One of my favorite living artists, Camille Rose Garcia, is having her first solo museum exhibition of her fantastically surrealist paintings at the San Jose Museum of Art beginning next week. The show, titled "Tragic Kingdom," opens Saturday, May 12, and closes September 23. Seen here is "Black Dawn Rising," a signed print published especially for the exhibition in an edition of 50. They're $950 each. The Museum also created a fun video preview of the show.

From the show description:

Garcia’s work stems from growing up in the suburbs of Orange County and making frequent visits to Disneyland, “the happiest place on earth.” The artist quickly grew to recognize its artifice and contradictions, and she witnessed the realities of privileged suburban life - adolescent alienation and social marginalization. Her precious glittered compositions are infused with a sense of discontent, yielding works that are simultaneously disturbing and attractive.

Garcia is a notable member of a Los Angeles underground contemporary art movement known as the “Pop Surrealists” or “Lowbrow” artists, who combine dark surrealism with an eclectic array of pop culture sources, including comics, animation, and 1950s television. Garcia is particularly influenced by Walt Disney, punk bands like the Dead Kennedys, and sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick. In addition, she draws upon diverse artistic and cultural sources, such as the work of her former teacher Paul McCarthy, illustrations by nineteenth-century artist Aubrey Beardsley, myths and fairy tales, and Japanese art, specifically traditional woodblock prints and the anime inspired work of Yoshitomo Nara and Takashi Murakami. From these references, she has crafted both a style that is unique and content that is a good deal more political than the work of her contemporaries.

Link to San Jose Museum of Art page, Link directly to YouTube video

Of all the wonderful things I've seen on the Bibliodyssey blog, this may just be the wonderfullest.

Snip:

After beginning his working life as a printer's apprentice, Louis Crucius (or Crusius) completed the necessary requirements to graduate as a pharmacist in 1882 and a doctor in 1890 in St Louis, Missouri. While he was studying he worked in a pharmacy and made humorous sketches that were placed in the window of the store. A collection of these drawings was published in 1893 ('Funny Bones'). He lectured in histology and anatomy and eventually came to be a Professor of Anatomy but died in 1898 from kidney tumours.

Although he gave most of his drawings away, Crucius sold a number of them to the Antikamnia ('opposed to pain') Chemical Company which had been established in St Louis in 1890. They produced antikamnia medicines containing the coal tar derivative, acetanilid, an anti-fever drug with pain relieving properties somewhat related to paracetamol, but which would be later shown to be a toxic compound not to mention addictive. Antikamnia was mixed with substances like codeine and quinine to enhance the pain relieving effects.

30 of the Crucius 'dance of death'-inspired drawings were used to make 5 years worth of Antikamnia Chemical Company calendars - between 1897 and 1901. They had a fairly aggressive marketing campaign in which the calendars (aimed at the medical fraternity) as well as postcards and sample packs were distributed to doctors in the United States and overseas.

Link to full post.

GigaOM: "FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Thursday that the commission told large telcos to stop blocking calls into numbers for the Iowa-based free calling operations, threatening punitive actions if the carriers didn’t comply." Link.

The Transportation Security Administration is missing a hard drive that contains sensitive data -- social security numbers, birth dates, bank account and payroll information -- on 100,000 TSA employees. "It is unclear at this stage whether the device is still within headquarters or was stolen," according to a TSA press release about the breach issued last Thursday. Link to post on Wired's "Threat Level" blog.

BoingBoing reader crazymonk says,

The alt-weekly Las Vegas CityLife has published excerpts from Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas, a new book by local journalist Matt O'Brien depicting his exploration of some of the 400+ miles of flood-control tunnels and storm drains that can be found beneath the glitzy lights of Las Vegas. Link.

"I follow the footsteps of a psycho killer. I two-step under the MGM Grand at 3 in the morning. I chase the ghosts of Benny Binion, Bugsy Siegel, Elvis, Frank Sinatra and Howard Hughes. I learn how to make meth, that art is most beautiful where it's least expected and that there are no pots of gold under the neon rainbow."

The second excerpt (located at a separate URL) describes his encounter with a homeless man living in dank tunnel near the airport, who has fashioned himself an elevated bed that manages to stay above the water line even during major flooding.

Photo by Bill Hughes, courtesy of Las Vegas CityLife.

Emily Gould of Gawker did a recent op-ed for the New York Times about her guest experience on CNN's "Larry King Live" last month, in which substitute host Jimmy Kimmel flipped out on her because of the Gawker Stalker:

He especially took issue with an entry last summer, when a tipster had reported that Mr. Kimmel was “visibly drunk and talking loud.” It’s hard to believe that Mr. Kimmel, a late-night talk show host who has made on-air inebriation a cornerstone of his public image, was truly upset that people knew he’d gone out drinking. So what was he really angry about?

More likely, Mr. Kimmel was trying to defend the symbiotic relationship that has existed between celebrities and the mainstream entertainment media since the dawn of Hollywood, and which the Internet is steadily eroding.

Link (thanks, Mark Pesce!)

As an aside, I hate the new feature on nytimes.com where you doubleclick on a word or words and it gives you a dictionary excerpt, instead of just selecting that text for you as would normally occur. I was just now trying to highlight the title of Emily's op-ed, to paste into this blog post -- and my browser choked because the New York Times thinks I need a pop-up window to give me the definition of the word "and." I like the web the way it's supposed to work.

Reader comment: Scott Gregory says,

If you hate the NYTIMES "dictionary" feature too, and you are using Firefox with Adblock, block

*.nytimes.com/js/common/screen/altClickToSearch.js

Definitions of "and" no more!

The unfairly talented Michael Mouris of Milkfat.com has been producing some highly neat stop-motion animation videos lately.

Here's one (YT video link) where a dude changes his shirt without moving, and is then bombarded by rubiks cubes. It's "stop motion animation, with effects done in camera with transparencies on multiplane," explains the aliased uploader.

Here's a kung-fu style fight with stop-motion, in-camera special effects: Video Link.

How about some stop-motion "special" pumpkin muffins? Nom nom nom. Video Link.

Here's another one that already has 205,000 views on YouTube -- this video is composed of 2,388 still photos, all of which add up to tell the tale of a guy drinking beer in his flat with cats. Pure internet gold! Video Link.

(PSST: Michael, your site needs an RSS feed!)

Previously on BoingBoing:

Diddy and Bjork have a conversation: the animated gif

Here's a pretty righteous move on the part of CNN management -- kudos to them. Remix fun for the whole family! Snip:

The presidential debates are an integral part of our system of government, in which the American people have the opportunity to make informed choices about who will serve them. Therefore, CNN debate coverage will be made available without restrictions at the conclusion of each live debate.

We believe this is good for the country and good for the electoral process. This decision will apply to all of CNN's presidential debates, beginning with the upcoming New Hampshire debates in June.

Link. (thanks, Rick Kleffel)

custom ice cream
7 frozen treats
wine cellar sorbet
sorbet disaster
pepto ice cream
candy sushi
jaffa cake
what's noka chocolate really worth?
buffalo cookies
mintini

Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!).

My NPR colleague Luke Burbank is hosting a new, experimental kind of show on the network, code-named Bryant Park Project until they come up with a better name.

They have a blog where they're periodically posting these cool, smart little video segments.

I really like this video they uploaded this week, about the sociology of personal avatar space inside Second Life. They explore how people playing SL get really creeped out when someone's avatar stands too close to their avatar... just like in real life. This phenomenon is what's known as "the elevator effect." Link.

Susannah Breslin has an interesting essay up on her blog today about the purported "mainstreaming" of adult entertainment in America. Sure, it's moving in that direction, she argues, but it's not there yet -- for a reason. Here's the kicker:

In an abandoned building, I watched while Jenna Jameson and T. T. Boy had sex that night. T. T. Boy looked like a construction worker trying to run a jackhammer through cement. After the pop shot, the P.A. stepped forward because his job was handing T. T. Boy a paper towel. Not long ago, I came across a photo from the set of a porn movie. The girl in the picture is a porn star. Her eyes are red. Her mouth is agape. There is a dog bowl on her head. On it, someone has scrawled: STUPID WHORE. The real Porn Valley remains behind closed doors. The reality is too hardcore for reality TV--and America.

Link to "The Opacity of Pornography."

Image: from the "Pornoland" series by photographer Stefano De Luigi. Link to his portfolio (includes nudity).