start doing
"it's all about being happy about whatever you can be happy about," [daniel reich] said. "my generation grew up in a time when we didn't have heroes. you grew up believing you were being hoodwinked and manipulated—and knowing you were, but learning to enjoy it because it came in fun colors or was on mtv.
"the bottom line," he added, "was that i really wanted to have a gallery, and sometimes you just have to start doing something with whatever you have at your disposal."
- benjamin genocchio, "how an art scene became a youthscape," new york times january 23, 2004
your advice is welcome on the following:
- how to quit your job w/solid but not totally confirmed freelance prospects and not have a nervous breakdown
- how to take a road trip w/out owning a car and w/a boyfriend that can't drive
i do it before it becomes "popular" and "mainstream"
whenever i read an interesting/on-point/funny profile on friendster, i go back another day and they've changed it. so now i will copy and paste them, uncredited:
i've always wanted to create a tv show called "thank you for coming out and promoting yourself." it would be exactly as the name implies. average people, absolute nobody's taking up valuable airspace for the soul [sic] purpose of promoting what ever the fuck it is they feel like promoting. i'd be a guest and obviously promote myself. i'd talk about how cool i am. how i do everything artsy and i do it before it becomes "popular" and "mainstream" then i move on to something undiscovered. i'll be sure and stage the interview from my loft in the industrial section of town, because that's the only place that can handle all my creativity. i'll never refer to my loft as a loft, only space. i'd wear a white t-shirt with faded jeans and drink water with lemon slices from a old wine bottle i picked up at a vintage store in the east village... or was it prague, i can't quite recall. i'll sit against a brick wall in my space and talk about how i use to be corporate but then left to pursue my art and now i'm writing a book of gritty urban tales and a screenplay about the dark side of the non-profit industry. i'll quickly say i don't like to limit myself to one medium and writing is just something that i do right now. who knows what i'll be working on two months from now, maybe an installation piece. i'll say media is fast-becoming the opiate for the masses. i'll pepper my language with edgy buzz words like "anti" and "indie," right on" and "tapestry." towards the end of the interview i'll mention an obscure political cause in latin america. i'll take a dramatic swig of water from my vintage wine bottle and quote hemingway's philosophy of writing and suicide. i'll tell the interviewer i only type in lowercase letters, and i reject modern politics. i'll stop talking and slowly light up a cig (i only smoke nat shermans). i'll mention lucid dreaming and how powerful it can be once mastered. then i'll gaze out the window smoking my cigarette like the young and tormented artist that i am. i'm so intense! i'll look up at the sky and all the stars and pose a question not even carl sagan could answer. i'll take one last drag from my cig and ask the tv crew to leave so i can get back to my art.
posted January 20, 2004 in crap, delivery, printthe jenna bush administration
... the return to the moon is scheduled for as late as 2020, which could place it in the jenna bush administration.
- howard kurtz, "shooting the moon," washington post january 18, 2004
posted January 20, 2004 in politics, print
the o.c. effect
i don't know if any of you watch fox's new break-out smash 'the o.c.' as much as i do. but i'm guessing that the answer is probably 'no' because i tivo it every week and watch it, commercial free, in repetition all day saturday. then, on wednesday night, i host an 'o.c. tivo' party at 9pm where my friends and i get to act out all the parts. sure, most of those friends are imaginary, but at least they let me play summer, the show's sexy and superficial, but maybe-with-a-good-heart 'miss popular.' anyway, so here's where i'm going with this. one of the shows main characters, seth cohen, is a total insounder. his favorite band is death cab and whenever he comes on screen they roll the belle & sebastian track.
noticing this, i quickly got the insound staff together and said, 'do you realize what's gonna happen? seth is gonna totally turn ryan into a fugazi fan. and then kids everywhere will be clamoring for indie rock and they will all flock to insound so we must make sure that we have enough records for them. go. buy more records for the o.c. kids. go. now. dammit.' i called this the 'o.c. effect' and i was certain that it would make me filthy rich. suffice it to say, those damn kids never converted. and now we're sitting on lots of overstocks. we simply bought too many records and now we need to sell then dirt cheap to you. yeah. we messed up. damn you seth cohen. damn you ryan atwood. damn you marissa cooper. damn you all.
- insound newsletter, january 15, 2004
posted January 16, 2004 in crap, music, printprostitution is the only way to meet interesting people in the city
i wonder if we'll see an episode where some of these characters take to hooking up in order to cover rent for their humongous apartments and fabulous lives ... prostitution is the only way to meet interesting people in the city and still keep chinese takeout on the table.
- tracy weiss, "new york outside my television," knot.magazine january 6, 2004
posted January 09, 2004 in crap, print, sexhealthy if marginal
in popular culture, it is expected that a hit song may be at the top of the charts for weeks; that a book may stay on the bestseller list for months; that a successful sitcom may hang on for years. but all of these things return, in some form or other, indefinitely. books return as movies, which use 20-year-old songs to establish the atmosphere of the past, in which the actors are wearing clothes perhaps not so different from the ones young people are wearing today because they're enjoying a new vogue. in popular culture, one doesn't fret about the passing of things, because although most everything is ephemeral by one standard, it is also endlessly recycled.
in the so-called high arts, the past decades have brought a new understanding of how even things that fade can yet persist, healthy if marginal, in our society. classical music is dead, yet it endures, on the margins, creatively moribund but still vibrant in a museum sort of way. painting is dead, of course, but it's still very popular. the arts teach one to be very cautious about simple-minded gloom. they also inculcate a sense of succession and return, as styles go in and out of fashion, and recur (sometimes as farce) in a parade of neo-this and post-that. locally, on the timeline, these changes provoke lamentation or rejoicing; but a walk through any decent city art museum is a lesson in calm forbearance, an understanding of the broader sweep and the inevitability of change.
- philip kennicott, "what will last?" washington post january 4, 2004
posted January 09, 2004 in art, music, printadmiring
the images evoked are in perfect sync with the time—the 1970s and 80s—and we are absorbed by the embarrassing hair styles, the music of the period, the alarmingly swift overheated tensions. this is why reality television has caught on so deeply. we've become a nation that has grown up admiring itself on television, a country that matured waiting for ''american idol.''
- elvis mitchell, "review of capturing the friedmans: witness to a family's slow-motion collapse," new york times
posted January 04, 2004 in film, print