Sunday, September 30, 2007

Facings




A new book by Jordan Stempleman, now at Otoliths

64 pages

Cover design by David-Baptiste Chirot

ISBN: 978-0-9803-6597-9

Otoliths 2007

$10.00 + p&h

URL: http://www.lulu.com/content/1142300

Jordan Stempleman writes of his new collection, Facings: "These are poems that begin from the almost observed, places not yet finished, excuses untested, and individuals who only appear after they find comfort in retracting all they've been said to say."

Paul's Balls

Paul Shortt, of Shorttage, has created some strap-on balls, one size fits all. For those in need of growing some balls or feeling just short on manhood. These festive scrotum's, eerily popular with the local community, come in a variety of styles and colors. Though this could simply be a ploy to get pretty girls to pose for him, I think his balls offer some interesting not-so-hidden connotations.


Larose






A long overdue shout-out to Steven Larose of Fish or Cut Bait.
Steven, a forerunner of the artblogging community makes these wonderful ethereal paintings that seem to have an extensive network of sources. They call to mind a vast variety of possibilities, from “a fetus growing black in fecund earth womb” (Geese Bill) to “energy and cigarette burns to let us know to change reels”.... I am drawn to these paintings, not so much for what they might allude to, but I think it is, that at a time when spatial and/or conceptual tension seem to hold a certain prevalence in painting (a la Alexander Ross or even Amy Sillman), Steven's seem to inhabit an anti-tension, a kind of plateauing of both concept and form, or, the markings of a direct consciousness of place. They bring to mind the Japanese spatial concept MA, which Steven and I briefly discussed a while back (for MA, look up MA in the search blog box). See more of Stevens work here.

Monday, September 24, 2007

The Braindead Megaphone

Essays by George Saunders
got my autographed copy in the mail today thanks to the Suanders Army of which I am a proud member.

since mac's don't have a link option (what the hell) here is the link to copy/paste.

http://www.amazon.com/Braindead-Megaphone-George-Saunders/dp/159448256X


Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Banvard's Folly

I enjoyed this book by Paul Collins (below) so much that I thought I'd post it instead of new art photos (soon to come).
Banvard's Folly: thirteen tales of people who didn't change the world: is a wonderful book about, well, the various failures of history. Collins rarely-if-ever inserts himself into the text leaving it untouched by an unwanted outside perspective. Yet he manages to slip his personality in just enough to fully engage the reader.

As the Los Angeles Times Book Review puts it,
"The thirteen lives and times to which Collins devotes his considerable scholarship and manifest narrative gifts in Banvard's Folly are the flash-in-the-pan, briefly notable, and long-ignored ones-of-a-kind, who remind us of the nobility and futility, the grandeur and begrudgery of our endeavors. Of Collins's endeavor, however, we can proclaim our permanent thanks and amazement and heartiest welcome."

As an artist I both fear and hope that I may one day end up in a book like this one.




John Banvard and his 3 mile painting of the Mississippi river.


John Symmes and his theory of the hollow earth, and the civilizations that live within.


William Ireland the Shakespearian forger, with the "Bards" lost play Vortigern.


Ephraim Bull with his Concord Grapes


Professor Blondlot and his N-rays


Martin Tupper, the stuttering poet

Alfred Beach with his pneumatic train


Psalmanazar, the man from Formosa


Delia Bacon and her obsession to discredit Shakespeare.


Augustus Pleasanton the Blue Light Healer.


Robert Coates, Romeo dandy extraordinaire.

and finally, Thomas Dick and the Great Moon Hoax