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Archive for the ‘Art’ Category

Five Dials Number 3 (2008)

Posted in Advice, Alain de Botton, All Songs Considered, Annie Hall, Art, Craig Taylor, David Rakoff, Essays, Five Dials, History, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jonathan Safran Foer, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Margaux Williamson, Meat Puppets, Nirvana, R.B. Kitaj, Sheila Heti, Short Story, Simon Prosser on May 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MEAT PUPPETS-KEXP in studio November 10, 2009 (2009).

According to my stats, this is my 1000th post.  Wow!

I had liked the Meat Puppets somewhat when I was into SST back in the 80s, then I really got into them in the late 90s (when Nirvana introduced us to them).  I thought Too High to Die was a great album.  But they kind of fell from those heights (and Cris Kirkwood fell into serious trouble–drugs and jail) by the end of the decade.  So Curt Kirkwood continued without Cris and I kind of didn’t care anymore.

This session from 2009 sees the return of Cris (who came back for their 2007 album) with songs taken from their 2009 album, Sewn Together.  I don’t know what the album sounds like but this session is heavy on the country feel.  The new songs seem quite mellow, and a bit less bizarre than some of their earlier songs.

They sound good though.  Even with the drummer playing garbage cans and recycling bins.  As a sort of encore, they play “Plateau” (a Nirvana cover, ha ha).  About midway through, Curt messes up the lyrics and gives up singing.  But they play the extended coda regardless.

Curt doesn’t come across as the nicest guy in the world, but he’s been through enough to not give a toss what anyone thinks.  I’m glad the Puppets are back together and recording, but I don’t think I’ll be delving too deeply into their new stuff.

[READ: April 19, 2011] Five Dials Number 3

Five Dials Number 3 ups the page quantity a bit (26 in total) and also includes several art print reproductions  from Margaux Williamson, an artist who is mentioned in one of the articles.   This issue really solidifies the quality of this magazine.  It also introduces the possibility of correspondence with the readers.

CRAIG TAYLOR-On Alibis and Public Views
As mentioned, this letter introduces the idea that people are writing to the magazine.  Sadly there is no letters column (even if Paul F. Tompkins hates letters to the editor, for this magazine, I thought they’d be interesting).

CHERYL WAGNER-Current-ish Event: “The Ballad of Black Van.”
This is a true account of Wagner’s life in post-Katrina New Orleans, where a man in a black van is squatting in abandoned properties and selling everything imaginable.  And there’s no cops to help.  It’s a sad look at the state of New Orleans.

DAVID RAKOFF-A Single Film: Annie Hall
I haven’t read much David Rakoff, but he persist in amusing me whenever I do (hint to self: read more by David Rakoff).  This is an outstanding piece about the beloved film Annie Hall.  It’ s outstanding and goes in an unexpected direction too. (more…)

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826 NYC Art Show Catalog (2006)

Posted in Art, Gilmore Girls, History, J. Robert Lennon, Marcel Dzama, Mary Gaitskill, McSweeney's, NPR/PRI/PBS, Punks, Short Story, Sonic Youth, WHYY 90.9FM--Philadelphia, PA on April 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH on NPR [interviews and stories] (2006-2009).

While I was finding all of these awesome downloadable shows on NPR, I also found that there are hundreds of downloadable NPR stories about all kinds of bands.  But I was especially interested in the Sonic Youth ones because, well, I’m a fan of the band, but also because it seemed so incongruous to me to hear Peter Sagal introducing a story about Sonic Youth (with noise rock in the background).

The three downloadable shows cover the period from 2006-2008.  It’s no coincidence that this is the Rather Ripped period, where the band is at its most commercial.  And yet it is still pretty neat to hear them play samples of the noisier music as well.

The first one, A 25-Year Experiment in Artful noise (June 12, 2006) appeared on All Things Considered.  It is an interview from WHYY (but with the Peter Sagal intro!).  Joel Rose asks the band about their longevity as well as the history of their sound (this is where Thurston admits that their unusual tunings were because their crappy thrift store guitars sounded very bad in normal tuning).  This interview also revealed to me that Thurston and Kim were married in 1984.  I knew they were an item forever, but didn’t know they were official for that long.  Well done!

The interview also mentions their appearance on the beloved show The Gilmore Girls.  They watched the show with their daughter, Coco and heard Sonic Youth mentioned a few times (by cool chick Lane).  So they got in touch with the producers and were invited on set (I wonder if the actress who played Lane liked them as much as Lane did?).  And they played a fun “troubadour” version of one of their songs on the show (with Coco on bass).

The second download, Story of a ‘Kool thing’ (June 13, 2008) is more of an interview with David Browne, whose book Goodbye 20th Century:  A Biography of Sonic Youth, I have not read (although it sounds good).  This interview delves into their earlier music a bit more (how cool to hear Tom Violence on an NPR show–admittedly this show is The Bryant Park Project, so it’s not quite All Things Considered).  This segment is a general overview of the band’s history and of the book itself (but unlike the book, this offers snippets of music!)

The third one has a rather snarky title: “Turning ‘Sonic Youth’ Fans Into Readers” (January 27, 2009). It’s not so much about the band as it is about a book curated by Peter Wild called Noise: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth.

It’s a brief segment which delves into the inspiration for the book and for Wild’s own story “Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style.”  There’s a strangely credulous tone to the whole piece which makes it seem like they don’t really like the book.  I’m curious about the book as there are a few well-recognized writers on board, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever get around to reading it (although Amazon sells used copies for $2.50).

Contributors include:

Hiag Akmakjian • Christopher Coake • Katherine Dunn • Mary Gaitskill • Rebecca Godfrey • Laird Hunt • Shelley Jackson • J. Robert Lennon • Samuel Ligon • Emily Maguire • Tom McCarthy • Scott Mebus • Eileen Myles • Catherine O’Flynn • Emily Carter Roiphe • Kevin Sampsell • Steven Sherrill • Matt Thorne • Rachel Trezise • Jess Walter • Peter Wild

[READ: April 18, 2011] 826 NYC Art Show Catalog

This item is always for sale pretty cheap at the McSweeney’s site.  It recently was marked down to $3 so I figured I’d check it out.  This is a collection of art prints.  Each one is on a stocky paper just under  8 1/2″ x 11″.  The prints are reproduced beautifully (there’s about an inch and a half border (making them suitable for framing).  The back side of the print has a review of the print.  And, most amusingly, the reviews are by 6 to 8 year olds.

The art is hard to summarize, as it covers a lot of ground.  There’s a ton of different styles as well, from straight ahead photography to line and pencil drawing to painting.  These artists each have one page: (more…)

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Robert Coover–A Child Again (2005)

Posted in Art, Darkthrone, Death, Dreams, Fables, Fantasy, Fears, Ghosts, McSweeney's, Plague, Political Humor, Robert Coover, Sex, Short Story, Threats, Unlikable main character, Unreliable narrator, Until the Light Takes Us, Violence on April 8, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: DARKTHRONE-“Kathaarian Life Code,” (1992), “Sacrificing to the God of Doubt” (2004), “Canadian Metal” (2007).

After watching Until the Light Takes Us, I wanted to check out some of Darkthrone’s music.  According to their Wikipedia page, over the years the band who pioneered black metal has morphed away from the sound.  They’ve added elements of punk and speed metal to their bludgeoning sound.  In the movie Fenriz says that he listens to all kinds of music and is very open-minded.

“Kathaarian Life Code” is a ten minute dirge of black metal.  It opens the band’s second album (considered to be a black metal classic) with chanting and guttural spoken words.  Then it blasts forth with the jackhammer style of drums that is now standard in black metal.

It slows down from time to time, allowing for the really heavy parts to blast through the chaos of the fast parts.  It’s pretty intense and not for the faint of heart.  You can hear occasional guitars screaming through the din, but the production is intentionally murky, dark and noisy.  As they say in the movie, the bands intentionally recorded on the shittiest equipment they could find.

“Sacrificing to the God of Doubt” is a later song, taken from what is considered their final album in the black metal style.  The band was turning away from the traditional black metal sound, and there are elements of punk (guitar riffs that are audible, and a sound that is less bass heavy) present.  And the production, while still mired by noise is relatively cleaner.

“Canadian Metal” is from their third most recent album, after the shift from black metal was more or less official.  It sounds more like an early death metal song.  There’s low tuned notes, audible vocals (growled, but you can actually hear words) and a kind of headbanging aspect to it.  The album is called F.O.A.D. which was a song by Venom (and others, obviously), and this track reminds me of Venom somewhat.  I wouldn’t say that the band has sold out because there’s no way anyone is playing this on the radio, but it’s interesting to see how a band has managed to change things up and add new elements to its sound even though they were the forerunner and grandfather of a scene.

[READ: February and March 2011] A Child Again

This is a collection of short stories from Robert Coover.  There is a kind of theme throughout (most of) the stories about returning to childhood.  But the overall sense is one of despair, sadness, pointlessness and sex.  Lots and lots of sex.  And the sex is usually as vulgar and nasty as the tone of the book suggests it would be.  It’s a little off-putting, actually.

I was planning to say that I didn’t like this collection at all because I really didn’t enjoy the first half-dozen or so stories.  I continued because Coover has a great reputation that I didn’t want to give up after a few misfires.

The real disappointment came because the stories seem so promising: many of them are a kind of retelling of classic fairy tales that looks at “what happened afterward.”  However, and this was true for almost all of them, Coover tries to do two contradictory things with the stories.  He is playing with fairy tales but he is also writing stories that are completely unlike fairy tales.  By that I mean, Coover’s stories are long and very detailed, they bring far too much information to the story.  And a fairy tale is almost by definition short.  I mean, “Puff the Magic Dragon” is a song that’s about five paragraphs long.  But Coover’s “Sir John Paper Returns to Honah-Lee” is 26 pages long.  So instead of playing with the original, it feels like an original story that uses someone else’s characters.  It’s unsettling and unsatisfying.

It’s also not very funny.   And I’m not sure fit’s supposed to be.  But with a title like “Sir John Paper Returns to Honah-Lee” you expect the funny.  And there are funny moments.  I mean the whole premise is that little Jackie Paper has grown up into Sir John Paper.  He’s now an old Knight and he is sent to slay the dragon (Puff) who is plaguing the city.  Even though that is a tragic story, it is also inherently humorous.  And there are laughs when they reunite.  But it gets so bogged down in details, that the essence of the story seems to get lost.  Perhaps I’m just disappointed because it (they) turned out so unlike I wanted them to be. (more…)

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The Revolution Will Be Accessorized: BlackBook Presents Dispatches from the New Counterculture (2006)

Posted in A.M. Homes, Alain de Botton, Arab Strap, Art, Augusten Burroughs, Ben Greenman, BlackBook, Books about writers, Bruno Maddox, Chuck Palahniuk, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Damien Hirst, Dirk Wittenborn, Douglas Coupland, Drinking, Drugs, Emma Forrest, Ernest Hemingway, George Plimpton, Glenn O'Brien, Harold and Maude, Holidays, Irvine Welsh, J.T. Leroy, Jay McInerney, Jeff Koons, Joan Didion, Jonathan Ames, Mark Leyner, Mary Gaitskill, Matthew Barney, Meghan Daum, Mogwai, My Bloody Valentine, Naomi Klein, Neal Pollack, Rick Moody, Ryan Boudinot, Sam Lipsyte, Short Story, Travel, Victor Bockris, William T. Vollmann on March 25, 2011| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: MOGWAI-Kicking a Dead Pig + Mogwai Fear Satan Remixes (1998).

This release came out soon after Young Team, when it seemed like Mogwai was just flooding the market.  It’s a remix album of a number of tracks from Young Team. And, when it was re-released it contained several mixes of the track “Fear Satan” as a bonus disc.

In general, I’m not a fan of remixes.  There, I’ve said it. Back in the flush 90s, when I used to buy a lot of import singles, I enjoyed the B-sides, but was always disappointed when there was a remix rack.  Some are fine.  Indeed, some are pretty good.  But for the most part you get a very long song that is mostly drum machine and sounds and noises.  And I know that they are designed for dancing, but I’m not a dancer, so despite how much techno I own, I’m very rarely thrilled to ge a remix.

Which is  as good a way as any to say that this is a pretty inessential disc, even for Mogwai fans. Even though Mogwai themselves throw a couple of remixes on there.  And for the most part, what we get are washes of sound.  Since Mogwai don’t really do lyrics, it’s not always very obvious what song the remixers are remixing.

  • Hood: “Like Herod” has some interesting staccato, which Mogawi typically doesn’t have.
  • Max Tundra: “Helicon 2” is primarily ride cymbal although a guitar motif does come in (with some pretty harmonics) eventually.
  • Klute: “Summer” (Weird Winter Remix). There’s nothing distinctive about this.
  • Arab Strap: “Gwai on 45.”  I actually expected a lot from this mix because Arab Strap are a weirdly wonderful band and the guys have worked with Mogwai.  But then, they’re not an exciting band–they’re very good, just understated.  And as a result, this remix is okay but nothing too exciting.
  • Third Eye Foundation: “A Cheery Wave from Stranded Youngsters” (Tet Offensive Remix) is also okay.
  • Alec Empire: “Like Herod” (Face the Future Remix).  Alec Empire usually turns all of his remixes into super fast like 500 bpm noise explosions (just like Atari Teenage Riot). He doesn’t do that here, and the song just kind of melds in with the rest.
  • DJ Q: “R U Still In 2 It” has a vocal, but it is mostly one word repeated over and over.
  • Kid Loco: “Tracy.”  I liked this track more than many others.
  • Mogwai: “Fear Satan.”  It’s weird to me that you would remix one of your own songs, although I guess it’s fun.  I still like the original better.  And I’m fairly certain this one is different from the one on the next disc.

The four “Fear Satan” remixes are by:

  • Mogwai: delicate, the washes of sound are quiet and warm, and it really features the flute quite a lot. Although by the end, the feedback does come in.
  • μ-Ziq: remix is much more staccato. The washes have been removed.  There’s very little connection to the original.
  • Surgeon: remix begins electronically and builds as a slow wave.  It’s pretty much one note getting louder and louder until about a minute left when it changes tone.  It’s hard to imagine even calling this a remix.
  • My Bloody Valentine: at 16 minutes,  the MBV remix stands out for length. After about five minutes of interesting feedback squalls it shifts to a high-pitched noise, almost like a drill. After a few minutes of this it shifts into a very pretty electronic song.  By the end it’s a pounding heavy drum fill rocker.  Any resemblance to “Fear Satan” seems purely coincidental, but it’s a wild ride.

[READ: March 11, 2011] The Revolution Will Be Accessorized

I only heard about this anthology when I read the Sam Lipsyte piece from it.  I didn’t really like his piece, but the rest of the anthology sounded intriguing.  It was put out by BlackBook magazine, which I have a sort of vague awareness of, but couldn’t really say anything about (it’s some kind of counter-cultural fashion magazine or something).  But it seems like the counter-cultural aspect really lends sway here.

This anthology is a collection of short stories, essays and interviews.  There’s also an introduction by Jay McInerney

JAY McINERNEY-Introduction
He talks about BlackBook and the essays contained here. (more…)

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More Things Like This: 289 Drawings with Funny Words Also on the Same Drawing (2009)

Posted in Amy Jean Porter, Andy Warhol, Art, Big Books, Dada, Dave Eggers, Edward Gorey, Frank Zappa, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Jean-Michel Basquiat, Man Ray, McSweeney's, Peter Saul, Raymond Pettibon, René Magritte, Salvador Dali, Shel Silverstein on December 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FRANK ZAPPA-Does Humor Belong in Music? (1995).

Frank Zappa made money and found fame by writing dirty, funny songs.  Yet he was really a great guitarist and a serious composer.  But hey, when you need the money to make your studio, you write songs about “Penguins in Bondage.”  When I was in high school my friend Al introduced me to Shiek Yerbouti, and I was hooked.  I’d never heard songs that were so intentionally funny.

So, this live collection is kind of an odd assortment, given the title.  I mean the first song is an instrumental (ie. not funny at all except for the title “Zoot Allures”).  “Tinseltown Rebellion” however is pretty darn funny.  The mockery that goes on (and the call-outs range from The Scorpions to Culture Club and The Tonight Show) is nasty and offensive, but never really wrong.  And this is when you find out how good a Zappa stage show was.  The band was tight, they could play all kinds of crazy things and, as in this song, they were always in sync even when improvising.

This disc is a collection of songs from a 1984 tour.  I rather like this incarnation of the Zappa band (Ike Willis is pretty amazing at any time).  And they play tracks from across Zappa’s output.  Although there’s times when the disc sounds really abrasive (some of the solos–like on “Bondage”–are really piercing and not very smooth, and the drums can be very electronic sounding).

Of course, that’s the kind of music that Zappa wrote (“What’s new in Baltimore” is very electronic sounding–beautiful but mechanical–which is why it’s so amazing to hear it live–even if it doesn’t sound human, exactly).

And just so you know it’s not only Zappa showing off (although he kind of is since he hired all the musicians) in “Let’s Move to Cleveland,” everyone gets a solo…keybaords, drums…everyone.  And the final track “Whipping Post” sees his son Dweezil taking the lead guitar solo (which feels really human and rocks the dickens off the place).

For many of Zappa’s later “live” records, he compiled songs from all over the place (a very common practice for live records).  On some of the collections he even mixed a tour from the 70s with one from the 80s.   Now the thing that I just recently realized (even though it’s spelled out in the liner notes) is that these songs are cribbed together from different songs (!) (on “Cleveland” the piano solo is from St. Petersburg, the drum solo is from Vancouver, and the guitar solo is from Amherst College…weird, eh?  And what about the backing music, where does that come from while the solos are spliced in?)).  So, they’re not really live, except they kind of are.  And, heck that’s kind of funny too.  If you care about things like that it kind of ruins the “authenticity” of the recording.   But if you don’t, they sound pretty darn good anyway.

So this is not his funniest stuff, but it’s still an interesting live collection.

[READ: November 12, 2010] More Things Like This

I don’t know where I learned about this book, but I recently found it used for about $4 and I was pretty psyched to both find it and to pay a pittance for it.

As the subtitle indicates, this book is a collection of drawings that have words on them and are funny (but which are not “cartoons” (although some kind of are)).  The impetus for the book was a show at apexart of exactly this sort of thing.  The book expands on the show and includes many artists who were not in the show (including several very famous artists).

The Foreword by Dave Eggers offer the rationale behind the show & the book: Image + Text (usually referring to the image) + Humor = Good enough for us.  And it also asks pertinent questions: Why is it that so many of these artists can’t spell?  And why is it that when they screw up a word, instead of starting over, they just cross the word out and write it again?  Why is it important to some of the artists that the drawings appear casual, even sloppy?

And more. (more…)

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Brendan Connell–“The man who saw grey” (in Blind Swimmer: An Anthology of Eibonvale Press Writers) (2010)

Posted in Adbusters, Art, Artists, Brendan Connell, Canadian Music, Guided By Voices, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Rheostatics, Rush, Unlikable main character, Word usage, Yuck! on November 3, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MARTIN TIELLI-“We didn’t even suspect that he was the poppy salesman.” (2001).

Martin Tielli’s first solo disc is a proper solo release: it’s almost all him on acoustic guitar and his gorgeous alto voice.  I hadn’t listened to this disc in a while and I was delighted by how much of the disc I knew so well.

Te opening track, “I’ll Never Tear Your Apart” is deceptively simple: harmonic’d guitars and his gentle voice.  There’s a great video to go with it here.  That is followed by the wonderful “My Sweet Relief” which sounds like a great Neil Young folk song: great verses an a strong chorus.  Lyrically, though, it is all Tielli.  “Double X” highlights Tielli’s beautiful acoustic guitar work (and his dark lyrics).  “Voices in the Wilderness” is another delicate song (which opens with a sound that reminds me of Led Zeppelin’s “The Rain Song,” although in no way is the rest of the song like that. This song also (mis)quotes Rush very nicely: “‘If you choose not to be free you still have made a choice,’ said a high and squeaky voice.”

“Farmer in the City” is the only track that Tielli didn’t write.  It’s a nearly 8-minute song by Scott Walker.  I don’t know the original, but Tielli’s version is a bit too meandering to be really satisfying (although it fits in with the album style quite nicely).  It comes across as an atmospheric song more than a song proper.

It’s followed by the delightful “World in a Wall” which uses mice in the wall as a metaphor for a broken relationship (with wonderful detailed lines like: She’s like a mouse, I know she’s around It’s a gnawing sound. Leaves little brown poohs from a little pink bum.”

This is followed by the odd rocker “That’s How They Do It in Warsaw” (which features a woman speaking Polish–no idea what she’s saying).  It’s coupled with a slightly less rocky but still loud track “How Can You Sleep?” (which makes another fun musical allusion, this time about Guided by Voices).

“She Said ‘We’re On Our Way Down'” returns to the more ethereal sounding songs (although this has some great guitar tricks thrown in).  Like the bulk of the album, the song seems to eschew melody but then a gorgeous guitar or vocal line shines through and really sounds brilliant.  “From the Reel” is a beautiful, aching little ditty.  And the disc ends with the odd, seven minute “Wetbrain/Your War.”

There is a really wonderful review of post-Rheostatics work here at The Ohs.  He’s pretty harsh on the Bidiniband (although I haven’t heard the disc proper, just the live concerts that toured it, so I can’t say for sure) but his assessment of Tim Vesely is spot on (I love the idea of a Canadian Wilburys) as is his review of this disc.  I particularly like the Mary Margaret O’Hara comparison: Achingly beautiful but in need of an editor from time to time.

[READ: November 1, 2010] “The man who saw grey”

One thing I have really come to appreciate about Connell’s stories over the years is that he is not afraid to deal with dark aspects of humanity that many people would rather not think about.

The thing that surprised me about this story is that, in the past, Connell has used very specific language, one might even say two-dollar words (some of which I had to look up), to convey his ideas.  But in this story, he largely refrains from such language, keeping the language down to earth and familiar, much like his protagonists.

So this is a fairly simple story: a man hits his head and can thereafter only see in shades of grey.  What makes the story much more interesting than that simple plot is that the protagonist is a painter (well, his hobby is painting, in reality he is an administrator at the DMV). (more…)

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Wells Tower–“The Landlord”(New Yorker, September 13, 2010)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Art, Consumerism, Dromedary Records, Footstone, Friends Romans Countrymen, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, New Yorker, Outside, Short Story, Wells Tower on September 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: STUYVESANT-Jihad Me at Hello (2010).

Stuyvesant (one of the hardest band names to spell) is an amalgam of the defunct New Jersey bands Footstone and Friends, Romans, Countrymen.  And so, as you might expect if you know these other bands, they play noisy rock with a healthy dose of pop.

The opener, “Bi-Polar Bears” is a great example of their punky pop (complete with an unexpected horn section).  The second track, “Tape Hiss” sounds like Footstone (Ralphie’s voice is very distinct here) although the “do-do-do” harmonies are something new to the sound.

There’s more surprise from a major break in “Ode to Bish” which features a “waka jawacka” guitar and a horn solo.  “Liars Poker” also features some cool bass vocal harmonies (something of a rare treat in rock music).

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the slow opening of “Broken Red Wing.”  I was pleasantly surprised that after the slow opening, it did not jump quickly into a song that sounded like the rest on the disc.  Guitars kick in but they are not the same crunchy style.  The track shows an unexpected diversity on the disc.

While I have enjoyed both the Footstone and FRC releases, I think this conflation of the two makes for the best overall package.  It’s a great EP, and I’m looking forward to the full length.  This EP is available for free.  That’s right, for free.  So even if you hate it, you can still download it for free.  In any format, and then you can burn it to a CD, in the format that music is meant to be enjoyed.

[READ: September 8, 2010] “The Landlord”

Wells Tower is another 20 Under 40.  I’ve enjoyed the few short stories(although I haven’t read his collection yet) and the non-fiction he’s written for Outside magazine.

This story feels like an excerpt from a longer piece because there are a lot of different characters who seem like there’s more to them.

The main character is the landlord, Mr Pruitt.  He owns a lot of properties, but in the current market he has had to sell a number of them.  And, of course, his tenants are paying him less and less frequently.  As the story opens we meet one of those tenants, Armando Colón, who is three months overdue.  Armando has a solution to his problem which he presents to Mr Pruitt.  When Armando leaves, Mr Pruitt’s worker, Todd Toole mocks him for letting people fuck him over. (more…)

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John Berger–“A Brush” (Harper’s, September 2010)

Posted in A House, Art, Harper's, John Berger, Short Story on August 28, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: A HOUSE-“More Endless Art” (1991).

Lar, my encyclopedia of music, pointed me to this second version of “Endless Art” by A House.  The original was all male artists.  This follow-up is all female artists.

I enjoyed this version very much, and it made me realize that I was tired of the original song because of the lyrics, not the music (listening to spoken word bits over and over can be exhausting). So, now I get a new version of the song with brand new lyrics to think about.

The video doesn’t go anywhere near the conceptual peak that the first one achieved, I’m not even sure who made it.

Watch it below, or look for the “Endless Art” single.

[READ: August 21,. 2010] “A Brush”

I read John Berger’s Ways of Seeing back in graduate school.  It’s a group of essays about perception and art.  I had no idea that he wrote anything else, and promptly forgot about him.  So, imagine my surprise to see this piece of fiction written by John Berger (and a little research indicating that it is the same guy).  I liked Ways of Seeing but it didn’t impact my life in any major way, this was all just an interesting (to me) coincidence.

I wasn’t really sure what to think of this story as it opened.  It talks of a paint brush.  And the wording of it was a bit odd, I felt:

I want to tell you the story of how I gave away this Sho Japanese brush.

But it’s the description of the brush that I found so compelling:

I drew often with it. It was made of the hairs of horse and sheep. These hairs once grew out of a skin. Maybe this is why when gathered together into a brush with a bamboo handle they transmit sensations so vividly. When I drew with it I had the impression that it and my fingers loosely holding it were touching not paper but a skin. (more…)

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Periodical: Smithsonian

Posted in Animals, Art, Bob Dylan, Books about writers, Christo, Essays, Gilmore Girls, Harper Lee, History, James Gurney, Mark Twain, Milton Glasser, Smithsonian on July 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Our family visited Washington DC and went to a few museums.  We talked about subscribing to Smithsonian magazine (and getting a membership to the museums), but we put it off.  Then I received an offer in the mail to subscribe to the magazine and get a membership all for $12.  So we did.  And I’m thrilled with the magazine.

I recall subscribing to this magazine many years ago (turns out it was about fifteen years ago) as I distinctly remember reading, savoring and the keeping the September 1995 issue which featured a cover about James Gurney’s Dinotopia.  The cover is still blazed in my memory (even if I can’t find a better picture than this online).

As with many things, I find that as an adult (and a dad) I enjoy this sort of magazine a lot more than I did as a recent college grad.  It was also fascinating to learn in the new 40th anniversary issue that the magazine started not long after I was born.  It’s like we grew up together (but I ignored it for years). (more…)

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The Brothers Moon & Grounds for Sculpture

Posted in 19th Century, Art, Chakaia Booker, Edouard Manet, Grounds for Sculpture, Keith Haring, Set in New Jersey!, Seward Johnson, Sonic Youth, The Brothers Moon on June 20, 2010| 4 Comments »

I very rarely deviate from my usual topics of books, music and TV.  But today, Father’s Day, the family and I went to a local(ish) restaurant that was so good (and so local(ish)) that I wanted to shout about it.

It’s called The Brothers Moon.  It’s in Hopewell, NJ.  It seems pretty clear that they don’t need the business, as they were pretty hopping today, but it’s pretty far off the beaten path, so I think they can use the publicity.

I had first heard of them when I was looking up local sustainable food places.  While I was searching for a local CSA, I discovered The Brothers Moon because, as their site states, “Support Local, Go Local! The Brothers Moon proudly supports sustainable farming and local businesses.”  Which gets my vote on principle alone. (more…)

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