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After the addition of the former Borg drone Seven of Nine to the starship's crew at the start of the fifth Star Trek series' fourth season, Voyager's weekly viewer ratings soared by more than 60%... [T]he character was an instant success, and "saved the show" from disorientation and even oblivion. The Emergency Medical Hologram's dermoplastic grafting procedures and follicle stimulation therapies produced a highly sexualized feminine bodily appearance that appealed especially to adolescent and young males, a major portion of Star Trek's viewership. Seven's arrival on the scene was accompanied by a massive publicity campaign in TV magazines and newspaper supplements. Played by a former Miss America pageant finalist Jeri Ryan, outfitted in a skintight, lustrous catsuit and high heels that accentuate her breasts and buttocks, Seven of Nine radiates "available feminine sexuality," yet is paradoxically unaware of her "epidermal" exposure and blatant desirability. Her erect phallic posture, techno-scientific competence, stringently business-like speaking style, and indifference towards male erotic overtures make her an ambivalent boundary crosser with both masculine and feminine semiotic and manneristic attributes.--from Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance, by Alan N. Shapiro (the Bible)
Posting from an...undisclosed location, some time on my hands, don't have my tablet so my project for the night is drawing Seven of Nine with a mouse. This may change as I get time to tinker with it. ("That is irrelevant.")
Attended a NY art blogger social event in Chelsea last night organized by Edward Winkleman. Paddy Johnson has a report (she did a better job meeting people than I did). The mood was pleasant and egalitarian, and people talked a fair amount about art, unlike so many art world soirees terminally marred by climbers, strivers, snubbers, and assorted other dysfunctional bad vibe inducers. (Yes, I was scarred by several years of writing criticism during the dot com era.) Learned about a few sites I hadn't heard of before. There's definitely an uptick in good blog activity since this page's last extended prognosis of the scene, and the scuttlebutt has it that galleries and museums are paying a tad more attention to these self-published vehicles. This matters not so much for getting perks and press credentials as getting out-of-favor ideas heard and mediocre-but-powerful gatekeepers righteously bypassed. Maybe that's all of a piece, don't know for sure. Thanks to Edward for organizing this, looking forward to more such events.
"Speed Too" [mp3 removed]. My remix of John Parker's remix of my Mac SE tune(s). Work in process--still editing this piece, but give it a listen!
The show we're in in Toronto, curated by Sally McKay, is called "Mods and Rockers" (opening May 12th at York Quay Centre, part of digifest). The work will be video displayed on two screens, separated by several feet in a public hallway, with a music soundtrack accessible through headphones hanging between the videos.
Don't know what the other invited artist teams are doing, but rather than have some kind of face-off, or rumble, we're merging sensibilities. The collective inner Mod is the high tech influence in the form of some sophisticated audio software and newish laptop used to edit and burn the video, and the inner Rocker is the low tech source material: 8-Bit-style tunes on an old Mac (some originally composed in the '80s) and animated GIFs based on MSPaint versions of John's flat work.
We're trying for some sort of parity between the audio and visual material. Pixels and square waves as both medium and subject.
This is just my dashed off statement, issued with John's more or less approval based on an earlier email. Like the music and video we've been posting, it could be Modified. Or I could be off my Rocker.
Oh, and did I mention "organic"?
| T | Trustworthy |
| O | Organic |
| M | Misunderstood |
| M | Mushy |
| O | Old |
| O | Organic |
| D | Desperate |
| Y | Young |
Name Acronym Generator
Big shakeup at the Village Voice since the yuppie New Times Corp. bought the paper. From the comments at Undernews:
"The Bush Blog" was shut down just as things got interesting in D.C. "Press Clips," whose writers over the years included [Alexander] Cockburn and Doug Ireland, has been discontinued. [James] Ridgeway was pulled from the print edition 2 months ago -- now he has been sent packing.This is depressing. Blogs are taking up some of the slack left by the demise of independent, ad-based print media, but bloggers don't have the resources to do sustained, high-profile reporting that requires face to face interviews, travel, etc. RIP Village Voice. I shudder that they'll start scrubbing the politics out of Jim Hoberman's film reviews, which are all about the politics.
Wonder how long it takes before the Voice becomes another pro-war/pro-Bush mouthpiece?
Finally got some pics of the "Fuzzy Logic" show from summer 2005, in Manchester, UK, curated by Jackie Passmore and Michael Connor. A million thanks to Cat Mazza for these photos. The show was discussed a bit here (scroll way down). The top photo depicts Cory Arcangel's Infinite Fill Blanket, Peter Coffin's "wall-based prints bridging ASCII art and knitting patterns," a LoVid soft sound sculpture on the pedestal, my Fuzzyball paper piece upper right, and Claire Irving's mathematical knitting in the foreground. The bottom photo shows Cat Mazza's logoknit pieces and her knitting machine, and Woolly Thoughts' Mathematical Afghans.
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To all my Republican friends and family members (I love you but you are dopes), I offer this tribute to the fall of corrupt legislator, Tom DeLay. It's titled Oh Happy Day, and this is indeed a happy day for lovers of freedom and haters of thieves. Jane Hamsher of firedoglake wrote it:
It’s a beautiful day here in Oregon, and a great day in America.
Tom DeLay, one of the biggest crooks in modern American history, has fallen. In order to appreciate the importance of this I want to link to a couple of articles I think have been really good at laying out the full extent of the criminal enterprise that has bilked this country for billions, of which DeLay was the architect.
Nicholas Confessore’s Washington Monthly article on the K Street project is a must-read for anyone fuzzy on the details about how the GOP gamed the lobbying business to fund its illegal enterprises by hoovering up every tax dollar in sight, and quite nearly got its hands on the "prize pig" of the Social Security trust fund. And Sarah Posner’s article in The American Prospect is a searing expose of how lobbyists like Barbara Comstock set up a clearing house for companies wanting to bilk the government in the wake of 9/11, capitalizing on Republican fear-mongering and making sure that copious amounts of cash made their way back into GOP coffers and insured the perpetuation of the system.
The result? The government bought a bunch of expensive, useless shit it didn’t need. DeLay and the GOP were very good at ripping off the nation but they left the country vulnerable, weakened and poor, ill-equipped to meet the challenges of a new century. National and economic security were the furthest thing from their minds. Every man, woman and child in America now carried $30,000 worth of government debt on their backs. And thousands have died in their expensive, futile, graft-laden war.
Tom DeLay has fallen today. He’s not in chains (yet) but he’ll soon be out of Congress off the House Appropriations Committee where he has stolen so much for so long. And the justice system has him in their sights.
It’s a great day in America.