Tom Morton

The rising Dutch artist Erik van Lieshout, temporarily based in Los Angeles while he sets up for bicoastal American museum debuts at the Hammer in Los Angeles and at Mass MoCA, in North Adams, Massachusetts, works with video installation, painting and drawing to analyze our daily reality in currently confusing times. In a dizzying game of political correctness versus incorrectness, he provides razor-sharp comments on sociocultural truths, always seeming to wind up in unfamiliar, show more uncomfortable and confrontational situations. As he says: “My challenge is to lose control…Because it’s only when you lose control that you have the feeling of freedom.” On his way to that freedom, van Lieshout turns whomever he encounters into subject matter for social documentaries–his endless curiosity and his disarming personality encouraging strangers to share their intimate feelings and politics openly with him. In his work, van Lieshout translates this ferocious exploration of the behaviors of people he meets into aggressive, sometimes violent, sexual imagery. Born in 1968 in the Netherlands, van Lieshout’s work was recently featured in the 2006 Berlin Bienniale and the 2003 Venice Biennale, among others. show less

While this doesn't make me want to move to Shetland it does make me want to visit. A trip to Tom's bookshop would be the ultimate destination. I loved his writing style, the rants and the descriptions and the book talk. There are some terms such as soothlag and Shetlag, meaning someone wants to go to the maninland for ammenties while Shetlag means there is no such desire to leave.

The language has you immersed in everyday local life of someone who lives in the northernmost place in the U.K. show more You'd need to be a hardy soul to endure those temperatures and weather conditions so, that's not me but how I would love to visit.

Books, albums, music, food and more - I wish Goodreads had half stars as I'd bump to a 3 1/2. show less

An encyclopedia is written by insiders, these are observers who inhabit the world they describe, and they happen to take everything very seriously. The complete opposite of that is "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", which introduced a method of cataloging a world where the observer is external to it. The genius in this exercise is discovered in the indisputable comic value aliens bring trying to piece our world together.

Now imagine how the revered Dr. Samuel Johnson, who wrote his show more original Dictionary in 1755, would perceive our modern way of life. He would be an outsider no different than a visiting alien. And his language, quaint and old, will elevate his observations to a credible level of authenticity.

Dr. Johnson would find Twitter as the simplest media to channel his discoveries, and its 140 character limitation he would find as a worthy challenge that would be a match to his abilities of concise formulations.

I discovered Dr. Johnson by chance, his aphorisms probably retweeted by somebody I follow. His definitions I found to be witty and on the spot. His old morals were frequently giving a fresh point of view to things we modern people don't put too much thought in anymore. The best way to find what is in this book is to see a few of the best definitions yourself:

"Deodorant n. Miasma that, when apply’d underarm in sufficient Depth, is held by Primitives & English Youths to convey Irresistibility"

"Cocaine n. potent Snuff that does invest the Partaker with th’Illusion of Omnipotence & his Membrum the Reality of Impotence"

"Gymnasium n. an inverted Work-House that People do PAY to enter & therein undergo Servitude"

"LinkedIn n. a ghostly Coffee-House of Commerce in which the recently unemploy’d do remind the working World of their EXISTENCE"

"MILF n. cant Term for a Woman in possession of a Child who does excite in Men the Urge to produce another"

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Apart from the collected works, his continuous stream can be found at https://twitter.com/DrSamuelJohnson

The idea for this book is great. most parts of it are very entertaining. Although the standard is very high it is not evenly manifested throughout the text, that I find to be the only downside of this work.

I read it as an e-book on my phone, immediate accessibility and the nature of its text provided me edifying diversion for times which would've been otherwise lost.

Mentioned in The New York Times: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/an-ad-agency-hires-samuel-johns...

His move to America was announced by himself thusly: https://twitter.com/DrSamuelJohnson/status/90332525200809984 ("Auspicious News: I set sail to live in the Colonies to-day. Future Tweets shall be compos'd in a 'twixtatlantic ACCENT") show less

The recent paintings of Christian Marclay (born 1955) take as their point of departure wet sounds suggestive of the action of painting. These paintings, winkingly bridging Abstract Expressionism and Pop art, represent a continuation of the artist’s longstanding experimentation with the relationship between images and sounds. Christian Marclay: Liquids, published to accompany the artist’s solo exhibition at White Cube, includes these recent Onomatopoeia paintings, the recent films "Pub show more Crawl" (2014) and "Surround Sounds" (2014) and an installation of found glassware. Revered in the worlds of art and music for a body of work that bridges both camps, Marclay planned a lively program of collaborative musical performances led by the London Sinfonietta to accompany his exhibition and set up facilities for the on-site recording, pressing and screenprinting of vinyl records in the gallery, also documented in this volume. show less