Muse a toast to Vermeer

I've never met Ektoras Binikos, but his cocktail recipes have been intriguing me for many a year, and I'm sure that you, too, would be pretty fascinated by a guy who tried to incorporate dried blood into a cocktail.
The people who hired him to create the drink wouldn't allow the blood, so he tried to add some tears - a specific woman's tears, of course - to the drink, but they didn't go for that, either. It was back to the drawing board.
Ektoras is a Greek born artist who tends bar in New York City, and any decent search engine will lead you to sites where his work is on display. I'm particularly fond of his video, "Explaining an Image to a Stuffed Hare (After Joseph Beuys)," though I'm sure it's not to everyone's taste.
The "blood and tears" drink was created for the 60th birthday party of performance artist Marina Abramovic. She's a woman who is fond, it seems, of freezing herself onstage, and she incorporates other acts of self mutilation into her art form, too. It's not actually my cup of tea, but the world would be oh-so-boring if people like this weren't among us, right?
Being denied permission to use human body fluids in his drink, Ektoras went for cayenne pepper, instead. Good choice, right? But this wasn't any old cayenne pepper. It was cayenne pepper that Abramovic had placed under her pillow and slept on for seven nights, "so that it would absorb her auratic energy," he told me.
The birthday party was a big hit. People such as Lou Reed and David Byrne turned out for the event - it was held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York a few years ago - and Binikos' cocktail was a big hit, too. "As everyone toasted her, a strong auratic energy vibration simultaneously connected Marina with everyone in the room," he said.
More currently, Binikos sent me a recipe for a drink that he calls the Milkmaid. He created it to celebrate the painting of the same name by Johannes Vermeer. There's no milk in Biniko's Milkmaid cocktail, and there's no bread pudding in there, either - the maid in the painting is sometimes thought to be making that dessert - but there's an ounce of geneva from the Netherlands in there, so the ever-so-Dutch Vermeer would probably approve.
Although you'll have to go to the bother of making a citrus-mint syrup to make this baby, give thanks for the fact that you don't have to track down Marina Abramovic so you can persuade her to sleep on some cayenne pepper for you.

"Undisclosed Desires", Muse

Muse frontman Matthew Bellamy is apparently taking the name of the band's 2001 "Plug In Baby" single seriously because the second he and his band begin performing in the video for new single "Undisclosed Desires," he plugs his guitar in... to his foot.
Of course, no Muse video would be complete without a total "WTF" moment, and that's definitely got to be the random shots of blood, hearts and brains that show up throughout this typically futuristic, completely random clip. Oh, and that keytar is nothing short of amazing.You can watch the video for "Uprising" here. "Undisclosed Desires" is on The Resistance, which is in stores now.

'Camera's Muse' at Mitchell Gallery

"The Camera's Muse: Photographic Portraits from the Collection of Robert M. Infarinato" - 40 black-and-white portraits, many by acclaimed photographers including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Arnold Newman, Ansel Adams, Alfred Eisenstaedt and Ruth Bernhard - is on view starting Nov. 1 at the Mitchell Gallery at St. John's College.
An interpretative reading, opening reception and family program will be held Nov. 1, beginning at 2:30 p.m. with an exhibit related presentation by Annapolis actor, writer and musician Tim King and musician John Starr. From 3:30 to 5 p.m., art educator Lucinda Edinberg and collector Robert Infarinato will co lead a tour of the exhibit, which will be followed by a hands on workshop.
Infarinato began collecting photographic portraits in 1984. His personal collection now consists of some 200 portraits and includes many of well-known artists such as Duke Ellington, Pablo Picasso, Carl Sandburg, Georgia O'Keefe and Alberto Giacometti.
His collection includes portraits that capture well-known artists in private moments. For instance, Infarinato describes one of his numerous jazz portraits: "Duke Ellington is seated on a piano bench in his dressing room, looking away from the piano and music. There's a closet full of suits, his desk is covered with his personal effects, a tie hanging down a lamp, and things are all over the place. This is his space. He is taking a moment to smile for someone who is in his dressing room. He's all about the music ...
He'd take a piece of new music on to the stage and say, 'OK let's play it.' This image evokes him and his world."
Another photo, of Alberto Giacometti taken by his good friend Henri Cartier-Bresson, shows a gallery space. "There are two statues of human figures: the one on the left is bent. The one on the right in the back is totally erect. Giacometti is walking between them, carrying another statue.
He is bent over, with a cigarette in his mouth, in a similar stance to the statue on the left. This is a man in his milieu. He is not working on a sculpture. He is a sculpture."
When describing his collection Infarinato says, "These are 'situational photos' ... I look for something that reflects some aspect of the person, more than a headshot. I look for context. It doesn't matter if the person is famous or not famous. The person in the photo may be unknown and the photographer may be a great. Or perhaps the image itself is well-known and the subject is not recognized, and may never be seen again. In the fabric of life the subject wouldn't stand out, but as a portrait it does."
The exhibit is on view through Dec. 17.

Win Q Awards to GaGa, Lily & Muse

Among the winners at the QAwards ceremony today in central London to Lady GaGa, Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys and Muse .

GaGa picked up the Best Video prize for her Just Dance promo but unhapply did not attend the event.

Lily’s return track The Fear picked up Best Song while Muse were named Best Act In The World Today.

Arctic Monkeys bagged the award for Best Live Act as Kasabian were given the Best Album gong for their ludicrously named LP West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

Q Magazine also named Mr Hudson the breakthrough artist of the year.

Lifetime achievement awards went to The Specials and Spandau Ballet among other artists.

Despite being nominated for two awards Oasis- who split earlier this year- did not attend.

And despite being nominated for no awards Amy Winehouse did. She wore a red dress which showed off her pert boobs- which have reportedly been enhanced recently.

'I Belong To You' For 'New Moon' Muse Were Happy To Rock

Whether they wanted to or not, Muse have pretty much established themselves as the resident Twilight band. After being frequently shouted out by author Stephenie Meyer, the British rockers' "Supermassive Black Hole" was featured on the soundtrack to the first film. It surprised absolutely no one that they were asked to record a song for the second flick in the franchise, New Moon, but the band is pretty flattered to be the only artists to appear on both discs. "It might be something to do with Stephenie Meyer and that she loves us," drummer Dominic Howard told MTV News. "We met her quite awhile ago in Phoenix - it was before Twilight came out. She's a very nice lady and talked about how she listens to our music as she writes her books. This is all way before it turned into this huge success that it is, before everyone went vampire nuts." But now that everyone has gone "vampire nuts," Howard says they're happy to benefit from the extra exposure. "I think our music has reached out to whole loads of new people that haven't heard us before," he said. "It's great to know that people are discovering our music. It's a nice side project to be involved in."Muse originally recorded the piano ballad "I Belong to You" for their latest album, The Resistance. But just as that album came out, the brain trust behind the Twilight flicks asked them to rework the track for New Moon."I know the director [Chris Weitz] really, really liked that track," Howard said. "He actually wanted to get it into a scene somewhere, but they wanted a slightly change vibe of what was already recorded for the album."So, they headed back into the studio, and Howard said he's quite pleased with the results. "It's a bit more rock in some ways," he said. "We rocked it up a bit and put some guitars on it and did an alternative mix."Although Muse will soon be heading out on a tour, Howard said they might be able to fit the film's premiere into their schedules. "I think we got invited to the premiere, which might be in London the day before one of our shows in London," he said. "I liked the first one. I thought it was quite cool. I thought it was quite raw as well."

Muse Announces Receptor 2 Gets Solid State Drive

Muse Research and Development, Inc. is debuting a new Solid Sate Drive (SSD) technology option for the esteemed RECEPTOR 2 PRO line of hardware plug in players at the 127th AES show in New York City. SSD dramatically increases the data throughput of the RECEPTOR 2 PRO and PRO MAX for greater polyphony and lower latency, as well as increasing the ruggedness of an already robust design by replacing the traditional rotating hard drive with solid state drive technology with no moving parts.
The SSD option is available on either the RECEPTOR 2 PRO or RECEPTOR 2 PRO MAX models, and offers either 128GB or 256GB of storage. These new storage devices dramatically enhance the performance of the already impressive RECEPTOR 2 pro or PRO MAX by increasing the speed at which data is read from the drive by a factor of up to 5 when compared with a standard hard drive mechanism. The result is a dramatic increase in polyphony, along with reduced boot time, faster sample loading, and the ability to run some sample-based programs at much lower latency settings

Rises Again Muse

Matthew Bellamy is unstoppable. By now, even he must know it. Of course, we're not living in Europe, so our faithful readers might not yet be familiar with the name. Key word: yet. The cyrrent release of The Resistance means that Bellamy is on the fast track to becoming a household name or perhaps we should be referring to him with his more recognized moniker: Muse. I don't mean to take away from the other two thirds of the English rock band, bassist Christopher Wolstenholme and drummer Dominic Howard. Both are masterful musicians in their own right who are not (entirely) dispensable. But let's face it: Bellamy, with his powerful pipes, fluid piano and guitar work, and, most importantly, writing credits (that's right…on every single song) should feel free to lay claim to any praise bestowed on the name of Muse.The previous two albums, Absolution and Black Holes and Revelations, quite firmly established their style within the realm of progressive rock so that upon hearing that passionate vocal range, pounding beats, and dramatic compositions, there was no doubt that we were experiencing Muse. The Resistance does not offer much more in the way of style. Although I would have liked for them to tread some slightly more radical grounds, fortunately there is no disappointingly jarring shift we see too often in artists trying to experiment with sounds (see Chris Cornell's Timbaland-produced 2009 album, Scream).The Resistance makes up for this possible repetitiveness in pure ambition. Muse has always been nothing short of what can only be called epic. The last album obviously didn't cut it for them, because Muse ups the drama and widens their scope, bringing us an album worthy of singing Beowulf to. As if to show off his cultured knowledge of music, Bellamy features an excerpt from Frederic Chopin's Nocturne in E-Flat, Op. 9 No. 2 in the track titled "United States of Eurasia/Collateral Damage." He also rearranged parts of "Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix" from Camille Saint-Saens opera "Samson and Delilah" for the track "I Belong to You." Yeah, I don't know what those are either, but they sure sound sophisticated.