Bilgewater, Dinotopia

The Wikipedia entry reads, in part -

Both halves of the society share responsibility equally and live under a common set of laws known as the Code of Dinotopia. The society is highly communal, lacking a monetary system or even a concrete concept of ownership. Individuals are educated from youth to be compassionate, cooperative, and generally conscious of others' needs. For example, food on the island is provided at no cost, but citizens take only what they need and leave the rest for others.

The books are based on the journals of explorer Arthur Denison, who was shipwrecked on an island in 1862. Gurney has a new book out - Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara. It will be launched at the Return to Dinotopia exhibition Oshkosh Public Museum in Wisconsin on November 3rd with over 40 paintings exhibited. The museum will be the first and only museum in the United States to show Gurney's exhibit before it travels to Europe next year.

Dinotopia excursion James Gurney also has a fabulous blog where he shows the models he builds to make his beautiful illustrations. He also writes about when you give a talk at the Library of Congress " they don’t pay you with money. They reward you something far more valuable. Your compensation is to have their researchers dig whatever gems you would like to see out of their collection of 134 million items."
Dinotopia treetown. Here's a clip from the movie Dinotopia -

Near the end of the 1800s, America was in the midst of a second industrial revolution and optimistic about where their technology would lead them. So much so, that as the turn of the century approached, it became popular to make predictions about the year 2000, one hundred years hence.

The trade cards shown below are a set of 12 stock cards that predict what things will be like in the year 2000. This set was most likely produced at the Kuntsdruck-Friedberg printing plant in Berlin, Germany, and is found in both American and European versions. The images are identical for both versions, but the American cards are in English and have wider and more decorative borders. The European cards were imprinted for chocolate companies in Germany and Belgium, and the English language cards were imprinted for at least 14 different American companies. [These two paragraphs are based on the article "One Hundred years hence" by Richard Sheaff appearing in the Winter, 1999, issue of "The Advertising Trade Card Quarterly" published by The Trade Card Collector's Association].

Shown below are thumbnail images (at 25 percent of actual size) of these trade cards. Cards 1 through 8 are in the collection of Henry and Margaret Szlachta, and cards 9 through 12 are in the collection of Mary Jane Stevens.

From this wonderful site photomichaelwolf.com via tinselman.typepad.com that I found on stumbleupon.com

You do know that the original Lisa in le Louvre, Paris is quite small? 30.5" high X 21" wide

Matisse?

In the Mid-Eighties, Englishman John Myatt was a struggling artist trying to raise two children on his own. His wife had left him and he was earning a living from part-time art-teaching. He was broke and battling to make ends meet.

All that changed when a stranger claiming to be a physics professor commissioned him to knock out some fake old masters to supposedly impress his girlfriend. For the next eight years (88-94) John Myatt painted another 200-odd "Old Masters" and "Impressionist" paintings which he then sold on to the dealer/professor to earn himself £90,000 and eventually four months in the nick after Scotland Yard came a-knocking in 1995.

The dealer, who was eventually jailed for four years, made £1.5 million out of the scam by faking the provenances of the paintings and selling them at the prestigious Sothebys and Christies art auction houses. Many of these fakes have never been recovered. It is claimed to be "The biggest art fraud of the 20th century".

John Myatt is still painting fakes. Presumedly using his trade-mark mixture of household emulsion paint mixed with KY jelly. But this time he's openly declaring them as such and hawking them on his website for between $875 to $8000 - johnmyatt.com

But the last laugh may yet be on Myatt - someone is knocking out fakes of his fakes. Hilarious.

From a story running in The New York Times

More Here at Mexico City from the air
Mexican Meglopolis

Look what I found. A beautiful girl and a beautiful city. Voila! Alhana's blog and a panoramic vision of the City of Light by night. Go to this beautiful Finnish girl's site HERE and click on "dura.cell.free.fr/home/images/parisbynight.jpg. You can use your mouse to scroll around the city - Starts at Bastille, takes you really close to Notre Dame and then around the city to the Eiffel Tower and the Seine. If you just click on the thumbnail here it might take a while to load.
click to blow up Paris Hilton