"1944 was the year in which the plans of Nazi Germany had the greatest impact on the Nussbaum family. Philipp and Rahel Nussbaum were killed at Auschwitz in February. In July, Nussbaum and his wife were found hiding in an attic by German armed forces. They were arrested, sent to the Mechelen transit camp and given the numbers XXVI/284 and XXVI/285. On August 2 they arrived at Auschwitz, and a week later Felix was murdered at the age of 39. On September 3, Nussbaum’s brother was sent to Auschwitz, and on September 6 his sister-in-law and niece were also murdered there. In December, his brother – the last of the family – died from exhaustion in the camp at Stutthof. Within one year, the entire Nussbaum family had been murdered."

Felix Nussbaum, Triumph of Death, 1944

RIP

The Fall, Totally Wired

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Chatelaine (The Tocsin), 1895

Wyndham Lewis, A Reading of Ovid (Tyros), 1920

Smog, Palimpsest

Winter weather is not my soul
But the biding for spring...

Why's everybody looking at me
Like there's something fundamentally wrong
Like I'm a southern bird
That stayed north too long

Winter exposes the nest
Then I'm gone

RIP

“Change is freedom, change is life. It's always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don't make changes, don't risk disapproval, don't upset your syndics. It's always easiest to let yourself be governed. There's a point, around age twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities. Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I'm going to go fulfil my proper function in the social organism. I'm going to go unbuild walls.” ~ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

Todd Hido, Night, Shibuya, Tokyo, 2013

Click on image for large version

Hieronymus Bosch, The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things, c1500

Jan van Eyck, Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych, 1440 – 1441

Detail of the right panel of the diptych.

Born this day.

Tom Waits, What's He Building?

Bridget Riley, Hesitate, 1964

John Thomson, Island Pagoda, 1871

Gil Scott-Heron, A Sign of the Ages

Vincent Gallo, So Sad

Yves Klein, Leap into the Void, 1960. Photographed by Harry Shunk and János (Jean) Kender

Robert Doisneau, La Gargouille de Notre Dame, Paris, 1969

William Hogarth, Gin Lane, 1753

Hiromu Kira, The Thinker, 1930

Ben McLaughlin, Anyone Awake? Series, 2012