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.”
iPad NUMBER FOUR
iPads Helped Direct I Am Number Four
From the sounds of director DJ Caruso’s remarks on the iPad, the tablet did everything on the set of upcoming sci-fi flick I Am Number Four but order coffee and belittle the extras.
He gushes:
“Well I think people who are making movies now, I can’t imagine they’re not doing it [using the iPad] because, I’ve got to tell you, I’ve got every previz thing on there, I have every storyboard on there, I have every script and every script note,” he said. “I make my shot list on there and from that shot list I just send it… it’s become an amazing tool and I never would have thought it would have kicked in that fast. In fact, I talked to Steven, because I was sending him something from my iPad and he sent something back from his iPad and I thought, ‘Oh you got one!’ and he’s like, ‘Yeah.’ and I told him all these things I was using and he was like, ‘Which apps do you have?’ so here you are sending back which apps you have to Steven Spielberg. everyone’s starting to use it because it really is an amazing tool.”
Dave Duerson Gone
Bears’ Duerson shot himself; brain to be studied
By Dan Pompei and Duaa Eldeib
Former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, a source with knowledge of the situation told the Tribune.
His death has been ruled a suicide, but the Miami-Dade police department has yet to make the information public.
“He had informed (his family) at some point that he wanted his brain to be studied so people could learn more about the effect of brain trauma and so kids could play the game more safely in the future,” Chris Nowinski said.
The Bears selected Duerson out of Notre Dame in the third round of the 1983 draft. He became a starter in 1985 and played in the first of four consecutive Pro Bowls that season. In 1987, he was named the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year. He also was one of the Bears’ NFLPA representatives and was a leader through the 1987 strike.
DIVE f/x Powers #4 Lumens
DIVE Produces 105 for I Am Number Four
February 19, 2011 | Levent OZLER
DIVE produced 105 visual effects shots in the highly anticipated DreamWorks release “I Am Number Four.” DIVE worked with Visual Effects Supervisor Greg McMurray to enhance the main character’s otherworldly powers showcased in the film. One of DIVE’s challenges was in creating a technique to demonstrate the power of “Lumen” and how it transfers to the tools the main character touches.
DIVE established Lumen’s blue glow by combining an enhanced and lengthened motion blur with the original gleam from an LED crystal embedded in a sword. The team then manually tracked both the tip and bottom of this crystal in each shot due to the speed of the blades and the lighting in the shots.
“We created a tool to give us the streaks and enhanced motion blur coming off of the crystal during the fast fighting,” said DIVE Sequence Lead Jeremy Fernsler. “We then controlled the length and fade of the streak. This tool also made it easier to tweak the motion curve from the track and allowed us to make the streaks follow the flow of the sword strikes during the battle. A final color correct and glow pass tied the enhancements together.”
“I Am Number Four” also highlights DIVE’s work in Paint. While camera projections were used to aid the larger plate restoration areas, some trickier techniques were employed when Number Four dives from a cliff over a waterfall. In this scene, the actor’s wires were both behind thin strands of hair and in front of a pool of rippling water making for a tricky paint fix.
I AM NUMBER FOUR Stunt Featurette
Lynda Benglis Oozing
Artful Commentary, Oozing From the Walls
Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times
The New Museum has become a busy place this year, and it is not yet even March. In January it opened a popular tribute to the market-hardy paintings of George Condo. Now it is offering a startlingly excellent resurrection of the prescient Post-Minimalist renegade Lynda Benglis and her gaudy, multidexterous and often gender-bending segues among Process, Performance and Body Art.
Ms. Benglis is something of a mythic character, as many female artists of the 1960s and early ’70s are by now. Working in pigmented latex, beeswax or polyurethane foam and even glitter, she made daring, often ephemeral or fragile works that have plenty of historical weight but little market presence.
Permanence seems to have been the last thing on her mind, at least in the early years. Many pieces were temporary installations that did not survive; others had the kind of willful fragility that makes collectors nervous. One of her most famous works is nothing but a brilliantly orchestrated magazine ad: a performance-slash-photograph that ran in the November 1974 issue of Artforum for which she posed, taut and well-oiled, wearing only a pair of rhinestone-studded cat-eye sunglasses and wielding a dildo.
Roasted Pork and Brussel Sprouts
Secret Weapon Number Six
The Secret Weapon of ‘I Am Number Four’
By Michelle Kung
- Getty
Alex Pettyfer and Diana Agron may ostensibly be the leads of “I Am Number Four,” but it’s Aussie actress Teresa Palmer that has early viewers buzzing with her small, but critical role as a fearless, Ducati-riding alien known as Number Six.
Based on the YA novel by Pittacus Lore — better known as the pseudonym of authors James Frey and Jobie Hughes — “Number Four” is the first film project from Frey’s Full Fathom Five venture and centers about the adventures of Number Four (Pettyfer), one of nine aliens — with latent superpowers, naturally — sent to earth to escape the wrath of the evil Mogadorian race.
Even though the film features two female characters, Palmer says she was attracted to Number Six because she was “dark and edgy and mysterious, and she’s as intimidating as she is mysterious.” Palmer, who currently lives in LA but frequently returns home to her native Adelaide, Australia, was less enamored of her strict training schedule for the film.
ICH BIN NUMMER VIER
Rowley Fall 2011
Cynthia Rowley Keeps it Classy With Longer Skirts and Lush Fabrics
Sunday, February 13, 2011, by Fawnia Soo Hoo
In between planning art collaborations, making Band-Aids and Pampers fun and launching a line of bridesmaid dresses, we wonder how Cynthia Rowley finds the time to work on her own signature collections, but she pulls it off every single time. Especially on Friday when she showed her Fall 2011 collection in the Fashion Week tents.
The eclectic mix of bold names in the audience was definitely representative of Cynthia Rowley’s many pursuits. We spotted steadfast supporter and The Good Wifestar Alan Cumming, a dishy Nigel Barker, actress Julia Stiles, newly-engagedLauren Bush and James Frey (yes, that James Frey).
STEED LORD’s 123 If You Want Me
From The Days Of Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys
The Business Behind Young Adult Novels
Many of us were SHOCKED this week to learn that Vampire Diaries author L. J. Smith has been fired from writing forthcoming books in her popular series. How can an author possibly be fired from writing her own books? Well, it turns out that Alloy Entertainment, a book packager, actually owns the rights to the Vampire Diaries as well as a few other of the hottest franchises in Young Adult literature like Gossip Girl, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and Pretty Little Liars.
So what do Alloy and other book packagers do? In a nutshell: they develop ideas, hire writers, and sell the finished products to publishers. A 2009 article in The New Yorker, “The Gossip Mill,” outlined the process at Alloy, whose target audience is young women and girls. They have weekly meetings where ideas are pitched, often reworking successful adult stories for younger audiences (examples cited in the article: a reverse of the movie Taken where a teenage girl has to rescue her kidnapped parents and a suggestion for “Shaun of the Dead for tweens.”). If they decide to go forward with a pitch, an editor will flesh out the idea before asking a writer to create a sample chapter. If they like the writer’s work, s/he will be put on contract to write the first act of the book, although plotting is a collaboration between the writer and editors at Alloy. The first act and a mockup of a potential book cover are then pitched to publishers. The process is described as being similar to the way a TV show is developed and written.
It’s not a new practice; packaging books for teens goes back to the days of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and even those 80s staples, the Sweet Valley High books (fun fact: Gossip Girl author Cecily von Ziegesar wrote some of the SVH books). More recently, James Frey and his so-called “fiction factory,” Full Fathom Five, have made headlines as the creators of the YA book I Am Number Four. The movie based on the book was produced by Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay, and will be in theaters next week.
SMALL WORLD BOOKS in Venice
Bookstore of the week: Small World Books in Venice
Mary Goodfader moved her bookstore to the Venice Boardwalk in 1976 after seven years in Marina del Rey. When she and her husband Robert found the space that now holds Small World Books and the Sidewalk Cafe, the building was empty, she says, covered with graffiti like “stop bombing in Cambodia.” They bought the building and divided responsibilities: She ran the bookstore and Robert ran the cafe along the boardwalk, which faces the sea. The restaurant is “pretty much the reason the bookstore can exist,” Goodfader says. “As long as people want to buy hamburgers, I’ll keep it going.”
Venice Beach is home to some famous characters, apart from those available on the postcards for sale. Those who’ve stopped in at the store include actors John Cleese and Paul Giamatti, filmmaker Tony Bill, musician Andy Summers and artists Ed Ruscha and Robert Graham. Writer James Frey was “a great friend of the store,” says Mary Goodfader. “We liked him a lot.” He did two signings there; these days, the store rarely hosts book signings.
SOY EL NUMERO CUATRO
Agron and Palmer At The IMN4 Premiere
Dianna Agron, Alex Pettyfer Light Up ‘I Am Number Four’ Red Carpet
Posted 2/10/11 11:56 am ET by Amy Wilkinson in Fashion & Style
Aliens landed in L.A. last night. But don’t worry—they were the peace-loving kind. The stars of “I Am Number Four,” including Alex Pettyfer, Dianna Agron and Teresa Palmer, walked the red carpet at the Westwood Village Theater for the premiere of their extra-terrestrial thriller. The stars’ fashions were undeniably out of this world—most in a good way, but some…not so much.
