Daily Loaf

I watched an original Rembrandt painting sell for $3,000 on Sunday afternoon. Four years ago, it sold at auction for $23 million. I’ll let that sink in for a minute.

You might wonder where I saw this, and the many other similar proceedings I had the privilege of witnessing yesterday. I happened to attend an art and furnishings auction, held at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort and Golf Club in downtown St. Petersburg, and hosted by South Atlantic Auctions, of Eustis, an affiliate of Mid-Atlantic Auctions, based in Delaware. The viewing opened at 1 p.m. in the Palms Ballroom and ended at 4 p.m.

The auction featured a number of signed lithographs, a few unknown originals and a few known. Artists Dali, Cezanne, Miro, Renoir, Peter Max, Norman Rockwell, Remington, Erte and several others, not to mention several hand crafted, heirloom furniture pieces and innumerable fine Persian, Agora, and Azerbaijan rugs, some of them hundreds of years old. Read the rest of this entry »

Get your Fourth of July party started early at Hogs ‘n’ Dogs, where you’ll find a hot dog eating contest, a bike show by the retired firemen of the Red Knights Motorcycle Club, and a red carpet dog show — with prizes for the peppiest pups. Try a cold glass of lemonade to wash down those hotdogs; money raised at Alex’s Lemonade Stand goes to children’s cancer research, while proceeds from the pup pageant benefit the SPCA. The event begins at the intersection of 24th Street and Central Avenue in St. Petersburg, and continues throughout the Grand Central District. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sun., June 28, free, grandcentraldistrict.org.

Hello, Dali is a contemporary dance, visual art and musical performance is inspired by Dali’s surrealist paintings. Local composer A. Paul Johnson wrote and recorded the score in response to Dali’s work, and the Fuzion Dance Artists of Sarasota were in turn inspired to create a Dali-esque dance piece. The multi-media performance features projections, lights, costumes and props, and contributions from both local and nationally-recognized dancers and artists. 7:30 p.m. Sat., June 27, 2 p.m. Sun., June 28, Salvador Dalí  Museum, St. Petersburg, $15 adults, $10 students, salvadordalimuseum.org.

The Tarance Kinsey Celebrity all-Star Weekend kicks off with “Comedy’s the Cure,” a stand-up show featuring Joe and Guy Torry, Gary Owen and Doug Williams. Then, the Cloud Nine All White Affair is an evening of elegance and glamor with an NBA All-Star guest list, including LeBron James, Mo Williams, Joe Smith, Rudy Gay and more. Proceeds benefit the Pediatric Cancer Foundation. Comedy’s the Cure, 8-10 p.m. Fri., June 26; Cloud Nine, 10 p.m.-3 a.m. Sat., June 27, Hyatt Regency Downtown, 211 N. Tampa St., Tampa, Comedy’s the Cure, $25 general, $40 VIP; Cloud Nine, $20 general, $100 VIP red carpet entrance, tkallstars.com.

There’s something for everyone after the break:

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Rossellini in a penis forest

Isabella Rossellini, famous model, actress, filmmaker, daughter of Ingrid Bergman and Italian director Roberto Rossellini, has embarked on a new project: Green Porno. Rossellini is responsible for a series of two minute films for the Sundance Channel that look at sex through a surrealist’s lens. These videos are the creative love child of a massive acid-fueled orgy between Sesame Street, Sex-ed films, the Discovery Channel, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and Salvador Dali’s films. While all the information is accurate, Rossellini delivers her lines as if revisiting her role in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, in which she ran around naked spouting such classic lines as, “He put his disease in me.”  In this video she discusses the mating habits of bees, saying that if she was a male bee, her “penis would break off. It would get stuck in her vagina, like a cork in a bottle.”

(VIDEO after break) Read the rest of this entry »

The rope ran from the floor to the ceiling
through the legs and hair
of an anthropomorphic feeling
like wet colors dripping down
an unfinished Dali painting,

waiting,
she was,

for the perfume behind her knees
to waft through the crowd
beneath her.

Waiting

for sunshine to melt down
the inhibitions,
peeling away the onion’s layers
of her insular dominion,

crying,
she was, Read the rest of this entry »