Author: Doug LeMoine

Categories
flickr visual

Art / Enter maximalism.

Flickr photo


An arti­cle in yesterday's NYT House & Gar­den sec­tion extolled the virtues of clut­ter. Kris­ten summed it up nice­ly: Max­i­mal­ism is the new min­i­mal­ism.

"Min­i­mal­ism is easy to copy," Ms. de Lorme said at her unabashed­ly messy desk on a recent morn­ing. "Every­body can do it."

Nev­er­the­less, max­i­mal­ism isn't as easy as it sounds. The author vis­its a Bar­ry McGee exhi­bi­tion at Deitch Projects in New York and finds that clut­ter must be as care­ful­ly arranged as non-clut­ter if it is to work:

Op-art pan­els on the walls. Graf­fi­ti every­where. And one wall I stared at for a long time was cov­ered with small, framed pic­tures dense­ly hung at odd angles, some lay­ered on top of one anoth­er. Like the whole mas­sive instal­la­tion, it looked ran­dom. Of course, it wasn't.

The thing is, Bar­ry McGee was max­i­mal so long ago — Bay-Area-Now-1996 long ago — that it's strange to use him as an exam­ple of a cur­rent max­i­mal trend. I guess well-exe­cut­ed max­i­mal­ism is timeless.The pho­to above is from Bar­ry McGee's max­i­mal mur­al at the Muse­um of Vic­to­ria (fall, 2004).

Categories
baseball

Baseball / Palmeiro-zol

The Base­ball Hall of Fame is filled with guys who cheat­ed, played dirty, were ter­ri­ble role mod­els, drunks, jerks, domes­tic abusers, the list goes on. If any of these things dis­qual­i­fied play­ers from eli­gi­bil­i­ty, guys like Gay­lord Per­ry & Whitey Ford (cheaters), Mick­ey Man­tle (a great guy, but a drunk), Ty Cobb (a jerk) and many, many more would have been denied entry.With the excep­tion of the Pete Rose affair, his­to­ry has ruled that only two things mat­ter when it comes to HOF cri­te­ria: sta­tis­ti­cal mile­stones and World Series rings. And for Rose, all would like­ly be for­giv­en if he would suck it up and apologize.In anoth­er few years, we'll add some more char­ac­ters to the Hall's rogue gallery — the juicers. One of them will be Rafael Palmeiro, who tes­ti­fied before Con­gress that he had nev­er tak­en steroids. Palmeiro punc­tu­at­ed his tes­ti­mo­ny with fin­ger-jabs at the assem­bled Con­gress­peo­ple, a ges­ture that now seems odd­ly sim­i­lar to the tech­nique used by Jose Canseco to inject steroids into Palmeiro's butt. Yes­ter­day, Palmeiro was exposed as a juicer, and the NYT report­ed that he used the real stuff rather than some super-charged multi-vitamin:

Palmeiro said Mon­day that he had nev­er inten­tion­al­ly tak­en steroids, but stanozolol does not come in dietary sup­ple­ments and is among the most pop­u­lar steroids on the mar­ket. It can be ingest­ed or inject­ed and usu­al­ly remains in a person's sys­tem for at least a month."It's a mild­ly strong to strong steroid," said Dr. Gary Wadler, a pro­fes­sor at New York Uni­ver­si­ty who is an expert in sports dop­ing. "Potent is the word I would use."

Palmeiro will be joined by at least three oth­er juicers in the Hall: McG­wire, Bonds and Sosa. I don't begrudge these guys. They def­i­nite­ly weren't the only juicers in the game, and they would have been great play­ers with­out the 900-foot moon-shots. On the oth­er hand, I think that the Hall should find a way to express and inter­pret the unsa­vory side of base­ball: Induct Raffy and rest (Rose, espe­cial­ly), and set up a sec­tion of that con­struc­tive­ly dis­cuss­es and con­tex­tu­al­izes the behav­iors and achieve­ments of those play­ers who sought extra-cur­ric­u­lar assistance.Baseball's good guys prob­a­bly don't lose any sleep over this, but I still think that the Hall should find a way to dis­tin­guish guys like Robin Yount & Mike Schmidt (and in the future, Greg Mad­dux & Tony Gwynn). They deserve to be rec­og­nized as fair play­ers in times when play­ers sought unfair advantages.

Categories
flickr the ancient past visual

Rust Belt road trip

Rust belt!

Pitts­burgh. Buf­fa­lo. Nia­gara Falls. Toron­to. Detroit. It's not exact­ly Route 66, but it was hot. 

The whole trip is on Flickr.

Categories
flickr the ancient past

I love Michigan in the summer.

Flickr photo


10 things about Gabe & Yoshi's wedding:

  • The bride and groom. Our gold­en cou­ple. The whole week­end was a per­fect reflec­tion of what we all love about them. 
  • Kala­ma­zoo. Charm­ing and fun. Shady trees, greasy spoons, a sur­pris­ing­ly fan­cy art museum. 
  • The wind­ing, tree-lined streets of Kala­ma­zoo. Grid-less! Baf­fling! Lon­don, Boston — those cities have noth­ing on the com­plex­i­ty of Kala­ma­zoo. If some kids on skate­boards hadn't point­ed the way, we would have missed the begin­ning of the wed­ding. Thanks, kids!
  • Fire­flies and Christ­mas lights. The bride's sister's boyfriend (Andrew) host­ed a love­ly after-par­ty on the night of the rehearsal din­ner. Usu­al­ly these par­ties are ill-planned and bar-ori­ent­ed, but this one was well-exe­cut­ed out­side on a beau­ti­ful back porch lit by Christ­mas lights and fireflies. 
  • The Kal-Haven Trail. Near­ly a death-by-humid­i­ty experience. 
  • Suite 702. Post-wed­ding sing-alongs, beer-scroung­ing and hotel-room-jacuzzi-ing at the Radis­son. Classy.
  • The excel­lent, eclec­tic food. Not that there's any­thing wrong with the salmon filet/side salad/baked pota­to thing, but it was pleas­ant­ly sur­pris­ing to get a nour­ish­ing, unique meal at a wed­ding recep­tion. I actu­al­ly ate this food, and liked it. Nice work, wed­ding plan­ners and caterers.
  • Friends & fam­i­ly rep­re­sent­ing. While I didn't do such a great job of cir­cu­lat­ing among those I hadn't known for 15 years, I couldn't help but notice the col­lec­tive high spir­its and fes­tive attire of all in atten­dance. Plaid pants, flow­ered dress­es, smiles, laugh­ter — all good. 
  • Louise's toast. I, for one, did not know that the groom's moth­er met the bride's father dur­ing fresh­man week at Car­leton. Amaz­ing. The stars had been spelling it out since day 1, really.
  • It must be said: Maggie's boobs.
Categories
mobile san francisco visual

Photos / July chills

Riding up Polk Street

I snapped this pho­to after watch­ing Me & You & Every­one We Know at the Lumiere. I was rid­ing down Polk Street, and the sky seemed nice and sun­ny. But there was a chilly lit­tle bite in the air. Ahh, sum­mer. A half hour lat­er, the city was enshroud­ed in fog.

Categories
mobile san francisco visual

Photos / Window kitty

Windown kitty

This kit­ten was in the win­dow of the record store on my block. Anoth­er sign of a pleas­ant turn­around on 14th Street. Ten years ago, it was Naps 2 (a hous­ing project bar with a friend­ly sort of vibe), and dog crap every­where. Now, it's a bustling with DIY fare, cool records, a bike shop owned by friends of mine, and an art gallery.UPDATE Feb 2006: Six months after the record shop opened, it closed. So did the art gallery. Now there's a lit­tle cloth­ing bou­tique there. I miss Naps #2.UPDATE June 2006: Nee­dles and Pens also left. My lit­tle street is qui­et again. Oh well.

Categories
music san francisco

Music / Oakland blown up by Japanther.

Kill em all
Japanther!

A bunch of us jour­neyed to Oak­land to watch Japan­ther kill em all at a house par­ty. 50 peo­ple + 12'x12' liv­ing room + 40's & Crown Roy­al = sweat & may­hem = just anoth­er Mon­day night in Oak­land. Also on the bill: XBXRX (wore match­ing orange leo­tards, broke the stage), I Hate You When You're Preg­nant (per­formed in a speedo), some pre-teens in drag, Jeto­mi, and a trio that fea­tured some punk rock sax­o­phone freak-outs.

Categories
lit reviews tip

Nurse! Get me Rolling Stone on the phone!

Has there been a more thank­less task in mod­ern lit­er­ary his­to­ry than edit­ing Hunter S. Thomp­son? Accord­ing to for­mer Rolling Stone edi­tor Robert Love, the mag­a­zine actu­al­ly assigned junior edi­tors the task of babysit­ting Thomp­son as he approached his dead­line. (Okay, there are worse junior edit­ing tasks than that; I've done them). In a recent in the Colum­bia Jour­nal­ism Review arti­cle, Love dis­cuss­es this and much more in his essay about edit­ing the good doc­tor at Rolling Stone. Charm­ing rev­e­la­tion: HST's blus­ter and bom­bast attained read­abil­i­ty only after long, hard edi­to­r­i­al over­sight. The kind of over­sight that involves tear­ing the thing apart and and reassem­bling it sen­tence by sentence:

So, a flur­ry of man­u­script pages would arrive, buzzing with bril­liant, but often dis­con­nect­ed pas­sages, inter­spersed with what Hunter would him­self call "gib­ber­ish" (on cer­tain days) and pre­vi­ous­ly reject­ed mate­r­i­al, just to see if we were awake. "Stand back," the first line would inevitably say, announc­ing the arrival of twen­ty-three or twen­ty-five or forty pages to fol­low in the fax machine. Soon there were phone calls from Deb­o­rah Fuller or Shel­by Sadler or Nicole Mey­er or anoth­er of his stal­wart assis­tants. We always spoke of "pages," as in "How many pages will we get tonight?" "We need more pages than that." "Can you get those pages marked up and back to Hunter?" Pages were the coin of the realm; mov­ing pages was our mis­sion. I would mark them up, make copies for Jann, and then send them back.

The issue for the mag­a­zine was nev­er that Hunter wasn't the fun­ni­est, clever­est, most hilar­i­ous writer, sen­tence to sen­tence or para­graph to para­graph. The editor's role was get­ting those sen­tences to pile up and then exhib­it for­ward momen­tum. (Hunter called this process "lash­ing them together.")

  • Heard about this from the fun­ny folks at The Morn­ing News. Thanks, guys.
    • Categories
    reviews tip

    Movies / Sans Solo: The real problem with the new Star Wars trilogy

    I've nev­er met any­one who enjoyed an install­ment of the sec­ond Star Wars tril­o­gy — Phan­tom Men­ace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. Com­mon­ly cit­ed aspects of its unpop­u­lar­i­ty (in no par­tic­u­lar order): ter­ri­ble dia­logue, insuf­fer­able "love" scenes, new char­ac­ters that would be mere­ly unin­ter­est­ing if they weren't offen­sive, and over-depen­dence on effects. [Read all of this and more in Antho­ny Lane's New York­er review].I sub­mit for inclu­sion: No Han Solo! No rogu­ish charmer! No swash­buck­ing mer­ce­nary! Han is every­thing that the sec­ond trilogy's char­ac­ters aren't: unpre­dictable, fun­ny, charm­ing; in short, INTERESTING. In the orig­i­nal tril­o­gy, his unabashed ego­tism bal­ances Luke's piety and Leia's bitchy cold­ness, mak­ing all three movies much less gag-induc­ing than they would have been otherwise.Note to screen­writ­ers: If you're going to write a sto­ry about the clash of good and evil, you need a char­ac­ter like Han to bal­ance the sac­cha­rine aspects of the two. Luke and Leia are pure and uncom­pli­cat­ed; this ren­ders them unin­ter­est­ing unless they're con­trast­ed with a char­ac­ter who actu­al­ly dis­plays human qual­i­ties. Han's irrev­er­ence and greed is off­set by a devo­tion to his friends, and this meaty, real stuff — plus sar­casm, fear, etc — helps view­ers embrace the unre­al stuff.The sec­ond tril­o­gy need­ed more Lord of the Rings-style sto­ries involv­ing friend­ship and adven­ture — some­thing, any­thing to bal­ance the melo­dra­ma and pol­i­tics. I mean, c'mon. Lucas!? Why sub­ject us to this? A char­ac­ter like Han could have inter­ject­ed in moments like this, at the begin­ning of Phan­tom Menace:

    BIBBLE : Your High­ness, I will stay here and do what I can … They will have to retain the Coun­cil of Gov­er­nors in order to main­tain con­trol.HAN: Yeah, good luck with that.BIBBLE: In any case, you must leave.AMIDALA: Either choice presents a great risk … to all of us.PADME : We are brave, Your High­ness.HAN: "We" are get­ting the heck out of here before the bat­tle dri­ods get any closer. 

    Dis­claimers: (1) I'm not a Star Wars nerd. I thought that Episode 1 unequiv­o­cal­ly sucked and left the the­ater (or blocked out every­thing) after the pod races. I laughed through most of Episode 2, except for the scenes that made me retch. Dit­to Episode 3. And (2) While it's fash­ion­able to point out prob­lems in these movies, I don't have much expe­ri­ence with offi­cial Star Wars crit­i­cism beyond my own snide remarks and the snide remarks of oth­ers — so per­haps some­one has already writ­ten about this.Unrelated: Check out McSweeney's amend­ments of some clas­sic Obi­wan lines: "The Force is what gives a Jedi his pow­er. It's an ener­gy field cre­at­ed by all liv­ing things. It sur­rounds us and pen­e­trates us. It binds the galaxy. Oh, it's all horse­shit. God."Next prob­lem with the new tril­o­gy: No Lando.

    Categories
    law & order the ancient past

    Deep Throat / Not so deep after all

    So as it turns out, Bob Wood­ward met Deep Throat in a White House wait­ing room. Of all the juke joints in all the world! Wood­ward was a lieu­tenant in the Navy and often deliv­ered doc­u­ments to the White House. Felt was there on FBI busi­ness, undoubt­ed­ly look­ing out for the best inter­ests of the nation. Woodward's account is amaz­ing. All these years, I thought Deep Throat was some kind of all-know­ing genius. Turns out he was a petu­lant admin­is­tra­tor who was bit­ter about being passed over at pro­mo­tion time. One must ask: Why the *hell* did his fam­i­ly think that this was a good idea?Woodward offers a glimpse at the kind of thing we'll prob­a­bly read once Felt pub­lish­es his own account. Too bad the cloak-and-dag­ger "pre­arrange­ments" sound so corny:

    Take the alley. Don't use your own car. Take a taxi to sev­er­al blocks from a hotel where there are cabs after mid­night, get dropped off and then walk to get a sec­ond cab to Ross­lyn. Don't get dropped off direct­ly at the park­ing garage. Walk the last sev­er­al blocks. If you are being fol­lowed, don't go down to the garage. I'll under­stand if you don't show. All this was like a lec­ture. The key was tak­ing the nec­es­sary time — one to two hours to get there. Be patient, serene. Trust the prearrangements.

    Wood­ward also revis­its some All the President's Men ter­ri­to­ry in describ­ing the ear­ly days of his Water­gate report­ing. Before Felt got involved, he and Bern­stein did some ele­men­tary leg­work that result­ed in a some­what hilar­i­ous rev­e­la­tion about the (ahem) depth of the scandal:

    I was ten­ta­tive­ly assigned to write the next day's Water­gate bug­ging sto­ry, but I was not sure I had any­thing. Carl had the day off. I picked up the phone and dialed 456‑1414 — the White House — and asked for Howard Hunt. There was no answer, but the oper­a­tor help­ful­ly said he might be in the office of Charles W. Col­son, Nixon's spe­cial coun­sel. Colson's sec­re­tary said Hunt was not there this moment but might be at a pub­lic rela­tions firm where he worked as a writer. I called and reached Hunt and asked why his name was in the address book of two of the Water­gate burglars."Good God!" Hunt shout­ed before slam­ming down the phone. I called the pres­i­dent of the pub­lic rela­tions firm, Robert F. Ben­nett, who is now a Repub­li­can U.S. sen­a­tor from Utah. "I guess it's no secret that Howard was with the CIA," Ben­nett said blandly.

    The most endur­ing lega­cy of Water­gate seems to be that polit­i­cal crimes are much bet­ter orches­trat­ed nowa­days. And, when sto­ries about them break, they tend to dis­ap­pear, cf. Karl Rove's smear cam­paign of John McCain, dis­cussed in the Atlantic Month­ly in the fall of 2004.