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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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tonight! YYZ Books is hosting a launch for the newest issue of The Ganzfeld. Also there will be Paper Rad stuff there too! And after that is the Toronto Comic Jam at the Cameron.
6 - 9 pm
The Ganzfeld #4 Book Launch at
YYZ Artists Outlet, 401 Richmond St. W., Suite 140
9 pm on...
Toronto Comic Jam in the back room at
the Cameron House, 408 Queen St. West (north side, just West of Spadina)
Last weekend I posed the question, "What do you like better...screws or balloons?" Unlike most of my friends, who roll their eyes and ignore me when I pose an either/or, 2-year-old H. gives the question genuine consideration and responds with direct honesty, "Screws." I think its a good answer. Balloons are dumb. I feel incommensurate satisfaction at having recieved any answer at all.
The whole thing started about 20 years ago. Sophie's Choice had posited the cruel impossibility of binary options. My parents were separating. I had to decide whether to finish high school or flee the province. I chose flight which was easier than my brother's choice of which parent to live with. I pestered my poor brother relentlessly, "Who do you like better, Kate or Allie?" He never did answer me. To this day, when I slide the question into an otherwise convivial conversation, he responds with exasperated sighs and the occasional administration of physical pain (all people with brothers will know what I mean). But in that perverse opposite land that is sibling communication, this lopsided torture was, and is, an acknowledgement of respect for the horrid decision that he eventually faced, while I ducked out and never declared myself.
Binary choices are not in vogue, pre-rhizomatic dinosaurs from the old days before our eyes were opened to the falsity of polarity, the uncertainty principle, the tyrranical reign of cultural context over meaning of any kind. But we, of course, make them all the time regardless. There is content in choosing one thing over another, and there may even be consequences. Choice is risk, action, carpe diem!
I have a really hard time choosing between Kate and Allie. Kate was more fun, Allie was a wet blanket. Kate was cuter, but Allie was more entertaining. Also, Allie was Chip's mom, so there's a good chance you'd get him in the bargain and he was a creepy but fascinatingly weird little dude. If H. can choose screws, I can choose Allie. She makes me laugh.
Nearly every one of friends (thank you friends) sent me a link this morning to this article. That picture above represents the strange quark family from the quark gallery.
"Designer Jan-Henrik Andersen, in conjunction with particle physicists, developed a visual language that describes the interrelationships between the elementary particles, both known and hypothesized."
Another of my favourite Canadian artists is Bill Burns (earlier post). He has an unusual, oblique attitude to today's natural world. I also like that he maintains his performative stance, and stays in character at all levels of the project. Which probably means that the word "character" is wrong, even though the story is pseudo-fictional. The image above is titled Artist as a Boy, Anyhow, he has a show opening at the MOMA this weekend ... all you NYC readers, go see it! Here's the scoop:
for Immediate Release:
from Bill Burns, Director
Safety Gear for Small Animals in Safe: Design Takes On Risk at Museum of Modern Art in New York
When Safety Gear for Small Animals incorporated in 1993 our goals were twofold. Firstly, to protect animals from degraded habitats and slip shod scientific research and, secondly, to provide a decent living to our dedicated workers. Exhibiting our safety gear was never part of the plan. Be that as it may, I am surprised and delighted to have been invited to display our prototypes and models of safety, rescue and relocation equipment and supplies. Never, even in our most secret dreams, did we think that our project would be celebrated by curators and art museums all over the world. We are extremely proud to be showing twenty-four prototypes from our collection in Safe: Design Takes On Risk at The Museum of Modern Art in New York from October 16, 2005 to January 2, 2006. The exhibition of more than 300 objects is organized by Paola Antonelli, Curator, and Patricia Juncosa Vecchierini, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.