A faux cardinal tried to bluff his way into the closed-door Vatican meeting of the world’s cardinals, making it past the first phalanx of Swiss guards before someone noticed his outfit was a little bit off. Not only was his cassock too short, but he’d tied a purple scarf around his waist, and was wearing a fedora.

Sadly, “Bishop Ralph Napierski,” wasn’t an intrepid reporter and a merry prankster but rather claims to be

“Basilius” of the Italian Orthodox Church…a founder of the Corpus Dei order — another imaginary group — and he complained that Catholic bishops had “made a mistake by moving priests” who were accused of sexual abuse from parish to parish…“a slave and apostle like St. Paul” and came from “a tribe of the Roman Catholic Church” that is fighting “heresy and false movements” inside the church.

The cardinals are staying together in a building called the Marta complex, built in the 1990s to accommodate the Princes of the Church who complained after the conclave of 1975 that there was only one bathroom for every ten men. Now each single room has its own bathroom, but no TV or radio (or presumably Internet access), but there is a dining room and cafe.

Meanwhile I’ve been absorbed by the Jodi Arias trial: Sex, stalking, obsession, murder, and Mormons.  It’s a lurid and creepy case, and an unusual trial, because under Arizona law the jury can submit questions to the defendant who must answer them. That process begins later this week.

This image has been repeatedly removed from Facebook user profiles because it’s been reported as pornography/nudity. Fail and fie on Facebook, or rather on the blue-stocking, onion-eyed morans who keep reporting it and the overworked outsourced workers who have no clue.

Facebook has a strict policy against the sharing of pornographic content and any explicitly sexual content where a minor is involved. We also impose limitations on the display of nudity. We aspire to respect people’s right to share content of personal importance, whether those are photos of a sculpture like Michelangelo’s David or family photos of a child breastfeeding.

How is an image of double mastectomy survivor with a full-breast plate tattoo any more “pornographic” than a family photo of breast feeding?  And really, who cares? Can’t FB maybe focus on the slew of obvious porn (full closeup insertion) profiles that keep showing up in our  “people you might know” columns (and maybe figure out who is trafficking those women)? Dog-fighting and neo-Nazi hate pages?

It takes a lot of effort to push change through on Facebook, and so far over 45,000 people have liked/and or shared this photo, a celebration of strength and beauty, originally published in Margaret Mifflin’s book  Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoos. The photo was reposted  with full credit in tattoo forums on Facebook where it spread virally and eventually upset some people who maybe should just re-jigger their settings or unfriend whoever sent it,  rather than getting all sandy-pantsed over it.  Or maybe they just are offended by the cute squirrel.

My neighborhood just got an art upgrade from Shepard Fairey. Our local independent hardware and art supply store Baller Hardware, which is a perfect name for a store in Silver Lake, had a huge boring beige wall, so Fairey, who is friends with the owner and shops at Baller, spent the last two days with a two (cute) dude crew putting up a mural. Since it’s just down the road from me, I went back a few times and documented the process.

I’d never seen how a big mural is done–and there are different methods, of course. For this, Fairey used a series of stencils which were spray glued to the wall (which has a bumpy, lumpy and chunky surface), then sliced out and sprayed over. The technique is a version of one used in the Renaissance for murals, minus the spray paint.  Fairey does use a brush at times, but he sprays paint onto a piece of cardboard and uses that as his pallete. He also uses cardboard stencils for lettering then touches up the gaps by blocking off areas with painters tape.

Fairey and his crew were generous with their space, allowing me to get close-up for shots, and Fairey answered a few questions about public art versus unauthorized street art. He said that illicit street art can and has opened doors for artists, but not all street art is good art–and that the problem with “public art” is that it can get mired down in bureaucracy. (So can private art, as I reported a while ago).

The mural’s slogan “Make Art Not War” prompted one passer by to remark to me

It should say “Fund Art, Not War”

but given the way the government is going, I’ll be happy if The Powers That Be just stop warring and leave us to modge-podge, needlepoint, paint, and sculpt in peace.

You can see even more photos at CARTWHEELart.com.

Now that we’ve dished on the dresses, speculated on the shoes, and have sampled all our at-home treats, it’s time for the show to begin. SETH MCFARLANE! He’s funny and this may end up being a franchise for him, kinda like Billy Crystal had for a while.  And the Academy Awards Oscars need some stability, what with the name change of both the ceremony and the the theater it’s held in, and the rules. I miss having only five films in Best Picture, since I think it dilutes the vote. I’d love to see Argo win, but it will probably be Lincoln, the easy choice.

Settle in, and don’t forget to refresh your browser every minutes.

Best Picture
“Argo”

Actor in a Leading Role
Daniel Day-Lewis – “Lincoln”

Actor in a Supporting Role
Christoph Waltz – “Django Unchained”

Actress in a Leading Role
Jennifer Lawrence – “Silver Linings Playbook”

Actress in a Supporting Role
Anne Hathaway – “Les Miserables”

Animated Feature Film
“Brave” – Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman

Cinematography
“Life of Pi” – Robert Richardson

Costume Design
“Anna Karenina” – Jacqueline Durran

Directing
Ang Lee – “Life of Pi”

Documentary (Feature)
“Searching For Sugar Man” – Malik Bendjelloul and Simon Chinn

Documentary (Short Subject)
“Inocente” – Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine

Film Editing
“Argo” – William Goldenberg

Foreign Language Film
“Amour” (Austria)

Makeup
“Les Miserables” – Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell

Music (Original Score)
“Life of Pi” – Mychael Danna

Music (Original Song)
“Skyfall” from “Skyfall” – music and lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth

Production design
“Lincoln” – Production Design: Rick Carter, Set Decoration: Jim Erickson

Short Film (Animated)
“Paperman” – John Kahrs

Short Film (Live Action)
“Curfew” – Shawn Christensen

Sound Editing:
“Argo” – Erik Aadahl and Ethan van der Ryn
“Zero Dark Thirty” – Paul N.J. Ottosson
TIE!

Sound Mixing:
“Argo” – John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia
Visual Effects
“Life of Pi” – Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
“Argo” – screenplay by Chris Terrio

Writing (Original Screenplay)
“Django Unchained” – written by Quentin Tarantino

Arrivals are on ABC at 4pm West Coast/7pm East and also an E!  Our Oscar ceremony live blog begins at 5:30/8:30pm in a new post where we’ll be updating the winners.

First off, the Academy Awards now want to be known as the Oscars, which I think is a weird change in tradition, but kids these days! I am very excited though that Seth McFarlane will be hosting–he’s smart, funny, hip and edgy enough, yet aware enough of the Hollywood game and players not to be a moran like James Franco.

This year along with live blogging, I’m also having a party and some of the guests will be chiming in, with pot luck food themed to the nominees: For Argo, Persian sour cherry rice and Persian cucumbers for a variety of Middle Eastern dips, which cover more of the nominees. For Life of Pi, we have both Indian food and an apple pie  (plus apples for Snow White and the Huntsman). Zero Dark Thirty comes in with a friend’s birthday cake: It’s round, chocolate and at some point we’re all 30! For Frankenweenie, I have fancy pigs in a blanket which I am food coloring green.

Plus of course a loaf of bread for Les Miserables! And just for ggigles, the obligatory ham and cheese casserole (classy ham–prosciutto–plus foreign cheese), which covers anything you’d like to think it does.  I’ll link to Facebook photos in the comments so you can see what arrives.

Speaking of arrivals, these came for me! They are about 3 feet high!

So let’s settle in and discuss the dresses and shoes, the jewels and the hair (facial and ladies’), and enjoy.  Please remember to refresh your browser so you can see new  comments.

Is your tiara in place?

We all laughed at the New York Times’ review of Guy Fieri’s  Times Square restaurant. And at the un-aired skit on Saturday Night Live. Well, the internets are having another good laugh at Epic Fail Guy Fieri, who let the domain name for  Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar lapse. Oopsie.

Obviously the troll has a very literary background.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”…
Do I dare to eat a peach?

Not if Guy Fieri cooks it.

You can view the full menu here.

 
Guess what? The cosmos, like Victoria Jackson and life itself, is probably inherently unstable. Most of us probably already know that instinctively without needing the Large Hadron Collider to prove it.

I once had a teacher in high school, Jim Hosney, who wanted to teach a course in existentialism where there would be no rhyme or reason as to why people got the which grades that day. That concept might not have gone over real well at an all-girl prep school where eating disorders and substance abuse seemed to be part of the curriculum.

Hosney was a brilliant and challenging social history teacher who showed us films like The Beguiled, Weekend, and The Devils. Hosney’s methods thankfully had nothing on this professor of quantum mechanics, apparently a frustrated (and very bad) performance artist, who began his lecture by saying:

in order to learn quantum mechanics, you have to strip to your raw, erase all the garbage from your brain and start over again. … Everything you do in your everyday life is totally opposite of what you are going to learn in quantum mechanics.

A science professor at Columbia University on Monday began a quantum mechanics lecture by stripping into his boxers and eating a banana while rap music played in the background….The professor, Emlyn Hughes, proceeded to redress himself in black, complete with sunglasses, and hug himself on stage at the front of the classroom, a large theater.

As Hughes sat in the fetal position, two “actors” dressed in ninja costumes walked onstage and placed white stuffed animals – lambs – on stools before the audience, according to a student-recorded video of the incident posted on Vimeo.com by “Bwog,” a campus news website run by Columbia students.

The ninjas blindfolded the lambs, then a ninja impaled one of the stuffed animals with a long sword and banged it against the stool – right as an image of a plane hitting one of the Twin Towers on 9/11 started rolling on a large screen behind the performance…

After the lamb’s grisly “death” and the images of 9/11, the footage turned into a montage that included clips of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Hitler – as well as numerous shots of war images – tanks rolling, bombs exploding, people hanging upside-down, troops marching, and the like.

 
Weekend, Jean-Luc Goddard:

The Beguiled:

The Devils:

I TiVo’ed the Westminster Kennel Club dog show because Dorner has occupied my TV since noon, but I will be savoring it later tonight, so no spoilers please!  I am a big fan of mutts and mixed breeds, and think it’s ridiculous to pay 1.5 million for a Tibetan Mastiff, as reported on CBS Moneywatch; but they are kinda goofy and cool looking, though the slobber and shed factor seems huge.  But I appreciate the silly names the dogs are given,  like last year’s winning Shar Pei:

And Dorner has distracted me from the State of the Union address as well.  But back to the dog show.  I like a decent-sized dog. I think a 70lb dog is “medium-sized” maybe because I grew up with Great Danes, a father and son pair we were given by a family friend, film director Richard Quine (“Bell Book and Candle”) when he moved from his huge  stone estate on Benedict Canyon to a town house. (We also were given his piano, a  real Tiffany hanging glass lamp, and a painting that hangs in my dining room).

I keep thinking occasionally I want a new dog to replace my beloved Dexter–there are so many dogs that need homes, but I realize that my lifestyle now wouldn’t allow me to devote the time a rescue pooch would need, let alone some million dollar drooler.

A New Jersey Catholic school has banned swearing for female students — but not for the boys:

Female students at a Catholic high school in northern New Jersey have taken a “no-cursing” pledge at the request of school administrators, though some question why no such demand was made of male students.

Lori Flynn, a teacher who organized the campaign at Queen of Peace High School in North Arlington, told The Record of Woodland Park there is no double-standard. She says that while males weren’t asked to take the vow, they have been asked not to swear when girls are near…A pitcher on the school’s baseball team,  said he can’t help shouting obscenities from the mound after mishaps, and he didn’t expect that to change.

But potty mouths aren’t the reason women can’t be Catholic priests. That ban is because, explains Dominican Fr. Wojciech Giertych, the theologian of the papal household,

Women have a special access to the heart of Jesus in a very vivid way of approaching him, of touching him, of praying with him, of pouring ointment on his head, of kissing his feet.

And plus, says Giertych in his interview with the National Catholic Register

Priests love the church in a characteristically “male way” when they show concern “about structures, about the buildings of the church, about the roof of the church which is leaking, about the bishops’ conference, about the concordat between the church and the state.

Also, vaginas.

The Catholic Church hasn’t weighed in yet about a British businessman who has a nose growing out of his arm:

Experts at University College London say the new nose will look exactly the same as the man’s original one, and hope it will even have a sense of smell.

The trial marks the first time a full nose has been grown from scratch, and could in future be used as a therapy for patients such as soldiers and car crash victims, the Daily Mail reported.

Science has found a way to turn waste into gold, which isn’t quite the same as turning bread and wine into human flesh and blood, and definitely something that would have gotten you burned at the stake:

A group of scientists has identified a bacterium that turns toxic water-soluble gold into microscopic nuggets of the solid precious metal, reveals the paper published Monday in Nature Chemical Biology.

Eureka!

What the hell is wrong with Arizona politicians? Do the relentless desert days of beating sun and the sudden summer thunderstorms repeatedly bake, then wash away all sense from elected officials? Have they been smoking desert toad venom?

A group of Arizona Republicans are eager to pass House Bill 2467 which would require all public high school graduates to recite the following oath in order to graduate:

I, _______, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge these duties; So help me God.

But what if you don’t believe in God? Too bad. Either ask something you don’t believe in to help you so you can graduate, or you lie. Which is creepy and wrong.

Think Progress reports that the bill may be amended to remove the God part, reporting that tea partier Bob Thorp who introduced the bill wrote in an email to the Arizona Republic:

In that we had a tight deadline for dropping our bills, I was not able to update the language. Even though I want to encourage all of our students to understand and respect our Constitution and constitutional form of government, I do not want to create a requirement that students or parents may feel uncomfortable with.