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Blogs and other linkage:
Jim Woodring's blog. How art should be--artists make art and post it, whoever likes it finds and consumes it. In this case, lovingly crafted, f*ed up surrealist drawing and painting by a master from the underground comix sphere.
Across the divide. Edward B. Rackley reporting from Africa, offering "critique from within the international aid industry [and] political commentary from a number of African countries." A recent post on the African-Chinese trade bonds intrigues.
Seminal, sub-nugatory New York band Neg-Fi composes theme song for this year's installment of La Superette, "where artists showcase original, handmade gifts including recycled accessories, multifunctional stuffed animals, artist publications, funky house wares, and homemade clothes, with a special focus on 'hacks,' the custom configuration of pre-existing hardware or software." Neg-Fi's contribution this year will be "a mini-cd EP packaged with a jar of homemade organic peanut butter."
Nasty Nets internet surfing club is a page I'm proud to be involved with (mostly with the occasional bad animated GIF)--a mix of discriminating smartass net-trolling and original art projects for the web, with an emphasis on askance looks at the popular web technologies bubbling up from Silicon Valley that help us live, love, communicate, and work better.
Mellon Writes Again. Web page of writer Mark Mellon, whose fiction spans a range of genres and who lists his credits thusly: "My work has appeared in Aberrations; Chasm; Gothic.Net; Terra Incognita; Anthrolations, the Magazine of Anthropomorphic Dramatic Fiction; the Irish magazine Albedo One; Black Satellite; City Morgue; Aoife’s Kiss; Zahir; Hadrosaur Tales; the English magazines Sutekh’s Gift and Premonitions; and Whispers From The Shattered Forum. A vampire story, Shtriga’s Kiss, has been published in chapbook form by Anxiety Publications. I have also written four novels, The Empire of the Green, Hammer and Skull, The Pirooters and Libertarian in Love (respectively a science fiction novel, a historical novel about World War II, a Western, and a contemporary satire), and a fantasy novella: Escape From Byzantium."
"Throbbing and Tinkling" [mp3 removed]
A "heavy" bass riff is dismantled in the sampler (that's the throbbing part) while a heavily delayed frequency modulated piano tinkles. A rav-y synth solo pops up in the middle and at the end. The piece has a horror-movie ambience but I consider it contemporary classical music, using tropes and textures from the club underground as building blocks.
Update: "Maximized" the sound with a mastering plug-in. It's still quiet relative to other tracks--I guess because it only has three instruments.
Update 2: Substituted a "maximized" version with better equalization. (Thx to JP)
From Curbed: New Willliamsburg Condos to Offer Free Oil?
Related, from Bad Advice: "Luxury Condos" or Toxic Death Dump?
Some funny writing about an unfunny topic: unscrupulous real estate developers building on environmentally suspect sites and then lying about it to buyers and renters. The New York metro area feels as lawless as the Wild West when it comes to property issues. Unlimited freedom to screw up: as when the guy next door dug down ten feet to add a basement apartment to his building and collapsed my downstairs neighbor's back yard.
Three Kings, 1999. George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, and Spike Jonze drive an open jeep around Iraq after the end of the First Gulf War, looking for a cache of Saddam's gold bullion. Wacky adventures ensue before the men become sensitized to the plight of the Shiites, who are attempting an uprising against Hussein's still-dominant forces.
Four Kings, 2009. Sequel to Three Kings. Soldiers leave the Green Zone in a self-armored Hummer during the Second Gulf War, looking for a cache of weapons left over from the Saddam years. Three die when their vehicle strikes an improvised explosive device; George Clooney loses an arm and a leg in the blast. The film deals with his painful recovery and his eventual radicalization into a staunch political foe of the "Bush regime." No wacky adventures are had.
More linkage you need (the New Net Art):
All of the phony names from spam emails Joel Holmberg has received this month as a rockyou textpix slideshow. Not sure which makes you want to drill a hole in your own head more--the thought of all that spam or the endless cheerful banality of "rockyou"'s personalized animated graphics.
Audio clip: hear George W. Bush, president of the United States, use the words "peeance" and "freeance" in a sentence (as adjectives, apparently). Not really net art, but worth putting in to flout conceptual purity.
Almost as depressing as the rockyou slideshow: Stock footage from Getty Images that is pulled up with the search request "artist looking at camera" (found by Guthrie Lonergan--who has a great nose for postModern anomie).
Updated: backgrounds are now transparent so the discs are round against a colored background--finally figured out how to do that this morning--takes a long time with the clumsy tools I'm using.
Update 2: fixed bad image tag--OK now, bloglines?
Not to be out-pr'ed by warmonger and torture bill endorser John McCain, "America's mayor" Rudy Giuliani today announced an "exploratory committee" for a 2008 presidential run. While he may have given Americans the brave-face-for-the-TV-cameras they needed on 9/11/01 while Bush was retreating into the Midwest, let's just say here once again that people in New York hate Giuliani. During his tenure as mayor he's remembered as a finger wagging control freak with a terrible record dealing with minorities. His "bravery" on 9/11 was damage control after his mistake in locating his 15 million dollar "command bunker" high up in 7 World Trade Center. Then, after leaving office, he milked the tragedy for personal financial gain as an expensive "security expert." Blogger Steve Gilliard thinks his dallying with mistresses and ties to corrupt individuals like Bernard Kerik will keep him from a successful run--sure hope so, he's a creep, not a "hero."