Diese Schönheiten kann man im Zoo Hannover ebenfalls hautnah erleben:

Kleine Kinder sollten allerdings auf die Arme ihrer Eltern genommen werden. Immerhin sind die Schnäbel nicht ganz ohne und bei Kindern in direkter Augenhöhe.

Ansonsten sind diese Pelikane absolut friedlich und zutraulich. Man kann ihnen die Schnäbel streicheln, die Köpfchen kraulen und den Rücken massieren … Alles kein Problem. Nur die Ruhe sollte man dabei bewahren; sonst hauen sie ab.

Also alles rein menschlich. *g

Es tut übrigens keinesfalls weh, wenn sie mit dem Schnabel einen Arm oder ein Bein “schnappen”. Da sie dabei keinerlei Gewalt ausüben, sondern den Arm/das Bein lediglich ein wenig festhalten, ist es eher ein Spiel, als ein Kampf. Ganz besonders viel Spaß haben sie daran, etwas in den Schnabel zu klemmen, was irgendwo herunter hängt (für die “Nippel”-Sucher auf diesem Blog: Nein, nicht DAS! *g): Einen Bommel an Jacke oder Tasche oder sowas. Wenn man aber nett auf sie einredet, lassen sie wieder los.

Irgendwann …

© skriptum

P.S. Na, Herr Wortman, ganz so schlimm wie befürchtet, ist das X dann doch nicht ausgefallen, oder? *g

Foto: Paradalis

Frau Vogel trägt als Vogelkleid
heut eher etwas Schrilliges,
vom Baum herunter sieht sie weit,
erblickt etwas Vanilliges.

Schon zieht es sie, schon fliegt sie hin,
vor Aufregung die Federn rot
pickt sie die Bonger in sich rin,
der Schnabel klebt, Frau Vogel – tot.

***********************************************

Zur vanilligen Vogelfrau Paradalis

Eugen (sprich: Eujen) heisst er, weil er aussieht wie Eugen.

Ein Autofahrer hat ihn an der Strasse gefunden und als Notfall zu uns gebracht. Centstueckgrosse Wunden lassen vermuten, dass er von einem anderen Tier geschnappt wurde, das ihn aber wieder losgelassen hat. Sein Alter zu diesem Zeitpunkt (3.9.09) haben wir auf 8 Tage geschaetzt.

Mandy hat Eugens Wunden direkt versorgt und gemeinsam bangten wir in den naechsten Tagen um sein Leben. Wunddesinfektion und die Verabreichung von antibiotisch wirkenden Naturheilmitteln zeigten ihre Wirkung. Besondere Sorgen bereitete uns das Loch ueber dem rechten Schulterblatt, das aber nach fuenf Tagen Tape sehr schoen verheilt war.

Jetzt konnte er auch seine ausgepraegte Schonhaltung aufgeben. Ein deutlicher Fortschritt.

Als weiteren Fortschritt verbuchten wir, dass er sich fuer Koerner interessierte und es nach ein paar Tagen des Uebens schaffte, ein Weizenkorn gezielt zu treffen, in den Schnabel zu bugsieren und in den Kropf abzuschlucken. Wesentlich lieber ist es ihm aber, weiterhin von Mandy gefuettert zu werden. Mit feinem Breichen. Ein Schlabberlaetzchen waere dafuer angebracht, verletzt aber Eugens Stolz. So sieht er nach jeder Fuetterung eher aus wie ein Dreckspatz.

Er frisst uebrigens wie ein Scheunendrescher! Na, soll er ja auch.

Inzwischen ist auch die Adoption des Kleinen abgeschlossen. Mandy ist Ringeltaubenmutter und in der Tat strahlt er unbedingte Zufriedenheit aus, wenn er mit ihr kuscheln kann.

Ich kann somit hier oeffentlich bekunden, dass Mandy einen Vogel hat.

Eugen hat nachts seinen Schlafplatz direkt bei ihr am Bett. (interne Anweisung: Kein Foto!!!) Tagsueber lebt er im Wohnzimmer, wo er seine Zeit mit Fressen, sich Putzen, Umherwandern, Training des Flugapparates und Schlafen verbringt. Waehrend unserer Praxiszeiten kann er dort auch gut alleine sein, vorausgesetzt, der Kropf ist gut gefuellt.

Wo: Mainz, Deutschland
Wann: April 2009
Kamera: Fuji FinePix S7000
Nachbearbeitet: Nein

I’m a believer in the power of Art-in-passing. You walk into a museum and they tell you it’s closing in 30 minutes? No problem! Art-in-passing is an exhilarating corollary to the history-heavy, over-referenced, know-it-all-ness of Art-in-depth. When your mind’s feeling nimble or you’re high on caffeine or there’s just no fucking time to put on your pretensions and sift for meaning in each museumified work, take solace in the fly-by. If a work of Art has beauty, you’ll see it – if it has truth, you’ll know it, luxury of time be damned!

In that spirit, here are the highlights from a quickie with the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC. 

From a distance, de Kooning’s “Clamdigger” in the Sculpture Garden seems rebelliously out of place. The Rodin’s and Giacometti’s and Calder’s are all “finished”, ready to set sail. And there’s “Clamdigger”, like a bundle of nerves, shivering in the wind. I love it for that, for it’s drunken blurriness, it’s raw vulnerability. So much sculpture is Apollonian, alpha-male. “Clamdigger” flips it, forcing the medium to accept messiness – you know, life!

Inside the museum – which is free, which is amazing – we took the escalator down, directly into the sea of kisses that is Warhol’s “Marilyn Monroe’s Lips”. This could have been the whole experience, the whole reason to go – like the hot new roller-coaster at the Amusement Park – and I would have left satisfied. This painting in this setting gave me every thrill I seek: dramatic encounter, compare and contrast, largeness of scale, provoked-thought, collage-like recontextualization, visual wit, sarcasm, balance, beauty, and startling vitality in the creative spirit, still so present. While there are a handful of Artists I like more than Andy Warhol, I am forever impressed by how his work holds up in collections at museums. Everything about his art is disarming, like it’s still more hip than us, 50 years later. (If there was never an Andy Warhol, would anyone else have ever made huge silk-screens patterned with nothing but the mouth of the reigning pop starlet?) There was more “serious” art at the Hirshhorn but nothing even close to the dazzle and freshness of “Marilyn Monroe’s Lips”. 

Warhol was also the subject of the other stand-out from the basement of the Hirshhorn, a smattered “Portrait of Andy Warhol” done by Julian Schnabel. If you’re painting Andy Warhol in the early 80’s, I suppose you’ve got to do something grand, and Schnabel knows it, painting the portrait on a huge swath of black velvet. Lush and exotic, the velvet shimmers on the wall and could easily swallow anything done to it, so Schnabel puts up his dukes and goes gory with pastels. Really, he paints Warhol like a de Kooning “Woman”, all whites and pinks and yellows and greens, paint thick as frosting, lines tendon-tight. Andy looks… chaotic, but in a conceptually complicit way. It makes me wonder if the velvet and the pastels weren’t Andy’s idea. What makes “Portrait of Andy Warhol” work is the strength of it’s boldness, ornamenting Andy with an erased-Pollock Christmas tree of paint-splatters that had to have been utterly risky against the velvet. This is a painting based in breaking rules, a sitting I’m sure they both got a kick out of. And good on them – it’s now the past…

Back up the escalator and up again, passing the level where Louise Bourgeois’ exhibit was being hung (placed? tethered?) and to the top floor where they showcase the main collection. First stop, a room full of Frank Stella and his dart-board geometries. Some famous pieces, most of which I’d seen before. But we didn’t stop to linger until “Concentric Squares”, his mid-60’s kaleidoscope of color tensions-and-releases. Though one painting, it’s side-by-side feel immediately evoked the Warhol duo we’d started with and made me feel again how much I like the experience of looking back and forth between two like-pieces, the relationship between them dissipating into the viewer’s relationship with them both. “Concentric Squares” is a feast for the eyes, a mix of color-theory, color-control, and the alternately intriguing and entrancing powers of pigment. After a minute, I could make out the patterns (ABCDEFEDCBA on the left and FEDCBABCDEF on the right), and after that, the imperfections (some smears and blotchy lines), but the whole experience of “Concentric Squares” was glowing pleasure, a gliding high.

From a room of Frank Stella’s to a room of Clyfford Still’s – and this is free entertainment! Clyfford Still is one of those artists – like Franz Kline and Mark Rothko – I’ve always felt comes off deceptively tame scaled-down for Art books. Seen out of context, the ripped shadows of his canvases seem pat, like he’s not sure whether to go more minimalist or more expressive and so settles for abbreviation and gesture. But in the high-ceilings of the Hirshhorn, Still’s canvases are like towers – massive, stunning, the ripped edges floating magnetically towards a destined peak. I stopped – not for long – in front of the majestic violet tones of “1950 M-No.1″. I was suddenly laying on the roof at night, watching clouds pass in a starless sky. I thought of how elegance can be imperfect, how simplicity has depth, how the history of art is made up as much of little things we notice as of grand ideas and transcendent visions. I could have spent all day – all week – in front of “1950 M-No.1″, but like a smile from a beautiful girl on the train that sends you reeling through the cinema of your life, all I had was the moment and all I could do was smile back.

Mein Chef redet wie ihm der Schnabel gewachsen ist.

(Reseña realizada para la web www.maumaunderground.com)

Julian Schnabel parte de nuevo de una historia real en esta, su tercera película, construyendo una vez más un triángulo en el que se entremezclan el propio personaje, su obra (ya sea plástica o literaria) y la visión del director y pintor norteamericano.
Le scaphandre et le papillon narra la historia de Jean-Dominique Bauby, redactor jefe de la revista Elle, que tras una embolia despierta al mundo paralizado de pies a cabeza, mudo y ciego de un ojo, pero completamente lúcido. Contará con su imaginación y su memoria como únicos elementos para lo que de ahí en adelante constituirá su “viaje inmóvil”, y que relatará, parpadeo a parpadeo, letra a letra, en un libro de título homónimo al de la película.
Ante este planteamiento vienen automáticamente a la memoria películas como My left foot (Jim Sheridan, 1989) o Johnny got his gun (Dalton Trumbo, 1971), aunque el estilo de Schnabel le aleja de estas películas. En un principio la acción se desarrolla bajo el punto de vista de una cámara “subjetiva”, alternada cada vez más con planos del aspecto del personaje a medida que éste se va haciendo consciente de su entorno y de sí mismo. La mayoría de estas imágenes están bañadas por una luz añeja, gastada, que (no sé si pretendido o no) refuerza ese dolor de un ojo que se convierte en la única forma de contacto con el exterior.
A pesar de esta mención del dolor no es esta una película que retrate la desesperación de un hombre cautivo en su propio cuerpo, sino una historia de tiempo y de tiempos. En primer lugar, hay una variación de la percepción y la vivencia del tiempo por parte del protagonista, que pasa de ser un hombre de éxito, con lo que esto conlleva de hombre de acción, a verse atrapado en una postración en la que el mínimo gesto es precioso.
Hay también un juego entre presente y pasado, realidad e imaginación, que se confunden, se mezclan, algo reforzado por el uso de imágenes que Schnabel recoge de otros medios, y que por lo tanto añaden nuevas dimensiones temporales. Este juego anacrónico se concreta en soluciones más o menos fáciles (a pesar de la extravagancia del resultado), como la escena en la que bailarines, niños y tullidos se cruzan por los pasillos del hospital; y otras (algo) más sutiles e interesantes, como en la que el padre de Bauby observa el reflejo de su rostro afeitado junto a una fotografía de su eternamente joven hijo. Es constante a lo largo de toda la película la presencia de estas fotografías, “que repiten mecánicamente lo que jamás podrá repetirse existencialmente” (en palabras de Barthes), afirmación ésta que se acentúa, dado el estado del protagonista.
Todo ello cristaliza en un conjunto de imágenes heterogéneas, algo erráticas (el espectador juzgará si esto es positivo o negativo), aderezado por la voz en off del protagonista, que reitera, se superpone o se mezcla con estas imágenes.
Dos apuntes finales para los nostálgicos: en primer lugar, por supuesto, el placer de contar con el legendario Max von Sidow encarnando al padre del protagonista; en segundo lugar, la recreación del que posiblemente sea el beso más famoso de la historia del cine (si no lo ha desbancado ya entre las nuevas generaciones el ósculo invertido de Spiderman).

The former hosts of KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic are gathered for their weekly Sunday brunch at an upscale Westside bistro.  Schnabel, Douridas and Harcourt sit at a patio table, enjoying their meal.

                                                      SCHNABEL

                                       (putting down his champagne glass)

This is one of the best tomato-mushroom omelets

I’ve ever tasted.

                                                      HARCOURT

                                       (slumped in his seat, eyes closed in pain from

                                       a nasty gin martini hangover)

Eggh.

                                                      SCHNABEL

But I’m torn between whether this or the Black Forest

Omelet is my all-time favorite.

                                          DOURIDAS

                                       (leaning back and staring up at the awning)

The menu here is so eclectic.

Suddenly, BENTLEY runs in from the sidewalk.

                                                      BENTLEY

Guys, I’ve got a hot tip from underground progressive

house DJ Glass Electrode.  Crystal Beat Smack is being

held at gunpoint by a Guadalajaran drug trade posse.

Schnabel cocks his ear as a new song plays on the sound system.

                                                      SCHNABEL

What an intriguing fado.  The vocalist reminds me of

that great Guatemalan timbruja singer, Felicidad Conhuevos.

                                                      DOURIDAS

Raul Campos first turned me on to Crystal Beat Smack. 

Loose, organic beats pulsing under a haze of vocal distortion.

                                                      BENTLEY

Exactly.  If we don’t move now, we’re talking the loss

of a major electronica artist.  Guys, this is a job for the

Eclectics.

                                                      HARCOURT

                                       (mumbles)

McCartney cover.

Harcourt’s slumps forward, his head falling into his plate of beans-on-toast.

                                                      SCHNABEL

                        Guadalajara’s gorgeous this time of year.  I once spent a

                        memorable weekend there with a Latin jazz vibraphone player.

Douridas nonchalantly lifts Harcourt’s face out of the beans.

                              DOURIDAS
This café gets worse and worse.  This is three weeks in a

row some vagrant’s come in and crashed our brunch.

                              BENTLEY
Chris, that’s Harcourt.

                              DOURIDAS
Who?

                              BENTLEY
The Third Eclectic.

Douridas wipes some beans from Harcourt’s face with a napkin.

                                                      DOURIDAS

I didn’t sign off on him.

                                                      BENTLEY

You were in a haze.  Guys, we need to get moving.  Only

the Eclectics, with our combined knowledge of the musical

underground, can find Crystal Beat Smack before his

virtuoso knob-twirling fingers are sliced off by the

corredors.

                                                      SCHNABEL

If this mission involves violence, it’s entirely against my

ethical code.  Also if it involves staying up after eleven,

fast running, excessive perspiration, feedback, so-called

indie rock, unpleasant smells or anything that requires me

to raise my voice.

                                                      HARCOURT

               (wiping a bean from his nose)

Live, in-studio set.

                                                      BENTLEY

So this is going to be like all of our other missions?

I do all the work while you guys sit here and lounge.

Douridas perks up, ever so slightly, spotting a woman sitting down at a nearby table.

                                                      DOURIDAS

It’s Canadian neo-folk chanteuse Greta.  I’m going to ask

her to autograph my postcard.

Schnabel sips his champagne.

                                                      SCHNABEL

If only Wayne Shorter were here.

                                                      BENTLEY

I warn you.  The next time this happens, I’m ditching you

all and starting the Electronicas!

Bentley stalks off as Harcourt falls out of his seat.

Foto de mai jos (cu buzele ei cusute adanc) m-a lovit direct in creerashi pentru ca aseara tocmai am vazut “Le Scaphandre et le papillon” (regie Julian Schnabel), un film vazut-simtit cu piele de gaina si cu maini tremurande cautande de tigari. Un film cu 4 nominalizari de Oscar (regie, scenariu, imagine, montaj), o poveste a unui om captiv in propriul trup din care singurul lucru care mai “functioneaza” este pleoapa stanga. Inchisoare pe viata in care are aliati doar imaginatia si memoria. Cea mai crancena inchisoare.

Regizorul Julian Schnabel iti baga niste filmari de faci pe tine, te face sa “vezi” doar cu un ochi: spatiile restranse, chipuri taiate, bucati de corp sau de obiecte. Te face sa simti frustrarea pe care o poate simti un om care nu se poate misca in timp ce este “atacat” de-o musca pe varful nasului, neputinta cuiva caruia i s-a uitat tv deschis pe imaginea aia cu tiuituri de “fin” de program.

Au fost scene pe parcursul carora am uitat sa respir.

Un film care-ti schimba perspectiva.

Sa va mai spun si ca are prin coloana sonora Tom Waits – All the world is green…??!!

My case in point is the canonization of Elizabeth Peyton by the New York critics.  Peyton is currently the subject of a “mid-career survey” at the New Museum on the Lower East Side. I must state here that I have not seen the show in person yet but I intend to do so when I visit the City in a couple of weeks. I tend to get a little behind in my reading and I stack up newspaper and magazine articles I want to get to in my bathroom for when I can get in a little throne time and this morning I picked up the Weekend Arts section of the October 10 Times. The big bold story was a review of the Peyton show by Roberta Smith. The Times and Ms. Smith obviously sees Peyton as one of the most important artists of our time. They must because they’ve committed a huge spread to her review. I just don’t get it. Elizabeth Peyton is a very nice,  minor artist. Her work looks great when reproduced in periodicals but does not stand up when you see it in person. She may be prolific but she is not substantial.

Peyton

I first encountered her work when one of her portraits entitled “Live To Ride” was featured in the Whitney Biennial. I saw a photo of it in a magazine and was intrigue enough to immediately head over to the Whitney to see it in person. It left me scratching my head as to why this womans work had even made it to the exhibit. My thinking at the time was very much in line with a post by Harry on the Daily Gusto at the time http://www.dailygusto.com/blog/archives/features/000070.php. Shortly after that viewing I learned that Peyton lived in my then hometown of Southold, New York and that again peaked my interest in her work. I began to look for her wherever I could and what I found was a nice person with what I considered marginal talent who liked to paint rock stars and had a lot of friends in the art community. But I found her work to be uninspiring and lightweight.  My view hasn’t changed over time. That Elizabeth Peyton could be mentioned in the same breath with artists like John Currin or even a artist/cartoonist like Lisa Yuskavageis beyond me. I believe she is the creation of her dealer Gavin Brown and the New York critics who suck up to those gallery owners who shop the trendiest boutiques in Soho. It’s all about the show and notabout the work.

I know this sounds like a rant against Peyton but it’s really a rant against an art scene that is devoid of real art. Peyton should be illustrating articles for Rolling Stone, not hanging on the walls of the Whitney. I used to sit in the Soho studio of my friend Paul Levitt, an abstract painter who made quirky lamps and sculptures on the side. His studio had windows that looked out into a large air-shaft and opposite his place was the studio of another, more successful painter, whose name I cannot even remember now. We used to peer in at these amazingly large, awful paintings that weer so amateurish it was laughable. The colors were muddy and thin. The imagery was childish and not well thought out. The main topic was sex but there was no sensuality or eroticism or even a sense of proportion. It was if someone had told a 11 year boy old to go play with paint on a giant canvas. Yet this person was selling these grotesques, really ugly images for thousands.

Paul’s work, though intellectually superior and vastly more ‘painterly’ could not find a buyer. The difference? One difference for sure was that the guy across the hall was a showman and had dealer support. Paul was  not a Soho character, controversiall or flamboyant. In fact he was a normal suburban kind of guy who had a very Academic approach to painting which no one on the Soho scene really cared about. What they cared about was flash. 
                           Paul and his wife, filmmaker Robin Lung in Honolulu

I felt the same about Basquiat. From the first time I saw his work I thought he was a bum without talent yet he was hugely successful. Drive and ambition for sure but very thin on talent. He was, in the end, exactly what he started out to be – a graffiti artist.  Theh real talent was Mary Boone. Which is why I was really turned off by Schnabel’s film, even though it was really well done. The film was good, the artist not so.
When I see an artist like Currin I get excited. When I see an artist like Peyton I get depressed. I know it takes all kinds but do we always have to elevate the mediocre? I know I will sound sacrilegious when I write this but I always felt the same about Keith Haring. He was a graffiti artist who made some very colorful cartoons for subway station walls and later on T-shirts and sweatshirts but really nothing more. I could never consider him a real artist in the classic sense of the word.

portrait by Basquiat

 So what’s it all about? I hate to be so cynical about art but I just feel that the really good art is not getting seen. It’s all buried in some loft somewhere in Cleveland probably. Sour grapes? I don’t think so though I do take great pride in my own ability to draw. Drawingis the basis for all fine art as far as I am concerned and if you can’t draw then I feel you cannot be an artist. that doesn’t mean everyone has to draw like Raphael but you have to be able to draw.

… ou la lutte pour sa propre survie à travers la communication.

Le roman

Le Scaphandre et le Papillon est un ouvrage autobiographique réalisé par Jean-Dominique Bauby. Le roman contient le récit de sa vie avant son attaque cérébrale, mais également le gouffre dans lequel le plonge son accident. Privé de parole, ainsi que de toute sorte de mouvement corporel à part le clignement de l’une de ses paupières, Jean-Do est atteint par le syndrome du”locked-in”. Il est enfermé en lui-même, ayant gardé toutes ses facultés mentales et ses souvenirs, mais ne peux plus communiquer avec le monde extérieur.

Malgré les efforts d’une orthophoniste, Jean-Do ne pourra plus jamais retrouver la parole. Cependant, il pourra tout de même apprendre à communiquer grâce à un système ingénieux exploitant le seul mouvement de sa paupière, seul mouvement volontaire qu’il peut effectuer.  Ainsi pour un battement de paupière le locuteur doit interpréter un “oui”, alors que deux battements traduisent un “non”. Ce système binaire permet d’établir les bases d’une communication, le sujet pouvant répondre à des questions simples, mais il peut également être exploité pour aller bien plus loin dans la communication et fournir au malade la possibilité de former des véritables énoncés, le faisant épeler ses phrases. L’orthophoniste récite un alphabet contenant des lettres classées dans l’ordre de leur fréquence dans la langue française et le patient arrête la lecture sur la lettre qu’il choisit pour épeler son mot.

Pourquoi un alphabet basé sur la fréquence des lettres dans la langue française? L’alphabet traditionnel ne serait pas adapté pour ce genre d’exercice et le principe de cet alphabet et de permettre au patient d’avoir le moyen d’épeler des mots de façon plus économique. En effet, il y a plus de chances qu’il arrête la lecture sur les premières lettres lues puisque ce sont les lettres les plus fréquemment utilisées dans les énoncés. Cela permet au sujet de moins se fatiguer et de produire des énoncés plus rapidement.

Comment est formé cet alphabet? L’alphabet basé sur la fréquence des lettres dans la langue française est le suivant : “ESARINTULOMDPCFBVHGJQZYXKW”.

Le patient doit-il épeler entièrement ses énoncés? Non, la compréhension de son énoncé peut être lié au contexte et ainsi un début d’énoncé peut être facilement complété par le locuteur. Cela vaut aussi pour les énoncés les plus fréquents tels que “merci”. Lorsque le locuteur arrive à deviner la parole ou l’énoncé du malade, ce dernier peut le “valider” grâce à un battement de paupière.

Quelles sont les limites d’une telle méthode? Le locuteur se voit obligé de répéter sans cesse l’alphabet pour permettre au malade d’épeler ce qu’il veut dire. Cela est extrêment fastidieux autant pour le malade que pour le locuteur, mais il n’y a guère d’autres méthodes. Notons tout de même que les progrès de l’informatique ont permis de mettre au point des claviers virtuels permettant au patient de séléctionner ses lettres grâce à l’actionnement d’un contacteur lors du défilement des lettres sur un écran.

Le film

Le roman a fait l’objet d’une adaptation cinématographique présentée au festival de Cannes 2007. Il y a reçu le prix de la Mise en Scène.

La différence entre le roman et le film tient surtout du fait que le réalisateur ne se place pas uniquement du point de vue de Jean-Dominique Bauby. Alors que le livre autobiographique relate les sentiments du protagoniste. Toutefois la caméra nous fait souvent voir à travers les yeux de Jean-Do le monde extérieur déformé par la vue de son seul oeil, son entourage et les médecins compatissants à sa douleur. Et la présence d’une voix off traduit fidèlement ses pensées tout au long du film.

Un récit émouvant et un témoignage hautement intéressant pour les recherches sur ce syndrome si rare et si dévastateur.