Buster Balloon @ HALF GALLERY
Your Dress is Frey’d
Yesterday I went to see Buster Balloon at the Half Gallery. The display was mildly entertaining from the perspective of a 23-year-old but wildly fascinating to the three year old in a stroller next to me.
Among the creations were a miniature Elvis, an ice-cream cone, water faucet, gorilla, and a monkey smoking a cigarette (my favorite). Now I know why Jeff Koons proclaimed Buster, “The top balloon twister in the world.”
Yeah, Jeff Koons would say that wouldn’t he.
James Frey, half-author and a third of the partnership that comprises the gallery, was moping around outside.
Help Fight Spinal Muscular Atrophy @ Yankee Stadium Tonight
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Army Archerd Gone
R.I.P. Army Archerd
Longtime Variety columnist Army Archerd died this afternoon at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center of a rare form of cancer. He was posting on his online column as recently as July 27th. But he was best known for his “Just for Variety” column in the print edition of Daily Variety from 1953 to 2005. And, long before Ryan Seacrest even held a microphone, Army was a fixture on the Red Carpet at the Academy Awards as the interviewer of record. Conventional wisdom had it that an Oscar campaign wouldn’t be successful without multiple mentions in Archerd’s column. Among his countless news exclusives was the tragic 1985 news that Rock Hudson had the AIDS virus. This, like everything showbiz, Army handled without sensation. Though Hudson’s publicist Dale Olson had tried to cover up Rock’s illness, Archerd learned of Hudson’s hospitalization in Paris and “wrote one of the most carefully written pieces I have ever seen,” Olson recalled to Variety when Army retired his print column. “That’s one of the secrets of Army’s success. He would do a story, even if it was a difficult personal story, and not write it like gossip. The message was there, but it was gentle. His column will really be missed. There is no way to replace Army Archerd.” I, too, thought Archerd one of the last true gentleman journalists working in Hollywood, and one of the most accurate. He was always sweet and supportive towards me. My condolences go out to his wife of many years, Selma.
Press-shy celebrities from Marlon Brando to Johnny Carson always sought out Archerd. According to a 2005 tribute to the journalist written when he retired as a print columnist, when Carson was about to celebrate his 25th anniversary on NBC in 1987, he told his publicist: “I’m not doing any interviews, because if I do one, I’ll have to do them all. But if Army calls, I’ll speak to him.”
Disco At The Bowl
Saatchi On Saatchi
Charles Saatchi: secret life of a collector laid bare
With the publication of a new book, the publicity shy art collector Charles Saatchi answers questions about art, pornography and sleeping pills.
Published: 5:29PM BST 07 Sep 2009
Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson: ‘Without the BBC Britain would have become a very barren place’
Do artists deserve to get as rich as Damien Hirst, who I read is worth £100 million?
Only if you think of art as entertainment, in which case his pay scale sits alongside Tiger Woods, Harrison Ford, Roger Federer, Johnny Depp, Madonna and the other superstars.
Do you have colours you dislike, that you find put you off a painting?
Not really. But paintings with skulls or children’s dolls put me off. Celebrity faces are only OK if your name is Warhol. Scribbled words are only OK if your name is Twombly. Harlequins are only OK if your name is Picasso.
You are meant to be tyrannical about installing the art in your exhibitions, and don’t let artists interfere. Why?
There are very few people who know how to install art. David Sylvester was a master and we talked of little else except how inept most artists are at showing their work to best advantage. Sadly, nearly all professional curators are caught short in this deptartment.
I may not be much good at most things, but if I didn’t have the pleasure of planning and installing shows, and doing it better than anyone else, I would have stopped buying art many years ago.
Apologies if that sounds a shade immodest, but there it is.
Get Your Babas Runnin’
September 8 2009
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Learning to ride a bike is one of the most valuable skills a child can learn, helping them master the art of balance, a skill crucial to so many other physical activities and sports. UK based Kiddimoto has created a range of cute-looking wooden bikes which are designed to teach young children precisely that – balance. The slimline, lightweight birch plywood bikes are easy steer and manoeuvre and feature proper rubber tyres, providing a smooth ride for little bottoms by gliding across outdoor surfaces.
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“I’ve only ever read two books in my life, and one of them was Jerry’s [the other was James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces].”
Gunslinger back to give it his best shot
On the eve of his comeback to racing, Kieren Fallon has his sights set on Ryan Moore’s champion jockey crown
David Walsh, Chief Sports Writer
“I ain’t like that no more, I ain’t the same, Ned. Just cause we’re going on this killin’, that don’t mean I’m gonna go back to being the way I was. Ned, you remember that drover I shot through the mouth, and his teeth came out the back of his head, I think about him now and again. He didn’t do anything to deserve to get shot, at least nothin’ I could remember when I sobered up” — William Munny (Clint Eastwood) speaking to Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) in Unforgiven
A friend persistently asks why I bother with Kieren Fallon. Here is the answer; as clear as the summer light on this Tuesday evening at his apartment in Newmarket. We had played golf earlier in the afternoon and, only half-interested, he’d won 3&2. “Come back for something to eat,” he said, “Geraldine is cooking dinner.” He called his sister to warn her but it was too late; Geraldine had been expecting just him. “It’ll be all right,” he said. “Just divide what you have in two, there’ll be plenty.”
Dinner is wonderfully Irish: bacon, cabbage, a delicious white sauce and the flouriest potatoes. You mention the potatoes, and Geraldine lists the five best varieties, all by their names.
In the hallway, on the living room walls, everywhere there are photographic testimonials to his genius. Fallon on Russian Rhythm, Kris Kin, Ouija Board, Fallon on any number of Henry Cecil fillies, Fallon in the silks of Coolmore, on Hurricane Run, George Washington, Dylan Thomas.
“Have you read Jerry Bailey’s book?” he asks. It’s the autobiography of the great American rider. “I’ve only ever read two books in my life, and one of them was Jerry’s [the other was James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces]. I loved Jerry’s book, his story. He had problems, he sorted them out, he came back and enjoyed the best part of his career. Look at Garrett Gomez now, the best jockey riding in America today, and look what he’s come through.”
Graffiti In The Main
When it starts inspiring the motifs that adorn designer handbags, graffiti’s entrée into the world of mainstream culture is no longer in doubt. It is in this spirit that the expansive exhibition “Born in the Streets — Graffiti,” which runs until Nov. 29 at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, is being held. At the same time, curator Thomas Delamarre says that he isn’t about to “hang some canvases on the wall and say, ‘That’s graffiti.’ Graffiti exists because it was born in the street.”
The show recounts the art form’s inexorable spread, from the New York City tenements of the 1970s to the streets of São Paolo in 2009. Pioneers like PHASE 2 and Seen, who by the 1980s were transforming New York subway cars into traveling canvases, here reproduce their works in full scale. Pieces by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring from the same period reveal graffiti’s impact on fine art. Rare films and headlines describe the deaths (spray-painting on busy subway lines is hazardous) and municipal cleanup efforts that ended graffiti’s golden age, at least in New York, by 1989.
“The library building isn’t a warehouse for books.”
The future of libraries, with or without books
By John D. Sutter
(CNN) — The stereotypical library is dying — and it’s taking its shushing ladies, dank smell and endless shelves of books with it.
Books are being pushed aside for digital learning centers and gaming areas. “Loud rooms” that promote public discourse and group projects are taking over the bookish quiet. Hipster staffers who blog, chat on Twitter and care little about the Dewey Decimal System are edging out old-school librarians.
And that’s just the surface. By some accounts, the library system is undergoing a complete transformation that goes far beyond these image changes.
Authors, publishing houses, librarians and Web sites continue to fight Google’s efforts to digitize the world’s books and create the world’s largest library online. Meanwhile, many real-world libraries are moving forward with the assumption that physical books will play a much-diminished or potentially nonexistent role in their efforts to educate the public.
Some books will still be around, they say, although many of those will be digital. But the goal of the library remains the same: To be a free place where people can access and share information.
Candied Bacon Ice Cream
from David Lebovitz’ LIVING THE SWEET LIFE IN PARIS
Candied Bacon Ice Cream Recipe
Who doesn’t like bacon and eggs?
Ok, maybe vegans. And folks who are kosher. And people who don’t eat eggs. Or those who don’t like bacon. But I’m not sure that’s possible. (I have a great bacon joke, but it’s not ‘pc’, so I’d better keep it to myself.)
I’m a big fan of both bacon and the beautiful, bright-orange yolked eggs we get in France, so why confine them to breakfast? I was pretty sure Candied Bacon Ice Creamwould work. I mean, it’s got salt. It’s got smoke. So why not candy it? Inspired by Michael Ruhlman, l wanted to see what would happened when they all got together.
Candying the bacon was a hoot. Being in an experimental mood, I tried everything from agave nectar to maple syrup to dark raw cassonade sugar.
I lined up five strips and baked them off.
“Watch again as the thieves show a skilled practice at the art of bringing down that plate glass door.”
India Number 4
from the Pakistan Defence Forum
Spielberg unveils his ‘dreams’ for India
MUMBAI: As far as the Indian entertainment business goes, it doesn’t get bigger than this one. Reliance ADAG will get cult Hollywood director Michael Bay — of the superhit ‘Transformers’ franchise that grossed over US $700 million worldwide — to direct a film for it. 
This will be followed by two more films in which Steven Spielberg will be actively involved — the legendary director will even wield the megaphone for one.
Earlier this year, Reliance Big Entertainment (RBE) and Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks Studios entered into a much-publicised US $825-million deal. The Michael Bay-helmed film ‘I Am Number Four’ is the first instalment of that venture. Says Stacey Snider, co-chair and CEO of DreamWorks Studios, “With the backing of Reliance, we are able to continue developing our slate and producing films for worldwide movie-going audiences…and with ‘I Am Number 4′, we’ll continue our successful partnership with Michael Bay who truly delivers movies that have mass global appeal.”
I Am Number 4’ is based on a novel co-written by ‘A Million Little Pieces’ author James Frey and Jobie Hughes. Al Gough and Miles Millar, the duo credited with scripting ‘Spiderman 2’, ‘The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor’, ‘Shanghai Noon’ and ‘Shanghai Knights’, will adapt it for the screen. The storyline follows a group of teenage alien refugees assimilating into high school on Earth when they discover that their home planet’s enemy is now hunting them on their new turf.
The Herbert Pig
my name is matthew herbert
and this is the blog of my pig.
in 2010 i will release a record entitled ‘one pig’
it will be made up entirely of sounds made during the life cycle of a pig.
i will be there at its birth
during its life
present at its death
and during the butchery process.
its body will then be given to chefs new and old
there will be a feast
and maybe a pair of shoes and a drum from the skin
and a toothbrush from its bristles
and ink from its blood
it will all be recorded
and then turned in to music
you can follow the project here
Mt. Wilson Observatory
Mt. Wilson’s famous, and besieged, observatory
Man once viewed the heavens by flickering firelight; now a raging blaze threatens a site where stargazing history was made.
Tim Rutten, September 2, 2009
There has been tragedy and loss aplenty in the fire ravaging the Angeles National Forest, but it has been particularly poignant — and, somehow, humblingly circular — to watch what’s probably the first natural element man subdued to his purpose threatening one of the great monuments of modern science.
The 101-year-old observatory at the top of Mt. Wilson houses some of the most productive scientific instruments of the 20th century, and it continues to play a cutting-edge role in various branches of astronomy, though the ambient nighttime light rising from the metropolis that now sprawls up its foothills makes deep space observation too difficult. Paradoxically, it was the Los Angeles Basin’s inversion layer — and the “stable air” it created — that originally made the mountain a perfect site for the great telescopes that revolutionized mankind’s notion of its place in the universe.
Beginning in 1919, the astronomer Edwin Hubble used the Mt. Wilson Observatory’s famous 100-inch Hooker telescope to prove that our Milky Way was but one galaxy among billions of stellar aggregations coming to life and dying across the universe. It was through his observations on the mountain that Hubble also realized that creation’s most primal impulse, the force of that singular event we now call the Big Bang, continues to echo through our universe, creating new distances where none had existed just a moment before.
MegaBeth – The Roller Derby Reference Librarian
Tiny librarian is hell on wheels
By Jim Kavanagh
CNN
(CNN) — She’s petite, she’s middle-aged, she’s bookish, and if she gets a chance, she’ll knock you on your keister.
By day, she’s Beth Hollis, a 53-year-old reference librarian in Akron, Ohio. By night, she’s MegaBeth, an ageless dynamo on the roller derby rink.
“All my life, when I tell people I’m a librarian, they say, ‘You don’t look like a librarian,’ ” Hollis said. “And now that I’m a roller derby girl, they say, ‘You don’t look like a roller derby girl, either.’ So I don’t know where I fit in.”
Hollis has been fitting in at the Akron-Summit County Library for 27 years.
“She’s my hero,” said Diane Barton, 48, who has worked with Hollis at the library for 18 years. “I just think it’s so cool she’s doing something so different and so active and so aggressive. You know how we are. We’re librarians, so we tend to have that meek and mild stereotype.”
There Are Easier Ways To Have Fun And Prove (and Protect) One’s Manhood
Imperfect Breasts Thwart Perfect Murder
Perfect murder undone by fake breasts
AP
Ryan Alexander Jenkins, 32, is believed to have murdered his wife, Jasmine Fiore. He reported her missing before fleeing the US.
Her teeth had been pulled out and her fingers cut off to prevent her from being identified, but investigators used the serial numbers on her breast implants to identify her.
A model, Fiore worked in Las Vegas and LA , being bodypainted at parties. She had a small part in the horror film The Abandoned.
Jenkins was recently a contestant on Megan Wants a Millionaire, in which wealthy men tried to win over a materialistic blonde.
Burning Down The Hardback
Books: Consolidation is the big story
By Ben Hall in Paris
Published: August 31 2009 04:06 | Last updated: August 31 2009 04:06
The book publishing industry will have to consolidate if it is to stand up to Amazon, Google and a few other dominant retailers of electronic books, according to the chief executive of Hachette Livre, the world’s second- largest publisher by sales.
Arnaud Nourry said publishers needed to be big to maintain their pricing power in “brutal” talks with the handful of booksellers that would dominate the digital age.
“We are at the beginning of the process of transformation where size and the capacity to impose viable business models will be essential,” he told the Financial Times.
The internet and digitisation were important opportunities to attract new readers and create markets, Mr Nourry said. “E-education” – putting school manuals online with additional interactive tools – was taking educational publishing into the realm of services.
Double Track Magic
Nozkowski In Canada
from the Toronto Globe and Mail
Do you see what I see? No? Good
By Sarah Milroy
The pleasures Thomas Nozkowski’s paintings afford are simple, but far from simplistic
If the American artist Thomas Nozkowski had a theme song, it would probably be Forever Young . Walking through his current retrospective at the National Gallery of Canada – his biggest exhibition to date, curated by NGC director Marc Mayer – one can’t help but be swept up in the buoyancy of Nozkowski’s vision, moments of lived experience that he has run through the mill of his imagination and reconstituted on canvas with remarkably consistent effect over the course of his more than 30-year career. It’s not possible to talk of a signature style when it comes to Nozkowski, a painter’s painter who has long been a sleeper in the New York art world; each painting seems like a completely distinct imaginative universe, with its own optical characteristics. But Nozowski does have a signature mood: rambunctious, optimistic, just plain friendly.
In this, he expresses a quintessential Americanness.
Warhol’s Kennedy
Kennedy Portrait Installed At DC Museum
BRETT ZONGKER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) ― The National Portrait Gallery installed an Andy Warhol portrait of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy on Thursday in a gallery that has recently been converted to portray prominent U.S. figures who have died.
The silkscreen print by Warhol will be on view likely for several weeks, gallery spokeswoman Julia Zirinsky said. It’s part of the museum’s permanent collection and follows special installations of portraits of Michael Jackson and Walter Cronkite.
“People are caught up in the news of the day,” said chief curator Carolyn Carr, “and to see a portrait that we’ve got of a figure is a way of connecting events of the day to our collection and to our audience.”
The portrait is a memorable image of Kennedy’s 1980 presidential campaign.
THE CRAMPS Urgh! It Up
URGH! Finally.
Warner Archives releases Urgh!, Bad Ronald,Mike’s Murder and more
Warner Archives has been adding roughly two dozen new titles a month since launching, and in the program’s latest wave, they’ve moved beyond little-known movie classics of the studio era and have added more TV movies and cult films–including some titles that have been on “Why isn’t this on DVD yet?” wishlists for years. For example: Urgh! A Music War, the 1980 New Wave concert film that this very website clamored for last year. Also: the controversial 1974 teen horror TV movie Bad Ronald, the 1984 “Ozploitation” favoriteRazorback, the 1983 neo-noir Mike’s Murder, the Jodie Foster/Robbie Robertson/Gary Busey oddity Carny, the Michael Crichton thriller The Terminal Man, and more.
Tornado Wins – Train Loses
Demonic Males, Apes and the Origins of Human Violence
from International Crime Authors Reality Check
Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?
Those three questions formed the title of Paul Gauguin’s 1897 painting, which he finished while living on a South Pacific Island. It is Gauguin’s vision of paradise. That vision of Eden shaped the attitudes and beliefs of many generations. Ever since there have been painters, writers, explorers, adventurers, there have been individuals seeking to discover an earthly paradise. There is a deep longing to believe that given the right circumstances, we are kind, compassionate, forsake violence, jealous, hatred and rivalry.
But deep long doesn’t make such a belief true. At best, we are left with false hope in a belief that occupies the realm of the supernatural, fantasy, and folktale.
In Demonic Males, Apes and the Origins of Human Violence. Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson examine the legacy of Gauguin, Herman Melville and Margaret Mead who inspired many generations to believe that despite our common history of warfare and violence, there were societies which escaped such terrors.
Gauguin would likely be locked up in the modern world for his preoccupation with preadolescent girls. Young eves populated in idealized Garden of Eden. Animals and humans co-existed in peace and tranquility. He lived a life isolated from others, living out his days in a stone hut on Marquesas Islands. His life’s work revolved many paintings that featured nubile young women.
In contrast, Melville and Mead made a temporary voyage of discovery during their youth to the same general area of Gauguin, and then returned to their homeland to write their accounts. In Melville’s case the book was Typee and in Mead’s case it was Coming of Age in Samoa; a Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation.
Both Melville and Mead’s works fudge the cultural details to suit in the case of Meville an adventure story (passed off as non-fiction)—making him an early example of contemporary authors like James Frey….
[ click to read full piece at InternationalCrimeAuthors.com ]
For Breakfast Tomorrow
STREET MACHINE – Murray moves you faster!
Tintin Dans Le Chambre Forte
A Library’s Approach to Books That Offend
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN
The cartoonist Hergé is popular again, as is his adventurous reporter Tintin, who will be featured in a Steven Spielberg movie due out in 2011.
But if you go to the Brooklyn Public Library seeking a copy of “Tintin au Congo,” Hergé’s second book in a series, prepare to make an appointment and wait days to see the book.
“It’s not for the public,” a librarian in the children’s room said this month when a patron asked to see it.
The book, published 79 years ago, was moved in 2007 from the public area of the library to a back room where it is held under lock and key.
The move came after a patron objected, as others have, to the way Africans are depicted in the book. “The content is racially offensive to black people,’’ a librarian wrote on Form 286, also known as a Request for Reconsideration of Library Material [pdf].
Bill Owens’ Altamont
Bill Owens x Altamont Apparel by Karen Day
Selecting Bill Owens‘ photographs from the infamous 1969 Altamont Speedway concert as the new graphics for skate-inspired label Altamont may seem an obvious choice, but the connection runs deeper than a shared name.
The Altamont credo, “Find a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life,” embodies not just how the brand feels about designing clothing, but also speaks the spirit of Owens and his photographs.
In addition to his books, the Altamont Speedway photos represent Owens’ interest in showing how people really live. On assignment as a photojournalist, he attended the subversive show in upstate California where he captured the enthusiasm of the youth culture during that time.
Banksy Overwhelms
Banksy visitors overwhelm gallery
Almost a quarter-of-a-million people have filed through Banksy’s homecoming exhibition since it opened in June.
Bristol’s council-owned gallery has been overwhelmed with visitors, with some people queuing for up to four hours to see Banksy vs Bristol Museum.
“We knew it was going to be big but I don’t think we appreciated just how big,” a council spokesperson said.
The graffiti artist’s show, featuring animatronics and installations, was kept secret until the day it opened.