The Ghostvillage Project. Six artist + an abandoned offshore mining village = opportunity.
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Also via the U.K., the Warrington exhibit "(R)evolution of Urban Art."
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"WASH ME": Getting one-uppance on The Buff with "reverse graffiti" in San Francisco and Sao Paolo, from Moose and Alexandre Orion. [More about here and here.]
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And as far as the 'real' art world is concerned...
In recent months, there've been reports of big auctions and works getting snapped up by collectors for the usual multi-million dollar sums. Business as usual, from the sound of it. All of it prompting a number of critics and commentators to assert that art has become its own parallel universe - one completely unaffected by the recent economic downturn, far removed from everyday life and the common culture, and therefore too esoteric and insular. But according to a recent piece via Bloomberg, that may not entirely be the case.
Yes, technical difficulties. Compounded by seasonal detours, various and sundry obstacles, and dealing with certain aggravating things elsewhere that should have been resolved ages ago.
At any rate, this thing's largely been in PARK mode lately for a bunch of reasons -- most of them on account of some computer issues. Up and running again quite soon, hopefully. Perhaps a mix'll appear in the meantime, to tide everyone over 'til thing's are rolling at full tilt again.
These New Puritans are a recent Brit band. They first came to my attention a while back year when they were highlighted by the Guardian as being part of "The New Eccentrics" -- a scattered bunch of arty, slightly experimental pop bands that most prominently included Foals.
Despite the fact that they came across as howlingly pretentious in print (in a way that only a fledgling art-pop band can be), I checked out their debut album Beat Pyramid. How it struck me: Some intriguing ideas afoot here & there, and some potential; but not quite enough to fully engage my interest or lead me to expect to hear from them again. But apparently they're due to release a sophomore album shortly after the New Year. Judging from this tune, I may have to give it a listen.*
But the main reason I'm posting this is because of the photography. Because let's face it -- some things were meant to be viewed in high definition.
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* At the very least, it'll probably get me by until Foals release a second album, which I half expect will be titled More Songs about Tennis and Disaffection.
Well, maybe not everything. But that's where I first heard of it. From her, and from the evening news.*
She & I were living in Nashville at the time. 1978, I was scarcely 12 year years old at the time.
One night: Local evening news -- particularly an item towards the end of the broadcast. The story had it (hyuk hyuk, bewildered shrugs from the anchorpeople) that a "famous punk rock group" was playing Memphis that evening, and that plenty of people were showing up to check out what this whole punk-rock phenomenon thing was about.
[CUT TO: Exterior shots, night. A parking lot, with various grinning, thrill-seeking enthusiasts showing up at the gate -- all of them coming out out of the dark sporting some ill-informed, slapdash de rigueur variety of makeup, post-glam trainwreck hair, wearing trashbags, etc.]
Turns out it just wasn't any "punk rock group from England," but THE punk rock group from England -- showing up to play for one of the last few standing dates on their disastrous, career-closing U.S. tour. The main reason they wouldn't say which one was because this was the Bible Belt, many years ago, and this was prime-time broadcasting, during "family viewing" hours. Hence, the name of said act was unfit for going out over the airwaves.
I guess I hadn't been paying attention, because I hadn't heard about any of it. And I might not have given the story another thought if at that moment my mother hadn't looked at me from the opposite side of the room and asked me, "Have you heard about this punk-rock thing?" I shook my head. No, I hadn't.**
"It's this new thing. These kids -- they take drugs, they beat each other up, they stick pins and needles through their faces." She shook her head in dismay. "The whole world has just become so sick."
And yeah, because I was an 12-year-old boy at the time, I guess it's predictable that I'd take some automatic, perverse, and possibly contrarian interest in the whole thing -- mentally flagging it as a topic worth investigating further. Which I did. But at the same time, part of me couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't more to it than that.
Anyway: This is the first in pair of posts, with a follow-up to come*** _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
* That, and from special thematic episode of "Quincy," "CHIPs" and The Phil Donahue Show. TV is so educational. All sarcasm aside, media was much different in those days. Far smaller, far more limited. The cultural lag & gulf that resulted from such narrow conduits is something that's probably incomprehesible to anyone under the age of, say, thirty or thereabouts. ** She was the one working in a capitol-city newspaper. I meanwhile was stuck in some backwoods religious school out in next county. So no, Mom -- how would I know about such a thing? *** Right. I know I have another recent post that I'd said I would follow up on. I'll be getting to that one, too.
Yeah, I guess I really should post more often. It seems I have a captive audience. According to much of the traffic in my Cemments section these past several months...
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And then this effort to engage in an enthusiastic exchange, where the reader's response was so impassioned that his syntax gets even more trainwrecked than my own usual spielsome yarns...
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Tsk. Right. After I'm done rebuilding after this latest harddrive crash, I guess I'll have to get up & at 'em, right.
It's not that I take back everything I said about this track in my prior (now deleted) post. It's just that I found myself listening to it ten times in row on headphones this evening, and decided that my (and others') opinions about it really didn't matter. As with Burial's priors, the thing's its own fuckin' thing. One of those sort of abstract, ineffable things that the Germans alone possess a word for. One of those really long words.
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