Monthly Archives: March 2006

Fun With Giant Squid! Squashed Crab Palette Squid Art

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The medium truly IS the message here, as we learn to create artwork out of that most mundane, most repulsive, yet perversely most magnetic material: the squashed crab.

Squid in Squashed Crabs

Poignant, oui? Truly it would be a heart of stone which would not be wrung almost to the point of sundering by this quiescent yet wrenching portrait of silent, inescapable doom.

 From Rathergood’s astute artistic analysis:

Sick Squid
Grinfish

   Mr Grinfish of Grincity has submitted this particularly dramatic and emotive action piece. In his words:

“It is a piece created to evoke emotion for the plight of that most peaceful and lovable of creatures, the Giant Squid. Here we see our betentacled friend just moments before he meets his untimely demise from collision with a Russian nuclear submarine. See the sadness is his crab-like eyes, that this cruel world that made the giant squid [cap. sic] so famous for it’s[sic] roles in movies like 20.000 Leagues Under The Sea, could so carelessly do away with it in an underwater impact. Hopefully, this work will bring home the truth of the damage we are doing to such invertebrates by existing upon this planet, and will convince us all to shoot ourselves until dead.”

Quite. Not merely wonderful artwork, but also an ecological call to arms. Squddy magic, I’m sure you will agree.

And be sure to scroll down and see the Crap Balette, which they describe as:

We are now entering the realm of art as Metaphysics– in this extremely accomplished piece Mr Duncan has obviously laid open his psyche in an attempt to translate the Dostoevskian Maelstrom of post-millenial existence into a visual experience through the medium of squashed crabs.

Bravo!

Today in Cetacean Artwork News

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Cetacean Brian Jungen

Brian Jungen
Cetology, 2002
plastic chairs

This is from the Brian Jungen show currently on exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Yes, it's made of plastic chairs. I saw it on BoingBoing. To see more of this bizarre and awe-inspiring artwork, check out this Tyee Link.

Operation Global Media Domination: weekend operating procedures

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TIAFYI for anyone out there who is going to check the blog over the weekend; there probably won’t be much added here. Not only do I normally try to take the weekend off , but WordPress isn’t working in Internet Explorer right now okay, all fixed now. As well, an old friend is in town and I hope to be away from the keyboard, doing fun things.

There are 150+ entries here you can scroll through or just play with the tags to find everything you ever wanted to know about Giant Squid, Curling, or Aki Beam.

Irish Poet Stories: Synchronicity

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Frank McCourtOkay, this is JUST a little strange.Frank McCourt

I do go to Gawker pretty much every day, but I don’t click on every link every day. I skipped this one entirely, which did not stop me from posting the exact same story in a completely different context earlier today. The blogosphere is a very strange place indeed, and apparently Frank McCourt rules it.

FMcC: So I was walking along the street one day, and I ran into one of my old students, who came up to me. He said, “Hey, Mr. McCourt! Remember me? I was one of your students!” and I said, “Yeah, Moose Klein, I remember you.” So he says, “Yeah! I was in your class at Stuy!” and I said, “Yes, Moose, I know.”
“Yeah, I was in your class for a year and a half, and because of that I’m a Frank McCourtpoet. And now I’m starving, so FUCK YOU!”Frank McCourt

Friday Hooker Story

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Just because it's Friday and I found this on Fark.

Calgary broker fired over prostitute felt unappreciated

CALGARY — A vice-president with RBC Dominion Securities who was fired for bringing a prostitute to his office after hours testified Thursday that he felt his job security was waning despite the fact he was one of the firm's top performers. "I had a different business model,'' said Jim Whitehouse, who is suing his former employer. "I felt that even though I was one of the top producers, I was not appreciated within the organization.''

Given that they fired his inflamed, sorry ass, he's probably right.

So there was this cop story. It's true, too. Cop stories are great; they're always really bleak, usually with a wicked twist at the end. Cops and Shirley Jackson tell the same kind of stories, only theirs feature perps, tweaks and hookers and hers feature young children and townspeople. Hard to decide which is the more terrifying sometimes.

So there was this cop story. And it goes like this:

So there was this guy, pulled over on Nelson and Homer. Yaletown. It was Yaletown.

Yaletown

The guy is yelling at a hooker, the hooker is yelling at the guy. It's a Jaguar. I told you it was Yaletown.

I get up to the two of them, ask them what's going on. The girl is real upset. So is the Yuppie. Seems he stiffed her, ha ha, no, he really stiffed her.

"It's twenty-five bucks for head, and I gave it to him and now he won't pay me."

I don't like to take sides in these matters, but something about this guy just got up my nostrils.

"C'mon," I said to him. "Pay the lady her twenty-five bucks. Your socks cost more than that."

He gets all outraged. He says, "These socks cost seventy-five dollars! They're cashmere."

So I gave him a choice. He could pay up or he could go for a ride downtown with me.

Forget it, Jake. It's Yaletown.