Hasta La Ideas

Awe-inspiring art

“Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds challenges our first impressions: what you see is not what you see, and what you see is not what it means. The sculptural installation is made up of what appear to be millions of sunflower seed husks, apparently identical but actually unique. Although they look realistic, each seed is made out of porcelain. And far from being industrially produced, ‘readymade’ or found objects, they have been intricately hand-crafted by hundreds of skilled artisans.”

Watch another video here and read about the exhibition on the Tate website. {discovered via Magpie and Cake, lots to see over there!}

A SIDE NOTE: I have been back from the Mossy Shed (such an amazing experience, will post more soon. Tif and her clan were such amazing hosts.) for a few days but taken over by boxes. Shipping boxes in and out, boxing orders, receiving the shipment of The Elegant Cockroach from China, notecard box designs, email inboxes… plus we’re painting the walls and laying new floor in our house, so everything is in a state of chaos. Once the dust settles, I’ll be back for a more regular posting schedule.

Click here to be immediately transported to Bethany Heck’s amazing and gorgeous letterpress blog and resource, EndGrain.

“In addition to being a growing directory and aggregator for wood type and letterpress works and information on the web, the EndGrain features my humble collection of wood letters. I also want to use the blog as an opportunity to do experimental printing with my type and to do a little digging into the history of the different typefaces.”

I love the large images of wood type, you can almost smell them! And the site design is lovely, too, with great typographic touches.

Bethany’s an UPPERCASE subscriber as well! Such a talented and inspirational bunch you are.

I would have titled this post “No typewriter for old men,” but The Guardian beat me to it! Cormac McCarthy, author of aforementioned novel, All the Pretty Horses and The Road has auctioned off his trusty old Lettera through Christies. His workhouse machine since 1958, he has composed all manuscripts with it. It sold for an incredible $254,500 to an anonymous bidder: over 10 times the estimated price.

“I have typed on this typewriter every book I have written including three not yet published. Including all drafts and correspondence I would put this at about five million words over a period of fifty years…” he claims in the accompanying letter of authentication. He also states that the only maintenance done over the years involved “blowing out the dust with a service station air hose.” Hmmm, maybe that’s how he came up with Anton Chigurh’s murderous weapon of injecting compressed air into his victims?

Read more about the Lettera at The New Yorker.

You might know Crispin Hellion Glover best for his role as George McFly from the movie Back to the Future. (“My density brought me to you,” is one of my all-time favourite movie lines.) Through his publishing enterprise Vulcanic Eruptions, Glover has also published some book works, in which the meanings of old texts are modifed with blackouts (or “spindles” as he called them) and other obfuscations. “Studies in Rat Catching” is a bizarre and afflicted publication which is best read after watching the Glover movie Willard.

Long ago, I saw Glover read from his books through a presentation called the “Big Slide Show.” Hosted in the dankess of Calgary’s Republik nightclub (circa mid to late nineties), it was a strange evening, at once oddly unsettling and strangely exhilarating. Following the presentation, I mustered the nerve to ask Glover to sign my sketchbook, in which he drew one of his spindles.

Seemingly stuck in a time warp, Glover’s website looks the same as it did back then. He is still performing the Big Slide Show, in Olympia (Washington) later this week, and then in Helsinki on October 30.

{View images from Glover’s book on Austin Kleon’s flickr. Cover image from Reality Studio}

Looking to the past for your fashion inspiration? Head on over to the Gentleman’s Emporium for entire outfits, plus a fashion gallery:

“Step into our Victorian gentleman’s portrait gallery to get costuming hints and sartorial cues from the gentlemen themselves. Our fashion timeline highlights certain details specific to each decade, however you will see that the basics of men’s fashion remained remarkably stable. A gentleman would often choose a style that suited him and stay with it for many years, thus you will see frock coats as well as tail coats and town coats (sack coats) throughout the period. When considering your own outfit, remember that there are a variety of styles which are all authentic, and you should feel free to take a measure of poetic license in combining historic authenticity with clothing that suits your own personal preferences.”