Modern art noted

Tyler Green from Modern Art Notes, the Art Journal’s modern and contemporary art blog, twittered his tour of the Wadsworth Atheneum today.

Here are just a few notable entries from his Twitter feed, posted in the chronological order that I read them:

In the Ballet Russes exhib: 1926 Miro Dream Painting is mega-treat, complete with vagina? May beonline…From just before recent MoMA show.

That Miro is in Wadsworth collex btw, a 1933 purchase!

1935 Mondrian may be my new fave. There’s a false symmetry that pulls the eye through the painting and the white fights the blue

BTW, Wadsworth: you’ve so overlit the Euro-modern gallery that the paintings are hard to see. Fix in next 5 mins? K thx.

Hartley here a ‘best of’. Calder too.

Just don’t fuck with Mercury

So, now there’s this info via AHN:

French researchers studying the solar system’s future using computer simulation saw a potential disruption of Mercury’s orbit that may lead to a collision between Earth and Venus billions of years from now.

The result of the study by Jacques Laskar and Mickael Gastineau of the Paris Observatory is published in the Thursday issue of the journal Nature.

The computer simulation involving 2,501 scenarios of planetary orbits led to a large disruption of Mercury’s orbit which in turn disrupted the orbits of the three other terrestrial planets, Venus, Earth and Mars.

At that point, the Earth probably won’t be habitable anyway which is sad too!

Maybe humanity will move underground. Would that even work? No. Maybe we’ll be in space. Yes, we’ll definitely have be in space! And very far away from Earth or else we’re going to get dropped like third period space French.

At least we know how it will all (maybe) end. Let’s hope for some fantastically schlocky sci-fi movies and video games based on this theory before it’s proven wrong.

Note: Above picture is a random image courtesy of this fine site and is meant as a dramatization by the author to depict the dire situation speculated above. I don’t actually think it would really play out like that.

Mike Bouchet at the Biennale 2009

Here’s a link to a must-see video from this year’s Venice Biennale featuring a work by the awesome artist (and good person) Mike Bouchet and his attempt to float a bit of Americana through the Old World. I can’t embed it and it’s only 2 minutes long, so give it a watch until the end because it’s really great and funny too. And a bit sad. And maybe completely (intentionally?) symbolic of the actual real estate market right now.

That Sinking Feeling

Inside a super cell tornado

Mike Bettes of The Weather Channel’s Vortex2 team captured awesome footage shot inside a forming tornado in Goshen County, WY. I’m a sucker for tornado videos and this is pretty outstanding–I’ve never seen anything like it:

Tales of Frankenstein

I was slightly aghast at the NY Post cover today:

I spotted it while running through the rain a few hours ago and was happy to see that EV Grieve had noted it. This seems bad, even for the Post.

An abridged list of titles from David Carradine’s movies and television shows that also could have been used for inspiration besides Kung Fu: Kung Fu Killer (2008), Deathsport (1978), Bitter End (1993), Final Move (2006), Road of No Return (2009), Permanent Vacation (2007), In Case of Emergency (2007), Dead and Breakfast (2004), Kill Zone (1993), Last Goodbye (2004), Kill Bill Vol. I & II (2003, 2004), Knocking on Death’s Door (1999), Fall Down Dead (2007), Dead Center (1993), Death Race 2000 and the remake, Death Race, in 2008.

I’m not trying to be morbid, I’m just pointing out that the guy starred in a lot of different things with some pretty dark titles. RIP Frankenstein.

Photo courtesy of EV Grieve, an awesome NYC blog.

Social networking

The Gold Club twats twits:

I applaud their social networking savvy.

The Tonight Show

I’m really enjoying Conan on the Tonight Show this week, but the idea that his backdrop may have been modeled on Mario makes me love him even more.

I really hope it’s intentional.

Courtesy Serious Lunch via Gizmodo.

The science party

I went to the party for the Connecticut Science Center last night. It was pretty fun until the live auction started, then it was just non-stop screaming and people running for their cars. Props to auctioneer Scott Haney who acknowledged his “gay for pay” status in Hartford, although no one got the porn reference except my friend Bubbles who thought it was hilarious.

Most of the exhibits are still under construction so I didn’t get to play around as much I as I would have liked. It was fun running around the building though. I was hoping more attendees would have dressed to the science-y theme (my shiny silver pants were fabulous), but everyone was uniformly wearing suburban blandness from Talbots and Ann Taylor. The food was pretty good and the free booze was great. The river views are spectacular and they should have another party on July 4 so we can all watch the fireworks from one of their outdoor terraces.

I didn’t take any photos, but got a quick video with Darth Vader. The Science Center folks were all wearing costumes and performers were stationed throughout the building.

Costumed Star Wars characters seem to be following me around these days.

Ben Franklin with the kite getting over with the key

I’m thinking about going to the pre-opening party, “Out of this World,” at the CT Science Center in Hartford tomorrow night. No idea what to wear. I hope everyone is futuristic and fabulous rather than “geek chic,” which is too played out from the babillion 80s-themed parties thrown in the last few years.

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus

Having learned my lesson with Sharks in Venice, I’m going to go ahead and temporarily call this “awesome.” Until it’s not.