Toilet at the Guggenheim

The Art Museum Toilet Museum of Art

Inspired by Marcel Duchamp's dada sculpture "Fountain", the website showcases art that "may not be hanging in the proud walls of a museum gallery". The collection is growing quickly and features toilets from major art museums in nearly a dozen countries. Looks like the founders are angling to generate a book from this, but they are taking submissions.

The Art Museum Toilet Museum of Art

The Flying Dutchman, on rye

Hold the mayo...

Scanwiches debuted last month, "high quality sandwich imagery for your education and delight". Somebody (or somebodies) are blogging scanned cross-sections of their sandwich intake from delis around New York. I'm reminded of the now defunct but equally punny Cat-Scan.com from 1999 which featured cats wedged into scanners. What's next, Scan-dinavians?

Scanwiches

Scan-dinavians

Chad Vader's apprentice Commander Wickstrom

Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager, Season 2

Darth Vader's (implied brother) search for dominion over the Empire Market began in 2006. After eight episodes with one to ten million views per episode, the long awaited Season 2 has begun screening on YouTube. Season 1 is still available along with Chad Vader Training Videos, Blogs, Holiday Messages, Raps, and even a chat with Obama Girl. The Blame Society Productions creation has been translated into at least five languages and it was awarded the George Lucas Selects award as the best Star Wars Fan Film of 2007. LucasArts was so impressed by Chad's Darth Vader impression that he was hired as the new voice actor for Darth Vader in a number of Star Wars games. The Blame Society web site also has Chad Vader DVDs and other merchandise. For UW alumni, yes that is the Willy Street Co-op and watch for Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz in episodes six and eight of Season 1.

Chad Vader Season 2

Chad Vader Season 1

Chad Vader Training Videos

Blame Society Productions

Willy Street Co-op

Marlene Dietrich and her musical saw

Singing Saws

It's time to start making your travel plans for the Musical Saw Festival in New York this July or the International Musical Sawplayers Festival in California this August. Technically classified as a friction idiophone, the sound of a hand saw as a musical instrument has been compared to a women's voice or theremin. In America, the musical saw is also known as a whispering foil or flexatone. The French call it la lame musicale or la lame sonore and the Germans call it die singende Sage. Standard wood-cutting saws are often used by professional sawyers, although the range of an average hand saw is limited to one octave. So beyond your basic Stanley there are several companies that make specially crafted musical saws that are thinner, longer, and with more flexibility. The oldest name in the business is Mussehl & Westphal of Wisconsin, manufacturer of saws made of imported English steel since 1921. They've discontinued their gold-plated saws but you might find one on eBay. Dieter Schmid carries the Swedish Sandvik "Stradivarius" which is factory-tested by a symphony violinist. Sciemusicale in France sells a toothless (edentulous) singing blade with a range of three octaves. Feldmann singing saws are supposedly available from Pappnase & Co. but my German isn't what it used to be. American Blacklock saws are available from Lark in the Morning and MusicalSaw.com which also has tutorials and saw CDs. In addition to Marlene Dietrich, contemporary sawlady Natalia Paruz sells CDs and MP3s.

NYC Musical Saw Festival

International Musical Sawplayers Association Festival

Mussehl & Westphal

Dieter Schmid

Sciemusicale

Pappnase & Co.

Lark in the Morning

MusicalSaw.com

Marlene Dietrich: Aloha Oe

Natalia Paruz