BarryTaylorBlog

Catfish + Aftershocks

In 1855 there was a huge earthquake in Edo, Japan. More than 7000 people lost their lives. After the quake a number of people began to produce a new kind of woodblock print called namazu-e--catfish pictures. It was believed that a giant catfish (namazu) caused the quake from thrashing about in their underground lairs. Namazu were thought to be kept under control by the god Kashima who used a large rock known as kaname-ishi to keep them in line . The Great Ansei Earthquake of 1855 is said to have occurred when Kashima went out of town and left Ebisu (god of fishing and commerce) in charge. The images depicted not only the quake, but were also used as protective devices--sort of good luck talismans. There images took off and within days there were more than 400 images available. But it all dried up when the authorities, who kept a very strict censorship on the printing industry, cracked down.

There is a book available for free on Amazon/Kindle called, 2:46 Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan earthquake,  that functions like a namazu-e in a small way. Like the namazu-e, it was produced very quickly (a week) after the recent quake by a number of writers, designers, photographers and features personal reflections and images from the aftermath of the quake. Initially the book was $9.99 with all proceeds going to the victims, now you can make a donation of the same value to the Red Cross. It is a compelling book, very raw, and on one level not an easy read given the subject matter--but as a small glimpse on aspects of humanity it's a gem.

Ship Song

 

Just because I like Nick Cave.

 

69

Marshall McLuhan had a notoriously short attention span--he was easily bored and yet constantly looking for links and connections for his theorising. One thing I recently learnt from Douglas Coupland's book about McLuhan is that when he picked up a book he always opened it to page 69--if he found it interesting he read the book, if not he didn't bother. Now I am sure there are lots of links that can be made to the psych-sexual dynamics of such a choice as well as other issues, but I think it is fascinating that he did it--I might give it a try with books I have enjoyed and see if it makes any sense. In the meantime, you can enjoy an earful of the recorded version of his classic work about the medium and the message/massage. This has the 1960s written all over it--enjoy!

Mcluhan-Marshall_The-Medium-Is-The-Massage_02-Stereo

And here is a link to The Guardian's Big Ideas podcast, where a number of people discuss McLuhan and his theories.

holiday

I am taking a little break, going away for a week, don't really expect to write much. In the meantime, rent this fine summer offering from Monsieur Jacques Tati.

Lucian Frued

Lucian Freud, who, in many ways, defined British painting for much of the latter part of the 20th century has just passed away. His work had an intensity that I was drawn to. He spared nothing in his attempts to capture the people he painted--check out  Kate Moss and the Queen below--many have argued that they were somewhat caricatured in nature, but I actually think he captures something of them both that speaks volumes. He was the grandson of Sigmund Freud and the elder brother of tv staple from my youth, Clement Freud.

 

mcluhan 100

"The planet is no longer nature, it is now the content of an art work." McLuhan, 1968.

Today would have been the one hundredth birthday of Canadian social theorist and media prophet Marshall McLuhan. Coiner of the term 'global village' and more often than not, reduced to his many pithy slogan descriptors about media culture, he was much more, much much more. His views are held up by supporters and detractors of media culture with about equal zeal--he was a canny interpreter of the times and a model of the contemporary need for interdisciplinary thinking--intersections were what McLuhan explored and it is what makes him a compelling and important figure in current thinking about media and particularly digital culture today. He died way before the dawn of the current digital era, but his idea about text and technology, text as technology and the way we shape and are shaped by our technologies is still a necessary ingredient in contemporary thinking about the subject.

His 'would have been birthday' is a good day to bring up Douglas Coupland's book about him, Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of my Work! and to refer to this site where there are any number of interesting things to explore about the man and his thinking.

p.s. while referring to Douglas Coupland--have you seen the Penguin book project called Speaking to the Past? In celebration of Penguin's 75th anniversary, he invited people to create Penguin book covers of their own and he made a set himself, they can be viewed here. Coupland does some really interesting graphic work alongside his writing.

Real/fake/real

A fascinating blog post from a bird abroad via kottke today about a fake Apple store in China. Not content with pirating products and flooding the market both inside and outside China with fake designer merchandise and technology, apparently some enterprising persons have created a full-on Apple store complte with blue-shirted workers and all kinds of product. You can read about it here. Fascinating really that people would go to such trouble in a somewhat remote part of China to create a store--there are so many layers to what is going on here. Not the least of which is the way in which the 'cool' factor of certain products is a global reality and a symbol of achievement, status and hipness in developing nations and up and coming global power nations like Brazil, India and China.

So it's a fake store, but it's a real store. Or more rightly it's a real Fake Apple store.

moon

A man walked on the moon on this day in 1969. America won the race to the moon and the entire world got its perspective changed. Images beamed back from space, from the surface of the moon showed the earth as it had never been seen before--initiating perhaps a new gloabl conciousness--there we all were, floating mysteriously in space--white, blue, green against the dark infiinty of the universe. And of course, it sparked a million conspiracy theories--this along with the Kennedy assassination, Area 51 and a host of other 50s and 60s cultural events and moments that have been contested ever since.

 

 

 

jim-skull

 
Raising the skull game with his beautiful work-Jim-Skull.

book reversal

 
It is often the case that books get made into movies--seldom that the reverse happens. But with The Fantastic Flying Book of Mr Morris Lessmore, now available as a iPad app, it is true. The story began life as an animted short film, but through the marvel of modern technology has been turned into a lovely little interactive app for the iPad. It is whimsical and sweet, and a celebration of books and reading. I am not sure if it is meant to be a kids book or what, it doesn't really matter, it's a lovely, moving little tale and wonderfully executed. If you have an iPad you should get it.