Of course Crash won Best Picture. Why wouldn't Academy members — I'm assuming they're mostly white and Angeleno — rally around a film that momentarily relieved them of guilt they feel for living in such a racially segregated city? (I have to admit that I love Ludacris's rant about the racial implications of riding city buses. That, and Don Cheadle's opening, were the only moments in the entire movie that weren't heavy-handed, cheesy, or gag-inducing).The Morning News has a great list of quotes from other reviewers who disliked the movie as much as I did. A sample: "Contrived, obvious and overstated, Crash is basically just one white man's righteous attempt to make other white people feel as if they've confronted the problem of racism head-on."
Author: Doug LeMoine
Village Voice writer Nick Sylvester joins the ranks of defamed young journalists with his recent foray into research fabrication — i.e., he basically invented a (mostly unremarkable) scene that neatly summed up his thoughts in an article on Neil Strauss's The Game and its effect on NYC dating culture. The obviously weird thing is that the "research" he faked was the kind of thing that most young reporters would not even think of as "research." An assignment requiring lots of time in bars and nightclubs, watching people hit on each other? That's the kind of embedded journalism that a (now former) music writer should be able to handle, right?Disappointly, he doesn't really do much with the lies and deceit, making Sylvester the writer roughly 2000% less interesting than Stephen Glass who at least endeavored to write a riveting story with his fakery. It's also clear that Jayson Blair's jockstrap is still in need to transport when one finds that Sylvester quotes real people who he never, umm, interviewed. A note of reality: It's worth pointing out that the juvenile bs foisted upon us by Pitchforkers past and present simply enhances the excellence of journalism that matters from people like him, her, and her.
First Thursdays at 49 Geary can be overwhelming, people-wise, and underwhelming, art-wise, and this month was different only in that the overwhelmingness was crammed into one place: the Fraenkel Gallery. Packed with people, it also displayed a face-melting collection of Richard Misrach photos.
When I first saw Misrach's photos, I thought immediately of Sebastiao Salgado. Both guys address big themes — civilizations, seasons, landscapes, human endeavors — but they do so in vastly different ways. Salgado frames his work around human action; his subjects are migrants, activitists, laborers. Misrach works with earth, light, space; he works with dunes, strangers, cars, power plants. Salgado's work is tied to current events, political movements, regimes, definable moments and recognizable things; Misrach works with more anonymous objects and landscapes. There are much more significant differences between them, but they share a social awareness that invests the best of their work with real intrigue and importance.
Last night we checked out the Oakland Art Murmur. Actually, we didn't even know that such a thing existed, and drove over the Bridge intending to see Jason Munn's opening at Bloom Screen Printing. So it was a pleasant surprise to see that little stretch of Telegraph goin off when we got there. Jason's stuff was the best of the art stuff, by far, but the action on the street was out front of Rock Paper Scissors.That's where we saw a guy burn an American flag. It took him roughly 10 minutes of false starts to light it with a Bic, but just after I took this picture, an ambulance raced up the street, sirens blaring, on its way to some emergency, but it abruptly slowed down when the driver saw the burning flag, and we could see the faces of the other paramedics staring at the guy as they crawled by. It was one of those only-in-Oakland moments. Holla!
I watch so much SportsCenter that I figured I'd try to chronicle the non sequitors that they use to punctuate excellent sports moments.
- Three beers apiece for my co-workers – While high-fives among teammates are being exchanged. Derivation: Shawshank Redemption
- What's on the grill? — Punctuates the moment when someone, usually Dwayne Wade, dunks in someone else's face, i.e. "Jason Collins, what's on the grill?"
- Pay for my dry cleaning! — Accentuated a Vince-Carter-administered NBA playoff dunk. Derivation: SNL
- Bartender! Johnny Walker Red. — Highlight involving the Cincinnati Reds.
- _____ has powers comparable to Wonderboy! — Fill in the blank with any player who is about to do something amazing in the highlight reel. Derivation: Tenacious D.
- That's levitation, homes. — Dunk that could otherwise be described with the words "helicopter," "windmill," or "tomahawk," or any dunk by Vince Carter or Andre Igoudala in the month of December 2005. Derivation: Tenacious D.
- Bartender! Canadian Club. — used in conjunction with the Blue Jays, Raptors, or any Canadian NHL team.
- Get to the chopper! — Variously applied, e.g. Albert Pujols has just hammered the crap out of the ball and is beginning to trot around the bases; Ben Wallace has completely plastered an opponent's dunk attempt and is sprinting back downcourt, where he receives an alley-oop from Chauncey Billups and throws it down in some guy's face; Julius Peppers has just sprinted 20 yards in approximately 1.5 seconds in order to light up a quarterback. Derivation: Predator
- Bartender! Shot of Jack. — This, I think, was the original "Bartender" exclamation. Usually used in connection with a homerun.
- Bartender! Cuba Libre — Introducing any story involving Cuba during the World Baseball Classic.
- Kill me, I'm here! — General exclamation. I've only heard this one once, and it accompanied a hockey highlight. Derivation: Predator
- That's it and that's all. — Usually to punctuate a player's execution of a coup de grace, e.g. "Allen Iverson's three in the closing seconds puts the Sixers up for good. That's it and that's all." Derivation: Lil Sis
- (Always in progress)
A couple of weeks ago, Mara and Jonathan and I went to the Frick, where we saw this painting by Duccio. It's called "The Temptation of Christ on the Mountain," but I vastly prefer Jonthan's title (hint: it's the subject of this post). Incidentally, how great is the Frick? Ghostly Whistlers, multiple Vermeers, "St. Francis in the Desert," an excellent sculpture of a dead bird (was it a bird?). One might say: Frickin awesome.
The Royal Art Lodge snuck up on me. I wandered into a show of theirs at the Power Plant, a gallery in Toronto in 2003. In a fairly small space, they'd crammed a wall full of collaborative paintings, Polaroids, homemade musical instruments, and many paintings by Marcel Dzama and Neil Farber. It was all very … hard to describe: thrown together, primitive, whimsical, charming, dark, strange, hilarious. A painting of debutantes sitting in a row on the back of an alligator, smoking cigarettes. Bats. Root beer syrup. A grid of Polaroids, each of which was composed of a person in a strange, homemade mask poking his/her head out of a window of an institutional building.I couldn't quite believe it and I loved it. It would be hard for any art show to rival serendipitous discovery like that, but last week, I checked out Yerba Buena's show of some newer Royal Art Lodge stuff: Peer Pleasures 1. Worth seeing, like many recent YBCA shows. Not spectacular, but solid.See also:
- Lists of interesting stuff that Neil Farber and Michael Duomontier will swap paintings for (Neil: Micronauts from the 70's. Michael: self-released Joanna Newsom albums).
- Marcel Dzama interview with Sarah Vowell: "If there is a Canadian factor in our togetherness, perhaps it is borne out of the isolation of living in a small city like Winnipeg, and the cold weather. We are not able to go outside too often because right now your skin will freeze within minutes."
I have irrational feelings about Kansas basketball, and this entry is a simple effort to contextualize and provide foundation for comments I will make as the 2005–6 season unfolds.I grew up in Kansas. My grandfather, great-grandfather, dad, uncle, and aunt all attended the University of Kansas. My family had season tickets for both football and basketball games, and I spent a sizeable chunk of my childhood running around those stadiums. At football games, we sat on the 50-yard line, about 30 rows up from the field. For basketball, we sat courtside — second row, actually — behind the Kansas bench, Jack Nicholson-style.Any fan of college sports will tell you that season tickets to Kansas football have never been in high demand, at least not in my lifetime. The last glory year for Kansas football was 1969, when they were edged 15–14 by Penn State in the Orange Bowl. My dad traveled to Miami for that game, and the story of profound heartbreak still stings, even though I wasn't there. The basketball Jayhawks had hay days in the fifties, again, well before my time, winning a national championship in 1952 and coming up one point short of another in a classic 1957 duel with North Carolina.All of this began to change in 1984, when journeyman genius Larry Brown was hired as head basketball coach. He had not yet attained the status of wizard as he seems to have today, but Brown converted a team that had been run into the ground in the early 80's into a national title winner in the span of five years. The aftermath of his tenure wasn't pretty: he took a job with the LA Clippers after the title game and left KU to deal with the graduation of one a Jayhawk great (Danny Manning), and, umm, some NCAA sanctions that resulted in a year-long suspension from the NCAA tournament. The future looked bleak in 1989, even more so when the athletic department hired a relatively unknown North Carolina assistant named Roy Williams.As it turned out, 1989 was merely the beginning of a 15-year run of basketball excellence. Salad years. Coach Williams proved to be an unquestionable master of the college game (an encyclopedic account of his achievements), patching together the team that remained after Brown's exit and leading them into the Final Four within two years and in the process creating a new style of offense that proudly bears the name, The Kansas Break. Accolades accumulated: Final Fours in 1991 and 1993. A nationally-televised 150–95 drubbing of Kentucky in 1989. One of the all-time great college basketball teams in 1996. More Final Fours in 2002 and 2003.When Coach Williams returned home to North Carolina after the 2003 season, the question on everyone's mind was: Will 2003 be looked at as another 1989, or as another 1969? The beginning of a new era of greatness, or the beginning of a long decline?
Categories
2005 / The cities
Inspired by the list-makers here and here.
- San Francisco
- Kailua, Hawaii
- Hilo, Hawaii
- Hamburg, Germany
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Eindhoven, Netherlands
- Munich, Germany*
- London, England*
- Cardiff, Wales
- Washington DC
- (A small town in the Italian Alps)
- Alicante, Spain
- Hong Kong
- Sydney, Australia
- Adelaide, Australia
- Melbourne, Australia
- Tokyo, Japan
- Warsaw, Indiana
- Chicago, Illinois
- Kansas City, Missouri*
- Leawood, Kansas
- Asheville, North Carolina
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- McKeesport, Pennsylvania
- Buffalo, New York
- Niagara Falls
- Toronto, Canada
- Detroit, Michigan
- Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Kalamazoo, Michigan
- Portland, Oregon*
- Seattle, Washington
- Austin, Texas
- Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
- Sayulita, Mexico
- Peoria, Illinois
- Gainesville, Florida
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Minneapolis, Minnesota*
- Newark, New Jersey*
- Basking Ridge, NJ
- Springfield, Missouri
- Las Vegas, NV
Holy crap. I had no idea that there were so many. Qualifying cities had at least one overnight stay, except Hong Kong, Pittsburgh and Detroit, where I spent most of a day and then escaped before night fell. Actually, I'm kidding; I really loved both of those cities, which is why I wanted to put them on the list. * indicates that I visited the city multiple times, usually in totally unrelated contexts.
Categories
Missour-ah signage
I was in Springfield, Missouri for work last week, and I was really surprised and impressed with the number of old, unique signs. Over on Flickr, you'll be amazed by two shots of some amazing Glo Laundromats signs, and a strip mall called "Country Club Plaza" that has an old orange sign with an analog clock on it. Good stuff.