July 31, 2004
July 30, 2004
Your mom goes to college
Not exactly news but...Napolean Dynamite is, um, pretty dynamite.
Sorry about the brevity of these entries, things are nuts, sort of.
July 26, 2004
Stanger
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster is pretty dang great, if a little long. We learned that James seems like an okay guy post-rehab, Kirk is the ego-subsuming, Buddhist middle-child & that Lars is a fucking baby who sold a Basquiat at Christies for $5M. (Yes, $5,000,000)
July 23, 2004
So says Pitchfork
The soundtrack to the upcoming movie Wicker Park has contributions from the Shins & Death Cab For Cutie. I don't know what this means.
And in related news, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds have a song on the Shrek 2 soundtrack. Inexplicable.
She Hate Me
The new Spike Lee movie is about a young black stockbroker who gets fired for insider trading and, somehow ends up making money "helping" beautiful lesbians have babies. It looks better than it sounds.
Collector of Cactus Echo Bags
Sometime ago, maybe a year past, there was an article about skateboarder & intrepid picker-upper Bobby Puleo in the NY Times. He had a show at Space 1026 in Philly that I didn't come close to seeing. I'd like to buy one of these photos of one of his collections but they're out of my price range, even at $50 (they were taken by Angela Boatwright). I think I'm going to get a poster though.
July 22, 2004
al Qaeda does their homework
I've haven't really looked to the internet for support aside from dictionary.com, maps.whatever & the occasional foray in webMd to misdiagnose myself. After my late night run-in with the CPD a few weeks ago, it never occurred to me search the web to see if anyone had the same problem because I knew they had. By coincidence(s) today, I came across a link to PhotoPermit.org which attempts to directly address the problem(s), discuss experiences & offer bits of related news. There's good info for those photographers who are out there "looking suspicious". Also check out Brown Equals Terrorist for a firsthand account.
I just realized that I never posted anything about my encounter with the police. The basics include me & Carlos (darker & fuzzier than yr average), after midnight, walking around with the camera near the bridge over the river at Archer & Halsted (sort-of industrial nowhere), I wanted to take a picture of a pole & building & whatever, cop stops "What are you doing? etc, IDs please", two more squad cars, the cops act like cops (the stereotype is based in fact), they joke about us going to some other city to take pictures, we say little, they let us go with a "warning" & a "go somewhere else". The whole thing got me spooked. I've been working on this night project for 18 months & have never even talked to a security guard much less the police. Here I am struggling to get out of whatever rut I'm in, with that evening's plan of a series of pictures down & around Halsted & then they show up. Boo. I don't even want to think about what the police are going to be like in Boston. We're moving there just after the Democratic National Convention.
Let's make litter out of these literati!
Stephen Hawking admits he's wrong about something having to do with black holes. I read the article & I'm still not sure that I quite understand. It reminds me of the time I tried explaining how black holes are born to Mary while we were on the bus, on our way to the Museum of Science & Industry. I'd recite it here but I imagine that the story is even less interesting than my explanation of the death of a star.
July 21, 2004
Posteritati
If you're wondering where the Birds poster & the ones above came from, check out Posteritati. If you have some money to throw around, I'd like this one or this one or this one for my birthday (yes, my 30th).
July 20, 2004
les Oiseaux au naturel
We just got back from watching Hitchcock's classic at the park. The rain only stuck around for the first 20 mins & then all was breezy & cool. The print of the movie looked fine, it must be newer & the sound (managed by Jason Ward who just recorded Taking Pictures) was fantastic. The screeching birds were just this side of intolerable. Some non-typical movie highlights included a people clapping for thunder & lightning, a boy & his sister farting randomly & giggling uncontrollably for 3 mins before settling down, people yelling "don't go in there!" & "open the door!" when Melanie (Tippi Hedren) dares enter the bedroom at the top of the stairs & the general idea of a genuine multitude watching a movie outside. Nice.
for more info on the City of Chicago's Outdoor Film Festival point yr internet machine at this. (the image above is from the site)
July 19, 2004
July 18, 2004
Things on the internet...
posenger n. pretend bike messenger, ie. indie rocker on a fixed gear bike. And related to that, a link that I've had up on the old weblog, the Fixed Gear Gallery makes mouths water. My friend Bryan's Bianchi Pista (he's got the gray one, it's the only thing better than black) in on there.
My friend Jay is a genius & a sasquatch. Things are really picking up for him. The cat is now out of the bag about the Michael Chabon novella & there's an audio interview with him at Gapers Block.
Couples who ride bikes are neat.
July 17, 2004
Out of Town
I was in Benton Harbor MI watching Taking Pictures work on their new record & nary an internet was seen for 3 days. If you have a label you should seriously think about signing them & putting their album out. If you are in a band then Bill & Jessica's Key Club Recording Co. is an amazing & affordable option. Friendly dog, too.
And I know I've said it before but I am working on a pretty sizable website update. You could even call it an overhaul.
Here is egg on my face
Comments: Speaking of Blah-ish
I am sure you realize this rob. but the american prospects book is joel sternfeld not joel meyerowitz. hope your preperations for the move are going well.
Posted by bryan at July 16, 2004 11:02 AM
Yes. I am dumb. I stand by both statements, less related though they might be. Here are some pictures from American Prospects. Words can not express my embarrassment. Sheesh.
July 14, 2004
Speaking of Blah-ish
After dropping off some film the other day I went to the Edelman Gallery to look at the Joel Meyerowitz show they have. Super yawn. Giant Lightjet prints of the Italian countryside. Nice light but sheesh, blah. Postcards. I gotta get that American Prospects book, though.
League of Extraordinarily Boring
Some things about me:
1. I'm a sucker for special-effects extravaganzas. Maybe less so than when I was younger but slow motion gunfights, exploding zeppelins, flying boats & alien-eating vampires will always get my attention.
2. I will watch movies made from comic books (with some exception).
3. I always watch the whole movie.
That's why I'm little surprised that I gave up on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. What a piece of doo doo. The regression starts with them exiling Allan Quartermain to the veldts of Africa instead of the opium dens of Shanghai or wherever. And then it's downhill. Shit blows up, the fake-Indian Captain Nemo had a sword-shaped submarine & a giant white "auto-mobile", guns blaze, fireworks, rockets!? and still I switched it off, lured away by this here internet & the deluxe DVD version of Hype Williams' Belly.
July 11, 2004
more on the topic of money & art...
this is Martin's response to my last comment on the post below & my own response. If anyone would like to weigh in with their opinion it would be appreciated.
yeah
i know that it was referring to the prints; that's why i made a comment. i try to think of photography as a persons' way of relating to the world, but it seems that more and more often photography is used as a way for people to get the world to relate to them.
we, as relatively unknowns, have an opportunity to bring photography to light as something that we really care about... not necessarily something that cares about us. we cannot rely on photography, or art in general for that matter, to support us if we are going to make the best art we can. kind of like relationships.. you dont count on your partner's love to make you happy. you become happy by loving your partner.
basically, i would like to see you making new pictures and updating your photo site with those images... that part of your site has been barren for a long time, wheras the blog is always attended to. then i think that the photo selling idea would make sense.
sorry to be so preachy. i just dislike where i see photo at nowadays.
martin
martin
I would love to afford the highest moral ground & keep my photography as a wholly seperate part of my life, distinct from the "business" of life-living but I can't. Like it or not, making photographs is & will always be part of my livelihood. It's what I want to do, not what I want to do when I'm not working. I don't plan on slinging records or working in an office for years on end to provide for my "artist's life". It simply won't work. Offering people an opportunity to help support my picture-making is a viable option. Something akin to applying for a grant. I make photographs. It costs time & money, which I am glad to give. With my bank balance near zero, though, I make less photos. I can understand if I was soliciting sponsorship from a major corporation but how can you say that offering up my work to people that I know, people that have expressed interest in it, somehow compromises my relationship with photography, that what will come out will be tainted? Does exchanging money for photographs at such an early stage in my artistic life, my "career", imply that I care any less about the photos or about photography or art in general? Am I selling out?
A person's relationship with photography should be reciprocal not one-sided. I make photographs because it's the best way to express the way I feel or the way I think about things, how I relate to the world. But I also expect photography to give back to me & I don't mean that in monetary terms. At the same time that the pictures I make are showing people the hopefully particular way that I look at things, I hope that it also reveals to me things about myself that I don't know, to return the love so to speak. I'm not counting on photography loving me back but it's what I'm after & I don't think that's a selfish or greedy thing.
Rob
July 10, 2004
Subscribe?
This is mebbe a loser idea for me but I wonder if anyone out there is interested in "subscribing" to me. For a nominal fee, the subscriber would receive one 11x14ish print a month for one year. The monthly print would be a freshly produced image, one that I have deemed "good" (or good enough as they say) & produced in a number limited to the amount of subscribers. It's a shaky idea without much evidence but I thought I'd float it out there. If more than one person says they're interested, I'll gladly explain in more detail.
July 7, 2004
Final Cut Professionals
As long as I'm still on the internet, I might as well point you towards this wicked fun Bogdan Raczynski video. I wish I knew how to use LiveType. Link from WellVetted 23.
Lance!
I'm going to be checking the Tour de France weblog often. Lance took over the yellow jersey today.
Darlene!
Sara Gilbert (ex-Roseanne) just had a book of photographs published by Nazraeli Press. Photoeye has the info & some images but it's hard to tell. Someone's going to have to spend $35 & find out.
July 5, 2004
pointing, shooting
I think I'm going to take the hit, dump some records & dvds & buy a digital camera this week. In order to keep things moving, keep the eyes working more often, I'm going to set up a new site that may be called pointingshooting.net or something similar. The site will be almost entirely photos (see my friend Scott's ohdog.net or any number of fotologs) with some small spare comments. Let's call it an experiment in being less lazy. Stay tuned for more info.
(The photo above is an analog image, originally)
In Smog & Thunder
So, Sandow Birk made a series of deliriously constructed paintings that depict a fictional civil war between Northern & Southern California in the not too distant past/fuzzy future. Then he & Sean Meredith & made a Ken Burns-style mockmentary using the paintings as his historical starting point. I suggest taking in both.
July 4, 2004
The Death Ray
After reading the new Eightball I was thinking that one of the benefits of the long periods between issues is that I forget what a genius Dan Clowes is. If there was a fresh one every month it'd be boring.