2004.03.31 10:29
Re: Diane Arbus at LACMA
Yeah, a parlor game—pin the tail on the donkey,
but not spin the bottle.
put all your chances in a sack,
hit the sack with a big stick,
you always get the right one
is IT, (you know, the pussy named pizza),
bigger than a bread box?
meOW meOW OW OW
remember I'm Not In Love by 10cc?
someone I went to college with told me
10cc represented the average sperm count
maybe u-no-who did the counting
(now there's a reason to sing "I'm not in love.")
Duchamp and Jennewein have asked Arbus
to help them compose
"Nudist Camp at the Philadelphia Museum of Art"
for the upcoming
Horace Trumbauer Architecture Fan Club Convention.
Arbus hasn't answered their request yet, however.
2004.04.01 12:47
Re: crossology
Crossology is a vast territory, and it's somewhat amazing what and how certain paths cross here...
1 April 1999 is when I first learned of St. Helena as the mother of Constantine and of her activity as builder of highly significant/original Christian basilicas. Five years ago it was Holy Thursday, and ten years ago 1 April was Good Friday, when (a close friend) R. David Schmitt died right in the middle of the afternoon.
"Calendrical Coincidence"
Interesting how this stuff happened in Philadelphia, where Broad St. and Market St. manifest the largest cardo and decumanus in the world--a planned and then 'concrete' crossing of two main urban street.
Initially, it was data, actually the absence of data within Piranesi's Ichnographia Campi Martii that led me to look for the 'architect' of Rome's Constantinian Basilicas, buildings which should be present within the Ichnographia, but are not--Rome's Pagan edifices are present, but not the (contemporaneous) Christian ones.
Much of my focus over the last five years has concentrated on the time between 28 October 312 (when Constantine 'converted' from leading his troops into battle under a Pagan guise/symbol to leading his troops into battle under a Christian guise/symbol) to sometime late 328/early 329 (when (I believe) Eutropia died). This period in time is when Christian church building was, as we say now, 'booming' throughout the Roman Empire for the first time, and it was Helena and Eutropia that were mostly responsible for all this (architectural) activity. From the very start, it thrills me that women, and not men, played this important historical role--and not just any women, but 'twin basilissas'.
Not too long ago, countable days actually, I first learned of Melania the Younger, and how her (enormously expensive) family estate just outside the walls of Rome at the Salarian Gate, was one of the great properties (along with the Gardens of Sallust) that were plundered when Alaric and his Visigoths broke into (at the Salarian Gate) and sacked Rome for the first time. The Visigoths initially camped for many months outside the walls of Rome (near the Salarian Gate) thereby starving the city by disrupting all deliveries of grain from Africa to the city. The Salarian Gate, the Gardens of Sallust, and the Gardens Valeriani (Melania's inheritance) are all delineated within Piranesi's Ichnographia Campus Martius right where they are supposed to be. Interesting, right next to this complex of buildings/structures, Piranesi also delineates a Porticus Neronianae, a completely fictitious building in the shape of a large cross within a circle (a composition, coincidentally, that follows the circle/square juncture pattern similar to the Timepiece gauge of the theory of chronosomatics). Within a day of assimilating all this new (to me) data, I came to see how the inner circle of the Porticus Neronianiae matches circle of the compass/north arrow that Piranesi also delineated within the Ichnographia, and I came to see how if you rotate the cross of the Porticus Neronianae 45 degrees, its four points then correspond exactly to the four cardinal points of global direction. (Just like you wrote today, Brian, I realized that) the Porticus Neronianae of Piranesi's Ichnographia Campi Martii is the X that marks the spot where the first attacking Visigoths camped. [There are even more 'symbols' to interpret here, like 'shifting winds' and Nero as anti-Christ precursor, but more on that latter.]
I'm still thrilled, mostly because the thrill is still capable of being there.
Today, I'm probably going to make a quick visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, specifically to look again at the Life of Constantine tapestries designed by Rubens in the Great Hall (here I can see figural representations of Helena and Eutropia, among many others), then the campy nude portrait of Cosimo de Medici, then the period room from Southern Bavaria that Napoleon once slept in, then Prometheus Bound, then the gifts of Eva Stotesbury in memory of her husband Ned, then the portrait of Franklin looking at his electrical via lightening bell ringing invention, then the Duchamp Gallery, and finally (outside) Jennewien's polychrome mythology filling one of the museum pediments.
yours truly,
a Horace Trumbauer architecture fan
ps
I spent most of yesterday preparing two letters with pictures that my mother is sending to Johannes von Ow and Monika von Ow. One of the last things my mother physically did with these people was huddling in a baron's basement while Munich was being bombed in Spring 1944.
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2004.04.01 17:11
Origin of Ignudi
In the lower right corner of The Marriage of Constantine and Fausta tapestry designed by Rubens (1623-25) at the PMA, there is a semi-nude 'slave' holding back an entering bull by the horns. This figure is clearly a 'reenactment' of Michelangelo's ignudi figures found within the Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco (1508-12). Around the corner from where this tapestry hangs, hangs the nude portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici as Orpheus (1537-40). The label of this painting explains how the pose of Cosimo here is inspired by [and reenactment of] the Torso Belvedere. The pose of the slave within The Mariage of Constantine and Fausta and the pose of Cosimo as Orpheus are virtually identical.
from a web search of torso belvedere:
The Belvedere Torso was named after the Cortile del Belvedere in the Vatican where the sculpture was first installed by Pope Clement VII (1523-1534 A.D.) and was one of the few ancient statues discovered during the Renaissance. The artist Michelangelo reputedly referred to the torso as his "teacher."
from another web search of torso belvedere:
The Torso Belvedere, the famous torso of Hercules, in the Vatican, was discovered in the fifteenth century. It is said that Michael Angelo greatly admired it.
[excerpt from an interview with ignudi009?]
2004.04.01 18:59
Re: crossology: let's crossover and follow with tears and errors...!
Cross out Bavaria and replace it with Austria, and you then have the correct originating location of the period room in Philadelphia that Napoleon once slept in.
Prometheus Bound by Rubens is presently in Lille, France (6 March to 15 June 2004) as part of the Rubens Universal exhibit. An enormously impressive Rembrandt Portrait of Minerva now hangs in its place.
Unexpectedly went in to see Manet and the Sea. All the sea paintings by Manet are on dark gray walls, and all the sea paintings by contemporaneous artists are on light gray walls almost exact in color to the gallery walls of House in Ottopia. Sometime in the future, it would be great if art museums began exhibiting reenactments of the 'emporiums' that are site specific to the end of big museum exhibits. The one ending Manet and the Sea is simply hilarious. I want my beach towel depicting the Philadelphia Museum of Art and I want it now!!! Great for nudist camping.
On the way home, it occurred to me that I could easily drive by the house where Dave died ten years ago, so I did.
2004.04.02 15:55
Re: Is TALK BACK historically important?
it's refreshing how cool water does cool things
important or impotent?
hysterical:
meta- or met-
pref.
Later in time: metestrus.
At a later stage of development: metanephros.
Situated behind: metacarpus.
Change; transformation: metachromatism.
Alternation: metagenesis.
Beyond; transcending; more comprehensive: metalinguistics.
At a higher state of development: metazoan.
Having undergone metamorphosis: metasomatic.
Derivative or related chemical substance: metaprotein.
Of or relating to one of three possible isomers of a benzene ring with two attached chemical groups, in which the carbon atoms with attached groups are separated by one unsubstituted carbon atom: meta-dibromobenzene.
"You look familiar. Have we ever meta before?"
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2004.04.02 16:28
Re: Is TALK BACK historically important?
today's lessons:
1. the who and why of Jacksonville Pollack
2. salt[z] is a natural form of electricity; that's why it melts ice
3. Michelangelo's ignudi are really wearing Freudian slips; a kind of masking of homosexuality
4. Freud hated his mother because she wasn't still a virgin after he was born. If she remained a virgin, then he could claim himself the Messiah
tomorrow's lessons include:
1. psychology as symptom of mastermind suffering from failed Messiah complex
2004.04.03 17:50
bilocation -- opening odds of Ottopia
On 1 January 2004, Franziska, the Baroness von Ow, began her bike trip at Apatin, Yugoslavia, which ended at Woroschilowgradska Oblast, Bokovo-Antrazitowski, Ukraine on 19 January. On 18 January, however, Franziska met Frederick, the first King of Prussia, and together (Franziska here bilocates) they went to King of Prussia, Pennsylvania--every so often Frederick celebrates the anniversary of his coronation in Pennsylvania. Here they met Otto (the great virtual and almost last King of Bavaria) and Maria at the Mall in the morning, and then they all went to Germantown in Philadelphia. They had lunch at the King of Prussia Tavern on Germantown Avenue, and were joined by Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and George and Martha Washington--Thomas lived at the King of Prussia Tavern in November 1793, and Washington dined there frequently during his stay at Germantown. In the evening, Maria and Franziska left for Milan and Bokovo respectively, while Otto and Frederick dined downtown Philadelphia, at Rococo, a restaurant within the quondam Corn Exchange Bank by Trumbauer.
2004.04.04 12:44
Re: Is Mainsteam the New Radical
When exactly is emotional growth in an artist's work apparent? what are the examples of this kind of perceptible thing?
So you're asking whether artist's emotions that perceptually grow are therapeutic?
Does the work come with a price tag? Is that what you're really asking?
2004.04.04 13:45
search: biloction
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02568a.htm
I know that Catherine de Ricci had (reportedly) bilocated, and, like Padre Pio, that she was a sometimes stigmatic, but I don't think I ever knew before that Ambrose bilocated.
2004.04.04 17:04
Re: 1 more 1 is 2 yet .33
might not the obvious answer(s) lie (not in the middle, but) in two locations?
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2004.04.04 19:24
Re: 1 more 1 is 2 yet .33
Two places for bilocation is a given. I'd sooner search for two places, and, if two places were found, then I'd begin wondering about multilocations.
2004.04.04 19:26
Re: 1 more 1 is 2 yet .33
that bilocation is extremely rare is (I think) another given.
2004.04.05 11:00
Re: mirror...mirror
look at OTTO in a mirror
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