Drawings By John Franzen

And I thought MY work was obsessive...

About his work:

"Starting with a straight line, I draw each following sequence by copying the character of the previous. I concentrate on breathing and focus on drawing the successor. Again and once more. Again and again. In the process of drawing, my lines evolve into a kind of logarithmic pattern and layering, steered merely by aberrances and anomalies of human failure in contrast to the precision of a machine."

Tsunami in Japan 2011

I've seen aerial footage of the 2011 tsunami in Japan, but that doesn't do much to show the catastrophic damage on a human scale. This video is taken with a hand held camera in a town that straddles an inland river. The first few minutes of the video show the river as very peaceful and people are almost nonchalant about the warning sirens and loudspeaker announcements. Around the three minute mark the first bit of rising tide starts to push upriver and from there it grows into something that I could only describe as a Bosch-like vision of hell. I am trying to break my habit of overusing words like 'incredible' and 'amazing' on this blog, but it's hard to believe that anything this horrifying actually occurred and was not the set of some Hollywood doomsday movie.

Slow Ass 'Jolene'

You might think that this beautifully dark version of 'Jolene' was done by some obscure freak-folk band, but it is in fact the 45 RPM single of Dolly Parton's original version of 'Jolene' slowed down to 33 RPM. The vocals almost sound like Nina Simone.

Funnel Tunnel

Public art that doesn't suck, what a novel idea? It's in Houston, no less!

Craig Ferguson- 'Why Evrything Sucks'

This was remarkably insightful and gutsy for a television host to say. I couldn't agree more.

'Rubin and Ed'

At long last!!! A decent copy of the severely underrated film, 'Rubin and Ed', has finally been posted on youtube! This 1991 film starring Crispin Glover, Howard Hessman and the recently deceased Karen Black has been out of print since the early 1990's. My deep gratitude to the uploader!

Curious Alice, 1971

Why do anti-drug films from the 1970's always make drugs seem so... interesting... so beautiful???

Strawbs - New World

The Strawbs were one of those psychedelic folk bands that slipped through the cracks. This song definitely shows the darker side of psychedelic music. In this anti-war song I can hear elements that I think the Pogues probably picked up on.

Karl Junker House

Detail upon detail upon detail... It would probably be overwhelming to actually live in a house such as this... One of those incredible life-works of an eccentric mind.

Bible Scholar and Author of 'Misquoting Jesus' Speaks on the Contradictions and Misinterpretations in the Bible

This lecture is well worth the listen if you've got some extra time. I love listening to lectures, audiobooks and music while I'm in the studio working on art. My hands and eyes are busy with art, but I can listen to things all day long. I am considering buying Ehrman's more recent 2010 book called Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them)

'Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why' is a book by Bart D. Ehrman, a New Testament scholar at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The book introduces lay readers to the field of textual criticism of the Bible. Ehrman discusses a number of textual variants that resulted from intentional or accidental manuscript changes during the scriptorium era. This book made it to the New York Times Best Seller list.

Doug Aitken- Migration- Installation

Doug Aitken is an artist who often works with multi-channel video installation. This piece is beautiful.