Gyorgy Kepes

 Don't really know where to begin with this work. I picked up a book while randomly browsing the library at Beaubourg, Centre Pompidou. I trust this process, and patience pays off when you discover something so striking and inspiring. As suspected, I'm not the only one who loves his work so here are some images and sources for more information and examples of his work.

My favorite fact is that he founded and taught at MIT at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies. Not all art is fluff.

please also see this article from the NYTimes for further discussion into the scientific value of his work

follow up post on Moholy-Nagy to come

San Giovanni Battista by Mario Botta

I am really moved to go here:

Switzerland : Ticino Mogno village church San Giovanni Battista designed by Mario Botta

more great images here

and the architect Mario Botta's other funky work

including this: 

WELLNESS CENTRE “BERGOASE”, AROSA, SWITZERLAND 2003-2006

see some of his sketches here

I've also been dying to go to Lausanne. This is what the journey looks like by bicycle:

World Poetry Day

When are words enough? When do they suffice to express
the things inside the gut and inside the mind? Inside the heart.
When taking great care to select them, arrange them, and feel them
swirl around in your throat, slide across the tongue and
exit into the world.

The physical sensations in my body overlap with my emotions
like the boy's outstretched arms grasping at the hen whose explosive
wing pump of liberation cast a shadow monster
on the stucco wall in the bright sun of the southern hemisphere.

Conditional factors can't be hypothesized
we can only watch the bird being gathered back up into the boys retracting arms
or the feathers neaten into a linear vehicle of escape.

for their shadows to fall upon other encounters and
create monsters anew.

Artist Heinz Mack

Blues

A series ongoing

Cathedral Candles

I thought I had a quarter in my pocket.
I wanted to light a candle
They're majestic aren't they?

Get a picture with me right in front while I light the candle
oh but damn I don't have a quarter.
Get the whole thing, all the way up to the top.

Are you getting the whole thing?
That very tippy-top candle?
_

What do we visit a church for?
A cathedral built for the worship of a God we regard skeptically
and whose name we take in vain.

If you get a shiver of emotion upon entring,
which heart string is being pulled?
Is it a testament to Man who built it?
Faith that inspired it?
Self congratulation for being there?
Gratitude for that moment?

Awe.
Boredom.
Flippancy.
Nostalgia.
Curiosity.
_

What would the men who built it think of the world surrounding today.

photo Jean Gaumy: October 1980. Pilgrims standing in front of the cave. Lourdes, France

Kim Holtermand

Sunset Over River Niger

listening to a BBC global newscast, the correspondent in Mali was taking a moment to witness the sunset over the river Niger citing it as one of the most beautiful sights he's seen. I was curious to see the effect of this particular couché du soleil. Here are some of the images. I would love to see this. And perhaps bring some tourism back to the area that has been abandoned by international visitors due to the  unrest in the country.

festival

I love these that show the silhouette of the Fishermen, which is the prominent economy of the river.

last hours

The river Niger has its source in Guinea and runs North through the Sahara (Mali, Niger, the border of Benin) before roaming back down to the Atlantic in Nigeria

Current Sovereign Monarchs

a map of current Sovereign Monarchs that I just made with photoshop according to Wikipedia out of pure curiosity. All the those overlapped with fuscia are those under the rule of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

More from Nana and Popsie's bookshelf

The quality of the images isn't stellar, but it is always like a treasure hunt to look and see what is inside of the thousands of books along the wall of the upstairs hallway...here's a peek