Archive for May 12th, 2008


Confessions of Two Brothers by John Cowper Powys and Llewelyn Powys

Author: admin
May 12, 2008

A short self portrait of Powys’ beliefs, temperament and peculiarities which prefigures his later, greater Autobiography. (Summary by Keri Ford)

mp3 and ogg files

read users´ comments (0)

Can a Novel Be Written Wikipedia Style? The Results Are In.

Author: admin
May 12, 2008

The wisdom of crowds concept works for writing software. (Think open source.) But does it work for writing novels? That’s what Penguin and De Monfort University (in the UK) wanted to figure out when they launched an experiment in February 2007 called ‘A Million Little Penguins.’ Over the course of five weeks, roughly 1500 writers drafted a collaborative novel using wiki software (the same one used by Wikipedia), and you can now view the completed manuscript here. So far the reviews are not overwhelming. According to one observer, ‘it’s incoherent. You might get something similar if you took a stack of supermarket checkout line potboilers and some Mad Libs and threw them in a blender.’ And then there’s this pithy verdict by the snarky blog, Gawker: ‘The text itself is terrible.’ Ouch. But maybe someone who is less reflexively dismissive will have a different view, though I wouldn’t bet on it. Have a read here. Also see De Montfort’s post mortem of the project here.

read users´ comments (0)

More than Just a Fake

Author: admin
May 12, 2008

Art audiobook downloadA year or so ago I was made aware of a non-Aboriginal Australian artist who was passing himself off as an Aboriginal Australian artist and making quite a bit of money in the process. The artist in question was born in Sydney but spent time during his teenags years at a school in a particular area of Australia’s Northern Territory that has produced many of the most well known and highly valued Aboriginal Australian artists. According to this artist’s profile on the website of the gallery that represents him, during his time in the Northern Territory he was exposed to the artistic practise of the indigenous people and was later taught to paint in the traditional Aboriginal x-ray style by an Aboriginal Elder. The art gallery that was selling the work of this fraud did nothing to alert potential customers to the fact they might be purchasing works of art that looked the same as that produced by geniune Indigenous artists but were by an artist who was not an Aboriginal Australian. Because a style of painting is not protected under Copyright Law it is not illegal as such for this artist to paint in the style of Aboriginal artists, but it is illegal for the artist to promote himself and present himself as an indigenous artist when clearly he isn’t.

After many years of misleading the public and misrepresenting himself, this artist was reported to the the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission who agreed with the complaints that had been made, and consequently put measures in place to stop this artist continuing the misleading and deceptive practices that led to the complaints. The artist and the gallery that represented the artist were not particularly pleased about the ruling but when an artist is clearly exploiting the culture and artistic practice of the Australian Aboriginal people for their own financial gain there is no other option but to put a stop to it. Instead of being unhappy about the ruling the gallery should instead be glad that they have the chance to regain their credibility after their reputation was tarnished because of their association with a fake Aboriginal artist.

There have been many different cases such as the one I have described above. On of these was the case against Australian Aboriginal Art Pty Ltd who were accused of selling souvenir items which were promoted as being made by Aboriginal artists and were “certified authentic” when in fact they were not. It was found that a majority of the artists who produced the souvenirs were not Aboriginal, or of Aboriginal descent, and that there was no authentication process that could justify the label “certified authentic” which resulted in a ruling that the practices of the company selling the items were in contravention of the Trade Practices Act.

It is extremely unfortunate that there are people out there who are willing to exploit the artistic talents of other artists for financial gain, especially when they are taking money away from a people who are in desperate need of the money. One can only hope that with more education and information people will become aware of this problem and report people who are selling fake Aboriginal art and souvenirs.

read users´ comments (0)

Fat Free Audiobooks

Author: admin
May 12, 2008

Ugh, Mondays. When the fun-loving and fast-living weekend comes to a screeching halt with the sound of your alarm clock, its tempting to pull the covers over your eyes and say ‘Wake me when its Friday!’

Why not approach today as the day you start living a healthier life? Audio books on healthy eating are a great start - its like having a good angel whispering in your ear while you’re eyeing that box of office donuts beside the coffee maker.

You can’t get much simpler than The Beginners Guide To Health Eating. This quickie book is just over an hour long, and written by an American MD.

Eat, Drink and Be Healthy is another simply titled book, but with a slightly different message. This book focuses on debunking food myths using clear, straightforward nutritional science.

You: On a Diet is the latest in a series of the You books that gets great reviews by Simply Audiobooks subscribers. Its kind of like a behind-the-scenes look at how your body runs; and how you can improve that system by eating correctly.

read users´ comments (0)

NBCC Good Reads 3 [The Long Tail] John Mark Eberhart’s “Broken Time”

Author: admin
May 12, 2008

In the poetry category, John Mark Eberhart’s “Broken Time,” Mid-America Press. The second collection from Kansas City Star Books Editor Eberhart sends a love letter to music and musicians (”broken time” is a musical term, we learn, for “improvised syncopation”) and telegrams from a Midwest marked by dreams pulled up short by reality. The final poem, “The Gospel of the Dirt,” about Charles Darwin, is a layered reflection on selection, natural and unnatural.

audiobook Broken Time

read users´ comments (6)

BENONE OLARU

Author: admin
May 12, 2008

BENONE OLARU audiobook In the world of artists, there are some who excel to an extent that it isn’t fair to allow them to work without mention. Benone Olaru is one of them.
Born in the heart of Transylvania, in a small city called Hunedoara, he has made the unusually high quality of his work known throughout Italy, making statues honoring among others, the bicyclist Marco Pantani after his tragic downfall and death. There is more to the work than just an incredibly high level of technique, as all of his sculptures speak from the spirit of Eastern Europe in an almost Byzantine way.
Rumania, where this artist comes from, is one of the most economically impoverished countries in Eastern Europe. Yet their government employs huge groups of Rumanian artists to realize public projects throughout their country. Our own country is at this moment in our history, one of the most culturally impoverished in the world relative to its per capita income.

The National Endowment for the Arts has no database of living American artists working in the United States, nor do they have any plans to establish one, according to Sarah Cook, executive assistant to the Chairman. Many countries with far fewer resources do, and in fact, it’s such an easy thing to put together. The NEA’s website might add a page where artists could enter their own information, or where museums or other organizations involved with living artists could. In a matter of months, with no involvement from staff other than set-up, a list could be close to completeness; with just the smallest amount of advance publicity to create awareness that this was being done. It would certainly better this organization’s abysmal standing with American artists, whether or not it actually had any effect on their careers.
BENONE OLARU audiobook
Benone Olaru felt the need for other influences, so he went far and wide to other parts of the world to refine his already prodigious skills. He went to Korea to work in granite, and after a few years there, settled in Italy where he works today. His studio is full of every manner of hand made tool you can imagine, because apart from being a sculptor, he is skilled at working with a forge and at tempering steel. He works in wood as well as stone, and large figures dominate his studio. The style is almost archaic, with many religious references, and reveals a continuation of a tradition while still being influenced by the events and feelings of contemporary society.
Ever in motion, and as detached as he is from his origins, he has become a gatherer, collecting inspiration from the new things he sees while keeping and using everything he’s picked up in other places along the way. Many of his pieces portray motion, which in his own life is a constant because of his extensive travels, and in this way his message is completely sincere. He speaks of what he knows.
In our own efforts as artists, there is something we all can learn from this. We might find ourselves questioning what to devote our energies to, how to find a subject and a way of expression that others around us, our viewers, our patrons, and prospective new clients, will find persuasive and profound. Many artists try to create the image of themselves as a seer, a mystic, someone above the level of those viewing their work.
BENONE OLARU audiobook
Expressiveness in art is mostly beyond the control of artists themselves. When an artist’s intent is to have a certain effect on their viewers, to amaze them and awe them, the formula works only until those viewers are able to understand what they are looking at, and what the intent was that produced it. At that point, it is diminished, like when you first see a magic trick, and then come to understand how it was done.
It is much better, therefore, to keep your secrets, and the best way to do this, is not to have any. A natural and sincere expression is already so complex that even the artists themselves don’t really understand how they came to have produced what they have made, or the millions of nuances that find their way into the work without them having made a conscious effort to place them there. These are the works you can look at time and time again, yet each different day, and mood, will produce new sensations.
In every work, and certainly included are those works that use tricks to grab the attention of viewers, there exist these millions of unintentional nuances. When a trick is used, however, for example the slashed canvasses of Fontana, those nuances are eclipsed by that one-dimensional, overpowering element that the artist has intentionally put there, and become impossible to see, as it is impossible to see the details of the cloud surfaces a few degrees to the left or right when you’re staring at the sun. This is the risk the artist takes when creating signature works that can be recognized simply because they’ve put a patent on one silly trick in order to get attention. One dimensional, simple, and incredibly easy to look at only once. The school of facile art.
BENONE OLARU audiobook
Technique can’t produce a never ending flow of emotions either, for in effect it is just another trick. But if a balance is achieved between sincerity, spirituality, and beautiful workmanship, then the feeling it can produce is that of a concert, a harmonious gathering of a number of elements working together in synchronicity.

BENONE OLARU audiobook
John the Baptist is the most developed of Benone’s work that I have ever seen. There is extraordinary detail in the curls descending from the head, and it is beyond my comprehension as a stone sculptor how these elements were made in granite! This is not a forgiving stone, it is one that destroys tools, blunts chisels, and tears the diamonds off stone saw blades. I have rarely seen this kind of three dimensionality given to marble works, let alone to granite. But as a professional, I see these tour de forces; I am sure someone who doesn’t carve stone would not. And that is something that makes this work strong. It looks as if it had been done effortlessly as much as I know it was not.
But it is the spirituality of the piece that paralyzes me in front of it. It is not an anatomical reproduction, rather it has the kind of exaggeration common to Michelangelo pieces like the Moses that tell a story and become theatre. The elements of design allow the viewer to associate freely with the biblical story, and make sense of the total picture. At this point Benone’s job is to tell the story and choose colors and shades to make it his own.
The result shows he is a master of his chosen media.

read users´ comments (1)

You are currently browsing the The Audiobooks Reviews weblog archives for the day Monday, May 12th, 2008.

 

May 2008
M T W T F S S
    Jun »
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  

Search

  

Categories