tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53856742024-03-13T22:25:31.461-04:00ffactoryCultural criticism and commentary on the arts, literature, and politics.billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.comBlogger145125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1144810976430402672006-04-12T17:01:00.000-04:002006-04-12T17:03:49.840-04:00The 2006 Whitney BiennialMost writings on the 2006 Whitney Biennial focus on the canny way it reflects the “apocalyptic mood at the moment,” or on its above-board internationalism. Michael Kimmelman, in the Times, says that one of the exhibition’s unstated goals “hop[es to] recalibrate the image of the art world as something other than youth-besotted and money-obsessed.” The Village Voice’s Jerry Saltz calls Day for billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1142190855093337532006-04-05T23:46:00.000-04:002007-03-09T21:42:30.020-05:00Death DiscoThe joke, of course, may well be on me if fifteen years from noweverything on the radio sounds like this.But it wouldn’t surprise me too much.—On Second Edition, from theAugust 1980 issue ofStereo ReviewPiL performing “Death Disco”“Top of the Pops,” 21 July 1979Simon Reynolds’s justly hailed (and newly released, stateside) Tear It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 [the book’s website is herebillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1144250832343012622006-04-05T10:56:00.000-04:002006-04-05T18:41:12.513-04:00Opening dayBefore violent (and then brisk) spring weather returned to Baltimore yesterday, nature bestowed a few short hours of warm temps to Camden Yards as the Orioles got off to a winning start in 2006 by defeating the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 9-6. (As I have said for a few days now, the battle for fourth place in the AL East has been joined.) Twenty-two-year-old lefty phenom Scott Kazmir started for the billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1143859966464145692006-03-31T21:47:00.000-05:002006-03-31T21:52:46.476-05:00Rumbling...Y’all: I’ve been gone for so long that I thought it prudent to tweak the look, so that folks could tell, at a glance, that something had changed. I’m not really sure I like it, but it’ll do until something better comes along.In the meantime, things are a little funky—some of the layouts are off, and I'll be nipping and tucking most of the weekend, I expect. Happy to be back!billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1132097846566182502006-01-10T12:04:00.000-05:002007-03-10T07:15:10.869-05:00Ffalling down.It’s hard to believe that folks are clamoring for posts, but clamor they do. I’m back from a busy end-of-year, the new year in Los Angeles, and rarin’ to go, but duty calls: I fly to dusty Ft. Worth for a business trip this eve, and, upon my return, drive my beloved to Nashville this upcoming weekend. Top tens, and more, next week—I promise.[A Bawlamer locution, for those not in the know:] Happy billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1127364567301380522005-12-12T11:41:00.000-05:002007-03-10T07:25:50.142-05:00Sacred spacesIn the November issue of the Urbanite (pdf here), Zoë Saint-Paul looked at “The Sacred City,” a topic that we discussed when she was writing the piece, and one that I found provocative once she got me thinking about it. I am always on the lookout for peaceful places in Mobtown, but it doesn’t take long to see that the quiet and the sacred are not one and the same. At the time, I jotted down some billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1132940206790650572005-12-02T07:26:00.000-05:002007-03-10T07:27:16.325-05:00More camo“Camo Day” photos (more)A second collection of odds and ends from the camouflaged world (part one is here, although you can likely scroll down the page a little to see it).First up is the popularity in American secondary schools of “Camo Day,” where students and teachers dress appropriately [inset left]. Any Camo Day googling will quickly uncover a story on the Spurger [Texas] school that was billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1133440703692049032005-12-01T07:36:00.000-05:002007-03-10T07:28:47.157-05:00Bawlamer happeningsConnery and HedrenA while back I wrote a little piece on Hitchcock’s Marnie, and how it was filmed on a little street in SoBo; in the comments, there was a short discussion on how parts must’ve been filmed on a sound stage, and other vagueries. Well, ff received an email yesterday from one Mark D. Phelps, who lived on Sanders Street when the movie was being fashioned. From Mr. Phelps’s note:I billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1132933603372773412005-11-30T02:20:00.000-05:002007-03-10T07:30:09.274-05:00Polish trifectaAndrzej Wajda’s Ashes and Diamonds has all the hallmarks of a difficult European movie: it is concerned with an unfamiliar postwar history, produced under strictly controlled Stalinist oversight, and filmed with meager resources. Yet Popiól i diament is accessible, visually sophisticated, and startlingly modern. Some background, from Criterion’s entry on the film:In 1999, Polish director Andrzej billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1132693336552517812005-11-23T00:16:00.000-05:002005-11-23T11:02:35.880-05:00The spotted opossumI happened upon this site that examines the history of exploration of Australia whilst looking for opossum engravings—really!—and was able to establish that the European settlement of the continent began at the time of our constitutional convention (in 1787).Spotted Opossum, Peter Mazell;hand-coloured copper engravingfrom Voyage of Governor Phillip toBotany Bay by Arthur Phillip(Rex Nan Kivell billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1132352583309153732005-11-18T17:22:00.000-05:002005-12-03T09:46:06.810-05:00City of lightsAds from the 1950s:0 1 2 3 4Crikey. I’ve been working long hours this week, and haven't gotten enough downtime to polish off the longer pieces that have been in the hopper for too long already, but a few short notes ere I fly to Nashville this eve.Cindy passed along the following from Stumps, a company that specializes in products for planning proms and other similar events. In the 1940s, they billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1132116591872281492005-11-15T22:28:00.000-05:002005-11-16T11:16:15.000-05:00“The Worst Record Covers of All Time”Genesis’ FoxtrotWhy do hipsters reject Genesis? Animal Collective couldn't try any harder to mimic them, from the prog-jamming down to the stupid album art.—Brent DiCrescenzo“The Worst Record Covers of All Time,” on Pitchfork[via Troy]billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1131728599467407752005-11-11T12:35:00.000-05:002007-03-12T23:58:02.446-04:00Camouflage surveyIt all started with a great score from Daedalus, a book I’ve been looking for for some time: designer Hardy Blechman’s Disruptive Pattern Material: An Encyclopedia Of Camouflage (Firefly, 2004—it had previously been available only under a British imprint) for a cool $30—go and check it out at the source, or see Steven Heller’s review in Eye, or the one in Boldtype. Zeitgeist.And then, in rapid billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1131663184973823182005-11-10T17:18:00.000-05:002005-11-10T20:25:56.863-05:00New BüKsBuy it at the BüK ShopHey, kids: remember that nutty Valerie Solanas? Before she shot Andy, she published the S.C.U.M. Manifesto, an anti-male polemic—“her radical tract is a stunning salvo in the age-old battle of the sexes”—that has recently been reissued by the folks at BüK.And what is a BüK? It… …is an inexpensive pamphlet—just $1.49—containing one provocative essay, short story, portfolio ofbillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1131656229514431272005-11-10T15:57:00.000-05:002007-03-10T07:32:15.498-05:00Production upI’ve finally been able to shake off my writer’s block and have several columns that will go up tonight and tomorrow through the weekend [sample topics: literary Darwinists and television, camouflage, Blaze Starr, mystical video, and humility]. In the meantime, though, admire this remixed poster from the blog of the National Association of Manufacturers, whose “Wednesday Poster of the Week” billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1131642394746609452005-11-10T12:06:00.000-05:002005-11-10T16:11:39.776-05:00“Grunion runs have ended for this season.”So declares the Los Angeles Times’ latest “Fish report.” The California Department of Fish and Game provides grunion porn: Grunion leave the water at night to spawn on the beach in the spring and summer months two to six nights after the full and new moons. Spawning begins after high tide and continues for several hours. As a wave breaks on the beach, grunion swim as far up the slope as possible.billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1130767604593562092005-10-31T08:58:00.000-05:002007-03-10T07:33:14.648-05:00Trick or treat?Boo! (and must the Times publish such tiresome stuff?)From Postmarked Yesteryear: Art of the Holiday Postcardbillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1130505926201179872005-10-28T09:17:00.000-04:002007-03-10T07:34:22.380-05:00Kinsley on PynchonYou can't knock the names, though. Above all, there is the wonderfully Pynchonesque Valerie Plame.—Michael Kinsley, from today’s op-ed on the “bewildering scandal of the moment.”billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1129846346064227912005-10-20T18:12:00.000-04:002007-03-10T07:36:08.901-05:00Baltimore’s best bookstoresWoman with kangaroo, from theSeptember 1963 National GeographicIn our faire towne, there are too few bookstores to award the titular honor to any establishment—we need more, and better bookstores, dammit—but I wish to plug two local places that don’t get their fair share of praise: the Book Thing and Daedalus Books (in Columbia, but who’s counting?)…A little over a week ago, I visited the Book billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1127319952273232362005-10-20T16:45:00.000-04:002007-03-10T07:44:50.441-05:00Pop music in the autumn“[The record] ha[d] somehow gotten into this town by mistake.”—Harry Smith, on his purchase of a recording byMississippi bluesman Tommy McClennan, around 1940Even as I’ve been struggling to read and write over the past few weeks—something that always happens after the final push at the journal I edit; after many weeks of reading, revising, copyediting, and proofreading, What enquiring minds want billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1128514640153309862005-10-05T15:26:00.000-04:002007-03-10T07:45:37.382-05:00Hate the playaI finally got around to Monday’s installment of “Laguna Beach” last night, and it was terrific (as usual). The ep opens with Jessica and Alex H., bikini-ed and at the beach, discussing—well, what they always talk about: Alex H.: What’s that saying? It’s like, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” Is that how it goes?Jessica: “Don’t hate the game, hate the player.”A: “Don’t hate the game, hate billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1127851862539095112005-09-27T16:06:00.000-04:002007-03-10T07:46:41.566-05:00Freakin’ brilliantA frame-by-frame analysis of Blue Velvet at Digital Poetics [via Coudal]. Frame 28 [look closely]Update: Site has been pulled down, alas. [cws::29Sep]billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1126673908287153892005-09-20T12:07:00.000-04:002007-03-13T00:30:41.219-04:00St. Eustace, Athanasius Kircher, and wonderToday is the feast day for St. Eustace, the patron saint for hunters and those in difficult situations; he plays a small role in the literature of wonder, primarily for the lasting fascination of Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher with the Roman-general-turned-martyr.Detail, The Conversion of St. Eustaceat Mentorella; from Historia Eustachio-Mariana (1655)(For those of you who make it to Los billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1127030151420654782005-09-18T03:07:00.000-04:002007-03-10T07:53:34.518-05:00Bad magsTom Brinkmann’s site for Bad Mags, a book “due in 2005,” is such a train wreck you might find it curious that I’m citing it as rich in design resources, but there it is.Dig deeper: there’s an impressive collection of sixties and seventies zines, sorted by category (Sharon Tate, true crime, occult sex, bikers, punk, blue films) and by publisher (I’m unfamiliar with their names—Seven Seventy, GSN/billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5385674.post-1126623288733626772005-09-14T00:09:00.000-04:002007-03-10T08:56:06.604-05:00More on Arab TVStudying a foreign language in middle school was a virtual Rosetta Stone for me: all of a sudden I was endowed with a pretty good framework to apply in English, too. So this cartoon, by Hindawi for al-Ghad, might serve as an eye-opener for those who pooh-pooh the medium. From right-to-left—this is an Arabic-speaking audience, after all—we see the three types of Arab television viewers: those billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15201227059002249777noreply@blogger.com0