"Asians fawn over what the scientists wear and eat (like American movie stars, they often get comped), as well as their private lives—their wives are hounded for gossip on how their husbands are with the housekeeping." read article in it's entirety
"Here's an ad campaign for Adidas new eco range, Grun, that is bringing together quite a few green concepts into one curious melange. First we've got the product--Adidas has a a new line of shoes which are made from recycled and natural materials. They are also making clothing from hemp and bamboo; the new Reground range is fully biodegradable, including the first ever completely biodegradable zipper. Their Recycled line is made of materials such as old tires. Then the advertising and green link: they have joined up with dazed & confused (magazine) to encourage people to do guerilla gardening in grim and ugly places; swapping spray cans and tags for seeds and bulbs. Submit a picture of your efforts and the ten winners get a discount on any Adidas gear." read article in it's entirety (treehugger)
And for those of you who didn't know, my favorite skater of all time, Mark "Gonz" Gonzales signed with Adidas a while back. I've always been a fan of Adidas since my pre-teens and it seems they just keep evolving. :)
Let's see:
Gonz discussing art and skateboarding for an EA Skate promo
"Their beloved dogs may have gone to the great kennel in the sky, but for Beth and Brian Willis they will always be close.
Because the couple have had his and hers jumpers knitted out of the hair moulted by the pedigree pets and spun into yarn.
And they insist the bizarre garments keep them warm and dry no matter how bad the winter weather gets." read article in it's entirety
Normally, I would not post an entire article. But for you to read the entire article on-line you have to have a membership to New Scientist. Since I have a membership I've decided to post the article in it's entirety for all to read. Enjoy.
"ARE humans still evolving? In the vernacular sense of improving morally and intellectually - by cultural changes - I think so," says Steven Pinker. "In the biological sense of changes in the gene pool, it's impossible to say." If pressed to come off the fence, however, the Harvard-based evolutionary biologist knows where he stands. "People, including me, would rather believe that significant human biological evolution stopped between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, before the races diverged, which would ensure that racial and ethnic groups are biologically equivalent," he says.
It's an understandable position given the political implications of being wrong. And in one important sense Pinker is absolutely spot on: it's very difficult, if not impossible, to observe human evolution in action. But saying it isn't happening is an increasingly difficult position to defend scientifically. Recent discoveries show that we must reject the idea that human evolution stopped dead 50,000 years ago or more. In fact, there is every reason to believe that it is going on right now.
Take the discovery last year by Bruce Lahn of the University of Chicago of two genes involved in brain development that emerged in recent human history and swept quickly through the population. One, a version of a gene called microcephalin, arose between 14,000 and 60,000 years ago and is now carried by 70 per cent of people. The other, a variant of the ASPM gene, is as recent as 500 to 14,000 years old and is now carried by about a quarter of the global population.
No one yet knows the function of these genes, but Lahn's discoveries could be just the tip of the iceberg. With the publication of the chimpanzee genome (Nature, vol 437, p 69), geneticists are in a position to catalogue all the changes that have occurred in the human genome in the 7 million years or so since our species split from its closest relative. They will also be able to pinpoint when those mutations first arose - be it a few hundred or many million years ago - and what role they might have played in the evolution of our species.
The discovery of ongoing human evolution raises many questions, some of them uncomfortable. What if, for example, Pinker's fears are confirmed and racial groups turn out not to be biologically equivalent? Is natural selection still a driving force in humans, given that our survival is often less dependent on genes than on technology? To what extent might a changing genome lead to changes in attributes we value, such as intelligence? What might our species look like 1000 years from now? Contemporary human evolution may be a minefield, but it's a minefield that can no longer be ignored.
If asked whether we are still evolving, most experts would concur with Pinker: it depends what you mean by evolution. So, what are the options? In the loosest sense of the word, evolution is simply the change over time in a species' gene pool - all the genes in all the individuals alive at one time. In that sense, all species are evolving, even those that reproduce by cloning, because DNA inevitably changes over time through random mutation, and because some individuals of a species will have more offspring than others.
Beyond this, though, things get a bit more complicated. When considering how evolution might be happening, it is perhaps easier to think of a "gene boat" rather than a "gene pool" to represent all the genes present in the human population at the moment. Imagine this craft bobbing on a sea of all possible human genes, with the water under its hull representing the combination possessed by the species at any particular time. Left to its own devices, the boat drifts aimlessly. This is "genetic drift", where a species is changing randomly without any driving force from its environment.
Now imagine our boat has a sail, so that when the wind blows, it heads off with seeming purpose. That's like natural selection or sexual selection, in which an external force influences the direction taken by the gene boat. In the case of natural selection, the driving force is adaptation to a change in environmental conditions. For sexual selection, the force is exerted by other members of the species preferring to mate with individuals who possess desirable characteristics, which then become more prevalent.
Imagine now that the boat has a tiller and someone at the helm to steer it. This would be the equivalent of artificial selection similar to dog or plant breeding. The gene boat even encompasses artificial selection by genetic engineering. These are the possibilities, but to what extent is the evolution of our species being shaped by these various forces?
Genetic drift undoubtedly plays a role. Its scale is difficult to measure, however, given that drift produces no obvious trends in the way a species looks or behaves. Some experts argue that natural selection is diminishing in importance, and as it does genetic drift comes to the fore. It's a contentious suggestion, but even if they are correct, the aimlessness of drift makes it of limited interest.
Which takes us to natural selection. It's clear that the raw genetic material upon which selection could act is being generated all the time - the human genome is not immune from mutations, some of which could confer a selective advantage. But are there any selection pressures at work?
Steve Jones, a geneticist at University College London, has famously argued that natural selection is no longer important for humans. He points out that natural selection works by ensuring that individuals whose genes are best adapted to the prevailing environment are most likely to survive and reproduce. But, he says, in the developed world, survival no longer depends on genes. "Just 500 years ago - yesterday in evolutionary terms - a British baby had only a 50 per cent chance of making it to reproductive age. Now, the figure is around 99 per cent," Jones says. There is also a more level playing field in the reproduction game. "No longer, as in the Middle Ages, do a few rich men have many children while many of those in poverty are forced into the army or into monasteries," he says. Jones admits that measuring reproductive success, particularly for men, can be difficult, but he calculates that the changes in survival and reproduction rates have led to a decrease of around 70 per cent in the opportunity for natural selection to act today, compared with the time when our ancestors lived as peasant farmers.
That's not quite the "zero" natural selection that some reports of Jones's views have suggested. Even he accepts that genes can still make a difference to survival and reproduction. One obvious example is genes that confer resistance to emerging diseases. Some parts of Africa, for example, have seen an increase in the frequency of a gene called CCR5-32, which offers some protection against infection with HIV-1.
There are other, more puzzling examples. One form of the dopamine receptor gene DRD4 has become much more common over the past few thousand years. The rate of increase suggests the gene has been positively selected for, though it's not clear why: the variant is associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
So natural selection is still at work, and some evolutionary biologists believe it would come as no surprise to find many more examples. They point out that we live in an era of rapid technological progress, and hence a fast changing environment, exactly the conditions under which you'd expect natural selection to act. Technological change has clearly driven natural selection in the past. The invention of dairy herding, for example, selected for a gene that gives adults the ability to digest milk sugars. So why not now? It's not hard to dream up selection pressures that could be acting today. Caesarean sections, for example, could be selecting for genes that allow babies to grow bigger in the womb.
Some experts, including Pinker, argue that technological change doesn't necessarily drive natural selection. Once culture emerged, they say, it provided non-genetic means to adapt to change, such as more technology or culturally inherited changes in behaviour. Though that is true in many ways, it does not necessarily mean that evolution has stopped. Technology and medicine, by enabling almost everyone to have children, could be causing "reverse evolution" by preventing unfit genes from being purged from the gene pool. "Relaxed selection combined with a high mutation rate is probably causing gradual deterioration of many functions, especially disease defences," says Gregory Cochran, adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
There are also plausible ways in which culture itself could be driving natural selection. This view has been expounded by Christopher Wills of the University of California, San Diego. In his book The Runaway Brain, he argues that there has been, and still is, positive feedback between our culture and our genes that led to the rapid evolution of the most characteristic human attribute, the mind. It began when the relatively advanced brains of our ancestors allowed them to succeed because of their wits rather than physical attributes. "Without a doubt, the most important selective pressures continue to be on brain function," says Wills.
This is one reason why Lahn's discovery of recent brain evolution has created such a stir. Lahn agrees with Wills that the defining feature of human evolution is that our minds have shaped our environment, which in turn has led to evolutionary changes in the way we think, and he is convinced it is continuing. Wills goes further, arguing that in the modern world nobody can do everything, so the advantage lies in being good at something that not many others can do well. "My prediction is that we are not simply getting smarter, we are selecting for more variability in our behaviours," he says. If he's right, that means our gene boat is getting bigger.
Lahn's discoveries have also given a boost to some controversial ideas. Last year, Cochran and his colleague Henry Harpending published a paper claiming that natural selection has increased the intelligence of Ashkenazi Jews in the past 1000 years (Journal of Biosocial Science, vol 37, p 1). Intelligence is notoriously difficult to measure, but this ethnic group scores between 12 and 15 points higher than average on IQ tests. Cochran and Harpending point out that from about AD 800 to 1700, Ashkenazim were forbidden to work in common trades and tended to make a living from more intellectual pursuits such as finance. The most successful had the most offspring and so there was natural selection for intelligence, argue the pair. They say they have genetic evidence to back them up, though the details have yet to be published.
Similarly, Lahn himself has found that the new microcephalin gene, which has been positively selected for and therefore appears to confer a useful trait, is relatively rare in sub-Saharan Africa, and the new form of ASPM is most prevalent in people from Europe and the Middle East, suggesting that both mutations originated in non-Africans after our ancestors migrated out of Africa. Lahn, though, has been keen to stress that both genes may still have arisen in Africa and that, anyway, having the genes may make brains "fitter" in certain environments, but doesn't necessarily mean they are "better".
Natural selection, however, isn't the only reason why a gene might become more prevalent. It's also possible that the driving force is sexual selection. Among the most prominent supporters of this idea is Geoffrey Miller of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, author of The Mating Mind. He believes that the rate of human evolution is accelerating, and that selection for sexually desirable traits is the driving force. "Our high rates of migration, outbreeding, and cross-ethnic mating are recombining our genes at unprecedented rates," he says.
What is more, the vast human population means that our gene boat is acquiring new mutations faster than ever. Miller also points out that people are far more likely to meet and have children with someone who is like them. "Assortative mating - for intelligence, personality traits, mental health, physical health, attractiveness - is getting ever more efficient through higher education, urbanisation, singles' ads, internet dating and speed dating," says Miller. Taken together, that is likely to mean that advantageous new mutations have a greater opportunity than ever to become fixed in the population.
Assortative mating is also promoted by contraception. And other reproductive technologies are probably exerting an influence on human evolution too. "Willingness to be a sperm or egg donor is being strongly favoured by current selection," says Miller. And if germ-line genetic engineering became commonplace, the effect would be much more profound. "I suspect," says Lahn, "that way before the next millennium, we will have figured out ways to manipulate our own genome, such that evolution will operate on a whole new set of rules that even Darwin did not envision." Miller agrees. "Within a few generations, market-based genetic technology will eclipse socio-sexual selection as the driving force in human evolution," he says.
Miller foresees a future in which parents try to eliminate traits that they personally find undesirable, but says it's impossible to predict how that will affect the human gene pool. There are, however, human characteristics that will probably always be seen as desirable, and are likely to be actively selected for by genetic technology. In 1000 years, Miller predicts, "people will be much more beautiful, intelligent, symmetrical, healthy and emotionally stable, due to 40 generations of genetic screening against harmful mutations". And if futurologists such as Ray Kurzweil are correct, our gene boat will also get some shiny new high-tech additions, as humans merge with technology to become cyborgs and biological evolution is rendered obsolete (New Scientist, 24 September 2005, p 32).
Our gene boat may even find new waters to sail on. "One way in which we could evolve in a truly spectacular fashion is if we colonise other planets," says Wills. "Those colonists - and the animals and plants that they take with them - will undergo dramatic evolutionary changes in the process of adapting to incredibly different conditions." It's possible that colonists would even become a separate species if there was no interbreeding with people on Earth.
All in all, it's hard not to conclude that humans are still evolving, probably quite rapidly. "All species are evolving, but at different rates - some so slowly that the term 'glacial' would comically miss the mark," says Daniel Dennett from Tufts University in Boston. "But I expect that Homo sapiens is evolving at a rather swift pace."
So where are we heading? Most experts agree that trying to predict the direction of evolution is a fruitless exercise. "Evolution is not really a predictive science," says Jones. Others point out that we may not like where we're heading. "Perhaps we will so befoul our planet," says Dennett, "that only an eccentric and hardy remnant of our species - which can survive on earthworms while living in underground burrows, for instance - will remain." Wherever we end up, it seems clear that the story of human evolution has only just started.
From issue 2542 of New Scientist magazine, 11 March 2006, page 30
As some of you may already know, Modern Man is the musical persona of Evolve Happy's creator, Roberto C. Madruga. He considers himself more of a photographer that makes music, rather than a musician. This week, Modern Man has released his second album, "Machine Room". Besides the fact that I am good friends with Roberto, I truly feel that this is a great album. Just the cover art alone would make me buy it, if I saw it in a store.
There is no genre to this album or musical style. Each track features a guest musician or singer and spans the globe to find a new sound. The guests include many other Evolve Happy contributors. Myself (as Mountain Husband and drums for The Damned Human Race), Valerie, derek_, and galaxykidgamma are among the list of contributors that reach as far as Japan to make this album possible.
The only way, as of now, to purchase this album is through Snocap. Visit Modern Man's myspace to learn how to purchase the album as well as a detailed list of contributors by song title. You can also download the Machine Room track, "Male Models Live In Poverty", and hear other tracks from the album. You can also listen to songs from his first album, "Why Is It Raining Plastic Forks?".
Let's see:
"A new study has found that it may be possible to train people to be more intelligent, increasing the brainpower they had at birth.
Until now, it had been widely assumed that the kind of mental ability that allows us to solve new problems without having any relevant previous experience — what psychologists call fluid intelligence — is innate and cannot be taught (though people can raise their grades on tests of it by practicing).
But in the new study, researchers describe a method for improving this skill, along with experiments to prove it works." listen to NPR program in it's entirety
also... Simple brain exercise can boost IQ
Leah Sarah Bassett - Checkered Girl (2000)
On Friday night, I came home from work, put on jeans and a tank top, and Roberto, Derek, and I took a trip to Art Whino's gallery at National Harbor to catch "Le Femme: A Look into the Female Psyche, the Art of Leah Sarah Bassett." Leah is a friend of EH, so we wanted to make sure to check out her exhibition. I had met her once before but had never seen any of her work so I was very excited to see what she was all about. I put on my cute, new flats that remind me of offices and staplers and took on this exciting mission.
So we hopped into Derek's cool mobile and headed off to Maryland. Let me tell you, Maryland is like another world where video games are reality and road signs purposely confuse you. We got a little misdirected, but our guide Derek got us back on the right track. After driving through what I imagine Area 51 looks like, we arrived at National Harbor. (While driving on this one road, I was sure, at any moment, that a sea monster was going to come out of the water and tell us an epic.) This area is so cute with its lit-up pier and fun sculptures all around. I adored it despite the fact that construction is everywhere; I'm sure it'll be even cuter when it is completed.
Brendan Tierney - Let It Shine (unknown year)
After arriving, we walked into the gallery, looked around for a minutes to survey the room, then left for about 35 minutes. (The EH crew knows how we do.) We had a secret mission which we had to complete. Then we returned to what turned out to be an amazing event. Every element was perfect. Art, alcohol, DJ, snacks, fun people. The space itself is really wonderful and perfect for the atmosphere I think Art Whino has created. Oh, and p.s., Roberto put out around $14 and all three of us were very set for the entire night. He kept asking me, "You want another cup of wine?" And, alright, as an Italian, there's only one answer for that question.
Evolve Happy stickers were covering everything before we left. (RCM)
I was quite impressed by the fantastic Ms. Leah Sarah Bassett. The way in which she depicts women intrigued me. Her women are in control, they are fantasies, they are bright and loud and soft and daring. The pieces she presented are all unique; she offers different styles and subjects and I loved this. Her artwork just made me want to sing songs about my ovaries and fallopian tubes and everything else that makes me a woman.
No, but seriously, I really enjoyed it. "Will" was one of my favorites: the look on her subjects face really struck me. I also really enjoyed "Checkered Girl" and "Censored Me." "Scrambled Journal" was also wonderful.
In addition to Ms. Bassett's work, this exhibition also presented four new artists among individual pieces of random artists. Pieces I must point out:
Scott Belcastro's "go ahead and say what you need to say": Bright rainbows paired with a house floating on black tar = Awesome.
Nate Frizzell's "Parliament of Rocks": Just begs you to stare at it and figure out what the hell is going on in it.
Emily Green Liddle's "Vitamin B": Roberto's reaction to this was, "This needs to be in our kitchen!" Yes, because we love beer and bananas.
And the greatness doesn't stop there. Very rarely does one find good art, inexpensive wine, and snacks together but there's more: interesting people! The EH crew ran into some representatives from the Art Whino crew (unfortunately, we did not catch any of their names), who graciously posed for some fabulous pictures.
We also met Mr. Anthony Jones, who shared in intriguing conversation towards the end of the night.
All in all, one of the best nights on the town we old folks have seen in a minute. Yeah, that sentence doesn't make sense to me but I like the way it sounds, so it stays like a little car on a road.
Concluding, random thought: Inspired by Liddle's piece, I find myself wondering what a banana-flavored beer would taste like: does one exist? If not, can I be the person brave enough to bring this dream to reality? We shall see, EH readers, we shall see.
click here for photoset
"A two-year-old can quickly link an object--whether a flashy rattle or a boring latch--to a word. Even a one-year-old can follow a parent's gaze to an object and match it with a word being spoken. But although anecdotal evidence seems to show that babies younger than one year can learn words, it remains unclear whether they are in fact mastering language. Now a new study reveals that 10-month-old infants can link words and objects, but only if the object is already interesting to them."
"NEW YORK — If the usual threats of poaching and habitat loss weren't enough, gorillas face the added danger of a deadly disease that has been surging through their ranks. The highly-infectious Ebola virus has decimated huge swaths of the already diminished western lowland gorilla population. Scientists are in a race against time to protect these animals from the disease.
Western lowland gorillas are the most common type of gorilla, but there are probably only between 50,000 and 100,000 left in the wild, all of them in the forests of the Congo basin in central Africa. All other types of gorilla, including the cross river gorilla, the mountain gorilla, and the eastern lowland gorilla, total only a few thousand, and are also found in Africa.
Over the past 20 to 25 years, hunting and disease alone have reduced the numbers of western lowland gorilla by 60 percent, according to the World Conservation Union (IUCN)." read article in it's entirety
also... World’s Rarest Gorilla Finds Sanctuary, Help the Virunga Gorillas!, The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, and Wild Talk - Gorillas in the Mist [MP3]
"BEIJING — China appeared to bend to international pressure on Friday as the government announced it would meet with envoys of the Dalai Lama, an unexpected shift that comes as Tibetan unrest in western China has threatened to cast a pall over the Beijing Olympics in August." read article in it's entirety
also... China to meet envoy of Dalai Lama
read previous EH post
"Humans alone practice religion because they're the only creatures to have evolved imagination.
That's the argument of anthropologist Maurice Bloch of the London School of Economics. Bloch challenges the popular notion that religion evolved and spread because it promoted social bonding, as has been argued by some anthropologists.
Instead, he argues that first, we had to evolve the necessary brain architecture to imagine things and beings that don't physically exist, and the possibility that people somehow live on after they've died.
Once we'd done that, we had access to a form of social interaction unavailable to any other creatures on the planet. Uniquely, humans could use what Bloch calls the "transcendental social" to unify with groups, such as nations and clans, or even with imaginary groups such as the dead. The transcendental social also allows humans to follow the idealised codes of conduct associated with religion." read article in it's entirety
Three years ago, Evolve Happy started as an outlet for me to showcase mind-expanding articles, events, or products that I came across during my daily surf. As I continued to exhibit these items, I found that all the things I posted had one thing in common; each article kept reiterating how amazingly far we've progressed as a species. It was information I knew was important and universal, information that I knew had to be shared.
Three years later, Evolve Happy has transcended that mission. We now have an intellectual community of individuals who share that desire to inform and be informed. We have contributors from around the country that have dedicated time and energy so that the information we should know as human beings can reach others. I am so thrilled with how Evolve Happy has evolved and have no doubt in my mind that further development is inevitable.
L to R: Matthew Pulling, galaxykidgama, derek_, Roberto C. Madruga, and Valerie (photo taken by Jhen)
Here's a listing of all EH's features:
EH Daily Features:
Monday - Wake Up of the Week
Something dealing with our always evolving corrupt political process or environmental issues that seem to constantly pop up more and more.
Tuesday - Audio Treat of the Week
Dave's post from Austin, TX (the live music capital of the United States).
Wednesday - Wow of the Week
Something that at the moment you see it you go "Wow!" For example:
"Wow! I can't believe somebody would eat that."
"Wow, that is really cool."
"Wow! I can't believe this exists."
Thursday - Top 5 Stumbles of the Week
derek_ uses Stumble Upon so at the end of the week he posts his top 5 Stumbles that he's come across during his daily surf.
Friday - Artist of the Week
The longest running feature on EH which sometimes includes an EH IM or Email Interview with the artist featured in the post.
Saturday and Sunday
Rest and/or travel.
Everyday, Evolve Happy is:
covering the evolution of almost everything (art, cinema, comedy, cuisine, fashion, humanity, music, science, society, and technology) and I post a Found Flickr Foto as well.
EH Features:
EH Coverage: When something comes to my attention that deserves more than a post or a paragraph to explain. Each post links to the last piece of coverage.
EH IM and Email Interviews: So far, we've only done this with artists and "Artist of the Week". However, we plan to expand our pool of interviewees. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.
EH Revisited: Older posts that I think deserve an another look.
Evogulution: Valerie reviews the newest and latest fashion, from recycled purses to sci-fi shoes.
Additionally, on the left column there's a Grand Central "CALL ME!" button that you can use to call me directly. After putting in your info, it will then call me directly. If I do not answer, please leave a message and I'll get back to you asap.
Fwd: I subscribe to a large number of newsletters. Occasionally, I will receive something and actually forward it to EH.
Idiot Comics: Robert Sergel shares his brilliant online comic.
On occasion, I use Jott, an amazing voice to text service that lets me "jott" EH anytime I want as long as there's a signal. Normally these are just rants or updates on what is happening in the world of EH.
Question of the day: Every other day, I post a question at the end of a related blog post because the EH crew really wants to know what is on our readers' minds.
On the left column, we have Roberto's Shared Items which are items I've come across after my daily read of about 20 blogs. I use Google Reader which is a great web application for organizing blog feeds.
Robot Sex Movies: Matt Pulling reviews movies or leaves a descriptive "diary" of the movies he's recently seen. His "short, brain dead reviews" are always insightful and thought-provoking.
Small Room: derek_ has created these comedic vignettes for a while now. He is now on his third season. They are pleasantly odd and hilarious. Think David Lynch meets Paul Reubens.
Questions for our readers:
01. Are there too many or too few posts daily? (Currently, we average around 5 posts a day.)
02. How often do you read our blog a week and what time of day do you normally read it?
03. What is your favorite feature on Evolve Happy?
04. Are there any current issues that you think deserve extensive coverage on EH?
05. Do you link to us? (Let us know because we will link to you.)
One Last Thought:
This is the most important thing. Even if you haven't commented before but still are a regular reader, I request that you leave a comment for this post. It doesn't matter if you comment as anonymous or if you never post again :) I just want to have an idea of who's out there.
As my grandfather says, "the train runs both ways." So make sure to email me @ bonemap@gmail.com (or call me using the Grand Central "Call Me!" button on the left column) with any questions or ideas. Or you can email me with relative content and I will forward that email to EH, which will appear as a post.
Thanks so much for being a great audience. All of your comments, ideas and suggestions are very much appreciated.
--
Sincerely,
Roberto C. Madruga
Bone Marrow Art Productions™
------------------------------
www.beautifulblur.com
Dan McDermott - Standing Nude (2007)
"Dan McDermott paints dynamic photo-realist canvases. His work is original and expertly executed. Always emphasizing the choice of subject matter, his work may depict a New York street scene, a speeding car, the exterior of a San Francisco tenement block or a distant urban landscape. McDermott derives his material from film or television or from his own cine-film. The process is a layered technique that enthusiastically embraces technological visual media. By progressing through various generations of production, McDermott arrives at his rich representations typified by heightened colour and tone. His works are defined by a personal style enlivened by compositional cropping and unusual vantage points." website
Dan McDermott - New York City (2006)
We discovered these during our last trip to The Baltimore Museum of Art.
"Extra, extra… write all about it! This set of twelve colored pencils manufactured using recycled Chinese newspapers will surely make headlines. Environmentally friendly and packed in a handy tube for artists on the go! Item approx 7.5” tall From our UK friends at Worldwide Co." product page
1. Brainrules - 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home and school
2. Songbird - Mozilla's answer to iTunes - haven't tried it yet but I'm really happy about this
3. Odin Saric - "Tiny Hawk" Four year old skateboarder
4. Splashup - online flashed-based image editing
5. Falcor & Jesus - see above
Last Friday, Alexa Horochowski was EH's Artist of the Week. Being such a big fan of her work, I decided to ask her if she would like to be interviewed for Evolve Happy. She immediately responded and said yes. The next day I emailed her questions. I hope everyone enjoys this insight into one of my favorite modern artist as much as I do.
I did some research online and came across something that said one of your influences was coloring books. I really found this wonderful; where does it come from?
The coloring book influence refers to my painting method where colors are flat and defined within a visible line. I’m interested in popular graphics in general, because of the direct and mechanical way in which the image is reproduced.
Have you ever imagined taking the color out of your paintings and making them into a coloring book for children?
I am often asked why I don’t publish a coloring book. If someone approached me and said they wanted to publish a coloring book of my work, I would most likely do it, but without the incentive of a publisher. 
Alexa Horochowski - Birch Trees (2005)
Most of your subjects are young girls. It's as if you're opening up another world to them; what message, if any, are you trying to convey to the young female audience?
I’m not trying to convey a specific message to young girls. However, I am interested in exploring the complex and fleeting stage when girls are physically becoming women but are still, fully immersed in the world of childhood. My paintings attempt to prolong this moment, by offering depictions of what I think this stage would look like if it was embodied by an environment. In life, the moment is short and quickly leads to maturity and womanhood. Maturity means one cannot ever return to this place, so recalling it is a guessing game.
Are you living vicariously through the characters in your paintings?
The characters in my paintings embody the ideas I’m exploring. They cannot be me because I am a woman and they are girls. They do represent my remembering of the experience of coming-of-age. The scenarios depicted in the paintings are not based on real events. I often employ found images of girls. For example, I’m often looking for a specific pose, such as a girl playing banjo, so I’ll find that pose in a magazine or on the internet, and use that pose to make the painting. The faces are often done from my imagination. I find that some of the characters do end up looking like people I know, such as friends, cousins, sisters.
Alexa Horochowski - The Unicorn In Captivity, Navta Schultz Gallery, Chicago (2007)
You've painted on walls as well as canvas. Do you have a preference between the two?(Personally, I think painting on walls would be more enjoyable.)
Definitely the wall because this is the only way that the work can have a life and death.
Making paintings that have a beginning and an end reflects this reality more directly than making a painting that will outlive my life. Moreover, the cusp between maturity and childhood that many of my wall paintings explore is fleeting in natural life, so it makes sense to make it fleeting in my wall paintings. Only those viewers who visit the gallery can say they experienced a particular wall painting (when it was alive). Afterwards, it exists only in documentation and the memory of those who saw it. The scale of the wall paintings allows the viewer to enter the worlds inhabited by the figures. The more monumental a work of art is, the more connected to the physical world it is. We have to visually cover the ground of the painting, like taking a walk. The larger than human scale allows the figures to dominate the space they inhabit.
Alexa Horochowski - Grotto (Black Boy) 2005
In "Untitled (black boy)," one finds your only painting (in your online galleries) of one or two human subjects which are both male. (Most have female subjects and sometimes a male, but never just male.) Can you explain why you chose two young boys for this painting?
I have painted other boys such as in Ravine. However, they always end up looking rather effeminate. The two boys in the painting I now call Grotto (Black Boy), is actually based on a scene I actually witnessed of a young, white boy carrying a young, black boy at a beach in the Twin Cities. I had a very emotional reaction to the scene, because it so clearly depicted an innocence whose color-blindness is not nurtured in the adult world.
Alexa Horochowski - Bollywood (2003)
Your paintings seem to illustrate an open and accepting view of sexuality. Do you think they could be interpreted as futuristic, meaning that they represent an advanced view of the subject?
I hadn’t thought of the paintings as illustrating a futuristic view of sexuality, but this is an interesting suggestion.
Alexa Horochowski - The Garden (Mushroom) 2004
The painting The Garden (Mushroom) can be seen as a Garden of Eden where the forbidden fruit is turned into psychedelic mushrooms. Boy and girl share this transformative experience. The experience is complete only when both participate. At other times the characters in the paintings are like brother and sister, or two mutually correlated opposites (ying and yang). In Girl Taunting Wolf, the figures represent one girl, but are depicted as two—girl in devil costume and girl in angel costume. The wolf here embodies mature experience.
Alexa Horochowski - Summer (2006)
Despite the fact that you've depicted conflict in some of your paintings, there's not any apparent anger or pain or fear in them. Why does the conflict seem absent of these factors?
The paintings attempt to depict states of transition. The adult mind will often associate moments of transition with pain, anger and conflict, but to the child these moments are new and thus void of any of these associations. For example, a child will experiment with touching a hot ember because it is beautiful and it glows. Only after experiencing the pain of getting burnt will the child have negative associations with hot embers. Few adults can achieve this state of transcendence.
Are you working on anything new or are there any future developments that you'd like to share with our readers?
In a few weeks I leave for Barcelona where I will be participating in an artist residency at Can Serrat, El Bruc. When I return I will be doing a large-scale sculpture at Franconia Sculpture Park, Minnesota. In November I will have a solo exhibition at Praxis International Art, Miami. The exhibition will include various framed paintings as well as a new wall painting. I am presently working with Anurag Foundry, MN to cast various small figures that I’m modeling out of clay.
Wow, that all sounds wonderful. Thank you so much for letting me interview you.
It was fun having to re-evaluate this work, since I haven’t been thinking about it in some time. Cheers.
"Your jaw pops like a bowl of Rice Krispies, in meetings, at mealtime, even during candlelight moments. Is it a joint that needs fixing, or just an annoying sound you can live with? Most body noises, although embarrassing, are harmless. Occasionally, they’re a signal that something’s not quite right. Health Magazine decodes what your body is telling you, from top to bottom, and what to do about it." read article in it's entirety
"U.S. streets could soon be over-run with cats if communities fail to get a handle on growing feline populations, a veterinary medicine researcher says.
The problem is growing numbers of not just strays, but also other free-roaming pet cats. The strays are likely to go unneutered or unspayed, and therefore to reproduce like mad. On top of that though, more than 38 million households own an estimated 88 million cats — that's about one cat for every 3.5 Americans. Those that aren't "fixed" often can and do still wander freely outdoors or get lost and make kittens.
Fertile female cats produce an average of two litters of four to six kittens per year. As a result, up to 5 million U.S. cats are euthanized in shelters each year, according to estimates by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals." read article in it's entirety
also... Cat & Kitten Rescue & Adoption: Adopt a Cat or Kitten in your area, How to Adopt a Stray Cat, and How You Can Help the Cats
"When I worked as a pizza cook we deep-fried everything: cucumbers, strawberries, a pencil. Once I battered and deep-fried some bacon and topped pizza with it. And yeah, it was both gut-curdling and awesome. But this. This is something else entirely. We never would have thought to put cheeseburgers, fries, and McNuggets on a pizza." read article in it's entirety
Just thinking about this makes me sick.
"LONDON, April 22 -- More than 100 million people are being driven deeper into poverty by a "silent tsunami" of sharply rising food prices, which have sparked riots around the world and threaten U.N.-backed feeding programs for 20 million children, the top U.N. food official said Tuesday.
'This is the new face of hunger -- the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago but now are,' Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), said at a London news conference. 'The world's misery index is rising.'
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, hosting Sheeran and other private and government experts at his 10 Downing Street offices, said the growing food crisis has pushed prices to their highest levels since 1945 and rivals the current global financial turmoil as a threat to world stability." read article in it's entirety
also... Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World
read previous EH post
Mental Detox Week (formerly TV-Turn-off Week) started on Monday.
"You wake up, put on the coffee, and get ready for work. Then, just as you’re reaching for the cell phone, you remember that today is the beginning of Mental Detox Week.
Today you’re not going to listen to your iPod. You aren’t going to stare at a computer screen any more than you absolutely have to. Today you won’t worry about unanswered email, and you’re not going to login to Facebook. You’ll cut the time you spend on digital devices right down to the bone.
In the evening maybe you will watch your favorite TV show for an hour, but after that you switch off, have a conversation, wash the dishes, read for a bit, and just relax. You do that for five days, and then on Friday night you make a decision to unplug completely for the whole weekend.
For a couple of days you might feel like an addict in withdrawal: peevish, agitated, and distracted. But then something will happen. Your over-stimulated brain will cleanse itself. You’ll relax. You’ll feel calmer, more grounded." webpage
also... It's Turnoff Week, but the trouble is not in your TV set
I'm a little late on this but better late than never. If any of you decide to participate or if you're already participating, let us know.
"In the rapidly growing network of humans through technology, our identities are little by little seeping into the digital realm. We are sharing more and more about ourselves with this network that reaches almost all parts of the world. Within this tireless dynamic landscape innumerable copies of faces emerge. The universal human to human interface. As quickly as they emerge, the source of these images crumble and dissipate back to the original face, leaving only traces. These are Residual Faces.
Digital portraits from your digital photos." webpage
Last month, I asked derek_ to create a portrait of Valerie and me, so I could give it to her on our 4th anniversary (March 20th). I sent him a photo via email and a couple of weeks later he sent me this:
Needless to say, when I first saw the final draft, I was very happy with it and when I gave it to Val (printed out and framed) she flipped out. :) I've known derek_ for about ten years so he didn't charge me for this amazing portrait but I would have paid $200 in a heartbeat just to see the look on Valerie's face. So, basically, derek_'s Residual Faces make phenomenal gifts and Mother's Day is coming up.
Due to an extremely busy weekend, I wasn't able to write a story for this week's "Audio Treat." I had some truly amazing musical experiences and ingested a ton of food and beverage with my friend, Kahle. One such amazing musical experience was seeing Negativland perform live at The Alamo Drafthouse. They were doing a piece on religion entitled, "It's All In Your Head." The performance played out like a live radio broadcast mashing music, found sounds, and voice to prove the existence or nonexistence of God. The performance was incredible and, sooner or later, should be available for download. If and when I locate it, I will be posting it here.
For now here are some words on Negativland from the guys themselves...
"Since 1980, the 4 or 5 or 6 Floptops known as Negativland have been creating records, CDs, video, fine art, books, radio and live performance using appropriated sound, image and text. Mixing original materials and original music with things taken from corporately owned mass culture and the world around them, Negativland re-arranges these found bits and pieces to make them say and suggest things that they never intended to. In doing this kind of cultural archaeology and "culture jamming" (a term they coined way back in 1984), Negativland have been sued twice for copyright infringement." read "About Negativland" in it's entirety
Let's see:
Negativland - Christianity Is Stupid
"GRAND CAYMAN ISLAND — As a doctor monitored his heart and his blood and breathing, David Blaine filled his lungs with pure oxygen and prepared to hold his breath — for 16 minutes, he hoped. Mr. Blaine is a famous magician, but he insisted that this was no trick.
He was training to break the world record for breath-holding, a logical enough step in his other career. As a self-described endurance artist, he’d spent 35 hours atop a 105-foot pole and survived a week buried in a coffin. He’d fasted for 44 days in a box suspended over the Thames, a nutritional experiment that was written up in The New England Journal of Medicine (with Mr. Blaine listed as a co-author).
Leon Neal - David Blaine (2003)
This breath-holding experiment, conducted last week at a swimming pool on Grand Cayman Island, was being run by Ralph Potkin, a pulmonologist in Los Angeles who is a researcher trying to understand the human propensity for going without air." read article in it's entirety
"LucyandBart is a collaboration between Lucy McRae and Bart Hess described as an instinctual stalking of fashion, architecture, performance and the body. They share a fascination with genetic manipulation and beauty expression.
Lucy McRae and Bart Hess - Exploded View (2007)
Unconsciously their work touches upon these themes, however it is not their intention to communicate this. They work in a primitive and limitless way creating future human shapes, blindly discovering low – tech prosthetic ways for human enhancement." website / blog
also... Interview with Bart Hess (we make money not art)
thanks next nature
"In honor of Earth Day -- April 22 -- here are some small changes you can make that could ultimately have a big impact on the environment" read "22 Ways..." in it's entirety
also... Burning Question: Is Earth Day Bad For the Planet? and 20 Things You Didn’t Know About... Recycling
Question of the day: Is Earth Day still relevant?
"Zach puts Michael Cera, the Superbad and Juno star in the hot seat for this special Comedy Death-Ray interview."
