Archive for the ‘Art’ Category

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A roundup of miscellaneous crap for March 9, 2011.

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

Some things worth noting in the NYT on this fine day:

Michael Ruhlman reviews Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, previously noted in this space.

I was left wondering how a book could be mind-crushingly boring, eye-bulgingly riveting, edifying, infuriating, frustrating, fascinating, all in the same moment. Every time I tore myself away from these stunning pages to emerge for air, I had to shake my head so hard my cheeks made Looney Tunes noises.

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider

The producers of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” are planning a significant overhaul of the $65 million Broadway musical that would involve shutting down performances for two to three weeks, as well as delaying its scheduled opening on March 15 for about three months, according to people who work on “Spider-Man” or were briefed on the producers’ plans.

Never mind.

You may ask yourself, “Why would someone pay $20,000 for a replica of an Eric Clapton Stratocaster, ‘complete with every single nick and scratch, including the wear pattern from Mr. Clapton’s belt buckle and the burn mark from his cigarettes’?” You would probably answer that question, “Because they’re a moron.” The NYT would like for you to know that evolutionary psychology suggests you’re wrong:

…the seemingly illogical yearning for a Clapton relic, even a pseudorelic, stems from an instinct crucial to surviving disasters like the Black Death: the belief that certain properties are contagious, either in a good or a bad way. Another conclusion is that the magical thinking chronicled in “primitive” tribes will affect bids for the Clapton guitars being auctioned at Bonhams in Midtown Manhattan.

Yesterday was election day in Bell, California. How did things go?

…residents voted overwhelmingly to recall Mayor Oscar Hernandez and council members Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabal, as well as Luis Artiga, who quit the council last year but remained targeted for recall. Even Lorenzo Velez, the lone councilman not charged in the Bell corruption case, appeared to suffer collateral damage and lost his bid to keep his seat.

Noted: Austin now has a Peruvian restaurant. (Okay, technically, Pflugerville.) Yes, I’m thinking Saturday Dining Conspiracy. No, not right away; we generally give places three months after opening before reviewing them.

Posted in Art, Food, Geek, Music, Theatre | 2 Comments »

Random notes: March 8, 2011.

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

Slow. Slow. Slow. And WordPress ate the first draft of this post. Argh. “Introduction to Literary Studies” is finished, but “Applications in Business Programming” fires up tonight.

So where were we?

Ken Hoffman in the HouChron on more rodeo food. The chocolate covered pickle makes us gag.

The NYT reports that Julie Taymor and the “Spider-Man” producers are “negotiating”. “Negotiating” in this case apparently means either “work with a newly expanded creative team” or “pack your <stuff> and get out”.

Speaking of art, damn it, art!, Lawrence has brought us happy news for those of you who own iPhones and are fans of Guy Debord, Karen Eliot, Monty Cantsin, and the Karen-headed Smile Monty (see also): there’s an app for that.

By way of Tam, we have learned that the Department of Homeland Security, which is apparently not satisfied with not actually catching terrorists, is going around confiscating Nissan Skylines. The Skyline is a car we were previously unfamiliar with, perhaps because it was never officially imported into the United States. One of Tam’s commenters provided this link to an excellent article about the rise and fall of a Skyline importer in California, which we commend to your attention.

Speaking of commenters, “Bob” (thanks, “Bob”) posted in this thread and provided a link with some new information about our good friend, the spamming scumbag Sven Alstrom. That link, in turn, led us to this one, which also has some good stuff about Sven. We were particularly amused by these two comments from LJWorld staff members:

…we restored Mr. Alstrom’s access to our website, despite having banned him more than a half dozen times previously.

and:

Should Sven Alstrom not be elected to the Lawrence City Commission, his current account will be banned.

Sven makes friends everywhere he goes, doesn’t he?

Posted in Art, Cars, Clippings, Food, Music, Politics, School, Theatre | Comments Closed

Your latest Spider-Man update…

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

…can be found here. Briefly, they’ve hired Paul Bogaev, who is described as “a veteran musical supervisor and conductor”, to “help improve the performance, vocal and orchestration arrangements, and sound quality of the songs and numbers”.

The NYT speculates that the opening, currently scheduled for March 15th, might be delayed again. The paper also reports rumors that the producers are talking to “script doctors”, and may be looking to hire a “co-director”.

Posted in Art, Clippings, Music, Theatre | Comments Closed

Top Gehry.

Friday, February 11th, 2011

I missed this one until Tam linked to it (with her usual dose of snark):

NYT architecture critic Nicolai Ourossoff reviews 8 Spruce Street, a new residential tower designed by WCD’s favorite living architect, Frank Gehry.

Speaking of Gehry, I can buy Frank Lloyd Wright Legos; where are my Frank Gehry Legos? Wouldn’t you buy a Guggenheim Bilbao set? I know I would. I’d buy a Disney Concert Hall, too, except I think it would be hard to get Legos that shiny.

Posted in Art, Clippings, Gehry | Comments Closed

Random notes: February 8, 2011.

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

There are a couple of interesting things in the NYT this morning.

J. Paul Getty III passed away over the weekend. That’s a name (like Koo Stark, he said, tipping his hat in Lawrence’s direction) I hadn’t thought of in years. Getty was most famous as the victim of a kidnapping “by Italian gangsters” during which his ear was cut off. I knew he was something of a party animal, but I was unaware of his 1981 stroke (apparently the result of an overdose). I was also unaware that Balthazar Getty was his son.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles (and specifically LACMA) are trying to figure out how to maintain the Watts Towers, and how to get more tourists to a part of town that’s most famous for riots.

And the NYT has made their move:

…“Spider-Man” is not only the most expensive musical ever to hit Broadway; it may also rank among the worst.

Yes, this is a real review.

I would like to acknowledge here that “Spider-Man” doesn’t officially open until March 15; at least that’s the last date I heard. But since this show was looking as if it might settle into being an unending work in progress — with Ms. Taymor playing Michelangelo to her notion of a Sistine Chapel on Broadway — my editors and I decided I might as well check out “Spider-Man” around Monday, the night it was supposed to have opened before its latest postponement.

The fallout from the NYT decision should be interesting. The pin has been pulled from Mr. Grenade. He is no longer Ben Brantley’s friend. On the other hand, Charles McNulty in the LAT has Brantley’s back:

Julie Taymor’s $65-million, accident-prone production, featuring an erratic score by U2’s Bono and The Edge, is a teetering colossus that can’t find its bearings as a circus spectacle or as a rock musical.

And it looks like Peter Marks in the WP is standing with Brantley and McNulty:

What’s apparent after 170 spirit-snuffing minutes in the Foxwoods Theatre – interrupted by the occasional burst of aerial distraction – is that director Julie Taymor, of “The Lion King” fame, left a few essential items off her lavish shopping list:

1. Coherent plot

2. Tolerable music

3. Workable sets

Charles Willeford, call your office, please:

A man who was at an illegal cockfight in central California died after being stabbed in the leg by a bird that had a knife attached to its own limb, officials confirmed Monday.

In other news, the WP has discovered (reporter with a database!) that people in “Washington’s safest, most well-to-do neighborhoods” have registered more guns than people in “poorer, crime-plagued areas of the city”. I may have more to say on this later, time permitting.

Edited to add: I was in a hurry to finish that last post and hadn’t got to the Statesman yet, unfortunately. I previously noted the fires at several Austin restaurants, including the Green Muse Cafe. (There was also a recent fire at Habana, which I didn’t note for reasons that escape me at the moment.)

Anyway, APD made an arrest:

According to his arrest affidavit, [Martin] Gutierrez [the alleged arsonist – DB] said he believed a large tunnel system lay under Gillis Park near Oltorf Street and that people were being held there against their will. He admitted he started the fire at the Green Muse Cafe because he wanted to inform the public of the tunnel and “what was really going on here,” the document said.

Posted in Art, California Über Alles, Clippings, Food, Guns, Law, Obits, Theatre | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: “Who Cares If You Listen?”

Sunday, January 30th, 2011

Milton Babbitt, composer.

Mr. Babbitt, who had a lively sense of humor despite the reputation for severity that his music fostered, sometimes referred to himself as a maximalist to stress the musical and philosophical distance between his style and the simpler, more direct style of younger contemporaries like Philip Glass, Steve Reich and other Minimalist composers. It was an apt description.

And:

…although colleagues who worked in atonal music objected when their music was described as cerebral or academic, Mr. Babbitt embraced both terms and came to be regarded as the standard-bearer of the ultrarational extreme in American composition.

That reputation was based in part on an article published by High Fidelity magazine in February 1958 under the title “Who Cares if You Listen?” The headline was often cited as evidence of contemporary composers’ disregard for the public’s sensibilities, and Mr. Babbitt objected that it had been added by an editor, without his permission. But whatever his objections, the article did argue that contemporary composition was a business for specialists, on both the composing and listening end of the transaction, and that the general public’s objections were irrelevant.

Posted in Art, Clippings, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

Random notes: January 24, 2011.

Monday, January 24th, 2011

Things are still kind of up in the air, but improving slowly. In the meantime, have a handful of random crap:

Your Jack LaLanne obit from the NYT. And from the LAT.

Just for Lawrence, a review of the New World Center, designed by Frank Gehry.

Happy belated birthday, John Moses Browning.

The Pack is back, baby! (Mostly, I’m linking this for the font: may not be valid after 1/24. Did they drag the “Japs Attack Pearl Harbor!” font out of the Linotype case?)

Should General Vang Pao be buried in Arlington?

Posted in Art, Clippings, Gehry, Guns, History, NFL, Obits, Sports | 1 Comment »

Art, damn it, art! watch. (#19 in a series)

Monday, December 27th, 2010

Even better, I can tie two threads together!

Chinese artist Zhu Cheng has sculpted a replica of the Venus de Milo.

…a retired Swiss diplomat who is one of the leading collectors of modern Chinese art paid $50,000 for the 2-foot-tall statue…

Zhu Cheng is from Chengdu, which is also the home of China’s leading panda breeding reserve. Why is that significant? Guess what material Cheng used for his sculpture.

Once convinced that Zhu was legitimate, the reserve allowed his team of students to collect buckets of fresh droppings. Each one was about the size of a goose egg, with sticks of partially digested bamboo poking out. To make it the proper consistency for sculpting, it was mixed with plaster and glue.

Posted in Art, Clippings | Comments Closed

What’s My Melodic Line?

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

This little gem came across on a mailing list I subscribe to: a group of British musicians has gotten together as “Cage Against the Machine” and released their own recording of  ” 4′ 33″ “ for charity.

(The recording does not appear to be available from iTunes, but you can go to Amazon and pick from the original or seven different remixes of ” 4’33” “, only one of which is actually listed at 4’33” in length.)

What the article doesn’t mention, but the mailing list post does, is that “Cage Against the Machine” is also a deliberate attempt to keep the winner of “X Factor” in the UK from reaching #1 on the charts on Christmas weekend. (A similar attempt to do the same thing last year with an old “Rage Against the Machine” song actually worked.) When I mentioned this to Mike the Musicologist, he informed me that I was about 10 days late and a dollar short, and sent along a link to this thoughtful blog post.

Pretty much anything that sabotages one of Simon Cowell’s glorified karaoke competitions fills me with delight, and there have been times when I’ve wanted to walk up to musicians and slip them a few bucks to play ” 4’33” “. But I’ve got to give the blogger points; he’s right that there’s more to Cage than that one composition, and we run the risk of turning Cage into a joke by concentrating on that one piece.

(Subject line hattip.)

Posted in Art, Clippings, Music | Comments Closed

Class acts.

Monday, November 15th, 2010

Friday’s XKCD started me thinking.

Here’s Randall Munroe, who’s established a pretty significant business providing content for free. He’s facing a tough family situation, so what does he do? He explains what’s going on to folks, providing as much detail as he’s comfortable with, thanks people for their support, and basically promises to keep on as best as he can.

Randall Munroe is a class act. Randall Munroe makes me want to buy stuff from his store.  (And today’s XKCD is pretty funny. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for Wagner references.)

When Ryan North goes on vacation, or on his honeymoon, he recruits guest artists for his comic. And a lot of them are pretty darn good. Ryan North is a class act. Ryan North makes me want to buy stuff from his store.

The Penny Arcade guys would probably be embarrassed by someone describing them as a class act, but look at what they do when they need time, or are busy at a con; or heck, look at what they do during the holidays.

There’s another web comic I read. It used to run five days a week. Then it started drifting down to four days a week. Then the artist had some personal issues and posted reruns for a while. Then he came back. It started drifting down to three days a week. Then two. Then once a week while he worked on other projects. Right now, it was last updated over a week ago. Two weeks elapsed between that update and the previous one, and a little more than two weeks between updates before that.

“He does it for free! How dare you complain?” Well, maybe. But right now he’s running a fund drive. In addition, part of his business model is providing premium content as an adjunct to the free webcomic. When he goes radio silent for weeks on end, what motivation do I have to pay for premium content, or donate money? Or even to keep reading his webcomic?

I feel like I’m coming perilously close to crossing a line. I don’t think artists have an obligation to keep providing stuff for free, forever. I can understand people becoming overwhelmed. But there’s a good way to handle that; the Randall Munroe way.

Posted in Art, Music, Uncategorized, Wagner | 4 Comments »

Head. Splody.

Friday, November 12th, 2010

So let me see if I understand this NYT article correctly:

The “SoHo” district of NYC has a rule that allows people to live in lofts in SoHo, provided that they are “artists”.

Saying that you’re an “artist” isn’t good enough: there’s actually a city certification process for artists. For example, Jon Bon Jovi is a city certified artist.

Up until recently, the “artist” requirement seems to have been honored on a “wink and a nudge” basis. But now, banks, co-op boards, and the city have started cracking down.

And the process for become a NYC certified artist is somewhat mysterious:

It has never been entirely clear who qualifies as an artist; the applications and even the names of the two judges who decide are not available to the public. Some SoHo residents have questioned how Mr. Bon Jovi and the hotelier André Balazs, among others, could obtain certification, since neither would seem to require a SoHo space for their work, one of the major criteria for certification, along with educational credentials and a body of work that has been displayed and written about in the previous five years.

…

The Department of Cultural Affairs has certified roughly 3,400 artists since 1971, but the number of applicants shrank as the lofts filled out and the requirements began to be ignored. From 2003 to 2008, the department certified 164 artists and rejected 11.

But in 2009, the department accepted 14 artists and rejected 14. This year there have been 6 rejections and 14 acceptances.

…

The judges rejected a jewelry maker for producing work that was too commercial and a photographer whose pieces did not show enough “focus, quality and commitment.” Others were turned down for being a student, a “hobbyist” or an “interpretive artist.”

Am I missing something?

Posted in Art, Clippings | 2 Comments »

Art, damn it, art! watch (#18 in a series).

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

The LAT has a piece on the “Small Gift Los Angeles” exhibition in Santa Monica.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Sanrio, the event will include food trucks, miniature golf and a pop-up shop. The main draw is an art exhibition with nearly a dozen installation rooms and about 100 pieces by the likes of Paul Frank and Gary Baseman. For crafty types, the Japanese artist Naoshi will be teaching a workshop in how to render Hello Kitty with colored sand.

The link is worth checking out, especially for the included pictures. I find “Hello Topiary” a little scary, to be honest, but “Fishy Greetings” is kind of nifty.

Rotating 180 degrees away from Sanrio, the Guardian has an article on an exhibition in Berlin of sculptures confiscated by the Nazis. The sculptures in question were considered lost after the war, but were recently dug up during excavation for a new building.

These particular sculptures were apparently part of the Nazi campaign against “degenerate art”, and were included in the infamous “Entartete Kunst” exhibition. I’ve been fascinated by that exhibition since I first read about it in (of all places) Charles Willeford’s The Burnt Orange Heresy (not a spoiler: “Entartete Kunst” is only mentioned in passing). Somewhere in my collection I even have Degenerate Art, the catalog from the L.A. County Museum of Art’s attempt to recreate the exhibition.

Posted in Art, Clippings, Hello Kitty, History, Nazis | Comments Closed

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