Marked

THEME DAY: GRAFFITI • The city government of Pasig spent quite a lot of resources prettifying the area under the elevated portion of Meralco Avenue for pedestrians. As usual, someone couldn't resist defacing the painted supporting pillar. This is the kind of graffiti that I detest. People who do this always remind me of dogs marking their territory, but at least dogs protect the territory they've marked. I don't think these vandals do.




Vandalism or street art, see graffiti from all over the world with City Daily Photo bloggers. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.

Blocked Keys

The etude by Gyorgy Ligeti I would like you to pay attention to is the second one. It starts at 2'15".
Here is what a competent source has to say about the work:

The third etude, "Touches bloquees" ("Blocked Keys"), uses the same technique that first appeared in "Selbstportrait," the second of the Three Pieces for Two Pianos. Certain keys are held down silently with one hand while the other hand plays a very fast chromatic line on and around the blocked keys, which of course do not sound. The result is a complicated rhythmic pattern that gives the music a somewhat mechanical quality. At first the silent gaps are all the duration of a single eighth, but eventually the gaps are two eighths, then three, and continue to increase in length until the texture becomes increasingly sparse. Again, this etude is about the creation of illusion; we see a continuous pattern of eighth notes on the page, but what results in performance are quirky rhythmic patterns that are not discernible to the eye and would be all but impossible to notate in a more traditional fashion to achieve the desired effect.

Actually, it wasn't so much about the listening for me. What put me in a state of awe was the seeing. It is the clear struggle between the hands, the tension between the immobile one and the one that runs crazily above it or under it. Also, the tension of the one that is supposed to stay immobile, simply blocking some keys, but cannot resist the opportunity and spurts out sounds now and again, as if to underline it has total power. And then they switch. And we hear it, we hear this body negiation, we hear it once we see it, once we understand the game, it becomes obvious.
The music becomes obvious. Because it's about music, right?
And the soldier-fingers, constantly attempting to design the space through movement. A movement whose purpose is not something else - like a sound - is a dance. If you ever needed proof, here is one.

2 Styles Of Alphabet Graffiti Letters Big and Small

2 styles graffiti alphabet upper and lower case letters. Graffiti alphabet A-Z

Rose Fritz

This is a picture of Rose Fritz. Rose was the worldwide typing champion of 1908. She was a young american woman who traveled to London for the contest. After Rose won the contest, the Prince of Wales came by and asked to watch her type. She typed a letter of 113 words for him in under a minute with no errors. It is reported he was very impressed with her skill.

Fall Into Reading 2010

Fall into Reading is hosted by Callapidder days and will run from September 22 - December 20th 2010. All you need to do is create a list of books you wish to read this fall. It does not mater what length it is or if you change up the list as you go. 


I am going to be reading anyway, so I figured what's another event to participate in! 
 Here is my list so far:

1. The Secret Eleanor by Cecelia Holland
2. His Last Letter
3. Dracula, My Love
4. Captive Queen by Barbra Kyle
5. The Pindar Diamond
6. Confessions of Catherine De Medici by C.W. Gortner
7. For the King's Favor by Elizabeth Chadwick
8. No Will but His by Sara Hoyt
9. The Last Prince of Mexico
10. Poison, A Novel of the Renaissance by Sara Poole
11. The Queen's Daughter by Susan Coventry
12. Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabledon
13. The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig
14. Dangerous to Know by Tasha Alexander
15. The Princeling by Cynthia Harrod Eagles
16. Elizabeth, Captive Princess by Margaret Irwin 
17. By Fire By Water by Mitchell Kaplan
18. Emma and the Vampires
19. Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict
20. The Lady's Slipper by Deborah Swift
21. The Red Queen by Phillipa Gregory
22. The Kings Grace by Anne Easter Smith
23. Penelope's Daughter by Laurel Corona

More to follow I'm sure!

Giveaway! The Secret Eleanor by Cecelia Holland

Thanks to the generosity of Penguin Group Publishers, I have one copy of The Secret Eleanor by Cecelia Holland up for grabs! Be on the lookout for my review!

Synopsis: (From the Publisher)

"Eleanor of Aquitaine seized hold of life in the 12th century in a way any modern woman would envy! 

1151: As Duchess of Aquitaine, Eleanor grew up knowing what it was to be regarded for herself and not for her husband's title. Now, as wife to Louis VII and Queen of France, she has found herself unsatisfied with reflected glory-and feeling constantly under threat, even though she outranks every woman in Paris. 

Then, standing beside her much older husband in the course of a court ceremony, Eleanor locks eyes with a man-hardly more than a boy, really- across the throne room, and knows that her world has changed irrevocably... 

He is Henry D'Anjou, eldest son of the Duke of Anjou, and he is in line, somewhat tenuously, for the British throne. She meets him in secret. She has a gift for secrecy, for she is watched like a prisoner by spies even among her own women. She is determined that Louis must set her free. Employing deception and disguise, seduction and manipulation, Eleanor is determined to find her way to power-and make her mark on history."

Giveaway Guidelines:

~10 possible entries~

• +1 entry for posting a comment and leaving your e-mail. (no e-mail = no entry) 
• +5 entries for becoming a Follower, or already being a Follower. (if possible, please follow through "google friend connect" so I can verify) 
• + 3 entries for posting about this giveaway on your blog or adding a link for it on your sidebar. (please post link with your comment) 
• + 1 entry for tweeting about this giveaway. (please post link with your comment) 

~Please post all your entries in one comment, thanks :)

~This giveaway will be open to USA residents only.

~Ends October 14th~

Good Luck everyone!

Details

These are the magnificent friezes, columns and chandelier in the main lobby of the National Art Gallery of the Philippines, which used to be the Legislative Building of the country. I know that the architectural details have been there since the early 20th century, when it was built during the American Colonial Era. Unfortunately, I do not know anything about the chandelier, not even whether it is old or new. If I may hazard a guess, I think it's both. The main chandelier looks like an antique but the organic glass shapes and curvy rods with balls at the end are a newer addition. In fact, the addition reminds me so much of Filipino artist Impy Pilapil's work. What do you think?



If I ever find out, I'll let you all know, of course.

GRAFFITI NEERPEDE

Neerpede, a museum dedicated to urban graffiti (in french) ... Tsunami Art

KNZR

Aplo, Pker, Maer, Okup, Dils, Slept, Gibon, Bista, Diak, Kont, Mat, Avter, Jas, Lep, Tesla, Kier, Gleko, Aib, Korel, Merlo, Drombo, Knizrce

MCRY

MANK

Picture : Kees K.

WOLE

SENDR

STUR

Graffiti Alphabet Letters Are Two Versions Of Style

Graffiti sketches. Graffiti Alphabet Letters A-Z Are Two Versions Of Style

J. B. Hammond

This picture was taken in 1910, and shows J. B. Hammond, pictured with one of his famous typewriters. The Hammond was one of the most popular typewriters of the early 1900's, and Hammond became a very wealthy and successful man. Unlike most of the factory owners of the day, Mr. Hammond had a habit of being very generous with his employees. He would give them a quarterly dividend, based on the profitability of the company. He would give them a turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas. He would also give them reasonable vacation time. These things were unheard of at the time, and his family accused him of being "insane" and squandering the families' (actually His) fortune. They brought their concerns to the authorities in 1907, and had him committed to an insane asylum. He was locked up for almost a year, and then finally when his case was investigated, it was determined that he was perfectly sane, and he was released. When he returned to his factory, the employees held a huge celebration. 

New Release! Tears of Pearl by Tasha Alexander

Publish Date: September 28, 2010

Format: Paperback

Pages: 352pp

Synopsis: (From the Publisher)

"Looking forward to the joys of connubial bliss, newlyweds Lady Emily and Colin Hargreaves set out toward Turkey for an exotic honeymoon. But on their first night in the city, a harem girl is found murdered—strangled in the courtyard of the Sultan’s lavish Topkapi Palace. Sir Richard St. Clare, an Englishman who works at the embassy in Constantinople, is present and recognizes the girl as his own daughter who was kidnapped twenty years earlier. Emily and Colin promise the heartbroken father they’ll find her killer.

As a woman, Emily is given access to the forbidden world of the harem and quickly discovers that its mysterious, sheltered walls offer no protection from a ruthless murderer. Soon, the Valide (mother to the Sultan) is found strangled with a silken bowstring and the head Eunuch is brutally slain.

When the killer strikes again, kidnapping a concubine and threatening to kill her unless Emily agrees to meet him in secret, she cannot wait for Colin or the authorities to come to her rescue. In a heart-stopping finale, Emily must rely on her own sharp wits if she is to stop a killer bent on taking revenge no matter how many innocent lives he leaves in his wake."

The firm

Only a quarter of a century old, Puno & Puno Law is one of the best-known law firms in Manila. Like most other law firms in the country, they can handle almost any kind of legal case but their particular specialty is corporate and regulatory laws. Thankfully, we were at their offices because of an event and not because we needed their services.

Graffiti Alphabet Letters In Style And Color

Graffiti at the top can you save it as an example a street graffiti art. can also to write my name in graffiti on paper. Graffiti alphabet letters in style and color.

Remington Typewriter

This picture is from 1908, and shows a woman by a typewriter. The picture was a marketing photo from Remington Typewriters. I would guess that the notepad was a dictation pad. It was fairly common for the boss to "dictate" the letter to a secretary, who would then go and type it up.  

Domestic Update:

I have not mentioned the greenhouse in some time. I am pleased to report that it is pretty much finished. By "pretty much", I mean that the plumber and electrician still need to come out one more time to get the heater and radiant floor heat system finished. I have gone ahead and started trying y hand at growing things. You can see in the picture above that things are off to a good start. The big green plants are cucumbers which are growing extremely fast. The smaller plants closer to the camera are tomatoes. In the buckets in the corner, further back, I have a watermelon, a jalapeño, and two bell peppers. I am trying different things to see what works the best. Hopefully, I will see some blooms fairly soon.  

Masterpiece Monday

I'm back! Summer has been a crazy blur and unfortunately my blog posting has been sparse as a result. I have missed my daily blogging and am so very excited to return to all the exciting events that occur here! So, without further ado, lets start this week right with a new Masterpiece Monday, which just happens to feature one of my favorite paintings... enjoy!

Franz Xaver Winterhalter. Empress Elisabeth. 1865

Partners

For the life of me, I just can't get a decent photo of my own grade school and high school, Holy Family. Barbed wire runs on top of its walls and utility cables are thick all over. This is just the side of the school; the cables at the front, which is in our neighborhood's main street, are even worse. Holy Family School is run by the Siervas de San Jose (Servants of Saint Joseph), a religious missionary congregation founded in Spain, and is an all-girls school. It is separated from Claret School, an all-boys grade school and high school, by a single, low wall. Needless to say, a lot of heckling and eyelash-batting goes on around that wall during recess and lunch break.

Underwood Typewriter Company

Today's picture is from the early 1900's, and shows the exterior of the Underwood Typewriter Company. I love the old delivery truck.

I enjoyed all the comments yesterday about typewriters. It is definitely an era that is coming to an end, but it sounds like there are still a few typewriters being used out there.

The picture below show the interior of the building above.

I find the layout of the office interesting. First, there appears to be a lot of empty space. The desks are spaced out pretty far and there is a large hallway between the rows of desks.

This is another room from the same building.

Again, the people are working in a "bullpen" area, with no dividing walls. Today, I think cubicles are more the norm. Cubicles create the opportunity for people to goof off at work . . . personal phone calls, surfing the WEB, reading magazines, playing tetris and so forth. I wonder if there was more or less goofing off in the office back then. I would bet overall less. 

Share A Variety Of Styles Graffiti Alphabet Letters

Share a variety of styles graffiti alphabet letters a-z.

Artificial wings

This is the introductory piece of Filipino-German artist Kawayan de Guia's exhibit titled "Bored on the Fourth of July." He was the recipient of the 2008 New York Art Project residency grant which is selected annually by the Omi International Arts Center. "Bored on the Fourth of July" was shown in the Ateneo Art Gallery last year but I forgot to post it back then and just saw it again yesterday when I was cleaning up my iPhoto. From the exhibit notes:

In two sets of images and texts, Kawayan puts forward a critique and commentary on the human propensity to consume that he witnessed in America and rediscovered on his return home. It is a propensity, a hollow greed that America projects on the world. In this world, shopping is the new drug; the source of fleeting mass-produced moments of happiness and artificial healing.

10 Graffiti Wall That Resembles The Face

Graffiti Art

10 graffiti with facial expressions vary. Graffiti murals weird, crazy and unique









Graffiti Street Art

Underwood Typewriter

Welcome to Typewriter week. Today's picture was taken in 1918, and it shows a woman next to a state of the art Underwood typewriter.

Today, no typewriters are manufactured. I am curious when the last typewriter was made. I did quiet a bit of research, but was not able to find anything definitive.

I entered the workforce in the mid-1980's. At the time, there was one PC in the building, and it was something of a novelty . . . no one really used it. All letters and memos were hand written, given to a secretary, and then the secretary would type it up for you. It was especially important to be nice to the secretary, to ensure your work was done in a timely manner, and done accurately. By the mid to late 1990's, everyone had a PC. The secretaries still had typewriters, but most everyone typed up their own letters, papers, and memos. 

I can remember in the mid-2000's, offices still had typewriters, but they were used mainly for things like labels, or when it was necessary to put words on non-standard or odd size pieces of paper, like time cards. I would imagine typewriters are still around for that purpose, as it is still difficult to use a computer when you must align to existing things on a piece of paper. One wonders when the last typewriter will be shelved from an office.

Tolling for a century

Here is a side view of the 1896 Church of San Juan del Monte, better known locally as Pinaglabanan Church, showing the bell tower which is separate from the main church. You can also see here where its unusually-shaped but beautiful stained glass window is.

Sketch Graffiti Alphabet by Nick

Graffiti sketch can also be used as a congratulatory birthday. Such as graffiti art on the paper above

THESIS ABOUT EUROPEAN GRAFFITI WRITERS WITH RENOK, HERO, PHILO, RAW, EDGE, LUTHER, HIROCK, MIRICS, MARS, TWICE, GEAR, SOME, REVS AND ASO.

Some trains are kind of worth more. When writers meet they talk about different trains and different train yards where they’ve been. When you meet a new writer, you always have some places or trains to identify with and talk around. Local trains are generally more worth painting. For example the old Dutch banana train (the yellow one floor train called ‘doggie’), the Spanish ‘mirror trains’, Berlin’s yellow subway, Southern Sweden’s purple trains or Danish’s old red S-train. People used to go to Copenhagen just to paint that one. [Aso – 26, Stockholm]



Master Thesis :

Behind the tag : A journey with the graffiti writers of European walls (Pdf file)

Author : Silvia Pietrosanti

MSc European Communication Studies

Graduate School of Communication

Amsterdam, June 2010

Source : UvA Scripties Online

Contest Day!

Let the Game Begin!

Cattelan's Finger

Yet again, Maurizio Cattelan achieved his admitted goal: he is on the covers of magazines.
The finger, called L.O.V.E.*, has been erected in front of the Milan stock exchange for the duration of the Fashion Week happening in the city.
Everyone is happy: Cattelan gets his attention, the public is proud of such a daring representative, the city gets its Fashion Week (kind of) publicized, and the brokers... well, the brokers have a good laugh and continue their business as usual.
That is not to say the work is not good. It is poignant. The finger that is sticking is the only one remaining on the hand. The others seem to have been severed. So is this hand telling the bankers to go fuck themselves, or is that the only thing it can say? Or maybe it's that when you have next to nothing, the middle finger is the one to resist longest.
Oh, but of course, it's made of marble and put on a pedestal.

But that, really, is not the work at work here. The work is to have been able to put it in front of the Stock Exchange. To have shown them the finger and have them accept it. This is what makes a real contemporary trickster - not the sculpture, but the context.
"We want to be confirmed as the capital of contemporary art", the city's administrators officially stated, "and we have to not only mediate but also accept what we do not like".
Which is a hilarious comment, and only confirms Cattelan's intelligence. One wonders how he did it. Maybe what he said was, let's cut the crap, it is a criticism, but it will attract more tourists than you can ever imagine, and will not hurt you in any way whatsoever, because no one is going to take their money out of the stocks after seeing my work. On the contrary, the tourists will leave their money in Milan.
But the controversy remains. “It is unacceptable that the City sticks its finger up to the Stock Exchange" – said the councillor for Town Planning Carlo Masseroli in a fervent discussion.
Masseroli says: "the administration cannot be culturally subordinate to a self-styled artist like Cattelan who wants to use Milan to earn money”.
Oh, that's right, Cattelan made money off this! I wonder who payed him.
So the question is, who is Cattelan showing the finger to?
I'm not sure, but the pictures suggest that the finger is in front of the stock exchange. And is not pointing towards it, but from it.

Which could end this text. But will not. Because even if Cattelan laughs in our face, even if he plays a trick on all of us, he still plays out the crucial role of catalyzer - he materializes the tensions that are already there. He makes us go "Hey! Wait a minute!" He sticks the finger where it hurts.

*The title was originally supposed to be "Omnia munda mundis" ("To the pure ones everything is pure").

Green means yes

I feel like such a hick for posting this because I'm sure they're common in more developed countries, but I just had to because I was actually delighted when I realized what they were. I noticed them on the ceiling of the parking building when we last went to an SM Supermall, and it took me several seconds before I understood what they were for. A green light means that the parking space is free and a red light means that a car's parked there. Now, drivers don't have to crawl through all the lanes looking for a free slot; just one look at the lights and they'll know whether they can park on that level or move on to the next. Isn't that so clever? I doubt if they'll help ease the awful traffic around Manila's humongous malls during weekends though.

Ponies at Atlantic City

Today's picture is from around 1900, and it shows the beach at Atlantic City. Maybe someone can help me, but I think that a pony is pulling the little cart, and the other three are burrows. This will wrap up Pony Week. Hope you all enjoyed it, and hope you will tune in for the Mystery Person Contest in the morning.