Modcult

Looking at the icebergs near Franklin Island, Antarctica 2006 (more)

Tryunity’s Director Circa l952

A significant camera “light leak” (??)

Or an early initiation?

Currently located in Skyheim, they give people havens a metaphysical twist. Just check out the description, I can’t cut anything out:

“Skyheim” (sky-home) is beautifully set high on four hillside acres, 70 minutes from Philadelphia, just north of Reading, PA, We are in the Leesport area overlooking the Schuylkill Valley, the city of Reading and Mt. Penn crowned by its landmark red “Pagoda”. Skyheim is easily accessed from highways, and is five minutes from the Reading Regional Airport. Its specially designed Great Room was planned for such meetings and is architected and decorated in an old Egyptian theme. (Even the resident dog and cat are 4,000 year old Egyptian breeds!) In the tradition of the great cathedrals of Europe, the meeting room offers the visitor many built-in esoteric teaching symbols, including a rooftop pyramid skylight, custom built with the same significant angles (51*51’) as the Great Pyramid at Giza.

More from the Tryunity Institute of Metaphysics.

Harmen Liemburg’s illustration for an article in a magazine you won’t find over here is a collage of engravings by Cornelis Huijberts, Josef Mulder and Jan Wandelaar in the books of Dutch botanist and anatomist Frederik Ruysch[1]. Perhaps O’Reilly can commision him to do some covers for a dark surrealist series of programming books?

I also really like his poster for the 2005 International Poster and Graphic Arts Festival of Chaumont, which combines various elements of the exhibited prints with new work.

[1]: Be sure to check out Wandelaar’s work. Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani features some bizarre backgrounds accompanying the anatomical sketches. One of the more famous is Human Skeleton with Young Rhinoceros. While looking for a quality version of that engraving I came across a post by Glyins Ridley discussing how that very image was the origin of her book Clara’s Grand Tour. Yes, the rhino in that engraving was named Clara, and she was on display across Europe from 1741 to 1758.

The Problem With Webisodes

I noticed several mentions of the lack of residuals and credits in television “webisodes” while reading about the current Writer’s Guild strike. Some of the most popular series to do these original web-only shows were The Office and Battlestar Galactica. In the former’s case, according to the writers and actors from the show, they weren’t paid. In fact they mention that NBC didn’t even foot the bill to buy them the actual daytime Emmy award they won for one of their webisodes (the clip of them discussing this is available on Youtube).

The crew behind Battlestar Galactica, which had an internet-only miniseries entitled The Resistance, had a similar story. IGN has a brief interview with Ron Moore, the creator and exectuive producer of the show, wherein he discusses the problems surrounding the webisodes:

“I had a situation last year on Battlestar Galactica where we were asked by Universal to do webisodes [Note: Moore is referring to The Resistance webisodes which ran before Season 3 premiered], which at that point were very new and ‘Oooh, webisodes! What does that mean?’ It was all very new stuff. And it was very eye opening, because the studio’s position was ‘Oh, we’re not going to pay anybody to do this. You have to do this, because you work on the show. And we’re not going to pay you to write it. We’re not going to pay the director, and we’re not going to pay the actors.’ At which point we said ‘No thanks, we won’t do it.’”

“We got in this long, protracted thing and eventually they agreed to pay everybody involved. But then, as we got deeper into it, they said ‘But we’re not going to put any credits on it. You’re not going to be credited for this work. And we can use it later, in any fashion that we want.’ At which point I said ‘Well, then we’re done and I’m not going to deliver the webisodes to you.’ And they came and they took them out of the editing room anyway – which they have every right to do. They own the material – But it was that experience that really showed me that that’s what this is all about. If there’s not an agreement with the studios about the internet, that specifically says ‘This is covered material, you have to pay us a formula - whatever that formula turns out to be - for use of the material and how it’s all done,’ the studios will simply rape and pillage.”

There’s more in the article from Moore on the strike.

There Will Be Blood Praise

Anne Thompson on There Will Be Blood and how it paints America and the Americans.

In some ways the movie is a companion piece to Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine. Americans are a remarkably violent people. Our country breeds and foments violence. But the movie’s dark, grim, assaultive nature, and the finale that does not offer any light in the darkness, will drive many viewers away, especially women. It’s an art-house movie for smart people with strong stomachs. Cinephiles will revel in this. As a writer-director, PTA will earn the respect of critics and peers. But a wide-audience spectacle this is not.

PTA lacks that warm touch that can open a movie up to a broader swath of viewers–compare this to the Coens’ No Country for Old Men. That movie in its way also reveals the darkness in mens’ souls. But there are many people–like Tommy Lee Jones’ sheriff–fighting the good fight. Even if they lose, they are still fighting.

Hair and Mushrooms

Interesting article in the Chronicle about how volunteers are cleaning up the oil spill using mats of human hair and oyster mushrooms.

“You make it like a lasagna,” Gautier said. “You layer the oily hair mats with mushrooms and straw, turn it in six weeks, and by 12 weeks you have good soil.”