AN ARTIST WITHOUT FRONTIERS

From More Intelligent Life:

Gabriel Orozco, Mexico's foremost living artist, has a secret. Though he is celebrated for his “post-studio practice”, associated with sculptures made from found objects and photos taken in the street, it turns out he has a space that many artists would call a studio. Mr Orozco used to lead a nomadic life, but now that his six-year-old son has started school, he's settled into working on the lower ground floor of his New York home, a red brick Greenwich Village townhouse built in 1845. Mr Orozco prefers to see the space as a modest “operating centre”.With contemporary art, mind invariably wins over matter. “For me, it has always been important not to have a studio, not to have a permanent assistant, not to have secretaries,” he explains as he leans back, relaxing into his chair. “The way the work is produced affects the final result—not just the politics, but also the aesthetics. I don't want the responsibility and inertia of a production machine.”

Another interesting profile. The surname caught my attention and then I remembered why: Gabriel is the son of José Clemente Orozco, the muralist painter.

Erin Kaplan Is Leaving Elle [Updated]

After five and a half years as Elle's publicist, including a starring role on MTV's The City, Erin is leaving the magazine for Teen Vogue, she announced in an e-mail to her contacts today. She starts Tuesday and has not said what her title over there will be. Kaplan's television experience — you know, the real behind-the-scenes work in addition to making Olivia Palermo look dopey on camera — must make her an attractive candidate to the many fashion magazines desperate for a hit TV show. And that is something Teen Vogue is working on. Update: Erin tells us her new title at Teen Vogue is senior director of PR. 

[From the Cut]


God bless dear Whitney, but here was the real reason to watch The City, if indeed any at all. The youngest director of public relations at Elle, she gave Olivia hell--and I loved her for every  minute of it. Whether she could have ever achieved what she wanted (Olivia's failure at the magazine)--or whether she was even really aiming for that, given that the "job" was pure fantasy--her contempt was real. And so was mine.

New York Photographs 1968–1978, Paul McDonough

From Paris Review:

"What turned me away from painting was a realization that the streets and parks of Boston provided me with subject matter that I could not conjure up in my studio. At that point, a blank canvas drew nothing but a blank stare. So, with a newly purchased 35mm Leica loaded with tri-x film, I began my forays into downtown Boston to photograph. The kind of photographs I took then related to my art school days, when I would amble around the city making quick pencil sketches of people on park benches and subways.

After roaming around Vermont in the summer of 1964, I decided to move to Cambridge, MA where I took a full-time job in a commercial art studio. I was by this time married to my first wife and our plan was to save up enough to live for a year in Europe. Instead we wound up in New York, arriving by U-Haul in the summer of 1967. Rents were cheap, and we could now get by on my part-time work in advertising studios. I had abundant free time, and I took full advantage of it."

Fantastic photographs: every last one of them. The exhibition is done, but the book's still out there, and I'll be securing a copy soon to take a long, searching look at New York's Lost Decade.

DISCIPLINE WITHOUT PUNISHMENT

From More Intelligent Life:

"Monica Bonvicini, an Italian artist based in Berlin, is best known for her three-dimensional works, particularly those that take on the male-dominated domain of large-scale sculpture. Her acclaimed “Stairway to Hell” (pictured below, 2003) sawed through a ceiling to occupy two floors of the Istanbul Modern, while “She Lies” (pictured at bottom, 2010), a new sculpture made of steel, glass and styrofoam that floats in a fjord in Oslo, rises to a height of three-storeys. When Ms Bonvicini first started making sizeable works, she says that their “hugeness was almost existential”. Now the scale is less about self-assertion than affinity and aptitude—skills which no doubt contributed to her winning one of the art competitions for the Olympic Park in London. The exact form of the public sculpture is still under wraps, but it might very well assume a grand luminosity and involve the word “run”."

Great title for a fascinating profile--I especially like her quotes. I even like the sculptures, seen below:

Law & Order Los Angeles Is Finally Interesting

From Macleans.ca:

"Not for anything that’s happening on the show, mind you. The interesting part is that several cast members have been let go, including the lead, Skeet Ulrich. This is the fun side of Dick Wolf and his status as one of the oldest successful showrunners in U.S. television (well, he’s only 65 this year, but that’s old in the TV world, where 50 is considered over the hill for writers as well as viewers). You might, once in a while, get a very old-school way of shaking up a struggling show: no subtle changes, no fancy arcs to create a re-tool without making it look like one. Instead, three major characters just get kicked out in mid-season and the show keeps going, not even bothering to shut down production while it looks for new people."

What? I totally didn't see this coming. I do think the cast is kind of mess, as well as the show more generally, but there have been a couple of compelling episodes--or at least moments. And my gosh, it's Law & Order, practically an institution in my life.

Dorwan Stoddard, RIP

From National Review:

An overlooked story of heroism

Dorwan Stoddard and his wife, Mavanell, grew up together as friends in Tucson, and were high-school sweethearts in the 1950s. The two parted, moved away, and married others. But 15 years ago, having survived the death of their spouses, the two were reunited -- and then married -- in their hometown.

When Jared Loughner began firing on the crowd gathered around Rep. Gabrielle Gifford at the Safeway supermarket in Tucson on Saturday, Mavanell thought the sounds came from firecrackers. Dorwan knew otherwise and quickly pulled his wife to the ground and threw himself over her. Mavy -- as she is known to her friends -- was hit three times in the legs, and is now in stable condition and expected to survive. Dorwan was shot, fatally, through the head, at the age of 76. Dorwan was memorialized at the Mountain Avenue Church of Christ -- a small Tucson-area church where he and Mavy had worshipped and served -- on Sunday.

Trading his life for his wife’s was Dorwan’s final act, after which he could manage no final words. Rev. Mike Nowak, the pastor of Mountain Avenue Church of Christ, visited Mavy at the University Medical Center, to which she and Dorwan were both rushed, and she spoke about the aftermath of the attack: “She talked to him for ten minutes as he breathed heavily. He never talked back to her.”

In pictures, Dorwan typically wears a bolo tie, a white cowboy hat, and a graying beard, and keeps his arm firmly around his wife. He had retired from a career as a construction worker, and had since freely employed his skills repairing and rebuilding their church. A sign for “Dory’s Room” -- styled after his affectionate nickname -- marks one of his own creations, during the construction of which he fell off a high ladder. Against church members’ expectations, Dorwan survived the fall, but he needed 17 stents.

Dorwan and Mavy led the church’s “benevolence committee,” a group devoted to helping the poor. The Stoddards helped care for sick church members and provided transportation for those who needed it. Several friends and church members praised their work on the committee as Christian charity. The couple didn’t just write checks; they sought out those in need, listened to their problems, and offered their friendship as well as their financial support. Several people stood up at the funeral services to speak of how Dorwan had helped them. Kat Joplin said she had been homeless until the Stoddards helped her and her husband get off the streets, into a motel room, and eventually, onto a payroll. The Joplins even stayed at the Stoddard’s own home for a time.

Friends described Dorwan as an enthusiastic Arizona Wildcats fan, and pictures show Dorwan at the piano at a church picnic.

Nowak said that Mavy credits Dorwan with saving her life, and had joked from her hospital bed that “Dory will never have to worry about another stent again.” Nowak described their relationship for KGU9: “They were inseparable. You saw one and you knew the other one wasn’t far behind. That will be a whole other life for her, so I’m afraid it will hit her harder down the road.”

Dory and Mavy “didn’t write any books. There are no streets named after them. There is no monument to them, but their impact in the community of Tucson will last a lifetime,” Nowak said.

Dorwan Stoddard is survived by two sons, four stepdaughters, and his wife.

--- Matthew Shaffer is a William F. Buckley fellow at the National Review Institute

Like so much from this atrocity, there are no words.

Measuring hell

From The Boston Globe:

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

"When Sir Isaac Newton made this remark, in 1676, the name Galileo Galilei would not have been far from his mind. Galileo, who died the year Newton was born, did much of the legwork for the English physicist’s Laws of Motion, as well as for many of the other principles that underpinned the Scientific Revolution. Galileo’s shoulders, possibly more than those of any single figure in history, have served as an observation deck for generations of scientists.

It was Galileo who conclusively swept away the idea that the sun revolved around the Earth, who dismantled the looming edifice of Aristotelian physics. Unlike others of the age, the Italian steadfastly refused to hammer the square pegs of discovery into the round holes of conventional wisdom. Through an unremitting dedication to observation and experiment, it was he who ushered in the age of modern science.

Given his devotion to empirical fact, it seems odd to think that Galileo’s most important ideas might have their roots not in the real world, but in a fictional one. But that’s the argument that Mount Holyoke College physics professor Mark Peterson has been developing for the past several years: specifically, that one of Galileo’s crucial contributions to physics came from measuring the hell of Dante’s Inferno. Or rather, from disproving its measurements."

Fascinating, if true. I hope it's true.

A Lofty Place to Call Home

From More Intelligent Life:

Making your home a temple is gaining new meaning in the Netherlands, where churches are being repurposed as living spaces. Since 1970 more than a thousand churches have been closed in the country, as the largely atheist population has little use for them. More than a third was demolished. The rest are simply in need of a clever architect.

Erected in 1870 St-Jakobuskerk (pictured), a small neo-Gothic church in Utrecht, stopped hosting masses in 1991. It has since been used as a furniture showroom, a meeting place and a concert venue. Then Zecc, an innovative Utrecht-based architecture firm, stepped in and transformed the church into a stunning modern house, now on the market for €2.375m.

“Re-usage is the only way to prevent long-lasting vacancy or demolition of churches,” says Sien Wittevrongel of Zecc. “With St-Jakobuskerk, we tried to reinstate a dignified monument with as little intervention as possible.”

The result is a state-of-the-art model of recycling. The sleek interior gives a modern feel to vaulted ceilings, stained-glass windows and a complete Jesus fresco (along with a mezzanine designed for rock concerts in the 1990s). We particularly like the chandelier in the loo.

A Telling Book about Kissing

From Discover:

Bret McCabe of The Baltimore City Paper has one of the first reviews of my new book The Science of Kissing and he’s awfully kind. I also love the illustration by artist Alex Fine. McCabe begins:

The year is very young, but author Sheril Kirshenbaum is already way ahead of the pack for brilliant nonfiction book moves of 2011. As a science writer, Kirshenbaum has penned thoughtful and engaging articles about science literacy, environmental science, and education for the likes of Salon, The Huffington Post, and Mother Jones. As a research associate at the University of Texas’ Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy, she works to enhance public understanding of energy issues. She is an adviser to NPR’s Science Friday and co-hosts the Discover magazine blog The Intersection. But for all her accomplishments and accolades, her latest project borders on the super genius. For the past two years she has been investigating the biology, anthropology, psychology, and cultural history of osculation. It’s called embrasser in French, besar in Spanish; any online translator can offer you the appropriate character translations in Arabic, Korean, Japanese, and Pashto. You’ve probably known it since childhood simply as kissing. That’s right: A little more than a month before Valentine’s Day and a few months before spring begins its flirtatious winter thaw, Kirshenbaum’s The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips Are Telling Us (Grand Central) hits bookshelves. Which means at some point in the very near future some member of the print, online, or TV press is going to identify Kirshenbaum as a “kissing expert.” It’s amazing somebody hasn’t written this book already.

Read the full review here…

Amazing indeed; I love everything about this notice. The book will be read. Done and dusted.

Keri Hilson Goes Motown

From the Cut:

Keri Hilson stopped by The Late Show With David Letterman last night, wearing a Diana Ross–inspired gown with a plunging neckline and feathered trim — a departure from her typically edgy style. She topped off the look by teasing her hair into a bouffant and piling on the eyeliner. 

So, what do you think of her retro look?

Read more posts by Caitlin Petreycik 

Filed Under: look of the day, keri hilson

I love love love Keri Hilson. One of the select few women I'd propose marriage to on the spot. And her "Knock You Down" was, for a while, one of my top jams.

As for the look, I love everything except the dreadful eyeliner. Even from this small picture, you can tell it's too much.

The Coats of Edward Gorey

From Paris Review:

Over the years, Edward Gorey collected twenty-one fur coats, which he was notorious for wearing with Converse sneakers, often to the New York City Ballet. Sometime in the eighties, however (he died in 2000), Gorey seems to have had a change of heart. He opened portions of his home to a family of raccoons that finally settled in the attic. According to a tour guide at the Edward Gorey House, this was an act of penance; Gorey felt guilty for wearing their fur. At some point he locked up his coats in a storage facility. In his will, he left his entire estate to the care and welfare of animals.

Among the many beneficiaries of the Edward Gorey Charitable Trust: the Xerces Society, dedicated to biological diversity through invertebrate conservation; the Bat Conservation International Foundation; and the Animals League of Boston (Cape Cod branch). But because of this commitment to our furry friends, the Edward Gorey Charitable Trust faced a difficult decision when it came to his coats. One of them—the one Gorey sketched most frequently—hangs on display in the museum. But the cost of properly storing the others was exorbitant. The trustees began to sell one coat a year. After some deliberation, the trustees decided last year to auction off the remainder in one go. For a Gorey fan, it was an unimaginable opportunity.

The sale was held at Bloomsbury Auctions on West 48th Street in New York. Despite some advance press, it was a sparsely attended affair; most of the seats were empty. Of the dozen or so people scattered among the seats, most showed the true and devoted look of a Gorey fan. The coats hung on a rack in the back of the room, and people took turns trying them on. One raven-haired woman posed for a picture, wrapping the fur around her. As we took our seats, an older gentleman sat down behind us, wearing a three-piece suit with a watch chain—the kind of ensemble Gorey could have sketched in his sleep.

Read More »

Cute human interest story, even if a little tony. Edward Gorey, according to Wiki but not the article (of course you're supposed to recognize the name) "was an American writer and artist noted for his macabre illustrated books."

While I read, I kept thinking: will a similar thing happen with my shoes? OH BROTHER...

Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer, 1908-74

From The Independent:

"A new exhibition of portraits by the twentieth-century pioneering photographer Ida Kar opens at the National Portrait Gallery in March.

The exhibition highlights the crucial role played by this key woman photographer at the heart of the creative avant-garde.

With striking portraits of artists such as Henry Moore, Georges Braque, Gino Severini and Bridget Riley, and writers such as Iris Murdoch and Jean-Paul Sartre, this exhibition offers a fascinating insight into the cultural life of post-war Britain and an opportunity to see iconic works, as well as 100 photographs not previously exhibited."

And another exhibition I wish I could see! Of the ones included in the slideshow, the actress Sylvia Syms--misspelled as Symsby--is the most striking:

A show of timeless moments

From Prospero:

'STIEGLITZ, Steichen and Strand,' a show of 115 of photographs by these American masters, is now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All the works are from the museum’s rich holdings. That’s all very well, but some might wonder: why bother? It’s an understandable reaction. Not only is it cold out; many of of the images are familiar or, like Stieglitz’s “Steerage,” world famous. Those who do brave the weather to visit the grand museum on Fifth Avenue will be rewarded by such rare delights as its exhibitions focused on Kublai Khan, the 13th century Emperor of China and Jan Gossart, an influential 16th-century Nederlandish painter. With so much to see, it may seem positively sensible to skip the three S's. Don't. It is full of wonders and surprises.

What is remarkable is how fresh so many of these photographs look, though they are more than a century old. Alfred Stieglitz's pitiless studies of Georgia O'Keefe's hands (pictured); Edward Steichen's love-affair with the Flatiron building and Paul Strand's meditations on the abstract qualities of bowls (below) all pack a wallop. The effect is forceful, whether seeing these pictures for the first time or the fiftieth.

It is good to be reminded of how much better photographs look in person. The most breathtaking example is Steichen's often reproduced 1904 image 'The Flatiron'. He chemically manipulated his three prints of the building at Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street (the only prints in existence made for exhibition) to give them the look of paintings. Whistler was a strong influence. In the catalogue (well worth having) they look poetic; face-to-face the three have a tender beauty.

Sometimes the size of a photograph is a shock. Here again the Flatiron Building is a case in point. Because it is so often reproduced smaller, its full 18-plus by 15 inches seems huge, which adds to the photograph's impact. At the other extreme is Stieglitz's delicate 1922 vision, "Gables and Apples". Droplets of water cling to the surface of apples in a photograph that measures little more than 4-by-3 inches. Size and subject matter combine to make us aware that we are witnessing a fleeting moment caught on film.  

Malcolm Daniel, who curated the show, has hung the works with intelligence and flair. Each photographer is introduced chronologically with a room of his own. The show begins with Stieglitz (1864-1946), moves on to Steichen (1879-1973) and ends with Strand (1890-1976). The images within these one-man shows are enhanced by being seen together. The photographs snake through three large rooms of the museum, like a daisy chain of masterpieces. The visitor witnesses the evolution of the medium, whereby the imitation of painting slowly gave way to a new and distinctly photographic aesthetic.

From the catalogue we learn that during one of Steichen's visits to France in 1908 he went to see Rodin. The sculptor was longing to have his full-length plaster statue of a brooding, majestic Balzac cast in bronze. To help publicise it, he suggested moving it onto the terrace of his studio, where Steichen could shoot it by moonlight. The resulting images on view, taken at 11 pm, midnight and 4am (above), are haunting.

The Big Three were gifted and ambitious. Stieglitz set out to have photography recognised as art. He hammered away at museums until they accepted his gifts of contemporary photographs (not only by him). These days most everybody agrees that photography is art. It is bracing to keep in mind, however, that Henri Cartier-Bresson, another master of the medium, did not agree. But does it matter? Not nearly as much as the photographs. 

'Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand' is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York until April 10th 2011"

Moral of the story: never discount the familiar. The things we see the most we understand the least. Wilde knew: "the mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible." SO wish I could see this exhibition. The Met! Sigh.

Geri ‘Ginger Spice’ Halliwell Is Designing a Swimwear Line

From the Cut:

Former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell is launching her own swimwear line called Geri by Next. Her ruffly, animal-print bathing suits and cover-ups will sell for around £18 to £50 (about $28 to $77), and lots of pieces are meant to be mixed and matched to fit 'real women of all shapes and sizes.' [Daily Mail UK]

Read more posts by Caitlin Petreycik 

Filed Under: spice up your life, geri halliwell, ginger spice, slashies

Confession: I was once a huge fan of the Spice Girls and even came to forgive Geri (in time) for leaving, even though that departure prompted the group's inevitable decline (Forever) and anticlimactic end.

I even followed their solo projects, and after they all came to naught (and they always did, of course, for they were better together than apart); I followed their personal lives; and their television presenting gigs; and their forays into reality television; and their recurrent reunion chatter, the last of which only panned out when very few cared. All about them, alas, became boring and profitless, but for old time's sake, I might resume the old SpiceWatch, especially as Posh & Becks are having another monster.

The ones that got away: Music critics reveal what they left off their year-end lists

Sam Phillips. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

From Pop & Hiss:

It happens to every critic, every year. After agonizing over your annual best list and turning it in, a realization arrives that a selection left behind really, really should be included. Careless omission or ill-considered compromise has created a glaring hole in the last assessment of the year, and regret sets in. Sometimes it lingers until the next list comes along. 

The Times asked a select group of music writers to identify the one release of 2010 (or two, some couldn’t resist) that they felt bad about omitting from their top 10 lists. What follows are second-chance tips on the albums you should hear that didn’t get as much attention as Arcade Fire or Kanye West did; and for the musical authorities whose love can’t stay within the limits of an even number.

—Ann Powers

Alex Ross, New Yorker magazine music critic and author of the recent “Listen to This”: Tristan Perich’s “1-Bit Symphony” — an electronic composition coded into a homemade electronic circuit — certainly should have made my list. It’s a striking piece of technology and a no less striking piece of music — a harsh landscape of minimalist sound that on successive listenings might bliss you out or drive you mad.

Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune music critic and cohost of the radio show “Sound Opinions”: Sam Phillips is an absolute treasure, one of the best songwriters and singers of the last 20 years, and certainly one who doesn’t get nearly the recognition she deserves. She released a series of five EPs in 2010 collectively titled “Long Play” that are wonderful — little gems of carefully observed wordplay and haunting melody. Every word and note counts; Phillips has a knack for saying exactly what needs to be said in the most concise way possible. She’d make a helluva of an editor. I’ve finally caught up with most of these EPs and they rank with her best work. But because they weren’t collected in a tidy little album, I waited too long to really dig into them and give them proper consideration for my year-end, best-of list. I urge everyone not to make the same mistake.

Rob Harvilla, Village Voice music editor: Katy Perry somehow got left off all my lists this year, though “Teenage Dream” and “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” are as deadly an album-opening tag-team as my heart could possibly stand 2010 producing. I apologize to Katy for not liking her quite enough, and to feminists everywhere for liking her at all.

Edna Gundersen, USA Today music critic: I could gripe ad nauseum about all the overlooked albums this year, but one buried jewel that really deserved a wider audience is “Airtight’s Revenge,” marking a brilliant return by Bilal, who seemed to vanish after Interscope buried his 2006 album. I love this record. It’s personal, idiosyncratic, complex, dense, sophisticated and messy, a thoroughly contemporary soul record with a defiant indie-rock sensibility, which is why it never found a home on radio between Ke$ha and Taio Cruz.

Evie Nagy, Billboard magazine associate editor: During 2010, there were multiple stretches of multiple hours (plane rides, deadline dashes, several round-trip commutes) when I could listen to nothing but the Editors’ song “Papillon” on repeat. There’s nothing objectively brilliant about it except that it pushes my most lizard-brained buttons for extraordinarily long periods of time.

It was so dominant that I was convinced all year that its album, “In This Light and on This Evening,” would make my top 10 for the outlets that asked me to cast a ballot — this one perfect song, surrounded by other perfectly competent songs, justified the album’s victory in my personal contest. But ultimately it didn’t — other stronger full packages won out, with the Editors’ album landing on my “if this list had 20 slots” list. I feel terrible, and haven’t listened to the song or album in weeks out of shame. I think we’ll make up by New Year’s, though.

Nekesa Moody, Associated Press music editor: OK, for singles: “Monster,” by Kanye West, featuring Rick Ross, Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj. Minaj absolutely destroys everyone on this track with a brilliant verse that lives up to the Minaj hype, and Kanye and Rick Ross represent well for themselves … but ah, that Jay rap. Love Jigga, but it’s so surprisingly subpar that I couldn't bring myself to put the entire song on my top 10. But ah, that Nicki Minaj!!!

For albums: Because there’s always someone I’m on the fence about, I do include an “honorable mentions” at the bottom [of my list]. A bit of cheating? Maybe. But it’s hard to be so absolute when a hair may separate the list-makers from the rejects. This year, I fear I may regret not listing Lizz Wright’s Fellowship, beautiful yet understated in its power. So lovely.

Alison Fensterstock, contributing writer, New Orleans Times-Picayune: Two things, staying in New Orleans even if that’s a little provincial of me: Galactic’s "Ya-Ka-May," its first for Anti- and a sort of weird and wonderful trip through the looking glass with New Orleans veterans. “Heart of Steel” with Irma Thomas makes me want a whole album like this with her — it’s ideologically similar to ?uestlove taking on Al Green or Jack White with Loretta Lynn, but pushes it farther and freakier.

Sax player Ben Ellman’s mixtape release, "Gypsyphonic/NOLA-Phonic Vol. 1," is kind of even more awesome — he uses vocal outtakes from his sessions with the bounce rappers on Ya-Ka-May, plus classic bounce, and blends them with Balkan brass bands. In part it’s a one-two punch of hipsterism, but it’s also kind of genius to take bounce’s complementary relationship with brass band music and flip it like that.

Charles Aaron, music editor, Spin magazine: Andreya Triana, “Lost Where I Belong” (Ninja Tune): Debut album by young London singer-songwriter who collaborates with producer Simon Green (a.k.a., Bonobo) — R&B that drifts in and around jazz, folk and electronic beats (she’s also worked with Flying Lotus), but never meanders or gets too precious. The best songs are subtle mini-dramas that keep drawing you closer, like she’s conveying some timeless, essential code, either in the grain of her voice or how she flutters over a breakbeat. I’ve imagined that she’s a long-lost peer of Terry Callier or Sade’s ignored younger sister or the early unknown voice of Massive Attack. It’s almost easier to believe than the fact that she’s only been marginally recognized.

Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone: My pick is the Weekend album “Sports.” It just came out in November, on Slumberland Records, and I can't stop playing it the past few weeks. It’s an indie guitar album — lots of echo, lots of drone, lots of feedback, lots of melody, vocals that sound like they were recorded at the bottom of a swamp — that makes it all sound spontaneous and boyishly exuberant. It helps that the songs are fast, too. Fast counts for a lot when you’re talking doomy guitar bands. Since the Weekend album came out so late in the year, I think people are still discovering it. I’m looking forward to playing it in 2011.

Ann Powers: Realizing that I’d left Matt Morris’ “When Everything Breaks Open” (first released as a download in January on his friend Justin Timberlake’s Tennman Records) off my list was like opening up my suitcase and discovering I’d left my favorite, everyday, must-have sweater back home. I spent untold hours with this genteel, uncompromising album earlier this year, marveling at Morris’ knockout tenor and finding new nuances within his songwriterly blend of Nashville craft, Beatlesque tunefulness and soul fervor. I guess I started taking it for granted, distracted by flashier, more widely acknowledged stuff. But my list feels naked without it.

Follow up to Ann Powers list I also posted. Like that one, the commentaries are as interesting as the choices. They clearly love what they do.

Bonus points for including Alex Ross, even though his choice sounds awful.

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Shuts Down Early

From Vulture:

Vulture wasn't a huge fan of the Pedro Almodóvar adaptation, and neither was the general theatergoing public. And that latter bit means Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown will close three weeks early, on January 2, after 30 previews and 69 performances. Sleep tight, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. [ArtsBeat/NYT] 

Read more posts by Amos Barshad 

Filed Under: closings, theater, women on the verge of a nervous breakdown

I was really sorry to hear this. No idea how I missed the review on Vulture. I've since read it, and it sounds like--if true--they have a point. Oh well, it's still a shame.

Kim Kardashian’s Musical Career Is Still On Track

From Vulture:

Great news: The radio silence surrounding Kim Kardashian's burgeoning music career since its initial announcement does not mean it's on hiatus. TMZ reports the greatest Kardashian was in L.A. yesterday shooting a music video for an upcoming single that is not only being directed by Hall of Famer Hype Williams, but will also feature a Kanye cameo. Does that mean her albu— which, we remind you, is being promisingly produced by The-Dream — is done? Let's hope so. [TMZ] 

Read more posts by Amos Barshad 

Filed Under: the future, kim kardashian, music

Ridiculous. I still can't believe this is happening. 

How Diana Vreeland's Allure changed fashion-speak. - By Marisa Meltzer

From Slate:

"The current fashion era sometimes seems to be dominated by catchphrases as much as it is by clothes. Think of Project Runway judge Tim Gunn's 'make it work' mantra; designer Isaac Mizrahi's frequent admonishments to contestants on The Fashion Show that 'we're just not buying it'; Gossip Girl's Blair Waldorf's declaration that tights 'are not pants.' Like the proverbial dozens of Eskimo words for snow, we have many pithy ways to declare an item's wonderfulness or horribleness (or both at once). For all of this, we have Diana Vreeland, who was editor-in-chief of Vogue from 1963 to 1971, to thank."

Except Vreeland was eloquent--a distinction the article acknowledges at the end, but not with nearly enough emphasis. Still, the pop-up is a wonder, and I am sure the book is even better.

One of my favorite quotes involving Diana Vreeland is something Balenciaga said to her after she asked: Does one need to have great taste to wear your clothes? His answer: You don’t have to have any taste at all. You are fitted by my fitter and that is it.

Q&A: Sigourney Weaver on Why Aliens Rule

Illustration: Kevin Wada

From Wired:

Three decades ago Sigourney Weaver blew an alien out of an airlock. She’s been a voice of authority on cargo loaders, hypersleep, and xenomorph dismemberment ever since. She has even moved from planet LV-426 to Pandora and added Na’vi body transference to her résumé. Who better to offer insight and bust some myths about extraterrestrials? 

Would aliens ever really say “Take me to your leader”? I don’t think they’re interested in communicating with us. Where did that even come from? 

Are aliens superior to the human race? The impression I get is that humans—because we have no real strength or skill—are very caught up in technology to make ourselves more powerful, whereas aliens have inherent talents that they use to overwhelm us. 

What about aliens with superior tech? Aliens don’t make the mistake of relying too much on technology. They have other interests. That’s not true in the whole body of science fiction. There are many aliens who end up losing because their brains are too big. 

Would xenomorphs survive on Pandora? It would depend on whether they could reproduce in a Na’vi body. The “alien” goes to Pandora! I’ve never even thought of it. 

Which is more deadly, corporate greed or acid blood? I would say, definitely, that the worldview of corporate greed—sacrificing everything for shareholder interests or an edge in competition—has become more prevalent since we made the first Alien. You only have to read the papers to see profits put ahead of humans and other species on the planet. Corporations are much more dangerous than the individual alien."

The interview's not all that great, honestly, but Sigourney Weaver is one of the biggest badasses going, and the picture is fantastic, so I couldn't resist. Oh, and aliens do, of course, rule.

Interview: The Love Neuroscientist, Stephanie Ortigue

From Discover:

Love is celebrated as a many-splendored thing, while lust is commonly regarded as downright primitive. Leave it to a Frenchwoman to discover that sexual desire is actually quite brainy. Stephanie Ortigue, an assistant professor of psychology at Syracuse University, uses brain scans to examine the divine madness of love and the blinding imperative of lust. Her goal: illuminating how these two forms of attraction work by mapping out which brain regions are active when we experience them. Her findings counter the assumption that desire is a simple animal urge motivated primarily by biochemistry and evolutionary directives.

Working with her frequent collaborator, psychiatrist Francesco Bianchi-Demicheli of Geneva University Hospital in Switzerland, Ortigue has found that lust involves complicated cognitive processing. Love, too, is not quite what we thought. Both romance and desire, she says, may be expressions of a “top-down” process in which intellect rules over instinct, not the other way around. Love may even make you smarter, by helping your brain process information more quickly.

Why do you study the neuroscience of love and sex?

I've always been interested in the big questions of science, and love is one of the biggest questions in the world. Everyone feels it, knows what it is, but we can’t really define it. I like challenges, and I like to bring some rationality to things that seem irrational. Also, I've always been interested in the unconscious and consciousness and how the two interact in our daily life. We've found that a lot of unconscious processes are involved in love and desire..."

SERIOUSLY want to marry this woman. She's French, she's beautiful, and she's scientifically confirmed just about everything I've ever said about romantic love. Read the whole interview.

Escape route

From Boston Globe Magazine:

"Every day, for the almost two years I worked as a staff librarian at the Suffolk County House of Correction at South Bay, the pattern was the same: Seconds after they were released from their units, inmates would not walk, they would run — as though catapulted — towards the prison’s library.

Many inmates, especially those in a hurry, arrived with some specific order of business. They would grab a book of case law, or they’d check out a newspaper or magazine and take a seat at the library’s long table. They might disappear into the labyrinth of bookshelves. Many would line up to speak with me. They’d pose legal questions, talk about their families and health concerns, describe their spiritual and educational quests. Time and resources were short, and the needs were urgent. The library was a site of activity, of perpetual motion."

A thoughtful meditation on a prison library in Boston. The author argues for it's untested power as a social institution, transforming inmates (or at least having the potential to transform) less through the books themselves (what I expected) and more through the instantiation of civic mores. Hm, and it turns out the author has written a larger memoir on his time spent at this prison library, so I assume this is an excerpt. Or at least a condensation.

MORE here.

Kelly Cutrone Has a New MTV Show and Syndicated Daytime Show in the Works

From The Cut:

The cancellation of The City seems to have opened up lots of new opportunities for some of the principals — at least those with real fashion careers. We caught up with a few of those at Elle’s 25th-anniversary celebration at MoMA last night.

Kelly Cutrone says her other show, Kell on Earth, also will not be returning for a second season, but that she’s developing yet another show for MTV. “I’m not doing reality TV anymore. I’m done,” Cutrone said, before going on to confuse us: “I’m doing a television show that I’m on that’s not scripted, but it’s not based on me running around and sharing my personal life in my office and in my home.” So, what’s a TV show that’s not scripted and not reality? “I don’t know. I think it’ll be me more working with young people who want to be in these different industries, so it might be something like, you know, you look like a fashionista but you’re not, you look like a skate dude but you’re not, you look like a hotshot entrepreneur but you’re not, maybe you should walk the walk. So it’s, like, part Great Santini, part fairy godmother.” She expects to have the pilot done in January, and then see what happens as far as time slots.

But of course, one show is not enough to contain Cutrone’s personality; she says she also has a “syndicated daytime regular big thing” in the works. Is she going to be the next Oprah? This is a big jump, she says, crediting the publication of her book If You Have to Cry Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You for the opportunity. “The book really helped. There were a lot of good layers that came together, and I’m trying to make the most of it for me, my family, and my business.” 

Elle creative director Joe Zee, meanwhile, told us some more about his upcoming Sundance Channel show, in which he advises floundering up-and-coming fashion designers. “It is about young designers who are at a make-or-break point in their career and potentially about to lose their business, and I come in and help them,” he explained. “You know, I’m not God, all I can do is lend my experience and my expertise in helping them change their business around, whether it’s design, whether it’s marketing, whether it’s business, and hopefully I can do that in the short journey that we have together.”

Zee says that so far he is concentrating on young, less-established designers, but perhaps in the future he’ll take on better-known fashion brands that are on shaky ground. But he says his mission is not to merely solve financial problems. “This is a bigger-picture fundamental problem that we want to help this entire generation. It’s not just money — is it design or marketing? It’s understanding the 360 of what the fashion industry is about.”

Cutrone, Zee, and Elle editor Robbie Myers all claimed to be sad about The City’s demise. Myers says this isn't necessarily the end of Elle's reality-television career (which began years ago with Project Runway). “I would certainly consider having Elle participate in another [reality show.] If it’s the right thing, yes.”

One thing we all missed seeing on the show was the Elle office’s bedbug infestation! Zee said that he was out for most of the month of August, so he wasn’t there personally, but that it was as comical as it sounds: “These are fashion girls, they’re horrified when there’s a spider.”

Read more posts by Bennett Marcus

Filed Under: party lines, elle, joe zee, kelly cutrone, robbie myers, the city"

Like most things I note on here, this piece on Kelly Cutrone's future on television and The City's cancellation is quite old. I haven't heard anything since, so I suspect the Cutrone project didn't pan out. I hope I'm wrong and we see her return to television. I missed the unfortunately named Kell on Earth, but I loved her on both The City and The Hills--she stole every scene she was in. Not difficult to do, given the competition, but still--she is a wonder. "The Great Santini, part fairy godmother" is funny because I can actually hear her say it; it's also funny because it reminds me that, as much as she hates bullshit, she's full of it. Happily, however, she doesn't believe in her own bullshit--at least not entirely. Thank God for people who don't buy their own bullshit.

As for The City, no offense to Whitney but that show needed to go. It was getting better, but better than awful still isn't good. More, it inflicted upon us the the non-entity Olivia Palermo, the most charmless moron I have ever seen in my life. So let us hope Elle, barring the lovely, no-nonsense Erin Kaplan, has no future on television.

THE FEED: OCT 27TH

From Intelligent Life:

What we're reading:

What was the hipster?

(New York): Examining the cultural phenomenon as if it is an exhibit behind glass 

The Annie Leibovitz conundrum

(Financial Times): Despite her celebrity and talent, the photographer lacks earning power as an artist 

Paul Simon on Stephen Sondheim

(New York Times): Mr Sondheim's new book is a hot little number about the joy of creating music for the stage 

Today's quote: 

"While it has reduced movies in size and value, the Internet has marked a shift in the appreciation of certain kinds of films. In a real sense, online has become the new art house." 

~ Liam Lacey, "The web is the new art-house cinema" (Globe and Mail) read more

These are all good pieces, except for the last, where the quote comes from, which I haven't read and doesn't interest me all that much. More Intelligent Life, the Economist's magazine, is quickly becoming indispensable, as is the Economist's blog, Prospero.

Vintage Shopping With the Bassist Esperanza Spalding

From NYT:

"ON a recent Tuesday, the musician Esperanza Spalding was out searching for “mildly androgynous” vintage items to wear onstage.

“I would like to have a stylist, but it’s tricky: it has to be free from the trends,” Ms. Spalding said as she entered David Owens Vintage Clothing on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. “Otherwise people don’t really see you. They see how close or how far you are from the look you’re going for.”

A 26-year-old bassist, vocalist and composer from Portland, Ore., she moved to the West Village in June. Through March of next year she’s touring with her band around the United States and Europe, so shopping at home is a rarity. “I do a lot of the picking and finding when I’m out and about in different cities,” she said. “I don’t care about fashion. I dress for the music.”

Ms. Spalding taught herself to play the violin at age 4 and joined the Chamber Music Society of Oregon a year later. At 16 she switched to the double bass. On her third album, “Chamber Music Society,” she and her band combine improvisation and string trio arrangements with lilting vocals."

LOVE Esperanza Spalding--and her style. And her Afro! Really love a woman who can rock the Afro. I'd love to go shopping with her, in short. It doesn't even have to be vintage; it could be grocery.

I'll have to settle for reading the profile The New Yorker did on her a few years back. I keep meaning to track a copy down.

Picture Perfect - October 27, 2010

From the Smart Set

This year’s Forbes list serves as a reminder of how a woman’s position in the world depends on her choice of mate, something that’s easy to forget in 2010.

"The list’s entry on Michelle Obama is accompanied by her formal portrait by Joyce N. Boghosian, released by the White House a month after the inauguration in 2009. I had barely glanced at it before.

Seeing it again with Forbes’ declaration that the First Lady is the most powerful woman in the world, I became conscious of echoes of the now famous — once infamous — portrait by John Singer Sargent, “Portrait of Madame X” (Madame Pierre Gautreau, 1883-84). Both women are wearing black dresses, both are posed in a contrapposto stance with one hand on a round table. The similarities of the two portraits, however, make the differences between them even more striking, even discounting the busy background of the White House’s Blue Room.

The table in Sargent’s painting is empty and dark; the table in the White House portrait holds a huge bouquet of Casablanca lilies and white tulips. It may be a coincidence, but in the language of flowers the bouquet has an appropriate message. The Casablanca lilies mean “celebration” and the white tulips suggest “worthiness.”"

In Sargent’s painting, Madame X’s face is in profile; Michelle Obama faces forward and her gaze meets the viewers. Madame X is not smiling; Michelle Obama has a full smile. Madame X clutches the back of the table, thumb on the table top; Michelle Obama rests the tips of four fingers on the white table top, with her thumb grazing the edge of the table. Madame X stands just beyond the widest part of the table so that although she is not entirely behind it, the table stands in the foreground between her and the viewer, making her more remote; Michelle Obama stands a few inches away from the table about the same distance beyond its widest point as Madame X is in her portrait. As the First Lady reaches out to rest her hand on the table’s surface, it is almost as though she’s touching the table to make a physical connection with something. The fingers of the left hand of Madame X are curled and hold fabric. Michelle Obama’s right arm falls at her side, her fingers in a slight curve.

But in the context of power, the image of Michelle Obama in the official portrait presents, like that of Madame X, a mixed message. Michelle Obama’s head is not at all tilted; moreover, her gaze is direct connects with the viewer. In contrast, her left hand rests on the table, apparently tentative as it connects with something solid, which suggests vulnerability. Her right arm is at her side, seemingly not quite at rest, as though she’s about to raise it to reach out.

What, if anything does this pose mean without some inside knowledge into the conversation between the subject and the photographer? Without that knowledge the buzz has been about the First Lady’s wristwatch (supposedly a Cartier tank), pearls, and sleeveless black dress (Michael Kors), hairstyle, and her manicure, all of which can be deconstructed — and have, even to the shaping of her eyebrows. Her choice of sleeveless dresses in winter received lots of press early in the President’s term.

It’s difficult for me to imagine that a person as sophisticated as Michelle Obama would not have wanted some say about her pose; surely she would have been conscious of all the subtleties of body language within the context of an official photograph. Perhaps even the gap between the dress and her shoulders was a conscious decision as part of a carefully constructed persona, something to make the female viewer want to protect her rather than feel threatened.

The First Lady certainly would not have wanted to project to viewers of the portrait rage of any sort, and certainly not feminist rage, which would be certain to alienate more than half the population. If she had felt any anger over the attribution of power being a function of her being married, it’s better that it be kept out of sight — much as her wedding ring is in this photograph.

Inspired by a Forbes list of the Most Powerful Women, a meditation on female power that doesn't really take off until the comparison between a state photograph of the First Lady and Sargent's painting Madame X. Even there, I wished she had pushed a little harder, said a little more. The juxtaposition is tantalizing....

Matchmaker Says She Lost $10K A Minute In Stuck Elevator

From Gothamist:

Upper East Sider Janis Spindel was trapped in her building's elevator and says the 25-minute ordeal cost her at least $10,000 a minute. On the upside, she makes $10,000 a minute. The matchmaker lives on East End Avenue and says the malfunctioning elevator made her miss an appointment with a billionaire client who was paying $250,000 just to meet with her (finding him a suitable wife would have put another $250,000 in her pockets). The NY Post is calling it a 'tragic story of lost love and money.' 

The incident occurred late last month when the Oregon man flew in to New York City on a private jet for a power-breakfast with Spindel; he grew tired of waiting, however, and took off before she reached him. She told the paper, "He was not a happy camper. He is super successful—a 6-foot-2, retired entrepreneur who is 48 and divorced. He's a really, really awesome guy and I didn't get to meet with him." 

Spindel now wants the landlord to let her out of her lease and pay for moving expenses. She says on top of the lost commission she's claustrophobic and the elevator incident was 'terrifying.' If the landlord refuses, the paper reports that he may be finding himself paying for her entire lost fee, as Spindel says this isn't the first time the elevators have been busted in the building, it's allegedly a regular occurrence (and NY leads in 'time spent in elevators'. Anyway, file under: rich people problems."

Only in New York.