Mary with a Coat Hanger
From Boredon, via the brilliant tatooed blog, Needled.
take this as one of those times i consider blashpemey holy.

A woman from nashville star last night yodelled and sang a bit of patsy montanna and was not evicted (she wont last of course, nashville is new country, and new country has no history)...but she was good. here here is a singer called elizabeth mcqueen, shes not bad at all, and i could imagine her yodelling (as did the singer on nashville

five soilders beat the shit out of some faggot in north carolina...the other side of the fort bragg gay porn story, and another reason why dont ask dont tell is untennable.

handmade masks worn by pretty boys, strange, erotic, with elements of childhood games, arts and crafts at summer camp, pink narcissus, and sunday morning boredom, because the masks tend towards nose peices, they attach themselves to a freudian tradtion v. loosely, and do not have the sinister, transformative, fetishistic, antropolgical terror that can be found in much mask work, they have a tender, careful, silliness, and i appreciate that. worth a click. (like the radical craft conference in pasedena this month, the work im doing for banff, allyson, etc)



this poor moose, shot near oslo, because he threatened to derail a passenger train. it makes me sad, though sentiment and anthropolgozation makes us forget danger.

which reminds me

47) Atwood Penepoloid
it wasnt bad (she has never written anything bad, though blind assasian comes v. close) but its not very good, or not very funny. it seemed padded, the same points made over and over again, and she doesnt flesh out homers absences as much as she should have been. they should have given this one to carson

16 things that happened in the last 72 hours

1) hung out with gerard and jacob
2) there was sledding involved
2a) i am in horrible shape, and jacob is a quiet kid, but socialable in a way that i hve never been really able to be.
3) went over to gerads house
4) had dinner, saw some of claires art, talked to his mom, talked about god, borrowed books, ate dinner
4a) soup, salad, roast beef, vegetables, roasted potatos, apple crumble, ice cream.
4b) fuck was it good.
5) went to mass
6) saw lydia, graham, cam, jerry, amongst others.
6b) lydia is teaching, graham is UASU Pres, jerry is engaged.
7) Bittner gave an amazing speech, about power and love--i kept thinking about when bittner said, love is more impt then power in the works of paul, and i dont think thats true, reading derrida again about it, and about how power, mercy, strained and unstrained, i think that the rub is where infinte universal YHWH meets/interacts w. an eglitarian, humbled jesus, the mystery of something g. called it...must get back to him about it.
8) im nervous about meeting with graham, he likes me lots, and he appreciates my company, but i am never sure exacty how to talk to him, a bit of a politican, a bit gaurded, but shrug.
9) drove home and talked about being queer/catholic with gerard, and how isolating mass can be, and how erotic it can be as well (and not only b/c i want to fuck everyone in the room) and about how i dont trust my own body, and how god seems to come in and out in odd places and odd times, im in the midst of another god time...
10) marys funeral was on monday, mary is my grandmothers sister.
11) saw chip and barb, connected ray to chip but talking to him is a lot like talking to the mystics, different language, different power, and my inner marxist comes out screaming. talked to grandma a bit, she did the why are you doing that, keep doing t hat one two ninja psyop punch that makes me feel like shit. talked to scotts new wife, who was much too familar much too quickly, and sort of supportive, but frankly i dont need her support, and talked to scott. had several meltdowns, blisterbombed dad, grandma, the rest of the company, depression back.
12) big seizure (first seizure of any kind in weeks)
13) read and looked thru frielanders book sticks and stones, im settling into what it means, but one of the most impt books of photosgraphs ive looked at since maybe american surfaces or the new orleans fridge one. repositioned how i felt formally to my fotos, realised that my street photos are much more culturally/socially rigous.
14) got math books from rays mom, i have to set an hour a day to do that, cause if i dont they dont get done, methodically.
15) more money stuff with dad, but it comes down to his shit, his nerousis and mental illness and his inablity to get shit together, and finally settling into it not being my fault.
16) did some work for tcaf, and they really liked it, no money but excellent contacts.

friday will be a fone day.

this got the editor of the U of Sask paper fired, usually the sheaf is pretty boring

its impossible to wank to internet pornography when ratzingers introduction to xianity and mckinnon's collected essays are on the desk beside you.

just warning you.

From the Floor posted these, from the fielder gallery, of a german called Frank Bauer-unlike most new germans, the prints are tiny, up to a maxium of a meter,(which i think makes them more interesting, the juxtoposition, and i like that small prints are making a comeback)

from warehouses: (these are fantastic, cause they are so simple, its really hard to make things that big, that pure, things always get in the way, and this is the way the opposite of people like freidlander, maybe im just wondering about messiness, and concept and my photos)




from containers (compare the pure formalism, the shape and colour, and repetetion in these to judd like post minimlaism, and against seductive, imagist politics of people like burtynsky)



from telephone poles
(the smallest, b/w 30 and 50 cm) (and the latest, the messiest)

Liberal attitudes towards the other are characterized both by respect for otherness, openness to it, and an obsessive fear of harassment. In short, the other is welcomed insofar as its presence is not intrusive, insofar as it is not really the other. Tolerance thus coincides with its opposite. My duty to be tolerant towards the other effectively means that I should not get too close to him or her, not intrude into his space—in short, that I should respect his intolerance towards my over-proximity. This is increasingly emerging as the central human right of advanced capitalist society: the right not to be ‘harassed’, that is, to be kept at a safe distance from others. The same goes for the emergent logic of humanitarian or pacifist militarism. War is acceptable insofar as it seeks to bring about peace, or democracy, or the conditions for distributing humanitarian aid. And does the same not hold even more for democracy and human rights themselves? Human rights are ok if they are ‘rethought’ to include torture and a permanent emergency state. Democracy is ok if it is cleansed of its populist excesses and limited to those mature enough to practise it.

Zivek

I have been mildy obsessed with Ricky Nelson of late, because of how sweet/gentle/innocous his voice and reputation is (cf Ozzie and Harriet) . There is the strangely passive agressive Garden Party, one of the nastiest fuck you I used to be famous songs of course, but even better is a song called Last Kiss. Unlike most other teenage death/car crash songs, this one has much more detail. Fantastic and grisly detai. In a voice that sounds like milk and cookies--the best lines:we were out on a date in my daddys car/we hadnt driven very far/there in road, straight ahead/the car was stalled/so I swerved to the right/so i will never forget the sound that night/the grinding tires/the busting glass/that i heard last" There are also the lines about his babys warm blood, and how "shes gone to heaven, so ive got to be good/so I can see my baby/when I leave this world"--it actually is more melodramatic then that, almost more melodramatic then any of the girl groups.

it seems such a cliche, but has anyone written about the death impulse in these songs, the realtion between fucking and dying, in the cultural atmosphere before rock and roll, or in the safer edges of rock and roll?

(Sidenote: has anyone worked the dates b/w the golden age of the gore/exploitation dead teen in car song, and the golden age of the gore/exploitaiton dead teen in driver's ed film--are their any over lap?)

(sidenote ii: has warhol seen these?)

james wagner posts this photo, he took, of kenneth anger, who used to make films (what ever happened to his mickey mouse doc). he is now doing neon signs, and finally (at like 70something) made it into the whitney:

some things i want to write, and their status:

1) Three essays on Thomas Kincaide (Fredrick Church, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol)
status: pitched the 2nd third to fillip and n+1

2) an essay on hiway photos, tracing the narrative from document to art and back again (not rest stops, or things on the sides or gas stations or anything like that--but actual, you know roads)
status:some research

3)that essay on horror remakes and the crisis of patriachal heterosexism
status:pitched to rue morgue, have to watch movies (amityville horror, the hills have eyes, texas chainsaw..., house of wax, dawn of the dead, the fog) can you tie this to korean/japan or is that overkill

4) solidify brokeback as a destablizing movie about rural duty and the punishment any of sexual desire
status: lots of research, writing some notes, waiting for the dvd on 3/4, ask geoff if he wants to co-write it, piggyback his academic connections, cause he thot about writing something like this on his lj

5) an essay on louise lawer and the implications of public/private space
status:some research, most likely will be a blog entry

6) two discussions of strauss
a) the difference b/w the close textual readings of derrida and strauss, irt issues of god, esp. the role of isaac
status: almost nothing
b) the problems with the obsession the kaballah, springboarding on this qoute fom anne nortons book: leo strauss and the poliitcs of american empire: Anyone who has spent time among the straussians knows their passion for puns, for partial qoutations, and allusions, made to carry an insult of simply as a form of amusement. You will have seen them count chaperts or the number of things in a list. Thgey are given, especially the lesser ones, to a facinaton with gamataria. Gamatria is a kabbalistic practive which assigns significance to numbers. The numbers may have reference to things in the natural world (one's two eyes or ten gingers, to convention (the twelve months in a year, the seven days in a week), to year, to verses in the bible, to special numbers like 3 or 9 or to the numbers of letters in the name of God (13x13 pr 139) When i first heard Struassians saying things like "there are three chapters and three parts, and three times three is nine." I felt rather as if i had heard them casting runes, or reading Tarot Cards. I asked my teacher whether people took this seiously. All too seriously it turned out. For half an hour or so he regaled me with stories of silly things people did with gamatria. He finsihed up by pulling out an article. Look at footnote 139, he told me."One hundred and thirty nine!" I said, "Why so many footnotes in a single article" HE always has at least that many" he told me"so that he can mention himself in 139..."(103-104)

serious, mystic, post literate view of the text, not being silly, comes from the obsession against anecdote and 2nd or 3rd Sources, spent so much time on words on the page...

(side note, i am a failure at my lenten promise)

a note on anne norton:
her personal narrative telescoped into larger issues of gender and race, plus telling tales out of school, and pointing out the elements of irrationality, etc would explain her dismissal by FF--i just wish that if she was going to gossip (which can be a good/nessc. thing cf Butler) she would actually do so--to much fucking respect, and not enough of the tin hat brigade (i keep thinking that Dick's total pyschotic breakdown is a more and more reasonable reaction to those in power---things ray said about setient machines, etc come to mind.


photo projects:
an edmonton alphabet, caging from evans, for the epl
a prarie home companion (domestic,still lives and landscapes richard billingham style, polaroids, 35 mm and digital prints) for foundation in la
industry (hi colour, poetic remakes of hilda belcher, digital, need to shot lots of it)
continuing the photos of light switches, tempature gages, etc (for whome?)
all of the various things that the NC Unesco residency needs

curratorial things
send 100 stags to moss street in victoria
best of flickr, amatuer night thing, for lat maybe
a show of small opulent paintings and drawings, about pure formal concerns, historically minded, outside irony or good bad painting (the anti dana shutz)

reviews
music:
josh logan(sp)
roy kaestens
that nifty swedish hurdy gurdy thing

art
that thing for fillip
something for flak
maybe that mask peice,

school
ref letters
ACT
call about disability issues

med stuff
masey
daphene
sanderman

other stuff
toronto (david)
parole
35/mo for rogers
reaply for aish
rewrite, perhaps the anarchy peice
bring back packages
talk to erik about film (shoot then edit)
the janet cardiff thing
tax info to ray

things im waiting for
prefix
spaced
the independent polaroid guild
fillip
banff
hoard magazine
edd
pitchfork
post road
snap:toronto
gallery 44
contract and cheque from robin

100 Stags
A curatorial proposal

There has been a ubiquity of the deer motif in recent culture. Not only the great taxidermied stags, but depictions of super cute fawns, or coquettish does as well. This does not connect to just one stream of ideological or aesthetic thought, but comes from all corners for all purposes, in most media and for a variety of politics and aesthetics.

They can be conservative indications of survivalist tendencies (hunting magazines and catalogs) or radical critiques of institutions (Amy Stein's C-Prints of natural history museums) or gender (Ann Craven paintings of does). They can be super butch (Paul Koepikin, taking photos in a Billings Montana Best Western) or hopelessly twee (the recent fawn toys made by Sanrio). They can be strange and new (the psychedelic floral intertwined with cut-outs) done by Hanna Wearing) or the end result of hundreds of years of traditions (the Irish Royal Elk emblazoned on t shirts by Squidfire) They can be lo-fi like recent rave posters done for Minnesota clubs and they can be the height of slick post-modern commerce (the video sequel to Bambi).

That's the best thing; they can be everything for anyone. In the last five years you saw men and women from dozens of countries making deeply personal or deeply whorish depictions of deer, meaning anything. It evades theory and it evades aesthetics. In my research I have found taxidermy, graphic design, stuffed animal, couture, suit jackets, t shirts, a dozen different kinds of photography, performance pieces, videos, paintings in every size imaginable, posters, flyers, prints, drawings, hand knitted, sewn, crocheted, and stuffed crafts, collage, wall paper, and various other materials (horn, silver, pewter, wood).

People like deer, and they see more and more of them when suburbs edge further into disappearing wilderness. I think the explosion of all kinds of deer motifs, in all sorts of places, in all sorts of politics, is a way of finding out what cities mean. They are amongst the best adaptors for invasion of cities, and they are cute or regal or beautiful or sublime enough that the real damage they are capable of isn't often known. I want us to start thinking about deer, what deer mean to the larger urban/suburban/rural dynamic.

I want to find 100 different examples of this deer motif, each of them symbolizing a different media, done by artists in cities, in suburbs and in rural areas. Items that have been hand made, made in small quantities, and mass-produced commercially. I want to combine high art, low art, tasteful design, and kitsch. I want to walk into that back room of Magic Pony, and be overwhelmed to the point of blunt silence, away from ironic kitsch, decorative skill, boredom or overkill. I want pictures of hunters as much as I want children's toys.

In actually getting together 100 fawn/stag/does on the walls, I hope to destabilize taste, decentralize people's patterns of cohesion and thought, and to perhaps foster new kinds of thoughts, away from the ghettos of clichéd represtentation.

the image below is A Witch Riding on a Phallus, an etching after a now-lost design by Francesco Parmigianino, 1530s,

duke is publishing next year, a book of critical essays on thomas kincaide, which means that the one im working on wrt him and church, for the book, may be easier or may be more difficult...heres some 16th century porn to make up for it

here are some images of architechture in iqualit, nunavut
eatery
airport
cathedral
research station
from the anasuchus kirscher soc.

thinking about walk the line again, i realised that johnny cash was the one performer in america that i hadnt read anything negative about--about his treatment of vivian his first wife, his makkinig up shit in his autobiographies, his messianic tenencies, his religous strangeness, and even his voice or music. this struck me as odd, and so i was somewhat releived that ian somn finally wrote the essay to do all this, while still admitting he liked the bastard...

large portions of the world have finally achieved basic ZPG The interesting thing is, that the population bomb era folks who thought this wasa good idea faile to realise any of the larger issues that this might mean, including religous, political, social, family, and personal. The return of the patriachy may be one of these, according to the neo con foreign policy kournal, but i think a more organic merging of bio/non bio famiies may be more realistic. anyways read the link, its worthwhile context

long interview b/w Butler and DElany

historical essay on pysops and porn, in wwii/korea/veitnam, from both sides, with many pictures.

ny times is reporting that female prisoners in labour have one or both legs shackled to hospital beds, against medical advice.

problems the academy might have with brokeback
a) the movie was set in the flyover
b) the presence of sexual content that is both same and opposite gendered, meant that it was difficult to process using tools that are already fairly common
c) the movie refused a standard vicitm naarratology
d )the rural folks were not enemies, the honest portyral w/o exoticism of the west,
e) i dont think that the left liberal elite understand themes like sacrifice for others, honour, the abjection of ego, and dereliction of duty.

"real" becomes less so when filmed, deciding what to depict and what not to, is impt--and capote played into the sterotypes. i really did think that capote (the man, and how psh played the man) was a minstrel act and the whole line about him being pyschopathic because killing the boy he wanted to fuck made a better story, fit into that whole peter lorre noir genre, and was an easy role and him winning set things back

(a similar problem i had with his roles in flawless, and boogie nights amongst others)

i remember being in this thrift store in toronto, last time i was there, and johnny was playing, tiny place, 5 people in the store, 2 employees, every fucker in the room started to sing when ring of fire was playing...and i was just reading rednecks and bluenecks, the political book on country music that was out last year, and there was this line about how both neo stalinists and john birchers both thot he was on their side politically. and all that charisma, that bone deep leading by example, i could think of a thousand other examples, and none of it comes thru in walk the line

Tim Barber, From Tiny Vices:

Contributing Artists Include:

Lesley Arfin, Patryce Bak, Tim Barber, Jordon Bennett, Boogie, Ali Bosworth, Kenneth Cappello, Dan Colen, Scott Conarroe, Michelle Cortez, Mark Delong, Vincent Dermody, Chris Dorland, Anthony Easton, Shane Ehman, Louise Enhorning, James Erdeg, Diego Fernandez, Leo Fitzpatrick, Ryan Foerster, Alessandro Formenti, Jason Frank Rotherberg, William Galindo, Philippe Gerlach, Kava Gorna, Jeffro Halladay, Bala Heller, Eleonore Hendrix, Jerry Hsu, Gordon Hull, Sanya Kantarovsky, Ryan Kearney, Thatcher Keats, James Kendi, Richard Kern, Una Knox, Tuomas Korpijaakko, Jessie Kotler, Kim Krans, Gregory Krum, Gary LaChance, Jeff Ladouceur, Fabien Laurent Foureault, Leigh Ledare, Jason Lee, Scott Lenhardt, Gina Liberto, Jimmy Limit, Andrea Longacre White, Glynnis McDaris, Ryan McGinley, Jamie James Medina, Alex Morrison, Jason Nocito, Patrick O'Dell, OODA Group, Christian Patterson, Jaret Penner, Brad Phillips, Ben Pier, Brett Pittman, Caitlin Teal Price, Bobby Puleo, Max Ryazansky, Aurel Schmidt, Robin Schwartz, Jeremy Shaw, Asha Shechter, Dan Siney, Thomas Stavnes, Jane Stockdale, Peter Sutherland, Jamie Taete, Ah Kee Thiang, Jonathan Thiang, Lucas Thorpe, Kon Trubkovich, Yu Ukai, Brian Ulrich, David Uzzardi, Jaimie Warren, Martynka Wawrzyniak, Jason Wurm.


The show will also be featured in the Spencer Brownstone Gallery booth at the Armory Show: March 9th - 13th. Piers 90 & 92, New York, NY.

Emphasis Mine

i really like this photo, i took it: