Plush Monkey Paintings

The Monkey Buddha watches all things in the monkey realm.

BoingBoing.com posted a link to these interesting paintings of stuffed monkey dolls by Peter Jones.
My brother used to collect monkey dolls when he was little.
I'm pretty sure he had this one...

The Daily Show & Bush's "Culture of Life"

Jon Stewart effectively exposes the hypocrisy of the walking contradiction himself, President War Monkey. This is why I watch the Daily Show every night. It makes me feel like there's actually other sane, rational people in the world.

Crooks & Liars Video:
TDS - Stem Cell Redux

Unholy Terror

Sometimes words just don't explain how I feel
when confronted with the horrors in this world.

click to enlarge

Middle East Madness

This violence between Israel & Lebanon is such a nightmare. I simply can't imagine how the people living in both countries can cope with the destruction going on.

Even though Israel can seemingly kidnap and imprison anyone at will, the capture of 3 Israeli soliders at the Lebanon border is apparently enough justification to annhililate entire cities and suburbs of innocent people and civilian infrastructure. The outright lie that only Hezbollah positions are being bombed in Lebanon is an insult to the intelligence of anyone with eyes to see the photos and video of the ruined city. Hezbollah seems to have wanted to intitiate a prisoner swap for Palestinians in Israeli prisons, but, hey, why have tons of munitions subsidized by the American-taxpayer if you can't drop it on the heads of civilians and their homes?

If our leaders in the U.S. Gov't weren't such idiotic, malevolent bastards, they would sit down with all significant parties, including Iran & Syria, for an emergency summit and work to reign in both Israel and Hezbollah by threatening to cut off their respective funds. Of course, that would imply that the United States can control Israel, and not the other way around.

The really terrifying part, though, is the reaction of the U.S. Government and American mass-media.

• President War Monkey gets caught at the G8 Summit cursing about how this is somehow all Syria's fault with a mouthful of food, like the ignorant scumbag he is. Not to mention getting verbally slapped down by Russian President Vladimir Putin, groping the Chancellor of Germany, and caring more about a pig roast than a war that is costing significant human life. There is no way an American President can fuck up more times in the span of a few days unless he starts pissing on people's faces and eating live babies on TV.

• Our Ambassador to the U.N., the walrus-faced asshole John "Neocon" Bolton claims diplomatically that there "is no moral equivalent" between the Israelis who are being attacked and the Lebanese civilians being bombed. A dead civilian is a dead civilian, you obnoxious jackass.
(It is being claimed that Hezbollah is embedded in the Lebanese society, so civilian targets are justifed... but then, technically, the entire civilian population of Israel is a legitimate military target, since Israeli conscription is mandatory for all citizens! Anyway you slice it, though, it's all unnecessary murder.)

• The usual neo-conservative vampires are allowed on TV claiming that we must force regime change in Iran... even as Iraq and Afghanistan are still drowning in flames and blood. The question is... with what army?!? Oh, that's right, they want to use nukes and wipe out thousands more innocent lives. These lunatics should be run out of the country - they are doing everything they can to compromise our military and foreign policy.

• The Bush Administration irresponsibly gives the *wink, wink, nudge, nudge* for Israel to have free reign for a week to reduce civilian areas of Lebanon to ruins and hundreds of innocent people to corpses, while on another front, Gaza is being rolled over yet again for the crime of being the home to poor brown people on land that Israel covets. Hey, what's a little bit of war crimes and state terrorism on the way to grabbing as much useless desert sand as possible, right?

The ironic, and saddest, thing is that Israel is doing nothing but destroying it's own security and chances for peace by bombing a democratic nation and it's vibrant capital to rubble as the world watches. The more poverty-stricken Arab and Muslim people that Israel's hateful vengeance creates, the more Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Qaeda members will rise up to fight what they see as the injustice of a bloodthirsty apartheid state. If Israel were a true multi-cultural democracy in which the native Arab population was not a second-class race to be eradicated, there would not be so much hostility from the region and the rest of the world. It is a nation that was created on the principles of exclusion and division, and so it goes...

Classic 80's TV Ads

I found a site thanks to BoingBoing.com that gave me numerous flashbacks into my childhood.

It's an amazing set of TV commercials from the 1980's. There are gems such as ads for Thundercats & He-Man, but my favorite is the commercial for Star Wars action figures.

CLICK HERE FOR LINK

I really enjoyed the one for He-Man's Castle Grayskull, too. It's crazy that I actually remember these commercials...

The Mayan Experience

I got back Sunday night from a trip to Mexico with my family, and it was the best experience of my life. Eight of us went down to the Riviera Maya area on the coast of the Yucatan and stayed at the Sunscape Puerto Aventuras resort.

Here is a picture of me on the beach where I swam, drank Corona, and ate grilled food every day!

(click pictures to enlarge)

The most amazing part of the trip was our adventure to the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza in the middle of the Yucatan . My brother-in-law drove us all in a mini-van, which was a unique opportunity to see the Mayan Mexican people's lifestyle (especially after making a temporary wrong turn, and heading into the village of Coba). The Mayan people are so friendly and proud of their culture, it never stops bothering me that they and other people throughout the world often live in poverty, trying to get by, when they have such great hearts and minds. We had an open, wonderfully talkative Mayan driver take us back to the airport, and I could hear as he talked to us the deep feelings they have about the Spanish Conquest, foreign tourists, and their status as almost second-class citizens. He seemed to think the Mayans were considered unattractive because of their indigenous features, but I think they are beautiful people, like the rest of the human race.

The ruins themselves were mind-boggling. I read voraciously about ancient cultures and the Mayans are one of the most fascinating peoples to me. The first thing you see as you head through the entrance/vistor's center into the Great Plaza is the overwhelming Pyramid of Kukulcan, or Quetzalcoatl to the Aztecs. He is symbolized by the feathered serpent - the union of the heavens with the earth. The pyramid is a monument that contains vast astrological & symbolic information.
It also has an amazing acoustic quality: when you clap your hands in front of one of the four staircases, the echo is the chirp of the sacred quetzal bird! We were dumbstruck at the technical knowledge required to achieve this effect. They must have understood a correlation between the waveform of the bird's chirp and the distance & angle between each step.

Here are some pictures of me initiating myself into the Mayan priesthood at the base of the pyramid:

I can't even get into...
• the drunken insanity that took place on the trip me, my brother, and brother-in-law took to Playa del Carmen's "Mambo Cafe" one night with a group from the hotel (we got left behind and had to get a cab back) • my brother getting as sick as I've ever seen a human being the night before we left into our flight the next day • smoking Cubans on the balcony overlooking the ocean • etc, etc, etc

Best ...Week... Ever

DaVinci's Challenge Articles (Update 6/10/06)

I added articles in the Rowan University Magazine, About.com, and the Boston Herald to my list of articles & features with my "DaVinci's Challenge" game in the media. Click link below:

"DaVinci's Challenge Articles"

Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was the inventor of AC electricity and a genius who was like a human incarnation of electro-magnetic theory. He claimed it was possible to create and transmit wireless electricity. Tesla made Thomas Edison look like a chump but was kind of forgotten by the world at large because he wasn't a great businessman. Here is a short but eloquent statement on war & peace:

"What we now want is closer contact and better understanding
between individuals and communities all over the earth,

and the elimination of egoism and pride
which is always prone to plunge the world
into primeval barbarism and strife...

Peace can only come as a natural consequence
of universal enlightenment...''

An Eye (and Mouth) for Art

I think this photo is hysterical! This is pure human nature with no guilt or fear of judgement, which is why it brings a smile to your face.
If I saw this happening in person, I would probably fall on the floor laughing.

Future 'Breast Man'

Star Wars Sand Sculptures

Check out these sand scuptures of scenes from the Star Wars movies.

Awesome!

"Wash away I will!"

Webs of Maya

This is an amazing video that shows geometric patterns being formed by vibrating a metal plate covered with sand at different frequencies. If you turn the sound off and watch it (so the high-pitched tones don't make you crazy), it becomes like a Magical Morphing Mandala.

Click Here

On another level, this could be seen as a experiential metaphor for the structure of reality - a flux of ? forming patterns we perceive as matter, mind, & energy.

Through Google, I found this on the website of a jewelry designer from Israel who has amazing designs and thought-provoking articles on the site:

"When we start to examine what matter is made of we get to molecules and then to atoms. Atoms are composed of particles moving around each other at great speed. When scientists searched for what these particles are made of they found various wave lengths (frequencies).

The simplest way to understand a vibration is to imagine constantly repeating "movement" and "rest". The human ear can hear 30 to 16000 vibrations ("movement" and "rest") per second.

In fact, everything is made of frequencies, even the "matter" we previously mentioned."

He also has a page for the Flower of Life, the ancient pattern of circles that I studied as a design student & used to form the DaVinci's Challenge gameboard:

"The "Flower of Life" contains the patterns of creation as they emerged from the "Great Void". Everything is made from the Creator's thought."

Da Vinci's Challenge - Rowan University Press

My alma mater, Rowan University, has provided some excellent coverage of my efforts behind the Da Vinci's Challenge games.

The Spring issue of the Rowan Magazine has a feature article by Mike Shute that turned out great, with a picture of me & the games that I actually really like. (Photographer Craig Terry was kind enough to let me have some input on the choice of picture.) Here is the link to the online version of the article. It is exciting to think that Rowan Grads across the country are reading about my creation that started as a Rowan design project!

(Click Images to Enlarge)

The Rowan Admissions newsletter also included an article about my experiences after graduating, along with other alumni who are "making an impact".

Daily Monkey

The Monkey Buddha would be wrong not to point out the wonderful The Daily Monkey website that provides nonstop monkey madness.

Optical Illusion Rooms

I don't know how the hell you figure these out...
These rooms are painted with designs that become 3D Optical illusions when you stand in the right spot.

Click Here
for More Rooms

Mad War Party

Well, since I've been ranting about political issues in the last couple posts,
I'll let some awesome pictures by Mark Bryan speak a thousand words in this one...

(click for bigger image)

"Mad Tea Party"

"Dick"

images from
www.artofmarkbryan.com

Dear Mr. Boosh

"I ain't listenin' you crazy Islamaniac!
Take your fancy letter an' shove it
where the desert sun don't shine!
Heh, heh, heh..."

What a wacko this Iranian President is!!!
Doesn't he know that our President is a stubborn jackass and can't be swayed by a letter that's way too long for him to read?!?!

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually wrote an 18 page letter to President War Monkey that talked about topics such as history, spirituality, and philosophy. When I first read about it, I thought, "Now there's an interesting move."

However, as Bush's right-hand hag Condi growls, the White House dismissed it, of course, as “not a serious diplomatic overture” - even though it is the first attempt at direct communication from Tehran in decades. (...not that the Iranians could possibly do anything to stop the maniacs at our helm from staying the course toward another preemptive massacre & looting.)

Of course, the news media said all kinds of stuff about the letter without actually providing more than a couple sentences of content. I read more of the actual letter HERE, and it doesn't seem any crazier than every single thing the criminals in Bush, Inc. say every goddamn day. The problem is, the patients are running the asylum in EVERY country, so the common people are stuck dealing with these elite pissing contests between corrupt degenerates and self-righteous egomaniacs.

Our foreign policy and relations have been completely compromised, yet the geniuses at the White House act like we still have any honor or credibility left to dictate how other countries should act.

What a friggin' mess.

Why U.S. Soldiers are in the Middle East

Where can you even start?!?

Now, I understand that having a standing army is an indespensible part of any nation. However, the privatization of our armed forces and the twisted neo-conservative ideologies of pre-emptive war and American imperialism have hijacked the U.S. military for their own delusional goals.

So let's look at some possible reasons -

Of course, there's good ol' fashion corrupt war profiteering for the Bush Family Evil Empire -

• American Conservative Magazine:
"Billions of Dollars Have Disappeared, gone to bribe Iraqis and line contractors’ pockets."

• Guardian UK
"Billions Wasted in Iraq, says US Audit"


Then, there's the manipulations of America's favorite little U.N.-defying apartheid state -

• Asia Times:
"Iraq was Invaded 'to Protect Israel' - US Official"

• Whatreallyhappened.com
"Who is Congress Listening To?"

Well, isn't this idea of going to war which benefits Israel
nothing but anti-Semetic rubbish?
I'm sure the Israelis themselves will set the record straight...

• Israeli Ynet News:
"Prime Minister Olmert to Ask U.S. to act against Iran"

• London Times story:
"Attack Iran the Day Iraq War Ends, Demands Israel"

• Pakistan Daily Times:
"Israeli official: Israel will hit Iran in the next few months"

Ummmm, never mind!

If, God forbid, the last headline comes true in any shape or fashion,
the World War III that the lunatics in power so desperately want
will erupt, and our American men & women in uniform
will be trapped in the middle of Armageddon...
exactly as intended.

I can't make our situation in the Middle East any clearer than this!

I hope (more than anything I've ever hoped for) that I'm wrong... but the corruption, irrationality, and murderous brutality of the gangsters in both the American and Israeli governments don't allow much room for optimism. The only possible remedy for potential disaster is awareness and overwhelming opposition to the act of mass-murder for profit that we call "war."

The Universal Mind

Question: Can you tell what the difference is between these two pictures?










• The picture to the left shows the cosmic structure of galactic clusters.
• The picture on the right shows the neural network of the human brain!

The universe is fractal, holographic, and completely incomprehensible!!!

I found the image of galaxy distribution on the webpage for the Millenium Simulation, in which supercomputers have modeled the known universe in three dimensions. Click on the link to see high-res images... they are awesome visualizations. The picture above is on the scale of 100 million light-years. And that is a relatively close zoom - The cosmic simulation has been carried out and visualized to a scale of over 5 billion light-years (see image below)!!! At this extreme resolution, the universe goes from looking like clustered galactic brain cells to resembling the quantum energy field at the smallest scales of the universe...

I can't help but be amazed at the vast scale and complexity these images represent. To say a human being is nothing but a speck in the universe is an understatement. There's really not much to say when confronted with ideas like this, because the vocal grunts and electrical flashes that make up our consciousness are incapable of handling it. The fact that we can ponder such things at all is perhaps due to the self-similar fractal nature of the universe and, therefore, our mind. The relationship is right there in the two pictures above.

If you really try to wrap your head around what these images mean, human activities such as science, religion, nationalism, and even the fantasy of 'the self' will eventually be revealed as abstract constructs of the human ego. The Universe is God, and vice-versa, and we are like particles within 'It' that blip in and out of existence as fast as an electron zips around a nucleus. That's not to say the human experience is worthless or meaningless - it is what it is...
and it is whatever the human experiencing it makes it out to be!

I think that if people gave more thought to the reality of the infinite scale and complexity of the universe, it would lead to more open-minded contemplation of our tiny, but unique place in the world.


•The microcosm and macrocosm are intimately connected.

"The cycle of Interdependent Origins
takes place in everything, everywhere,
in the infinitely small as in the infinitely great.
Their activity is interconnected,
and they only exist on with the other."
- The Secret Teachings of Tibetan Buddhism

"The development of structures
in what is called microevolution
mirrors the development of structures
in macroevolution and vice versa.
Microstructures and macrostructures
evolve together as a whole."
- Erich Jantsch, Creative Evolution

Stephen Colbert is Great

Well, I didn't think it was possible, but I think the Colbert Report on Comedy Central has matched, if not exceeded, the standard of the Daily Show. This performance by Stephen Colbert at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner takes it to another level, though. I can't imagine the balls it takes to ridicule the President of the United States right to his face. Even if it is supposed to be in jest, the issues and the stinging humor Colbert presents have to be uncomfortable for many, especially the War Monkey himself.

Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

The Mayan Calendar - 2012 A.D.

Whether it is just a fantastic man-made notion, or if there really is some kind of singularity or transcendence of the human experience on this date of December 12, 2012, it has huge resonance with the collective consciousness of people on this planet. It is the date calculated from Mayan Long Count calendar in which the 5,125 year age we are currently living in (one-fifth of a 26,000 year Great Cycle) will come to an end as the winter solstice sun passes through the galactic plane of the Milky Way.

I think ancient people were more aware of subtle levels of existence and the cosmic cycles of the universe than we are, and we are beginning to gain that wisdom and insight again as the world we know approaches a transition from ignorance to awakening and rebirth as beings and as a world.

The question is - what kinds of hell will we have to endure in the meantime?

The Mayan Prophecy of 2012

(On the other hand,
it could be much simpler than all that...)

Click to enlarge
this interesting breakdown of a Aztec Calendar

Da Vinci's Challenge - Met Museum Bestseller

Does this mean that I can say my work is being highlighted in the Metropolitan Museum of Art?...
(I think it does!)

It's cool to have my game Da Vinci's Challenge being sold in the Museum Store of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but I also saw that it is being labeled a "Met Bestseller" on their website.

They are also using the photo of it for their "Games & Puzzles" category:


The time I visited the Met Museum to see their exhibit of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks & drawings was one of the pinnacles of my life as an artist and someone who has studied Leonardo all my life.

Da Vinci's Challenge Articles - Update 4/22/06

I added some new
Da Vinci's Challenge articles to the collection here:

The Monkey Buddha: Da Vinci's Challenge Articles

Rolling Stone: Worst President in History?

Yes, Rolling Stone asks the question that is so obvious to anyone who doesn't have their head either buried in a Bible, a pile of money from oil profits, or their own ass:

Is the demented, corrupt, ignorant, and deceiving
demon-spawn of Barbara Bush...

The Worst President in History?

I knew these days were coming, when the malevolence these scumbags have created is coming around full circle. The only thing that could possibly derail the karma train that's headed full-steam toward the Neocon Headquarters on Pennsylvania Ave. is some desperate act of manufactured or artificially escalated crisis.

The fact that so many people have been fooled by this jackass, his "religion," and his special brand of moron-speak is so depressing. Would you give the codes to the world's largest nuclear arsenal to the former town drunk who stopped doing cocaine and claims he found Jesus, but still mangles sentences and acts like an a-hole? That's exactly what enough of this country's brilliant citizens did in 2004 to allow another election to be stolen from under our noses though the magic of e-voting. If the Republicans don't lose control of the Senate in the fall, we are just so screwed. Oh, too late.

So, to answer the question, let me refer you to a T-shirt graphic I created in October of 2004:

Origins of Easter

The History Channel has an informative and interesting section explaining the origins and history of Easter.

History Channel: The History of Easter

"8th-century English scholar St. Bede, believe it probably comes from Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of Spring and fertility, to whom was dedicated a month corresponding to April.

Her festival was celebrated on the day of the Vernal Equinox; traditions associated with the festival survive in the Easter rabbit, a symbol of fertility, and in colored Easter eggs, originally painted with bright colors to represent the sunlight of spring."

Below: Representations of Eostre & Jesus, dieties symbolizing the revival of Spring.

Barnes & Noble: "Da Vinci" Fever!

Although my game, Da Vinci's Challenge, has been selling well at Barnes & Noble they have decided to hype all things 'Da Vinci' this month, in light of the approaching Da Vinci Code movie. On their website they have a link to different Da Vinci items... under "Games & Gifts" they have all 3 of the Da Vinci's Challenge games featured!


I found out they were going to include my board & card games as part of their promotion at Toy Fair in February. My sister & her husband saw the "Da Vinci" display at the B&N store near us, so I went to check it out. Here are some pics I took there...

Toy Fair 2006 - Briarpatch Video

I found a video clip of the Briarpatch booth at the 2006 Toy Fair in NY, with Doug Lory playing Leonardo da Vinci. He is introducing the newest "Da Vinci's Challenge" game - Da Vinci's Mancala. There are also shots of the original Da Vinci's Challenge and the card game version, too. (It's after the Nerdy Wordy presentation...)

Watch "Da Vinci's Mancala" Video

Howard Stern Film Festival

Damn, it's been awhile since I've posted anything!

I have been working the last couple weeks with my brother Justin on our entry for the Howard Stern Film Festival.

It is called "H.A.H.A. - Haters Against Howard Alliance" and we play members of a militant right-wing organization who are out to censor EVERYTHING and, most of all, get Howard Stern off the air. Justin plays "Wes Looves," the President of H.A.H.A. I play a U.S. Senator from an isolated midwestern state named "Sam Brownsack."

Both of my brothers and I are all huge fans of Howard's show, so once Justin & I came up this idea we were determined to finish & enter it. It took up every spare minute of our time for the past few weeks, but we got it done! I did all the graphics and design, and Justin did the film editing. (If anothing else, I got to learn Final Cut Pro!) I think it turned out good, but who knows...

I even started a H.A.H.A blog where people can leave their anti-Howard Stern sentiments!
haha-usa.blogspot.com

Anyway, I'll post some images so you can get a taste of our entry...

Update: Da Vinci's Challenge Articles

I added some recent press that features Da Vinci's Challenge, as well as the new games Da Vinci's Challenge Card Game & Da Vinci's Mancala.

Da Vinci's Challenge Articles

Interactive Touchscreen

Check out this interactive touchscreen technology that is so cool, I can't friggin' stand it...

I'm going crazy waiting for Apple to release a touchscreen tablet PC with this technology!!! It seems that somebody has already figured out how to fabricate an "iTablet." This is the computer I have been dreaming about for years.

Where's My Party?

Seen on www.bartcop.com :
(click to enlarge)

DaVinci's Challenge: Top 10 Fab Products

Edplay is a magazine for specialty toy retailers & museum stores. Debbie Scholl of FUNdamentally Toys! in Houston recommended Da Vinci's Challenge at the #2 spot in this list. Very cool. A big shout-out to Debbie for her excellent taste in games! Click the scans to enlarge...