Git Reddy Pittsburgh

Paul Thek is Dead
Fred W. McDarrah Paul Thek Sitting Shiva for Dead Hippie (Effigy), September 16, 1967



He is a camera.

$139.95 Hidden Video Camera

Video Camera Eyewear (Great for surveillance and investigation, highly recommended device for journalist, traffic police, travelers, etc.) This pair of high-tech camera sunglasses let you to capture everything you see to crystal clear video and great quality sound without getting noticed via a RF remote control and hidden controls.

DecorMyEyes

Russian-born Brooklyn businessman Vitaly Borker, who runs the Internet eyewear site DecorMyEyes, has a strange approach to customer service. When someone is unhappy with their purchase, he berates them over the telephone and sends them harassing emails. Hundreds of his clients have written scathing reviews of his site, disputed his charges on their credit cards, and reported him to government officials. But Borker wants it that way, because he’s discovered that all of the online outrage boosts his Google ranking and multiplies his profits. New shoppers rarely bother to look up customer reviews, and some of them have ended up with Borker sending them photos of their houses and threatening to kill them.
- Daily Beast
A Bully Finds a Pulpit on the Web DAVID SEGAL NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html

WikiLeaks

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuJERUSALEM - Is diplomacy in danger? The torrent of condemnation heaped on WikiLeaks from around the globe did suggest a widespread sense - among the great and the good, but also among the sometimes more jaded observer and analyst class - that in releasing U.S. diplomatic documents the group crossed a dangerous line. The prime minister of Israel, a man hardly accustomed to representing global consensus, on Monday found himself in lockstep with most of his peers as he warned that statecraft itself was imperiled by a reality in which no secret is safe. - DAN PERRY

Crystal Bowersox

A government employee who was fired for illegally tapping into "American Idol" star Crystal Bowersox's personal information has gotten his job back. Jay Wright, 47, who worked for the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, pleaded guilty last summer to a misdemeanor for improperly accessing Bowersox's car registration while she was a contestant on the show. He was reinstated after his union filed a grievance. DMV officials agreed last week to a settlement that gives him back his $43,000-a-year job. Bowersox tweeted yesterday that she forgives the bureaucrat. - NY Post

Shooting with the Gun Movie Camera

The rare movie camera that simulates a military gun is a true handiwork with a black case and 5x lenses mounted on the wooden rifle stock. The rifle stock cameras were used by reporters during the Vietnam War. The attractive gun movie camera is available on eBay for a decent $1,318.00. - IMAGE AQUIRE dot com.

BP to Commission Film About Oil Spill

BP is commissioning a feature-length film about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill — but the company says it is not intended to scrub its reputation clean. - BRIAN STELTER

Armed student shoots himself after holding teacher and 23 hostages in school stand-off

MARINETTE, Wis. - Trapped in their classroom with a student gunman, a group of terrified Wisconsin high schoolers worked desperately to keep their captor calm by chatting and laughing with him about hunting and fishing. The 15-year-old gunman eventually shot himself as police stormed the room at Marinette High School hours later Monday evening, but his 23 hostages emerged unharmed. Student hostage Zach Campbell said the gunman seemed depressed, but he didn't think he meant them his classmates any harm. "I don't know why he did that," Campbell said. - TODD RICHMOND

James Franco to Host the Oscars

Art World: Fernando Botero Paints Abu Ghraib

The biggest hoard of fakes in Portugal

A recent raid in Portugal has uncovered a large hoard of fake pictures, with police seizing works that were claimed to have been painted by Modigliani, Matisse and Monet among other noted artists. Some 130 paintings, together with forged certificates attesting to their authenticity, were seized by officers last month. Police suspect that the forgers have been selling the fakes for some years, but police say they have yet to discover whether the forgers were collaborating with any dealers. João Oliveira, the criminal investigation coordinator running the probe, said in an interview: "Picasso, Miro, Munch, Toulouse-Lautrec... it's amazing. This is the biggest [hoard of fakes] in Portugal and one of the most important in Europe." Other 20th-century masters in the hoard include Chagall and Kandinsky. Such was the forgers' confidence that Old Masters like Leonardo da Vinci, whose work needs knowledge of how to artificially age pictures as well as artistic skill, are among the fakes. Mr. Oliveira described some of the forgeries as "very good," showing a "superior technique." Portuguese art experts who have seen the forgeries have told police that many are extremely impressive, and indeed beautifully produced.However, other expert views on the quality of the forgeries, based on photographs, were divided. They said that, while leading experts would not be fooled, a secondary market of enthusiasts could have been duped. Julian Spalding, former director of the Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries, said: "There is something odd about this hoard.... Forgers most often specialize in one area of art... This is an odd jumble of very different art. It might be the work of more than one forger. I doubt if any would have fooled a specialist. They are potpourries of familiar elements in an artist's work, not attempts to create an original, unknown conception... much more difficult." Looking at photographs, John Myatt, a British artist who was sentenced to a year in prison in 1999 as a forger of Monet, Matisse and Giacometti, described a Portuguese Modigliani as "quite convincing"—"I'd have gone for that," he said. He also thought the Botero looked "quite credible." But he dismissed a Chagall as missing "the essence" of the artist—"he wasn't that untidy," he said—and a Leonardo as a "pastiche of an 18th century painting". He observed that it was foolhardy to forge Leonardo: "There has been an accepted body of his work with provenance and exhibition history over 400 years. To come along with a new Leonardo is just stupid... A new Kandinsky at least makes some sense." - DALYA ALBERGE, The Wall Street Journal At top left, the Chagall wedding scene fake, with a real Chagall painting below it. At top right, a fake reclining nude by Botero; at bottom right, a real Botero.

271

Claude PicassoPARIS - A lawyer for the administrator of Pablo Picasso's estate says a retired French electrician and his wife have come forward with 271 previously unknown works by the artist - a staggering trove worth at least euro60 million. Picasso Administration lawyer Jean-Jacques Neuer says the couple from the French Riviera showed many of the works to Picasso's son Claude and other estate administrators in September. Neuer says the administrators believe the works are authentic. It is unclear how the man - who worked for Picasso in the 1970s - came by the pictures. The estate administrators have filed suit for alleged illegal receipt of the works. - ABC

Takashi Murakami’s Macy’s Parade Balloons

Takashi Murakami’s “Tongari-Kun” (2003–2004), part of the artist’s installation at Versailles.

Miss USA

There was one beauty queen too many at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade when uninvited Miss New York Davina Reeves crashed Miss USA Rima Fakih's float. Reeves, wearing her Miss New York sash and crown, managed to claw her way onto Fakih's float, and began enthusiastically signing autographs and waving to the crowd as the parade got under way. Reeves hitched a ride for five blocks before Fakih's horrified handlers managed to persuade parade organizers to boot her pageant rival off the float. Our source said, "It was like a scene out of 'Miss Congeniality.' Miss New York somehow managed to get through security and get herself onto Miss USA's 'Pep Rally' float. "The real queen, Rima Fakih, kept her cool and her claws in. She gently spoke to Miss New York while Rima's handler feverishly worked his iPhone to see why the uninvited extra queen was standing side by side with the reigning Miss USA," the source said. "Beneath the fixed smiles, handlers realized this wasn't going to work as Miss New York began trying to hog the limelight. Finally, five blocks into the route, parade officials and the float manager politely asked her to leave, and she was helped down before disappearing into the crowd." Paula Shugart, president of the Miss Universe Organization, parent of Miss USA, said, "Miss New York wasn't invited and nobody had any idea how she got on the float. She turned up in full pageant regalia, and she was initially asked to take off her crown so not to outshine Miss USA. Then, five blocks into the parade route, she was asked to leave. " Fakih, previously Miss Michigan, beat Austin native Reeves and a host of other beauties to be crowned Miss USA 2010 in May. The parade stunt was a final bow for Reeves, who will pass her Miss New York crown to the next beauty picked by the organization this weekend in Albany. Miss Universe pageant owner Donald Trump wasn't available for comment. Reeves didn't get back to us. - NY Post

The Coca-Cola Christmas tree, described as the tallest Christmas tree in Africa. The traditional Nigerian Christmas tree lighting ceremony took place at the National Arts Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos, where Coca-Cola Nigeria set up the presumed tallest African Christmas tree. The Christmas tree has over one thousand branches adorned with over 7,500 ornaments and illuminated with 40,200 bulbs and light-emitting diodes.

PORTLAND, Ore. - The Somali-born university student met with an undercover FBI agent in August at a Portland hotel and told him he had found the perfect location for a terrorist attack: the city's annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Mohamed Osman Mohamud told the agent that he had american dreamed of carrying out an attack for years, and the city's Pioneer Courthouse Square would be packed with thousands, "a huge mass that will ... be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays," according to an affidavit. On Friday, Mohamud parked what he thought was a bomb-laden van near the ceremony and then went to a nearby train station, where he dialed a cell phone that he believed would detonate the vehicle. Instead, federal authorities moved in and arrested him. No one was hurt. The case is the latest in a string of alleged terrorist plots by U.S. citizens or residents, including one at Times Square in which a Pakistan-born man pleaded guilty earlier this year to trying to set off a car bomb at a busy street corner. - NIGEL DUARA and TIM FOUGHT


The psychological effect of commerce and Christmas - Tom Jacobs
http://www.miller-mccune.com/business-economics/what-would-jesus-buy-25513/

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG

Dylaby (Combine Painting), 1962 Oil, metal objects, metal spring, metal Coca-Cola sign, ironing board, and twine on unstretched canvas tarp on wooden supporMelic Meeting (Spread), 1979 Mixed media including solvent transfer on fabric collage, and mirrorAen Floga (Combine Painting), 1962 Oil on canvas with wood, metal and wireUntitled (Spread), 1983 Solvent transfer, acrylic and collage on wooden panelNabisco Shredded Wheat (Cardboard), 1971 Cardboard
Sheer, awesome, wall-to-wall muchness, which was, or eventually became, the Rauschenberg Effect.
- Holland Cotter NY Times

Robert Rauschenberg "Short Circuit"

“Short Circuit (Combine Painting),” is a time capsule unto itself. It dates from 1955, when Rauschenberg was represented by Stable Gallery. Every year the gallery did a big group show to which new artists were invited. Rauschenberg recommended four: Jasper Johns, Ray Johnson, Stan VanDerBeek and Susan Weil. When the gallery said no, he decided to get them in, anyway, by inserting a work by each inside his own contribution, a cabinet-shaped construction with a hinged door. Only Mr. Johns and Ms. Weil, Rauschenberg’s ex-wife, came through with work on time, so into the cabinet went a little painting by each And, with one significant change, those two paintings are still there: Mr. Johns’s picture, a mini-version of one of his soon-to-be famous flag images, was stolen in 1965 and replaced by an Elaine Sturtevant copy. “Short Circuit” is a sweet reminder of Rauschenberg’s collegial generosity; he believed in art making as a communal endeavor, and acted on that belief. At the same time, the piece is a souvenir of an astonishingly fruitful period both in American art and in his own hyperkinetic career. Holland Cotter

Robert Rauschenberg 1974 - 1976

Untitled (Hoarfrost), 1975 Solvent transfer on silk fabric, and collaged cardboarduntitled (hoarfrost) 1974untitled (hoarfrost) 1974untitled (early egyptian) 1974moor (hoarfrost) 1974untitled (jammer) 1975quarterhorse (jammer) 1975mirage (jammer) 1975FRESCO (JAMMER) 1976Pilot (Jammer) 1976