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Nick Hallett sent this email message about a video show he's curating this weekend, which includes my "Guitar Solo" piece:
this sunday, swing on by GALAPAGOS for my first entry into fall's culture calendar, a screening of art rock videos i've curated for OCULARIS called 23 REASONS TO SPARE NEW YORK. i've been combing the city in search of connections between our ultra-vivid experimental music scene and video art/underground cinema. what you'll experience is a wild collection of psychedelic images and sounds derived from subversive media of all sorts.
flavorpill says, "Like a mini-RESFEST for the art rock set, this program explores the re-emergence of psychedelia through music videos and documentary bits on bands including Oneida, Regina Spektor, Karen O, Black Dice, Antony and the Johnsons, and Ted Leo."
expect music by bands that push the audio-culture envelope, lots of dayglo colors, electronic sounds, strobe effects, animations of the "stop" and "flash" varieties, documents of realness, and a few "commercial" music videos as well.
23 REASONS TO SPARE NEW YORK: MUSIC VIDEOS FROM THE ART ROCK SCENE
Sunday, October 2, 7 pm.
Ocularis at Galapagos Art Space
70 N 6th street @ Wythe
$6 (+$1 or more for Katrina relief effort Food Not Bombs, optional)
1. The Biggest Night in Music, dir. Kent Lambert, 2004, 2 minutes
2. Liars: There's Always Room on the Broom, dir. Cody Critcheloe, 2004, 3 minutes
3. Foetus: Blessed Evening, dir. Karen O, 2005, 4 minutes (plus Spike Jonze--view here)
4. Black Dice: Smiling Off, dir. Danny Perez, 2005, 4 minutes
5. Kim Gordon (from Studio:...Shareholders), dir. Tony Oursler, 2005, 1 minute
6. Ex Models: That's Funny, I Don't Feel Like a Shithead, dir. Mighty Robot, 2005, 4 minutes
7. Out Hud: It's For You, dir. The Wilderness, 2005, 4 minutes (view here)
8. Mixel Pixel: Telltale Drum Machine, dir. Noah Lyon/Retard Riot, 2005, 2 minutes
9. My Robot Friend with Bingo Gazingo: Kenny G., dir. My Robot Friend, 2005, 5 minutes (view here--and what does WFMU Station Manager Ken mean about "releasing Bingo Gazingo from his contract"? Did he misbehave on the air?)
10. Fat Bobby of Oneida (from Up With People), dir. Ethan Holda/Plutino Films, 2005, 1 minute
11. Jason Forrest: Steppin' Off, dir. Jon Watts/Waverly Films, 2004, 4 minutes (viewable here)
12. Ted Leo, dir. Pancake Mountain, 2005, 1 minute 13. Vaz with Katie Eastburn: Swishy Swashy (from LaundrOdyssey), dir. Dana Edell/Starter Set, 2005, 2 minutes
14. Disbelief Street: Unabated Fever, dir. Andrew Deutsch, 2005, 3 minutes
15. Guitar Solo, dir. Tom Moody, 2004, 1 minute
16. The Mitgang Audio: Soldato (soundtrack to The Sea Calls Us Home), dir. Annie Simpson and Seth Kirby, 2005, 2 minutes
17. Antony and the Johnsons: Hope There's Someone, dir. Glen Fogel, 2005, 5 minutes
18. Heavy Metal Baghdad, dir. Big Noise Films, 2005, 2 minutes
19. Roentgen: Cat Loop, dir. Devin Flynn, 2005, 4 minutes
20. Animal Collective: Infant Dressing Table (soundtrack to Magic Number), dir. Andrew Kuo, 2004, 8 minutes
21. Regina Spektor: The Flowers (from The Survival Guide to Soviet Kitsch), dir. Adria Petty, 2004, 2 minutes
22. Devendra Banhart: A Ribbon, dir. Laura Faggioni/Michel Gondry, 2004, 3 minutes
23. Japanther: i-10 (from Punkcast #400), dir. Joly MacFie, 2004, 5 minutes
Looking forward to the event. "Guitar Solo" (linked from the lower left hand column of this page) is actually dated 2005, but it seems like an eternity ago. I burned a professional-but-still-lo-res DVD of it--thanks, MG--but Nick will be projecting the 4.5 MB file in all its pixelated glory. I hope he'll crank the sound. UPDATE: the sound was perfect--clear and loud, the ideal contrast to the deteriorated video
Just received my second "Why Texas Didn't Have Looters" email forward from the Lone Star State! The first came with an appalled and disgusted note but I suspect this one was sent with tacit approval. Again, it should be obvious Texas didn't have looters because it had Rita and not Katrina, but these folks certainly have a right to pose with their firearms. By the way, guys, the U.S. Army would like you to report for duty soon.
Tonight, Thursday, September 29, is the exhibition preview of original works created for Dieu Donné Papermill's 6th Annual Benefit. The artwork I made using their paper (uncharacteristically nice material for me, but I tore it up quite a bit in the printer) is depicted below, as well as a detail. The piece can also be viewed in a thumbnail index along with other donated works.
More info:
This year's benefit auction, entitled Shangri-La, brings together over 120 artists who have generously donated original works created on Dieu Donné Paper.
AUCTION PREVIEW NIGHT
Thursday, September 29, 2005, 5:30-7:30pm
The Gallery at Dieu Donné Papermill
433 Broome Street, New York City
DIEU DONNÉ PAPERMILL’S ANNUAL BENEFIT: SHANGRI-LA
Thursday, October 20, 2005, 6-11pm
Live & Silent Auctions, Cocktails, Dim Sum
The Grand Harmony Restaurant
98 Mott Street, New York City
(between Hester Street & Canal Street)
VIEW LIVE & SILENT AUCTION ARTWORK
September 15-October 14, 2005
The Gallery at Dieu Donné Papermill
433 Broome Street, New York City
"Be Three Dub" [5.3 MB .mp3]. Van Der Graaf Generator meets the Bee Gees.
Changing the subject slightly, there's a soundware package I've been eyeing called "Cult Sampler." That's really perverse--16-bit, 44.1 KHz recordings of old 8-bit material from the early '80s, played on sampling synths like the Fairlight, Synclavier, and Emu II. I'd be more interested in those sounds because they seemed unfamiliar and gritty in today's smoothed-over softsynth environment than for the hit of recognition associated with some '80s pop song. (Whoops, on second thought these ultra-nerdy reviews find Cult Sampler wanting--too stingy on the weird synth sounds in favor of bland orchestral samples, so I'll probably pass.)
Changing subjects again, I've been listening to demos of some of the software instruments I've been using and boy do they suck. No one makes anything weird, it all sounds like Tangerine Dream, played entirely on one synth. TD actually got better in the '90s, continuing to digress here, with Edgar Froese's son adding some clubland oomph to their sound. I was really surprised how good some of it was.
Can you believe it--our House Majority Leader for all these years has just been indicted! The former Houston bug exterminator Tom Delay, angered by the "gummint red tape" that hampered his business, rose to unbelievable heights of power in Washington as a Congressman. It has always amazed me how deferential the moneyed elite has been to this sick cracker. It's McCarthyism all over again--a bully everyone fears (the other is Bush). Here's hoping the slush-funds and redistricting scams Delay instigated will all come to light and the Thousand Year Republican Reich he, Norquist, Abramoff, and Bush were building will all start to come apart. Criminal scum--I mean, alleged criminal scum.
Jimmy Carter Did Not Wear a Sweater Because of Energy
"Dick Cheney carpooling downtown with Brownie? Rummy Rollerblading down the bike path to the Pentagon? Condi huddling by a Watergate fireplace in a gray cardigan?" That's catty Maureen Dowd on Bush's recent call for energy conservation. All fine, all fair, except for the reference to Jimmy Carter's cardigan. The following was posted here three years ago, and will continue to be reposted periodically until people stop repeating the myth that Carter wore a sweater because of energy:
One issue that came up [in an an earlier thread] is the popular myth that back in 1979, Jimmy Carter urged Americans to wear sweaters and turn down the thermostat to 68 degrees, an image trotted out by right-wing commentators to show the impotence and nerdiness of energy conservation (as opposed to the Cheney approach, which is to secure foreign oil supplies by force). The only problem with the Carter story is it isn't exactly true. In the "crisis of confidence speech," given at a time of gas lines and rationing, Carter urged Americans to turn down thermostats--perfectly sensible advice--but didn't bore us with a precise setting. He also didn't say anything about sweaters. Yes, he was wearing a sweater, as he had been doing since his Inauguration in '77. Admittedly dorky, the cardigan was meant to be a symbol of his laid-back Populism, after the Imperial excesses of the Nixon years. It had nothing to do with energy--that's pure Republican disinfo. Unfortunately it's become tenacious urban folklore, as a Google search of "carter sweater thermostat" shows.
A disgusted loved one in Texas sent this, which is making the rounds of email forwards down South with the caption "Why Texas Had Few Looters." Uh, I think Texas had few looters because it had Rita and not Katrina. These suburban wankers would last about two minutes in a real gunfight.
Nancy Smith has posted a selection of her photos of the Art@!)Work show on her site artloversnewyork. That's the group-show-in-a-cube-farm where I kept "office hours" over several weeks in May. The top shot is me drawing and "drinking the Koolaid" at the opening, looking happier than any man in a cubicle has a right to be. Several people pointed out that my Wacom tablet--discreetly in shadow in the photo--wasn't "period" if I was truly trying to channel my art-at-work life circa 1995. I know, I know. But there were other discrepancies, the main one being I never tacked up anything visual in the cube in '95. It was all hidden.
Cindy Sheehan--destined to be Time's Person of the Year, or to borrow Lincoln's pre-women's rights phrase, the Little Woman Who Ended the Big War--just got arrested outside the White House. The opposed forces are becoming pretty clear: a huge corporate-based megastructure including everything from defense contractors to the news media, which backs Bush because he's "good for business" even though in the long run his foreign policy blunders are going to set everybody back, versus most Americans, who are finally seeing this meat grinder for what it is.
The current death rate of our troops in Iraq is entirely Bush's fault. His decision to flatten Fallujah after the 2004 election, out of spite, because of some dead mercenaries who aren't even American troops, began turning the whole of Iraq against us, starting with the disenfranchised Sunni Arabs who stepped up the insurgency attacks. There is no hope there now of "winning" and ordinary folks realize this.
The media doesn't seem capable of changing its script that Bush is a popular, tough-minded President and the only people opposed to his war are hippies. More arrests and marches will slowly alter it--Sheehan and everyone who marched this past weekend are heroes in my book--but I fear the only things that will stop the slaughter are a spectacular, strategically significant attack by insurgents or that the erratic, feeble minded Bush, rumored to be back on the bottle, will finally crack, as in a complete on-camera meltdown. Actually I don't fear the latter except it means the second incompetent in command, Dick "I'll have some more fries" Cheney, would become President.
UPDATE: Paul Craig Roberts, who served in the Reagan administration but has opposed Bush's war from the outset, describes what's wrong with laser-like clarity. He makes the excellent point that outsourcing and "global labor arbitrage" are greater dangers to US stability than terrorism. Also good: "With the exceptions of Reps. Cynthia McKinney and John Conyers, Democrats fled the scene of the Sept. 24 antiwar rally in Washington DC. The cynical Democrats are apparently owned by the same interest groups that own the Republicans and are refusing the mantle of majority party that the electorate is offering to the party that will end the war."
UPDATE 2: For the record. it wasn't just Sheehan; from the WaPo: "About 370 antiwar demonstrators were arrested yesterday after planting themselves on the sidewalk in front of the White House, a protest that stretched out for nearly five hours as police removed them in stages to avoid a backlog at a processing center." Yes!
The items in brackets were added to clarify this government propaganda masquerading as an AP news story that ran earlier today:
[Dwindling] Iraq Supporters to Rebut [Huge] Anti-War Rallies
By The Associated Press
September 25, 2005 | WASHINGTON --Military families and other defenders of the war in Iraq [, at least a few of them,] were claiming their turn to demonstrate, responding to a huge war protest with a [sparsely attended] rally of their own on the National Mall. [Which wouldn't be newsworthy but for our need to give false balance to a story that embarrasses the government.]
Organizers hoped to draw several thousand people to their noontime event near the National Air and Space Museum. They acknowledged the rally would be much smaller than Saturday's anti-war protest in Washington but said their message would not be overshadowed. [How many actually showed we're not saying.]
"People have been fired up over the past month, especially military family members, and they want to be heard," said Kristinn Taylor, a leader of FreeRepublic.com [a right wing website that regularly gives vent to extremist and racist views], one of the sponsors of Sunday's event.
The pro-military rally was billed by organizers as a time to honor the troops fighting "the war on terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world."
On Saturday, crowds opposed to the war in Iraq surged past the White House in the largest anti-war protest in the nation's capital since the U.S. invasion. The rally stretched through the day and night, a marathon of music, speechmaking and dissent on the National Mall.
Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, noting that organizers had hoped to draw 100,000 people, said, "I think they probably hit that." [In other words, police confirm turnout figures organizers estimate to be even higher. The Washington Post quotes Ramsay as saying "that's as good a guess as any" to a 150,000 estimate. He's just a ball of ambivalence, isn't he?]
In the crowd were young activists, nuns whose anti-war activism dates to Vietnam, parents mourning their children in uniform lost in Iraq, and uncountable families motivated for the first time to protest. [Change the order of these examples from descending to ascending based on their proportion in the crowd? Nah.]
From the stage, speakers attacked President Bush's policies head on, but he was not at the White House to hear it -- he was in Colorado and Texas, [ostensibly] monitoring hurricane recovery.
A few hundred people [whose pro-war activism dates to Vietnam] in a counter demonstration in support of Bush's Iraq policy lined the protest route near the FBI building. The two groups shouted, separated by a police line.
War supporters said the scale of the anti-war march didn't take away from their cause.
"It's the silent majority," said 22-year-old Stephanie Grgurich of Leesburg, Va., who has a brother serving in Iraq. [Grgurich's statement is flatly contradicted by most national polls showing war supporters now in the minority.]
UPDATE: Salon's "The Wire," where I found this, currently has three pro-war rally headlines in its top 40 stories. They really want us to know about this non-event! According to the most recent story, only about 400 people showed up to support the war. Another thing about this AP story: it referred to the pro-war rally as "pro-military," thus adopting the implied spin that the much larger peace march was attended by people who hate the troops. I felt like I already had too many bracketed corrections to note that above.
Huge crowd in DC today to protest Bush's war folly. Reuters says over 100,000; the organizers say 300,000; the DC police declined to count, which means big. My bro Stephen was there and took some photos:
The pictures remind me so much of my shots from the rallies in NY, early in the war. People didn't want it then and don't want it now, except for a few testosterone crazed losers, and yet no serious Democratic candidate for office will be seen at these events. Being antiwar is a mainstream position now, you milksops!
Matt Harle's new work, seen and photographed in his Navy Yard work space. This is great stuff, roughly made but sophisticated sculptures in which a mylar scrim hides some mysterious inner structure made of paint and cut wood. Mysterious, but as Harle says, not obfuscating, since it is possible to puzzle out exactly what's inside the scrim by looking through angular holes and vertical slits on the sides.
Harle describes these screens, which slow down and confound vision, as creating a twilight-like condition of uncertainty, even under the bright lights of the gallery. Multiple associations are not just possible but inevitable--ship sails, tree branches, cellular organisms, totemic objects. Yet everything about them is considered, from a materials standpoint. This is better work than so much of what was on view in PS1's "Greater New York 2005." What's wrong with the gatekeepers? Where are they?
"Posse on Greenwich" [3.2 MB .mp3]. If drum and bass were played on a rhythm box with a "clap channel." I would have added a bass line but my CPU was maxing out. I'm starting to conclude that bass lines bore me, anyway.
Snapshots of a flood in Ohio, looks like from the '50s, (re)posted from Ebay by Bill Schwarz. This apocalyptic shot suggests World War II devastation and/or Max Ernst's Europe After the Rain, with a few unfortunate jpeg artifacts. I tweaked the contrast in the quest for ultimate artiness (and so you can see it better).
"Two Inch Nails" [2.7 MB .mp3]. Continuing what seems to be a micro-industrial theme. I had written a controller curve that made the mid-range percussion build and lapse in complexity a couple of times, but the MIDI learn went haywire and those "wah wah" sweeps with the cutoff filter in this version were completely accidental. I didn't notice the difference till after I posted it; I went back to the master file and fiddled with some settings to "fix" it, and now I can't duplicate the wah wah exactly. So this file is unique. Who said machines were about precision?
Just took a scary spill on my bicycle: the bolt holding the seat on snapped in two (see my photo above) throwing me off balance and into a high speed dive to the pavement. One wrist got bruised; I don't think it's too bad but ask me tomorrow. I managed to roll and shift my weight so my butt took most of the impact. The pedestrians across the street on the sidewalk were mightily freaked out seeing this dramatic fall and I had to reassure them. If a car had been behind me, well...
I guess I could threaten the bike company but seeing as it's a nineteen year old machine and I've stood on the pedals putting weight against the seat-sides probably a million times, it's my own f*ing fault for not foreseeing this (the Republican way: blame the victim, blame yourself...) The question now is, what other ticking time bombs await? New bike or new bolt?
From the New York Times:
An antiwar speech by Cindy Sheehan, the mother of an American soldier killed in Iraq, was cut short yesterday after the organizer of the event was arrested and police officers confiscated his audio equipment.From Steve Gillard:
The claps and cheers that had greeted Ms. Sheehan's arrival at the rally in Union Square quickly turned to furious chants of "Let her speak!" as officers ushered away the organizer, Paul Zulkowitz, who the police said lacked audio permits for the event.
This was cleared with City Hall, because no cop is politically ignorant enough to do this on his own. You think Ray Kelly was surprised by this? You think this was done behind Bloomberg's back?UPDATE: An anonymous commenter opines that "they could have just gotten the permits." According to the announcer at the event (and other accounts I've read) the organizers tried repeatedly to get them and were rebuffed by the City. That's how free speech is denied in NYC. It must be nice to live in a bubble and think the loss of our liberties is only a problem for people too dumb to do the paperwork.
Hell no. They have been harassing Critical Mass for two years. They have tried to block protests and shunt them to Randalls Island or the West Side Highway since 2002.
Do you want four more years of this?
Cindy Sheehan was protected by the Crawford sheriff. She was silenced by the NYPD.
That's pretty fucking shameful.
Bloomberg acts like a Democrat when it comes time to placate people. But he's a control freak Republican when it comes to Bush and national policy.
Remember, protecting the grass of the Great Lawn is more important than free speech, unless Disney wants to rent it.
So tell me again how Freddie Ferrer is a party hack. Because I think it is highly unlikely these policies would continue. Bloomberg has fought every protest which would make the GOP look bad.
I guess he wants to protect his $7m investment. The question is do you?
The online forum Wired New York has found my 2003 post on Lord Norman Foster's "finished" Hearst Tower design. That sucker is almost complete now, standing proud and ludicrous among the parapets of the lower Columbus Circle area. Much as I like the top, "modern" part of the project, it looks as incongruous in real life sitting on that Deco pedestal as it did in the plans--exemplifying what Herbert Muschamp called "parabuildings" and Bill Schwarz more accurately calls "spaceships on rooftops."
John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness was on the Sci Fi channel in the wee hours last night. Carpenter is one my favorite movie directors but not without flaws. Found this commentary on IMDb and present it intact:
You gotta love liquid Satan!, 11 June 2005
Author: greg Humphrey (greg(at)gbhumphrey(dot)com) from United States
OK what's more scary, liquid Satan or 1987 fashion? Jameson Parker's mustache is impossible to tear your eyes away from- YES!! And the form fitting Izod! Oh my god! John Carpenter's production values have a definite sameness between his films. If you aren't paying attention you wouldn't know if you were watching "Assualt on Precint 13", "The Thing" or "Halloween". The look, the music, the acting... not much range. However it's a comfortable spot. You don't have to think or be involved too much, Carpenter is taking care of the action. The characters are not too deep