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Everyone in the world linked to this Mario Bros. fan art page, and well they should, it's a mother lode of punchy, brow-furrowing drawings. The content ranges from almost-professional renderings of Mario and Luigi as musclebound superheroes to endearingly inept Jim Shaw thrift store show-like portraits. In my fantasies, someone prints out all the images really large on Sintra board or Duratrans, and holds a kind of Iron Chef competition between the artists on those pages and some overindulged bad boy of the art world like, say, Sean Landers. Especially fun would be the judging, which would consist of those same five people who regularly appear on Iron Chef--the elderly critic, the pretty actress, etc.--sitting and making pronouncements to a humbled Landers like: "This is very bold, but I felt your irony wasn't quite strong enough--you are not truly weird in your art."
From the New York Times, news that Agnes Gund, a president emerita of MOMA, has resigned from the foundation dedicated to redeveloping the WTC site:
In a letter to John C. Whitehead, the foundation's chairman, Ms. Gund lamented the erosion of the original master plan for the site, which was drafted to "permanently memorialize what happened on Sept. 11, while also bringing and weaving the site back into the fabric of the city."Roowwwwrrrr! (sorry, it has to be uttered). The crappy state of downtown cultural redevelopment can be laid at the feet of one person: a right wing blowhard named Debra Burlingame. Turns out there are good 9/11 widows (the Jersey moms who shamed the government into finally holding hearings) and one very bad, very loud one, who is pushing her bum taste in art and predilection for censorship on the whole city, using the emotional fulcrum of her husband's death in the Pentagon strike four years ago. (In case you haven't been following this, she opposed the relocation of the Drawing Center to the site, as well as any other organization that presents art she deems "critical of the US.") Hadn't heard that about Clinton signing on for the suppression of free speech at the site, but it shouldn't surprise anyone given her ongoing support for the senseless slaughter of American troops in Iraq.
Now, she wrote in her letter dated Thursday, "Governor Pataki (and it saddens me to say, Senator Clinton has joined him) has caved and virtually ensured that there will be no cultural component to the redevelopment."
"I hate to walk away from this situation and leave it to you and the others to sort out," continued Ms. Gund, who is a president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art. "But I am afraid that the governor and those few family members have succeeded in destroying what could not be destroyed on that awful Tuesday, which is our hope."
Gretchen Dykstra, president of the memorial foundation - the organization charged with raising money for a memorial and for cultural institutions at ground zero - said yesterday that she was disappointed by Ms. Gund's departure but not discouraged.
"Of course, we will miss Aggie, not just for her wealth but for her wisdom," she said. "But we in no way find this a setback."
Nick Hallett sent this email message about a video show he's curating this weekend, which includes my "Guitar Solo" piece:
this sunday, swing on by GALAPAGOS for my first entry into fall's culture calendar, a screening of art rock videos i've curated for OCULARIS called 23 REASONS TO SPARE NEW YORK. i've been combing the city in search of connections between our ultra-vivid experimental music scene and video art/underground cinema. what you'll experience is a wild collection of psychedelic images and sounds derived from subversive media of all sorts.
flavorpill says, "Like a mini-RESFEST for the art rock set, this program explores the re-emergence of psychedelia through music videos and documentary bits on bands including Oneida, Regina Spektor, Karen O, Black Dice, Antony and the Johnsons, and Ted Leo."
expect music by bands that push the audio-culture envelope, lots of dayglo colors, electronic sounds, strobe effects, animations of the "stop" and "flash" varieties, documents of realness, and a few "commercial" music videos as well.
23 REASONS TO SPARE NEW YORK: MUSIC VIDEOS FROM THE ART ROCK SCENE
Sunday, October 2, 7 pm.
Ocularis at Galapagos Art Space
70 N 6th street @ Wythe
$6 (+$1 or more for Katrina relief effort Food Not Bombs, optional)
1. The Biggest Night in Music, dir. Kent Lambert, 2004, 2 minutes
2. Liars: There's Always Room on the Broom, dir. Cody Critcheloe, 2004, 3 minutes
3. Foetus: Blessed Evening, dir. Karen O, 2005, 4 minutes (plus Spike Jonze--view here)
4. Black Dice: Smiling Off, dir. Danny Perez, 2005, 4 minutes
5. Kim Gordon (from Studio:...Shareholders), dir. Tony Oursler, 2005, 1 minute
6. Ex Models: That's Funny, I Don't Feel Like a Shithead, dir. Mighty Robot, 2005, 4 minutes
7. Out Hud: It's For You, dir. The Wilderness, 2005, 4 minutes (view here)
8. Mixel Pixel: Telltale Drum Machine, dir. Noah Lyon/Retard Riot, 2005, 2 minutes
9. My Robot Friend with Bingo Gazingo: Kenny G., dir. My Robot Friend, 2005, 5 minutes (view here--and what does WFMU Station Manager Ken mean about "releasing Bingo Gazingo from his contract"? Did he misbehave on the air?)
10. Fat Bobby of Oneida (from Up With People), dir. Ethan Holda/Plutino Films, 2005, 1 minute
11. Jason Forrest: Steppin' Off, dir. Jon Watts/Waverly Films, 2004, 4 minutes (viewable here)
12. Ted Leo, dir. Pancake Mountain, 2005, 1 minute 13. Vaz with Katie Eastburn: Swishy Swashy (from LaundrOdyssey), dir. Dana Edell/Starter Set, 2005, 2 minutes
14. Disbelief Street: Unabated Fever, dir. Andrew Deutsch, 2005, 3 minutes
15. Guitar Solo, dir. Tom Moody, 2004, 1 minute
16. The Mitgang Audio: Soldato (soundtrack to The Sea Calls Us Home), dir. Annie Simpson and Seth Kirby, 2005, 2 minutes
17. Antony and the Johnsons: Hope There's Someone, dir. Glen Fogel, 2005, 5 minutes
18. Heavy Metal Baghdad, dir. Big Noise Films, 2005, 2 minutes
19. Roentgen: Cat Loop, dir. Devin Flynn, 2005, 4 minutes
20. Animal Collective: Infant Dressing Table (soundtrack to Magic Number), dir. Andrew Kuo, 2004, 8 minutes
21. Regina Spektor: The Flowers (from The Survival Guide to Soviet Kitsch), dir. Adria Petty, 2004, 2 minutes
22. Devendra Banhart: A Ribbon, dir. Laura Faggioni/Michel Gondry, 2004, 3 minutes
23. Japanther: i-10 (from Punkcast #400), dir. Joly MacFie, 2004, 5 minutes
Looking forward to the event. "Guitar Solo" (linked from the lower left hand column of this page) is actually dated 2005, but it seems like an eternity ago. I burned a professional-but-still-lo-res DVD of it--thanks, MG--but Nick will be projecting the 4.5 MB file in all its pixelated glory. I hope he'll crank the sound. UPDATE: the sound was perfect--clear and loud, the ideal contrast to the deteriorated video
Just received my second "Why Texas Didn't Have Looters" email forward from the Lone Star State! The first came with an appalled and disgusted note but I suspect this one was sent with tacit approval. Again, it should be obvious Texas didn't have looters because it had Rita and not Katrina, but these folks certainly have a right to pose with their firearms. By the way, guys, the U.S. Army would like you to report for duty soon.
Tonight, Thursday, September 29, is the exhibition preview of original works created for Dieu Donné Papermill's 6th Annual Benefit. The artwork I made using their paper (uncharacteristically nice material for me, but I tore it up quite a bit in the printer) is depicted below, as well as a detail. The piece can also be viewed in a thumbnail index along with other donated works.
More info:
This year's benefit auction, entitled Shangri-La, brings together over 120 artists who have generously donated original works created on Dieu Donné Paper.
AUCTION PREVIEW NIGHT
Thursday, September 29, 2005, 5:30-7:30pm
The Gallery at Dieu Donné Papermill
433 Broome Street, New York City
DIEU DONNÉ PAPERMILL’S ANNUAL BENEFIT: SHANGRI-LA
Thursday, October 20, 2005, 6-11pm
Live & Silent Auctions, Cocktails, Dim Sum
The Grand Harmony Restaurant
98 Mott Street, New York City
(between Hester Street & Canal Street)
VIEW LIVE & SILENT AUCTION ARTWORK
September 15-October 14, 2005
The Gallery at Dieu Donné Papermill
433 Broome Street, New York City
"Be Three Dub" [mp3 removed]. Van Der Graaf Generator meets the Bee Gees.
Changing the subject slightly, there's a soundware package I've been eyeing called "Cult Sampler." That's really perverse--16-bit, 44.1 KHz recordings of old 8-bit material from the early '80s, played on sampling synths like the Fairlight, Synclavier, and Emu II. I'd be more interested in those sounds because they seemed unfamiliar and gritty in today's smoothed-over softsynth environment than for the hit of recognition associated with some '80s pop song. (Whoops, on second thought these ultra-nerdy reviews find Cult Sampler wanting--too stingy on the weird synth sounds in favor of bland orchestral samples, so I'll probably pass.)
Changing subjects again, I've been listening to demos of some of the software instruments I've been using and boy do they suck. No one makes anything weird, it all sounds like Tangerine Dream, played entirely on one synth. TD actually got better in the '90s, continuing to digress here, with Edgar Froese's son adding some clubland oomph to their sound. I was really surprised how good some of it was.
Can you believe it--our House Majority Leader for all these years has just been indicted! The former Houston bug exterminator Tom Delay, angered by the "gummint red tape" that hampered his business, rose to unbelievable heights of power in Washington as a Congressman. It has always amazed me how deferential the moneyed elite has been to this sick cracker. It's McCarthyism all over again--a bully everyone fears (the other is Bush). Here's hoping the slush-funds and redistricting scams Delay instigated will all come to light and the Thousand Year Republican Reich he, Norquist, Abramoff, and Bush were building will all start to come apart. Criminal scum--I mean, alleged criminal scum.
Jimmy Carter Did Not Wear a Sweater Because of Energy
"Dick Cheney carpooling downtown with Brownie? Rummy Rollerblading down the bike path to the Pentagon? Condi huddling by a Watergate fireplace in a gray cardigan?" That's catty Maureen Dowd on Bush's recent call for energy conservation. All fine, all fair, except for the reference to Jimmy Carter's cardigan. The following was posted here three years ago, and will continue to be reposted periodically until people stop repeating the myth that Carter wore a sweater because of energy:
One issue that came up [in an an earlier thread] is the popular myth that back in 1979, Jimmy Carter urged Americans to wear sweaters and turn down the thermostat to 68 degrees, an image trotted out by right-wing commentators to show the impotence and nerdiness of energy conservation (as opposed to the Cheney approach, which is to secure foreign oil supplies by force). The only problem with the Carter story is it isn't exactly true. In the "crisis of confidence speech," given at a time of gas lines and rationing, Carter urged Americans to turn down thermostats--perfectly sensible advice--but didn't bore us with a precise setting. He also didn't say anything about sweaters. Yes, he was wearing a sweater, as he had been doing since his Inauguration in '77. Admittedly dorky, the cardigan was meant to be a symbol of his laid-back Populism, after the Imperial excesses of the Nixon years. It had nothing to do with energy--that's pure Republican disinfo. Unfortunately it's become tenacious urban folklore, as a Google search of "carter sweater thermostat" shows.