29 juin 2011

des moustaches

le docteur Faustroll était un homme de taille moyenne, de peau jaune d’or, au visage glabre, sauf des moustaches vert de mer, telles que les portait le roi Saleh



Joseph Waldo, plus connu sous le nom de « Moustache man », a été arrêté par la police de New York mardi 22 juin, mettant fin a une enquête longue de deux mois selon l'agence de presse américaine Associated Press. L'homme de 26 ans était connu au près de la population new-yorkaise pour ses graffitis de moustache sur les panneaux publicitaires de la ville, et tout particulièrement dans le métro. Il se contentait d'écrire le mot « moustache » sur des publicités, en complétant d'une petite spirale.

L'homme a été arrêté à côté de son lieu de travail, Wayfarer au nez. Selon la plainte de la police, Waldo est «désolé pour ses actions» et a «accepté de coopérer complètement avec la police, et ne jamais récidiver».

Lors d'une interview sur subwayartblog.com, il avait déclaré ne pas prendre plus de 6 secondes pour effectuer un graffiti. Relativement nouveau sur la scène "street art", il décrit son oeuvre non moustachue comme étant «Des pochoirs dans la rue, rien à voir avec les moustaches. Plus proche de Banksy ou Faile, si Banksy et Faile faisaient des pochoirs merdiques qui dégoulinent et dépassaient». Il a également désapprouvé ses imitateurs via affiche interposées.

Liberation 29 juin 2011

20 juin 2011

Salina Cruz, a deadly hole, where nearly every white man died within a year.




Arthur Cravan

Salina Cruz, a deadly hole, where nearly every white man died within a year.


Photos by Eden von Düben
An exposition by Bastiaan van der Velden

At the Seamens Art Club

Große Elbstraße 132; 22767 Hamburg
info@seamensartclub.com
www.seamensartclub.com

from June 23th, 2011

opening: June 23th, 2011, 17:00



When WWI breaks out, the boxer-poet Arthur Cravan decides to leave France, to avoid draft. First Barcelona, the famous fight with former world champion Jack Johnson, than on a boat to America, together with the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, finally towards Mexico with his wife the poet Mina Loy. Cravan works as a boxing teacher in Mexico City, his last battle against Black Diamond Jim Smith in Vera Cruz is irretrievably lost, and finally he ends up in Salina Cruz, a harbour city on the west coast of Mexico.

The couple decides to travel separately to Argentina. Mina Loy, pregnant, arrives in Buenos Aires some time later. Cravan bought a boat to make the trip with a couple of other deserters, he will never arrive in Argentina. The circumstances of his disappearance in fall 1918 remain unclear – and will quickly contribute to the creation of a myth.

Around 1910 the German biologist Hans Friedrich Gadow (1855-1928) visits Mexico and Salina Cruz, he wrote: ‘Until a few years ago Salina Cruz was justly feared as a deadly hole, where nearly every white man died within a year. The “old town,” a wretched conglomeration of native huts, of palm-trees and reeds, stood on a narrow neck of low-land between the sea and an evil-smelling lagoon, surrounded by thick brushwood a fever-haunted place. [A kind of] trouble was the water supply, the only available brook, and that intermittent, passing by the cemetery, which contained by far the largest number of white men in the district.’

In the town of Salina Cruz, an English company built around 1905 a harbour, docks and other construc-tions, to facilitate the railway that transported goods from Vera Cruz to the other side of Mexico, as an alternative for the Panama Canal. During this construction works, the Salina Cruz based photo-grapher Eden von Düben made a series of photos showing the progress of the project. These are images of - most probably - the last spot Cravan saw, made some years before the boxer-poet ended up in this frontier town.

13 juin 2011

A wealth of Batafysical research

Bound in a spiral, this is the Summer of 2011 activity book! Not in the awkward A4 paper size and printed on notepad paper as they were issued in the 1970ties, but in a convenient format to take along on a batafysical bike tour, a campaign or an expedition to the sources of the Amstel river. Nothing can go wrong this summer, whether we are forced to bivouac in Holland, during a trip to the autonomous enclave Balkonië, or we remain inside due to rain. ‘Batafysica … en wat nu?’ (Batafysica ... now what?) is written by Rien Waddenvlek OCS, and has just been published in the mythical town of Esonstad on 26 Merdre 138 by the Nederlandse Academie voor ’Patafysica – a set of definitions to be explained to the avid reader, by working his trough this book and its experiments.

We learn how to attach the strings of the mental field pumping machine with a ring "absolute the best construction," the author knows to share in this way his knowledge of the subject with the reader, and in a way that is not humorous at all, he understands what is at stake in 'Pataphysics. We now have sixty pages of "practical tip’s" and learn that it is "recommended to have sample boxes". When you lose track, on the last page you read that in case of problems, uncertainties and other inconveniences, the reader may visit a ‘toogdag’ of the Batafysica. Perhaps the author should explain the novice about the influence of the yellow wooden clogs used by cheese carriers dressed in blue jumpsuits walking on the cobblestone Market of Alkmaar, on an experiment with the mental-field pumping machine in the dunes of Bergen at Sea, but we understand that not all external influences can be catalogued.

For the novice, at p. 56-57 a packing list of necessary attributes is included, only a list of certified suppliers could be added by the author as a clarification, because how does a starting batafysician know where he must buy the 'club' as recommended? For many, it will clear only at the Hardware store Meijer at the Rozengracht in Amsterdam is the place where you can buy the necessary strings and pins. But some clarification could be given here.

Highly recommended, with ‘Batafysica … en wat nu?’ you may survive this summer!

Bastiaan D. van der Velden,
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