Stop Global Warming – Boycott Sun
Everything Gondry
Mexico Losing Its Ass
Sanctuary rescues Mexico’s vanishing icons
Small sanctuary rescuing fast-vanishing icons
OTUMBA, Mexico – You can hear the Burroland donkey shelter long before you see it, as the braying of jacks and jennies mixes with the mournful whistles of freight trains in this small town outside Mexico City.
Here, 20 donkeys wander behind a wire fence, munching carrots and leftover tortillas and waiting for pats on the head from the occasional tourist.
This shelter for unwanted donkeys would have once seemed a laughable idea in Mexico, where the hard-working burro is practically a national symbol. These beasts of burden carried settlers over the Sierra Madre, hauled gold from mines and pulled plows through Mexican fields for centuries.
The donkeys that were once sold here pulled carts of silver and gold from Mexico’s mines, bringing fabulous wealth to the Spanish empire.
They carried silks and spices from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean as part of the trade route to Asia. And donkeys accompanied pioneers pushing west and north through the Americas.
“These are animals that basically built the continent,” Patton said.
Really Every Day is Earth Day – but Happy Earth Day Anyway
EARTH DAY by Roy Thomas (Bearclaw Gallery)
The First Truly American Writer
‘Who Is Mark Twain?’
Previous uncollected stories and essays drawn mostly from his papers and correspondence show why he is so beloved.
When he died 99 years ago this week, Mark Twain was this country’s most beloved writer, yet his status as both an author and protean example of the now-familiar pop cultural celebrity seems to grow with each passing decade.
Twain’s death of heart disease at the age of 74 came as such a blow to the country that it evoked an expression of official White House regret from President William Howard Taft: “Mark Twain gave pleasure — real intellectual enjoyment — to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come. . . . His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his own countrymen. He has made an enduring part of American literature.”
Ernest Hemingway famously argued that “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ ” though even he conceded that the great novel’s disastrous final section is “just cheating.” (To this critic’s mind, a canonical case also can be made for Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and “The Confidence-Man.” Still, what other 19th century American novel so controversial in its own time — though for different reasons — remains so today?)
William Faulkner, to whom praise of other novelists did not come easily, called Twain the “first truly American writer” and said he “wrote the first American sentences.”
Screw Branding Brando
The Brando Brand
Perhaps one day movie stars and celebrities will leave their names and likenesses to the public domain. That would clear up what might be called the Brando problem — the case of a major public figure who dies and leaves behind a potent if 
contradictory image and no clear commercial legacy. The effort to create a Brando brand out of the Marlon Brando trust is in the hands of his rather oddly assorted trustees: a producer, an accountant and his former personal assistant. So far, their major activity has been suing companies for infringing upon Brando’s name, which is trademarked.
Creating a meaningful brand out of Brando — as opposed to merely warning off those who use his name without permission — will be no easy task. The search for the truly marketable Brando is likely to take some interesting twists.
Will it be the young man who starred in the drama “The Wild One”? The sullen but brilliant stage actor? Will it evoke thoughts of Don Corleone or Jor-El or Maria Schneider? Or will it be the figure who retreated to a private atoll in the South Pacific, where the trustees are planning to build a Brando-themed, ecologically minded resort?
Pulitzer Who?
And The Pulitzer For Forgotten Fiction Goes To…
Here’s a list of Pulitzer novels we’ve forgotten. Add your own forgotten fiction in the comment field below — or tell us what we’ve missed.
Our Unscientific List Of Least-Known Fiction Winners
- His Family by Ernest Poole, 1918
- Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield, 1927
- Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin, 1929
- Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge, 1930
- Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes, 1931
- The Store by T.S. Stribling, 1933
- Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller, 1934
- Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson, 1935
- Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis, 1936
- In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow, 1942
- Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin, 1944
- Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens, 1949
- The Way West by A.B. Guthrie, 1950
- The Town by Conrad Richter, 1951
- The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor, 1959
- The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O’Connor, 1962
- Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson, 1978
Gehry on L.A
Gehry on L.A., art (and Gehry)
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao,1997. Photo by ©David Heald, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York
NOT THE MET: Gehry calls his Guggenheim Bilbao “an antidote to the Metropolitan Museum syndrome.”
The book ‘Conversations With Frank Gehry’ serves as a blueprint for his mind-set, philosophies and the making of many of his major works.
In “Conversations With Frank Gehry,” Los Angeles writer Barbara Isenberg talks with the Pritzker Prize-winning architect, who’s behind such iconic buildings as Walt Disney Concert Hall and Guggenheim Bilbao. They cover his life, pivotal career moments, including the competition for Bilbao, and influences. Following are exclusive excerpts from the book, published by Alfred A. Knopf, which goes on sale Tuesday.
Is there a Los Angeles style of architecture?
Los Angeles has an incredible light and a forgiving climate. You don’t have to use double glazing, and you don’t have to think about snow loads and snow conditions. The further south you go, the more open you can get. But the generation after me is working all over the world, like I am, so we’ve had to adapt to other climates. I had to adapt to a northern climate in Bilbao.
Do you take a Los Angeles sensibility with you?
It’s not so contrived. You just go for the bigger picture, I think. At least I do.
42 Minutes In-depth With Leonard Cohen
Rowley & Powers On Phillips de Pury
from Fashion Week Daily Dispatch
Cynthia’s Artsy Fix
Thursday, April 16, 2009
(NEW YORK) Cynthia Rowley may be known more for her quirky sense of style than for her passion for art collecting, but all that may be about to change. Rowley and her husband Bill Powers have been featured on the cover of Phillips de Pury & Company’s latest“Saturday@Phillips” auction catalogue, as part of its “Tastemaker” series. Powers’ artistic penchant is hardly surprising; in addition to being the man behind Ms. Rowley, he’s also co-owner of Half Gallery on the Lower East Side (along with Andy Spade and James Frey), editor at large for Purple magazine and artistic director at Tarmagazine and Tar Siz publishing.
The catalog has just gone on sale (aligning with Phillips’ April 25 auction of contemporary and urban art, photographs, design and toy art) and features Dean Kaufman’s photos of Rowley and Powers–with a sneaky appearance on the cover of their 9-year-old daughter Kit’s hand. As for their collection? The couple shows off drawings, photographs, paintings, and sculpture by the likes of Richard Prince, Marc Newson, Andy Warhol and more. Rowley says the variety is what makes it special.
“He’s always got about a 10 ideas going, but it works for him, let’s say 8 times out of 10…”
Andy Spade Is a Giant in New York
The Spades started out just outside Detroit. It was the 1960s and Sam Spade was an ad man for the Big Three automakers while his beautiful wife, Judy, cared for their three boys. Sam liked to 
disappear. One day he didn’t come home for six months, so Judy put the house on the market. The day the house sold, Sam reappeared and begged for another chance. He’d found a job in Phoenix, he said.
“I said, ‘O.K., one more shot,’” Judy told me. “When we finally got out to Phoenix, that turned out to be a lie—he didn’t actually have a job there.”
It didn’t take long for Sam to disappear for good. It was 1968 and Judy and the boys—8-year-old Bryan, 6-year-old Andy and 4-year-old David—were pretty much stranded in the desert. Judy told them, “No use sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves!” She moved the brood to Scottsdale and over the next decade often worked three jobs.
“The boys took care of themselves,” said Judy, now 71 and retired, speaking from the mountain town of Show Low, Ariz., where she lives with her third husband. “But they were very good at keeping themselves entertained.”
Minivan Highway IIE
“I want you to throw a hot dog down my hall.”
It’s likely that when Kari Ferrell walked into the Vice magazine offices in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, last month to interview for an administrative assistant job, they thought they’d hit the jackpot. Ms. Ferrell—petite, 22 years old, of Korean heritage—had a huge tattoo of a dragon across her chest and a cute pixie haircut.
She was talkative, funny, charming, adorable. She had a tattoo on her back that read “I Love Beards.” She told them she’d been working for the New York office of the concert promotion company GoldenVoice, which puts on huge rock festivals like Coachella near Palm Springs, Calif., and that she’d moved to New York from Utah just a few months earlier. They hired her on the spot.
A few days later, one of Ms. Ferrell’s new colleagues came by her desk. “I said, ‘Excuse me, miss, is [her boss] downstairs?’” the 29-year-old told The Observer. “She thought that was very polite that I said, ‘Excuse me, miss,’ and after that she started talking to me, instant-messaging me. She asked if I was from the South. I told her no. It escalated from there.”
Within the space of a half-hour, Ms. Ferrell was peppering him with questions about his sexual history—how many women he’d slept with and so on. “She was coming on to me, and I was super into it for the first part of it,” he said. “I realized I could have fun after work—but then I was like, ‘Let me check this girl out.’” He Googled her. Up popped a photo of his flirtatious new co-worker on the Salt Lake City Police Department’s Most Wanted list.
Koons Launches Latest
[Jeff Koons. All photos by JP PULLOS for ]
The literary crowd, including the infamous and Glenn O’Brien, flocked to the last night to celebrate pop artist Jeff Koons’ newest projects – books. and the aptly titled document Koons’ popular overseas exhibitions, which include his October 2008 exhibition at Berlin’s . Koon’s past and present pieces of artwork cover a wide range of topics such as celebrity, race and gender, commerce, media, sex, and fame.
More photos below…
James Frey, Jeff Koons, Glenn O’Brien
Hot, Legal and Loaded
What’s a nice girl like you doing with an arsenal like this? Police seize 20-year-old guarding vast weapons cache… including anti-aircraft gun
Last updated at 8:01 PM on 14th April 2009
Smirking for the camera, this is the 20-year-old woman Mexican police caught guarding an extraordinary arsenal of weapons.
Anahi Beltran Cabrera was seized during a routine patrol in Sonora state, near the U.S. border.
Officers recovered a vast cache of weapons including an anti-aircraft gun capable of firing 800 shots per minute, a number of rifles and an array of ammunition.
Anahi Beltran Cabrera is paraded for the cameras with her stash of weapons
Spanish Hostage Negotiation
The Bird Gone
from AP via Chicago Breaking News
Mark ‘The Bird’ Fidrych found dead
BOSTON — Former All-Star pitcher Mark “The Bird” Fidrych has been found dead in an apparent accident at his farm in Northborough, Massachusetts. He was 54.
Worcester County district attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. says a family friend found Fidrych about 2:30 p.m. Monday beneath a pickup truck. He appeared to be working on the truck, Early said.
The colorful right-hander was the American League rookie of the year in 1976 when he went 19-9 with a 2.34 earned run average. He spent all five of his major league seasons with the Detroit Tigers, compiling a 29-19 record and a 3.10 ERA.
His career was cut short by injuries.
— Associated Press
“The entirely cerebral genius who just about abandoned art in favor of chess.”
Face Value
At Portrait Gallery, Duchamp’s Teasing Puzzles of Identity
Who is Marcel Duchamp? He’s the man who, in 1912, made the masterpiece of modern painting titled “Nude Descending the Staircase, No. 2.” Except when he’s the virulently anti-painting guy who, just five years later, took a standard urinal and declared it to be a work of art.
Duchamp is the entirely cerebral genius who just about abandoned art in favor of chess. Except when he’s the aging letch who worked in secret on “Etant Donnés,” a laboriously crafted peep show that’s far too crude for us to present in this paper.
Just when you think you know Marcel Duchamp, he slips away again. And that may be the most important thing about him. At least, that’s the strong impression left by “Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture,” an ambitious show at the National Portrait Gallery. The exhibition adds yet another, little-acknowledged dimension to Duchamp: It argues that the art of portraiture — in Duchamp’s self-portraits and also in images he let others make of him — was central to his whole career. And it shows that, for Duchamp, portraiture was all about demolishing our stale ideas about an artist — or a person — as a single, stable thing. In the 100 portraits in this show, Duchamp can be male one minute, female the next. He can be a European man of letters or an outlaw from the Wild West. He can be a fleshy prizefighter or a champagne glass full of inanimate scraps.
Insatiable Gone
Adult Star Marilyn Chambers Found Dead
Updated 12:43 PM PDT, Mon, Apr 13, 2009
Related Topics: Marilyn Chambers | Pornography
Famed adult film star Marilyn Chambers was found dead in her home in the Canyon Country area, authorities said Monday, and an autopsy was pending to determine how she died.
The 56-year old broke into the porn industry by appearing in the 1972 film “Behind the Green Door,” the first widely released pornographic film in the United States.
Her appearance in the film cost the then-aspiring model and actress her job as Procter & Gamble’s Ivory Snow detergent girl, appearing on the soapbox with a baby and the caption “99 & 44/100% pure.”
The Providence, R.I., native had a bit part in the 1970 Barbra Streisand film “The Owl and the Pussycat,” but after establishing herself as a pornographic film star, she was never able to break into mainstream films.
Copyright City News Service
Younger Than Jesus
Fete Accompli | ‘Younger Than Jesus’
What: Last night’s invitation-only opening party for the New Museum’s first triennial survey, “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus.”
Where: A free-for-all within the SANAA-designed Bowery home of the New Museum, including the top floor Sky Room.
Dress Code: An artsy fashion stew of Lycra jumpsuits, décolleté tops, thick-rimmed glasses (that we suspect are nonprescriptive), monochrome ensembles, sequined pants and jackets, and leggings in abrasive colors like aquamarine and magenta.
Drinks: Grolsch lager in the bottle and Nobilo wines out of little plastic cups, alongside guava-colored Campari cocktails topped with an orange slice.
Décor: Four floors of self-referential young-person art dealing with young-person topics. Think new-media references like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, Internet jargon (e.g., “OMG”); video; a live woman sleeping in bed under a downy white duvet; sculptures of severed hands on a table; and a museum employee (we think) in a blood-stained tracksuit.
Music: Ross from Tally Hall, aka DJ “MR. F”, broke out ‘90s tunes, including a throwback to West Coast rappers, and then sprinkling in Ben Harper, Daft Punk and others.
Food: N/A, naturally.
Gift: A free copy of this week’s New York magazine — ironically with the “Facebook Revolt” story on the cover.
Perks: A view of the Lower East Side and Nolita from the Sky Room.
Overheard: “It’s cool to see what young artists are doing. Ryan Trecartin made those crazy, crazy videos. He’s got two up on the third floor. They’re insane in a great way.” — James Frey
Frostie Shakes It, Baby!
I Twaut I Taw The Anointed One!
What’s up, Jesus? Looney Tunes ‘Last Supper’ parody stirs controversy
9:01 AM, April 11, 2009
It’s not exactly a religious-art brouhaha of “Piss Christ” proportions, but a painting that uses popular cartoon characters to parody Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” is causing a bit of a stir in Old Town San Diego.
And just in time for Easter weekend.
“The Gathering,” a new painting by artist Glen Tarnowski, uses Looney Tunes characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Marvin the Martian and Road Runner to stand in for Jesus and his disciples in da Vinci’s famous 15th century fresco.
The painting is currently hanging in the Chuck Jones Gallery in San Diego. Jones, of course, was an animator at Warner Bros. where he rose to fame working on the Looney Tunes series among many projects before opening his own studio. The gallery is owned by Linda Jones Enterprises. (Linda was Chuck’s only child.)
Shut Up and Eat, Too Bad No Bon Appétit
Pork Tenderloin Stuffed With Sausage and Sphinx Dates With Tepary Bean Ragout and Arizona Spinach Tart
Tenderloin
1/2 pound Meat Shop pork scraps, cut up
1 cup chopped pitted dates
1 teaspoon chopped thyme
1/2 pound Meat Shop pork sausage cooked, chopped up into small pieces
1/2 cup cream
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Meat Shop pork tenderloin, cut down the center without cutting all the way through, lightly pounded out flat
Add pork scraps to a food processor and mix until smooth paste. Add dates, thyme, chopped sausage and cream, and incorporate until consistency of stuffing. Season with salt and pepper. Lightly pound out tenderloin to make one flat piece of meat. Arrange stuffing down the middle and wrap like a cigar. Tie with cooking twine. Sear all sides in a pan until brown. Finish in 350-degree oven, about 8-10 minutes a pound, until center of meat reads 140 degrees. Allow to rest. Slice width-wise to show off meat with center of stuffing.
20 Things To Do With The Matzah You Didn’t Eat
Mike Sizemore on Frey
from Mike Sizemore’s site – read it there –>
The James Frey Interview
After having some fun with film types and social media (I think there’s still some Michelle Yeoh footage to surface) I was approached by the publisher John Murray to see if I had any ideas about mixing things up with their authors. Of course, I said, as long as you have someone interesting. How about James Frey? was the reply…
Handily James was already scheduled to appear at the ICA last month and I’d already been chatting to those guys about helping out with what they do since they kindly suggested we relocate the Tuttle Club there. Perfect.
I’d read A Million Little Pieces just prior to its UK release and had actually met Frey before from my time as a bookseller, but aside from the South Park episode in which Oprah’s vagina pulls a gun and shoots a police officer, I hadn’t kept track of his career post-controversy. So off I went to his UK site and was pleasantly surprised to find it was the work of my friend @stml. Small world. Big Jim Industries is well worth a look too.
In the meantime @blackpooltower (James’ UK publisher) got the word out via his forum which eventually lead to a fun afternoon at the ICA chatting to the author. He was as laid back and interesting as I remember and had a copy of Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock (highly recommended!) tucked under his arm. He turned out to be eager to go past our allotted time and here’s the resulting interview in three parts:
“I don’t believe in inspiration”
“I’m from the notorious Freys”
“I have the same lawyer as the guys from South Park”
What was interesting to me was that while James wasn’t prepared to speak at the later event about the Oprah controversy, he was more than happy to answer questions about it direct from his readers. It was also encouraging to see how quickly John Murray themselves got excited about this kind of thing.
There’s a direct link here between both the innovative stuff we’ve been doing with Reuters and all the film related stuff I’ve had a hand in since the Juno Twitter screening back in ‘07 and hanging out with Spielberg and the Indy cast in Cannes last year.
But more on all that later…
Oh and go read Bright Shiny Morning. It’s a lot of fun.
[ click to read this and more Mike Sizemore at sizemore.co.uk ]
Leda Atomica
Watch more imeem videos on AOL Video
Thrilla in Manila
film review by Annie Vinton @ Film Monthly
Thrilla in Manila on HBO
(2009)
by Annie Vinton
Thrilla in Manila – A Thrilla for All.
My Take: Take a ringside seat – a “must see” for all, not just boxing fans.
Premiers on HBO Saturday, April 11th 8pm ET
You’ll want to pull up a ringside seat for Thrilla in Manila, another great HBO production that will warrant non-subscribers to order this cable service for the premier on April 11th at 8pm ET. The title, slightly varying from what the final fight between Frazier and Ali was originally coined, “Thriller in Manila” captures more than the historic boxing match – it delves into betrayal between two friends and complex race relations of the 1970’s.
Lively characters like Ali’s doctor, Dr. Ferdie Pacheco and one of the last living members from Frazier’s corner, Georgie Benton, are not interviewed together but [Director John] Dower cleverly strings their conversations together to tell the story. Moments woven in between the audience are sure to remember include Frazier watching footage of the final fight for the first time since 1975, after much cajoling from Dower. It’s a one camera shot of him sitting in a chair in a dark room and he’s heard coaching the TV, “Get closer, get closer!” Frazier felt that he should not have given Ali the room that he did and less “breathing room” could have made a difference in the battle. What also is revealed is that Frazier boxed a few of the rounds virtually blind.
Another moment most will probably be surprised to see is Ali speaking at a KKK rally, reminding us all of Ali’s influence and power outside of the ring and his views on race relations in the ‘70’s. As Pacheco described, these two fighters were “caught in the battle of the soul of Black America.”
Although the centerpiece of Thrilla in Manila highlights one of the most historical boxing bouts, it’s a story for non-boxing fans too. Frazier’s hope is that those watching can get a true of understanding of his relationship with Ali and what they were to each other, not just what was created in the media.
Annie Vinton Annie Vinton is a freelance writer and film critic living in NYC. You can read more about her and her writing at her blog here.
Skeleton Boy
“No, Doc – I’m telling ya – it’s like there’s a needle stuck permanently in my ass.”
| Needle removed from bum – after 31 years |
A Chinese pensioner can finally sit in comfort after doctors removed a broken syringe needle which had been stuck in his bottom for 31 years.
Lao Du, 55, of Zhengzhou, said the needle was left in his rear by an ‘amateurish’ doctor in 1978, reports the Zhongyuan Network.
“I got a cold and went to see an amateurish doctor in my hometown village, but the needle broke off once it pierced my bum,” he said.
“I was sent to a provincial hospital immediately. After being hospitalised for nine days, doctors checked me but failed to find the broken needle.”
Lao Du said he always believed the broken needle was still in his bottom and four or five years ago he began to feel sharp pains regularly in his rear.
Chief surgeon Fu Konglong, who finally found the needle tip after three hours of surgery, said: “It was very detailed work. We had to look for it in every muscle fibre.”