It brings me back to a time when I would catch a man who often studied in the library staring at my breasts. I must mention that I'm a 38D and I often show a little cleavage to gain attention, and also for my own enjoyment. One day, as I was helping a patron check-out books, I caught him looking at my breasts. When he finally noticed that I was looking at him, he looked away. Then another patron came to return books and I glanced at him. Again, his eyes were on my breasts. As this continued for the rest of the hour, I slowly got annoyed and upset with him. Why be so obvious?!

A few hours later, I was lunching with a few of my guy friends. We usually talk about anything- including sex. So as my anger carried from hours before, I told my friend, Brian, who sat on my right, the story. I asked, " Why are men so obvious?!" He told me that not all men were; It was just that some didn't know how not to be. He experimented with me and told me to sit facing him. We made mindless conversation for about a  minute and a half. Brian asked me if I noticed him looking at my breasts. I said no. He then told me that during out chat, he had taken 5 looks and I honestly had NO IDEA! I felt relieved that someone had taken the time to manage not to be as obvious as so many others.

I guess the moral of the story is: TRY! Just try to check someone out without them knowing. At the end of the day, you got to see what you wanted and no one was offended!

Okay. So now my mind is clear. I'm sending positive energy your way!  Thanks for spending your time reading my post!

Peace for All!

Mika

Check out Marissa.  She has been looking for her forever home for about a year now....how can you resist that face?  For more info click HERE, or send us an email and we can put you in touch.

Lew Rockwell is a great website to casually frequent to get your fill of freedom's fire when the normal news is too much of a wet blanket. And boy is it ever. The Lew Blog is now reporting that several key Cato Institute members are telling the press they favor a Fannie/Freddie bailout. Another one bites the dust...

            I try really hard to give people benefit of the doubt when it comes to saying and doing rude or insensitive things.  I try to see if they just made a slip of the tongue and said something without thinking or if they really meant it.  Although, I just have to admit it...I think our world is just becoming a less caring place in how people treat each other.

           Today, while shopping with my family in a large super type store I overheard something that makes me cringe every time I run it through my head.  A male person (I don't want to call him a man because he acted childish...even though he was an adult of at least 40 years of age); made a rude remark to the check out lady, who was having trouble with her register.  As she finished up the transaction, he parted from her with these words...Lady, you got to be smarter than the machine!  She continued on to the next customer...but, I am sure she felt some powerful emotions...I know that I did.  He  was gone like the wind...but, I bet he left feeling just fine.

          Logically, I know he is probably an insecure person who tried to lift up his self esteem by putting her down...but...in my eyes, he was less of a person for disrespecting her that way.  As time went on, I thought to myself...I wished that I had seen where he went so that I could have let him know that she did not deserve to be treated that way.

       I didn't appreciate being a witness to it...nor, did I appreciate the example that it set for my family to witness. 

This is Chance.   Update, Chance went to the doctor on Friday...For his story, pictures and to donate to help him out click HERE.

I entered the "Gummy Dwarf" animation in the mytoon's "Get with the Times!" contest and now I need you to go vote for me. The "Gummy Dwarf" is making a come back in widescreen HD (meaning four more trees), so go to http://mytoons.com/animation/play/16179 and vote. You can vote for my animation once every hour, so if you have an extra free second each hour...please go vote for me!

...and just in case your lazy like me, I figured out 4 easy steps to voting.

___________________

1. Register or Log In

2. Go to http://mytoons.com/animation/play/16179

3. Click the "Cast your Vote" button

4. Repeat steps 1-3 in one hour.

___________________

...and its as easy as that.

Thanks in advance,

James

When a project at work has gotten out of control, everyone is doing whatever they want: I have "checked out" and could care less what happens, who gets fired, which alien probes which idiot at work, etc...

I'm sure the term isn't a new one, probably a white thang. But man. It's so true. Ever stop caring what you do and who gets hurt in a relationship? Shoot, you've check out home skillet.

And, I fear at this moment I have "checked out" with work. There is a vacancy spot on my forehead when meetings go on, as people talk to me, when roaches die on the tables. I'm just existing.

You can use it when doing actions too. Performing oral somewhere and it's getting lame- you're just not interested? Well my friend, you've checked out. And so on.

Now I have not followed the career of Bill Henson closely but I believe those who have the power to dispense titles or deal in superlatives have added him to the list of Australia’s greatest artists. But in my humble opinion Henson is just an artist who over the years has achieved a technical competence and a recognizable subject oeuvre that has given him an audience, some good opportunities and a fairly regular paycheck. Henson is like the rest of us who profess or admit to following the occupation artist, is in the business of representation and creating metaphors and allegories that may or may not have an impact on the social and cultural landscape.

I can only guess what Bill Henson’s or Roslyn Qxley9 intention was in mounting this exhibition, but I am reminded of a history of painting covering the subject of the biblical story of Susanna and the Elders. And it is here that few of the ‘greats’ pop up, Artemisia Gentileschi, Lorenzo Lotto, Rembrandt and many others each with a different intention spanning the wide gamut from intended titillation to proclaiming the demise of morals in17th c protestant northern Europe.

In Henson’s ‘Susanna’ the elders are not represented by the camera but none the less are very present, just like the King and Queen in Velasquez Las Meninas we the elders stand before the object and will make our judgements from the many positions we may take in regard to these works. So excuse my world-weariness, but this in the end will only enhance Henson’s reputation in the art world even if he takes some heavy hits in the legal one. Of course at this time the voice of Henson’s contemporary teen, Susanna and others he has photographed is not present publicly. And as I have not seen the current Henson works I will just refer to the painting by Gentileschi, whose Susanna called out for assistance to God and those elders who charged with protecting her had betrayed her innocence. "O eternal God, who dost discern what is secret, who art aware of all things before they come to be, thou knowest that these men have borne false witness against me. And now I am to die! Yet I have done none of the things that they have wickedly invented against me!"

But nothing prepared me for the 1627 Poussin painting “Venus (or a Nymph) Spied On by Satyrs.” I witnessed the seemingly x-rated image at the Metropolitan Museum on the last day of the exhibit “Poussin and Nature.” There is a masturbating woman in the foreground! Her left hand is between her legs, her back is slightly arched, her head is tilted back. A satyr is removing a white sheet from her and is staring intently at her private parts, given a perspective that is denied the viewer. Behind a tree, another satyr looks on, one hand also moving to his crotch, apparently pleasuring himself. A smaller figure lies behind Venus watching her. She radiates heat. Venus may be oblivious to her voyeurs. Or she may be energized by the intensity of their gazes upon her. In either case, she is in a posture of expressive pleasure. It is clear that God does not provoke her ecstasy—instead the sexual enjoyment of her own body enraptures her.

Of course this whole spectacle may be staged for the male viewer (and indeed museum-goers crowd around the painting as if part of a homage—it is clearly a favorite) —but for now I will evade this debate. Yes, displaying the painting at the Met (and not the Museum of Sex) caught me off guard. Nevertheless I wasn’t prepared for Poussin’s baroque circle jerk. I was truly shocked.

This coupling of industry and leisure is a jolt to the eye. In fact, it is such a strange image that I initially thought it must be a composite of two photos. Which brings up an interesting question. If it were a Photoshoped composite rather than a "real world" juxtaposition, would it matter to the viewer? Absent of knowing the technical machinations behind the photo, it would be hard to read it other than as a literal representation. However, if the image were known to be a composite, it would an editorial — an illustration of an idea. Viewers would appreciate its beauty, certainly, but they wouldn't focus on the "capturing" of the image. Instead they would applaud the digital manipulator who put the image together, and the art director or editor who came up with the concept. On the other hand, when we know the photo is an actual record of a power plant built next to a spa, our perception changes. First, we are amazed that the spa and power plant are actually next to each other. Then we are amazed by the photographer's skill in capturing these competing realities, beautifully, in one frame. Contextualization is everything.

I Googled Bob Strong to learn more about his work. He has a couple of blog posts on the Reuters website, where he writes about his return to Baghdad in December of 2007. This year he's spending his time in Denmark, Sweden, Finland and other northern European countries covering winter sports competitions. Most of the shots are pretty standard issue, but occasionally he's got an interesting one. Check out this photo of the Global Seed Vault in Norway.

http://itfootprint.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/140/

Source control is old hat to developers, but it's a totally new concept for business users. I just have to remember that when I'm trying to explain this. :)

Of course we might forgive the general arts and cultural sector for its tardiness to comply, at least in the spirit of the act, given the dearth of ‘disability’ arts and cultural policies at a national and state level. Given that the arts and cultural sector see themselves as being on the ‘high ground’ in relation to cultural development, human rights, free speech and such matters, it puzzles that few in the sector are acting on the problems that people with disabilities face in accessing the diverse arts and cultural activities that most of us working in the sector enjoy. For example: poor accessibility to venues and events, inadequate professional development opportunities, barriers to tertiary education and opportunities to work within the sector.

I am also concerned that we don’t validate a current extremely narrow view, that somehow people experiencing disabilities are only viewed from an arts business perspective as simply potential consumers or audience. Artists and creative individuals work as professionals in the sector, and yet their developmental needs as artists first, and persons experiencing disabilities second, are not serviced well by the type of policy intervention suggested by the peak commonwealth funding body, the Australia Council for the Arts document Access All Areas: guidelines for marketing the arts to people with disabilities. I encourage you to download the document as an example to this well-meaning but one-dimensional level of thinking.

Finally, I wish to alert you to a simple but profound proposition about people experiencing disabilities and disadvantage “One does not know a culture until one knows the perspectives of its disabled citizens” spoken by Kinzaburo Oe, writer and Nobel Prize Winner.

One of the most powerful things we can do as a sector is recognize that a number of people experiencing disabilities are active arts and cultural producers across all art forms. Many more could be and would appreciate your active support in assisting it to happen.

Check Out: Carolina Liar - "Show Me What I'm Looking For"
[audio=http://consequenceofsound.wordpress.com/files/2008/03/02-show-me-what-im-looking-for.mp3]

The single has recently been featured on ABC's Eli Stone. You can also check out Carolina Liar at the upcoming Pemberton Festival.

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Born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1950, Robin Locke Monda is a graphic designer, visual artist and writer. Commercial clients have included book publishers, advertising agencies, non-profits and cultural organizations. As a visual artist she works in "old" and "new" media, occasionally straddling the two (digital prints). She follows the currents that run between popular media, activism and creative art practice, and is especially interested in the relationship between art-making and commerce.

Locke Monda has shown at the New York State Museum, Katonah Museum of Art, New York Hall of Science (Queens), 55 Mercer Street (Manhattan), Thread Waxing Space (Manhattan), Pratt Manhattan Gallery, Pierogi 2000 (Brooklyn) and Silicon Gallery (Philadelphia), as well as a number of other spaces. Her poetry has been published in You Are Here: New York City Streets in Poetry (P&Q Press), and she has taught production courses in QuarkXPress, Photoshop, Illustrator, typography and book design at Pratt Manhattan, Parsons School of Design, School of Visual Arts and College of Staten Island (CUNY).

MALIN ABRAHAMSSON (SWEDEN / USA)
Malin Abrahamsson was born in a small town in northern Sweden, 1971. In 1991 she traveled with her older sister through Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia for seven months. She also traveled extensively through Europe and the Americas, then attended the Fine Arts Program at Sunderby Folkhögskola, Sweden before moving to New York in 1995 to study at School of Visual Arts. She received her BFA in sculpture in 1998. She now lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

An active artist (www.malinabrahamsson.com), Abrahamsson is represented by Sara Nightingale Gallery. Her work has been represented in Sweden and the United States. Her work has been on view at Concepto Gallery, Goliath Visual Space, Joymore, The Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, The Noble Maritime Collection Museum, and Konstens Hus, Luleå, Sweden.

In 2007, Abrahamsson was awarded the "Arts For Transit Permanent Art Award" by Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York for the permanent decoration of a commuter train station on the LIRR. Recent grants, residencies, and awards include a chashama North Residency (2007); Premier Project Grant, funded by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the Council on the Arts & Humanities of Staten Island (COAHSI) (2006); chashama AREA Visual Arts Studio Award, New York (2005); Kulturnämndens Arbetsstipendium, Skellefteå Kommun, Sweden; YEAR: Young European Artists at Ricklundgården, Sweden; JuneFest Exhibiting Arts Awards, New York; Lambent Fellow of the Arts Nomination, New York (all 2004) and the Irene C. Fromer Award for the Visual Arts, New York (2003).

TIM PORTLOCK (USA)
Tim Portlock was born in Chicago in 1969. Growing up bi-racial in Chicago at a time when the city was one of the most segregated in the country, has informed Portlock ‘s lifelong interest in the dialogue between place and the formation of identity. Educated primarily as a painter, Portlock has worked as a community-based muralist as well as a studio painter. During the last several years, his art-making practice incorporates traditional and new media, such as “Super Spectacular!” a 3D environment constructed from hand-drafted drawings. Portlock’s most recent work uses 3D gaming technology to simulate real world and imagined spaces. He is presently an assistant professor in the Film and Media Studies Department at Hunter College in New York City, where he teaches 3D animation and 3D game modification. He has exhibited in France, UK, Poland, Argentina, US, Austria and Japan as well as other various venues in Europe, North America and Asia.

ESTEBAN CHAVEZ (USA)
Born in the Denver, Colorado in 1954, Esteban Chavez is a professional artist residing in the New York City Area. He received his MFA from the Yale School of Art in 1985. Esteban is a master printmaker who has received international recognition in both Asia and Europe. His work is in the permanent collections of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Republic of China, the Smithsonian Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and El Museo del Barrio in New York City. He received the Grand Prize in the 5th Biennial of Prints from the Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama, Japan in 1993, and won fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts in 1995 and 2003.

Chavez's work is varied, and includes printmaking, artist's books, sculpture, oil painting, installation, and digital imaging. Following in the tradition of caustic social commentary created by the likes of Jose Clement Orozco and Francisco Goya, Esteban's art lambastes the hubris of Empire with monumental paper tapestries, political oil vignettes, and monumental wooden heads.

ROSS BARBER (AUSTRALIA) Ross Barber has considerable experience in Australia and internationally in the development and management of Inclusive Arts and Community Cultural Development practice and programs. He was appointed the Executive Director of Access Arts Inc (Queensland) in May 2004, bringing with him an entirely new philosophy of staff employment, development and regional engagement in Queensland and in Asia. His approach has precipitated a rise in the organisations reputation as an arts and cultural sector leader in the development and employment of administrators, artists and cultural workers experiencing a disability and for developing quality projects programs workshops events and exhibitions in a whole of community context. Ross is a Queensland government, Arts Queensland Industry Peer and continues to maintain his professional practice as an artist developing and regularly exhibiting new installation work. Recognition of his contribution to the Arts includes a Commonwealth Centenary of Federation Medal: for Distinguished Service to the Arts, Ross has a Bachelor of Visual Arts, University of Western Sydney and a Master of Fine Arts Queensland University of Technology.

EDWARD D. MILLER (USA)
Edward D. Miller was born in New York City in 1960, and continues to live there. Miller's scholarship focuses on radio and nonfiction media. His book Emergency Broadcasting and 1930s American Radio (2003) has been widely recognized. Miller is currently completing Episodes of Reality, which examines the rise of nonfictionality in American popular culture in the early 1970s. Recently he appeared aboard the Staten Island Ferry as well as on WNYC radio. He also composes sound collages and rotates these pieces at www.myspace.com/acousmetre. He has been published in many online journals and publications and maintains the web log Adventures In and Out of Mainstream Media at http://milleremedia.blogspot.com. Miller is Associate Professor of Media Culture at the College of Staten Island and also teaches in the Film Studies Certificate Program at the Graduate Center, The City University of New York. His approach is influenced by his training in performance studies and an ongoing interest in critiques of Western philosophical and cultural traditions. Miller has also worked extensively in downtown New York theater. Before academia, Miller’s career was in magazine publishing and nonprofit management.

FIVEL ROTHBERG (USA)
Fivel Rothberg was born in Philadelphia in 1978. He is a student in Hunter's Integrated Media Arts MFA Program, is a dedicated father to his 9-year-old son, with whom he shares time between Philly and Manhattan. For the past 7 years Rothberg has devoted his time to creating and presenting independent media that engages audiences, stimulates dialogue, encourages progressive social change, and bridges cultural divides.

BETH GORRIE