AMERICA: Stuck In The Teeth
Stuck In The Teeth
POSTED AT: FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2012 07:25:58 PM
AUTHOR: JIM KEANE, S.J.
In his memoir/novel A Million Little Pieces (first pitched as the latter, then sold and made famous as the former, then eventually exposed as largely the latter), author James Frey tells the harrowing tale of undergoing a double root canal without any anesthetic. It’s one of the most cringe-worthy moments in the book, because anyone who has had a root canal even withanesthetic can testify it’s an uncomfortable experience, to say the least. To have two at once without painkillers seems beyond the realm of the possible.
In Frey’s case, it was—he later admitted the details of the root canal story (among many other stories) were somewhat fudged. In terms of the structure of Frey’s book, however, the scene accomplished several tasks: it showed the reader just how serious his addictions were, that he could not have even novocaine; it provided a benchmark for physical pain that many readers could relate to in some fashion; and, perhaps most importantly, it established the author as a tough guy nonpareil. Not a bad haul for a story about one’s teeth, yes?
I am teaching a class on Religious Memoir this semester, and our first text is Augustine’s Confessions. It includes of course the famous story of his theft of the pears; there are the years spent in dissipation; one finds the tales of his mother’s stubborn refusal to give up on her son. Then, right there in Chapter 4 of Book 9, nary 500 words from his account of his own baptism: a toothache! Here is Augustine’s account, addressed to God:
Hepworth Purloined
Hepworth sculpture latest target of ‘scrap metal’ thieves
By Helen Warless
‘Two Forms (Divided Circle)’ by Barbara Hepworth, taken from Dulwich Park, London
An enormous bronze sculpture by Barbara Hepworth which was wrenched from its plinth in a south London park is thought to be the latest in a string of artworks to have been targeted by the country’s metal thieves.
The 2m-high sculpture, “Two Forms (Divided Circle)” had been on display in Dulwich Park for more than 40 years and is insured for £500,000. It was removed on Monday night by criminals who broke through the park gates, drove up to the artwork, hacked through the base and took it away.
Police forces around the UK have admitted they are struggling to contain the rise in metal thefts spurred by soaring copper, lead and bronze prices. Railway lines, phone and electricity cables and even bus stops have been hauled off by criminals cashing in on the high demand for scrap metal. MPs concerned that thieves have turned their attention to war memorials, commemorative plaques and valuable sculptures have called on the government to give the police more powers to crack down on scrap dealers who ultimately buy the stolen metal.
Angelo Dundee Gone
from AP via The Arizona Republic
Muhammad Ali’s boxing trainer Angelo Dundee dead at 90
Feb. 1, 2012 11:42 PM – Associated Press
There was no way Angelo Dundee was going to miss Muhammad Ali’s 70th birthday party.
The genial trainer got to see his old friend, and reminisce about good times. It was almost as if they were together in their prime again, and what a time that was.
Dundee died in his apartment in Tampa, Fla., Wednesday night at the age of 90, and with him a part of boxing died, too.
Dundee was the brilliant motivator who worked the corner for Ali in his greatest fights, willed Sugar Ray Leonard to victory in his biggest bout, and coached hundreds of young men in the art of a left jab and an overhand right.
More than that, he was a figure of integrity in a sport that often lacked it.
“To me, he was the greatest ambassador for boxing, the greatest goodwill ambassador in a sport where there’s so much animosity and enemies,” said Bruce Trampler, the longtime matchmaker who first went to work for Dundee in 1971. “The guy didn’t have an enemy in the world.”
How could he, when his favorite line was, “It doesn’t cost anything more to be nice.”
Mike Kelley Gone
Pioneering Artist Mike Kelley Has Died at 58
By Dan Duray, Andrew Russeth and Michael H. Miller
Mike Kelley, one of the most critically acclaimed artists of his generation, has died at the age of 58. According to several sources close to the artist that The Observerhas spoken with the cause of death was suicide.
The artist had recently been selected for the 2012 Whitney Biennial, an exhibition that he has participated in seven times in the past. He has had major one-person exhibitions at the Whitney Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Louvre, MUMOK, Vienna, and numerous other museums.
Mr. Kelley’s work spanned across numerous mediums and source materials, encompassing sculptures made of knitted stuffed animals (which provided the cover art for Sonic Youth’s 1992Dirty album) to banners emblazoned with various phrases (“PANTS SHITTER & PROUD PS JERK-OFF TOO,” memorably) to large-scale installations inspired by the city of Kandor, the birthplace of Superman.
Mr. Kelley was born in 1954 in Detroit (he described himself as a “blue-collar anarchist”), and his childhood there provided material for many of his works. In 1974, he founded the band Destroy All Monsters with Cary Loren, Niagara (Loren’s then-girlfriend) and Jim Shaw. They made noisy, feedback drenched-music that was influenced by the other local bands at the time, The Stooges and the MC5. Destroy All Monsters was recently the subject of two retrospectives, at the Prism Gallery in Los Angeles and at the Boston University Art Gallery. Mr. Kelley left the band in 1976, to attend graduate school at CalArts.
Mr. Kelley showed at New York’s Metro Pictures Gallery for two decades, from the early 1980s until the early 2000s, when he began showing with Gagosian. Reviewing his 1988 show at Metro Pictures, critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote, “He’s an artist’s artist for those artists–now in the making–who will matter to us in the ’90s.”
Juan Luis Pedro Philippo DeHuevos Epstein Gone
from Associated Press via Pioneer Press
Robert Hegyes, who played Epstein on ‘Welcome Back Kotter,’ dies
Associated Press
METUCHEN, N.J. – Robert Hegyes, the actor best known for playing Jewish Puerto Rican student Juan Epstein on the 1970s TV show “Welcome Back Kotter” has died. He was 60.
The Flynn & Son Funeral Home in Fords, N.J., said it was informed of Hegyes’ death Thursday by the actor’s family.
A spokesman at JFK Medical Center in Edison, N.J., told the Star-Ledger newspaper that Hegyes, of Metuchen, arrived at the hospital Thursday morning in full cardiac arrest and died.
Hegyes was appearing on Broadway in 1975 when he auditioned for “Kotter,” a TV series about a teacher who returns to the inner-city New York school of his youth to teach a group of irreverent remedial students nicknamed the “Sweathogs.” They included the character Vinnie Barbarino, played by John Travolta.
A MAN WALKS INTO A BAR by Leo Fitzpatrick
Currently featured in a two-person show at Max Fish, Leo Fitzpatrick is perhaps best known in the art world for his title page poetry series. As an actor, Leo is familiar to the public at large for films like Larry Clark’s KIDS and notable turns in HBO’s The Wire, Sons of Anarchy, The Shoe and Kalup Linzy’s shorts. Leo Fitzpatrick’s mixed media work is in the private collections of Terry Richardson, Daphne Guinness, Richard Kern, James Frey and Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn. His bookF#*k Friends was published by OHWOW in 2009. He can be found most Saturday nights DJ-ing at Lit.
Today Exhibition A presents A Man Walks Into A Bar by Leo Fitzpatrick. This archival pigment print on canvas is available in 2 sizes, each a signed limited edition of 50.
2012 Virgin Banksy
First Banksy of 2012 Spotted in What Might be the Artist’s Most Prolific Year
You may have considered either 2010 or 2011 to have been the year(s) that popular street artist Banksy possibly hit his career high, becoming a near-household name with his documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop and then, later, its Oscar nomination. However, with the 2012 Olympics soon arriving in his native England, some are speculating that this could be Banksy’s most prolific year. As such, spotters are on the lookout and they have recently found perhaps the first piece by the artist this year:
It appears to have all of the hallmarks of a real painting by the artist and would be the first new year offering by Banksy. 2012 the Olympic year is expected to be a big year for the artist as all eyes are now focused on the capital.. The stencil turned up on the corner of an office building on Oval Street in Kentish Town (near Camden Town) and many followers of the street artist have already identified the painting as a Banksy. It possesses all of the his irreverent stencil features including a distinctly political statement.
Matt Strauss’ White Flag Projects Hits NYC
St. Louis gallerist curates his first show at a significant New York gallery
MATT AT BAT: Local art gallery operator and curator, Matt Strauss, who has become bi-coastal in the past couple years, had his first curated show at a NYC gallery open on Friday.
Although it was a frigid night, there were some ex-pat St. Louisans mingling among the Right Coasters at the opening at the Renwick Gallery, 45 Renwick Street in Soho.
Cole Root, director of St. Louis’ Los Caminos gallery who moved to New York last year was at the opening, as was artist Erik Spehn, who also left the STL for NY over the past couple years, curator Marie Heilich and artist Megan Marrin. Notable New Yorker’s in attendance included artists Tommy Hartung and Tony Matelli, author James Frey, and gallerists Michelle Maccarone, Lisa Cooley and Tyler Dobson.
Strauss said the artists whose work is in the exhibition are mostly high-level artists he’s shown at his White Flag Projects gallery, 4568 Manchester Avenue.
A Clockwork Box-Office
How Stanley Kubrick Invented the Modern Box-Office Report (By Accident)
by Mike Kaplan
Stanley Kubrick believed that “filmmaking is an exercise in problem solving.” He meant that to include the distribution and marketing of his films as well as their production, and he devoted more time and effort to managing the release of his films than any other director. In my view, it’s one of the reasons he made only 13 films in 46 years. He relished the problem-solving.
I spent two years overseeing the marketing of Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, devising its successful 70-mm. relaunch strategy, before joining him in England to handle the release of A Clockwork Orange. Our collaboration began shortly after Clockwork wrapped and lasted through its December 1971 premiere, its official U.S. release date of February 2, 1972, and throughout its extended rollout. With Stanley’s rare combination of meticulousness and creativity, we achieved what we set out to accomplish — but the most influential result of our collaboration was unexpected.
Stanley had a computerized system to track theaters and grosses based on technical information he had acquired while developing HAL 9000, the all-knowing computer in 2001. For months these stories persisted in the trades as the roster of Clockwork cinemas was refined. They were neither confirmed nor denied.
In March 1972, after the first 25 Clockwork engagements had established new house records, I was in my Burbank office at Warner Bros. when Stanley called, sounding serious.
“Mike, I just got a call from Abel Green.”
Abel Green was the legendary editor of Variety and the most respected and important figure in the trade press.
“What did he want?,” I asked, nervously.
“He asked about the computer system because he wants to adapt it for Variety.” Trade stories of Stanley hoodwinking the studio raced through my mind.
“What did you say?,” I replied, already planning damage control.
His tone changed; there was a twinkle in his voice. “I told him how we had done it, how necessary the information was for the business and what computers could do the job. He was very appreciative.”
Stanley was in top form.
Marlborough’s All-Star Group Show
See Cindy Sherman and Others Celebrate the Art of Fiction in Marlborough’s All-Star Group Show
WHAT: “Blind Cut,” curated by Jonah Freeman and Vera Neykov
WHEN: Opening Jan. 19 – Feb. 18, Tuesday-Saturday 10am – 5:30pm
WHERE: Marlborough Gallery Chelsea, 545 West 25th St., New York
WHY THIS SHOW MATTERS: As news of art forgeries is scattered across the web and legal questions arise with regards to the use appropriation in art, Marlborough Chelsea stages the appropriately timed exhibition “Blind Cut.” The ambitious group show brings together an impressive guest-list of contributing artists and borrowed works that delve into varying forms of fiction. From renderings by the Italian radical architectural firm Superstudio to French faux artist collective Claire Fontaine and surrealist film master Luis Buñuel, “Blind Cut” embraces work that focuses on invention, persona, utopia, and authorship.
Not only is the list of featured artists full of super-stars, like Cindy Sherman, Ed Ruscha, Sherrie Levine, Ryan Gander, and Francis Picabia (among others), but the contributor list for the accompanying publication is full of heavy-hitters as well. Prolific science-fiction writer and the creator of numerous literary fictitious worlds J.G. Ballard and exaggerative memoirist James Frey write complimentary essays and interviews.
The Second Coolest Shower Curtain Ever
The Dave Eggers shower curtain
The Thing, the quarterly that issues objects that are art-ish or connected to literature, will publish a short story shower curtain by Dave Eggers later this month. It is The Thing Issue 16. Previous issues of The Thing include a cutting board seared with a short story by Starlee Kine, a Miranda July window shade, and a pair of glasses to go with Jonathan Lethem’s novel “Chronic City” — all of which have sold out.
Eight year-old Hardcore
Finch on McWhinnie
John McWhinnie
BOOKWORLD
by Charlie Finch
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The loss of book dealer, promoter, collector and champion John McWhinnie in a water accident last weekend at a young age is a devastating one to those who love books, especially old books, which, these days, is just about every book. The smell of the paper, the design of the cover, the tattered pages and convenient cocktail napkin employed as a bookmark, all experiences before the reading, remain the hallmarks of John, as presentable and gracious a fellow as ever walked Park Avenue.
His exhibitions were first rate; John Waters, Brigid Berlin, James Frey. I went to Jack Hanley’s amazing “Diggers” show at his Watts Street gallery last Friday and was again reminded that the literary collectibles from the 1960s that I have in my library are now as old as the Civil War, turning to dust at McWhinnie’s untimely death. McWhinnie’s emporiums, on East 64th Street and in East Hampton, their stock supplemented by the great bent bibliophile Richard Prince, were the Elaine’s or the Mortimer’s of fading bookland.
McWhinnie Gone
John McWhinnie, Rare Book Dealer, Dies
At a friend’s wedding in 2005, John McWhinnie once distilled some love letters that Orson Welles had written to Rita Hayworth in the 1940s and read the short passage to the assembled guests.
McWhinnie, a New York dealer, scholar and collector of rare 20th century books, letters and ephemera, died on Friday.
“He figured out a way to make 60-year old mail feel completely contemporary,” said the friend, Bill Powers, a New York gallery owner.
McWhinnie, who was 43 years old, drowned during a snorkeling accident while on vacation in the British Virgin Islands with his wife Maria Beaulieu, a jewelry designer, said an aide to his business partner, Glenn Horowitz. Beaulieu survived.
McWhinnie served as adviser and dealer to artists and executives on their art and book buying, including contemporary artist Richard Prince, novelist James Frey and Daniel Loeb, a hedge fund manager.
“He has been one of the primary forces to bridge the gap between the art world and the establishment rare book world,” said Sheelagh Bevan, assistant curator of printed books at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. “He was usually two years ahead of everyone else in elevating an overlooked group of artists or writers–Mary Beach comes to mind, but there are many others–to the point where institutions and private collectors took notice.”
“When he died he took with him so much specialized knowledge that will be lost to the dustbin of history,” Frey said.
Stuffed Veal Rolls With Mushrooms and Onions
Police Say She Was Drunk
Woman Scratches, Rubs Butt Over $30M Painting
Police say she was drunk
by Greg Wilson
AP
This work by Clyfford Still, titled “D No. 1,” was not damaged by a drunken woman.
A Colorado woman dropped her pants at a museum and rubbed her rear end all over a painting valued at $30 million, according to police.
Carmen Tisch, 36, was arrested after scratching, punching and, well, rubbing her butt against Clyfford Still’s “1957-J no.2” and causing an estimated $10,000 damage to the artwork at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver. Police believe she was drunk during the late December incident.
The oil-on-canvas abstract expressionist painting was spared additional damage when the woman tried to urinate on it but apparently missed. “It doesn’t appear she urinated on the painting or that the urine damaged it, so she’s not being charged with that,” Kimbrough said according to the Denver Post.
James Frey’s Winter Reading List
James Frey’s Reading List: 6 Books You Need This Winter
Even if one of your New Year’s resolutions wasn’t to read more, we think we could all benefit from less Bachelor-watching and more Bovary. PS, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was a book first. Jersey Shorewasn’t.
To help you get your literature on during the long, dark winter nights, we turned to author James Frey for awinter-reading hit-list. Whether you’re a fan of Frey or not, we think his six picks, which range from a tale of models-turned-terrorists to a kid’s book you’ll want to steal from your nephew, are the perfect (equally gripping) alternatives to, say, Emily Thorne’s quest for vengeance. PPS: Us Weekly doesn’t count as reading, either.
People Are Awesome
Happy New Apocalypto
2012
Have A Holly, Jolly Download
from MediaBistro’s eBOOKNEWSER
HarperCollins Saw 100 Thousand eBook Downloads on Christmas Day
By Nate Hoffelder on December 29, 2011 4:02 PM
It looks like everyone had a record number of eBook downloads on Christmas day. HarperCollins reported yesterday that their servers are just beginning to recover from the many new customers who downloaded eBooks this weekend.
Over 100,000 eBooks published by HarperCollins UK were downloaded on that single day. This was both a record high as well as over times as high as the average daily downloads during December 2011.
TY-LöR BORING: “Jesus as a hunky construction worker in the modern day Bronx. I couldn’t put this book down for 2 days.”
Looking Back At 2011 With Ty-Lör Boring
12.28.2011
BY OUT.COM EDITORS
The ‘Top Chef’ star shares his 2011 favorites
While the ferocious competition and mysterious appeal of Tom Colicchio are usually reason enough for us to tune into Top Chef, there has been something else keeping us enraptured this season: Ty-Lör Boring.
The super cute and openly gay chef, who toils in a West Village kitchen but has done some side work, including modeling for Butt magazine, has been such an enjoyable part of our TV watching this year, we asked him to share his own Top 10 list from 2011.
Favorite Vacation: Culebra, Puerto Rico .
I hadn’t been on a proper vacation in 5 years and before filming Top Chef I took a week off on the beach. It’s completely off the grid which is nothing short of amazing.
Favorite Celebrity Crush: Brian Wilson.
Maybe it was his roommate dressed up as a gimp during a sports interview. Maybe it’s the tights. Maybe it’s the beard. In any case, I am a fan.
Favorite Cocktail: Caipirinha.
Lime, sugarcane, cachaça. In the middle of winter nothing reminds me of the middle of summer like this cocktail.
Favorite Music: “Internet Friends” by Knife Party.
DJ Vito Fun remixed this track for release next summer on Fire Island and I can’t stop dancing to it.
Favorite Book: The Final Testament of the Holy Bible by James Frey.
Jesus as a hunky construction worker in the modern day Bronx. I couldn’t put this book down for 2 days.
Favorite Secret Weapon: Worcestershire Sauce.
I came across a recipe for making your own a while back and have some batches in my wine cellar approaching 4 years old. It makes the cheapest steak taste like 90-day dry-aged waygu.
Frankenthaler Gone
Abstract Artist Helen Frankenthaler Dies Age 83
by JOEL ROSE
Gordon Parks / Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
At a time when the art world was still dominated by men, Helen Frankenthaler’s abstract canvasses earned the respect of critics and influenced generations of artists. One of the major abstract expressionist painters of the 20th century, Frankenthaler died Tuesday at her home in Connecticut. She was 83 years old.
In the early 1950s, Frankenthaler started painting with her canvasses flat on the floor after seeing Jackson Pollock do it. She liked the gesture and the attitude of working on the floor, she told NPR in 1988, “but I wanted to work with shapes in a very different way.”
Frankenthaler developed her own technique of pouring diluted paint directly onto canvas, then manipulating it with mops and sponges to create vivid fields of color.
“What evolved for me had to do with pouring paint and staining paint,” Frankenthaler explained. “It’s a kind of marrying the paint into the woof and weave of the canvas itself, so that they become one and the same.”
Starting with the 1952 masterpiece Mountains and Sea,Frankenthaler produced a body of work that was a major influence on the painters of the 1960s and beyond.
“She really helped pull art out of the angst and trauma of the abstract expressionists, the wartime generation, and into a lighter, more lyrical kind of modernism,” says Betsy Broun, who directs the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. “I think it was a relief, a liberation.”
Greece Still Raking In The Dough
Greek coin lot set to fetch millions
By Susan Moore
While investors across the globe are preoccupied by the fate of Greece’s currency, a British collection of just a few hundred Greek coins is predicted to fetch millions of dollars when auctioned next month in New York.
Described by Paul Hill of Baldwin’s, the London coin dealer, as “the most important collection of ancient Greek coins to appear on the market in almost a quarter of a century”, the 642-piece Prospero Collection will go under the hammer on January 4.
Arguably the rarest and most spectacular coin in the collection is the facing head gold stater of Pantikapaion, a colony on the Black Sea. An example has not been seen at auction in living memory, and the coin bears a conservative estimate of $650,000.
The collection is one of several due to be auctioned at the New York International Numismatic Convention between December 31 and January 9. Kevin Foley, the convention’s chairman, said there was “a realistic chance” that its nine participating auction houses staging 16 sessions of sales would realise $100m.
The week’s star lot is a masterpiece of late 5th century Greek art, the so-called “dekadrachm of Akragas”. Produced in Sicily, the coin appears to celebrate the victory of Exainetos, a citizen of Akragas, who won the chariot race of Olympia in 412BC.
Struck in the 4th century BC, the coin depicts a satyr or wild man of the woods, wide-eyed and dishevelled; on the reverse is a griffin standing on an ear of grain – a symbol of the city’s wealth.
Only 12 such coins are known and this example has a starting bid of $2.5m.
Peace On Earth
Munk Art
Via YouTube, Leading Tours of the City’s Art Scene
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
By JED LIPINSKI
WHEN Loren Munk began furtively filming New York City gallery and museum openings in 2006 — “working undercover,” as he put it — he was regularly kicked out by security guards and threatened with legal action for copyright infringement.
Since then, however, Mr. Munk’s camera has become a welcome guest, and using the alias James Kalm, he has uploaded more than 900 videos to his YouTube channels, the James Kalm Report and James Kalm Rough Cut, which have been viewed nearly two million times in total.
Curators searching for free promotion now invite him to document their shows. Fans of the project range from New York art world insiders to members of the Papulankutja aboriginal community in the desert of Western Australia.
They are 500 miles from the nearest small town, Anthony Spry, a former art teacher in Papulankutja who introduced his students to the Kalm Report, said in an e-mail from Australia.
“But the videos made them feel as if they were at the center of the New York art scene,” he said.
Hitchens: The Last Great Lover of Sonnets Gone
In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011
by Juli Weiner
Christopher Hitchens—the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant—died today at the age of 62. Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 2010, just after the publication of his memoir, Hitch-22, and began chemotherapy soon after. His matchless prose has appeared in Vanity Fair since 1992, when he was named contributing editor.
I Want To Shred Everybody In The World
How To Weigh The Weighing Machine
Best Worst Video of the Year: Cock Metal Larp Edition
No More Puckers For Oscar
Oscar Wilde’s tombstone now clean of lipstick kisses
Actor Rupert Everett and Oscar Wilde’s grandson have unveiled a makeover of the writer’s gravesite on the 111th anniversary of his death.
The tomb had become such a well-loved pilgrimage site — and had been so well-kissed — that it needed renovation. A glass screen now separates visitors from the stone itself.
Grandson Merlin Holland said his grandfather “would be incredibly touched by all the attention. After all he was sent out of England in 1897 a bankrupt, a homosexual and a convict … and the French took him to their hearts.”