Agent de Changement

In any society, the artist has a responsibility. His effectiveness is certainly limited and a painter or writer cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of non-conformity alive. Thanks to them the powerful can never affirm that everyone agrees with their acts. That small difference is important.
-Luis Bunuel

If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He's not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed.
-David Hockney

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.
-Wm. S. Burroughs

INFO:
http://affinityproject.org/groups/artandrevolution.html

(artwork by Henry Darger)

Starting Over

The turritopsis nutricula species of jellyfish may be the the world's only immortal animal. Since it is capable of cycling from a mature adult stage to an immature polyp stage and back again, there may be no natural limit to its life span.
The key lies in a process called transdifferentiation, where one type of cell is transformed into another type of cell. Some animals can undergo limited transdifferentiation and regenerate organs, such as salamanders, which can regrow limbs. Turritopsi nutricula, however, can actually regenerate its entire body over and over again.
Researchers are studying the creature to discover how it is able to reverse its aging process.
Because they are able to bypass death, the number of individuals is spiking. They're now found in oceans around the globe rather than just in their native Caribbean waters. "We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion," says Dr. Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute.
INFO:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2009/01/29/the-curious-case-of-the-immortal-jellyfish/

Shape Shifting Dance

Lumière Brothers' film of Loie Fuller
(shot & hand-colored in 1899)

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind."*

*-William James

"From error to error one discovers the entire truth."*

*-Sigmund Freud

Rip It Up

Bill Haley & The Comets

As It Be

"There exists only the present instant... a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence."

-Johannes Eckhart (1260-1328)