2THEWALLS

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] ALL STILLS TAKEN FROM VARIOUS YOUTUBE...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:37:00 -0500

ALL STILLS TAKEN FROM VARIOUS YOUTUBE UPLOADS, FOUND BY SEARCHING THE TERMS “CLUB” AND “BEDROOM”, SOURCED NUMERICALLY, AND FROM ANSWERS.YAHOO.COM

“Bill Jacobson is widely known for his out of focus...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:57:00 -0500

“Bill Jacobson is widely known for his out of focus photographs which suggest the temporality of human existence. Whether shooting figures or landscapes, his work has been consistently ethereal, addressing the passage of time, loss, and the fading of personal and collective memories. This volume presents a new body of work which, though now quite sharp and defined, is similar in that it presents fragments of both beauty and melancholy.

According to Jacobson the title “refers the idea that we live in a highly constructed world. The world is just that, a series of human decisions, one layered upon another over time. We move constantly from one fabricated arena to another.” The images here convey the idea that our creations and subsequent decisions to arrange objects in space become the evolving visual world which surrounds us. Each photograph conveys a human touch, suggesting this process is spiritual as well as practical.” [1]

“How to Make a Bird’s Nest: Take a wafer of tinker’s tin. With heavy scissors, cut four triangles. The triangles shall be small, no taller or wider than half an inch, preferably smaller, if possible. Punch holes near the two angles at the base of the triangle, using a small hammer and the slimmest nails or brads possible. A large, sturdy sewing needle is even better, as it will yield a finer hole. Fold each triangle along an imaginary line extending from the top point to the middle of the base. The angle of the fold should be as close to ninety degrees as possible, using only the naked eye (as ematical measurement). Thread each of the pieces with a length of fishing line or kitchen string or strong sewing thread. Now, patience is required; place in turn each piece of shaped tin over the nails of the forefinger and thumb of each hand so that the end point of each piece extends approximately one-quarter of one inch beyond the fingertip. Fasten each piece to the finger by tightly tying the thread around the finger at the first joint (but not so tightly that circulation is lost). This may take practice. Join the thumb and forefinger at their pads. By rolling them together forward and back, the two folded triangles should variously meet and separate; these are your beaks. It is with these that you will pick up grass and twigs and tinsel and stray bits of string and weave them together in the branches of a chosen tree or bush or thicket, depending on the species whose nest you wish to undertake. (This in itself requires preperation and it is suggestated that as many examples as possible of the desired type of nest be studied before attempting one’s own verson. Even more desireable is to spend as many a spring afternoon as manageable watching the birds themselves weave their homes; such observation willl help immensely in learning the particular stictch requires.) Keep in mind, though, that the materials for the nest must be collected and woven strand by strand. Birds do not gather their lumber, so to speak, all at once, but, rather, search out each plank and shingle one at a time. Such a birdy method may at first seem absurd to the forward-thinking nest maker, but soon it will be found that the pleasures of the project are not derived from efficiency. (Another desired eventuality is that as one becomes more and more dexterous weaving nests, one will begin to do so with only one beak, as it were. And here, then, too, is another temptation to overcome – keeping one’s free hand behind one’s back and refraining from giving the birds a helping human hand!)

Once the nest is complete, then what to put in it? Anything your heart desires, of course: acorn eggs plucked from their cups; stones smoothed in a river; a lock of your sweetheart’s hair; your firstborn’s milk teeth – anything you choose that will fit into the nest and give you pleasure to consider whenever you visit. Over time, one’s whole countryside might be fitted out with a constellation of such nests, each holding its own special treasure.” [2]

ALL IMAGES OF WORK BY BILL JACOBSON, TAKEN FROM THE MONOGRAPH “A SERIES OF HUMAN DECISIONS”, VIA DECODE BOOKS AND PHOTO-EYE; TEXT TAKEN FROM DECODE BOOKS [1] AND FROM “TINKERS” BY PAUL HARDING, 2009

“In this latest work from Yemenwed, the audience is drawn...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:12:00 -0500

“In this latest work from Yemenwed, the audience is drawn into a dance and music performance set on a stage resembling a bedroom in the Laguardia Houses, a public housing project in New York City. In Bedroom w TV and a Woman Lays w Aide, two women perform a dance on top of, and next to a bed within a semi-enclosed bedroom. The movement is set to live instrumentation including vocal, piano, and drum, and is accompanied by three backup dancers: one human, one sculpture, and one combination of the two. In addition to the live performers, the stage set comprises several domestic objects including a Radiator Bong, a Headboard, a Vocalist Object, and a Make-Shift Bench, which complete the scene.

Yemenwed is a collaborative project series which brings together a rotating cast of artists of varied disciplines. Bedroom w TV is written by painter Gloria Maximo, and examines portraits of several characters within an abstract domestic interior. Several formal themes including relief, flat and faceted shading, tubular formations, frontal posturing, and the peripheral gaze are explored in a live capacity.

The performance features choreography by Megha Barnabas. The stage set is designed by Shawn Maximo, and includes a sculpture by Paul Kopkau. Costuming is by David Toro, Solomon Chase, and includes a work by Jason Farrer. Stage makeup is by Melissa Ip. Vocals are by Shannon Funchess (Light Asylum, A Rose Parade), keyboards are by Fatima Al Qadiri (Children), and drums are by Tim Dewit (Gang Gang Dance). Performers also include Gerlan Marcel, Busy Gangnes, and Telfar Clemens.”

BEDROOM WILL TAKE PLACE SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2009, AT 179 CANAL STREET, 9-10 PM; TEXT AND STAGE RENDING OF BEDROOM W TV AND A WOMAN LAYS W AIDE COURTESY OF GLORIA MAXIMO/SHAWN MAXIMO/YEMENWED; “SYMPHONIC DIET RAVE” BY FATIMA AL QADIRI

[1] “People are always shouting that they want to create a...

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:50:00 -0400

[1]

“People are always shouting that they want to create a better future. It’s not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past. They are fighting for access to the laboratories where photographs are retouched and biographies and histories rewritten.” [1]

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“I own nothing. I own a watch.

I own three watches.

I own five motorcycles.

It’s all I do.” [2]

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IMAGES 1, 4, 5, 7, 9 AND 11 OF WORK BY JENNY HOLZER, SOURCE LINKS CITED NUMERICALLY; IMAGES 2, 3, 6, 8, 10 AND 12 OF WORK BY KELLY WEARSTLER, AS TAKEN FROM METROPOLITAN HOME AND VOGUE MAGAZINES, BOTH PHOTOGRAPHED BY FRANCOIS HALARD; TEXT TAKEN FROM “THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING” BY MILAN KUNDERA [1], IMPETUS VIA SASHA FRERE JONES, AND FROM “I OWN NOTHING” BY FREDERICK SEIDEL [2]

[1] “ This is the house of the closet-man. There are...

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:39:00 -0400

[1]

“ This is the house of the closet-man. There are no rooms, just hallways and closets.
Things happen in rooms. He does not like things to happen. … Closets, you take things out of closets, you put things into closets, and nothing happens …

Why do you have such a strange house?

I am the closet-man, I am either going or coming, and I am never sad.

But why do you have such a strange house?

I am never sad …”

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IMAGES TAKEN FROM BOTH LOVELYLISTING.COM [2,3,5], AND FROM “7 INVENTIVE WAYS TO LIVE IN A CLOSET” [1,4,5], VIA INVENTORSPOT.COM; “THE REASON WHY THE CLOSET MAN IS NEVER SAD” BY RUSSELL EDSON

ALL IMAGES OF WORK BY THOMAS DEMAND, VIA DESIGNBOOM AND...

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:03:00 -0400

ALL IMAGES OF WORK BY THOMAS DEMAND, VIA DESIGNBOOM AND 303 GALLERY, NEW YORK; TEXT EXCERPTS TAKEN FROM “THE DAY ROOM”, BY DON DELILLO, VIA GOOGLE BOOKS

ALL IMAGES OF SOL LEWITT’S HOME AS PHOTOGRAPHED BY...

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:54:00 -0400

ALL IMAGES OF SOL LEWITT’S HOME AS PHOTOGRAPHED BY ERIC BOMAN FOR “ART AND SOL”; TAKEN FROM THE WORLD OF INTERIORS, OCTOBER 2009

“EGG: You incorporate text into your works, but more than...

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:16:00 -0400

“EGG: You incorporate text into your works, but more than that, you use a particular voice. Is there a Barbara Kruger language?

BK: I think that the so-called language of Barbara Kruger is vernacular language. Obviously, I pick through bits and pieces of it and figure out to some degree how to objectify my experience of the world, using pictures and words that construct and contain me. I worked as a graphic designer at fashion magazines for a long time, and that was where I developed my fluency and my comfort with pictures and words. And that is very much reflected in my work. Also reflected in my work is the seriality involved in the page-turning of magazine reading, and also the direct address of it: the reach-out-and-touch-someone-ness of it, and the availability of it. Basically, we live in a world bombarded by images and sounds, and for some of us, it’s been an interesting activity to try to consider what the meanings of those images and sounds could be, rather than just receiving them, which we do; we’re not immune to them on any level. But part of my self-assignment is to play with the possibilities of meanings, the multiplicity of possible readings in each image, in each text.”

EGG: Why is your work considered art and not graphic design?

BK: I always say that I’m an artist who works with pictures and words, so I think that the different aspects of my activity, whether it’s writing criticism, or doing visual work that incorporates writing, or teaching, or curating, is all of a single cloth, and I don’t make any separation in terms of those practices. I started very young as a graphic designer and while I enjoyed it initially, it really grew old very quickly. I wasn’t cut out for design work because I had difficulty in supplying someone else’s image of perfection. It was much more satisfying for me to try to be my own client, and to in fact try to construct my own images of perfection, to try to construct my own commentary, my own visualization of what it means to live a life. I believe that who we are, and consequently the work that we make, whether we’re visual artists or writers or journalists or filmmakers, is a projection of where we were born, what’s been withheld or lavished upon us, our color, our sex, our class. And everything we do in life to some degree is a reflection of that context.

EGG: Why are words so important in your work? What does language have to do with power?

BK: There’s one phrase I used, “Doubt tempers belief with sanity.” And I sort of like that one, because it really suggests how belief, at its extreme, can be very scary. It seems sort of crazy for me to look at a camera and explain why words are important when I’m using them. Of course, I see my practice as a type of communication, so why cut off one way of communicating when doing it. Words are powerful, and we speak them every moment, so why not exercise that medium. But I’m really interested in questions more than answers. Everybody’s got answers, and I think it’s more generative and engaging for me to think about questions and to think about doubt. Not to the point that it becomes crippling and self-destructive, but it’s a definite balancing force. Power slices in lots of ways, you know. And it can deal with the inequities of money; it can deal with the inequities of color; it can deal with the inequities of gender. And how some voices have been unheard, and some faces unseen, and I’m interested in how that plays out in culture, and how it changes, and how that change changes culture, and how America is a different place now than it was thirty years ago because of those changes, and how those changes in fact become [of] global and not just national interest. But we’ve seen how the battles around difference, around sexuality, around color, around nationalism, are daily changing the character and the balance of power globally.”

“EGG: Do you think art is capable of that kind of resistance?

BK: I think that art is still a site for resistance and for the telling of various stories, for validating certain subjectivities we normally overlook. I’m trying to be affective, to suggest changes, and to resist what I feel are the tyrannies of social life on a certain level. Right now, for example, I am fascinated with celebrity because it seems to be available to everyone, you know, we each have, what, our twelve minutes now? Twelve seconds of fame? A magazine is sort of a visual envy parade — the photographs are extraordinarily seductive and the models edgy to the point of death, you know? Myself, having worked at Conde Nast for so many years, I saw firsthand the power of magazines, fashion magazines as vehicles for color advertising. In the art world of the late ’70s and early ’80s, there was actually a discourse around representation — how pictures can tell us who we are and who we aren’t and what we want to be and what we can’t be. It’s incredible how that dialogue has been forgotten. People have fallen totally to the thrall of representations without any critical commentary. E! Entertainment Television has become a paradigm for all the other networks, this veneer of glamorous expenditure, constant disposable income. It’s sort of extraordinary how the representations parade on and on and on, you know.

EGG: So is the media an unavoidable trap, or can you subvert its influence?

BK: That reminds me of something I read in a book on Walter Winchell — how gossip is empowering because it has to do with getting even, a leveling [of] the playing field, a vindictive will to bring down the powerful. But it is a complex issue. For example, walking around cities, walking past statues and monuments, the whole notion of heroism is constructed through proper names and national histories. If you understand these contructs, how can you say that that’s not an inevitable influence? If you enter the culture to a any degree, of course it is. Or HARDBALL or GERALDO or CROSSFIRE — they are narratives that are entertaining, but they also encapsulate the public in a way. They push the public into so-called political discourse in a way that really didn’t happen before. I’m not saying it’s good, I’m not saying it’s bad.”

ALL IMAGES OF WORK BY BARBARA KRUGER FOR LEVER HOUSE, 2009, VIA ANIMAL NEW YORK AND LEVER HOUSE; INTERVIEW TEXT VIA PBS’S EGG: THE ARTS SHOW ARCHIVE; IMPETUS VIA SCOTT HUG/ THE K48 BULLET

[1] [2 L/R] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8 L/R] [9] IMAGES...

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:02:00 -0400

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IMAGES [1], [3], [4] AND [7] OF WORK BY SEA HYUN LEE AS PART OF THE BETWEEN RED SERIES, 2008; VIA UNION GALLERY; IMAGE [2L] VIA KATHLEEN’S RED DOOR; IMAGE [2R] VIA PERCH NEW ORLEANS; IMAGE [5] VIA THE GATHERING PLACE BED AND BREAKFAST; IMAGE [6] VIA TODAY’S CREATIVE BLOG; IMAGE [8L] VIA BLOG.HIGHFASHIONHOME.COM AND DOMINO MAGAZINE; IMAGE [8R] VIA THE WHITE HOUSE MUSEUM; IMAGE [9] VIA TCHOCHKES.COM

“To fill a Gap Insert the Thing that caused it— Block it...

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 06:54:00 -0400

“To fill a Gap

Insert the Thing that caused it—

Block it up

With Other—and ‘twill yawn the more—

You cannot solder an Abyss

With Air.”

ALL IMAGES OF GABRIEL LESTER’S HABITAT SEQUENCE REVISITED, 2007; POEM NO. 546 BY EMILY DICKINSON; “FLOATING SPIT [UNFINISHED]” BY PERFUME GENIUS; IMPETUS VIA RHIZOME.ORG

IMAGES OF YOHJI YAMAMOTO’S “Y’S”...

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:31:00 -0400

IMAGES OF YOHJI YAMAMOTO’S “Y’S” BOUTIQUE, TOKYO, 1980; VIA MAFIA HUNT

“1. COPY FAMILY When the family came to live in the new...

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:03:23 -0400

“1. COPY FAMILY

When the family came to live in the new house, they found another family already there. An exact copy of their family—a copy father, mother, and son. The copy family members stood each in a room alone unblinking. The copy family would not speak when spoken in to—though they had heartbeat, they were breathing. Their copy eyes were wet and stretched with strain. Their copy skin felt like our skin. Their copy hearts beat at their chests.

The father flicked the copy father on the arm there by the window in the kitchen—the window where on so many coming days the father would look out onto the yard—the yard where the copy family had moved and laughed and dug and thought and fought and seen the sky change color. The father watched the copy father flinch. The copy father’s fat ring finger had on thirteen copy rings. In the copy father’s copy eyes the father could read his other’s current scrolling copy thoughts:

This is my house.

This is our house.

This is where I am.”

“2. HOUSES

The father’d bought the house with paper money. He’d worked for years and years. If asked he could not say for certain what the work was. Mostly all he did all day any day was look into a blank screen flush with light. Sometimes the father looked at porn or ads or sports scores, but mostly just the light. The father had fat fingers.

Throughout his life during sleeping the father’d swallowed many things—spiders, dust and dirt, wood shavings, pillow lint, eggs, hair, and rings. He had enough now in his stomach to open a small store. He would not give up.

The only thing the father’d every really wanted, the only thing, was to host a game show on TV. He’d wear a bolo tie and comb his hair this way and that way the mirror, rehearsing his scripted text. He could have maybe settled for just appearing on a show sometime—any of them—though he had no mind for trivia and his reflexes were just sad.

In the nights before the new house, the father walked up streets peeping through windows. He’d seen the light in other houses. He’d seen people in their beds—sometimes moving in the darkness to the bathroom or the stairs. He’d seen so many bodies fuck. In one house he’d seen someone reading about a father at the window in a book. All the houses touched by wire. The grain in the glass in the windows in the frames in the walls in the rooms in the houses in the yards in the streets went on and on.

The father wanted a certain kind of life to give his family. He wanted a house described by all of who he’d been—or who he’d been then—or that other time—or—and/or—who? The father had not asked the mother or son what she or he thought before he bought the house. The price had been stupendous. Unbeatable. The father could not remember where he’d found the listing. He could not remember what he did not remember—nor would he want to, would he ever. From the outside the new house looked like many other houses.

There were many things the father did without his wife’s permission.”

“3. WHAT ELSE COULD THEY HAVE DONE?

The family took the copy family and they set them on the back porch. The father carried the copy father and the mother the copy mother and the son his. The skins of the two families smushed together grunting. Their sweat became commingled.

The copy family members did not wink or speak or cause commotion. The copy family did not cry.

The only thing that made the family different from the copy family was instead of teeth the copy family’s mouths were lined with mold. The copy family’s breath came out cold and made no sound.

The son wanted to play dress up with his copy body but the father smacked the son across the head. The father hated when his son played girl games. The father bought the son a new neon football for Christmas and his birthday every year. The father also bought the son a football on the father’s birthday, a form of begging. Sometimes he found he could convince the son to come out into the yard, though no matter how soft the father threw the ball or how close they stood together, the son could never catch. Even right there. Even touching.

The son’s hands and fingers always itched. Sometimes the itching spread into his knee. Sometimes the only thing about the son at all was all the itching. The son felt older than he looked.”

“4. PRETEND TO NOT BE THERE

In the new house wrung with coarse light, the father locked the doors and sealed the eaves. He had the family play Pretend To Not Be There. They waited to see if the copy family would simply disappear or go away. They waited several hours, peeping. Later they hooted and shook their arms, made fire. They copy family would not retort. The mother found the copy family’s TV dinners in the freezer and from the floor the family ate: defrosted veggie medley, veal cordon bleu. There was even a little cheesecake wrapped in black plastic. The family felt run through. They felt their bodies rumble, squealing. The son asked to take his leftovers out to the dog. He pointed through the window. The father smushed his face against the glass. The dog was an exact copy of the dog the father and mother had had before the son—a chubby Dachshund, dust-gray and well groomed, with a bell around its neck. The dog had come down with diabetes and fell into the mud in the backyard. The dog had been the sweetest dog. The copy dog lay at the copy father’s feet and struggled just to breathe. The copy dog looked into the father’s eyes. The father sent the son to bed. He and the mother went with the son into the certain room they’d let the son himself select—he could have had many other rooms. The bed was deep and clean and padded. The parents took turns kissing the son on the brow, the wrists, the thumbs, the mouth, the teeth, the back, the stomach. The son went right to sleep. Just after, in the hallway, the father touched his hand against his lips, feeling for the cells that’d come off in transference—what parts of himself he’d left upon the son.”

“5. THE COPY MOTHER, IN PARTICULAR

The father and the mother stayed up well into the evening watching the copy family stand. The father and the mother agreed they had to do something—something—what?They could not go on like this, even a little. The copy family had not moved an inch. They could call police but what would happen? Light from the backyard’s sensor-triggered floodlamps clicked on and off without clear provocation.

The copy family would not go away. The father worked himself into a state, shouting curse words, splaying arms. He went out to the car and got a softball bat he’d used for pick-up games in college—he’d not once had a hit, though he’d been beaned more times than he could count on all the hands in all the houses on the street where his house stood—he could often still remember how the ball felt each time, banging fast into his muscle—how his chest would scrunch and then expand—how sometimes he seemed not there at all. The father stood at the window with the weapon. He threatened legal action. He spoke in unintended rhyme. He said his own name to the copy father. The copy father seemed to have more hair than the father himself did.

By the time the morning came on gnawing, the father had collapsed. He lay fetal-curled on the laminated kitchen floor, his back against the fridge door, shook. The mother stood over the father. The mother took the softball bat away. She smoothed a blanket over her husband. She covered up his head. She turned on the radio in the intercom that’d been wired to broadcast through the house. There wasn’t music, but people talking. She turned it louder. The voices filled the house. She went out on the porch and stood among the copy family.

There she was.”

“6. SMOTHERING, THE MOTHER’S KNOWLEDGE OF

In the copy mother copy’s face skin the mother saw the way the years had run her down—the slow stretched lines of older versions sunk to layers—the cheekbones taut and caked with rouge. The mother hulked her copy body off the ground. The mother carried her copy body in the weird light strumming downward off the shifting sky in sheets. She moved through the crunched grass to the concrete to the swimming pool the house had come with. Her copy body hummed hot and burbled. The mother held herself the way she’d hold a massive baby. She threw her copy body out into the water, watched it splash down, watched it burp. The copy mother did not struggle. The pool was green with straw and algae and old rain. The mother could not see the bottom. The water stunk. A string of silent glassy bubbles rung up from the copy mother’s copy head. Her body sunk into the muck and did not rise. Along the top the mother watched a scrim of pollen slosh in waves. The windows of the house next door were all cracked open and opaque. The house next door to that house did not have doors or windows, walls at all.”

“7. CLOSER

The mother found the copy father’s skin felt rather pleasant—softer than her husband’s—responsive to her touch. She spread her fingers in the short soft hair over his forearm. She whispered in his ear. She said the things she’d meant to say.

She closed the copy father’s eyes.

When the copy father’s body hit the water, his polo shirt soaked darker several shades. The copy father’s skin became distended. The water boiled. The copy father’s copy body tried a while to stay floating on the pool’s surface in the muck but the mother pushed it down. She held it under with her foot and then the pool net. The moon hung over the backyard had a sliver missing from its center.

Suddenly the mother felt a voracious thirst for pork.”

“8. THE COPY SON, IN PARTICULAR

The mother returned from what she’d done then to stand above the copy of her son. There was very little about his copy body that betrayed any major difference from the son—in fact, if the mother didn’t know for sure already the son was upstairs curled in the new bed the father and the mother had bought him—no more nits yet in the mattress, nothing eating where he slept—if she wasn’t sure for sure the true version of her boy was up there with his dream eyes spinning in his head—wasn’t he?—if she hadn’t put him there herself—she wasn’t sure that she could tell him from this child here—this child with the same scar along his forearm like the one the son had gotten fallen fainting from a tree—he was not supposed to have been walking yet—he’d been bedridden for so long—trying to reach the sun, he’d explained later. This child here had the same black pockmarks where disease had come into the son’s body, searching his flesh for what it wanted—when the son had stayed alive the doctors seemed more nervous than relieved—how peculiar, they kept saying, it’s against science. This child here had the same blonde bowl-cut hair like the son, hair the mother could barely bring herself to snip, every inch of him her precious—such nights she’d dreamed of his insides, swimming deep inside his cells. This child, this boy—he was made of her, and she was made of him.

No, the mother could not bring herself again to do the thing she’d done twice just now already. The mother peeped through the window from the outside to make sure her husband was still sleeping, curled. Under the blanket, she watched him wriggle. The father had always been a rowdy sleeper. Most nights he kept the mother up straight through till morning. The mother slept most in the day, if ever. The sleeping father spoke in languages the mother had not heard—if she’d heard them she could not remember. The sleeping father chewed his skin to bits.

In a hurry, slunk and brooding, knowing what the father, waking, might have to say, the mother fire-lifted her son’s copy body on her shoulder and carried him silent through the night. She moved into the dark lip of trees grown up and out around the house, into which no fake light showed. She carried the body through the thick murk, keeping careful not to fall. The earth around was eaten up with tunnel. There was wobble. There was grease. There were animals out here somewhere. She could hear their tiny teeth. There were holes in the soil that led to somewhere. The mother moved by feel. The mother carried her son’s copy body through the forest through a tunnel lined with crud. Through the tunnel came a clearing. Set in the clearing there was wire. The wire scorched the mother’s hand. Still she knew what she was seeking. She knew that she would know.

When she arrived in, at, and/or among some small exact place, the mother set the copy son’s soft copy body down.”

IMAGES TAKEN FROM BOTH LOSHADKA: ROOM, 8.3.09, BY WILL SIMPSON; AND FROM EASTER EGG: THE SIMS2 JAPANESE FORUM; “THE COPY FAMILY” BY BLAKE BUTLER, TAKEN FROM FIFTYTWOSTORIES.COM

“Close Quarters Battle (CQB) or close quarters combat...

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:06:00 -0400

“Close Quarters Battle (CQB) or close quarters combat (CQC) is a type of fighting in which small units engage the enemy with personal weapons at very short range, potentially to the point of hand-to-hand combat. In the typical CQB scenario, the attackers try a very fast, violent takeover of a vehicle or structure controlled by the defenders, who usually have no easy way to withdraw. Because enemies, hostages/civilians, and fellow operators can be closely intermingled, CQB demands a rapid assault and a precise application of lethal force. The operators need great proficiency with their weapons, but also the ability to make split-second decisions in order to avoid or limit friendly casualties. CQB is defined as a short-duration, high-intensity conflict, characterized by sudden violence at close range.”

“Criminals sometimes use CQB techniques, such as in an armed robbery or jailbreak, but most of the terminology comes from training used to prepare soldiers, police, and other authorities. Therefore, much CQB material is written from the perspective of the authorities who must break into the stronghold where the opposing force (opfor) have barricaded themselves.”

“Although there is considerable overlap, CQB is not synonymous with urban warfare, now sometimes known by the military acronyms MOUT (military operations on urban terrain), FIBUA (fighting in built-up areas) or OBUA (Operations in Built Up Areas) in the West. Urban warfare is a much larger field, including logistics and the role of crew-served weapons like heavy machine guns, mortars, and mounted grenade launchers, as well as artillery, armor, and air support. In CQB, the emphasis is on small infantry units using light, compact weapons that one man can carry and use easily in tight spaces, such as carbines, submachine guns, shotguns, pistols, and knives. As such, CQB is a tactical concept that forms a part of the strategic concept of urban warfare, but not every instance of CQB is necessarily enveloped by urban warfare—for example, jungle and guerrilla warfare are potential stages for CQB.”

ALL IMAGES OF THE TACOMA TACTICAL FACILITY; IMAGES AND TEXT VIA TACOMATACTICAL.COM

Photo

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:37:00 -0400

“Sunday afternoon, New York City: Peter Berlin answers...

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:13:00 -0400

“Sunday afternoon, New York City: Peter Berlin answers the door and admits me into a SoHo loft—a vast space as austere and dramatic as Berlin himself. He is dressed in a scarlet leather jacket and black leather pants fastened with a network of erotically placed strings and thongs. He is ageless and disturbingly beautiful—exactly as remembered from photographs saved for years.”

“Robert W. Richards (RWR): Of all the men who have done pornography, you’re the only one who’s more famous and admired with his clothes on. How did you develop your extraordinary style?

Berlin: It’s very simple: I dress the way I do because it’s sexual and provocative. When I was very little, I saw some drawings by Tom of Finland. The men in his illustrations were always dressed to provoke, and since then, there’s never been a doubt in my mind that clothes have a better purpose than keeping us warm. They are an extension of one’s personality, and to me sexuality is the most intriguing part of anyone’s character.

RWR: At what age did all of this occur to you?

Berlin: I have a very bad memory— my past is rapidly disappearing—but I do remember that when I was very young I began to alter my pants. To this day, pants are the most visible thing in my image. I guess it must have started as I reached puberty.

RWR: Were the pants made of leather?

Berlin: No. That came a little later. At that time, leather was very limited, connected more with a kind of straight motorcycle punk trip, a Marlon Brando “Wild One” attitude rather than the outright sexuality we attach to it today. I always found it very sexy.

RWR: How did you alter the pants? What did you do to them?

Berlin: I wanted a second skin. The most beautiful part of a man and what is most visible at first glance is his ass, hips, and crotch.

RWR: You were after a naked silhouette?

Berlin: Naked, yes, but…hidden… masked.”

“RWR: At one point, a few years ago, you were virtually a tourist attraction in San Francisco. People would come back raving about having seen you in the streets.

Berlin: They still talk about Peter Berlin, and I haven’t done anything in over six years. It’s quite an achievement!

RWR: Why haven’t you done anything in those years?

Berlin: I think it’s nice to think before doing something. Maybe I think too much. I’m very frugal in my personality. I don’t like to waste anything.

RWR: You haven’t found anything you want to do?

Berlin: Wanting and doing—there’s a big difference between those two things, and that’s where the trouble lies. It’s not easy to make a film. It involves not only yourself but many people whose talents you must combine with yours. It’s not like being a writer or a painter: you can’t work alone in film, and I realize, as time goes by, that I’m more and more distanced from other people.

RWR: Have you been doing still photography?

Berlin: Some, but not as much as I did before. I’ve created this Peter Berlin image, and it’s quite perfect. Where do I go from this except to add new dimensions, new views of an already created thing? That doesn’t interest me, particularly.”

“RWR: Are you aware of being him all the time?

Berlin: Being a person and creating an image are worlds apart. What I’ve learned: “Peter Berlin—he’s loved and liked and wanted”—that’s what they say, but the truth is he’s often wanted but seldom loved or liked.

RWR: Yet you enjoy living on that sexual altar.

Berlin: I put myself on that sexual altar, but I no longer enjoy it. I felt better when I was unknown and a little inferior feeling.

RWR: Do you think your mental attitude has anything to do with how well you’ve preserved your looks?

Berlin: That’s a very nice compliment. There was a time I felt very good about compliments—I loved receiving them. Now when I get one it doesn’t make me feel good anymore. The reason is that looking in the mirror I’ve given myself the greatest compliments possible. I’ve said, “Peter, you’re great!” so when anyone else tells me that I can only say, “I know.” People don’t give me compliments on my intellect or because I’m a great poet. They compliment me on my sexuality, and the motive behind it is always “I want you.” I say, “Yes, I know I’ve made it very easy for you to want me, but do I want you?” And the answer is usually “No—I don’t.” Where does that leave me? Should I say, “Thank you”? I forgot how to say it years ago. For the most part I choose to ignore compliments.

RWR: Is there anyone you want?

Berlin: There are many, many people I want but never enough of them. I’m living, unfortunately, in a world of ugliness. And the ugliness is not skin deep. Ugliness as much as beauty is an expression of the soul. When most people look in the mirror, they don’t feel what I do because I like what I see. That’s why they go through life with a small shaving mirror rather than a full-length one to enjoy themselves in. I say, the more beautiful you are the bigger your mirror should be. Not because you think you’re so sensational, but to make sure that everything is still there. That isn’t being vain; it’s just sensible. Everybody else benefits by looking at you. The last honest compliment I received was from two well-dressed Jewish ladies. I was walking down the street. They stopped, smiled and said, “Young man, how nice you look.” I was very pleased, but most of the time, when gays come up to me and say “Oh, you’re really great.” I say, “What else is new?—I know that.” I look in the mirror every day.”

ALL STILLS OF PETER BERLIN’S APARTMENT, TAKEN FROM THE FILM “THAT MAN: PETER BERLIN”, DIR. JIM TUSHINSKI, 2005; ALL TEXT TAKEN FROM “BERLIN ON BERLIN” BY ROBERT W. RICHARDS FOR STALLION MAGAZINE, 1983, VIA LESLIE/LOHMAN

” “Now I shall have to pay in my own person for...

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 04:01:00 -0400

” “Now I shall have to pay in my own person for those desires, she reflected: “for women are not (judging by my own short experience of the sex) obedient, chaste, scented, and exquisitely appareled by nature. They can only attain these graces, without which they may enjoy none of the delights of life, by the most tedious discipline. There’s the hair-dressing,” she thought, “that alone will take an hour of my morning”; there’s the looking in the looking-glass, another hour; there’s staying and lacing; there’s washing and powdering; there’s changing from silk to lace and from lace to paduasoy; and there’s being chaste year in year out… . .” Here she tossed her foot impatiently, and showed an inch or two of calf. A sailor on the mast, who happened to look down at the moment, started so violently that he missed his footing and only saved himself by the skin of his teeth. “If the sight of my ankles means death to an honest fellow who, no doubt, has a wife and family to support, I must, in all humanity, keep them covered,” Orlando thought. Yet her legs were among her chiefest beauties. And she fell to thinking what an odd pass we have come to when all a woman’s beauty as to be kept covered, lest a sailor may fall from a mast-head. “A pox on them!” she said, realizing for the first time, what, in other circumstances, she would have been taught as a child, that is to say, the sacred responsibilities of womanhood.” [1]

“The reason Weetzie Bat hated high school was because no one understood. They didn’t even realize where they were living. They didn’t care that Marilyn’s prints were practically in their backyard at Graumann’s; that you could buy tomahawks and plastic palm tree wallets at Farmer’s Market, and the wildest, cheapest cheese and bean and hot dog and pastrami burritos at Oki Dogs; that the waitresses wore skates at the Jetson-style Tiny Naylor’s; that there was a fountain that turned tropical soda-pop colors, and a canyon where Jim Morrison and Houdini used to live, and all-night potato knishes at Canter’s, and not too far away was Venice, with columns, and canals, even, like the real Venice but maybe cooler because of the surfers. There was no one who cared.” [3]

“Greek mousa is a common noun as well as a type of goddess: it literally means “song” or “poem”. In Pindar, to “carry a mousa” is “to sing a song”. The word probably is derived from the Indo-European root men-, which is also the source of Greek Mnemosyne, and English “mind”, “mental” and “memory” (or alternatively from mont-, “mountain”, due to their residence on Mount Helicon, which is less likely in meaning, but somewhat more likely to be associated linguistically).

The Muses, therefore, were both the embodiments and sponsors of performed metrical speech: mousike, whence “music”, was “the art of the Muses”. In the archaic period, before the widespread availability of books (scrolls), this included nearly all of learning. The first Greek book on astronomy, by Thales, was set in dactylic hexameter, as were many works of pre-Socratic philosophy; both Plato and the Pythagoreansexplicitly included philosophy as a sub-species of mousike^[6]Herodotus, whose primary medium of delivery was public recitation, named each one of the nine books of his Histories after a different Muse, invoked at the outset.

For poet and “law-giver” Solon,^[7] the Muses were “the key to the good life”; since they brought both prosperity and friendship. Solon sought to perpetuate his political reforms by establishing recitations of his poetry—complete with invocations to his practical-minded Muses—by Athenian boys at festivals each year. It was believed that the muses would help inspire people to do their best.” [2]

ALL IMAGES OF LADYFAG’S APARTMENT, AS PHOTOGRAPHED BY STYLELIKEU.COM; TEXT TAKEN FROM “ORLANDO” BY VIRGINIA WOOLF, 1928 [1]; “WEETZIE BAT” BY FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK, 1989 [3]; AND VIA WIKIPEDIA.ORG [2]

“Here’s a first look inside Phillip Garrido’s...

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:48:00 -0400

“Here’s a first look inside Phillip Garrido’s house of horrors, where he held kidnap victim Jaycee Lee Dugard and the two children he illicitly fathered for 18 sadistic years.

The filthy hellhole is a warren of tents and sheds, littered with toys, clothing, books, cardboard boxes, and cat-related ephemera — providing a glimpse into the abominable conditions Dugard endured as Garrido’s alleged sex slave.”

“As shocking details emerge about Dugard’s sadistic captivity, a series of disturbing pictures showing her ramshackle outdoor prison were released yesterday.

The tent has dressers overflowing with clothing, stripped-down sofas for beds and a dirty fishtank. There’s a Bible on CD, and the chillingly titled book, “Self Esteem: A Family Affair.” There’s an open box of lice treatment, four naked Barbie dolls and makeup containers.

The children had to remain within a makeshift campsite hidden from the outside world, while the their captors lived a seemingly child-free public life.”

“There were zero signs of kids living there,” Sgt. Diane Aguinaga of the Antioch police said about the main home of her captors, Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy Garrido.

A running theme throughout the tent — eerily adorned with a “Welcome” sign at the entrance — is a preoccupation with cats.

There are ceramic feline figurines, copies of the magazine Cat Fancy, cat jigsaw puzzles and about 20 books about the animals, including “Do Cats Think?” and “The Cat Who Went to Paris.”

There were dozens of other, non-cat related books, with several titles from famed-suspense master Dean Koontz, science-fiction author Isaac Asimov and romance writer Danielle Steel.”

“One snapshot reveals a crude shrine to Garrido, depicting the onetime musician singing and playing guitar in what appears to be a suburban living room.

Dugard’s mother, Terry Probyn, raced to Northern California to reunite with her daughter and to meet her granddaughters for the first time. But there are already signs of the difficult road ahead.

Just a day after Probyn first saw her daughter after 18 years, she called her sister, Tina Dugard, in Riverside, Calif., to come provide emotional support.

“Terry’s freaked out and needs me. The child that was taken isn’t the same,” Tina’s neighbor quoted the sister as saying. “She didn’t use the word ‘brainwashed,’ but that’s how I interpreted it. She was having a hard time connecting.”

ALL IMAGES AND TEXT TAKEN FROM “CAPTIVE KIDS’ DEN OF HORRORS” AS WRITTEN BY LACHLAN CARTWRIGHT, KIRSTEN FLEMING, AND LINDA MASSARELLA FOR THE NEW YORK POST, SUNDAY AUGUST 30TH, 2009

ALL IMAGES TAKEN FROM PORNWITHOUTPORN.TUMBLR.COM

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:16:00 -0400

ALL IMAGES TAKEN FROM PORNWITHOUTPORN.TUMBLR.COM

ALL IMAGES OF WORK BY BRYAN MORELLO; VIA FLICKR,...

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:12:00 -0400

ALL IMAGES OF WORK BY BRYAN MORELLO; VIA FLICKR, LIVEJOURNAL, AND YOUTUBE

“My life in this apartment started in the beginning of...

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:20:00 -0400

“My life in this apartment started in the beginning of 1969, previously I had shared thirteen different homes with family, friends and strangers; it has been my home ever since. Initially I occupied it with others, one in many ways became a rock icon, who still draws the odd pilgrim to my door looking for his long departed traces. There are three rooms, hallway, kitchen, bathroom and balcony, overlooking a now traffic-calmed street of Edwardian mansion blocks, lined with London plane trees watched leafless, come into bud, leaf, and fall again, whatever has gone on inside this space, the constant immediate vision of the outside world. At night, the extinguishing lights of the buildings opposite, as the numbers occupying them have fallen as their prices have risen over the years. The sounds I hear, the continuos rumble of the main roads nearby, passing traffic, planes, people, children playing, developers developing. Periods sometimes calm sometimes noisy, cycle through time and memory.”

“Along with terrace cafes, millionaires mansions in streets lined with pungent blossoms, georgeous hidden garden squares and Victorian cemetery of splendour, the area co-exists with hourdes of tourists, exhibition centre visitors and exhibitors, cheap hotels, bed-sits, hostels and brothels. The streets can teem with crowds from football to rock concert fans. There, the drug-dealers, prostitutes, pimps, homeless, the dangers of the inner city, an area on the edge, calm co-existing with chaos. On its perimeter I had lived through psychedelia, art school and Swinging London in the 1960s.

Sharing it, I first occupied the one with the balcony, then the other two rooms, before expanding into the whole. On a visit to New York in 1975, planned a transformation of the room imprinted on my senses I had lived, worked and stored my possessions in previously. On return it became an extension of the landscapes developing then in my canvasses, removing the figures from inside them by extending their landscape through the room as murals, horizons, panels and objects into the third dimension, the world of the picture came into real space. Its occupants became as a result figures in a painting before imagination, now the unreal become the real. At least that was the idea, and it lasted until the ceiling fell in the mid 1990s.”

“The result, change formed from necessity, obsessional behaviour, the on-going desire to oppose entropy and the decay that is the natural material condition, gravity affecting everything. As much as I may produce, the very structure of the space I live/work in has been in a state of attack, from minor water incursions to major floodings, now a second ceiling in a state of collapse. Hard not to ignore the realities of nature in the making of art, it is due, overdue, for replacement in the immediate future, and I contemplate disturbance again. Incoming rain has damaged most rooms at some time or other, repeatedly often in the same places, over decades. Each time, living with the circumstance, I have tried to incorporate visual traces into design stimulants.

References surround and multiply, both inwardly and outwardly they inform. Inspiration from many sources, the decay of the classical, romance of the ruin, the works/homes of such as Picasso, Dali, Matisse, Miro, Mondrian, Francis Bacon, Kurt Schwitters, many others, some conscious some unconscious. All echo from my mind into the space around, the sphere of influence, which in the 1980s I likened to a Web of Perception. Long before I understood, took part in the digital web of now.”

“The space I inhabit, in one way or another, began to be photographed over 30 years ago. Pictures of it have been shown somewhere in a magazine, book, exhibition of some sort, every year since. Published in Australia, Russia, Japan, U.S.A, France, Holland, South Africa, Germany, Italy, U.K, exhibited in the Victoria And Albert Museum, filmed for television here, in Poland, Germany, France, U.S.A, Russia, Japan, it started being labelled Retro in the early 1970s, a Gesamkunstwerk by the mid 70s, defined as Post-Modern in 1977. Many attempts at self-definition later, in the mid 1990s, I formulated my MAXIMALism mini-manifesto. Co-existing with a creative entry into the virtual space of digitised computer-generated media, came the words that attempted to fix the concept, MAXIMALism=minimalism with a plus, plus, plus.

Like most observational statement, mediated attention is always somewhat bizarre, re-assuring, amusing, stimulating, functional, and confusing. To me, this space is home, the essential part in it being my personal centre of creativity, where I work, rest, sometimes play, and showcase output. It functions as such for me, though is minimally hospitable to others, physically uncomfortable on many levels. It is stuffed, if not over stuffed, with things acquired over the years, dominated by the often large, bright, bold, ambiguous paintings I have spent most of my waking time making, which occupy all available wall space, exist in stacks I squeeze past to reach kitchen and bathroom, with the many other objects, some 3 dimensional some now digital, made alongside them.

Furniture is mostly made for, or customised by me, alongside found period pieces from markets, skips, and gifts, chosen when on the edge of taste, now often found in contemporary reproduction. The background is predominately white, the floor grey, black accents throughout. Reflections, in the mirror-panels which have slowly spread over the apartment, in doors, around window-frames, avoiding wall-space where a painting might hang, create myriad small patches of light and colour, vistas multiplying both space and imagery. Throughout this, the paintings present their own views into otherness, at the same time being of and reflecting the space they were made in, exist in now, are an intrinsic part of. Images, from the past side-by-side with those of the present, in a cyclic progress from art manifesting in life manifesting in art, or at least some kind of expression of it.”

“The definition of an ideology necessitates both speculative conjecture and perceptual intuition of motivational impulses. On entering into virtual space my working world expanded in ways and means unforeseen. Coming, with the creative spread from the canvass and the home around, into areas of music production and animation, developed from spheres of influence and input into unexpected combinations of work/play, the manifesto, first written, became a mini-cartoon, comic, and self-produced spoken-word dance-track. Physically, the virtual world gave more space, forced me to learn new tools, new techniques, to expand from the confined real into it. In the process, I was maximalised.

My home, one of privileged existence at a price, had kept me to this spot, sometimes wonderful, sometimes trapped. I have walked its floors for many miles, for years breathed only its air, seen only it’s horizons. Certainly spent the greater part of my life in this enclosed, defined space, and most of that on my own. The need for solitude to create, to function, to work, has taken precedence ultimately over other domestic occupations, pleasures, past-times, relationships, and entertainments.”

“I came to Maximalism, it seems, as a journey, occupying principally, continuously, one place, this place, this home, like a static traveller through time, spiraling around myself through decades, whilst outside the world changes/remains the same, as I do, inside. The digital added dimensions to what were hitherto possibilities, bringing new ability/learning previously impossible/improbable, adding to what I now find myself doing. The result partially of my over-full, over-lived-in dwelling, need waiting to be fulfilled/defined. Concurrently, occupying both spaces, the constant awareness of self flows inward and outward to include the objects of extended identity, now into the virtual timeless space of the digital that appears to have no boundaries, now back into the real. Living with a plus, plus, plus, sometimes.”

MOST IMAGES OF VARIOUS INTERIORS BY DUGGIE FIELDS; ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF ARTWORK AND WEB DESIGN BY DUGGIE FIELDS; TAKEN FROM BOTH DUGGIEFIELDS.COM AND THE BLITZ KIDS INDEX AT GEOCITIES. TEXT TAKEN FROM “LIVING IN MAXIMAL STYLE” BY DUGGIE FIELDS, JUNE 2003, TAKEN FROM THE ARTIST’S WEBSITE