Paul Ford, Rock Star

Paul smashes his guitar of truth into the speaker tower of fiction, finally revealing to the world that he is Gary Benchley, Rock Star with a book deal–and a reading next Thursday in [where else?] Williamsburg:

As the serial progressed I stopped laughing at the people who wrote in to Gary to share a few details from their lives and began to feel a kinship with them. Like them, I had come to believe in Gary Benchley, in his struggle to get a band together and make a life for himself in New York City. I began to see the people who wrote to him as co-conspirators in the prank rather than its victims.

I Am Gary Benchley [themorningnews.org]

Hallowed-er Than Thou

Map of discovered remains from the WTC site, prepared by the FDNY and the NYTimesPartly because an International Freedom Center founded by George Bush’s old friend and business partner wasn’t a reassuringly hagiographic enough puppet, but mostly because it was personally expedient for them to do so, George Pataki and a dogpile of other sanctimonious politicians suddenly decided to defend the “hallowed ground” of the WTC site’s “memorial quadrant” by banning the IFC altogether.
“Memorial quadrant”?? If only the limits of this farce were as clearly delineated. How is that quadrant any more “hallowed” than the other eight-plus acres of the site? It seems like only yesterday that the “footprints” were the sacred squares that had to be defended at all costs.
How and by whom was this quadrant defined? By the MTA, who cordoned it off in an effort to keep its sacred revenue stream as more than just a memory. And to whom are the MTA and its proxy, the LMDC, beholden? To the governor who just undid their three year’s work on the IFC and the master plan “in a stroke.”
Are we done, then? Is this enough hallow now? The last three years’ of machinations around the WTC site have reduced hallowedness to a negotiable, political commodity, apparently measured in square feet. Everyone involved in this process, from Pataki to Burlingame to Clinton to the slew of unions, has dishonored and demeaned the memories of the people attacked–and the people killed–on September 11th.
Pataki Bars Museum From World Trade Center Memorial Site [nyt]
[update: now that THAT’s out of the way, the Port Authority has announced it will develop the first 500,000 square feet of retail on the completely unhallowed sections of the WTC site. This section, called the “Mall Quadrant,” is across the to-be-extended (and equally unhallowed) Greenwich St. from the “Memorial Quadrant.”]
Officials Reveal Retail Plan for World Trade Center Site [nyt]

The Gleaners And LA

One of my favorite documentaries–and one that suckered me into making films myself–is Agnes Varda’s 2000 masterpiece, The Gleaners And I. [it’s $27 at amazon.]
It turns out that there’s an obscure gleaning law on the books in Los Angeles, and harvesting fruit that hangs over public property–like streets and sidewalks–is perfectly legal. There’s a website called Fallen Fruit that puts together neighborhood maps for anyone who wants to get to picking. [via boingboing]

Neither Wind, Nor Rain, Nor Dark Of Night

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 DV cam at a moment’s notice when Barney the dog makes a break for it across the snow-covered White House lawn.
He can light up Jackson Square–and the road to it–bright as morning while the rest of New Orleans sits in darkness.
But for some reason, he can’t make sunny San Antonio look enough like a hurricane zone to get George Bush a walk-on on The Weather Channel, much less the lead story on the network news:

When Mr. McClellan announced that the president had scrapped his trip, he said that with the search-and-rescue team preparing to move with the storm, “we didn’t want to slow that down.”
Another White House official involved in preparing Mr. Bush’s way noted that with the sun shining so brightly in San Antonio, the images of Mr. Bush from here might not have made it clear to viewers that he was dealing with an approaching storm.

Bush’s Crisis Itinerary at Mercy of Weather, Even Nice Weather [nyt]

I Haven’t Even Finished This Yet

I recall being seized by a pressing need not to let anyone at The Los Angeles Times learn what had happened by reading it in The New York Times. I called our closest friend at The Los Angeles Times. I have no memory of what Lynn and I did then. I remember her saying that she would stay the night, but I said no, I would be fine alone.
And I was.
Until the morning. When, only half awake, I tried to think why I was alone in the bed.

After Life, by Joan Didion, excerpted from her upcoming memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking [nytmag]

All Things Considered, I’d Rather Be In Passaic

I guess there’s some…irony? justice? synchronicity? between Robert Smithson’s non-site works–pieces of far-off locations displaced into a gallery–and twiddling your thumbs at a boring* Smithson symposium in a college auditorium while the last 36 hours of the artist’s Floating Island tick by in gorgeous, sunny, autumnal splendor.
Net net: forget the next three sessions of the symposium (maybe they’ll be podcast), and get your butt to the river to watch the barges go by.
[*although one potential bombshell was dropped, it went seemingly unnoticed. In answer to the moderator’s question about ever rebuilding the Spiral Jetty by allowing new rocks to be piled onto it, the artist’s widow and executor Nancy Holt didn’t reject the idea.
There’s precedent, she said, because Smithson sometimes instructed Holt or other friends go get rocks for his pieces. He didn’t privilege the hand of the artist, she said. True, perhaps, but only partly relevant; more to the point is Smithson’s own intentions for the effects of entropy on the Jetty, not whether he had to be present to dump the rocks. The other factor is how to deal with increasing touristification of the site, which now gets tour buses and up to 100 visitors/day.]

All Things Considered, I’d Rather Be In Passaic

I guess there’s some…irony? justice? synchronicity? between Robert Smithson’s non-site works–pieces of far-off locations displaced into a gallery–and twiddling your thumbs at a boring* Smithson symposium in a college auditorium while the last 36 hours of the artist’s Floating Island tick by in gorgeous, sunny, autumnal splendor.
Net net: forget the next three sessions of the symposium (maybe they’ll be podcast), and get your butt to the river to watch the barges go by.
[*although one potential bombshell was dropped, it went seemingly unnoticed. In answer to the moderator’s question about ever rebuilding the Spiral Jetty by allowing new rocks to be piled onto it, the artist’s widow and executor Nancy Holt didn’t reject the idea.
There’s precedent, she said, because Smithson sometimes instructed Holt or other friends go get rocks for his pieces. He didn’t privilege the hand of the artist, she said. True, perhaps, but only partly relevant; more to the point is Smithson’s own intentions for the effects of entropy on the Jetty, not whether he had to be present to dump the rocks. The other factor is how to deal with increasing touristification of the site, which now gets tour buses and up to 100 visitors/day.]

Re-Visiting MoMA’s Re-installed Contemporary Galleries

greg.moma reporting: The Modern has reinstalled the contemporary galleries on the second floor, and it’s an invigorating pleasure and a huge improvement. Seeing it again yesterday with my mother, I found myself paying less attention to the show’s conceptual and art historical underpinnings [Kelley’s and Ray’s juxtaposition with the Viennese Actionist photos of a doused bride, for example] and more to its sensory pleasures [or, in the case of Nauman’s cacophanous drum/rat maze piece, its assaults].
You don’t need to write for October to appreciate the nods to respective senses: the visual saturation of Yinka Shonibare’s batik costumes in front of Dana Schutz’s giant painting; the aural power of Janet Cardiff’s 40-Part Motet*; the threatening touch of a dense carpet of pins (which echoes nicely the greyscaled image on Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ billboard); or the leaching of sensory inputs as you move through a gallery of black/white works (including Yayoi Kusama’s photocollage of dot paintings, a Richter-scale masterpiece, if you ask me) into James Turrell’s inky darkness [where you’re immersed in red light, of course.]
While it’s nice to see MoMA has important works like Marina Abramovic’s early video and Charles Ray’s prop pieces, it’s even better to see them exhibited in coherent, engaging way that signals the museum isn’t tone deaf when it comes to contemporary art.
* Cardiff’s choral piece was last shown in NYC at PS1 in October 2001. It was an overwhelming, mournful piece then when the city was still in shock; yesterday, I found myself choking up repeatedly and involuntarily as I walked around it. Cardiff didn’t set out to create a memorial to September 11th, but for some of us, her work seems destined to remain inextricably linked to the immediate aftermath of September 11th. [here’s what I wrote about that first installation.]

Smithson Symposium Saturday 9/24

New York Is Smithson Country this week, what with the Floating Island and the Whitney retrospective and the Smithson Symposium all day Saturday. What symposium, you say? Actually, that’s what I said. I had no idea.
Anyway, over four sessions, artists, curators and historians will discuss the Spiral Jetty, Smithson’s writings, films, travels, and influence [HUGE, in case you can’t make it]. Me, I’m going to hear Nancy Holt and folks talk about the construction and evolution of the Jetty; and Chrissie Iles and Joan Jonas talk about road trips and film.
Schedule and reservation info is in the sidebar at Whitney.org [whitney.org]
Smithson on greg.org [or greg.org on Smithson, actually]
Bonus Smithson: Tyler Green reports from the launch of Floating Island for the LAT

Speaking At A.I.R. in Chelsea Tuesday 9/20 at 630pm

I’ve been invited to speak Tuesday evening (tonight) at A.I.R. on the subject of women’s art and the marketplace. A.I.R. is the oldest artist-run gallery for female artists in the city, and it was established for the purpose of fostering an audience and environment for showing and making art without the overriding commercial motivations that usually accompany gallery-based work.
It’s an interesting venue to discuss these subjects, which I wrote about last spring in the NYT, especially in light of the current, superheated art world/market where quality is often equated with marketability and desirability. Jerry Saltz just wrote (again) about the need for an antidote, when most people don’t even acknowledge that there’s a disease right now, at least in public. I may end up just reading Jerry’s piece and opening it for questions [kidding].
If you’re around 511 W 25th st, suite 301 this evening at 6:30-8:00, stop by, listen, and throw in your two bits.

Night A.I.R. Series, organized by A.I.R. Fellow Sarah Blackwelder [airnyc.org]

The Revolution Will Be Catered Very Well

This is apparently going down tonight, 9/18. I hope someone called craft services. Remember, you heard it here third:

The Los Angeles Lunar Society advocates the secession of Venice from the city of Los Angeles, and does not preclude the use of revolution to achieve this end. However, many Lunar Society members are involved in work of one kind or another for the Hollywood dream factory and we were therefore forced during August’s full moon meeting to recognize that a Venice revolution might interrupt some production schedules.

–An Army Of None [theresalduncan.typepad.com]

So Long, Farewell

UCLA Medical Center is the epicenter of the Los Angeles basin or something. Robert Wise died there this week at 91.
In between editing Citizen Kane and flacking for Scorsese’s Gangs of New York [Scorsese was a big fan, so I’m sure it’s fine], Wise also directed The Sound of Music, West Side Story, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Star Trek: The Motion Picture…
Not a super-auteur-y guy, but in a good way. The Hindenburg,he directed The Hindenburg….
NYT Obit / imdb / previous greg.org fawning