Iran irked by errors in Qurans from China

This news item didn't make the first pages of main newspapers and could have passed unnoticed:

Iranian publishers are complaining that cost-saving plans to print Qurans in China are yielding embarrassing results: A slew of typos. The head of Iran's Quran oversight office says some of the Chinese-printed versions of Islam's holy book are littered with spelling errors.

It is only thanks to our Signals Department's vigilance that the Elders received this news and acted quickly, intercepting a letter from above mentioned head of Iran's Quran oversight office to the manager of the Chinese publishing house where the erroneous holy books were printed. Here are some excerpts.

From Mr Ahmad Haji-Sharif,
By the will of his majesty Imam Khamenei (PBUH)
Head of Iran's Quran oversight office
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
To [omitted]

Subject: Quality issues with the first batch of the Holy Book of Quran

Dear Mr [omitted] PBUY,

It is with great sorrow and chagrin that I forced myself to write this letter. I have just returned from the office of his Islamic Highness the President of our glorious Republic Mahmoud the M Ahmadinejad, where, as you can imagine, I listened for a whole hour to His Highness's severe displeasure with the fact that one and a half million of copies of the Holy Book were distributed already in our country. Suffice to say that one of the mildest sentences was "We'll scatter these yellow Zionists to the four winds in the name of Allah!".

In short, your decision not to wait for the official Farsi copy of Holy Quran and, instead, translate again the original Arabic edition into Farsi using, as you said, your "in-house experts", was a grave mistake. Yes, I know that you have sufficient manpower to do it in 37 hours and that you put 48 of your experts on the translation task, however the results were horrendous, and I have teared most of my hair reading the resulting translation during the last night (the rest of it was teared out by our President (PBUH)). Follow several examples out of hundreds:

Sūra XLI

2. A resolution from (God).
Moist, Vicious and Cool

Should be:

2. A revelation from (God).

Most Gracious, Most Merciful

6....
And what about those who
Share a joint while playing Go—

Should be:

6....

And woe to those who
Join gods with God,—

Sūra XLIV

48. "Hot liquid hazard!
Approach not close!

Should be:

48. "Then pour over his head
The Penalty of Boiling Water

47....
Turn screw (7)
Using appliance (b2)
In watch direction
Till satisfying fully with


Should be:

47....

"Seize ye him

And drag him

Into the midst

Of the Blazing Fire!

Sūra XLVII

20...
When the white sun had sunk in the Western Chasm
I hung up my chariot and rested my four horses.
Now, even the Maker of All
Could not bring the life back to my limbs.
Shape and substance day by day will vanish.
Hair and teeth will gradually fall away.

Should be:

20...

Therein, thou wilt see those

In whose hearts is a disease

Looking at thee with a look

Of one in swoon at

The approach of death.

But more fitting for them

Sūra XLII.: Shūrā, or Consultation.

19. If you are industrious like a bee,
Strong as an ox,
Hardworking as a horse,
And get home tired as a dog,
Consult your vet - you may be an ass.

Should be:

19. Gracious is God

To His servants:

He gives Sustenance

To whom He pleases:

And He has Power

And can carry out

His Will.

My dear Mr [omitted], I hope that by now you have begun to understand the severity of the situation, and I haven't even mentioned the worst offense: the pictures. Apparently one (or more) of your more zealous employees decided to decorate the Holy Book with pictures! Such a sacrilege and desecration of the sacred texts wasn't yet heard about. What, for instance, has this picture to do with the Quran?

Dogs are considered unclean animals here, for crying out loud! Or this one:

I don't see its point at all. Or that:

Do you really intend to sell us anti-bacterial swimming suits for men? I fail to understand... and what about all these abominable semi-naked and naked female pictures?

[at this point the letter is barely readable due to smudged ink and other substances that stuck to the paper, so only fragmentary bits have survived ]

... added and instruction booklet for bicycle repair at home? Why?...

... ophet Muhammad never said "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step", it is a clea...

... assure you that not only this is forbidden, but is defini... not a pictu... of ..rophet Mu...

...cannot tell you how serious the situation has become. Because of my decision to employ your publishing house in this project I am now put on notice, and if a remedy doesn't....

We have decided to end the letter at this point, since the rest, full of further complaints, entreaties and even some thinly veiled threats is of no special interest to the public.

Regarding this story, we can only guess that the recent dust-up in China-Iran relations is related to the Quran fiasco. Well, Allah willing, the next version of the Holy Book will be more satisfactory with the client...

Cross-posted on Yourish.com

Pink garterbelt girl

New found PLA patches lot

There are some Chines patches which include PLA patches, take a detail look!!

Turkey blows a fuse

Okay, so I got it wrong, and The Guardian hasn't yet reported on the Palmer Report, although you'd think they would have someone scanning the net and the BBC News website to keep an eye on interesting things, especially to fuel their unusual take on the Middle East. However, what they do report is that Turkey is planning to take Israel to the International Court of Justice over the naval (and possibly land) blockade of Gaza. Given that the UN Report specifically stated that the naval blockade was and is legal, one would expect them to be laughed out of court, but only after it's cost everyone lots of money, time and frustration. Of course, Turkey might be planning to challenge only the land blockade. In which case, why aren't they linking Egypt to the case? Also, given that anyone who keeps even half an eye on this issue knows just how much humanitarian aid goes through those crossing points and would guess that Turkey's chances of success at the Court are somewhere between very low and zero. Perhaps they are just trying to win brownie points with the Islamists and Jihadists.

This post was contributed by Brian Goldfarb.

MANNEQUIN 2: Exclusive Background Info!!!

In light of my discussion on living with writing boxoffice flops, a few of you have asked for more details on our MANNEQUIN 2 triumph.  Here's a repost from a few years on just that prickly subject.
It's become a cult classic! Rarely does a decade go by without someone asking me about MANNEQUIN 2. So for all you MAN2 fans (that's what it's known as in film schools -- many graduate programs have courses devoted to it) here's how me and David Isaacs came to have our names on this cinematic classic.

We did an extensive rewrite on MANNEQUIN 1, working for a couple of swell guys – Bruce McNall (former owner of the LA KINGS who later was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison) and David Begelman (who as President of Columbia Pictures was caught forging bogus expense checks as Cliff Robertson).

They wanted to pay us in TV’s but our agent insisted on money. (What’s 10% of a television, the speakers?) We did the rewrite in two weeks, actually had fun with it, and did receive our payment in US currency. (It was on this rewrite that we instituted the “24 second logic clock”. We were not going to get bogged down discussing whether a mannequin would do this or that. 24 seconds of debate, we picked a course of action and just went with it.)

MANNEQUIN was a huge hit, enough to warrant MANNEQUIN 2. Again we got the call to rewrite it. “For luck” as Begelman said. We said fine but we’d like more “lucky bucks”. This time they were willing to throw in a VCR and camcorder but again we insisted on money.

This script was even worse than the first but did our best. We turned it in, ran immediately to the bank to cash our checks, and then forgot about it. Months later we received the shooting script (further revised from ours) and the proposed credits. To our horror the script was worse and the studio was giving us shared credit.

We called our agent. Did we even WANT credit on this stinkburger? Yes, he said, because we would then be entitled to royalties. Okay then.

Anytime there is more than the original writer listed on the proposed credits the matter automatically goes to a WGA arbitration. I’ve been involved on both sides of this aisle – petitioning and arbitrating. Each writer drafts a statement pleading his case. These are always long, impassioned, pleas – how the idea came from their own lives and suffering and if they lost it would be a miscarriage of justice on the scale of OJ. We certainly in good conscience couldn’t write something like that. So what we wrote instead was:

To Whom It May Concern:

According to the bylaws set forth by the WGA credits manual we believe the credit should stand as proposed. Thank you.

That’s it.

We WON.

When the movie finally was released (escaped) I was announcing for the Orioles. We were in Detroit. I went to see it on opening night. Big multiplex theatre. There were six people in the audience…counting me.

The movie went on to make nothing. McNall went to the federal pen. Begelman eventually killed himself. The film aired on a major network and has been showing for years on cable channels. Our agent was right. There were royalties we were entitled to.

We never saw a penny.

We should’ve taken the TV. At least we could sell it on ebay.

Sunday Funnies

BBC, excessive zeal and lesser priorities

I quite expect The Guardian (and I expect "Comment is Free Watch" to be having fun with The Guardian report on this) and The Independent to get all things Israel the wrong way round, but I would have hoped that on their website, the BBC might just escape the Jeremy Bowen influence. However, the headline and the first sentence of this item both start by announcing that the UN Report by the Palmer Committee on the "peace flotilla" found Israel's use of force to be excessive, but the blockade to be legal in international law.

Funny that, anyone wishing to report fairly would have put that the other way round, as it justifies Israel's use of force, just not the level at which it was used. And, yes, as others have already noted, given the response that the IDF met when they first attempted to board the vessels, especially the Mavi Marmara, whether that response actually was excessive is, to say the least, debatable.

Follow the link to read the whole BBC item, and if you wish to find the UN Report, follow the links through the BBC piece to the New York Times, and their links to the Report. This starts with a 3 page summary of the whole Report.

This post was contributed by Brian Goldfarb.

About a healthy change to your diet

Them egg-heads never sleep, it seems. Every day brings something new:

Using treadmill-conditioned mice, a team led by the Department of Kinesiology's Gianni Parise has shown that aerobic exercise triggers those cells to become bone more often than fat. In sedentary mice, the same stem cells were more likely to become fat, impairing blood production in the marrow cavities of bones.

This is a real boon for a couch potato like I. The only question is: should I start my diet with these treadmill-conditioned mice or is there a plan to produce treadmill-conditioned cows, sheep and other more gastronomically attractive critters?

iPhone 5 left at bar by Apple employee... yawn...

A tequila bar, to boot. Really, Apple, life is too short to waste on all this nonsense. And I (or is it i now?) have yet to purchase one of the iThings.

But I might consider accepting one, if it's left at my doorstep glued to a case of tequila (of my choice, of course).

I Ain't One To Gossip, But....

Shia LaBeouf--which I believe is french for Timid Piece Of meat--was ALLEGEDLY involved in a meltdown at LA hotspot The Box in which he ALLEGEDLY spit water at shock rocker Marilyn Manson.
According to witnesses--and by witnesses, I mean people who got sprayed with Shia water--LaBeouf suddenly became angry with his date while at the club and began shouting at her.
A witness said--while drying off-- that “Shia picked up a water bottle and shot a mouthful of water all over his date’s legs. Then he put more water in his mouth and started spitting it all over his tablemates, including Marilyn Manson.”
Did he think Manson would melt? I dunno, but Manson ALLEGEDLY remained seated during the unwelcome bath, and even tried to calm Shia down, but LaBeouf, who folks say "seemed wasted”--ya think?--insisted on “lunging” through the crowd to escape the venue.
A drenched onlooker said, “Shia had to climb over people and tear himself out of he grasp of various strangers who were trying to keep him from going crazy. It was totally mad. They had a verbal spat and the next thing you know Shia went for him. He was a bit tipsy and Marilyn was having none of it and towered over him. Security jumped in and Shia left the party quickly. It was all very weird.”
Perhaps LaBeouf ought to "transform" himself--Get it? He starred in those Transformer movies so I said transf....okay, I'll stop--into a non-drinker.

I think I'll call this The Battle Of The Bobble Heads.
The adulterous country crooner LeAnn Rimes and annoying E host Giuliana Rancic are locked in a battle of dimwits over remarks made to and about one another, on TV and on Twitter.

It seems that Rancic--who has ALLEGEDLY had some very well documented body image issues and eating disorders--recently told the Huffington Post that LeAnn Rimes was a little too bony: "She lost a lot of weight from all the stress in her life. She seems a little thin right now and I think she looks great when she’s a bit curvier.” Rancic suggested LeAnn get some meat on her frame.
Hey, i thought Eddie Cibrian was the meat on her frame!
Anyway, Rancid, er, Rancic, should know better than to criticize a thin girl when she wept and moaned about people talking about her skeletal body. And Rimes wasn't having it either. She picked up a phone and called Rancic....Oh.....She didn't call? Nope, as with all feuds, Rimes took to the Twitter to tell Giuliana Rancic that she does so eat and that they should share a meal together so she could prove it.
And, to be fair, by meal, she meant grape.
Rimes wrote, “@GiulianaRancic hey, we should go to dinner sometime. You get criticized all the time for how small you are. You can see just HOW much I eat and maybe put a stop to this crazy ‘shrinking’ once and for all...Then we should workout together! Good luck with your restaurant!!!!”
Then, one of Rimes followers--Giuliana Rancic in disguise, I imagine--asked LeAnn to clarify her comments, and Rimes softened a little--well, as much as a bag of bones can soften--and replied: “I just don’t appreciate her comments, so I really would love for her to hang with me, see who I am...I am a person you know.”
Well, maybe just half-a-person, really.
But you stick Rimes and Rancic together you might get a whole person.

What to do when your hit show ends it's run?
Well, if you are former "Lost" actor Matthew Fox, you get yourself arrested for ALLEGEDLY punching the female bus driver of a party bus.

It seems that upon leaving a Cleveland bar last weekend, and heading back to his hotel, Fox tried to board a party bus. When the driver, one Heather Bormann, refused to allow him access, Fox ALLEGEDLY began hitting Bormann in the chest and stomach.
But not to be outdone, and not afraid of some TV star, Heather Bormann reciprocated, landing several blows to Matthew Fox's face--breaking her hand in the process.
People! How many time must I tell you to NEVER mess with a Cleveland party bus driver? Especially if that driver is Heather Bormann. If I've said it once, I've said it enough.
Following his arrest, Fox was released into the custody of a friend. Heather Bormann, on the other hand, visited a hospital, and then told reporters, "This was my self-defense. This was the only way I could protect myself ... from a man beating up on a woman."
Bormann has yet to press charges against Fox.
Sidenote: Had I been on that party bus last weekend and a drunk Matthew Fox tried to get on board, i would have skooched over in my seat and said, "Here honey, sit next to me."
It's a fact, every straight man is a six-pack of beer--or less--away from being gay.
Just sayin'.

So, a month or so ago Jennifer Lopez was spotted out and about without her lapdog, Marc Anthony, and without her wedding ring as well. And then the couple announced they were getting divorced. Rumors swirled that Marc was too controlling or that JLo couldn't keep it in her pants--or maybe that's out of her pants--though the ex-couple denies both allegations.
Then, just last week rumors swirled that Will Smith and Jada Pinkett were quietly separating, and headed for divorce as well.

How do these two things mesh? Well, ALLEGEDLY Will “caught” Jada doing the dirty with Marc Anthony--who costars with Pinkett on something called 'HawthoRNe'--while Marc was still married to Lopez.
To be fair, Will and Jada are denying the report, telling the world that their marriage is still “intact” and there is speculation that Mr. and Mrs. Smith will sue. But apparently Life & Style isn’t afraid of the Smiths because they’ve got another story about Jada and Marc getting “close”.
An insider--and by insider I mean a gopher on the set of something called 'HawthoRNe'--says: “[Marc] and Jada got extremely close on the set...He said Jada was so sexy because she was in great shape and had this tough attitude, which he loves. And she loved his style — his acting, his mojo. She even brought Marc back as a series regular and made him the show’s music producer. Jennifer couldn’t have liked that.”
Hence the dumping, I guess.
But what about Will and Jada, and her ALLEGEDLY romping with Marc? Well, the Smiths seem to have a relatively open marriage, even by their own statements, so maybe Jada and Marc doing the nasty is just all part of a normal day for the Smiths.
But, and this is where it gets interesting, just this week Jada Pinkett was spotted out without Will or her wedding ring.
Coincidence?
Ask JLo and Marc.

How to write a love song

Compliments of the always brilliant, Axis of Awesome.



And I posted this early last year, but in case you missed it -- here's their greatest hit (which is every other hit in rock n' roll).

What's "Contents" in a briefing slides?

In a Powerpoint file, the second slide usually is "Contents", in this slide, the briefer have to quick introduce the main concern and focus or dtail subtitle of the topic.

Some example slide links:
http://www.cwc.gov/inspections_briefing_presentation.html

Is Turkey talking tough over Israel or throwing a tantrum?

This good question is the headline of a Guardian article. Lots of people mull the Turkish ire and wrath these days. To start with, they spend a year or so demanding apologies, then, hit by Palmer commission report, reject its conclusions and, seemingly, go into a prolonged snit. First expelling our ambassador, then threatening to cut economic ties, vowing to take legal actions against the Israeli soldiers who took part in the Mavi Marmara raid, even promising that "Turkish naval vessels will accompany civilian ships carrying aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip".

Some may think that this escalation of Turkish ire really is an escalation of Turkish ire toward Israel. And they couldn't be more wrong.

The truth is that for the last three or four months Turkey tries to impress Baby Assad, threatening him with all kinds of totally undefined punishments that will follow the stream of the totally illegible Turkish protests in the totally undefined future. That is, if he (Baby Assad) will not stop immediately (or in the next few years, which is also totally undefined) the slaughter of his citizens.

It looks like Turkey has found a way now to show Baby Assad how it's done...

Hooray! Slaughter-free stem cell meat sausage coming soon!

Yep, it is coming.

Scientists are on the verge of growing artificial meat in laboratories without the need for animal slaughter, according to a report cited Thursday by The Herald Sun -- with one expert predicting a stem cell sausage might be just six months away.

I hope that slowly but surely we can make peace with our vegetarian friends.

Only two hurdles could be in the way, as I see it now:

• Does a sausage grown from a stem cell have a soul? Religious authorities will have to deal with this one.


• Stem cell: does it suffer when being fried, boiled or grilled? The Animal Liberation Front worthies will have to give us all an answer.

And ASAP, please.

I'll Gladly Pay You Tomorrow For A Wahlburger Today

Lifted straight from dlisted:

So, which Wahlburger would whet your appetite?
I'm all for the MarkyMark because the Donnie looks a little grisly and tough.

Marky Mark and Donnie Wahlberg are selling their pounded meat at a restaurant in Boston and they have named that mess the best name of a burger place since Fudruckers, Beef 'N' Buns and Burger, She Wrote. They are naming that shit: WAHLBURGERS. WAHLBURGERS! This almost makes up for the death of Kenny Rogers Roasters.

The Hollywood Reporter says that Marky Mark and Donnie have already leased a 4,300 square foot space at Hingham Shipyard near their Eye-talian restaurant Alma Nove. They are also planning to open a pizza place sometime next year.

WAHLBURGERS! What a damn mess. I bet you they'll have shit on the menu like Say Hi To Your Muthah's Cookies, The Right Stuffed Baked Potato, Please Don't Go Grilled Cheese, Good Piebrations and Funky Bunch of Lettuce Leaves.

And I'm sure after they open that pizza restaurant, they'll open a Vietnamese takeout place called Phuk Yu Up.

PR9EP6: Avant-awful

Well, I missed a week, so before we jump on last night's train, and before last night's train wreck, let's bullet-point PR9EP5: One Day You're In, One Day You're Out, One Day Your Saved, One Day you Quit:

• Cecelia, who should have been Auf'd last week, decides to Auf herself and Heidi basically says, Byeeeeee.


• Josh C comes back and is still a giggly high-pitched schoolgirl of some indeterminate sexual orientation--or so he says, or doesn't say.


• Olivier literally takes a mighty tumble...a precursor for this week? And his dress was a Little House On The Sad Prairie.


• Josh M went all bitchy young queen and made Becky cry and made Bert snap, but he was declared a co-winner for helping with Anya's dress. Huh? What? Huh?


• Bert was a bitchy old queen, which always trumps a bitchy young queen. Sewing room. 'Nuff said.


• Viktor won with a motorcycle jacket and was actually nice this week.


• Becky is so not dowdy! She has a blue streak in her hair!


• Anya makes the award-winning design and the award goes to Josh M.


• Bryce showed up and actually was not in the Bottom.


• Kim made a pair of boxy ugly shorts.


• Laura missed the glam boat and made an outfit that looked like someone worked in the engine room of the glam boat.


• Anthony Ryan should have gone home because his outfit was the worst EVER! But he sparked a Nina/Heidi Battle, with Heidi declaring he should go because, after all, One day you're IN, one day you're OUT!


• But Danielle was sent packing for another, yes, another, green chiffon blouse. Damn. If only the show was called Project Green Chiffon Blouse we could end the season now.

On to this weeks challenge: to work with an art student from the Harlem School of the Arts and create a painting to inspire an avant-garde look. Now, that's a mouthful, which probably explains why most of the designers missed to avant-garde bus.

Becky
Her art student created some sort of outer space view of planets and shooting stars. Becky took this to mean make an asymmetrical dress out of denim....OUT OF MOTHER EFFIN' DENIM....and make some squares to hang on it.
Well, of course, that screams outer space and avant-garde. Denim and Squares. Sounds more like a country dance club.Y'all come on down to Denim and Squares for a rootin' tootin' good time! Yee! Haw!
But I digress.
Becky spent a lot of time in the work room critiquing Laura's dress, calling it a bad prom dress and something to hide a toilet paper roll. Um, Becky, honey? Eyes on your own work. Seriously,. Had you taken as much time to critique your own design you might have come up with something that kept you in the middle and forgettable.
In the end, her weird floppy hem didn't look avant-garde or earthy or spacey. Well, it did look spacey, but that don't get you to the tents.
Oh.My.God.Becky.
To the tents. I think the only tent in Becky's future ins the medical tent at the next Lilith Fair.

KIMBERLY
She got the bird. But in a good way. Her art student painted a sort of phoenix, rising from the ashes. And Kimberly could have gone all literal--lord knows she bought enough feathers and was all set to make a literal wing, until good sense, AKA art student and Tim Gunn, stepped in.
But she pulled it off. The sleeve that is. Pulled it off and tossed it away. But kept the pleathah--cuz she cain't afford leathah--and create a very strong interpretation of the bird painting without going overboard. Or over feathered.
Her dress ended up looking powerful and strong. I'd thought she was going Top Three because hers was one of the few that i thought of as avant-garde, but she went Middle of the Road.
But, she gets points for not making a pant. Pant; Nina taught me well.

BRYCE
As I said, Bryce showed up last week, and received all sorts of props for his dress. And this week, his artwork was of The Sad Girl. In orange and blue. Bryce is afraid of orange, but he stuffs away his fear like he used to stuff away his homosexuality, and went orange. And blue.
it might have been a little safe. a simple orange top with a poofy blue skirt, but then he turned the top into a straitjacket of sorts, and the dress suddenly became The Sad Girl.
in an asylum.
On the runway he worried about the orange and blue but he ended up being safe--something Josh M thinks Bryce needs to stop doing. I have a few words about Josh M later.
All in all, I liked it. 
Top Three? It could have taken Josh M's slot. it wasn't a winner--that should have been Kimberly--but it wasn't a loser. Safe!

VIKTOR
His art student should have been on the show this season, even if she doesn't exactly know what a bustier is; she has more fashion sense in her perky little smile than half that workroom.
Together, Viktor and Skye created an airy, flowy work of art, and Viktor decided to run with it, but to give it an edge. I think he missed the edge; he came close, but he didn't go over. He designed a beautiful, flowy, watery, ethereal gown  that was draped and tied and shredded.
It worked.
But what also worked [my nerves] was the old Viktor resurfacing to bag on every other designer in the room. He ripped Kimberly's fabric and Anya's feathers and Josh C's fur and Becky's denim and Olivier's slowness and steadiness. The only one he didn't bag on was Bert; he liked Bert's.
He should have gone home for that alone.
All I got from his this week was fluttery and bitchy.
Not enough to win, Vik!

ANYA
Fire trees. 
That was her artwork. 
Though I guess it's better than firecrotch, eh Lohan?
So, again, fire trees. And Anya gets feathers and drapery fabric. The feathers don't say fire tree and neither does a big balloon skirt made of heavy fabric. That says, I have a fat ass and I'm going to hide in the window.
Seriously. look at that picture. It looks like a torpedo with an Afro head on it. But at least we didn't get any I can't believe she's still here because she can't sew moments. I'm over those.
Still, that's all I have from Anya. It's neither here nor there; it's neither top or bottom.
All I get from her is that accent, which I love. And which reminds me of how much I hate Olivier's phony Asian-British thing he's got going on.
YOU'RE FROM OHIO!!!!!!


TOP THREE

LAURA
Her painting was of a flower and some thorns, which describes Laura to a tee. She's pretty like a flower, but she's got some thorns, and they are aimed right at Becky, though I don't know why.
She starts to go all ruffly and I'm thinking it's gonna look a little bed skirt-y, but then she pulls out this idea of making a corset striated with a dark green that would mimic the thorns. And she burns the edges of her fabric to create the wilted edge of the flower.
Now, that sounds literal, but it wasn't. It didn't looks like flowers and thorns at all. It looked, well, like a fairy made of non-constructed ruffles. Which I gather is a good thing since she made Top Three.
Guest judge Zanna Roberts Rassi--taking the spot of my beloved Nina Garcia--didn't see the correlation between the art and the dress until Laura explained the thorns and the boning. Then Zanna liked it. Fellow guest judge, and a personal hottie of mine, Kenneth Cole, loved the fabric and the boning, as did Michael Kors. Heidi loved the softness and the hardness of the dress.
it was pretty, hell, it was beautiful, but was it avant-garde? Laura explained that Lady Gaga wears avant-garde clothes but I couldn't see Gaga in this, unless it was made of real thorns.
That would be avant-garde. And hard to get near!

Josh M
His piece of art was a tree, dead from the ground up and alive beneath the earth. He didn't get it. Even he said he doesn't do earthy he does fake...like his hair tan teeth voice and personality.
I'm a little over this princess, can you tell?
He buys neoprene fabric and paints it to look like bark. Um, that's avant-garde? Or is that costume? Because the last time I saw a tree costume it was smacking an apple out of Dorthy's hand on the road to Oz. And that was in 1939. Yeah. Not so avant-garde in 2011, Joshy.
Then he slinks over to Becky to tell her that he loves her design, after which he tells us that her new improved creativity is solely because of the beat-down he gave her last week. Well Joshy, if you want to take credit for Denim and Squares, have at it.
Seriously, I'm over him.
However, I loved the top. The color and the volume were lovely, and looked like a tree on fire--Wait! Didn't Anya have fire trees and Josh have dead tree? Me thinks someone is pilfering a little Anya again.
I hated the skirt. Even the addition of his initials, his mother's initials, and a little heart--like it was carved into the bark of the tree skirt--couldn't save it for me. Cos-tume.
Still, those wacky judges loved it. Heidi liked the painted skirt, as did Kenneth Cole. Kors thought it was spectacular, top to bottom, er, flora to trunk, and Zanna loved the skirt.
Okay, so three of four complimented just the skirt and he gets Top Three? For half a good outfit.
Oh honey. No. This win will go to his head as we see from promos for next week when Josh melts down.

ANTHONY RYAN
After the debacle of last week, when Nina Garcia had to promise one of her kidneys to Heidi in case she needed to it, to keep Anthony on the show, he needed to step up.
And he did.
His collaborative artwork was a self-portrait of himself and his art student. And Anthony was inspired by the colors--this from the colorblind one--and the brush strokes. So, he opted for a sheer fabric embellished with thicker fabric strokes.
And, after collaborating with the artist on her painting, he worked with her on his design. When she said the orange must go, he ripped it off--and apparently gave it to Bryce?
His look on the runway was literal without looking literal. It looked like the painting in that the colors were similar, and the fabric brush strokes truly mimicked the actual brush strokes. But it wasn't literal. It was fashion.
It wasn't, sadly, avant-garde, but then so few were.
Heidi loved it, saying it was sexy, modern, simple and powerful. Kors liked the dimension of the fabric strokes and the sheer fabric, while Zanna also liked the brush strokes. Kenneth Cole thought the execution lacked refinement; the hem was undone, but was that intentional or not?
Must not have been because it got Anthony Ryan his first win of the season.


BOTTOM THREE

OLIVIER
Seriously. That accent must be stopped. But first, let me apologize in advance for making fun of it. See, sometimes it sounds Asian, sometimes it sounds British, sometimes it sounds like a bastard child of Chinese and British. It never sounds like it's from O-H-I-O.
Instead of I'd like sausages and potatoes please, it becomes I'd like some bangers and mash, please, or it becomes I like banger mash please. It has to stop.
And, while we're stopping that, stop with the sad sack routine, too. Oh, you listen to depressing music. Oh, you like muted colors. Oh, you like simple design. Snap out of it! Quick, someone call Cher and have her smack some sense into him.
We get it. Your palette is muted, your taste is simple, you can't manage your time. And you cannot grasp what Tim is telling you when he tells you to step up. Your artwork was bright and colorful, and you picked gray and blue. Pay.Attention.
And lose the accent!!
You glued the dress to your model? WTF! Luckily that was caught on camera and Tim Gunn  sprinted--well, as much as one can sprint in a suit--into the workroom for the scolding. No glue EVER!!!!
The other designers call him "slow and steady" but this ain't no fairy tale, no matter how many fairies are on the show. Slow and steady don't win this race, Ollie.
His dress was sad, like his music and his voice and his color palette. It was also cut way too high. Had the model taken bolder strides there might have been some good china on display.
Heidi absolutely hated it; in Olivier speak that's HeidiHate. Zanna liked half the top, but hated the other half and the entire bottom and the color. In Olivier-speak, that's ZannaHate. Kors liked the bodice, but warned that Olivier needs to explode. That's Olivier-speak for OllieGoBoom or OllieGoBackOhio. Kenneth Cole also liked half the top but thought there were too many details and hemlines and shapes. Olivier-speak for KnockFuckOff.
Olivier should have gone home for this mess, but he got saved.
OllieHappy.

BERT
His student was a cubist and since Bert is a bit of a square, this should have been a match made in heaven.
Yeah, not so much.
Bert hopped on board the Literal Train and rode it to Literal Mood and bought Literal Fabric and made a Literal Outfit. Literally.
He made oven mitts in all shapes and sizes and then attached them to a pair of old man pants; you know, the kind that buckle just under the chin? But these old man pants were also balloons and made his model look like an Oompa-Loompa after a month on Jenny Craig.
Bert had decided avant-garde didn't need to be exaggerated and then he literally exaggerated it.
Zanna decided that the artwork and the fashion weren't harmonious. Um, Zanna? Get me Nina. The art and the fashion were the exact same freaking thing! Kors said avant-garde could be beautiful, just oddly beautiful, but this didn't look modern. He told Bert to get ugly. Obviously, Kors hasn't been watching the workroom feed from last week. Kenneth Cole thought it was too outside the box, when, in fact, it was a box, and a circle and a triangle, stuffed with sponges and appliqued to big-ass pants.
Heidi was obviously having a  stroke because she liked it, and she alone saved Bert from an Auf'ing he deserved.

JOSH C
So, his first solo challenge after being Auf'd, resurrected and put on Team Olivier and Viktor last week.
And he gets the best artwork possible. A wolf. A wolf whose ribcage is open to show its heart. I mean, you could go all sorts of ways with this, and Josh C did.
Sadly, he went all those ways and then came back with nothing. Except that nervous girl giggle that says, I wanna come out, I do!
At Mood, his first trip ever--where he's given $300 and spends $170--he goes for leather or pleather and faux fur. Now, the other designers derided the fur and told him so, but the outift needed fur. Not a lot, mind you, but enough that would create the softness in the painting--a wolf with a heart.
And Josh C put a bejeweled heart on the model, which was a nice touch, and then he took it off. He designed a long skirt, very full, and ruffled, and then chopped it off into a leather-pleather mini.
He lost his whole design because he was second-guessing himself and listening to the other designers. Kors said it was neither avant-garde nor fashion, but more Victorian cocktail waitress in Vegas. Heidi called it Halloween Whore, or Halloween Horrible. Zanna thought it trashy and not beautiful, while Kenneth Cole thought the proportions were off.
it didn't read wolf. It didn't read heart of wolf.
it read Auf'.
Again.
I was going to post Josh's picture from the website, but I deleted it from my computer the last time he was Auf'd and it really isn't worth the three seconds it would take to find it again.
And, I hate to be rude--that's funny cuz it's sooooo not true--but, Josh? Don't come back.