Hudson Andrew Renner

Time of birth: 10:55p (18:55)
Weight: 8.15 pounds
Length: 21 inches

Welcome.

Jacy

Photo: Priscilla Edwards
Any time now, Hudson.

Peter Bjorn and John

1 May 2008: Swedish American Hall (Peter Morén Solo Album tour)
San Francisco, California

Behavioral finance

Jason Zweig
Author: Your Money & Your Brain
Neuroeconomics

Porky in Wackyland

1938
Dir: Bob Clampett

Adrian Danks, Sense of Cinema:
In September 1938, Clampett released his eleventh cartoon for Warner Bros. This seven-minute film, Porky in Wackyland, is in many ways both an exemplary and typical early Clampett cartoon. The initial establishment of the story's world is both economical and rudimentary, the real “fun” occurring once Porky traverses the boundary line that announces, “Welcome to Wackyland: It Can Happen Here!” Such a flimsy barrier between worlds is typical of Clampett's work at Warners, though such a clear demarcation becomes less common in the more freewheeling and extreme work that dots his last four years at the studio. Inspired by Lewis Carroll's adventures of Alice in Wonderland, as well as the canvases of Picasso and Dali, Clampett takes Porky on a journey into a surreal, abstracted landscape in which the logic of our – and commonly Porky's – world is reversed and transcended: a rabbit swings on his own ears; a rubber band marches by; a dog and cat are physically conjoined; a criminal holds bars in front of his face to prove his incarceration; and the Do-Do [that] Porky is hunting lifts up the backdrop of the scenery to escape, zooms into the foreground on the Warners shield, and intermittently appears to attenuate the animation with his own pencil. He becomes one of numerous characters in Clampett's cartoons whose “inner” psychology or nature is reflected and refracted onto his body and surroundings.

Doorstop

Photo: Eugene Gologursky for The New York Times
Twelve dollars apiece at greenergrassdesign.com.

Akram Khan

Michael Falco for The New York Times
Akram Khan in "zero degrees."

NYTimes:
Much of the allure of the work is the physical pairing of Mr. Khan, who was raised in London by immigrant Bangladeshi parents and grew up studying traditional Indian Kathak dance, and Mr. Cherkaoui, of the Belgian collective Les Ballets C. de la B. Mr. Cherkaoui possesses a body so elastic it seems more cartoon than human. They are joined onstage by two others — in the form of life-size mannequins by the sculptor Antony Gormley. Four musicians, visible behind a scrim, perform Nitin Sawhney’s score.

In one scene Mr. Khan dribbles Mr. Cherkaoui’s malleable body like a basketball. In another Mr. Cherkaoui slaps a mannequin as Mr. Khan’s immobile body, sprawled on the floor, recoils as if he has been hit. But along with such gimmicks are extended passages of dancing, which include intricate hand-and-arm duets and a distillation of martial arts, beautifully displaying Mr. Khan’s whiplash speed and Mr. Cherkaoui’s supple control.

Happy Birthday

Boston

Photo: Hospital de la v.O.T. de San Francisco de Asis
"The Stigmatization of St. Francis" by Vincente Carducho
NYTimes:
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
"Among the show's most floridly imaginative works are paintings showing Saint Francis of Assisi having visions. In one by Vicente Carducho, the saint levitates over a rural landscape and receives stigmata from Jesus who hovers before him, crucified on a cross of pink, angelic wings. The ecstasy seems as much erotic as religious."

Pottery Barn Kids

Boy's coverall

Frette

Billy Elliot: The Musical

Photo: Yui Mok/Associated Press
From left, James Lomas, George McGuire and Liam Mower in the London production.

Photo: Chris Shipman for The New York Times
Checked cotton blazer, $1,270 at Paul Smith; Junya Watanabe Man Comme des Garçons floral cotton shirt, $450 at Barneys; nautical-print silk tie, $105 at Ralph Lauren; Woolrich Woolen Mills cotton madras pants, $239 at Bergdorf Goodman; webbed cotton belt, $3 at Dave's New York.

Maarten Baas

NYTimes:
Assemblage of Chinese furniture.

Established & Sons

Stack storage system, designed by Shay Alkalay for Established & Sons.

Koolhaas

Blue and Green

Thank you, Adam.

Stefan Sagmeister

From Amazon:
Many consider Stefan Sagmeister to be our most important living designer, but he reaches beyond design circles in sharing Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far, including the fact that "keeping a diary supports personal development." Proving his point, this book grew from a list in his diary during a year-long commercial hiatus. He returned to paid work with greater freedom from clients and himself, and created a series of projects spelling out personal truths--"worrying solves nothing," "trying to look good limits my life," and other simple, meaningful statements. Most are public and interactive (words spelled out on the backs of swimmers in the Hudson River, or displayed by enormous blow-up monkeys lounging around Scotland, or flaming in Singaporean bamboo scaffolding), while others are more private experiments with intriguing materials (sausages, cacti, sperm). All are presented--along with personal anecdotes supporting his assertions and notes on the practicalities of creating each project--in an alluringly interactive format: a "box" of 15 booklets with unique covers that can be switched to transform the look of the case from creepy to lovely. --Mari Malcolm

Jeff Koons

Photo: Librado Romero/The New York Times
Cantor Roof Garden: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Somewhere in the Night

Screencap: John Hodiak prior to beating with rubber hose.
Dir: Joe Mankiewicz

Illustrator: Peter Arkle

NYTimes:
Rob Walker

Whether or not Barack Obama would make a good president, it’s clear that he makes an excellent muse. It’s hard to think of a political candidate in recent memory who has, in real time, inspired so much creativity, exercised free of charge and for the campaign’s benefit. Perhaps this suggests something about Obama — or maybe it suggests something about his supporters. The examples are many. One of the most prominent is the limited-edition print created by the Los Angeles artist Shepard Fairey in January. Fairey is best known as the creator of the “Obey Giant” imagery that, beginning in 1989, spread on city streets around the world by way of posters, stickers and stencils. Fairey made a brief statement when he unveiled the portrait, noting his “great conviction that Barack Obama should be the next President.” Poster sales, he added, would underwrite “a large statewide poster campaign.”

In addition to popping up on many streets, the image later made its way onto a T-shirt, created in collaboration with the San Francisco street-wear brand Upper Playground — and apparently onto the radar of the Obama campaign. The candidate himself sent a thank-you note, and his campaign had Fairey create a new poster that became the inaugural offering in an “Artists for Obama” section of the barackobama.com online store. Fairey told Creativity Online that while he has been politically active, there’s something new in the enthusiasm he now professes to feel. “I just thought it was time to stick my neck out,” he said. A variety of other artists apparently feel something similar. A California art duo known as the Date Farmers created an Obama screen print in an edition of 300; add the pro-Obama prints by Sam Flores, MAC and Munk One, and you’re on your way to a hipster gallery show.

The Man Who Would Be King

Throne.
1975: Dir: John Huston
Adapted from the short story by Rudyard Kipling.
http://tinyurl.com/6pmu85

Tiffany & Co.

Men's bracelet in sterling silver. 8.25" long.

Mr Renner

Photo: Priscilla Edwards

Perricone

Photo: Lars Klove/NYTimes
N.V. Perricone M.D. Nutriceuticals Skin and Total Body Dietary Supplements
$140 for 60 packets at nvperriconemd.com

Olafur Eliasson

"Take Your Time"
Photo: Michael Nagle/NYTimes

Holland Cotter:
"Mr. Eliasson, who was born in Denmark in 1967, spent part of his life in Iceland and now lives in Berlin, is well known for creating immaterialist magic through bare-bones means: literally, in some cases, mist and mirrors. In style, his art is utterly un-Murakami; not slick; not plastic, not cash-and-carry.

" 'Take Your Time' a new piece at P.S. 1, made for the show, consists of a huge, tilted, disc-shaped mirror suspended horizontally from a gallery ceiling. What strikes you at first is the omniscient, bird`s-eye reflection of the room below, with you standing in the middle of it. Then you notice that the mirror is rotating very slowly, and with a subtly undulating motion that causes the room itself to feel warped and unstable. You experience this as much with your sense of balance as with your eyes."

Claiborne, Alabama

Photo: Lori Waselchuk for The New York Times

18 April 1906

Kyle Clay Brackett

January 1964-April 1994

I Still Miss Someone
Johnny Cash/Roy Cash Jr

At my door the leaves are falling
A cold, wild wind has come
Sweethearts walk by together
And I still miss someone

I go out on a party
And look for a little fun
But I find a darkened corner
'Cause I still miss someone

Oh, I never got over those b[rown] eyes
I see them everywhere
I miss those arms that held me
When all the love was there
.....
There's someone for me somewhere
Oh, I still miss someone

Iraqi Unit Deserts Post

Photo: Joao Silva
NYTimes:

A company of Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions on Tuesday night in Sadr City, defying American soldiers who implored them to hold the line against Shiite militias. The retreat left a crucial stretch of road on the front lines undefended for hours and led to a tense series of exchanges between American soldiers and about 50 Iraqi troops who were fleeing.

This episode was a blow to the American effort to push the Iraqis into the lead in the struggle to wrest control of parts of Sadr City from the Mahdi Army militia and what Americans and Iraqis say are Iranian-backed groups. Tuesday’s desertions in Sadr City, although involving a particularly hesitant Iraqi unit, left many of the Americans soldiers wondering about the tenacity of their Iraqi allies.

“It bugs the hell out of me,” said Sgt. George Lewis, Captain Veath’s platoon sergeant in Company B, Third Platoon, First Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment. “We don’t see any progress being made at all. We hear these guys in firefights. We know if we are not up there helping these guys out we are making very little progress.”

Illustrator: Courtney Wotherspoon

Travel day

Mister B

Tide Pools

Surfrider Beach

Uwe Pfeifer

Tobias: 1996

New York City

Photo: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Puppets backstage at "Satyagraha," Philip Glass’s 1979 opera about Mohandas K. Gandhi’s years in South Africa: Metropolitan Opera House.

Washington, DC

Photo: Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times

General David H. Petraeus, the commander of American forces in Iraq, testified before the House Armed Services Committee about the status of the war. General Petraeus was accompanied by a group of Army officers who were there to show their support for him, during his second day of testimony before Congress.

NYTimes:
A recurring theme of the criticism involved the financial costs of the war at a time when Iraq has built up a budget surplus fueled by high oil prices. Another was that a timetable for withdrawing American forces would force the Iraqi government to shoulder more responsibility for its own fate. The Democratic chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, also criticized the Bush administration’s negotiations on a lasting security agreement with Iraq and its refusal to submit the agreement to the Senate for ratification. Mr. Crocker repeated several times that the agreement being negotiated would not rise to a level requiring a Senate vote, but that did not satisfy Mr. Biden.

“You need to do much more than inform the Congress, you need the permission of the Congress if you’re going to bind the next president of the United States in anything you agree to,” the Democratic senator said. In the Senate galleries, protesters echoed those attacks, interrupting the debate on occasions. As Mr. McCain argued against what he described as “reckless and irresponsible” calls for rapid withdrawal from Iraq, a protester stood up with a banner saying, “There’s no military solution.” When Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat, questioned General Petraeus on when reductions of troops could continue, a man shouted, “Bring them home,” and was later evicted. A group of women attended in traditional Muslim dress, their faces painted with ghostly makeup. Some held bloodied dolls, and some had red-stained hands. Their signs read, “Surge of Sorrow” and “Endless War.”

Even some Republicans voiced reservations about a war effort whose end remained far from clear. “Our patience is not unlimited,” said Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, who was sworn in less than a year ago.

Berkeley, California

Photo: Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
Moe's Books

Dubai

Photo: Daryl Visscher for The New York Times
The design gallery Traffic is the Middle East's answer to Moss in New York City, which means it's splashier, pricier and more exclusive.

McCain

Mark and Lucas McCain (Johnny Crawford and Chuck Connors)
The Rifleman, 1958-1963, ABC TV

"A man doesn't run from a fight, Mark," McCain tells his son, "But that doesn't mean you go looking to run to one!"

At NATO Summit

via Think Progress:
"Many [European leaders] are looking forward now to the next president,” Julianne Smith, Europe analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, recently noted. “There seems to be a great deal of enthusiasm…on the other side of the Atlantic, that there’s going to be some revitalization of the trans-Atlantic partnership and we start with a clean slate and a new chapter.”

Scented Geraniums

NYTimes:
A collection of six fragrant geranium plants to grow outdoors makes a fine gift along with a watering can or other accouterments. Each plant comes in a 2.5-inch pot; the set is $39 from smithandhawken.com or (800) 940-1170.

Americans

NYTimes:
Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll. In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002. Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems. The unhappiness presents clear risks for Republicans in this year’s elections, given the continued unpopularity of President Bush. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said they approved of the job he was doing, a number that has barely changed since last summer.

Dans Paris

Louis Garrell and Romain Duris
Wir/Dir: Christophe Honoré

Studio Job

Wax model for flower pyramid.

Britain Puts Troop Drawdown on Hold

Photo: Alaa Al-Marjani/AP
Iraqi security forces display a picture of Salim Qassim, a secretary aide to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, during a funeral in Najaf on Tuesday. Qassim was killed in Basra on Sunday.
NYTimes:

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Britain froze plans Tuesday to withdraw about 1,500 soldiers this spring after the faltering effort to drive Shiite militias from Basra raised doubts whether the Iraqis are capable of maintaining security in oil-rich southern Iraq. The British decision was announced in London one week before the top U.S. commander in Iraq appears before Congress to offer his recommendation on how fast America should draw down its own forces. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday in Copenhagen, Denmark that last week's violence in Shiite areas had not changed American plans to withdraw more combat forces by July.

But second thoughts about Iraqi security capabilities emerged as Iraq's government reported a 50 percent rise in the number of people killed in March over the previous month. Much of the increase was a result of the fighting between Iraqi government forces and Shiite militiamen in the southern city of Basra. The conflict quickly spread, engulfing Baghdad and major cities throughout the Shiite south.
...
The recent carnage threatened to reverse the security gains achieved in Iraq since President Bush ordered 30,000 U.S. reinforcements to Iraq early last year. Figures compiled by the ministries of health, interior and defense showed that at least 1,720 people were killed in politically motivated violence in March. That was up sharply from the 953 figure for February. Figures tabulated by The Associated Press from police and U.S. military reports put the March death toll as of Monday at 1,247 -- nearly double the February figure and the biggest monthly toll since August, when 1,956 people died violently.

Burberry Prorsum Winter 2008