Matt Reeves, "Cloverfield" (2008).

For the last year or so I've been pining for the release of an intelligent and atmospheric horror movie. That type of product is rarely forthcoming from the American film industry. Hollywood producers seem mostly concerned with establishing a commercially successful franchise that they can ride for several films, building on name recognition and familiarity. Alternatively their product is so chock-full of big budget special effects that there is very little room left for compelling characters or an interesting storyline. Much has been made out of the supposed return to the 70's approach to horror filmmaking. I simply don't see it. Hungry viewers still need to look abroad for quality movies in this genre.

Of course one can always hope. I still scan the Onion A/V Club and Amazon for the latest releases in the theater and on DVD. I'll still pick up a title that shows promise, especially if I need one last movie to get that special deal on previewed discs at Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. I try to pay special attention to what appear to be "indie-films", although marketers have gotten better at exploiting the promise of a "diamond-in-the-rough". Flicks like The Blair Witch Project and Session 9 seemed to pop up out of nowhere, and it seems inevitable that a similar work of art will eventually be made. Generally the less hype associated with a film, the more likely I am to consider watching it. I have high standards.

When Cloverfield was released earlier this year, my interest was piqued. It got a fair amount of positive reviews from the sources I trust. It had a no-name cast and was created by a first-time feature director. Somehow (either because it genuinely was "below-the-radar" or due to the fact that I'm not tuned in to mainstream media) I really didn't know what Cloverfield was supposed to be about. Truthfully, that contributed to my enjoyment of the film. If you haven't yet seen it and think that you might- perhaps you should stop reading now. While the mystery is revealed early enough, it does add something to the experience and the anticipation helps you get through the rather annoying party scenes at the beginning.

Part of the difficulty with a story revolving around the unexplained appearance of a horrendous monster is the distraction that the thing entails. If some monumental creature is attacking NYC, it's going to be awfully difficult for the characters to compete with it. So it's a bit naïve of the director to truly believe he can make the audience care about the players. Still he gamely attempts to bring their personalities and relationships into focus. It's too bad really, because by the time that Reeves introduces his elements of destruction, I'd already come to hate most of the actors. The interactions between them is just too pro forma. This is not a film that works at the level of the individual.

Having said that, Cloverfield does have its entertaining moments. It's main asset is its setting. Manhattan does a yeoman's job of engaging the audience. Obviously the filmmakers have exploited the feelings and memories arising from "the day everything changed". I don't know how 9-11 survivors have reacted to the doomsday scenario of this flick, but I was captivated by the mayhem caused by the monster. It's pretty easy to relate to the panic that ensues when people start feeling trapped on the island. And Cloverfield is kept to a very reasonable 84 minutes (with more than ten of those devoted to the credits). That left its creators free from the onerous tasks of explaining how and why everything happened the way it did. Many thanks are due the editors.

Luc Sante, "Kill All Your Darlings" (2007).

I first became aware of writer Luc Sante when I stumbled on a used copy of Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (1991). His grasp of late-1800-era Manhattan led me to believe he was a perpetual scholar of that time and location. Low Life is chock-a-bloc full of stories of political corruption, gambling, boozing, and the entire milieu of a now vanished sporting life. As a relatively uncommitted student of 19th Century American history, I found it refreshing to find an unsanitized version or urban existence in our nation's most important cultural center. I resolved to track down some of Sante's other works on the subject. I was surprised to discover that there was nothing else along these lines by the author.

Anyway, when I saw an opportunity to pick up another one of his titles cheap, I did so without even paging through it. Such an impulse buy is not my normal modus operandi, but in the case of Sante I felt it was justified. Fortunately I wasn't at all disappointed. Kill All Your Darlings: Pieces 1990-2005 is a collection of essays Sante wrote for such notable publications as The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and The Nation. His erudition has been praised by such writers as Greil Marcus (who wrote the introduction) and William Gibson. He has been awarded the prestigious Whiting Writer's Award (1989), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1992-23), and a Grammy for album notes for a re-issue of a folk music anthology.

Simply put, Luc Sante comes across as absolutely brilliant. I was continually astonished to find his immense expertise in a wide variety of subjects. I kept wondering how a fifty-something, Belgian-born college professor could possibly have his range of knowledge. Whether writing about riots at Tompkins Square Park, or famous contemporary criminals like John Gotti and Rudy Giuliani, his NYC bonafides are clearly evident. But get him on the subject of smoking cigarettes, or worldwide New Year traditions, and his eloquence turns into poetry. Paging through Kill All Your Darlings is a satisfying adventure. His engagement with his subjects is absolute.

While there is very little possibility that any single reader will be interested in each and every one of his topics, it's easy to appreciate his rigorous approach to background research. If you let yourself go, you could end up taking numerous digressions of independent study inspired by each and every piece. When he gets on the subject of Bob Dylan's career, or the history of the American Blues, you may find yourself overwhelmed by the details. But still you won't be able to stop yourself from marveling at his cultural lexicon. And while you might be tempted to skip ahead to an essay about something you are already drawn to, you'll likely find yourself scouring every paragraph for the next vital anecdote he intersperses quite liberally.

For where else are you going to hear the story of how an obscure juke-joint musician named Buddy Bolden made an inspired exclamation that led to the musical definition of the term "funk"? In what other book can you turn the page from a humorous critical analysis of the transgressive art of Robert Mapplethorpe, only to find an in-depth analysis of Walker Evan's photographic work for the Farm Security Administration of the Depression-era 30's? What other author is going to outline his personal histories with such figures as Arthur Rimbaud, Allan Ginsberg and Tintin? Sante has packed an education into this 299-page volume, and delivered it with an elegant precision of prose.

A NYC Day-trip.

Thanksgiving break flew by, as I expected it might- given the fact that I dedicated much of it to what amounted to a "day trip" to NYC. As I had planned, I spent my nights at my father's house- a mere hour and forty-five minutes from Manhattan. It was a novelty to have many channels of television to browse through, but most of it is truly crap. I caught a fair portion of Snakes On a Plane, and it was about as mind-numbing as I thought it would be. I also caught a few glimpses of the cartoon Lil' Bush. When I initially saw the title, a few thoughts rushed through my mind in quick succession. I wondered whether it really was what it appeared to be. I marveled that we have reached a point when a sitting president is so truly ludicrous that he is disrespected with an animated lampoon of his foibles on national television. Finally, I realized that this president (or any reasonable facsimile) is only funny in three minute bursts, and then merely pathetic.

Saturday morning we were able to get off to a reasonably early start. My father was willing to drive me into the city, despite his reservations about potential holiday-weekend-traffic snarls. Fortified with four shots of espresso, I was ready to contend with whatever we experienced. It was refreshing to be entering the city with almost no agenda whatsoever. This was my third trip in a little over a year, and the previous two visits were regulated by a set of activities I had planned for weeks in advance. When my Dad suggested that we could drive up to Chelsea and see some of the galleries, I easily assented. For sheer availability of contemporary art, this neighborhood of former industrial buildings really can't be beat.

It seemed like many of the shows were closing when we visited. I really wanted to get inside the Jonathan Levine Gallery, but they were in the midst of an installation- so I was out of luck. But there were enough places that were open to make the browsing worthwhile. I maintained a consistently loose and informal attitude, and so I didn't document anything I saw. I simply took my time and skipped through to whatever intrigued me, without taking any notes. Suffice it to say that we got to see a lot that was to my tastes, and another large portion of work that I considered to be pretentious crap. This time around I skipped all of the boutique-ish salon galleries that specialize in stocking and exhibiting the prints of well-established legends of the Twentieth Century. I stopped for a few group shows (one in particular featured paintings by a group of Europeans influenced by German Expressionism and Surrealism), but mainly stuck to places featuring an exhibition of a single artist. There was nothing that stuck out so prominently that I would remember a name to mention here.

Actually... I take that back. I was surprised (and pleased) to walk into the Charles Cowles Gallery and discover the gigantic photographic prints of Edward Burtynsky. This was a bit of a coincidence, as I had recently wish-listed a documentary featuring his work over at Amazon. Burtynsky took shots of mammoth stone quarries with a large format camera. The results show the full extent of ecological devastation that such industry has caused. But at the same time the vast scale of his shots allows them to assume a troublesome beauty. The brain-twisting enormity of the project sites he depicts allows Burtynsky to play with viewer perception. Only when one notices the (seemingly) tiny presence of people and machinery can he/she appreciate the ramifications of the imagery. It is a truly sobering show.

I couldn't resist an inspiration to take out my own camera as I walked admidst the galleries. There's something about the quantity and quality of work, all packed into a rather limited geographical area, that compels me to engage in the process of manufacturing art. Of the vast amount of sensory data offered by NYC, there is much worthy of partition and apprehension. For an extended period of time, I felt I found my zone. It was a nice warm-up for my talk at the Agni Gallery. It's too easy to forget how invigorating creation can be, when you are involved with trying to represent and sell your work. I had a good time among the few who showed up to hear us pontificate on the process and value of our art. Attendance was modest, but the people who showed up seemed to be interested in what John and I had to say. After we were done, we didn't linger. Our day in the city was happily concluded.

Artist talk @ Agni Gallery, NYC this Saturday.

So I've decided (somewhat belatedly) to take a trip up to Agni Gallery to see The Blogger Show. You might remember that I mentioned considering going for the opening reception a couple of weeks ago. After all, this is the first time that I've had a piece in a show in a NY gallery. I didn't go, and ended up second guessing myself during most of that weekend. Still there were multiple reasons that I decided to skip it. My car needed a heck of a lot of repair work. There were several things that I wanted to see in town. Most convincingly, I had no one to travel with. I didn't relish the idea of driving into the big city by myself. I had asked my father if he was interested in going with me, but it turned out that he had other plans for the weekend. I could have crashed at his house that Friday night, and took a bus into Manhattan- but this seemed like more trouble than it was worth. After all, it wasn't like it was a solo exhibition.

But things have changed dramatically over the last week or so. I discovered that I would have this Friday off. I had already decided that I would go this upcoming weekend, but this fortuitous development makes the travel plans much more convenient. My father is going to be around, and he has generously offered his house as a way station, and suggested that he would accompany me on Saturday. I have also gotten my car fixed. M. had no problem with me going, so it was pretty much a no-brainer. I called John M. and let him know that I would be coming. I even said I'd do a gallery talk if he had any interest in planning one. He seemed excited because he had envisioned having other events during November at Agni, and he decided that he would do the talk with me.

I've given this type of talk before, and indeed the first time was at the Digging Pitt in Pittsburgh. I had co-curated a carnival-themed show, and was happy to speak about the way the concept had developed. Incredibly there were about 50 people in attendance. I provided a lot of historical context into the traveling carnival and sideshow phenomena in mid 20th century America. I explained why I felt personally connected to that aesthetic. Not surprisingly (for people that know him) John had a lot to say as well. It turned into a lively discussion, and a bunch of folks joined in. While I may have been a bit anxious when I started talking, by the end of the event I was rolling along pretty smoothly. The only disruption occurred when one of my more colorful friends interrupted me mid-sentence so he could get my car keys. Somehow that seemed to be in keeping with the carnival spirit I was attempting to convey.

I have no expectations that this Saturday will be anywhere near as successful as that previous event. This is Manhattan, USA for god's sake- the center of the western art world. And here's this little gallery in the Lower East Side, miles away from the centrifugal force of Chelsea. Is anyone likely to care about a completely anonymous artist from Pittsburgh, PA appearing at Agni? Not really. Even if we had any level of advertising and publicity, there is just too much else to do on the island (like taking an extra long shower, or getting a haircut). If you can make it, I guarantee there will be plenty of elbow room despite the gallery's modest size. Furthermore I'm not exactly sure what to say. I had supposed that I would speak about blogging, as that is the theme of the show. I could make quite a fool out of myself oin that topic.

Apparently I'm going to talk about my ongoing project- The Book of Life. At least that's what it says on the Digging Pitt blog. Yes, I have a blasphemer's audacity that allows me to form the conceit that I am actually re-creating that holy tome of judgment. Still I'd be remiss in my duties if I didn't point out that I haven't done this with any direct spirit of irony. I've been living with the creation of this piece for about a year-and-a-half, and the joke would wear thin quickly if I wasn't serious about it. The new work certainly relates to the piece I submitted for the Agni show. It's a bit odd to trace the evolution of my thinking since I completed the component drawings of Separation of Sinner and Saint over ten years ago. We lose sight of the long view so easily while we are obsessed with being "in the present". Even so, I'll probably make shit up as I go along.

The talk is this Saturday, November 24th at 5PM. Agni Gallery is located @ 170 East 2nd Street - New York NY 10009 - 412-389-0288.

"The Blogger Show" @ Agni, NYC.

If you are in the NYC area this weekend (or anytime during November), stop by the Agni Gallery at 170 East 2nd street (between Avenue A and Avenue B), on the lower east side of Manhattan. I'm going to be showing my first piece ever in the Big Apple. John Morris from the Digging Pitt has put together a show of artists who write blogs that (in some way or another) have to do with the art world. The opening reception is this Saturday, November 4th, from 6-8PM. There will be 30 artists included in the exhibition at Agni representing such far flung locales as Seattle, Minneapolis, Richmond, Raleigh, Detroit, DC, Portland, Philadelphia, Boston, Jacksonville, Brooklyn and (of course) Pittsburgh. Technically it would be more appropriate to say that these folks represent virtual space, as they have all contributed to what is being referred to as The Blogger Show.

If you are stuck in Western PA- don't fret because there will be two local receptions held at Digging Pitt/DP Too (December 8th, 6-9PM) and the Panza Gallery in Millvale (December 15th, 6-9PM). Many of the same artists with work @ Agni will be displaying additional work at these galleries. Besides the piece in NYC (a drawing diptych entitled Separation of Sinner and Saint), I will be displaying photos and additional drawings at Panza. Much of this stuff has only been shown on a very limited basis in past shows. As the Blogger Show marks what is likely to be some of the last curatorial efforts of the Digging Pitt within the Burg, it only seemed right to choose examples of my work that rank among John's favorites.

The idea for The Blogger Show germinated shortly after John Morris began his own gallery blog. For a few months I limited my online activity to contributing to that site. After awhile John convinced me that I should start my own blog. It was originally conceived as a forum to post images of my work, but it evolved into something altogether different. I ended up experiencing difficulty uploading picture files (mostly because I was limited to a dial-up internet connection), and so I concentrated on my writings. Serendipity has since transformed into a mishmash of collected observations on all sorts of topics. In that respect, it is quite different than the majority of efforts undertaken by other artists included in this show. But I would argue that much of the conception that has seeped into my artwork over the last year and a half has either been reflected or stimulated by material posted here. If you would like to compare and contrast styles, both in terms of product and genesis, you can explore each individual artist's site from this page.

I'm both surprised and encouraged that my efforts have led to my participation in The Blogger Show. While publicity may have been among my original intentions when I started this project, I have ended up undermining that purpose by deciding to write under a pseudonym. That decision was made to dissociate my 'real world' persona from an assumed identity. Despite the fact that I display my work under my given name, it's true that my thought process is expressed more freely within this blog than anywhere else with public access. That reality has contributed to a strange dichotomy that I have expounded upon in a previous entry (read it here). It's perhaps ironic then that this exhibition has done more than anything else to once again connect my actual name to this blog.

The disconnect between my virtual and external lives is going to be (once again) reinforced by my choice not to attend the opening reception at Agni in person. I've put a lot of thought into traveling to NYC for the weekend, but logistical concerns have made the prospect of such a journey impractical. That's a sad situation because I don't know if I'll ever get such an opportunity again. Still my absence seems strangely appropriate given the nature of the theme of the show. I am arguably far more revealed by your computer monitor than I would be otherwise. This Saturday and this month will pass, but the show will go on in cyberspace. See you there.

Steven Millhauser, "In the Penny Arcade" (1986)

I have to admit being just a bit skeptical about book recommendations. Because of my ongoing project, I have refined my tastes to the point that I already know the type of stuff I want to be reading in the upcoming year. So generally I'm not interested in disrupting that continuity. Occasionally someone makes a compelling enough case to convince me that a particular author is worth paying attention to. Even so there are several layers of resistance that such a suggestion has to pass through before I honor it.

One of my sources that I generally trust is Bill over at Copacetic. He has guided me through the world of alt-comix during the last several years. Because I usually enjoy the things he sends my way, he gets the benefit of the doubt. I could create an quick list of cartoonists that I only know about because of Bill. But this post isn't about comics- it's about an author. On more than a few occasions, Bill has seen me browsing through the relatively small but impressive collection of literature that he stocks in his little store. And he's tried to turn me on to one of his all-time favorite authors, Steven Millhauser. It may be solely because of the imprint under which he is published (Pheonix of Orion Books Ltd), but his books were never quite intriguing enough to catch my interest. I admit this exposes a particularly American superficiality, but I am definitely vulnerable to marketing demographics. The packaging of Millhauser's works is plainly stolid. That may reflect the fact that the publisher is British. I'm not 100% certain.

When I was finally ready to take the Pulitzer Prize-winning Martin Dressler (1996) home, I prepared myself for an intensely dry read. That wasn't at all what I discovered. The award-winning book traces the rags-to-riches ascendancy of the title character. Dressler works his way up from cigar store stock-boy to hotel mogul in a couple hundred pages. Along the way his visionary dreams of creating an interior world within the confines of a quickly developing NYC proceed at a break-neck pace. There is a side-plot in which Dressler courts a pair of sisters, but I found that arc a bit contrived. What Millhauser succeeds best at is in evoking grand images through a series of very descriptive lists. He's obviously obsessed by systems theory, and this fetish is enough to sustain the discriminating reader's interest.

After I was done with his magnum opus, I wasn't sure if I needed to return to Millhauser in any expedient fashion. But then I found a couple more of his works in the remainder section of an independent bookstore in Shepherdstown, WV. I recently finished In the Penny Arcade (1986), a collection of short stories. The first entry is called "August Eschenberg", and the character for which it is named is very similar to Martin Dressler. Eschenberg is a man of extraordinary vision and imagination, and he inevitably struggles with social forces that tend to bring visionaries down to the mediocrity of the masses. American attentions are fickle, and tend to focus on the grandiose and sexy aspects of their various entertainments. A true thing of beauty will only engage the consumer mindset until it is no longer novel. Eschenberg's clockwork art becomes a victim of its own co-option, meeting a similar fate as Dressler's hotels. After concluding this story I thought I had a firm grasp on Millhauser's thematic range.

But I was pleasantly surprised at the emotionally resonant tales that followed. It turns out that Millhauser is perfectly capable of documenting the inner lives of his characters, even when they are confined to a more human scale. Stories like In the Penny Arcade, A Day in the Country, and The Sledding Party demonstrate that Millhauser is no stranger to the wonders of the heart. While his sometimes Dickensian prose belies the magical realism tucked away at its center, Millhauser's fictions here contain a deeper strain of understanding for the subtleties of memory and loss. I found both a deeper and wider facility in this writing that I had not expected after my initial reading of Millhauser. And that means I will be returning again soon.

The Aspiring Artist's Dream.

Now that I am once again safe in the bosom of Pittsburgh, I can find the mental space to consider my trip and impressions of New York City, circa 2007. One of the most unsuspected reactions I experienced has to do with the speculative idea of living in such an environment fulltime. All throughout my twenties I entertained the idea that I'd love to move to the "Big City". It had to do with the beehive of activity that such an environment represents. I honestly believed that I could have found everything I wanted from a life within the Five Boroughs. In retrospect, it's a bit shocking to think about how naive an idea this was. During that period of my life I fancied the simpleminded vision of what an artist's life was "supposed" to be like. What that really amounted to was hanging out with the pose of a disaffected hipster, and producing very little of anything with true merit. The thing is that one would have to be independently wealthy to pull off that lifestyle in NYC.

Meanwhile that choice was very easy to make in a place like the 'Burgh, where even the middle-class wastrel youth can emulate his/her vision of the lives of the artistic saints. One can truly meet their goal of being a fullblown slacker in a place like this. You don't have to make a lot of unseemly compromises and/or bust your ass just to survive day-to-day life. In NYC you'd have to work so many hours that you would defeat your purpose. In the meantime you'd be living in a shitty little apartment with roommates crawling over you like cockroaches. Forget trying to advance yourself. If you can sponge off your family, then you might be able to approximate the freedoms a typical Pittsburgh service industry wage slave currently enjoys.

If you need to live in the perfect embodiment of the Social Darwinist petri dish in order to kick your own ass- then so be it. You can return to your hometown years later and talk about all the cool stuff you couldn't afford to do or see when you spent your formative years in NYC. Your friends will get a huge kick out of those stories, as they lounge back in the houses they bought at prices (psychic and monetary) that constitute a mere fraction of what you would have had to pay in whatever upcoming NYC neighborhood where you tried to make a go of it. Anyway, the days when you might have been able to scrape by and buy property on even an upper-middle class salary in Brooklyn are long gone. And if you were all-the-time trying to get noticed as an artist, forget about it. There are a million aspiring art star wannabes competing to be one of the hundred or so emerging artists to be included in a Chelsea gallery summer-time group show.

New York City is the prototypical American dog-eat-dog metropolis. Unless you are born into the Alpha Male class, you can forget about it. You have as much chance of winning the lottery as being "discovered". Everybody is screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to get noticed. If you have a loud voice and prior connections you might eventually save up enough to get the fuck out of that rat race. And with all that noise you are trying to generate, when do you think you'll find an opportunity to do any quality work? Go to Williamsburg and try to figure out why there are so many ironic twentysomethings snaring at you. They've realized that they've sacrificed their chance to build any real equity, they have no health insurance or retirement plan, and they are still mere plankton in an ocean of sharks. Is it any surprise that they resent all the entitled-from-birth yuppies who are moving into the brand new condominiums in the once-cool neighborhoods that starving artists struggled to build?

Perhaps there is a viable formula that includes a stint in NYC as a realistic component. Maybe if you work and save money in your hometown, and produce a quality body of work first, you can rent a room in one of the transitional NY neighborhoods. You'd have to have a large chunk of change, so you can devote yourself to networking within the arts scene. If you can then convince an aspiring art dealer to make a studio visit (just tell your three roommates to get lost for the day and scatter your paints and canvas around), then you could possibly worm your way in. Who knows? But you should be prepared to recognize when to cut your losses. Good Luck.

NY Trip: Red Hook and Chelsea.

When I woke up this morning I only had one more must-see on my checklist. So we drove down to Red Hook- a little Brooklyn neighborhood on the banks of the Long Island Sound. I had read that the waterfront in the area was one of the last few uncongested and industrial places in NYC. I though I could get some shots of a community that was lost in time. JM had never actually been there, so we had to improvise our route. We ended up finding it fairly easily.

As advertised, Red Hook was indeed a unique area. Although being flanked by what used to be some pretty rough housing projects, it really did have the feeling of a traditional, non-gentrified neighborhood. There were a few examples of post-apocalyptic, degraded buildings at its very edge. A couple of these physical plants were still being used for some ostensible workmanlike function. I took several representative photos of the graffiti and debris of the wastelands. There was also a rusting old subway car along a promenade in the back of a fancy grocery store that made for a compelling (and maybe symbolic) image. I suppose we could have lingered there and sought out more odd sights, but I was aware that JM wanted to make a trip to the Chelsea galleries, and I was looking forward to joining him. I'm glad I got to see Red Hook before the inevitable change that is coming to transform it into the next condo-enclave or "big box" store supercenter.

Before our trip into Manhattan via subway, we needed to find a secure place to stash the car. JM thought that maybe Park Slope would be a good idea, but we ended up on an extended search for parking that finally ended on 3rd Avenue, by 62nd Street in Brooklyn. A pleasant subway ride landed us on 23rd Street, and a walk across the City brought us to the central repository for art in the United States. If you've never been to Chelsea before, you should know that you could never visit all the galleries in a single day. It's easy after an hour or two to start taking the work for granted. We saw a lot of great stuff. A few highlights among many worth mentioning:

-Humberto Duque, "Revenge of the Lawn" @ Galeria Ramis Barquet - A magical world of colorful drawings, vibrant clay sculpture, paper cut=outs and sculptures. Certainly playful, but not without a bit of gristle.

-"A House is Not a Home" @ Carin Golden Fine Art (curated by Beth Rudin DeWoody) - Just an excellent example of curatorial excellence applied to a fairly broad theme. Photos by Kevin Cooley were a particular standout.

-Souther Salazar, @ Jonathan Levine Gallery - I ran all the way down to 20th Street to catch this fifteen minutes before the close of the gallery. It was totally worth it. I knew his comics work and expected to be pleased, yet this solo exceeded my expectations. Miniature worlds of self-contained dreams. More candy for the eyes. Sure... they had Shepard Fairey there too. So what?!

-Marnie Weber "Variations on a Western Song", @ Fredericks & Freiser - Wow. First you see the collages in the front room. Eerie... a bit disturbing maybe... carnivalesque certainly. There's humor there, but the imagery is transcendently transfixing. But you need to go through the curtain in the back of the gallery and watch her 25-minute video meditation on spiritualism, the feminine voice and the mythos of the American frontier. A truly great work that I'll never be able to purchase on DVD to show all you good people... though you definitely deserve it.


Of course there's plenty more to tell you about. But I have to admit that I am now truly overstimulated by this trip. I'm actually seriously considering driving home tomorrow- a day earlier than I expected. I have packed such an inordinately huge dose of activity and information into a relatively small window of time, and I am reeling from it. Maybe I'll feel like I cheated myself later, but I don't think I can process anymore without a break of quiet reflection. Unless the oceans rise a few feet, NYC will be there some distant day, awaiting my return. And I'll be refreshed with a brand new itinerary in hand.

NY Trip: Long Island City.

Our agenda for today was mostly determined by the wide range of competing alternatives within the NYC art scene. Because every organization in this city needs to scream for attention, certain neighborhoods are forced to open their destinations during the off days of the major players. Therefore while a lot of the museums in Manhattan are closed, those in Long Island City welcome visitors on Mondays. So our choice was an easy one. We decided to check out P.S.1 and the Fisher-Landau Museum.


We arrived in LIC before noon, so we had time to get coffee drinks and walk around 5 Pointz before we headed to P.S.1. This is a large warehouse (on Crane St. ) converted into artist studios and covered with "wildstyle" graffiti. Because the owner of the building encourages this commonly maligned art-form, it is constantly morphing with the work of both famous and novice graffiti artists. So people who care about such things are likely to return several times to check out the new stuff. Despite JM's contention that "they" are a bit uptight about photographs being taken, I figured public art is fair game. We walked around the perimeter of the building and had a thorough look. It was worth a few minutes of our time.

P.S.1, on the other hand, is a trip worth a significant investment of time and thought. This MOMA-affilated museum is housed in a former public school. It's dedicated to the presentation of work created primarily by "emerging" and contemporary artists. As such it is an impressive facility. It has several floors and a large outdoor sculpture area. We were fairly unimpressed by the John Cage sound installations in the Organizing Chaos exhibition, but enjoyed the highly atmospheric and grainy footage of soap bubbles depicted in a video by Rivane Neuenshwander and Cao Guimarães. While JM liked Tunga's large sculpture of a reclining headless skeleton on a hammock, I enjoyed the same artist's installation wherein the shadows of a horde of contained, live flies were projected by lamplight onto the walls of a small, narrow room. I also liked Jim Shaw's The Donner Party- a panorama of scuptures loosely based on the historical event, as well as his collection of paintings "found" in thrift stores. There was so much good stuff to see at P.S.1. that it would have justified the entire day had I not seen anything else. For $5, you couldn't possibly find a better value.

Next we took a sweaty walk to the Sculpure Center. Unfortunately we didn't find much inspiring in the happiness of objects show on the gound floor. But we ultimately got our money's worth with Christian Tomaszewski's On Chapels, Caves, and Erotic Mystery. This walkthrough series of interior spaces was inspired by David Lynch's Blue Velvet. I have a penchant for dark rides, and the experience of wending through Tomaszewski's creation was satisfyingly eerie and unsettling. It's all in the lovingly-created creepiness of the details. If you have any possibility of engaging this work, I heartily recommend it.

JM was leary about following up with a visit to the Fisher Landau Center for Art. Although he'd never been there, he wasn't excited about having to invest the admission price and time to go to an out-of-the-way contemporary art museum founded by a single collector. He ended up being pleasantly surprised by the quality of the work. There are a lot of ultra successful artists represented in the clean, air conditioned space on 30th Street. JM entertained himself by trying to identify the artists without consulting the gallery guide, while I mostly puzzled over why these selections are considered to be the best of what the last 47 years have had to offer. It reminded me that there was once a time when my bullshit meter was constantly abuzz when viewing modern art. Anyway we both liked the paintings by Zachary Wollard, and we were quite pleased to discover that the Center charges no admission fees.

We rounded out the day with trips to D.U.M.B.O and Brooklyn Heights. JM thought I'd appreciate these areas, but they really weren't at all what I'm looking for in NYC. The Heights is a typical brownstone community of ample means, and D.U.M.B.O is a sadly gentrified place that was obviously once quite interesting from an aesthetic standpoint. Any particular character that once distinguished these riverside communities has succumbed to "urban renewal". While this transition is probably good for NYC from an economic standpoint, it is nonetheless lamentable.

NY Trip: My Introduction to Queens.

It's been a long day of driving, most of it very intense. Route 80 is a good enough road- not much different than the turnpike, except that it is perhaps in better shape. The downside is that it's not nearly as scenic as I thought it would be. Plus the rest stops are very basic. There are bathrooms and vending machines, but no Starbucks or chain restaurants. You have to get off at an exit if you need gas or food. Anyway, we rolled along smoothly until we got into Northern New Jersey, and then we poked along the rest of the way to the Forest Hills section of Queens. There are some pleasant residential streets in this area that don't necessarily fit my expectations of NYC. But Queens is the most sprawling of the boroughs, and there are many types of neighborhoods within it.

I've read a lot about Queens being the only part of NYC that resembles the old-time traditional image of the City. Supposedly there are still a lot of working class folks living here. The ethnic diversity is obvious. Despite the fact that I've only explored a small portion of this town (and much of that in the dark), I've already noticed influences from Eastern Europe, Latin America, and several regions of Asia. There are hispanics, jews, white people, blacks, etc. It's certainly not entirely gentrified yet. But to hear JM talk, a large portion of it has already changed during the relatively short time he's been away. I was impressed to find an actual grocery store, albeit one with compacted shelves. I didn't know such things existed anymore in the "Big Apple". I bought drinkable yogurt!

We decided to take a drive into Williamsburg (Brooklyn) this evening. Right away we spotted a "community museum". It had a charming collection of souvenirs and artifacts. We got pulled in to watching a documentary about the Giglio (giglio means "lily" in Italian) in the backroom. I found it useful background information for something we intend to see tomorrow. The Giglio Feast is meant to honor St. Paolino, a baron in the ancient Italian city of Nola. It is said that he sacrificed himself by working in the fields and providing offerings for a North African Sultan. He did this so the autocratic ruler would spare the lives of the youth in his city. People have been celebrating this deed since it occurred in 409AD. In Brooklyn, the feast is held by Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church. They emulate their ancestors by building a five-story tower, weighing several tons and embroidered with saintly imagery by traditional artisans. Then a team of 120 men carry the thing, with a 12-piece brass band perched atop its base, through the streets. The bearers of this object are called Paranzas and they are led by a cadre of Lieutenants and overseen by the Capo. Of course there's lots of hot sausage and dancing, too.

So that's the plan for Sunday. We'll try to find parking and see the "first lift" in the afternoon. And I'll strain to get close enough to take some pictures. Anyway... we watched the film (which was made for PBS and featured John Turturro as narrator) and then it was back to the streets once again. As we checked out the scene in Williamsburg, JM was increasingly dismayed by the scenesters who have apparently robbed the place of any authenticity it once had. The people didn't bother me, but that may be because I never saw the way it used to be- when artists first moved into the neighborhood. I won't lament the loss of any viable environment for a struggling artist in NYC. There are always other places to move.

We ate a late dinner at a Taqueria in Astoria. I got a chicken chimichanga- a delicious meal served up by a waitress that could barely speak English. It was some of the best Mexican food I have ever had. I'm exhausted, but I'm suffering for my art by staying up an extra hour- just so I can share my account of my day with you.