cover photo



blog archive

main site

artwork

bio






Schwarz



View current page
...more recent posts

tuxedo park ballroom


[link] [add a comment]

Architects and artists use drawing in the design process as a tool to express ideas. Drawing Architecture, an exhibition of more than 50 drawings from the L.J. Cella collection, is currently on display at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. The exhibition features the drawings of contemporary architects and artists, from Frank Gehry to Modernist master Richard Neutra. The drawings range from scattered thoughts across a page ripped from a sketchbook to highly detailed architectural renderings. Each drawing is a look at different techniques in expression. The exhibition explores the process of design, rather than the final building form.

[link] [add a comment]

checkered past


[link] [add a comment]

Jonathan Quinn

Jon was the first real artist i met after moving to nyc's east village in 1983. he was a graduate of sva and tight with some of the group material art crowd and the fleshtones music scene. (new fleshtones book just out!!!) he put me in my first nyc art show. a one nighter group show he was putting together at club 57. jon was a conceptual painter then. he used painted pictures of the sea/sky as a symbol of dialectics. he soon moved into photography and film. we just spoke over the phone after a long hiatus. hes currently working on a masters in film history (i think thats what he said). pls look through his current photographic artworks "water." they are a great continuation of his painted work from the 80's and his film writing is quite good too. i brought him up to date with some of our mutual friends he hasnt seen in a while. he says hi.


[link] [5 comments]

free jazz ~ punk rock / lester bangs

I'll be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about music technically, but the way I always looked at it, it made perfect sense that you could take one guy playing two moronic chords over and over again, let one other guy whoop and swoop all around him in Ornettish free flight, and if the two players were blessed with that magic extra element of conviction and the kind of inspiration that produces immense energy if nothing else, then hell, they could only complement each other. Because, to get just a little cosmic about it (any free jazz critic has a right to at least once in each article), the two principles of metronomic or even stumblethud repetition and its ostensible converse of endless flight through measureless nebulae should by the very laws of nature meet right in the middle like yin-yang, etc.

All of this, of course, relates intimately to the search for new forms and absolutely open-ended freedom of expression that all the arts were undergoing in the dear, dead Sixties. I can recall my own shivers of delight when, in early 1965, I first heard the Yardbirds and the Who unleash their celebrated deluges of searing feedback. It struck me immediately that this was one element which perhaps more than any other gave the rock renaissance of the day a full-fledged shot at matching the experimental forays that jazz had been experiencing since the turn of the decade

[link] [add a comment]

model No. 300 lionel hell gate bridge in box


[link] [add a comment]

richard lloyd q and a


[link] [add a comment]

michigan in pictures


[link] [add a comment]

shaker1
shakerlong
Comes in black steel and measures 41” high, 34” wide, and 21” deep. Available with a short table that has a small shelf under the door or with a long table that has a bench, so you can sit comfortably close to the fire. Choose either a left or right side loading door and top or back vent. The Shaker is made in Germany and designed by Antonio Citterio with Toan Nguyen. It is the winner of the prestigious reddot design award and the Chicago Museum of Architecture and Design Good Design award for 2006.
via justin's materialicous
[link] [3 comments]

The New York Percussion Ensemble - Bach For Percussion (mp3s)

MP3:
1. Fugue in G Minor-The Great (4:13)
2. Toccata in F Major (5:57)
3. Fugue in C Major (3:43)

Discovering this album in a thrift-store was one of the most startling experiences of my record-hunting life. Hearing good ol' Johann Sebastian performed on the likes of snare drums, woodblocks and tom-toms had me completely bewildered. The New York Percussion Ensemble didn't cheat by using melodic percussion instruments like xylophones or marimbas - the list of instruments on the back include, apart from the ones I just mentioned, tambourines, cymbals, maracas, castanets, bongos, claves, triangle, cowbell, tympani, boobams, and sleigh bells.

The sound lies closer to traditional African music then to classical. To quote a Time magazine review: "The result has the effect of an X-ray photograph of a flower — barely recognizable, eerie and oddly fascinating." We make available three of the album's four cuts - the first track, a version of "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," had a nasty gouge in it, but don't worry, it wasn't as good as the other three tracks.

This was no joke. Arranger John Klein's credits on the back cover are extensive - an early classical training, numerous classical and pop credits, and authorship of a "monumental two-volume work entitled 'The First Four Centuries of Music.'" I have no idea what this means, though: "Mr. Klein has composed music for no less then 137 dramas for the United States Treasury Department NBC Transcription Series..."

[link] [add a comment]

Passages from Finnegans Wake - Side One (27:13)
Passages from Finnegans Wake - Side Two (25:08)


[link] [add a comment]

You See Me Laughin' : Last of the Hill Country Bluesmen

In this day and age of media overload, it's astonishing that the wilds of America can still conceal vital, outstanding music that remains unrecorded and largely unheard. But Matthew Johnson, a skinny white boy from Mississippi, found a heap in his own backyard. In the early '90s, turned on to blues by a University of Mississippi class taught by rock critic and historian Robert Palmer, Johnson was inspired to seek out nearby elderly blues guitarists. Though he flunked the class, the young future label mogul went on to meet and record R.L. Burnside (a former cohort of Mississippi Fred McDowell), Junior Kimbrough (a local juke-joint owner, superb guitar player, and father of 28 children), Cedell Davis (a crippled but resolute guitarist), and T-Model Ford (an illiterate former convict who picked up his first guitar at age 58).

[link] [1 comment]

The airwaves in the United States are supposedly owned by the American people, and licensed out to broadcasters for use, but in practice, that's not the way it works at all. In practice, the airwaves are owned by Clear Channel, and they work hand-in-hand with the big four record labels to limit our choice of music. It's a great scam they've got going, and it's been a very profitable system for all of them for a very long time.

For the rest of us, though, this system sucks. For guys like me who can't stand top 40 music, who can't stand the utter crap they play on KROQ these days, and who want some fucking variety in their music, we're screwed . . .

. . .with the notable exception of Internet radio, where we have choices as diverse as Radio Paradise, WFMU, Groove Salad, and Indie Pop Rocks.

[link] [add a comment]

johns new table (after nakashima)


[link] [9 comments]

Boxer’s trip, her second in many years, was especially important, Nelson said, because the national park had been recently taken off a United Nations environmental “danger” list, something that concerned Florida’s senior senator.

Nelson plans to hold a congressional hearing today to find out why the Everglades was taken off the list when he says the health of the park has been deteriorating for years. The national park had been on the U.N.’s World Heritage Committee list since 1993, after Hurricane Andrew caused immense water pollution and other damage.

Simply, Nelson blames the Bush administration, which has been “unrelenting in its efforts to downplay the importance of the Everglades,” he said. Most recently, the White House has threatened to veto the Water Resources Development Act, a bill that is six years overdue and contains approximately $2 billion in Everglades funding.

[link] [add a comment]

clearview

On America’s earliest highways, road signs were hand-painted on wood. When interstate highways became standardized, so did the typeface. But in all sorts of conditions it still looks fuzzy. Graphic designer Don Meeker helped bring highway signage back into focus.

[link] [add a comment]

roadside architecture

via lisa
[link] [1 comment]

geostationary banana over texas

via mr bc
[link] [add a comment]

The East Village has been dragged up-market, but isn’t going without a fight. The photographer and videographer Clayton Patterson has documented the changes since he came here from Calgary, Alberta, in 1979. Mr. Patterson, also the editor of “Resistance,” a sprawling collection of essays on the contentious politics of East Village real estate, recently took me on a tour.

[link] [1 comment]

The architect Andrew Geller gazed up at the beach house's soaring glass windows, the walls that angle inward, the catwalk jutting toward the ocean, and marveled.

"I'll be damned, it's still here," he says.

Geller, now 83, had gained fame in the '50s and '60s for small and startling modern beach houses that set cubes on edge, angles atilt and conventions aside. Now, on the day after Labor Day with a sky as blue and bright as anyone visiting a beach house could wish for, he had come to visit this house built on a high sandy hill in the Pines on Fire Island in 1961. Known as the Frank House, it had just undergone a three-year renovation by its current owner, Philip Monaghan, 52, working with architect Rodman Paul, who restored it to its original form.

[link] [8 comments]

spgg
steve parrino is in the midst of a big posthmous comeback
marq
"the black mark", Palate of Tokyo, 13, avenue of President Wilson, 75116 Paris, 01 47 23 54 01, www.palaisdetokyo.com, of May 24 at August 26

III: Steven Parrino, 13 Shatterd Panels for Joey Cleans, 2001, panels of placoplâtre, Collection Parrino Family, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery, New York


nickas discusses the situation in the september issue of artforum


[link] [9 comments]

Britons and the Irish can still down a pint of beer, walk a mile, covet an ounce of gold and eat a pound of bananas after the European Union ruled today that the countries could retain measurements dating back to the Middle Ages.

Under a previous European Union plan, Britain and Ireland would have been forced to adopt the metric system and phase out imperial measurements by 2009. But after a vociferous antimetric campaign by British skeptics and London’s tabloid press, European Union officials decided that an ounce of common sense (or 28.3 grams) suggested that granting a reprieve was better than braving a public backlash.

[link] [add a comment]

68305029
[link] [6 comments]

In 1950, at 83, Frank Lloyd Wright designed a house for a private island on Lake Mahopac, about 50 miles north of New York City. He dreamed it might surpass Fallingwater, his 1935 masterpiece—but then the client ran short of funds, and the house was shelved for almost 50 years. Now, after eight years of planning and construction, the house is finally complete—5,000 spectacular square feet of mahogany, lake stone, hand-troweled cement, and triangular skylights.

But no house, least of all a posthumous construction from the twentieth century’s most famous architect, is an island, and this one has become a particularly hot piece of intellectual real estate. There are those who celebrate its realization: It’s used in the packaging of the Apple-based architecture software that helped bring the design to life and is the subject of an upcoming PBS documentary. And there are its haters: architects, scholars, and amateurs who say it’s not Wright’s real vision—the stones jut too much, the skylights should be flat, not domed, and so on. As it stands, the house is officially unofficial. The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation’s chief executive officer, Philip Allsopp, states bluntly, “It’s not a Frank Lloyd Wright house, because it hasn’t been certified by the foundation.”

[link] [add a comment]

"quiet" night


[link] [4 comments]

35 years of construction in 10 seconds

via vz
[link] [add a comment]

For the last three years a team of engineers, conservators and architects has been studying the guts of the Guggenheim, mapping out a thorough but respectful renovation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s spiraling building on Fifth Avenue, completed in 1959. Although it was clearly in serious need of renewal, with cracks in its facade, a decaying sidewalk and outdated mechanical systems, experts wanted to make a comprehensive diagnosis before determining the best course of treatment.

[link] [add a comment]

Yesterday at the flea market I picked up a small cosmetics case stuffed with photos almost all of which were of the same woman. The bulk of the photos were photobooths and portraits documenting her as she aged over the course of about 50 years or so. I'll probably eventually put them all up over at Square America but until then here's a bunch- the dates where available are underneath each photo. Given the date of the first photo I figure she was born in late 1937 or early 1938. The last photo dates from the early 90s so she's somewhere in her early-to-mid 50s there.
via mr bc
[link] [1 comment]

hill country

via adman
[link] [1 comment]

harlan howard

wiki: Born in Detroit, Michigan, he began writing country music at a young age. After serving as a paratrooper with the United States Army, he went to Los Angeles, California, hoping to sell his music. He did manual labor while writing songs and pushing his finished material. Eventually he sold some of his compositions and, after a few minor successes, his song, Pick Me Up on Your Way Down, recorded by Charlie Walker, went to No. 2 on the country music charts in late 1958. A year later Ray Price had a major country hit with "Heartaches By The Number"; simultaneously a pop version of the song performed by Guy Mitchell went to No. 1 on the Pop Charts. Buoyed by these two major hits, Howard moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1960. Bringing along a large portfolio of compositions, he signed a contract with Acuff-Rose Music. Howard's songs were so immediately successful that in 1961 alone he had fifteen of his compositions on the country music charts, earning himself ten BMI awards. Among his biggest hits was "I Fall to Pieces," co-written with Hank Cochran and recorded by Patsy Cline. He also wrote the classic Kingston Trio song "Everglades", and the song "Busted", a hit for both Ray Charles and Johnny Cash.

[link] [add a comment]

john schwarz after calder no. 6


[link] [2 comments]

eau de horse sweat

eau de play doh

bacon salt

via vz
[link] [add a comment]

Inside New York's First and Most Ornate Subway Station, Closed Since 1945


[link] [3 comments]

One of Miami Beach's oldest houses was partially demolished this summer, prompting more debate over what's left of the single-story coral structure built c. 1915.

On July 9, owner Michael Stern bulldozed a 1939 addition to the Avery Smith House with the city's approval. Stern and co-owner Ivor Rose want to build a four-story building on the site.

"By no means is [the fight] over," says Mitch Novick, owner of a nearby hotel and former chairman of the city's historic preservation board.

The city's historic preservation board on June 12 approved Stern and Rose's plans to raze not only the addition, but a Mediterranean revival building and coral-rock garage on the site. The board said the owners can demolish the Avery Smith House if it is not structurally sound or able to be restored. If Stern and Rose demolish it, Miami Beach preservation laws say they must build a replica.

[link] [add a comment]

frosty myers the wall


[link] [add a comment]

quirk you


We’re drowning in quirk. It is the ruling sensibility of today’s Gen-X indie culture, defined territorially by the gentle ministrations of public radio’s This American Life; the strenuously odd (and now canceled) TV sitcom Arrested Development; the movies of Wes Anderson; Dave Eggers’s McSweeney’s Web site; the performance art, music, and writing of Miranda July; and the just-too-wacky-to-be-fully-believable memoirs of Augusten Burroughs.

It’s been 20 years of beneficent, wide-eyed gazing upon the oddities of our fellow man. David Byrne probably birthed contemporary quirk around 1985— halfway between his “Psycho Killer” beginnings with the Talking Heads and his move to global pop—when he sang the song “Stay Up Late”: “Cute, cute, little baby / Little pee-pee, little toes.” (As it happens, Byrne appeared on July’s recent book tour.) Jon Cryer’s “Duckie” Dale in Pretty in Pink came a year later, and quirk was on its way.

As an aesthetic principle, quirk is an embrace of the odd against the blandly mainstream. It features mannered ingenuousness, an embrace of small moments, narrative randomness, situationally amusing but not hilarious character juxtapositions (on HBO’s recent indie-cred comedy Flight of the Conchords, the titular folk-rock duo have one fan), and unexplainable but nonetheless charming character traits. Quirk takes not mattering very seriously.

Quirk is odd, but not too odd. That would take us all the way to weird, and there someone might get hurt. Napoleon Dynamite became a quirk classic by making heroes of Napoleon and Pedro, boy-men without qualities who team up against an alpha blonde to elect Mexican- immigrant Pedro class president at an Idaho high school. Napoleon seals the deal with a dance so transfixingly, transportingly wrong that it becomes a kind of deus ex machina. Pedro wins. (Indeed, inappropriate dancing is a big quirk trope, inasmuch as it provides a dramatic moment at which value systems can collide. See, for example, 7-year-old Olive’s unwittingly hypersexualized routine to Rick James’s “Super Freak” that brings the dysfunctional family together in last year’s Little Miss Sunshine. This itself called out to the unwittingly only-slightly-less-hypersexualized preteen dance troupe Sparkle Motion in the 2001 quirk-noir Donnie Darko, a movie in which Jake Gyllenhaal takes orders from a giant rabbit.)

[link] [14 comments]

big blue and you


[link] [add a comment]

rick rubin


[link] [1 comment]

1st dibs


[link] [add a comment]

Join us for a romp through the kaleidoscopic sonic playground of John Cage, as WNYC celebrates the 95th birthday anniversary of this patriarch of American contemporary music with hours of radio you won't hear anywhere else.

24:33 features rare audio drawn from the WNYC archives over the past 40 + years, including live performances and interviews with Cage — as well as Cage tributes, commentary, and performances by some of the most influential musicians of our time. We also hear recent recollections from artists such as choreographer Merce Cunningham, pianist Margaret Leng Tan, and singer Joan LaBarbara, as well as Laurie Anderson and Meredith Monk.

In addition to 24:33 on our HD and internet channel WNYC2, Evening Music features ten days of special Cage-related programming, beginning August 27th and heard every evening at 7PM on WNYC-FM.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

[link] [add a comment]

requiem for katrina


One of many wrenching scenes in Spike Lee’s documentary When the Levees Broke
is a man bringing his mother back to the horrible ruin of her home. The man is Terence Blanchard, a trumpeter and band leader. He also wrote the music for Spike Lee’s film. Blanchard has just come out with a new album that expands on that score, and he talked to us about his experiences writing about Katrina.

[link] [add a comment]

scroll baby scroll


[link] [add a comment]

modernist coffee table / bucks co barn sale find


[link] [14 comments]

more big pink


[link] [add a comment]

justins got some nice house porn going on over at materialicio.us


[link] [add a comment]

Last week, floodwaters reached the front steps of Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House in the second "hundred-year" flood of Illinois' Fox River since 1996.

[link] [add a comment]

contractors spacepen

via vz
[link] [add a comment]