from The Telegraph UK

Schoolchildren told to avoid Wikipedia

Children should use Google and Yahoo to improve their essays, according to the official exams watchdog.

[G]uidance sent out to schoolchildren in England warns pupils to be extremely wary when using other websites such as Wikipedia.

The on-line encyclopaedia – created using contributions from readers – was not “authoritative or accurate” and in some cases “may be completely untrue”, said Ofqual.

Children can also be easily tripped up by copying passages from websites containing American phrases and spellings – a clear sign of plagiarism.

The comments were made in a series of documents sent to pupils, parents and teachers warning against cheating at school.

[ click to continue reading at The Telegraph ]

from New York Magazine

When the Low Went Very High

Who said public art can’t be fun?

By Jerry Saltz

[Jeff] Koons’s work has always stood apart for its one-at-a-time perfection, epic theatricality, a corrupted, almost sick drive for purification, and an obsession with traditional artistic values. His work embodies our time and our America: It’s big, bright, shiny, colorful, crowd-pleasing, heat-seeking, impeccably produced, polished, popular, expensive, and extroverted—while also being abrasive, creepily sexualized, fussy, twisted, and, let’s face it, ditzy. He doesn’t go in for the savvy art-about-art gestures that occupy so many current artists. And his work retains the essential ingredient that, to my mind, is necessary to all great art: strangeness.

You can see this in his glorious phantasmagorical masterpiece, the large-scale topiary sculpture Puppy. This 40-foot visitor from another aesthetic dimension appeared in New York in the first year of the new millennium. It assumed the form of a West Highland white terrier constructed of stainless steel and 23 tons of soil, swathed in more than 70,000 flowers that were kept alive by an internal irrigation system.

[ click to read full article at NYMag.com ]

from The Independent UK

Catalonia votes to ban bullfighting

Bloodthirsty ‘sport’ is dying a slow death across Spain, as younger audiences turn away

By Alasdair Fotheringham in Madrid

Already faced with a rapidly ageing fanbase at home and widespread incomprehension and rejection abroad, Spanish bullfighting has suffered another major setback after the Catalan parliament voted to outlaw it completely across the region.

The decision was so controversial that some deputies hunched over their desks to hide their fingers from photographers as they punched in their votes. After a narrow initial victory for the abolitionists – 67 in favour and 59 against – the law could become effective as soon as May.

Spain’s right-wing press was quick to attribute the result to Catalan separatists’ desire to dissociate themselves from an activity often considered as typically Spanish as tapas, siestas and flamenco. Unofficially, though, even before Friday’s decision, it seems bullfighting circles in the rest of Spain had given Catalonia up as a lost cause.

Over the past three decades, bullring after bullring has closed in major Catalan towns such as Gerona, Lloret de Mar and Tarragona, and in Barcelona only one of the original three rings remains. As far back as 1909, Barcelona hosted Spain’s first anti-bullfighting protest, and by 2004 more than 80 per cent of Catalans were opposed to the practice. “Banning the bulls in Catalonia would be like drawing up a death certificate for a long-dead corpse,” said Juan Ilian, a leading Spanish bullfighting correspondent for nearly five decades. “And even if they don’t, it’ll remain on its deathbed.”

[ click to continue reading at The Independent ]

from Out Magazine via The Daily Swarm

OUT MAGAZINE’S 100 OF THE GREATEST, GAYEST RECORDS OF ALL TIME…

1. David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, 1972
2. The Smiths, The Smiths, 1984
3. Tracy Chapman, Tracy Chapman, 1988
4. Indigo Girls, Indigo Girls, 1989
5. Judy Garland, Judy at Carnegie Hall, 1961
6. The Smiths, The Queen is Dead, 1986
7. Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, 1973
8. Madonna, The Immaculate Collection, 1990
9. Cyndi Lauper, She’s So Unusual, 1983
10. Antony and the Johnsons, I Am A Bird Now, 2005

[ click to continue reading at Out ]

JETTISON YOUR LOVED ONES by Ray Tintori

One of the greatest animated shorts ever.

Part 1

Part 2

from the LA Times

Making art in the now world

By John Lopez

“What it means to be an artist today — where do we start on that one?” muses Ed Ruscha, almost nonplused. Finally, the soft-spoken art veteran decides : “It means facing a lot of information that’s going to be very difficult to take in and swallow because there’s so much of it.”

Once the ramifications settle in, he slyly drawls, “to grasp the total picture would make you wish you could go back to 1960 when things were a bit slower, almost like the Dark Ages.”

That dizziness finds a counterpoint with fledgling film director Michael Mohan on a cold December night in Westwood. His youthful exuberance contrasts with Ruscha’s measured bemusement: “It’s not like it’s going to be crazy; it is crazy, right now.”

Mohan has reason to be excited. His first feature, “One Too Many Mornings,” about two twentysomething guys who reignite their high school friendship, which he shot over two years’ worth of nights and weekends with a budget well under $50,000, will play the 2010 Sundance Film Festival in a new category dedicated to low-to-no-budget filmmakers.

Where Ruscha recoils at the opened floodgates of the Information Age, Mohan gushes: “There’s an audience for everything . . . if you say I want to express myself and people will see it, yes, that’s what in 2010 you can do.”

[ continue reading at the LA Times ]

from The Coolhunter

Murdock Barbershop – London

[ click to continue reading at thecoolhunter.net ]

from The New York Times

Soon You Can Hail an Artist as You Hail a Cab

By CAROL VOGEL

Those moving advertisements atop taxis generally deliver not-so-subtle messages, like which airlines to fly or movies to see, who makes the sexiest blue jeans or the coolest sunglasses.

But for the month of January, Show Media, a Las Vegas company that owns about half the cones adorning New York City’s taxis, has decided to give commerce a rest. Instead, roughly 500 cabs will display a different kind of message: artworks by Shirin Neshat, Alex Katz and Yoko Ono.

The project is costing Show Media about $100,000 in lost revenue, but John Amato, one of Show’s owners and a contemporary-art fan, said: “I thought it was time to take a step back. January’s a slow month. I could have cut my rates but instead I decided to hit the mute button and give something back to the city.”

He contacted the Art Production Fund, a nonprofit New York organization that presents art around the city, and asked its co-founders, Yvonne Force Villareal and Doreen Remen, to select artists. They in turn sought out Ms. Neshat, Mr. Katz and Ms. Ono, three New Yorkers known for work that can read both conceptually and physically in a confined space. (The ads measure just 14 by 48 inches.)

The project is called “Art Adds,” not just as a play on its advertising origins but also, Ms. Villareal said, because “art adds to the public’s vision.”

[ click to continue reading at the NY Times ]

from The Arizona Republic

1 box red velvet cake mix, with ingredients specified on the box
1/2 cup flour
8 ounces cream cheese (room temperature)
8 tablespoons butter (room temperature)
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Prepare mix as instructed, blending in an additional  1/2 cup flour. Pour mixture into zip-top bag and cut off one corner of the bag to create a small hole. Squeeze dough onto greased cookie sheets in tablespoon-size portions. They should be shaped slightly like Hershey’s Kisses. Allow 2 inches between each one. Bake 6-8 minutes. Do not over-bake; you want a cakelike texture. Remove from oven and transfer to a cooling rack.

Cream-cheese filling:
Mix cream cheese and butter until smooth, gradually add powder sugar  1/2 cup at a time. Add vanilla after the first cup of sugar is blended.

[ click to continue adding sugar at The Arizona Republic ]

from The Washington Post

George Michael, famed D.C. sportscaster, dies of cancer
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 25, 2009; A01

George Michael, 70, a high-rated and hyperanimated Washington sportscaster whose extensive use of game highlights from across the country on his nationally syndicated show has now become the norm in the industry, died Thursday at Sibley Memorial Hospital. He had chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Mr. Michael was a popular rock-and-roll DJ in Philadelphia and New York before making a successful transition to television, where his boisterous style and unremitting hustle made him one of the dominant personalities in Washington for years. He represented sports as entertainment, with what some regarded as a team-friendly approach, especially to the hometown Redskins.

Starting in 1980, Mr. Michael oversaw a trendsetting show that made liberal use of action highlights from games in addition to interviews and other reports. “The George Michael Sports Machine,” as it was eventually called, was syndicated to almost 200 stations at its peak.

[ click to continue reading at WashingtonPost.com ]

from The Arizona Republic

Beef Wellington impresses at the holiday dinner table

by Karen Fernau 

Not all Christmas gifts come wrapped in paper and tied with fancy bows.

Beef Wellington, luxury beef tenderloin coated with pate and duxelles, then wrapped in puff pastry and baked, is a traditional gift to give family and friends at any holiday table.

The dish named for Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, is a show-stopping alternative to prime rib, goose, turkey or ham.

“The best way to make a holiday meal special is to use special foods, and present them beautifully. Wellington is both. It’s traditional and elegant at the same time,” said chef Jacques Qualin at J&G Steakhouse in Phoenix.

For more impact, Qualin suggests molding the puff pastry to create flowers or other holiday decorations. Simply use a knife and your hands to mold the pastry into art just prior to baking.

[ click to continue reading at AZCentral.com ]

from the New York Times

A Legend as Muse: Patti Smith Fills Role

By EDWARD WYATT

LOS ANGELES — There was a time, a decade ago, Patti Smith said, that she did not want to make a film about herself.

“To me the idea seems sort of conceited,” she said in an interview. “I felt, even though I was 50 years old at the time, too young to do a documentary. I hadn’t done enough work yet to merit a documentary.”

It turns out that being followed around by a camera for more than a decade can help one overcome shyness. On Dec. 30, Ms. Smith’s 63rd birthday,PBS will broadcast “Patti Smith: Dream of Life,” a documentary filmed over 11 years by the fashion photographer and film neophyte Steven Sebring.

[ click to continue reading at NYTimes.com ]

from The LA Times

‘Free for All’ by Kenneth Turan and Joseph Papp

Joe Papp brought theater to the masses, earning people’s awe and fury.

By Wendy Smith

The apt title of this juicy oral history, based on more than 160 interviews, simultaneously expresses a principle that guided producer-provocateur Joe Papp and the theatrical ruckus that ensued.

“Free for All” is how Papp presented Shakespeare in Central Park and in mobile units that toured some of New York City’s poorest, toughest neighborhoods. A free-for-all was the kind of battle he engaged in with anyone he thought stood in the way of making theater accessible to everyone.

And a free-for-all, the voices skillfully assembled in Kenneth Turan’s text reveal, was frequently the atmosphere created by Papp’s burning sense of mission and his intensely personal relationships with the artists he nurtured and infuriated during such groundbreaking productions as “Hair,” “No Place to Be Somebody,” “Short Eyes,” “A Chorus Line,” “for colored girls . . .” and “Runaways.”

[ click to read in The LA Times ]

from The Los Angeles Times

‘Out West’ at the Autry examines the history of homosexuals and transgender people in the Old West

Museum officials say the series may be the first of its kind.

One-Eyed Charlie was a driver for the California Stage Co. After his death, he was discovered to be a woman. (Wells Fargo / December 14, 2009)

Say the words “gay cowboy” and chances are the conversation will turn to “Brokeback Mountain,” the 2005 film starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, and based on the Annie Proulx short story.

The Oscar-winning drama, which is set in the 1960s to ’80s, highlighted a long-submerged facet of frontier culture. But as a new series at the Autry National Center shows, the presence of homosexuals and transgender individuals in the American West is much older than the movie might lead you to think. It is, in fact, almost as old as the West itself.

Take for instance the tale of One-Eyed Charlie.

A stagecoach driver known for his hard drinking and itchy trigger finger, Charlie worked for the California Stage Co., where he earned his reputation as one of the best drivers in the wild West. He traveled between Oregon and California and, the story goes, got his nickname when he lost an eye while attempting to shoe a horse.

But Charlie kept a secret that was revealed only after his death in 1879. When his body was being prepared, a coroner discovered that One-Eyed Charlie was actually a woman.

It turns out that Charlie, nee Charlotte Darkey Parkhurst, had passed much of her adult life as a man. The discovery of her true gender became a local sensation. And her story still fascinates U.S. historians, some of whom believe that she was the first woman to have voted in a presidential election, long before the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

[ click to continue reading at The LA Times ]