Art and oddities edition: art as social commentary, cassette-tape portraiture, Frans Lanting, the morning-after burrito, inside the Peeps factory, Archie Green, Amy Bennet, Minneapolis’s street cellist.
Art as Social Commentary
JR is a photographer who takes pictures of ”women affected by poverty and violence, and then past[es] blown-up prints all over their cities.” He “sticks his pictures to the sides of buses, trains, buildings, and pavement, transforming the towns in which these women live into testaments to their strength and forbearance.”
Ghost in the Machine
In this series I showcase a number of portraits of musicians made out of recycled cassette tape with original cassette. Also included are portraits made from old film and reels. The idea comes from a philosopher’s description of how your spirit lives in your body. I imagine we are all, like cassettes, thoughts wrapped up in awkward packaging.
Taco Bell Launches New ‘Morning After’ Burrito
Hot on the heels of last week’s FDA approval, on Monday PepsiCo subsidiary Taco Bell launched its controversial “morning after” burrito, a zesty, Mexican-style entree that prevents unwanted pregnancies if ingested within 36 hours following intercourse.
Inside Just Born, the manufacturing factory of marshmallow Peeps
Archie Green, 91, Union Activist and Folklorist, Dies
Mr. Green, a shipwright and carpenter by trade, drew on a childhood enthusiasm for cowboy songs and a devotion to the union movement to construct a singular academic career. Returning to college at 40, he began studying what he called laborlore: the work songs, slang, craft techniques and tales that helped to define the trade unions and create a sense of group identity.
Street Musician – Minneapolis
Before dawn in Minneapolis, David McGee loads his cello on to his bike and rides to the Farmers Market. David and his cello have put smiles on the faces of Twin Cities music lovers for over 10 years.
