January 31, 2011
Ennio [en-yo] Morricone [mor-ee-cone-ay] (b. 1928) is an Italian composer and conductor, considered one of the most prolific and influential film composers of his era. He is well-known for his long-term collaborations with international acclaimed directors such as Sergio Leone, Brian De Palma, Barry Levinson, and Giuseppe Tornatore.
He wrote the characteristic film scores of Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). In the 80s, Morricone composed the scores for John Carpenter’s horror movie The Thing (1982), Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Roland Joffé’s The Mission (1986), Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987) and Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988).
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January 26, 2011
Henry Charles Bukowski (1920 – 1994) was a German-American poet, novelist and short story writer.
His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles. It is marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually having over 60 books in print. In 1986 Time called Bukowski a ‘laureate of American lowlife.’
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January 21, 2011
David Elsewhere (b. 1979) is an illusionary dancer from Santa Ana, California. He became known through a viral video of his participation in the 2001 edition of the Korean American talent show ‘Kollaboration,’ dancing to Kraftwerk’s song ‘Expo 2000.’ The clip showcased Bernal’s characteristic take on the contemporary dance styles of popping and abstract waving. Performances of these dances were rare at the time, and the clip became very popular when it circulated on the internet.
Bernal was later hired to participate in advertisements for Heineken (dancing to ‘Cobrastyle’ by the Teddybears), Volkswagen, Apple iPod, 7-Eleven Slurpee, Pepsi, Puma, and Doritos. He also made a cameo appearance in the movie ‘You Got Served.’ Computer graphics technology were used in several of the commercials Bernal took part in, superimposing others’ faces (old, young, male, female) onto his body so that they appeared to dance like him. In one of his most popular ads, a commercial for the Volkswagen Golf GTI created in January of 2005, Gene Kelly’s head was superimposed onto Bernal’s body in a re-enactment of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ remixed by Manchester group Mint Royale.
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January 18, 2011
Richard Parker is the name of a person and a fictional character who were shipwrecked and subsequently cannibalised by their fellow seamen. In Edgar Allan Poe’s only novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, published in 1838, Richard Parker is a mutinous sailor on the whaling ship Grampus. After the ship capsizes in a storm, he and three other survivors draw lots upon Parker’s suggestion to kill one of them to sustain the others. Parker then gets cannibalized.
In 1884, an actual yacht named Mignonette sank. Four people survived, drifted in a life boat, and finally killed one of them, the cabin boy Richard Parker, for food. the survivors were criminally tried in the case of ‘R v Dudley and Stephens (which established a precedent, throughout the common law world, that necessity is no defence against a charge of murder).
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January 11, 2011
Avram Noam Chomsky (b. 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is a professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT. Chomsky created one of the most important contributions to the field of linguistics made in the 20th century: the theory of generative grammar, a branch of theoretical linguistics that works to provide a set of rules that can accurately predict which combinations of words are able to make grammatically correct sentences. In the 1950’s he helped start the cognitive revolution in psychology through his review of B. F. Skinner’s work.
He challenged the behaviorist way of looking at behavior and language. His natural approach to the study of language also changed the philosophy of language and mind. He invented the Chomsky hierarchy, a way of looking at formal languages in terms of their power to explain language. In the 1960s he criticized the Vietnam War. Because of that, Chomsky became more widely known for his media criticism and politics. He is a key intellectual figure within the left wing of United States politics.
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January 11, 2011
Bill Hicks (1961 – 1994) was an American stand-up comedian whose humor challenged mainstream beliefs, aiming to ‘enlighten people to think for themselves.’ Hicks used a ribald approach to express his material, describing himself as ‘Chomsky with dick jokes,’ while conceding that his humor was ‘caring.’ His material largely consisted of general discussions about society, religion, politics, philosophy, and personal issues. He was often controversial and his routine was steeped in dark comedy.
In both his stand-up performances and during interviews he criticized consumerism, superficiality, mediocrity, and banality within the media and popular culture, describing them as oppressive tools of the ruling class, meant to ‘keep people stupid and apathetic.’ Hicks died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 32. In the years after his death, his work and legacy achieved the significant admiration and acclaim of numerous humorists.
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January 5, 2011
Shepard Fairey (b. 1970) is a contemporary artist, graphic designer, and illustrator who emerged from the American skateboarding scene. He first became known for his ‘André the Giant Has a Posse’ (…OBEY…) sticker campaign, in which he appropriated images from the comedic supermarket tabloid ‘Weekly World News.’ His work became more widely known in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, specifically his Barack Obama ‘HOPE’ poster.
Fairey’s first art museum exhibition, titled ‘Supply & Demand’ like his earlier book, was in Boston at the Institute of Contemporary Art in the summer of 2009. The exhibition featured over 250 works in a wide variety of media: screen prints, stencils, stickers, rubylith illustrations, collages, and works on wood, metal and canvas. As a complement to the ICA exhibition, Fairey created public art works around Boston. The artist explains his driving motivation: ‘The real message behind most of my work is ‘question everything.”
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January 4, 2011
Abu l-Hasan (789–857), nicknamed Ziryab, was a Persian or Kurdish polymath: a poet, musician, courtesan, astronomer, botanist and geographer born in Baghdad and active in Córdoba, Spain. According to some sources, he was a former slave, possibly of East African descent. The name ‘Ziryab’ (Blackbird) was given to him for his dark complexion, eloquence, and melodious voice.
Ziryab introduced musical instruments to Iberia, notably the Persian lute that became the Spanish guitar, as well as passionate songs and dances of Persia and Mesopotamia that later, mixed with Gypsy influence, evolved into the famed Spanish flamenco. He is also credited with inventing and popularizing an early form of toothpaste.
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January 1, 2011
Temple Grandin (b. 1947) is an American doctor of animal science and professor at Colorado State University, bestselling author, and consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior. As a person with high-functioning autism, Grandin is also widely noted for her work in autism advocacy and is the inventor of the ‘hug machine’ designed to calm hypersensitive persons.
Grandin became well known after being described by Oliver Sacks in the title narrative of his book ‘An Anthropologist on Mars’ (1995); the title is derived from Grandin’s description of how she feels around neurotypical people. She first spoke in public about autism in the mid-1980s at the request of Ruth C. Sullivan, one of the founders of the Autism Society of America.
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January 1, 2011
Blockhead (real name Tony Simon) is an American Hip hop producer based in Manhattan, New York. Aside from his solo efforts released on the Ninja Tune label, he is most associated with producing for Aesop Rock, a rapper for the Definitive Jux independent hip hop label. He is also a member of the hip hop/comedy group Party Fun Action Committee. His father, the late Sidney Simon, was a well known sculptor in New York City.
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December 22, 2010
Chuck Close (b. 1940) is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits.
Though a catastrophic spinal artery collapse in 1988 left him severely paralyzed, he has continued to paint and produce work that remains sought after by museums and collectors. Ironically, while being one of the most successful portrait artists of his time, Close is also afflicted with prosopagnosia (face blindness), a condition that prevents him from recognizing people’s faces.
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December 20, 2010
Victor Vasarely (1906 – 1997) was a Hungarian French artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art. His work entitled Zebra, created by in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art.
He was born in a town outside of Budapest, but settled in Paris in 1930, where he went on to produce art and sculpture mainly focused around the area of optical illusion. Over the next three decades, Vasarely developed his style of geometric abstract art, working in various materials but using a minimal number of forms and colors.
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