July 2007
July 27, 2007: the met
July 19, 2007
Music history time: The notorious WFMU tells us all about "The Ostrich" one of lou reed's very first, pre-velvet underground songs. I'd heard of it, but never heard it before now. It was a dance single, supposedly, but when you tune every guitar string to D you're bound to sound avant garde. The mp3 they link to is definitely worth hearing - a noisy time capsule that doesn't sound anything like 1964.
July 19, 2007
The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman. Haven't actually read this book, but the site makes it look weird. I suggest paging down and clicking on both the slide show and short animation.
July 17, 2007
Ansel Adams in color. I laughed out loud. (via Alec Soth)
July 15, 2007
Alec Soth interviews Tod Papageorge, head of the Yale photo MFA program. Quote:
I have no real argument against so-called set-up photography, at least as a process. The fact that I’ve had many successful students doing it in different ways I think makes my case. I also think that the reason they’ve felt free enough to work in this way at Yale is because I profoundly believe in—and teach—the proposition that photography is inherently a fiction-making process. Don’t speak to me of the document; I don’t really believe in it, particularly now. A picture’s not the world, but a new thing. That said—too briefly—my argument against the set-up picture is that it leaves the matter of content to the IMAGINATION of the photographer, a faculty that, in my experience, is generally deficient compared to the mad swirling possibilities that our dear common world kicks up at us on a regular basis. That’s all. Remember, T. S. Eliot made the clear, brutal distinction between the art that floods us with the “aura” of experience, and the art that ‘presents’ the experience itself. ANY artist, I feel, must contend seriously with the question of which side of that distinction he or she is going to bet on in their work. Obviously, I’m with Eliot—and Homer—in this, believing that the mind-constructed photograph almost necessarily leads to a form of illustration, the very epitome of aura-art.
July 10, 2007: at the manno's
July 10, 2007: turkey (prospect park zoo)
July 9, 2007
The Music Biz is cracking down on live music in bars and coffee shops. Songwriters should get their dues, but this is beyond ridiculous. They'll be going after all those songs around the campfire next. Reading this article makes me not want to own a copyright.
