Picasso

Legend has it that Pablo Picasso was sketching in the park when a woman approached him.

"It's you Picasso, the great artist! Oh, you must sketch my portrait! I insist."

So Picasso agreed to sketch her. After studying her for a moment, he used a single pencil stroke to create her portrait. He handed the women his work of art.

"It's perfect!" she gushed. "You managed to capture my essence with one stroke, in one moment. Thank you! How much do I owe you?"

"Five thousand dollars," the artist replied.

"B-b-but, what? the woman sputtered. How could you want so much money for this picture? It only took you a second to draw it!"

To which Picasso responded, "Madame, it took me my entire life."

Babies With Rabies

El Perro Del Mar - God Knows
I'm totally in LOVE with this song, and I think you will be, too. The video, though, is so evocative, with its very 70s-European-children's-book vibe.

Badly Drawn Boy - Year Of The Rat
Along the same lines, except this video is more mid-80s-French-children's-book. I was always so-so about this song, but the video really makes it shine. (Also, it's notably better than the thematically identical video for Dave Matthew's "Everyday.")

Classic games recreated using household items and stop-motion. (This is many times cooler than it sounds.)

Sesame Street on How Crayons Are Made.

Peter Sellers effortlessly demonstrates roughly ten different British accents in about 45 seconds. (direct link to an mp3)

B+N is an interior decoration company that apparently focuses on trendy boutiques. Their site actually has some pretty cool stuff on it, but none as cool as their Iconic Panels, which are giant wall-mountable laminate panels. It goes without saying that I love Carnaby most of all but I could live with Versailles as well...though in some other color than "I like to kiss other boys" baby blue. NOTE: After clicking all over their site and downloading a pdf, you find out that this stuff costs $600-$1000 per panel, which seems reasonable for what it is, I guess, but a bit out of the price range of human beings.

Ringborg, Mueck, and Hammett

Lovisa Ringborg
I like Lovisa Ringborg's work so much that I'm posting it here even though her site uses that totally tacky "right-click disable" javascript. Normally I wouldn't want to give someone like that the publicity, you know?

Some of my favorites:
Disguised
Embracing The Tyrannus (sic)
No Title
Sleepwalker
No Title (my favorite)
No Title (NSFW)
No Title (No, wait, this one's my favorite)
Alice And The Goldfish
Wonderland
Untitled


Ron Mueck
Sculptor Ron Mueck is currently being featured at the National Galleries of Scotland. Here's some more information about him, as well as some freeeeeeeaky pictures. (somewhat NSFW: artistic nudity and some graphic childbirth images)

Washington Post gallery
National Gallery Of Scotland gallery
Creative Pool gallery
Russian gallery
James Cohan gallery
Guardian article, alternately illuminating and infuriating.


Dashiell Hammett
Black Lizard, the "vintage crime" imprint of Random House, has republised some classic Dashiell Hammett books with some very attractive covers:

The Thin Man
Red Harvest
The Maltese Falcon