I watched COUNTDOWN with Keith Olbermann the last hour, with guest John L. Wathen, the Alabama conservationist and activist, the "Hurricane Creekkeeper" who accompanied a pilot on a flight over the oil spill affected areas of the Gulf of Mexico. What he saw was a marine version of Dante's Inferno, with dead and dying dolphins, perhaps 100 or more, whales covered with tar balls, fires on the water surface, a toxic air for hundreds of square miles.
It has become obvious that the level of this disaster is larger than anything that BP has fessed up to, or what the government has prepared the American people for.
Mr. Wathen asks the question, "Will the Gulf ever be the same again?"
Sadly, the situation seems to have gone from the dire to the impossible.
Here's more from his interview with Keith Olbermann.
Arizona Republican Congressional candidate Pamela Gorman is a Second Amendment lovin' straight shooter who wants to take over for retiring John Shadegg in that state's Third Congressional District. While we have yet to know what fate has in store for her after the smoke clears in November, we do know this....if this politics thing doesn't work out, Pam has a shot for a co-starring role in any future remakes of Bonnie and Clyde.
Check out this campaign ad.....
I wonder what Jesus would say about machine guns and the soccer Moms who love them?
While I was away on vacation I didn't get a chance to see the finales of two series I've been following regularly. HBO's TREME concluded its first season with some ends, some beginnings, and left the audience wanting just a bit more, whetting your appetite for Season Two.This story of life in New Orleans in the months after Katrina was as good as it gets, allowing the audience to figure out plots and relationships without having to be spoon fed every detail. And SHOWTIME'S royal soap opera THE TUDORS drew to a close in its fourth season, with curtain calls from some players from previous years. For anyone who wanted a continuation of the series to chronicle the lives of Henry VIII's children, this would prove to be an impossible task due to a decision regarding characters in Season One....but I'll talk about that later.
TREME's finale answered the big question of why John Goodman was never given star billing in the opening credits. Goodman was the closest thing the show had to a household name after his years on Roseanne, and his Creighton Bernette character was one of the pivotal roles on the show. But as we feared in the penultimate Episode 9, Creighton did indeed commit suicide, jumping into the muddy Mississippi from the ferry. And honestly, I don't think I've been so angry with a fictional character in years....he had a teenage daughter who adored him, and a loving wife Toni (Melissa Leo). His despair at what had happened to New Orleans on so many levels was just under the surface, yet his suicide came as a shock because viewers never really saw the level of his hidden pain. But it seemed like such a wasteful cop out; how could he leave the woman who loved him a widow, and his daughter fatherless? It seemed so selfish on his part. Toni felt a sense of anger at Creighton's exit, and so did the audience.
Janette (Kim Dickens) decided to exit New Orleans and visit her folks before going on to New York, not before a somewhat feeble attempt by on and off boyfriend Davis (Steve Zahn) to get her to stay. Annie (Lucia Micarelli) appears to be finished with Sonny ( Michiel Huisman) after finding her abusive and drug addicted ex in her bed with some inked up babe. By the end of the show Annie was sitting on Davis' steps- he missed Janette for about 30 seconds- with Annie needing a place to stay. Davis and Annie seemed to be a better match than Davis and the driven, hard working Janette. Annie, the beautiful and incredibly talented violinist busking the streets and venues of New Orleans was probably the one Davis need all along, but had yet to know it.
I really didn't know very much about Lucia Micarelli until fairly recently, and wondered if she was an actress who's playing was dubbed in. I guess I must have been living in a cave or something- Ms Micarelli is a onetime prodigy and graduate of the Julliard School . Though classically trained, she branched out into jazz, rock, and experimental genres while she was still very young.
She's been recording for years, and has toured with The Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Josh Groban, and Chris Botti, as well as recording her own releases.
And even some classic rock....she's performed with the legendary Jethro Tull. Below, a video from a performance with Ian Anderson and company.
The last 10 minutes of so of the TREME finale were brilliant. LaDonna (Khandi Alexander) and her family were at the funeral of her brother Daymo. During the service LaDonna flashes back to the day before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. We see Antoine (Wendell Pierce) and his family evacuating New Orleans, LaDonna waiting in a gasline, Albert Lambreaux (Clark Peters boarding up windows), Sonny and Annie walking down a deserted New Orleans street, Davis getting ready to sit it out, and the Bernette family huddled around the TV watching THE WEATHER CHANNEL, with Creighton reassuring Sophia and Toni that Katrina will veer away and they'll be OK- but the expression on his face betrays him. And we see Daymo's arrest on the bench warrant, and his imprisonment, where he'll meet his death.
At the end of the service the brass band and the line marches away, New Orleans style. They sway, they dance, and eventually LaDonna joins in. Death comes, life goes on....and mourning morphs into celebration.
And New Orleans goes on.....and will again, even after this latest disaster, man made this time.
The Tudors ended with Henry's (Jonathan Rhys Myers) physical decline accelerating, preceded by the death of longtime friend Charles Brandon (Henry Cavill). Bishop Gardner's plot to have Queen Katherine Parr (Jolie Richardson) arrested as a heretic backfires, and Henry banished Gardner from court. Forseeing his own death, Henry sends Katherine and the Princesses Mary (Sarah Bolger) and Elizabeth (Laoise Murray) to Greenwich. And in his aged delusions Henry has visions of the three mothers of his three legitimate children (all of whom became monarchs), Catherine of Aragon (Maria Doyle Kennedy), Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer), and Jane Seymour (Annabelle Wallis).
Henry has Holbein paint a final portrait of him, but is displeased and has another done in its place. We leave the series at the point in which Henry views the portrait- Henry dies off screen. It was a choice of chief writer Michael Hirst to end the series in this way- Henry, in Hirst's view, was such a tyrant we couldn't even find sympathy for him in his suffering and death. A tyrant indeed, but a fascinating one.
And as for ending the series and not continuing with the stories of Henry's three heirs? Well, Elizabeth's story has been told often, and a decision Hirst made in Season One would have made continuing the story difficult. Without going into a long lesson in British history, here's what happened. Henry VIII had two sisters, Margaret and Mary. In order to avoid confusion with Henry's daughter Mary, Hirst combined the characters into one, called Margaret. In the series Margaret married a fictional Portuguese king, and later married Charles Brandon and died childless.
The real Margaret married the King of Scotland and was the grandmother of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary Tudor, Henry's sister, did marry Charles Brandon and had a daughter Frances before dying at age 37. Frances was the maternal grandmother of Lady Jane Grey. Both Lady Jane Grey and Mary Queen of Scots had claims to the English throne, being great-granddaughters of Henry VII and grand nieces of Henry VIII. When Hirst combined the characters of Mary and Margaret into one, this effectively killed any chance to continue the series past Henry's reign....there'd be too many holes to try to fill, as in trying to explain the paternity of these claimants when none had been established in previous episodes.
Still, The Tudors finale was a satisfying end to an intriguing bit of historical drama, with drama being the operative word. Sometimes it's best not to let facts get in the way of good storytelling.
Yesterday I reported here on Class 99 that Advocate General Yve Bot had delivered his opinion in Case C-168/09Flos SpA v Semeraro Casa e Famiglia SpA -- which was published on the Curia website in ten official languages of the European Union but not in English. It is now my pleasure to thank one of our readers, Alberto Bellan (a trainee with Hogan Lovells Studio Legale, Milan), for the following explanation of the background:
"Factual background
The Italian case on which the Advocate General gave its opinion concerned the "Arco lamp", a master piece of post-war Italian design created by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni in 1962. The dispute originally involved Flos S.p.A. and Semeraro Casa & Famiglia S.p.A.. Flos is one of the most important global design companies, which had made and sold Arco lamps since the late Seventies under an agreement with Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni's heirs. Semeraro is a furniture producer and retailer which is widely known in Italy. According to the Court of Milan, Semeraro imported from China and distributed in Italy a lamp called "Fluida", which was very similar to Castiglionis' Arco.
Given that Arco has never been protected through any design right, in 2006 Flos started an interim proceeding before the Court of Milan on the basis of its copyright in the Arco, seeking a preliminary injunction and seizure against Semeraro. In December 2006 the Court of Milan made a preliminary declaration to the effect that copyright in the Arco had been infringed, ordering Semeraro to stop importing and selling Fluida in Italy. In the same year Flos also sued Semeraro in proceedings on the merits, seeking confirmation of the preliminary measures obtained during the interim proceedings. In April 2009 the Court was finally ready to hear the final decision on the issue.
Legal background
During the less than three year long proceedings on the merits, a controversial issue arose, and this is the subject on which the Advocate General has advised the ECJ. This issue concerns article 239 of the Italian Industrial Property Code, which strangely enough limits the copyright protection for designs in Italy, in apparent breach of the relevant European provisions.
Article 239 was originally aimed to balance the obligations set forth by Directive 98/71 with the Italian economic context before 1998. Indeed, while the Directive provides that designs are to be eligible for copyright protection, until then copyright protection for designs had been denied in Italy on the basis that what is "industrial" (like designs) is not capable of being considered "art" and cannot be protected under copyright law. Needless to say, the obligation for Italy to implement the European directive conflicted with a wide part of the national economy which, until then, was legally copying historical industrial designs (such as Arco) on the assumption that they were not protected (or were no longer protected) by any IP right.
The new-born copyright in some historical Italian designs makes article 239 a battlefield for lobbying carried out by companies owning (or not owning) the copyright rights in the Italian historical design works. The very proof of the economic relevance of such provision is that the Italian Parliament has amended article 239 three times in the past 10 years.
The first version (2001-2005) provided that copyright protection in designs did not apply for those who, before 2001, were producing or selling industrial designs works that belong to the public domain; this moratorium should have lasted for 10 years. In 2005 the European Commission brought an infraction procedure against such moratorium period (infraction procedure n. 4088/2005), in that it was considered inconsistent with Directive 98/71.
According to (or in spite of) the infraction procedure, in 2007 the Italian Government amended article 239. The second version (2007-2009) provided that the copyright protection should not apply to any design which fell into public domain before 2001, making no distinction between those who produced or sold such designs before that date and those who did not. The 10-year moratorium period disappeared, therefore excluding the copyright protection for designs which fell into public domain before 2001 tout court.
The opinion given by the Advocate general relates to this second version. In this regard, the Advocate General maintained that a national rule which wholly excludes copyright protection for a wide group of designs is not allowed under European law, while a moratorium period of five years could at least be allowed and sufficient for those who produced and sold formerly copy-free designs to change their business.
In the meantime, article 239 has been amended once again. Now it states that copyright protection does not apply to the designs fallen in public domain before 2001, but this limitation concerns only those who produced and sold them before that date. We should email the ECJ, asking it take into account also of that last amendment, even if it is not explicitly part of the Court of Milan's reference".
Thanks, Albert! For the record, according to Google Translate (somewhat edited), the Advocate General has advised the Court as follows:
"1) Article 17 of Directive 98/71 shall be interpreted as precluding the legislation of a Member State which provides that the drawings and models which have fallen into the public domain before the entry into force of national provisions transposing this Directive do not enjoy protection by copyright.
2) Article 17 of Directive 98/71 does not preclude the establishment of a reasonable transition period during which people who could legitimately produce and market a product by imitating the shapes of a model which has fallen into the public domain before the entry into force of national provisions transposing this Directive may continue to market this product".
Actually, Kerry was waiting on the platform for the uptown A Train when I walked by at 34th Street.
How could I not stop and ask her about this tattoo:
This absolutely stunning depiction of the Hindu deity Ganesh took between eight and nine hours to complete.
Guy Ursitti at Thicker Than Water is the tattooist responsible for this work of art, the newest (at the time I met her) of Kerry's approximately fifty tattoos.
The detail in the tattoo is absolutely incredible.
Work from Thicker Than Water has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.
Thanks to Kerry for sharing this amazing tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!
It's good to be back from vacation, somewhat refreshed but alarmed by just how hot its been here in New Jersey, and of the lack of rainfall locally....its in the mid 90's as I type this, with a brown lawn and plants and shrubs that were almost the victims of this mini-drought.
I'll get back into more political stuff shortly.....but I find I'll need to ease back into it, dipping my toes into the cold waters gently. For the past two weeks I kept informed by watching the news, but it was a minimum and I deliberately put current events on a back burner. It was time to clean out the cobwebs and look at things from a different angle. And to deal with some personal issues as well.
On the road last week I had a "eureka moment". As many readers of this blog know I'm the primary caregiver to both of my parents, ages 83 and 81. Both have health issues, and most apparent is their lack of mobility. My Mom needs a walker to get around, and I've finally convinced Dad to start using a cane- his balance isn't good, and he has to stop depending on having a wall or furniture to guide and support himself. So far, so good on that.
Like most people I passed handicapped parking places for years, and had seen the special toilets in public rest rooms, and the wheelchair ramps in public accommodations. And like most people I thought nothing of them- they were always for someone else, not for me or mine.
But today those wheelchair ramps and special restroom facilities are for my parents; the situation has come home to roost, and has been part of our lives for years now. But the eureka moment I was referring to has less to do with my folks and more to do with me, and anyone who's reading this, whether you be a Baby Boomer, a Gen X'er, or whatever. And its this simple truth.
You may be in good health now, and in physical shape, and may even be a world class athlete. But if you live long enough the odds are you too will join the ranks of the disabled.
Its such a simple paradox, this trade off. The good will die young, and rest of us will become old geezers with titanium knees and a hefty supply of overpriced statins. If you live a long life you will probably have to sacrifice your mobility, and be dependent on others to help you along until the end of your days. And it is a tough go for those with disabilities, particularly for those of us who thrive on independence and being able to do things when we want to do them.
I look at those who believe that Medicare should be abolished with astonishment, and to those who protest "Obamacare" as if somehow they hold a empirical key to immortality....in their minds, that is. The bottomline is 20, 30, or 40 years from now you, dear readers, could be the ones occupying the handicapped space in front of the A&P. As a person who's become a caregiver in my middle years, trust me....you'll need all the help you can get.
Last Thursday at the PERKINS restaurant in DuBois, PA the hostess performed a random act of kindness that needed mention. I was driving, and got into the handicapped parking space, and proceeded to "unload" Mom and Dad from the car. Dad's driving is about as good as his walking, so he was relegated to the back seat, my Mom in the passenger's seat in the front. I undid her walker from my bike rack- that's right, her walker was bungied to my mountain bike- while my Dad started to unfold his way out of the back seat. Before he could do any damage to himself, I stopped what I was doing and made sure he had a cane in his hand, then went back to setting up the walker for my Mom, while keeping an eye on my Dad.
At that point the hostess from the restaurant came out and held the door open and kept an eye on my father while I got my mother moving towards the restaurant. She saw I need some help, and she just gave it. It was just a small gesture on her part, taking a minute to give a hand to a total stranger....but it meant a lot to me. We need just a bit more of that in our lives. We'd all be the better for it.
I never caught the name of that young lady in Central Pennsylvania.....but I just wanted to say thanks just the same.
I ran into Sean at the Foodtown in my neighborhood and when I stopped to talk to him about his tattoos (he has nine), I ended up with photos of several pieces, all of which reside on his left arm.
Sean explained that this tattoo is for his mother, as this tattoo is based on her "favorite lighthouse," the Fastnet Lighthouse on the most southerly point on the coast of Ireland.
Then there is this owl tattoo:
This was done for no other reason that Sean has always liked owls. If you love owl tattoos, be sure to head over to this site.
Then there is the elephant tattoo:
He has this piece because "elephants never forget".
I know we posted a sugar skull yesterday, but here's another one:
This was all Eli's design. Sean gave him free reign and likes the fact that it is unusual in that there are not a lot of colors in it, like one sees in most sugar skull tattoos. For all that have appeared on Tattoosday previously, check this link.
There is also the traditional female figure, not modeled after anyone in particular, just done in a traditional style:
And Sean's last tattoo is this bat:
He told Eli that he "wanted something spooky" that included the moon. Quinters free-handed this piece, starting with a white Sharpie and then finished with a darker Sharpie before finishing the tattoo.
What's neat about all of Sean's tattoos is that they flow nicely together, as readers can see elements of many of the tattoos on the borders of the photos of specific designs.
Thanks to Sean for sharing these amazing tattoos by Eli Quinters with us here on Tattoosday!
The Opinion of Advocate General Yve Bot in Case C-168/09Flos SpA v Semeraro Casa e Famiglia SpA was published on the Curia website on Friday, in ten official languages of the European Union -- but not in English. The questions referred by the Tribunale di Milano for a preliminary ruling were as follows:
"Must Articles 17 and 19 of Directive 98/71/EC [on the legal protection of designs] be interpreted as meaning that, in implementing a national law of a Member State which has introduced copyright protection for designs into its legal order in accordance with that Directive, the discretion accorded to such a Member State to establish independently the extent to which, and the conditions under which, such protection is conferred may include discretion to preclude such protection in the case of designs which - albeit meeting the requirements for protection laid down in copyright law - fell to be regarded as having entered into the public domain before the date on which the statutory provisions introducing copyright protection for designs into the domestic legal order entered into force, in so far as they had never been registered as designs or in so far as the relevant registration had already expired by that date?
If the answer to the first question is in the negative, must Articles 17 and 19 of Directive 98/71/EC be interpreted as meaning that, in implementing a national law of a Member State which has introduced copyright protection for designs into its legal order in accordance with that Directive, the discretion accorded to such a Member State to establish independently the extent to which, and the conditions under which, such protection is conferred may include discretion to preclude such protection in the case of designs which - albeit meeting the requirements for protection laid down in copyright law - fell to be regarded as having entered into the public domain before the date on which the statutory provisions introducing copyright protection for designs into the domestic legal order entered into force and where a third party - without authorisation from the holder of the copyright on such designs - has already produced and marketed products based on such designs in that State?
If the answers to the first and second questions are in the negative, must Articles 17 and 19 of Directive 98/71/EC be interpreted as meaning that, in implementing a national law of a Member State which has introduced copyright protection for designs into its legal order in accordance with that Directive, the discretion accorded to such a Member State to establish independently the extent to which, and the conditions under which, such protection is conferred may include discretion to preclude such protection in the case of designs which - albeit meeting the requirements for protection laid down in copyright law - fell to be regarded as having entered into the public domain before the date on which the statutory provisions introducing copyright protection for designs into the domestic legal order entered into force and where a third party - without authorisation from the holder of the copyright on such designs - has already produced and marketed products based on such designs in that State, where protection is precluded for a substantial period (a period of 10 years)?".
According to the Advocate General, the court is advised to rule as follows (in French --but you can read it in Latvian too ...):
Tattoos on the head are in style now more than ever and this is partly due to social acceptance and this is what has made tattoos more common.
Many people tend to be a little more creative than others and choose to have a non conventional design which tends to be super fun while it simultaneously reveals the artistic quality of its creator.
I leave for a little more than a week's vacation, and here's what happened!
One of these two scenarios is ABSOLUTELY true.
I was sailing off the coast of Madagascar in route to the World Cup in South Africa when I was shipwrecked by a waterspout. I swam to shore on a remote island where I was captured by Somali pirates and held for ransom (at least a couple of hundred bucks- times are tough for these guys). I was rescued by a beautiful CIA operative who gave me a weapon and we shot our way out of the pirate stronghold, while I grabbed a briefcase full of money on the way out (at least a zillion dollars was inside...yeah, that's the ticket). Nadia (that's her name) decided to quit her job; she couldn't live without me.....we're getting married this afternoon at 6:30 PM EDT; it has to be a quickie ceremony- I'm old, set in my ways and I refuse to miss 60 MINUTES.
OR
I visited my brother and my sister in law in a town between Cleveland and Akron, with guest appearances of my nephew (and his vanishing act), and my niece and her husband of almost two years. My parents came along for the trip as well. Oh yeah...I did have recreation time for me in a nearby National Park (free of any oil spills.
I just noticed that we're getting about 300 new readers a day here in my absence without me writing one darn thing. So much for racking my brain for new material.
Heck....I think I'll take the rest of the summer off!
Since I seem to capture more sugar skulls than any other design, why not reserve a day just for these decorative symbols which, at their roots, have deep religious significance?
Two weeks ago, I met Ryan, who has ten tattoos.
Of that lot, he offered up this design on his left bicep, which Charlie Foos created for him at FlyRite Studios in Brooklyn.
Aside from the traditional nature of the sugar skull tattoo, Ryan also loves Mexico and this design recalls that beautiful and diverse culture south of the border.
Thanks to Ryan for sharing this decorative tattoo with us on Tattoosday!
Work from Charlie Foos has appeared previously on Tattoosday here. Tattoosday posts tagged FlyRite Studios are here. Tattoosday posts tagged Reade Street Tattoo Parlour are here.
There's nothing better than having a tattoo everyone admires, most tattooed people know that's a great feeling. Some people choose having a tattoo just to have one or two but others take it more seriously and know the importance of having a tattoo that actually make sense. It is important to make sure you can actually afford what you have in mind (afford as in going to a reputable artist) and not to try doing it for a couple of bucks cause it will not come out as expected.
Lots of people enjoy having an elaborated work of art (like the ones shown in this posting) because they know how important it is to have a work of art in their body that actually people can enjoy looking at it and also can be accepted and admired by those who truly know body art.
Many people choose to have an elaborated work of art like those who get robotic parts because they like how amazing it looks, and other simple enjoy perfection instead of a tattoo that looks simple. A tattoo artist with skills developed by experience and knowledge can achieve what it takes to create such amazing work.
I met Katie on 34th Street one afternoon when I stopped to ask her about her foot tattoo:
This tribute piece on her left foot is for her cousin, whose initials are JMS. The letters sit astride the ribbon designating awareness for the disease Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The two feet represent the fact that she helps raise awareness in the fight against MS by participating in an MS Walk each year.
Katie also shared with me these wings on the back of her neck:
The initials "MCF" refer to her brother Mark, who was killed with a friend a few years back when a train struck them. This memorial piece ensures that her brother is always with her.
Katie's tattoos were inked by Spencer at Fat Kat Tattoos in Keyport, New Jersey. Work from Fat Kat has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.
Thanks to Katie for sharing two of her four tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!
The Community design focus in the most recent issue of OHIM's Alicante Newsfeatures Romania. According to the feature:
"With just 281 registrations since 2003, the registered Community design has still to be widely adopted by Romanian undertakings. Last year there were just 81 RCD filings with classes 19, 9 and 2 in highest demand.
Once again, nearly all Romanian filers prefer the online route, with over 98% now using e-filing and the remaining applications coming by mail".
Leyna thought the anchor was cool, and she feels it is a good representation of herself in her 20's.
The tattoo was inked by Derik Snell at Hand of Glory Tattoo in Brooklyn. He liked the design because he had never tattooed a hot air balloon before. Work from Hand of Glory has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.
Another one of Leyna's tattoos caught my eyes, as well:
This two-word snippet, "ecstatic and insatiate" is an excerpt from Allen Ginsberg'sHowl. I'd speak more about it, but it appeared first on the most awesome blog, Contrariwise. I'd direct you over here to read what Leyna had to say about this tattoo, and encourage you to linger about and check out the seemingly endless array of literary ink.
Thanks again to Leyna for sharing her tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!
Earlier this month, I posted about Chris's tattoos (here) and how they represented his battle with addiction.
This past weekend, Chris sent me a follow-up, showing me a new tattoo he had just had inked. It's certainly worth sharing here, as it is not only impressive work, but it continues addressing his struggle with addiction.
Check it out:
Chris explains:
"Just yesterday [June 18, 2010] Ii had an absolutely incredible piece done on my left shoulder. I work at The Painted Bird Tattoo and the newly-opened Boston Tattoo Company (same owners) ... To help celebrate the grand opening weekend of the Boston Tattoo Company, we were fortunate enough to bring in a very talented artist (not to mention one of the nicest most genuine people I've ever met), named Christian Perez. I was able to get an appointment with him and he channeled exactly what I wanted into my skin.
I talked to him prior to his visit and told him that it seemed like every tattoo I thought about getting lately was all dark imagery which I attribute to the disease of addiction which still lives inside me. I wanted to bring all the evil, sickness, and wickedness of my past life to the surface, give it form so I can "see" my demon, if you will. This was the result ... you should think about making trip to Boston sometime. Lots of great artists and great work around here. Also, as of July, Christian will be tattooing out of Hope Gallery in New Haven, CT."
Thanks to Chris for following up with us and sending in this photo of his new tattoo. Former contributors are always welcome to submit their new work for us all to see and enjoy here on Tattoosday.
Continuing the theme of changes in the body and alternatives to tattoos this posting show three examples of different things that people choose as recreation, art and spiritual uplift as in the case of the suspension using hooks (like fish hooks) as shown the next photo.
Many people decide to take a course which they feel that a piercing is not enough and decided to create something unconventional and not everyone dares to do. The example is in the following picture which shows a "corset" done with multiple piercings in the back of the girl shown in the picture.
There are people who want to go a little further in terms of creativity referred to as is the case of the person who decides to inject ink (not any kind of ink) in the white of the eye which also changes the color to be permanent (as I have understood). Look at the picture below to be able to see how it was done.
Everyone has their tastes and way of expressing. To each its own.
ACID (Anti Copying in Design), as most Class 99 readers know, is a UK-based membership organisation which is committed to raising awareness and encouraging respect for IP within individual and corporate responsibility. A circular this week announces that ACID has now started to tweet. If you feel that you're not getting your ACID information fast enough, you can now do so on Twitter by clicking here.
ACID is not the first design-related body to use Twitter for the dissemination of information. The Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM, or rather, OAMI), which administers the Community registered design system, can be found on OAMITWEETS here, though don't be surprised if most tweets relate to Community trade marks. In October, Class 99 reported that OHIM had just 99 followers; that figure has since risen to 440. If you want to know who OHIM follows, click here to find out.
He estimated that the work so far has been completed in about three two-hour sessions.
Work from Joe and other artists at Brooklyn Ink has previously appeared quite frequently on Tattoosday (all posts tagged as such here).
Anthony later emailed me photos of these shots as well:
The praying hands holding the rosary, I recall him telling me, were tattooed at Distinction Ink in Brooklyn. The tattoo reads "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned".
He did not tell me where he had this tribal sun done, but it's definitely an attention-grabbing piece and certainly worth a mention.
Thanks to Anthony for sharing his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!
Even 33 years after the publication of its report, the UK's Whitford Committee on the Law of Copyright and Designs remains a sensitive issue. A request for information under the Freedom of Information Act sought disclosure of evidence presented to the Committee, which reported in 1977, three years after it began its quest for a new and useful set of copyright and design laws. According to the IPO website:
"Incomplete records still held and released, with some redaction [= censorship] of personal names. This information consists of a large volume of paper records, available on request".
Class 99 wonders what was so sensitive that it could not be made public. Do any readers know?
Previously I discussed the issue of body modification as an option that other people choose to have apart of tattoos. Many people find it difficult to understand why some people decide to adopt this lifestyle which is considered body art. Many people have a vision without boundaries, and others simply live the conventional and limited (or what they call "socially acceptable") lifestyle to just see things in black and white.
The photo above and one below are two examples of scarificacion, which creates a design on the skin surface made using a sharp instrument in order to create a scar once it heals, leaving the shape of the chosen design.
Some people however prefer an implant under the skin which is acquired by making a small cut to so we can implement the necessary mold.
There are many other ideas that so many people take in order to achieve what is necessary as the example of the pictures below, in which people alter their body so creatively to express themselves.
On a day that found me unsuccessful with inkspotting the 5th Avenue Festival in Bay Ridge, Fate walked me past Jenn, sitting outside a laundromat a block away from my home.
She happily shared the work on her upper left arm:
These stunning colors encircled her biceps.
She said this piece, inked by Jared Stomber at Kustom Kulture Ink in Baldwin, New York, is an "ode to 1970's fashion". This is one area of interest to her that moves her artistically and she wanted to express it through body art.
. I'd speak more about it, but it appeared first on the most awesome blog, 
