Myths, Eiko Ojala.
Myths, Eiko Ojala.
Myths, Eiko Ojala.
Blown. Away. There’s much more of Ojala’s work at http://ploom.tv/ and Behance.
Estonian illustrator Eiko Ojalabrings a fantastic sense of depth and texture into his editorial illustrations by using carefully arranged layers of cut paper and shadows. The works are all assembled digitally, but the artist often incorporates his own photos to achieve the desired effect.
Via Colossal Art.
This is Charm, one of Grace’s boys, pure sweetness this one. Click for full size.
© C. Ford.
Elsa in Disney’s Frozen.
While some groups want the fictional ice princess in Disney’s animated hit Frozen, to have a girlfriend in an upcoming sequel, conservatives recoiled in rage, demanding instead that Elsa be set up with the requisite Disney prince, Right Wing Watch reports.
Twitter users have been mounting a campaign using the hashtag #GiveElsaAGirlfriend to make the character Disney’s first lesbian princess.
A conservative group, CitizenGO is up in arms about that prospect, responding in-kind with the hashtag #CharmingPrinceForElsa.
“Disney is facing fierce pressure from liberal groups who are demanding their writers turn Queen Elsa into a lesbian during the sequel, Frozen 2,” Gregory Mertz wrote to fellow CitizenGO members. “Please join the 37,000 who’ve already signed our petition against this absurd ‘movement.’ With our petition, we’re suggesting Disney with a much better idea… An idea that promotes solid family values to our children and represents the natural family.”
Then there was Kevin Swanson, who has advocated for the execution of LGBT people, who was already seething with fury over the first installment of Frozen.
“Of course Elsa is going to get her girlfriend eventually,” he said on his radio show Monday. “That’s the way you destroy sexuality. That’s the way you destroy an entire civilization. The entire social system of the United States of America is collapsing.”
Full Story Here. I haven’t seen Frozen, but I’m all for Elsa having a girlfriend. She could even be a Charming Princess.
Lot and his daughters, Hendrick Goltzius, 1616.
I think I’ll just let you all read everything and reach your own conclusions. It’s no secret that Christians struggle with sex, let alone sexuality. You can’t really ignore that struggle when Christians are constantly attempting to mandate their view of sex and sexuality into law.
Porn-Again Christians: What Happens When a Biblical Literalist Launches a Sex Site?
The initial article, linked above, is safe. Be warned that the site under discussion there is not safe for work, so have a care with your clicks.
Fly by Night, by artist Duke Riley. You can read more about this amazing performance art at The Creators Project. There’s a faq at the project’s website: http://creativetime.org/projects/flybynight/faq/ and the show will be going through June 12th at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
‘Children of war’ book was presented in London on May 9 by the Gift of Life charity foundation. Source: Maxim Blinov / RIA Novosti
Children of war is a unique book that consists of the diaries written in the period 1941-1945 and chronicle the blockade of Leningrad, ghettos and concentration camps. They show the children’s view of life both in the occupied areas of Russia and behind the frontlines. More than half of the diaries are being published for the first time and are filled with terrifying and honest revelations speaking to the war experiences of millions of Soviet children.
[…]
The English edition was translated by Andrew Bromfield, who has previously produced acclaimed translations of Tolstoy, Bulgakov, the Strugatsky brothers and other Russian authors, with contributions from Rose France and Anthony Hippisley.
Children of war will soon be sent to the world’s top 100 universities and the top media organizations in almost 200 countries. Russian ambassadors have already presented it to the heads of states in their respective countries.
Phil Bryant (Facebook)
Oh, the whining. It never ends. Are these fossils ever going to realize it’s time for them to fade away, quietly? One of the most unattractive things about Christians is the constant need to feel persecuted, to somehow make a case that yes, oh yes, we are too persecuted! The very presence of anyone they don’t like, persecution! “Oh, it makes us think about things, thinking is bad.”
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant complained Christians are still being bullied in his state because not everyone agrees with their interpretation of a law that permits discrimination against LGBT people.
Bryant insisted the law was intended to prevent discrimination against Christians by allowing them to deny service, housing, medical treatment and some government documents to LGBT people or even unmarried couples — so long as they claim a religious objection.
[…]
“I mean, they cherry-pick these issues,” Bryant said during an appearance on a religious-right radio program. “If they had any integrity at all, they would say, ‘We understand Mississippi is actually trying to make sure that Christians and people of other faiths are not discriminated against.’ It is a nondiscriminatory law. It prevents discrimination against simply that segment of the population that has a deeply held religious view about marriage.”
The Republican governor whined that “dear friend Pat McCrory,” the governor of North Carolina, is also facing a political and corporate backlash after signing a similar anti-LGBT law.
[…]
Bryant complained that Christians were facing discrimination from anyone who disagreed with their interpretation of the law as one that protected the rights of religious people to practice their faith.
“We’re criticized, we’re threatened, we’re bullied, we’re told by corporations that we’re doing the wrong thing?” Bryant said.
[…]
Despite court challenges, directives from the U.S. Department of Justice and boycotts against their states, Bryant said he was certain he and his counterpart in North Carolina had significant support nationwide.
“I think the rest of the nation is beginning to wake up and say, ‘What world do they think we’re living in? This is not Hollywood, this is not more liberal areas, this is America, where common sense still prevails,’” Bryant said.
Aaaaand we’re back to that common sense bullshit. Interesting, that going by Bryant, Hollywood and more liberal areas aren’t part of America.
The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Road ensemble opens in theaters starting June 10.
Louie’s Jurassic Park:
In his off-duty time, NASA Astronaut Don Pettit experiments with the physics of
water in the weightless environment aboard the International Space Station:
McAvoy goes full Stewart:
25 Contemporary Artists Reimagine the African Mask.
Nandipha Mntambo (South African, born 1982). Europa, 2008. Exhibition print, 31 ½ x 31 ½ in. (80 x 80 cm). Photographic composite: Tony Meintjes. Courtesy of the artist and STEVENSON, Cape Town and Johannesburg. © Nandipha Mntambo. Photo: Courtesy of STEVENSON, Cape Town and Johannesburg.
Click the link for more photos, and the full story.
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW:
L-R: Laverne Cox and Ben Vereen.
EW released the first photo of Laverne Cox as Frank-N-Furter, the doctor from Transsexual, Transylvania, in the upcoming Rocky Horror Picture Show reboot.
I don’t know that I’d call a made for TV movie a reboot, but Laverne Cox is rocking the look. I think I’ll have to confess that I’m on the glad side I don’t have television though, because I’m one of those old school fans when it comes to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I went to midnight shows when I was in high school (as Magenta), and those memories are special. I expect I’ll see this one at some point, I just need a bit of prep time.
Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin.
Last weekend, the anti-LGBT hate group Liberty Counsel held its annual conference, The Awakening, to provide a platform for anti-LGBT and anti-Muslim voices.But the event was much more than that –– at times, it seemed a call to battle. “The war wages. We cannot stand idly by,” the Counsel said in promotional materials. And true to form, the panel of speakers formed an angry chorus.
The vitriol was perhaps best embodied by retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, who employed violent rhetoric in lamenting the advances in LGBT equality, particularly in regards to trans people. Boykin is executive vice president at the anti-LGBT hate group Family Research Council. He is perhaps best known for his anti-Islam statements over the years.
At The Awakening, however, Boykin lambasted non-discrimination ordinances that include sexual orientation and gender identity protections, especially those designed to protect trans people from humiliation and discrimination by allowing them to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. He even threatened physical violence against anyone using a bathroom that didn’t align with their assigned sex at birth:
“Where is the Christian world today? Where are the Christians of America today? They should be flocking to people like Kim Davis. They should be flocking to the city council to say, ‘No you’re not going to let a man go in my daughters bathroom, just because he feels like a man today.” Boykin said. “Where are the Christians that are standing up to these kind of evil.”
[…]
“Homosexuality is a developmental, gender identity disorder,” Quinlan harped, later adding, “I tell parents and friends who have loved ones in the lifestyle, to pray for relational failure –– that every relationship they have that is in that lifestyle will fail. And it does eventually because it’s a bankrupt relationship and it’s based on false premises.” Ironically, Quinlan, who claims to be a “former homosexual,” was married to a woman who also claimed to be “ex-gay.” The two made their marriage the focus of ex-gay activism and proof of change until 2008, when they divorced.
I’m not a “selfie” person, and I shudder when I see “selfie sticks”, those things look like cattle prods to me. I don’t see the virtue in constantly taking photos of yourself, but if that’s what makes you happy, go for it. Just leave the art out of it. A great deal of art work gets damaged by those seeking selfie perfection in the never-ending I can top that! selfie competition. The latest victim to selfie-ism is a statue of Dom Sebastiao, who ruled Portugal from 1557 to 1578, at Lisbon’s Rossio train station.
The statue of Dom Sebastiao before it was destroyed. Courtesy of Peter Burka, via Flickr Creative Commons.
The statue of Don Sebastiao was broken by a young man taking a selfie. Courtesy of Infrastructure Portugal.
The 126-year-old statue shattered after a 24-year-old man reportedly knocked it over while climbing on it to take a photograph. The suspect, who has not been named, is said to have attempted to flee the scene before being apprehended by police.
A spokesperson for Infrastructure Portugal told the Daily Mail that he did not know when the statue would be repaired. Before the unfortunate incident, the sculpture was perched in a niche between two doorways at the station, which is a protected monument.
[…]
Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Last May, a pair of tourists damaged a statue of Hercules in the northern Italian city of Cremona while taking a photograph with it. In 2014, an Italian student tried to pose sitting in the lap of a 19th-century cast of an ancient work at Milan’s Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, only to smash the sculpture in the process.
Some museums have taken steps to protect their art by banning selfie sticks, which extend the reach of the photographer, and may increase the likelihood of inadvertently striking a work of art. (Even without selfies, accidents happen, like the boy who lost his balance and punched $1.5 million painting, or the woman who tripped and smashed an ancient Greek vase.)
Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress by Christine Baldacchino. (Photo via Amazon.com Screen capture)
A Forest Hills Public Schools’ elementary parent in Ada Township, Michigan wants to ban the anti-bullying book “Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress” because he opposes boys wearing dresses.
In the story, Morris is laughed at by his classmates, but eventually, he helps them to understand that he likes wearing the dress because it’s the same color as a tiger, the sun and his mom’s hair. The story aims to teach children acceptance and stop bullying.
The parent who has such a big problem is a 35-year-old Army veteran and fundamentalist Christian, Lee Markham. […] “What the heck is going on?” Markham said. “This book is not just talking about accepting another viewpoint, it’s promoting another life.”
“We’re talking about one way to live life, but what about the other way, y’know, sorry to say it, the normal way what’s the benefit of actually adhering to societal norms,” Markham said.
Amid the many positive reviews on Amazon, there was another very angry [Christian] parent, most upset by the ‘don’t bully’ and ‘it’s okay if people are different’ message of the book:
I seldom write reviews, but this book was read to my child in 3RD GRADE!!! Parents were not notified, and some teacher thought it was good since there is ONE child whose parents let him wear skirts to school. Teaching boys to ACCEPT this is WRONG!!! THIS BOOK IS AGAINST GOD!!! You parents who let their children ‘express’ their gender inappropriately at school should know better!!! Boys are boys, and should behave and dress as such. This is not tolerance, and this is not about bullying. This is a scathing indictment of the breakdown of American morality. We are literally celebrating perversion!!! You can bet there will be a lawsuit at our school.
Markham went on about how awful the book is:
“His First Amendment right to his freedom of religion wasn’t addressed at all and instead another way of life is just put right in front of him. I just wonder who’s gonna correct all the damage that was done,” Markham reiterated.
Superintendent Dan Behm stated that the book will not be taken off the shelves, even though a parent is upset. Good for you, Superintendent, and thank you.
