The Quiet Quiet

Space Monkeys

2009-06-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, we sent monkeys into space. Sad and creepy. But necessary and insanely heroic of the monkeys, I suppose. Not that they knew what they were up to...

Not entirely sure what we learned from the first monkeys we sent up, but I'm terrified to imagine what went through that monkey's mind during the entirety of the ordeal. Pictures and more from National Geographic.

Thomas Doyle

2009-06-26T16:04:00.000-07:00

Art by Thomas Doyle. Fantastic.

Dubai!

2009-06-26T15:53:00.000-07:00

More completely true and insane pictures and renderings here. What a crazy town they have built from nothing in the desert. Courtesy of DL at work.

Scanwiches

2009-06-07T16:27:00.001-07:00

Scanwiches. Simple, brilliant, and I never gave it its proper due. View the entire gallery, I've only selected those which I'm pretty sure I've sampled.

Also, bonus material: at ED's prompting, I hunted down someone who hunted down the home of the Teamster sandwich from 30 Rock. Go forth and annoy the locals!

#ShakeTweet

2009-06-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

For those of you who still, inexplicably, care, I'm trying something new on Twitter.

The first premise is this: I really have not yet found a remotely interesting use for Twitter, either as a platform for me to communicate or for me to passively observe.

Secondly, everything about Twitter seems to demand something much more high concept than what it is being used for.

Thirdly, I apologize in advance if you must unfollow me, for a while or forever.

Fourthly, this will involve Shakespeare. And although my first thought was Richard III, RM smartly dissuaded me. My next thought was The Tempest, but, shockingly, the bookstore was out, and this starts tonight or never. So it will be Much Ado About Nothing.

Fifthly, while the initial thought was a line by line recount of the play on Twitter, that seems perhaps too obnoxious. So this will be a close reading with selected lines tweeted, but with no tweets to interrupt.

Finally, the near-restoration of workplace sanity means that hopefully both my consumption of good stuff in the world (food, drinks, movies, music) and reporting back will increase, as will, I hope, a marked uptick in actually trying to be interesting again... over the standard channels. This blog. The other blog. Flickr. Now this Twitter nonsense. Not Facebook. And Email.

Rave: Tell No One

2009-06-07T15:39:00.001-07:00

Tell No One. French. Suspenseful. Economical storytelling. Lyric. Worth it, highly recommended.

Toy Camera Fun

2009-06-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

Massive, massive enjoyment from Takayuki Fukatsu's iPhone camera apps, particularly Quad Camera, Toy Camera, and Old Camera. Worth many times the collective $5, and thank you sir!

Also, as always, photos can be found on Flickr.

2012 Olympic Posters

2009-06-07T15:28:00.001-07:00

Very nice, courtesy MP at work. For more, see Ministry of Type.

Wes Anderson Film Festival

2009-06-07T15:18:00.000-07:00

The fake Wes Anderson Film Festival by Alex Cornell, courtesy RM. Great concept, lovely execution.

Casette Tape Art

2009-06-07T15:05:00.001-07:00

Very cool. Via user iri5 on Flickr, courtesy MR at work.

Bathtub IV (Lovely Gimmick)

2009-05-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Amazing use of tilt-shift and time-lapse from Keith Loutit.

Flight Patterns

2009-05-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

Time-lapse photos of plane landings from Branislav Kropilak.

We Don't Want Ads, We Want Art

2009-05-04T18:52:00.000-07:00

Applauding unauthorized public art. More!

http://www.cronicasbarbaras.com/2009/04/we-dont-want-ads-we-want-art.html

Courtesy TP at work.

To Be More Rad

2009-04-23T21:18:00.000-07:00

A Wolf Loves Pork

2009-04-14T19:40:00.001-07:00

Courtesy LDL at work.

Roadtrip!

2009-03-15T16:19:00.000-07:00

A collection of strange buildings. Of the hundred shown, I think I've been to about ten (those in Barcelona, London, Las Vegas, and the Bay Area), and maybe seen another five from the road... Time to buy at ticket?

Old Nantucket, for Capt. JWW

2009-03-15T16:05:00.000-07:00

Some great photographs of Nantucket on Flickr:

As We Go Up, We Go Down

2009-03-15T15:56:00.001-07:00

Relatively interesting, albeit cursory, article in the Times about the rises and falls of development in New York City. The fate of New York as the United States cedes its empire grows more interesting by the day. Anybody have any recommendations for articles on the rise and fall of great cultural capitals? I think that a cross-disciplinary (ethnographic, financial, political, architectural) study that both analyzed and brought to life the relative rise and fall of great cities through time would be fascinating.

2008: Music

2009-01-01T17:09:00.000-08:00

Without much preamble:

Albums Released in 2007:
Alegranza, El Guincho
Sleep Forever, The Big Sleep
At Mount Zoomer, Wolf Parade
Venus on Earth, Dengue Fever
Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend
Stay Positive, The Hold Steady

Albums Discovered/Re-Discovered in 2007:
Brightblack Morning Light, Brightblack Morning Light
Comicopera, Robert Wyatt
Strange Geometry, The Clientele
The Body, The Blood, The Machine, The Thermals

Still Processing:
Vivian Girls, Vivian Girls
Alight of Night, Crystal Stilts
HLLLYH, The Mae-Shi
Analog Africa No. 4, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou
Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, David Byrne & Brian Eno

2008: Movies

2009-01-01T15:44:00.000-08:00

Movies enjoyed (and recommended!) in 2008, both old and new. I have not seen Frost/Nixon or The Wrestler yet, but the best movie I saw this year is Milk. List below, caveats at the end:

Highly Recommended:
Milk
Man on Wire
Slumdog Millionaire
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Encounters at the End of the World
Mongol
Planet B-Boy
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
There Will Be Blood
(the last two technically from 2007)

Also Recommended:
Gran Torino
Reprise
War, Inc
Wall-E
The Wackness
Tropic Thunder
The Flight of the Red Balloon
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Role Models

Enjoyed on DVD/Internet/Airplane/etc.
Syriana
Inside Man
Zodiac
Southland Tales
Into the Wild
Gone Baby Gone
Juno
Dogday Afternoon
The Visitor
Baby Mama
Flight of the Conchords (TV)
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (TV)
Casino Royale

Missed (i.e., to catch or rent)
The Band's Visit
Paranoid Park
Frozen River
Pineapple Express
Hamlet 2
Appaloosa
Rachel Getting Married
City of Ember
Happy-Go-Lucky
W.
Tell No One
Synecdoche, New York
Cadillac Records
Frost/Nixon
The Wrestler
The Class
Waltz With Bashir

No really incredible movies this year, but a fair amount of quality overall.

2008: Books

2009-01-01T15:10:00.000-08:00

Sadly, I've had nowhere near the opportunity to read as much quality literature as I would like this year, less time and focus to write about the things I've read, and I have only a handful of real stand-out recommendations. The two best books I've read this year are Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson and The World Without Us by Alan Weisman.

I certainly hope (heck, resolve!) to pick up the pace of reading and writing this year. Until then, here's the list. And always, very few actual 2008 releases, since I like to read in paperback:

Fiction:
Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson
The Easter Parade, Richard Yates
Out Stealing Horses, Per Petterson
Then We Came to the End, Joshua Ferris
Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell

Non-Fiction:
The World Without Us, Alan Weisman
The Trouble With Diversity, Walter Benn Michaels
Brand Simple, Allen P. Adamson
The Long Tail, Chris Anderson
The Substance of Style, Virginia Postrel

Jim Shepard's collection of short stories Like You'd Understand, Anyway deserves mention for a few excellent stories in the collection ("The Zero Meter Diving Team," "Pleasure Boating in Lituya Bay"), but uneven quality throughout. Shepard's collection suffered from plots, characters, and scenarios that were over-imagined, forcibly too unique and consequently, made it hard for me to achieve any real empathetic connection. I'll completely damn Miranda July's No One Belongs Here More Than You with the same criticism, as well. A collection I fully expected and hoped to like, but one that was altogether too indulgent in its quirkiness for its own good.

Well, so much for 2008. The pile of books for 2009 is already a two feet high, so it's time to get going...

LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge

2008-12-09T18:38:00.000-08:00

Ah, how I feel. Also, because they've taken down "New York, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down." Which is worth a look, you should find it. Also, James Murphy's brand of incredible danceable melancholy is worth a song in itself.

The Mae Shi - Run to Your Grave

2008-12-09T15:49:00.000-08:00

Fun video, fun song.

Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill

2008-10-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

The latest from Banksy, can't wait to go once I get my life back!

More Fulton Lights

2008-10-06T19:15:00.000-07:00

Continued props to AG. This video is very cool, made long distance. Here's a little 21st century backstory from the auteur.:

A music video I made for Fulton Lights. Starring lead singer Andrew Spencer Goldman - despite the fact we've never met, and he lives in New York and I live in London. Through the magic of the internet machine and technology we overcame that slight geographical hitch.

(If it's glitchy and stuttering - hover over the video and turn off HD mode. It won't look as pretty but...)

Fulton Light's incredible new album can be listened to, and even downloaded, here:
fultonlights.com

I'd love to hear what people think of the video.

Give the director props on Vimeo.

Paul Newman, RIP

2008-09-27T11:06:00.000-07:00

Does anybody represent what was great about America in the second half of the 20th century more than Paul Newman? In movies and in real life? Will be sorely missed...

An appreciation from NYT.

Two more rememberances, from Stephen Metcalf and Dana Stevens, on Slate.com. Metcalf puts it close to the mark with this closing bit:

Paul Newman reminded us—with a smile, a twinkle, a total economy of gesture—how infrequently the beautiful are comfortable in their own skin, how infrequently the elect are gracious. He enters, and immediately, the pantheon of Grant, Tracy, and Stewart, for reminding us of that magical Emersonian place, of America in its own imagination of itself, where the superhuman and the all-too-human become indistinguishable.

Fulton Lights

2008-09-24T18:39:00.000-07:00

Happy to report AG's new record as Fulton Lights is pretty damn good. You can listen to it for free, here.

Agency Life

2008-09-23T18:36:00.000-07:00

All life we work but work is a bore / If life's for livin' then what's livin' for?
- Ray Davies, The Kinks, "Oklahoma U.S.A"

EM rightfully called it out over dinner last night - maybe I'm not cut out for office work, because my tolerance for bullshit is too low. Maybe that's why, despite the neat literary narrative trick that Joshua Ferris' employs in his quite enjoyable Then We Came To The End, in which our perspective is implied and subsumed in the narrator's royal 'we,' I still most closely identified with Tom Mota. Yes, vulgar and slightly unhinged Emerson-quoting, clown-suit wearing, paintball-shooting Tom Mota. Imprison, then enlisted, then dead Tom Mota. Also, the star of the show.

Let me take two steps back. First, yeah, I'm not sure I enjoy spending all of my time and creative energy working for other people, but that said, I'm pretty good at it, and I've thus far managed a string of pretty reasonable gigs - enterprising, creative, and cubicle-free. So, in a world of complaining, I can't complain. And the work, while often too consuming of my time and mental energy, has also been reasonably intellectually challenging and has, if not added to the sum total of good in the world, probably not detracted from it. And I've made some friends and won some respect along the way. And probably learned a few things.. So, as Carl Spackler might say, I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

Second, in our lives, we spend maybe eight hours a day working and eight hours sleeping? Something like that? So it is amazing how few really useful or interesting novels there are about work (or sleeping, for that matter). Particularly good old fashioned, 20th century American office work. TV shows? Yes. Movies? Maybe. I guess those are the appropriate media. But novels? Nicholson Baker's Mezzanine, maybe? Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road, perhaps, although that had a good bit of sex, insanity, marital strife, and abortion in it, none of which really constitute much of my work day. Some Updike that I've missed, perhaps?

Which is what makes Joshua Ferris' Then We Came To The End such a pleasurable read. It is slightly cartoonish, but does a great job of elevating the everyday drama of office life to the appropriate levels of meaning, humor, and warmth. The work, a team of creatives in a large advertising agency in Chicago on the downswing of the dot-com boom, is surely recognizable to anyone who has worked in a creative field, or heck, in any professional services industry. The odd contours of office camaraderie, the strange insistence of minor professional triumphs and failures into your psyche, the tchotchke's that stand-in for personality and a personal touch, the elevator banks, and the office lighting.

It is all wincingly recognizable, and all laid comically bare. The read is quick and well-paced, and wrapped with enough grazing passes at the soul of the organization man and the small flourishes of craft (those that put the meta in fiction), to balance being an enjoyable subway read (as you head to your office) with taking heavy-handed swipes at the raison d'etre of your workaday life. Certainly recommended if you've ever had the pleasure of nine to five work.

Sound Travels

2008-09-23T18:24:00.000-07:00

I'll do a short set of posts on Norway soon. But to get you started, check in on AG's travel blog, Sound Travels. The man behind Fulton Lights has taken off to see the world, spread the word, play some shows and, well, I don't know. Get up to as much no good as one can. I am envious and the swell of demand in my own soul for a third-life crisis grows stronger by the day.

One Hundred Years From This Day...

2008-09-20T12:27:00.000-07:00

The Library of Congress's excellent Flickr page has a collection up called News from the 1910s. Lots of striking photos in the set. The photos above include Teddy Roosevelt, P.T. Barnum, William Jennings Bryan, and two entitled "Indians at Dedication" and "Bulgarian Giving Water to Dying Turk, Adrianople." How far we've come, from a world on the brink of tumult, a nation demanding to be entertained, and presidential candidates laying claim to the need for reform in government.

Justice Stress

2008-09-20T12:20:00.001-07:00

I am not particularly a fan of Justice, but DL sent around a link to the video for "Stress" from his trip to BUG 09 in London and, having not seen the video before, damn. Pretty raw stuff, even if contrived for the video. I guess I'll relate the strange and senseless act of violence that I was tangentially involved in a few weeks ago, but living in New York city in 2008, sometimes you forget that the world can still be a pretty bleak and violent place.

MondoGDL

2008-09-20T11:23:00.001-07:00

Life and how to live it. Friend and ex-colleague AK always seems to have a bead drawn on that one. Heck, I think I'd rate him as one of the coolest people I know. Lately, he's been living in Mexico, with his wife and two young kids, renovating a house in Guadalajara, and seeming to have an all around great time. He has started a blog, MondoGDL, chronicling the art and culture of Guadalajara. Serving half as a guide for locals to find out about art and movies, and half as a kaleidoscopic view of high art, indie music and movies, and Guadalajara's culture, definitely worth a look from time to time. Also, as a general comment, it's amazing how deeply turned on further and further corners of the world are to the aesthetics and actual art that falls outside of the mainstream. Another hash in the plus column for globalization, I suppose.

Andy, still waiting for a report from a Chivas match...

The First British Hydrogen Bomb

2008-09-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

Photos and video from H-bomb test sites never fail to amaze. Pure violence, but also pure art, beautiful and comic.

Waterfall Rap

2008-09-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

Well, a little vulgar, but still pretty funny.

My Gal: Saunders on Sarah Palin

2008-09-18T13:09:00.000-07:00

From The New Yorker, in case you missed it. An excerpt:

Explaining how she felt when John McCain offered her the Vice-Presidential spot, my Vice-Presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin, said something very profound: “I answered him ‘Yes’ because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink. So I didn’t blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.”
Isn’t that so true? I know that many times, in my life, while living it, someone would come up and, because of I had good readiness, in terms of how I was wired, when they asked that—whatever they asked—I would just not blink, because, knowing that, if I did blink, or even wink, that is weakness, therefore you can’t, you just don’t. You could, but no—you aren’t.
That is just how I am.
Do you know the difference between me and a Hockey Mom who has forgot her lipstick?
A dog collar.
Do you know the difference between me and a dog collar smeared with lipstick?
Not a damn thing.
We are essentially wired identical.

Read the rest.

La Cabina

2008-08-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

A few comments on this one. First, about YouTube and user-generated content sites, in general. Aside from the fact that the landscape of content on these sites, and the internet in general, is populated by an astonishing amount of total, crap, whose worth and total meaning I'm not sure we'll ever fully get our minds around enough to appreciate, I am often pleased that some otherwise forgotten gem has found new purchase through on the democratic plains of the Internet.

Second and third, on this marvelous little film that RM brought to my attention. I always enjoy watching films, often of an earlier period, that are able to so simply and subtly convey a fairly complex set of ideas and emotions (humor, absurdity, dread) without recourse on a verbal narrative. The true power of the camera in telling a story. It seems a forgotten art, in today's cinema, at times.

And I always enjoy art, often seemingly of an earlier time, and often of different countries, that so gleefully embrace existential dread as something fundamental to be grappled with in modern society. That some small choice lacking in distinction can ensnare you in the most awful of moments. The mocking of children, the lack of sympathy from your friends and neighbors, no acknowledgment or recognition of your condition from passersby, and a steady, uncontrollable journey to meet a fate you did not desire and could not imagine. Brutal.

La Cabina is dark and funny and, in the end, a little ridiculous. But well worth watching, parts 1-4.

Costumed Croquet in Golden Gate Park

2008-08-03T18:15:00.000-07:00

For MM's birthday, 2006.

Anatomy of a Socially Awkward Situation

2008-08-03T17:32:00.000-07:00

Quick shout-out to SA, HR, and JW for the charming and funny shorts they have been creating, illustrating the Anatomy of a Socially Awkward Situation. Check out the videos. I especially like the touch of skeeviness at the end of episode 4, "Baby Busted."

The Art of the Title

2008-08-03T17:26:00.001-07:00

The Art of the Title, a site that collects opening and closing title sequences of films and TV shows. The archive isn't quite full yet, but certainly enough of interest initially, and hopefully, continued posting of great title sequences.

Sleepwalk

2008-07-28T19:04:00.000-07:00

Listening to the radio the other day, heard an interview with some young, new band that has a surf-rock sound. Apparently, they are from South Carolina, and the beach music from there is more like raved-up Motown than the Beach Boys. Think "Shout." Got me thinking about the beach and music, and while I wasn't a beach kid, I did grow up in a beach town, and the beach really is a great place to hear music. Got me thinking about this song, imagining what it must have been like to first hear this on the AM radio in 1959... and what I'm missing out on, that surprise and delight at hearing a haunting, new melody, since I don't really listen to the radio, and I don't really listen to pop music.

A Man Needs A Garage

2008-07-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

May not warrant watching all 8 minutes, but here's a pretty cool old fella making some pretty old-style machinery. Love it. Courtesy JP.

Reminds me, so slightly, of The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millenium General Assembly. About that here.

Italian Motorcycle Display

2008-07-28T17:59:00.000-07:00

July 21st, 2006

2008-07-21T19:10:00.000-07:00

A good weekend in Lake Tahoe.

Kangaroo / We Are The World

2008-06-19T20:04:00.001-07:00

JWW woke up early, apparently, and bored.

Both videos demand answers. What were they thinking would happen with a boxing kangaroo? And what are the Japanese thinking? Just across the board, at this point...

Summer of '68

2008-06-19T19:49:00.000-07:00

A brief reflection on a post I just made: being a part of the last generation that remembers life without the Internet or globalization does not make me particularly proud. It's better than being born later, sure. But it's not the velvet generation that I would have loved to have been a part of (though, of course, had I been born then, I wouldn't have lived so well...)

The Magnum photo gallery only goes to prove it. Wouldn't you kill to be a part of that? So cool in every respect.

In case you can't tell: The Band, Zappa, Chuck Berry, Aretha, Mick and Keith.

Pechu Kucha

2008-06-19T19:42:00.000-07:00

"The result, in the hands of masters of the form, combines business meeting and poetry slam to transform corporate cliché into surprisingly compelling beat-the-clock performance art."

Yeah, right. Well, actually, I'm intrigued. Although I'm never sure why PowerPoint became the subject for art. Oh, right. It started as a joke.

Truth is, given that I live regularly with the form (and hate it), I think that the poetry slam transformation of a business meeting should become a de facto standard in the meeting rooms of the world. What is a virtuoso performance? Say what you want, quickly, directly, and get the hell out. We'd be better for it, and less spiteful of our jobs. Come on, America!

Mexican Weekend

2008-06-19T19:23:00.001-07:00

The margaritas should be as large as a neurosurgeon's head - Mexican proverb

Not infrequently, it occurs to me that I'm a member of a unique generation, for whom two things are true. I can remember life without email and web browsing and I can remember a time when ethnic food was exotic in a strange way, not an exciting way. When it was harder to keep in constant touch with faraway people, particularly in the frivolous, everyday way allowed by email and Flickr and blogs and the lot. And when sushi was something that only New York yuppies or California weirdos ate, and where, if you grew up in the suburbs, you were lucky to have a single greasy Chinese place serving pu-pu platters and a Taco Bell. A time, the 80s, specifically, before the two great themes of our generation became manifest: globalization and the Intenret.

One strange remnant of this disconnected provincialism held over into New York when I first arrived here eight years ago: it was hard to find really good Mexican food. Why?

It didn't really make any sense, but it was almost a truism. And not even in comparison to the excessive pride that San Francisco takes in its burritos. Even compared to the odd Mexican restaurant that you might find at the bottom of Federal Hill in Providence, or on California Avenue in Palo Alto.

No more.

Unplanned, but not unappreciated, I spent a weekend eating Mexican food recently, and I can heartily recommend two New York venues.

First, Nolita's Cafe El Portal, which I visited with friends following after work drinks. Cozy, inexpensive, and quite delicious (at least if you're hungry and a little drunk), the real winning touch is that, while waiting to seat you in their small, sunken dining room, they will bring you frozen margaritas in plastic cups for you to enjoy on the sidewalk. Drinks on the sidewalk. Ole!

Second, Brooklyn's Hecho En Dumbo, in my favorite neighborhood, for its feel of secret abandon. Traditional Mexican fare, classed up in that way that certain neighborhood's demand. Also, atmospheric in the right ways. Not everything was a home run, but the sopas with crab meat were delicious, and the spicy pork tacos were the bomb.

Finally, worth a mention, less for the food than the frozen margaritas, the venue, the crowd, the green-friendly ethic, is Habana Outpost. Go there after a summer rain, where it's not as crowded, everything is just as good, and there's likely to be a MeetUp.

Rave: Sze Tsung Leong

2008-06-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

One of the best shows I have seen this year. A couple of weeks ago, ED and I took a break from being perpetually stressed out by our jobs to wander around Chelsea on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon. We saw a few good things, a few less good things, and one incredible show. Sze Tsung Leong's Horizons at the Yossi Milo gallery.

Admittedly, the collection was right in my sweet spot, but the photographs worked at so many levels for me. First off, they are gorgeous - expansive landscapes, evoking the basic geometry of the horizon, all sharing a common framing and visual syntax. The subject matter, impressive in its global scope, ranged from cities to people to landscapes to seascapes, all bleeding into washed out skylines of gray and white. Each of the photos evoked a common density, bleakness and dullness, which certainly characterizes one aspect of a world overrun with industry, people, buildings, and things. Within the scope of this commentary was enough room for the constant, irrepressible beauty of people and of nature and, at some basic level, of the capacity of human industry. From the good comes the bad. All of this wrapped up in a wonderfully curated show, where the prints were all hung level, to create a common horizon across all of the photographs. Well worth a look, and while much of the photos can be seen online at the artist's website, they are even more powerful when viewed together.

Rave: The Big Sleep

2008-06-01T19:13:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I haven't been writing much about music lately. That's not because I haven't found that many good albums (it has been a little slow), but more so that I haven't had as much time to listen in depth, and haven't had that much time to write. I can recommend, in the last few months, the new Times New Viking (if you like GBV), the El Guincho record, and parts of the new Dengue Fever record. Also, I've caught up on and really like Brigthblack Morning Light and Robert Wyatt's Comicopera, as well as most of The Thermals record.

But, the new album from The Big Sleep - an immediate cause for praise and recommendation. A great, atmospheric, moody, dynamic collection of songs that also really fucking rocks. I saw the band open up for The Hold Steady last summer in Prospect Park, and hadn't been that immediately taken by a band that I'd never heard before since seeing the Arcade Fire open for the Wrens so many years ago at the Knitting Factory. They came out sounding assured and complete, with a sufficiently distinct sound to make me hungry for their album - whose release I apparently missed in my winter haze, but which I stumbled upon the other night. Worth it, as it consistently brings an alternating palette of sonic and lovely, just what I love so much in a good rock and roll band.

I am hoping for a show in New York soon, and if anyone wants to join, well, you can join.

Mike Ross: Capitol Hill

2008-06-01T19:04:00.000-07:00

Friend and sculptor Mike Ross, responsible for the monumental and mercurial Big Rig Jig, has created a bit of undeserved controversy that is apparently jeopardizing his new sculpture, proposed for the interior of a Seattle subway station. The sculpture, which would involve disassembling two decommission fighter jets and re-assembling them into a configuration that was supposed to represent (I believe) doves is clearly intended as a critique of the military-industrial complex and the war machine, in general. Apparently not what local Democratic activist groups think.

Learn more here.

Blessings

2008-05-31T19:46:00.000-07:00

What is going on in China? Overall, the Zhang Huan show Blessings at the Pace Wildenstein gallery didn't move me much, but the centerpiece, a sculpture over 15 feet tall and 25 feet long, made entirely, and very clearly, almost nauseatingly, of cowhides, was pretty mind-blowing. I'm not sure I fully got what was going on, either as art or as commentary, but in terms of causing a visceral reaction, it certainly caused one.

Altmejd's Monsters

2008-05-26T19:42:00.001-07:00

Last weekend (or maybe even the weekend before, it's hard to tell these days), ED and I wandered out to Chelsea to drink some lemonade and look at some art. A handful of galleries had shows bearing mention, but we'll start with David Altmejd at the Andrea Rosen Gallery, which CD had previously recommended. While I could describe at length the odd creatures that had been assembled in the service of art, I'd recommend you swoop through and see for yourself.

Brooklyn Bridge Birthday

2008-05-25T10:24:00.000-07:00

MUTO

2008-05-18T14:59:00.000-07:00

An incredible animation of street art, courtesy JJK:

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Simon Stabs

2008-05-14T20:19:00.001-07:00

Simon Stabs was easily my favorite thing at the ITP Spring Show. As always, the young nerds were up to lots of cool tricks (and lots of half-baked ones). And I forgot how cute/hot/nerdily-androgynous the young nerd community can be...

Car 30 / 41 Hours

2008-05-03T17:20:00.000-07:00

The thought foremost in my mind is that if I were trapped in an elevator for 41 hours, at some point, I would have taken off my clothes (or at least untucked my shirt...)

Last Week, Last Year

2008-05-01T17:51:00.000-07:00

St. John's, the US Virgin Islands...

Like, Wow, Man

2008-05-01T17:50:00.000-07:00

PicLens. Awesome Firefox plug-in. This is why we're in the internet game, folks. Check it out.

Theo Jansen's Kinetic Sculptures

2008-04-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

More...

White Caps

2008-04-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

Teaching a Plant the Alphabet

2008-04-22T20:57:00.000-07:00

By John Baldessari. His "Six Colorful Inside Jobs" was a huge hit at the MoMA "Color Chart" show this weekend, capturing, color by color, an entire floor-ful of the intrigued.

Rave: 30 Rock/Tina Fey

2008-04-22T20:53:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago, it was a beautiful Saturday evening. What did I decide to do? My taxes. What did I actually do? Watch the entirety of Season 2 of 30 Rock on Hulu. [Quick aside: I was skeptical on Hulu as a service, but so far, I'm sold. If advertising is a necessary evil, I don't mind the pre-roll and interspersed 30 second clip model, while watching programs on my computer. Don't let it dissuade you, advertisers, but I check my email and the internet while you tell me about Ragu spaghetti sauce. But don't worry. I already knew about Ragu spaghetti sauce.]

Back to 30 Rock. Best comedy on television since Arrested Development? I think so. Is it Alec Baldwin who really makes the show. Yes, probably (see clip below). Is Tracey Morgan on his game pure joy to watch? Does the show take an enormous amount of pleasure and energy on throw-away bits, often upstaging the character and situation driven humor in the show itself? Delightfully, yes (see clip above).

But, bottom line, if Tina Fey is the spirit animating this show, from its sense of humor to its quirky girl soul, and is continuing in the fine form of her SNL head writer years, then color me even more impressed. The body work she is creating as a writer and, increasingly, as a very charming performer has my full appreciation. Let me go a step further. Will you marry me, Liz Lemon?

Last Flight from Da Nang

2008-04-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

Wow, an amazing bit of video. It's amazing how, aside from the political intrusions of John McCain, John Kerry, and the occasional spectral invocation in the context of Iraq, Vietnam has so fully faded from American pop and political consciousness. Growing up, I had a distinct impression of the aftermath of that war, primarily through the fact that the kids whose fathers had gone to war (or actively not gone to war) were a little fucked up. The war, rightfully, inflicted its damage on the nations psyche. Yet, somehow, the slick veneer of the 80s, the comfort of the 90s, and our new ennui here at the dawn of the 21st century have seemingly washed away any real memory of the war. The first TV war. Well, the documents still exist, and they are worth watching.

Death of the Label

2008-04-20T19:19:00.001-07:00

It is a Sunday evening, and I just finished reading The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, and am listening to a couple of new CD purchases while leafing through the internet (Destroyer's Trouble In Dreams and Robert Wyatt's Comicopera, if you care). So it seemed like a good time to read David Byrne's article in Wired magazine, "Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists," which served me as an additional point of view on what supposedly momentous shifts are happening in the music industry (and the entertainment industries, more broadly).

The article is worth a read, providing Byrne's perspective as an insider with multiple angles on the music came - as popularly successful act with the Talking Heads, as an independent artist, as a label executive (so to speak) with Luaka Bop. At a high level, the article casts the current music industry as very much in flux, as labels become less important and less necessary as the cost of production of music drastically declines with new recording tools, as the the platforms for marketing and distribution are radically shifting from traditional retail to online and even peer-to-peer, and as the fundamental economics of the business are being called into question. Byrne identifies six potential models of relationships that an artist can have with a label or other business partner, essentially ranging from giving up control and ownership in exchange for resources and a support infrastructure to maintaining control and ownership, but taking on the burden of financing and manufacturing and marketing logistics. I won't summarize the very readable article in much more detail as it is worth a read, and is interspersed with interviews with Thom Yorke from Radiohead and Mac McCaughan from Superchunk and Merge Records.

A quick aside: having just read The Long Tail, which uses the music industry as an exemplar case for long tail marketing analysis (and, surely, it is, with low production costs, multiple, available distribution channels, a massively differentiated demand profile, and the need and tradition of having multiple levels of filters guiding consumers in refining their individual demand profiles), writing about the music industry and the continued evolution of models for connecting artists to audiences, either cutting out or simply introducing new middle-men always play as an interesting case study for the evolution of other long tail markets, characterized, beyond the long tail demand distribution, by products which are cheap to mass produce and distribute (all non-live entertainment, all software, some physical goods, some services).

In terms of the music industry, specifically, I always have a conflicting opinion from watching the evolution in the business from my personal music buying habits. I grew up on CDs, fundamentally digital, so I don't belong to high church of vinyl, but I still like purchasing CDs. I like albums better than singles. I go to shows. I still like going to the record store (granted, I've had the luck of living in New York, the Bay Area, and Rhode Island, where I've had good record stores). As much as I read music magazines (Spin when I was twelve, yes, Pitchfork, now), friends and the taste of record store clerks still guide a lot of my purchasing decisions. And I like to play my music on stereo speakers, out loud, not on my computer or iPod.

So, while the shift to purely digital production and marketing models are exciting, in that they provide new avenues for artists to create and distribute music, and, selfishly, new ways for great music to get to me, there still feels like there is a disconnect to me on how the industry will sufficiently evolve to help connect consumers of music with a greater selection of high quality music. Of course, this gets to the argument for filters from a book like The Long Tail, and while I am glad that record label executives are no longer the pre-release arbiter of good taste, it seems like the current avalanche of music actually may be oddly aligned against the ability of artists to produce music as art, and have that art reach a mass audience.

Right now, the best channels for producing great music are exactly those indie labels like Merge and divisions of bigger labels like Nonesuch, combined with the same music critic press that has always existed, just shifted to a new medium, that are identifying and promoting great music. And one of the potential negative consequences (not to the artists, perhaps, but to the consumer?) of more and varied means for artists to create and distribute music is that it will take more work for consumers to actually identify good music that they will like. Thoughts?

And two slightly related notes:

David Byrne makes passing reference to I Think Music, in his articles, which, at a glance, seems like an aggregator for distributing independent music. Any thoughts on the platform?

And finally, reading an interview with David Berman of the Silver Jews in the Village Voice. Apparently, the new album, coming out in June (which, of course, I am excited for) includes the chords for the songs in the liner notes. According to Berman:

I think in a Pitchfork interview, I did before Tanglewood Numbers came out—I did this long interview, and it was notorious because I explained how much money a person who sells 20,000 records will make. And people—it was shocking to them. It’s the last thing people will talk about, especially if you break it down. I think the latest way that I want to do that, with this album- the chords are all in the album. There are only sixteen chords on the whole album, and so, you always wonder why in the liner notes, bands don’t put their chords there? Its almost like bands are afraid to show how easy it may be. Why is that not often done? Most bands’ chords are only two or three; and people would cover their songs. There is no reason in the world, from a business standpoint—it's insane not to. If you put these things in there, you are encouraging young children to learn to play on them. And those are the people they go on to cover, maybe.

Feels gimmicky, but gimmicks aren't so much Berman's thing, as far as I can tell (or would like to believe). And connects oddly to David Byrne's introduction to his piece, tracing music to its communal roots, as a fundamentally live and communally experienced act. Anything to it?

Addendum. The Thom Yorke interview with David Byrne is also interesting, if for no other reason than how odd (and forward thinking) these two musical geniuses really are. For example:

Byrne: I've been asking myself: Why put together these things — CDs, albums? The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it's artistically viable. It's not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it's not obvious or even conscious on the artists' part. Maybe it's just because everybody's thinking musically in the same way for those couple of months.

Yorke: Or years.

Byrne: However long it takes. And other times, there's an obvious...

Yorke: ... Purpose.

Byrne: Right. Probably the reason it's a little hard to break away from the album format completely is, if you're getting a band together in the studio, it makes financial sense to do more than one song at a time. And it makes more sense, if you're going to all the effort of performing and doing whatever else, if there's a kind of bundle.

Does David Byrne really fundamentally question the value of the album? The economics of the music industry would certainly guide one to that conclusion, but as art (and a way for artist to communicate with their audience?)

And then this:

Byrne: Do you know, more or less, where your income comes from? For me, it's probably very little from actual music or record sales. I make a little bit on touring and probably the most from licensing stuff. Not for commercials — I license to films and television shows and that sort of thing.

Yorke: Right. We make some doing that.

Byrne: And for some people, the overhead for touring is really low, so they make a lot on that and don't worry about anything else.

Yorke: We always go into a tour saying, "This time, we're not going to spend the money. This time we're going to do it stripped down." And then it's, "Oh, but we do need this keyboard. And these lights." But at the moment we make money principally from touring. Which is hard for me to reconcile because I don't like all the energy consumption, the travel. It's an ecological disaster, traveling, touring.

Byrne: Well, there are the biodiesel buses and all that.

Yorke: Yeah, it depends where you get your biodiesel from. There are ways to minimize it. We did one of those carbon footprint things recently where they assessed the last period of touring we did and tried to work out where the biggest problems were. And it was obviously everybody traveling to the shows.

Byrne: Oh, you mean the audience.

Yorke: Yeah. Especially in the US. Everybody drives. So how the hell are we going to address that? The idea is that we play in municipal places with some transport system alternative to cars. And minimize flying equipment, shipping everything. We can't be shipped, though.

Color Charts from Richter

2008-04-20T18:37:00.000-07:00

A tiny bit more on the Color Chart show at MoMA at a later time. In the meantime, four from Gerhard Richter, which are available on the eponymous website.

Food Coma

2008-04-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

Actually, not the good kind. I'm coining a new usage for the term, where I feel like I've been incapacitated for a few months and have somehow not managed to have a truly heroic meal in quite some time. There have been a handful of notable intervening moments, some even in the run of day to day life. Curried chicken sandwiches from Balthazar, arepas at Caracas, dim sum and Singaporean pan-fried noodles at Kudeta in New Haven. But nothing momentous, and no food adventures planned in advance.

Lazing in the apartment this afternoon after soccer and a stroll through Brooklyn Flea brought the sorry truth crashing down on my head, as I had the TV on as I puttered about, and the only channel worth watching was 13, since every other over-air channel had been pre-empted by La Papa rock and roll mass-travaganza in Yankee Stadium, and the only thing on 13 was a string of food shows. Two observations: while I enjoy food shows, love watching food made and presented, love the travelogue context in which most of them are presented, I don't think I would personally get along with most food writers. They just seem so pompous, badly built for TV, but also badly built for sharing a dinner table. Second, they need to re-invent smell-o-vision. When you are watching a food show, and the hosts and the guests and everybody involved is just ooh-ing and aah-ing over the aromas in the kitchen, well, how frustrating!

On that note, a few food-related links on the Interweb:

- Chocolate and Zucchini, a Paris-based food blog which I was introduced to while watching one of those shows on 13;
- AR's delightful Treat A Week recipe blog, which was featuring donuts, the last time I checked;
- The Moko's ridiculous and charming candy blog. It's bizarre that she is one of the most influential women in Europe, but she has a secret sugar problem;
- Food Candy, dB's epicurean side-project, which I woefully under-use.

With that, any recommendations for great NYC food resources? Or anywhere I should go eat?

Empty Cities: Five From Robert Olsen

2008-04-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

Went to the Gangbusters show at Plane-Space to see CD and NG's work and, of course, drink free beer, and stumbled upon (yes, courtesy RM, who I totally usurped in purchasing the book, but he didn't need the extra weight heading back to Europe, really, did he?) the paintings of Robert Olsen.

What can I say about the collection Empty Cities? It's spectral, luminescent, and reminds me of those great, useless artifacts of modern urban convenience that shine on bravely through the night while also representing the loneliness and danger of being gunned down anonymously on an empty street. They shimmer and they shiver from the darkness. They are really great.

Death and Taxes

2008-04-15T19:36:00.001-07:00

Happy tax day, yeah? Here's an odd collection of photos from Flickr tagged 'death taxes.'

Five from Marcel Dzama

2008-04-15T19:16:00.000-07:00

I was a fan of Marcel Dzama before I knew I was a fan. Wandering around an otherwise largely dull Armory Show in 2004, MM and I happened upon Dzama's weird, whimsical, amusing, and strangely sinister drawings and installations. We both loved them, of course. So even though HH demanded that I go the Dzama show ("Don't you know the cover for Beck's Guero!"), I didn't know who he was, hadn't placed a name with the drawings that so amused me, and didn't go. Not until ED and I were wandering out of the New Museum and ED pointed out the Dzama books to me did I put two and two together. Yes!

Still haven't seen the exhibit at the David Zwirner gallery, and I guess if I don't make it this weekend, I am out of luck.

In the meantime, here's an interview.

50 Best Sketches?

2008-04-10T20:38:00.000-07:00

In the halcyon days of my latch key youth, The Kids in the Hall on Comedy Central anchored my afternoons. I watched a lot of sketch, and a lot of stand-up, and while I never quite had a spirit guide or mentor as I wound my way through comedy, I think I eventually covered most of the bases. So it was interesting to see the Nerve/IFC-curated 50 Greatest Sketches of All Time list. Does it hold up? Within reason, I suppose, although Laurel & Hardy are shockingly missing (I think they would qualify as sketches...), SNL is grossly over-represented, Mr. Show and The Kids in the Hall, and a hatful of non-Monty Python British-based comedy seems altogether missing. But like any top 50 list, it is hit or miss, and a lot of great stuff is necessarily left out... like the Sam Park Revue. Ha.

Yeah, I'm A Sucker For This Stuff

2008-04-10T20:11:00.000-07:00

Follow the Money: Klosterman Edition

2008-04-10T20:05:00.000-07:00

I'm not really a huge fan of Chuck Klosterman, in terms of style, themes, or high-concept (pop theorist with a large and specific vocabulary for the irrelevant that constitutes so much of our pop conscious?). Admittedly, I do generally get hooked by his middle concept: the tweaky musings that generally form the bases for his essays.

For example, here is an interesting question that fails to get answered, from Esquire:

People hate corporate record labels and love reading about how the industry is failing. As such, the media coverage of plummeting music sales almost always focuses on how labels are losing money. But this coverage usually ignores an economic element that is less tangible but more interesting: What is happening to all the money not being spent on music?

In 1999, the total revenue from all music sales (albums and singles) was $14.2 billion. By 2006, it was barely more than $10 billion, including downloads.

Where does the money go? A great, fundamental marketing and economics question, particularly in the face of looming inflation and recession. Anybody have a different, more compelling answer? I'm sure Chuck and I would love to see the data...

So?

2008-04-01T12:25:00.001-07:00

Five from Edward Burtynksy

2008-03-24T19:51:00.001-07:00

More at www.edwardburtynsky.com.

Planet B-Boy

2008-03-24T19:30:00.001-07:00

On Friday night, headed over to the Landmark Sunshine theater to see the theatrical release of Amy Lo's long-tended film, Planet B-Boy. There was a long line-up to get in to the show, and the crowd, a mix of NYC hipsters, East Asians (and the NYC hipsters who love them) and young and aging hip hop heads (and me), was buzzing. The wait was worth it.

Surveying global b-boy culture, while providing a quick context for b-boy's emergence as one of the four elements of hip hip culture, Planet B-Boy tracks the emergence of five elite B-boy teams from Korea, Japan, the US, and France, demonstrating the range of b-boy styles represented and evolved by different youth cultures world wide, and the surprisingly common, and touching, themes that track many of the young men as they strive for the grand prize of being named world champion at the Battle of the Year.

In line with recent documentaries, the film mixes sweet and engaging human interest stories with a perspective on an emerging global culture around b-boying that has far outgrown its roots in the Bronx, while still being true to the ethics and aesthetics of hip hop. Cheeky visual references, like an homage to the classic scene in Flashdance, transported to Japan, and a wealth of fucking incredible dancing make the film well worth a look-see.

Check it out, when it hits a city near you (and if you don't support it, the run threatens to be limited... so help out the good people who made this movie by turning up!). See the website for screenings in your neighborhood, or go to one of these screenings:

3/21 New York, NY - LANDMARK SUNSHINE
3/21 Los Angeles, CA - LANDMARK NUART
3/28 San Francisco, CA - LANDMARK LUMIERE
3/28 Berkeley, CA - LANDMARK SHATTUCK
3/28 San Diego, CA - LANDMARK KEN
3/28 Irvine, CA - EDWARDS UNIVERSITY TOWN CENTER 6
3/28 Washington, DC - LANDMARK E STREET THEATRE
4/04 or 4/11 Austin, TX - LANDMARK DOBIE
4/04 Boston, MA - LANDMARK KENDALL SQUARE
4/04 Chicago, IL - LANDMARK CENTURY CENTER CINEMA
4/04 Phoenix, AZ - HARKINS VALLEY ART
4/11 Denver, CO - LANDMARK MAYAN THEATRE
4/11 Minneapolis, MN - LANDMARK LAGOON
4/18 Philadelphia, PA - LANDMARK RITZ @ THE BOURSE
4/18 Portland, OR - REGAL FOX TOWER STADIUM 10
4/25 Atlanta, GA - LANDMARK MIDTOWN ART
4/25 Seattle, WA - LANDMARK VARSITY THEATRE
5/02 St. Louis, MO - LANDMARK TIVOLI

And check out Japan's 2nd place team at the 2006 competition, Ichigeki:

It's like a crunked up Busby Berkeley. I love it.

Last Exit

2008-03-24T19:17:00.000-07:00

Ah, envy. That wonderful slightly flushed and slightly bilious feeling that you wish you didn't get when your friends have off and done something wonderful. So, without much prologue, I present the latest effort from Keach Hagey, who is putting together the very interesting Last Exit Magazine. The material ranges from truly compelling and strange adventures from far flung lands that are becoming simultaneously more foreign and more similar to our own to the slightly precious Brooklyn-indulgent adventures of strange and sometimes compelling hipsters. And sometimes, the twain shall meet.

I can only endorse wasting your time reading this piece by another friend (yeah, it gets kept in the family, it seems) NW. And the joy of this piece is that it reads like she lives. Manic. To wit:

This is the story of three jackings, numerous near-death experiences and the good fun had by everyone in Southeast Asia but me. I needed to break out of New York a few years ago. I had been trying to dig a hole out of the city for months, but had only gotten grave depth; so the options were drop in or leave town. A friend had just backpacked around the Golden Triangle and returned raving about the magical time she had there: cooking classes in Chiang Mai, oil rubs on the beach, incense stick dipping with locals. It sounded like the opportunity I needed to clear my mind, meditate on the minutia. What’s more, it fit snug into my limited travel budget. A simple Internet search would have spared me the now cirrhotic liver, however. Turns out, S.E.A. is more like S.A.E. than I imagined. You will run into the same English or Australian frat boy while he’s body-surfing an elephant in Thailand, carving his initials into Angkor Wat ruins, posing as tank gunner in Vietnam, or firing old Khmer Rouge rifles at Cambodian chickens. And each time he spots you he’ll scream “Shots!” The entire well-trod tourist loop might as well be paved in Tsingtao labels, debauched as it is. But I neglected to type “bender” into the search engine, and bought the ticket with vague thoughts of better days ahead.

My boyfriend, Michael, decided to travel with me for the first week, and then I would go it alone for the next two months. He is something of a delicate flower when it comes to sunlight. We’ve worked entire travel itineraries around the fact that he’s awfully pale and burns badly. The one time we visited Brazil’s famed Ipanema beach we caused quite the commotion. I lay on the shore while he went for a swim. A few minutes passed before I heard the incredulous calls and laughter. I looked up in time to see a throng of people gathered and pointing at the water. And what emerged from the sea but my boyfriend incandescent—like a mighty florescent office light (he prefers “god”) bobbing to the surface. I flipped over and tried to look local. Needless to say, his pallor would also affect our trip to Thailand in a few significant ways, which I will shortly describe (mainly in an attempt to blame him for the first mugging, though I handled the second and third fine all by myself).

Bangkok is blazing in the dry season, and in a move to exacerbate this situation the temples are embroidered lovingly with gold leaf and pieces of embedded mirror. An ant in the desert under a magnifying glass comes to mind. All told, this made sightseeing a little less full of sights for us. We had to take unorthodox pathways to avoid the bright buildings. We clung to walls under eaves, biked at night, and visited the Patpong district’s seedy nightclubs, where middle-aged white men and Thai sex workers meet over a few ping-pong balls. For those curious, the act is less athletic and acrobatic than you’d think. After puffing some cigs with her precancerous vag, the bored woman in a glowing bikini stands up, shoves the lubed ball in, squats like she’s going to crap, and out it slowly drops into a waiting cup. By the time it’s over, a 45-year-old Australian club patron next to you will have already managed to get his erect dollar-wrapped penis out without your notice, then turn from the performer to you with a “See, you never know what you could do.” “Yes, dreams do come true,” you might tell him, and then go to the filthy bathroom to pad your clothes with baby wipes. This is to say, for all you ladies out there planning a little Bangkok getaway, either prepare to check your righteous indignation at customs, or waste your time arguing with a bunch of throbbing dicks.

Thus, the trip was off to a promising start! After spending a few days in this fashion we left the city for less reflective climes. On a sweaty windowless northbound train we met an English girl who promptly told us her tale of traveler woe. She had only been in Thailand for three days when she’d been bitten by a stray dog. She broke a cardinal rule—never pet a pooch, no matter how innocent his wag. The night before the assault she sat with a local proprietor and his dog. She was assured the animal was friendly and healthy, and pet him without incident. Catastrophe struck when a dog she mistook for the owner’s sidled over the following eve, and she extended a hand to him. He lashed out snapping and drew blood. I gasped. South East Asia accounts for sixty percent of worldwide rabies deaths per year. And now here she was bit by a feral dog in her first week. She had neglected to get the rabies vaccine before traveling, as had we, but given the recent turn of events she decided that she didn’t like that statistic. Thus, she returned to Bangkok for emergency treatment consisting of five long needle injections straight in the stomach. After enduring four she was told by the nurse that they didn’t have the fifth, but that it was probably fine. Probably fine? Rabies has been known to gestate for up to two years, she anxiously told us. She was terrified that at any moment she would manifest the initial symptoms, which like many a plague begin benignly: cough, achy feeling, sniffles, and then bam, within days of developing the common cold you die the most wretched death imaginable, frothing at the chomp. We offered meager assurances, “don’t worry,” “the nurse knows what she’s doing,” etc. But needless to say, we didn’t french her.

After hearing her tale, Michael and I couldn’t help but feel pretty good about our own abilities, nourished by a steady diet of NYC streets smarts and a natural disinclination for canines. Five days into it, so far so good. We parted ways with the English girl, with promises to meet up again if she remained rabies-free. And on we went to Ayutthaya, where everything began to go horribly wrong. At this point, a number of factors conspired to make me lose my passport, $200, some beloved earrings, my credit card, and a bunch of those mesmerizing t-shirts, with mistranslated textual gems like “Enjoy With Profitable Drip” or “Unique Nut Elsewhere.” Had any link in this disastrous chain been different I might be wearing those shirts or flashing that passport. But no, I was trapped in a Rube Goldberg-like robbery of soggy seats, full purses, bike chases, sudden ambush, and foul, foul luck.

Please, continue...

Last Tango

2008-03-24T18:53:00.000-07:00

Why should a city you've never been to have a pull on you? Buenos Aires has that pull on me, and I can't account for it. It is the pull that probably Berlin should have on me, except that I have somehow convinced myself to align with the South and the East, rather than the West.

What is that pull, exactly? Sadly, it's not from the tango, or from Boca Juniors. It is not borne out of Argentina's great plains stretching down to its foreboding, icy extremity. And as much as I love Borges, it is not born of the strange logic of Argentine literature.

It is, I suppose, finding that place that can re-name itself as Brooklyn, in its ease, urbanity, and pretense to artistry. So, it was with double delight, and I suppose, regret, having recently deferred my decision to leave New York City (once again) that JS, who is currently living the high-life in Buenos Aires, sent me this article from the New York Times, featuring an old friend from past lives. With a large picture of the man himself, engrossed in a dance. I'll quote at length:

Comparisons with other bohemian capitals are almost unavoidable. “It’s like Prague in the 1990s,” said Mr. Lampson, who is perhaps best known for winning a Bravo TV reality show, “Situation: Comedy,” in 2005, about sitcom writers. Despite his minor celebrity, he decided to forgo the Los Angeles rat race and moved to Buenos Aires, where he is writing an NBC pilot, along with his Web novela, www.historyandtheuniverse.com. “Buenos Aires is a more interesting place to live than Los Angeles, and it’s much, much cheaper. You can’t believe a city this nice is so cheap.”

If you haven't had a chance, check out the trailer (?) for David Lampson's History and the Universe, featuring, among others, John Wright. And why not me, Mr. Lampson? If all you needed was a man who could beat box?

Five from Jim Lambie

2008-03-20T15:56:00.001-07:00

Yeah, I like colors. Yeah, I like patterns. I guess I've got to make a trip up to the MoMA...

Running on Empty

2008-02-23T14:40:00.000-08:00

Between sickness and work, feeling pretty beat up and burned out. Hoping March is a turnaround month. Incongruous collection of photos from a Flickr search for most interesting photos tagged "running on empty."

The January Raves List

2008-02-23T14:37:00.000-08:00

Movies
There Will Be Blood

Wow. What a month.

The January Reading List

2008-02-23T14:32:00.000-08:00

The Trouble With Diversity, Walter Benn Michaels

Only because you can't write about the books you read in January in March. So I read Walter Benn Michael's The Trouble with Diversity. He's rhetorically excellent, the first two chapters were fairly compelling arguments for class (and against race) as the meaningful bases for combating social ills in the United States. I intend to write about a few sections in greater detail, as I have the book heavily bookmarked, but have not done so yet.

Here's to better luck reading in February '08... oh, forget it. Maybe March?

Old Chinese Ladies

2008-02-07T23:12:00.000-08:00

Work is on the edge of SoHo, Chinatown, and the tourist relic of Little Italy. It is one of the few parts of Manhattan that still feels small and tough and grimy, not with money, but with the effort of people trying to make things work out. Like cities in so many other parts of the world, but unlike so much of Manhattan, the city smells and the city sounds encroach upon the narrow streets. Strange meats, strange fruits, strange flowers. Windows of arbitrarily arranged imported goods.

Our front door is set into the block and unmarked. If you were watching us, we'd just seem to be coming and going, and not doing anything special. The adjacent unused first floor landing and the tiny windbreak of our stairwell make for good places to loiter. DL and I came out the other day, for lunch. I stepped onto Lafayette. A small, old Chinese woman grabbed me by the arm. Her grip was surprisingly, almost painfully sharp and forceful. "You buy!" she said. In her other hand splayed an assortment of pens and pencils, wrapped in a rubber band. I smiled, she did not smile back. I shook my head and pulled my hand free.

I walked down Grand St. to the B train, going uptown. Dusk was settling, but there wasn't much happening on the streets. A few aimless Spaniards, and the wiry, ageless Chinese men in the doorways. The men whose eyes lack interest, but who give the impression of being physically ready for something to happen. I passed the markets, where the fish is set on ice, and the fish blood and the ice water wet the sidewalks and flow into the streets. I ducked into the subway, and a train soon came.

The small Chinese woman came running down the platform in an peach, over-stuffed down coat. Her face was round and puffy, her hair a small, silver halo, her mouth enclosed in folds and wrinkles. She took small, fast steps, running past car after car, door after open door, doing the New York hustle, trying to get as well positioned for her exit station as possible. Her husband, old and fragile, with a Greek fisherman's cap, followed well behind, yelling in Chinese. I couldn't understand, exactly, but I got the gist of it. "Woman! Why are you so crazy! Stop running! Just get on the damn train!" She was having none of it.

There must be treasure in the city garbage can on the corner of Grand and Lafayette, or it must be a habit of thrift that the old Chinese lady remembers from some harder time. She has a wool hat on, and I can hardly see her face. The little projection wears the weather of a lifetime. It would make me sad to think that she needed the cans that she pulls out, when I occasionally see her making her way around the block. She doesn't have a big bag, so much, just a small collection. Maybe some cruel son or husband won't give her an allowance. Maybe she finds it fun.

It's a hard life and I'm constantly amazed, how many people have made their way into the great wilderness of the American immigrant experience, with strange dreams and even stranger visions. To find this marvelous city, New York, in all its small, tough, gray struggles. All these parents brought across, by their successful sons and daughters and nephews and nieces, to be here, to live here. Of course, what do they know? What should they expect?

What could you possibly imagine of this life, that it would be this way? It's the strength of the grip that always takes me back. Much stronger than mine.

Photos from a Flickr search for "Old Chinese Woman." Really a lot of lovely photos, worth a look.

Three Poems About Snow

2008-02-07T20:46:00.000-08:00

It won't snow and it scares me. It's February, we haven't seen a real drift built up here in New York City. Should we count ourselves lucky? No. Something is wrong in the world.

Since there are no snow days for us, here are three poems about snow:

The Snow Man
by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Snow
by David Berman

Walking through a field with my little brother Seth

I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.

He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.

Then we were on the roof of the lake.
The ice looked like a photograph of water.

Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.

I didn't know where I was going with this.

They were on his property, I said.

When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.

Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.

We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.

But why were they on his property, he asked.

Snow Day
by Billy Collins

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.

In a while I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch,
sending a cold shower down on us both.

But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,
a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.
I will make a pot of tea
and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,
as glad as anyone to hear the news

that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,
the Ding-Dong School, closed,
the All Aboard Children's School, closed,
the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,
along with -- some will be delighted to hear --

the Toadstool School, the Little School,
Little Sparrows Nursery School,
Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School,
the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,
and -- clap your hands -- the Peanuts Play School.

So this is where the children hide all day,
These are the nests where they letter and draw,
where they put on their bright miniature jackets,
all darting and climbing and sliding,
all but the few girls whispering by the fence.

And now I am listening hard
in the grandiose silence of the snow,
trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,
what riot is afoot,
which small queen is about to be brought down.

Just This Rock

2008-02-07T20:36:00.001-08:00

It's a specific kind of poetry, I know. A bit over-wrought, I'm sure, and it speaks to a special kind of sap. I'm just that kind of sap. I forget how much this movie cut me open when I first saw it. I relish each of Terrence Malick's movies, to me they are the highest art. Since my DVDs are packed away in boxes on either coast, I'll take these small, partially satisfying segments for the moment. And in the light of the day's great struggles - a never ending war in Iraq, a struggle to which I have no claim, a workaday life in professional America, a struggle to which I have every claim - it makes The Thin Red Line all the more crushing. To a sappy man.

Is It Time For Me To Go Yet?

2008-02-04T20:02:00.000-08:00

This week, last year.

Four from Jack Gilbert

2008-02-04T19:46:00.000-08:00

Going There

Of course it was a disaster.
The unbearable, dearest secret
has always been a disaster.
The danger when we try to leave.
Going over and over afterward
what we should have done
instead of what we did.
But for those short times
we seemed to be alive. Misled,
misused, lied to and cheated,
certainly. Still, for that
little while, we visited
our possible life.

The Abnormal Is Not Courage

The Poles rode out from Warsaw against the German
Tanks on horses. Rode knowing, in sunlight, with sabers,
A magnitude of beauty that allows me no peace.
And yet this poem would lessen that day. Question
The bravery. Say it's not courage. Call it a passion.
Would say courage isn't that. Not at its best.
It was impossib1e, and with form. They rode in sunlight,
Were mangled. But I say courage is not the abnormal.
Not the marvelous act. Not Macbeth with fine speeches.
The worthless can manage in public, or for the moment.
It is too near the whore's heart: the bounty of impulse,
And the failure to sustain even small kindness.
Not the marvelous act, but the evident conclusion of being.
Not strangeness, but a leap forward of the same quality.
Accomplishment. The even loyalty. But fresh.
Not the Prodigal Son, nor Faustus. But Penelope.
The thing steady and clear. Then the crescendo.
The real form. The culmination. And the exceeding.
Not the surprise. The amazed understanding. The marriage,
Not the month's rapture. Not the exception. The beauty
That is of many days. Steady and clear.
It is the normal excellence, of long accomplishment.

Recovering Amid The Farms

Every morning the sad girl brings her three sheep
and two lambs laggardly to the top of the valley,
past my stone hut and onto the mountain to graze.
She turned twelve last year and it was legal
for the father to take her out of school. She knows
her life is over. The sadness makes her fine,
makes me happy. Her old red sweater makes
the whole valley ring, makes my solitude gleam.
I watch from hiding for her sake. Knowing I am
there is hard on her, but it is the focus of her days.
She always looks down or looks away as she passes
in the evening. Except sometimes when, just before
going out of sight behind the distant canebrake,
she looks quickly back. It is too far for me to see,
but there is a moment of white if she turns her face.

Metier

The Greek fishermen do not
play on the beach and I don't
write funny poems.

Four from Shrigley

2008-01-31T19:58:00.000-08:00

Why? No reason. It's going to be a shit tomorrow, can't wait for the weekend...

Reinvente Ton Jeu

2008-01-31T19:49:00.000-08:00

I wish.

The Missing Indian Skyline

2008-01-31T19:40:00.000-08:00

Walking down Fifth Avenue recently, I noticed an advertisement for a bank (I forget which bank) that displayed an imaginary skyline comprised of iconic buildings from the financial centers of the world. Without being certain, I felt there were many notable inclusions: Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Kuala Lampur, Dubai, Paris, London, New York, Chicago, San Francisco. Notable in its omission (or inconspicuousness) was any iconic building from India.

This got me thinking a little bit about Indian cities, and particularly, buildings in Indian cities. That the physical environment of India has a distinct characteristic is undeniable. Being in Mumbai, in Delhi, in Kolkata are all unmistakable experiences. India also has a rich heritage of iconic architecture: Red Fort, Victoria Memorial, the Taj Mahal, the Gateway of India. All of these monuments, however, are legacies of the Raj era, the British, or earlier periods. To my knowledge (and I am not as familiar with Chennai or Bangalore), there are not many iconic modern buildings in India.

Why should this be important? No reason, really, other than iconic modern buildings have a way of announcing the importance of the city to the world - hence the interest in China's CCTV building. And the recent growth in India's economy, as well as the rise of iconic architecture throughout the developing world, marks the absence of a signature Indian building as a curious absence. Which led me to this article, answering the question, but in a way that leads me to wonder if the collection of Indian architecture represented will truly become iconic? Or will they take on the utilitarian lack of character that you find at the end of so many Silicon Valley office parks, which appears to be the spiritual kin of the buildings portrayed in this slideshow?

Three from Ted Kooser

2008-01-30T21:33:00.000-08:00

Carrie

"There's never an end to dust
and dusting," my aunt would say
as her rag, like a thunderhead,
scudded across the yellow oak
of her little house. There she lived
seventy years with a ball
of compulsion closed in her fist,
and an elbow that creaked and popped
like a branch in a storm. Now dust
is her hands and dust her heart.
There's never an end to it.

Father

Today you would be ninety-seven
if you had lived, and we would all be
miserable, you and your children,
driving from clinic to clinic,
an ancient fearful hypochondriac
and his fretful son and daughter,
asking directions, trying to read
the complicated, fading map of cures.
But with your dignity intact
you have been gone for twenty years,
and I am glad for all of us, although
I miss you every day—the heartbeat
under your necktie, the hand cupped
on the back of my neck, Old Spice
in the air, your voice delighted with stories.
On this day each year you loved to relate
that the moment of your birth
your mother glanced out the window
and saw lilacs in bloom. Well, today
lilacs are blooming in side yards
all over Iowa, still welcoming you.

Sure Signs

So many crickets tonight --
like strings of sleigh bells!
"A long hard winter ahead
for sure," my neighbor says,
reeling a cobweb onto
a broom in his garden.
"Crickets and cobwebs," he says,
"sure signs. In seventy years
(he looks out over his glasses
to see if I'm still there)
you get to know a thing or two."

Imagineria Scifi

2008-01-30T21:26:00.001-08:00

Found randomly on Flickr, from Flickr user Juanpi1. George H. White is apparently the nom de plume of Spanish writer Pascual Enguídanos. Who knew?

Groucho in the Pooper

2008-01-30T21:19:00.000-08:00

Drug writing very rarely pays off, as far as either drugs or writing is concerned. I can't vouch for the whole of The Psychedelic Shakespeare Solution's "My Acid Trip with Grouch," but it seems like one of those unique moments you could have only had at a certain point in the late 60s/early 70s, dosing with Groucho Marx. Highlights (and feel free to even skim through these:)

We ingested those little white tabs one afternoon at the home of an actress in Beverly Hills.

Groucho was interested in the social background of the drug. There were two items that particularly tickled his fancy.

One was about the day acid was outlawed. Hippies were standing around the streets waiting for the exact appointed minute to strike so they could all publicly swallow their LSD the exact second it became illegal.

The other was how the tour bus would pass through Haight-Ashbury and passengers would try to take snapshots of the local alien creatures, who in turn would hold mirrors up to the bus windows so that the tourists would see themselves focusing their cameras.

...

After a while, he started chuckling to himself. I hesitated to interrupt his revelry. Finally he spoke: "I'm really getting quite a kick out of this notion of playing God like a dirty old man in Skidoo. You wanna know why? Do you realize that irreverence and reverence are the same thing?"

"Always?"

"If they're not, then it's a misuse of your power to make people laugh"

...

"Everybody has their own Laurel and Hardy," he mused. "A miniature Laurel and Hardy, one on each shoulder. Your little Oliver Hardy bawls you out-he says, 'Well, this is a fine mess you've gotten us into.' And your little Stan Laurel gets all weepy -"Oh, Ollie, I couldn't help it, I'm sorry, I did the best I could. . . '"

Distilled in New York / Fashion Photographer

2008-01-24T16:53:00.001-08:00

MM makes clothes for the hip and stylish. He was kind enough to offer me the opportunity to be a fashion photographer at a real live New York City fashion show last Sunday -- at the Blue Collective men's fashion show. It was awesome. I'd ask you to support Distilled, but, heck, he doesn't even need it any more. He's got clothes in Bloomies!

MM backstage, running the show.

My fashion photographer look

Old Photos, Still Good

2008-01-22T21:11:00.000-08:00

ENW forwards a great find - a Flickr collection of photos from the Library of Congress. I'm sure this will come in great use later, but let's go ahead and get started. No doubt, there's treasure in these hills...

Dolphins: Friendly Enemies

2008-01-22T21:01:00.001-08:00

Courtesy JJK. Add to the list of creatures we need to be wary of, in that they seem smart, can out-maneuver us on their home territory, and have a better idea of what life is for (i.e., making air rings underwater) than we do (i.e., working).

Additionally, they are ruthless, violent, and sociopathic. I'll save for another day a real dolphin tirade, but please check out the links above, and beware of fun-loving dolphins. They may not be that fun-loving.

In the meantime, if we have to make peace with the dolphins, I suggest we send these girls to do it.

Pancho and Lefty

2008-01-22T20:46:00.000-08:00

People ask lots of dumb questions. In real life conversations, and in fake conversations, i.e., interviews. One line of questioning that I always find difficult to answer is "What's your favorite book/movie/singer/song?" Favorite, of course, being a useless qualifier. More apt would be, what book still haunts you? What movie have you had to re-watch year after year? What song can you listen to over and over?

Townes Van Zandt's "Pancho and Lefty" is one of those songs that I can listen to over and over. In three taut verses, Pancho and Lefty manages to canvass an emotional territory as wide as Texas -- of sadness, pride, violence, guilt, regret, and embarrassment.

I offer you four versions of the song, none of which are perfect. The perfect version, as far as I know, exists on TVZ's Live at the Old Quarter. In fact, each of the versions provided, although three of them (the only ones that weren't huge hits) have distinct values, are sort of parodies... of the genre, of the song, of Bob Dylan. Still, in all cases, the song transcends the flaws of the performance. Enjoy.

White Whale

2008-01-18T18:07:00.001-08:00

Via SuperTouch, courtesy SM at work. By way of explanation:

Though only in the earliest stages of conception, French designer JEAN-MARIE MASSAUD’s concept for a floating hotel, the glorious whale-shaped “Manned Cloud” promises to be a transcendent thing of beauty should it ever reach the clouds. Developed in conjunction with French national aerospace research body ONERA, the massive designer dirigible combines the early 20th century trend of Zeppelin flight with the futurism of modern design to create a new form of luxury touring the likes the world has never before seen.

JWW's immediate response? "Whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!"

Just A Little Dusty...

2008-01-18T18:03:00.001-08:00

... early in the morning. Walked into an almost empty office this morning, having slept not well at all, and DL had decided to start the morning off with Dusty In Memphis. One of my favorite albums, by far, and an album that is wholly and criminally under-appreciated, Quentin Tarantino's best efforts included...

Space Girl Dance

2008-01-18T17:51:00.001-08:00

Courtesy SR, via BoingBoing. Continuation of a theme, I guess...

Look Elsewhere

2008-01-18T15:50:00.000-08:00

A lot of people (well, some people) arrive at this site looking for alien sex. Why? This post, I imagine. Needless to say, I feel like I am disappointing these people. You people. So I headed over to Flickr and grabbed the most interesting photos tagged with "alien sex."

Don't say I didn't try.

While you're here, you can feel free to check out what this blog is actually about. Articles that may be of interest?

- Music, movie, and book recommendations from 2007;
- Some thoughts on I'm Not There;
- A review of Anatole Broyard's Kakfa Was The Rage;
- The outstanding web video serial "Clark and Michael;"
- Some photographs of rural, Soviet-era bus stops;

And, presuming you're new to my little corner of the web, feel free to check out the other blog, too:

- Notes on the documentary Why We Fight.
- Uninformed political speculation, in this case, discussing the depth of talent available to the Democratic party;
- Links to some political values quizzes, in case you don't already know for whom you are voting;
- Idle thoughts on trends on Indian culture, and a link to Blogbharti, an interesting aggregator of Indian blog commentary.

As always, thanks for reading. Enjoy!