Friday, February 23, 2007

Hey Ya...
('Nuff said.)





Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Artist's Showcase: Mary Alice Bennett...

Hanging out recently at the computers lab at the Access Tucson community television studios (one of my major haunts for nearly a decade...the tv studio, not the computers) I have made the acquaintance of a most interesting and talented individual...Mary Alice Bennett. She'll take it from here (from her MySpace page here):

About me:
Mary Jill Alice (MJA) Bennett was born in Stony Brook and grew up on Long Island, where she learned to sail and was introduced to the world of art as a child model for the portraitist John Koch. When the family moved to Arizona in the late 1950s, MJA fell under the spell of the landscape and peoples of the Southwest which has continued to shape her art and life. She studied painting at Pomona College in the late 1960s, graduating in 1969 with an exceptional class that included Chris Burden and Hap Tivey. MJA spent the next few years in living in a cave north of Taos, New Mexico, where she became interested in Native American culture and danced in numerous Pow-Wows at Taos Pueblo and later in Arizona with the famous dance group Azteca Splendor. After returning to Arizona, MJA settled in Tucson, where she has lived for the past 30 years. MJA enjoys reinterpreting Meso-American and Middle-Eastern stone carvings in color media, chiefly acrylics, water colors and colored pencils. MJA's father was a test pilot/aviator, and her mother was a musician and an artist who devoted her life to seeking harmony within both disciplines. While in New Mexico, MJA began dancing with Native Americans in Pow-Wows and notes that this form of dancing continues to influence her work. MJA also enjoys reinterpreting Meso-American and Middle-Eastern stone carvings in color as archeological restorations. Departing from the oils she used in her early paintings, MJA currently works with acrylics, water colors, and colored pencils.











All works (C) Mary Alice Bennett. Used with permission.

MJA also has some unique twists on the following topics (see her MySpace blog):
Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper
Leonardo Da Vinci's The Adoration of the Magi
Arcana Arcanissima and the Mysteries Transmitted in Paintings
The Magdalene and the War on the Divine Feminine


Friday, February 16, 2007

Ever heard that line by poet Ezra Pound that "literature is news that stays news"?

Well, here some old news...from last month. It snowed in Tucson. "Big deal?" you say? Then you don't know the town where our local saying in the summer is, "Yeah, but it's a dry heat," where most winters are like Indian summer. My point is that these lovely photos by Charla Genet (charlak@comcast.net) should be news that stays news...because they are photographic poetry, preserving an ephemeral, beautiful moment in time...a cold one, too.

























All photographs (C) Charla Genet, charlak@comcast.net








Salon.com...kicking ass once again.
(Somewhat).
In a pre-Sept 11th world...seemingly life-times ago...when I worked at a certain non-Microsoft

software giant here in Tucson, I used to sit at my computer and devour Salon.com, in between (and sometimes during!) phone calls. I loved how they would showcase divergent political opinions, from lefty Joe Conason to righty David Horowitz (they are less balanced in these even more polarized times, where each side wants to play a zero-sum game of ideologies...it's not even "yes, but" anymore but "no, no, no"...on BOTH and EVERY side). It was the first online publication I read with the level of literacy of, say, Vanity Fair or The National Review. Most of all, though, I loved the freewheeling, acerbic, trenchant wit of Camille Paglia...

Camille's back!
"After a six-year absence, our cultural high priestess and pioneering Web proto-blogger has returned! And nobody -- not Hillary, Obama, McCain nor Anna Nicole -- can escape her level gaze."
New Camille Paglia column

Real talk with Bill Maher
"The talk show host sizes up Hillary and Obama, and explains why he's so over McCain."
Also features a Salon Conversations podcast MP3 of the interview.

Bill Maher & Guests Discuss Religious Fanaticism


Bill discusses Jesus Camp, and religious fanaticism with Sandy Rios, Reza Aslan, and Bradley Whitford.





Here are some examples of what I'm talking about...a zero-sum game of ideologies...on BOTH and EVERY side...

"The next step...beyond surrealism or psychedelia..."



Coming this summer from Interfusion Publishing:
Neo-Humans on Regenerative Earth. (C) 2007 T.S. Minton

Sunday, February 11, 2007

"The Shaman, the Genius, and T.S. Minton"
(Going right to left, that is...)


Photograph by John I. Henry.


Yours truly approximately one week ago (February 2007) at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show with Ea Orgo, a well-known Mexican healer and shaman, owner of a health spa, and frequent vendor at the annual gem and mineral show. In the middle (in book form at least) is Nikola Tesla...you know, the greatest inventor of all time. (Anybody who says "Edison" needs to be jolted with alternating current energy...just kidding).

Contact Ea Orgo at eaorgo@hotmail.com or www.mayanmajix.com. He writes: "Thanks for the photo, it's a great reminder of all the magic in our lives..many blessings."



50 Million John Henry Fans Can't Be Wrong.
Well, ok, not that many...
But I have been getting lots of emails about Henry's mesmerizing series of crystal photographs. Also, many people at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show (ending today) who have seen these photos have been clamoring for more. So here they are...


"UFO in Hyperdrive Approaching the Aries Galaxy Cluster"



All photographs (C) John I. Henry, gloves24@hotmail.com
[p.s. Holy crap, I just discovered how to insert photos within the blog! - ed.]

Friday, February 09, 2007

The Swamp Gas Report, #2:

Courtesy of recent Drudge Report postings, here's two more links to recent sightings of cockamamie poppycock. If only people would listen to CSICOP -- (The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal), recently rechristened CSI (Committee for Skeptical Inquiry), publishers of The Skeptical Inquirer -- they'd realize that they're not really seeing what they think they're seeing. After all, CSI has all the answers. It's Official Reality.

Strange Sightings In Triad Skies
http://www.wxii12.com/news/10955774/detail.html

Mysterious Lights Spotted Over Phoenix, Again
http://cbs4.com/topstories/local_story_038103140.html

I'm sure there's a prosaic explanation, since it behooves us to be "rational" and explain away whatever doesn't fit inside our tiny little paradigm. Especially if there's tenure at stake and scientific peer pressure at play.

Or, if you're tired of my sarcasm and want to cut through the officially fabricated b.s., spend some time with Dr. Lynn D. Kitei, M.D., author of The Phoenix Lights. It's heartening to realize that some people in this world know the true definitions of "critical thinking" and "rationality."

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Who are...
the "Neo-Humans"....

...on "Regenerative Earth"?

Stay tuned...coming summer of 2007 from Interfusion Publishing.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Culture Wars, round one
(on this blog at least...)

Chomsky, Horowitz & other wing nuts...

I think that Zepezauer guy (see below) is trying to find chinks in my right wing armor. The other day he sent me some interesting links, in response to my statement that although it's a tough job being a "right wing fascist" when you've got hyperbolic ignoramuses and blowhards like Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity professing to be your spokespeople, it's hard not to swing a little to the right when (to quote my several day old email) "I read little ditties like David Horowitz's unrebutted (as far as I'm aware) 'The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky' and watch with nauseau as the left embraces dubious cause celebres, from Mumia to Fidel to Tookie."

Zepezauer shot me back the following Horowitz-bashing links (Horowitz was one of the founders of the New Left in the 60s, who swung to the conservatism in response to what he saw as the bloodshed and hypocrisy committed by his idealistic former colleagues)...

http://blog.zmag.org/ee_links/refuting_horowitz_and_collier

http://www.lewrockwell.com/wall/wall26.html

http://rwor.org/a/013/horowitz-battering-ram.htm

http://horowitzwatch.blogspot.com/

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/carson1.html

And let's allow the bellicose Mr. Horowitz what he calls his...
Replies to (Leftwing) Critics

Enough verbosity. Now for a little fun. Let's watch Sacha Baron Cohen pretend to be Ali G and pretend to make an ass of himself interviewing Prof. Noam Chomsky...



Then let's watch Noam Chomsky pretend (I assume) not to be a conspiracy buff...


Finally, we'll watch David Horowitz pretend (I hope) to cover up for the execrable Ann Coulter's denunciation of 9/11 widows...





Monday, February 05, 2007

I must be doing something right...

to have elicited comments like this, from my cross-posting of excerpts of my music blog on www.rockandrollreport.com:

"you have no idea what you are talking about. but i really thought it was great how you tried to act like youre a music critic extrordinaire. Sadly you come off like a know-it-all prick. you are a dumb ass, who knows as much about music as a stupid drugged out hippy. if i were you i'd stick to blogging about iraq, or what foods you like to eat, or quantum physics, because frankly after reading that mindless dribble you wrote, it seems that you know ABSOLUTELY nothing about music. let alone GOOD music."

...by one "dont know".

And my old correspondent Mark Zepezauer, laff-riot political cartoonist and publisher of the former Tucson Comic News and a host of rabble-rousing books including Boomerang!: How Our Covert Wars Have Created Enemies Across the Middle East and Brought Terror to America, writes:

"Good to see you have better taste in music than in politicians (last I heard). "

Zep was referencing my circa 2003 blog posting, the annoyingly pungent but unrebutted "How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Became a Right Wing Fascist".



Sunday, February 04, 2007

The Mind-Flipping Phantasmagoria...
of John I. Henry's Worlds of Crystal Fantasy.


In keeping with our long-standing tradition here at Interfusion Publishing of featuring material
which is not merely adequate or even just excellent but aims to "boggle the mind", we are pleased to offer a sneak peak at some of the most remarkable work yet of international photographer John I. Henry.
These images (see the right column of this blog. Hint: they're colorful) were taken over recent years from crystals and gems purchased at Tucson's Gem and Mineral Show, utilizing fiberoptics and back lighting techniques which produce results not often seen by us mere mortals. For more information contact Mr. Henry directly at gloves24@hotmail.com.
These photos...along with other work too delectable to mention...will be featured more extensively in Interfusion Magazine, T.S. Minton's new print publication available summer 2007 - offered exclusively through Lulu.com.