Der Wahlkampf Endet.

So Angie is here to stay it seems, now ruling with her right-leaning FDP buddies in what is expected to be a much more comfortable coalition than the CDU had with the left-leaning SPD in the previous years. By my accounts, Germans were lack-luster about the whole affair, which is evidenced in a drop in voter turn-out (which is anyways still a hefty 71.2%!). Rather late than never, here are some of the election posters that were on display around Berlin (and one from Kiel)

This poster stirred quite some controversy for going back to that Oslo-operahouse-excessive-cleavage picture, now paired with a female candidate for the CDU in Berlin. The caption reads "We have more to offer". No doubt.  

New this year was the pirate party, which is basically pro-piracy (the caption is something like "representation change!") Blow is a colourful poster for the German Communist Party (DKP) for a rally they held back in August.

I can't help but note the Pirate Party's logo is strikingly similar to the Duffern-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board logo (below) -  the fine people whom I credit my early education to (Shout out to St.Paul's!).

But the long-time incumbant had the best poster, done by a local illustrator in an almost simpson-esqu motif

I mean the resemblance to Jebediah Springfield is uncanny:

And there are also lots of fringe parties, for instance Mensch Umwelt Tierschutz (lit. People, Environment, Animal Protection) who used this striking poster (the caption is "Alternative methods instead of abusing the weak")

The left-leaning parties had a big presence in Neukölln, a more working-class district in Berlin. The top poster here is for a turkish candidate. Die Linke ("The Left"), a newly formed merger party of older entities proclaims "More money for building, not banks!" while the Partei für Soxiale Gleichheit (PSG, "Party for Social Equality") wants to let you know that "Die Linke want to save capitalism. Not us". While the DKP (communists) are so far beyond the economy, that they want to let you know that they're "No people of the armed forces. Their election campaign: class struggle" (it sounds better in German because election campaign and class struggle both use the same word for struggle/fight/conflict: kampf)

Also... Die Linke say to "tax the rich", while the PSG would like to see "Banks and affiliates under the democratic control of the employees". The communists just don't want you to forget who their "crisis consultants" are.

Ah ok, and not to forget the Greens. They went for a faux graffiti campaign. The upper placard is self-explanatory, the lower one I found a bit confusing. In one instance they are clearly against (gegen) Genetically Modified Organisms (i.e. foodstuffs) but the explosive stem resembles the typical logo for anti-nuclear proliferation in Germany.

But lest we forget what most posters actually looked like throughout Germany. Here are two very boring (and very typical) poster for candidates in Kiel for the SPD ("more caring, more equitable, more strong") and Die Linke ("Have courage! Make pressure!"). The bottom of Sahra's poster is where they put a sticker of when and where she will make an appearance, but it looks poorly designed when the space is left blank.

Trans im Büro

The Harvard Business Review is not yet, I will admit, part of my regular reading diet. But I have to give kudos to this case study:
When Steve Becomes Stephanie. I ran across it while studying for a recent case interview.

The case is about how to deal with a transsexual employee who is going to undergo sexual-reassignment surgery. I am really impressed that such a topic is included in what I'd consider a main-stream business publication. The simple fact of reaching a wider heterosexual audience, who would normally never be presented with such issues, is noteworthy.

The only disappointing part is that mostly all the commentators identify themselves as trans or queer. It would be so nice to read the first impressions of people who have no background in the topic. But in any case, I can feel the gears turning, this is a fantastic way to get people thinking about sensitive situations.

Economist Are Bloggers, Too

via Scott Berkun: A list of the 100 "best" economics blogs on the Online Universities Weblog. So far Economics Help: Helping to Simplify Economics seems pretty accessible. See also my previous post: Some Resources To Help You Understand The Economy.

The Future of Sci-Fi

George RR Martin speaking on the future of Sci-Fi on To the Best of Our Knowledge:

"Social changes of the last 50 years has made the future something that we no longer want to go visit the way we did when I was a kid. Back in the 50s and 60s when Sci Fi was perhaps as popular as it's ever been, we really had alot of belief in the future. We couldn't wait to get to the future. The future was going to be much better than anything in the present. You know, we were gonna have robots, and flying cars, and all these labour saving devices, and we were gonna take our holidays on the moon and space stations and we were gonna go to the stars. When they took polls, everybody gave the answer yes, yes, my kids are gonna have a better life than I do and my grandkids are gonna have an even better life then they do and we're gonna go into space and were gonna go into the stars...
...People take polls now and most people think that their children and not going to have better lives than they do. They think that their children are going to have worse lives. They're worried about things like ecological problems, global warming, the growing instability of the world and nuclear proliferation, more and more nations having the bomb and all that..."

Polaris: Announced

I'm not gonna say that I called it, but well... you all had fair warning.

This is what Fucked Up, winner of the 2009 Polaris Music Prize and recipients of $20,000.00 are going to do with their cash:

There were over 500 missing aboriginal women in Canada and we're going to put out a benefit record to try to draw attention to it and raise some money for these people," he said. "It's a marginalized group, it's a racialized crime, it's ignored. So we're putting out a benefit Christmas record with some really funny guests and we're gonna pay for it.

<via Yahoo>

Just like they said... Punk, but with emotion, you dig?

Generation Ich

Michal Glazik, photographer and friend of mine, is showing work at a group exhibit in Hamburg: Generation Ich (Oct 10-25 at Spielbudenplz. 22)

There's not much info on the website, but Prinz Hamburg fills in the gaps:

Today's generation is not "Generation X" or "Generation Golf". They seek their identity not in groups, not in the zeitgeist. Who am I? What am I? The self is the focus. Even in contemporary photography, the confrontation with one's identity is always a central theme. But why is this generation so concerned with self? There's a public place where one can find out, or gain some insight. "Generation Ich" invites you to examine this ubiquitous topic through visuals.

Seven students of photography HAW Hamburg have taken up their own generation. In the exhibition "Generation Ich", they show their very personal work, where they have gone in search of the self.

The DNA Video

In case you didn't catch it on FaceBook, here it is on YouTube:

The ourDNA.ca DNA extraction video on the streets of Banff, special thanks to the aforementioned Logan (click for his new Nerdity blog) for uploading.

Do. Make. Say. Think. Years. Happiness.

Do Make Say Think is one of the great under-appreciated bands of Canada. I just never understood why people aren't more excited about these guys. They are very much a part of the Toronto music landscape and are coming out with a new album in October, after having formed in 1996.

One band member, Ohad Benchetrit, has completed his first solo album, of course on Arts & Crafts. His project is called Years and you can check out the amazingly beautiful and amazingly uninformative website here.

Also from the band, Charles Spearin came out earlier this year with The Happiness Project, which is just a small piece of genius. Basically he interviews people about what is happiness and sets it to music. It's way better than it sounds!

The good news is, since they're all the same people, you can catch Do Make Say Think, Years, and The Happiness Project all at the same time. Which is exactly what's happening this Fall in Europe and N. America. Check your listings!

The best way to hear the music is through mySpace for Years and The Happiness Project official website. Otherwise you can sign up and get a pretty decent Arts & Crafts Sampler for free, you only need to provide the felt.

Sumi Ink Club

The group holds regular open meetings to execute detailed collaborative drawings using ink on paper. In each of its permutations, Sumi Ink Club uses group drawing as a means to open and fortify social interactions that bleed into everyday life. Sumi Ink Club is non-hierarchical: all ages, all humans, all styles are welcome. Each drawing is produced by many hands, through a happenstance arrangement of close friends and strangers alike.

This is from the newly available publication from nieves: Glamour Banner






But I highly recommend Kin Gordon Chronicles, vol. 1 and 2. Can you tell I'm on a Sonic Youth kick at the moment?

Some Resources To Help You Understand The Economy.

I'm going to out myself here: I've been reading about.... the economy! I know: it boring, confusing, all about money and companies and only wants to cause you pain. But it's also a seriously important part of our lives, whether we want it to be or not, as much as people want to drop out of society (and the economy) you're basically stuck with it. So you might as well educated yourself about it, so you can at least understand the news and be able to make an informed decision based on the information that is at least partially validated by some knowledge of the field.

There are lots of resources now available to help people understand what is happening in terms of the world economy and crisis. Here are some things I have been listening to/reading in the past year:

1) This American Life

This American Life has so far provided four excellent shows that clearly explain how banks work, the housing crisis and other important aspects of the economy:

Episode 355: Giant Pool of Money
Episode 365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy
Episode 373: The New Boss (not entirely aobut the economy, but an informative report about Keynes)
Episode 375: Bad Bank

You can listen to the recording online at the above links and download the transcript, all free-of-charge. If you subscript to the podcast, each week an new episode is available, but only for that week. So if you were subscribed at the right time you would've been able to download these episodes. I highly recommend all of them for clear, non-partial, informative, well-produced, professional and entertaining sources. It doesn't get any easier than this folks, I mean just press play, sit back and listen.

2) Naomi Klein

Also, Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine book is an easy read and explains the background of Neo-liberalism. Her first book, No Logo, which I read in my early 20s, discussed branding and globalization. I really liked it, it was clearly written, gave explicit real-life examples of what she was talking about and had the impact on me that it sought. This book feels very similar, what I like best is that she clearly explains the Chicago school and different ideas about economics. That in itself is worth the book. But the main point of the book at the examples (in South America, Russia, etc.) in which Neo-liberalism was put into practice, to some extent, and then the book takes on a more sensationalistic tone. Ok, the book is a best-seller, so you're probably already familiar with it.

3) Adbusters

Another useful book (read magazine) is the current issue of Adbusters: Thought Control in Economics. I've been reding Adbusters since I was a teenager, and wow, these guys have really come a long way! (Remember the McDonald's Grease stickers?) I don't read it often because it costs an arm and a leg in Germany, but I picked up this latest issue when I was recently in Canada. It's full of informative articles, discusses different perspective on Economics and is not overly over-the-head-bashing in its approach, which turned me off many of the earlier issues, and is also more informative than beligiert and beleaguering. It reads more like a book than a magazine. If you can stil find it on the newstands- pick it up! If not, get a back-issue order online.

3) Paul Krugman

I've only just begun to read article by Paul Krugman regularly. He is a regular contributer to the New York Times where he has a blog: The Conscience of a Liberal (i.e. From last week: How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?) and is also clearly on the left-of-center platform. If you are using Google Reader, you can find a list of his favourite reads with the Power-Reader feature (scroll down).

4) Marginal Revolution

For a very different perspective you can read the decidely conserative economist Tyler Cowen's hyper-activ blog Marginal Revolution, and his two-year old critique of Klein's Shock Doctrine he published in the New York Sun.

5) The Economist

Also on the other end of the spectrum is The Economist magazine itself, which is apparently founded on fiscal-conservatism, but often supports liberal politics. For instance they have featured the case for gay marriage in the US on their cover. So there are somehow mixed I guess. In any case there is always alot of information in each issue, plus special reports, so it is not bedtime reading, but once you get into it it gets easier to understand.

Sonic Youth, Live

NPR's All Songs Considered has a downloadable live recording of a Sonic Youth Concert from Jul 7th in Washington, DC.

It just short of 90 minutes and good quality.

Antony does Beyonce

You're love... got me looking so crazy, right now.

Amazing:

Antony and the Johnsons

Punk, But With Emotion, You Dig?

This is Sandy Miranda (aka Slumpy, aka Laundry, aka Mustard Gas), bass player for the Toronto band Fucked Up (Blog, 2nd Blog, Matador):

Who wudda thunk she'd be part of a hard-core punk outfit (I mean they do have emotion, let's get that clear). I have been listening to their Chemistry of Common Life album for months and I still love it! They are touring and releasing material like mad and apparently in the studios as we speak. To tie you over they link to a 40 minute mix tape on their blog. Be forewarned, it is not new material, but it is a mix tape, and it may make your ears bleed.

They are up for the Polaris music prize this year but they have some serious competition. My other top pick is gonna be K'NAAN. I love Dreamer:

And also T.I.A. The video itself is absolutely amazing:

More Anatomical Art

by 9000:


via MetaFilter.

Deutsches Essen, Teil 1

German cuisine? Probably makes you think of:

• Wurst (all variety of sausage)
• Cabbage (Sauerkraut, obviously)
• Beer (but only in gigantic glasses carried by large-breasted long-haired blond women)

Yes, the Germans have all of those, but German eating gets a seriously bad rap. I'm not even an expert but I know there are some very good things you can only get in Germany, or at least are things the Germans excel in. I want to start introducing them to you all.

Lebensmittel 1) DER QUARK

If you make your way down to the Maybachufer Wochenmarkt (the farmers market at Maybachufer, a street on the bank of the Spree in Berlin), you'll stumble upon this thing of beauty:


Yes, a Quark stall. I have being trying to figure out what Quark is in English since I moved here, but according to the dictionary it's simply Quark, although more recently it's now translated as curd cheese. If someone offered me curd cheese in Canada, this is not what I would expect! I've never seen it, but my chef buddy Tara says you can pick it up in some local (read Arab) markets around the T-dot, and it's just called Quark.

So what is it? Quark is a very low-calorie soft-cheese. Think Philadelphia cream cheese meets mascarpone. In other countries you can apparently find varieties with less water content, which I guess resemble curd cheese more than the German variety. It's also very high in protein and even with some amount of Lactose intolerance, I don't get problems with it.

It's very creamy, but it has a tart after taste that I don't like. You can eat it straight up, or as I was shown by Bettina Harr, a research associate, the best way to eat it is by mixing in pieces of fresh strawberries (in season, of course) and some sugar if it's still not sweet enough for you. The result is something like strawberry jogurt, but probably better for you.

This is what was on sale at the Quark stall above. Instead of buckets of ice cream, he had buckets of flavoured quark:

• Chocolate
• White Chocolate
• Nougat
• Poppy Seed
• Cappuccino
• Coconut
• Honey
• Vanilla
• Lemon
• Banana
• Mixed-berries
• Strawberries

...and a variety of other berry flavours. He gives you a cup with two flavours, sandwiched between is a layer of muesli, or fresh fruit, if you like.

Mono.Kultur and The nOulipian Analects (pt.1)

This is gonna be all about constraints.

Yesterday I did end up going to that self-publishing book fair. It was exactly what I expected. Lots of amazing books, really interesting topics, stuff you would never see anywhere else. I did notice several books which are available at the proQM independent bookshelf. But there are two publishers who I am very excited about!

The first is a collective of writers, designers, journalists, photographers, editors, etc. who collaborate as a collective to put together a magazine called Mono.Kultur. Their back-issues read as a who's who of people you should know about - in detail. There are about 8 people who make the collective and they have to unanimously decide to feature an artist -  of any persuasion - in the magazine. Each issue is dedicated to that artist and can possibly include photos, art, an intro, epilogue, etc. Part of the idea is to promote German artists abroad, but all three back issues I picked up are of Americans:

Miranda July (Artist)
Trent Reznor (Musician)
Richard Powers (Author)

The Miranda July issue is packaged in a sleeve which unfolds to reveal one of he signature posters:


The interview is well done and lots of her personality come through. If you are not familiar with her, get this issue, or else see here and the awesome website for her book here.

My favourite part of the interview:

I guess I really like systems. It's like plyaing business when you are little, or playing library. Tehre is something not very creative about having no rules, you know. No rules is sometimes paralyzing. If I am sitting down to write, I want to have something pretty narrow, a task like, 'Try and make this character not so annoying today.'

Here are some things you can try at home:

#14: Write you life story in less than a day.
#53: Give advice to yourself in the past.
#10: Make a flyer about your day.
#63: Make an encouraging banner.
#58: Record the sound that is keeping you awake.

July has her fingers in many pots and it really incredible. They sum it up really nice in the intro:

You could be thinking, 'what a bunch of lucky breaks.' The truth is, she works ridiculously hard - obsessively, intensely - all the time, and she has been acively pursuing creative projects since she was a teenager.

The Reznor issues is very much about his getting over alcoholism and drug addiction, and the interviewer mostly limits himself to very short questions. July and Reznor were two artists who I already were comfortable with, so I asked for a recommendation for a third issue to pick up, that's how I ended up with Richard Powers, which turned out to be my favourite issue. I have to admit I never heard about him before I picked up his Mono.Kultur issue. The first thing to note is the seriously fantastic ASCII art (see wiki and this gallery for the uninitiated) by Ute Kühn, who actually does photography, painting and installations (UPDATE: Wrong Ute, here the real Ute's web-site: www.playconcrete.com). For example, the cover:

Here is a detail around the eye:

Powers was heavily influenced to write his first book, Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance (1985) by an August Sander photograph (1914) of the same name:

The photograph is part of a series to document the people of Westerwald, situated between Cologne and Frankfurt. Here it is reproduced in all it's ASCII glory:

I mean the detail is just spectacular! Here's a zoom of the two farmers on the right:

In the field between the first and second farmer is a quote from the book:

The love of the moribund, the belief that the sickly and perverse hold more possibility for experience than the status quo, has been our times' epidemic of preference. But an opposite mentality, a perennially unfounded optimism, is equally to blame for catastrophe.

I wonder if that quote will ever be out-dated.

There are several amazing ASCII pieces, here is another favourite:

In his tie is written:

As for the interview, it is the longest of the three and also the most intimate, most personal one. Powers is such a profound man, I'm almost ashamed to not be familiar with him. But I will elaborate with some examples in a future post, oh ja, and also get to the nOulipian Analects.

Knowing World Religions

I was listening to an old (oct 11/08) podcast of NPR's To The Best of Our Knowledge last week, mostly because I find the topic very interesting: Finding Religion. You can listen to the whole thing here, but the first interview is probably the best bit.

They begin by talking with Stephen Prothero, chair of the religion dept at Boston University and author of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - and Doesn't. It starts off with a quiz. Below are my honest answers in black and the ones I had to look up in red:

1) What are the first five books of the Hebrew bible, or the Christian Old Testament?

• Genesis
• Deuteronomy
• Numbers
• Exodus
• Leviticus
  

OK, one missing, not too bad.

2) Can you name the ten commandments?

I know that the first three relate to God, so:

• Thy shall not take the lords name in vain
• Thy shall not take false gods
• Do not make an image or any likeness of what is in the heaven's above
  

And the other seven have to do relations between people

• Thy shall not covet they neighbour's wife
• Thy shall not steal
• Thy shall not lie
• Honour the Sabbath
• Honour your parents
• Do not murder
• Do not commit adultery
  

oh man, I'm only at 5, but do I get a bonus point for knowing about the 11th:



3) What are the 4 Nobel Truths of Buddhism?

• All life is suffering (or diseased, if you like)
• Desire is the cause of suffering
• Eliminating desire eliminates suffering
• This can be achieved by the eight-fold path:

• Right mindfulness
• Right action
• Right speech
• Right practice (livelihood)
• Right view
• Right intention
• Right effort
• Right concentration

OK, that really is a shame when I can only list four, I have always had a hard time to remember them, there are way too many lists in Buddhism! Better to just have be a good practitioner :) Well at least I did get the four noble truths.

4) You've heard the saying "God helps those that help themselves"? Is this in the Bible? If so, where?

No clue.

5) What are the 7 sacrements of catholism?

• Baptism
• First communion (Eucharist)
• Confirmation
• Marriage
• Reconciliation (Confession)
• Holy Orders (Ordination)
• Anointing of the sick

6) Can you name one of the sacred texts of Hinduism?

• Bhagavad Gita

I also knew about the vedas, but I forgot just how many other texts there are.

7) George W. Bush spoke in his first innaugural address of the Jericho road. What bible story was he referring to?

I'm thinking this is the good Samaritan parable. If it is, that is too much irony, even for Bush.

ok, that was a tougher quiz than I thought, but to be be fair it was very Christian-orientated and I don't think I did half-bad. But what about the five pillars of Islam? The three schools of Buddhism? Taoism vs Confucianism? Jainism? Luther and the 99 theses?

In the interview they talk with Prothero about the importance of being religiously literate in order to understand our own and other cultures. I can't agree more with this point!!! Too often knowing about a tradition (i.e. religious) or philosophy or political/economic perspective is akin to accepting it as your own, and so people tend to shy away from it. In particular with religion because often times the education aspect is coupled with a recruitment drive.

One of my absolute favourite courses as a high school student was grade 11 World Religions, and that was in a Roman Catholic high school where we all wore uniforms. I can still remember the day our religion teacher came to Christianity and point blank asked us to put up our hands if we doubted the existence of God. You wouldn't believe how many hands went up in that oh so quintessentially Catholic school! In the same class we visited a mosque and a synagogue, not to mention having regular (albeit not intensive) meditation sessions and a visit by the Hare Krishna.

Most people are genuinely surprised that such a class is offered in a Catholic school and I have yet to meet a student from the public school board who had a similar class. The point was education about other traditions, because they saw the importance religion plays in many, many people's lives and the importance of understanding what those people believe in. I went on to take world religions in my first year at the University of Toronto and later took a second year Buddhism course, which complimented my learning about the tradition I got in temples, from monks and lay people.

So it's surprising to me that such a conversation as to the importance of religious literacy is even on the table. It is clearly important, the question is what is necessary to know and how is the best way to get that information across. It think it's in a similar problem as science communication. People find both topics intimidating (scary even) and so vast they they are afraid to delve in. The solution for both could lie in the integration of both information into everyday practice, where people are educated without even knowing they're getting a good dose of real information.

Anatomical Drawings: Interiors with Faces.

Yes, as I admited at the Scientific Communications course in Banff, I really do love anatomical drawings. Here I discuss some of my favourites.

To begin: I discovered Fernando Vicente just yesterday while perusing illustration books at proQM, a bookstore that I found out about via momus, who is now my unofficial Berlin bookstore guru (as an aside, I highly recommend this gem of an art-illustration-design-architecture-fashion-magazine-city-culture bookshop). This is why I got so excited about Fernando:

Those are from his Vanitas series. He has some other anatomical based drawing on his website/blog, but Vanitas is definitely my favourite. He's really taking anatomical drwing up a notch, but it is very much in keeping with the theme of dissection in situ, so to speak. For instance, of having models cadavers, dissected and in place within a scene. You can see some of these in Taschen's Encyclopaedia Anatomica which is basically a catalog of the Museo La Specola in Florence (I also recommend a visit to the museum if you are ever in Florence, it's worth it!). In that instance diaoramas of the four horsemen of the apocylapse are displayed in all their horrid waxy glory (not literally, but representatively - Think a gaggel of diseased corpses strewn about a cityscape). Ok, but that may be a strecth, because the four diaoramas are not that spectacular, but many dissections are presented like a window into the interior, for instance this woman:

and the book cover itself:

There are no flaps of skin and blood streaks to suggest that the people are dissected. There is certainly something disquieting to see a recognizable person and look right into their insides. All the women and men in the above pictures are not in pain or even discomfort, the wax figure looks even quasi-euphoric (that or she's having a bout of indigestion, she is after all, missing her intestines). So in both instances we see internal organs out of their usual context. That is, we don't see the usuall marks of dissection, which let's us know what has happened and yet there is the rest of the body, looking like nothing in particular has happened. Both the comfort of context and the abstraction of a medical image is taken away when we see such images. We are looking into a special kind of mirror.

Ok, so far I've ignored Gunther von Hagens' Body Worlds. I saw his "Cycle of Life" exhibit when it came to Berlin this summer. And although he most certainly does qualify as removing the abstract from the medical image, I had some problems with his presentation. If your not familiar with his art of plastination, there are enough videos on YouTube. The "Cycle of Life" is notable for displaying very early stages of humn embryogenesis, which is simply facinating, but that's about all there is conerning the cycle of life, there are no displays of children, adolescents, seniors, there is now typical diagram of changing bodies over time, so I'm not sure why it was called "Cycle of Life" if they werent going to show it. Another item that disturbed me was the Santa Claus exhibit, it was pretty tasteless. there was a sleigh, reindeer (also plastinated) and the fellw who was Santa complete with fake white beard. He was basically exploded and suspended from the ceiling so you could see every intimate detail, but still it was tasteless. The captain of the pirate ship, complete with parrot, was not a strong point either, nor was thr "rugby player" holding an American pigskin. Both had their muscles obviously pumped up. But perhaps the most disappoingint part was the sex scene. You knew there had to be a sex scene, and there is was in the last room before the exit. There sat upon a chair was a man with a woman proped upon his lap. For her part she was cut in half so when you went around the back side you got a glimpse of intercourse from the inside. The disturbing part is that she was wearing really cheap black leather boot and black nail polish and he had a black mohawk, all of which was thoroughly off-putting and unnecessary. My favourite pieces, aside from the embryos, were the placenta, a remarkably interesting temporary organ that is much underappreciated, and the head of an obese man cut in half. There you got to see all the fatty bits in situ that were mysteriously abscent from all the other (supposedly) lean, muscular models in the exhibit (sorry photographs were not allowed).

So although he shows us an entire cadaver, and would be a perfect example of this window to the interior, I wasn't as excited. I know I should feel bad to say that, but maybe it was even too realistic, or I was just so caught up in the details of the bodies and imagining preparation artifacts, that I didn't get the right impression. I think in the end the advantage of the above two examples is that art can portray life in a way life itself, ironically, can never do.

------

Here is the mouse pad that I couldn't resist buying:

It's covered with a clear plastic layer and in the jelly layer in between is a blood coloured fluid that swishes around as you move your mouse.

Oh, and apparently Body Worlds in coming to the T-dot in October with the "Story of the Heart" exhibit. Expect lots of blood vessels! and you can probably pick up the mouse pad there also.