In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
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The synchronized bounce and crash rhythm entitled Gravité from Renaud Hallée.
Posted
by Nathan Krämer
on 4/26/2010
Centenarian life enriched by iPad.
Heartwarming Tech Tale of the Day: 99-year-old Lake Oswego, Oregon resident Virginia Campbell made the iPad her very first personal computer. According to Virginia’s daughter Ginny, the iPad’s zoom-in function has changed the glaucoma-suffering nonagenarian’s life, allowing her to rekindle her love affair with reading and writing.
Collectibles, Culture, & Things That Make You Cringe
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Link,
Blog
Posted
by Nathan Krämer
on 4/23/2010
Song of America Database
American baritone Thomas Hampson founded the Hampsong Foundation in 2003. In 2009, the foundation launched this website to catalogs the development of art song in America
Those of you familiar with Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride will recognize these modern day masterpieces by Disney artist Clem Hill. The portraits were conceptualized by the legendary animator & imagineer Marc Davis and remain one of my favorite parts of the ride. SCROLL WINDOW TO SEE!
The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist, sometimes called The Burlington House Cartoon, is a full-size cartoon by Leonardo da Vinci. It is a combination of two themes popular in Florentine painting of the 15th century: the Virgin (Mary) and Child with St John the Baptist (son of Mary's relative Elizabeth) and the Virgin and Child with St Anne (Mary's mother). It currently hangs in the National Gallery in London.
There is a subtle interplay between the gazes of the four figures, with St Anne smiling at her daughter Mary, while Mary's eyes are fixed on her son, as are St John's. There is little in the way of clear delineation between the four bodies; the heads of the two women, in particular, look like growths on the same body. St Anne's enigmatic gesture of pointing her index finger towards the heavens is regarded as the quintessential Leonardesque gesture, recurring in Leonardo's late painting St John the Baptist and reminiscent of the drawing upon which Bacchus was based.
The drawing, in charcoal and black and white chalk, covers eight sheets of paper glued together. Unusual for a cartoon, the outlines have never been pricked or incised, indicating that the stage of transferring the design to the panel that would then be painted was not reached. The composition is markedly different from Leonardo's only other surviving treatment of the subject, The Virgin and Child with St. Anne in the Louvre, in which the figure of the Baptist has been eschewed.
The work's alternative title, The Burlington House Cartoon, refers to its home at the Royal Academy until 1962, when it was put on sale for £800,000. Amid fears that it would find an overseas buyer, the cartoon was put on show in the National Gallery where it was seen by over a quarter of a million people in a little over four months, many of whom made donations in order to keep it in the United Kingdom. The price was eventually met, thanks in part to contributions from the National Art Collections Fund. Ten years after its acquisition, John Berger derisively wrote in his book Ways of Seeing that "It has acquired a new kind of impressiveness. Not because of what it shows – not because of the meaning of its image. It has become impressive, mysterious because of its market value". In 1987, it was attacked in an act of vandalism with a sawn-off shotgun. The blast caused significant damage despite not fully penetrating the canvas after shattering the glass covering, but it has since been restored.
