Proclaim It Lost

Burn Away: New Atlanta Art Blog

2008-10-07T08:48:00.002-04:00

Susannah, Jeremy, and I our collaborating with a few other Atlanta writers on a new art blog. We'll be reviewing lots of shows each week, and presenting a few features you won't see anywhere else, like visits to artists' studios, articles on theory stuff we're interested in, and discussions of what makes up the Atlanta art "scene."

It should be pretty interesting.

So I'm going to be letting this blog lie dormant while I work on Burn Away. I may occasionally post goofy stuff here that wouldn't make sense for BA, but I wouldn't expect more than one update per month from this point on.

Thanks for reading, and check out Burn Away!

SCAD@Large

2008-09-15T01:48:00.001-04:00

This seems like it might be really cool, but I can't find any info on it. Here's the press release:

Thirteen students from the illustration, painting, photography and sculpture departments at SCAD will show their work in "SCAD@Large," an exhibition featuring work too large to be exhibited on the SCAD-Atlanta campus. The exhibition will be on display Sept. 19 - Oct.5 at the Factory, a 6,000-square-foot space with 25-foot ceilings. Students and faculty have worked together to develop site-specific work for the space. Morgan Alexander, Yana Dimitrova, Harrison Fraley, Suzy Maier, Macy Moore, Charles Parham, Seana Reilly, Richard Robbins, Brandon Sadler, Whitney Stansell, Cynthia Taylor, Yukari Umekawa and Whitney Wood are participating in the show.

Can any of you SCAD students/groupies tell me more?

DragonCon (Still) In My Brain

2008-09-13T17:20:00.004-04:00

Clint Zeagler of Pecan Pie Gazette posted a collection of his Dragoncon photos a few weeks ago.

They're very spur-of-the-moment type shots, but a few of them (my favorites) are really closer to abstract art than portrait or scene photography. I think they do a good job of capturing the quieter, more ornamental side of the convention: waiting for panels to start, climbing between levels of the Hyatt, and just slowly weaving your way through a crowd.

Anyway, I really am working on writing about some more gallery stuff, I just haven't found much to inspire me these past few weeks since Matt Relkin's awesome Young Blood show. I'll be at Rabbit Hole and Beep Beep tonight, so we'll see.

Content Coming Soon

2008-09-08T23:19:00.002-04:00

I took these two pictures on my last day in Istanbul. The top one was taken from above the city's old wall pointed South, looking slightly West (into the city), and the bottom one was taken looking slightly East, towards a few fields in the unclaimed area around the base of the wall.

Things to see this week:

Whitespace
Youngblood
Othersound Festival (Thursday through Saturday)

and there's a band playing Eyedrum on Monday called "Duet For Theramin and Lapsteel." Which is going to be awesome, as long as you dosed up on your pill of choice beforehand (Ambien for me, thanks!)

Yehuda Moon

2008-09-01T15:25:00.003-04:00

Yehuda Moon's been blowing my mind lately. It's a comic centered around biking and working at a bike shop. There's a strong focus on bike advocacy - in a recent series, the title character painted bike lanes onto a busy stretch of road, then spent the next few strips fighting with the city government. The plot based strips are fine, even though they tend to be a bit preachy. But Rick Smith really excels in the strips he draws to mark each new season. The one above was spring; this is fall:

And this is early February:

Read the comic's first strip here.

Banksy @ New Orleans

2008-08-30T11:14:00.004-04:00

Banksy's graffiti has been popping up in New Orleans over the last few weeks.

It's all pretty awesome, but this is my favorite:

In the months after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was filled with these fridges. Can you imagine the smell that comes from a fridge after it's been sitting in water and sunlight for a few weeks? Cleanup wasn't easy, and you can still stumble on Katrina Refrigerators around the city, either waiting on a curb to be picked up, or still in flooded homes.

The Nola Rising blog has a great post on Banksy's recent additions to public art in Katrina. (I can't say enough good things about this blog. If you're at all interested in public propelled art, this is the place to look.)

Group Seven @ Whitespace

2008-08-22T02:37:00.004-04:00

Patrick Toups, Matt Sigmon, Phil Proctor, Julia Hill, Kate Hannon, Don Dougan, Antonio Darden, Melinda Crider.

"Each artist's affect was not blind or random, but a thoughtful and challenging role in both creating and incorporating what had come before."

Also see Imagillaboration.

We find these enchanting.

More text by Tuesday.

Day After the Harold Group House Show

2008-08-17T20:03:00.002-04:00

We are all pretty tuckered.

The Harold Group's myspace has artist links, and the best bicycle song since Queen's "Bicycle Race."

Two Pages from Troubled Souls

2008-08-16T01:32:00.003-04:00

Written by Garth Ennis, illustrated by John McCrea. Published 1990.

Buy it here. Or email me for a digital copy.

Repugno Selects Blogzine

2008-08-12T21:38:00.005-04:00

The Repugno Selects blog hosts "poetic work in the public sphere or work given away/left in public." Their first issue was published August 1st, and features mainly local poets: troylloyd, Scott MacLeod, James Sanders, and David-Baptiste Chirot*.

They're currently collecting submissions for issue 2, which should be out by early November.

Many of troylloyd's pieces rely on both written meaning as well as the aesthetics of placement and decay to create their larger impact. It's an interesting path for a author/poet to take, and a logical extension of what I've seen in his other pieces, which are usually along these lines:

Şunu mu aradınız:
legibility, legibly, legality, legerity, legible

Did you mean: legibility ?

Re: Neurofeedback

Legibilty is a measure of the writers sense of purposefulness.

(Right-Justified
Navigation
Menus
Impede
Scannability)

LEGIBILTY: The ability of the individ
ual elememts of an image to be seen

clearly.

But beware of the person whose
writing is impressively legible --
These wolves are people
in shepards clothing.

-----------

I'm not sure if it's easier or harder to decipher David Baptiste-Chirot's work. Many of his pieces remove the question of location - they're photographed so closely that the picture frame is filled by entirely etched and wheatpasted surfaces, giving no hint of where Baptiste-Chirot's placed his graffiti. As a person deeply interested in the physics of location (especially in The South), I was a bit disappointed that he hid the location of his pieces. Additionally, I've always thought that some of the most interesting elements of graffiti was the artistry behind getting to a wall and making art - the viewer of graffiti likes to be able to imagine police sirens, complex climbing rigs, and omnipresent danger when we're seeing these pieces in the light of day...

Anyway, removing location does narrow the viewers' focus, which is probably a good thing when there's such visual richness and layering in a piece.

*at least, I think those first two are local.

(all images from the blog)

Last Falcon Lords Related Post, I Promise

2008-08-08T19:10:00.002-04:00

The Falcon Lords

2008-08-06T23:54:00.002-04:00

They're playing Star Bar Thursday night with Tenth to the Moon, Missile Command, Rev Rebel and the Sound Supreme, and Ice Caps.

Really EXCITED.

Downtown

2008-08-01T18:08:00.004-04:00

(text reads "Second Amendment"

(text reads "#1 in Sex Traffic," the scraps at the top read something like "Atlanta, GA")

Daniel Duford at The Contemporary

2008-07-16T09:40:00.004-04:00

A few close ups of the Atlanta Contemporary Art Centers most recent main gallery exhibit. In addition to paneled comics on paper, Duford showed wall murals and sculpture, also part of the larger comic.

Speaking of paneling, Duford makes some pretty interesting choices in that department - along the lines of what you'd see in most good indie-comics, but with a more unified overall feel. If you're ignoring the images Duford uses, and only seeing the layout of his panels, you can still get a pretty good idea of his comics narrative path. The boxes swell and overwhelm each other on some pages, become rigid boxes within boxes on others, and, very occasionally, a box expands to fill the equivalent of a double page. Still, Duford is relatively rigid in his use of traditional comic panels - you never see an image without a black border around it, and each page of his comic is surrounded by a larger border.

If you don't get a chance to see the exhibit before it closes August 31, you can still check out Daniel Duford's webpage, which has extensive samples of Naked Boy and his other work.

Frisky Friday

2008-07-11T12:12:00.007-04:00

Noot d'Noot's album release party tonight. It's a decent album, but nowhere near their live show. Check them out at The Earl tonight, or, if you can't make it, they play a show at Lenny's with Judi Chicago every Friday this summer. And they're playing at Whirlyball with Dark Meat this Saturday.

Here's Fire King, from the new album.
A lot of local bicyclists are getting together to hold a "Courteous Mass" at 6 pm tonight. The mass is an alternative to Atlanta's monthly Critical Mass; it follows a planned route and obeys all traffic laws. The pace should be slow enough for even the most novice cyclist, so try and stop by after work. We're meeting in Woodruff Park downtown, leaving at 6:30, and will be riding a total distance of 12 miles.

If you can't make it to the park in time, we'll probably be riding until around 8:30ish along this route.

Also, there's an interesting discussion about the Mass here.

There are a few promising visual arts exhibitions connected to the National Black Arts Festival opening this weekend. Dave McKenzie will be showing some video work at The Contemporary tonight (through August 30th). I couldn't find any of his videos online, but The Contemporary offers this description:

Dave McKenzie is best known for a performance documented on video in which he walks the streets of Harlem in NYC, wearing a Bill Clinton mask, shaking hands with area residents. Performed after the former President located his offices to the area but rarely was seen there, McKenzie became a surrogate, hiding in public but also being available. As an artist of color, he was clearly toying with the concept of Clinton as “the first Black President.”

Using materials including newspapers, cut metal signs, day planners, and basketballs, the artist will present variously interactive objects and events that continue his exploration of daily rituals, time, communication, and identity.

If you're reading this blog, there's a good chance you started salivating when you read the words "exploration of daily rituals."

The opening is from 7 to 9 tonight.

A Paradise For Couples Only at Beep Beep Gallery (Preview)

2008-07-08T14:04:00.002-04:00

This is freaking me out:

I'm not sure why. But I am tremendously excited about seeing it in person this Saturday.

Rain On Our Parade

2008-07-06T13:20:00.003-04:00

Not so much going on in Atlanta art this week.

There's the cool sculpture exhibit at Youngblood... but that's the only opening over this last week and the coming weekend, right?

Oh, and New Street Gallery's 4th Annual Vinyl show Saturday the 12th:

I'm looking forward to it - a big handful of artists I recognize and like, another even bigger handful I can't wait to see for the first time.

Speaking of vinyl...

I ran into this guy leafing through a box of records outside Star Bar last night, and asked him what was up. He told me that Wax n' Fact's owner tossed a box of records out every few nights. The records all play fine, they just don't happen to be selling.

(This is how the guy selling records in Little Five Point's concrete park finds his merchandise.)

We looked through the records for a bit, and I wished I still had a record player.

And, speaking of music...

Kiki Blood and Shana Robbins are playing the Masquerade Tuesday night. Check it out.

I Use Google News to Track World Beer Prices

2008-07-04T01:16:00.006-04:00

All images by Tom Long. Grabbed from his interview on Fecal Face.

With little useful agricultural land, Japan can only produce around 40 percent of the food that its 128 million people consume every year—the lowest among industrialized nations.

That means the country is especially hard hit by fuel costs, which make importing a larger burden than in other developed nations.

In the past year, the cost of instant noodles has risen 17 percent, spaghetti is up 13 percent, and mayonnaise 10 percent. In April, butter practically disappeared from supermarket shelves as surging global grain prices made it impossible for Japan's dairy farmers to import enough feed to increase milk production.

"Japan's Thirst for Beer Quashed By High Price of Imports," National Geographic, June 3 2008

These last two might convince you to find a bigger monitor.

Corndogorama - Lost in the Funhouse

2008-06-30T16:55:00.004-04:00

Phoebe Cates, leader singer of Attractive Eighties Women, performing at Corndogorama last Thursday night. (More coverage here.)

Lester Bangs writes:

...you're goddam right Iggy Stooge is a damn fool. He does a lot better job of making a fool of himself on stage and vinyl than almost any other performer I've ever seen. That is one of his genius's central facets.

What we need are more rock "stars" willing to make fools of themselves, absolutely jump off the deep end and make the audience embarrassed for them if necessary, so long as they have not one shred of dignity or mythic corona left. Because then the whole damn pompous edifice of this supremely ridiculous rock 'n' roll industry, set up to grab bucks by conning youth and encouraging fantasies of a puissant "youth culture," would collapse, and with it would collapse the careers of the hyped talentless nonentities who breed off of it. Can you imagine Led Zeppelin without Robert Plant conning the audience: "I'm gonna give you every inch of my love" - he really gives them nothing, not even a good-natured grinful "howdy-do" - or Jimmy Page's arch scowl of supermusician ennui?

From Of Pop and Pies and Fun: A Program for Mass Liberation in the Form of a Stooges Review, or, Who's the Fool? written for Creem in 1970, reprinted in Bangs' Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung.

R. Land - Summerland

2008-06-28T21:47:00.010-04:00

This was R. Land's first exhibit in 5 years. He's responsible for a lot of the things that make your Atlanta commute fun: loss cat, pray for ATL, those fake real estate signs ("lofty lofts"!!!!)... there's probably some other public art installations/pranks that I'm forgetting.

Most of the exhibit seemed devoted to reproductions of his already well known works. There was a Loss Cat skateboard, and I would have taken a picture of it, but you know how I feel about encouraging that sort of thing.

The bunny's apparently a figure Land uses a lot. I don't think I've seen it before.

Gateway to the non-exhibit room. To the left, a merch booth. To the right, a bbq table (complete with vegan "ribs"). There was a DJ and disco ball in back.

I vaguely remember this being called "Woman On a Stool." Reminds me of Duchamps "Bicycle Wheel," about which Duchamp said, "I enjoyed looking at it, just as I enjoy looking at flames dancing in the fireplace."

I could say the same thing about Summerland.

Squanto - "A Shrine To Nothing"

2008-06-27T12:19:00.004-04:00

I'm looking through the 60 or so pictures that I took of Squanto's "Shrine To Nothing," and having a hard time finding a photograph that does the piece/collection/shrine justice.

The problem is in the nature of the things presentation: about a dozen of the several hundred items which make up Squanto's shrine are for sale (the three framed pictures in the photo above).

The other items range from found objects; magazine and newspaper cutouts (I consider these separate from found objects, in the same way that a small photograph cropped from an original photograph is an entirely different type of work [insert Walter Benjamin babble as needed here]); and found objects or cutouts which have been altered with Squanto's writing, paint, or glitter. Squanto points out that the items' placement choices are a mix of inspiration and deliberation - a clash of two very contrary artistic philosophies, each of which has historically tended to insist that the other does not/should not exist.

This makes the piece a bit hard to take in (but a lot of fun to attempt).

A side note: I just realized that there were a lot of xylophones in the shrine, and thought "what do xylophones and Native Americans have in common? (Actually, the word I used in my head was "Indians"). Then I started thinking about those bone shirts that some Native Americans were supposed to wear. If you think about it, those look a lot like xylophones, right?

So Squanto's piece(s) are a pretty awesome. And she's just one of the artists presented in MINT Gallery's Employee Picks show, which includes: Grace Bellury, Christina Bowman, Dane, Stephanie Dowda & John Paul Floyd (Click Clique), Kathryn Forrester, Ben Goldman, Gutterpop, Matthew Manning, Joy Phrasavath, Caroline Powers, Scott Raffield, Brian Westberry and Mack Williams.

With all those artists together, the show's pretty fantastic - the second really inspiring MINT gallery show I've seen in just two months.

Picking Fights

2008-06-23T10:15:00.007-04:00

That Squanto post is coming - I'm trying to tie it with a few other recent shows... which might take some time. Hopefully, I'll have something up before her Thanksgiving show at MINT.

(the following photos are courtesy of Ghostmap Microwave, who got them from Youngblood Gallery)

In his post on Samuel Parker's show, Jeremy describes a detail from Preemptive Strike:

Parker made an interesting choice here: the quotation is given by a fighter pilot. The plane, which certainly appears American, is decorated with Nazi swastikas and armed with the latest in weapons technology: arrows. Yes - as in "Squanto shoots arrows at the white man" sort of arrows.

Jeremy goes on to speculate that the aircraft may be an homage to Roy Lichtenstein's Whaam!:

As I've frequently pointed out, Jeremy is a nigh-illiterate cretin with minimal understandings of aircraft design, the artistic process, the history of comic art, or personal hygiene. Lichtenstein's plane was obviously modeled after the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, while Parker's plane was modeled after the F-14 Tomcat (retired from the US airforce in 2006, the plane is Iran's primary fighter jet).

Of course, the F-14 was most famously depicted in Bill Watterson's January 1, 1995 comic strip:

This strip (the first after Watterson's second, final, sabbatical) was a return to Watterson's trademark style - space hungry, vividly colored boxes with minimal text - the sort of thing comics-page editors hated, and comics-page readers loved.

For more of that sort of thing, check out Samuel Parker's "The Road to Excess," sometime between now and its closing this Saturday.

Also, Derek Weisberg and Crystal Morey have posted a few photos from their upcoming Youngblood exhibit:

View the full flickr set here.

Emily K - Have You Seen This Van?

2008-06-16T18:03:00.005-04:00

(all photos courtesy of Emily)

Emily K, Beep Beep intern and driver of THAT VAN, held her first show last Friday at the Virginia-Highlands Aurora Coffee.

She had some good, promising pieces up:

This second one's a lot of fun - I think that white grid is the no-slip material you put under keyboards and furniture on wood surfaces.

In the first, she used papyrus on what looks like an easel.

"EATTISE?" (I'm just trying to match these to a letter chart; maybe each symbol stands for a word? Or each letter stands for a sentence? Also, it's possible this was written in French.)

Anyway, I'm not sure how long this'll all be up, but you've probably got another few weeks to check it out.

(In the FUTURE: Mint, Squanto)

From "Withnail and I"

2008-06-16T07:23:00.001-04:00

(wiki link)

They cut off one of my favorite lines: "No need to insult me, man. I was leaving anyway. Have either of you got shoes?"

Got Any Vacation Plans?

2008-06-13T09:27:00.001-04:00

This sounds FANTASTIC. Do not miss the opportunity of a LIFETIME:

Movie in production is actively seeking 500 background
extras for film that is currently being in shot in New
Orleans. Carmen Electra stars in "Mardi Gras," a movie
about a group of college kids who sow their oats in New
Orleans. Directed by Phil Dornfeld, who also worked on
"Scary Movie" and produced by Beau Marks, the scenes
calling for 500 extras will be shot in the French
Quarter next week, 16-19 June. For more info, you can
search "Mardi Gras" at www.imdb.com

Chartered buses will drive you from ATL to New Orleans
on Sunday, the 15th, and return you on Friday, the
20th. If there is a lot of interest in destinations
between ATL and New Orleans, we will make also stop to
pick you up!!! Times and places TBD. Lodging
accommodations, food, and alcohol are all provided but
there is NO PAY. So round up your friends and party in
New Orleans for a week as if it were the real Mardi
Gras!

Description of Background Extras: 18-35 year old males
and females, all ethnicities but predominantly white
caucasianShooting Dates: 16-19 June, Mon-Thurs,
3pm-3amScenes: Mardi Gras party scenes on the streets
of the French Quarter SERIOUS INQUIRIES ONLY. Email
Kim at promosmodel@yahoo.com for further info or
questions.

Photographs from Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, SC

2008-06-08T08:53:00.007-04:00

Magnolia Cemetery is:

The oldest public cemetery in Charleston, founded 1849 on the banks of the Cooper River, and currently listed on National Register of Historic Places. It is the final resting place for generations of Southern leaders that include governors Thomas Bennett, Langdon Cheves, Horace L. Hunley and Robert Barnwell Rhett. The hundreds of Confederate soldiers buried here include five generals - Micah Jenkins, Arthur Manigault, Roswell Ripley, James Conner and C.H. Stevens.

Shots were taken at speeds of between 3 and 7 miles per hour, from the back of a bike.

I've been here (in the city, not the graveyard) since Thursday. It's a fantastic place - they're in the middle of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, a month long celebration of the city's various artists, and a few others, including Laurie Anderson (!).

There's another simultaneous festival, called Spoleto Fringe, which carries art aimed closer to my demographic - punk shows in alleyways lined with full scale body sculptures made by local high school students, record stores carrying BeepBeep-ish art (and playing DJ Shadow's "Six Days"), and an art show to help the local bike co-op outfit its new permanent space.

Both festivals are ending this weekend, but, if you've got some free time next May/June, it's definitely worth coming up here for a long weekend.

Art Bike Frames For Sale - Cheep!

2008-06-03T16:16:00.003-04:00

Sopo Bicycle Co-op just put the last of their artist-worked frames up for sale.

As you'd expect, most of the frames are either hideous, not very good (structurally), or both.

However, there's a few good ones left:

Diamond in the Back, Sunroof Top, Sat Kirpal Khalsa

Live Free or Die, Dianna Settles

And, my favorite (technically not really a "bike frame"):

Stephanie Howard describes her technique:

Most of my work reflects the urban landscape, a portrait of abandonment and endurance. Typically both my subject matter and the presentation of my work are a reference to wet paint. I hope that when a piece is completed the end result is a photograph mimicking a painting mimicking a photograph and ultimately that the final treatment I give it imitates the work behind glass.

The frames are only $100 each - give 'em a look!

Title Experiments

2008-06-01T12:23:00.001-04:00

A quick stab at a title graphic to replace the blogspot default.

Whaddaya think?

404/912 @ MINT Gallery, 5/24/08

2008-05-29T22:28:00.001-04:00

A quick preface:

I don't believe the quality of a show is determined by how closely it matches a theme or artist's statement. In an ideal world, themes and statements provide the viewer with a glimpse of the artists' processes and goals. But I think it's fairly unrealistic (especially with small gallery shows) to expect a statement or "theme" created weeks or months after some works in a collection have been created to come close to accurately matching a good sized span of an artist's work.

(I'd really like to hear input on this idea from curator/artist types)

This photo (and all others used in this post) courtesy of Thoughtmarker's Mike Germon.

With that preface in mind, take a look at a few of these shots:

McCalla Hill demonstrates the "Till Death Do Us Part" board game, which continued to draw a good sized crowd throughout the evening.

Scott Raffield's "Army and Artist Survival Kits." Probably one of the most "gimmicky" pieces in a show full of gimmick pieces. Still, I couldn't help pawing through the suitcases' contents, so Raffield must have been doing something right.

I believe this one was put together by all the Savannah SCAD students. A "for 404 from 912" pedestal stood nearby.

Almost all the show's pieces were in some way touchable or interactive. In more extreme cases, pieces could easily be "destroyed" by their observers; one artist drew a map of the United States onto a whiteboard - markers and erasers hung at hand level just below the board. McCalla Hill invited us to mail wedding invitations to friends and strangers. Another artist displayed letters mailed to strangers, and the pictures and replies those strangers sent back.

Was this prevalence of interactive art a reference to the crossing of boundaries suggested by "404/912"?

Maybe. I'm more inclined to ascribe that prevalence to a specific stage in the SCAD student's artistic development. Dipping a bit into pop psychology, I wondered if the students' desire to make interactive art might be traced to their desire to create a dialog with a world which has only become changeable in the last few years of their lives. As artists mature, they seem to apply more finesse to the idea of creating dialog, and require less overt proof that their work is impacting the wider world.

That's my pet theory anyway.

Overall, a good show. Not perfect, not great, but a good snapshot of a group of artists at the cusp of their careers. Definitely the best show I've seen at MINT so far.

More on Richard McMahan's Mini Museum

2008-05-29T19:47:00.004-04:00

Original films by Kendall Messick.

Original film by Raymond Jackson

I love seeing things like this!

Three quick notes:

1) I'll be posting a few million more posts before the week's up. Check back often. Send money.

2) Ruth Laxson's new show at Marcia Wood is pretty awesome. This is one we really need Jerry Cullum to review.

3) I'll be writing a few music reviews for Have You Heard each week. My first review was posted today. (One difference between visual art and music - almost every piece of art you see will be "good," or, at worst, indifferent. In music, most of what you hear will be bad, and will be experienced by an audience several times larger than is available to most artists.)

Tenmyouya Hisashi

2008-05-26T14:11:00.003-04:00

(I couldn't upload these pictures without compression problems - open them in a new window for more detailed views)

Eight "Serpent and Crane" Moves vs. "Drunken Fists"

RX-78-2 Kabuki-mono

Nine Kamakura Samurai

Pandora's Box

More pictures.

One of Those Moods

2008-05-22T22:52:00.004-04:00

Brian Hitselberger, Come On

Hitselberger's website, with more pictures and a recommended reading list.

-

I just started reading John Berger's Ways of Seeing and the first volume of Clement Greenberg's Collected Essays and Criticism. Ways of Seeing was published in 1973; it's based on a BBC TV series and contains 7 essays, 3 of which are composed entirely of pictures. Greenberg's essays were written between 1939 and 1944; in a 1939 essay on avant-garde and kitsch, he writes:

Kitsch, using for raw material the debased and academicized simulacra of genuine culture, welcomes and cultivates this insensibility. It is the source of its profits. Kitsch is mechanical and operates by formulas. Kitsch is vicarious experience and faked sensations. Kitsch changes according to style, but remains always the same. Kitsch is the epitome of all that is spurious in the life of our times. Kitsch pretends to demand nothing of its customers except their money - not even their time.

I'm going to put the two books together in my nightstand before I go to sleep and see which comes out alive tomorrow morning.

Oliver Smith - Absence of Need

2008-05-20T16:44:00.004-04:00

The show's full title is Absence of Need: Images of Urban Abandon, and it runs through June 14 at Eyedrum.

I had forgotten about this exhibit until a few moments ago, when I unearthed Smith's artist statement from beneath a pile of dirty clothes, business card confetti, empty matchbooks, and other assorted bachelor detritus. I hadn't actually planned to write about the show (and I'm still not going to write much), but I was struck by a few phrases from Smith's statement:

"One strip shopping center was knocked down and cleared out before it could be rephotographed. In a few days everything was gone. Without the original photographs it was hard to remember how things looked. Architectural amnesia. Transformation of place and loss of the familiar created an involuntary displacement. I expected something to be there and it wasn't. Desire for a continuance of memory was swiftly negated. It didn't matter. A new memory/place connection would eventually form over the old one."

That phrase, "I expected something to be there and it wasn't" captures so much about my experience growing up in Atlanta - I feel as if the city as a whole is constantly moving towards some new stage, but consistently falling short of the dreamt-of "New Atlanta"/"New South." Perhaps some of that feeling is based on going to a high school named after Henry W. Grady, the Athens-born journalist who coined the phrase "New South" in an 1886 speech:

"The New South is enamored of her new work. Her soul is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a grander day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilling with the consciousness of growing power and prosperity. As she stands upright, full-statured and equal among the people of the earth, breathing the keen air and looking out upon the expanding horizon..."

Can a show be called "good" because of the thoughts and memories it inspires, even if the art itself lacks that thrill and tense fingered feeling that great art inevitably provokes?

I can't really recommend the show to you - unlike a lot of the other art I've written about here, I don't think there's much difference between seeing these photographs in person, and seeing them online. In both settings, the concept of the work is much more powerful than the work itself.

Perhaps Smith realized this, and understood the problem inherent in inviting people to view photographs which purposefully avoided artistry; he's also included field recordings taken at the abandoned strip malls he photographed. I wasn't able to listen to the recordings (a band was tuning up in the next room), but, with the recordings included as part of the viewing process, the whole exhibit could definitely be worth a quick look. And certainly worth a long evening's thought.

[top two images are from Eyedrum's website]

Richard McMahan's MiniMuseum, at the College of Charleston's Addlestone Library

2008-05-17T12:11:00.011-04:00

I'd like to note that I disagree categorically with the comments made by the anonymous commentators (actually a single person who has a personal problem with Richard McMahan) in this post. I've disabled future comments on this post as a way of keeping "Anonymous" from posting more drivel. Please, if you bother reading Anonymous's comments, keep in mind the basically unhinged nature of their personality, and don't let them influence your opinion of a fantastic artist.

***Images from the full collection***

Libraries don’t usually have art. When they do have art, it’s generally the sort of installation dreamed up by head librarians with too little free time, or student art groups with WAY too much free time.

So I was surprised at the amount of thought and effort which had gone into the College of Charleston library’s most recent exhibit, Richard McMahan’s MINImuseum. The exhibit showcases about 4000 painted and sculpted pieces, and was designed and set up in just under a month.

The college is justifiably proud of their display, which was planned by students from the architectural school, and fabricated using some apparently cutting edge* automated laser systems.

From the exhibit’s brochure:

“For the past eighteen years, Richard McMahan has been creating his own personal museum collection featuring miniature replicas of the world’s greatest works of art. This Florida savant has an exceptional talent for producing tiny images representing famous art in museum collections such as the Hermitage, the Prado, the Louvre, the Metropolitan, and the Museum of Modern Art, among others. Though he has never been to any of these museums in person, this self-taught artist has studied these works through books in his local library in Jacksonville.

McMahan began his collection by working from photographs he found in over one hundred years of National Geographic Magazines. Included in this worldwide tour are cave paintings, a rendition of an Egyptian tomb (complete in all of its parts), art nouveau furniture, sculpture, graphic arts, drawings, paintings, and a wry selection of contemporary art.”

As with any collection of miniatures, I’m reminded of the “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” museums (coincidentally, the franchise is also based in Florida). The exhibit uses a few visual techniques popularized by that sort of museum, placing several pieces in recesses which force the spectator to move closer to that portion of the exhibit for a good look.

In the Egyptian art section, we contorted ourselves to peer through pvc pipes at McMahan’s recreations of tomb architecture and murals. I remembered the intricate images of Egyptian pyramid traps I’d grown up with in grade school, and wondered which of the pipes housed a very cruel joke.

Magnifying glasses were included, furthering the sensation of exploration.

The exhibit is ordered by period – trying to take in each period in a single photograph, I was reminded of Kathrynn Reffi’s Color Recordings (described in detail at Local Ephemera), an attempt to record and catalog the predominate colors throughout a 7 day span of the artist’s life.

Cringe.

The history of art, under a single rotunda. So much cheaper and faster than visiting all those museums.

McMahan's sculpture work (the "twigs" in the second image are carved pieces of wood) is wonderfully exact.

Of course, the whole exhibit leaves me pondering the question of art duplication. These are a few questions I would have liked to ask McMahan at his artist talk this Saturday:

What tools did you use for your painting?
Which pieces took you the longest?
Which periods?
When you recreate a work, how do you know when it's finished? Are you trying to copy the images, or the spirit?

*Pun!

Apologies

2008-05-16T18:42:00.002-04:00

I apologize, but I'm going to have to reschedule that article I promised. Delays in all the most important parts of my life, surprise deadlines, etc.

I just saw the most amazing art exhibit.

And it was sponsored by a college!

Lots of pictures, will write more sometime this weekend (hopefully).

A Reading Recommendation, From the Holy City

2008-05-14T12:18:00.007-04:00

Thor: Ages of Thunder #1 - written by Matt Fraction, art by Patrick Zircher.

(excerpt from an interview on Newsarama)

Newsarama: Matt, what’s Ages of Thunder about, and how does it tie into the Thor mythos?

Matt Fraction: It's a Thor graphic novel, told in parts, that plugs the pure Stan-and-Jack interpretation of Thor and the Asgardians into the Norse myth cycle. It sort of exists outside of any current incarnation of Thor – one of my favorite things about the Norse myths is that it's cyclical; that Ragnarok has survivors and the stories begin again.

So we're using that as a motivation to look at Thor and his pantheon throughout various different eras of Ragnanroks, with various different visual interpretations. Each time they're living through these insane and colossal stories that build on top of one another, each chapter presenting us with another way of seeing Asgard as it rages towards its inevitable destruction and rebirth.

Ultimately, these stories present to us with the reasons why Odin saw fit to curse Thor with the humanity of Donald Blake, and who he becomes because of it. That's the uniting thread that, no matter what apocalypse he's skyrocketing towards, Thor had this flaw, and this ultimate redemption because of it, told in giant, divine terms. It was danced around back in Thor#159, if you want to get all continuity-guy on it; Ages of Thunder is a kind of explicit play-by-play, where Thor's lack of humility triggers all of these wonderful, horrible things.

Newsarama: So how did this project come about, and what appealed to you about working on Thor?

Matt Fraction: Thor had long remained a kind of a mystery to me – I couldn't find a way into the book, as a writer. Which is just weak. As a reader, there were bits that I loved but there were far more aspects to his history as a comics character that alienated me. And-- this is mortifying and embarrassing and I'm sure they don't remember this, but I do – the first time I talked to Axel Alonso and Warren Simons about what kind of stuff I wanted to pitch at Marvel, I said that if they were looking for a Thor mini, I wasn't the guy. Just, y'know – superdicky, small-minded, all of it.

It was the fantasy aspect — real or perceived-- that I just couldn't connect with; that kept me outside of the real power of the stories and the character. Then I had my, ahh, revelation on the road to Damascus, and here we are. I've seen the light, repented, etc. Now I'm ready to smash things with hammers.

Newsarama: Yay, hammers! Now, what are some of the stories that this one-shot touches on?

Matt Fraction: The reconstruction of the Asgardian wall. Loki's kidnapping of Idun, or who we're assigning Idun's role, and what happened to her apples. Sif getting her hair cut off. Drunken hijinx in an iron forge.

You know. The classics.

Three quick notes:

1) I'm in Charleston, SC until Saturday - got any gallery/stuff to do recommendations?

2) I'm working on a long (for me) essay, loosely based around my thoughts on spectators and art. With the help of a few more cups of coffee, it should be posted to Proclaim It Lost by Friday afternoon.

3) The Fraction interview's a bit lame (especially if you aren't caught up on Thor's comic biography) but the comic itself is a fun introduction to the summer reading season.

Spruill Gallery, 5/8/08

2008-05-09T14:11:00.003-04:00

(More by nightfall)

I didn't think Tristan Al-Haddad's sculptures were as cool as some of the other stuff at Spruill last night, but they did make for good shootin'.

Also, the wood floor was covered with this thin white cloth, so walking through that corridor felt like stepping on gritty ice, which added a nice bit of contrast to the rest of Spruill Gallery's very stable old Southern charm.

Atlantic Station

2008-05-06T19:15:00.002-04:00

Pictures taken around 3pm today, as an illustration of the dangers of prolonged unemployment.

I used to hate it. Now I sort of love (but also hate) it.

Even More On Sopo's Frame Show, Canvases, and Space

2008-05-02T19:51:00.009-04:00

(Updated, see below)

I haven't talked to anyone involved with the recent bicycle frame show at Radial Cafe.

I have built up a pretty good concept for the show in my head: painted metal bicycle frames, but painted upon as if they were flat canvases wrapped around three dimensional bars, not as if they were sculptural or architectural pieces.

Not surprisingly, I preferred work from the show which violated the methodology I'd dream't up before getting to Radial Cafe last Saturday night.

Stephanie Howard's bike is a pretty good example of what I'm talking about. She's both painted and sculpted the surface of the frame, transforming it completely. I'm reminded of Man Ray's The Gift.

Of course, since these bikes were given to local artists to be worked on and then resold as functional frames, the artist's decision to use concrete as a painting material could be seen as a bit gauche.

(I didn't get a good photo of Sister Louisa's bike, but his frame was about as "unbike-y" as Howard's, covered with bright plastic lighters, praying nuns, and action-figure sized penises.)

This one was made by Linda Costa. While it takes less artistic risks than Howard's bike, the level of detail and thought put into this was fantastic. Out of all the bikes I saw last Saturday, this was my favorite in terms of the artist's ability to meld functionality and beauty.

Taking another look through my photos of Costa's bike, I'm struck again by the amount of care and imagination she's put into every inch of this thing. Those hands in the top center of the photo, the tiny bits of bike narratives over the entire frame, the thing's dreamlike consistency... just fantastic.

Bikes

2008-05-01T10:14:00.003-04:00

Have been on my mind lately.

Watch this space Friday, for either:

a) "musings" on bike culture.

b) a review of Sopo's frame show at Radial Cafe

c) a review of Iron Man, "blockbuster with a brain" (Christy Lemire, AP movie critic)

Some videos of my thoughts this morning:

BikeSHIfT in San Luis Obispo, CA.

Frame show in Atlanta, GA

fdisk003 - Critical Mass Atlanta [April 08] from fdisk on Vimeo.

Sopo Bicycle Frame Show at Radial Cafe

2008-04-27T14:55:00.006-04:00

Castleberry Hill Art Stroll

2008-04-26T10:05:00.003-04:00

(Updated! See below.)

I stopped by Allison Rentz' performance Friday because I'd looked through a few still photographs of her hanging installations and thought they had a lot of potential. The installations are preoccupied with fairly powerful themes - weight, entanglement, birth, and, less directly, music/speech/sound. Unfortunately, Rentz' live performance was basically incomprehensible - but not incomprehensible in a good way, where the piece suggests a basic unity that the viewer's just not able to grasp.

(Jeremy's posting a longer review on his blog sometime towards the end of the week)

Emil Alzomora, Krause Gallery.

Put me in a room with a few of these things, and I'll be happy to just spend an hour staring.

Abby Banks at Get This! Gallery, from "If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now"

Does this fit that "hipjaculate" definition? Maybe. Definitely a bit more gracefully than the usual "gallery full of skateboards decorated by local graffiti artists."

I guess, having looked through Banks' Punk House: Interiors in Anarchy a few days before seeing the show, I was prepared to assess her work as intentionally closer to anthropology than art.

I sort of rushed through this one, which is unfortunate. Anyone out there writing about it?

Slow Day

2008-04-25T15:35:00.002-04:00

From a 1 star Amazon review of Alice In Wonderland:

"I think the book Alice in Wonderland is a very good book. While it can be confusing at times, it makes you wonder. For example, when they were talking to the turtle, it didn't make very much sense. Also, the trial over the pastries, it was very idiotic, and if that trial happened today it would get thrown out. Lastly, at the hare and mad hatter's on going tea party, it was very senseless. The author's use of language was very unlike our language today. For example, when she said so many times the words, "shot up", it sounds English or something. The book has this tone a lot throughout it. Maybe the author has English back round. But it was in very easy to understand language, accept for the times people were talking non-sense. The main character is Alice. At sometimes she can seem clueless, and go on rambling like while talking with the turtle. She even pointed it out her-self. A lot of her decisions during the book make no sense. Like to just walk off with that little pig at the Duchess' house. And why would she follow the rabbit to an unknown land to begin with. There was many times where she confused me sometimes. Like when she talked with the caterpillar and said she wasn't the person she started as at the beginning of the day. One thing of the book I did not understand was the theme. In fact I did not see a theme. The only thing close to a theme was a girl trapped in an unusual world, with no way out. One other thing I didn't see in the book was a plot. The entire book was was a girl going with the flow and seeing where the adventure took her. The cat that kept disappearing and appearing even asked her why did she need directions to somewhere, if she didn't know where she was going. In my opinion this book had no effectiveness. It also had no meaning. It had no moral, and nothing to learn from it. So I think the book was very pointless, and just something to read for fun.'"

A different reviewer, on Borges' Labyrinths: Selected Stories:

"This book is filled with short stories of bad boring science fiction. References, complete with page numbers, to non existent books only add to the tedium"

Nabokov's Ada:

"This is a masturbatory fantasy. Nabokov has created his dream world: The United States and Russia are one country and everybody who's anybody speaks French, too; World War I never happened, let alone World War II; and Van Veen has a lifelong love affair with his cousin Ada (actually his sister), full of passion, yearning, intellectual stimulation, and the thrill of the forbidden, plus a soupcon of jealousy provided by Ada's full sister Lucette, who wants Van to love her, too, and finally kills herself for want of him, spicing Van's life with a touch of sweet remorse. Oh - I forgot to mention the voyeuristic lesbianism when Lucette describes her own affair with Ada, and their threesome.
If this isn't the stuff of your dreams, you may find Nabokov's mandarin literary style a little heavy for the subject matter, like a g-string made of real cloth of gold."

Lolita:

"All this hoopla about Lolita made me curious enough to read it. Don't tell me this is about love. This pedophile clearly stalks young girls. Maybe his first true love could never blossom, but to carry that feeling throughout his life screams psychological problems, not love."

Crying of Lot 49:

"Lot 49 was introduced to me by an English professor at the university I attend. I can tell anyone that it is the worst novel (fiction for that matter!) that I have ever read. I enjoy reading fiction and I cannot believe that this novel could ever be popular. P's sentences ramble on and on as if he was in a state of mass hysteria or a drug induced coma when he was writing. Not only does this novel not make sense, I have to agree with another reader that it is not in the least bit interesting. I WILL BE FORTUNATE IF I NEVER HAVE TO READ ANOTHER BOOK BY PYNCHON AGAIN IN MY LIFE!"

Michi

2008-04-23T23:49:00.002-04:00

Michi posted an artist statement for his Eyedrum gallery exhibit, Comfort Kills Pursuit: FIGHT!, on Tuesday. As always, I'm not sure how much of Michi's work I understand. This statement is especially puzzling. The narrative voice shifts in some unexpected ways, and I get the idea that each sentence was composed days or hours after the sentence which proceeds it.

A few of my favorite passages:

"I hear my colleagues question their creative environment and its lack of community. Has Atlanta become too comfortable in its pursuit or fight of defining and establishing a contemporary arts society?"

"In creative thought, The Great White Hope is the gallery. It is the stage set by its four white corners mimicking the boxing ring. It is an opponent that has eluded many of fighters or artists. We all believe in its mythical power and its collectors’ ringside seats to elevate and hype our careers to the next level just by hanging there."

"The artist is up nights jumping rope, hitting the bags, sketching, reading, questioning, truly searching and becoming serial killer obsessed and focused on an idea."

"There are many things in our lives that we are fighting to free from our minds."

"I am fighting for liberation from a history of images that portray black males as strange fruit, machinery, and property... Some events occurred in my father's life time, such as bouts with the Klan that have been woven into the fabric of my family’s stories. How have these images affected the thought process and the image of self? How have they shaped the spirit?"

I remember meeting Michi a few months ago at MJQ's circus themed art show. He was at the bar talking with my friend Jeremy, we were all either drinking or trying to order whiskeys, and he was finishing an explanation of his most recent work, "...basically I just got my kid to make a lot of shapes in construction paper."

I've kept the most initial segments of that initial meeting in mind when I've seen Michi's work since that night. To me, he'll always be a family man who's never seen with his family, and, even though Comfort Kills Pursuit: FIGHT! is far from an exploration of family, I envision Michi's family as a counterweight to a few of the troubling questions he raises in this exhibit.

I suppose that's my own way of avoiding the fight.

Grand Prize Winners From Last Year

2008-04-20T00:03:00.002-04:00

Horrible name, great band. I accidentally saw these guys playing at Lenny's Monday night (did any of you get a chance to see the Coathangers/Selmanairs show this Friday?), and was fairly blown away. I wrote a more detailed post about them, but it's back home on some scrap paper Atlanta, and I'm here in Chicago visiting family.

GPWFLY are playing Apache Cafe Sunday night, and at least two other Atlanta shows over the next week. See them - they're one of the best local bands I've seen in the last month or so.

Check their myspace for more info.

Apartment Suggestions

2008-04-17T15:42:00.001-04:00

I'm trying to prove to my friend that it's possible to rent an inexpensive place in metro Atlanta.

He's looking for an apartment to share with his fiancee, preferably for a three month or month-by-month lease. They need a place that's inexpensive, and within a mile of an "intown" MARTA station (no further out than 4 stops from Five Points Station).

Is this possible, or am I crazy?

Art Papers Live Hosts Daniel Canogar

2008-04-16T22:04:00.006-04:00

I generally assume a piece of art is good if pictures of it provoke gasps from audiences. Canogar's presentation had at least two or three mass-audience-gasps.

Otras Geologias 5, Daniel Canogar

A slightly more complete summary of my thoughts, about an hour and a half after Canoger's talk:

1) He's brilliant.

2) His artistic vision seems to have evolved in interesting ways over the last few years.

3) His overall philosophy tends towards extremes of both control and randomness (randamnity?), which makes me wonder to what degree his philosophy is a reflection of similarities between artists who do most of their work with large-scale installations. There are probably a few other ways to explain the emphasis he places on control and [the opposite of control].

Sanctify at Opal Gallery

2008-04-14T09:12:00.006-04:00

I stopped by Opal Gallery last Thursday, expecting to spend a few spare minutes checking out the Colorfields exhibit. It turns out I'm incredibly behind the times - Colorfields closed April 3, and was replaced by David Knox's Sanctify.

All Knox's photographs (organized as diptychs and triptychs) have this quality which doesn't convey well to second-hand observation. For one, they're set in beautiful stained maple frames, and it's almost impossible to convey the tones of the wood through photograph. More importantly, his photographs eschew the glossy, sharp, "high quality" tendency I've been seeing in a lot of recent photography.

(The type of photography where, no matter what type of camera the photographer uses, even when the final shot's deliberately over/underexposed, at an angle that's not quite right, and some object's been mysteriously planted in the foreground of the shot, obscuring the photograph's focal point - you can still tell that the photographer had a very clear image of their final photograph throughout the process of creating the shot.)

Knox creates his images using "liquid emulsion on metal plates in a printing method very similar to the 19th Century tintype process." Gibberish to me, but the end result is a warm, mottled print, almost pooled within the walls of diptych and triptych frames. The photographs suggests a vision more complicated than the simple decision to use an antiquated printing technique, a sensation of searching for a quality, lost in time or space, which will perfectly communicate some perfect form of the photographer's self to the spectators crowded around his work.

A postscript: though Knox cites Flannery O'Conner's short stories as his primary influence, I'm also reminded of William Faulkner's landscape descriptions, especially a passage from the beginning of Faulkner's Light in August:

"Though the mules plod in a steady and unflagging hypnosis, the vehicle does not seem to progress. It seems to hang suspended in the middle distance forever and forever, so infinitesimal is its progress, like a shabby bead upon the mild red string of road. So much so is this that in the watching of it the eye loses it as sight and sense drowsily merge and blend, like the road itself, with all the peaceful and monotonous changes between darkness and day, like already measured thread being rewound onto a spool."

"Sight and sense drowsily merge and blend." How perfect is that?

Sunset Scavenger at Get This! Gallery

2008-04-11T14:07:00.003-04:00

This review was originally written for False Magazine. It was created as part of about a dozen "short short" reviews. I misheard the review requirements when I began the piece, and ended up writing twice the hundred-word limit. The much shorter version of this review will appear in False Magazine's Summer issue.

In a recent Creative Loafing interview, Bill Daniel presented his newest project, Sunset Scavenger, as an exploration of “life on an angry planet.” The photography and found signage which cluttered Get This! Gallery’s small spaces on Friday, March 28 certainly reflected this worldview. Sun-bleached black and whites were prevalent even in Daniel’s houseboat and post-Katrina New Orleans photographs, giving these images a sense of being collectively set upon a massive shared desert. In Daniel’s study of voluntary and involuntary wanderers, habitats normally associated with humanity are displayed stripped entirely bare.

Daniel’s focus on emptiness plays interestingly with the signs scattered throughout the gallery. Some signs are handwritten, some are typed; some fight to protect homeless rights (“Don’t Kick Car Campers to the Curb!”), while others are placed to dissuade trespassers and vagrants. Though the signs are empty of any human faces, they represent a drive which is absent in Daniel’s stark houseboat, home, and train photographs.

Within Sunset Scavenger’s world, photographs and signs seem to mark a competition. Each type of abandoned signifier represents a positive or negative interpretation of absence, and Daniel’s most impressive accomplishment is leaving the outcome of this argument entirely undecided.

The Men From N.O.W.H.E.R.E.

2008-04-11T00:52:00.002-04:00

Doom Patrol #36, Grant Morrison, Kelley Jones, and Mark McKenna

More Famous Every Day

2008-04-08T22:09:00.003-04:00

If you search for proclaim it lost on Google, my blog is the third result! I'm still being beat out by a story about American health clubs, but I'm confident we can win this thing.

T-shirt stall, Underground Atlanta, Sunday

First Writing Piece Printed!

2008-04-04T13:13:00.002-04:00

The review (as well as a review of Micah Dalton's album, and some news pieces) is out in Performer Magazine's April issue. You can read it online here.

I finally got to see Hope For Agoldensummer play live at Wordsmith Books' old location a few weeks after writing my review. Ariadne Thread uses a lot of interesting studio tricks, and I was worried that their live set wouldn't carry the layered, almost old, quality I heard in my favorite songs from the album.

For their show, Hope For Agoldensummer avoided trying to duplicate their studio sound, skipping the most "produced" tracks from their album ("Last Summer's Beach Trip" and "Old Questions"). They opened with "Hold Me Close In the Hallway," the first track from Ariadne Thread, replacing the album's cicada chirps with rhythmic foot shuffling. Most of their other pieces followed this same formula, replacing multilayered audio-collage with simple devices (foot shuffling, bells wrapped around an ankle) used more as a reminder of the sound used in the album.

It all worked out very well, and I've just spent my lunch break trying to imagine how Hope for Agoldensummer would sound in a larger venue, like Atlanta's Variety Playhouse.

"Hipjaculate"

2008-03-31T10:46:00.003-04:00

A word coined by Jeremy, over our discussion of how to describe MINT Gallery's "Persona" exhibit. We'd considered a few other, more descriptive phrases, but the basic phenomenon we were trying to describe was an artist whose love for their particular subculture overwhelms their normal artistic sensibilities.

Untitled, by Karly Wildenhaus

Setup footage from Sopo Bike Co-op's upcoming frame show at Radial Cafe

Rainy Weekend

2008-03-30T21:47:00.002-04:00

I helped build and set up a hut with the Mad Housers this morning. They're an Atlanta based organization which builds shed sized homes in existing homeless camps, and I've worked with them a handful of times over the last two years. I've been working with them recently in hopes of developing a story for False Magazine's Spring issue.

Today, we were building a house for Mike, a veteran who's been camping in the same stretch of Indian Creek woods for the last 20 years. He had been camping with his wife and a friend - his wife got sick and died about 8 years ago, and his friend was run over while crossing a nearby road just two years ago.

Mike stands by a shrine he built for his wife.

Another couple (whose names I didn't catch) have been sharing the camp with Mike since February. They were forced to leave their government subsidized housing after getting into some sort of trouble over their section 8 eligibility.

The couple, at the door of the hut Mad Housers built in February.

I'd like to say more about this morning's work, and the time I spent talking with Mike, but I've been having a hard time just coming to terms with the reality of his situation. The article's due Tuesday. I'm hoping to find some way of putting words around this entire experience by deadline.

Pictures From World Pillow Fight Day 2008

2008-03-25T13:47:00.003-04:00

Most of my actual pillow fightin' pictures didn't come out so well.

A Shitload of Baseball Bats

2008-03-20T11:45:00.002-04:00

This is a little piece of dialog from a story I'm working on. As usual, the narrator is based off all my worst impressions.

My brother called a few hours after I posted the ad. We were both a little drunk.

“What's up?”

Muting my television, I moved the cellphone a little further from my ear. “Didn't you say you'd stop asking that when you called me?”

“Maybe I just wanna know whatsup with my brother.”

“But you're calling me. Wouldn't it make more sense to wait for me to ask how you're doing?” I followed this point with a second point, equally reasonable. “You know I'm just going to say 'not much,' or, 'nothing' – why do you even ask?”

“Because you're my brother. I'm just trying to be polite.” Stepping momentarily into a heavier accent, my brother spoke again, “Nah man, I'm onna phone. Tell'im to come back later.”

“If you were trying to be polite, you wouldn't say 'what's up,' you'd talk to me the way I talk to you.”

“Did Tim drop off those baseball bats?”

“Yeah, last week. I couldn't sell them on ebay, so I've got'em on Craigslist as 'A Shitload of Baseball Bats' – no serious replies yet.”

“Cool. I gotta talk to this guy. Lemme know if they sell.”

“Sure.”

I went to sleep drunk, and I remember waking myself up several times throughout the night, speaking to the people I'd been dreaming of just seconds ago. I woke up that way in the morning, telling an imaginary customer, “I could sell you five for $12 each.”

Momocon 2008

2008-03-17T20:22:00.006-04:00

The two oldest costumed people I saw at the con.

She sells her handmade panda hats and cellphone dongles at littleraccoon.com

These last two were taken as the storm came in on Saturday afternoon. I've got about 20 pictures of the group trying to get into their pose. We tried hard not to laugh - for their sakes.

I'm a Sucker For Sculpture

2008-03-12T01:26:00.000-04:00

Spotted this photograph hanging at Composition Gallery last Saturday. The artist responsible, Julie L. Sims, is a member of ExLucis, Georgia State University's student photography group. The piece is Frozen.

Here's a secret: I like the photograph because it reminds me of that one part in Chrono Trigger, when the protagonist dies and his friends get together to climb this Time Mountain in order to jump start his soul. The mountain was protected by a fierce wind you could only avoid by hiding behind trees which looked almost exactly like the ones in Sims' piece.

Housekeeping, Part 1

2008-03-08T09:58:00.000-05:00

I'm switching from my old blog, Shoeless, to this one.

I've been meaning to switch for the last few months. I lost the password for Shoeless at least a year ago, so I'd only been able to post to that blog - I couldn't change the sidebar links or the background graphics, and I couldn't collect the $6.14 in ad revenue I'd earned over my three year blogging career.

Anyway, this is my new blog. The name is stolen from Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch, and the complete line reads, "Nothing is lost if there is the courage to proclaim it lost and start again."

I think the line captures everything I love about Cortázar's writing - his perpetual youth, sly humor, and constant parody of parody of parody.

Taken from the Doraville-bound MARTA.