Category: Uncategorized

Back to Bali in 2013?

The Museum Puri Lukisan in Ubud has invited a proposal for an exhibition of wayang painting there in September-October of next year. This 1973 painting by Ketut Madra would be a small but important part of that.

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   Valmiki Teaching, Ketut Madra, acrylic and ink, 38 x 28.5 cm

It shows Valmiki, author of the Ramayana, teaching Kusa and Lawa, Rama’s twin sons. Born in Valmiki’s ashram after the exile of their mother Dewi Sita to the forest following her rescue from Rawana and return to Ayodhya, the twins relied on Valmiki as spiritual guide and teacher throughout their early years.

The painting has a 40-year back story. Madra and I worked closely together for about nine months in 1973. He painted this as a gift shortly before I left. After it was finished and before I had even seen it, he was visited by Rudolf Bonnet, a creator, curator and guiding light of the Puri Lukisan. Bonnet asked Madra if he would be willing to donate the picture to the museum. Madra said he was sorry that he could not do that as he had promised it to me for the exhibition we were planning for the U.S. the following year. We’re both hoping it will hang there in 2013.

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Wooden Boatworks Launches Web Site

Wooden Boatworks of Greenport, NY, has launched an extraordinary web site.

With photographs from Peter Braune and Benjamin Mendelowitz and video by Tom Garber, the site is a poetic visual feast for anyone who knows and loves classic wooden boats.

Donn Costanzo and Bruce Wahl of Wooden Boatworks specialize in re-creating, restoring and maintaining racing yachts by the greatest designers of the past 100-plus years. The site includes photos of work in progress and finished boats in action.

             Clio, design by William Fife, III. Photo: Peter Braune

Utterly unique to the site are eleven mini-profiles of these designers from William Fife I, II & III, through Gil Smith and Nat Herreshoff, and on to John Alden, Olin Stephens and others of modern times – with more to come.

Links to the Wooden Boatworks site author Julie Clark Boak of Salmagundi Productions (my multi-talented wife), its designer Chris Boyd of Boyd Design Studio and web sites of others who helped create the site are at the bottom of this page.

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Apple’s Evolution

Horace Dedlu of Asymco notes that 65% of Apple’s sales revenue comes from iOS products that did not exist three-and-a-half years ago. And the Mac foundation appears to offer a solid and expanding base.

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The Apostate – Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology

A great New Yorker writer tackles a great subject.

And a Google search of “Lawrence Wright” Scientology measures the gathering storm that will greet the publication of his book. 

This story has been a long time coming, and it needed a tough-minded journalist who has delved deeply into the belief systems of the Amish, the Mormons, the Southern Baptists and the Islamists in the past.

The Apostate – Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology

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Alive In Egypt

The Alive In Egypt site has all the Dream TV interviews with Google’s Wael Ghonim. They are in Arabic with English subtitles. The interviews are in several segments, mostly about 12 minutes long, and may require a bit of digging to find as the site is changing rapidly and the interview is now two days old.

While Dream TV is a private Egyptian cable channel, like most non-governmental broadcasters in Egypt, it has rarely confronted the government in the past.

There’s also a much shorter video clip on The Guardian showing Wael Ghonim’s appearance before the crowds in Midan Tahrir today.

Alive In Egypt

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Office of AUC Press in Tahrir Square Trashed by Egyptian Police

Inside Higher Ed’s Scott Jaschik reports on the ransacking of the AUC Press by Egyptian police on their way to the roof overlooking the southeastern corner of Tahrir Square.

AUC Press Director Mark Lynch takes the opportunity to highlight recently (and about-to-be) published work examining contemporary social and political issues in Egypt.

Office of AUC Press in Tahrir Square Trashed by Egyptian Police

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