As true today as it was then..

A friend sent this to me today, and listening to it I was struck by the fact that it's just as relevant today as it was when Howard Beale ranted in 1976...33 years ago.

The Passing of Irvin Penn

There are artist who aren't household names, but whose work you would recognize in a second. People who's work has been part of your life and you didn't even know it. People who's work has influenced the way that the very world around you is seen.

Irving Penn was one of those people.

One of the 20th century's most influential and prolific photographers, Penn influenced photography in a way that may not be fully realized until later in this century.

One of the 20th century’s most prolific and influential photographers of fashion and the famous, whose signature blend of classical elegance and cool minimalism was recognizable to magazine readers and museumgoers worldwide, died Wednesday morning at his home in Manhattan. He was 92.

Umberto Eco Thinks Your Handwriting Is Ugly

...and he's right.
Seriously, when was the last time you really looked at the scrawl you put on a check or a birthday card? When was the last time you sat down and wrote a long letter to someone- with a pen - on paper?

I write letters all the time. Yes, sometimes my handwriting is less than desirable. I wish I had the skill of the 1920s generation to crank out beautiful copperplate script like a printers devil on deadline. But, alas, by the time I started elementary school in the 70's the fine artistry of handwriting was already going to hell in a handbasket.

There's a wonderful article in the Guardian today where Umberto Eco (one of the greatest living author's) opines the death of the art of handwriting. It's well worth a read, and I'm sure that in the next letter I write, I'll be writing about it.

Music from the Birds

A friend of mine sent this around to me today and I thought it was brilliant. As a kid my Mom used to tell us that the birds sat on the wires because they got a little buzz in their toes- and who wouldn't like that?

http://vimeo.com/6428069

I Don't Even Like Clowns, But...

I'm not a fan of clowns. Even one's in need. They creep me out. Mostly because of Stephen King, and John Wayne Gacey. Also. I don't like audience participation and they always want you to participate. I'm an INFJ. Stop judging me clowns!

But, I was reading the New Yorker this week and stumbled across this poem and it stuck with me enough that I tracked it down on their website and am bringing it to you.


Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your seats for -

If a Clown
by Stephen Dunn

If a clown came out of the woods,
a standard-looking clown with oversized
polka-dot clothes, floppy shoes,
a red, bulbous nose, and you saw him
on the edge of your property,
there’d be nothing funny about that,
would there? A bear might be preferable,
especially if black and berry-driven.

And if this clown began waving his hands
with those big white gloves
that clowns wear, and you realized
he wanted your attention, had something
apparently urgent to tell you,
would you pivot and run from him,
or stay put, as my friend did, who seemed
to understand here was a clown
who didn’t know where he was,
a clown without a context?

What could be sadder, my friend thought,
than a clown in need of a context?

If then the clown said to you
that he was on his way to a kid’s
birthday party, his car had broken down,
and he needed a ride, would you give
him one? Or would the connection
between the comic and the appalling,
as it pertained to clowns, be suddenly so clear
that you’d be paralyzed by it?

And if you were the clown, and my friend
hesitated, as he did, would you make
a sad face, and with an enormous finger
wipe away an imaginary tear? How far
would you trust your art?

I can tell you it worked.

Most of the guests had gone
when my friend and the clown drove up,
and the family was angry. But the clown
twisted a balloon into the shape of a bird
and gave it to the kid, who smiled,
let it rise to the ceiling.

If you were the kid,
the birthday boy, what from then on
would be your relationship with disappointment?
With joy? Whom would you blame or extoll?

A Short Song from Ms. Parker

Because it's Monday. Because it's been too long since I've featured Ms. Parker here, because...just because.

A Very Short Song

Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.

- Dorothy Parker

Mug Taken to Mona Lisa's Mug

In the category of art news that made me giggle comes this story.

From CNN.com

Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece the "Mona Lisa" was attacked with a mug earlier this month, but the world's most famous painting -- protected by thick glass -- emerged with its enigmatic smile undimmed.

The "Mona Lisa" sits behind bulletproof glass in the Louvre gallery.

French police say a woman "not in her senses" lobbed the mug at the 500-year-old painting, which hangs in the Louvre gallery in Paris.

The woman, a tourist, was later transferred from police custody to a psychiatric unit, a police spokesman told CNN. The spokesman declined to be identified, and did not say where the woman was from.

Of course, now I have the Nat King Cole version of "Mona Lisa" stuck in my head. Dangit.

In Memory of Patch - the Last Tommy

This past week England buried a hero. Harry Patch, aged 111, was the last living soldier who had fought in WWI. He survived the famous battle of Passchendaele in 1917. Many have been moved to write and pay tribute to Patch through the years, but the latest tribute, in this writers humble opinion, is one of the most moving. Another British darling, the band Radiohead, premiered their tribute to the late soldier on BBC Radio 4 last Thursday.

"Harry Patch (in memory of)" is absolutely heartbreaking. Its combination of strings, orchestrated by Johnny Greenwood and the soul stirring voice of Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke strike a similar chord of the soundtrack from Schindler's List. It's music that stays with you for days after you hear it. If the music wasn't enough to haunt you, the lyrics will. Excerpted from the interview that inspired the song, they bring vivid mental pictures of what Harry Patch must have experienced during those muddy, bloody days in 1917.

Here are the lyrics to the song:

I am the only one that got through
The others died where ever they fell
It was an ambush
They came up from all sides
Give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves
I've seen devils coming up from the ground
I've seen hell upon this earth
The next will be chemical but they will never learn

So many of us will have had fathers, grandfathers or great-grandfathers who fought in the First World War; but it is easy to forget. Of course we mustn’t and with this moving, modern tribute, we have a chance to stop and remember.

You can download the song from Radiohead’s official website for £1. All proceeds from the track will be donated to the Royal British Legion.
To hear the full version of the song go to the BBC website.

His obituary was absolutely lovely. Please check it out here.

Rest in Peace Patch.

Clowns Kick KKK Asses- My Favorite Story This Year

Most anyone who knows me knows that there is one thing that can move me to want to commit violence- and that's white supremacy. Odd, because that is exactly what they would like to evoke- violence. I get so frustrated by the stupidity and the utter useless hate and energy that goes into thinking that one race is better, or more entitled than another.

Growing up in north Florida the place was chock full of "skinheads" - a term I put in quotes because honestly-they were just thugs who needed an excuse to hate people and honestly-it wasnt just blacks or hispanics, they pretty much just hated anybody and were always looking for a fight. If you were a woman, homosexual, old, fat, skinny, smart, religious, different, BREATHING, they would find a way to try and start a fight. Strangely enough, most of them were named Christian-which I always also thought was ironic to the extreme.

A friend sent me this link today and all I can say is BRAVO!!! Sign me up! When and where do you meet. I'd be glad to dance amongst these clowns.

Clowns Kicked KKK Asses



Here’s an excellent example of pwnage: when the white supremacist group VNN Vanguard Nazi/KKK tried to host a hate rally in Knoxville, Tennessee, they were foiled by … clowns!

Unfortunately for [VNN] the 100th ARA (Anti Racist Action) clown block came and handed them their asses by making them appear like the asses they were.

Alex Linder the founder of VNN and the lead organizer of the rally kicked off events by rushing the clowns in a fit of rage, and was promptly arrested by 4 Knoxville police officers who dropped him to the ground when he resisted and dragged him off past the red shiny shoes of the clowns. http://www.volunteertv.com/home/headlines/7704982.html

“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt “White Flour”.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s angrily shouted once more, “White flowers?” the clowns cheers and threw white flowers in the air and danced about merrily.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s tried once again in a doomed and somewhat funny attempt to clarify their message, “ohhhhhh!” the clowns yelled “Tight Shower!” and held a solar shower in the air and all tried to crowd under to get clean as per the Klan’s directions.

At this point several of the Nazi’s and Klan members began clutching their hearts as if they were about to have a heart attack. Their beady eyes bulged, and the veins in their tiny narrow foreheads beat in rage. One last time they screamed “White Power!”

The clown women thought they finally understood what the Klan was trying to say. “Ohhhhh…” the women clowns said. “Now we understand…”, “WIFE POWER!” they lifted the letters up in the air, grabbed the nearest male clowns and lifted them in their arms and ran about merrily chanting “WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER!”


*This makes me so happy I could clap my hands like a little kid at a birthday party.
Thank you ladies and gentlemen of Knoxville, TN. I applaud you!!!

Iz the Wiz- Grafitti Great Dies

When I think of New York in the 70s and 80s I think of the dirty city filled with the homeless, trash blowing in the breeze and grafitti everywhere. Grafitti was a major part of what formed the perception of New York in those decades. The city that had been the gleaming jewel of the country since the Roaring 20s became the truly rough, tourist-not-welcome example of city life in America. If you look at movies from the era you'll see it in the backgrounds- be it a Woody Allen or a Martin Scorcese film, be it uptown or downtown, there is usually a tag somewhere to be found.

One of the greats of the genre was "Iz the Wiz", considered by most as the "longest-reigning all-city king in N.Y.C history." At one time or another Iz put his tag on subway cars running on every line in the NYC subway system more times than any other known artist.

Michael Martin — Iz the Wiz — died on June 17 in Spring Hill, Fla., where he had moved a few years ago. He was 50. The cause was a heart attack, said Ed Walker, who is working on a biography and documentary of Iz the Wiz. Mike was born in Manhattan and lived in a succession of foster homes after his mother was imprisoned for burglary. He did not know his father. He grew up in Ozone Park, Queens, and as a teenager lived in Covenant House on the Lower East Side.

Mike withdrew from the scene in the mid-1980s. He managed a grocery store briefly, then began using drugs heavily. A marriage in the late 1980s ended in divorce. He is survived by a brother, Peter Poston of Spring Hill, and a sister, Evelyn Poston of East Stroudsburg, Pa.

Mr. Martin learned he had kidney failure in 1996, which he assumed was a result of working with aerosol paint, and for the rest of his life he was on dialysis. His financial situation was dire. “He never made the connections he needed to make to be appreciated in the art world,” Mr. Sar said.

Martin started tagging walls at the young age of 14, using Scat or FCN (French Canadian National-even though he wasn't Canadian). He graduated to subway cars early in his "career" specializing in the A line-the longest in the subway system.

In 1975, in the 68th Street Station of the Lexington Avenue line, Mike saw a poster for the Broadway play “The Wiz” with the slogan, “The Wiz Is a Wow.” It had a certain ring. “He said, ‘If the Wiz is a Wow, why can’t Iz be the Wiz?’ ” his friend and fellow graffiti artist SAR (real name, Charles Sar) recalled.

With the graffiti artist Vinny, Mr. Martin mounted an intensive throw-up campaign on the A line. In the late 1970s he branched out to other lines, spray-painting top-to-bottoms (graffiti displays extending from the top of a train to the bottom), burners (complicated works intended to dazzle the competition) and fully realized scenes, like his homage to John Lennon, painted after Lennon was shot to death in 1980. It was a two-car scene with a portrait of Lennon and a graveyard filled with tombstones.

“He was an artist, but also a bomber, recognized as a person who made himself seen by everybody,” said the photographer Henry Chalfant, using the graffiti term for a prolific artist. “At the same time he appreciated the aesthetic side of it. He didn’t do wild style” — complex, interlocking letters — “he had a simple, readable style with great color and interesting forms within the lettering itself.”

Iz's work enjoyed surprising longevity in the days before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority began cracking down on graffiti. Elaborately painted cars could run for months or even years. Artists would often gather at certain stations to watch their work and keep an eye on the competition, much like their counterparts did in 15th-century Florence.

After a respite from his work Iz jumped back into graffiti in the 90s, painting cars, but also taking part in the legal graffiti movement, expressing himself on walls set aside for the purpose. He was one of the first artists to work on the Phun Phactory, a 200,000-square-foot industrial building in Long Island City, Queens, that artists began covering with graffiti in 1993. It is now known as the 5 Pointz Aerosol Art Center, or the Institute of Higher Burnin’.

Iz the Wiz sought fame, and found it, but not on gallery walls. His work appeared on the old dusty brown subway cars known as coal mines, and their replacements, called ding dongs for the bell tone that chimes when the doors close. Painting one of those, end to end, Mr. Martin once said, “was like sex in a can.”

*the majority of this blog entry was excerpted from a New York Times piece, published 6/30/09 - thanks to William Grimes*

Coolest Use of a Segway

Hands down this is the coolest use of a Segway I've ever seen.

Herb & Dorothy Vogel- Eyes that See

I can't claim to be an art collector. Yes, I have a couple things that I am terribly proud of, and adore, but when it gets into "collecting" I just can't run with even the small dogs, much less the big ones.

But, as my mother used to say "we do what we want to do." In the case of Herb and Dorothy Vogel this unlikely couple chose to collect modern art.

After thirty years of meticulous collecting and buying, the Vogels managed to accumulate over 2,000 pieces, filling every corner of their tiny one bedroom apartment. "Not even a toothpick could be squeezed into the apartment," recalls Dorothy.

In 1992, the Vogels decided to move their entire collection to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The vast majority of their collection was given as a gift to the institution. Many of the works they acquired appreciated so significantly over the years that their collection today is worth millions of dollars. Still, the Vogels never sold a single piece.

Today Herb and Dorothy still live in the same apartment in New York with 19 turtles, lots of fish, and one cat. They've refilled it with piles of new art they've acquired.

I'm just sad its not playing in Atlanta yet. If it hits your neighborhood make sure to check it out.

How's Your Eye? Ask the Munsell Hue Test

How's your eye for color? Is it as good as you think it is? I found this test on ye olde Internet today and while my eye is pretty good, its not as good as I thought it would be. I got a 12. Being a bit of a color snob, while I didn't expect perfect, I would have liked to have been single digit.

Of course, I'd like to blame it on my computer screen. But honestly-blue/green colors have always been a weird point for me. My exhusband constantly swore that my piece-of-crap car was green and it was as blue as could be to my eyes.

What is this thing? This is an online version of the Farnsworth-Munsell 100Hue Test which is used to separate persons with normal color vision into classes of superior, average and low color discrimination and to measure the zones of color confusion of color defective people. This test has been used in one form or another for over 40 years.

So-take a swing at it and let me know how you do.

Food From a Younger Land- Before the National Highways

I was born in the 70s. The world was already changing like crazy, we went from transistor radios and record players to Walkmen and CD's in a matter of years. From there it was bye-bye glass soda bottles and hello Evian water (which I drank until I realized Evian was "naive" spelled backwards). Diet Coke didn't exist when I was born- which is frankly unthinkable to me.

I remember the days in Jacksonville Beach, FL. when we thought going out for pizza was pretty exotic, and believe it or not I never experienced the wonder that is cilantro until the mid-nineties when I moved to the teeming cultural metropolis that is Atlanta.

So, what am I babbling about? I've been doing a lot of thinking in the last 24 hours. All this brain activity has been started by a book reading I went to last night. Mark Kurlansky, the author of "Salt" and "Cod", has written a fantastic new book called "Food From a Younger Land" that has me thinking about the past, the present and the future of how this country eats.

Kurlansky has uncovered a pot of gold in the form of a long shelved WPA, Federal Writers Project called "America Eats". Originally intended to be a treatise on the traditions and ingredients of American food, the project was abandoned shortly after the beginning of WWII. A number of writers, including Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, and Nelson Algren, were dispatched all across America to chronicle the eating habits, traditions, and struggles of local people. Once the war broke out, all of their efforts were collected into boxes and stashed at the Library of Congress where they were destined to be forgotten.

Enter Mark Kurlansky. Years of sorting through boxes of writing has brought together a picture of our country when things were simpler. He doesn't make it look like never-never land-he completely acknowledges that it wasn't always easy. Yes-there were good things, but bad as well- racisim, ingredients like possum, and serious issues with poverty and fear.

One of the questions posed after his reading was what he thought about the "local food" movement surging through America. I was really impressed by his response-yes-its great that we're thinking locally. But, if I can get cherries from Mt. Ranier and cranberries from New England completely out of season why should I turn away from them? So True.

I will say this-get this book. It will get you thinking. It will get you cooking. It may even change the way you live.

Quimby the Mouse & The Talented Andrew Bird

Quimby The Mouse from This American Life on Vimeo.

Quimby the Mouse is not very nice, but the magical Andrew Bird is playing his violin in the background, so what's not to like.

Check out the "This American Life" with Ira Glass that this clip was excerpted from last week.

Magical Feat of Engineering - The Millau Bridge

Amazing how in this time when the world seems to get smaller every day that something so phenominal could have slipped past me. I know the Sears Tower has been bought by the British and its name will soon change. I know that Somalian pirates are ravaging the seas like days of olde, and I suspect that I can even find out what Oprah had for dinner last night if I put my mind to it. So imagine my surprise when I discovered today that for nearly four years people have been literaly driving through the clouds in their cars.

Connecting Paris to Barcelona, the Millau Viaduct is part of the new E11 expressway and an absolutely magical feat of modern engineering. At its tallest point it is 787 feet high. It is taller than the Eifel Tower, and spans an impressive 1102 feet, making it the highest bridge in the world. I can only wonder what John A. Roebling would have thought if he was still alive.

One of my favorite trivia factoids about the bridge is that it is not, and could not be straight. It has a slight 20 km curve which apparently remedies the sensation of floating that would be induced if the road was straight. Absolutely fascinating. It also has a light incline of 3% to improve visability and reassure drivers.

This is officially going on the "must experience before death" list which includes things like learning to fly a helicopter, visiting every state in the United States (which I've nearly completed) and to publish a book. Hmm. Maybe someday I'll have to do a blog entry on that interesting little list.

Meanwhile, I'll be dreaming of flying through the clouds from the safety of my own little car. What will man think up next?

A Well-Worn April Story

Not particularly perky Parker prose, but then again, sometimes its just the ticket for a rainy morning. Hands down, this has some of my favorite quotable verse from my favorite writer.

A Well-Worn Story

In April, in April,
My one love came along,
And I ran the slope of my high hill
To follow a thread of song.

His eyes were hard as porphyry
With looking on cruel lands;
His voice went slipping over me
Like terrible silver hands.

Together we trod the secret lane
And walked the muttering town.
I wore my heart like a wet, red stain
On the breast of a velvet gown.

In April, in April,
My love went whistling by,
And I stumbled here to my high hill
Along the way of a lie.

Now what should I do in this place
But sit and count the chimes,
And splash cold water on my face
And spoil a page with rhymes?

Beautiful Found Sounds

I get all sorts of artsy-fartsy things in my many inboxes, but this morning I stumbled upon of all things, an Icelandic composer who writes truly, hauntingly, painfully, lovely music. Olafur Arnalds has published a project online that I will be enjoying all day, and no doubt for many days to come.

The 21-year-old composer (yes, just 21) wrote and recorded a new piece every day and posted it online for anyone to download. Each of the compositions is free, and all of them are lovely.

I'm only through the first six of them. I thought at first "sure, I'll listen to them, but I doubt there will be downloading, I've got plenty of hauntingly pretty music on the ole iPod." Wrongo. So far I've downloaded every single thing I've listened to so far.

Here's what the newsletter (which I love) called VSL (Very Short List) had to say about the origin of the compisitions:

Day one’s piece, a waltz, was written for a friend named Elsa. The third composition — “Romance” — reminded Arnalds of a 19th-century opera. On day six, we heard a somber, year-old piece that Arnalds pulled off the shelf and reworked on the fly. And on the eve of the final day, the composer sent out a tweet in which he promised to end the week on a positive note. He delivered that note — a lovely duet for piano and violin — on Sunday, and it just might be our favorite of the bunch. At this rate, Arnalds can have a week of our time anytime.

Clearly-he's got more than a week of my time...and I hope yours too.

Check out the project at: Found Songs - Erased Tapes

While you're clicking around the Internets (not a typo) check out Very Short List too!

A Good Ad is Sometimes A Very Good Thing

There are times when an advertisement can surpass just being a "BUY THIS ON SALE for $24.99" shill and move into being a piece of well..art. This was forwarded to me today and it made me smile so much that I watched it more than once. So, while its doubtful that I'll ever encounter this product (its from a company in Germany) I'm awfully glad to have been introduced to Loewe's electronics. Hopefully, you will too.

Grafitti as Art: BLU

There's a lot of conversation in Atlanta these days about grafitti. Recently, a huge mural near my old house was defaced by a tag and even the local artists were raised to indignation. They wanted somebody to pay. They wanted the guy put out in public to be shunned and screamed at and taunted. I frankly didn't like the mural that much, so it didn't chuff me that much.

Graffitti is something that says "city" to me.

I might also say that this same group of riotous artists were up in arms last spring when a stretch of wall that has long been a graffitti work spot was painted matte green by residents. The artists were beside themselves with indignation when a local resident camped out in a tree and assaulted two teens who started painting on the wall in the dead of night.

Frankly, I think the whole lot of them are a bunch of nuts.

Here's an amazing short film by BLU. It proves graffitti can be art.


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Her Morning Elegance

I was privileged enough to get to see a live showing of animator Nina Paley's "Sita Sings the Blues" last week and was watching it online today while doing other work (yes-multi-tasking). I was checking out her blog afterward and stumbled upon this awesome animation by Oren Lavie. The song is enchanting.

So, considering it's a yucky, rainy Monday, this should leave you with a smile.

Even a Grocery List... William S. Burroughs

Okay, first I'll say that the bulk of this post is not mine. It's snagged directly from the New Yorker. If you're going to quote, quote from the best I always say. I saw this while skimming through their blog this morning and thought it was bloody brilliant.

Yes-we're in the biggest recession since the Depression, but a book-lover and his money are still easily parted.

Now, on with the show.

"I’ve come to accept that, when an artist or a writer achieves a certain type of fame, anything he or she comes in contact with becomes extraordinarily valuable. Take, for example, the recent liquidation of Michael Jackson’s Neverland estate. Or this story about Picasso’s doodles on a napkin.

Of course, somewhere, a line must be drawn. And perhaps, for me, it’s the recent discovery that someone is trying to sell, for nearly five hundred dollars, the grocery lists of William S. Burroughs. The handwriting is guaranteed, by the seller, to be Burroughs’s, but even if that’s true, nothing in the requested inventory reveals anything interesting about him or his work. If anything, his need for items like plain buttermilk waffles, dry and wet cat food, and vodka is reassuring for any creative mind: even the wildest of writers can be mundane."

Post Script from Bookishredhead: I love that our grocery lists are so nearly identical. Mundane or not, everybody needs dry cat food and vodka on a Wednesday morning.

Happy Clouds at the Tate Modern

Okay, I'm a total cynic and this made even this cold heart smile. Happy, smiley face clouds drifting through the air near the Tate Modern on a cold winter day. Awww. Nice.

28-year-old, Artist, Stuart Semple, created round, smiley face clouds from a combination helium, soap and vegetable dye and unleashed them in the skies around London. The clouds were created by a modified "snow making" machine that is used in Hollywood. This is the first time its been used to create clouds, and the first time its been used in England.

Why did he do it? The artist said, "this was the most straight forward way I could think of to literally contribute something happy to the atmosphere."

Looks like it did. Lots of school children chased along after the wafting clouds before they were picked up by the wind and scooted out over the Thames. Overall Semple receieved a very positive response from Londoners.

Although the happy faces were short-lived – each of them lasting only around 30 minutes before dissipating – Mr Semple was pleased with his efforts.

He said: “At the moment it is a one off piece but I am thinking I could do it somewhere else – the potential is there to do it in other countries.

“I don’t see why we couldn’t spread the happy clouds around the world a bit.”

Bless his optimistic heart.

Dark is the Night- Best Valentine's Day Present Out There

I am celebrating Valentine's Day this year in a different way than usual. Okay, I'm single right now, so that has a lot to do with it, but even if I wasn't I am not really feeling pink hearts and rosebuds this year.

February 17th (okay its three days after VD but I have always liked odd numbers better anyway) Red Hot Charity, the same folks that brought us Red, Hot + Blue back in the day is releasing an awesome two-cd compilation. The list of artists is AWESOME.

Here are just a few:
Andrew Bird (just go ahead and buy it now that you know that)
My Brightest Diamond (did they create this especially for me?)
Bon Iver
Cat Power
Arcade Fire
Sufjan Stevens

Come on- even if this was it, it would be worth buying. If you want to see more about the album go to their site at: http://www.darkwasthenight.com/artists

If you need more encouragement, the money from the sale of the cd (its also available in vinyl for you hipster, old-school folks who can find needles for your players) goes to benefit HIV and AIDS research.

Here are a few tracks from the upcoming compilation. Enjoy. And buy.

Sometimes a Song is Just What's Needed

I had a crap day. I listened to this song and it brought back nice memories of two shows I saw earlier this year. Plus, Clare has a voice that makes you smile whether you want to or not. So, I'm passing it on to you.

The most rockin'ist cover song I've heard in a long time.

http://www.airmp3.net/search/-everybody_wants_to_rule_the_world/mp3/Xa4">everybody wants to rule the world songs
http://www.bresso.com/">Free mp3 download http://www.airmp3.net/">free music download

Good News in Dark Times

I was pretty darn thrilled to read a post from my friend Tom Bell of the Georgia Center for the Book today and I thought I'd share it.

"Since 1982, the National Endowment for the Arts has regularly been reporting stomach lurching drops in the rates of literary reading among Americans. In the last report, in 2002, well less than half of Americans reported reading even a single novel, short story or poem over the past year.

Good news today, though. For the first time since 1982, when the NEA started tracking, the rate of literary reading has increased. 50.2% of Americans reported reading at least one novel, story or poem in 2008, compared to 46.7% in 2002. It’s a small increase and still a dishearteningly low number, but at least we seem to be moving in the right direction. Hurray!"

Life is short and there are too many amazing books to read to just sit there watching TV, so snap off the tube and pick up a book. All the cool people are doing it. :)

The World Has Lost a Great Painter: Andrew Wyeth

The world lost a brilliant light in the art world today. Perhaps best known for his painting "Christina's World", a painting of a young woman named Christina Olson. The moving portrait shows a windblown field and Christina in the foreground. The inspiration for the painting purportedly had an undiagnosed muscular deterioration in her lower limbs which kept her from walking. Christina often dragged herself across the ground to pick flowers from her garden, which supposedly inspired the painting.

Wyeth was widely celebrated in and outside the art world. Awarded the Presidential Freedom Award by President John F. Kennedy, he was critically acclaimed since his first one-man show in 1937. His work portrayed America and the simple lives of the people he saw in every day life and the land they called home. Some of his most moving work, in my opinion, was of his neighbor 'Helga' a pale redhead who modeled for him for several years. The work is simply stunning.

I was privileged to see a show of his work several years ago, and while upon entering as a novice admirer of his work, I most certainly left a fan and admirer.

Wyeth, 91 passed away in his sleep on Thursday night at his home near Philadelphia.

Sleep well and be at peace. Thank you for the gifts you leave behind.

You Know Who You Are..

I love Post Secret. It reminds me that there are millions of us on the planet, and at one time or the other we generally experience the same kinds of feelings. This could have been my secret -even though its not all that secret.

Got a Carrivagio in Your Closet?

So you're cleaning out the box room one day and you stumble across a box of pictures you haven't seen in a while, a couple old yearbooks, some pants you thought you might be able to fit into again some day, maybe even your old prom dress. But, more likely than not, you're not going to stumble upon a painting that you've thought was a fake all these centuries, and which turns out to be a lost Carrivagio.

Queen Elizabeth did.

She has one of the world's greatest art collections, hundreds of Leonardo drawings, almost 30 Canalettos and paintings by Tintoretto, Vermeer, Holbein and Dürer. In 2006, the Queen acquired her first Caravaggio, worth £50 million or more if she could ever sell it.

The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew, owned by the Royal Family for almost 400 years, has lain unloved and seldom seen in a storeroom at Hampton Court for decades. Misattributed as a copy of a Caravaggio by an unknown hand, it was valued in thousands rather than millions.

The painting was bought by Charles I in 1637 and after being sold with most of the Royal Collection during the Commonwealth, it was re-acquired by Charles II.

Years of grime, varnishing and zealous over-painting to cover up damage convinced generations of art historians that it was of little merit. It was recently valued at "a few tens of thousands of pounds", mainly because Charles I's stamp was on the back.

The Queen cannot sell the work as she holds the Royal Collection in trust for the nation. But one expert said yesterday that the work, once accepted as genuine, could be worth £50 million or more.

The painting is taken from the scene in St Mark's Gospel where Christ, with Peter and Andrew while they are fishing at the Sea of Galilee, says to them: "Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men." Unusually, Christ is shown without a beard. The Royal Collection has dated it to between 1603 and 1606 when Caravaggio worked in Rome.

A notorious brawler, he fled in 1606 after killing a young man in a fight. He went to Naples and Malta but never returned to the Holy City, dying of a fever in 1610.

A copyist would have almost certainly drawn an outline of the picture he was copying on the canvas but cleaning, X-ray and infra-red investigation of the work revealed none. What they did show were incisions, made for the artist's guidance with the handle of a paintbrush, in the first layer of paint. This was a well-known feature of Caravaggio's technique. The removal of over-painting revealed brushwork that was stylistically consistent with other Caravaggio pictures.

The Queen's thoughts on the discovery are not known.

I Can't Justify the Cost of the Replica at the Metropolitan, but..

a girl can dream.

I'd be perfectly satisfied with one of the replica's that are available at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, but if I was in the market for a wonderful piece of art, there's one soon to be available at Sotheby's. British millionaire Sir John Madejski is sending his Tiny Dancer to the auction block at Sotheby's Impressionist art auction on February 3.

The bronze sculpture from Degas, Petite danseuse de quatorze ans, is one of Degas's most famous and popular works. The bronze cast is one of only a few remaining in private hands. It is estimated at £9 – 12 million.

Sir John Madejski is one of Britain's leading arts philanthropists and the sculpture was on display at the Royal Academy in London since 2004 when he bought this statue for £5 million at Sotheby's in London. Another version sold in 1999 for $12.4 million which is highest price paid for a Degas sculpture.

So, if you were wondering what to get me for my birthday - this would certainly be appreciated.

Saying Goodbye to a True Lady

I know its been a couple of weeks since her passing, but I couldn't not (incorrect grammar I know) mention the passing of the unbelievable Eartha Kitt.

I was priveledged to see her perform last year on her 80th birthday tour. It was nearly two hours of non-stop pedal to the floor entertainment. I went with a friend, and the whole time we both kept saying "she can't REALLY be 80 years old". I mean FLAWLESS.

The director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra told a story to introduce her. As he met her the afternoon of the performance for rehersal he asked if she had time to visit around town since her arrival. She glibly replied that she'd just gotten in as she'd been performing the night before at the Caryle, as she had performed consistantly for years.

Kitt was best known for her role as Batwoman, but it was far from her top achievement. She had a difficult and impoverished childhood in the country hills of South Carolina. Kitt worked hard to get to the top, but when she was a child, she had to fight prejudice within the African-American community because of her light skin color.

Eartha Kitt's career took a huge turn in 1968 after she was invited to a celebrity luncheon at the White House by Lady Bird Johnson, who asked Kitt about urban poverty. Kitt replied: "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. They rebel in the street. They don't want to go to school because they're going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam." The first lady reportedly burst into tears. She was investigated by the FBI and CIA. For years afterward, she was completely blackballed and performed almost exclusively overseas.

Unafraid of controversy, Kitt performed in South Africa in 1974. Heavily criticized, she responded by pointing out that she had managed to get two schools built there for black children. She had raised the money by selling autographs at department stores. Traveling around the country and performing in an integrated show, Kitt felt she did a little to weaken the apartheid system and raise awareness among South Africans of all colors.

In 1978 she was nominated for a Tony award for her starring performance in another Broadway show, Timbuktu. It was her first major performance in the U.S. in ten years. When the show opened in Washington, D.C., Kitt was invited to the White House, where President Carter met her, saying, "Welcome home, Eartha." The show was a success and ran for two and a half years.

She lived an amazing, powerful life and was an amazing, powerful woman. She will be greatly missed.

Read the Book: 5 Favorites of 2008

I'm a big fan of music blogs. Lord knows there are plenty of them. I like to stroll around the Internet during the business day from blog to blog listening to new music and discovering bands that I might not otherwise have ever encountered. Some of my absolute favorites of last year were found this way - My Brightest Diamond, Firewater, Mystery Jets..okay. I'll stop before I get on a roll.

I wonder if there are people who go book wandering as well? I don't really do it much, but maybe its because new authors and books are so totally in my face because I well- put my face there. In the spirit of the new year, here is a tiny smattering of the books I read in 2008 that, if you missed, you should pick up. They're well worth the read.

The Boy Detective Fails
Joe Meno
I picked this up on one of my trips out West. It's no Nabokov, but it's a wonderful little book and well worth the read.

From Publishers Weekly
Playing such mysteries as "The Case of the Brown Bunny" against the mysteries of mortality and mankind's capacity for evil, the latest from Meno (Bluebirds Used to Croon in the Choir) presents former child sleuth Billy Argo at 30, having just finished a 10-year stint in a mental hospital, where he was confined after his teenage sister Caroline's suicide. Unhappy, painfully shy and doped up on anti anxiety drugs, Billy arrives in New York City and is admitted to a psych halfway house. Haunted by the mystery of his sister's death and feeling that a lapse in his sleuthing may be to blame, Billy is determined to find out the reason for her suicide and to punish those responsible. He soon finds allies in two bright and unpopular children who live across the street, and clues to relevant past cases from lifelong arch-enemy Professor Von Golum (who happens to live across the hall). Not all the plot strands pan out, and the effect is more impressionistic than narrative (various codes strewn throughout have their own digressive pleasures). But the story of Billy's search for truth, love and redemption is surprising and absorbing. Swaddled in melancholy and gentle humor, it builds in power as the clues pile up.


Dangerous Laughter: 13 Stories
Steven Millhauser
Maybe its not right for me to write about this one, as I wrote an entire blog entry about it earlier in the year. I love Millhauser-and if you don't- you should. He's brilliant and engaging and always makes me smile. Just read it.

From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Jeff Turrentine
One reason why Steven Millhauser is consistently so much fun to read -- whether he's writing novels, such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Martin Dressler, or the short stories he clearly loves even more -- is that he has never forgotten what it was like to be an 11-year-old boy, fueled by curiosity and wonder, trying to make the banal world around him fit his comic-book image of how things should be. But for all of their boyish enthusiasms and fantastic, even gothic, trappings, Millhauser's novels and stories deal with decidedly complex themes. Among his favorites: the price of obsession, the folly of hubris and the inevitable collapse of best-laid plans under the weight of their designers' passion.

Now, with Dangerous Laughter, he has given us a collection of stories that explore these ideas with the mixture of dark suspense and good humor implied by the title. Everything one has come to want and expect in Millhauser's fiction is here -- spooky attics, fantastic inventions, artists driven mad, and ambitious enterprises that become overattenuated and impossible to sustain. The result is almost a Steven Millhauser primer, a much needed fix for fans who've been waiting since The King in the Tree (2003) and a perfect introduction for those unacquainted with his writing.

Nothing to Be Frightened Of
Julian Barnes
I enjoy Julian Barnes - most of the time -yes, there are moments when I've not so much loved a book of his. This one, I liked. Arthur & George-not so much. Anywhoo. If you have any qualms about your mortality, aging or death, read this book. It will comfort you. It will unsettle you, and overall you will be glad that you were let into the musings of this man.

From Publishers Weekly
In this virtuosic memoir, Barnes (Arthur & George) makes little mention of his personal or professional life, allowing his audience very limited ingress into his philosophical musings on mortality. But like Alice tumbling through the rabbit hole, readers will find themselves granted access to an unexpectedly large world, populated with Barnes's daily companions and his chosen ancestors (most of them dead, and quite a few of them French, like Jules Renard, Flaubert, Zola). This is not 'my autobiography,' Barnes emphasizes in this hilariously unsentimental portrait of his family and childhood. Part of what I'm doing—which may seem unnecessary—is trying to work out how dead they are. And in this exploration of what remains, the author sifts through unreliable memory to summon up how his ancestors—real and assumed—contemplated death and grappled with the perils and pleasures of pit-gazing. If Barnes's self-professed amateur philosophical rambling feels occasionally self-indulgent, his vivid description delights.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food
Jennifer 8 Lee
Over the Thanksgiving holiday I was privileged to attend a "One Pot" Meal in the Capital Hill, Seattle loft of a local chef. The balance of the event was perfect for me, literature, entertainment, wine and food. Perfect. Jennifer 8 Lee, whom bless her heart, had to rush to the airport to return to NYC directly after dinner, taught me enough things in a half hour that I didn't know about Chinese food that I was simply (okay a little drunk) astonished. The entire evening would have been a success were it not for the ass across the table who tried to woo everyone with his coolness factor of being the dude to discover "Iron & Wine" for Subpop. Who gives a flip. Am I digressing? I am. Trust me. You'll never think of Chinese food the same way again- and in a good way. Read it- read it- read it.

From The Washington Post
Christine Y. Chen )"[Lee] embeds her subject's history in an entertaining personal narrative, eschewing cookie-cutter interviews and dry lists of facts and figures . . . she has a breezy, likable literary demeanor that makes the first-person material engaging. Thanks to Lee's journalistic chops, the text moves along energetically even in its more expository sections . . . Tasty morsels delivered quickly and reliably.

The Ladies of the Corridor
Dorothy Parker & Anton d'Usseau
If you've spent even five minutes perusing my blog you know that I love Dorothy Parker. So, when I had the opportunity to snap up a long lost play you can imagine how long it took me to click on the Paypal option. The introduction by Marion Meade, one of Parker's best biographers, it was my favorite treat to myself all year. I can understand why this play might not rock the stages of Broadway- now, or when it was let loose in the 60s. But it peels back a time that absolutely was, a type of women who absolutely existed, and still do even if we don't want to admit it in the depths of our feminist (and you may find you are one once you read this play) hearts.