The Walker Channel

It’s like WPS1, but it’s almost two years old. The Walker Art Center operates The Walker Channel, an online collection of streamable artist interviews and other programming.
This is one prong of the museum’s strategy to maintain and expand their presence while their building is receiving a Herzog & deMeuron makeover.
Most of the recordings are interviews with people I’ve never heard of, and there are no explanations. But there IS a 2002 interview with Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, one of the principals in the cool Tokyo architecture firm Atelier Bow-Wow. They published Pet Architecture, which is a very cool book and site.
It’s simultaneously heartening and depressing to note that this interview with an architect I’m very interested in is almost as excruciatingly underproduced as the early WPS1 bits I whined about earlier.

She Makes Art for Hard Money

So you better treat her right.
Approximately a hundred friends at Downtown for Democracy are organizing a fundraising party and silent auction of works by 35 established and emerging artists Tuesday, June 29, at Passerby.
Buy a $75 ticket to bid (silent auction runs from 8-10:30) or to see the preview (11-6). [And even though Bush & Co are the world’s problem, federal election regulations don’t permit (non-permanent resident) foreigners to give money or bid. Sorry.]
D4D is a PAC mobilizing the arts and creative community to raise hard money to, among other things, clean up the language on the Senate floor.

She Makes Art for Hard Money

So you better treat her right.
Approximately a hundred friends at Downtown for Democracy are organizing a fundraising party and silent auction of works by 35 established and emerging artists Tuesday, June 29, at Passerby.
Buy a $75 ticket to bid (silent auction runs from 8-10:30) or to see the preview (11-6). [And even though Bush & Co are the world’s problem, federal election regulations don’t permit (non-permanent resident) foreigners to give money or bid. Sorry.]
D4D is a PAC mobilizing the arts and creative community to raise hard money to, among other things, clean up the language on the Senate floor.

Curbed: ‘Fear The Lamp’

Curbed has a warning for NYC apartment hunters: “Fear The Lamp.”
Apparently, ARCO lamps–designed by the late Achille Castiglioni–are turning up in real estate listings with alarming frequency. [One possible reason: they’re freakin’ heavy. I had a chance to get one from a b-school friend’s apartment (where, according to the landlady, it had been abandoned many tenants before), but the solid marble block base was too unwieldy to carry down three flights of stairs. I’m sure it’s still there.]
Apartment buyers, sure to ask if The Lamp conveys; if it does, you may get a price break. But if you’re the guy in the apartment without The Lamp, a vintage 60’s version can be found on ebay or wherever for around $1,000-1,500, about half the cost of a shiny new one.

Curbed: ‘Fear The Lamp’

Curbed has a warning for NYC apartment hunters: “Fear The Lamp.”
Apparently, ARCO lamps–designed by the late Achille Castiglioni–are turning up in real estate listings with alarming frequency. [One possible reason: they’re freakin’ heavy. I had a chance to get one from a b-school friend’s apartment (where, according to the landlady, it had been abandoned many tenants before), but the solid marble block base was too unwieldy to carry down three flights of stairs. I’m sure it’s still there.]
Apartment buyers, sure to ask if The Lamp conveys; if it does, you may get a price break. But if you’re the guy in the apartment without The Lamp, a vintage 60’s version can be found on ebay or wherever for around $1,000-1,500, about half the cost of a shiny new one.

GWB’s Black Box Soundstage

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 company has published some pictures from the set on their website. They reveal some useful tips for imagemakers who need to utterly transform an alcohol and drug treatment center into a TV-friendly black-box studio.
First, the basics:

  • Design backdrops with both wide shots (banner and happy collage) and tight shots (image closeups, and/or tiny banners illegible at a distance)
  • Position backdrops in line with both TV and print camera pens.
  • Wrap crowd around for alternate background, as needed
  • DON’T FORGET: NO MATTER HOW TIGHT, *BLACK PEOPLE IN THE SHOT* IT’S A DRUG AND ALCOHOL TREATMENT CENTER, AFTER ALL.
    Rarely Ideas:

  • Rig even lighting on the set; light the audience for wide shot; spot the backdrops.
  • Lay matte-black flooring on set.
  • Paint all chairs and railings matte black.
  • Add matte black screen to avoid (unwanted) up-the-skirt or bulge shots.
  • GWB’s Black Box Soundstage

    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 company has published some pictures from the set on their website. They reveal some useful tips for imagemakers who need to utterly transform an alcohol and drug treatment center into a TV-friendly black-box studio.
    First, the basics:

  • Design backdrops with both wide shots (banner and happy collage) and tight shots (image closeups, and/or tiny banners illegible at a distance)
  • Position backdrops in line with both TV and print camera pens.
  • Wrap crowd around for alternate background, as needed
  • DON’T FORGET: NO MATTER HOW TIGHT, *BLACK PEOPLE IN THE SHOT* IT’S A DRUG AND ALCOHOL TREATMENT CENTER, AFTER ALL.
    Rarely Ideas:

  • Rig even lighting on the set; light the audience for wide shot; spot the backdrops.
  • Lay matte-black flooring on set.
  • Paint all chairs and railings matte black.
  • Add matte black screen to avoid (unwanted) up-the-skirt or bulge shots.
  • ‘Verily I say unto you, he has his reward’

    “Gibson, the director, producer and screenwriter of The Passion, was named the world’s most powerful celebrity by Forbes magazine on Thursday, dethroning ‘Friends’ star Jennifer Aniston who held the No. 1 spot last year.” [CNN]
    Related:
    Also in the Top 100 by “Power Rank”: Rudy Giuliani (#88), Paris Hilton (#70), QEFTSG(#78, with the other four no doubt pulling Carson down), William Hung (#96), Lindsay Lohan (#97).
    Best quote, from the sidebar on Carson Daly (who nevertheless didn’t make the list): “This is some dummy type for the sidebars in the celebrity some more dummy the side bars in the celebrity issue.”
    Related links: CDDb–The Carson Daly Database; Matthew Ch. 6, KJV.

    ‘Verily I say unto you, he has his reward’

    “Gibson, the director, producer and screenwriter of The Passion, was named the world’s most powerful celebrity by Forbes magazine on Thursday, dethroning ‘Friends’ star Jennifer Aniston who held the No. 1 spot last year.” [CNN]
    Related:
    Also in the Top 100 by “Power Rank”: Rudy Giuliani (#88), Paris Hilton (#70), QEFTSG(#78, with the other four no doubt pulling Carson down), William Hung (#96), Lindsay Lohan (#97).
    Best quote, from the sidebar on Carson Daly (who nevertheless didn’t make the list): “This is some dummy type for the sidebars in the celebrity some more dummy the side bars in the celebrity issue.”
    Related links: CDDb–The Carson Daly Database; Matthew Ch. 6, KJV.

    Now MoMA has a weblog

    ja_heading.gif

    In anticipation of the reopening of the midtown museum building, MoMA’s design department created a new website–including a weblog–for the Junior Associates, a group of 400 or so people who do all kinds of art world-related activities. As far as I know, it’s the first museum weblog. (I know, Eyebeam eats weblogs for breakfast, but they’re not a museum. They ARE quite cool, though, and hosted a swell party and exhibition walkthrough for the JA’s, which, although it has passed, remains enshrined in a gif on the JA welcome page.)
    When Picasso painted a portrait of Gertrude Stein (which she gave, alas, to the Met), someone said it didn’t look like her. “It will,” he replied. Such is the long horizon on which art’s influence operates. Remember this when you look for the weblog on the JA site, because the Museum has called it a ‘notebook’. A Typepad-powered notebook. We may not call weblogs notebooks now, the Museum seems to say, but we will.
    I, of course, trendchaser that I am, suggested that the site be called JA Rule. After all, it/they does/do. For a young person in the city, it’s probably the greatest opportunity to get involved with a truly amazing institution. And as the calendar of events attests, JA’s get to do some really cool stuff. (For the reopening shindig this fall, being a JA is like having the golden ticket.)
    In the end, the Museum’s rejection of my JA Rule idea was correct. The main requirements for becoming a JA, you see, are 1) an interest in seeing and learning about art, 2) a desire to support the Museum, and 3) $500 a year, or as it’s known in the haut monde of museum committees and high-priced benefit galas, 50 Cent.

    Now MoMA has a weblog

    ja_heading.gif

    In anticipation of the reopening of the midtown museum building, MoMA’s design department created a new website–including a weblog–for the Junior Associates, a group of 400 or so people who do all kinds of art world-related activities. As far as I know, it’s the first museum weblog. (I know, Eyebeam eats weblogs for breakfast, but they’re not a museum. They ARE quite cool, though, and hosted a swell party and exhibition walkthrough for the JA’s, which, although it has passed, remains enshrined in a gif on the JA welcome page.)
    When Picasso painted a portrait of Gertrude Stein (which she gave, alas, to the Met), someone said it didn’t look like her. “It will,” he replied. Such is the long horizon on which art’s influence operates. Remember this when you look for the weblog on the JA site, because the Museum has called it a ‘notebook’. A Typepad-powered notebook. We may not call weblogs notebooks now, the Museum seems to say, but we will.
    I, of course, trendchaser that I am, suggested that the site be called JA Rule. After all, it/they does/do. For a young person in the city, it’s probably the greatest opportunity to get involved with a truly amazing institution. And as the calendar of events attests, JA’s get to do some really cool stuff. (For the reopening shindig this fall, being a JA is like having the golden ticket.)
    In the end, the Museum’s rejection of my JA Rule idea was correct. The main requirements for becoming a JA, you see, are 1) an interest in seeing and learning about art, 2) a desire to support the Museum, and 3) $500 a year, or as it’s known in the haut monde of museum committees and high-priced benefit galas, 50 Cent.

    WNYC on A Montage Maestro

    On WNYC this morning, Sara Fishko trained her typical I’m-lyrical-yet-significant gaze on Slavko Vorkapich, the Serbian experimental filmmaker who became the leading montage editor inearly Hollywood. He sought to create, not just a story, but “pure cinema,” a rhythmic experience of light and sound. The frenetic “flying newspaper headline/oblique tight shot of typewriter keys” style he created became a ubiquitous cliche. Later on, as the head of USC’s film school and through wildly popular lectures in the sixties, he turned a generation of filmmakers, cinematographers, and artists into his pure cinema groupies.
    If WPS1 ever streams an archive tape of a Vorkapich lecture at MoMA, I’ll let you know. In the mean time, Fishko’s report, disguised as a tone poem, is on the WNYC site.

    Let Them Eat Cake

    Welcome to a very special greg.org tribute to lowculture:

    And I am an optimistic person. I guess if you want to try to find something to be pessimistic about, you can find it, no matter how hard you look, you know?

    – 7/15/04, George W. Bush, talking about what he never promised in the Rose Garden.

    “You know what?” she said. “I don’t look at it that way. I’m a very positive person. I really always think positive. I think of good thoughts for people, and when you have a negative thought you know what you have to do?”
    (Why do we think she thought we were particularly needful of this advice?)
    “You close your eyes,” she instructed. “You dismiss it and you think of something that you love and you know what I think about? You’re gonna laugh. A Hansen’s cake!”
    We looked at her blankly.
    “This great bakery in Beverly Hills, California,” Ms. Hilton said. “It’s got lots of sugar hearts on it and roses and little butterflies. I close my eyes like that” – here she demonstrated – “and you dismiss it. Negativity only brings negativity around you. ”

    – 7/15/04, Kathy Hilton, reality TV star and voice of Barbie, demonstrating how we’ve found the level of the political room in this country at Tavern on the Green.