Beguiling Beauty

A young damsel and Old Masters await in Naples

Unexpected Beauty : Serenity Prevails In A Unique Museum In Queens, New York

Bande Dessinée : Quelques jours ensemble...

Il y a des oeuvres simples et contemporaines qui savent parler de la vie, la parentalité, les responsabilités, le passage à l'âge adulte, le vrai sens des choses au delà de la réussite monétaire sans êtres moralisatrices et cassantes. La bande dessinée de Montgermont et Alcante est un petit bijoux du genre.

Scénariste:Didier Alcante
Dessinatrice-Coloriste: Fanny Montgermont
Editeur: Dupuis

J'ai illustré mon court commentaire à partir du texte et des planches de la dessinatrice.







Note quant au classement de l'oeuvre :

Attention parents : Si cette oeuvre était un film, elle serait au Canada classée 14 ans et plus. Il y a quelques scènes de nudité mais pas d'érotisme explicite mais Xavier fait l'amour avec sa copine dans l'une des scènes puis est vu nu, seul, dans son bain dans une autre. Cependant il y a chez Montgermont beaucoup de pudeur dans la façon de traiter son sujet. Il n'y a rien qui provoque et érotise à outrance : d'ailleurs le sujet de l'oeuvre est d'une toute autre nature.

Attention personnes déprimées et coeurs sensibles : Si vous traversez une dépression, si vous vivez un deuil, ce n'est pas une oeuvre appropriée pour vous. J'ai pleuré pendant la lecture de cette bande dessinée. Certains passages sont touchants et peuvent affecter votre moral si vous êtes fragile.

Amasing Blondel : A Renaissance Revival Folk Group

I was thirteen in 1970 when I heard Evensong. (The musicians were in their early twenty) It was a marvelous discovery in the field of my dreams about the old english countryside. The harmony of the voices, the luth, recorder and crumhorn playing and the naive freshness of the ambiance was something unique and distinct. If I compare Evensong with Fantasia Lindum and England, this is more intimate and the musical arrangements are more direct and basic. This could be the best choice for a purist fan of Amasing Blodel.



Then came Fantasia Lindum like a rare gem, with a more elaborate material. It sounded like a golden sun in a wheat field. This is a thematic album and certainly the greatest on a technical and artistic point of view. The ambiance is rich and flamboyant as inside the baroque paintings and the baroque architecture.



And the last great album of the group has been : England with a symphonic panoramic view about the old England. Here the guitars are replacing the lutes most of the time but the refinement of the sound texture remains the same. This is an open air music, very optimistic and straightforward. This is an arial view of the Old England in evolution, just before the industrial period. The live extract proposed on this YouTube posting comes from the beginning of the England album. But England is a studio album. If you have appreciated Evensong and Fantasia Lindum, you will enjoy England as well.



No English folk music has sounded so naive, pure, giving back the innoncence feeling of childhood since Amazing Blondell. You can't approach this music if you don't have the heart of a child. Oh beautifull songs of Amasing Blondel.

Filmed in Norway in 2004, John David Gladwin, Edward Baird and Terence Alan Wincott are grandfathers but they still sing well and their playing (more slowly) is as gracious on the guitar as it used to be on the renaissance luth. A lace of refinement.

Please, if you like their music, let me know. I would like to share this joy with you.

Amasing Blondel on an excellet Wikipedia dossier :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Blondel

UNESCO - Les Oeuvres de Norman McLaren Inscrites Au Patrimoine Documentaire Mondial

Merriweather Post Pavilion : Animal Collective

At last, I have purchased the Merriweather Post Pavilion which came on the market on January 6, 2009. So as in many occasions, I am the last to critic the production on the net. I have stayed away from the critics, avoiding reading Pitchfork, Metacritic, Slant Magazine or Uncut when I saw this title appear. But I went to YouTube to catch some live performances on some of the titles. So when I came to the listening I could have an instinctive knowledge of the music.



In 2007, Strawberry Jam, has left many questions on my plate because I couldn’t find the primal energy of the group as in Here Comes the Indian, neither the fun and joy given by the simple togetherness of Sung Tongs or the mystical post psychedelic dreams of Feels. So I have accepted Strawberry Jam as an excellent transition album but I was wondering where it was going to lead the group.




Wow : Merriweather Post Pavilion is a summer music album as if you organise a symphonic concert of insects in your garden. Joyfull and full of energy, this is a meta graphical arial view of the biosphere scenery with an injection of panoramic massive oxygene inclusion. If you don’t believe in God you will become a believer after the listening of these tracks. It’s the golden pond over the golden pond. It’s like listening to fairytales stories told by a funny drunken owl who has survived to a typhoon. Every symbols of the inner forces of life are floating in a festive symphony of tones, noises, voices, and rythms.



Merriweather Post Pavilion is an instinctive occasion to dream a little bit during this summer in a world where words like compassion, purity, liberty, and creativity should mean more than what they actually mean. I had not felt an impression of free and fresh creativity like this inside the popular music universe since the creation of Mister Heartbreak from Laurie Anderson in 1984. Of course there has been many moments of enlightment with Coldplay, Arcade Fire, Pink Floyd, U2 and many others but nobody could invite fishes, birds, insects, reptiles, mammals at the same dinner and simply have fun.



Merriweather Post Pavillion is certainly co-produced by Charles Darwin.
Conclusion : if you collect butterflies and are open to listen to something fresher than Michael Jackson casket’s echoes : listen to this cd.

ManyMental Mistakes

Je suis allé à Montréal aujourd’hui et j’ai eu l’opportunité de rencontrer le bassiste de ManyMental Mistakes,
Vaaan :



Je vous recommande ce groupe au style Post Punk Experimental Psychédélique qui mélange habilement les acquis du No Wave avec les assises du Post Punk. A la batterie on retrouve MJ, à la basse et à la voix, Vaaan, puis finalement, à la guitare et la voix, Evvva


On les associe à tort au style musical de Sonic Youth.

MJ

Sans nier que la période moins commerciale du Sonic Youth du début jusqu’aux années 92 lui ait plu, Vaaan avoue franchement que sa formation s’en distancie beaucoup car d’autres influences tout aussi déterminantes comme celles de David Bowie, Robert Fripp ou Bauhaus qu’affectionne Evvva ou même celles plus variées de l’univers musical fort étendu de MJ, qui écoute de tous les styles, sont tout aussi importantes lorsqu’il s’agit de comprendre la structure de la matière sonore actuelle et l’inspiration du groupe.

Il faut aussi se rappeler comment Brian Eno avait à l’époque élargi l’univers musical en produisant la compilation No New York, regroupant des œuvres des formations DNA, Contorsions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks et Mars, pour comprendre toute la profondeur des racines de la musique No Wave sans oublier les vibrations des formations du début des années 2000 comme Arab on Radar, Ex-Models et Lightning Bolt.

MJ et Evvva

Enfin il faut prendre en compte le fait que ManyMental Mistakes se situe dans le creuset de la créativité de la musique montréalaise émergente auprès de formations comme Aids Wolf, Ultrathin, Red Mass qui animent la vie musicale des lofts et des salles branchées du Montreal underground.

ManyMental Mistakes travaillent actuellement à un nouveau CD. Vous pouvez trouver leur première production September Sessions chez les disquaires suivants :

- Atom Heart
- Cheap Thrills
- L'Oblique
- Soundcentral

Vaaan


Je vous recommande la page MySpace du groupe en cliquant sur le lien qui suit :

http://www.myspace.com/manymentalmistakes


Enfin je vous invite à la dégustation sonore de Call Me :

Adios : Last Ministry Album.

When the american industrial metal band Ministry has lost Paul Raven who died on October, 20, 2007, Al Jourgensen decided to make an album featuring material that's been culled from Ministry's final tour. The compilation album this summer 2009, recaptures the freshness of the atrocity of the live experience. There is not an ounce of subtility, not an ounce of tenderness, this cd has only one goal : to make your sound boxes melt and break down. This is a music from a ghost who came back to tell you that there can be a kind of hell after death, so please : have a good life. My evaluation for the destructiveness of the beat : 9 on 10. Raised from the death : last Ministry like a near death experience. Enjoy this moment of a testosterone nightmare. A classic in the genre.

Pierre

P.S. I had to listen to 4 Beethoven symphonies to regain my senses after this album. Some may need a blood transfusion or a Mozart cure.

Renaissance For The Renaissance : National Museum of the Renaissance at the Chateau d’Ecouen.

The turreted chateau, built in the 16th century, sits on a hill surrounded by 400 acres of woodland. Even today, ringed by suburbs, it still feels like a fairy-tale castle. It was designed as a hunting lodge for the Duc de Montmorency, right-hand man to kings François I and Henri II. Yet there is nothing rustic about Ecouen. To give some idea of how de Montmorency’s wealth, cultivation and connections found expression here, a portico was added in around 1550 to the castle to shelter Michelangelo’s “Slaves”. The statues were a gift from Henri II, who often stayed there with his Italian queen Catherine de’ Medici. Today the originals are in the Louvre; copies have taken their place.

Betty Goodwin Parcours De l’Ouvre À Travers La Collection Du Musée d’Art Contemporain De Montréal

Du 22 mai au 4 octobre 2009
Betty Goodwin, Beyond Chaos No. 7, 1998
Bâtonnets à l'huile, fusain et impression Chronaflex sur pellicule Mylar translucide
173,5 x 116,3 cm
Collection Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal
Photo : Richard-Max Tremblay, avec l'aimable permission de la Galerie René Blouin

Ease and Eagerness 20 June - 25 October 2009

© Julian Rosefeldt, The Shift, 2008
Four-screen film installation filmed on super 16 mm transferred onto HD
01:13:12 min. loop

Planète Parr : La Collection De Martin Parr Du 30 Juin Au 27 Septembre 2009 Au Jeu de Paume

United Arab Emirates. Dubai. DIFC Gulf Art Fair
2007
De la série "Luxury"
Martin Parr
Impression numérique à jet d’encre pigmentaire
102 x 127 cm
© Martin Parr, Magnum Photos / Kamel Mennour

Jeff Koons: Popeye Series 2 July – 13 September 2009

The Serpentine Gallery presents the first survey of a key series of works by the celebrated American artist Jeff Koons.Jeff Koons
Hook 2003
Oil on canvas
259.1 x 350.5 cm
Astrup Fearnley Collection, Oslo
© 2009 Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons
Popeye 2003
Oil on canvas
274.3 x 213.4 cm
© 2008 Jeff Koons

Passengers

Mario Garcia Torres, What Happens in Halifax Stays in Halifax (in 36 Slides), 2004-6. Mixed media installation Dimensions variable Courtesy Jan Mot, Brussels

Stadtstaat. Szenario Für Das Verbinden Von Städten Metahaven

Metahaven: Stadtstaat. A Scenario for Merging Cities, 2009

Also, read in English :

STADTSTAAT. A SCENARIO FOR MERGING CITIES
http://artnews.org/gallery.php?i=4295&exi=15887&STADTSTAAT_A_SCENARIO_FOR_MERGING_CITIES_11_July_12_Sept_2009

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art : SFMOMA

Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon
Twiggy, hair by Ara Gallant, Paris studio, 1968
© 2009 The Richard Avedon Foundation

Orientalist Art : Bidding Rewards The Brave

Flamborough Sculpture Trail Back To Its Best Thanks To Donations

Read also :

Walks in Torkshire
Flamborough Heritage Trail

http://www.yorkstories.co.uk/yorkshire_walks/flamborough_heritage_trail.htm

Art Lovers In Miami Beach Hope Sculpture Park Spawns Movement

A piece of waterfront city land in North Beach soon will be transformed into a public sculpture park and its boosters are hoping more art venues will follow.

Pink Floyd : Learn to Fly

Pink Floyd : Wish You Were Here

Time : Pink Floyd

Time (The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973), from Pink Floyd, live at P.U.L.S.E; recorded at Earls Court, London, in 1994. Roger Waters, one of the the composers of Time, is not in this show.
Current members of Pink Floyd are: David Gilmour (guitars, lead vocals) • Richard Wright(keyboards, secondary vocals, backing vocals) • Nick Mason(drums, percussion);

Lyrics:

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun,
but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time has gone, the song is over,
thought I'd something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.
_______________________

Inside Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch

The gates to Michael Jackson's fabled Neverland Ranch swung open to reveal a shell of the fantasyland the popstar had created in his heyday

Email from Ishtiaq Ahmad from the Michael Jackson Memorial

Los Angeles police confirmed today that Michael Jackson's body will be on display as the biggest names in black American music give the singer a superstar's send-off.

Tens of thousands of fans gathered around Los Angeles's Staples Center – the sports arena where Jackson rehearsed the night before his death – for a public memorial show due to start at 10am (1800 BST).

Before then, Jackson family members were due to hold a private funeral ceremony at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the city.

But they will not actually be putting the singer, who died 12 days ago after collapsing at his home, to rest.


William Bratton, the LA police chief, said that the gold-plated casket carrying Jackson's body would be taken across town for display at the public memorial.

He did not say how it would get there, but the celebrity news website TMZ.com – which was the first to report Jackson's death – said that it would be taken by helicopter if any safety issues arose.

A total of 8,750 pairs of tickets were handed out to the memorial show after more than 1.6 million fans applied via an online lottery.

The family has already announced that participants will include Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Usher, Lionel Richie, Kobe Bryant, Jennifer Hudson, John Mayer and Martin Luther King III.

Also taking part is Shaheen Jafargholi, a 12-year-old from Swansea, who came to prominence singing a Jackson song on the last series of Britain's Got Talent. The singer was reportedly enchanted by the boy's performance and had lined him up to take part in his ill-fated comeback concerts in London.

As Jackson's relatives left the family home this morning for the initial private service, Mr Bratton said that he had deployed an extra 1,400 officers for the occasion. “This is probably the largest event we’ve planned for since the 1984 Olympics,” he told CNN.

Although the event at the Staples Centre is limited to 20,000 ticket holders, authorities feared that as many as 250,000 people could flood the area just to soak up the atmosphere and glimpse the stars appearing in the service and have asked for fans to stay home and watch on TV.

“We have no idea how many people are going to show up here other than those who have the tickets inside the event inside of Staples,” Mr Bratton said. “We’re not anticipating disorderly crowds -- just anticipating very large crowds."

It was not just Los Angeles that was hit by Jacksonmania, however. The memorial show was to be rebroadcast live in theatres across the United States and fans around the world had made plans to say their own farewell to the singer.

In London, some fans planned to watch the event on a big screen outside the 02 Arena, where Jackson was to have performed 50 comeback shows starting next week. Others said they would watch at home after the BBC cleared the schedule on BBC Two.

The cast of West End tribute show Thriller Live planned to hold a minute’s silence before the curtain. The theatre said it would dim its lights in memory of the star.

Show and Sale Offers 'Vast Perspective' on Aviation Art

Ardell Bourgeois’ Hockey In The Duff, which chronicles how Canadians will play hockey anywhere the climate and conditions allow, is one of 25 paintings featured in the Centennial of Flight show and sale taking place at the Greenwood Military Aviation Museum from July 7-21.

Emily Carr Painting Sells For $2,164,500

Emily Carr's Wind in the Tree Tops

OCMA's Quiet Sale of 18 Paintings Raises Hackles

“Silver and Gold” by Granville Redmond is a classic of California Impressionism, an expert says. Another puts its worth at $1 million. The painting was one of 18 that were collectively sold for $963,000.

Old Masters Challenge Contemporary Art

Old master: Madonna and Child, attributed to Bronzino

Leo Mol, Winnipeg Sculptor, Dies at 94

Artist Leo Mol, seen in earlier years in the sculpture garden named for him in Assiniboine Park, died Saturday at age 94. (CBC)

Complete Patrick Watson Show at The Montreal Jazz Festival

Yves Léveillé Sextet With Special Guest Pianist Eri Yamamoto From New York

Listen to:

Yves Léveillé Sextet - Paul McCandless - TVJazz.tv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmyDOLVBdno&feature=PlayList&p=A420B9D2ADD4DE3B&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=29

Visual Arts Festival is Now in Full Swing

Read also :

http://www.fredericton.ca/en/communityculture/2009Jun25VisArtsFest.asp

A Revival of 'Ragtime' Set to Return to Broadway

In this theater publicity image released by the Kennedy Center Press Office, the cast from the musical "Ragtime," seen earlier this year at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. The production will open Nov. 15 at Broadway's Neil Simon Theatre in New York.
Kennedy Center Press Office, Joan Marcus / AP Photo

Montreal Jazz Festival Turns 30 With Stevie Wonder and Tribute to Miles Davis

Read Also :

Montreal jazz festival kicks off with Stevie Wonder, new HQ
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/06/30/jazz-montreal-festival-wonder.html

Stevie Wonder pays a musical tribute
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/stevie-wonder-pays-a-musical-tribute/article1203076/

Dispatches Day 1 – Montreal Jazz Festival 2009- Stevie Wonder
http://www.ejazznews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=10561&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Man in The Miror

If there is a song which captures the freshness this artist has given to the world of pop music Man in the Mirror is one : it was in 1988 at the Grammy Awards with a Gospel Choir.

Netherlands: Accession to 1970 UNESCO Treaty to Protect Cultural Objects