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Watching the Ball Drop

"Kodachrome They Give Us Those Nice Bright Colors They Give Us the Greens of Summers Makes You Think All the World's a Sunny Day" ~Paul Simon

An unlikely pilgrimage is under way to Dwayne’s Photo, a small family business that has through luck and persistence become the last processor in the world of Kodachrome, the first successful color film and still the most beloved.

That celebrated 75-year run from mainstream to niche photography is scheduled to come to an end on Thursday when the last processing machine is shut down here to be sold for scrap.

In the last weeks, dozens of visitors and thousands of overnight packages have raced here, transforming this small prairie-bound city not far from the Oklahoma border for a brief time into a center of nostalgia for the days when photographs appeared not in the sterile frame of a computer screen or in a pack of flimsy prints from the local drugstore but in the warm glow of a projector pulling an image from a carousel of vivid slides.

In the span of minutes this week, two such visitors arrived. The first was a railroad worker who had driven from Arkansas to pick up 1,580 rolls of film that he had just paid $15,798 to develop. The second was an artist who had driven directly here after flying from London to Wichita, Kan., on her first trip to the United States to turn in three rolls of film and shoot five more before the processing deadline.

Read Entire Story HERE

"False Friends" at Jeu De Paume

The works brought together in the exhibition “False Friends / An Ephemeral Video Library” present micro-narratives articulated around personal experiences, anecdotes or testimony. Situated on the margins of mainstream history and reportage, they show historical reality in a different light and offer readings that are complementary, singular, marginal and inventive.

This project echoes the advent of alternative modes of access to information – digital platforms, blogs, new communications networks — Whether documentaries, fictions, chronicles, tales or true-fiction, the 24 videos by artists from all around the world forming this selection of “False Friends” do not attempt to offer a standard or conventional description of reality, nor do they set out to mediate or simplify it so as to make it easier to grasp. Rather, they tend to present a fragmented, subtle vision through stories about secondary figures. 

Alternatively humorous, nostalgic or tense, they help to shake up convictions and preconceived ideas. Imperfect translations of events in which we can still hear echoes of reality, these “false friends” nevertheless have undeniable authenticity. 

'Snow Story' By George Packer

    

On Monday, the ledge of snow in the doorway was above the knee: no way to leave the house except by digging from inside out. Up and down the block, cars were buried in drifts. Someone had carved a canyon from the sidewalk to a driver’s side door through a roof-high snow pile that was partly composed of shovelings. In the economy of a storm this big, there was nowhere to get rid of snow that didn’t encroach on someone else’s space, and some shovelfuls must have been tossed back and forth a few times. All day we waited for the plows, but they didn’t come.

Twenty inches of snow isn’t a 7.5 earthquake or Category 4 hurricane. Unless it’s life-threatening, an emergency rarely lifts human beings above themselves. A snowstorm like this is bad enough to make people parochial and aggrieved, but not disastrous enough to make them generous and heroic. The stories of people trapped on subway trains all night, of hundreds of 911 calls going unanswered for hours, remained abstract, because we were in no actual danger.

And so, instead, it seemed as if our block was being singled out for idiocy and neglect. The scene on the street brought my neighbors and me into a fraternity of usefulness and scorn: we locals did one another little favors—here’s some salt, thanks for shoveling my walk—and remarked on the folly of outsiders insisting on driving a car through such snow.

The circle of inclusion was now the neighborhood—more narrowly, the block—but this bond wasn’t strong enough to prompt one of us to put an orange cone of warning at the bottom of the street, let alone to organize all of us into teams that could shovel out the whole block. Urban solidarity had a limit, and some quaint notion of deserving city services kept us waiting passively on the silent street for the plow that, by midday Tuesday, still hadn’t shown up.

Read Full Story HERE 

Photo: Todd Heisler/The New York Times

'The World of Lucas Cranach'

 Lucas Cranach was one of the greatest European painters of the 16th century. This exhibition - the first to be devoted to the artist in a Benelux country - replaces the work of this leading figure of the German Renaissance in the social, cultural, and artistic context of his time.

The exhibition is on view until January 23 2011 at Bozar.

A court painter, he also rubbed shoulders with great figures such as Martin Luther, while liberating nudity and the power of women in a sensual, anti-academic style.

Some 150 paintings, drawings, and rarely seen engravings show the authenticity and originality of his sophisticated artistry, his work in the studio, and his close bonds with his German, Italian, and Dutch contemporaries, including Dürer and Metsys. A journey through a fascinating period in European history. 

Read more here.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

 Forecasters issued a blizzard warning for New York City for Sunday and Monday, with a forecast of 11 to 16 inches of snow and strong winds that will reduce visibility to near zero at times.

A blizzard warning was also in effect for Rhode Island and most of eastern Massachusetts including Boston, with forecasters predicting 15 to 20 inches of snow. A blizzard warning is issued when snow is accompanied by sustained winds or gusts over 35 mph.

Oh joy.

Merry Christmas

 

Hurry Down the Chimney Tonight

 

 One of the most difficult questions that parents are faced with has nothing to do with reindeer flight or the physics of Santa Claus's flight path -- it's a practical matter concerning a chimney.

After all, according to Christmas folklore, when Santa drops by your house to deliver his presents, he doesn't knock on your door or break any windows in the process. Instead, after landing on your roof, Santa climbs down the chimney, stuffs your stockings, places gifts under the tree and takes a quick milk-and-cookies break before climbing back up the chimney.

 But how do es Santa get down your chimney in the first place? Can he even fit into a chimney? Does he drop straight down, or does he use special climbing equipment? And what happens if you don't even have a chimney? Does that mean people without chimneys don't get any presents at all?

via: tlc.howstuffworks.com

 

Simple Bracelet, Sterling Silver

Ted Muehling

'Merritt Parkway, Winter'

Maureen Gallace
Merritt Parkway, Winter
2002
oil on panel
9 x 12 inches

 303 Gallery