Anatomy of a Psychictoad

Quotation Mark Test

2009-03-04T10:48:00.007-06:00

Can I post “quoted text” without a problem in Blogger?

Doubtful.

Chicago bans gun-slinging curmudgeons...

2006-02-18T11:38:00.000-06:00

CBS2 Chicago | Aide: Chicago Not Interested In 2008 RNC

Okay I'm going over to politics again for this post because this CBS2 story made me laugh. Now as much as I would like to believe that the administration here actually turned down the opportunity to bid on the RNC 2008 to stick it to the NeoCons, I have a sad feeling it had little to do with sticking it to anyone. Sure it would be delicious to think that Chicago is such a liberal city that we don't need anymore pollution in our air/water/ears, but any chance to get a bunch of deep-pocketed jerk-offs into the city is something any city would leap at.

Unfortunately, on top of that, very few of Democrats currently in office are any different than the Republicans. And the ones that do make any noise get relegated to page 15 of the newspaper surrounded by women's underwear ads ("Should read article about my civil rights, but...can't...resist...cleavage....").

Actually on second thought that may be the case here. I mean minor story on CBS2's webpage...my adblocker isn't showing me the ads, but I'll bet JCPenny's is having a busty sale this weekend...yep.

No matter the reason, it is still so delightful to know that come 2008 I will only have to dodge drunk/stupid Cubs fans (shut it, Cubbies...I'm a fan too...just not a drunk/stupid one...at least not right now), requests for spare change, and pigeon droppings...but thankfully not political sewage.

p.s. The above image is not a paid advertisement. I get no money if you women or men visit JCPenny and buy women's underwear. But out of all fairness, that is where the image is from so if you were not reading what I wrote but instead wondering, "Where can I get such a fantastic deal on women's underwear?" or "Where can I view more pictures of women's underwear with women in them?"...it is JCPenny.com. Thanks for proving my point, by the way.

Digital Audit...

2006-02-10T10:08:00.000-06:00

NPR Morning Edition | Digital Culture | Online Gaming, Money and Tax Law

I heard this fascinating story on NPR's Morning Edition today. I have been incredibly fascinated at the growing digital culture of money and how online gaming has created a whole separate economy which is currently become less and less separate from our own. This story basically delves in the implications of online gaming on your taxes.

It covers the obvious taxable income that would come (for example) from sitting and playing World of Warcraft and then selling your earned armor/weapons/items on eBay. [The story mentions some people making 6 figures doing this job...does that make my PS2, television, and WoW game a work-related writeoff? Freakin' sweet...] So yes this is as taxable as an artist's earnings from selling a sculpture.

Where the story becomes interesting is when you consider the fact that there is a barter law that is considered with the IRS taxing policies. I'm not 100% familiar or clear on how it is enforced, but apparently if an artist and a plumber (example taken from the story) decide to trade trades, it is technically taxable. By that I mean if the plumber fixes the artist's toilet and is paid by the artist with a painting valued at $500 (as opposed to cash), that does not avoid the IRS's taxable income regulations. Now again, I'm not sure how this is enforced, or how the IRS values works of art for that matter. The point is, that if this applies, then when I log on to WoW and offer to help a friend on a quest in exchange for one of his hard-earned swords, that is technically a barter and is taxable. Curious isn't it? The NPR story covers more of the nuances, so listen and learn more.

Of course this policy has yet to be verified by the IRS because the author of the story, did not want to file this question with them, for reasons explained in the broadcast. I do find this story interesting for the simple fact that it highlights another point of contact between the digital economy and the real. I am waiting for the day I can go to currency exchange and convert my US Dollar to WoW Gold.

Heck, with the going rate for Level 60 Epic PVP Warriors on eBay I may add them to my portfolio...

UPDATE 2/18/2006: The link to an ebay auction for a Level 60 Epic PVP Warrior character from WoW was removed. It is not clear if the auction closed b/c someone bought it, or if the seller/ebay removed it from the site. The auction was asking for a starting bid of over $400 for this charater, however at the time of my original post no one had bid anything for the character.

Wonderful, Terrible Things...

2006-02-03T20:00:00.000-06:00

I have recently been introduced to a new addiction. Of course the item for which I have developed this dependency has been taken away: Carnivale. Sure this humble little blog is hardly the place to persuade the powers-that-be to bring it back, but maybe the 3 people who stumble upon this site randomly will go out and rent it and watch it and love it. That's good enough for me. But, the main thrust of this post was to highlight Carnivale as an incredible work of art in a medium that has become predominantly dry and boring.

Television is a medium with so much potential, but so many directors/producers/TV execs simply crank out more Joeys or ERs. Sure they have some value as a source of entertainment, but we also need a balance of shows that press the limits of television and stretch it to new and interesting levels. Shows like The Prisoner and Twin Peaks help to lay the foundation for more great shows like the X-files and Battlestar Galactica (the new series). Once you start stripping away these types of programs from television you end up with the kind of TV you fall asleep watching. No thank you. I don't need a story tied up in 30 minutes. If I did there is ample sources to fill that need (see NBC, CBS, and ABCs entire line-up...with a few minor exceptions). I want a show that keeps my interest running beyond that time-slot and leaves me anticipating the next episode. A story that unfolds slowly and makes my mind race contemplating the countless directions the story can take. Not simply another "who will hook up with whom" mixed in with some medical terminology and a few shootings. Let's explore some of the wild questions that dance in so many of our heads every night. Let's put these questions in the public eye and enjoy the uncertainty that they bring.

I'm not writing this to simply rag on network television, nor am I excited about revealing my endless list of nerd-a-vision programming that I watch/love. No, my goal is to simply state that, we need shows like Carnivale to help keep TV from becoming stagnant. If we keep trying to rehash the same stories over and over, using the same methods of story-telling, then why do I need to even watch TV. So we've seen the cop drama done ad nauseum, why do we keep coming back to shows like NYPD Blue and CSI if Hill Street Blues did it first. Because it's about the storyteller and the way he/she tells the story. Good and evil has been done, yes, but not like this. Not like Carnivale. To create an atmosphere that absorbs you, a story that leaves you waiting eagerly for the next episode, and actors that are absorbed by their characters...that is what TV is about.

Just go check it out, kids. I know one of you already has watched this show (hell, you got me hooked on it) but the rest of you that accidentally find me...go watch it. You will be left wanting more...think that's torture, yes. So fight for it's return: Save Carnivale. Not possible, you say. Look at Family Guy...fans can bring a show back. So become a fan already, damnit.

Independents' Day...

2006-01-21T20:45:00.000-06:00

p a p e r m u s t a c h e ~ Exploring Chicago’s Independent Bookstores ~

A great new site is under construction on this little thing we call the web: papermustache. What is it you ask? Well the proprietor of papermustache will be visiting all the great independent bookstores in Chicago. After visiting he plans to write reviews for each of the places. I have heard through the grapevine that one visitation has already taken place and it is a heartbeat away from being posted. So why not stop by and add a bookmark so you can watch for the great list of indy bookstores to visit yourself. But why?

The rise of corporate and on-line bookselling has proven that we don’t need independent bookstores but do we want them?

I say YES! We want to live in thriving neighborhoods not strip malls and parking lots. Supporting small businesses is one way to keep corporate behemoths from completely obliterating our quality of life.

Need more motivation...Why not pretend that papermustache is a treasure map filled with big 'X's, and you are the paper-mustachioed pirate seeking the treasure of a lifetime. Now set sail, matey.

Fire it up...

2006-01-02T23:36:00.000-06:00

Okay, so this is not a ground-breaking post, but I did want to add a note here stating that I went live with the new Fire Arts Center of Chicago homepage. It is still a work in progress, but it is on the road now. I've been toiling over it for a couple of months now and did the design from the ground up. I am working on upgrading the gallery page as well as adding a blog and calendar to it. I'm not sure if it will all come together, but I will die trying otherwise.

I'd love to get some feedback on what you think so far. Go check it out (http://www.firearts.org) and if you want to drop me a line about it you can click on the "About This Site" link which is located in the bottom right corner of every page on that site. From there you can email me using the link in that message. Or you can always post a comment here on the blog. Either way, I'd love to hear from both of you.

It's good to be King...

2005-12-17T15:33:00.000-06:00

I went and saw the Chicago Kings Showoff last night at the Metro with some great friends (one uber-great friend and several new ones). It was a truly incredible performance that I cannot even begin to do justice with words. It was the Kings' final show and featured the Cuntry Kings from North Carolina. It was sad that this is my first and last chance to see them all rolled into one. I only hope that whatever fills the gap left by these guys comes soon and is as incredible.

The show was filled with some incredible songs (including the Fischerspooner song, Emerge, which was one of my favorites). Each set was filled with hilarious mockery, poignant political jabs, rich social critique, and more. Of course one of my absolute favorites was the Pink's Family Portrait meets Star-Wars-dysfunctional-family-values (yeah I'm a nerd...duh!). I was laughing so hard I nearly passed out.

I was also blown away by the spoken-word performance which was so incredibly moving and potent. It was a very personal poem by one of the performers, Neeve, and dealt with the journey she has been through including interactions with family, friends, and others. It was a sharp stab at the current politics of gender which needs to be stabbed more often. I hope the text of it gets posted somewhere and when it does I will post a link in the comments area here.

I would recommend going to their website and keeping an eye out for some pics of the show. At the time of writing this, there wasn't anything yet (the pic above is from an earlier show), but we are all still recovering so I would give it a week...haha. I won't forget that night for quite a while. Who knew I could still party until 3am and not notice it until I stopped (okay so I was a little sore through the show, but once the dancing started...forget about it)? There was also several cameras running so maybe...if you are lucky...they will sell a video of the show if you are interested. Watch for it!

Bravo, Kings, I'm gonna miss it! A party that good doesn't come around often.

UPDATE (12/18/05): After reviewing the Chicago Kings website, I have come to discover that it has not been updated for about two years. In other words, my proposal that you all go watch their site for images and video may have been mistaken. Please feel free to keep looking, but don't spend too many days waiting at the window...they may never update. You can always go and look at some of the older pics in the meantime. Enjoy!

UPDATE (12/28/05): Okay despite the lack of images on the King's official site, I have a place to view some of the images from that night: http://www.dykediva.com/events/showoff_pics.php. My dear friend, Eli, dropped this link on me. Thanks!

Ego boost, anyone...

2005-12-06T23:02:00.000-06:00

U.S. residents who prefer Google Inc.'s search engine tend to be richer and have more Internet experience than those who primarily use competing search services from Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and America Online Inc., a new study has found...
[ Read on - opens in new window ]

Well, aside from the making above $60,000/year...I think this is pretty dead-on. Although I have to wonder if Google funded this study at all. I began to doubt the credibility of the study when they went on to say:

Google users are also 25-times less likely to die of heart disease, 10-times more likely to have a healthy sex life, and are just all-around more beautiful than other search engine users. In fact recent research indicates that users of Yahoo are smelly; users of Microsoft have bad acne; and users of AOL get beat up on a daily basis.

So there you have it. Google for everyone...and for the rest...well, you may want to type "therapy" into whichever search engine you think is so great.

Filibuster this, Congressman...

2005-12-02T10:47:00.000-06:00

"It is okay to question the policies of Mr. Bush and his administration, but any questioning allows me to stab you with these broken scissors that I found in my desk today. Anyone?"

I want it...

2005-11-26T12:29:00.000-06:00

The gift-giving season is right around the corner, y'all. Pay attention to any subtle hints that you may receive from loved ones for things they want. I mean even the slightest, tiny hint can be missed if you aren't looking for it. You know even in what you think is a simple conversation about nothing, there may be buried within a wink and nod about something that person wants. But even that wink and nod can just be the tip of it. That person could even be happier if given something beyond what the hint implied.

p.s. My gift list pegs me as a nerd...don't worry, I already knew that.

Nebraskans promoting college courses on video games???

2005-11-26T12:18:00.000-06:00

Okay so here is another NYT article that I found rather fascinating. It is a brief discussion of the rise, within the past 5 years, of college courses offered on video game design and theory. What does one discuss in said classes...

At the Georgia Institute of Technology, which started new undergraduate and Ph.D. programs in interactive media last year, the director of graduate studies at the university's liberal arts school likens the multiple outcomes possible in video games to the magical realism of writers like Borges.

To me this is fantastic! I mean most of what is said in this article really hits on some great points. Video games are not unlike cinema and television--or even literature--they all offer a world to explore and experiences not available to the everyday reader/viewer/gamer. Of course it is far more complex than that, but that is definitely one of the things that draws me to a game: its ability to suck me in and force me to play it for days straight without eating, sleeping, or even breathing sometimes. Even Bing Gordon of Electronic Arts promotes this concept in the colleges that train his future designers. In this article he is quoted saying:

To create a video game project you need the art department and the computer science department and the design department and the literature or film department all contributing team members...

Now the real reason I wanted to post this article, was based on some of the great statements made by one of the people quoted, Bob Kerrey (former Nebraska senator):

"But if you just look at the surface of people playing games, you are missing the point, which is that games are all about managing and manipulating information," Mr. Kerrey said. "A lot of students that come out of this program may not go to work for Electronic Arts. They may go to Wall Street. Because to me, there is no significant difference - except for clothing preference - between people who are making games and people who are manipulating huge database systems to try to figure out where the markets are headed. It's largely the same skill set, the critical thinking. Games are becoming a major part of our lives, and there is actually good news in that."

"WHAT?!?" you say, "A Nebraskan promoting learning something beyond agricultural studies." Yep. Kerrey is currently the president of the New School in New York which includes Parson's, a design school. Of course Parson's programs are more technical in their approach than say, USC or Carnegie Mellon, but they do have classes like "Narrative and Dynamic Systems" as well as "Playspaces" both of which seem to emphasize the coneptual side of game design as much as the technical. (Of course I also find Kerrey's statement rather frightening coming from someone in a political background. I mean at this time in our history, what better statement than to say that video games help train people in "managing and manipulating information" which they will use, not necessarily in game design, but in the financial markets...and maybe even in politics...hmmm.)

But then again, we Nebraskans love video games...I mean what the hell else are we going to do there, read?

Models wanted...

2005-11-20T16:52:00.000-06:00

Okay everyone probably hates the notes on NYTimes articles, because the links take you to some "Register to Read" page (or some "Pay for the Archive" for those of you reading this too late) but this one is about one of my favorite sculptors in the history of art: Giacometti. Some of his work is here at the Art Institute of Chicago which I love to go see when I have time. Sure I've only been there a couple of times, but both times I spent a large percentage of my time in front of his works. I really recommend seeing his work in person whenver you have the chance (as with any sculpture, which can be done little to no justice in 2-D).

Anyway this is regarding a show at the PaceWildenstein Gallery in New York (up through December 17) which focuses on Giacometti's female models and the works created from them. I am not sure how fullfilling the show would be...but I like the concept. The model is really an interesting figure in the art world. I won't wander off into that void today (already spent my wandering credits with the last post), but I did want to post a comment by one of his models, Paola Caròla:

As for Ms. Caròla, she remains strikingly beautiful, with a slender, compressed look that seems tailor-made for Giacometti's characteristically elongated, pared-to-the-quick figures. She said that in her youth she and others felt that Giacometti's bust didn't resemble her at all. "But now I think it's a very good likeness - because I am older, maybe I am thinner," she observed. "The bones are very well placed. The resemblance was a sort of inner resemblance, which comes out with age."

She lives with the bust and encounters it daily. "Sometimes I feel it's a stranger," she said. "And then there are times in which I really very much feel like that bust. It's a piece of sculpture which changes, as if the sculpture had a temperament."

I just found that to be a rather beautiful statement about art and age. I mean when you contemplate the Dorian Gray tale in comparison in which the work of art, in a way, absorbs the aging of the model, there seems to be something sad about age. However here...the age of the work becomes something into which the model evolves. As is often the case with my crackpot theories and empassioned contemplation, I have spoken before I thought this through. I much more enjoy the search than the solution (if one ever exists), and I also enjoy passing that search on to others in the process. I often babble on endlessly and constantly question and challenge things, but it is because that is the fun of it. So enjoy thinking about this contemplation into art imitating life and maybe life aging into art...

Why, Celine, why??? [parental discretion advised]

2005-11-20T12:50:00.000-06:00

Okay so I'm Johnny-come-lately on this one, but I finally had to post something for my own ventilation. I've been building up steam reading about SonyBMG's latest debacle and their constant lying and truth-stretching that goes beyond even the limits of Stretch Armstrong. In my opinion, what they have done is a violation of Homeland Security and they aren't the terrorists? So yes, I'm angry blogging on this Sunday morning. If you are not up-to-date on the story, Boing Boing has a great timeline to fill you in on what's been going on.

I totally agree that Sony needs to make amends for this behavior beyond this sloppy apology and trade-off. I'm not sure if it's been said (surely it has) but what better metaphor here than the Trojan horse. I mean how many of us collect CDs by the bucket and especially certain musicians that we love. I mean all those poor fans of Celine Dion (okay bad example) saw the people of Sony outside the gate with a new CD from her. They yelled down to the other Celine-heads to open the gates and let the CD in. Once inside what a surprise was revealed when they were raped by Sony officials and told it wasn't rape. Instead they said it was simply something that they didn't enjoy, but that they had to do to protect themselves and Celine. One of the Sony rapists, Thomas Hesse, goes on to say that you don't even know what a penis is, so why should you care that they rammed it into you. Their buddy, the RIAA, tells them...all the other companies are raping you, too. At least when Sony rapes you they give you a non-apology and free MP3s afterwards. So you should be thanking them for being so polite about the assault.

Interesting comment guys.

Okay end of the potentially offensive metaphor...Hesse also claims that, though the software sends information back to Sony...the information is not used. OKAY...WAIT A MINUTE. Does that fly EVER in a court of law. "Oh, your honor, I hacked this company's computer and forced it to send me all the information about the company's activity on their server (in the process opened their computer up to countless other hackers), but I wasn't reading the information...so no harm done, right?" I'm so tired of PR people from every corporation blowing smoke up my...well you get it, I'm pissed.

And as for the 50 or so artists (several of whom are now passed on. Frank Sinatra for one) I would say it's time to get out of that contract. This attack does not just hurt the customers...it is a fatal attack on the artists whose music was used to conceal malicious software. Enough is enough. Call your lawyer, Our Lady Peace, and jump ship, fast! Do it for your fans. Show your fans that you don't stand for this kind of treatment. You are above the money, you are actually making music because you love it. You do not feel the need to let big companies screw over the people who support you. Apparently the RIAA doesn't have your interests in mind after all, so you need to look after yourself.

And as for the ever-growing corporate blog, SonyBMG... The next time someone tells you that corporations are "bettering society," remember this event. Once a company gets as big as Sony or Coke or Enron, they can do whatever they want and get away with it. Take a tip from Raquel Chavez, a shop owner in Mexico, who was told by Coke that she had to stop selling another brand of soda at her small store. She refused...they tried strong-arming her...she sued...she won! We (customers, musicians, directors, writers...i.e. human beings) cannot let this corporate crap continue to go. These are just drops in the bucket of what they THINK they can get away with.

Okay now let's get back to talking about butterflies and LEDs...sorry.

LED back to nature...

2005-11-18T10:21:00.000-06:00

I saw this delightful story on the BBC News site today. It discusses the fact that the technology used to create LED displays is strikingly similar to the way that the African swallowtail butterfly's wings present their color. My understanding of science is not very sharp so I will let the BBC describe the details of it all.

The LED developed at MIT used a two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystal - a triangular lattice of holes etched into the LED's upper cladding layer - to enhance the extraction of light.

And layered structures called Bragg reflectors were used to control the emission direction. These high emission devices potentially offer a huge step up in performance over standard types.

Pete Vukusic and Ian Hooper at Exeter have now shown that swallowtail butterflies evolved an identical method for signalling to each other in the wild.

I will add my own thought here, though. Something that I find so problematic when people complain that technology is "the devil" or however they are pitching it these days. While this LED/butterfly story has a very striking message, it is also not entirely unheard of in the past. I mean the technology we use to build houses and bridges and other forms of construction existed in nature in some form far before we ever stepped foot on land. And now something that seems so far from nature...an artificial light source...actually has precedent in a little butterfly. Wild, isn't it? So maybe we should stop running from technology and consider that we are simply extensions of that butterfly and the things we create are not abhorrent outcasts of the natural world, but our wings (okay that is a little cheesy, but I like the concept so just swallow it and shut up...).

We'll get you the money...but first let me talk to the painting...

2005-11-16T19:36:00.000-06:00

Well, this is a new one...in an effort to get the money owed them by Russia, Noga took several works of art (on loan to Switzerland from the Pushkin museum) hostage. The BBC article, goes on to state that Noga has tried similar stunts before seizing aircraft and yachts on separate occassions. The Swiss have since ordered the return of the paintings which were originally confiscated by the Swiss police. I cannot quite figure out how the Swiss police got involved anyway. I mean did the CEO of Noga just call the police? I'm so confused here. Anyway it is, apparently, "illegal" under international law for a private company to seize cultural objects to force payment. Who knew?!? Alright, France, take back your beloved Delacroix...just pay up, already.

The Fire Next Time...

2005-11-13T00:44:00.000-06:00

Alright kids...I've been dedicating my nights and weekends to figuring out how to make a reasonably professional webpage. And the result...well it is not good.

Basically, as I have mentioned before, I have been volunteering at the Fire Arts Center of Chicago which is a non-profit organization that offers classes in bronze and iron casting as well as metal furniture design, stone carving, figure drawing, and figure sculpture (and more). I decided to use my humble "talents" in web design to clean up their webpage and try to get more web traffic for them. So I will just keep writing blog entries on my site so the GoogleBot links back to them and hopefully bumps them up in the Google search results. I've got a long way to go.

Anyway I've linked their site in my sidebar which is growing quite crowded now. If you are interested in seeing what I've got so far (it has a long way to go and a lot of tweaking and polishing), you can check this sneak preview of this site: Fire Arts Version 2.0 (Preview). As you may notice, I'm hosting it on my Northwestern website while I finish things up and run it by the rest of the members to make sure they like what I've done. Feel free to post comments here on anything you would like to see changed.

In the process of my work, I've discovered some great tools for anyone doing basic web design. Since many of us can't afford the over-inflated price of Dreamweaver or PhotoShop, the other options are to buy some other program or investigate open source software.

For Dreamweaver's replacement I downloaded Nvu. It really is a fabulous program and I recommend it to anyone starting up a website from scratch. I haven't played with the CSS capabilities of it (not sure what they even are at this point), but the nice thing is that there is so much potential with developers creating extensions for it all the time. Hell if I wasn't a complete jackass, I could develop anything I need for it...but then again, I am a jackass. I have had a few moments of frustration where the program locks up and just shuts down. Just remember to save FREQUENTLY and don't try to edit 10 pages at a time in the window. You are just asking for trouble that way.
For Photoshop I bagged the GIMP which is a very effective photo manipulation program. I have yet to find the feature that PhotoShop has that I miss using this program. If you are running Windows you will want to go to this site to get the Windows-ready version.
Finally I would recommend getting a good FTP client. I have been pleased with FileZilla so far. I read several good reviews of the program before getting it and now I'm adding my praise to the web as well.

As you can see many of these links lead to a great website called Sourceforge.net for anyone interested in open source software. I would highly recommend going through some of it. If you are still buying all that corporate crap for your computer that is fine, but check out some of these programs that are often so much more functional and user friendly...and the cost ain't so bad either.

Rise up...

2005-11-09T17:39:00.000-06:00

Discovery on the CTA Purple line south-bound

So I was riding the CTA home from work tonight, and as I was sitting in my seat I glanced over and saw a sticker stuck behind one of the seats in front of me. As I looked at it I realized what it was an image of...either of you want to venture a guess before I spill the beans...

It's a silhouette of one of the more infamous images of the Abu Ghraib torture victims:

Unless you've been living under a rock or you only watch Fox News, you know about these images and their implication. I often slide into a political tirade at this point, but I don't feel it is necessary to open up discussion of whether or not the use of torture (physical or psychological) should be used in prison camps...because its just plain wrong, HELLO!

Anyway, just wanted to give a nod to the people who have produced and distributed these stickers as well as to the person who planted this one (if they are not one and the same). I think more artists and activists such as that need to begin plastering the country with this stuff. Forget the pretentious prick with the "Impeach Bush" bumper sticker on his Humvee (he's called an oxymoron, kids)...I mean plaster them everywhere...and if you get caught, don't tell them I sent you. Now go decorate the CTA for me...I mean isn't that what we will be paying the extra $.25/ride for...decorating privileges?

p.s. Sorry for the bad picture. The sticker was behind a seat which contained a large man who was glaring at me for taking pictures behind his back. So his gargantuan shadow made it hard to get a clear picture, and until I get a camera phone with built-in flash this will have to do.

Ain't Love Grand...

2005-11-07T15:35:00.000-06:00

Okay so I'm home from work sick today because I feel horrible, but thanks to the help of the new regular on my blog, Eli, I at least have something to keep my mind off of my gut. This is possibly one of the greatest films I've seen in a very long time. It is short and could easily be considered a music video of sorts, but I think it really speaks volumes...more than most "romance" flicks out in theaters right now...or that ever were. The title is "7:35 de la mañana" (7:35 in the morning).

I love it when someone shakes up the whole notion of romance or that age-old romantic gesture. It is so rare when someone gets it right. I mean I think that is why I love the whole Softer World site, too. It is romance done right: abnormally. I mean why is it we all try to make romance seem "normal." I mean how fucked up is love anyway, why do we even try to pretend otherwise. No I'm not a romantic pessimist, in fact I'm practically as far from that

...7:35
de la
mañana...

as you can imagine. But what I'm not is someone who looks at a rose and calls it "$5.00 a stem." Love is so not marketable, though Hallmark would have you believe otherwise. The fact that we all end up doing the stupidest stuff for someone we are interested in is just plain absurd, and yet the act perpetuates itself. Over and over again I spend money I don't have, say things I don't mean, do thinks I hate to do...all for the attention of one person. And once I get burned by that person, do I learn a valuable lesson (I like to think I do), NO! I just get right back on the merry-go-round. And you know what...I love it. I absolutely do.

The point is, I love it when someone creates a Le Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain or an El Lado oscuro del corazón. It finally looks at romance and says, "Damn, we are weird!" And rightly so. So thanks to Eli for reminding me how much I love...well, strange love. Because those of you wishing for Sleepless in Seattle basically bore the shit out of me...there I said it.

p.s. No I will not put a link to Sleepless on here...

More powerful than ever imagined...

2005-11-06T13:35:00.000-06:00

Elmgreen and Dragset, Short Cut, 2003, MCA, Chicago, IL
(photo taken by yours truly with what I once considered
a worthless feature of my cell phone...I was wrong)

Okay so this is a new frontier post right here. I posted this from my cell phone. That's right kids, I've evolved. I figured I would get back to my art roots again with a sculpture from the Museum of Contempory Art in Chicago. Now no one can escape my grasp, mwahahahaha.

I love when sculpture and cars collide...

Somewhere...out there...

2005-11-06T13:14:00.000-06:00

Profound Absurdity...

2005-11-05T17:47:00.000-06:00

"Yes"

I added a new "favorites" link which leads to what I think is one of the most entertaining sites on the web right now. It is called A Softer World and is an amazing project that blends photography and poetry in the classic triptych format (an art history wet dream). My dear friend Eli spread this Gospel to me and I've been addicted ever since. I spent one evening reading nearly all of the postings they have archived on the site. The works have a strange mix of romance, political commentary, philosophy, ecological premonition, low brow humor, contemplation of God's existence, Skee-lo lyrics, and bare-bones revelations (oh, did I mention romance).

And the amazing thing is that these things (and many others) can

...one of
the most entertaining sites on the
web right now...

exist all at the same time in one image. You can view the image and read the words in each box and be laughing so hard. Then roll the mouse pointer over the image and see the image title and you end up thinking about your first love or some existential mystery.Or just the opposite, going from a potentially sad/romantic moment to humor with the mouse-over. Sometimes deep and sometimes just plain offensive, but delicious. Check it out and be sure to hold your mouse over the image after you've read it...the layers are unbelievable. Enjoy.

p.s. That is a lot of links, but they were all so good I had to highlight my favorites...oh so many.

Beautiful People...

2005-11-05T16:02:00.000-06:00

So I updated (finally!) the book and song in my sidebar. I actually never really got far in the Harry Potter German version. Partly because my German is not the best and partly because I had little desire to read any of the Harry Potter series. Yeah go ahead and lambast me with all the "how can you say that" and "but finally our kids want to read." Blah, blah, blah. Get over it. I love sci-fi/fantasy literature, but I simply do not find this story that interesting. Most of you probably would be bored stiff with Murakami or Winterson, so just let me ignore this fad.

As for the new book I've added by Sarah Simblet, I must admit it is a beautiful book. The one critique I would add is that it is too beautiful! By that I mean the models are all far too beautiful. I am fascinated by anatomy, but I want to see real people in the images, too. In all fairness the goal of this book is not to provide a cross-section of models from which to

...the models
are all
far too
beautiful...

sculpt/draw/paint, but is intended to show the basic forms of the body. So what better way to see the muscles of the body than to have someone with well developed muscle not hidden by fat. Very true, but what about fat and the body composition of people who don't work out 40 hours a week. That is also part of human anatomy and is something other anatomy books/websites for artists cover (if only slightly), but about which this book is completely silent. If all artists created superwomen/men works, I'd be bored out of my mind. A powerful/muscular body does not necessarily lead to a powerful message in the artwork. Look at Rodin's nude study of Balzac. It is so fantastic and potent despite Balzac (or Rodin) spending little time concerned about his physique. Now look at Nazi sculpture: giant muscular figures with absolutely no potency. The Rodin just has a presence that comes from the pose and concetto of the work. Of course that is not to say that a muscular figure cannot have the same energy or more. I mean look at Bernini and Michelangelo, both created just that.

All that said, it is still a fantastic book to review anatomy alongside photographs of similar poses.

Also updated the music info to the Cowboy Junkies song "Blue Moon Revisited." This is yet another cover of an Elvis song that I think is superior to his version. I apologize to my dear friend Laura who would slap me across the face for saying that, but it is the truth. And since I love the Cowboy Junkies anyway, it just works out that way. This song is featured in one of my favorite (romantic) films Im Juli (English Title: In July) which is an amazing German film by the young director Fatih Akin. I rarely buy into romantic comedy type films but this one is so good. Not to mention that Christiane Paul is one of my movie girlfriends, but that is a story for another time. Anyway good song, good movie...you get it.

And the last "update" that occurred...Chicago Bloggers finally added me to their site. Not to sound ungrateful, but that took a long bloody time. I submitted a request back before last spring and just got the approval last week, you do the math. I also emailed them asking if there was a problem with my site and never heard a word from them. I'm not sure if they are simply backed up, or if new blogs have to have a certain number of posts to qualify. All they say on their site is that my blog has to relate to Chicago in some way...does writing it in Chicago count? Anyway I still think the concept is clever and I think if anyone else has a blog here in the city, add your info to the site. Just be patient in the meantime.

Be sure to support my sponsors...

2005-11-05T12:54:00.000-06:00

Okay, one more for the road. In hindsight I think what I meant to say was "Even the infallible make mistakes..." not sure if 'perfect' is entirely accurate according to Catholic doctrine, but I was young and foolish.

Sorry, Holy Father, the Devil and Photoshop made me do it.

p.s. I never said this blog was a Family Safe Website.

Babies and Puppies (Time Left: 1 day 4 hours)...

2005-11-05T11:34:00.000-06:00

So I was cleaning out the ol' hard drive today and stumbled upon some ads I was making back when I was still in college. Instead of studying for finals or writing research papers in advance (instead of the night before), I was playing with Photoshop and some other software making ridiculous ads that I thought would be a delightful piece of flare to my website. That of course remains to be seen, but it still was a fun treasure to uncover. A glimpse at my dark and disturbed mind.

I also chose to post this ad because I was reminded of it a short while ago when there was a big flurry about E-bay in China and how babies were being sold on it. What I found particularly amusing about this story was the image that the BBC had on their website.

So is this an image of the delivery of the product to the winning bidder? I mean seriously, who signed off on that image? Did they ask some woman to put her Asian baby in a box so they could get a file photo, or have they been sitting on this one for a while now just waiting for a chance to use an image of a baby in a box. I'm sure they have a couple photos of puppies in baskets that they are just chomping at the bit to use in some story on "Puppy meat sold on E-bay China."

I also just for fun typed in www.ebaby.com to see what would happen and sure enough there is an "upcoming" site for this. Of course it sounds like it will not be dealing in the actual selling of babies, but instead baby accessories of some sort. So I won't be using that domain.

p.s. I am having trouble with the ad (there should be an image of the Ebaby ad centered at the top of this post) showing up in Firefox, but it seems fine in IE. So if both of you could let me know if the image is showing up for others or not. It may be the filterset extension I'm using with my Firefox browser, but who knows. Any tips would be nice.

Now its time to play our game...

2005-10-02T11:01:00.000-05:00

BAGnewsNotes: Flat Head Tastes Flat Bread

This book was brought to my attention by a photograph of US Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes. The image appeared on YahooNews, but I first saw it on BAGnewsNotes. I really don't know where to begin commenting on the cover of this book so I will probably leave it to you to enjoy. As Mr. Shaw points out, you can't argue with having GWB on the cover simply because the premise of the book is "From George Washington to George W. Bush, read about the presidents and their eras in this updated reference book." (from the product description on Scholastic's website) It still makes me feel queasy to see it.

What I can't help but see (in the method of Mr. Shaw's photo analysis) is that the move from President Washington to President GW Bush is in a counter-clockwise direction. I'm sure if I knew more about graphic design it would make the layout clearer or even considered in a reading-from-left-to-right context. Regardless I can't help but think about the work of Washington to move the country forward into independence, but the work of the Bush Administration to move many policies back in time (i.e. civil rights, women's rights, worker's rights, etc.). Of course this reading is problematic in terms of Kennedy and Lincoln as part of the turn-back-the-clock America (for numerous reasons including basic chronology as well as policy changes). Instead you could see it, as was noted by Mr. Shaw and his readers, as a Sesame Street which-does-not-belong. Moving forward, moving forward, moving forward...wait a minute this one is not moving forward. Take it as you will, but it seems a fitting cover layout to me.

And on a more personal note...

2005-09-10T23:15:00.000-05:00

The Life and Legacy of Cesar E. Chavez | The Artist Finalists

I am not one to post much personal info (other than my personal opinion/ranting about art), but I found a recent website in regards to a Cesar Chavez statue project. One of the finalists for the project is my mentor, Littleton Alston. While I will never be the sculptor he is (and have yet to venture into the terrifying world of "professional" sculpture), I do consider him the fire-starter of my passion for sculpture. I will forever look back on those years of my life with joy and consider it an honor to have worked with him.

The selection of artists for this competition looks fantastic, each one with an incredible eye for the human form. I have seen Littleton's dedication to each sculpture with which he works, and I can see the pride he takes in working to honor so many historic figures (check out his work on this website, they are all so incredible). I know he will devote the same passion for Chavez that he has for his previous works. I hope to keep an eye on this project and post more on it later. Best of luck, Littleton!

Remember...

2005-08-07T18:09:00.000-05:00

August 6, 1945

Art Guild chief receives a Broward beating...

2005-07-23T09:45:00.000-05:00

Daily Show spoof leads to firing of Broward Art Guild chief: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Okay so I am still busy working on finding some supplemental income but I couldn't resist posting this. If you didn't see the video of which the article speaks you can watch it on the Daily Show's website at Comedy Central. It is located under Ed Helms's videos under the title Total Eclipse of the Art. It is, as always, unbelievably funny so even if you don't care about what has happened to executive director Susan Buzzi, you should still watch this.

South Florida.com also has coverage of this story which states that one of the artists was assured that Susan Buzzi's firing had nothing to do with the art in the exhibit or her appearance on the Daily Show. However the Sun-Sentinel story has a quote from one of the board members involved in the voting, who said that the board "called a secret meeting...and fired her." According to this board member--who incidentally voted to keep Buzzi--the reason for this decision was that Buzzi wasn't "communicating properly with them." I have to wonder if the board communicated this issue to Buzzi. The art world is an ever-complicated thing. I mean Buzzi served them for 10 YEARS and now, shortly after the show Controversy and her appearance on the Daily Show, now they have issues with her communication skills. Right.

So, executive directors of the world, be sure to speak to your board members before you make any executive decisions. And be sure to communicate your comments about their executive decision to the Broward Art Guild. Communication is very important in the art world...

See also: Miami Herald's "Art Guild fires chief after spoof"
Image: Alfred Phillip's painting "Yahoo" from the "Controversy" show at Broward. (Source: Express Gay News Online - see their article about the show as well)

LEAVE OF ABSENCE...

2005-07-14T13:13:00.000-05:00

Okay so if it isn't obvious I'm taking a break while I seek additional employment--hooray for student loans. For this long silence I would like to apologize to my 2 readers who by now have stopped reading anyway. Hopefully once I have some supplemental income I will be able to post periodically to this again, but while I'm job-hunting I want to devote as much time to the search as I can. So if anyone wants to pay me to keep making blog entries instead of working as a greeter at Wal~mart, forward your job postings my way. Until I return, take care, you two.

-JR

Fully Posable Judas...

2005-05-15T13:34:00.000-05:00

Take and eat, this is my plastic body given for you...

So I've been gone for a while and when I return all I give you is plastic nachos and a posable Savior. If you have not seen this site or heard of it...go look. I did my grade-school time in a Lutheran grade school (K-8) so I have pretty much memorized the Bible at this point, but I have never seen it displayed so beautifully. The Brick Testament is a project by the Reverend Brendan Powell Smith to document the stories of the Bible in LEGO form. It is truly incredible to go through all the stories from the Old and New Testament and see them displayed using a toy that I lived for growing up. I'm not sure if LEGO puts their seal of approval on this, but damn is it creative. I especially love the fact that the good Reverend has chosen to rate the stories like a TV show: N for Nudity, S for Sexual Content (this one is unbelievably graphic), V for Violence, C for Cursing (yeah that's what he means by 'cursing').

One thing I find particularly disturbing is the fact that any reference to sex tends to be depicted as anal/doggystyle (you can't really tell which it is with LEGO figures). I'm not sure if that is just because it is hard to portray missionary with little plastic figures or if it is just funnier that way. Whatever the case it is hilarious to see...is that really how Adam impregnated Eve?

I recommend spending some time going through as many as you can handle, but if you only read a few check out the Law. Of that section make sure not to miss the Why to Keep the Law section...it is too much. Just remember as you look at them, that this is actually Biblical passages, not made up stuff. What a riot! But you must, in this age of Mel Gibson, spend a moment looking at the Passion scenes which are spread over a few sections on the Gospels page.

While we're on the life of Jesus, I also think you should keep an eye on the Jesus of the Week website from time to time. You will see some truly abnormal depictions of Christ, some serious others tongue-in-cheek. I am fascinated by depictions of Christ. Unlike God and other ethereal religious figures, Christ, being God-made-flesh, lends himself to countless depictions. There are some interesting interpretations out there. I may come back to this in the future since I'm always looking for interesting depictions of Christ.

Until then, enjoy.

Not-cho Sculpture...unless you commission it.

2005-05-14T13:33:00.000-05:00

Dig in...

Why not?

Pop Culture and Rising IQs

2005-05-02T18:48:00.000-05:00

TIME.com: Children, Eat Your Trash! -- May. 09, 2005

Okay so I have recently been in deep thought/discussion with a few people about the value of pop music arguing that it is as important to the world of music as American cheese is to le monde du fromage (don't ask). Time Online's James Poniewozik gives a brief review of Steven Johnson's book Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter in which he highlights that despite the concern that TV rots our brains:

IQs in the developed world have been increasing three points a decade for a century.

Suffice it to say, I definitely agree with Johnson that this is very true. From my minor interaction with students on campus, I am amazed by some of their intelligence....mainly because of where I was intellectually when I was that age. Another interesting note in this review is the comparison between past television and current shows:

The Sopranos' interlaced plots make Hill Street Blues look like a Barney video. Nemo tracks many more characters and story lines than did Bambi. And supposedly mindless shows like The Apprentice are graduate seminars compared with '70s trash like The Love Boat, requiring us to parse webs of relationships, motives and strategies. In today's media, says Johnson, "even the crap has improved."

Even more telling, I would say is one show that has been on long enough to show its own maturation: The Simpsons. Dig up your copy of the first few seasons of the Simpsons on DVD or watch one of the thousand syndicated showings of it. Those first seasons definitely lacked the social/political relevance of the current episodes. It is an incredible progression.

As for my grandfathers "wise" words that TV makes you stupid, he was right only because he was watching I Love Lucy. With the Sopranos, Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, and Desperate Housewives, I for one refuse to let my age drive me to ever call the TV an "idiot box."

Out of the way history...we're building a nation...

2005-05-02T18:12:00.000-05:00

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | History lost in dust of war-torn Iraq

Coalition forces have themselves damaged archaeological sites by using them as military bases.

The withdrawal of coalition troops from Babylon has revealed irreversible damage to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

I recently mentioned here the string of events that led up to the theft of countless artifacts from the Iraq Museum, and here the BBC has done a piece on just that. In fact as the quote above points out, the article goes even further to highlight the wanton destruction of the history of civilization. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World in Babylon, is simply erased by carelessness. I know everyone now wants to say, "But it was done in the name of saving people today." Very well, but again if half as much concern was given to the protection of Iraqi history (one of richest histories in the world) as was extended to the oil fields of Iraq none of this would even be an issue. We can go round and round about what historical pride and national pride can do for a war-torn country especially one in the midst of building a new government. What better way to bring together the nation than to rally around your history....lest ye be doomed to repeat it.

Somewhere over my price range....

2005-04-27T20:44:00.000-05:00

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Garland's dress fetches �140,000

So I'm fascinated by celebrity relics, and this is one of those worth noting. Of course the slippers have already run through the auction block ($600,000.00, I believe). For a great discussion of the auction of the ruby slippers you should check out Salman Rushdie's book about the Wizard of Oz put out by the BFI Film Classics series. This book does a great job of discussing how the film personally effected Rushdie, but his statements about the film really make you think. In fact after reading it the phrase, "There's no place like home" will lose all meaning for you. It truly is an incredible read and I highly recommend it. While your at it check out the other films written about in the series.

Like fish in a barrel...

2005-04-27T10:55:00.000-05:00

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Jawbone hints at earliest Britons

I couldn't resist posting this story, just because. I'm resisting with every fiber of my being to crack a joke comparing early dental work of Neanderthal Brits with Modern-day Brits...what can I say. Resistance is futile... If Leno hasn't cracked a joke about this yet, he will. Come on, this is Leno-humor here. Brits with bad teeth and Martha Stewart in prison...bread and butter....

Reunited and it feels so good...

2005-04-25T20:24:00.000-05:00

BBC NEWS | Africa | Final obelisk section in Ethiopia

Well there it is. This has been a very uneventful string of entries and I'm sure both of you are unbelievably bored of this topic. I mean the ending was sort of a gimmie.

The BBC did one of their "Post Your Comments" pages regarding the concept "Who should own historic artefacts?" It is worth reading a few. Of course the first American post I saw was this one:

The sad truth is that in some cases, the artefacts will be privately sold to collectors by corrupt museum officials, if returned to original countries. I say let them remain where they are for now, until the time comes when the original owners can recognize their value.
Saif, USA

Maybe Saif's right, but let's wait before we promote Team America as the world police. And if we want to talk about the US ability to protect works of art, let's not forget what happened after we moved into Baghdad. The museums, and basically everything aside from oil fields, were left unprotected. If you have the power to storm a city, perhaps you should have the brain to protect that city from riots. The US reason for guarding the oil was that it was the thing that would rebuild Iraq...something they could be proud of. If there is one thing that the obelisk story drives home it is that the Ethiopian people who were interviewed (it is possible the rest of Ethiopians don't care) say this return brings a monument of great pride back to them. Iraq is a place of amazing history and their museums held some of the most amazing artefacts of the ancient Near East. Items made thousands of years ago, yet still so incredibly beautiful today. These items were sources of pride to those who displayed them...and now...who knows if some of them will ever be seen again.

Is art really worth spending so much time and thought on? Maybe stories like this prove it is. Why would a nation need a large stone tower to be returned to be proud? Why is so much time and money spent to recover Edvard Munch's stolen art? Why does Jean-Michel Basquiat warrent an action figure? If I knew the full answer to these somewhat related questions, I would be an icon of art history (Insert "icon of art history" joke here). I guess the thing that my previous posts and my soon-to-come posts relate is that there is something amazing inherent in art that does move people to do crazy things...like reinforce a runway that may never see a flight this big ever again. Strange. So think about that the next time you lean in to look at that ancient artefact from India (now housed in the Art Institute) and it beeps at you...that's American security at its best. No kissing the sandstone.

Kill the fatted calf: Part Two...

2005-04-22T10:41:00.000-05:00

BBC NEWS | Africa | Second obelisk part in Ethiopia

The saga continues...I can't wait for the third part of this trilogy to be released. I'm already in queue for tickets.

Kill the fatted calf: The Obelisk returns...

2005-04-19T20:31:00.000-05:00

BBC NEWS | Africa | Obelisk arrives back in Ethiopia

And one final post for the evening. I wanted to update this story which I noted previously as well. What is particularly interesting/troublesome is the amount of money and time spent to move this work back to Africa, especially in comparison to the amount of money that is spent on relief and aid in Africa. Would it have been better spent? Does the national pride and spirit of the Ethiopians equal the money spent to return a symbol of artistic innovation? I can't answer that, but here are some of the financial and technical highlights of the move:

The operation is costing Italy an estimated 6m euros ($7.7m).

***

Lattanzi, the Italian company responsible for transporting the obelisk to Axum, has described the obelisk as the largest, heaviest object ever transported by air.

Heaters were installed in the plane to protect the monument from freezing air temperatures.

The obelisk was wrapped in steel bars to stabilise it in case of turbulence during the six-hour flight, Lattanzi director Simone Pietero told AP.

In addition, the airstrip at Axum had to be upgraded to handle the vast Antonov-124 aircraft, and radar was installed.

Bleep Off Censors...

2005-04-19T20:02:00.000-05:00

Free Press News : Bleep: censoring Hollywood

I've been following this story off and on for a while now, but never had a blog to post it to...so here it is. There is a mighty effort to allow for private consumers to have software that edits out the "questionable" content in the movies they watch. This article does a good job of laying out the story and what is at stake if this happens.

I, at first, thought why not. I should be able to dub in scenes of me in women's underwear into the climactic moments of the Matrix, if I want to, right? Maybe... I have some lingering doubts, but all in all I feel that once I purchase the movie I have the fair right to alter it if I so desire. As long as I do not make a profit from someone else's hard work, then what harm is done. Sure the creative genius of the director is sullied by my sloppy editing skills, but I don't claim to be attempting to improve upon his/her work...only making it more amusing/pleasurable for me. Why shouldn't the conservative who-ha's be able to cut out the naughty bits if that is what does it for them? For me I don't want to do that, but why should my decision define what others have to watch in their own living rooms.

Ultimately I like what the writer, Marjorie Heins, states in her conclusion to this article:

I have an additional suggestion: buy it, rent it, discuss it with your children, both in advance and afterward. You can even discuss whether you think the violence or sex was realistic, was needed for the story, or was added gratuitously in order to boost the movie company’s profits. That would be called media literacy education, and it would help them immensely in all sorts of ways – for example, figuring out whether they should accept the next gender stereotype that slides across their TV screen, or should believe the next cute model in a commercial trying to sell them fast food, toys, or soda.

The on-ramp to heaven...

2005-04-19T19:20:00.000-05:00

Red Eye's creative staff at work...

Today's issue of the Red Eye has a cover story about an image of the Virgin Mary that appeared on a wall near the Kennedy Expressway on-ramp.

Obdulia Delgado turned toward the on ramp of the Kennedy Expressway last week when she saw something that made her stop in traffic.

She saw the image of the Virgin Mary in a large yellow and white stain on the concrete wall at the Fullerton Avenue entrance.

Where does one begin with this? I am fascinated, first of all, by the proliferation of religious imagery everywhere these days. I do not mean to come off as a complete cynic or someone with no faith whatsoever...but what is the limit here. I guess I'm a bit scared about running down to plant my lips on a "large yellow and white stain" on any concrete wall...let alone a major expressway on-ramp. I'm afraid to touch my shower walls and I clean that thing weekly.

Am I simply too much of a non-believer to accept that God, Jesus, Mary, etc would appear in a grilled cheese sandwich. Maybe that means I give too much credence to reason and not enough to pure faith. To be able to accept, without question, without doubt, that this could be a sign from God...that is definitely faith.

The print copy of the article has a great sidebar that shows pictures and gives a brief description of several different "visions" from the recent past, including the Virgin Grilled Cheese (sold on Ebay for $25,000) and the Virgin in the Hospital Window (which forced hospital workers to cover it to avoid masses of people from preventing patients from being treated). Most appealing to me was the Jesus on a Fish Stick. I mean can you imagine a better place for Christ to remind us of his life than on a Swanson frozen fish stick that was over-cooked by the consumer. Let's face it. Christ fed with loaves and fishes...remember. If you ask me, that is the sign I will believe. Jesus is simply giving a quick reminder that there are a lot of starving people out there so before we go burning and eating all the food, let's share with others. Will there be enough...well once you sell your fish stick on Ebay it multiplies your wealth so you can buy more fish and feed more people, right? Perhaps the point of the sign is really missed here. All this publicity and what good has come of it. Some punk who is too stupid to cook a pre-packaged fish stick (a portion of society that maybe needs a quick knock to the cranium) is now richer for having done so and a fish stick, instead of nourishing some hungry individual, now will sit on display for idiots like me to download and use as wallpaper. Yes, Christ chose just the right spot to remind us of how glorious a world we live in. Thank you, Jesus.

Amen...

p.s. Can you actually believe that the Red Eye used "Like a Virgin" as their cover lead-in? Unbelievable! Am I the only one who was in tears laughing at this? If you think the story titles that the Onion drops on its stories are ridiculous, take a week to view the cover of each issue of the Red Eye. They have a sharp team of wise-cracking writers busily churning out cleaver cover story titles to amuse the kid in all of us...Like a Virgin, they say...bravo, Red Eye, bravo...

Graffiti gains some weight...

2005-04-18T21:18:00.000-05:00

Return of Revs...

The NYTimes did an incredible story today on Revs, an iconic graffiti artist in 1990s New York. He has recently resurfaced with a new take on graffiti. The story details the recent work of Revs as he sculpts with industrial-grade steel creating sweeping lines and rhythmic cursive characters. It is truly a translation of graffiti in 3-D form. This alternative form however is a bit less intrusive. Revs now often gets permission to place his works outside of buildings.

But is it any less interesting because it's legal?

He smiled. "I might still have a few little knickknacks scattered around in places where they're not supposed to be, who knows?" he said. "I'm not commenting on that."

The article raises some interesting questions like that one. Does graffiti art have to pose a threat to the world around, or can it be legal art, as well? I must admit that whatever the case, Revs does not lose any respect from me for this change. It is his philosophies of art that most interest me. I am not sure how much I buy into what he proposes, but it is an interesting thought:'

"To me," he said recently, in a rare interview, "once money changes hands for art, it becomes a fraudulent activity.

This is an extremely potent statement and one that most likely rubs may artists the wrong way. Can the arts flourish without professional artists? Can we all take a night shift as a sculptor, painter, photographer just to keep the arts alive? Or do we even need to? Look at the history of the world. Art surfaces no matter what happens. You try to restrict the creative forces, to control the voices of the artists, and still the artists fight. I think in many ways the art world would be an entirely different place without money changing hands. I have to admit it is probably never going to happen. I mean let's face it, Revs already has had some of his sculptures stolen...guess where they are now. An icon like him, the works are probably making some underground cash, unfortunately. Even an artist who opposes the money exchange most likely will end up in it...if not during his life then over his dead body. I can see it now...30 years down the road Christie's selling a Revs piece for 12 million. What a world!

Of most interest to me though is one statement Revs makes in the secret interview:

"A car can back up into it," he said. "Somebody can get their head cracked open on it. A dog can go on it. Somebody can paint it if they want. It rusts. It's more interesting that way, you know?"

This statement about one of the placement of his works in the streets of the city for all to have access to is fantastic. I was just at the Art Institute with two wonderful, and quite lovely, friends of mine and kept hearing that delightful beeping sound that went off anytime someone leaned in too close to the Marcus Aurelius statue or the decorative arts furniture. The work has been completely removed from the viewers other senses. You can look but don't touch. Revs is already prepared for dog urine and traffic with his. There is something so incredible about that thought. Sure I'm not proposing that we all drop trow and leak all over the Brancusi just to give the art back to the people, but the place of art and the sterility of the museum is something I think about all the time.

Directory of Open Access Journals: Arts and Architecture...

2005-04-18T20:41:00.000-05:00

Directory of open access journals: Arts and Architecture

Okay so I'm such a leech. I simply float around the seas of the world wide web swiping delightful links from legitimate bloggers and repost them to my seemingly innocent site. In this case I once again nod in the direction of the Blog Master of Bibliotheke, William. He posted a great link to a Directory of Open Access Journals. I specifically am highlighting the section devoted to Arts and Architecture, so I'm mixing up William's post a bit. So enjoy my stolen ideas, and feel free to post it on your own blog and pretend it's your own idea.

Reincarnation of Oldenburg...

2005-04-18T19:59:00.000-05:00

BBC NEWS | England | London | Giant sculpture to stand on heath

What can be said about a giant-size sculpture of a desk? In all honesty I'm not sure if I even want to pass judgment on this work. I may just let it stand for what the artist says it stands for...at least for now. At least the homeless can get out of the rain...form follows function...right?

The Naples-born artist used six tons of steel and 1,000lb of wood to create the piece, which is designed to encourage people to be creative.

Creative? Or Derivative? Ooo, I'm such a bitch.

Can anyone top this funerary display...I doubt it...

2005-04-12T20:49:00.000-05:00

Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Gonzo king to go out with a bang

No need to comment on this. Just smile and enjoy.

Reading is FUN-damental...

2005-04-12T20:26:00.000-05:00

Meanwhile: When reading wanes, it's time to worry

In a 2000 survey of seniors from the top 55 universities, the Roper Organization found that 81 percent could not earn a grade of C on a high school-level history test.

After reading this blog post, please, stop your illegal music download, turn off your Yahoo Messenger, disconnect your internet, shut off the computer and go read a book. In fact, what the hell am I doing on this idiot box. I'm going to go read now too.

Scream come home...

2005-04-12T20:01:00.000-05:00

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | Month in jail for Scream suspect

Just thought I would post an update to the story of Munch's stolen work Scream. Apparently the police are on the case and there's no stopping them now. What about insurance for the work, you say. An August 2004 BBC story covered the role that insurance plays in major art museums and galleries:

The Scream, which was taken by two armed men from the Munch Museum in the Norwegian capital, was insured against water and fire damage - but not theft.

Its insurers say this is because if a painting is damaged by smoke or flooding, the gallery needs money to repair it.

But if a painting is stolen, the gallery cannot simply go out and buy another copy with the insurance money.

Until the last bulb burns out...

2005-04-11T19:15:00.000-05:00

NPR : 'Slide Show': Lighting Up a Lost Era

Having strolled through the world of art history in undergraduate and graduate school, I was fascinated by the announcement back in October of last year that Kodak would be making its last projector. It is interesting to consider what this means to the world of art history and many other fields. Since this announcement there have been numerous queries, artistic and otherwise, trying to understand the role and importance of the projector as a visual medium. The above link is a story on NPR about the Baltimore Museum of Art's current exhibition entitled Slide Show. The story does a great job of highlighting the role of the projector as well as its place in this show. The show has multiple slide projectors running automatically and at a steady pace as images are shown within several galleries. As Susan Stone highlights in her story the quick pace of the slides makes for an intriguing new way of viewing the slide reproductions of artwork:

Moving through the projector, they become glimpses out the window of a speeding car or subway train.

"You're never allowed to linger, those fast moving slides don't enable you to sit with an image. And sometimes, as I was saying with the Helen Levitt, you wanted to switch the machine off and just look at the picture and make it stand still but its constantly in a state of movement." (Story by Susan Stone, the passage in quotation marks is from the show's curator, Darsie Alexander)

Another interesting article about this device as an educational tool comes from AIGA Journal of Design. In her article Alice Twemlow considers what the departure of the projector means to the educational community (with a focus on the design community). One thing I found particularly interesting was a quote by Meredith Davis which highlights how it has become so easy for educators to never see the objects they teach about:

Teachers and librarians have a tendency to go to books for images so the same few get recycled. Very few graphic design history books have resulted from real work in archives and unlike architecture and art, graphic design does not have companies making slide sets from archives. So faculty tends to use homemade slidesmost usually copied from Meggsand that governs what they teach. Theyre not serious historians, and have never seen most of these objects in real life.

Instead of a slide made from an archival item, it instead is reproduced from a photographic reproduction in a book. In addition to the twice removed resource, she also makes a great point about how the sources for their images govern what they teach. While I've highlighted a negative note from this article, it does a good job of discussing both sides of this issue.

I also highly recommend checking out an incredible article by the theorist Arthur Kroker entitled "The Image Matrix: Analog is having a burial and digital is dancing on its grave." In it Kroker explores the numerous implications of digital imagery overtaking analog. Whether or not you agree with Kroker's take on this trend, it is definitely worth the read:

The digital code speaks the sanitary language of culture cleansing, of photography itself at a distance, of the archive by remote control, of the deep-freeze preservation of the image from the 'contamination' of time and history and memory and skin and smells and touch. Photography in a bubble. Memory in cold storage. Images fast-frozen. Perfectly preserved, perfectly coded. Always retrievable, always inaccessible. A psychoanalytics of digital repression.

As one last point, I want to also highlight that in addition to the Baltimore show on the slide projector, there is also an upcoming documentary which explores the slide projector and its demise. The documentary is entitled The Last Slide Projector was created by Paige Sarlin. In the January 14, 2005, issue of the Chicago Reader there was a great right-up on this film and what went into it. From what I've read she not only is involved in the discussion of the role of the projector as medium, but also delves into the social and economic issues that arise from the outsourcing and loss of jobs as the world shifts from analog to digital. If you can find a copy of this article, check it out. I wasn't able to find the release date of the documentary, but I believe it will be soon.

The links keep coming...

2005-04-02T12:13:00.000-06:00

I've once again added a new link. It has been a work in progress for a few months, but I think its ready for release. Its a radio station set up through Launchcast. Launchcast is a website that allows you to listen to music online (you do need a decent connection, I've tried it with dial-up...not worth it). The magical part of it though is that you can rate each song as it plays and you can also rate artists and albums. Over time the player adapts to your preferences and begins to play your likes and occasionally some new stuff that it thinks you may like. I have been planning to post this to my blog but I wanted to first get it to a point where I was happy listening to it. I think I've finally made it. Every now and again an artist sneaks in that I'm not too pleased with, but for the most part what you listen to here is my kind of music. It is pretty diverse ranging from Public Enemy to Bjork to Muddy Waters to Soul Coughing. I am constantly listening to it and adapting my likes and dislikes so it will continue to change, but at this point it seems pretty stable. Please feel free to tune in and listen to my tunes, or if you don't like my taste then make your own station.

I will give one notice before I post the link here...this player requires I.E. if you are using Windows and if you are on a Mac then you need Netscape's latest edition. This is one of the few things that keeps me attached to I.E. which I hate, but my hands are tied. In other words, my fellow Mozilla-fans, you can't use Firefox. I hope that changes as more people begin to use Firefox, but for now Microsoft apparently has Launch/Yahoo by the...well you get it. The link below loads the player immediately after you click the link below. It will open one window and then a pop-up for the player, so if you use a pop-up blocker you may have to change some settings to allow them to play. It is at your own risk that you lower your defenses...I am putting my computer at risk, I know, but I've chosen to accept the consequences in exchange for good music...you have to chose for yourself before clicking below...

Disclaimers aside, I love this program and I hope you like my station:

Listen to my music

The revolution will be commercialized...

2005-04-02T08:49:00.000-06:00

SAMO meets GI JOE

Yes, I think Jean-Michel Basquiat finally found a place he can fit in...amidst Darth Vader and Croc Head from Metal Gear Solid 3 video game. (Yes that sentence was brimming with sarcasm.) There are so many thoughts flying through my head regarding this one... I'm not sure what having an action figure made of you says in this day and age. I can imagine Basquiat's occassional collaborating artist/friend Andy Warhol really digging his own action figure when he was still alive. I can also see him having set up a "Warhol Speaking Tour" where people who had paid to see Andy Warhol talk would have instead received the Warhol action figure posed at the podium while a recorded speech was played.

If you don't know much about the work of either artists or the collaboration between the two I would recommend tracking down some books on them. Their styles combined (a la Captain Planet) formed some amazing images. When you place Basquiat's jazz/hip-hop inspired, free-form painting in the same frame as Warhol's mass-produced silk screen prints of company logos such as General Electric and Paramount Pictures, you are given a seeming boxing match of styles (an image that the promoters of the Warhol/Basquiat show utilized beautifully). In the end though it is not a "who wins" scenario, but a spectacle of the dance that truly makes it all worth it.

The life and work of Basquiat is also a source of art historical boxing match. The eternal debate of "is this art?" crossed paths with Baquiat and and many people voiced their opinions including none-other-than the George Foreman of art history Robert Hughes (I'm not sure of this metaphor myself...I just threw it out there for the hell of it). Hughes was very critical of Basquiat's work in relation to the art world, but while he made some valid points, I think a large majority accepted Basquiat's work with open arms.

The other controversial subject within the work of Basquiat arises from the word often applied by many of his supporters: "primitive." This is a very scary word to me and one that complicates and can easily trivialize the work of an artist. The friends of "primitive" include "child-like," "innocent," and "savage." It smacks of the colonial preoccupation with the untouched savage, the person who has lived his/her life without any connection to the "modern," industrialized world...possessing a purity that can create "child-like" art. This word is still one that haunts many artists, particularly those working in Africa. In fact it is often the absence of what many conceive as the "primitive" style that complicates the work of many African artists. These artists may create some of the most amazing art, but if it does not look like an "traditional" African mask or textile, they are often passed over as mere copying Western styles. This issue is far more complex than I have room to discuss in a blog post, so I would recommend doing some research into the subject. Besides I've gone over my quota for quotation mark usage in one post...

For those not fond of reading books, you can always go out and rent Basquiat, the 1996 biographical dramatization of his life. It features David Bowie as Andy Warhol as well as an amazing cast including Benecio del Toro, Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken, Gary Oldman, Willem Dafoe, Parker Posey, and even Courtney Love. It is an extremely moving film which I highly recommend. You can go out and buy the 80s-style Andy Warhol action figure and act out the urination scene in your own basement. Now if only they made an action figure of Zurich gallery owner Bruno Bischofberger...

Ides of March Marched Away in mid-March...

2005-04-01T22:05:00.000-06:00

The New York Times > Arts > Art & Design > A Sculptor's Weighty Work Is Whole Again

Some in the art world were still puzzled by the sculpture's disappearance. Only about 7 percent of art thefts happen in public and commercial spaces, according to the Art Loss Register, a London-based group that tracks stolen art.

And public artworks the size of "The Ides of March" are rarely stolen, said Tom Eccles, the director of the Public Art Fund in New York. Small outdoor and public works are often stolen or destroyed in the attempt, he said, offering in surprisingly good humor a long list of pieces ripped from concrete, covered in plaster of Paris, torn apart for ease of flight and otherwise ruined.

Music Update!

2005-03-31T21:28:00.000-06:00

Public Enemy
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

I've decided that I'm going to drop in a post when I update my Music or Reading list in the sidebar. I decided that if I ever want to look back at what I was up to in 2005 I need a way to find it. Changing the sidebar leaves behind no trace of my ever having noted anything. The posts won't be more than a song title or book title...unless I feel particularly chatty.

Currently on Playlist:

Public Enemy "She Watch Channel Zero?!" from their 1988 album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

As a quick endnote to you punk-types out there, check the liner notes for this album; your icon Jello Biafra makes an appearance in this extensive thank you list. Just in case you wanted to know. Also Chuck D was recently a voice on Air America's Unfiltered which was canceled and set to be replaced by Jerry Springer (no comment). Chuck D is an incredible speaker. If you ever get the chance to see him, don't pass it up. And if you don't know Public Enemy, then go find them and listen. They definitely created some of the hardest hitting recordings of all time, both musically and socially. It opened the eyes of this Nebraska-born child of the corn. Probably my first real thoughts on social and political injustices stem from their lyrics...maybe not so much in '88 (I was only 10 at the time and busy with Transformers and LEGOs), but the more I listened the more it spoke--and still speaks--to me.

IMDb versus the porn industry...

2005-03-31T20:23:00.000-06:00

TIME - Richard Corliss - : That Old Feeling: When Porno Was Chic

Bob Hope: "I went to see Deep Throat cause I'm fond of animal pictures. I thought it was about giraffes." Bob Hope made a Deep Throat joke on TV! It was like a papal blessing.

Richard Corliss delves into rough waters in a really interesting online article at Time magazine. He talks about 70s porn and a moment in history when "porno chic" was on the verge of crossing paths with Hollywood. The article deals mainly with a timeline of pornography that seems to reach an apex with Deep Throat according to Corliss.

I hear you: this isn't porno chic, it's porno shtick. But it was fun and funny in a slummy way

***
Before Deep Throat, the mood in a sex-movie theater was solitary, drastically monastic, with patrons seated as far away from one another as possible. The Damiano film turned porn-going into a communal experience. If you were going to see a hard-core movie, this was the one.

I found much of the anecdotal information in this article to be quite interesting. In particular the role that MoMA played in the viewing of these films, something I find hard to imagine ever happening today. Also of interest is the discussion of many of the major film festivals and the place of porno films within them. But even more interesting is a quirky note about IMDb (a site I have raised nearly to the top of my most indispensable websites of all time). As it turns out you cannot search for Deep Throat--or other porno films--by title...it won't show up, but you can view it by searching the actresses/actors involved and find it in their filmography. (You can however find the documentary Inside Deep Throat.)

Does IMDb have a moral conscience? Are they afraid that if they document a movie that was actually made (and one that is dubbed as the most profitable film of all time) they will be condoning pornography? Or maybe it's simply a fear of the slippery slope. Once they include one porno, what's next? However they have no qualms documenting Linda Lovelace's bestiality flick which Lovelace made shortly before Deep Throat or the 886 movies attributed to Ron Jeremy...go figure.

I do have some uneasiness with this action on IMDb's part. It makes me feel like IMDb is not merely documenting films but identifying what they feel are appropriate films for easy searching. What possible moral/social benefit comes from IMDb making it difficult to find these movies? Do you think kids searching the web for pornography are going to stop in and sully the website by reading the cast of Humpkin Pie? Hell no! They are far to busy to waste time with a movie database. Not to mention most of the ones I looked at on IMDb have nothing other than the name of one actor/actress and no more. And let's face it, no one is basing their porno purchases on IMDb reviews, trust me. If that were true, Linda Lovelace's bestiality flick would be flying off the shelves (if it's on any shelves, at all) because it has 8.9 out of 10 stars AFTER 47 VOTES. I guess there is something I'm missing here in terms of the method to IMDb's madness, but please feel free to let me know if you can see the reasoning behind this.

I could drag out this post by dwelling on the implications of pornography in the realm of art...but for now I'll let this article do the heavy lifting. If another topic brings me back to this, I'll consider it more then. For now just bask in the nostalgia of a foregone era...

Download your illegal copy of Xanadu 5 times faster in S. Korea...

2005-03-27T14:44:00.000-06:00

Free Press News : The future is South Korea

I'm breaking from the usual "arts" discourse to bring you some late-breaking news on broadband access worldwide.

South Korea is the most wired country on the planet. Some South Koreans can get up to 20 megabits of data per second breakneck speed by todays standards. Americans are lucky if they get 4 Mbps.

While South Korea leads in the rollout of broadband, the United States

supposedly the worlds technology leader comes in no better than No. 13, according to experts. About 76 percent of households have broadband in South Korea. The figure is 30 percent in the United States.

***
There is no point in Korea where you can stand without receiving a signal, said Joy King, director of industry marketing at Hewlett-Packard. In the U.S., we are still at the can-you-hear-me-now level. When Europe and Asia are moving to multimedia text messaging, the U.S. has just started text messages. The U.S. is a Third World country in this aspect.

What a magical kingdom that must be. A world of never having to say "I'm going out of range so I'll have to call you back." or never having to be sledgehammered with idiot spokesmen saying "Can you hear me now?"

Of course it is not without its exploitation:

For example, with MSN Messenger, Koreans use avatars, a cartoon that represents them online. When your friends see your avatar, they know youre online and instant messaging.

Basically, customers in Korea buy a virtual person. For a small fee, they can buy clothes, shoes and purses for it, Richardson said.

Yahoo Messenger currently offers this option for free, including a choice of clothing, background, and accessories (also free). I can't imagine ever deciding one week, should I buy new shoes for me, or my avatar. I mean in an online world, what is really more important. If your avatar looks sloppy will anyone IM you...I doubt it, loser.

It is interesting to consider what brought us to No. 13 in the world market of broadband:

At that time, the Korean government turned to the high-tech industry as a solution to overcome the crisis. Broadband was a new market with new demand for modems, routers, servers, computers, a new infrastructure. It caused a lot of activity and created many jobs, iPark Silicon Valleys Kim said.

***
President Bush has said all Americans should have access to broadband by 2007. To reach that goal, he has promised to remove bureaucratic obstacles. But, unlike the Korean government, his administration is not pumping money into the market.

I think Bush needs to talk to Gov. Ed Rendell of PA about this obstacle clearing he has planned. But in the US's defense the Chronicle ads:

...it is much cheaper and much easier to wire an apartment building [in South Korea] than a typically spread-out U.S. city and its suburbs, not to mention the nations vast rural areas.

I'd like to see some statistical break down of average income in S. Korea v. the US as well as the cost of many of these services. It seems to me that if 75% of S. Koreans can afford cell phone service v. the US's 60%, there must be some sort of income/expense differences. Just a thought.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

To the victims go the spoils...

2005-03-27T14:20:00.000-06:00

Spoliation Panel Rule That Beneventan Missal - Acquired In Good Faith By British Library - Was Looted In Nazi Era And Must Be Returned

As it stands, the British Library isn't "returning" this item per se, but it is trying to get permission from its rightful owners to keep the item in their collection.

British Library Chief Executive Lynne Brindley said:

"The British Library accepts the Spoliation Advisory Panel's conclusions, and I commit the Library to engage in constructive discussion with the other parties on the terms and conditions of a loan of the Missal to the Chapter Library in Benevento. The Library has, as required by statute, exercised careful stewardship of the manuscript for nearly sixty years and it has been studied here by distinguished scholars. Thus the Library will be seeking to ensure that the loan meets rigorous conditions which will guarantee that appropriate levels of stewardship and scholarly access will be maintained"

I'm sure there are plenty of accession revelations going on, but I'll try to note the ones I do catch in the news. This one was brought to my attention via Peter Scott's Library Blog which in turn was brought to my attention by the all-knowing Findory.

A caper of some modesty...

2005-03-24T19:33:00.000-06:00

The New York Times > Arts > Art & Design > Need Talent to Exhibit in Museums? Not This Prankster:

"He added that he had thought about storming the Guggenheim, but was too intimidated. 'I would have had to appear between two Picassos,' he wrote. 'And I'm not good enough to get away with that.'"

Everyone's got this story....

Don't forget to bring in the outsider art...

2005-03-24T18:58:00.000-06:00

Take that Bush...
Banksy's Give Peace a Chance (Vandalized Oil Painting, 2005)
Image from Wooster Collective

Top News Article | Reuters.co.uk

This is truly one of the most incredible stories I've seen in a long time. To me this is incredible art...groundbreaking and really something that makes you stop and think. I want to thank my source over at Bibliotheke for passing this link on to me. Check out the link to the Wooster Collective which has pictures of the perpetrator in the act.

"My sister inspired me to do it. She was throwing away loads of my pictures one day and I asked her why. She said 'It's not like they're going to be hanging in the Louvre.'"

He took that as a challenge. "I thought why wait until I'm dead," he said.

Banksy's work is politically loaded and while the Reuters article emphasizes the whimsy of his actions, it is good to see that the art is also relevant. I mean it could have been anyone jamming paintings into a museum, but I'm glad to see it is an artist who has depth to his works.

Also be sure to look over at the artist's page which is full of incredible works of art. One of the best highlights on the page is the "Current Exhibitions" link which shows these works that iniltrated the hallowed walls. Two of them are listed as "Removed," but the Brooklyn and Natural History museums don't...are they still up? Anyway after tonight my guess is no. NPR is doing a bit on the artist tonight as well which you should be able to listen to online on a later date.

Thanks again to my colleague William for the links. I guess this answers the problem we were discussing earlier today, William...how does an artist get his work shown without mailing thousands of dollars worth of slides and packets to countless galleries. Why not just walk in the front door...

On a lighter note...

2005-03-23T22:55:00.000-06:00

FLY

So my Diane Arbus discussion delved into the real, now let's step into the surreal, shall we. This is an incredibly bizarre concept and one that truly stretches the boundaries of art. I am, however, utterly fascinated by the way the viewer is left to the webrowsers of the world to enact this work of art.

Hertz's installation, Fly, grants us the ability to virtually possess the body of a dead, preserved fly via web-based technology. As an off-site participant we "activate" the web server, located in the fly's body, by clicking a computer mouse that correspondingly illuminates tiny LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes). The viewer of the installation bears witness to this possession.

In other words the person in the gallery space cannot--at least as I understand the write-up on the website--bring to life the work of art, it is in fact left up to random chance, or excellent web advertising. That the write-up doesn't go into detail on, though. Did the creator sponsor an ad online to draw people in to this or was it a matter of crossing fingers and hoping someone was Googling for "Remote controlled LED Fly" at just the time the show was open. That to me is somewhat integral to the piece, but maybe that is just my own take.

I also am confused by the seeming overly exaggerated statement:

"It" is indeed alive- but what manner of life is pure speculation?

Is it? I'm not sure even the loosest definition of the term "life" fits what is happening here. Unfortunately I am consumed in the media with the Schiavo story, and while I by no means wish to trivialize her story, I can't help but think of this exhibit in terms of a human being connected to life support. In a circumstance such as that, the "life" which the machine supports is the organ functions necessary to promote bloodflow, oxygen, nourishment, etc. In the fly exhibit, I hardly think that implanted LEDs that light up inside a fly are a sort of "life." Unless he has somehow fused the LEDs to the fly's vital organs (an incredible feat worthy of great acclaim) the interaction with the work is hardly more than turning on and off a person's Christmas lights in their front yard with your web browser.

Okay, I am being a bit reductive, I still enjoy the concept and I am still mulling over the intricacies of the piece, but I have my doubts. I hate the fact that the video link is down on this site so I can't see it in action, but I have a pretty good visual image of it...needless to say it includes a scene of the fly lit up and screaming in a high-pitched voice, "Help me, help meeeee...."

Resisting the gaze...

2005-03-23T19:11:00.000-06:00

Diane Arbus's Girl with Cigar in Washington Square Park, NYC, 1965
Image Source: Robert Klein Gallery

The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Special Exhibitions: Diane Arbus Revelations

Diane Arbus...what can I say. I am in love with her work and find it nearly impossible to pull myself away from her portraits that despite the content including carny folk and transvestites does so in a way that manages to create a sense of dignity that is moving. Often photographs of the outer edges of society become sensationalized and marginalize the model to a great extent. With Arbus however there is a nobility and strength that is often very confrontational making the works challenging to view. It forces you to really contemplate the subject of the image and I find the experience indescribable. Of course this show is at the Met in New York, but there are plenty of her works online for you to confront.

The March 21, 2005, issue of the New Yorker has a great review of the Met's show of Arbus's work. In it the author, Peter Schjeldahl, discusses the potency of Arbus's work and even takes up the battle against some of the critical commentary from Susan Sontag. One particularly great passage sums of Arbus's work:

Arbus is important not for what she was but for her regular feat of vanishing, as a personality, when her camera clicked. T.S. Eliot's tenet of a necessary separation of "the man who suffers and the mind which creates" cannot be better exemplified than by Arbus at that recurrent moment when we as viewers are abandoned to visions overwhelmingly both fierce and tender. Imputations of "voyeurism" are absurd; voyeurs must feel safe, and Arbus's pictures are like the gaping barrels of loaded guns.

I personally spent a lot of time delving into the works of Arbus in grad school particularly in terms of the grotesque. One unpublished work (any peer-reviewed journals interested?) that I wrote was in relation to the writings of Wolfgang Kayser in his book entitled The Grotesque in Art and Literature. Anyone interested in the grotesque in art should definitely read this work. I became fascinated with the absence of any discussion of photography in this treatise and I began my own Kayserian reading, if you will, of Arbus's photography. My primary interest was to come to grips with whether or not I believed Arbus's work to be grotesque or if it was simply challenging the world we lived in...or possibly both.

It seems that Arbuss photography might fall more closely into the realm of what Kayser terms the latent grotesque. This offshoot of the grotesque plays is highlighted in a discussion of the work of Franz Kafka and is characterized by what Kayser describes as a world where the viewer/reader cannot gain a foothold, because he/she never had one to begin with. The world is strange from the beginningthe narrator is separated from his reader by an abyss such as was previously unknown. (This last sentence is from Wolfgang Kayser, The Grotesque in Art and Literature (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1963), 149)

***
Arbuss world which seems at first to be just like ours, reveals later that what we thought to be one thing, turned out to be something quite different. We are unable to gain an understanding of a world in which we never had much of a bearing. It is important to note, however, that Arbuss photographic voice within these works tends to be the factor influencing this estrangement. It is not simply the physical disabilitythe single, isolated figurebut the constructed, estranged world of Arbus.

I've never quoted myself before, but there you have it. I go on to consider the role of the subject of the photograph but, to this day, I'm not sure if I completely know the role. What I do see though is a challenge to the world around us in Arbus's photograph. A confrontation with the gaze, the voyeur within. Within a world of people marginalized by the ignorance of the majority, Arbus gives them the dignity they deserve. No longer can you stare without reaction...now you must confront the photographed and face him/her no longer as the object of the gaze, but now the subject confronting you. Again, as always, I leave it up to you to subscribe to your own feelings on her photographs...

I also want to give a link to Michael Kimmelman's review of the Arbus show in the March 11, 2005, issue of the New York Times which I found to be insightful: PHOTOGRAPHY REVIEW; The Profound Vision of Diane Arbus: Flaws in Beauty, Beauty in Flaws

Look at the pretty new link...

2005-03-20T15:08:00.000-06:00

Chicago Area Art Links

I've added a new link to my list. It is a page I just built because I wanted to keep track of art exhibits and also to create a decent link of museums and galleries in the area that I am interested in. Instead of listing countless links on this blog I thought it would be best to put it elsewhere. It is experimental, to be honest, and I'm not sure I'll have the time to keep it current, but I'll try.

I will a couple disclaimers about it. It is a Yahoo Geocities page, which is nice because it is free and easy to throw together quickly. That makes it nice for ME...not for the innocent viewers who may, or may not, get slammed with pop-ups and that annoying Yahoo Geocities sidebar with sponsored links. Because it's free I can't complain, but I just wanted to alert the innocents before you go. I would recommend getting Mozilla Firefox for your web browser if you have not done so already. It's free and remarkably good at stopping pop-ups and blocking ads...something IE is terrible at. There, I said it. Also I used Yahoo's design program which is also free (so again no complaints), but the program designs the page with that irritating sidebar in mind so when you minimize it the page looks lopsided. I only use the program because it's free and easy for me to update without wasting time editing code, etc. I will try to make changes but they keep a pretty tight leash on me here at Geocities.

And in closing...if you have any art links that you want to pass along for the Chicago area, feel free to email them to me via the link on the website. I'm always eager to learn more. However don't be offended if the link isn't on the website right away. It's not that I'm judging your definition of art, it's more likely that I'm lazy and have not posted to the site at all. Enjoy, mes deux amis.

Get Met, It pays...

2005-03-19T21:04:00.000-06:00

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | Met hails photographic archive

Since I've already used my frequent blogger miles for the day, I will try to be brief. I only wanted to bring some news from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the attention of the two of you reading my blog. It seems the Met has made a major purchase of the Howard Gilman Foundation's collection of photographs for an undisclosed sum of money. It will be interesting to see what the Met will be able to do with such an extensive collection of images from a wide range of artists.

In other news, the link listed above for the Met's News page has another interesting acquisition from last November which recently was on display and just this past week was taken down for further study. It is a 14th century Madonna and Child by Duccio. The work is one of those iconic (pun intended) works in the history of art. It is often Duccio along with artists like Giotto and Cimabue who are cited as the dawn of the Renaissance. The beginnings of perspective in paintings is often drawn back to some of the early Maesta Alterpieces (Madonna and Child Enthroned) by these artists. I personally am not fond of the often repeated notion of earlier Gothic art as being art of the "Dark Ages," and artists like Duccio bringing about a new light to the world. In fact I find many of the earlier works of art to be more powerful emotionally, in part due to them being unencumbered by the limits of a simple perspective. If you have not seen a northern European Pieta or Crucifix, go out and get a book on Romanesque and Gothic art and thumb through it.

I also want to add one more note on the Gothic and Romanesque situation. What most often happens in survey courses on art history is one begins by studying prehistoric art and progresses to the incredible achievements of the Greek and Romans and then moves on to the Medieval period of art. It is here that most people, including many art historians, have a difficult time explaining to a classroom full of students why there seems to be an abandonment of the classical style for a new, strikingly different style. A style that to many seems primitive and simplistic. What is most incredible though is that some of the most inciteful ink spilled in the name of art was poured from the pens of scholars writing about Medieval art. Meyer Schapiro and Michael Camille come to my mind as having made some incredible statements on the study of art in general which came about as they wrote on Medieval art specifically. Often some of the most amazing comparisons were drawn between Medieval and Modern art and even popular culture.

Again since I have really spent far more time than I expected writing today, I will draw this third installment to a close. I hope to return to this discussion of Medieval art again because I feel that it is one of the most under-appreciated art movements and still has much more to be revealed with the proper exploration. In the meantime, take a look around at some works of Medieval art and just consume them. Don't be so quick to judge them in relation to anything else: Oh, that isn't how the human figure looks, that image has no sense of realism or perspective...etc, etc. I think the preoccupation with concepts of 'realism' and what that means to art-making have destroyed opportunities to explore art and the world around us in new ways. Believe me, even I can't avoid this mode of thinking, but make the effort and you will begin to see art in a whole new light. All other perceived limitations will fall away...

Some thoughts on memory...

2005-03-19T17:09:00.000-06:00

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | BBC defends Churchill sculpture

The BBC has recently unveiled a memorial to Sir Winston Churchill which has been receiving some criticism from the family of Churchill (In all fairness the article also talks about the family being "very complimentary about the work," as well...which is right, I don't know). It also, has drawn comparisons (in the blog world at least) to IKEA furniture and upturned grocery boxes (that latter being from the grandson of Churchill, not on a blog, though).

Truly it is a very simple work which draws some very clear parallels to Churchill's speech-writing method, but is it the best method for commemorating a historical figure? Next to the BBC sculpture above, I've included an image of a more traditional memorial sculpture of Churchill. It may be argued that both serve different purposes, but to a certain degree both act as commemorative works meant to immortalize the figure of Churchill. Does one serve this purpose better than the other? Years from now, will one work draw an immediate connection to Churchill while the other seem to be Claus Oldenberg's game of Jenga? (Okay, the wording of that question makes me sound like I have written off the BBC piece, but in all honesty, I won't pass judgment on a work I've only seen in photographs...but I will joke about it.)

Let's think of it in terms of iconoclasm. We've all seen footage of the statue of Saddam being toppled by what the popular media identified as Iraqi citizens (although if you have seen the documentary "Control Room" about al Jazeera, you know there is some doubt as to whether or not these were Iraqi citizens...I could go on about that, but I would recommend you just watch the film). Imagine that same footage taken of an abstract sculpture established by Saddam (My knowledge of Middle Eastern art is very pathetic and is limited to archaeological pieces that were once housed in Baghdad so I can't say that I know of any such abstract art commissioned by Saddam, if it does exist). Would it have the same effect if you saw that on CNN or FoxNews? Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't.

In terms of the creation of icons, there is ample history of controversy surrounding the creation of a monument. One such example is the commission by the French government to have the sculptor Auguste Rodin create a monument to Victor Hugo. So complex was the relationship between Rodin and the French government throughout the conception of this work that Rodin (and all of the Frenchman involved in the commission) died before the work was ever cast in bronze (Rodin died in 1917 and the work wasn't cast until the 1960s). The story of Rodin's conception of a monument to Hugo indeed shows an extreme case of how sensitive the subject of a memorial can be. In this case, involving the act of one artist relating the life and work of another artist, the complexity of the situation is evident. Do we need to create a monument to an artist whose amazing catalogue of literature speaks volumes to the artist's life? Does Rodin's sculpture complicate the legacy which Hugo himself created or is Rodin's sculpture merely a compliment to Hugo's own art (literary and visual)?

There is also a wide range of works that memorialize movements such as Gay Rights (see George Segal's piece, "Gay Liberation," in New York which commemorates the 1969 Stonewall riots. Segal's work is even more loaded with controversy than the Churchill piece.), AIDS awareness (see Felix Gonzalez-Torres whose works invite the viewer to participate and experience the memory by taking a piece of the work with them. One example is "Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)" which is a memorial to Gonzalez-Torres's partner who died of AIDS.), and Post-Apartheid South Africa (one incredibly powerful image is "The Interrogators" by Paul Stopforth. It is a haunting work that depicts three of the men who interrogated and murdered South African activist Steven Biko. It is an image that, like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, sought answers to the atrocities that took place under Apartheid.) These memorials can ask us to remember what we are fighting for, to remember those lost in the fight, or even to remember the figures we fought against. Each work produces a variety of emotions and interaction between the viewer and the memorialized.

As so many of my posts do, I have posed more questions than answers, but then I prefer questions to answers anyway. Maybe this BBC sculpture does a more efficient job of memorializing because it forces more questions than answers...or maybe it is too straight-forward and forces little contemplation of the work or the memorialized. I personally have a lot more to say on the topic of the memorial, but I will come back to it later. Needless to say, we are surrounded by mementos of past people and events that continue to act upon us in the present. I'm not sure any one monument (or multiple monuments) can completely define the impact of one person's life or the influence of a specific event, so perhaps the more sculptures of Churchill we create the more it serves the purpose of relating his life to us.

You can decide which one you prefer on your own time...

p.s. I know this post is already long but I wanted to add a brief note about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I'm not going to go into detail regarding it, but I do want to recommend the documentary entitled "Long Night's Journey into Day: South Africa's Search for Truth & Reconciliation" which details the activity of the TRC in South Africa headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It is a great example of video acting as an archive or memorial of an event...an audio/visual monument of sorts. If you don't know anything about what happened in South Africa or what the TRC is, this film is a powerful entrance to the subject. This film is one of the most intense documentaries I've ever seen, and I would recommend you watch it with a box of Kleenex. I watched it for the first time in a class on African art and I was in tears all the way through. I'm not one to cry in public, but the stories told make it nearly impossible to hold back the tears. There are scenes of the Archbishop listening to testimony, barely able to sit up because he is crying so hard. The range of emotions you will go through in this film is hard to match, but also opens your eyes to a way of grieving that makes little sense to most people. To gain closure by learning the truth instead of gaining closure through vengeance, is a notion that a society bent on capital punishment has a hard time comprehending.

This post was ghostwritten by Casper the Friendly...

2005-03-19T13:34:00.000-06:00

The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > Essay: Ghosts in the Machine:

By strategically positioning a goodnatured hack between the celebrity and the public, the publishing industry is doing fans of the joyously cretinous a terrible disservice. Let us never forget: by their words ye shall know them. Not by their ghostwriters' words.

I figured that since I myself have been a ghost lately (its been 6 days since my last confession), I would celebrate my return by having someone else write my post (okay not really). And as most of you modern-agers do not believe in ghosts, I decided to drop this article on "ghostwriters" to prove their existence.

Joe Queenan, writing for the NYT, does a fabulous job of diving into the world of ghostwriting in this article. While I do not spend much time in the world of literary criticism, this article drew me in completely. It may be too pedestrian for a NYT reader, but I-being the dimwitted NYT reader-was waiting for the etymological discussion of "ghostwriter." I mean how is it that a "ghostwriter" which by definition is a "ghost" get mentioned in writing credits. Of course, I think for the ghost's sake his/her name should be known, but is it not the point for a ghostwriter to remain anonymous so as to perpetuate the illusion of the "autobiographer's" writing ability? Again this is a pretty simplistic question but one that does irk me a bit. Of course we could get into the evolution of the term and how it is now used more to define someone who is just the "assistant" writer, but the point is that the term bothers me. And why else would you be reading my blog other than to find out what bothers me.

Anyway the article is incredibly entertaining and even draws a parallel between the writing of Thomas Mann and that of Donald Trump. Queenan also coins the notion (at least I think he is the first?) of the "Donaldian voice" in the genre of contemporary Trump literature (that "contemporary Trump literature" line is in fact my own creation and is a college course I am hoping to someday teach...watch for it in a course catalogue near you).

I am particularly fascinated though by the way Queenan proposes that it would be better to let the celebrities say it themselves:

Cynics may object that ghostwriters perform a valuable civic function by shielding the public from the authentically dimwitted voices of those they channel. To their way of thinking, no one would actually want to read a book written in Charles Barkley's own words; no one would want to read the unedited David Lee Roth; no one could possibly machete all the way through an unghosted Rush Limbaugh book. I disagree. Had Limbaugh written ''The Way Things Ought to Be'' start to finish, instead of collaborating with the sober John Fund, he might have been just feisty enough to print his unenlightened views on African-American football players years ago and laid all his race cards right on the table.

What a great notion! He extends this point by talking about the ghostwriter in terms of a naturally timid and "gun-shy" voice that controls the actual voice of the celebrity. The celebrity, in relation to the ghostwriter, is one who is a tumultuous storm of emotion and random thoughts (my dynamic paraphrasing of Queenan) but one who, if left untethered, will create "some truly unforgettable reading." One can't help but think of a the Freudian discussions of subconscious here and see the Michael Jackson's of the world as that difficult-to-control voice in everyone's heads...okay so maybe Michael is not the best choice, but you see where I'm going here.

Or maybe Michael is the best example...I mean to back this up, let's simply look at that recent attempt by Michael to shed a positive light on his "lifestyle" with the documentarian Martin Bashir. Bashir did his little piece, "Living with Michael Jackson" on ABC which ultimately became a catalyst for Michael's current courtroom drama. I see that documentary as an example of the celebrity mind free to roam about. In this film we see the actions and statements of the King of Pop that any PR agent would quickly filter into "normalspeak."

Of course now we have the potential for a fantastic comparison if Jackson is allowed to create a new documentary, this time possibly with a ghost-screen-writer and thousands of PR agents involved. It will be interesting to see how one can spin the "There is nothing wrong with having a little boy in bed with you." Don't get me wrong, I think Michael is one of the greatest things to happen to music, but he is definitely one that makes for "some truly unforgettable reading."

Finally a brown paper bag that reveals what's inside...

2005-03-13T09:39:00.000-06:00

BAGnewsNotes: Betty Boop Takes Lebanon

On one of my countless wanderings through Cyberland, I discovered an incredible blog called BAGnewsNotes written and illustrated by Michael Shaw. His online cartoon BAGnews is very entertaining, but what I found most incredible about the site is his visual analysis of photographs from major media sources. His discussion of the photograph used for this Economist cover story (see the Betty Boop Takes Lebanon link above) in particular drew my attention. (Of course after you read his posting you will say, I see why John's attention was caught by the image. Yeah, I know, he is right-on about the design of this and the visual stimulus for the audience).

Please go beyond this one article though because this blog is full of criticism of visual spin, something I would love to see more of in this day of multimedia over-stimulation. Being constantly slammed with millions of images on television (not to mention the internet and even day-to-day life) in rapid succession, we often ignore--or have little time to assess--the implications of the sights we consume.

I think if you start reading this blog from time to time you will begin yourself to start wondering about the "unbiased documentary" photographs and file-footage in every news source. We currently take in these images like we eat a Big Mac, fast and with little regard for what it is doing to us. If you slow down and think about these images before you let them slide into your subconscious for digestion you may realize that what seems at first to be so innocent and pure, can in fact have some unsettling side effects. (Remember that forced-viewing scene in Clockwork Orange...scary, I know.)

I'm not saying stop looking at all images entirely, that would be even worse. Just be certain you consider some of the factors that go into creating these images. Read Mr. Shaw's blog and you will begin to see many of the things he identifies in his selected images also show up in images you normally would scroll past in your Sunday-morning news crawl.

Financial transaction benefits you...

2005-03-11T20:49:00.000-06:00

BBC NEWS | Americas | US pays out for looting Nazi gold

In another attempt to heal the iniquities of the past (see my "Journey Home" posting for another example), the US pays back a fraction of the value of items which were "lost" after US troops "recovered" them from the Nazis in 1945. Of course all my quotation marks make me look like a conspiracy theorist, but I have my reasons. $25.5 million for an estamated $90 million train-load of personal belongings. Let's hope that $64.5 million will help the struggling dollar out...

Munch's fit easily in your trousers...

2005-03-08T14:41:00.000-06:00

"Help! I've been kidnapped."

Sorry for the radio silence the past few days. I've been a bit under the weather, but don't worry I'll be just fine.

A few years back, I recall reading an article on the most stolen cars in America. I believe that the article placed at the top of the list the Honda Accord and the Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme (my old car, which, incidentally, was almost stolen once. Luckily the thieves were amateurs so they only broke a window and destroyed my steering column, but that's another story.) as most stolen. Now, having read the recent news on another theft of Edvard Munch's art, I am beginning to wonder if there needs to be a publication of the most stolen artists. I mean the reason for stealing a GM car back in the day was the ease of chopping it for parts. It was the duct tape of the chop shop...always have a GM on hand for an emergency. However, why does Munch translate so well to theft? Are they easier to slide into your overcoat so that you can walk out undetected? Or is there something in his work that makes it like crack...you just have to have it, no matter the cost?

Or maybe the question is instead, why does the news talk more about stolen Munch's if there are so many others? Of course, his name recognition and the countless reproductions of "Scream" on mousepads and inflatable dolls help to make it seemingly more newsworthy. Whatever the case, I just wanted to alert everyone who currently owns a Munch (which I know both of you do not) lock them up and throw away the key. Either that or invest in an RFID tag to implant into the frame so you can track its every move.

By the way, for those of you who choose not to click on any of my embedded links (it's your prerogative) but I would recommend the RFID link. It is an article about a very bizarre phenomenon written in a very nonchalant manner, as if it were completely normal to have an implant through which you can charge up a drink tab. (That last line peeked your interested, didn't it?)

Bloggers can read books???

2005-03-03T21:07:00.000-06:00

Okay so I've added a couple of minor updates to my site that I hope to keep as up-to-date as possible. In addition to the random graphics and links that are scattered about, I've added two categories in the column at the right:

1. Currently on the Bookshelf
2. Currently on the Playlist

After a conversation with a friend and colleague of mine about how few people post information about themselves on their blogs, I have decided to open a window to my life for all to peer in. And I being a specimen of the library think that you can learn a lot about someone by what they read. Of course, as you will see shortly, my reading list basically says I have the attention span of a fruit fly so I'm not on one topic for very long. Also you will learn that I am a slow reader so don't expect to see updates here very often.

The second category regarding music is just something that I will update periodically when I get the urge. I have an MP3 player on my computer and a playlist of like 400+ songs (and that's just the songs in my favorite playlist) and so I rarely have an album that I play in its original order (See FOOTNOTE below). Basically this category will be songs that get stuck in my craw and my Jukebox...in a good way that is. Basically both categories will just let you see what I like and let me pretend to be an intellectual elite...all while I listen to Ashley Simpson and read World Wrestling Entertainment Magazine. I will attempt to keep these items from growing too stagnate and give you some variety. I hope you appreciate this glimpse into my exciting world of literary and musical intrigue. And maybe, just maybe, it will inspire other bloggers to come out from behind the curtain.

FOOTNOTE: Has anyone considered whether or not the MP3 player has killed the album? I mean when I can mix and match my own playlist and burn my own CDs, does that kill the artistic production of the album as a cohesive unit? I will try to come back to this question on a later date...think about it in the meantime.

The journey home...

2005-03-02T20:54:00.000-06:00

BBC NEWS | Africa | Return of Axum obelisk 'imminent'

Tonight's broadcast will be brief. I can't keep up those giant posts every night, I've got no stamina. [Insert immature 'stamina' joke here] Anyway, this is a fabulous news article to read. It is an amazing gesture on Italy's part and something that could begin to change the landscape of Rome and countless art museums around the world. Will more national collections start releasing objects they have held for centuries/decades despite the questionable methods by which they gained possession of the artifacts? Time will tell. Maybe the joy of being in Rome and still having the chance to visit ancient African sculpture was nice but it's time to put your toys back. Of course, it would be nice if I could simply take the Red Line to Clark and Division and see the Pyramids of Giza, but does that mean they belong there. On second thought, maybe the world needs more reasons to travel to places other than Rome, Paris, New York, and London. Why don't we move Big Ben down to South Africa and send the Eiffel Tower over to Baghdad. Now that would be a true gesture. Forget about giving back what you ought to and maybe give something you want to share. It's like a swinger's club for international culture. Swapping Lady Liberty for a one-nighter with the Aztec Moon Goddess, Coyolxauhqui, might bring the world a little closer together and give a whole new meaning to the phrase "international relations." (Yeah, it's inappropriate and vulgar, but I'm tired, so take what you can get and go.)

Tempus fugit, but you love every minute of it...

2005-03-01T22:02:00.000-06:00

The mystery's in the music...

Okay so I have the link for Found Magazine in my "Notables" section on the right, but I wanted to give you an example of the great images available for viewing. This is by far one of my favorite images. There is an incredible look of wonder on the face of this man and no matter how long I stare at it I cannot figure out what he could possibly be thinking. So many of the images are that way, giving you just a glimpse but never enough. If you go to check this site out, be ready to kill way too much time. The images, notes, and other objects are like amazing glimpses into another person's life. Remove the context and they become artifacts of an alternate world.

What, to pedestrian for your New-Yorker-reading, NPR-listening mind? Fine! Then dig out your copy of Susan Sontag's On Photography and read up. Even an intellect can enjoy the time capsule that is photography:

"All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person's (or thing's) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt." (p.15)

So go pay homage at the collective funeral pire that is the photograph...and read a few notes while you're there, too.

Opening minds with open source audio...

2005-02-28T22:21:00.000-06:00

Open your minds to open source...

Alright folks. I'm back with a new item to pass along. With the inspiration of my colleague William's interest in open sourcing, along with my own insatiable desire to download free music plus my equally strong interest in remaining free from criminal prosecution, I have begun looking into open source audio. There are a great many artists out there who (a) release a large portion of music online for us to enjoy freely and (b) allow (and often encourage) recording of their live shows to be shared. With that in mind I give you The Internet Archive. The archive is a great source for recordings of all sorts of bands as well as many links to open source texts, music and movies and other downloads to spare. I tend to spend most of my time on the Live Music Archive. There you can get numerous bands you know and love as well as some new ones you've never heard of. And before you go whining, "But, John, none of these songs will ever be given as a long-distance dedication by Kasey Casem," just listen to some of the groups. If you are scared to test the waters try out some of the more well-known groups like 311, Gin Blossoms, Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, etc. I'm fond of Mike Doughty (once lead singer for Soul Coughing), Townhall (a fabulous funk band from Philly), and G Love and the Special Sauce (just good music). And the great thing...there are so many more sites to get this kind of stuff and you'll never get arrested for downloading it. Of course all you Dead Heads and Phishies have been getting this stuff for years, but I'm glad that there are more artists opening their concerts to this.

Okay so my intentions seemed pure, but I also was testing out some new software that lets me send pics to my blog with ease, which is where the screenshot came from. I'm not here to advertise but it did work and I'm pleased with how easy it was. I am straddling the tech-savvy/tech-tool fence so I'm no wizard but I made it through just fine. Yea me. I promise to get back to more intellectual endeavors in the future, but for now crank up the music and relax.

Beauty and the Biography

2005-02-27T11:53:00.000-06:00

Monocle Man by Pete Eckert

Now before you read any further or click any links, I want you to just look at this photograph. I mean really look at it and think about it. What is your opinion of it? Is the artist an amazing photographer or is he merely an amateur attempting "artsy" photography?

Okay, now that your done, read on...

PHOTOGRAPHER IS A MAN OF VISION (Delfin Vigil article from the San Francisco Chronicle)

This artist's site was a fantastic discovery for me...well me and my friend Findory. Pete Eckert is a photographer who is legally blind. I've seen a couple reviews that have discussed his work in group shows which say things like, "but once you find out that he’s legally blind ... the images take on a whole new meaning." While I do not necessarily disagree with the statement, I must admit that these works grab me without even knowing that fact. I guess it all dwells around the constant debate regarding art: can you admire art without the artist's biography? One of the most common statements flung across a modern art gallery (and a line I've heard so many times in the Met standing by Pollack's Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950) is "I could paint/sculpt/make that in my basement/garage/bomb shelter." So, I ask, is it necessary for me to turn to this lady/gentleman and explain the social and historical context as well as the artist's biography for her/him to enjoy the work as I do. Is that even why I love the work: because I am in the know? Or am I simply what Leo Steinberg considered a yes-man of modern art (this is me over-simplifying Steinberg) never questioning that a work of modern art "molests us with its agressive absurdity" (this is me quoting Steinberg). Do I see a Chris Ofili in a gallery space and say, "That's art," because it gives me comfort to pretend to be someone who knows what art is? And when I see a Thomas Kincaid on QVC I can be comfortable with the knowledge that I know that is NOT art...but am I right? That's a question I will reserve for my psychiatrist once I can afford one.

Of course at this point I have digressed (very, very far) from my original note on Eckert's photography which may or may not apply to this discussion of molestation and QVC, but returning to my point of origin, I leave it up to you to decide if his work can stand alone or if in fact a sufficient appreciation of Eckert's haunting images requires the phrase "legally blind." That is why I asked you to look first and read later. Maybe my point is that you can look at art without all this information. Maybe the added biography causes you to like it more, or less, but just take a moment to first draw your own opinions and feelings. Go to the gallery and buy the $6 headset that will tell you about Pollack's drinking, smoking, and sexual habits, but before you type in the 4 digit code for "Autumn Rhythm" just look at it quietly (ignore the guy behind you telling you about his art studio that he plans to set up in his Nebraska garage next to his 1980 Camaro). You will be surprised what you begin to see, think, and feel all by yourself. It's okay to hate it, but know your reason for that feeling/opinion.

Library Stuff

2005-02-27T02:16:00.000-06:00

Library Stuff

So I've been reading a bit about some recent comments about bloggers and their intellect, attention span, etc, and I've begun to consider what these statements imply. To me one of the most disconcerting issues is the simple fact that for many of these intellects who are putting down the blogging community, the length of a statement seems somehow connected to the depth of it. This is horribly simplistic. There are single lines from the Tao Te Ching that are far deeper than the ramblings of a politician. And what Shakespearean scholar would prefer the millions of pages of recent scholarship written to dissect one sonnet rather than the sonnet alone. Yes, depth is added to a work by digging deeper and asking questions of the work, but sometimes a sonnet can speak volumes all by itself.

And of course in a discussion on the length of a text and time invested, how could we forget the famous quote of Mark Twain, "sorry about the long letter, I didnt have time to write a short one."

Luckily I had time to write a short post...wait, is this short?

Anarchism consumes me...

2005-02-27T00:13:00.000-06:00

Yeah, yeah so maybe I overdid the first day of blogging, but technically I am into my second day now. It is past midnight CST, so bugger off.

You scored as Anarchism. <'Imunimaginative's Deviantart Page'>

Anarchism

100%

Green

92%

Democrat

92%

Socialist

75%

Communism

75%

Republican

Nazi

Fascism

created with QuizFarm.com

Okay, so I'm a bit heavy on the Communist/Socialist front, but at least I'm not Republican...whew. Zing, take that Rush....

Bring me the head of Caravaggio

2005-02-26T23:50:00.000-06:00

Guardian Unlimited | Arts reviews | Bring me the head of Caravaggio

The Guardian Unlimited has a great review of the show "Caravaggio: The Final Years" now at the National Gallery of London (if only we could all visit there). If you have not seen any works by Caravaggio, go find some. If you can't make it to a museum that houses a Caravaggio then at least Google his name and you will see some incredible paintings that convey a sense of gritty emotion like no other artist. If you think Mel Gibson's Passion was the only portrayal of the Passion of Christ you are incredibly wrong. The intense contrast of light and dark in Caravaggio's The Flagellation of Christ (1607) is surpassed only by the powerful range of emotion. Of course it is always a challenge to digitally display Caravaggio (because of the aforementioned light/dark contrast), but without a plane ticket to London this will have to do. Dark, yes. Breathtaking, definitely.

Messaggi subliminali e persuasione occulta

2005-02-26T22:59:00.000-06:00

Messaggi subliminali e persuasione occulta

With my first post out of the way, I can move on to the finer things in life: grotesqueries of the web. No I'm not going to track down disturbing photographs of Kurt Cobain's autopsy or pornographic archives. I'm here to just pass on what I find to the 2 people who read my postings. (Hi, Mom and Dad.)

I chose to post a comment on this site first because I know the least about it. I mean I can glean bits and pieces from it, but my minimal knowledge of Italian (filtered through my limited knowledge of Latin) keeps me coming back for more. A good friend of mine directed me to this site and I spent a good day (I was working with a dial-up connection) listening to all the recordings that prove the subliminal attempts made by the occult in popular media. (See the link "Elenco "MP3" di tutti i messaggi subliminali audio" for the recordings, you won't regret it).

Basically the site got me to thinking about the world around me. Is it really that grotesque? I mean is it possible that a song about a potential goodbye written by the master's of the power ballad, Europe, could in fact have subliminally told me "He’ll rescue, he’ll rescue. I could die, god Satan, but I’ve play naked in this night. Yes, I got you first. I was surprised one night. I say you a secret thing." And is it really possible that a bunch of religious devotees have listened to the entire works of Queen, Styx, Ozzy, the B-52s, and ELO--FORWARDS AND BACKWARDS MIND YOU--only to find these subliminal, and at times dubious, messages? And what else could they have been listening to in the midst of these incredible beacons of occultism? Did they sample any Dr. Dre or Spice Girls? Think about it...

Who knows where they traveled in the hopes of revealing the dark underbelly of the world. I guess I look at this site as a parallel to what I will do with this blog. No I'm not going to give out MP3 recordings (aren't these monks required to get permissions to post these MP3 links?) for free. Instead I just plan on highlighting some sites of note throughout the world wide web and in the process maybe catch a few pirates of the subconscious seas (Like Meatloaf) as they attempt to hijack our free will and steer us toward turbulent waters. You may become increasingly stupid after viewing many of my posts, but some of them may cause you to think. In essence this blog is just a way for you to dissect me and the sights and sounds that draw my attention. Of course you are now thinking, "I will never come back to this site again," however in time you will begin to realize that what you read here was not simply frog droppings, but a subliminal device mean to keep you reading.

Pay attention to your music (especially you fans of Hanson) or it may take you away...

Lack of Ribs

2005-02-26T22:23:00.000-06:00

Lack of Ribs

How does one start off a voyage into the world of blogging? Do you make some grandiose statement about the condition of the world? Or do you start off with a joke (yes that is the link I meant to put there.)? Should I quote a famous author to prove I've read enough literature to uphold my share of an intellectual conversation. Or should I just say, "Hello, may name is..."? Even if I chose the right path and amaze the 2 people that read my post which in turn makes them want to keep reading, how do I not let them down? Can I follow Derrida with a fart-joke chaser, or must I segway? Will my Guinness-soaked messages bring enlightenment/laughter/anger/alcoholism to those who read or will it simply leave the patron of this establishment thirsty for something with more flavor?

I guess I can't predict what will be filtered from my first words, but I will say that I hope to add a nugget of knowledge to this vast world of blogs. If no one reads it will it make a sound? Well, if no one reads it then I'll put a padlock on it and call it a diary.