Month: July 2018

The Sportsmen

 

The Sportsman

The manga titled “Monster Hunter Orage” was published jointly by the Japanese publisher Kodansha and the Japanes video game company Capcom in April 2008. The author of this manga is artist Hiro Mashima know for his first serial, the 1999 to 2005 “Rave Master”, and his best selling work, the 2003 to 2017 “Fairy Tail”. Mashima’s “Monster Hunter Orage” was based on the video game franchise “Monster Hunter (モンスターハンター, Monsutā Hantā)”, a successful franchise that was released for PlayStation 2 in 2004.

There are four volumes total in “Monster Hunter Orage” with the last volume published on May 4, 2009. An English release of the series first took place on June 28, 2011. Elements from “Monster Hunter” were later included in the World Unite comic crossover from Archie Comics which featured several other Capcomand Sega franchises making guest appearances in the previously running “Sonic the Hedgehog” and “Mega Man” comic lines.

The image above is based on the Japanese series “Monster Hunter, illustrated by a group of artists among whom is the artist known as Hisroshi Yorsoï (aka KFutaba and Tachigumi).

Pontiac Chieftiain

Classic Hood Ornament of the 1952 Pontiac Chieftain

The Pontiac Chieftain is an automobile, manufactured from 1949 to 1958, porduced by Pontiac, a division of the General Motors Company. The 1949 Chieftain, along with the Streamliner models, were the first new car designs from Pontiac since World War II.

The Chieftain was introduced initially with four model designs; the Business Coupe, the Sedan, the Sedan Coupe and the Delux Convertible Coupe, each model having a choice of four engines. For the  1952 model year, the Chieftain was the only model car available when Pontiac discontinued the Streamliner line.

The hood ornament was made of amber plastic that lit up when the headlights were turned on.

Extension

Photographer Unknown, (An Extension of His Personality)

“Humankind is an instinctive creature that is capable of feelings and rational thoughts, which accounts for why such a rich diversity exists amongst human nature. A person’s unique personality is simply a crystallization of particular aspects of human nature. Freedom of thought and expression ensures that no person replicates another person’s exact persona. Every person is a creature of predicable needs and impulses, infused with the poetry of multifaceted feelings, and ruled by a scientifically calculated instrument capable of precision of thought.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

Xoloti Polo

 

Xolotl Polo, Unknown Title, Acrylic on Canvas

Polo Xolotl is a Mexican artist born in 1964. Polo first expressed an interest in painting during early childhood by absorbing as much of his artist parent’s knowledge as possible. He studied graphic design at the Iberoamicana AC University and took part in workshops on painting at the regional Fine-Arts institute in Morelos, Mexico.

For years, Xolotl found himself influenced by the history and environment of his country. His progressive transformation led to canvases in which he plays with light and dynamic images, combining abstraction and figuration to portray seemingly torn silhouettes. His work has been exposed during numerous collective and personal exhibits in Mexico. The artist’s paintings also figure in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico, the Javier de la Rosa Museum in the Canary Islands, as well as in the Mexican Embassy in Washington D.C.

Calendar: July 23

A Year: Day to Day Men: 23rd of July

Framing His Own Portrait

July 23, 1886 was the day that American Steve Brodie jumped (supposedly) off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived.

The Brooklyn Bridge, then known as the East River Bridge, had opened just three years before Steve Brodie’s claimed jump. A swimming instructor from Washington DC, Robert Emmet Odium, was killed while attempting the same stunt in May of 1885. Brodie, who was unemployed and aware of the publicity generated by Odium’s fatal jump, bragged to people in the Bowery section of New York City that he would take the jump. Wagers were made for and against; but Brodie never officially announced he would make the attempt.

The jump supposedly made by Steve Brodie on July 23, was from a height of 135 feet, the same height as a fourteen-story building. The New York Times in its coverage put the height at about 120 feet. The newspaper backed Brodie’s account of the jump, saying that Brodie had practiced by making shorter jumps from other bridges and from masts of ships. They also cited two witness descriptions by their reporters.

The New York Times account stated that Steve Bodie leaped into the East River, feet first, and emerged uninjured , except with a pain on his right side. Upon reaching shore, Steve Brodie was arrested by the police. The New York Times described Brodie as a newsboy and long-distance pedestrian who jumped from the bridge to win a two-hundred dollar bet. Another account that surfaced after the jump was a claim by Moritz Herzber, a liquor dealer, who said he offered to back a saloon for Brodie if he made the jump.

If true, Steve Bodie would have been the first person to survive a jump off the Brooklyn Bridge; however, his claim was disputed, which still lingers today. In 1930 it was reported that a retired police sergeant and friend of Bodie, Thomas K. Hastings, said that Steve Brodie had told him he didn’t make the jump and never said he did. In his book “The Great Bridge”, historian David McCullough said it was commonly believed by skeptics that a dummy was dropped from the bridge, and that Brodie merely swam out from shore and surfaced beside a passing barge.

After the stunt, Steve Brodie opened a saloon at 114 Bowery near Grand Street, which also became a museum for his bridge-jumping stunt. He became an actor capitalizing on his reputation, appearing in the vaudeville musicals “Mad Money” and “On the Bowery”. He later opened another saloon in Buffalo, New York. Brodie died in San Antonio, Texas in 1901; the cause of death described as either diabetes or tuberculosis. His fame persisted after his death, with the term “to do a Brodie”, meaning to take a chance, specifically a suicidal one, entered the language.

Banana Consumption

Photographer Unknown, (Banana Consumption), Computer Graphics, Film Gifs

“..he went to the kitchen to get a banana; after each mouthful he pulled back a fraction the four or five strips of striped skin, faded petals, which covered his fist as it clenched the base of the fruit; carefully he detached the friable, cardboard-flavoured filaments that run down its surface like meridian lines.”

― Jean Echenoz, Chopin’s Move

Abdul Mati Klarwein

Abdul Mati Klarwein, “Camouflage”, 1985-1987, Oil on Canvas

In 1948, Mati Klarwein moved to Paris where he enrolled at the Acadèmie Julian. He later studied with painter Fernand Leger, who introduced him to the art of Salvador Dalí, Buñuel, and the world of surrealism. Later in his life, he befriended Dalí, writing about his bizarre encounters with Salvador’s sexual behaviours in his book “Collected Works 1959-1975″. In Paris, Klarwein also met Viennese fantastic-realist painter Ernst Fuchs.

With Paris as his base, Mati Klarwein spent long periods of time traveling and painting portraits during summers in Saint Tropez. Together with his father, who had recently won the competition to build Israel’s Parliament, he started to build a house in the small village of Deia, Majorca, having fallen in love with the place.

Still best known for his art of the 1960s and 1970s, (featured in a vast collection of important album covers). Mati also worked more conventionally across a variety of genres including still life, landscape, and commissioned portraits. This landscape painting of the Mallorca area of Spain by Mati Klarwein, painted between 1985-1987, demonstrates the extraordinary level of detail that is a hallmark of his work.