August 21, 2010
Awesome. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library contains several elaborate sets where visiting elementary school students re-enact the invasion of Grenada. "[I]n keeping with Mr. Reagan's first career as an actor," the Wall Street Journal writes, presumably without irony, "the Reagan...
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Posted by greg at
3:09 PM
May 28, 2010
Colorful, cheap African textiles: they're not just for Yinka Shonibare anymore! Called Pagne in West Africa and Kanga [also khanga] in Tanzania, 1x1.5m screenprinted cotton wraps are produced all across Africa. There is a tradition to make commemorative kanga...
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Posted by greg at
9:43 AM
March 16, 2010
From a 1983 New York Times profile of up-and-coming artist/photographer Cindy Sherman:One day several years ago, in the studio of David Salle, who borrows extensively from the media, Miss Sherman saw a soft-porn magazine photograph of ''a housewife looking sexy''...
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Posted by greg at
9:40 AM
January 21, 2010
You start pulling on a thread, and you never quite know what starts to come out. For some great stories about the Washington Gallery for Modern Art and "The Popular Image Exhibition," reader JA suggested, I should really check out...
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Posted by greg at
10:52 PM
January 12, 2010
I've had a research question simmering on the back burner for a while, trying to figure out what the history of modernism and contemporary art have been in Washington DC. Partly, it was the dearth of good modernist architecture that...
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Posted by greg at
4:41 PM
November 20, 2009
Angry crowd surrounds a fleeing Sarah Palin bus and shouts, "Sign our books!" and "Quitter!" You go to the bookstore with the mob you have, I guess, not the mob you want. priceless angry comments on rumproast via @felixsalmon]...
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Posted by greg at
1:19 PM
November 18, 2009
Now the truth can be told, says Lisa Kline, the New York corporate stylist who was called in on a moment's notice over Labor Day weekend by the McCain campaign to provide clothing and hair and makeup for, first, Sarah...
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Posted by greg at
8:47 PM
November 4, 2009
I guess I can understand if the White House saw the rightwing faux-controversy over Alma Thomas's Watusi (Hard Edge) as an unhelpful distraction, and it's not like the country elected Obama to be curator-in-chief, but that doesn't mean their...
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Posted by greg at
11:43 PM
October 10, 2009
I guess it doesn't matter anymore that I don't see why the White House's art borrowing is news now, when almost the entire list was already published and discussed four months ago [and many weeks before that, too]. Because...
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Posted by greg at
1:23 PM
October 7, 2009
News that the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth acquired a painting by Charles Sheeler of the Boulder Dam sent me looking for more, and guess what I found? Sheeler's painting is one of six commissioned in 1938 by...
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Posted by greg at
3:44 PM
September 5, 2009
W. T. F.??? The National Mall is ringed with Smithsonian museums, none of which seem to have programmed a piece of public art or sculpture outside their own walls in at least a generation. Washington DC has no public art...
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Posted by greg at
10:40 PM
August 4, 2009
Before I realized that if I wanted to see an exhibit of a 100-ft silver balloon, I'd have to make it myself, I was still just ruminating on art I hoped/wished someone would make. One of those projects I...
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Posted by greg at
12:03 AM
July 23, 2009
Wow. This is a commercial for Cellcom, an Israeli cell phone provider. Check out the [so far unacknowledged] original, "Yeah, yeah, We speak perfect English. Just Serve," a documentary short made by Wholphin editor Brent Hoff and Josh Bearman...
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Posted by greg at
2:48 PM
July 21, 2009
Damn, but that is one fantastic propaganda billboard. James Hill shot it for the NY Times. Apparently, it's in Abkhazia, and the two guys are the presidents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two breakaway provinces of Georgia. LAXART curates an...
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Posted by greg at
2:56 PM
July 19, 2009
Left behind on the moon:This commemorative plaque, attached to the leg of the Lunar Module (LM), Eagle, is engraved with the following words: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July, 1969 A.D. We...
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Posted by greg at
9:40 PM
June 9, 2009
P060709PS-0038, originally uploaded by The Official White House Photostream. That would be the President and all his men getting a private view of the Pompidou's Kandinsky retrospective, as seen in the official White House flickr stream. Also: Calder; Goncharova,...
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Posted by greg at
3:27 PM
June 4, 2009
Incredible updates to the Tank Man photographs story from yesterday's NY Times Lens blog. After twenty years of just telling friends about it, Terril Jones, a former AP reporter who had been covering the Tienanmen Square demonstrations for several weeks,...
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Posted by greg at
11:55 PM
June 3, 2009
The NY Times' Lens blog has absolutely riveting accounts of the four journalists who shot photos of Tank Man, the still-unidentified man with two shopping bags who confronted a column of People's Liberation Army tanks rolling into Tienanmen Square...
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Posted by greg at
7:31 AM
April 1, 2009
Tyler Green turned his critical shredder on the National Gallery's new group of Thomas Demand photos depicting his life-sized re-creation of the Oval Office:The result is a photographed stage set of a stage set used by the United States...
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Posted by greg at
10:19 PM
March 16, 2009
Like everyone else in the country, I was glued to the screen September 11th, 1998, scrambling to download the massive Independent Counsel's Report, aka the Kenneth Starr Report, from a still-scrawny Internet. I finally printed my copy in time for...
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Posted by greg at
1:42 PM
February 11, 2009
Google Earthworks-meets-Sforzian Backgrounds? This is Jorge Rodriguez Gerada's Expectation, a 650-ton sand painting of Barack Obama on the beach in Barcelona. Here's the site, just next to the Forum de les Cultures. Not only was the mockup done in...
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Posted by greg at
5:07 PM
January 27, 2009
The week before the Inauguration, Errol Morris called the White House photo editors of the major wire services and asked them to choose and discuss the photos "that they believe captured the character of [George W Bush] the man and...
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Posted by greg at
12:57 PM
January 21, 2009
I've been collecting a bunch of Last Sforza Posts in my browser tabs for a few weeks now; they just kept coming, but I wasn't in the mood. Then I thought I'd put together some grand summary of the Bush...
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Posted by greg at
9:34 AM
December 16, 2008
A spectacular image by Reuters photographer Yiorgos Karahalis of a rioter in Athens. Until Joy Garnett gets around to it, the full-size version at the Big Picture is the best way to see it....
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Posted by greg at
11:17 AM
November 26, 2008
"She could be the most natural, visionary poet since William Blake." I would lose the comma; isn't "visionary poet" a job title all its own? [via TMN]...
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Posted by greg at
8:48 AM
November 20, 2008
a friendless GWB at last week's G20 summit, set to sad music. [via gawker]...
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Posted by greg at
2:28 PM
November 5, 2008
In 1988, a police riot broke out at Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. Police beat, among others, people defying a 1 AM curfew imposed by Mayor Ed Koch in an attempt to curtail, among other things, late night...
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Posted by greg at
9:14 PM
Palin screenwriters take note: the industrious reporters at Newsweek have spotted you an easy 100 points on your Scene and Dialogue Plausibility Test. Also, bonus shower scene!: "At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the...
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Posted by greg at
4:56 PM
October 30, 2008
Heh. My friends, this is drunk dialing we can believe in. [macdaddyworld via sullivan]...
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Posted by greg at
3:55 PM
October 24, 2008
Just because you read the syllabus for Sforza 101 doesn't mean you get credit for taking the course. The secret of the human wallpaper backdrop is that it works best if you have either uniformed military or a racially...
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Posted by greg at
6:45 PM
Awesome and funny. Or, I would like it to be funny on November 5th, anyway: [via sullivan]...
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Posted by greg at
1:14 PM
October 22, 2008
OK, I started picking at Politico's $150,000 Palin Family shopping spree on Daddy Types. There was an obviously inaccurate claim that the GOP had spent $295 on a sweet ride for Trig Palin at a baby store called Steiniauer &...
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Posted by greg at
4:18 PM
October 20, 2008
No one can argue slavery had an upside, but this Wall Street Journal video is about as good as it gets. Some Of McCain's Black Relatives Support Obama [South Florida Times via wonkette]...
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Posted by greg at
9:42 PM
October 16, 2008
"For as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on earth is my story even possible." I just bought Jonathan Hoefler's poster from the Barack Obama store. If you hurry, 4799 more of you...
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Posted by greg at
12:50 AM
October 7, 2008
Two essays, each interesting and thoughtful on its own, crossed my desk this morning. I think they're inter-related. First from the always spatially aware Geoff Managh on the seemingly irrational landscapes of presidential campaigning:...President Bush had stopped off this morning...
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Posted by greg at
1:00 PM
October 3, 2008
2008.10.02 - 538 VP Debate-9, originally uploaded by Brett 538. There are a few folks with Magritte-esque, absurdist posters outside the Vice Presidential debate tonight. Though, "Mo' Monkeys, Mo' Problems" is sweet, I think it unfairly singles out monkeys....
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Posted by greg at
12:32 AM
September 25, 2008
John McCain lied to David Letterman, and Letterman is pissed. John McCain called Letterman personally to cancel his appearance on the show last night, claiming he was rushing right back to Washington to save the economy. Then he went...
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Posted by greg at
7:49 AM
September 5, 2008
"This is the place that matters." And this just gets better and better. Walter Reed Middle School served as the backdrop for the presidential candidacy of Democratic congressman Matt Santos--as played by Jimmy Smits on West Wing. West Wing...
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Posted by greg at
2:12 PM
As a student of Sforzian backdrops, this scenario being discussed here is almost too... and yet... Did the GOP really use: - an image of the main building at Walter Reed - only it's not the Army's Walter Reed...
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Posted by greg at
7:33 AM
September 3, 2008
Laura Bush tells the audience at the GOP Convention that a new life awaits them in the off-world colonies. [image: Damon Winter/NYT. He's got a great one of Fred Thompson, too]...
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Posted by greg at
8:22 AM
September 1, 2008
There's no photo credit, but I'm assuming that Gawker scanned this image of Gov. Sarah Palin from an issue of Alaska Interiors. I hope McCain keeps her on for a while, this is awesome....
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Posted by greg at
12:49 PM
August 31, 2008
Don't mind us, We just need to borrow The Big Board for a minute to take some pictures... ...and to see how Roddick's doing. No, no, don't let us bother you. You just keep looking like you're working." From the...
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Posted by greg at
10:48 PM
August 29, 2008
Arrivederci, Sforza....
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Posted by greg at
1:15 AM
August 23, 2008
"The guys from The Politico brought her [my mom, Cindy McCain] flowers, which I still think is the most adorable thing ever, so thank you. I thought it was so cute that they decided to bring my mom flowers,...
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Posted by greg at
11:51 AM
August 15, 2008
I haven't been paying too close attention to the imagery of the current presidential campaign, but looked at through a Sforzian lens, the McCain campaign stop is mind-bogglingly bad news. The photographs are from McCain's daughter Meghan's campaign blog which,...
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Posted by greg at
9:37 PM
July 10, 2008
Wow, just wow. Paramilitaries forming the five rings and [apparently] performing the haka? Competitive hurdle-sawing? SWAT teams on Segways?? From the photos of Arirang-style military and police parades staged in cities around the country in advance of the Olympics,...
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Posted by greg at
4:06 PM
May 1, 2008
The hand that picks the nose shakes the hand that rules the world. For another seven months. [ap via wonkette]...
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Posted by greg at
4:12 PM
March 18, 2008
A couple of months ago, I was contacted by producers from Backlight, an investigative documentary TV series on the Dutch public broadcaster VPRO. They were trying to locate and interview Scott Sforza for a program set for the 5th anniversary...
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Posted by greg at
10:57 PM
February 29, 2008
Alright, does anyone have a screenshot of the victim? Apparently, the AP erroneously reported at 6:35EST that Bush resigned over, of all things, plagiarism. It's like getting Capone for tax evasion. whoa, it's 2 min, later, and it gets even...
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Posted by greg at
7:50 PM
December 20, 2007
There's nothing I can say that isn't already said by the licensee:We are pleased to introduce you to 1600 for Men®- Formulated with the finest of ingredients including naturally derived botanicals and skin enriching vitamins. 1600 for Men™ is...
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Posted by greg at
9:59 PM
August 21, 2007
At a recent conference talk on magic given in Las Vegas, Teller [the quiet one] gave the most amazing definition of magic I wish I'd heard before writing about Scott Sforza for Cabinet Magazine's magic issue:[Magic is] the theatrical linking...
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Posted by greg at
6:43 PM
July 22, 2007
Good to see he's taking a brave stand against the one museum that isn't contemplating opening an annex on the west side of Manhattan, though. You stay strong, Mitt. [image and scoop: tmz.com, story and aide's inane excuse for...
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Posted by greg at
7:38 AM
July 21, 2007
I only discovered the Chinese government's published evisceration of Michelangelo Antonioni's 1972 documentary Chung Kuo - Cina after I thought I'd finished my Cabinet article on Scott Sforza. Jonathan wondered if Susan Sontag's On Photography might have a relevant...
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Posted by greg at
11:06 PM
July 19, 2007
Can I just say, I've reached a point in my life where I don't know what's left to accomplish? I mean, how can I top the thrill of getting to write for Cabinet Magazine? I just don't know. I've had...
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Posted by greg at
11:15 PM
April 19, 2007
Blogging software :: printing press Pillow case :: digitally printed vinyl Sforzian Backdrops elaborately arranged by White House advance team. Wow. [via nyt]...
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Posted by greg at
6:11 PM
April 10, 2007
Even though I know that the official White House photographers work inside the bubble, and hence, can often shoot around and through the Sforzian setups that so masterfully entrap their nominally independent wire service colleagues, it always floors me...
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Posted by greg at
9:43 PM
April 5, 2007
1. When the backdrop to a GWB speech about Iraq war funding is literally Dick Cheney lurking in the bushes. [via towleroad]...
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Posted by greg at
12:27 AM
March 16, 2007
Have I been reading too much David Foster Wallace, or would these Brazilian army riot shields make awesome venues for the right advertiser? [image via knuttz.net]...
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Posted by greg at
7:56 PM
March 3, 2007
Come sparando pesci in un barilotto. Remember September 10th! # # # Before he was the Mayor of 9/11, he was the Mayor of New York City....
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Posted by greg at
11:59 AM
October 22, 2006
Bronx, NY, 2004, Funeral service for Sgt. Luis Moreno Paul Fusco began photographing the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq in 2004 as a "personal protest against government attempts to downplay the costs of war." It's not the...
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Posted by greg at
9:06 PM
If liberal bloggers start seeing The Gay Conspiracy everywhere, too, does that count as progress? Because that's the prevailing interpretation on Americablog for the Sforzian Backdrop of this Stephanopoulos-Bush interview [hot George-on-George action?]. That rainbow flag-looking thing hovering over...
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Posted by greg at
8:53 PM
October 11, 2006
From very early on, the media's real problem in Iraq was not covering the success stories even when they were happening right in front of their faces. Take this glowing example from the heady, hopeful days of the Coalition...
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Posted by greg at
12:56 PM
October 7, 2006
Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee ignored one of the cardinal rules of stage performance: never appear with animals or small children. I don't know what Reynolds was saying; I couldn't stop watching the Sforzian Backdrop...
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Posted by greg at
10:36 AM
October 2, 2006
Ever since it was first revealed by, I believe, then-National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice during the 9/11 Commission hearings, I've been bugged [no pun] by Bush's reaction to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda's threat, that he was "tired of...
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Posted by greg at
1:34 PM
September 13, 2006
There is actually discussion online that this photo has been Photoshopped and that GWB didn't actually step on the flag during a photo-op visit to a September 11th memorial near the WTC Site. Sorry, it's very real. Reuters photos...
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Posted by greg at
5:15 PM
September 9, 2006
Or in Larry Silverstein's case, Fumihiko Maki. [ap/yahoo via gawker]...
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Posted by greg at
3:11 PM
August 21, 2006
I remember reading some analysis of mob phonetapping transcripts, and the gangsters were constantly preoccupied with how closely they ressembled movie Mafiosi like The Godfather. The authenticity of Coppola's creation had usurped the once-authentic originals who had inspired him...
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Posted by greg at
3:56 PM
August 2, 2006
John McKinnon reports in the Wall Street Journal that the White House Press Room is getting a studio-sized makeover, including direct feed video capability and a video wall [as seen here at U2's Zoo TV tour]:"Both the planned video...
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Posted by greg at
6:38 PM
July 13, 2006
Looks like it's Michele McNally, deputy photo editor for the New York Times' turn to pooh-pooh reader questions this week:Q. As the Times has reported on one occasion, the Bush administration has been singularly aggressive in shaping and staging angles...
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Posted by greg at
10:29 PM
July 11, 2006
Unbelievable. Aided only a 40-oz., and using only a reference-letter-seeking grad student as a nervous sounding board, Steven Heller turns out 5,000 words of derision for the "lackluster," "atrocious" design of Sforzian Backdrops ["all the subtlety of a PowerPoint presentation...
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Posted by greg at
2:19 PM
June 29, 2006
Wow, can you imagine Ronald Reagan as a bad guy? Here he is in The Killers getting punched by one of his henchmen, played by John Cassavettes. I-- wow. Ronald Reagan John Cassavetes Duel [youtube via wmfublog via rw]...
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Posted by greg at
9:51 PM
June 10, 2006
It just takes one or two photos to remind you that long before there was a Scott Sforza, the British monarchy was using elaborately staged pomp and ceremony to bedazzle its subjects and keep them line. On another note,...
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Posted by greg at
1:30 PM
June 8, 2006
Wow, if there was any doubt about where the contemporary art market is going, they were dispelled this morning at Christie's Baghdad, where the US Government paid a record-setting $286 billion--plus $240 for framing--for this portrait of the dead...
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Posted by greg at
12:17 PM
June 2, 2006
"D.C. at Low Risk of Attack, Federal Agency Says" - headline on the front page of today's print edition of the Washington Post, an article about why cutting DHS funds to DC and NYC by 40% is just fine....
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Posted by greg at
3:04 PM
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Comments (0)
May 26, 2006
What we need in this scene is a very dramatic showdown over separation of powers. Perhaps we could all pretend to argue amongst ourselves over some picayune case, preferably one that involves a corrupt Louisiana Democrat. That way, not only...
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Posted by greg at
10:34 PM
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Comments (0)
May 10, 2006
I realized when I grabbed this screenshot, I didn't capture the actual GOP disclaimer, which disclaims any affiliation between the Republican National Committee and Apple Computer. Still, given how hard it was to believe that such a thing as...
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Posted by greg at
2:47 AM
May 1, 2006
I don't know what was more hilarious: Stephen Colbert's speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, or the not-at-all-amused faces on some of the folks in the crowd at his unflinching criticism, which was delivered, of course, wrapped in Colbert's...
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Posted by greg at
12:03 PM
The House of Representatives, that is. Here is a long lens snap of Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert climbing out of the hydrogen-powered minivan he'd just appeared in at a "we feel your gas prices pain" photo-op--and into his...
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Posted by greg at
11:34 AM
April 21, 2006
When I heard the NPR report of all the pomp and ceremony and symbolism on display during Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the White House yesterday, I expected the news service photos to show a classic Sforzian set, with...
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Posted by greg at
10:22 AM
March 14, 2006
Do I have readers in the Green Zone? Did somebody somewhere write a memo? Because Saddam's crib used to be white, and now it's painted brown. [image: ap/bob strong via yahoo] Previously: American Dream: Astroturf and a White Picket...
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Posted by greg at
1:30 AM
March 4, 2006
Josh Marshall gets in on the Sforzian Backdrop fun by noticing the similarities between GWB's post-Katrina speech in Jackson Square, and his nighttime speech to invited guests only at the zoo in New Delhi. Here's the AP's Gerald Herbert's...
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Posted by greg at
8:44 AM
February 16, 2006
1) That series of Maxwell House commercials featuring badlibs of Madness's "Our House"? HOW DESPERATELY WRONG IS THAT? Someone in Madness's family better need some super-expensive operations that require maximum sellout. Otherwise, they need to be taken to the woodshed....
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Posted by greg at
11:30 AM
February 14, 2006
It hit me again during the Super Bowl: the perpetual motion, 3D overkill design language of on-air TV graphics is in serious need of rethinking. Sundance Channel did something about it, and now CNN International has, too. It'll be interesting...
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Posted by greg at
10:50 AM
January 31, 2006
Unless this was somehow the on-message Backdrop for the day. Let's go to the tape. Look at this wider shot, where the pre-existing monitors have been used for the Backdrop. Somehow, this was intentional. Maybe that capuccino-skinned jester was...
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Posted by greg at
7:48 AM
January 30, 2006
Stockholm Syndrome? Job security? The White House News Photographers Association was so worried about the sharp increase of staged photographs, they undertook a study and filed a complaint about it with White House Productions. Don't get them wrong; they're not...
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Posted by greg at
8:44 AM
January 25, 2006
Yesterday Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was shooting some b-roll at Georgetown Law for this week's WH production [working title, according to the AP: "Bush to Visit NSA for Pep Talk"], but it looks like they ran into some problems...
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Posted by greg at
10:35 AM
Gotta admit, the rather mundane, unimpressive visuals of the NSA's Threat Operations Center are a boost to the secretive agency's credibility. The place looks like utilitarian Government, right down to the bald-ponytailed sysadmin on the front row. The TOC...
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Posted by greg at
9:43 AM
January 23, 2006
Wow, we have entered the Sforzian Baroque period. A GWB "townhall-style meeting" at a moving company in Sterling, VA took place on one of the most soundstage-like sets we've seen in a while. These screened supporter-packed events were very popular...
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Posted by greg at
5:41 AM
January 9, 2006
Because it matters FAR more than you know. You have to be a certain age to remember the shock and confusion of 1977. That was when, just as Farrah postermania had crested, America turned on the TV one Wednesday night,...
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Posted by greg at
8:46 AM
December 2, 2005
Just when you [and by "you," I mean "Scott Sforza"] think it's been a rough month or two, and you're reduced to staging photo ops in a yurt on the backlot of Far and Away, you wake up and...
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Posted by greg at
7:39 AM
November 21, 2005
White House Productions ordered up this backdrop for use at GWB's hotel press conference. As the camera angle in the BBC screenshot above shows, the "China" & "Beijing" characters are perfectly placed to flank GWB's talking head (in the TV...
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Posted by greg at
10:43 AM
October 22, 2005
In his efforts to duplicate Ronald Reagan's political career, he forgot one crucial lesson: watch your back around Nancy. Here's a paragraph from Elizabeth Bumiller's NYT story, "At California Ceremony, Bush Reaches for Reagan Mantle":Laura Bush and Nancy Reagan...
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Posted by greg at
10:06 AM
October 14, 2005
You can fake the accent, you can fake the peppy talks with the troops [oh, actually, you can't fake those anymore, sorry], and when it's off-camera, you can fake being a rancher. But what you can't fake, turns out, is...
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Posted by greg at
11:26 AM
September 24, 2005
He can orchestrate his star to land on the deck of an aircraft carrier--at magic hour--while never letting San Diego in the shot, even though it was just off the port bow. He can dispatch a barebones crew with a...
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Posted by greg at
10:37 AM
September 16, 2005
[images: reuters/larry downing via yahoo; whitehouse.gov] Scott Sforza: I'm gonna put these giant spotlights here in New Orleans, just like I did with the Statue of Liberty on 9/11/02, and if you think the next three years won't be...
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Posted by greg at
11:32 AM
September 14, 2005
George Bush asks Condi Rice for permission to pee, plus zoomed back version and on flickr [reuters/yahoo via waxy]...
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Posted by greg at
8:22 AM
September 7, 2005
As with any big feature production, studio publicists are compelled by a primal instinct for the preservation of their own power to attempt to control any and all information coming from the setAt first the evidence was scattered and anecdotal....
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Posted by greg at
10:21 AM
September 5, 2005
GWB: 'Only you Republicans get to see these here 6-day-old maps.' Wes Anderson did it with Bottle Rocket, and it's since become a classic indie scenario: you shoot the short in order to get funding for the feature. Turns out...
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Posted by greg at
7:39 AM
Bush went to Louisiana again today to shoot some more footage of grateful evacuees. Governor Kathleen Blanco traveled with him, although she had only first heard about the trip from reporters. Seems no one from Washington bothered to coordinate the...
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Posted by greg at
6:35 AM
July 5, 2005
At least in public, anyway....
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Posted by greg at
12:18 PM
July 1, 2005
About that 8-minute short subject documentary showing at the Lincoln Memorial, the one about all the people who use "America's Soapbox" to protest in support of their causes? Well, the Religious Right screened the first cut, and they loved it,...
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Posted by greg at
1:04 AM
June 11, 2005
From the imagemaking insurgency at the Associated Press: Army Aims to Catch Up on Recruits in Summer [wp, img jamie roper, ap]...
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Posted by greg at
11:05 AM
January 15, 2005
Don't quite know what to make of this: For a town-hall-style pitch for phasing out Social Security, G. W. Bush's hand-selected audience included Josh Wright, a representative of "the youth movement," who is also a Utah dairy farmer (and son...
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Posted by greg at
8:28 AM
December 17, 2004
Or 'U', for that matter. Or Anybody. And after Scott McClellan gets through explaining, America will think we're the ones who've been misspelling 'Challanges' all these years. [thanks, Tyler] Bush's Social Security Phase Out Summit [Yahoo News] Related: I...
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9:36 AM
December 8, 2004
I'm a bit crazy with an offline deadline, so I'll just give you your assignment: Starting with the prospect that wax does not, in fact, melt when submerged in the fiery pits of hell for all eternity by a wrathful...
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Posted by greg at
11:16 AM
December 5, 2004
Bush has been haunted by the Ghost of Churchill before he went to Canada. Seriously, though, is there some kind of running bet among the wireservice photographers, whoever discovers the exact shot Scott Sforza has designed for them first,...
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Posted by greg at
10:37 AM
November 2, 2004
Scott, you got me again. I first marveled at photos of this event: "Day-um, Sforza's advance people got in there and repainted that fine barn with that rustic typeface. And here, I thought the entire state had been turned...
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Posted by greg at
9:39 AM
November 1, 2004
Whenever they go to a foreign country, the Bush-Cheney people like to show respect for the quaint local culture, and Hawaii is no different. Dressing the natives in their colorful local garb and dressing the stage with indigenous plantlife? That's...
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Posted by greg at
8:56 AM
October 31, 2004
October 28, 2004
Ah, the end of October. When Bush's multiple obfuscatory attempts to disown a Sforzian Background-related scandal change faster than the autumn leaves. Last year this time it was "Mission Accomplished." This year, well: The Bush-Cheney campaign's final TV ad, aptly...
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Posted by greg at
11:57 AM
October 27, 2004
[Mr. President,] Is it possibleóis it a reality that we could turn on our television sets one dayóFox News Channel I hopeóand find out that America isóthat a nuclear weapon has gone off hereóthat a biological agent has been released...
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Posted by greg at
11:55 AM
This summer, GNN director Ian Inaba had come up with a concept for a music video that could get young voters out to the polls, when he found out Eminem was working on a song to do the same...
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Posted by greg at
1:48 AM
October 26, 2004
Buy me a drink some time, and I'll tell you the long story about why I'm a registered Republican. But not right now. My first film was set in November 2001, the period when New Yorkers, when Americans were still...
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Posted by greg at
11:44 AM
October 25, 2004
Errol Morris's series of John Kerry ads are powerful precisely because they don't use any of the tactics--treacly hagiography, deceitful misrepresentations, fear-baiting, or mudslinging--that are the mainstay of politician-produced political ads. He interviewed hundreds of people who voted for Bush...
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Posted by greg at
10:14 AM
October 18, 2004
Brilliant remix of George W Bush singing U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday [via fimoculous]...
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Posted by greg at
6:22 AM
October 7, 2004
Don't know the editor, but the actors are familiar, and the script, we all know it by heart now ("September 11th, Saddam Hussein, very dangerous, global terrorism"). BoingBoing points to a video that distills the 4-day message of last month's...
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Posted by greg at
1:43 AM
October 5, 2004
Even the weekly, leftwing, activist, downtown media (owned by a religious conservative, suburban billionaire) said the George Bush media masterminds flubbed the debate last week. Late to close, but still wanting to kick the man when he's down, the Village...
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Posted by greg at
4:06 AM
September 5, 2004
Cross? Check. Jew? Check. Gavel? Check. via NYT "President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, told CNN he did not think the podium's decorative woodwork looked like a cross. "'My God, where do they come up with this stuff?'...
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Posted by greg at
5:20 AM
September 2, 2004
I dunno, but from readin' his notes, I have to guess it'd be a helluva lot smarter 'n funnier than what anyone else's doin': "...Sony has apparently sponsored the protests. Everyone has a video camera, and every secondís worth recording....
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Posted by greg at
11:21 AM
So you're saying, if you suspend habeas corpus and pre-emptively arrest hundreds of pedestrians, I'll be able to drive my Mercedes [sic] to the Upper East Side from the Holland Tunnel in 10 minutes every day? I have to confess,...
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Posted by greg at
9:23 AM
August 31, 2004
Stephen Baldwin: "Stephen Baldwin doesnít feel that he has this mission to make Christianity cool...God made me [Stephen Baldwin] cool so that the youth culture would look up to me." NY Mag: We hear youíre going to the Bush twinsí...
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Posted by greg at
9:15 AM
August 14, 2004
Dale Peck, writer/Hatchet man: will periodically leave Soho House to "commit civil disobedience as many times as possible." [via Gothamist] Maer Roshan, magazine non-launcher/editor: will bombard and disorient conventiongoers with daily rundowns on the best plastic surgeons and spa treatments...
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Posted by greg at
9:46 AM
So which way does this go? I mean, I'm a pretty religious guy from a religious, hurricane-prone state, and I can't figure it out: Does getting pounded by two history-making hurricanes mean God is displeased and punishing Bush and his...
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Posted by greg at
9:05 AM
August 4, 2004
from an ongoing series: If his behavior on my flight to Ozaka is any indication, Billy will dress like a 40-year old cop trying to go undercover at a high school. He will sport long, greasy hair, with a ponytail...
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Posted by greg at
2:26 AM
July 29, 2004
Steve Martin said it best: it's all in the ti-MING. ti...MINGming. It's always risky shooting with locally cast talent. But after five tense days, the White House screening room erupted in fits of backslapping and high fives as the rushes...
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Posted by greg at
5:36 AM
July 8, 2004
From: Scott Sforza, Head of Production, White House Studios To: Karl Rove, CEO, RE: Summer Schedule As requested, sir, an update on this summer's production/release schedule. It's filling out quite nicely, and there's no doubt in anyone's mind it'll go...
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Posted by greg at
10:02 AM
July 2, 2004
This is so beyond jumping the shark. At least the shark was jumped on the main show. Colin Powell singing YMCA in Jakarta (he was the construction worker.) is the political equivalent of a bitter, aging Erin Moran, who--realizing her...
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Posted by greg at
11:54 AM
June 25, 2004
On Monday, the Bush-Cheney show had (yet another) location shoot in Ohio. Exec Prod. Karl Rove is guarding the script closer than a CIA agent's identity, it appeared to be (yet another) Bush Liking Black People scene. The production...
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Posted by greg at
1:39 AM
June 22, 2004
"W Ketchup would like to thank President Reagan for his selfless service to this nation. "Reagan won the Cold War, let private enterprise flourish, and most of all made Americans proud to be Americans again... "You donít support Democrats. Why...
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Posted by greg at
7:55 AM
June 6, 2004
Reagan hits his last mark, stumping for the Bush/Cheney campaign Love him or hate him, you've gotta give Karl Rove credit for pulling the plug at the optimal time. He manages 1) to divert attention from whatever new Bush...
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Posted by greg at
11:58 AM
April 10, 2004
I usually confine my viewing of OLN, the Outdoor Life Network, to pen-to-pen coverage of the Professional Bull Riders Tour. But then, like a shiny object dancing before me, on-the-set production details for OLN's Fishing With Roland Martin appeared on...
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Posted by greg at
11:53 AM
February 16, 2004
It's not political theater, even political amphitheater. It's beyond political grandstanding, even though there are grandstands in the picture. It's the political imagemaking equivalent of the chariot race in Ben Hur: Air Force One taking off next to Daytona...
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2:43 AM
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February 5, 2004
No run-of-the-mill PowerPoint banners in South Carolina. No, the money shot of White House Productions' primary mitigation show was clearly the Coast Guard cutter, positioned behind Bush's podium. Forget the boat, though, and go wide. Bush is addressing his...
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11:46 AM
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February 3, 2004
To protest Bush's 2005 budget, the party of Liberal Hollywood ignores the dark art of image manipulation (cf. White House Productions' favorites, PowerPoint wallpaper and carefully positioned crowds of (skin)color-coordinated soldiers) in favor of some intern's clip art. Let's...
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Posted by greg at
10:59 AM
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January 15, 2004
Just a quick Sforzian note of these two Reuters photos, which were side by side on a Yahoo News page this morning: Related: Producer Scott Sforza, who's built a Potemkin village centered around the White House....
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12:39 PM
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December 17, 2003
[via Gothamist] Jimmy Orr, the Choire Sicha to George Bush's Nick Denton, has posted his new short film, Barney Cam II: Barney Reloaded, on his weblog, whitehouse.gov. Elizabeth Bumiller, the Times' specialist on the dependent film industry, gives it a...
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1:29 AM
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November 9, 2003
Over at GreenCine, David puts the Reagan TV movie in perspective; it doesn't sound like it's worth going to the mat for. And instead of reading the 213-page script, I just rebought Joan Didion's NYRB article, The Lion King, and...
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1:10 AM
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October 31, 2003
Since before Elizabeth Bumiller came up with the term for the Times, I was a fan of Sforzian Backgrounds, the news-manipulating slogans created by Scott Sforza, a key member of the White House's advance scenery and production team, for...
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8:27 AM
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July 17, 2003
White House stage manager Scott Sforza better enjoy the attention while it lasts; when the Republican convention rolls into Manhattan next September, er, 1th, they'll be stumping in front of a George Pataki-crafted backdrop, construction of the foundations of the...
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Posted by greg at
8:18 AM
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July 11, 2003
While looking through Yahoo News for a linkable photo of those elephants protesting George Bush's abstinence-driven AIDS program funding, I was happy to find that African Bush has the same production design team as White House Bush and Crawford...
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Posted by greg at
3:40 AM
May 16, 2003
Shoot the conference title from this preset camera position; state seal and flowing flag when allowed to shoot head-on. images:whitehouse.gov Sforzian Backgrounds. So that's what they're called. At least that's what Elizabeth Bumiller's NYT article calls those glib slogan-filled,...
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10:30 AM
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