David Lynch--He Understood Things

I don't think I understood what being an auteur was until maybe my 20's. but when I got the idea of it, I understood David Lynch was definitely one of those. He had a particular vision, an understanding of the art of composing a mood, playing on the sensorium, introducing something new. He understood that art, like life, was about mess and attractive compulsions. He understood there was something wrong with bigotry: those people needed to fix their hearts or die. 

From the weirdness of Eraserhead and Twin Peaks to the dignified treatment of The Elephant Man, he found the human and copacetic in the alienated and estranged. 

He is best remembered through the lens of people who knew him, and the picture of a rare, exceptional director who made an enormous impact emerges. Unique: like no other. You simply have to come see his work so you will know, and let it touch you. 

(All props to the new treatment of Dune, but am I going to forget this? Nope. Not as technically brilliant and high budget, but theatrically intense.)

George Bush--If only he found painting a little sooner...

At my other blog, I would go into how much I don't like the administration of GWB and what a miserable, incalculable, wretched load of damage he'd done to the state of the economy, American prestige, our foreign policy, how he made a hash of the War on Terror and the dreadful Iraq war and all of that--

Yet, as a person who isn't completely insensitive to art, I will say there is something specifically appealing, if still crude, regarding his style and choice of compostion as a painter. There are definitely issues of perspective, line, and detail that take a long time to really master and which he has some consistency problems with--but his dogs do have personality. Following through to the Gawker link, there are certain things he picks up visually, like the light reflecting the smooth roundness of grapes, or the play of colors in landscape paintings, that show an aptitude that might have really taken off if nurtured sooner.

And, you know, he might have been able to avoid politics, altogether. It has been suggested that he could command quite a bit for his canvasses on the strength of his name alone. If the proceeds went to, say, Katrina victims, or war refugees, one would not think that out of line at all.

There is an obvious connection between vagina-trees and the Lotto.

If only you will look for it!

(I'm obviously posting the picture for scientific interest.)

According to the story the this picture comes with, the tree somehow picked winning Lotto numbers.

Right. Because a tree that looks like recumbent lady-business is only really interesting if it can pick the lotto....

I saw a sanitation truck, and was reminded I'm in one of the great cities--

I'm from Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love. We are ridiculously diverse, culturally rich, gifted with theater, art, music, and we have a reputation for being especially rowdy sports fans. But I saw a pretty trash truck that reminded me what I really love about my city:



That's one of several sanitation vehicles that have been made into art here in the city. This article misunderstands the point, but shows the pictures--

Philly’s Mural Arts Program partnered up with The Design Center of Philadelphia University to transform 10 city garbage trucks into pieces of movable art. Sadly, the murals do nothing to disguise the trucks awful fucking smell.

Garbage is what it is--but why can't we have trash trucks that are beautiful? They do a necessary job, and that part is beautiful. There are a few million households making trash in this city, and none of it smells nice, not even the garbage of the guy who commented on the "awful fucking smell"--hey, stupid--there are people who work on those trucks who put up with the awful fucking smell of our garbage everyday. But when I saw the artistic truck, I felt a little lifted--this is a Philadelphia thing. I know Japan pretties up their sanitation trucks, too, because I looked into it. But it's useful art. It surprises you with a new possibility. It reminds you there is room for beauty anywhere.

And that's something my city has learned. The mural program is a thing I really think is smart--where there is urban blight and grafitti, why not make art that everyone can respect and really enjoy as part of the community?



The best thing about this is how it tells the stories of our neighborhoods, and how thoughtful the placement of the art often is. We are like a tattooed city. Just like people might have tattoos that cover scars or tell the stories of their lives--we have art that fills the interstices, that describes our people and covers over the fraying nature of all human endeavor--

And then there is the personal art--the art of specific space:



This mosaic form is found here and there and especially in South Philly, not just on South Street. And it, too, has a story. But where you see the mosaics, you know people are representing an ideal--the uniqueness of Philadelphia and its art. And there is pride to be drawn from that--

The ugliness of blight is fixed with native creativity. The creations made reflect our diversity, and remind us of our strengths. They reflect the individuality we have as citizens who are creative and quirky and real--

And all of that makes me like my city a little more. Although there are mysteries regarding us--artistically. We are a great jazz city, but have no jazz radio station. We have a vibrant foodie culture and several microbreweries--but I worry about the availability of righteous beer. We have Monk's. There's Iron Abbey just outside Philly. But more restaurants need to take up the banner of promoting better beer. Grey Lodge does a great job in promoting local beers and beer diversity--more of this, please! (I will vouch for the really awesomeness of their jukebox, etc. This is a bar par excellence).

I have a city where we bother to paint the trash trucks. Where we have an awesome beer culture, where you can eat ridiculously well, for a not ridiculous amount of money. And where we decorate to commemorate. Where "sacred space" (such as corners where people met with accidents or violence) is made creative space (where art performs the function sometimes of explaining, healing, commemorating). And the price of admission is only your desire to look.

Glow Sticks + Toilet = High Art

(H/T HuffingtonPost)

Wow man, the colors!

I haz also a squid--this is it.

This relates to the book review I'm working on for China Mieville's Kraken, in a way--it's a squid necklace:




It's from Noadi, whose stuff I kind of lusted after on Etsy until I broke down and....well. Steampunk squid it was.

It's a talisman, of sorts. It doesn't give me any luck, but when I look at it, I am promptly reminded "You are the kind of person who has a steampunk squid necklace." Isn't that cool enough?

I'm pretty much down with squid--and depending on the size of the squid, that could be pretty far down, indeed.

Celebrity hair jam--er, yum?

Jam made from Princess Diana's hair

JAM made from one of Princess Diana's hairs has been selling well at an art exhibition in London.
Sam Bompas, who founded catering company Bompas and Parr, says a tiny speck of the late Princess of Wales' hair has been infused with gin, then combined with milk and sugar to make the preserve, which tastes like condensed milk.

Mr Bompas says he bought the hair off eBay for $US10 ($12) from a US dealer who collects celebrity hair.

This works more as surrealism than food for a variety of reasons. First, the mention of jam with hair in it creates an unpleasant image of something not sanitary (I recall Davy Jones in The Monkees' film Head jokingly requesting a "glass of cold gravy with a hair in it", which made me viscerally grimace the same way--unclean!). But in this case--the hair in the jam is the point. It's supposed to be a minuscule amount, but this leads to a number of interesting cultural questions--

Is any hair the right amount to have in one's jam? And of course, does it matter that the person whose hair it was was a celebrity?

It's infused with gin (might I add, a very English spirit)--so does the alcohol sterilize the weirdness of it being "hair jam"?

And finally--just who is buying this? Because there are some definitely strange and intense people in this peculiar old world, some you might even say have stalkerly-intensity. Are there cults of Diana-worshippers, whose literal renderings of certain archetypes have poetically apotheosized Prince Charles' ex-wife into a goddess-figure whose very hair preserved in a jam (whose ingredient list actually seems a bit easily perishable) would serve as an agreeable sacrament for? Or are they just carefree memorabilia hounds snapping up the jars to sit next to the Royal Wedding hand-painted plates and other Anglophile tourist tat?

(At my darkest imaginings, I envision a solitary paparazzo, gutted with guilt, purchasing jar after jar through proxies and spending sad nights remembering the night she died while slathering the jam on stale crumpets and numbly swallowing each gobby mouthful part in penance and part in some sympathetic-magic urge to incorporate some of her nous into his own corpus and carry her like a cross of fat about his middle for the rest of his life.)

Or, you know, the the usual jam-fetishists. Gooseberries. Poblano chiles. Hair of deceased royalty. All in a day's collections.

It also works more as art because, of course, it's obviously going to depreciate in value once you pry the lid off. There is very little market for used jam. And I can't say I know of any market for used jam with hair in it.

The real down-side though, is with appraisal. All things considered, is it worth anyone's while to DNA-test a batch to see if it really has her hair? (Although this is pointless without a follicle tip I understand. Naturally, one can't expect that from hair purchased at auction and subsequently infused with gin. What a perfect crime for forgers! One could bootleg celebrity-hair jam from Fido's brush for a very profitable period of time.)

It's not exactly something that goes with my decor, personally, as I prefer more traditional objets d'art. Your purloined finger-bones assembled into bird-cages, and miniature books bound wholly in mouse ears. You know the sort of thing.