Happy Birthday, A'ishah!

Today is A'ishah's birthday; my daughter is now two years old. Happy birthday, Honey Bun; I love you so much! :)

Painting by Michael Whelan: The Ultimate Sandbox

Oops!

"Oops!" by Le Nede

American Qur'an

I came across this news article yesterday about an art project entitled American Qur'an by the American artist Sandow Birk. Birk has been working on illustrating all of the Surahs in the Qur'an (he's about half-finished) in an effort to show other non-Muslims (American Christians in particular) how the Qur'an relates to life in the 21st century.

In Birk's version, each chapter of the Quran has been carefully copied in English in a calligraphy modeled on the urban graffiti of America's inner cities. The stark black text is bordered by scenes from American life both mundane and extraordinary: gangsters flashing signs, Hurricane Katrina's devastation, migrants working the fields, a crowded airport lounge and a raging California wildfire among them.

Each painting relates to the sura, or chapter, it illustrates, either literally or metaphorically, Birk said.

Although Birk doesn't use the actual Arabic Qur'an, he flouts one Islamic art tradition by incorporating images of people in the paintings. I understand why he has done this and, in certain ways, it has brought some of the surahs to life in a way I think many non-Muslims wouldn't otherwise get. But I also find myself preferring our way of doing art, without the humanity involved in the picture.

Some of the reactions to the project have been predictable. On the one hand:

Koplin Del Rio Gallery owners Sugar Elisa Brown and Eleana Del Rio braced for controversy when the show opened last month. They have been surprised and encouraged by the muted reaction: they have received only a handful of odd or threatening e-mails and some Muslims have written to express their appreciation. Surprisingly, some of the most vocal critics have been those who believe Birk's work portrays Islam in too positive a light, they said.

How terrible! Islam is being shown in "too positive a light." On the other hand:

Still, not everyone has appreciated the exhibit, including some Muslim religious leaders who believe the project degrades the Quran. Critic Mohammad Qureshi, administrator of the Islamic Center of Southern California, has refused to visit the gallery or look at pictures of the panels posted on the Internet.

"The Quran is above these things. It doesn't need to be depicted in that way," Qureshi said. "The Quran is accessible the way it is. It's been accessible for 1,400 years, so it doesn't need anything to make it more accessible."

I agree somewhat with this opinion; the Qur'an is above these things and is accessible the way it is. However, I feel the overall criticism is too heavy-handed. If the artwork brings the Qur'an to life in a way that brings non-Muslims to Islam, does that not make the artwork beneficial?

The art is currently being exhibited at two galleries in California, Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Culver City and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco. The two links have a combined 50+ images, with the first link, to the Koplin Del Rio Gallery, having larger images that are easier to view. As for the English translations being used, Birk apparently is using several different translators for his work. Below are four pictures from the project that I found of interest. The first, of course, is Surah al-Fatihah:



This next picture is for Surah al-Adiyat (#100; The Chargers). It's an interesting juxtaposition between the first few verses of the surah with the colorful spectacle of NASCAR racecars thundering down the track:

By the (Steeds) that run, with panting (breath), And strike sparks of fire, And push home the charge in the morning, And raise the dust in clouds the while, And penetrate forthwith into the midst (of the foe) en masse;-" (100:1-5)

The last two are for Surah al-Qamar (#54; The Moon), showing a hurricane (Katrina?) raging over an ocean...



...with a space station and the moon floating peacefully overhead.

Islamic Architecture in Uzbekistan

This short video is a production of the Muslim Students Association of Penn State University. There's a lot of beautiful art and architectural detail in these pictures that were taken of masajid, madrasahs and tombs in the country of Uzbekistan, especially in the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara. Enjoy!

Islam/Muslim Blogs (3 July 2009)

Sometimes I feel lucky just to get one of these links posts done, ya know? ;) This particular subject (Islam/Muslim Blogs) is by far the most popular of all my links posts; what was interesting was that last week's post got some serious attention: a total of 17 hits from two different computers at the US State Department.

Austrolabe: Burka Ban: Not Just Black and White

Bin Gregory Productions: Wild Honey

Dr. Maxtor's Analysis: France's Mossad midget doth protest a bit too much...

Fragments of Me: Hijab Friendly

Fragments of Me: Natural Remedies

Grande Strategy: Are Non-Muslims Infiltrating Muslims? (I'm not sure I'd call it infiltration, but it does sound like the woman hasn't quite accepted the Muslim virtue of public modesty.)

Islam and Science Fiction: A Mosque Among the Stars (This is more of a website than a blog, but I discovered it yesterday. The Muslim brother who runs this website co-edited a science fiction anthology of stories written by Muslims and positive stories about Muslims and Islam by non-Muslims.)

Islamic Art by Morty: ALLAH Caligraphy Art in Arabic and English

A setback in the struggle against the Islamification of the West

Islamophobia Watch: Antwerp protests against schools' headscarf ban (Some very good comments by the students in this article.)

Islamophobia Watch: Muslims in Europe: The Scottish Example (An interview with Osama Saeed.)

Islamophobia Watch: Veil is 'a direct and explicit criticism of our Western values' (Have you ever noticed that when non-Muslims talk about Israel/Palestine, it's always a "religious" conflict, but when they talk about the hijab it's always a "political" issue? No wonder they're @$$-backwards.)

Islamophobia Watch: More Hysteria About Sharia Courts (Dennis MacEoin returns; will someone send him back? ;) )

Islamophobia Watch: The hijab debate: 'I don't want to be judged on my looks'

Izzy Mo's Blog: انا مشغولة (Izzy Mo finally gets a life. ;) )

The Zen of South Park: Quran Read-A-Long: Al-’Imran 55-63 Insists on Jesus’ Humanity, Not His Divinity

Umar Lee: Death

News Stories of Interest:
Muslims Not Just Concerned About US Policy: Envoy (Perhaps this woman, Farah Pandith, is the reason why we got all the attention from the State Department last week.)

Pastor Rick Warren to Address American Muslims

Islam/Muslim Blogs (26 June 2009)

Sorry for the lack of Links posts this week; I've been busy with little time to get onto the computer, let alone work on a post like this. Still, here's the latest for Islam/Muslim blogs.

Aqwaal-ul-Hikmah: The Worst Thing A Human Can Consume!

Austrolabe: Sarkozy wants “Burqa” ban

Austrolabe: Burka Ban: Not Just Black and White

Dictator Princess: Why should I help you if you can’t help yourself?

Dr. M's Analysis: The "Kosher tax" scam exposed

Fragments of Me: And I miss this place so much

Fragments of Me: And this is why we keep coming back… (I'm not familiar with Tioman Island, but looking up about the place I discovered that the beach scenes in the 1958 movie South Pacific were filmed here. This is "Bali Hai!" :) )

Islam in China: Chinese Muslim Scholar on Teachings of Islam (An interesting paragraph from The Tao of Islam.)

Islamic Art by Morty: Allah Art (Zebra Stripes)

Islamophobia Watch: West must respect the Muslim veil (John Esposito speaks out, although I wish this article appeared in Western newspapers.)

Izzy Mo's Blog: Mirage (Izzy has lived in Dubai for almost a year now.

Moon of Alabama: Burqas, Law And Freedom ("b", who normally writes about international politics, becomes conflicted over the idea of whether "burqas" should be banned or not. My response to Non-Muslims is: Mind your own business.)

Mumsy Musings: The Many Holidays (DramaMama has a personal post about traveling to Vietnam, and talks (among other things) of finding a mosque and various halal restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Cool!)

Tariq Nelson: Fatherhood Involvement (Tariq returns after a brief absense.)

TBogg: The only good Muslim is a dea–. Oh. This is awkward…

The Zen of South Park: Quran Read-A-Long: Al-’Imran 42-54 Talks All About Jesus, Pre-Birth to Adulthood

Umar Lee: Rohingya Muslims, Iran Hype, and Sadaqa

Umar Lee: Sarkozy and Brown Didn’t Get the Message: Colonialism is Over

Umar Lee: Was Michael Jackson a Muslim?

Islam/Muslim Blogs (17 June 2009)

Austrolabe: Return of Ameer Ali

Bin Gregory Productions: Hidden Mosques

Islamic Art by Morty: Allah Gal Galalh Calligraphy in Boat Shape (Brother Muhammad has also done this work in a simpler black-and-white style.)

Islamophobia Watch: Muslim waitress awarded £3,000 for being made to wear low-cut dress (Good news for this sister. Unfortunately, she was ripped in a column in The Mail; see 'No, madam, it's you who have offended MY values'.)

Islamophobia Watch: Holocaust museum attack – Muslims are to blame (No doubt Debbie Schlussel would blame Muslims if she herself were to get into trouble with the law.)

Izzy Mo's Blog: ممتاز (Studying Arabic in Dubai)

The Zen of South Park: Quran Read-A-Long: Al-’Imran 31-41 Starts to Reveal Where This Surah Gets Its Name

Umar Lee: My Run in With a Real Life Jack Bauer Wanna-be

Umar Lee: Looking at the Question of the Arab Haram Stores

The Birthday Balloons

Not to be too cryptic this morning, but if The Birthday Balloons means anything to you, you'll know what Milady and I suffer through every evening at dinnertime. ;)

Here are two hints to the uninitiated:


Henri Rousseau's The Merry Jesters, and



Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Eine Kleine Nacht Musik.

Links for 27 May 2009

Politics:
Countdown: Worst Persons May 26, 2009 (Laura Ingraham, David Zurawik and Pete Hegseth)

Keith Olbermann Talks to Erich "Mancow" Muller About His Waterboarding Experience (At least here's a guy who puts his money where his mouth as - as opposed to the coward Sean Hannity. "I was willing to prove and ready to prove that this was a joke and I was wrong. It was horrific. It was instantaneous and look I felt the effects for two days. I had chest pains. I told my wife, look I have two little kids-- we prayed. I said dear God help me. I had chest pains I was so stressed out by this.")

Going off the rails on a crazy train (TBogg on the right's reaction to the Sotomayor nomination. "My sense is that, if they really want to go after and beat up on this Sotomayer, who presented herself very well this morning, they will pay for it at the polls for years to come. Not with Hispanics, who were lost to the party dating back to the Pete Wilson days (not that the peck-sniffier elements of the right can help themselves), or with women, but with people for whom "empathy" and compassion aren't qualities to be sneered at.")

Tancredo: Sotomayor ‘Appears To Be A Racist’ (A classic case of “Pot - Kettle - Black.”)


Economics:
US and European Employment Rates

Consumer Confidence Up (I agree, at least partly, with Bonddad that consumer confidence has increased due to the change in Washington politics. But I also think economic conditions have been improving as well over the past few months and people are responding to that as well.)


Business:
Three beautiful ads for dental floss


Islam/Muslim Blogs:
Quran Read-A-Long: Al-`Imran 1-9 Discuss the Quran Itself

Lā ilaha illa al-Lāh, Muhammadun rasūlu l-Lāh (The shahada inside a flowery circular badge. Beautiful.)


Miscellaneous:
PSM (A Gillette video (cartoon) about "when there's no underbrush, the tree looks taller." Their advice: use short, light strokes. "Tastefully" done according to one blog (debatable), but definitely R-rated material here.)

Whirlpool Galaxy Deep Field (Very nice pic of Messier 51, the famous Whirlpool Galaxy, and its companion galaxy NGC 5195. It's actually the detail of the smaller galaxy that makes this photo of interest for someone like me.)

Q&A: Hobbit Director Guillermo del Toro on the Future of Film (An interview with film director Guillermo del Toro over at Wired. del Toro, if you’re not familiar, directed Blade II, both Hellboy movies, and the fantastic Pan’s Labyrinth - a must see movie if you’re not familiar with it. His discussion on the future of movies is interesting.)

Links for 16 May 2009

Politics:
Countdown: WTF!! Texas Still Wants to Leave the Union (Countdown on Texas's Governor Perry still thinking about seceding from the US)

Rachel Maddow Show: Tracing Torture's Trail (A time line for how torture was used in the run up to the invasion of Iraq and to justify the invasion after the U.S. had already gone in.)

Dennis Kucinich: We're Moving From Industrial Capitalism To Financial Capitalism To Crony Capitalism!

Australian Press Releases Abu Ghraib Photos

Gore: Cheney is in no position to talk ‘about making the country less safe.’

Steele: We Need Guns To Defend Ourselves Against ‘Terrorists’ Coming To ‘Our Communities’ More stupid from the GOP; no doubt lacking any real terrorists, redneck gun owners will kill indiscriminately local innocent Muslims instead.)

Yes, it’s that bad for the GOP (Includes The Colbert Report video, "Stephen's Sound Advice - How to Re-Brand the GOP.")


Economics:
Industrial Production Drop Worse Since WW II

CPI Report (See also Bonddad's post.)


Islam/Muslim Blogs:
The Boys' First Portraits (Abu Sinan's two younger boys had formal portraits taken; those two kids are sooo good looking!)

White privilege and the white convert (An excellent essay by Indigo Jo; on the longish side, but "must read" material.)

Islamic Calligraphy Art of Four Qul (The "Four Qul" being Surahs 109, 112, 113 and 114.)


Miscellaneous:
M97 - The Owl Nebula

C&L's Late Night Music Club with Wayman Tisdale, 1964-2009 (Sadly, Tisdale died the other day, most likely from bone cancer. It was a pleasure to watch him play with the Phoenix Suns for three seasons, from 1995-98. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.)

Rochester Institute of Technology's Domino Madness! (If you like watching large sets of dominoes fall, this video will satisfy.)

New Look: Show A Little Leg ("Evidently the New Look is similar to the I Have Polio Look.")

Saturday Morning Matinee: Reach (Cute animation. Check it out!)

Star Trek Movie Quick Recognition Chart (Can't decide which Star Trek film to watch tonight? /film ("Slashfilm") has an interesting flow chart to help you make the right decision!)

Links for 12 May 2009

Politics:
Jesse Ventura: You Give Me a Water Board, Dick Cheney and One Hour, and I'll Have Him Confess to the Sharon Tate Murders (This is the sort of straight talk one wishes for in politicians, which every serving politician runs away in fear from. There are some very classic lines in here: on W's intelligence (or the lack thereof), on Dick Cheney, on Colin Powell, on waterboarding.)

Chris Matthews Slams Harold Ford for "Cheney Talk" ("With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?")

Wingnuttery of the Week: Stossel says we should eat endangered species if we want to save them (Also, be sure to check out the killer whale video!)

Naturalized Citizens Are Reshaping California Politics ("The new citizens are reshaping California's electorate and are likely to reorder the state's policy priorities, some political analysts predict. Several polls show that Latinos and Asians are more supportive than whites of public investments and broad services, even if they require higher taxes.")

Gov. Perdue: Georgia Can’t Afford Supply-Side Economics During The Recession

Clinton defends the U.N.: ‘If we didn’t have a United Nations, we’d have to invent one.’

Economics:
Rig Counts Still Falling ("In more bearish news for the oil market, rig counts as compiled by Baker Hughes are continuing to fall across the world, implying a radical investment pullback in future production — ultimately a bullish factor further down the line." In other words, expect higher oil prices in the future as production decreases.)

Islam/Muslim Blogs:
KFC and the BNP (More Islamophobic "outrage" as eight London KFC restaurants start serving halal chicken.)

Mohammad (Flower Calligraphy Noor Deen) (This is another Muslim blog that I recently added to my RSS reader. This revert to Islam is a very talented artist!)

Miscellaneous:
Forty Thousand Meteor Origins Across the Sky

W: As In WTF (Such long fingers you have, dear!)

Sci Fi Moms, Vol. 5

Time: Updating the Mosque for the 21st Century

A couple days ago, I ran across a Time magazine article on how modern masajid are changing architecturally. Although the article mentions various masajid around the world, including Masjid Assyafaah above (in transliterated Arabic, Ash-Shafaah), located in the Sembawang neighborhood of Singapore, most of the discussion focuses on the controversies surrounding various proposed masajid in Europe.

One line in the article is bull$#|+, though, where a criticism about minarets is reported: "But they cost a lot, and there are others who argue that [economically,] they're a luxury Muslims can't afford." Minarets are NOT a luxury. They may add to the cost of building the masjid, they may even be unnecessary, but the same criticisms also apply to church steeples. This argument is motivated solely by the Islamophobic desire to make a masjid look like any other secular building. Considering that masajid are normally built with all of the money raised before construction even begins, the notion that Muslims can't afford the "luxury" of one or more minarets is completely false.

One other comment: although there is a very nice (and large) picture of the interior of Masjid Assyafaah in the print edition of Time, the website version of the article omits all but one of the photographs, using only a picture taken from the new Turkish mosque, Masjid Sakirin. However, the above photo of Masjid Assyafaah is my own picture, taken in October 2007, and shows the front of the building. The tall dark brown structure in front is the masjid's minaret.

Some quotations from the article:

A new generation of Muslim builders and designers, as well as non-Muslims designing for Muslim groups, often in Europe or North America, are updating the mosque for the 21st century, sparking not just a hugely creative period in Islamic design, but one riven by controversy. The disputes over modern mosques echo larger debates taking place in the Islamic world today about gender, power and, particularly in immigrant communities, Islam's place in Western societies. Even the simplest design decision can reflect questions that are crucial to Islam and its adherents: Should women be allowed in a mosque's main hall or confined to separate quarters? Are minarets necessary in the West, where laws on noise levels mean they are rarely used for the call to prayer? What should a mosque attended by Muslims from different parts of the world look like? The boldest of the new mosques try to answer such questions but are also powerful statements of intent. "Islam wants to proclaim itself," says Hasan-Uddin Khan, an architecture professor at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. "These new mosques are saying, 'We are here, and we want it to be known that we are here.'"

...

As Muslims get wealthier, more confident and more geographically diffuse — almost a third of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims live in non-Muslim-majority states — their mosques are no longer just monuments to the rulers whose names they bear. Increasingly, they symbolize the struggle to marry tradition with modernity and to set down roots in the West. The most daring buildings are dreamt up by second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants, who have the confidence and cash to build stone-and-glass symbols of Islam's growing strength in places like Europe. Simply importing traditional mosque architecture "doesn't express loyalty to your current surroundings," says Zulfiqar Husain, honorary secretary of an innovative new eco-mosque in Manchester, England. "It almost expresses that you want to be separate from the society you live in."

The designers behind the best of the mosques take the opposite view: they may be making statements but they are also sensitive to local concerns and aesthetics. The mosque that Husain helps administer, in a gritty working-class Manchester neighborhood, uses reclaimed wood and solar panels on the roof to power its under-floor heating. Inside, peach carpeting and plasma TVs give the air of a prosperous suburban English home, while the prayer hall has carvings inspired by the 10th century North African Fatimid dynasty.

In Singapore, the architects of the Assyafaah Mosque, which was finished in 2004, cater to the country's multicultural population by creating an aesthetically neutral space, sleek and futuristic, where the island's Malay and Chinese Muslims can both feel comfortable.

...

[On the new masjid about to be built in Cologne, Germany:] His plan for the complex, due to be completed in 2010, calls for a piazza with a fountain and a cafe, designed to draw non-Muslims to the site. The local Muslim elders hope that, once there, visitors will browse in the library, check out the art gallery or spend in the shopping mall, which Böhm envisions as "a modern souk with the quality of the traditional souk." The mosque's prayer hall consists of shells of textured concrete connected by glass panels, to create "ideological and architectural transparency," says Böhm. Far from a nod to tradition, the minarets are a declaration that the building is "not a sports hall, a concert hall or a museum, but a mosque."

...

[On the newly built Sakirin Mosque in Istanbul Turkey, designed by Zaynep Fadillioglu:] Fadillioglu's women's section is an expansive balcony overlooking the central hall and divided only by crisscrossed railings. An airy and luxurious sensibility pervades the building. The facilities for pre-prayer ablution have blond-wood and Plexiglas lockers. In the main hall hangs a bronze chandelier, dangling with hand-blown glass raindrops — a visual allusion to the Koranic verse that says Allah's light should fall on believers like drops of rain. The mihrab, which indicates the direction of prayer, is tulip-shaped and turquoise — "an opening to God," says Fadillioglu.

Update: In the comments, "Anonymous" left a link to a BBC report about a masjid being completed in Istanbul, this being the first mosque designed in Turkey by a woman. (Both the designer and the masjid are mentioned in the Time article; in fact, this is the masjid that the online version of the article features in its sole photo.) As you can see in the video below, the masjid is quite beautiful, and will probably look even more spectacular, insha'allah, when the final touches (such as the carpeting) are done.

Strictly Ballroom Sunday

This is one of my favorite movies of all time, although Milady groans (very loudly) if I want to watch it. I happened to catch this at the dollar theater a few months after it originally came out (1992) and was completely captivated by it. On my way home the first night I saw it, I stopped by the grocery store where a friend worked and I told him about this wonderful dance movie I had just seen, and he just couldn't get over it. "You went to see a dance movie?" :) Strictly Ballroom works for me on many levels. It's got beautiful music (I love Latin music), beautiful dancing, a lot of humor and a tight plot (it was a stage play in the mid 80s prior to being filmed).

The first video is of Scott and Fran dancing behind the stage curtains to Doris Day's "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps." The second video is of the final competitive dance between Scott and Fran (filmed at an actual dance competition during the real competition's lunch hour).

Liz: What do I want? I'll tell you what I want! I want Ken Railings to walk in here right now, and say 'Pam Short's broken both her legs, and I wanna dance with YOU!'
[the door flies open. It's Ken]
Ken: Pam Short's broken both her legs, and I wanna dance with you.
Kylie: That was unexpected.

A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.

How to Write a Song: The Three H's

The New York Times has a new blog called "Measure for Measure," which is about the creative process of writing songs. I love music and have been involved with a number of groups since I was a child (primarily drum corps), but I've also found that the art of song writing is both interesting and difficult. (I've created one song so far, Pterosaurocity1, which I didn't think came out very well.) The following quotation comes from songwriter Darrell Brown, who explains that a good song must have three "H's": honesty, humanity, and hooks.

We then proceed to vent and hash out our thoughts and feelings, our anger and frustrations, our longings and hopes and try to gently coax them into the shape of a song. And that song must have the three H’s in it: Honesty. Humanity. And hooks.

First, honesty, because I believe that people will only put up with a lie for so long and I want my songs to last forever. For me, finding out if a song is honest or not is a gut thing. An honest song will show innocence, vulnerability and strength all at the same time: “I Can’t Make You Love Me” sung by Bonnie Raitt and written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin or Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” or “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding and Steve Cropper or Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me.” Songs that rise above the songwriter and performer and have a life of their own.

Then, it has to be full of humanity, and by that I mean the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual sides of humanity. The big themes — the brokenness and the triumph of it all. So people can relate to what I am writing and singing about.

Then, finally — and this is extremely important to a song — it has to be filled with hooks, basically because I don’t want to bore people to death with all the honesty and humanity I am parading about. Hooks, as most of you know, are an absolute staple of pop music, bits and pieces of rhyming syllables or words, rhythmic chords and melodies chiming in and out and strung together in some fresh way so they never leave your brain, so you can’t stop thinking about or humming that song wherever you go. No hooks? Then it is not a great song and never will be.

Examples of great hooks? There are so many, but here are a few that come to mind. The chorus of Smokey Robinson’s “Tracks of My Tears (“Take a good look at my face….”). The refrain of The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” (“I can’t get no…”). The very first line of the Beatles’ “Yesterday” or of “Killing Me Softly With His Song” sung by (but not written by) Roberta Flack.

I also know this from experience: Not all of the songs I write will be good ones. Actually, a lot of them will be ridiculously bad (experience has also taught me not to show those songs to anyone for obvious reasons). But when an honest, four-dimensional, hook-filled piece of humanity is finally born, there is a clue to recognizing it’s timelessness.

Surrounding David

So Milady and I entered the National Museum of Singapore on Sunday afternoon and was greeted by the above colossus. A fiberglass replica of Michelangelo's "David," except that this one is covered in cloth, the creation of Indonesian artist Titarubi.

Inspired by one of the most famous Western art icons, this fiberglass statue of David towers at 8.5 meters high. It has been placed in the center of the Museum's historical rotunda, mimicking the typical European piazza and its anchor-statue. Another layer of textile ornament in the form of handmade brocade, usually produced for the kebaya or traditional Indonesian women's blouse, covers the whole surface of the statue, thus obliterating the centrality of the David figure or image.

The work investigates various dialectical relations between the imaginary perfect circular space of the Museum's rotunda and the sculptural object through the figure of David - a dialectic of the autonomous phallic object and the interior womb-space. And the emerging object and the "un-seen" context, of the figural and spatial context of European import and a craft associated with Asian women (i.e., textile making), of the modern figurative art and the other ornament/craft. The artist also considers Freudian phallic fixation and imagines a reaction in an alienated economy of desire where male pleasure is paramount.

Born in 1968 in Bandung, Titarubi graduated from Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), Faculty of Art and Design in ceramic studio (Fine Art). She has exhibited extensively in major events such as the CP International Biennale 2005 (Jakarta), Singapore Biennale 2006, and has held several solo shows.

Is She Real?

This picture reminds me of Memorex's long-standing question: "Is it live or is it Memorex?" Is this girl real or is she a computer-generated image? She is, in fact, CGI. This picture is one of many created by various illustrators who use 3D and 2D animation software. To be honest, most of these pictures don't really impress, most of the "girls" featured being in various states of undress as you might find in anime/manga and/or male fantasies. However, I did like this particular image, created by Beans Magic, because the face does look extremely lifelike. In fact, one wonders if the image is really CGI or a doctored photograph. If the former, then I really am impressed. (HT: IZ Reloaded)

Funeral Masks

"Pastor Dan" at Street Prophets had an interesting diary the other day about a recent funeral he attended. He saw a woman take a picture of the deceased and asked the question, "Why do people take pictures of the dead?" While I'm certainly no expert on the subject, I decided to add a couple of comments to that diary, which have been expanded upon below. This is what Dan originally had to say:

An Aged Relative took a snapshot of the deceased to add to her collection. She said she had one of her mother, father, and sister.

This is one of those customs I don't judge but can't pretend to understand. I suppose it's no odder than laying out the decedent in the front parlor, a custom still followed in some sub-cultures.

But yeah, what gives?

Several people who had made earlier comments on Pastor Dan's diary noted the popularity of photographs taken of the dead during the Victorian age, but the practice actually goes back thousands of years. I'm not sure if anyone knows exactly when the practice of making a death mask or funeral mask first started, but this practice has occurred in many different cultures. Both the ancient Egyptians and Greeks made funeral masks for their dead, especially for royalty. Some of these masks are very famous and familiar to us; others not so much. Of course, nearly everyone will recognize the funeral mask of King Tutankhamen, made of gold and a number of semi-precious stones, including lapis lazuli, carnelian, quartz, turquoise and obsidian, plus colored glass. However, the Egyptians also made mummy masks for non-royal subjects, both men and women, up through the Roman era. These masks were much less expensive than royal masks, of course, often being made of "cartonnage," which was a process similar to papier-mâché in which layers of linen were plastered together, molded and then painted. In later periods, papyrus scrolls were used in place of the linen. (Source)

Heinrich Schliemann, the amateur archaeologist who discovered the ruins of Troy, is also famous for having dug up the shaft graves of Mycenae. Among the art objects found in the shaft graves of Mycenae's Grave Circle A included what is now known as the Mask of Agamemnon, made of gold, although the mask (along with four others found at Mycenae) are now dated to the Late Helladic I period (c. 1500-1550 BCE), perhaps 200-250 years or so before the life of the actual Agamemnon (if he was, in fact, an historical figure, which I believe he was).

Gold, of course, was a popular choice of material for royal death masks around the world, but other materials were used as well. Wood was a popular material in many cultures, such as the Ibo (right) and the Egyptians, being abundant and easy to carve. Jade was popular among the Mayans and the Chinese, the latter also making funeral masks in bronze.

Into the Roman era, we find a significant difference between the earlier peoples versus those of the later antiquity: the funeral masks are kept among the living instead of being buried with the dead. The ancient Romans made funeral masks of their ancestors, normally of wax, but hung them in the front lobby to their home so that visitors could see the visages of prominent ancestors (especially those who had held public office, such as the consulship). In Tom Holland's book, Rubicon, he wrote:

"Beyond a portico designed to echo the features of a temple, the walls of the atrium were hung with forbidding images, the wax death-masks of magistrattes, bearing witness to the honours won by the family in the past. Painted lines connected the portraits, reaching backwards into time..." (p. 116)

In the West, the practice of creating funeral masks has lasted into the twentieth century, even at a time when photography has made the masks irrelevant. Ludwig van Beethoven's plaster funeral mask has survived to this day (top photo, above), as has that of the Bohemian-Austrian composer Gustav Mahler. What's interesting is a comment made by a friend of Beethoven, Stephan von Breuning:

"Such casts of great men are often permitted," wrote Bruening beforehand, "and if we forbade it, our refusal might afterwards be regarded as an encroachment upon the rights of the public."
(Source)

The alleged death mask of Bruce Lee.

Web Trend Map 2007, v. 2.0

Yesterday, in a comment to my post about the Antipocentric World Map, I mentioned another map that's based on the Tokyo subway system map. Here it is:


This map, by Information Architects Japan, shows the 200 most successful websites on the web, ordered by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective. Their webpage has several different versions of this map (by size and resolution); the map above is their most readable version (1600 x 1024). Below are some of IAJ's comments to help decipher the map:

What’s New?
First of all, the new trend map features much more websites than the previous one. While the focus is still on English language websites (because that is where it’s at), we have added some Japanese sites (a mystery to most of you gaijin), some German sites (yeah, there are some popular ones) and a Chinese line (the second Internet).

More Consistency
The different trend lines have been renamed, simplified and cleaned up. Now, if you follow the tech line – you will find tech sites, if you follow the news line – you will find news sites.

Less Japanese Jokes
There are less insider jokes about the different stations and more consistency within the connections and the neighborhood of the different sites. People who know Tokyo will still find lots of little hints and sarcastic comments hidden in there.

Some Interesting Things to Note
* Google has moved from Shibuya, a humming place for young people, to Shinjuku, a suspicious, messy, Yakuza-controlled, but still a pretty cool place to hang out (Golden Gaya).
* Youtube has conquered Shibuya.
* Microsoft has moved to Ikebukuro, if you know what I mean.
* Yahoo is in Ueno, a nice place but nothing going on there.
* Wikipedia now is in Shimbashi, the place for the square and hard-headed Salaryman, like the Wikipedia watchdogs.
* The Chinese line runs parallel to the “share line” which starts with the main pirates…
* Paper info designer Tufte is right below the Federated Media, right before joining with the interactive information design circle in a 90 degree angle.
* "You" are in the Emperor’s palace, in the center of the network.

More Revealing Coincidences
* The main Japanese sites are all on the money line. I never notice before, but most big Japanese sites are financially successful.
* The northern part of the Yamanote line (”main sites”) is a boring unknown territory (just as in real Tokyo).
* Ze Frank ended up close to the German carousel.
* iA ended up close to the pirates.
* Adobe moved from Ginza (high class) to Tokyo station (anonymous, lots of money there), which is pointing at the fact that they continue to move towards the center of gravity without being too loud about it.
* Skype has conquered a place that doesn’t exist.

Trend Forecast
Of course you will notice that we added a weather forecast. The weather forecast is our six months prognosis for each candidate (no big surprises there).

Antipocentric World Map

I had to download a world map yesterday for one of my classes, and happened to stumble upon The Upsidedown Map Page, a webpage devoted to various published maps of the world that have south at the top and north at the bottom.

If that wasn't odd enough, this guy had, in turn, referenced the website of a British artist, Gallerisation, who has made a series of world maps that are based upon an underground/subway-system map template. The above map is one example. The name of the map is "Antipocentric." The map is both upside down and Pacific-centric. Instead of the North American-style of world maps, where the Pacific Ocean is split into two parts and the Atlantic remains whole, this map has a whole Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic is split into two. (This type of Pacific-centric map is very common in Asia, BTW.) Check out the Gallerisation website to check out other subway template world maps.

The Economist: A Prisoner's Tale

I first heard about Burmese artist Htien Lin on BBC World a few nights ago; then I came across his story in this week's The Economist. His story is quite amazing and he has a very interesting, very unique style of painting, which he continues to use even now when he's living in the UK and has ample access to art supplies... Well, almost all. According to BBC World, he continues to use imported Burmese cotton cloth for his work.

The junta that rules Myanmar is not known for its love of art. The generals do occasionally pay for the restoration of an historic temple or the painting of an edifying mural. But inevitably, the resulting work aims more to nourish their self-esteem than to reflect the life or concerns of ordinary Burmese.

The paintings of Htein Lin, a former Burmese dissident who has given up politics for art, serve as something of an antidote to the regime's propaganda. They are not, as some democracy activists might have hoped, a crusading attack on military rule. To the extent that they carry any ideological message, it is a simple insistence on freedom of expression. Above all, the collection of works on display at London's Asia House until October 13th is a record of the misery of life in the junta's prisons.

The life story of Mr Htein Lin (who can be seen above sitting in front of one of his paintings) mirrors the recent history of Burma, as Myanmar was known before the army changed its name. In 1988, while still at university and dabbling in painting, he helped to organise the political protests that brought down the dictatorial regime of the day. When the generals subsequently reasserted themselves, he fled to the jungle, along with many other idealistic students.

But disillusionment set in. The army overran the rebels' camps, neighbouring governments refused them refuge and the pressures of fear, hunger and disease bred discord. Some of Mr Htein Lin's comrades were executed by other rebels on suspicion of spying for the junta; Mr Htein Lin himself was tortured. He escaped and, renouncing politics, returned to university.

Politics, however, soon caught up with him again: the secret police intercepted a letter that, unbeknownst to Mr Htein Lin, mentioned his name as a possible recruit to the opposition's cause. A military tribunal slung him in prison. Six years later, as a result of a power struggle within the junta, he was released.

Throughout all this upheaval, Mr Htein Lin tried to keep painting. In the jungle, he was reduced to sketching in the sand with sticks. But the hardest place to pursue his calling was prison. Brushes, paints and paper were not allowed. At first, he used his fingers to spread dye from the prison factory over empty food packets. Gradually, however, he discovered that the lungyis (sarongs) of the prisoners' uniforms made the best canvases, while almost anything, from the lids of toothpaste tubes to the wheels of cigarette lighters could be used as brushes. Sometimes, he carved stencils out of bars of soap; at others, as in the self-portrait on display in the show, he applied his improvised paints with a syringe.

His fellow prisoners kept an eye out for guards while he painted. In exchange, he put on “exhibitions” for them in his cell block, or painted scenes they requested. He hid his work in his bedroll and bribed friendly guards to smuggle it out. Once, a guard mistook a series of abstract paintings as blueprints for an escape attempt and destroyed them.

Many of the paintings show snapshots of prison life: convicts crouched in subservient squats for inspections, or curled morosely in tiny cells. One, made for a friend who pined for a pretty view, depicts a sunset. Another, painted at the turn of the millennium, presents an imaginary firework display.

Mr Htein Lin says that the constant struggle to obtain supplies and hide his work kept him busy and distracted. Moreover, in the face of these and other obstacles, simply continuing to paint seemed like an act of defiance. It is good that this small but dignified protest succeeded. And it is even better that the paintings have now been drawn to the attention of a much wider audience, thanks in part to the artist's recent marriage to a British diplomat. But perhaps it is also a little depressing to see how the daily struggle to lay his hands on this and that has subsumed Mr Htein Lin's grander ambitions—as it has for so many other Burmese.