Little Girl
Mixed Martial Arts Rally in Midtown Manhattan
Kapow! Mixed Martial Artists to Rally in Midtown for Legialization
By David Freedlander
March 16, 2011 | 9:54 a.m.
Over 1,000 fans of Mixed Martial Arts are expected to rally today in front of Radio City to call on lawmakers to legalize the sport in New York State.
A study commissioned by Ultimate Fighting Championship, an MMA sports association and production company, found that regulating the sport would generate $23 million in economic activity.
Proponents of keeping the sport illegal say that it borders on the barbaric because the aim is to disable or maim your opponent. MMA is outlawed in only a handful of states other than New York, including Connecticut, Vermont and West Virginia.
Today’s rally is part of a promotion about an upcoming bout between Shogun Rua and Jon Jones
UKG: James Frey Ignores Publishing Houses
James Frey ignores publishing houses to release new book through art gallery
Bad boy of American letters prints just 10,000 copies of his latest work, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, in time for Easter
These are tough times for the publishing industry, so writers are increasingly turning to unconventional ways to market their work.
There is the horror story printed on toilet paper, the novel composed of 2,000 tattoos etched on volunteers’ skin, the unbound book in a box that can be shuffled and read in any order, and of course the numerous collaborative Wikinovels.
Now the bad boy of American letters, James Frey, has jumped on the bandwagon with the announcement that his next book will be published by an art gallery. Just 10,000 copies will be printed on paper, with an additional collectors’ edition of 1,000 signed volumes.
Frey’s original manuscript will be printed on canvas and displayed by the publisher, the Gagosian gallery in New York, alongside new artworks by several top American artists to illustrate it. They include Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Richard Phillips and Terry Richardson.
New Justice Coming
SMEAR Being Tagged By The Man
Graffiti artist’s past is tagging behind him
Cristian Gheorghiu scrawled ragged images and his nickname, ‘Smear,’ on L.A.’s lampposts, walls and riverbeds. Now that his gallery career is taking off, an injunction is threatening to bar him from profiting from art bearing his telltale ‘tag.’
Graffiti artist Cristian Gheorghiu, emblazoned with his street nickname “Smear,” in his East Hollywood garage studio. Gheorghiu is gaining acclaim as an artist and is trying to make amends for his past mistakes. (Brian van der Brug, Los Angeles Times / February 25, 2011)
For years Cristian Gheorghiu craved the thrill of the chase. Spray-paint can in hand, he lived on the edge, always a step ahead of the law.
His canvas was L.A.’s lampposts, brick walls and concrete riverbeds where he scrawled ragged images and his own nickname, “Smear” — probably thousands of times.
The graffiti made him a subculture sensation. Fans compared his art to that of another graffiti artist, the critically acclaimedJean-Michel Basquiat.
But just as the East Hollywood graffiti artist’s career was taking off, his past has threatened to overtake him.
First came jail and a whopping fine. Now, City Atty. Carmen Trutanich is seeking a one-of-a-kind court injunction to bar Gheorghiu from profiting from art bearing his telltale “tag.”
LAT: James Frey’s hipster Jesus
James Frey’s hipster Jesus
A drinking, pot-smoking bisexual Messiah who lives in the Bronx? That’s the setup for the upcoming James Frey book, “The Final Testament of the Holy Bible,” his version of the second coming.
Reuters reports, “‘The Final Testament of the Holy Bible’ tells the story of a second coming of Jesus Christ, the Messiah to millions of Christians but just plain Ben Jones to family and friends. Ben, whose real name is Zion Avrohom, is a hard-drinking man who lives in a dirty apartment in the Bronx, New York. He smokes dope and has sex with women and men.”
“The Final Testament of the Holy Bible” will be published by Gagosian Gallery, an art gallery making an unusual move into publishing. Although an unusual move, this fits Frey’s trajectory. He has been moving away from traditional publishing — he’s started what New York magazine calls a “fiction factory,” recruiting ambitious creative-writing students out of graduate school to co-author books with his company, Full Fathom Five. His company was behind the book and movie “I Am Number Four.”
And Frey, a former Angeleno who now lives in New York, has been keeping company with artists and gallerists. He has published texts for catalogs with Richard Prince, Damien Hirst and others. Cover art for “The Final Testament of the Holy Bible” is by Gregory Crewdson — see it after the jump.
Artists Dan Colen, Richard Phillips, Richard Prince, Terry Richardson and Ed Ruscha are creating works in response to the book, which will be exhibited at the Gagosian Gallery on April 20 — along with Frey’s original manuscript printed on canvas. “The Final Testament of the Holy Bible” will officially be released April 22, Good Friday. For those who don’t get the signed collector’s edition (there will be 1,000), or the Crewdson cover in its leatherette slipcase (there will be 10,000), it will be available as an e-book too.
Israeli B-Lister VS. Viperus Siliconus
Serpiente muerde implante de silicona de una modelo Video TerraTV
A busty model and an angry snake together for a photo shoot – what could possibly go wrong?
Orit Fox‘s attempt at seductive posing with a massive boa took a bizarre turn when the snake bit one of the Israeli B-Lister’s surgically enhanced breasts in the middle of a shoot for a Tel Aviv radio station, ABC of Spain reported.
All was going well for the silicone-addicted Fox until she tried to ramp up the sex factor by licking the snake. The move proved costly as she loosened her grip on the reptile, which went straight for the model’s left breast implant and latched onto it for several seconds before being pulled off by an assistant.
‘The author is a “narcissist” and a “megalomaniac.”‘
Author James Frey Brings a God Complex to the Bronx
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
By Julia Furlan : WNYC Culture Producer
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Frey’s novel, with designs by Gregory Crewdson (Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery)
If you’re going to take on books, you might as well start with the good book. At least that’s what New York-based author James Frey is doing with his latest novel “The Final Testament of the Holy Bible.” What’s more innovative than the novel’s Bronx-living messiah character, who smokes pot and has sex with prostitutes, is that Frey appears to be side-stepping the publishing industry.
Eleven thousand hard copies of the book will be published by the Gagosian Art Gallery, with cover art designed by the gallery’s artists and an exhibit where five artists produce work in response to the book. Frey is self-publishing the book online as well, which is a departure for a best-selling author—even if the best-seller in question happens to be Frey’s 2006 book “A Million Little Pieces,” which was debunked as a fabricated memoir.
Culture writer and host of “The Bat Segundo Show” podcast Ed Champion is no Frey fan. He says that the author is a “narcissist” and a “megalomaniac.” But Champion does feel that Frey is onto something. “The book as a beautiful physical object is really the way for the physical book to survive as the e-book becomes more of a dominant part of the book market,” he said.
THR: James Frey to Write Modern-Day Holy Bible
James Frey to Write Modern-Day Holy Bible
The controversial author’s newest tome imagines a Messiah as if he were living in NYC today.
James Frey — who was infamously yelled at by Oprah Winfrey for his mock-memoir A Million Little Pieces — is writing a modern-day Bible.
The Final Testament of the Holy Bible imagines a Messiah as if he were alive in New York City today.
Gagosian Gallery will publish a limited release of just 10,000 slipcased leatherette copies and 1,000 signed and numbered collector’s editions, USA Today reports. It will be released on Good Friday, April 22.
Writes the publisher in a statement: “The Final Testament of the Holy Bible is the story of Ben Zion Avrohom, also known as Ben Jones, also known as the Messiah, also known as the Lord God. Though he is the Messiah, Ben is not the man to whom Christians have prayed for the past two thousand years.”
Zombie Boy In Paris
Terry Richardson’s Diary
- March 4, 2011
Zombie Boy in Paris before the Thierry Mugler show.
Unholy Uproar
from The New York Post’s Page Six
Novel faces unholy uproar
Controversial author James Frey is set to ignite another firestorm with his new book, “The Final Testament of the Holy Bible,” in which the second coming of Christ takes place in The Bronx projects — but the Messiah turns out to be a former alcoholic who impregnates a prostitute.
Frey — who was famously ripped apart on TV by Oprah Winfrey and ostracized by the literary community over his partly fabricated memoir, “A Million Little Pieces” — has sidestepped traditional publishers and teamed up with gallery owner Larry Gagosian, who will publish just 11,000 copies in the US while Frey will self-publish online.
His Messiah, Ben Jones, starts off as a lonely alcoholic bachelor living in a filthy apartment. He survives a horrific work accident, but strange things then happen that lead to him being recognized as the Messiah. Ben also smokes pot, has sex with a prostitute and makes out with men.
Ben tells followers that the Bible is “antiquated,” saying, “The Bible was written 2,000 years ago. The world is a different place now. Stories that had meaning then are meaningless now . . . those books are dead.”
Of religion, he says, “Faith is what you use to oppress, to justify, to judge in the name of God . . . a means to rationalize more evil in this world than anything in history. If there were a devil, faith would be his greatest invention.” The novel will be released for maximum impact in the US on Good Friday.
[ click to continue reading at NYPost.com ]
Also covered in…
HUFFINGTON POST – “James Frey To Spark Controversy With New Book “The Final Testament Of The Holy Bible”
DAILY INDIA – “Fictitious Messiah portrayed as alcoholic who impregnates prostitute”
MEDIA BISTRO – “James Frey To Self-Publish ‘Radical Book’ About the Messiah”
BLACKBOOK – “James Frey Teams Up With Gagosian to Publish Book About Drunk Jesus”
JESUS NEEDS NEW PR – “Author James Frey to publish NEWER New Testament about drunk sleazy ‘Jesus’
NEW YORK MAGAZINE – “Larry Gagosian Will Publish James Frey’s Book About Jesus“”
ARTINFO – “XXX Jesus Reborn in James Frey’s Gagosian Book”
THE DEACON’S BENCH – “Just in time for Easter, James Frey’s new book about an alcoholic Messiah”
INTERVIEW – “Gagosian to Publish James Frey’s Jesus Book”
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY – “James Frey’s controversial Messiah”
NEW YORK TIMES – “Nontraditional Route For James Frey Book”
BOOKTOPIA BLOG – “The Final Testament of the Holy Bible by James Frey”
REUTERS/MSNBC/VANCOUVER SUN – “James Frey takes on God, publishing with new book”
LINCOLN JOURNAL STAR (NE) – “Meet the year’s most controversial book.”
REFINERY 29 – “James Frey’s New Book Is About A Pot-Smoking, Bisexual Jesus Living In The Bronx”
NEW YORK PRESS – “The Third and Final Edition of the Bible, By James Frey”
THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD – “‘Bad boy’ takes on Jesus for Easter“
The World Largest Gummi Bears (12,600 calories)
USA Today: “James Frey pens modern day ‘Holy Bible'”
James Frey pens modern day ‘Holy Bible’
By Ann Oldenburg, USA TODAY
Just in: James Frey, controversial author of A Million Little Pieces, has penned a new work, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible.
Gagosian Gallery has announced the book will have have a limited U.S. print run of 10,000 slipcased leatherette copies, as well as 1,000 collector’s editions signed and numbered by the author. The book will be released on Good Friday, April 22.
According to the publishers, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible is “the story of Ben Zion Avrohom, also known as Ben Jones, also known as the Messiah, also known as the Lord God. Though he is the Messiah, Ben is not the man to whom Christians have prayed for the past two thousand years.”
Frey said in a 2008 interview the book is his “idea of what the Messiah would be like if he were walking the streets of New York today.”
James Frey On The Bowery
Terry Richardson’s Diary
- March 13, 2011
James Frey on The Bowery.
“But one person in particular stood out on this evening…”
Rachel Feinstein and John Currin, Their Own Best Creations
Lee Clower for The New York Times
Rachel Feinstein and John Currin defy others’ expectations of how artists should look and live. More Photos »
By DAVID COLMAN
Sprucely dressed waiters tangoed through the crowded space offering Champagne to the artists Brice and Helen Marden; the New Museum director Lisa Phillips; Cynthia Rowley and her husband, the art dealer Bill Powers; Amanda Brooks, the new fashion director of Barneys, and her husband, the artist Christopher Brooks; the painter Francesco Clemente and his wife Alba; Salman Rushdie; and the director Sofia Coppola. Off in a corner, Marc Jacobs and his ex-boyfriend Lorenzo Martone (the latter dressed in knee-high wooly boots) appraised a room of mirrors hand-painted with ghostly landscapes.
But one person in particular stood out on this evening: a tall ginger-haired beauty dressed in a figure-flattering ivory velvet Marc Jacobs dress, chatting with Ms. Coppola, hugging Mr. Martone, keeping an eye on three frisky young children who hovered nearby, and occasionally joking with a blue-suited bespectacled man who cast an amused eye over the gathering.
Even if you hadn’t known it was Rachel Feinstein, the sculptor who had created this fantastical art installation, you probably would have figured out rather quickly — from the way people gravitated toward her and the way she glided confidently around the room — that she was the star of the evening. And the dark-suited man at her side, the one chatting with James Frey? That was John Currin, the husband of Ms. Feinstein and the father of their three children — and arguably the most provocative and successful painter of his generation.
Pompeii Zombies In Plaster
When the Dead Arise and Head to Times Square
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
There is a lot of traffic these days in well-preserved bodies, human and otherwise. They are sliced and pickled for artistic effect or uncannily dissected and plasticized, with every blood vessel visible. They have toured the world, wrapped and mummified in the manner of ancient Egypt, or have been displayed, more modestly preserved by the dry desert sands of the Silk Road. And there are many, many more mummies yet to come.
Why this onslaught of the almost-living dead in museums? Are we latter-day Ezekiels seeking prophetic messages from ancient skeletal remnants? Has the technology used to prepare the dead for world travel suddenly advanced? Or has the need for income by the overseers of mummies suddenly increased?
Perhaps all are true. But “Pompeii the Exhibit: Life and Death in the Shadow of Vesuvius,” which opens on Friday at Discovery Times Square, is unusual because its dead bodies are not really dead, and they are not really bodies.
From Bill @ Exhibition A
Art Out Of Words
Glenn Ligon: Art Out of Words
The New York Conceptual artist Glenn Ligon, whose paintings, prints and drawings use phrases written or uttered by famous personalities, has a new midcareer retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
You Smell, Sir
This Is Why Your Used Bookstore Clerk Hates You
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Although bookstore workers love their customers, or are at least morally obligated to, sometimes the love is so great it turns murderous. Ever tried to finish all-you-can-eat coconut shrimp? That’s the love we’re dealing with here. Although your narrator worked at a used bookstore just outside of the city more than a decade ago, he shut his eyes tight, remembered three years of Fat Slice Pizza, and relived some moments of quiet desperation.
You Stole All Our Bukowski
It’s hard to keep Bukowski on the shelf when he keeps getting stuffed in the pants of street punks when no one is looking (but we are looking!). Although punks love him (he’s so easy to read) so does the staff (Hank worked a menial job for years, drank an eternity, and stillended up famous). He provides hope for apprentice alcoholics who are going to start writing sometime tomorrow or Thursday for sure. If you do steal him, please sell him back to us when you’re finished.
You’re Spending Too Much Time in the Erotica Section
Huh, and you’re totally and creepily not moving.
You Camp Out in the Self-Help Section
What is it about the self-help section that attracts people who take off their shoes and eat fruit salad right in the stacks? Or what is it that doesn’t attract them, amirite? Though we don’t mind you blocking the aisle, making your little piles of books and scribbling action items in your notepads (this means we can avoid the section), at least tidy up when you’re finished for the night. This goes for everyone in the spiritualism section, too. See you all tomorrow.
You’re Asleep
You know that’s weird, right? Barnes & Noble may have the square footage to stock recliners, but used bookstores don’t. Used bookstores use their space to sell books. Ever notice how much empty air a superbookstore contains that could be going to books? Of course you don’t, because you’re asleep on our footstool.
You Were Our Favorite English Professor
Oh look, it’s the bastard who inspired us to skip a useful degree for one in contemporary American fiction, here to again dash through the store with a comely grad student in tow and witness, once again, how well we are doing with our crack alphabetization. Looking for Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex? Try the Ds. College!
Iceland Yeah!
“There is more to reggae than ‘ooom-chicky…”
Adrian Sherwood: The man who built Jamaica in the Midlands
The founder of On-U Sound tells Nick Coleman that there is more to reggae than ‘ooom-chicky…’
Not much reggae music came out of the Home Counties during the early 1970s, but an awful lot went in.
More than you might think. Quite a lot of it made the journey from London in the record bags of Adrian Sherwood, would-be reggae rebel, junior DJ, and pale-faced teenage entrepreneur of the skank, a boy so transfixed by Jamaican rhythm and its culture that, by the age of 15, he’d already committed himself to the life while skulking around the clubs of Luton, Dunstable and High Wycombe, getting off on the “better and better, madder and madder” threads of reggae’s Seventies narrative.
“It was the sheer diversity of it,” he reflects ardently in 2011, settled in his management office in Bloomsbury, one of the several places that serve as a nerve centre for his 30-year-old On-U Sound operation. “People say reggae is just ooom-chicky, ooom-chicky, but by the mid-Seventies there was a fantastic range: the mellow stuff, stuff for grown-ups, stuff in the American vocal group tradition, beautiful solo singers, the DJs, the mad stuff, early dub. And then there was the Rastafarian movement. It was like entering a whole other world: the weed, the Special Brews, the sound systems, the parties, the lifestyle, and this image of a place that was far away and better than where we lived.”
Reggae music was then a segregated art form, regarded as second class, its sales figures far outweighing its national chart impact. “Records would sell 100,000 copies and still not make the charts,” rasps Sherwood, “because of where they were sold – outlets like Baba’s in Dalston Market and Bailey’s in the Bullring in Birmingham. You could go to Baba’s on a Friday with a load of records and he’d say, ‘We’ll take 700 copies of that.’ The next week, he’d need more.”
At 53, he’s gearing up for the year-long 30th birthday celebrations of his label, an institution that was as groundbreaking in its time as it was passionate. But at 19 he was just one small stitch in the cultural gash which scabbed over to form punk’s affinity with roots reggae.
Stop-motion Bullitt
Artsicle
Artsicle, a Netflix-Like Art Rental Service, Launches in New York
Over the past weekend, we were having a conversation we’re sure thousands of other people were also having either right at that very moment or close to it: the second coming of the internet bubble. With more and more headlines including words like startup, v.c. funding, and IPO, it’s a serious case of deja vu. However, the fun part of a budding boom is learning about companies eager to try something new, crazy as their idea might sound. Enter Artsicle, who we found by way of ArtInfo. The elevator pitch of their service is essentially “Netflix for art.” You pay them $50 per month, they lend you a piece of art by an up-and-coming artist. If you don’t like how it looks on your wall or you want to try something new, you simply return the piece and get something else. If you decide you can’t live without it, you simply purchase it outright. They’re still a startup, so they’re only operating in New York (where they’ll deliver for free)….
Zombie Puppy
Euthanized Oklahoma puppy, Wall-E, rises from dead, now looking to be adopted by loving family
A puppy euthanized by veterinarians has risen from the dead.
The black-and-white pooch was one of five young dogs put to sleep Saturday at a shelter in Sulphur, Okla., News 9 in Oklahoma City reported. Each dog was checked and confirmed to be dead, then the 3-month-old and his four siblings were placed in a trash bin.
On Sunday morning, an animal control officer looked into the bin and discovered that the one pup somehow survived.
“He was just as healthy as could be,” Scott Prall told News 9.
The puppies were selected to be euthanized because of illness, as well as overcrowding due to limited shelter space in the state, said Amanda Kloski, a veterinarian in Oklahoma who has been caring for the puppy since his resurrection.
Famous Objects From Classic Movies
Influence In Pink
John Hughes and the art his movies inspired
By Jen Chaney
Yesterday was a day of great significance for anyone who ever admired Andie Walsh, reviled Steff and wanted to hang out at Traxx.
Feb. 28, 2011 marked the 25th anniversary of the release of “Pretty in Pink,” the teen classic written by John Hughes about a thrift-store-chic girl (Molly Ringwald), a pastel-preppy guy (Andrew McCarthy) and the pompadoured geek (Jon Cryer) who wants to drive them apart.
In honor of that anniversary, as well as the genius of John Hughes in general, I recently visited to Gallery 1988, a Santa Monica, Calif., art gallery currently hosting the exhibit “The Road to Shermer: A Tribute to John Hughes.” The exhibit features paintings, posters, drawings and mixed media creations inspired by Hughes’s films, from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” to “The Breakfast Club” to “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” And yes, “Pretty in Pink” is well-represented, too.
Carlin On Auto-Tune
Zesty Curried Coconut Ramen
Josephine Meckseper at FLAG
The FLAG Art Foundation Presents New Exhibitions: ‘Josephine Meckseper’ and ‘Gerhard Richter, Sinbad’
The FLAG Art Foundation is pleased to present two new exhibitions: an exhibition of new works by Josephine Meckseper on FLAG’s 9th floor space, and Sinbad, an exhibition of 98 paintings by Gerhard Richter, on the 10th floor. The exhibitions will run from February 23, 2011 through May 26, 2011.
Josephine Meckseper
Josephine Meckseper employs window displays, vitrines, installations, photographs, films and magazines to draw a direct correlation to the way consumer culture defines subjectivity and sublimates the key instruments of individual political agency.
Meckseper presents new works focusing on retail environments and modernist concepts. Industrial reflective slatwalls, a staple of bargain store design, mirror the car dealerships of 11th Avenue. Chromed wheels, car headlights and logos flash across the videos, sculptures and cellophane-wrapped paintings, like detritus after a crash. The traditional allure of the automobile is undercut with its demise, giving the entire exhibition a destabilizing undercurrent of fear. Meckseper utilizes the staples of American Gothic (fluorescents, broken mirrors, black birds) accompanied by the incessant booming of the acid-house soundtracks of her films to further the feeling of imminent danger that penetrates the space.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with contributions by John Cassidy, James Frey, Stephen Roach and an interview with Francesco Bonami.
Duncansville Man Does Stunts
Getting air onscreen: Duncansville man does stunts for “I Am Number Four”
February 19, 2011 – By Cory Dobrowolsky
Eric Malone has reached the pinnacle of the Jet Ski world, having won eight world championships.
Now he’s going Hollywood.
Malone, a Duncansville native, performed personal watercraft stunts for the new movie “I Am Number Four”.
Malone has competed professionally for 15 years and has now started Eric Malone Enterprises, which manufactures personal watercraft. In addition to performing the stunts, Malone’s company built the watercraft used in the film.
“I was able to provide the entire package, talent and the Jet Skis,” he said. “It made it simpler for them.”
The stunts in “I Am Number Four” were not Malone’s first venture into the movie industry. He also did the personal watercraft stunts for “Into the Blue” a 2005 film starring Paul Walker and Jessica Alba.
For the new movie, Malone and the other stunt riders filmed for two weeks last July on Islamorada in the Florida Keys.
“We were in paradise for two weeks, getting paid to ride Jet Skis in 80-degree water,” said Mark Gomez, another of the stunt riders for the film. “It was a dream come true.”