The Great Chocolate Ripoff

Hoo Boy! From DallasFood.org, here's an amazing expose of Noka Chocolates, a super-dooper expensive chocolate company. This gripping ten-part (!) series details how the fancy-pants company buys bulk chocolate from French chocolate-maker Bonnat, forms it into undistinguished truffles, and sells it at a markup ranging from 2500-7000%. Worst of all, they have a pattern of deliberate obfuscation on the issue of where their chocolate comes from, suggesting strongly in all their promotional materials and personal appearances that they make it themselves.

The article is currently bouncing all over the Web, including good discussions on Metafilter and BoingBoing. This is the kind of superb online investigative journalism that can kill off a slimy company in one fell swoop.

Amazing Coldplay Cover

Check out 81-year-old Fred Knittle's quietly devastating live cover of Coldplay's I Will Fix You.

The clip is from a documentary about Knittle and New England's octogenarian Young at Heart Chorus that aired on the BBC. Apparently, Kittle was supposed to sing with another man named Bob Salvini -- but Salvini died of a heart attack the week earlier.

YouTube creates another phenom. Knittle must be tickled...

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Here's the original Coldplay video, by the way. It's a good song, but I think Coldplay kind of peaked with A Rush of Blood to the Head. Everything I've heard off their latest album seems a bit like Coldplay lite, including this song. I much prefer Knittle's version.

And while you're at YouTube, you definitely want to join the 6.5 million others who have watched this now-famous laughing baby.

Dice Stacking Video

Here's a fun video of a guy doing some pretty cool dice stacking. Dice stacking is sort of an allied art with magic. It's really a form of juggling but since it uses dice it also allies itself with gambling and magic.

At any rate, if you've never seen this stuff, enjoy!

New Blog - Magic and Conjuring

I'm not normally that excited by the magic blogosphere, but Frederick of Oz has a new blog called Magic and Conjuring that I'm pretty pumped about. His stated goal is to explore the intersection of magic, meaning and art and to take a stance "against the trivialization of magic." He's only been at it for a week and he has already name-checked John Updike, Rumi, and the McBride/Berger/Neale trio.

I've added it to my Bloglines and I look forward to seeing where he goes with this.

Alex Grey's St. Albert on Ebay

Oh lordy, get your checkbooks ready! Psychedelic artist Alex Grey and the Multi-Disciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (M.A.P.S.) have teamed up to auction off the last remaining print of St. Albert and the LSD Revelation Revolution, created to honor Dr. Albert Hoffman, the father of LSD. This print is number 1 of 50 and was personally signed by Hoffman shortly after his 100th birthday celebration earlier this year in Basel, Switzerland.

Opening bid is $3000 and all proceeds will be divided evenly between a M.A.P.S.-sponsored Swiss end-of-life research study (the first legal research with LSD in 35 years) and Grey's trippy Chapel of Sacred Mirrors project.

Alex Grey is probably the most gifted visionary artist alive. My favorite painting of his is 1984's Theologue (below, click the image for a bigger, better version at Grey's Web site). I think Theologue is as good a depiction of a transcendent experience as I've ever seen anywhere. I urge you to wander Grey's site if you haven't seen his work. It's truly mind-blowing and very, very beautiful.

Thanks, Blogger!

Labels at last! Labels at last! Thank God Almighty I have labels at last!

It always struck me as a tad unseemly to complain about a free service, but the lack of post labels on Blogger has been the one thing that has tempted me to move my blog elsewhere. Without labels, older posts just kind of vanish into the ether of the "Archives" at the right, and most visitors are unlikely to feel much motivation to go digging in there. So the magicians who visit this blog and find hardly any magic-related posts may be disinclined to go searching for my occasional posts on that subject.

No longer. Blogger has finally updated their service with post labels and I have wasted no time in categorizing my stuff and sticking the labels at right. For instance, I have a bunch of magic posts (forty-five, if my labeling is accurate), including six David Blaine posts. The ability to categorize and make easily searchable large amounts of data is one of the hallmarks of the modern Web and it has been a major failing of Blogger that basic tagging hasn't been available until now.

The ability to label posts is pretty fundamental to blogging, and it facilitates certain types of posting. For instance, I threatened long ago to start posting mini-reviews of all the films I see. But the lack of labeling discouraged this enterprise. Blogger didn't offer any way for me to point readers easily to a complete list of all my reviews, and I knew that once posted the reviews would quickly disappear into the ether. I actually considered starting a separate blog just for movie reviews.

All that has changed. It's a new day at PeaceLove's Musings! Stay tuned.

Balloon Art Borat

Russian doctor-turned-balloon-artist Irina made this beautiful Borat in ballons. It's been bouncing all over the Web, including a prominent nod on Defamer.

The movie's extremely funny, too. Uncomfortable but funny.

Awesome Magic Clip - UPDATED!

UPDATE: Thanks to all the commentors, especially Rick Carruth, who identified the magician as Akira Fuji, a well-known (in Japan) close-up worker. Fuji has a video out called "Coins Akira's", which was translated into English by none other than the very clever Nathan Kranzo.

Via Rick Carruth's always-valuable Magic Roadshow, here's the most entertaining six minutes of close-up magic I've seen in a while. Even though I don't know more than two words of Japanese, I can tell that this non-Cyril is a seasoned pro. Lots of strong magic, too!

BTW, someone in the YouTube comments claims his name is Akira, and someone else claims to have met him at a magic convention in Sacramento. So now you know as much as I do. Can anyone out there help identify this talented young magician?

Pollack Breaks the Record

In my recent Picasso Musings post I mentioned that I'd love to have a Jackson Pollack painting in my personal collection. Coincidentally, David Geffen just sold Pollack's 1948 No. 5 to a Mexican financier named David Martinez for a record-breaking $140 million.



The picture above is how the New York Times displayed the painting, although I've never seen a huge Pollack displayed vertically, like this. I wouldn't be surprised if it's supposed to be horizontal.

UPDATE, January 25, 2007: Okay, I've had enough of seeing it vertical. I'm quite sure the painting should look like this:



Pollack is an acquired taste, but once he grabs hold of you his greatest works don't let go easily. I'm not normally envious of super-wealth, but this is one 4' x 8' painting I'd like to have on my wall.

Miscellaneous Musings

1. Via Wonkette: Over half or Americans now favor impeachment for President Bush. Isn't that called a "mandate?"

2. Via CNN: SF hero Craig Newmark of Craigslist has no intention of selling the site anytime soon. This represents a nearly supernatural resistance to the lure of super-dooper weath. Think about it for a moment. Could you resist a nine (or ten) figure offer dangled in front of you?

Also in the above article is the tidbit that MySpace, which Rupert Murdoch's News Corp bought less than a year ago for $580 million, is now valued at $15 billion -- a decent ROI by most standards.

3. NORML has a just come out with an extensive review of the recent scientific literature (2000-2006) on medical marijuana . There have been over 700 articles in the first part of 2006 alone, mostly from countries other than our own. Conditions for which cannibis and cannabinoids show promise include Alzheimers, Cancer, and Hepatitis C.

No wonder the powers-that-be fight it so ferociously.

In related news, the Drug War Clock tallies over 643,000 people arrested for cannabis offenses so far this year.

And finally:

4. Seen across the street: These folks built this cool wheeled wooden ship-thingy to promote the Palo Alto premiere of 9/11 Press for Truth, a film about the struggle between grieving 9/11 families and the White House.

New Year's Eve Tickets Available Now!

I'm pretty excited about my upcoming New Year's Eve show! It should be quite a blowout; get your tickets early!



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TOTH 2 C.K.

Picasso Musings

Regular readers might remember my post about the Online Picasso Project, a delirous joy for fans of that seminal artist. Today comes a double shocker.

First, I'm amazed that my absolute favorite Picasso, La Reve (The Dream) (1932) is in private hands. Casino magnate Steve Wynn owns it as part of his vast collection.

I'm pretty much sold on Picasso as the most important visual artist of the first half of the twentieth century (I think a good argument could be made that Andy Warhol holds that distinction for the second half). Even before he invented Cubism and changed all the rules of visual expression, Picasso was already the supernaturally talented painter of a slew of Blue Period masterpieces like The Old Guitarist (1903) and The Tragedy (1903) (below), both painted when he was only twenty-two, as well as the amazing Rose Period paintings like The Family of Saltimbanques (1905) (also below) and many others.




































At the ripe old age of twenty-six Picasso invented Cubism, a paradigm shift so tectonic that he could hardly match it again, although he continued to create brilliant work right up to his death in 1973 at the age of ninety-two.

I'm a huge Cubism nut and I think Picasso brought a more focused intensity, more genius, really, to his Cubist works than any other artist ever managed. Check out the spare monochromatic complexity of his famous 1910 portrait of the art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, on the right.

But for sheer beauty -- in form, color balance, sensuality, and passion -- I'll take La Reve any day. Painted when Picasso was fifty-one, this painting of his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter is a true work of love. Marie-Thérèse never looked so beautiful; check out his other portraits from the same year if you don't believe me. The work is suffused with an intense eroticism; note the dual reading as both a front portrait and a profile view with penis -- presumably the artist's -- above her face.

La Reve is the Picasso I'd most like to have hanging on my wall at home (next to Matisse's The Dance, Jackson Pollack's Lavender Mist, and something by Jasper Johns -- as long as I'm designing my dream collection).

I was shocked to discover that La Reve is privately owned. That was the first surprise. Then I had an extra pang when I read the news today that Wynn was going to sell it (for a record $139 million) until he accidentally put his elbow through it while showing it to some celebrity friends.

Nora Ephron was there, and she blogged about it here. The New Yorker also has a nice story about the incident.

I can't imagine actually owning such a famous masterpiece in the first place. But if I did own La Reve, I certainly can't see myself ever selling it (assuming that, like Wynn, that I didn't really need an extra $139 million). Donate it to a museum, sure. But sell it to another wealthy private collector? I mean, why?

Be that as it may, I think it would definitely ruin my whole week if I accidentally punched a hole in it. Maybe Wynn needed that little lesson to remind him of why he collects great art in the first place. He and his wife have decided to repair La Reve and keep it after all.

Now isn't that a touching story?

Trippy Hubble Deep Field Video

Here's a mind-blowing short film about the Hubble Deep Field image from the edge of the universe 78-odd billion light years out. The numbers are, well, astronomical.

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Link via Rick Carruth's Magic Roadshow.

We Need a "Son of Sam" Law for Wars

Alternet has an excellent article tracking The Ten Most Brazen War Profiteers. This got me to thinking. Isn't it time we removed the profit motive from war?

Son of Sam laws, named after the infamous New York serial killer of the late 1970s, are designed to prevent criminals from profiting from any work of art or literature arising from their action -- and to allow the victims of their crimes to claim the profits. Son of Sam laws have run into constitutional trouble arising from their ostensible restrictions on free speech, but I see no such problem with a law prohibiting companies or individuals from profiting from war.

In fact, such a law would have the effect of preventing wars, as the military industrial complex would have a strong disincentive to ever use the product of its work. The Lockheeds and General Dynamics, the Halliburtons and Bechtels of the world would eventually have to move more thoroughly into non war-related fields. Imagine a world in which Bechtel turns down a multi-billion-dollar contract because they can't make any money on it!

A German proverb states:

A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.

Let's help prevent the first two by eliminating the third.

Olbermann Slams Rumsfeld

Keith Olbermann has his Edward R. Murrow moment!

Regular readers will remember how I rang in the new year lauding Olbermann in these pages. Well, he's at it again and he's even more gloves off -- and his target is a much bigger and more important fish. I know it's only cable but still, MSNBC is no Pacifica...

Check it out here.

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Via PopURLs.

Greatest. Movie. Pan. Ever.

I haven't seen Barry Levinson's Sphere and the review to the left (click on it to read it, and boy is it worth reading) doesn't exactly make me want to. But the review sure explains a lot.

By the way, this isn't exactly worksafe. You have been warned.


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People frequently ask me where I find all this stuff. Well, below I tip one of my not-so-secret sources.

One of the most exciting developments of the last year or so is the rise of "collaborative filtering" sites that aggragate the best and most referenced URLs on the Web. This is a very Web 2.0 idea, the idea of using the collective intelligence of millions of Web users as a filter to find the best and most important sites out there at any given time. Sites like digg, del.icio.us, slashdot, and metafilter make it easy to track the global brain -- or at least keep up with whatever the digerati is reading from moment to moment.

PopURLs is a fantastic site that collects the best links from a half a dozen collaborative filters, along with the hottest videos on YouTube and iFilm and some of the most viewed new photosets on flickr.

PopURLs is always one of my first stops on the Web when I have time to kill and an appetite for the new.

Bizzaro's Promo

Magician and fellow blogger Bizzaro of Why Am I Stuck In Magician's Hell? has posted his new promo online and it's a blast. I've been in magic for a very very long time and it's rare for me to see a promo that actually makes me want to see the magician.

Check it out here; the boy's got talent!

The Power of Nightmares

Yikes! It's been awhile since my last post! Ah well, time flies when you're having fun. I had surgery for a hernia a couple of weeks ago, so I've been kind of preoccupied with that. My Dad came for a visit to keep me company while I recovered, so that was fun having some one-on-one time with him.


At any rate, here at last is the information on how you can see the documentary I alluded to in my last post. It's a three-hour BBC documentary by Adam Curtis called The Power of Nightmares and -- bless the 'Net again! -- it's available to watch for free right now on Google Video.

I first heard about this extraordinary series when Andrew O'Hehir of Salon gave it a glowing review, calling it the most important political documentary of this decade, and perhaps of my lifetime.

O'Hehir goes on to say:

And as for broadcast on American television, I'm told that will happen, let's see, approximately 5,000 years after pigs first begin to fly across the frozen wastelands of hell. It's probably illegal not just to watch, but also to read about or think about. You and I are both committing treason right now.

Essentially, Curtis' thesis is that the current technique of the American political system is to promulgate fear of a largely non-existent terrorist threat. The Power of Nightmares starts out in 1949 when an Egyptian named Sayyid Qutb, studying in Colorado, is horrified by the decadence he sees around him and winds up as the spiritual founder of Islamic Jihad. In parallel at the University of Chicago, professor Leo Strauss, a German Jew who had fled Hitler and settled in the U.S., is experiencing a similar reaction and founding the neo-conservative movement. Curtis' great insight is that each of these two extremists needs the other to justify their own existence.

The Power of Nightmares includes interviews with many of the key players over the last fifty years. Curtis demonstrates time and again the ways in which high-level members of the U.S. intelligence service and the White House exaggerated or simply lied outright about the capability and threat of the enemy. He accomplishes this through a darkly satiric web of stock footage from all over the place (the ridiculous state of legal clearances, as O'Hehir points out, is another reason why this might never show in the U.S.). The Power of Nightmares is a grand, sweeping effort -- a blast to watch, and if even half of Curtis' argument holds water, very very damning, too.

Part One: "Baby It's Cold Outside"

Part Two: "The Phantom Victory"

Part Three: "Shadows in the Cave"

By the way, here's the BBC's blurb on the 3-part documentary, in which they sum it up thusly:

In a new series, the Power of Nightmares explores how the idea that we are threatened by a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion.

I urge you to check out this amazing documentary before it disappears from the Web.

The Magician (1900)

My old acquaintance Tom Frank, who I wrote about a while ago, has pulled up stakes in Seattle and moved back to L.A. to be with his new love and start the next chapter of his life. In the process, he has discontinued his intensly personal diary-cum-blog Coming Through the Haze and started up a new blog about his L.A. experience, Reverie.

His latest post points to The Magician, a delightful Edison company short from 1900 which contains some early special fx work. Would that we could all work such wonders live!

Thanks Tom! And good luck with your new life!

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Coming up next: The documentary that Salon's Andrew O'Hehir called "...the most important political documentary of this decade, and perhaps of my lifetime" is available to watch online!

Flatlife, plus Five More Minutes of Mitch

I stumbled across this by accident (isn't that how the Net usually works?) and just had to pass it along. Flatlife is a short animated film by one Jonas Geirnaert, who was 21 when he submitted it to Cannes as a lark and was as surprised as anyone when it won best short animated film. It's a charming slice-of-life in an apartment complex, cleverly conceived and beautifully executed.

Five More Minutes of Mitch features the brillliantly trippy comic Mitch Hedberg, whose wacked-out stoner observations always overlaid an essential sweetness. Hedberg died of a drug overdose a year ago March at the age of 37, which gives this clip a sad undercurrent.

His widow, comedian Lynn Shawcrowft, has a moving personal blog here.

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Hedbergisms

I like vending machines, because snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at the store oftentimes I will drop it, so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential.

I'm gonna fix that last joke by taking out all the words and adding new ones.

I like to hold the microphone cord like this, I pinch it together, then I let it go, then you hear a whole bunch of jokes at once.

This one guy said, "Look at that girl. She's got a nice butt." I said, "Yeah, I bet she can sit down excellently!"