Put a Ring On It

Las Huelgas Apocalypse, attributed to the monk Beatus of Liebana, completed in the year 1220 A.D. 

Forty-nine images of a tricyclic narrative survive. Here we have a standard, dare I say, "civilian" end-times image: Four Horsemen, four Evangelists, glorious Agnus Dei, and the ubiquitous beast crouching daintily behind our boy Saint John. But the colors, the treatment of space—these are anything but standard. Oh, of course someone has always thought to take the usually quasi-obsessive focus on backgrounds and middlegrounds away from the apocalyptic image. But something always remains. Something to remind us of the physical. 

But here we see nothing. Nothing but color, reflection, smudge, fire, moon, eternal damnation, eternal salvation, interplanetary tension . . . We feel through color and treatment of space a level of tension that has only before been achieved through use of the figure. Take all figurative elements out of this image and does it become something else? Does the feeling change? Does it lose any of its intensity or bravado? No. So what do we have? A giant leap towards abstraction, even a kind of abstract expressionism, in what some view as the most dead and uninspired chunk of history? A hidden genius? A guy who never got the hang of nature drawing? Who knows. Gotta love Spain!

To Your Health! (Happy Weekending)

The Best Thing Going (For Friday)

http://mugshotss.blogspot.com/

Sculptural Head for Friday

Anima Dannata, 1619

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Can't you just feel the heat?

Founding Fathers: Janis Joplin, Beautiful and Unconcerned at Tampa Central Booking

Beat on the Brats with a Baseball Bat

This article is a little old (from May of this year), but one of the kids at work asked me about the infamous Bushwick dormitory, McKibbin Lofts, this morning, and I saw it as my solemn duty to do some research and convince her that it was indeed a whitey scourge ghetto, a deeply uncool, irrationally self-important cesspool of Midwestern transplant filth. Unfortunately, the author of this Times profile, while making it clear that the living is unsanitary, does, in her own loserlyness, give these dummies too much credit--"This could have been Greenwich Village 60 years ago, or SoHo 30 years ago, or the East Village in the 1990s." Hardly! And SoHo in the 70s is a family matter. I take it personally. Plus, it's just really lame and boring to be constantly referencing New York's past in fumbling toward a future (or present even). Granted, I've been posting a bit about 1992; I think all of the time about New York poets of the 50s and 60s; I am nuts about Gordon Matta Clark's FOOD, and, for that matter, my beautiful parents who ate there and lived beautifully and had beautiful babies. It is our generation's strong suit, deconstructing and repackaging recent history. But pretending that you're recreating the Factory is not being a historian or a nostalgia-ist--it's just being an egotist (and an uncreative, sad-sack one at that). Plus, NO TELEVISION??!!

(Don't) Beat on the Brats with a Baseball Bat

You know, I don't totally hate the younger generation. I do not take kindly to people being all flagrant about bad taste, which happens a lot down our way, but I have taken kindly to these two fourteen-ish-year-olds who I often see on the train going to and from school. They are a gangly, unconventionally pretty girl and a super cute black boy with an afro and a skateboard. They're clearly sweet on each other, but they play it pretty cool--no gross, underaged displays of affected affection. Mainly, I like how they dress, in brazen jewel-toned denims and backpacks, clean t-shirts, and sneaks, none of the curated rapscallion tatters and glamorous in-line-for-the-Dole ensembles that we favor. They choose new-ness, where we choose vintage. It seems to me that, for the first time in a while, there is an actual teeny-bopper and a teeny-bopper style. Looking at them, I feel as if we, at fourteen-ish, always tried to look older (and smuttier), and they allow themselves to revel in their particular age of school clothes and mall clothes and movie-going clothes.

More importantly, the two of them are equipped almost identically. I have often decried gender neutralizing as handled by the clumsy fashion industry, but in the hands of these kids, as with their seemingly easy, unself-conscious mixed race coupling (unheard of where I come from), it's part of a true, unfettered sense of equality (they both happen to decorate their knapsacks with Obama/Biden pins). Electing Obama was exciting for those of us who voted, but imagine the faith in others instilled in kids who had no agency, who saw the citizens and system they will be and inherit work for the better. When I was their age, it was the 2000 election that I witnessed (ugh). These kids love the environment and believe in the efficacy of diversity. They're a bit less likely to smoke cigarettes (which is good for them, I guess). In making that list, I realize that we were supposed to possess those three traits; all were heavily marketed to us in school and on television. But it's a process, and in that way, younger people have come closer than we could have.

Really, all of this kid propering aside, I think I like that I can look at them and feel out of it (their world), old enough to see them as children and be kindly and a little maternal.

Miley Cyrus on the other hand . . .

Print for Friday Eve

Famous Beauty
Kaigetsudo Anchi
c. 1714
woodblock print

















I am newly enamored of so-called "Floating World" images. Isn't it funny that this one is titled Famous Beauty, but is clearly all about the Kimono? Her face, as it goes with Geishas, is one of a style, not a rare object. Her costume, however, is just that, a rare, artisinal, complex, abstractable, stunning object.

Excerpt from Catholic Dictionary Definition of "Rococo"

The Rococo style accords very ill with the solemn office of the monstrance, the tabernacle, and the altar, and even of the pulpit.

"But, it came from Memphis!" [read pleadingly]

I found myself in discourse yesterday with two non-fans of Justin Timberlake. They were not virulent haters, just unimpressed. I tried to prove his worth with a few quick strokes, playing "Cry Me a River" from 2003's Justified and "My Love" and "What Comes Around (Goes Around)" from the more recent Futuresex/Lovesounds (2006). They remained luke-warm, "He's talented and all, but the songs don't stand out. He's no Madonna." I sometimes have this charmless inclination to get angry when people disagree with me in matters of music, beauty, politics, history, protocol, what have you. Here, I remained calm. For one, I was intrigued by this Madonna comparison, and, really, all of a moment, I wasn't so sure I disagreed with them.

I mean, couldn't you credit Timbaland and the Neptunes with the candied brilliance of his hit songbook? The lyrical content is forgettable. Timberlake brings us his doo-wop falsetto, good looks, and (questionable) style, but production teams were responsible for the layered sophistication and of-the-moment hip-hop and house fusion that truly drove both records. But even that dim view is a bit rosy, what drives a record is promotion and good timing. Timberlake is madly marketable to both (increasingly pop-conscious) critics and the populous. In 2003, he left N'Sync with a ready-made, millions-strong, international fan base. With a little bit of smarts, all he had to do was prove he was remotely independent and interesting to critics, to whom it would seem that he was a winner with long odds, a dark horse. All the while, for Clive Davis, he was the surest of bets. At the dawn of the 21st century, even the most discerning folks are servants of the Culture Industry. "Hotness" is holiness.

But--OH--I despise this cynical line of thought. Pop is my mountain top. What good comes of me questioning the artistic merit of the moneyed, collaborative process that drove, for instance, Britney Spears' Blackout, the record I'm writing a book about. When I doubt the worth of the vernacular, not only am I being a limited sort of snob, but I'm also lowering the discourse of my critical life to a matter of simple preference, taste that could be deemed--GASP--bad. Clive is right and not necessarily wicked (no more so than Barry Gordy); in pop, it's the product that matters, not the process. We must listen to what we are fed, no Basement Tapes in these parts. In pop music, whether rock-ists like it or not, image and packaging and videos and moment-ness can be content. And, a pop singer's interpretation of someone else's lyric and melody can be the very height of (highly legitimate) appropriation art.

Even after all of this circular stuff, I do pay heed to that Madonna comment. In terms of voice (point-of-view, not instrument), Timberlake is a little bland and unduly smug. Unlike Madge (or Britney), he doesn't seem to have much of a story to tell. "Voice" aside, he's a well-informed cat, clearly bowing to our Memphis legacy, Elvis and Al Green in particular, as well as MJ and Prince and a terribly long list of others--an appropriator appropriator!

(And, argument aside, I love a hometown boy.)

I promised myself

I promised myself I wouldn't make a habit of posting the poorly written segments of Gwyneth Paltrow's weekly lifestyle newsletter, but, my stars, her paean to Los Angeles--

Los Angeles, where I was born and partially raised, will always hold a special place in my heart. Not the L.A. of Hollywood, but the old-school seventies beach vibe that which still lingers in corners. As strange, spread out and flatly lit as it can sometimes be, Los Angeles, with its bougainvillea, sea breezes, avocados and eccentric inhabitants, is like no other place and will always be in my soul.

and then again with the "vibes"!--

Shutters is my favorite place to stay in L.A. Make sure you get a room with an ocean view. It has a beautiful, breezy vibe, big bathtubs, good sheets. I return to it again and again

It's really not so bad. I just have an unjust tendency to be offended by this character and her tremendous blindspots. But, to her credit, when Paltrow starts to discuss non-descript, strip-mall Japanese restaurants, I have to get on board a little bit.

Sushi Katsu-Ya
11680 Ventura Blvd.
Studio City, CA 91604
(818) 985-6976
www.sushikatsu-ya.com
You have to go to the original, in the mini-mall in Studio
City. This place is heaven. The baked crab hand roll and
the spicy tuna on crispy rice are reason enough to go
to California.

Economic impossibilities aside, a trip out West would be really dreamy right now.

Santa Baby

I want this Fall 2007 J. Mendel dress with sable sleeves, to be worn with these.

Andersonville Denims

In 2008, Karen Carpenter is a boy trying not to look a fool in his cigarette pants.

basehead . . . ?

Folk Art for Wednesday (Goodbye Donna)

Fine--Let's Talk About 1992

If we're going to dedicate some space and time to the analysis of the present renaissance of early ninetiesness (apart from the usual schooldays nostalgia that goes on at A&P), we should do it up right. It was a pretty thrilling year, in which, (of course) the music video was unavoidable, though burgeoning gangsta' rap had yet to become part of MTV kulture (por ejemplo, there were no videos made for The Chronic!!). In 1992, there was a visible push and pull between grit and glamour, but on either side of that pond, ideas of nostalgia and the underground were paramount. There was also a fascinating dual urge toward health and sickness. HIV was still very much a crisis, beginning to be addressed in mainstream media with messages of care and consciousness; people balked at 80s excess; earth and creature-loving liberal politics seemed to surge. But drugged New York clubs, Bloods, Crips, and heroin addicts from the drowsier cities were aesthetic kings. Here is a smattering of information--Annie Lennox's "Money Can't Buy It," The Lemonheads' "My Drug Buddy," En Vogue's cover of "Giving Him Something He Can Feel," a clip from Road to Avonlea, a Gangsta Blacc mix-tape, a GLBT P.S.A., a clip from the pilot of Absolutely Fabulous, and a news segment. Note, most of these are favorite things of seven year old Able, which is fitting, as, to look at it now, 1992 was innocent, scrappy, and a little hilarious.

Verses

THE LITTLE WHITE DUCK
(Walt Barrows and Bernard Zaritzky)

There's a little WHITE DUCK - sitting in the water
A little WHITE DUCK - doing what he oughter
He took a bite of a lily pad; flapped his wings and he said;
"I'm glad - I'm a little WHITE DUCK - sitting in the water
Quack (quack) quack (quack) quack (quack) (quack)."

There's a little GREEN FROG - swimming in the water
A little GREEN FROG - doing what he oughter
He jumped right off of the lily pad
That the little DUCK bit, and he said;
"I'm glad - I'm a little GREEN FROG - swimming in the water
Glump (glump) glump (glump) glump (glump) (glump)."

There's a little BLACK BUG - floating on the water
A little BLACK BUG - doing what he oughter
He tickled the FROG on the lily pad
That the little WHITE DUCK bit and he said;
"I'm glad - I'm a little BLACK BUG floating on the water
Chirp (chirp) chirp (chirp) chirp (chirp) (chirp)."

There's a little RED SNAKE - laying in the water
A little RED SNAKE - doing what he oughter
He frightened the DUCK and the FROG so bad
He ate the little BUG and he said;
"I'm glad - I'm a little RED SNAKE laying in the water
Wriggle (swish) Wriggle (swish) Wriggle (swish) (swish)."

Now there's nobody left - sitting in the water
Nobody left - doing what he oughter
There's nothing left but the lily pad
The DUCK and the FROG ran away;
I'm sad - 'cause there's nobody left sitting in the water
Blue (oooh) blue (oooh) blue (oooh) (oooh).

Copyright Walt Barrows and Bernard Zaritzky
Recorded by Burl Ives, 1960

The Economic Downturn Is Deliberately Attacking Me

Citing increasing pressure on advertising revenues in a prolonged economic downturn, WMC-TV Channel 5 said Tuesday that it is reducing its staff.

Weeknight anchor Donna Davis and midday anchor Bill Lunn are among the 15 employees being let go by the local NBC affiliate as part of wider cuts by parent company Raycom Media, said WMC general manager Lee Meredith.

With about 150 full-time employees locally, Tuesday's cuts account for 10 percent of the station's work force.

"The broadcasting industry and advertising-based media businesses in general ... are not immune to the many economic difficulties we're facing right now and that our market here in Memphis is facing right now," Meredith said. "For the station to properly position ourselves for the business challenges ahead of us, we have taken the difficult step of making a work force reduction."

Davis, originally from Jackson, Tenn., anchored newscasts at 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. A University of Memphis graduate, she began her career as a local radio reporter and returned to Memphis in 2000 after TV stints in Fresno, Calif., and Cleveland, Ohio, according to a cached version of her biography on WMC's Web site.

Lunn, who has a master's degree from Northwestern, has worked as an anchor and reporter in Memphis since 1995.

Redux Reflux

So, 90s redux has been in full swing for a couple of seasons (though the cold weather has made it more pronounced). I began a natural progression towards it in late 2005 with navy blue nail polish, baby doll dresses, flannel, awkward short boots, a general notion of setting aside the fluorescents, white leather and cocaine. Now that it runs rampant, I've been chafing in an unbecoming way. Most of our readership knows that this summer I came across a 14-year-old (that means: born in 1994) dressed as Blossom (that means: floral dress, Doc Martens, and straw hat fastened with a sunflower), who claimed to have never heard of the show--I positively ate my bonnet. If we (born in 1985) were allowed to attack the 80s with relishment, then, by all means, this set can have at it with knee highs and mini-backpacks and stonewashed denims. The version of the re-movement implied by that aforementioned teenager's outfit must be for the kiddies; I can't go in for items that I already bought at Contempo Casuals when I was in elementary school. I can get down with 90s redux, but with finer, subtler choices than the babes make (no costumes for Able). I believe I've worked out my angst, but if I see a 14-year-old walking down the street (or worse, on the L train) wearing these lime green patent objects, I'll need to retire from pubic life permanently.

Don't Be Lonely For Your Heroes

This video may only benefit myself and sister Philippa and our Buffy-loving staffers. For years, I have fruitlessly searched for the TDK VHS on which I taped these episodes so very long ago (the commercials alone!). Here, as small consolation, is a clipped offering of my very first soap opera, Swan's Crossing—

Santa Baby

I want the Magna Carta.

Video Store--Love in This Club--Desert Houses

Verses

These past two weeks I've hoped to find the time to stay in bed for a few and watch Ken Burns' Civil War (there is, after all, an untouched bottle of Maker's in the cupboard). Sadly, I've had to content myself with stolen half-hours in the midst of some holiday times socializing and my attempts to wrench out this Britney Spears book proposal. I have not visited the War Between the States in some time, having been pretty morbidly preoccupied with it as a girl. But I find now, as ever, the most remarkable bit of perusing its history is listening to Shelby Foote. Our dearly departed fellow Midtown Memphian has knowledge, ease and presence, the likes of which will ne'er be seen again.

Barbie, Raquelle, and Summer

A Ship Without a Sail

Holy Denali Party

Love in This Club

General Robert E. Lee, born (in 1807) to be realized in triumphal frieze, was given the nickname "Marble Man" by his peers at Westpoint. His papa was the governor of Virginia, a certain Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, descendant of Sir Thomas More and the Earls of Crawford, and confidant of George Washington, who was, incidentally, great grandfather to Robert's wife, Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee.

FALL!

Undercover Brother

I believe I mentioned earlier that I've been reading a book about Celine Dion, Canadian rock critic Carl Wilson's Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste. I am enthralled by the text, which addresses (among other things) the American inability to read Quebecois signifiers. Wilson uses the term negres blancs, a commonly understood (though slightly scandalous) descriptor for the French Colonial stepchildren of Eastern Canada, like Celine, famously one of fourteen Catholic pauper babies from Charlemagne, a humdrum francophone hamlet where les Diones leased a wine bar with brood acting as waitstaff and Osmond-ish stage show. The phrase is applied to the above, quite famous post-Katrina Larry King segment--

". . . [there is] intense identification with New Orleans, which Quebec sees as both a cautionary tale of language loss and a distant cousin outpost of joie de vivre in stiff-necked North America. She shrugged off the million bucks as the least a happy entrepreneur could do, and sang when called upon like the dutiful national daughter ever ready to put her gifts into service. Because most viewers couldn't see the link between the negres blancs of Quebec and the creole blacks of New Orleans, Celine's state seemed out of all proportion."

hmmmm . . .

Uh-Oh

Strange rumblings at the Police Academy . . .

Bridge Builders

Let's build a bridge between Jacob Riis' bewitching photograph, "Bandit's Roost" (1888), and Trick Daddy's crunk anthem, "I'm a Thug" (2001), by essentially placing them next to one another and thinking about it--shall we?

HATEFUL boxcar children and/or twee on me

Why is it that so many of our generation have a fear of being on their own? Not only does this silly custom umbrella celebrate unhealthy levels of codependence, it will get in the way of your fellow pedestrians.

Just Capital (in which we discuss the capital of Baltimore NOT D.C.)

As per my earlier post, while we discuss the field trip I took to the capital over the weekend, we will leave out the bits about the actual capital (which is really fine-looking in fine weather, but full of lamesaucy people traffic and car traffic), instead focusing on Baltimore, my winter palace.

Baltimore's Mount Vernon is an utter dream! I hate to be the New Yorker who travels through the world eyes trained on real estate alone, but these townhouses are inescapably lovely with details rarely seen down our way.

Grand Touring

Am I behind los tiempos? I've just now discovered Falco. I am also reading a book about Celine Dion that makes much mention of the Eurovision Pop Contest, and methinks it is time for a new recurring musical segment dedicated to the Old West putting in their poptastic oar . . . let's go grand touring.

Folk Art For Blustery Monday

"rain on your collage ass disco dorm"

Staten Island Historians Piece Together Genealogy Of Wu-Tang Clan!!!

read on!!!

Love in this Club

Mama Didn't Raise No Fool

Attacking Alzheimer's with Red Wine and Marijuana---

read on

Hallmark Original Movie That Made Me Weep For Sunday Night

Unfortunately this is just some sort of CBS News item about said Hallmark film. I will post clips as/if they become available.

Just Capital

I've arrived home from a field trip to our nation's capital (hence the radio silence other than a quick posting from Killin' Them Softly, hilarious product of said capital). I discovered a few fantastic things, some of which I'll share through the week. Here I'll outline the first—D.C is lamesauce and Baltimore is the new capital of my heart (alongside Memphis and New Amsterdam).

Love in this Club

Brandon Jenner—he's pretty and he's wearing a Bucksnort, TN t-shirt!!

Belles Lettres

Stupid stupid you

Ridiculousness abounds

You are a donkey

Verses

"Kick My Ass"
Vic Chestnutt
(more popularly covered by the band Garbage)

I'm so sorry you had to kick my ass
You said I ruined your life
I didn't mean to do that

I had to untangle where we were intwined
You were strangling me
Were you breathing so fine

The jam I was in when things weren't working out
Led me to the brunt of your swinging bout

I'm so sorry I regret everything
But what can I do
To have you take back that swing

I'm so sorry a scuffle ensued
But things are much better now
I guess thanks to you

The jam I was in when things weren't working out
Led me to the brunt of your swinging bout

I'm so sorry you had to pull my hair
I had to take care of business
There was a lot of business giving there.

Santa Baby

Daniel Edwards
Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston
I want to constantly be reminded of when shit started going sour...