Monty

Montgomery Clift was beautiful.

That is all. As you were...

Memorial Day 2016

"We are always at war. We spend twice as large a share of our GDP on the military as the world does in general. It’s the longest sustained period of open-ended combat in our nation’s history. And yet the country as a whole is barely affected. We have halftime ceremonies honoring the heroes. We let them get onto commercial airlines earlier, but we don’t think seriously about what they’re doing, the missions we’re asking them to undertake.

And, as a result, in my view, we have embarked on a series of unwinnable wars. We call people heroes and then send them to do things they can’t do....

When I was a kid in the ’50s and ’60s and then older in the ’70s, American pop culture reflected a country familiar enough with its military to make fun of it at times. You had shows like 'Gomer Pyle,' or 'Hogan’s Heroes,' or 'McHale’s Navy.'

You had works of art like 'South Pacific' or novels like 'Catch 22' and even movies like 'MASH,' respected the importance of the military and the important things it did that were heroic in the large scale, like World War II, but it was still made of real people with their real foibles.

But we — now we have started to have this artificially reverent view of the military that’s also distant and disengaged."
--James Fallows

"Woman In Chains" by Tears For Fears featuring Oleta Adams

For my ANNA CHRISTIE women: "Woman In Chains" by the phenomenal Tears For Fears with the heavenly voice of Oleta Adams.

You better love loving and you better behave
You better love loving and you better behave
Woman in chains
Woman in chains

Calls her man the Great White Hope
Says she's fine, she'll always cope
Woman in chains
Woman in chains

Well I feel lying and waiting is a poor man's deal
And I feel hopelessly weighed down by your eyes of steel
It's a world gone crazy
Keeps woman in chains

Trades her soul as skin and bones
Sells the only thing she owns
Woman in chains
Woman in chains

Men of Stone
Men of Stone

Well I feel deep in your heart there are wounds time can't heal
And I feel somebody somewhere is trying to breathe
Well you know what I mean
It's a world gone crazy
Keeps woman in chains

It's under my skin but out of my hands
I'll tear it apart but I won't understand
I will not accept the Greatness of Man
It's a world gone crazy
Keeps woman in chains
So free her
So free her

http://tearsforfears.com/

Waterscapes by Haurka Misawa

Haruka Misawa, the founder of Misawa Design Institute, has created some amazing 3D printed aquarium accessories for fish to swim under, around, and through. I particularly love the diving bell-like bubbles she created to be submerged in an aquarium, holding water plants in a separate little aquarium all of their own!

http://misawa.ndc.co.jp/WATERSCAPE-1

Gemini, The Twins

To look at Gemini is to look away from the Milky Way...

Gemini is dominated by Castor and Pollux, two bright stars that appear relatively very closely together forming an o shape, encouraging the mythological link between the constellation and twinship.

Today is my birthday. I often wonder if I had a twin in the womb that somehow never happened...and I have a deep, subconscious feeling that I still miss him...not that I miss a "sibling" but that there is another me that should be here.

BEAUTY: Illustration--Karla Ortiz

The enigmatic, darkly Romantic images of fine artist (and concept artist for Marvel Film Studios!) Karla Ortiz are reminiscent of Victorian allegories of death or sleep...with people interacting with animals as familiars, sharing "power."

Top to bottom: Mensajeros; Omens; Quiet Storm; Serf and Greyhounds; To The Other World; Under; Voces de Venus

http://www.karlaortizart.com/

BEAUTY: Painting--Marc Le Rest

French artist Marcel Le Rest paints beautiful, touching images of gorilla mothers with their young, all dressed in Brittany lace in his series Madones (Madonnas).

http://www.marclerest.com/

A hunch...

"A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something."

--Frank Capra

"Fantasy" by Wildhart

Smooth, sultry..."Fantasy" by Wildhart, a trio from Gothenburg, Sweden.

http://wildhart.se/

BEAUTY: Photography--Aurelio Monge

Spanish photographer Aurelio Monge creates tableaux and scenes in homage to classical painters and images of Greek and Roman gods and philosophers. I just love how he manipulates light and texture to accurately recreate such masterpieces.

His Beata Anima series is in homage to the painter El Greco. Notice how he poses his models and gets them to contort their hands into the exact poses seen on canvases from the Renaissance:

And he dedicates his Dei Filosofi series to "the great thinkers" like Plato.

http://aureliomonge.prosite.com/

BEAUTY: Illustration--Stephen Smith

The retro illustrations of Stephen Smith--who operates under the studio name Neasden Control Centre--are delightful. Perhaps some of my readers, like me, can remember when graphics and illustrations looked like this the first time around! Smith even went so far as to recreate an illustrated map of the Montreal Expo 67!

http://neasdencontrolcentre.com/