part of an email from a friend....."(just returned from Cuba
last Friday where I participated in Havana's first ever wine forum - was even invited to Partagas factory for cocktails, and hung out with Camillo Guevara, Ché's son, who flipped over our Tavel rosé!)"
last Friday where I participated in Havana's first ever wine forum - was even invited to Partagas factory for cocktails, and hung out with Camillo Guevara, Ché's son, who flipped over our Tavel rosé!)"
jackass
This was Brian Turner's Christmas e-card last year. I have no idea where he got it. I've been meaning to post it, and decided there's no time like the present.
sick bird. bother. rexilla brought it in and there was a commotion in mike's office. we rescued it and now it's in the backyard "resting" - we hope that he starts to feel better and flies away. if not, what to do? (it's too small to grill)
david bowie's new album has a beautuful song (tribute) to uncle floyd called : "twinkle twinkle uncle floyd" - cant find any good links, alex ?
I've started posting to my page.
Frank Rich's New York Times column today contains this howler: "Instead of creating a new organizational chart, Mr. Bush might have enlisted one man to hose down our security bureaucracy: Rudolph Giuliani."
Yeah, the genius who built the city's $13 million "command bunker" on the 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center! Equipped with fuel tanks that exploded and toppled the building! I want him in charge on a NATIONAL level!
new heard of this artist before but me likes some...must visit show...
i really have not eaten great BBQ, even that place that was in LICity years ago was just OK to me (they have reopened in Queens somewhere and i tasted it a couple WEAKends ago, still nothing special IMHO), so i have allways felt that its not all its craked up to be....not anymore...if you happen to be passing Cockeysville, MD stop in at Andy Nelson's for pulled pork and the Corner Stable for ribs!!!!!!!!
Live in a Former Toilet -- Only $200,000
Well, spring migration is just about over, but I promised to post this tidbit. It's one of Tom Fiore's field reports from Central Park, including a compliment for me. Tom is an excellent birder, and particularly devoted to documenting the Park's birds. (Although, like a number of veteran birders in need of new challenges, I think he's now more interested in butterflies.) He writes exhaustive lists in the Park's log book, as well as posting online. He always sees more birds than most of us, but his reports have the nice effect of convincing you that there's got to be something interesting around, if you just keep looking. These log entries at the Boathouse were certainly one of the things that finally convinced me to pick up binoculars, after years of strictly naked eye viewing.
The field report as a literary form is an interesting possibility. Some people want no more than the basics of location, observers, and the birds seen. Others write everything out in paragraphs, like a little story, which is not considered very "scientific". Tom's are somewhere in between: annotated lists with comments and occasional opinions interjected. He collects information from many other birders, and estimates numbers to create inclusive day lists. He's become a sort of minor celebrity of the Park, especially after the story of his kidnapping in Columbia got around, and he was featured in Marie Winn's book Red-tails in Love. Birding with him is a bit of an honor, although mostly I end up watching him, and try to figure out how he sees the birds I miss. By the way, Red-tails is supposedly being made into a movie, by Nora Ephron; not sure if it's going to include the humans, or just the birds. Sadly, the Red-tails' chicks died this year, and several Peregrine Falcon nests around town also failed. Hawks in Prospect Park and Falcons downtown are said to be doing OK. Anyway, I'm posting the 5/19 report in the comment field. Just be aware that when Tom credits me with being cautious and conservative, what he really means is that I just don't know enough to make the quick call. And yes, the Blackpoll Warblers did show up, bigtime, last weekend.
The field report as a literary form is an interesting possibility. Some people want no more than the basics of location, observers, and the birds seen. Others write everything out in paragraphs, like a little story, which is not considered very "scientific". Tom's are somewhere in between: annotated lists with comments and occasional opinions interjected. He collects information from many other birders, and estimates numbers to create inclusive day lists. He's become a sort of minor celebrity of the Park, especially after the story of his kidnapping in Columbia got around, and he was featured in Marie Winn's book Red-tails in Love. Birding with him is a bit of an honor, although mostly I end up watching him, and try to figure out how he sees the birds I miss. By the way, Red-tails is supposedly being made into a movie, by Nora Ephron; not sure if it's going to include the humans, or just the birds. Sadly, the Red-tails' chicks died this year, and several Peregrine Falcon nests around town also failed. Hawks in Prospect Park and Falcons downtown are said to be doing OK. Anyway, I'm posting the 5/19 report in the comment field. Just be aware that when Tom credits me with being cautious and conservative, what he really means is that I just don't know enough to make the quick call. And yes, the Blackpoll Warblers did show up, bigtime, last weekend.
My friend David Szafranski sent this link for a minimal-music movement (or rather, "loose grouping") called lowercase sound. Dave notes: "Interesting web design based on the Mac System 6 operating system
circa 1989, the one that fits entirely on a single floppy disk."
I've seen her around the neighborhood before, although I admit I had no idea she was a certifiable genius. Seems weird enough that one of you guys must know her. Anyway, she's clearly a marketing genius. The site, sadly, doesn't touch on her more visionary pursuits, but it does offer over a thousand pairs of elf panties for sale. Oh wait, maybe that is the work. From the site:
Unfortunately, art stardom is one of the least lucrative career paths a gal can take. Despite the fact that I'm a creative genius, I have a lot of trouble making ends meet because I'm wrapped up in my visionary artistic pursuits. Not only that, I have so many pairs of panties, I don't know what to do with them. So I thought it would be both altruistic and profitable to open up a superstore, so to speak, filled with my panties. To make matters worse I am a compulsive shopper. At last count, I had 1,172 pairs of panties, and my collection just keeps on growing. By purchasing apair of my "gently worn" panties, not only will you get to enjoy unfathomnable sensory pleasures, you will be supporting the avant-garde and contributing to the course of art history as we know it.(via. boing boing)
I found Peter Schjeldahl's New Yorker piece on Brice Marden interesting, not so much because I like Marden (which I do), but for its evocation of the days when "abstract painting used to be the prow of art history", and of "how much people used to care" about it. I think I was talking to Jim about this, after viewing Diti's paintings. I was reminiscing about the days when her work, which treads a line between representation and non-objectivity, would have been objectionable in some ideological camps. I don't think these battle lines matter much any more. I was in art school during the waning years of that era, which ultimately came to an end in the 80s, under a tide of Expressionism, Europeanism, and self-consciously dumb art. I can still remember the sheer thrill of commitment; the pride one took in adhering to the most obscure and obdurate argument, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised that some people rebelled against the intellectual pressure that was applied. It was like having the Inquisition sit you down in front of two virtually identical monochrome paintings and you had to explain why one was great and the other was not just bad, but a moral abomination.
As a student, most of this came down to me in an oblique manner, but I did have one great teacher, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, who talked about this sort of thing straightforwardly. He was a rakish Brit who came on like William F. Buckley doing Oscar Wilde. He wrote an Art Forum cover piece on Marden, comparing his monochromes to Cézanne, which was a notable brick in the edifice of both their reputations. He really made ideas exciting, and if he used his caustic wit to trash something you liked, the ego damage could be severe. A few times he brought in his friend, the poet David Shapiro. He was also a formidable intellectual, but of a more tolerant sort. He argued convincingly for "pluralism", which to me meant giving full and fair consideration to all sorts of art (through actual experience), before coming to any final judgements. But we weren't going to just suspend judgement.
Today we have multiculturalism and political correctness, which may be corrective, but too often dispense with the intellectual underpinnings which should allow a pluralist to make a few judgements here and there. The art world is a duller and dumber place than it was in the 70s, albeit more tolerant. I'd say tolerance is a good thing, but it depends on what you're tolerating.
Anyway, Jeremy is still out there, though his voice is not heard so widely. He was purged from Parsons before my senior year, because all his students stopped painting still lives and started painting squares. Betraying his mentors and sleeping with the coeds didn't help either. I think he ended up in California where he has influenced new generations of student seekers. For all his hard-ass intellectualism, he has a great take on the subversive uses of pleasure and beauty, which continues to influence me, in epicurian as well as aesthetic matters. You can get an idea of his style from these two excerpts, and here's a hilarious review featuring a knock-out of Jerry Saltz. Gotta pick up his latest.
Oh, and Schjeldahl should know that Ryman tops Marden. I mean, you might rather look at a Marden, but that's hardly the point. As for Olitski, he's just the American extension of Western Imperialism, and obviously a moral abomination. (Just kidding; I'm a pluralist, honest…)
As a student, most of this came down to me in an oblique manner, but I did have one great teacher, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, who talked about this sort of thing straightforwardly. He was a rakish Brit who came on like William F. Buckley doing Oscar Wilde. He wrote an Art Forum cover piece on Marden, comparing his monochromes to Cézanne, which was a notable brick in the edifice of both their reputations. He really made ideas exciting, and if he used his caustic wit to trash something you liked, the ego damage could be severe. A few times he brought in his friend, the poet David Shapiro. He was also a formidable intellectual, but of a more tolerant sort. He argued convincingly for "pluralism", which to me meant giving full and fair consideration to all sorts of art (through actual experience), before coming to any final judgements. But we weren't going to just suspend judgement.
Today we have multiculturalism and political correctness, which may be corrective, but too often dispense with the intellectual underpinnings which should allow a pluralist to make a few judgements here and there. The art world is a duller and dumber place than it was in the 70s, albeit more tolerant. I'd say tolerance is a good thing, but it depends on what you're tolerating.
Anyway, Jeremy is still out there, though his voice is not heard so widely. He was purged from Parsons before my senior year, because all his students stopped painting still lives and started painting squares. Betraying his mentors and sleeping with the coeds didn't help either. I think he ended up in California where he has influenced new generations of student seekers. For all his hard-ass intellectualism, he has a great take on the subversive uses of pleasure and beauty, which continues to influence me, in epicurian as well as aesthetic matters. You can get an idea of his style from these two excerpts, and here's a hilarious review featuring a knock-out of Jerry Saltz. Gotta pick up his latest.
Oh, and Schjeldahl should know that Ryman tops Marden. I mean, you might rather look at a Marden, but that's hardly the point. As for Olitski, he's just the American extension of Western Imperialism, and obviously a moral abomination. (Just kidding; I'm a pluralist, honest…)
NEWS FLASHBACK:
From a very close friend of the band comes forth the rumor
that the Grateful Dead will play again, minus one little guy....
From a very close friend of the band comes forth the rumor
that the Grateful Dead will play again, minus one little guy....
we went to South Beach and i didnt understand why it was so hard to get a hotel....when we arrived we landed into day 2 of Hip-Hop Weekend, 350,000 people parting all over South Beach....we planned to eat as cheap as possible but did try out two very good spots Wish and Nemo's...people spoke highly of Escopazzo (mama's still making the pasta), Nobu, Pecul, Grillfish, and Pacific Time but we didnt try...one nice lunch spot is Spris....
this is my pals, taken from NY Mag web mail...will be in next issue...
The Basil
Six years ago, Supoj Pornpitaksuk and chef Lek Suntatkolkarn opened Holy Basil in an East Village alcove above Telephone Bar & Grill. After those humble beginnings, they branched out first to the West Village with Little Basil, and then most recently and ambitiously to elegant new premises in Chelsea. At The Basil, Suntatkolkarn (pictured) justifies higher prices with intricate presentations of such inventive East-West hybrids as a Waldorf-like pomelo salad with coconut-peanut dressing, and a porterhouse steak with sautéed morning glory and galangal-tamarind sauce (entrées, $16 to $25). Equally impressive is the wine list, compiled by regular customer Mark Moody, a civil litigator and freelance wine writer whose inspired selection of food-friendly bottles at infinitesimal markups is just the thing to wean spicy-food fans off Singha.
206 West 23rd Street
212-242-1014
The Basil
Six years ago, Supoj Pornpitaksuk and chef Lek Suntatkolkarn opened Holy Basil in an East Village alcove above Telephone Bar & Grill. After those humble beginnings, they branched out first to the West Village with Little Basil, and then most recently and ambitiously to elegant new premises in Chelsea. At The Basil, Suntatkolkarn (pictured) justifies higher prices with intricate presentations of such inventive East-West hybrids as a Waldorf-like pomelo salad with coconut-peanut dressing, and a porterhouse steak with sautéed morning glory and galangal-tamarind sauce (entrées, $16 to $25). Equally impressive is the wine list, compiled by regular customer Mark Moody, a civil litigator and freelance wine writer whose inspired selection of food-friendly bottles at infinitesimal markups is just the thing to wean spicy-food fans off Singha.
206 West 23rd Street
212-242-1014
its never too early to start blogging.
Is anyone planning on getting together tonight? I thought I'd bring it up a little earlier in the day. I've been home with a cold and am feeling better would love to get out and see my pals.
