Posted: 1st April 2010 by admin in Uncategorized
“Sex toys are for freaks and sexual perverts!” – that what our friends and even parents used and still use to say, however, doctors claim the vice-verse!
As time passes by, many things, including the life style of new generations, change rather quickly, trying to fit the crazy rhythm of the contemporaneous life and meet the necessities of modern species of human beings. However, some stereotypes, like the ones regarding adult toys and people using them, seem to have their roots way to deep to have them removed from our consciousness once and for good. This short communication, which on one side, has you as a reader, and, on the other side, me speaking on behalf of sex toy manufacturers, is intended to make clear a couple of things that you were always eager to find the answers for.. So, let’s get down the business.
First of all what has to be mentioned is the fact that adult sex toys are NOT meant to be used by sex starving teenage perverts or sex maniacs. NO! Adult toys are meant for absolutely different categories of people, no matter, whether they have a sexual partner or not, whether they are going to use them together with their partners or by themselves and there’s no limits in what concerns your occupation, sexual and political orientation, color of skin and age (well, of course, once you’re 18).
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Posted: 8th July 2010 by admin in Art
In an effort to connect with visitors who feel bored, overwhelmed, or confused, museums are using focus groups, comment boards, and even full-time evaluators to help rethink and rewrite texts in the galleries
by Gail Gregg
Just a few years ago, a visitor curious about Frank Lobdell’s 15 April 1962, in the Oakland Museum of California, could have scanned its wall label to read this description of the painting: “A tightly coiled form struggles against the confines of the canvas. Thick paint, hot colors, hard lines, and a gouged surface reinforce the sense of uneasiness. They express the artist’s view of the human condition as a struggle for meaning and dignity.”
But in the four years since that text was written, curators at the Oakland Museum and countless other art institutions have initiated a quiet revolution in the way they engage and converse with visitors about the treasures in their care. These institutions are working hard to move away from what Graham W. J. Beal, director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, calls “the priestly voice of absolute authority.” Their aim now is to provide information and context about the works—and then encourage people to respond to them in their own way.
The Lobdell label was one of many given a makeover in conjunction with the reopening of the Oakland Museum. It now reads: “The horrors of Frank Lobdell’s firsthand experiences of World War II affected him deeply. With roughly coiled lines, intense colors, and a scabrous surface, Lobdell seems to be expressing the struggle of humankind, as raw paint strokes metamorphose into gnashing teeth in headless jaws.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 2nd July 2010 by admin in Music
Over the past week, dozens of brightly-painted pianos have appeared on the streets of London and New York.
In a square next to St Paul’s Cathedral, in the City of London, a man wanders over to an upright piano, plays three notes and then walks quickly away. Nearby, at the Millennium Bridge, a group of Spanish students crash out the chords of Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water, segueing into Beethoven’s For Elise.
Chopsticks is noticeable by its absence. The street pianos are the brainchild of British artist Luke Jerram whose Play Me, I’m Yours project has been touring cities globally since 2008. This year the project is being presented simultaneously in London and New York. “This isn’t about me and my creativity,” says Jerram, speaking by phone from a piano in New York’s Times Square. “The pianos act as a blank canvas for everyone else’s creativity. This is an opportunity for people to express themselves and connect with one other. You get strangers giving each other piano lessons.” It can lead to unexpected results. “There were two journalists who met over a piano in Sydney who recently got married.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 30th June 2010 by admin in Celebrities, Movie
Corey Allen, who played the high school gang leader who gets in a knife fight with James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause,” has died. He was 75.
Family spokesman Mickey Cottrell says Allen died at his Hollywood home on Sunday.
Allen played Buzz Gunderson in the 1955 movie. His character loses a knife fight with Dean’s and dies when his stolen car plunges off a cliff during a “chicken run” challenge.
Allen had a number of other TV and film roles before turning to television directing in 1969. In 1984, he won an Emmy for directing an episode of “Hill Street Blues.”
He also directed the two-hour pilot for “Star Trek: The Next Generation” as well as episodes of that series and the follow up, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”
Posted: 29th June 2010 by admin in Art
Ukrainian and German police have recovered a painting by 17th century Italian artist Caravaggio stolen from a Ukrainian museum, the Interfax news agency quoted Ukraine’s interior minister as saying on Tuesday.
The painting, called the “Taking of Christ,” or the “Kiss of Judas,” and considered the most valuable piece of art in Ukraine, was stolen from a museum in the Black Sea port of Odessa in 2008 in what officials described as a “cultural catastrophe.”
“On June 25, in Berlin, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry agents together with their German colleagues detained three Ukrainian citizens and one citizen of Germany and recovered Caravaggio’s painting,” Interior Minister Anatoly Mogylyov told a briefing.
It was recovered in Germany, where the four were detained.
Mogylyov said another suspected member of the gang, which focused on high-value thefts, had been detained in Ukraine.
“We have carried out more than 20 searches and proven (the group’s) involvement in more than 20 thefts in Ukraine,” he said. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 28th June 2010 by admin in Celebrities, Music
New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art will display Ringo Starr’s gold-plated snare drum in a special exhibition honoring his 70th birthday.
The museum said Tuesday the drum will be shown from July 7 — Starr’s birthday — through December.
The instrument was presented to the drummer by the Ludwig Drum Company in Chicago during the Beatles’ 1964 U.S. tour. It was given to him in appreciation for popularizing the Ludwig name. Starr played on a Ludwig oyster black pearl drum set during the Fab Fours’ 1964 appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
Starr also will start the second season of the PBS series “Live From the Artists Den” with a performance taped at the Met. It will be shown the week of his birthday.
Posted: 27th June 2010 by admin in Music
Motown legend Stevie Wonder closed the Glastonbury music festival on Sunday with a set that spanned his long and successful career, delighting a huge crowd of some 100,000 cheering revelers.
The 60-year-old dedicated his performance to Michael Jackson, who died almost exactly a year ago, and Wonder performed a moving harmonica version of the late King of Pop’s “Human Nature.”
He also performed hits including “Superstition” and his own take on Beatles classic “We Can Work it Out.”
The artist invited Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis up on to the stage and sang his famous track “Happy Birthday” to celebrate the festival’s 40th year.
It was a high point on which to close an event which this year basked in glorious sunshine for four days, and Wonder’s musical prowess and interaction with the fans helped ease the pain of England’s loss to Germany at the soccer World Cup.
Earlier in the day tens of thousands of people crowded around giant screens erected for the big match, only to see their team crash out 4-1. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 25th June 2010 by admin in Theatre
Playwright and screenwriter Alan Plater has died of cancer at the age of 75, his agent has confirmed.
Plater produced numerous works for the stage and screen, including seminal police drama Z Cars and an adaptation of The Barchester Chronicles.
His work was also featured on Armchair Theatre and The Wednesday Play, while he adapted World War II trilogy The Fortunes of War for TV.
Plater, who also penned six novels, was honoured with a CBE in 2005.
In the same year, he was presented with the Dennis Potter award for writing at the Baftas.
His other accolades included a lifetime achievement award from the Writers Guild of Great Britain in 2007.
Plater’s agent Alexandra Cann told the BBC that he had been “very robust” until the final week of his life when he was admitted to a London hospice.
His final screenplay, a World War II drama called Joe Maddison’s War, starring actor Robson Green, is due to be aired on ITV later this year. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 22nd June 2010 by admin in Art, Photo
A sale of photographs from the collection of the Polaroid Corporation brought in $12.5 million, setting an auction record for iconic photographer Ansel Adams and new marks for the medium by artists including Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, and David Hockney.
The sale of 1,200 photographs from the Polaroid collection was ordered by U.S. bankruptcy court in Minnesota when businessman Tom Petters, whose operations once included Polaroid Corp., was convicted last year of a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme.
Petters, sentenced in April to 50 years in prison, bought the bankrupt firm several years ago, and it was forced back into bankruptcy when the fraud was exposed in 2008.
Collectors and the curious jammed the salesroom at Sotheby’s — competing fiercely with telephone bidders for works by artists like Adams, who alone was represented by some 400 works. There were also works by Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Lucas Samaras and William Wegman. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 18th June 2010 by admin in Books
Jeffrey Toobin, who examined the inner workings of the U.S. Supreme Court in his best seller “The Nine,” probes the court under the Obama administration in his new book.
William Thomas, senior vice president, publisher and editor in chief at Doubleday, announced Monday that Toobin’s “The Oath: The Secret Struggle for the Supreme Court,” will be published in 2012.
“The battle between a conservative court and a liberal president will be one of the central behind-the-scenes dramas of the Obama years,” said Toobin, a staff writer for The New Yorker and a senior analyst for CNN.
“The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court” remained on The New York Times list of best sellers for more than four months.
Posted: 17th June 2010 by admin in Books
Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s most prominent writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Fiction, joins James Naughtie and readers to discuss My Name is Red.
The novel is a complicated mixture of murder mystery, fairy tale and exploration of the medieval world of the Turkish miniaturist painter.
The novel begins – surreally – from the point of view of the murdered man; his body thrown down the bottom of a well, he waits for this death to be discovered. The story is then taken up by a myriad of characters, which include a coin and a horse, as well as the colour Red itself. They recount a chapter at least each – in fact this book has twenty narrators and yet, as James Naughtie and readers testify, it is a page-turner.
My Name is Red is the most popular of Pamuk’s in the English speaking world, due he says to the whodunnit element, but also to the global appeal of the art.
Orhan Pamuk discloses how as a young man he longed to be a painter, and so as a successful writer, it was a natural progression to write about the joys of painting, and to explore how an artist feels as their hands move across the page. Read the rest of this entry »