the black and black images are sillehuted models of each county in the two states he used to make the models---what about t he rest of them, maybe theey are more interesting then i thot.

missouri not nebraska--all of the records are here:
http://home.att.net/~amcnet3/topos/momapmapslist.html

still dont get the large black and black stuff.

all of the work below is by allan mccollum--and he also has this great project where he makes topographical models of nebraska and kansas and offers them to musuems (small, local) in home towns across the state.

alright--here are the peices i find interesting
a seires of dice, each with a seperate inconograph--connected to the i ching but modernized, ambigous, beautiful, simple and functional
http://home.att.net/~artarchives/yourfate/face.html (look swiss)

http://www.usfcam.usf.edu/pix/AlMc3.jpg
10 000 hand crafted, pseduo industrially based, multiples (strange)

http://www.artline.com/associations/ifpda/ifpdafair/ifpdafair2002/nonexhibiting/I_C_Editions/a_McCollum.jpg
a small edition of plastic thoctckes, combining warhol and whiteread...plays w. banality, anti function. (these ones are fotoes in a way that makes them bigger...they are about four inches on the diagonal)

http://www.leconsortium.com/mccollumcoll.html
i have seen these works advertised in the big magazines, urns, called (x) plastic vehichles...i havent thot about these v. much, the only difference seems to be size and colour--the shape is the same, and they look almost neo classical--like stark remaking 17th century chairs.

none of these are related to the the black on black, ink, framed, large collectiosn of prints that were sold so well in phillips this year (multiple auctions, 84k on a hi estimate of 4, biggest show in a show full of names, hirst, barney, levine, wool, etc)--and i dont know much about them, though the inforamtion on the web seems to be in languages other then english

i dont like this

http://home.att.net/~artarchives/yourfate/face.html
also did this fun, keyboard based electronic divination system

still, dont know why he made so much

two stories pitched to bitch magazine--about the misogyny of the new country kings and about agriculture queens

* The U.S. Pavilion features a new cycle of paintings by Ed Ruscha done specifically for the Biennale, in a show organized by Harvard University Art Museums associate curator Linda Norden in consultation with Whitney Museum curator Donna De Salvo. The paintings "make progress, or the course of progress, their subject," and are described as "documentary" of "an urban landscape." Joan Didion has written a foreword to the accompanying catalogue.
artnet.com

fucking excited about this!

to the last iowa pork queen

standing in boots, and a satin sash
hand on the rump of a perfect sow

five pigs for every man, woman and child
in iowa--and you are there among them

dawn kruger and the president--
charlotte to his wilbour

the family farm will die,
and the queen of agribuisness

doesnt sound so nearly
tragic

grave yards are easier

cheap subliminity
dark night of the soul
cheap sublimity

& 8/hr for the privelege

the pyschogeographic history of ft sask, alberta:

river

river
floodplain

river
floodplain
hill

river
flood plain
windbreak
hill

river
floodplain
windbreak
hill
field

river
cropland
windbreak
hill
lot
roadway

river
hayfield
windbreak
hill
concrete prison
highway

river
hayfield
windbreak
hill
prision
electrified fence
gates

river
slough
windbreak
slump
prision
fence
razor wire electried fences
liscence plate shop
gallows

river
park
trails
subdivision
lot
relics
graveyard
tract home
expressway
AnthonySEaston (7:05:08 AM): rowhousing

seventeen things i learnt from nixons memoirs

1) kissenger and sammy davis jr met and talked.
2) jackie's handwriting has a careless, handsome, fuckable joie d' vie (he reporoduced a note of hers)
3) the notes to his daugthers are filled with cliches, and dont seem v, personal
4) he spent time with norman vincen peale
5) he was a snaky, lying bastard
6) apparently he thot that blacks were like isrealites--and was "poltically unbeholden" to both of them (538)
7) "for those willing to work hard, california seemed to be a land of almost unlimited oppurtunity' (5)
8) he and his brothers were named after the early kings of england
9) "my mother was always concerned and active in community affairs, but her most striking aulity was a deep sense of privacy" (9)
10) we never had a meal without saying grace, but except for special occasions when each of us boys would be called on to recire a verse from the bible, these prayers were always silent. She even took literally the injunction from ST Matthew that praying should be done behind closed doors and went into a closet to say her prayers before going to bed at night" (ibid)
11) i grew up in a religous enviroment that was at once unusuall strict and unusally tolerent. My Mother and her family belonged to a branch of the Friends church that had ministers, choirs andcirtually all teh symbols of other protestent denomations. The difference were water baptistsm and communion, and hte heavy qauker influence on silent prayer. My father had convereted to Qaukeris, from his own rather robust methodism at the time of his marriage and he had a typical entuhism of a convert for his new religion. Our family went to church four times on a Sunday--Sunday school, the regular morning service, Christian Endevour in the late afternoon, and another service in the evening. ... (not including a service on wedneday)(16)
12) often we drove to Los Angeles to hear Aimee Semple McPherson, at the Angelus Temple and Bob Shuler, her great competitor, at the Trinity Method church (ibid)
13) When I was Vice President, President Eisenhower urgerd me to refer to God from time to time in my speeches, but I did not feel comfortable doing so. (17)
14) Despite my qauker background and belief, inever considered getting a (draft deferment). When I heard that young lawyers recruited as officers for the Navy, I talked to Pat about it, and applied for a commision.
15) Although nothing was ever said, I knew that ny nother and grandmother were deeply troubled by my decsison. In World War One my Uncle OScar, had gone to france, with the American Friends Service Committee and worked with the red cross as an orderly...I am sure that this was the lind of service tey had hoped I would choose. It as a difficult descion for me to make, but I felt that I culd not sit back while my country was being attacked. The problem with Quaker pacifism , it semmed to me, was that it could only work if one were fighting a civilsed, compassionate enemy. In the face of hiler and Tojo, pacisfism haf not only failed to stop violence--it actually played into the hands of a barbarous foe and weakened home-front morale. (33)
16) he spends about the same time talking about his poker then he does about his break with the SOF
17) nothing after that--though we have 1000s pages to go.

sorry--they are photoprint with a laquer overlay--resulting in a deeply pop shininess--this silly ridicouls oversaturated colour.

sweets meats sheets
ed ruscha
photprint
edition of 25

succluent filth

"This permanent, precise labor of documentation and denunciation, this molelike activity, this is what interests me."

--French left-wing publisher Francois Maspero, quoted in Kristin Ross, May '68 and its Afterlives
qouted in konvult

http://www.lmaweb.com/wlacpast.html
one of these days i am going to comment on the idea of eary country music and its connection to found, occupational sounds--like wilf carters yodelling and cattle calling--the link above, is a fanastic collection of auctioneers callers, winners of a national competetion of livestock callers, and its fucking amazing--almost impossible to write a bout its tension between common, functional, aesthetic, and ritualised speech.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/05/31/judge_gives_offenders_option_of_church/?rss_id=Boston.com+/+News
jds forced to decide b/w jesus and jail--so fucking wrong, and really old fashioned (these are just now sources of outrage, because homogenity is breeched.)

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050528/D8ABUAU80.html
i need to know more about the economic implications of this

http://in-souls.com/
xian kitsch

the hammer musuem is having a huge comic show, survey mostly--18 artists, not all indie and not all pervert suits, looks solid, and recently MOMA in new york has aquired several pornographic drawings, for their collection, including Zak Smiths painting of a sucide girl, a rather tame but handsome tom of finland--actually almost nude, and some crumb--coming from a couple of different sources, including the judith rothschild collection.

my concern then, is having all of these liminal places, ephermeal drawings, intended to be under the counter, reflections of id and ego, of bogeymen and real fascist power, of genres who were dangerous, made safe and clean and insttuional--its already happened to crumb, who has gone from a kind of wrath filled counterinstinctual back stabbing hater of all things common to a crotechty old man, and i see that moma isnt for example collecting tom of finlands the orgies and fist fucking--and zak smith is hi art so hes tame anyways and the collection is really 3 out of 2500 hundred or so but t here is that concern there, of castration.

i want (and i know this is impossible) to have some hope about the way the world is run---i want to have some consitent set of ethical guidelines that actually accompany the way the world works, and the more information i get, the less that seems possible.

>Patty Loveless
>Richard Thompson
>John Denver
>Graham Parker
>Dwight Yoakam
>Bill Frisell
>Faron Young
>Jon Randall
>Brad Paisley

i think what i am saying is that i am sick of having what ever fate i have dependent on other people--still getting over the calvinist instincts of my forefathers. slow and steady wins the race.

its a third into the year. and it just feels like im chasing nothing--submitted poems to a journal in nebraska, and another in ontario, gave todd a list of issues and reissues i would like for the next three months, edited and talked to blair, etc about this curatorial propasal i am getting involved with, took more notes and did more reading on the book, which i am finally starting writing, did some more pitching, got my resume together---so its not like im not busy, but its all notes and pitches and prep and spec and sorting, and filling and applying--four months into 2005 and i have written a dozen essays, 20 poems, 10 reviews, taken about 200 fotos im realtivley proud of, blogged on three sites, and read about 50 books (latest is still acting gay, star fucker, american studies, two highsmith novels, a book on coperality and the american political scene, and two small poetry collections--most of these on the bus back from vancouver) and so its not like im not working--constantly, im a fucking ox, always chewing his cud, and i have not published nearly what i wanted to this year, gone far enough in what i wanted to do, not done what i wanted fully, its complicated, because i am good at what i do, and thats not enough, and i know its not good enough...and i guess what im saying is that the constant grind will eventually make the iceberg cubes for the manhattan---its just gonna be a long time.

maybe this post is for me to say--wait--i have worked, constantly, and well fuck, buck up and keep doing it.

the books that the american neo con journal human events include as dangerous show a distinct lack of imagination (15 people voted--sounds commie to me ;)

here is there list, and my suggestions for further reading, for what i have read.

Communist Mannifesto

it apparently is worse then the one below it, because communism killed more people then anythinf else, well the old trope is true, that would be the case if anyone bothered reading the fucking thing--reading it again, certain contemparary critics have noticed the explicit similarties b/w this text and adam smith--and consdering tht he was correct about the abuses of unfettered capitalism, im assuming its on the list becuase of residual guilt that victorian sweatshops

More Dangerous: Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations; any of Stalins foreign policy papers.

Mein Kampfh

If Hitler depended entirely on this book, it would not have gone very far, its a unreadable mess. (though no. 2 in Turkey right now. It is about his use of mass media, spectacle, and his genius at scape goating jews--he just finished the job western eeurope had been t rying to do for 1900 years.

More Dangerous: Protocols of the Elders of Zion, anything by Leni Refienstahl

Little Red Book

Actually this one is pretty fucking dangerous, might make it into my top ten, esp. for the excurtaingly stupid naievetee of post 68 radicals having it in every house in the west.

Kinseys Report on Human SExuality

The problem with Kinsey is that he spoke out of school--shit like this happened from the beginning of time, it will continue until the end of time. It happens in the wild, it happens in civilazation--people fuck goats, children, other humans; people rape and people kill. He had a v. explicit, almost priggish, sexual morality, concerned with consent---that is all we can do to control our urges, make sure it is done w. safe and sane consent--and it is better to be informed then not to be.

More Dangerous (well Raebalis comes to mind, but thats too early)--the fantagraphics collection of Tijunana Bible Reprints from the 1900s to the mid60s.

Dewys Democracy and Educaton

The most famous of a series of texts making education a series of social rather then pedalogical goals--actually encouraged open discourse, communication, intelligent and well constructed dissent and a certian pragmatism. All of the values the founding fathers had, w/o the nasty racism. the org is scared because it encouraged clinton.

More Dangerous--Summerhill, giving kids power and democracy on top of that, was read and written on from everyone in the time that clinton went to oxford--if you demand an american, go to margaret fuller or william james, they wil ltell you the same thing.

Das Kapital

see my entry on the communist manifesto.

More Dangerous: Edward Baines, The History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain--almost unread now, at the time of marx's printing, it was the best selling apologia for the free market, and has sections in favour of things like kiddie labour, gives a solid example of what marx was working against.

Femmine Mystique

she went a little heavy on the rhetoric, but she was still nice and from the suburbs, no danger of revoultion, no worry about anything but her sharp tounge--the list blames her for the end of the glorius housewife. They obv. havent read the real ball busters.

More Dangerous--Dworkin-Sexual Intercourse, Valerie Solonas--SCUM Manifesto, Ti Grace Atkinson, Angela Davis, Germaine Greer--Femmine Eunuch (which sold better and told more then Friedan), Monique Wittig, Judith Butler (theory head, but both on the vangaurd of destroying essentalist gender--something friedan never attempted.)

Comtes Positive Philosophy

havent actually read it.

Beyond Good and Evil

i think more and more that neitze was less of a fascist, then a radical empiricist w. an bdsm realtionship towards personal autonomy and the state. thats why uncle michel loved him so much.

More Dangerous--Of his time--Rosseou(sp)

Employment, Interest and Money

the reason why the social democroatic left in the west is failing is that they have abonded (sp) things like state ownership of utlities, using their power for massive growth projects, geniunely progressive taxation esp. copretaly, etc. Keynes was right--he saved America at least twice (40s and the 70s). The recent homophobic gut punching (fags dont care about families, fags will ruin the economy, keynes was a fag--runs the line) forges something v. basic, because fags dont have families, and because the poor cant depend of family money, and because family is so deeply defined and redefined, we cannot expect anything but a communitarian ethic--keynes fagness meant that he believed that family could not take care of its self--and personal work meant that the larger community was nto taken care of--the thing that is dangerous about keynes is that he deeply underestimated the states natuaral tendeices towards authortian control, and its losign communitarian ethics v. quickly.

More Dangerous--Fuykama and The End of History--Keynes had a wide ranging, historical, and liberal education, which centered on an understanding of the cyclical history of history, and the larger boom and bust that comes from empires. Fuykama is an arrogant apologist for the new kings.

The Population Bomb

not dangerous, because it is mostly wrong--underestimates the presence of diease as a control mechancism. bad pop pysch-recent emographic suggests the population is actually levelling off.

What Is To Be Done
Lenin
actually fairly dangerous--if you are going to plan a small and badly contained revoultion, actually make sure that you can pull if off to the end of history, or you get free healthcare but no medicine.

The Authoritarian Personality
Adorno--I actually dont like this, and think he tends to be wrong, and there were better writers at the same time, saying the same thing, with out the heavy and kind of silly marxism--and i think his refusal to find subversion in domineint (sp) texts dishearting--i do think that conseratives find it scary because it either a) tells their secrets b) hits too close to hoome.

More Dangerous--Hannah Arendt could actually write what most people could read, has an astute pyschologicla profile, and is v. good at the implications of all sorts of statecraft--but is not really a culture worker. Try her Banality o f Evil anyways.

On Liberty

I am assuming they have a problem with utlitarationism, which seems to be a fairly conserative philisophy--only consider the impt stuff, make sure the most happiness can happen to the most people for the most effiecent resources, a calvinist taste for thrift...

if you want a real radical--read about the Diggers, or the LEvellers, or even Bentham--Miller was too comfortable to do anything really dangerous.

Beyond Freedom and Dignity

i am suprised to find skinner on this list--his tendency towards social control seems to be the exact thing that these folks would be into--creepy little motherfucker who refused to tell the difference b/w a rat and a man-the most dangerous book on this list.

Reflections on Violence
The Promise of American Life

havent actually read either of these

Origin of the Species

the death of god, though he was a theist. the rise of mans animal nature, though he was a pafcfist.. a carefully considered theory, placed gently, and with much doubt--the ideas that were mentioned here are really not that dangerous--unless you think young earth creationism is legitmate. (gould wrote that darwin made everyone equal, everyone had the possiblity of coming form the same source, and sectraian violence would be absurd otherwise.

Madness and Civilization
for being the most dominant thinking in the last half of the 20th century, you would figure uncle michel would be closer, and this one--against the authortian state, towards personal autonomy, viewing civilazation at the end of the 20th century, may seem nihillist--but it is a deeply hopeful work, trying to perserve something, a decade after the second world war ended everything.

More Dangerous--these folks tend to hate posties--because it tells us that langauge and ideas are not innately connected, and that we have to work for things to have meaning--but this book doesnt really say that--birth of the clinic, history of sexuality, discipline and punish all say it better--as do derrida, lyotard and buidlallard (who makes fun of america besides)--i am suprised more didnt make it onto the list and this work wasnt higher

Soviet Communism: A New Civilization

exceptionally stupid book from the mid 50s, that presents the ussr as a utopia, the progressive left believed it--which might have something to say about the eligous nature of utopias or the drunk donkey approach of the left. actaully would put it on my list.

Coming of Age in Samoa

continued the idea of the noble savage, continued the idea of a perfect idyliic wilderness, continued the idea of conalism as intergration, silly enough to not know when she is being laughed at, badly written, badly constructed, gave birth to a million hoaxes, forgets the history of western interferencei n samoa since cook, hated book in certain athropolgoical circles--dangerous for all of the reasons above. why is it on this list.

Unsafe at Any Speed
back when nader wasnt crazy, the car blew people up when bumped in minor fender benders--encorouged companies to be responsible for their prducts, hated among the right for inciting a flury of law suits--most convenient some not.

more dangerous: the telephone book (the ad on he back page since my child hood has been for an ambulance chaser)

Second Sex

we will know if the work is as dangerous as we think it is when it is translated into an edition that vaguely resmebles her orginal work--ghost wrote large chunks of sarte, who like most stalinists was deeply boring, and horribly self important.

Prison Notebooks
have not actually read it.

Silent Spring
the only reason why we do not have three dicks and no robins is that this work was written, creating the epa, and encourgaging some vague work on not fuckign up the world as quickly as we had.
more dangerous--jane jacobs, i am convinced the recent destruction of brooklyn for a football stadium is delayed revenge for not getting an expressway.

Wretched of the Earth
havent read it.
Introduction to Psychoanalysis
even this freudian doesnt have the energy to defend freud--but try william reich or jaque lacan.
The Greening of America
havent read it
The Limits to Growth
havent read it.
Descent of Man
the more dangerous, and more explicit of the two darwin books on the list--reading edward o wilson puts the dread