"No more explaining where the photos were taken!"

I had meant to do a followup on the studiophoto posts (here and here), by doing something on this website here. But I never got around to it. Partly because the site is too strange. Is it real? Is it an art project? Are the people meant to look so badly pasted into their chosen background? Is it a comment on the dislocation of prisoners? Are the background images supposed to look so incredibly argos-catalogue depressing? Is it a comment on the crushing disappointment built into capitalist dreams? That not even knowing the correct things to fantasise about is the inevitable level to which we're all reduced? That we need to be educated as to what things we should regret we don't have? Are cars and gazebos really the things you wish you were around more when you're in prison? I also never got around to posting on it because the pictures were just too ugly. So here, instead is a random image. I wish I could remember where I found it, but I can't.

Pieces of things

The fifth man

Back when spies were stylish... The man with two pairs of glasses is John Cairncross, known as the 'fifith man' of the Cambridge spy ring in the 1950s, because no one knew who he was until 1990. And he wears his sunglasses over his normal glasses.

Taxidermy

Sometimes things done really badly give a much better insight into what they're about than things done really well. The aims and ideas are clumsily and charmingly on show where subtlety and skill efface them to produce something that looks 'natural'. Bad taxidermy is a particularly charming example. Partly because all taxidermy is so doomed to failure, it's just a matter of degree. There are some wonderful essays on taxidermy at ravishing beasts.

Things to do with dead physicists

Yes, yes, you can make a statue of them and then put their remains inside the statue. Alternatively, you can make a giant asymetrical space shuttle and let them drift around in space (Lebbeus woods' design for Einstein's tomb) - or you can make a gigantic cenotaph with holes in the domed roof in the pattern of the constellations (Etienne-Louis Boullée's Cenotaph for Newton). When Newton died, he was the first scientist in England ever to get a tomb as good as a poet. You wait a few years, and now no one's interested in dead poets drifting in space. (More here and here, and a beautiful collection of giant spheres at cabinet here).

Pilates Motivation

This is Joseph Pilates showing how it's done. This is exactly what it will be like. And if it's not, they're not doing it right.

Dust cover for dog

Continuing the dog obsession. Via futility closet.