While I’m recommending music, this show on BBC Radio 1 is one of my favorites, especially for the mini mixes.
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Annie Mac
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Categories: Music -
Did you find my left shoe?
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Categories: Image -
Grime
I barely know what Grime is except by example, but my current gym listening consists primarily of a podcast I found at grimetime.de, from Berlin. Check it out.
Related: How cool is it that the BBC has a magazine called collective that writes articles on things like grime?
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Categories: Music -
James Hopkins, “Consumption and Consequence”
James Hopkins, Consumption and Consequence, 2006
This was one of my favorite pieces in a smart group show at James Cohan Gallery titled A Brighter Day.
Related: Click opera on shelves and art. While you’re there, check out his excellent post on the White House’s purposefully middlebrow (at best) graphic design. It’s dirt style without the irony!
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Categories: Postcard -
Why I don’t get involved in (electoral) politics any more
Two items from other blogs:
- James on all of the Democratic politicians in New York saying Israel can do whatever it wants to Lebanon, including its civilians
- Tom Moody on Daily Kos saying he’s not interested in writing about what’s going on in the Middle East
The former are “old school” politicians, and people like Markos Moulitsas Zúniga of the Daily Kos are supposedly the next wave. If acting as if our government’s foreign policy in the Middle East has nothing to do with our lives is considered an appropriate position for Democrats, I don’t see much point in getting involved to help them get elected. As Tom Moody says, New Yorkers who were here for 9/11 have a bit of trouble acting as if our lives have nothing to do with our government’s activities in foreign countries.
If they win, we get people like Hillary Clinton as leaders? Some win. Even Rupert Murdoch is throwing fundraisers for her.
The only person whose campaign interests me right now is Jonathan Tasini. He is challenging Hillary in the New York Democratic primary. People like Atrios and Daily Kos are all over Joe Lieberman’s challenger, but have been silent on this one. Appararently they think Hillary Clinton — pro-Iraq War, pro-PATRIOT ACT, anti-gay marriage — is just fine.
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Categories: Politics -
Amphibians!
I just saw this image on Christopher Reiger’s blog:
Red-spotted Newt (Notophthalmus viridescens viridescens)
along with others he took on a visit to the Monongahela National Forest in eastern West Virginia. Check out this post for his thoughts and more photos.
We spotted some lovely drawings of such creatures by him at the recent Salon de Expace #3 at AG Gallery.
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Categories: Image -
The U.S. is planning to charge Americans for evacuation?
Check out this LA Times article:
Thousands of Americans whose vacations and business trips to Lebanon have degenerated with sickening speed into stints in a battle zone remained stranded here under Israeli bombardment Monday, their frustration and anger mounting because the U.S. government hasn’t gotten them out faster.
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The frustration has been intensified by news that other countries have already pulled many of their citizens out of Lebanon, efficiently and free of cost. A ferry chartered by the French government carried about 800 of its citizens and several dozen Americans to Cyprus on Monday. The U.S. military evacuated about 60 Americans by helicopter Sunday and Monday.
Other nations have packed people into rented tour buses and driven them over the mountains to Syria. The U.S. State Department has warned Americans against traveling to Syria.
The main U.S. evacuation plan involves a Pentagon-contracted cruise ship, the Orient Queen, due to arrive in Lebanon today to ferry people to Cyprus. The ship can carry about 750 passengers for the five-hour trip. Defense Department officials said other private ships were likely to be hired as well.
Americans have been told to wait for a telephone call that could come in hours — or days. They’ve also been told they can’t board a ship unless they’ve signed a contract agreeing to repay the U.S. government for the price of their evacuation.
Israel is effectively a client state of the U.S. in the area, and receives more of its foreign aid budget than any other country. Couldn’t Bush tell them not to bomb the capital city while the U.S. is trying to evacuate Americans?
Related: this brilliant blog post from Huffington Post on the focus on pretty long distance shots of explosions rather than dead bodies, plus a letter from Beirut by Walid Raad.
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ArtCal – new ways of looking for exhibitions
Over the weekend I updated the code for ArtCal so that you can now see things by neighborhood, or just look for exhibitions at museums or non-profits.
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Metropolitan Opera to create a contemporary art gallery
Via Crain’s NY I learn:
The Metropolitan Opera has received a $1 million gift from Marie Schwartz, an advisory director on the Met’s board, to fund a new contemporary visual arts gallery being planned for its lobby.
The gallery, which will open Sept. 22, will be called “The Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met,” after Ms. Schwartz and her late husband. Dodie Kazanjian, the art writer for Vogue, has been hired to curate the gallery.
The space will display original works of art with opera themes. Six artists, including Cecily Brown and Barnaby Furnas, have already produced works for the first exhibition.
The Met’s press release is here.
It says that the works in the inaugural exhibiton are “inspired by the heroines of the seasonÂ’s six new productions.” They are:
- Cecily Brown (Suor Angelica in Il Trittico)
- John Currin (Helena in Die Ägyptische Helena)
- Barnaby Furnas (Euridice in Orfeo ed Euridice)
- Makiko Kudo (Princess Yue-yang in The First Emperor)
- Richard Prince (Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly)
- Sophie von Hellermann (Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia).
Other artists planned for future exhibitions include David Salle, Verne Dawson, George Condo, and Wangechi Mutu.
Let’s hope the visual arts programming isn’t as conservative and dull as the musical (Tan Dun?) and design decisions have been as long as I’ve lived in New York. This list doesn’t make me jump up and down with excitement, but I would hardly expect the Met to display artists that haven’t been endorsed by the market. We wouldn’t want the Met patrons exposed to unfamiliar “brands.” (I must admit I’m not familiar with Makiko Kudo though.)
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Photo of Mozart’s widow found
Via the BBC, here is a photo of Mozart’s widow Constanze in 1840 in the Bavarian town of Altoetting when she was 78. She is the first person on the left.
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Categories: Music