Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Monday, July 12, 2010

the pros of chemistry lab

 see, good things can come from chemistry.
like lab. when you're not avoiding skin contact with half the solutions.

copper(II) sulfate

tetraammine copper(II)

the colors are so gorgeous!

Friday, July 9, 2010

the naked lady post and revelations on album cover photography

(to put it bluntly).

in my defense, this post only has one nude lady in it.  and it's for the sake of art.

this morning, a name popped into my head - ingres. jean auguste dominique.  who had a mastery of capturing the very feel of the fabric he painted.  here's what i mean:

princess albert de broglie, 1853

anyway, that's not the point.  the point is, i was reminded of his painting, la grande odalisque (1814).


i'm thinking that this may have been the painting that i thought of when i saw madeleine peyroux's album cover for half the perfect world - in my on music post.  hmmm.  now that i see them together they don't look particularly similar.  not even the pose, as i had originally thought.  maybe it was the colors?  maybe i am thinking of a different painting?

Thursday, July 8, 2010

more serpentine gallery

this time from 2008, by frank gehry.

it looks kinda like a half-built wooden roller coaster. or something.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

whimsy+england red

10th serpentine gallery pavilion, jean nouvel

i'm not sure how much this red reminds me of the england that is red telephone booths, red double decker buses, and red post boxes...to me this brings to mind a fantastical fairy house. or kites and chinese dragons.  or something.

---

 When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

sonnet #43

Monday, July 5, 2010

clever.


two words, a world of difference - complaining vs. moaning.


"Visitors to Britain are rarely able to grasp – sometimes after decades of residency – the vital distinction its inhabitants make between complaining and moaning. The two activities seem similar, but there is a profound philosophical and practical difference. To complain about something is to express dissatisfaction to someone whom you hold responsible for an unsatisfactory state of affairs; to moan is to express the same thing to someone other than the person responsible. The British are powerfully embarrassed by complaining, and experience an almost physical recoil from people who do it in public. They do love to moan though."


-john lanchester, "party games" (the new yorker, 7 june  2010)