Exactly!!

"George loves to tell the story of how all his Midland friends would come to the Oval Office and say, 'I can't believe I'm here.' And then they looked at him. Couldn't believe he was there either."

-- Laura Bush, in an interview with Ladies Home Journal.
via Taegan Goodard

Alex Andreyev's World

Alex Andreyev is a Russian painter living in St Petersburg. He's been painting for more than 20 years - I'm a little worried about his home life.

But I still like them.

via BestBookmarks
See more here

Everybody Jump Now

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a big fan of having my picture taken. For some reason, I’m always caught with my eyes closed or a funny look on my face. I blame this on the photographer…

Philippe Halsman was a brilliant photographer. Not only did he take some amazing portraits of celebrities and politicians, he got many of them to jump.

Dean & Jerry

Grace Kelly

Benny Goodman

Yep, the famous and powerful of the 1950’s had their photo taken while jumping. And they all look fantastic!

The National Portrait Gallery has a great retrospective on Halsman. Here’s their explanation of how the jump pictures came about:

In 1950, NBC asked Halsman to photograph many of its popular comedians. Milton Berle, Ed Wynn, Sid Caesar, Groucho Marx, Bob Hope, Red Skelton, and many others came to Halsman's studio, where they performed while he captured their antics on film. A single session could generate two or three hundred pictures. When Halsman compared these comic images to more traditional portraits, he found that comedians often jumped and always stayed in character. Desperation (and good humor) finally drove him to ask others to jump for his camera when the Ford Motor Company commissioned him to make an official family photograph in honor of the company's fiftieth anniversary. Halsman spent a long, tiring session with nine edgy adults and eleven restless children. Afterward, Halsman's irrepressible humor inspired him to ask matriarch Mrs. Edsel Ford, "May I take a picture of you jumping?'" The astonished Mrs. Ford replied, "You want me to jump with my high heels?" Next, her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Henry Ford II, requested a turn. The "jump" pictures had surprising charm, and over the next six years, Halsman asked many clients to jump for him. Van Cliburn, Edward R. Murrow, and Herbert Hoover declined Halsman's invitation, but most people realized they had nothing to lose. (Some gained considerably, like the suddenly buoyant and likable Vice President Richard Nixon, who jumped for Halsman in the White House.) Halsman claimed the jumps revealed character that was otherwise hidden. "When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears."

Marilyn

I’m planning to jump next time someone comes at me with a camera.

See more here

Via The Photography Post

All it takes

This has been out for a while but I thought it was a lot of fun. Be sure to have your volume on.



I haven't really paid attention to pop music since the 90's so I didn't recognize many of the songs, but given that the ones I did recognize clearly fit the 4 chord pattern, I am truly amazed.

When In Doubt....

From an anonymous WH reader:
"...I do miss your political postings - Can't you take at least one day a week to update us humble proletariat on your views - We are wandering aimlessly now and seek your wisdom."

TW: Obviously an astute observer...I am going to try to crank out some posts soon but in the interim things are quite simple. If Barack Obama suggests something it is probably a good idea, if Mr. Limbaugh or Mr. Beck or Ms. Palin does so, it probably is not (the titular leaders of the Republican party, McConnell and Boehner are mere puppets to them at this point). This stuff is not that complicated.

The further away from the everyday babble (and I have at times become quite immersed in it) I get the better off I feel and realize my guy knows what he is doing amidst the tumult of many insecure folks whipped into a fury by some really bad media.

Immigration for instance is somewhat complex but the Republicans are on top of it:

Via Taegan Goodard:
"South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer (R) said that lazy state residents are contributing to the number of illegal immigrants in his state, the Columbia State reports.

Said Bauer: "The problem is we have a give-away system that is so strong that people would rather sit home and do nothing than do these jobs. Laziness is not a disability. There are a lot of people that are flat-out lazy and they are using up the goods and services in this state."

TW: This stereotyping fantasy has been around for centuries, just think if the Anglo-Americans had just gotten off their collective asses a hundred years ago we would not have had to let in all of those Italians and Irish and Germans and Russians and Hungarians and Polish and etc.

She was a roller skater...

I've always loved skating - I'm pretty sure most of my allowance as a kid went toward Saturday afternoons at the local roller rink. I remember spending hard earned money from my after school job to buy a pair of indoor/outdoor shoe skates with flashy red polyurethane wheels and one of the best gifts I ever received was a pair of in-line skates.

Looks like Wheelskates might be next:

...unique, patented design [that] replaces the limitations of boots and small-wheels with a free, fluid flow that feels like ice skating and snow skiing at the same time
~ChariotSkates

Of course, they aren’t available yet and when they do come out, will likely be priced in the $5,000 - $10,000 range. Now that I think about it, I probably don't love skating quite that much.

Sunday Funnies

Saturday's Animal Shots

h/t KOB

Birthday Campari

I’ve posted about Campari here before – that ruby red bitter apéritif from Northern Italy.

"…The recipe, which has remained unchanged, originated in Novara in 1860 and is the base for some of the most famous cocktails around the world. Campari is an alcoholic spirit obtained from the infusion of bitter herbs, aromatic plants and fruit in alcohol and water. With its distinct colour, aroma and flavour, Campari has always been a symbol of passion - passion that expresses itself in terms of seduction, sensuality and transgression..."
~ Gruppo Campari

Transgression???

Campari & Soda is one of my favorites, refreshing and just a bit exotic – oh look: here I am enjoying a before dinner drink on my balcony overlooking the Mediterranean while Signore Blogger puts a little Ornella Vanoni on the stereo.

And Campari with either grapefruit or orange juice is like a party in a glass, only more sophisticated. It’s Italian.

This year is the 150th anniversary of Campari and they are celebrating with a series of labels created by the artists AVAF, Tobias Rehberger and Vanessa Beecroft.

via SUT KUTUSU

I need to get to the liquor store.

It's Earth Day

Don't just sit there, do something:

Buy a new energy efficient appliance (and get a rebate)

Get green at home

Eat more vegetables

Help clean up a Chicago Park

Earth Day...shouldn't it be every day?

Are you smarter than a plant?

I bet you think that plants have it easy - hanging out in the sun, drinking in the rain, photosynthesizing.

Well think again, it's not all gentle breezes and pollination. In fact, the life of a plant is downright dangerous, what with drought, insect abuse, failure to propagate. No wonder it's survival of the fittest.

Still think living the plant life is child's play? Lucky for you, Darwin Today has developed a short game to test your plant survival skills.

Check out Extinct! But don't feel too bad when you don't make it - Remember, 100% success is virtually impossible in nature

Just what the cats asked for...

A $700 IPad cat toy

Darth Vader is Everywhere

Sunday Funnies

Saturday's Animal Shots

Paper Cuts

Remember gradeschool art class? Cutting snowflakes out of folded up pieces of construction paper?

Well Beatrice Coron must have had some art teacher. Her paper cuttings take the snowflake project to a whole new level.

From the Identity Project


From The Invisible Cities series


Check out more at her site here.

via Daily Art Muse - there's a short video here of Beatrice Coron working on one of her cuttings.

All You Need To Know

From Barry Ritholz' Big Picture Blog:
"There is a huge CBS/NYT poll and article (Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated) about the tea party members.

I was not surprised to read they skew older, white, Republican, better educated and higher income than the average American. I was surprised to read they favor Social Security and Medicare.

Towards the end of the article, I read a shocking data point. In the orgy of coverage of this poll and article generated, no one seemed to mention this:

The percentage holding a favorable opinion of former President George W. Bush = 57%

A substantial majority of Tea Party members hold a favorable opinion of the man that history will very likely deem the worst president in American History (Presidential Historians disagree as to whether he is in the bottom 3 or 5 as of today).

Its all you need to know about the Tea Party."

Tax Day

Figured we could all use a chuckle today...

Run Away!!

It was a really late night

How you doin'?

Best. Caption. Ever.

Things that made me look twice

Going Up...

I seriously had no idea how huge these things were

I really don't have any words for this.

That's how I caught my whale

Squirrels for Leslie

Because she is nutty for Squirrels.

The LG Film Fest

People do great things that inspire greatness in others. It was with this human truth in mind that we created the LG Life's Good Film Fest, a contest inviting filmmakers to submit their uplifting short films about "Life's Good" and share them with the world.
~LG Film Fest

The winning entry -


Beautiful if somewhat unnerving imagery.

See more here
Thanks to Christopher for sending the link!

Sunday Funnies