Currin On Warhol
Go Bradbury Bo!
A Literary Legend Fights for a Local Library
Ethan Pines for The New York Times
“I don’t believe in colleges and universities,” Ray Bradbury, 88, said. “I believe in libraries.”
VENTURA, Calif. — When you are pushing 90, have written scores of famous novels, short stories and screenplays, and have fulfilled the goal of taking a simulated ride to Mars, what’s left?
“Bo Derek is a really good friend of mine and I’d like to spend more time with her,” said Ray Bradbury, peering up from behind an old television tray in his den.
Fiscal threats to libraries deeply unnerve Mr. Bradbury, who spends as much time as he can talking to children in libraries and encouraging them to read.
The Internet? Don’t get him started. “The Internet is a big distraction,” Mr. Bradbury barked from his perch in his house in Los Angeles, which is jammed with enormous stuffed animals, videos, DVDs, wooden toys, photographs and books, with things like the National Medal of Arts sort of tossed on a table.
“Yahoo called me eight weeks ago,” he said, voice rising. “They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? ‘To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.’
“It’s distracting,” he continued. “It’s meaningless; it’s not real. It’s in the air somewhere.”
A Yahoo spokeswoman said it was impossible to verify Mr. Bradbury’s account without more details.
Mr. Bradbury has long been known for his clear memory of some of life’s events, and that remains the case, he said. “I have total recall,” he said. “I remember being born. I remember being in the womb, I remember being inside. Coming out was great.”
He also recalled watching the film “Pumping Iron,” which features Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his body-building days, and how his personal recommendation of the film for an Academy Award helped spark Mr. Schwarzenegger’s Hollywood career. He remembers lining his four daughters’ cribs with Golden Books when they were tiny. And he remembers meeting Ms. Derek on a train in France years ago.
“She said, ‘Mr. Bradbury.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She said: ‘I love you! My name is Bo Derek.’ ”
Ms. Derek’s spokeswoman, Rona Menashe, said the story was true. She said her client would like to see some more of Mr. Bradbury, too.
Mr. Bradbury’s wife, Maggie, to whom he was married for over five decades, died in 2003. He turns 89 in August.
He can still be found regularly at the Los Angeles Public Library branch in Koreatown, which he visited often as a teenager.
“The children ask me, ‘How can I live forever, too?’ ” he said. “I tell them do what you love and love what you do. That’s the story on my life.”
Americans Abandoning The Arts
NEA reports decline in arts audiences for 2008
6:12 PM, June 15, 2009
Audiences for the arts in the U.S. continue to decline and age at significant rates, according to a report released Monday by the National Endowment for the Arts. But the Internet holds out hope, as more people are going online to experience culture.
Nearly 35% of U.S. adults – or about 78 million people – attended an art museum or an arts performance in 2008, said the report. That’s down from about 40% in 1982, 1992 and 2002. In particular, audiences for classical and jazz concerts have declined by double digits since 1982, the most of all the art forms.
Surprisingly, the largest drop in arts consumption comes from people ages 45 to 54, which has traditionally been the most dependable group of arts participants.
The NEA report said that college-educated Americans – including those with graduate degrees – are cutting back on their arts consumption across all forms. Ballet attendance by this demographic has dropped by 43% since 1982.
Too Much Theremin On My Hands
“We all know that crap is king.”
Residents Wage War On Noisy Bar With Panties
Neighbors of the popular Cooper Square Hotel in the East Village are frustrated and raising a “lingerie line of defense.”
wpix.com
1:20 PM EDT, June 17, 2009
EAST VILLAGE, N.Y. (WPIX) – There are several ways of dealing with noisy neighbors. While many resort to calling the police, others turn to soiled panties for help. Yes, soiled panties.
That seems to be the situation in the East Village, where many frustrated residents are hanging their dirty unmentionables on a clothes line that serves as the view for the popular, outdoor bar at the Cooper Square Hotel.
According to several reports made by nearby residents, the noise that emanates from the neighboring bar has caused many sleepless nights for residents in the area – as first reported by 1010WINS.
The residents have formed a panty coalition, stringing up soiled panties, briefs, bras, – and even some ginormous granny panties – in plain view of the bar, sending a clear message to patrons that not only do people live in those neighboring apartments, but they also need to do laundry.
“When heat pounds like a sledgehammer…”
…It’s time to pour those steaming cups of coffee and tea over ice.
Don’t Charge Joseph Carnevale
Barrel ‘monster’ gets N.C. student arrested
Police call it vandalism, but supporters say it’s creative street art
RALEIGH, N.C. – When Joseph Carnevale chopped up three stolen orange and white traffic barrels from a construction site to create a massive sculpture of a roadside monster thumbing a ride, the North Carolina college student said he saw it as a form of street art.
Raleigh, N.C., police just saw vandalism.
They dismantled the 10-foot “barrel monster” and arrested Carnevale. Hundreds of online supporters want the charges dropped and the publicity has turned the history major and part-time construction worker into a local celebrity.
At least three Facebook support groups have formed to support Carnevale, including “Don’t Charge Joseph Carnevale,” boasting more than 800 members.
Raleigh police spokeswoman Laura Hourigan said the charges won’t be dropped, despite the company’s stance.
Sliders For No Money Down
White Castle printable coupon: Free Original Slider
At White Castle, get a free Original Slider via this printable coupon. That’s the best deal we’ve seen for an Original Slider from White Castle. Deal ends July 12.
Pablo’s Love Pad Goes Public
Painter’s Love palace unsealed
Hot spot
The French chateau where Picasso lived and now lies buried with his ‘green-eyed beauty’ has opened to the public, writes Matthew Campbell.
The dining room smells strongly of wood smoke. Drops of paint cover the floor upstairs. Pablo Picasso’s spirit haunts the imposing fortress in whose grounds he is buried with Jacqueline, his last love.
Vauvenargues chateau in southern France has opened to the public for the first time, offering a rare glimpse into the home of one of the greatest figures of 20th-century art.
The red-shuttered chateau is where Picasso lived with his second wife from 1959 to 1961 and where he created some of the greatest work of his later years.
Much to the excitement of Picasso fans, the house — abandoned by Jacqueline and Catherine, her daughter, to caretakers after the artist’s death in 1973 — is just as they left it, giving it the uncanny air of a time capsule.
In a sparsely decorated bedroom, a 1950s telephone sits on the bedside table. On the floor is a giant, Swiss cowbell.
“Each morning, Picasso, already in his late 70s when he moved into the chateau, would see if he still had the strength to lift it.”
Lucy In The Sky With The Wolf
Real ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ gravely ill
By Gregory Katz, Associated Press
They were childhood chums. Then they drifted apart, lost touch completely, and only renewed their friendship decades later, when illness struck.
Not so unusual, really.
Except she is Lucy Vodden — the girl who was the inspiration for the Beatles’ 1967 psychedelic classic “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” — and he is Julian Lennon, the musician son of John Lennon.
They are linked together by something that happened more than 40 years ago when Julian brought home a drawing from school and told his father, “That’s Lucy in the sky with diamonds.”
Just the sort of cute phrase lots of 3- or 4-year-olds produce — but not many have a father like John Lennon, who used it as a springboard for a legendary song that became a centerpiece on the landmark Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
“Julian got in touch with me out of the blue, when he heard how ill I was, and he said he wanted to do something for me,” said Vodden, who has lupus, a chronic disease where the immune system attacks the body’s own tissue.
Lennon, who lives in France, sent his old friend flowers and vouchers she could use to buy plants at a local gardening center, since working in her garden is one of the few activities she is still occasionally well enough to enjoy.
The Average Male Cortex At Work
from Dr Drew…
Biggest Banksy Exhibit Yet in Bristol – Identity Still Unknown
Banksy back in Bristol for biggest British exhibition
Banksy, the graffiti artist, has returned to his home city of Bristol to set up his biggest ever British exhibition.
The artist – whose identity is the subject of speculation – has installed the works in Bristol’s City Museum and Art Gallery inside a giant burned out ice cream van.
The van, which sits under a giant melted cone, appears alongside dozens of sculptures, oil paintings and his trademark stencils.[ click to continue reading at The Telegraph ]
Incredible Hulk Training King Of Pop
| Lou Ferrigno training Michael Jackson | |
| BANG Showbiz
A source told Britain’s The Sun newspaper: “Lou has been visiting Michael to build him up so he can perform his dance routines. “But Michael refuses to lift weights. He doesn’t want to bulk up.” |
|
The ‘Incredible Hulk’ actor – a former Mr. Universe – is paying secret visits to the ‘Thriller’ star’s Los Angeles home to help him prepare for his forthcoming ‘This Is It’ run of shows at London’s O2 arena.New Vegemite
Australia’s Vegemite gets 1st makeover in 85 years
Posted: 06/14/2009 11:11:54 PM PDT
ADELAIDE, Australia—The iconic Australian food spread Vegemite is getting a makeover.
Kraft Foods Australia announced Sunday that a creamier variation of the product would be on store shelves July 5 alongside the original, which has been a staple in pantries Down Under almost since its invention here in 1922.
“With such a well-loved, iconic brand, we wouldn’t create something using the Vegemite name unless we were absolutely sure Australians would love it,” said Simon Talbot, Kraft Australia’s head of corporate affairs.
Vegemite—a salty, slightly bitter spread made from brewer’s yeast—is such a part of Australian lifestyle that it even made mention as a sandwich in the 1980s hit song “Down Under” by Men at Work. Australians spread it on toast or crackers, top it with tomatoes or avocados, use it to flavor soups and gravies, pack a jar when traveling and write home for more when living abroad.
Eno Plays The Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House’s white sails turn into giant canvas for spectacular light display
Bathed in an ever-changing display of brilliant light, this is Sydney Opera House as you’ve never been seen it before.
Called 77 Million Paintings, the installation is the work of artist and music producer Brian Eno and features 300 of his drawings.
He told the BBC he wanted people to ‘surrender to another kind of world,’ as they watched the transformations.
Spectacular: Sydney Opera House is lit up by a stunning array of ever-changing colours and patterns
‘All the things that humans do, including imagining, are the way we deal with emergencies including the global financial crisis,’ he said.
‘So to imply, “oh God, there’s a crisis, no time for imagining any more” – it’s not true.
‘This is the time for imagining and the way we learn to imagine, one of the ways we learn to imagine, is through the experience of art.
‘The human ability to imagine made people capable of surviving.
‘By allowing ourselves to let go of the world that we have to be part of every day, and to surrender to another kind of world, we’re allowing imaginative processes to take place.’
Glowing: The work, called 77 Million Paintings, was designed by Brian Eno who used 300 of his drawings to create it
Robert Colescott Gone
Robert Colescott, Painter Who Toyed With Race and Sex, Dies at 83
Robert Colescott, an American figurative painter whose garishly powerful canvases lampooned racial and sexual stereotypes with rakish imagery, lurid colors and almost tangible glee, died Thursday at his home in Tucson. He was 83.
His death was confirmed by his wife, Jandava Cattron, who said he had suffered for several years from Parkinsonian syndrome.
Mr. Colescott represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in 1997, the first African-American to do so. By then he was well known for pitting the painterly against the political to create giddily joyful, destabilized compositions that satirized, and offended, without regard to race, creed, gender or political leaning.
People of all colors haunt Mr. Colescott’s paintings, mostly as chimerical stereotypes that exchange attributes freely. Their mottled skin tones often suggest one race seeping through another. Their tumultuous interactions evoke a volatile mixture of suspicion, desire, pain and vitality. His slurred shapes, wobbly drawing and patchy brushwork imply that no truths can be held to be self-evident, that life is mired in slippery layers of false piety, self-interest and greed, but also lust, pleasure and irreverence.
Steeped in history and art history, Mr. Colescott often found new uses and meanings for the landmarks of Western painting, borrowing compositions and characters from van Eyck, Goya and Manet and peppering his scenes with the Africanized faces from Picasso’s “Demoiselles d’Avignon.”
James Frey Signing @ McNally Jackson Today 1-3pm
James Frey
Saturday, June 13 2009, 1:00pm – 3:00pm
Author of Bright Shiny Morning (Harper Perennial)
James Frey, whose memoir A Million Little Pieces made him one of the most controversial writers in the country, returns to fiction with his bestselling novel of Los Angeles, Bright Shiny Morning, of which the New York Times wrote “He stepped up to the plate and hit one out of the park.” Frey brings his work to the streets this Saturday at McNally Jackson, greeting readers and signing copies of the new paperback edition of Bright Shiny Morning at a sidewalk table outside of the bookstore.
The Meteorite Bejeezus
Boy Hit by Meteorite
By SPACE.com Staff
A 14-year old German boy was hit in the hand by a pea-sized meteorite that scared the bejeezus out of him and left a scar.
“When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road,” Gerrit Blank said in a newspaper account. Astronomers have analyzed the object and conclude it was indeed a natural object from space, The Telegraph reports.
Most meteors vaporize in the atmosphere, creating “shooting stars,” and never reach the ground. The few that do are typically made mostly of metals. Stony space rocks, even if they are big as a car, will usually break apart or explode as they crash through the atmosphere.
But human strikes are rare. There are no known instances of humans being killed by space rocks.
Google Search For Humor Fails
Rude roof on Google Earth
CHEEKY pupils used bricks to spell out “C**K” on their school roof – and it was spotted from space.
The stunt, by school leavers, was unnoticed for years until the bricks were captured by mapping website Google Earth.
Now head Gordon Ironside is having them removed from Sutton Grammar School, Surrey.
Tube Steaks With Pickled Onions
Tube Steaks With Pickled Onions
1 small white or yellow onion
1 small red onion
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons celery seed
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
8 all-beef hot dogs, about 1/4 pound each
8 hot dog buns
Yellow mustard
Ketchup
Using a sharp knife, cut a few shallow slashes in each hot dog. Prepare the grill for direct cooking over medium heat. Brush cooking grates clean. Grill hot dogs over direct medium heat, with the lid closed as much as possible, until lightly marked on the outside and hot all the way to the center, 5 to 7 minutes, turning occasionally.
15 Minutes Of Pop
Iggy Pop: Good Lyrics and Concerts Take 15 Minutes or Less
It’s hard to pass up posting all the great quotes Iggy Pop keeps throwing out there in his promotional interviews for Préliminaires, so here we go: Today’s quote kind of follows in the same vein as Pop’s slamming of intellectual rock stars last week. When it comes to writing lyrics or playing shows, he says you shouldn’t waste your time.
“Good lyrics take 15 minutes or less,” Pop told Paste Magazine’s Xavier Martin. “Any longer, it’s probably shitty.”
The Gentleman Farmer Guzman
Luiz Guzman, ‘The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3’
Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times
June 11, 2009
Luis Guzmán caught the train late and had no idea where it was going.
“I didn’t study acting,” says one of the busiest character actors around, calling his career “a fluke.” “I pretty much was a street kid growing up, always involved in the neighborhood and all the different characters. I hung out with poets and musicians and community activists. I met César Chávez when I was 17. This is everything I use. My career is a reflection of my life.
“That character I did in ‘Anger Management’ — I really grew up with a guy like that. He used to dress so sharp, he was so buffed but when he spoke, you thought you were listening to your sister.”
The actor is in town for only two days, for the premiere of Tony Scott’s “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” in which he plays a disgruntled former MTA motorman sucked into a hijack plot by a vengeful ex-convict ( John Travolta) while an ordinary MTA employee ( Denzel Washington) tries to defuse the situation. The movie, he says, was “a cool flick” to work on, “watching Tony, how he manipulates the whole situation, all the cameras. And seeing how John Travolta drove this movie; he was like a badass badass, if I can say so.”
Guzmán is eager to get back home to catch his 13-year-old son’s baseball game, but rather than his native New York City, that destination is Vermont, where he is a gentleman farmer with his wife and five children. “It’s a different life, a different head,” he says. “I think it keeps me younger. It keeps me much healthier mentally, spiritually; the air is cleaner, the environment.” And, he says, “You learn how important manure is in your life.”
It has been a long, strange trip for the former social worker from the Lower East Side.
Sterling says, “Contemporary literature not confronting issues of general urgency”
from Bruce Sterling’s BEYOND THE BEYOND @ WIRED.com
Eighteen Challenges in Contemporary Literature
- By Bruce Sterling
1. Literature is language-based and national; contemporary society is globalizing and polyglot.
2. Vernacular means of everyday communication — cellphones, social networks, streaming video — are moving into areas where printed text cannot follow.
3. Intellectual property systems failing.
4. Means of book promotion, distribution and retail destabilized.
5. Ink-on-paper manufacturing is an outmoded, toxic industry with steeply rising costs.
6. Core demographic for printed media is aging faster than the general population. Failure of print and newspapers is disenfranching young apprentice writers.
7. Media conglomerates have poor business model; economically rationalized “culture industry” is actively hostile to vital aspects of humane culture.
8. Long tail balkanizes audiences, disrupts means of canon-building and fragments literary reputation.
9. Digital public-domain transforms traditional literary heritage into a huge, cost-free, portable, searchable database, radically transforming the reader’s relationship to belle-lettres.
10. Contemporary literature not confronting issues of general urgency; dominant best-sellers are in former niche genres such as fantasies, romances and teen books.
Do Not Watch While Hallucinating
Top Hat of Couture
John Mahdessian prefers not to be called a dry cleaner.
“That’s a fuckin’ insult,” he said, between pulls off a Marlboro Light on a recently Sunday morning. “That’s like calling a world-renowned surgeon a doctor.”
We were outside the nail salon next door to the Madame Paulette flagship, first opened by Mr. Mahdessian’s great-uncle Andy as a mom-and-pop dry cleaner in 1958, when it was named for Andy’s wife, a French gal who worked as the seamstress. It recently underwent a massive $500,000 renovation and now occupies half the block.
Mr. Mahdessian, 43, is president of what is now called the Madame Paulette Organization, “the world’s leading custom couture cleaner.” The jovial, self-described “eligible bachelor with a spotless reputation” has been married to his business since taking the reins from his father, Noubar, 20 years ago. (“He thinks girls are like shirts: You have to change them every two weeks,” Noubar said wryly.)
John works six days a week. Sundays he treats himself to a mani-pedi and a massage.
Interview In The Break Room
A Million Little Mashups
from Coudal Partners via MediaBistro
A QUICK CONTEST FROM WHERE WE DO OUR BEST THINKING
Booking Bands
The walls in the washroom at our studio are all chalkboards. It was Susan’s idea and after she spent a weekend painting them up, not much happened. An occasional drawing or joke was added, a visiting courier might leave a crude message or one of Jim’s kids would draw a puppy or write something unintelligible. Lately, however, we’ve taken to using that forum for a series of wordplay games and the current one is pretty fun. The idea is to mash up the name of a book with the name of a band.
Here’s a few of our examples to get you started:
The Things They Might Be Giants Carried*
The Who Moved My Cheese*
The Old Man and The Sea and Cake*
Charlie Daniels and the Chocolate Factory*
Catch 182*
Horton Hears a Hoobastank*
Of Mice and Men at Work*
Bare Naked Lunch Ladies*
The Agony and the XTC*
JAMES FREY? WASN’T HE IN THE EAGLES?
A Million Little Pixies (Aaron Kelly)
A Million Little Feat Pieces (Jim Sheeran)
A Million Little Richards (Brian Braiker)
A Million Little Peaches and Herb (Robert Hofheimer)
My Friend Lynrd Skynrd (Daniel Pink)
My Friend Leonard Cohen (Jamie Stolarski)
(I am TOTALLY dismayed that no one got “A Marillion Little Pieces*” or “My Friend Len”)
Charles Dickens’ not-so-slim pickens
The Pickwick pAperchAse (Cy Culpin)
Nickolas Nickelback (Joshua Johnson)
Oliver Twisted Sister (Joshua Johnson)
Nicholas Nickelbee Gees (Jim Sheeran)
A Christmas Carole King (Tracie Bedell)
A Christmas Carole King Lear (John Upchurch)
A Christmas Carol Channing (Meredith Payne)
David Gray Copperfield (Troy Kukes)
Bleak Housemartins (Tom Ward)
A Tale of Two Bay City Rollers (Tim Carvell)
A Tale of U2 Cities (Jessica Sheeran)
Great White Expectations (John Boeckmann)
“Because then the actresses used to be dressed to the gills.”
Susan Farley / For The Times
COLUMN ONE
The typist’s tale of ‘Last Tycoon’
Years after ‘Gatsby,’ F. Scott Fitzgerald’s secretary got to witness the second act of an author who didn’t believe in them.
By David L. Ulin
June 8, 2009
All these years later, Frances Kroll Ring can still see it, the afternoon she filled out an application at Rusty’s Employment Agency on Hollywood Boulevard and drove to Encino to meet a writer who was looking for a secretary.
It was April 1939, and she was 22, a Bronx transplant with typing and dictation skills. She’d been in Southern California for a little more than a year, coming west to help her father, a New York furrier, set up shop on Wilshire Boulevard. “Everybody said, ‘You’re a furrier? What are you doing in Southern California?’ ” Ring remembers. “But he knew the studios used furs. Because then the actresses used to be dressed to the gills.”
Wiki Wiki Huh? Wiki
The Wars of Words on Wikipedia’s Outskirts
IT is an interesting twist about Wikipedia that the most controversial, most heavily trafficked articles — on abortion, politics, virgin birth — are often the most accurate and vandalism-free. Not that people aren’t trying to cause mayhem.
It’s just that the frequent visits ensure that vandalism is quickly removed, aided by automated tools that can recognize crude writing before it ever appears.
Leave these high-traffic thoroughfares, however, and things can get a bit sketchier. A few wrong turns and you may find yourself deep in Hatfield-and-McCoy territory. Entrenched enemies engage in combat over the wording of topics so obscure — Armenian historians from the first millennium, for example, or breakfast cereals — that you may wonder: so much fighting over this?
But it is exactly the obscurity that makes these Wikipedia articles ripe for feuding, fighting and vandalism. A basic tenet of the online encyclopedia is that articles be written from a neutral point of view.