Photo by confusedvision

Now, times has changed, the ice has been broken and the video Putin on the Ritz shows Wladimir Putin and George W. Bush wiggling in a musical comedy. The clip is inspired by the 1930′s movie Puttin’on the Ritz and utilizes the Star Imitations Systems Technology, a technique that allows amazing digital effects.

The entertaining Putin on the Ritz has been realized by Mini Movie Channel, a multi-platform new media company launched during the 2008 Festival De Cannes. The founder Dmitry Lesnevsky is a Russian tycoon who knows his stuff. As a matter of fact, he produced Andrey Zvyaginstev’s films The Return (Golden Lion/Venice 2003) and The Banishment (Best Actor/Cannes 2007). The site sets out to feature only high-quality works and to discover the best short film comedies from around the world. It will extend its brand with launches in Russia, France and Germany this summer. In my opinion, it’s a very interesting website and I advise you to see also the other hilarious videos.

 This is Udronotto’s The Blues Brothers. Take a look at his LEGO masterpieces

Yesterday, I read an interesting, but also weird piece of news on the blog Indonesia Matters.

Mojokerto (East Java) – The manager of an old people’s home has forced ten elderly guests to get married to reduce the “pressing problem” of free sex in the structure. So now, the seventy-five-years old Siroj has a wife whose name he doesn’t remember, despite the passionate nights: what a naughty boy!

But this is only one of the mass wedding forced by the local authorities. In Kupang (West Timor), on 16^thMay, 476 couples were obliged to get married. The day after, in Mataram (Lombock), other 105 couples were forced to give up living in sin. The authorities supplied them with bridal clothing and a dowry of about 30$.

Photo by Caucas’

Now, a young French artist, Benjamin Deroche, has made a series of photos in honour of the master: Tribute to Araki. He has tried to reproduce with a dead chicken the pictures of bondage, with odd, but also disturbing, effects. In a interview given to Liberation’s blog Zoum Zoum, Deroche says Araki is one of his favourite photographers. Goodness knows what Araki thinks about it.

One of the main works in the exhibition “Design and the Elastic Mind” at the MoMA of New York (until 12 May), Victimless Leather, a small jacket made of embryonic stem cells extracted from mice, has died. The artists, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, say the work, that was nourished with nutrients by tube, expanded too quickly and occluded its incubation system five weeks after the show opened. So, the poor, little jacket has been killed. It was one of the works created as part of their Tissue Culture & Art Project, promoted by the University of Western Australia in Perth, that unites art and scientific research.

This story reminds me of a scientist who considered himself all-powerful and created a modern Prometheus: both of them met a sticky end.

Photo by wallyg

You can also buy some “revolutionary” May ’68 gadget in Paul Smith boutiques, like candles, key cases, pocket notebooks, et cetera. According to me, this is the negation of the spirit of a season that, for better or worse, changed the world. But this is the spirit of our times, where often the rebels eat caviar and drink champagne.

The German artist Gregor Schneider is seeking volunteers for his last performance-art piece, a work in which terminal patients will die as part of the exhibition. A private clinic in Düsseldorf has agreed to help him find volunteers for the project.

At the Wellcome Collection in London there is an exhibition of photos of ordinary people pictured before and after death by the German photographers Walter Schels and Beate Lakotta.

25 million people have seen Ghunter von Hagen’s Body World’s exhibition, in which real cadavers are conserved in various states of dissection.

Man, you must die, and art reminds you about it. Maybe von Hagen’s cadavers are interesting, maybe Schels and Lakotta’s portraits are touching, but I think Schneider is overstepping the line. Perhaps I’m wrong, I often don’t understand contemporary art. I’m only sure of one thing: Germans should enjoy life a little more.

Photo by Cayusa

I’m not surprised by the results of this survey. In effect, the name Jack is right for a surgeon, but also for a drummer, but also for a trucker..But, there are names that, for their oddity or ugliness, can only ruin a person’s life. For example, what did Cher smoke when she called her daughter Chastity? The Latins was used to say “Nomen Omen”: your destiny is in your name. The meaning of my name is “lame”. No comments, please.