best part -, articles about those magazines and some information about photography books. I think the articles are even more interesting than the original "Girl Watcher" magazines.

Curiously those magazines have all similar names: Glamour Photography, Charm Photography and Glamorgirl Photography. And similar images: girls in bikinis or in sexy positions and situations, most part of time. I could say it's safe for wor, excluding the Art Photography area.

Posted by Bibi on September 13, 2007 11:16 AM in Culture, Photography, Photography, Pin-ups, Vintage ||

The World of Playing Cards is where you can explore about playing cards, their history, design and manufacture, and see many different types of cards from around the world. Very nice collection, with many images of ancient decks of playing cards. (via Mira y Calla)

All those cards made me remind a great Italo Calvino's novel I recently read: Il castello dei destini incrociati, which stories are narrated using the cards of a Tarot of Marseilles.

More Playing Cards: Poker Pinups, LEGO® Based Tarot, Vintage French card game, Playing Card Picture Gallery and Dotpattern.

Posted by Bibi on September 12, 2007 02:04 AM in Culture ||

I grew up picturing death as the Grim Reaper, the skeletal figure carrying a large scythe. Even though I studied in catholic schools, I've never believed their philosophy that death is an angel of God and there is a better place after the death. Death is the end. I like the idea of reincarnation but I don't believe in it, but if I did believe in it my friends very well know that I would like to return as a cat.

Ingmar Bergman took me to a new fantastic dimension of death with his masterpiece The Seventh Seal. Since then, the grim reaper, played by Bengt Ekerot in the film, is a nice and strange man that plays chess, that still carries a scythe. In that cause I would be... damned (I can't use any "f word" here), because I'm a terrible chess player. In this new representation of death, the death itself was much more human than the catholic teachings would have it. He/she had intelligence, sense of humor - even if a bit strange - and it was almost understanding of our shortcomings, but still implacable. Remember: the grim reaper cheats and always win.

Neil Gaiman showed me another version of death, as a cool pretty girl with a Gothic style, who everybody loves.His death "looks like rock star Nico in 1968, with the perfect cheekbones and perfect face she has on the cover of her Chelsea Girl album." His death always try to be nice, but keep doing her work. Interesting vision, but I keep the Bergman's portray of death as my favourite.

But that was until now. From now on, the grim reaper is a cat to me. This article changed it all for me: Oscar the Cat Predicts Patients' Deaths (via The Pet Blog):

When Oscar the Cat visits residents of the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, the staff jumps into action -- Oscar can sense within hours when someone is about to die.

In his two years living in Steere's end-stage dementia unit, Oscar has been at the bedside of more than 25 residents shortly before they died, according to Dr. David Dosa of Brown University in Providence.

After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He'd sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours.

The fury grim reaper is the cutest representation I ever seen. That's the perfect image of death for me. However, I don't want he visiting me for now. The story about Oscar the cat was originally published at The New England Journal of Medicine by David M. Dosa, and it's in everywhere now, including Scientific American and BBC (video). My favourite part is:

Making his way back up the hallway, Oscar arrives at Room 313. The door is open, and he proceeds inside. Mrs. K. is resting peacefully in her bed, her breathing steady but shallow. [...]

One hour passes. Oscar waits. A nurse walks into the room to check on her patient. She pauses to note Oscar's presence. Concerned, she hurriedly leaves the room and returns to her desk.[..]

The priest is called to deliver last rites. And still, Oscar has not budged, instead purring and gently nuzzling Mrs. K. A young grandson asks his mother, "What is the cat doing here?" The mother, fighting back tears, tells him, "He is here to help Grandma get to heaven." Thirty minutes later, Mrs. K. takes her last earthly breath.

He's Charon. If you thought this interesting, read also Can pets sense illness? article.

More posts with death: Cinemorgue, The Fantastic in Art and Fiction, My Death Space, Collection of Life and Death Masks, Death according to Giornale Nuovo,Medieval Macabre and Coconino Classics.

Posted by Bibi on July 27, 2007 08:45 PM in Animals, Cats, Culture, Friday Cat Blogging, News, Weird, Weird ||

Life on Mars: An Exhibit of Classic Science Fiction Magazine Covers and Interior Illustrations from the 1920s-1950s. Cool stuff, with a small, but nice, collection of covers and illustrations of pulp sci-fi magazines. They have tripods, green men, robots and other amazing creatures from beyond, all that a good cover of a pulp book about Mars should have.

Posted by Bibi on July 21, 2007 02:02 AM in Culture, Pulp, Vintage ||

It's Friday and it's thirteen! I'm going to make my contributions to Friday Cat Blogging and some horror. I hope you enjoy.

Jaakko, a The Groovy Age of Horror (NSFW) contributer, posted about Biglie Humane (The Human Balls), a fumetti with giant children who likes to play with tiny, compared, humans. Cool, but not the best part. Those kids have a giant kitty that likes to play, as all the other cats. In the place of insects or toys, the cats play with those tiny humans. If you saw any time a cat playing, you are able to imagine the lovely (horror) scenes.

PS.: My condolences for you kitty Jakko. Take care.

The Mystery of the Haunted Vampire always celebrate the Fridays with an special Vampire Kitty Friday post. This Friday cookie jill gave to us a great cultural contribution from the Japanese folklore, telling to us about SaruDama: The Vampire Cat of Nabeshima.

Here's a classic Japanese tale dating back to the Hizen daimyo of the Sengoku Era (1568-1615). It presents a Shinto perspective of the spiritual dimension of Nature itself, here depicted in the form of a large cat who not only consumes humans, but then supernaturally changes its form to become that human, after which it interacts and easily deceives everyone it encounters.

My last contribution to this Friday Cat Blogging is the remarkable image of the two angry - and cute - baby snow leopards at the Zoo Berlin, via The Pet Blog. Ten-week old snow leopards Lanak, left, and Askai hiss to photographers during their first appearance in the Berlin Zoo in Germany. And they are right about hiss to the photographers: flashes are annoying.

Posted by Bibi on July 13, 2007 05:21 PM in Animals, Cats, Comics, Culture, Friday Cat Blogging ||

The Wikipedia main page displays some curious articles today: George Washington the inventor, the independence day of San Serriffe and it announced that editors will be charged in order to edit (screenshot). Wikitravel (screenshot) also points to unusual places, like Earth and Hell.

Posted by Bibi on April 1, 2007 11:46 AM in April Fools, Culture, Fun, Fun, Internet ||

This isn't a survival kit, and the best I can say about today is: don't believe in anything. But wait: before you start doing that, read this post please. I selected some real articles, from real sites about April Fools' Day. You can trust me and follow the links to the articles, or you can choose not trust me and follow them even so. I promise you will have fun whatever your choice is.

- From the Museum of Hoaxes: Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes Of All Time. The number one is The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest, about the episode of the BBC TV programme Panorama which explained how Spaghetti grows. Enjoy and read also The Origin of April Fool's Day and Top 10 Worst April Fool's Day Hoaxes Ever.

- The YouTube addicts can enjoy the selection at Esquire.com with April Fools! videos: The five best pranks ever filmed and posted to YouTube, selected by Daniel Murphy.

- Wired made a nice article with tips to fool your fellows: April Fool's Pranks For Nerds. The classic screen saver of the blue screen of death is one of their suggestions.

And just to be sure that you won't be fooled, read the Slate article The April Fools' Day defense kit by Jack Shafer. It has few, but interesting tips about April Fool's day techniques used by the media.

Posted by Bibi on April 1, 2007 05:40 AM in April Fools, Culture, Video ||

A fabulous exhibition: Women of Our Time - photographs of some of twentieth-century America's famous and influential women. Even without big pictures, the site is very interesting covering those influential women of many different areas: photographers, writers, actresses, poets, athletes, designers, civil rights activists, singers, reformers, journalists, dancers and the aviator Amelia Earhart. There are brif biographies with the portraits, an audio explanation from the exhibition's curator and very "documentary" about the evolution of photographic portrait.

Some other women portrayed in this exhibition: Rosa Parks, Althea Gibson, Jeannette Rankin, Josephine Baker, Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Plath, Ella Fitzgerald and Margaret Sanger.

Posted by Bibi on March 8, 2007 05:01 PM in Culture, History, Photography, Photography ||

I would like to congratulate all the women for our International Women's Day. I won't write any manifesto or any protest about the injuries that we are still suffering, all the prejudice and violence that keep happening against us. I will do something I do much better to celebrate this important day: blog links about it.

- American Women!: A Celebration of Our History. The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum's exhibit to celebrate 106 female personalities have shaped our American experience

- A Petal from the Rose: Illustrations by Elizabeth Shippen Green. It's the first exhibition in decades to focus solely on Green's art, and this and the accompanying essay highlight distinctive features of her illustrations and working methods.

- By Popular Demand: "Votes for Women" Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920. A pretty nice collection of 38 pictures including portraits related to the campaign for woman suffrage in the United States. Also featured are photographs of suffrage parades, picketing suffragists, and an anti-suffrage display, as well as cartoons commenting on the movement - all evoking the visible and visual way in which the debate over women's suffrage was carried out.

- Classic Feminist Writings: the on-line archive contains classic feminist writings that helped define Second Wave feminism. (via Plep)

- Humor's Edge: Cartoons by Ann Telnaes. This exhibition celebrates Ann Telnaes's generous gift to the Library of Congress of eighty-one original drawings that represent the range of themes that engage this gifted artist who has recently emerged as a leader in American editorial cartooning.

- IdeaFixa, a Brazilian art e-magazine, homages the women's day in its fifth issue with the theme "woman". Highlights to the illustrations by Jonathan Weiner, the Jorge Bispo's portraits of men in wedding dresses, the collages by Kareem Risz and the social critic of Lauren Greenfield's pictures. In Portuguese and English, with NSFW images.

- International Women's Day 2007 site: information about IWD events in many countries, news and pictures.

- Pages from Her Story: diaries, journals, memoirs, reminiscences, letters, speeches and interviews of American women divided in nine historical eras.

- Nine nice posters of Women's day at the Museum of Russian Posters.

- Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture's Special Collection Library acquires, preserves and makes available to a large population of researchers published and unpublished materials that reflect the public and private lives of women, past and present.

- The Hannah Arendt Papers at the Library of Congress. The papers span the years 1898 to 1977, with the bulk of the material beginning in 1948, three years before Arendt’s naturalization as an American citizen. The collection is organized in the following series: Family Papers, Correspondence, Adolf Eichmann File, Subject File, Speeches and Writings File, Clippings, Addition I, Addition II, and Addition III.

- The Water-Babies: Illustrations by Jesse Willcox Smith. Her works evoking the innocence of youth and demonstrating the artistry of illustrated books are among the Library's great graphic treasures.

- The Zora Neale Hurston Plays present a selection of ten plays written by Hurston (1891-1960), author, anthropologist, and folklorist.

- United Nations' special site: