The greater the draftsman, the more the artist can suggest with the least number of pen strokes. He knows beforehand where each line will touch the paper and why. Each line and dot will convey large areas of figure or scene, and the true artist/draftsman can relate his imagination to the viewer. Add to this one other quality the rare attribute of satirical humor and you have one of the greatest draftsman of this century: Heinrich Kley. -Donald Weeks

It’s amusing that Heinrich Kley earned his college degree studying the “practical arts” when one considers the decidedly impractial nature of the artist’s most famous work. Although Kley’s technical prowess always set him apart, his early paintings of landscapes and still life subjects are nothing to write home about. It wasn’t until the turn of the 20th century –while Germany scrambled to catch up to the rest of the swiftly industrializing world– that Kley’s own work took some fascinating turns.

What do S&M, Udo Kier and puppy fucking have in common? So glad you asked! They’re all in Madonna’s Sex book, see. Say what you want about her current honey locks and spandex ass, back in the 90s this woman owned.

Owned with a capital “O”, no matter what it took as this book goes to some length to prove. Inside the brushed metal cover are photos in Steven Meisel’s signature iconic style alongside some fairly gritty fetish scenes, all accompanied by erotic writing by Madonna herself.

Clickng below probably not safe for work, as you might have guessed.

Warehouse 23 is a really simple HTML site that hasn’t changed much in the past 10 years; you go there and you open different boxes, and find strange things inside. I opened up three boxes for this post and here are the last three items I’ve found there:

A small hamster, seemingly healthy. There is a small shaved patch on its back with a tattoo that says “Intel Inside.”

A small birthday candle in a small metal lantern, lit. It cannot be blown out or extinguished by any means and never seems to consume itself. A package of similar candles is in the crate, labeled “Everlast… the trick Birthday Candle by Il Lumens, Ltd.”

An old, yellowed copy of the San Jose Mercury-News. The headline story is about the assassination of the current president during his tour of a Silicon Valley firm. Several reassuring quotes from the vice president (now president) are included. The paper is dated the 27th of next month.

Go open a random box for yourself and see what you find! You can also add an item to the Warehouse (just stay away from the phrase “seemingly ordinary,” for the love of Bob!), or – and this is my favorite – dig through the dumpster, where you find items submitted to Warehouse 23 that didn’t quite make the cut, but were just too weird to ignore.

What will you wear in space? It may sound unrealistic now, but consider this for a moment anyhow. Will you be trapped in the classic mattress of a suit with a fishbowl for a helmet, or something a little more flattering? Instead of stiff bulky padding would you prefer a space suit which allows to explore weightlessness to its full potential?

At one endlessly fascinating end of the space-wear spectrum is the function-oriented second skin BioSuit envisioned by Professor Dava J. Newman at MIT. Intended for actual extravehicular cosmic exposure, it’s sleek, beautifully functional, and structurally sophisticated, providing pressure and elasticity. And there’s a backpack!

Dava is involved with a remarkable amount of research on topics ranging from human performance in outer space to “Powered Assistive Walking Devices” for use by the handicapped on Earth. Admiration. Awe.

“They can say that I couldn’t sing, but they can never say that I didn’t sing!” – One of Florence Foster Jenkins’ releases

Ah, the glory days before computer software, when only the very talented, or wealthy eccentrics such as Florence Foster Jenkins could have access to recording facilities.

At sixty years of age, and a lifetime of fantasizing about becoming a singer, Miss Jenkins struck gold when her mother croaked and left her a free woman with a small fortune. In 1930 she set about making her mark in history, albeit inadvertently, as one of the worst recording artists in history.

She was almost an instant comedy sensation. Sporting a sensationally flamboyant wardrobe of her own design and accompanied by a hapless pianist who hilariously compensated for her tone-deaf-ness, her live performances were so coveted that scalpers would sometimes fetch ten times the price for a ticket. For what she absolutely lacked in pitch, rhythm, tone, or what is otherwise known in this dimension as ‘singing talent’, she made up for in stubborn confidence, insisting until the very end that she was a master. That end came a month after a sell-out show at Carnegie Hall in 1944, topping off a paradoxical career.

Behold, the genius of Florence Foster Jenkins in the form of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s ‘Queen of the Night’ aria from The Magic Flute:

Download Der Hölle Rach

Florence Foster Jenkins, beyond being the subject of popular ridicule, actually leaves us with a unique legacy. She set out to do the very difficult, with very little ability, very late in life and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. There’s also a nod to be given to the concept of contentment, a state of zen rejected by most true artists, regardless of their achievements. Her bewildering success lies as much in primitive hilarity as it does her balls to look inevitable failure in the face and say ‘I don’t give a fuck, I’m having this’.

When they’re not busy getting butthurt by cartoons or teddy bears, radical Muslim-types rather like spending their time suing employers into compliance with their totally voluntary dress-code. Case in point:

Left: Bushra Noah. Right: Sarah Des Rosiers and Wedge staff.

Sarah Des Rosiers, owner of alternative hair salon Wedge, has been ambushed with a frivolous lawsuit by one Bushra Noah on grounds of religious discrimination, after dismissing Noah from a trial position at her hair salon. You see, Noah, a self-described ‘devout’ Muslim, didn’t think it was important to mention in her telephone interview that she wore a headscarf, even though she admits that this is the reason she believes she had been turned down for hair-styling jobs in the past. Needless to say, when she rocked up to work she was requested to uncover her hair while at the salon, but she refused on grounds that it was ‘immodest’.

That’s right. A hairdresser who finds uncovered hair immoral.

Having been turned down by no less than twenty-five other salons, presumably for the same reason, Noah decided she’s had enough and set about destroying the business that Des Rosiers had poured her soul into.

Proto-emcee Slim Gaillard, the great grandaddy of flow.

In 1941, a musical comedy farce called Hellzapoppin’ made the jump from stage to screen. It’s a very silly film (about a film within a play about a film), rather sanitized in comparison to the original anarchic revue (which featured little people, clowns, trained pigeons, and Hitler speaking in a Yiddish accent). There isn’t much of a plot and many of the jokes are corny even by 40s standards. The premise wasn’t nearly as successful on celluloid as it was on Broadway. Still, Hellzapoppin’ has two invaluable things going for it: an appearance by sainted Slim Gaillard, and the most impossibly freakin’ insanely amazing Lindy Hop dance sequence ever filmed, courtesy of a fearless troupe called Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers.  Behold o’rootey:

A puppet can sometimes express more with a tilt of her head than we do with several sentences. I was introduced to Bunraku when I watched Takeshi Kitano’s Dolls. The film’s storytelling is interspersed with scenes from a Japanese puppet play. The mix of dramatic narration, movement and beautiful costumes of the dolls immediately became a point of interest. Bunraku originated sometime in the 1600s, thought wasn’t called that until the 1800 after a theater in Osaka. It’s a well-loved traditional art form – puppet plays accompanied by shamisen music and fantastic narrations, that use complex life-size dolls operated by three masters.

The music ascends, building to manic excitement and subsides into sparse tranquil strumming in accordance with the play. The narration, performed only by men, aligns its melodies to the shamisen’s and is adjusted in pitch and tone, ranging from guttural to somewhat feminine. The dolls themselves are sophisticated creations of carved wood, the males equipped with expressive facial mechanisms, and the women mask-like and even more expressive through gesture, instead. Sets used in Bunraku are design masterpieces, minimally conveying any location necessary, rearranged throughout the show by fully-masked attendants.

Left: Lucy from Dracula. Right: Ruff by Junya Watanabe.

Ruffs! Why are they so intoxicatingly awesome? It’s just a ruffle of fabric on a drawstring, but whenever I see one, it still evokes an instant Pavlovian response. A ruff turns a person into a character: a creature that’s decadent, aristocratic, maybe even a little tragic. I marvel at ruffs the way I marvel at lush cake icing and delicate origami, and while there’s something very sensuous about the wrapping, ruffs also make people look very strong, armored, untouchable.

“Virginqueen” photo shoot by Viona.

In celebration of my tender relationship with ruffs, I present to you my favorite manifestations of these sumptuous adornments in fashion, photography, music and film. The list is by no means complete, so please feel free to chime with your own ruff finds! One of the images and some of the links below may not be SFW, but most are. The Romp through Ruffs begins with the work of photographer Tina Cassati:

Felt animals! They are so cute! The images above come from Chika Photography, where adorable felt squirrels, doves and elephants await you. You can get your own felt feline and simultaneously help out a person in need over at Kittyaid, and if you want to make one of your own, there’s a great Flickr tutorial that will show you how to make any kind of monster you want. Need more specific instructions? Here are some more little DIY felt projects:

• How to make a Felt Penguin
• How to make a Felt Donut
• How to make a Felt Cupcake
• How to make a Felt ‘Eggie the Chick’

And if text-and-photo instructions aren’t enough, here’s some time-lapse footage from indie/experimental/noise band Deerhoof to help you. Featuring Satomi Matsuzaki, the clip is called “Stuffed” and I love it because she’s just making the weirdest shit. You get to see her create a log, a video cassette, and a nippled jock-wearing bear:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/gcHmv21Ddvk" width="400" height="330" wmode="transparent" /]

Incidentally, Deerhoof is playing tomorrow (Monday) night in LA at the Avalon (details here), with our girl Mer opening for them as part of Faun Fables, the same band that she toured Europe with last month. See you there?