I’ve mentioned several times on this blog how two of Eckhart Tolle’s books, “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment” and “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose” helped me to not only change my outlook on life and existence, but to “awaken” through a shift in consciousness.
I find it admirable that one of the tactics Samsung is using in defense against Apple’s current patent infringement suit is the claim that Stanley Kubrick actually had the original idea behind the iPad and not Apple.
Here’s a still from the scene that according to this article on abcnews.com, Samsung says proves that at least the concept of the iPad came from someone other than the developers at Apple - not just years mind you - but 4 decades before the pricey tech tool was released! The amazing Kubrick film “2001: A Space Odyssey” was actually filmed in 1965 prior to it’s release in 1968.
Here is the actual clip in reference can be seen on youtube.com by clicking here.
I think the reason that I like this tactic is its mix of the old “David verses Goliath” story and the fact that art from over 4 decades ago is being referenced as a source of inspiration for very current technology.
In my opinion, even though it’s being used as a tug-of-war tool so to speak between two mega-tech industries over fortunes that are practically impossible for us to comprehend, it quite elegantly underscores the eternal beauty of art itself.
One of the wonderful qualities of great art is its sense of timelessness. Art itself borders on the eternal because, ultimately, it is the manifestation of an artist’s creative mind which is based in the eternal. It’s the same “eternal” that lives within us all.
Perhaps the final story here is the fact that an artist’s vision is being used in a court of law, regardless of the reasons, perhaps may just let those of us who notice reawaken the eternal in ourselves as well.
Wisdom alert here!
Jesse Lava: The Real Obama Betrayal
This above is a well written article that I came across this morning on the Huffington Post written by Jess Lava (Director, criminal justice campaign at Brave New Foundation). He does a fine job of explaining why President Obama is not the same man, politically speaking, as Obama the candidate from '08 and '09.
I have believed this for quite some time, so I find it validating to see more and more articles with similar stances hitting the digital and print driven press outlets. While I was quite open during the last presidential election about my support for Hilary Clinton. I was quite taken by surprise by the strong, and at times unpleasant, reactions by my fellow progressives who were supporting Obama when the conversation would arise. There were even some who passively/aggressively suggested that my lack of support of Obama was based in racism. Ridiculous.
My lack of initial support for Obama wasn't based in racism ; it was based in my perception of his lack of meaningful political experience when it came to taking the wheel , so to speak, in leading this country out of some very thick fog. On an analogous level, I wouldn't feel comfortable letting a 11 year old drive a car through a blinding snowstorm in which I was a passenger no matter how adamantly they insisted they could operate the vehicle. However, if a seasoned professional driver who knew the lay of the road ahead had insisted on taking the wheel, I would have sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the ride. Not only did the electorate insist that Hillary get out of the car, they proceeded to hand the keys to Obama. Once he became the party's choice, I of course supported his run and did indeed vote for him. I even adopted a bit of Pollyanna vision and opted to hope, and at times believe, that perhaps his words about "change that I could believe in" were valid. Of course, his current record shows that promise to be nothing more than a slick campaign slogan.
I had a similar conversations recently with hardcore Obama supporters about my, and others, dissatisfaction with the President. For the most part, all I received were snarky responses about how "I'd better not vote Republican in 2012" and acerbically toned questions asking would I rather have a president Perry or Bachman. These are all useless comments clearly arisen out of the speaker's own frustrations with the situation and a level umbrage that naturally comes forth when one feels as if they have been hoodwinked.
Obviously, I won't vote for a Republican candidate no matter how frustrating Obama's actions, or lack thereof, may be as I realize that having a Democrat, even if just by name, in the White House is far better than any alternative. Though, frankly, with Obama's current lackluster track record, the sad and disappointing difference currently seems small.
Somewhere, someone must be drooling...
Though I rarely discuss them publically beyond close friends and family, I have long been one of those people who have been blessed/cursed with intensely vibrant, realistic/surrealistic, often meaningful dreams. I usually remember them in extreme detail as they seem more like memories of recent events rather than fuzzy, misted dream recollections.
I have no idea why I have these dreams. Perhaps it’s because of my artistic nature, my right brain lean, my enchantment with the esoteric or a combination of all. I think it’s a bit genetic in nature as I’ve other family members with the same ability, my mother in particular was gifted in this department.
Sometimes these dreams are purely entertaining, joyful experiences filled with laugher and nonsense. Sometimes they are more somber steeped in symbolic imagery and detail. I’ve had uncannily prophetic dreams, dreams where I’ve had long heartfelt conversations with people long passed, and dreams filled with complete strangers spent walking the streets of ancient lands and other worlds.
And sometimes I have dreams filled with deep mystery that hint of messages from beyond and leave me feeling as if I must search for a missing puzzle piece before I can see the “big picture” of it all.
Last night was one of those experiences….
It began in a hospital. A hospital in some town in some state somewhere in this country. There had been a major renovation to the hospital – either a new wing had been added or one had been completely renovated.
I found myself in the dream space a few minutes after what must have been the ribbon cutting for the new addition. The area was filled with medical professionals, community leaders, and citizens of the town that seemed connected somehow to the renovation. Everyone was quite pleased with the new addition and there was much chatter amongst the attendees over bites of cake and sips of punch.
No one seemed to notice me at first and I was able to pass amongst the crowd as I pleased. I saw a printed program documenting the event on a desk and I decided to read it. That’s when I realized that the reason that I was there was that some of my art had been placed in the permanent collection of the hospital and was being featured somewhere in the renovation. For some reason, either I didn’t see or can’t recall exactly where this hospital was in the dream.
I still hadn’t been noticed by the crowd so I decided that I would explore the area myself and locate my art, as I was curious as to what work of mine was part of the collection.
I started off down a hallway to the left of where I had been reading the program leaving the chattering of the crowd behind me. The hallways were well lit with and painted a soft beige color. Everything sparkled with a feeling of newness to it. I still didn’t recognize my art so I continued deeper into a series of hallways and I soon realized that I had become lost in the process.
This made me slightly uncomfortable as I was now completely alone in a hospital with zero idea of where I or it was located. I decided that the best thing to do would be to try and back track my steps and listen for the voices of the crowd to find my way back to the main area.
I started back in the direction that I had came, but everything began to look the same and I was never certain that I was going in the right direction. That’s when it happened.
Suddenly, I found myself walking through a hallway that was darker and much cooler than the others. I realized that there were literally no lights fixture in the hallway. The hazy ambient light that was there was coming from an adjoining hallway that was separated from the one in which I was standing in by a wall of windows. The windows were of an old fashioned kind that had some sort of protective wire meshing incased within them. I stood in the middle of the hallway and looked through the glass into the other side.
It was like looking into the hospital’s past. I’m no expert on vintage industrial interior design, but I would guess it to be anywhere between the late 1930’s to the mid 1950’s. The floor had been yellowed and burnished with use and the light fixtures were of an earlier time. The light was yellowish which cast everything with a vintage sepia hue. A few chairs and a desk or two also had the same retro look and feel. It was then that I noticed the door.
Across and slightly to the left of where I was looking was a door to a room which caught my attention for no apparent reason. I found myself staring at the door for what seemed like quite some time as if I were waiting for something.
Then, quite suddenly, something startling happened.
The door knob transformed in a photograph of a little girl. It was about an 8.5” by 11”, black and white studio portrait of a lovely little girl with pigtails and a big smile. She was about 7 to 10 years old and the photo seemed to be taken around the same time period as the wing that I was looking into. I found myself entranced with the photograph. She had dark blond hair, blue eyes, and she was wearing what appeared to be a hand made knit sweater over a blouse of darker color. I could feel a connection form between my eyes and hers. I could sense that the girl was trying to tell me something but I couldn’t quite make it out. It was as if there was static filling the airwaves.
Without warning, the photograph began to very slowly turn as if by two invisible hands. I could hear the clicking of the old mechanism of the door lock and I watched as the door creaked open revealing a completely dark room that seemed to go for an eternity. I felt a rush of cool air come over me and the sound of wind.
At that very moment that I was able to peer into the cavern of the room, the lights in the hallway in which I was standing popped on with a brilliant bright flash.
I found that the wall of windows was simply gone – now replaced with the sparkling newness of the other beige walls of the new addition. I found myself now face to face with one of my abstract paintings – now part of the permanent collection and hanging on the wall that a nanosecond before had been a portal to the hospital’s past.
I was stunned by the event and found myself shaking my head to clear away the confusion when suddenly I heard voices to my right.
It was a small group of nurses, some of whom were long retired, that were in attendance for the celebration. They said that they had been looking for me and they were glad to see that I had located my art work in the building. My face must have still registered the intensity of my experience as they asked me if anything was wrong.
I told them what I had just witnessed and they were stunned. One of the older nurses asked me to describe the girl in the photograph. I did so. Another of the other retired nurses began to weep as a third told me that when they were young women and working in the hospital, that where we were standing had been another area completely and that this particular spot had been the location of a room where long ago the little girl in the photograph had spent her final days before succumbing to the effects of a tragic event.
The nurses said that the entire staff had become very taken with the child. That said that she had such charisma, charm, and optimism that they all fell in love with the little girl. They were absolutely devastated when she passed.
The same nurse then told me that one of the child’s visitors, a gentle and mature man - perhaps a relation, insisted that the girl’s photograph be hung on the doorknob outside of the room so that he could find it more easily during visits as he would often become lost in the hallways of the hospital.
And at that point in the conversation, I simply woke up. I never got the girl’s name, the name of the hospital, the name of the visitor, the tragic event, or even the year.
What I did get is a haunting memory tinged by time and the sense that there may be much more to come from the little mysterious girl in the photograph…
A large crowd braved the intense summer heat and the beach traffic to attend the opening reception for the Dickey, Peghini-Räber and Sprouse Recent Works Exhibit At Prudential Gallo, REALTORS® in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on the evening of Friday, July 29th resulting in a tremendous amount of fun, multiple sales of fantastic original art and a thorough enjoyment of the complimentary Hors d'oeuvres and wine courtesy of a Touch of Italy Salumeria and Pasticceria and Prudential Gallo, REALTORS® in Rehoboth Beach.
A sincere thanks to all of those in attendance, the talented artists and the hard working and dedicated Realtors of Prudential Gallo, REALTORS® in Rehoboth Beach as well as Touch of Italy Salumeria and Pasticceria of Rehoboth and the Touch of Italy Foundation.
This exhibit runs through the end of August so be sure to stop by the Prudential Gallo Rehoboth Beach office at 37230 Rehoboth Avenue Ext. to view this compelling exhibit!
(photos from the event)
I never knew that Mr. Potato Head had a pal named “Pete The Pepper”.
With a name like “Pete The Pepper”, it seems possible that this “friend” may have been one of Mr. Potato Head’s more nefarious associates possibly with ties to organized crime or at least to the shadier aspects of the vegetable import business.
I also was unaware that the first Mr. Potato Head toys were made to actually be inserted into real vegetables.
According to the included instructions, “most any vegetable or fruit” can be used. When I was a small child, the fruits and vegetables in our home were strictly for consumption and not play. It seems to me the act of shoving plastic eyes, mouth, moustache and a pipe into a ripe tomato over and over again would render the fruit unappetizing at least and would most certainly produce a rather macabre doll. I can’t imagine the fun would increase with the use of the more stable fleshed onion once it’s wildly pungent and real-life eye scalding, milky juices would begin to weep from the wounds created by the hard plastic facial prosthetics. It takes no great stretch of the mind to imagine horrified children attempting in vain to comprehend why their new best friend the onion headed doll was lamenting its creation with foul smelling, bitter and burning tears.
According to Wikipedia, “in the 1960s, government regulations forced the Potato Head parts to be less sharp, leaving them unable to puncture vegetables easily. By 1964, the company was therefore forced to include a plastic potato "body" in its kit. Little children were also choking on the small pieces and cutting themselves with the sharp pieces”. Though the date on the box above is clearly listed as 1966 and there seems that there were only “face parts” in that particular box.
Regardless of the math, by the time I was playing with Mr. Potato Head in the late 60’s, there was a plastic potato body included in the box.
And the rest, as they say, is toy history…
This morning, I ran across a fab retro magazine ad featuring two things that I’ve not tasted in a very long time – lime Jell-O and canned pineapple. In fact, scanning my memory banks for the last time I may have had the palette envelope pushing experience of having the two distinctive tastes (one an artificial lime infused, eye-crossing uber-sweetness and the other a tinny slab of fruit fleshy sugar loaf) comingled in my mouth would require a mental time travel machine the size of a semi.
Nevertheless, the kitschy joy and the in-your-face “we love chartreuse” art direction of this retro masterpiece of advertising is simply too much for me to resist.
Feast your eyes upon the culinary magic of the early 1960’s!
My parents were married in the early 60’s. And like so many young people at that time, my mother loved this kind of advertising and was drawn to it like a vampire to a virgin’s neck. If it was instant it was pure perfection. Instant coffee, instant orange juice, instant milk, instant oatmeal, instant rice, instant mac and cheese and much more were quite popular menu items of my childhood. I have little doubt that had this glistening and enticing manna blipped across her radar, it would have been proudly served the next time such a side dish was called for.
Simply open a can of sliced pineapple, pour out the juice, fill it with Jell-O, stick it in the fridge and voilà - instant dessert. Or, should you find the need, smack a slab or two down atop an acid-green leaf of lettuce and add a hefty dollop of pure mayonnaise to the plate party to create a slickened summer side salad from hell.
When Jell-O/Mayo molds were all the rage, I was fortunately young enough to be intimidated by the mix and to this day have yet to experience that questionable concoction. Though, mayonnaise is one of my favorite guilty garnishes. Perhaps I’ve been missing out all these years…
In any event, this ad has loudly plucked a string of culinary interest in my mind and there is a strong possibility that if I end up in the SuperFresh this afternoon, I may have to take a stroll down memory lane and check out the canned pineapple selection which couldn’t possibly be too far from the Jell-O selection…
Stay tuned, there may be photos…
© Michael Sprouse 2011
I like this instagram snap I caught yesterday afternoon on the metro to Dupont Circle. I've titled it "Subway Spirit". Not, mind you, as in the pom-pom accompanied "I've got spirit, how 'bout you?", but as in the ethereal, vaporous, wafting sense. Think of the oddly quiet moments when you've walked into an empty elevator into an aura of warmth mingled with the lingering perfume from a mysterious previous rider. It fills your mind with oceans of ideas about the existence of a woman you will never know. The mystery fades like an old, yellowed photograph vanishing in a dusty, time-worn frame eternally placed in some sun-drenched corner of a forgotten shelf when you reach your floor...
When you can’t fall asleep at 3 AM, it’s time for Photoshop fun on retro wig catalogs. Click the link and make sure and view full size.
Studio Interior, Octave Tassaert, France 1845It was with sadness that I read of the passing of Dame Elizabeth Taylor. There will be much written and spoken about her now that she has died and I won’t attempt to compete here. I can say only that I found her to be a true master of her art and a great and cherished humanitarian.
To this day, I find myself riveted by some of her film performances. In particular of these is her well deserved Best Actress Oscar winning performance as Martha in “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf”. I have seen that film so many times that I have literally lost count. It is a timeless piece of movie mastery that will live in the halls of honor of film making.
I think I will honor her life this weekend when I am back at the shore with some good scotch and another screening of that astounding film…
Another brilliantly performed scene…
In Memoriam
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor
February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011
Courtesy AFP/Getty Images
The actor Robert De Niro, who last year created a new art prize in honor of his late painter father's legacy, appeared in a packed courtroom on Friday to testify in the trial of Leigh Morse, a dealer who worked for Larry Salanderduring the notorious swindler's multimillion-dollar spree of art fraud. Appearing in the Manhattan court in a green corduroy blazer and white shirt, the actor — recently labeled a "post-empire" icon by Bret Easton Ellis— related how he had a deal to evenly split the sale of commissioned works with the gallery, but then failed to see any proceeds while noticing that Salander was flying around the world in a private jet. "It didn't seem to add up," the actor testified. MORE HERE - [Bloomberg].
Who would want to see scores of tiny animated nude men in your browser telling you what time it is? The real question is – who wouldn’t?!
This cute and clever flash app was sent to me by my dear friend Denise. It does actually tell you the correct time, at least as shown on your computer. Click to switch back and forth between an analog clock and a digital read out. Check it out here:
http://lovedbdb.com/nudemenClock/index2.html
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When I am in the grocery stores of the great metropolis of Washington, DC., I notice that the majority of shoppers are using some kind of reusable bag, or at least, they have brought a plastic bag with them and are using it anew.
What's the difference? In January 2010, Washington, DC passed a "Bag Law". The law, the first of its kind in the U.S., requires any District business selling food or alcohol to charge 5 cents for each disposable paper or plastic carryout bag. The business keeps 1 cent (or 2 cents if it offers a rebate when customers bring their own bag), and the remaining 3 or 4 cents goes to the new Anacostia River Protection Fund.
Though controversial when it was passed, almost immediately, businesses began seeing a drastic reduction in bag usage, and environmental clean-up groups witnessed fewer bags polluting DC waterways.
Personally, I think the law is brilliant and I'm happy to do my part. Reusable grocery bags are affordable and easily found in practically every city in the country. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. offers incredible bags created specifically for The Elizabeth Haub Foundation which are distributed exclusively through the A&P Family of Supermarkets. I'm holding one in my hand in the photo above. I own about 10 of them in total. They are available for a mere 99 cents!
The bags are incredible! Not only do they easily hold at least 10 times the amount of groceries that the useless plastic bags hold, they are amazingly strong and durable, easily hand washable, and portable with extra sturdy and flexible double-grasp nylon handles. And, artistically speaking, they are also absolutely beautiful as each different bag features a stunning wild-life themed photograph in rich, vibrant color.
Why do I have 10 of these beauties? Because I use these bags for far more than just hauling groceries. I can fill them with art supplies, CDs, books, clothing and much more which makes transporting such items a breeze as I travel back and forth between destinations.
Though made in China (which admitedly doesn't fill my heart with joy), they are made from 100% post consumer recycled content. Better yet, a portion of the 99 cent purchase price goes to The Elizabeth Haub Foundation, an organization that works to support the development and implementation of necessary legislative provisions for the conservation and sustainable use of nature, as well as for humankind.
It's frustrating to me that I have seen so many Delawareans leaving the grocery stores with plastic bag after bag. Can they not get their head together about how harmful plastic bags are to the environment (especially here at the shore!) and how there are much better options so easily available. Perhaps they need an incentive. Why not a "Bag Tax" for the Delaware shore - perhaps nation wide!
Because in case you don't know by now, plastic bags are for losers.