I can't escape.

I AM 55% TORTURED ARTIST! Art is significant in my life, people are scum but I have the capicity to deal with it. Give it a few more years and I will either forget about art or hate the world. Take the TORTURED ARTIST test at Fuali.com

Grr

Ok, so I wrote a whole big entry for today, way longer than I usually do, and when i clicked the "publish" button, it hung there, and then deleted the post. I'm just going to paraphrase. I got the new McSweeney's Quarterly It's edited by Chris Ware. (Make sure you keep clicking the "more chris ware" hotlink for more .gifs.) Bla bla, yeah whatever. I had a nice little blurb on this, but to no avail. I really appreciated CW's essay on Phillip Guston.

McSweeny's Internet Tendancy Today's Dispatch be sure to check out the Daily Reason to Dispatch Bush.

Bumbershoot

SO, I am finally in a Bumbershoot show, (this piece) but I must say my enthusiasm for it has been seriously dampeded. I have to deal with a local curator who will remain nameless. He is the most horrible, sad, snotty person I have encountered since middle school in a small town in Texas. He was literally verbally abusive to me, screaming in the middle of the opening, because I was eight minutes late. Now, in the rest of the art world, eight minutes late is a half an hour early. And to top it all off, I can't say or do anything, because this is such a podunk town, that not only would he review my next show for the sole purpose of a nuclear pan, but he would condemn every show I am involved with -- for god only knows how long. And he is basically the only reviewer in town. So tomorrow I have to gallery sit with this charming individual for four hours. I can hardly contain my glee.

Newt Gingrich's evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president

Anyone who knows me knows I love a good rant (just ask me sometime about the normalizaton of millitary uniforms in fashion-- do you think Hitler would have been half as popular with the kids if Hugo Boss hadn't designed the uniforms? ). And I have to say Garrison Kellior has a great one in the middle of his excellent essay for the August 26th In These Times
"We're not in Lake Woebegone Anymore"

Here's the best passage, if your'e in a hurry:

"The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous."

excellent.

new paintings

Howdy my ever faithful reader, I have a few new paintings at New Work
Here's a sample:

This one is tentatively called ok1. I don't know why.

The Squirrel scott found.

So, we are the proud parents of a squirrel. Right now the plan is to raise him until he's old enough to take care of himself. But then agan, Maybe Not.

This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow: August 08, 2004 - August 14, 2004 Archives

This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow: August 08, 2004 - August 14, 2004 Archives: "As long as we're re-examining the 1960s, looking for signs of character, trying to decide if a man who volunteered for combat and was decorated five times was more or less courageous than a guy who didn't even show up for his own medical exam... here's George W. Bush during his college days, hitting a fellow sportsman in the face."

I am becoming incapable of tolerating let alone understanding anyone who can look me in the eye and say " I'm voting for George Bush". I immediately intensely loathe that person, knowing they admire this horrid lying bully. I am reminded of the cretinous creatures masquerading as human beings I encountered in Iowa Park Texas, when I lived there. Calling them cretins insults cretins. They are proof of evil in this world, and I hope all those Christians out there are right, just so they all can fry in hell for eternity.

Henri Cartier-Bresson Dies at 96

Henri Cartier-Bresson was the father of photojournalism. I always say photography is cheating, but this guy was pretty good.

Top Ten

Ok, so today on Carolyn's blog Dangerous Chunky she links to ArtJournal asking the impossible question: "Who is your Top Ten, and with one word, Why?" So in no particular order:

• Kerry james marshal -- honesty


• Diebenkorn -- space


• Cranach the Elder -- contranst


• Phillip Corbet -- Shameless self-promotion


• Louise Bourgeois -- Strength


• chuck close -- paint


• Odd Nerdrum -- odd


• Balthus -- f'ed up


• Fioretino Rosso (and all the other mannerists) -- fabulous wierdness


• Leonardo da Vinci -- duh

This one was not necessary

so I am deleting this post. It was just mean.

Here comes the Sun

It's that time again, Solstice, which means only one thing, the Republic of Freemont's Solstice Parade.


According to the PI:
"The parade will follow a new route this year -- the longest ever -- and begins with an entrance through a grand archway. Sponsored by the Fremont Arts Council, the longer route will allow the hordes of visitors to spread out more, allowing for better views."

Hm, I'll believe that when I see it, as hordes descend on Freemont

Here's a map of the new route.

I can hardly wait!

Ray Charles Died Today at 73

Many folks, even here in Seattle don't realize that Ray Charles sort of got his start in Seattle, where he met Quincy Jones, and also where in 1948 he formed the first black group to have a sponsored TV show in the Pacific Northwest, the McSon Trio.

The BBC has set up a page where people can send a little tribute to the memory of Ray Charles. Many of them are quite touching, and they are from all over the world-- of course the UK, Ethiopia, Bulgaria, the Canary Islands, and this one from daftjack, South Africa:
"I remember travelling 200 miles from Manchester to London just to buy a Ray Charles record (in the 60s). I would still have gone had it been a thousand. Great singer, great voice, great man. The heavenly choir will have some competition tonight."

Ray Charles was truly a great American: optimistic, hard working, and sincere.

I will refrain from sullying his memory by comparing him to Ronald Regan; a man who began his political life being an FBI informant for the McCarthy Committee, and ended it with the blood of Nicaragua, Guatemala and Grenada on his hands, not to mention arming the Mujahdeen in Afganistan....wait I said I wasn't going to bring all that up.

David Sedaris is on KUOW today

Today at 2:00, David Sedaris will be on KUOW to promote his new book, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. and I plan on reading it despite this horrifying review:

"Sedaris is the J.K. Rowling of American humor writers....This summer release is not recommended for beach reading. Laughing so hard will cause everything to jiggle." Colleen Kruse, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Ahem. Thankfully, Mary Brenan, the Seattle Times book reviewer also liked it.

I am a geek

I was reading my favorite gurly mag, the fabulous BUSTMagazine, that my equally fabulous friend Laura Nooney introduced me to, (she just made producer! Yay Laura!) when I noticed a little ad for SEW FAST SEW EASY! they offer ON LINE sewing classes -- and offer super cute patterns, including this great 1/4 circle skirt! I need this skirt. really. Here are pictures of real people wearing it. I get paid tomorrow -- I can hardly wait!

FOUND Magazine

A friend of mine, Jay Rothschild, alerted me to the fact that the amazing FOUND Magazine folks are going to be in Seattle next week. It seems they will be performing on 6/9 at Elliott Bay at 7:30 and & at 6/10 U Bookstore at 7.

We went to montana this last weekend, and they have the best flea-markets in the world.

Going on a roadtrip

Scott and I are going on a roadtrip. we don't know where we're going -- just east basically. Weather is expected to be so-so, and we thought about staying home, but we never do anything but work on the house. Those pictures are old, we have done even yet more work since then. Specifically, scott replaced the beam in the living room, so we no longer have a scratching post holding up the ceiling.
Good Lord, we could use a break.

Boy, there's some cool stuff out there

I love the internet. Really. With all the crap and spam and crashing, sometimes I wonder if it is all worth it. Then someone forwards me a link to David Shrigley and I realise yes, I will keep pushing the little lever, because sometimes the electrode directly connected to my pleasure center gives a spark. And the thing with cool sites is they usually have links to other cool sites; and the next thing you know, you have been watching excellent little animations and thinking "I could do that" but the fact remains, YOU DIDN"T, and why don't you get your butt in the studio already, huh?

Coffee and Cigarettes

Went to see Coffee and Cigarettes on sunday with Kelly and Daryl. It was really great -- I especially liked the one with Alfred Molina. Besides, coffee and cigarettes hold a warm place in my heart.

Kurt Vonnegut

Another famous U of I former resident, Kurt Vonnegut, has a piece on the In these Times website.

I have always appreciated Mr. Vonnegut's perspectives, and this is no excepton:

"For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere."

His Article, Cold Turkey jumps around a little, it is mostly a collection of salient observations. But brilliant, nonetheless.

More Guston

Things have really picked up at work, so there has been no blog time (which has never been very much time...). I am still enamored with Philip Guston, currently reading Night Studio by Musa Mayer, his daughter. This inside view, slightly removed, is fascinating.

Guston was a huge influence at the University of Iowa, where I went to grad school, because he was a visiting artist there for two years, in 1941-42. Even now, those two years reverberate through the program. Most notably, through a fellow U of I grad alumni, Hamlett Dobbins. There was this other guy named Gary Kormarin who muscled his way into a visiting artist gig at U of I with a 30-year old letter of recommendation from Guston.

It's strange, when I was there, I could hardly care less about Guston; and now that I'm nearly six years out of grad school, I'd give my eye teeth to look at the Guston collection the museum there has.