Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Influential Art, Some Of It Sequential

C'mon, doesn't everyone want to be immortalized like Ice-T in that awesome painting from the VH1 Hip-Hop Honors show? The mackinest original gangster ever, and huge influence on my personal music appreciation quest, released his new album on Halloween. The cover features the rapper nude in bed with his wife's leg (she's an exotic swimsuit model) strategically placed on his... um... bling-bling. Good for him to continue to upset retailers and be able to intelligently explain his artistic direction. Read the full article here.

From Slashdot:
"It appears that the FBI considered William Moulton Marston (1893-1947), who invented the lie detector and created the comic book character Wonder Woman under the pseudonym Charles Moulton, to be a 'phony' and a 'crackpot.' He is alleged to have misrepresented the result of a study he conducted for the Gillette razor company in 1938, for which he reportedly received some $30,000, a handsome sum in those days. Despite these misgivings, the FBI today uses Marston's creation (the polygraph, not the Lasso of Truth) to guide investigations as well as to screen applicants and employees. You can download Marston's FBI file here (736 KB PDF)."

NPR has posted a book excerpt from Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life. The web page features a cool picture of the artist (another big influence from my childhood) and a gallery of his cartoons (with an author discussion).

And how was my Halloween? Not like it was in the States. It was the last day of the month to build some hours for my forthcoming paycheck. Sharon's parents took us out for dinner at Darna, a lovely Moroccan restaurant (click on "Our Home" to see a panoramic view of the room in which we dined). Great food, nice wine, and much fun was had by all. Tonight the Cinemateque is showing A Scanner Darkly which I am very excited about seeing (Richard Linklater, Philip K. Dick). Oh yeah, I heard director George Miller and hairy crackpot Mel Gibson are interested in doing Mad Max 4! The first two Mad Max films are still great, and a big influence on my Car Wars mindset. I hope any sequel is not as disappointing as Beyond Thunderdome. Now that was scary.

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