LoveNDino

Oh god...

@WilliamM, what say you... http://imageslogotv-a.akamaihd.net//uri/mgid:file:http:shared:s3.amazonaws.com/articles.newnownext.com-production/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/mgid_ao_image_mtv_526783-1-1521477828-1521477830.jpeg?quality=0.8&format=jpg&width=1800

Saw it again - and the teenage girls still couldn’t get enough...

You may PM me if you have any questions about him.

I thought I was over this man - too many interviews - until this charming bit... Shows how much society has moved towards acceptance of LGBT, no? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBjr7mG8ZTs

Best wishes and more power @Gar1eth.

RIP with apologies to @MartyB and

Playing gay again...not that I am complaining.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, a Nobel Laureate in Medicine, Deserves a Place Next to Michelangelo and Leonardo As a Draftsman By Jerry Saltz Photo: Cajal Institute (CSIC), Madrid Santiago Ramón y Cajal is one of a kind in more ways than one. He is the only Nobel Prize winner in history — in physiology and medicine, 1906 — to also be a truly great artist. Cajal (pronounced Cah-hal), whose work in his field can be compared to Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur in theirs, is also among the best draftsmen of the 20th century. If his penciled linear, fractalizing networks and abstract webs were inserted into any art museum’s early-20th-century permanent collection they would stop people in their tracks and vie with the best the museum has to offer. But this will never happen, as museums are still relentlessly, even recalcitrantly set on telling only one mostly formalist story of one very narrow branch of visual practice over a delineated time frame from a very limited geographical area. This story, according MoMA and almost all art-history books, starts with a sort of inviolate Old Testament: In the beginning there was Cézanne who begat Picasso, Braque, and Matisse who begat Duchamp who together begat Mondrian, Italian Futurism, and Russian Constructivism and Suprematism which begat Dada, Surrealism, and German Expressionism all the way down the line to Pollock and De Kooning who begat all the rest. This mostly male European-American juggernaut is not only the reason that MoMA’s permanent collection at the turn of this century was less than 8 percent women and that walking through museums is now akin to tuning into classic rock with the roles of Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac being played by the aforementioned “masters,” it is the skewed institutional-academic apartheid that has all but suffocated art history by systematically excluding oddballs, aberrations, visionaries, and all those who were not trained as or who didn’t primarily identify as modern artists. To this day, most permanent collections exclude geniuses like Bill Traylor, Adolf Wölfli, Martin Ramírez, Henry Darger, to say nothing of Gee’s Bend quilts, Hilma Af Klint, Emma Kunz, Marsden Hartley, Louis Eilshemius, George Ohr, James Castle, Forrest Bess, Jess, Jay DeFeo, Ray Johnson, Jim Nutt, Asger Jorn, Beauford Delaney, Bob Thompson, Robert Colescott, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Konrad Klapheck, Paula Rego, and H.C. Westermann. This is the apartheid that forbids including anything like nature or scientific illustration, visual work that doesn’t fall in the exact formalist ontological predefined lineage. We may allow Picabia’s diagrams and Twombly’s squiggles to be art but not those of Cajal. This needs to change. No matter. For the first time ever in this country — and likely the last — over 80 of Cajal’s small masterpieces are on view in New York. It is perhaps the only exhibition of 20th-century drawings I can imagine that might be compared in any way to this season’s duel graphic blockbusters of Michelangelo at the Met and the full-on Twombly drawing survey at Gagosian (a review will follow in the near future). As with Michelangelo, Cajal revels in the deep wonders of the human body. But where the Renaissance master goes sensual, macro, and dynamic, the Spaniard zeros in, mapping the miraculously microscopic using new methods of staining slide tissues that isolated single cells under the microscope. In this way, Cajal drew the newly visible synaptic networks of the brain and discovered a breakthrough that proved that neurons are in touch without touching. These results changed neuroscience. His work is still widely used as a teaching device. Photo: Cajal Institute (CSIC), Madrid The drawings can change lives. Looking like complex crisscrossings, fracturing thickets and lines, they can resemble animal architecture, nests, hives, canal or root systems, weather patterns, contour drawings, wind vectors, seed structures, riverbeds, ravines, and galaxies. The closest art equivalent to Cajal’s drawings are Leonardo’s weather and water deluges. Da Vinci saw the world outside. Cajal gives us the forces at work within us. You look at them and think, “That’s me.” This is followed by an otherness that reverberates with incredulity at the weirdness that this lightless world of interconnected colonies of corpuscular blobs and dollops are, at the core, what we are.Cajal renders of this spatial-conceptual infinity with constant loving attention paid to touch, lightness, darkness, clarity, space, surface, scale, visual beauty, and 100 other aesthetic values that allow us to begin to know the world in ways that are as much art as Leonardo’s drawings of dissected human bodies are also functional anatomy drawings. As with Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Twombly, Cajal is inventing a language beyond words, that slows and deepens perception, that multiplies our grasp of the world, explores consciousness and changes it! If this isn’t art, I don’t know what is. Photo: Cajal Institute (CSIC), Madrid We almost didn’t have Cajal the artist at all. His parents forbid him to draw at home, saying it was “a sinful amusement.” So, secretly, he went outside to draw the fields, flowers, and fauna around his home in northwest Spain. Here he crafted his epic powers of observation, ethereal touch, and tonal fields. Cajal has an eye for pattern, structure, texture, complexity, shading, delicate washes, and an unreal sensitivity to the pressure of his pencil. It’s like looking at the ghostly penumbra of a Seurat drawing. The confrontation with his work isn’t like looking at scientific illustrations at all. Nor is it like any of the high-key colored and ultimately inert new HD, multi-neon-colored renditions of electron microscopes. In Cajal we see the presence of splendor, a structural mother tongue that allows information to pass itself along in spectacular arrays that look to us like great abstract art. His titles are fabulous. “A Nerve Stump of the Rabbit Six-Hours After Damage,” “The Hippocampus,” “Muscle Cells From the Leg of a Scarab Beetle,” “Synaptic Contacts in the Cerebellum.” Cajal breaks these drawings down into individual cells, neurons, synaptic contact networks, and gives us fibrous biomorphic forms trellising in organically asymmetrical ways. We see chemical and electronic information crossing networks, routed into and out of burl-like nodes, branching trees, and tributaries connecting contiguous networks. Looking at Cajal’s work you wonder if the structure of the brain might be the only thing as complex as the universe itself. Especially as you ponder how these microscopic environments control everything about life — from tears and saliva, to allowing us to hear and see, to keeping our balance and our heart beating — that together with all these other cells and networks allow us to feel loss, love, pain, write the Iliad, invent the computer, conjure gods. Art lovers will revel in connecting Cajal’s work and scores of other contemporary, modern, and older artists. Cajal’s gorgeous drawings let us see profundity.

@Eric Hassan, challenge accepted... An interesting read, at the very least, this Human Rights Commission's 2017 Municipal Equality Index.

Top 20 LGBT-friendly U.S. cities 1. San Francisco, California This metro area is at the top of the list when it comes to the percentage of residents who identify as LGBT: 6.2%. San Francisco also boasts the highest score on the Human Rights Campaign Municipal Equality Index — 116, which is tied with Philadelphia. The Castro District has long been the center of San Francisco’s vibrant LGBT culture and was one of the first gay neighborhoods in the country. It’s home to LGBT-owned businesses, the historic Castro Theatre, the GLBT History Museum, the Pink Triangle Park, the LGBT Walk of Fame, Harvey Milk Plaza and Twin Peaks Tavern, the famed gay bar. The city hosts several LGBT events throughout the year, including the Castro Street Fair, the Pink Saturday street party, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival and the Dyke March. Find the Best Real Estate Agent 2. Portland, Oregon This vibrant Pacific Northwest metro area counts 5.4% of the population as identifying as LGBT. In addition to its many gay bars and dance parties, the city has one of the country’s longest running drag clubs: Darcelle XV and Company. Portland Pride Festival is held at the city’s Waterfront Park each June and includes a parade of over 150 contingents and floats. LGBT institutions in the city include the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus; Q Center, a nonprofit that supports and celebrates diversity; and Equity Foundation, which grants funds to programs that push equality for the LGBT community. Each year, the city hosts the Portland Queer Film Festival as well as Peacock in the Park, a LGBT variety show. 3. Austin, Texas Despite its location in a state that bans same-sex marriage, Austin made our list of standouts. At least 5.3% of Austin’s metro population identifies as LGBT. The city has LGBT groups for most everyone, from teens to members of the police department. Each year, the city is host to the Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival along with a week of events for Austin Pride. Since Austin is such an active city, it’s no surprise there are many LGBT sports and recreation leagues. The Austin Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce showcases Central Texas’ LGBT businesses and organizations. 4. Providence, Rhode Island In the Providence metro area, 4.4% of the population identifies as LGBT. When it comes to health care equality, the Human Rights Campaign recognized 2.6 hospitals for every 10,000 LGBT residents in the city, the second-highest score on the list. The area also has Pride RI, Youth Pride Inc., ACLU of Rhode Island and other civil rights organizations promoting equal rights and visibility for the local LGBT community. In June, Providence hosts its annual RI PrideFest, which includes the Illuminated Night Parade. The Providence Warwick Convention and Visitors Bureau even has its own “Glambassador,” Haley Star, a YouTube drag queen. 5. Baltimore, Maryland The Baltimore metro area took the top spot in health care equality. The Human Rights Campaign, which evaluates how equitable and inclusive facilities’ practices are, recognized 3.3 hospitals as meeting their standard for every 10,000 LGBT residents. Baltimore is home to the GLBT Community Center of Baltimore & Central Maryland, which has served the LGBT community in the state for 35 years. There’s also the Baltimore Pride parade, block party, high-heel race and festival that welcomes 30,000 visitors annually. In June, the city hosts the B’more Q-Fest film festival to kick off Pride month. The most LGBT-friendly neighborhoods are Mount Vernon and Hampden, which hosts its own Pride weekend celebration “HonFest.” Hampden is a favorite of filmmaker and gay icon John Waters. 6. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania In the Philadelphia metro area, nearly 4% of the population identifies as LGBT. The FBI didn’t receive any reports of hate crimes related to gender identity or sexual orientation in the city for 2013. Philadelphia also tied for the highest score in the Human Rights Campaign Municipal Equality Index. In Philadelphia, the heart of LGBT nightlife is centered in what is nicknamed “The Gayborhood.” This year, Philadelphia is marking the 50th anniversary of the LGBT civil rights movement with a four-day celebration beginning July 2. The city is home to several civil rights, advocacy and LGBT youth organizations including the Bread & Roses Community Fund, the Spruce Foundation and the Gay and Lesbian Latino AIDS Education Initiative. 7. Seattle, Washington About 4.8% of all residents in the Seattle metro area identify as LGBT. The city received one of the highest Human Rights Index scores of all of our cities at 113. Plus, the Human Rights Campaign recognized nine of Seattle’s hospitals and medical centers as leaders in health care equality. Seattle is home to PrideFest, the largest free Pride festival in the country, which attracts over 130,000 attendees annually. The city boasts several LGBT health care, mental health, anti-discrimination, labor and civil rights organizations. The Seattle LGBT Commission advises the city about community issues and policies. 8. Salt Lake City, Utah Utah is known as a conservative state with deep Mormon roots, but Salt Lake City has often been a bastion of liberalism and progressiveness. The city hosts an annual Pride parade and festival, and it is home to the Utah Pride Center. The city approved an ordinance in 2009 to protect LGBT residents from housing and employment discrimination. Earlier this year, the state legislature passed a similar bill called the “Utah compromise.” Both the Salt Lake City ordinance and the state legislation were endorsed by the most powerful religious presence in the state: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the Salt Lake City metro area, about 9,000 residents identify as LGBT out of a population of just over 191,000. 9. Los Angeles, California The City of Angels boasts the country’s largest LGBT recreational sports league: Varsity Gay League. The Southern California city is also the central hotspot for Equality California, the state’s premier LGBT civil rights organization. In the Los Angeles metro area, the LGBT population is 4.6% of residents. In Los Angeles, you’ll find the LA Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, several civil rights organizations as well as youth, family and elderly LGBT support services. 10. Orlando, Florida In the Orlando metro area, over 4% of the population is LGBT. The Florida city is home to LGBT professional groups, youth programs and a chamber of commerce — the Metropolitan Business Association Orlando — which hosts networking events along with its Pride in Business Awards event annually. Orlando is also the primary destination because of The Center, the LGBT Community Center of Central Florida, which conducts some of the largest HIV testing in the state. Finally, Orlando wouldn’t be the vibrant city it is without its thriving LGBT nightlife scene.

https://wallethub.com/edu/happiest-places-to-live/32619/

JK Rowling has engendered so much goodwill with me that I'm willing to forgive her anything

On Netflix....the baking show competition you didn't know you needed... And Nicole Byer is a gem!

I want my muscles worshipped, goddamnit!