Saturday, August 25, 2007
PEACE OUT
I've grown a pair of handsom wings and it's time to jet on outta here. The truth is I'm having miserable separation anxiety about ending ABCN. It was fun gamboling about the ether to find Team Shredder and the Norf*ckneasters, and here's a final salute to Boadweeblog. It's been swell having a daily writing practice, lame though it may be. I'll try to keep that up through my free verse poetry, quatrains and of course poison ink letters to various evil concerns. Right now I am a broken crown of sorrow remembering happier times.
Check out the archives from 2005-2006, ABCN's golden years and here are two good sources of articles and essays to browse through, The Tate Papers and The Directory of Open access Journals.
Perhaps I'll post occasionally in the future (but dont bother checking back here regularly).
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Dame Laura Knight
I blame The Rhode Island School of Design for my deficient, male-centric, lame-ass art education and the fact I didn't know of this artist until now.
Two people called me today to read this essay in the London Review of Books by Terry Castle because it is funny as fuck but mostly because I get mentioned in it.
Terry and her 81 year old mother set out for Santa Fe on an "Artistic Pilgrimage".
The essay hinges on a visit to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
"My mother, 81 and widowed for 12 years, is lame, near-sighted, psoriatic and deaf, and apart from a residual compulsion to lament her elder daughter’s unfeminine appearance, has largely reverted in old age to a state of Blakean innocence and moral simplicity. (Little Lamb – you rackety old thing – who did make thee? I have some questions I’d like to ask Him.) True: ravages of macular degeneration notwithstanding, she still spends an hour every morning ‘putting her face on’, with predictably fantastical, Isak Dinesen-like results."
"The museum is a set of blocky adobe buildings just off the historic Santa Fe Plaza. Predictably it’s packed out, almost entirely with women. (The one or two men standing around in their Teva sandals look sheepish if not a bit anxious – like errant hunters in a Renaissance painting who’ve blundered into a sacred grove and see a troop of maenads coming to rip their guts out.) I get heavily cruised by the butch German number running the ticket counter"
Castle mentions Dame Laura Knight when her girlfriend challenges her to name ten female artists of the 20th century who are better than O’Keeffe.
"Agnes M. (natch), Popova, Goncharova, Sonia Delaunay, Hannah Höch, Eva Hesse, ummm . . . Living artists aren’t permitted, or photographers, so, gosh, Louise Bourgeois and Imogen Cunningham and Berenice Abbott and Kiki Smith and Cecily Brown and Marlene Dumas and Ida Applebroog and scores of others get knocked out at a stroke .... If only Kandinsky or Andy Warhol had been a woman."But who is this dame painter lady anyways? In conclusion, what's up with the big saggy dirigible painting? Woah! And that rainbow landscape...
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Have pink pouty lips, and flotation devices, will travel!
My summer tan is prime and we're ready to head up to Maine for 2 weeks of RnR. This time we'll have our own house courtesy of Marion Boulton Stroud of the Fabric Workshop in Philadelphia. She runs a "camp" for peops in the arts community (except dealers) on Mount Desert Island which happens to be where Mrs. Cub's family is. Also joining us is a Brother of Cub
and his wife Julia Pistor and one of their awesome kids
[Here's Brother of Cub II with his awesome kid]
Enjoy the dog days my friends. Tuesday, July 31, 2007
SETS OF THREE BOOKS
1. The Decadent Traveller, The Decadent Gardener and The Decadent Cookbook, By Durian gray and Madlar Lucan. Durian and Madlar have dedicated their lives to decadence and write about the lifestyle with humor and aplomb -thats right, aplomb. I was never interested in cooking before I was introduced to the bizarre manner in which they violate of the laws of food.
For those who scorn not only the Prohibitions of Leviticus but also the dictates of common sense, good health and kindness to animals." -John Ryle in The Guardian
The chapter headings say it all: Corruption and Decay;Blood, the Vital Ingredient; The Gastronomic Mausoleum; and I can Recommend the Poodle. This is not a normal cookbook but a slightly sinister and highly literate feast of decadent writing on food. -The Sunday Times
2. Phillip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials. Dear gentle reader please don't oblige me pull out your eyes and make you to read this book by force, just do it. READ IT BEFORE THE MOVIE (STARRING NICOLE KIDMAN) COMES OUT IN DECEMBER! This is ace Sci-fi/fantasy literature recommended to me by Mrs. Cub. The story takes place across the multiverse, quantum physics and philosophic ideas and allegory are woven through-out. The trilogy was featured last summer on NPR's All Things Considered, check out the review here. The movie will, no doubt, be spectacular, but it can never capture the profound depth of the relationships and the scope of the story in the books. One of the books features the most heartbreaking scene I've ever read. It wrecked me, left me crying. I've never cried over a book before. I read His Dark Material over a year ago, and still resonates with me. Here is a list of awards His Dark Materials have won.
Winner of the Carnegie Medal (England)
Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize (England)
An ALA Notable Book
An ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults
A Horn Book Fanfare Honor Book
A Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbon book
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
A Booklist Editors’ Choice – “Top of the List”
A Book-of-the-Month Club Main Selection A Children’s ABBY Honor Book
3.The Patrick Melrose trilogy by Edward St Aubyn, Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, published collectively in the UK as Some Hope: A Trilogy. Recommended by Seamonkee, AKA Laure Weeks, who doesn't often suggest books, but when she does, I obey. The protagonist, Partick is an arrogant and consummate snob, he turns his razor sharp wit on the vapid aristocracy he runs with. The books reflects St. Aubyns life, he was "born well" but raped by his father and became a heroin addict at a young age. Bad News opens in the Pierre Hotel, Patrick is out of his mind on heroin. It's down hill from here. The books are hilarious and moving.
"St. Aubyn's vaguely satanic British upper-class life is an unlikely blend of Henry James and Bret Easton Ellis." Kirkus Reviews
Friday, July 27, 2007
Cat related posts.
1. Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means the patient has less than four hours to live. "He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," Dr. David Dosa said in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in the New England Journal of Medicine
2. Robocat -I posted this last year but I assure you, it's worth revisiting
3. Elaine Paige my ex-shrink has that hair.
4. Cats/Oklahoma style, by Cave Spring Hights Elementary, Ok.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Nights in San Fransisco (2 in Stinson beach) beginning tomorrow night. We'll see you when we get back on Monday. Meanwhile, here is an interview with Elvira Bach, a contemporary of Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff, Rainer Fetting, Markus Lüpertz and Helmut middendorff -a precursor to Katherine Burnhardt? She was one of the few women artists who successfully established herself in that nutty circle of testosterone driven painters; "the Neue Wilden". Thanks to Mr. Boadwee who reminded me of her work.
"These male networks: when it comes down to it, men are brought up to form teams. " -Elvira Bach
Saturday, July 14, 2007
We interupt the Countdown to Oblivion to bring you this video with extreme cutes -it brings to mind this mental pabulum: Once a month I drive Foghorn up to the Bronx to 33rd and Bird for a grooming; could he fly forward inside the car without ever hitting the front windshield if I was driving the same speed he was flying?
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
FIRST THIS:
Dangerous Made-In-China Products: 2007 Timeline
THEN THIS:
A wagish young dear tick has penetrated my delicate vale of alabaster and introduced poison into my blood!
Consequently, I am two small men about to be crushed by a truck
I am a broken highway.
I am severed limbs. It doesn't matter if you don't believe me.
I am a Doo Tone record lable
I am Stony Pit disease, worse even.
I am Albert Einstein, the robot, bowing down to his German creators
Dangerous Made-In-China Products: 2007 Timeline
THEN THIS:
A wagish young dear tick has penetrated my delicate vale of alabaster and introduced poison into my blood!
Consequently, I am two small men about to be crushed by a truck
I am a broken highway.
I am severed limbs. It doesn't matter if you don't believe me.
I am a Doo Tone record lable
I am Stony Pit disease, worse even.
I am Albert Einstein, the robot, bowing down to his German creators
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
for today:
1. Are you like most people, bored of the old Seven Wonders of the world? There are only three days left to cast your vote to replace them with the new Seven Wonders.
2. Disney figures Americans won't know how to pronounce Ratatouille so they spell it out phonetically on their website under the title. Rat-a-too-ee is a great animation. You'll find more musing about the role of artists and critics in society then you usually get in a kids movie. I've liked most of the past Pixar films but the rave review last week in The Times really got my attention.
“Ratatouille” is a nearly flawless piece of popular art, as well as one of the most persuasive portraits of an artist ever committed to film.3. Giornale Nuovo continues to be one of my favorite art blogs. Check out their archives, dig around a little and you'll come up with something unexpected. The author of the blog is an Englishman who has lived in Rome and presently lives in Sweden. The entries are scholarly and often the posts illuminate obscure corners of art history. I suggest going to the archive which is listed by subject and browse around. I guarantee you'll find some wonderful arcane bit-o-honey.
4. "Stripped of my clothes, I climbed into a tree", so begins
A night of love in Lesbos.
Some sneaky person from 1960 traveled forward in time and did a first person play by play of our life at The Mounds. read more about it here 
5. Glore Psychiatric Museum
6.Acoustic Radars
7. Feminist Science Fiction featuring separatist societies
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Look at this Neo Rauch. He has replaced his usual aimless zombie people with clowns, and to great effect. I've always said to myself, "Corny, that guy is good, but he needs to LIGHTEN UP, afterall, this isn't 1982, the wall is down, bro, get yourself some cheesey fries and relax!After I do some good hard thinking about Neo Rauch and how times have changed, I like to sit back and enjoy a cold one in the back yard. The thing is, now the sun is in the front of the house in the evenings. Blimey! So I found an old bench upstate and a cement donkey planter, et voila! an urban oasis -forged out of the barren cement wasteland that was the front yard of The Mounds!
But there's a problem.... I might be scared to go outside. There is a lady, Teressa, the big Italian lady-boss of Powers Street. She's an oldish woman who sports housecoats and strechy pants, grew up on Powers Street and is the center of the Powers Street social scene. Her kids all live in different houses on our block, they're always gathering outside her place, I suppose it's nice for them. I began saying hello to Teressa a couple of months ago when I'd take George out for early morning walks. Teressa would bless her when I walked by. Soon we started to chat and then she invited me into her little front yard area to sit. I didn't want to be rude, but I also didn't want to sit in her area. I like the idea of being friends with the neighbors, but if we started talking, I would have to reveal that I was raising George with another woman and I could envision her old school Italian Catholic disgust. As I knew she would, she asked about George's birth and I explained that I was adopting her. It was awkward, though she said that George was still a blessing, (Thanks). I've complicated matters by not mentioning the fact I'm adopting her with Mrs. Cub, who gave birth to her. So lately I've been avoiding Teressa. I head out in the opposite direction for our morning walk, going three blocks out of my way for a cup of Gimme Coffee. I know I need to tell Teressa and let her judge me as she will....Maybe it won't be so bad, George is cute and always smiles at her, after all, she's is a blessing for fucks sake.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
stands for the extra number of hours a day I will eat, paint and hang out doing stuff on the new "wakefulness drug" that got FDA approval last Monday. Take it and you don't get fatigued, even after days without sleep. No side affects -and it improves your memory to boot. Thats 3400 bonus hours of awake time a year, or 136,000 more hours if I live another 40 years. Thats an extra 15 years of livin'! Dont tell me it's too late to pick up the Rumiphon or the Symphonium or the Fluba! Read more about the pill that will change my life for the longer here at this blog. Here's a helpful chat board guide to getting it cheap on the web and how it mixes with your favorite party drug.
Monday, June 18, 2007
stands for the 10,000 years (or less) since god created Adam and the dinosaurs. Now there is a 27 million dollar museum to prove it! The Creation Museum which contends to be based in science, opened in Kentucky with protesters at hand and protesters protesting the protesters.Concieved by people who get epileptic when they hear the words "radiocarbon dating", this museum -dispite being increadibly misleading and damaging to the brain's of young visitors who are taught that the creation of the world as told in Genesis is factually correct and that dinosaurs didn't survive because there wasn't enough room on the arc, has really cool animatronic displays of man and dinosaur living together, just like in Land of the Lost!
This is what the museums designer, Patrick Marsh, formerly from Universal Studios in LA had to say, "as for scientists, so much of what they believe is pretty fuzzy about life and its origins."
A reporter collegue of mine from the Gardian Newspaper out of london went on a visit and asked Marsh about early human fossilized remains.
"There are no such things. Humans are basically as you see them today. Those skeletons they've found, what's the word? ... they could have been deformed, diseased or something. I've seen people like that running round the streets of New York."
Apparently the scene of Eve being created from adams rib is realistic and parents are warned that children may be scared. Or scarred. Either way, it begs for a road trip with a stop over to nearby Big Bone Lick state park near Beaverlick KT. But why, Mister The-Flintstones-Is-A-Reality-Show, if you believe in the bible, do you need to prove it with science? Ok?
The best response to this travisty is from This Week in Science the totally excellent podcast out of UC Davis. They're hoasting a contest to make a billboard to announce the opening of the new Unicorn Museum across the street from the Creation Museum. Enter your Billboard design at their website. Scroll down to june 8th for deets.
Here are some pics
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Amazingly I didn't get kicked out of France for having a french accent that causes escargot to shrivel up in pain. Seamonkee and heir Tyson were there as well as Leo, Torbin Geiler, and my amazing in laws, Roxanna and Danny Geffen, and of course George and Mrs. Cub, who I picked up at the airport the morning before the opening. Seeing them walk through the arrivals gate was one of the happiest moments dans ma vie.
We spent time at the Musée du Quai Branly, an astounding collection of indigenous art, and a highlight of the trip. The museum is designed by Jean Nouvel, the same guy who did the Cartier Foundation and is the namesake of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt. Apparently Brad is a fan of his work. Ok? Get over it.
We liked the building from the outside, hidden behind a wild garden of tall grasses and thick climbing vines that cover some of the walls of the building, but inside was a strange dark maze of leather walls, you feel like you are entering the heart of darkness, We thought the jungle metaphor was overdone, condescending really. However the objects glow in the darkness and beauty is stressed over back story. Most amazing to me were elaborately decorated skulls from Papua New Guinea. The head was thought to be the container of the soul, so skulls of ancestors were preserved, cleaned, then overmodelled and painted in the image of the deceased, sometimes decorated with beads and stuff, they reminded us of Damien Hirsts newest bit of soul searching art, except with a disturbing beauty and depth that arises out of the awe of the mystery of death unlike Hirst's decidedly choadish attitude "Death is such a heavy subject, it would be good to make something that laughed in the face of it.” Right.
We spent a day wandering through the ancient Eqyptian collection at the Louvre, it was a friggen parade of famous masterpieces that really blew us apart. We did this with Seamonkee and Tyson, fun as it is to look at art with them -Tyson having recieved a real education in Britian, actually knows her history and is a trove of insight, Seamonkee is in a perpetual state of wonder that is completely infectious, Seamonkee immediatly got caught up by some ancient Egyptian knick-knack for 20 minutes and I'm like, this is the LOUVRE man, there's like a jillion ancient egyptian knick-knacks! George was getting antsy being strapped into the stroller which becomes a rolling babytorcherchair after a few hours, so we parted ways, only to hook up with our compadries a day later for drinks in Mountmartre, followed by more drinks in the swanky 8th Arrondissement and a dinner of beef tartar on bun, meant to be a hamburger.
What else? We shopped for clothing for George, we visited the Eiffel tower, the Tuileries, the Luxenbourg gardens, but most magical and a must see next time you visit paris is the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in the 19 Arrondissement.
Built in the 19th century, mountains of garbage were transformed into surreal English-style gardens, featuring a large rocky cliff with a suspension foot bridge 100 feet high just begging people to jump off it, a waterfall, a grotto, and a Roman-style temple to top it all off. Torbin and I learnt that Leo has a serious fear of hights, The big guy's legs buckled under him as we walked out on to the high bridge, he made it across but was practically crawling back. Sad, yet kinda funny.
Another interesting stop was to the Deyrolle, a strange shop on the rue du Bac that sells taxadermy 'n stuff. Downstairs is a quaint garden shop -I bought a yellow canvas hat, très provencial chic, upstairs they've got animals and bird stuffed and for sale. Taking taxadermy to the edge of acceptability, they had stuffed chicks, baby bunnies and a little black lamb which was REALLY pushing it. Generally shopping was good but expensive with the dollar in it's weakened state. I bought music boxes for George including this sweet little tune from the magic flute and other french songs which are familiar to me from probabley from listening to this album when I was a wee bit, which by the way is great if you have a little kid, download it for free here. I also like the German album, theres a demented song about a lady who marries a mouse.
This wasn't much of a food trip since eating dinner at 9pm every night with a baby in tow was tricky, but lunches at the museum were lavish 2 hour long wine drenched affairs with cigarette breaks every half hour, for this and crepes complet, we thank the French.
Check out some pics from Paris, some of them come courtesy of Tyson and Seamonkee.
This was a longer post because I'm going to end the blog soon and I'm already feeling nostolgic. A large and complex countdown-to-the-end will begin next week.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
The Revolution is cuming!
Hi. What do Maurice Chevalier, Marcel Marceau and Corny C. all have in common? A love of French Clichés! Hopefully we'll encounter all of them on our trip to Paris. I'm off today to set up a show at Le Pleateau, Frac ile-de-france. The Mrs and George will be coming later in the week. I'll be checking in, of course, from the city of love all week.
Au revoir, mes amis!
