one piece

"Patti Smith: Dream of Life"

The Great Madeline Kahn in "Paper Moon"

" Madeline Kahn has eyes like sad soup, a jaw that is both long and vulnerable, and hair like unexplored jungle. Her voice is high and tinny, as though a midget were making a speech inside a beer can.

All these things are part of her comic equipment, but they aren't what make her a genuine comedian. What she has—as W. C. Fields and Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin had—is a kind of unwavering purpose at right angles to reality, a concentration that she bears, Magoolike, through all kinds of unreasonable events. What is funny is not so much her visible actions as her visible mind."

Excerpt from a movie review by Richard Eder for The New York Times -- May 27, 1976

"Metropolitan Forecast"

     D8 L THE NEW YORK TIMES TUESDAY, 

          SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

  Metropolitan Forecast

         TODAY 

Less humid, sunny. High 79.

 Noticeably less humid air will filter into the metropolitan region on. 

Brisk winds from the northwest. 

High pressure building east from the Great Lakes will promote mainly sunny skies. 

Daytime readings will peak in the lower 80’s.

      TONIGHT

 Clear, lighter winds Low 62. 

Skies will be clear overnight as high pressure crests near the Middle Atlantic Coast. 

Humidity will remain low, and temperatures will fall to around 60 degrees in many spots.

      TOMORROW

     Mainly sunny High 76.

 Sunshine and just a few clouds will fill the sky. 

Breezes will turn and blow from the south ahead of a cold front approaching from Canada.

Excerpt from

"Two Poems from 

"The Day" 

By Kenneth Goldsmith

"Égoïste! Égoïste! Égoïste"

TV Spot,1990 Directed by Jean-Paul Goude

True Blood's Killer Main Title Opener -- By Digital Kitchen

Michael Jackson R.I.P.

Barack Obama is Sworn in as the 44th President

Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States Tuesday, 

 and called on Americans to join him in confronting what he described as an economic crisis caused by greed but also “our collective failure to make hard choices.”

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real,” Mr. Obama said in his inaugural address minutes after he took the oath of office on the same bible used by Abraham Lincoln at his first inaugural in 1861. “They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will be met.”

Mr. Obama, the first African American to serve as president, spoke to a sea of cheering people, hundreds of thousands of Americans packed on the National Mall from the Capitol to beyond the Washington monument. 

Obama becomes 44th US President

Megasoid

Even the faithful will admit it: hip-hop may not be dead, but it needs a jump start. There are fewer exciting voices, and production has stalled. So what comes next? A different crop of producers? A freaky new sound? Both of these things are being provided by a loose affiliation of musicians in California, Montreal, and Glasgow.

With backgrounds in rock, electronica, dancehall, and hip-hop, they’ve wandered into a similar sound. (I call the genre “lazer bass.”) Menacing, bass-heavy productions with layers of electronic noise are laid under existing hip-hop vocals. My favorite artists in this coalition are a Montreal duo called Megasoid. I saw them play in Montreal in a small loft above a restaurant. Though the crowd chose schmoozing over dancing, Megasoid bobbed and laughed through their own set. The duo perform here on May 2 at the Low End Theory, a party started in Los Angeles and now being imported to the Knitting Factory on a monthly basis. Whether lazer bass affects hip-hop or simply exists as a brief, happy splinter, it is as good as dance music gets.

link: SET TO STUN

by Sasha Frere-Jones

The New Yorker Magazine

(my illustration above)

Landscapes in Distress

Sound the Alarm: Landscapes in Distress calls attention to the indelible impact of human activity on the environment from the Arctic to the Equator. The featured artists in this exhibition have traveled widely to examine the fragility of varied landscapes.

In 2003 Travis Roozée took a series of photographs of the abandoned town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. This project is part of Roozée’s ongoing exploration of the overlap of contradictory ecologies, places where the resilience of nature perseveres despite human intervention. Centralia was an active mining town from the mid-1850’s to 1962 when a coal vein caught on fire from garbage burning in a near-by dump. The underground fire continues today with no means to extinguish it. While people continued to live in the vicinity, their plight drew national attention in 1981 when a 12 year old boy fell into a 150’ deep sinkhole that suddenly opened up below his feet. This prompted congress to allocate funds to relocate residents. Today a small number of people remain amidst the wasteland. Seen here is a burning section of old Route 61, the road was relocated in 1993 to circumvent the town.

link: Sound the Alarm: Landscapes in Distress

March 8 – June 1, 2008

WaveHill