http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Thu, 14 Jul 2005 11:56:59 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/07/14/115659.php Marc Morgan and Tristan The sunlight seeping into the window and onto the floor of my basement apartment was beginning to fade. Since Morgan left, I didn't have much furniture. She had knocked on my door today for the first time in four years. I let her in.Tristan was with her. It was the first time I had ever seen the little towhead, and my throat closed up. He never looked at me, but immediately ran over to Tully and stomped on her tail. She let out a screech and he laughed as she scurried to hide under the bed with the dust mice.I could tell that Morgan had sewn Tristan's overalls herself. The zipper was all askew and one pantleg was shorter than the other. I didn't say anything but instead tried talking with her."How have you been?" I asked."Oh, you know," she said."Yeah," I said. I wanted to shake the little brat who was stalking my cat, while at the same time I wanted to take him outside and show him how to climb the huge willow tree in the yard. I wanted to ask him if he knew who I was.I reached out my hand to touch Morgan's, but she pulled away without thinking, without making a production out of it. She stood and walked the four steps to the sink from where we sat on the bed. She looked out the windows, removed a tumbler from the cupboard and poured a surprisingly large amount of bourbon from a bottle she produced out of her purse."Morgan?" I started. Tristan had chased Tully out from under the bed and was now shrieking with delight as he clipped closepins to her. She was managing to shake most of them loose and wriggle away from Tristan's grasp. I ignored my boy tormenting my cat for the moment.Morgan had lit a cigarette and stood at the sink smoking it. She set it on the bread board and walked over to pick up the remote. She turned on the TV and began flipping through the stations."Morgan, I..." I didn't know how to talk to her anymore. I knew she wasn't coming back, that she wouldn't apologize and that she didn't want to talk about any of it. She knew about my 'ole man, knew that when he passed he had taken carte of my sisters and me. I knew that if I didn't give her what she came for, she would be knocking on their doors too, and I didn't want that."Jude..." she said but didn't finish.I wanted her to tell me that she loved me again. I wanted to brush back her fading red hair and to feel her now wrinkling face in my hands. I wanted to feel the heaviness of her body next to me when I woke in the morning.She had finished her cigarette and was standing there in my kitchen lighting another. She had the TV on pretty loud, and Tully was pretty wired because of it. Not to mention Tristan's sadistic laughter and tortures.I caught her watching me watching Tristan and she looked away, tapping her cigarette into an empty coffeecan I had on the counter. I stood and walked to her, but knew better than to try taking her hand again. She couldn't look at me.Darkness had overtaken the room. I flipped on the overhead light, the fluorescent brighter than it should be, garish after the soft glow of a hot August sunset.. Morgan flinched, blinking again, stubbing out her cigarette, hanging onto the counter.Opening the Mason jar I had retrieved from its spot behind the coffeepot, I watched Morgan's face for any sign of love or remorse or tenderness or remembering. I saw none. She fidgeted with her skirt as I pulled the money from the jar, and as she tugged at her skirt, she shifted her weight and grabbed hold of the cupboard so as not to fall over."Oh, fuck," she said.The bourbon fell into the sink. The crash of the breaking glass made Tristan jump. Now he was crying. The TV was on too loud. Tully had escaped into the closet and Tristan didn't see through his tears.The smell of bourbon and cigarettes filled the kitchen and my nose all of a sudden. This woman whom I used to know, stood in my kitchen, our son crying in the glow of the TV, crying so loudly it's a wonder his lungs didn't give out. Morgan couldn't look at me. I pushed her away from the counter. She fell down. I let her sit there on the floor, skirt pulled up, legs all askew. I grabbed Tristan.She didn't even have a carseat in the ramshackle Rambler she was driving. I cursed under my breath and ducked to avoid Tristan's claws as I buckled him into the backseat. He cried even louder, and I could hear him from the kitchen as I stood, shaking, over Morgan's cowering body. Culture32556@blogcritics.org Thu, 14 Jul 2005 11:56:59 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/07/07/030221.php Marc Proposal for Exhibition So I haven't written much of late because I've been out in my garage matting art. When I'm not outside enjoying the summer, that is. And now it's serious. I've had to craft a "proposal", whatever that is, in order to submit to galleries. They will, in turn, review the proposal and decide if they want to feature me. Some of it is merely a bullshit formality, some of it is more along the lines that (shhh) these galleries take themselves too seriously. But I guess I have to play along if I want to be included. I think it's all a bunch of pretentious bullshit. My original artist statement is kind of an "eff you" to that idea: My artist statement Paint collage photography Order in chaos But I don't think that would fly. Plus, most folks who don't know me would think I was being a pretentious asshole anyway, not understanding the inherent sarcasm of the haiku.Anyway, here's the proposal.I possess a body of work consisting of over five hundred pieces. It spans a variety of media including photography (both film and digital), painting in a variety of mediums, collage, homemade paper, and a combination of all of these. All of the pieces have not been documented. Taken together, they explore a variety of themes including depression, the joy of living, relationships and political ideas.An artist statement is, as is the body of work, a living, breathing thing. Writing about art, even though I am a writer as well as an artist, is next to impossible for me. Art must be an experience, must make the viewer feel something, must touch the individual. Generally, my art exposes truth around me as I see it. I explore decay and rebirth, considering the subjects I choose to explore, as well as the mediums I use. The medium of collage exemplifies this, but even the photographs I take tend towards urban decay and the beauty inherent in that. A solid artist statement makes more sense for me after a show has been solidified, even if the show hasn't yet been hung. Creatively, I am constantly electrified by the opportunities for creation that surround me. I like to create at night, and tend towards short bursts of creativity lasting several days, then collecting materials again in order to create anew. My biggest weakness as an artist is my interest in so many different mediums that I am unable to fully develop any one medium. My areas of interest include:1. The potential of the digital darkroom 2. Sculpture - traditional and "found object" sculpture 3. Polaroid 4. Medium format photography 5. Homemade cameras 6. Becoming better trained in the exploitation of color on the canvas, or paper, as it may be 7. The potential to exploit the Internet in creating new art via HTML and Flash technologies 8. Sound collage 9. Multi-media experiences 10. Graphic DesignUsing that as an outline for my goals as an artist....Short term goals:1. Learn how to frame my own work 2. Learn how to market my work effectively 3. Expose my work in local galleries 4. Work more consistently 5. Continue challenging myself to learn more about the areas of interest outlined aboveLong term goals:1. Sell my work consistently 2. Consistently produce enough work to maintain the demand for my work 3. Donate work to charitable causes 4. Move beyond themes that I currently explore and branch out into more socio-political topics 5. Always remain freshPast Exhibitions1998 - Angel Falls Coffee Company, Akron, OH 2003 - Art Missoula, Missoula, MTOriginal Photography herePainting and multi-mediaDeviantAcrylics Culture32164@blogcritics.org Thu, 7 Jul 2005 03:02:21 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/07/03/141840.php Marc 07.03.05 Dystopia Tonight's show is shaping up. I will of course continue highlighting the SXSW music I have come to love, as well as a few surprises. You can, as usual, find the setlist over at Spinitron. Click Public Playlists then KBGA, then Radio Dystopia. the setlist won't be up until the show starts tonight at 10PM, MST. You can also stream the show from the KBGA site.I was at my locally owned independent record store yesterday, and I noticed that Son Volt has a new album due out next Sunday, Okemah And The Melody Of Riot. On their site, you can't listen to one of the tracks from the new album, but there's a link to your the media giant that thinks it runs the world of legally downloaded music. At least on Jay's site , you can download some rare tracks.I also noticed that many musicians, including Son Volt, are utilizing Micro$oft's horrible Spaces service to host their music. I understand that struggling musicians need cheap places to put their music. But when established artists stand on the shoulders of a corporate giant I just shake my head. When ArmyWife told me that The Doors have gotten back together and are touring, I couldn't believe it. Guess it's old news. The Doors 21st Century are even touring. There's quite a write-up of the whole process over at The Doors' official site. Ian Astbury, the former lead singer for The Cult. While I think it would be interesting to see one of these shows, as the rest of the band is left intact, I think it's a little overkill, and my bet is that it's a bunch of old guys reliving their glory days. I say, leave the past in the past, and let The Doors' music stand on its own. But I guess they aren't ready to do that, as further evidenced by their recent collaborations with many of the "hip" DJs of the mainstream electronica world. I'll feature some clips of that atrocity on tonight's Radio Dystopia.Most importantly, however, I am proud to announce that I'll be featuring three tracks from Dextrometh, as he's sometimes known onstage and in the studio. Dex recently started his own record label in order to sell his huge body of work, as well as featuring other musicians and artists from Northeast and Southern Ohio. Many tracks are available for preview over at Scary!Records Dex's quiet guitar and meandering notes build interesting melodies complimented by his smooth voice. Recently, he's been delving into themes of exploration along the lines of Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, as well as thinking about moving into a more abstract noise-collage vein again, which he has moved away from in recent years. Music31980@blogcritics.org Sun, 3 Jul 2005 14:18:40 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/16/102928.php Marc I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.   &#8212James Joyce Happy Bloomsday, all. Anyone who has read, or attempted to read Joyce's Ulysses has their story to tell. Here's mine.Back when I was a sophomore at Kent State University, I had the good fortune to study under Dr. Culleton, who is, though I didn't know it at the time, a Joyce fanatic. She tricked me and the rest of our British Novelists class into falling in love with Joyce.It began simply enough. The reading list included Conrad's Nigger of the Narcissus, Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray and Joyce's Ulysses. We blasted through most of the reading list and hunkered down with U, as it came to be called, for most of the semester.Some of us were excited, others intimidated, still others stressed out that we wouldn't "get" it. Dr. Culleton was so in love with Joyce, and she wanted so badly for others to see his brilliance that her patience guided her teaching of the book, never allowing us to become discouraged, always enthusiastic and finally overjoyed when we all "got" it. We got it so much, and loved Joyce so much that Dr. Culleton petitioned the Dean to allow her to teach a James Joyce seminar class the following semester, and we all attended.Since that first time though, I've completed U five times. I even was paid by one of the other instructors at the university to teach him how to read it. Each time, the book is more interesting, more funny, less complex and more enjoyable.Every year since at least 1954, fans of author James Joyce have celebrated Bloomsday on June 16&#8212the date (in 1904) when Ulysses takes place.For Joyce, the special significance of 16 June 1904 was that on that date he had his first date with 20 year old Nora Barnacle, a chambermaid he'd met on 10 June on Nassau street. She'd stood him up on the 14th (or 15th?), but he wrote her a note asking for another meeting, and by August ('heavenly summer") they were in love.When the book was published, however, a huge scandal ensued, many claiming that the book was "obscene" or "pornographic". It was contraband in the United States, and had to be shipped to America in a false book jacket.But it is not pornographic or obscene. It is beautiful. Each chapter is written in a different style, culminating with Molly's stream-of-consciousness soliloquy at the end. Plenty of guidebooks exist on how to read Ulysses, but the best piece of advice I can give to anyone is to not get too wrapped up in the details of it the first time though. Dr. Culleton compared reading Ulysses to seeing someone walking in a snowstorm. You see them out the window, you cannot get any details about them, but the important thing is that you see them. Read it. Enjoy it. Laugh. And for those of you too lazy to read it, here's a handy summary told in horrid animated gifs and brief one- or two-sentence summaries for each chapter.Happy Bloomsday. Tip a pint for Bloom. (Note: I was unable to find online the best edition of Ulysses. If you plan to buy it, pick up ULYSSES, The Corrected Text, edited by Hans Walter Gabler.) Books31110@blogcritics.org Thu, 16 Jun 2005 10:29:28 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/15/181317.php Marc Lovin' life in MSO Recent posts by both Dex and Pep, I was reminded how lucky I am to live where I live. Here in Missoula, it's a comfortable 71%, no humidity, cleaer and suny. I look out my South-facing office window over Pattee Canyon and look forward to my two mile bike ride home on a bike path where, when I do encounter a street with cars on it, the cars actually stop to let me cross.I've been biking everywhere for almost two months, now, since Perceval, my '85 Volvo wagon, died (bad fuel pump). So far, I have commuted to werk 48 consectutive days, in rain and snow and sun. That's 96 miles for those of you without a calculator. And, according to the Missoula in Motion site, I have conserved 77.73 pounds of carbon dioxide by commuting. I don't have to drive two hours to float a river, I have the Blackfoot right in my backyard. I can head down to Caras Park, near the Clark Fork River downtown and catch great local music for free on a Wednesday afternoon while soaking up the sun in the grass, mountains all around me, a blue sky, the smell of cottonwoods wafting up from the river and make it back to werk in time to grab my paycheck, hop on my bike and deposit it in the bank. Getting around is easy. The scenery is great. I feel very lucky.View from my office window Culture31079@blogcritics.org Wed, 15 Jun 2005 18:13:17 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/08/202544.php Marc AIM Mail AOL has recently launched yet another web-based email service. Occassionally, when I am on the air I use AIM Express while in the studio. Whoever is in control of the computer there has permissions locked down, and Messenger is not installed (and, sadly, neither is Firefox) and I sometimes have reason to IM with folks. Because of this, I received, today, in my regular email account, a notice from AOL that the new mail service had been launched. To save the rest of you the hassle of signing up for an account to take it for a test drive, I've done it for you. Login to this AIM Mail account I created with the following: screename=not5real PW=aimmailsucks You can see for yourself what I mean.My initial thoughts are, well, look at the password I provided, and you can tell my initial thoughts. And here's why:Gmail does it bestEven Hotmail is better than AIM MailOK those weren't really reasonsNeither is this: I am just acknowledging that I was merely pointing out what AIM Mail is notAIM Mail's advertising is too in-your-faceLimited functionality: 2G of storage -- so what? Where's my free email FWDing? Where's my free POP?Composing a message opens a pop-up windowThe GUI is intuitive, but the pageloads are slow, and I tested from a T-1 lineDid I mention Gmail?It's AOL for crying out loud! One of THE WORST service providers around.Google has raised the bar for web-based email ridiculously high, and I cannot fathom how a better free web-based service would look. So do yourself a favor, if you had any inkling of giving it a try, use the above login to take it for a drive first.BTW, if anyone needs an invite, let me know and I'll get you one. It may not come directly from the linked address, but you'll get one. Culture30752@blogcritics.org Wed, 8 Jun 2005 20:25:44 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/07/033523.php Marc Angel of the Lord The trains were coupling in the trainyard. Metal on metal and loud clanging banging that would wake anyone who hadn't heard it before. It was almost six A.M. I was walking home from work. I'd gone in early last night, at nine. The new guy had called in sick and I made the mistake of answering the phone when it rang. I wasn't looking forward to slopping a mop all night on my night off, but I needed the money. and the overtime was good.Now the sunlight washed over the empty tracks ahead of me. Behind me, the huge metal cars loaded with lumber and military machines crashed into one another as the day began. I liked this time of day before the rest of the world was awake. The birds sang their good mornings to one another and the air was sweet with rain and cottonwoods.Walking across the trainyard, though, my nose took in freshly cut trees, oil and grease, and the smell of old. Only two more blocks until I hit the front step. And I knew Mary Ann would have coffee on, and I could imagine the sound of the bacon sizzling in the cast iron skillet.As I picked my way carefully along the railroad ties, I spied a man sitting in the shadows of the buildings along the tracks. As I approached him, he stirred, and, hearing my boots crunch over the gravel, he spoke."Spare any change?" he asked."No thanks," I replied, shoving my hands into my pockets."You ingrateful little fuck," he rasped. "You ain't got no respect."I had walked just slightly past him by this time, and I slowed my pace."You're a punk!" he yelled.I turned and walked towards him.Only last year, I too had found myself evicted and jobless. I was lucky to have Mary Ann to go home to. To now have a roof over my head, and to have a job that pays the bills, even if I was slinging a dirty mop over dirtier floors night after night. My stomach tightened at the memory of having to find my dinner in a Dumpster, having to hope that the police were feeling tolerant that day.I stopped in front of him."Do you have something to say to me?" I asked.He spat on the ground. His clothes were dirty and ragged, but looked fairly new. His shoes had no holiest in them. "You got no respect. You're a punk. You're ungrateful and you fuckin'...."I cut him off. "Where do you get off," I asked him, "begging for money, and then insulting someone who doesn't give it to you?" My hands clasped at the change in my pocket, then let it loose. I knelt near him, to be on the same level as him. "Where do you get off?""Fuck you.""Fuck me? Fuck me. Really." I was tired, but I wasn't going to listen to a common panhandler mouth off to me. Not after I just worked eight hours. I wanted to punch him. No one would know. And no one would care.The yard man stepped out from the shadows about fifteen yards away to have a look at us. I raised my cap to him and smiled. He waved and disappeared again, into the darkness.My hand tightened around the change in my pocket, clenched in a fist."No respect, you mongrel," he said. "I'm an angel of the Lord.""An angel of the Lord?" I repeated."I do God's work," he said."I can tell you, God does not love you," I said. "God loves those who love Him, and who love themselves, and you, my friend, do not love yourself.""Fuck you.""Angel of the Lord," I said, and spat."I'll kill you," he said. He didn't stir. He smelled of stale beer."Come on, then," I said. "Kill me.""I'm an angel of the Lord," he said again. "I do God's work," he roared, and stood.I started, and stood abruptly, thinking he might come for me.He unzipped his panty. His penis was small and pink. He stood there holding it. "I'm 'o piss right here," he said."Angel of the Lord has performance anxiety," I said.He laughed, then caught himself. "Takes me a while sometimes," he said.Yeah," I said, then turned to go.I never did hear his piss hitting the concrete. Culture30654@blogcritics.org Tue, 7 Jun 2005 03:35:23 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/17/125310.php MarcA while back I wrote about the new Fiona Apple album that Sony refuses to release. Then I played the album in its entirety on Radio Dystopia over at KBGA. The show went very well, and I had many positive responses to it. And since I played the album, I thought it would be hypocritical of me not to put the album up for grabs. So I did.But the time has come to take it down. There are other places folks can get it. Personally, I think it's her best album and cannot fathom why Sony refuses to release it.So I will be taking it down by day's end. If you want it, now's the time. Sci/Tech29623@blogcritics.org Tue, 17 May 2005 12:53:10 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/09/165533.php MarcDark clouds hovered over Frenchtown, ominously threatening to make Sunday a wet, muddy exercise in endurance. Mike picked me up around nine, and we had gotten a coupla of breakfast burritos to pad our stomachs for the beer and whiskey that was sure to be flowing as the day wore on. We were both less than awake during the drive out, and we drove, mostly in silence, with the radio loud on the way to the ranch.The road up to the place where the branding would take place was mercifully dry, and the dust kicked up behind us as men in trucks rushed around, completing last minute details. The cowhands were young - fourteen or fifteen, and they sat lazily on the back of a flatbed, waiting for the day to begin. The cows had already been separated, and were braying loudly at being removed from their young. The calves were in a pen, kicking up dust and fighting with one another. We parked the rig and got our gloves, then walked over to greet the others.Joe was already giving orders to Lisa, the nurse who would be vaccinating the calves. The generator was not yet running, and the irons were still cold, but things seemed to be shaping up. Joe Senior was wearing his rubber boots, and was sharpening his knife for the castrations. There were men rigging up the fences and lubricating the gates, kids running around and a couple of Healers underfoot. It seemed like everyone already had a job to do, and I rolled a cigarette for later.Soon, the calves were herded into the main holding pen by the cowhands and the first few were guided into the chute. The irons were hot - so hot that some of them had turned an almost white-brass looking color. Joe uses a hot iron for dehorning the calves He had four different sized de-horning iron and a straight iron in the fire. The main JB iron was an electric one. The cattle come down the chute, one at a time, and are guided into a cattle catching table, their head sticking out the front of the table. The table is then tipped to its side so that the calve is lying horizontally. Joe then tightens down on it so that the calve is held tightly in place by a metal contraption across its ribs. One guy stand on the calf's right rear leg, and holds his left rear leg and tail with his other had, so that the calve is still (mostly still) to accept the iron. "Bull!" someone yells, and Joe Senior comes out with his bucket and knife to cut off the calf's balls. The testicles are collected in a bucket, washed, and fried up for snacks that an old guy brings around to us throughout the day. They are small, almost like popcorn shrimp, and are quite tasty, once you get past the idea that they are a calf's balls. Washing the first bite down with whiskey is highly recommended. I hand Joe the electric iron, and he makes the first impression. There are other ways to brand cattle that are allegedly more humane, but most ranchers in these parts use hot irons. When Joe is satisfied with the impression, he pats the burn mark, hands the electric iron to me, and I hand him the straight iron. While the calf is being branded, Lisa is busy vaccinating him. Joe hands the straight iron back to me, and I clean both irons with a wire brush, removing any hair or flesh that may be attached to it. If he needs to be de-horned, Joe grabs an iron for that purpose, burns out the horn, and hands the iron back to me. I place it back into the fire, which is run by propane and looks a little like this.Sunday, we did between one hundred and one hundred and ten head of cattle. "Bull!" or "Heifer" was yelled by one of the old guys as each calf came into the cattle catcher. Someone sitting a little ways off in a lawn chair recorded the stats. The smell of shit and mud and burning hair hung heavily in the air. After the first twenty calves or so, everyone fell into a routine. I was careful to hand the iron to Joe upside-down with the cord out of the way, so that he didn't have to move it much when he took it from me. The guy standing in front of me, the one standing on the calves' back legs, was careful to grab hold of the tail and block the asshole so that none of us were sprayed with shit. Once in a while, we'd stop for a minute to shovel mud onto the table to clean the shit from it. The guys holding down the calves' back legs switched out every five calves or so in order that they did not get tired.The generator, combined with the flame from the propane was loud enough that I wore earplugs, and I was somewhat removed from the conversations that were going on between the men handling the calves. I heard bits and pieces of conversations, some related to the branding, others discussing past brandings, or even conversations about some of the ranchers' families. The spirit of comradery between the men was thick enough that it was almost tangible. They paid little notice to the calf whose eyes were rolling back into his head as he felt the heat of the iron, felt the snip of the knife against his balls. And the sense of trust between the men that we all knew our job, and we would all perform our job safely, was also amazing to me. We worked with the precision of a machine.After a calf would get branded, denutted, vaccinated and de-horned, Joe would tip the cattle-catcher table upright again, and release the gate. The recently branded calf would run out of the gate, up another chute, and be herded into a field with the waiting cows. This process took between 45 seconds and 120 seconds per animal. The smell of burnt hair was almost overpowering, and the color of the smoke from the burnt hair was a pure white. Kids cracked beers and brought them to thirsty men. I was careful not to burn anyone. The hair on my right arm had completely burned off from standing so close to the fire. I burned myself slightly with the electric iron when one of the men holding down the calves' legs backed into me as he avoided being kicked by the calf, but the burn was not a bad one.It was around one o'clock when we finished, finally, and the generator was turned off, the propane valve closed, the irons allowed to cool. People congratulated each other, smoked cigarettes, drank whiskey, and loaded up into their rigs for a dinner catered by the man who runs one of the longest running bars in Missoula. It was a simple meal of burgers and brauts, because the previous day, Charlie had catered an even bigger branding at another man's ranch, but we were all glad that the work was finished, no humans were hurt, and the rain had held off. People were laughing and drinking and telling stories, and it felt good to be a part of something. It was good too, being a meat eater, to have participated in such an event, to know the sacrifices these animals make for us, and to know that I look forward to my next juicy steak, that I was not put off by what some would consider suffering and inhumane treatment of these animals. Cattle have no other reason to exist in our society other than to provide us humans with food, and it is good to be a visceral part of that process, to know that steaks come from real animals who have real pain, and not from a well-lit supermarket for $5.95 a pound. Culture29231@blogcritics.org Mon, 9 May 2005 16:55:33 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/09/115224.php MarcWords in italics are scraps from my notebook as I wondered the Art Institute of Chicago. The rest are things that struck me in no particular order.Been so long since I have been in a museum. Interesting to see how I was drawn to form, sculpture, Buddhist art.In a museum, each brushstroke a revelation of inspiration and technique.Take lessons. Work more with canvas + materials non-trad for me. OIL AND SAND in with paint.Red figure technique of pottery painting. Interesting that the interpretive signs, some of them, tell us how to feel about the paintings. "May indicate Man's destruction of Nature..." in addition to giving us the history of the work. Compare to the interpretive sign for Turning Point of Thirst, by Victor Brauner 1934, wherin the sign scratches it's head saying, I just don't know what this one means when it's obvious to the viewer (at least this viewer). Um, hello? AA anyone? The above was painted as a response to Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" (below).One of the current exhibits was of contemporary Dutch photography. I loved Wijnanda Deroo's work. Photograph empty spaces Take tripod back to Prescott.18th Century "I got my eye on you" came from a tradition of wearing a miniature photograph of one's lover's eye on one's lapel. From the interpretive sign on Magritte's "The Eye", which was of his wife Gertrude's eye. I loved Joseph Cornell's Soap Bubble boxes.Pollack's Gray RainbowDo a collage with 10 panels called A New Threshold of Liberty in the style of Margarete Top right is X, bottom R is backwall/sky (empty) w/ a machine gun shooting X.Great sceth for the famous "Rape of Sabine". Angel Planell's Midday SorrowPicasso Head Oil and chalk on canvas.Albright's Dorian Gray a painting he did for the film which was based on the book by Oscar Wilde . Culture29216@blogcritics.org Mon, 9 May 2005 11:52:24 EDT