The Blimp, Captain Beefheart (1969)
Tag: China
The .Gif Post No. 785 – Grillin’ the Veggies, Rockin’ the Ballers & The Bamboo Curtain
No Free Parking
According to some reports, pay benches were installed in Yantai Park, Shangdong province, eastern China, and were inspired by this art piece.
“The Chinese government got this idea of coin-operated park benches after seeing an art installation by German artist Fabian Brunsing where he created a similar bench as a protest against the commercialization of modern life. The irony must’ve somehow been lost in translation.”
I couldn’t verify the Yantai Park story, and it may be a complete fabrication.
“In 2008, German design student Fabian Brunsing created a piece called Pay & Sit. It’s an art installation in the shape of a park bench with sharp metal spikes that prevent people from sitting until they deposit €0.50 (about 70 cents) in the coin slot. It’s a (literally) pointed political statement, but that didn’t stop Facebook users from taking images of the bench out of context and presenting it as one more stop along the road to criminalizing the poor.”
Stuff I Do When I’m Bored
Inkyman
Erasure- Art inspiration: Zhang Huan (Chinese, born Anyang, 1965). Family Tree, 2001. China.
A series of nine photographs in which the artist Zhang Huan’s face gradually becomes covered in ink and traditional calligraphy.
The text on the artist’s face consists of words, names, and stories related to his cultural heritage—words with personal meaning to him. The dots on his face in the first photograph represent moles and their connection to one’s fate. In Chinese cultures, it is said that having moles in certain areas on the face symbolizes good luck and fortune.
By the last picture, Huan’s face is completely covered in ink. Though the words on his face are about his character and fate, they ultimately obscure his entire identity. The piece seems to say that traditional words and ways of thinking can erase the things that make us individuals.
[Image and description found here.]
Updated: Corrected spelling of performance artist’s name Zhang Huan & added link: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/zhang-huan/
Three Women in China
Earliest Tineye image search results link to various Chinese websites (deleted or defunct) ca. February 2008. One source claims these women were accused of witchcraft, which suggests that the picture may have been related to religious persecutions that occurred during the Taiping Rebellion and/or the later Boxer Rebellion.
Religious persecutions persist in modern day communist China, and they are brutal:
“Rooted in atheism and materialism, the communist regime has been brutally suppressing Uyghur Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, and Falun Gong practitioners for years. Those who refuse to comply with the CCP’s orders are detained and taken to secretive “re-education camps” where they are subjected to unimaginable abuses, including gang rape and electrocution.” [Source]
[Image found here.]
Really?
I received 10 unordered face masks from the Association of the United States Navy (AUSN) today. They’re promotional, and include a request for donations.
Made in China.
FASHION MASK
Executive Standard FZ/IT 73049-2014
Safety Class B ( it’s can contact with skin directly)
Fashion dust protection, sun protection thermal mask (not medical mask)
Attention This product can be used with multiple times, washable;
No protection against toxic gases
Effect: please use with caution for skin allergy
Typos are as they appear on the package.
Should I burn them?
Update: Here’s the response from AUSN:
Sir,I apologize for the packaging. In response to our COVID-19 survey which showed that the majority of our members were in need of PPE gear. We had hired a veteran owned company in Illinois to do the production and distribution of the masks. It was not until we received the tracking numbers once they were mailed to our membership that we realized they were not coming from the USA. They do in fact have the ability to insert a N95 filter which would increase the level of protection if desired further protection against the virus.Thank for your understanding.
Ancient Engineering – Yellow Dragon Cave Water Mill
Wooden waterwheel in front of Huanglong Cave (Yellow Dragon Cave) is a karst cave located near the Wulingyuan District of Zhangjiajie City, Hunan, China.
“Turns out the area that these wheels were traditionally in was flooded as part of the 3 gorges dam, so this is a reconstruction for people to see what they would have looked like.” -comment on Reddit
Everything ancient in China is almost always a reproduction, including this. It’s an elaborate kinetic sculpture – the water mill doesn’t appear to mill anything. China lets you look around the cave a bit on Google Maps street view: 29°22’1.62″N 110°36’47.79″E
Saturday Matinee – Ronco’s Greatest Hits, Han Li, Sam Chatmon, Magic Slim & The Teardrops
Just a few more shopping days left. Go for it [via].
“We found the happiest lady [Han Li] in China. We told her that you don’t need a real hula hoop to have fun. She agreed.”
Khruangbin made me smile [found here].
Sam Chatmon (1897-1983) sang his version of a classic cheatin’ song in 1978. Apparently the vid was filmed by Alan Lomax.
The origin of the song “Make Me A Pallet On The Floor” is fuzzy and dates to the 1800s. It appeared in sheet music in 1908 in “Blind Boone’s Southern Rag Medley No. One: Strains from the Alleys.“
Now check out John William Blind Boone‘s amazing story…
Magic Slim, aka Morris Holt (1937-2013). Nice Chicago blues [via].
Magic Slim was forced to give up playing the piano when he lost his little finger in a cotton gin mishap. He first came to Chicago in 1955 with his friend and mentor Magic Sam. The elder (by six months) Magic (Sam) let the younger Magic (Slim) play bass with his band and gave him his nickname.
Have a great weekend folks. Be back here tomorrow for more stuff.
Cliffside Path, China
As wonderful as Chinese tea is, it is definitely not something you’d closely associate with exhilaration, adrenaline and the fear of death. Mt. Huashan in China, however, manages to bring all of these things together by featuring a death-defying cliff-side mountain climb that brings daring visitors to a tea house 2,160 m (7,087 ft) up on the mountain’s southern peak.
Mt. Huashan has been a place of religious importance since at least the 2nd century BCE, when a Daoist temple was established at its base. Since then, pilgrims, monks and nuns have inhabited the mountain and the surrounding area. A network of dangerous and precipitous trails allows them to access the mountain’s five summits, each of which has a religious structure like the tea house on the southern summit. Together, these five summits form the points of a flower shape.
I don’t do heights very well – I get a visceral reaction when I’m too close to the edge – and this insane video spooked me just by watching it.
Tacky Raccoons 