West Highland Terrier
Looking for a chic, crafty, low-maintenance dog? Get out your needles and make your own with the new book Best in Show: Knit Your Own Dog
Via Nag on the Lake by way of Amusing Planet.
Like everyone, I am in awe of Chile’s ingenuity and transparency as I watch the miners reborn onto the surface of the earth. I am reminded of another Chilean hero who was never found, but who’s spirit has lived on in the attitude of the country over the last few months. Like this hero, the Chilean people never gave up.
This is how I feel today. Not depressed. Just cozy and in love with my dog.
Elina Brotherus has a show right now in London at The Wapping Project Bankside until October 23, 2010. She was recently profiled by Skye Sherwin in the Guardian UK. Visit her website to see more of her work.
Technically, this photo by James Estrin was taken on September 13, 2010, not 9/11. But remember how 9/11 bled into days, weeks, and then months as we watched the fires burn and tried to figure out the "new normal." How we still got up and made coffee and walked the dog, but also bought bought American flags for the first time in our lives and put them on our cars or in our flower boxes without irony.
My friends and I drank too much and sang patriotic songs at karaoke at the LA Farmers Market. And we made Pat wear a red, white and blue leather-fringed vest up on stage. The vest or "The Vest," as it came to be known, was passed around so every singer could wear it and we all stood up and sang louder and saluted "The Vest" and hugged and kissed and woke up in friends' beds and thought things would never be the same. Then we watched as Letterman stammered back onto his show. And we all gathered at Maeve's for the first SNL. What was going to be funny? I don't remember, but they figured it out. And we stopped drinking as much. And hugging and asking about families back east and if "everyone is all right?" Code for "did you lose someone?" Then came the proposals, the marriages, the moves away. The children born after 9/11 who will never know what it was like before. Or that their parents used to be young and untouchable and had each other instead of family on the couch that day at Van Ness Ave. Hugh, I know you regret not filming it. But I still remember it clearly. I think we ate pasta.
The photo above by James Estrin was originally published in the early edition of The New York Times on Sunday, September 16, 2001, along with his personal account of covering the attacks. Read it here.
London artist Akane Takayama is in the process of turning school children into installation artists. Over the past year she has promoted sculpture workshops in schools throughout the city and with her student collaborators created over 700 dogs. Now, with the help of the children and volunteers, the dogs get to gather in London parks, go on walks, and carry wishes for the future tucked into their collars.
These images were taken at the first installation at Paradise Gardens on June 19 and 20, 2010. Next Takayama and her collaborators will turn Clissold Park into a dog park on July 31, 2010, and then onto Holland Park on August 8, 2010. Visit her DOG Sculpture blog for more information.
During the course of the installation people want to move the DOGS,
children want to carry them off, bash them, cuddle them or just tear
their ears and tails off. Our team of volunteers spent the days
replacing and repairing the DOGS. We took the position that this
interaction was an intrinsic part of the installation, as the public
interacted the installation changed and moved in response to that
interaction. The public, unwittingly were manipulating the installation
and adding to it in their interaction and thereby re-defining its
appearance. — Akane Takayama
See more of Akane Takayam's work at her website.
Dog by Allie Brosh
Hey, does everybody except me know about artist Allie Brosh’s hilarious blog called Hyperbole and a Half? Allie has over a million visitors each month and 14,120 followers on Twitter and I feel very late to the party. I also feel like I want to scrap Dog Art Today and start over. I want to be like Allie — irreverent, self-effacing, confident using words like insufflate and motherf#*kg in the same post. Don’t you just hate (and love) when someone else’s work makes you feel this way? Go there now and see what you think. She just posted a story about testing her dog to see if she’s mentally challenged. Truly made me LOL.
Via the Telegraph:
[Yesterday was] the 50th anniversary of the Etch A Sketch. It was invented in the
late 1950s by André Cassagnes, a Frenchman, who named it L'Ecran
Magique (the magic screen). The Ohio Art Company bought the toy in
1959, renamed it Etch A Sketch, and launched it onto the American
market on July 12, 1960.
Click here to see a gallery of incredible Etch A Sketch art.
Hat tip to fellow Ohio dog art lover Tim Quinlivan for sending me this story.
It’s turned out to be a Van Morrison triple-play week after my friend Elizabeth of the beautiful blog, a moon, worn as if it had been a shell, left me this comment on yesterday’s Van Morrison post:
You want Veedon Fleece, too. And have you ever listened to “Redwood Tree” about a boy and his dog — one of my favorite Van Morrison songs ever —
No, Elizabeth, I had never listened to “Redwood Tree” and when I played it this morning with thunderstorms headed in over our Ponderosa Pines and my dog circling my feet looking for a cool spot, I burst into tears. I am not sad. The song just hit me in a powerful way. I thought about this being Darby’s last home. About me continuing to look for him, always. I thought about this photo of my nieces, who refuse to stop growing up…
I looked up the lyrics to the song:
Boy and his dog
Went out looking for the rainbow
You know what did they learn
Since that very day.
Walking by the river
And running like a blue streak
Through the fields of streams and meadows
Laughing all the way.
Oh redwood tree
Please let us under
When we were young we used to go
Under the redwood tree.
And it smells like rain
Maybe even thunder
Won’t you keep us from all harm
Wonderful redwood tree.
And a boy and his father
Went out, went out looking for the lost dog
You know what oh haven’t they learned
Since they did that together
They did not bring him back
He already had departed
But look at everything they have learned
Since that, since that very day.
Oh redwood tree
Please let us under.
When we were young we used to go
Under the redwood tree.
And it smells like rain
Maybe even thunder
Won’t you keep us from all harm
Wonderful redwood tree.
And I found these amazing photos here…
If you have never heard “Redwood Tree” either, here it is…
Thanks, Elizabeth. Have a happy weekend, everyone. Take lots of photos.
The pros and cons of marriage by Charles Darwin, age 29, London 1838
Darwin writes:
This is the Question
Marry
Children (if it Please God)
Constant companion (and friend in old age) who will feel interested in one
Object to be beloved and played with. Better than a dog anyhow
Home, & someone to take care of house
Charms of music and female chit-chat
These things good for one’s health—but terrible loss of time
My
God, it is intolerable to think of spending one’s whole life, like a
neuter bee, working, working, and nothing after all—No, no, won’t do
Imagine living all one’s day solitary in smoky dirty London House
Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire and books and music perhaps
Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Great Marlboro Street, LondonNot Marry
Freedom to go where one liked
Choice of Society and little of it
Conversation of clever men at clubs
Not forced to visit relatives and bend in every trifle
Expense and anxiety of children
Perhaps quarrelling
Loss of Time
Cannot read in the evenings
Fatness and idleness
Anxiety and responsibility
Less money for books etc.
If many children forced to gain one’s bread (But then it is very bad for one’s health to work too much)
Perhaps my wife won’t like London; then the sentence is banishment and degradation into indolent, idle foolMarry, Marry, Marry Q.E.D.
I had to look up what Q.E.D. means; From latin, "quod erat demonstrandum," in English, "that which was to be demonstrated."
Via 3QuarksDaily with some interesting thoughts on Darwin's analysis by Alta L. Price.
P.S. Happy Anniversary to my parents who just celebrated their 47th year of marriage.
Designed by Masakazu Hori, “Osanpo” is a stool inspired by four different dog breeds: Labrador Retriever, Bulldog, Dachshund, and Chihuahua. Via PlayMeDesign by way of NOTCOT.