nyp’s 50 most loathsome new norkers
I have stated before that I am not particularly a fan of the New York Press. free weeklies in general just aren’t my cup of tea. If I want sex advice or political analysis from a bitter homosexual or a hyperactive, overeducated duke alumnus, I’ll just talk to someone I work with thanks very much. The one exception to this rule used to be the issue of NYP that contained their Annual ‘50 most loathsome New Yorkers’ which is pretty much the closest any magazine has gotten to emulating the original Spy magazine since, well, since the crappier fake Spy magazine relaunch. But now you don’t have to wade through adverts for hookers and what shitty nu-metal knock off band from jersey is playing Arlene’s Grocery to see it, because it’s online
I’m not an octopus, I’m a coconut!
Taken from slashdot, and thus as lazy a post as you’ll see, but this doth amuse me. octopi disguise themselves and walk on two ‘feet’ to sneak away from predators. Or maybe it’s carnaval down there. That makes sense. could be. when are they going to shoot video of an octo-stripper doing the ‘dance of the seven algae fronds’?
psychotic break! err, what i meant was… spring break
life has jostled me this week and demanded i start paying attention to a myriad of tasks it’s seen fit to clutter my life with. i’m busy, stressed, grumpy and as such i’m bad company. i think it’s necessary i take an official break from the site for at least a couple of weeks. i’m choosing to call it a “spring break” and though my silence might lead you to believe i am putting my feet up somewhere and drinking heavily i can assure you nothing would be further from the truth. i’ll be working, just somewhere else, having even less fun than usual. i might get a word in here and there, but then again, i might not. so, (sniff sniff parting is such sweet sorrow) see you all later.
urgency, risk, elegance: diagram
came across this intriguing web mag called diagram. have not not plumbed it’s depths yet (25 issues on line / lots to see) but i approve of it’s spirit. plus, i just love diagrams. from the site: we value: the insides of things, vivisection, urgency, risk, elegance, flamboyance, work that moves us, language that does something new, or does something old—well. We like iteration and reiteration. Ruins and ghosts. Mechanical, moving parts, balloons, and frenzy. we want: art and writing that demonstrates / interaction; the processes / of things, both inner and outer; how certain functions are accomplished; how things become. How they expire. How they move or churn, or stand. if anyone finds particularly interesting content within please share in comments.
the glass mountain & brain damage
“writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how…. the not-knowing is crucial to art, is what permits art to be made. without the scanning process engendered by not-knowing, without the possibility of having the mind move in unanticipated directions, there would be no invention…. the not-knowing is not simple, because it’s hedged about with prohibitions, roads that may not be taken.” -donald barthelme. here are two tiny excerpts, and two illustrations, from a 1970 printing of his short story collection city life for your afternoon delight.
the glass mountain
1. i was trying to climb the glass mountain.
2. the glass mountain stands at the corner of thirteenth street and eight avenue.
3. i had attained the lower slope.
4. people were looking up at me.
/ (skipping ahead)
33. i was new to the neighborhood yet i had accumulated acquaintances .
34. my acquaintances passed a brown bottle from hand to hand.
35. “better than a kick in the crotch.”
36. “better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.”
37. “better than a slap in the belly with a wet fish.”
38. “better than a thump on the back with a stone.”
39. “won’t he make a splash when he falls, now?”
40. “i hope to be here to see it. dip my handkerchief in the blood.”
41. “fart-faced fool.”
42. i unstuck my lefthand plumber’s friend leaving the right one in place.
43. and reached out.
44. to climb the glass mountain, one first requires a good reason.
45. no one ever climbed the mountain on behalf of science, or in search of celebrity, or because the mountain was a challenge.
46. those are not good reasons.
47. but good reasons exist.
48. at the top of the mountain there is a castle of pure gold, an din a room in the castle tower sits…
49. my acquaintances were shouting at me.
50. “ten bucks you bust your ass in the next four minutes!”
51. ...a beautiful enchanted symbol.
brain damage
...some people feel you should tell the truth, but those people are impious and wrong, and if you listen to what they say, you will be tragically unhappy all your life.
oh there’s brain damage in the east, and brain damage in the west, and upstairs there’s brain damage, and downstairs there’s brain damage, and in my lady’s parlor - brain damage. brain damage is widespread. apollinaire was a victim of brain damage - you remember the photograph, the bandage on his head, and the poems… bonnie and clyde suffered brain damage in the last four minutes of the picture. there’s brain damage on the horizon, a great big blubbery cloud of it coming this way-
and you can hide under the bed but brain damage is under the bed, and you can hide in th euniversities but they are the very seat and soul of brain damage - brain damage caused by bears who put your head in their foaming jaws while you are singing “masters of war”... brain damage caused by the sleeping revolution which no one can wake up… brain damage caused by art. i could describe it better if i weren’t afflicted with it…
this is the country of brain damage, this is the map of brain damage, and see, lighted-up places are the airports of brain damage, where damaged pilots land big, damaged ships.
the immaculate conception triggered a lot of brain damage at one time, but no longer does so. a team of lippizaners has just published an autobiography. is that any reason to accuse them of you-know-what? and i saw a girl walking down the street, she was singing “me and my winstons.” and i began singing it too, and that protected us, for a moment, from the terrible thing that might have happened…
and there is brain damage in arizona, and brain damage in maine, and little towns in idaho are in the grip of it, and my blue heaven is black with it, brain damage covering everything like an unbreakable lease-
skiing along the soft surface of brain damage, never to sink, because we don’t understand the danger-
more from/about donald bartheleme:
selections from his writings via coldbacon.
a list of his works.
full texts and further links.
and finally a short bio.
that’s all.
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13 things that do not make sense
nice article at new scientist noting a few of the things we just don’t understand, titled: 13 things that do not make sense. i’m sure this list could have just as easily been called 13,000,000 things that do not make sense, but that would have been a long article indeed. the 13 things they choose to highlight are as follows: 1 the placebo effect. 2 the horizon problem. 3 ultra-energetic cosmic rays. 4 belfast homeopathy results. 5 dark matter. 6 viking’s methane. 7 tetraneutrons. 8 the pioneer anomaly. 9 dark energy. 10 the kuiper cliff. 11 the wow signal. 12 not-so-constant constants. and 13 cold fusion.
frailty, thy name is blog
of late the questions have come with an uncomfortable urgency. why? what’s the point? who gives a shit? the answers are predictably reactionary. a waste of time! a mistake! could be doing more important things! yes folks, that’s right, it’s another blog-life crisis. these are different from their counterpart in a human life, the mid-life crisis, mainly because a blog’s life span is indeterminate, and so a blog-life crisis must present itself more frequently as not to miss it’s mark. another difference: sink or swim i have no intention of growing a pony tail. so if doubt is a storm cloud, turbulent and whirling, and misgivings / angst / regret / disappointment are the bits of grime at the center of each fattening rain drop, then consider this post an engineered afternoon storm seeded in the hopes of hastening a return to clear skies.
the mystery of shadow boxin:
as an artist, if you’re lucky, you learn an important fact early on: you create for no one but yourself. may sound obvious but in practice it’s anything but. i’ll repeat it: you create for no one but yourself. by this, of course, i mean you create for your own pleasure, to satisfy you’re own drives, to bring meaning to your own impulses, to celebrate your own existence, to solidify in some way your own fluid perception and wobbly consciousness.
as a child you being creating without much notion as to why. most people, in retrospect, say something along the lines of “i just had to (past perfect tense verb form of particular creative process here).” and it’s as close to the truth as we are able to come. along the way this fact becomes clouded in notions of ambition, success, audience, money, fashion, and fame. it’s the easiest thing in the world to simply forget why it is you do what you do. so it bears repeating yet again: you create for no one but yourself. i can hear objections pouring through the fiber optics but let me just say this, it’s not cynical and negative, it’s a source of strength. much like the adage “in the end you die alone” at bottom you create alone. i am flexible on most counts when it comes to explanations of the ephemeral, but not on this point. this i believe. it’s the kind of belief that just begs to be proved wrong, because in the worst of times it is of no comfort, but i still believe it.
the interesting thing about this fact, and the point which brings me back to the blog-life crisis, is it’s slipperiness. in some way’s it’s the antithesis of “riding a bicycle.” not only does it constantly want to escape your mind, but, strangely, seems also to be nontransferable across disciplines. why is that? is each new project an naive escape attempt? is creating art exactly like living? an endless quest to connect, to get beyond the cramped confines of our mercilessly separate minds? in any case i’ve found that with each new endeavor, each new project, each foray into a new medium, the facts must be learned again, the hard way, through experience. in this case, why exactly am i maintaining a website?
manufacturing purpose:
as with every human endeavor from grandest (life itself) to most banal (ponderous / turgid blogging) all probing and inspection can be reduced to a single, largely unanswerable, question: what is the purpose?
i’ve been asking myself that for a while now with regard to the nonist. what is it’s purpose? unfortunately i can not settle upon a satisfactory answer. in that the site is only a little over two years old i have not forgotten it’s impetus, which much like the child’s unselfconscious art, was undertaken out of a gripping curiosity, a need. but that is not a purpose. i remember my specific hopes. wanting to have excuse to write more, wanting a place to exchange ideas, to discuss matters both abstract and at hand, wanting to form a community. throughout the site’s life span these have been realized to varying degrees. as a matter of course these hopes shift and evolve, but even so, hopes are not exactly purpose either.
i work under the supposition that in order to discern a purpose one must look not to what a thing hoped to be but what a thing, in fact,
is. so what is the nonist? ask me some days and i’ll say “it’s a vast, time destroying, vortex which has commandeered my life.” other days i’ll say “oh, it’s a site filled with all kinds of goodies, i’m proud of it” and happily offer the url. most times, like now, i just have to shrug and say “i really don’t know.” this uncertainty leaves me with the annoying task of needing to manufacture some sort of purpose.
i’m a purpose addict you see. time is my enemy and i must make use of it in as productive a manner as possible. once all the nebulous outer mass is removed from a blog, the links out, the links back, the comments, the referrers, the technorati cosmos, the traffic reports, the embryonic community, what is left in the center? it is here i’m forced to remind myself “you create for no one but yourself.” the nonist then must necessarily be grouped with my other artistic endeavors and filed accordingly. the problem with this is simple, it forces a comparison. how does this particular endeavor stack up against the others i choose to while away my short time with? the jury is still out on that particular verdict. but one piece of circumstantial evidence is unavoidably on the table, i don’t paint as much as i once did, i don’t take as many photographs, i don’t do as much physical art of any kind. rebuttal from the defense? (...crickets…)
you may have noticed i’m not selling anything. i’m not offering a specific service. i’m not probing a specific subject nor am i filling a specific niche. blogging is not my career. coding not my strength. administration is not my first love. so again the question: what is the purpose?
fast, cheap, and i don’t know what:
when jason kottke recently announced that he was quitting his job to blog full time and instituted a “micro-patronage” system what interested me about the story was his stance on blogging in general; his vision of blogging as a form valuable in and of itself. evidently he was in the midst of a blog-life crisis of his own but ultimately decided that his site, rather than his other projects, was the source of his pleasure and satisfaction. hence: full time blogger. his adoption of a patronage system to fund his blogging obviously recalls the storied and romanticized past of art. in a way the very name micro-patron, by association, lends credence to his idea of blog as valuable form. i emailed him at the time to tell his as much (and mentioned my fear of his touching off a hobo blogger movement) but i remain skeptical to spite myself.
i’ve always been slightly suspicious of digital art forms. it goes back to my art school days. digital art was not quite as wide spread then and the prevailing attitude among fine artists i knew was one of distrust. it felt disingenuous, like cheating somehow. use of the dreaded / coveted projector times ten. though i’ve gone on to do a fair share of digital art myself, some of that distrust still remains for me. i have a hard time estimating its weight and its worth. remnants of this distrust still linger in my photography which takes as badge the utter lack of digital manipulation, set up, re-shoots, re-touching, anything. it’s my nod i suppose to old notions of purity. the same nagging distrust goes for blogs as well. i have a hard time viewing them as anything other than hobbies, distractions, entertainment on par with television, etc. but then do the notions of high and low art even have any meaning today? are artistic pursuits anything other than distractions meant to get us, the artists, through the days?
in kottke’s case the move is a no brainer. the same drive that has fine artists wanting to throw off the yoke of wage slavery in order to create all day has jason devoting himself to blogging. but he is a special case because such a move is actually a possibility for him. i, for one, am not sure blogging alone would fulfill my creative needs even if such a move were viable. is his plea for patronage a real vote of confidence for blogs as an emerging form in and of themselves, or is it a slightly disingenuous move to attain the highly prized role of non-working stiff? i don’t know. would i reject the chance to essentially be my own robe draped, bare footed, meta-linking boss? hell no! but there is something just so damned impermanent about digital art forms, let alone digital journalling…
an impermanence by any other name:
in the past few months i’ve made what might be the mistake of seeing a whole slew of art documentaries. sculptors, architects, old masters, modernist painters, etc, the result of which is a childish longing for some kind of permanence. a desire to abandon all this intangible digital noodling and get the old hands dirty. create something physical. to quote paul mccartney, “get back to where you once belonged.” i perceive permanence on a sliding scale with sculptors and architects at the top and all forms of digital content at the very bottom. i need only look to my piles of dusty syquests and jazz disks to be reminded of where all the hard work can end up. but then as friends are quick to remind me it’s all impermanent in the long run, every last bit of it, nothing excepted. and they are right, of course, it is. and yet there is a satisfaction in laboring through a painting that no amount of digital tomfoolery can attain. stack 778 blog entries on their sides, throw in a portfolio’s worth of digital illustrations, and the whole mess doesn’t weigh as much as a set of bare stretcher bars.
if i ignore that particular feeling and assume all impermanence is equal, then what makes them different in detail? best i can tell it boils down to this: creating physical art leaves you with an object but guarantees no audience. creating a websites offer you an audience but guarantee no substance. if in fact as i believe “you create for no one but yourself” then one method seems much more straight forward and to the purpose wouldn’t you say? but then their is this to consider: i love the nonist somehow. why? to what purpose? i can’t say. is it a vast off-white and orange self portrait? i hope not. is it self absorption manifest? i certainly don’t want it to be. is it art? no fucking way.
and what have all these words accomplished? as with so many blog posts, here and elsewhere, nothing.
as time goes by:
an interesting fact about blogging- a blog is like a child. your own child. you pass your dna on to it. it has your strengths and your weaknesses. i’ve found that all the over analyzing i do in regards to my own function and purpose, i now do to the the nonist as well. i worry about it. i am disappointed by it. i admire it from across the room. the site is often depressive like it’s father. also as it gets older, as possibilities narrow each day and it becomes itself, i find it harder to control. as it has grown and brought in more readers i have had a harder time with it. a harder time understanding it. a harder time guiding it. i’ve always wanted it to strike out on its own, but it remains the strange, uncommunicative child who lives in the basement, drawing it’s allowance but rarely confiding in me.
as time goes by i’ve found discussion, involvement, meeting strangers… simply put, community, is what i value most about the site. i’m not interested in the “audience,” the passive onlookers mumbling to themselves as they mill about drinking the free wine. as time goes on participation is the element which keeps me interested. the folks who come here and speak, get involved, they are the source of pleasure for me. years of doing art in a vacuum have cured me of the pathological need for an audience. those same years in a vacuum though have fostered a desire for community. it’s a weakness i suppose, but there it is. the truth. if art is done for me alone, and a blog is not art, then it must have a different operating principle. and it must! because i certainly don’t see any value anymore in maintaining this sort of thing for no one but myself.
so there’s the source of the angst i suppose. trying to achieve that goal is slow going and uncertain and patience has never been my strong suit.
if you’ve read this far:
then kudos to you. you’re more patient or have more free time than most. i thank you for putting up with these meandering, low-energy, outbursts which occur here occasionally. it’s just that i’m conflicted about this site more than usual of late and need to work it out. i find myself wishing the site didn’t exist. wishing i weren’t so prideful as to keep it going just out of spite. wishing no one read the site at all so i could just update once a century. wishing it were better and brought people forth from the anonymous crevasses of the web to do more than look. wishing i had two lives to accomplish everything i’d like to. wishing i could paint and shoot and blog at the same time. wishing i lived in a shack on a mountain and never heard of the internet. wishing that my efforts to reach out were more successful. wishing any number of silly thing really.
in the end i just don’t know if i can rationalize maintaining the nonist as it is now. perhaps i’ll make some changes. perhaps i’ll cram the site so full of ads i won’t need to create content anymore. perhaps i’ll just shut the thing down, wipe it clean, remove any trace. perhaps i’ll let it sit here and rot, a trackback and comment spam infested corpse. perhaps i’ll finally re-learn the “do it for yourself” lesson in this new sphere and rationalize a good reason to continue. not sure. i guess in the end i just don’t know what the hell blogging is for or where it’s supposed to fit in a life. i enjoy it by and large but it sure does sap the vital essence of a guy.
to everyone who reads and/or contributes i just want to take a second to thank you. when i’m not despising this site with every fiber of my being i’m enjoying it thoroughly. hopefully tomorrow, or later today, i’ll resume blogging on the sunny side of the street, another blog-life crisis averted. best to all!
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let’s mock the dj.
One night back in 1999 myself, Jaime (better known as the ineffable and unknowable jmorrison to readers of this site), and sometime commenter and poster at the nonist James Rizzi, went to what was then our local watering hole, the now venerable, but then newly minted, Enid’s in Greenpoint; The original proto-hipster bar in a sea of polish owned and operated shitholes who would sooner slit our throats than serve us. Enid’s one drawback, in our minds, was the quality of their DJ’s. They always seemed to be some lanky, music-nerd, douchebag, with a stupid name who would play the most godawful shite for 3 hour blocks before giving it over to the next skinny jerk who would continue the trend of playing terrible music almost indistinguishable from his predecessor both in appearance and in choice of a playlist.
Usually what we did at enids (besides drink obviously) was draw on cocktail napkins or in my sketchbook, however, on this night we started making a list of the worst and/or funniest DJ names we could come up with. This went on for the entire evening. At one point we were joined by Brooklyn’s own ms. lola belle who also began to contribute names to the list and who was, after several drinks, perhaps trying to get one of our triumvirate to go home with her that night (or who was perhaps just flirting via made up DJ names). this changed the dynamic of the list considerably as one of our trio disliked her intensely, one of us (perhaps the object of her woo even) had a girlfriend and was trying to play it straight, and one of us was just pathetically, intensely, jealous because someone else was getting attention from a hot girl. What started as a lark, a way to pass the time, became a 4 way window into our feelings, desires, ambitions, and failings which, in retrospect, is pretty pathetically transparent. So join me if you will for this little snapshot of a group of problem drinkers in their mid twenties trying to pass the time on a Saturday night. See if you can figure out when the whole thing went south.
Dj mad deep crates
Dj obscure closet
Dj hank swank
dj buttertoast
dj anti-victim device
dj grape lick-em stick
dj eyes that’s in back of us
dj propsicle
dj cock block
dj kimusabe
dj nell carter
dj ozzy’s thong
dj elephant shades
dj lack luster
dj lola’s self esteem
dj stone drag
dj gary
dj social life
dj ben dover
dj it was the best of times it was the worst of times
dj I’ve seen the greatest minds of my generation
dj barbaric yawp
dj colostomy bag
dj chopped ’67 impala
dj buddy system
dj rogaine
dj genius of the crowd
dj poetic liscence (sic)
dj slow boat to china
dj snuggles
dj skin deep
dj good intentions
dj mah dead homies
dj what the Christ
dj like me
dj two in the bush
dj tossed salad
dj social posture
dj black like me
dj good touches, bad touches
dj tortellini
dj madd pee pee
dj horatio sanz
dj eddy mercury
dj hiccup
dj fucking terrible
dj vanity mirror
dj dick in your mouth
dj hit it or quit it
dj Hitler
dj zyklon b
dj schadenfreude
dj damp panties
dj bring on the free hooch
dj obtrusive bassline
dj redtag cargo pants
dj Brooklyn
dj bel biv devoe
dj heterosexuality
dj milosovich
dj paper chase
dj plausible
dj perturbed
dj hai karate
dj what the fuck are we paying you for
dj lord of the dance
dj cum guzzler
dj white devil
dj wipe that stupid look off your face
dj buy back
dj effort
dj good music
dj cum a lot
dj dick holster
dj banana hammock
dj homoerotic
dj diddling your little sister
dj adolescent male power fantasy
dj panty sniffer
dj insulting the listener
dj part-time
dj james and tom are dicks
dj plastic leather jacket
dj beer goggles
dj tomorrow never comes
dj if it smells like fish, eat it
dj introvert
dj
dj ‘I’m an artist’
dj I wanna fuck the girl in the tight pink sweater
dj I may not look like much now, but wait ‘til I start nautilus
dj punk as fuck
dj here comes the sun
dj electric avenue
dj james and Jaime can go fuck themselves
dj stepped in shit
dj my mom thinks i’m handsome
dj promisciuous (sic)
dj anal Asians 7
dj ill fuck anything that moves
dj tea bag
dj tkup (that means tit-kick uterus-punch by the way)
dj wears white after November first
dj move over nigga
dj that guy, him.
Dj asti spumante
Dj bad pick-up line
Dj derivative
Dj smurf the smurf out of you
Dj I thought I would find you here
Dj in it for the women
Dj functionally retarded
Dj sensitive
Dj stinkhole
Dj my posse’s on broadway
Dj magnificent sideburns
Dj chewing on broken glass
Dj sexually boring
Dj my dicks bigger than yours
Dj I wouldn’t fuck you with someone else’s dick
Dj your mom’s all up in my business
Dj fork in the jugular
Dj i’m horny but ive got a girlfriend
Dj infidelity
Dj golden calf
Dj jesus was a pussy
Dj licks the clit a lot
Dj emancipation proclamation
Dj no taxation without representation
Dj parking the pink corvette in a sidestreet
Dj noam chomsky’s psychaiatrist (sic)
Dj sharp poke in the adams apple
Dj hot flashes
Dj kick in the bicuspid
Dj colon chameleon
Dj pee standing up
Dj sexually and emotionally unsatisfied
Dj you dropped your ice cream
Dj your daddy’s on welfare
Dj I broke up with both my boyfriends
Dj sexual deviant
Dj not in my America
Dj buzzkill
Dj denied
Dj just waiting for my social betters
Dj the bigger, better deal
Dj yoko ono
Dj unlocked public restroom
Dj superiority complex
Dj half a mile from the county fair
Dj high expectations
Dj nostril flare
Dj warm to the touch
Dj its on
Dj ‘fuck you bitch’ and kept going
Dj the grass is always greener
Dj let me hear you snap your gum
Dj slummin’ it
Dj “don’t do evil”
Dj happy-go-lucky
Dj fugheddabout it
Dj allright at least you wont be alone tonight
Dj coke off your stomach
Dj please god don’t let me die alone
Dj righteous squaredance
Dj this guy givin you a hardtime?
Dj sleep alone tonight
Dj getting high by myself
Dj buy me a pack of gum and ill show you how to chew it
Dj nell carter needs another break
Dj astrology bullshit
Dj no more tears
Dj we shall overcome
Dj in dire need
Dj backupped
Dj feel my forehead for fever
Dj non practicing male
Dj blind to opportunities
Dj tough room
Dj I expected more
Dj blind as a bat
Dj dumb as a stump
Dj passing notes in class
Dj you could do worse
Dj gods love we deliver
Dj shooting blanks dot com
Dj uh..
Dj irony is for pussies
Dj inhibitions
Dj easy
Dj why can’t we be friends
Dj while the cats away
Dj more information than I needed to know
Dj stumbling home
Dj drunk as fuck
Dj my cock is always sober
Dj equal opportunity seducer
Dj naked girls are fun
Dj sportfucking
Dj throw back the small fish
Dj your best offer
Dj tonights the night
Dj plead the fifth
Dj hardup
Dj it only takes one good line
Dj beteljuice
Dj there’s no going back
Dj silver spoon. Paper plate.
Dj alfonso rib-eye steak
Dj drawing in a foggy window
Dj my wallet is my life
Dj it hurts so good
Dj Gloria. Gloria. I think I want your number.
Dj don’t you fukkin look at me
Dj it hurts so good
Dj hell is for children
Dj sex as a weapon
Dj get a job
Dj sucking cock at the pier
Dj spellcheck
Dj give me free-shit or I’ll go home
Dj the cheese stands alone
Dj that’s two hours of my life that’s never coming back
Dj sloppy drunk
Dj feigning indifference
Dj laconic
Dj 650 on my verbal S.A.T.S
Dj lack of potential
Dj give me liberty or give me death
Dj long winded bastard
Dj I don’t have anything better to do
Dj bounce to the ounce
Dj live by the sword live a good long time
Dj parkinson’s disease
Dj moony-eyed
Dj table talk
*note: any resemblance to any DJ either living or dead is purely coincidental. also, if you happen to be a DJ whether you have one of these names or not, for christs sake take off those ridiculous pants and go get a job or go back to grad school or something.
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case 98
continuing in our series of transcribed case studies from psychopathia sexualis, the time capsule for sexual proclivities of times past, we offer you case 98. in pervious installments we’ve brought you tales of anatomical wishful thinking (see case 88) and a slightly overzealous love of flora (see case 123). today we bring you a case which by today’s standards hardly seems deviant at all, more like fodder for a sit com. Marital bliss… with a tiny catch.
a lady told dr. gemy that on her wedding night and the night that followed, her husband contented himself with kissing her, and running his fingers through her wealth of tresses. he then fell asleep. on the third night, mr. x. produced an immense wig, with abundant long hair, and begged his wife to put it on. as soon as she had done so, he richly compensated her for his neglected marital duties. in the morning he again showed extreme tenderness while he caressed the wig. when mrs x. removed the wig, she at once lost all charm to her husband. mrs x. recognized this as a hobby, and readily yielded to the wishes of her husband, whom she loved dearly, and whose libido depended upon the wearing of the wig. it was remarkable, however, that a particular wig had the desired effect for only a fortnight or three weeks time. it had to be made of thick, long hair, but its color was unimportant.
the result of this marriage, after five years, was two children and a collection of seventy two wigs.
bonus: case 99
x., aged twenty, inverted sexually. only loved men with large bushy mustaches. one day he met a man who was his ideal. he invited him to his home, but was unspeakably disappointed when the man removed an artificial mustache. only when the visitor returned the ornament to his upper lip did he exercise his charm over x. once more and restored x. to complete virility.
ah yes, those dreaded artificial mustaches! x must have been pissed. but then, if an artificial mustache was good enough to fool his “sexually inverted” senses, why didn’t he just carry a nice one around in his pocket for use with the bald faced among him (b.y.o.m.) kind of like wig obsessed mr. x above? hell, why not buy an artificial mustache factory and get to work tom selleck-ing the world? crazy bastards, us humans.
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renaissance palettes
came across this article about the methods which were employed in creating those stunning pigments which have managed to still dazzle 500 years after their application. an art historian happened upon an ancient inventory from a venetian seller of artists’ pigments which shed some light on practices which have been essentially lost to time. quote: “this inventory of artists’ materials could hold the answer to a question that had long vexed conservation scientists- how did venetian renaissance painters create the strong, clear, and bright colors that make objects and figures in their paintings appear to glow?” it’s interesting because back when art was still considered a “trade” artist’s methods were appropriately guarded as trade secrets. the main secret laid bare thus far? glass.
film in flux
the superlative ubuweb has made a group of 37 short fluxus films from 1962-1970 available online in quicktime format. i for one am not exactly a fan of fluxus as a movement. it seems, in my far from scholarly view, that it is in fact a perfect model for what not to do as an artist. namely: claim to reject “limiting art theories” then explain your position by putting forth wordy, convoluted, and vague theories of your own. add to this one of they key components of the movement, the rejection of “pure aesthetic objectives” and what does that ultimately leave you with after the “aktions” are over? 40 years worth of words i guess.
this is not to say that the movement, or the individuals who took up the fluxus banner, were not important in context. though not exactly a roll call of giants the fluxus movement does call some heavies it’s own (beuys being the most revered, yoko ono probably the most visible). it’s just that intellectual circle jerks do nothing for me. worse, the movements that rise from the ashes of pervious movements, lacking the contextual fire which animated the original, continue to plod through the artistic landscape like the conceptual un-dead. but like i said, i’m no scholar, this is my gut reaction. be that as it may i still trust my gut more than 40 years worth of literature trying to convince my mind otherwise.
from text on fluxus, by ben vautier. 1979
Fluxus is the “event” according to George Brecht:
putting the flower vase on the piano.
Fluxus is the action of life/music: sending for a tango
expert in order to be able to dance on stage.
Fluxus is the creation of a relationship between life and art,
Fluxus is gag, pleasure and shock,
Fluxus is an attitude towards art, towards the non-art of anti-art, towards the negation of one’s ego,
Fluxus is the major part of the education as to John Cage, Dadaism and Zen,
Fluxus is light and has a sense of humor.
in my estimation fluxus in these terms sounds suspiciously like the experience of simply having a creative consciousness. seeing the surprising poetry in everyday life and seeking to celebrate it. an innate sense. a natural phenomena present in varying shades in every artists mind. in which case, naming it, claiming it, explaining it, is all totally unnecessary.
my view may be the result of a simple misunderstanding however. george brecht has this to say about fluxus:
The misunderstandings have seemed to come from comparing Fluxus with movements or groups whose individuals ‘have had some principle in common, or an agreed-upon program. In Fluxus there has never been any attempt to agree on aims or methods; individuals with something unnameable in common have simply naturally coalesced to publish and perform their work. Perhaps this common something is a feeling that the bounds of art are much wider than they have conventionally seemed, or that art and certain long-established bounds are no longer very useful. At any rate, individuals in Europe, the US, and Japan have discovered each other’s work and found it nourishing (or something) and have grown objects and events which are original, and often uncategorizable, in a strange new way.”
so perhaps the whole idea of naming “individuals with something unnameable in common” can be chalked up to human weakness. the need to belong. the need to react against that which comes before or moves along side. the need to justify. perhaps the desire to convert or even conquer? i say “weakness” because by and large movements striving at ideals of freedom, openness, liberation, are not well served by their own codification. i’d think that was obvious. or perhaps the problem stems more simply from history. from history’s need to categorize. perhaps fluxus, beautiful in it’s intimate moments, when it was an innocent young creature with dewey lips and soft skin, changed once history grabbed hold of it and began the rough process of fitting it into a square hole. i don’t know.
in any case though my girlfriend sometimes refers to me as “the rejector” (pronounced as a super villian’s name might be) it was not my intention to critique fluxus. i am only qualified to try and understand it. i admire some of the work which came from it’s belly. i admire some of the ideas which serve as marrow to it’s skeleton. i just don’t respond well to isms, as you may have guessed by now. and unfortunately, in that fluxus spurned “pure aesthetic objectives” there isn’t that much of it which shines for me outside of it’s original context. but hey, being in the moment was part of the point. i can’t help it if that moment was 40 years ago.
the films are certainly of historical interest for any artist. they are like ultrasound images showing the pea sized embryo of the video art which emerged from it’s gallery-housed puberty only in the last decade. for more related flux check out ubuweb’s fluxus anthology which focusses on the audio aspects of the movement. for further reading try something about fluxus by george brecht, text on fluxux by ben vautier, a childs history of fluxus by dick higgins as well as his statement on intermedia. and hell while your at it why not check out some fluxus flags. oh and thanks to pcl for unintentionally sending me down this road this morning.
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If you’ve got a printer… and lots of time
Card Models are wee airplanes and ships and buildings and buses and whatnot. They aren’t made from plastic, though. You download images somebody created with CAD software and cut out all the parts, then paste them together. Then, most important of all, you don’t leave them in the window where your cat likes to sleep. He will surely sit on them, and you will weep, and gnash your teeth, like the sad wretch you are. But I digress. There are far more card models out there than you will ever have the time to build, and this list is but the tip of the googleberg. I find some of them amusing, for example: ” The Lint Hotel in Cologne has a model of their building.” ironically, you do not build it out of lint, or cologne. Many links are dead, but from a list this massive, that is no surprise.
diversions are dead! long live diversions
well, i think i may have earned myself one of the nifty copy left pins (pictured) yesterday. i was having a hard time accomplishing anything so used the casual competition over at orphan army as a diversion from more pressing matters. evidently when the copyleft / creative commies thing flared up a while back patrick had wm. spear design whip up a batch of these enamel flags. patrick was feeling guilty that they didn’t sell like hotcackes so decided to give some away. he requested visual mashups incorporating the copyleft flag design. i did a bit of photoshop tomfoolery and hey presto chango-
well the rules were you had to be one of the first 30 to claim a pin, which i was not, but patrick was kind enough to offer me one on effort. so thanks pat!
in related news, which is to say in another instance of my evading ongoing projects to engage in some digital goofing off, a week back i saw that mrdantefontana over at pcl linkdump was doing a redesign. his aesthetic reminded me of an even older bit of digital manipulation i’d done way back of two platonic, fifties, nuclear family type folks, a guy and a gal. he’s showing off the soles of his shoes and the crap he just stepped in, she’s showing off her handbag which is splotched with bird shit. they are very pleased. anyhow i adapted it for pcl and sent it, on a lark, to mrdantefontana, a.k.a. sebastian. he dug it and decided to put it in pcl’s sidebar… where, boys and girls, it resides to this day. awwww. anyhow here it is:
alright, i have resigned myself to stop goofing off and get back to the matters at hand, that damned nonist activity book (which i very nearly gave up on 8 pages in, for spite, after mistakingly saving over the best illustration i’d done for it), other goodies for the soon to exist downloads section, the cryptograffiti project, my upcoming photo show this spring ($hit! fu¢k!), and, of course, the little matter of actually posting cogent, interesting, worth your time things here on the site… phew. lots to do! ok, back to work.
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an ode to naked type
whilst sorting through piles most high i had a visitation. the earthly remains of a long forgotten loved one brought before my naked eyes, bones, but made so animated by the rush of memories as to seem a phantasm! i trembled. i gasped. i was about to call out “no!” when hamlet’s well known words came to my lips: angels and ministers of grace defend us! be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d, bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, be thy intents wicked or charitable, thou comest in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee: I’ll call thee dry transfer lettering! i’ll call thee prestype! i’ll call thee letraset!
yes that’s right. i said it. dry transfer lettering. once covetted, hoarded, beloved, but now in 2005… forgotten. the computer, like digital hemlock, saw to that. when i was in college the computer was still more a tool than the all encompassing toolbox it has become. i was right on the dividing line. could still resist it and turn in hand done design projects. in point of fact though i did use the mac, photoshop, etc, and toted around massive syquest discs, i really didn’t become fluent in “design digitalis” until after i’d graduated and weaseled my way into the workplace. before then one of my most beloved resources was my stack of dry transfer lettering. letraset. c-thru. prestype. chartpak. does anyone even remember them anymore?
evidently letraset introduced dry transfer lettering in 1961 instantly revolutionizing type use. democratizing it. suddenly lettering could be done quickly and easily by anyone. i’ve seen it said that it’s introduction was one of the touchstones for what we all consider a classic period in typography. quote: ” the quick success of dry transfer lettering led to a sense of fun in type face design, creating special effects through distortion and trickery, by cutting or tearing type to produce sci-fi effects, shivering typefaces like Alaska, Arthritis, Narcotic etc . Rules about the relationship between type and image were challenged, conventions about using or not using certain kinds of typefaces were abandoned. Fantastic design break throughs were promoted through the cinema with classics such as the credits for the James Bond series.” i for one loved it. the sheets were printed in such a way that every piece of information on a sheet, including the company logo, the guides, hairlines, and the copyright information were usable, and i used them all. my now beloved macintosh helped doom rub on type after 25 years or so. it’s still out there, used in model building, miniatures, and the like. information on it’s history and it’s ongoing slide into dustbin of design is scarce though.
consider this then a metaphoric pouring out of “a 40 on the ground for my bruthas that ain’t around.” perhaps one day after the nuclear or biological armageddon which surely awaits us has passed, and after we’ve seen to the rebuilding of little things like shelter, medicine, our food supply, etc, dry transfer lettering might once again rise to greater glory? perhaps… but in the meantime, here are a few humble images by way of memorial (click each for full image). cue the bruce banner music…
ode to naked type
(after the first stanza of ode to a naked beauty by pablo neruda)
with burnisher, and squinting
eyes
I celebrate you, my beauty,
restraining my hand
so that the line
surges and follows
your contour,
and you embed yourself in my page,
as in a paul rand, or saul bass:
an ounce of glaser’s class,
or chwast’s music.
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reprint: lives of the saints
i’ve decided that now and again i’d like to “reprint” old posts, things so buried in the archives they’ll likely never see the light of day again unless dragged out. perfect for a wednesday in my frazzled estimation! this particular reprint is actually 3 posts from back when the nonist was a dizygotic zygote, separated into two fraternal blogs, zeitgeist and philology. lives of the saints was an ongoing micro fiction project focussing on the sometimes trying intimate moments between couples. i’d like to continue with the project but want to drag the beginnings back into the light first. commencing reprints:
lives of the saints (1)
“who loves you?”
it’s a rhetorical question, sounding like baby talk no matter how flat and even a voice it was spoken in. they went through this routine with the timing and practiced nuance of an abbot and costello.
“my mom.” he answers.
“no not your mom.”
“but my mom does too love me.”
as repetitive as this dialogue had become after 10 years, hearing the words “does too” spoken by a man of 40 still seemed to amuse them both. it was warm and uncomplicated. qualities the outside world could be very stingy with.
“but who else loves you?” she asks in a sing song.
why she always initiated this exchange after she had removed her bra, but before her panties, he never knew. maybe to distract him with those perfect brown nipples, to put a carrot at the end of the stick?
“god”
“yes god loves you, but that’s not who i’m thinking of. who else?”
it was at this point that he would inject a variable, a constantly changing response to keep the mating ritual fresh. he imagined the quality of his answer would influence the quality of the lovemaking to come. a particularly clever reply might result in something special, something out of the ordinary.
“um…”
once he’d answered “my mother-in-law” and had gotten a decidedly disinterested hand-job as reward, so now he thinks it over striking upon an answer that surprises even him for it’s simplicity. “why has it taken ten years for this answer?” he thinks to himself. she peels his socks off and holds them aloft by two fingers like a dirty pamper. she is beautiful, his wife of 7 years. she pokes at his blue/white thigh.
“c’mon, who loves you?”
he waits; watches her thin hands as they unclasp his belt buckle. he grins and she knows he has a good one, she knows tonight’s is a command performance. she’s laughing almost before he answers.
“telly savallas.”
lives of the saints (2)
“doves don’t chirp, so i cant very well be yours or any one else’s chirping dove. now get off me!”
she was like this sometimes, would initiate erectus and then unceremoniously interrupt coitus. it was within her rights she told herself, no matter when or why. a woman’s body is her own. he’d just have to deal with it.
“i don’t care if your hard as the fucking blarney stone, we’re done.”
she had reasons, or so she told herself. she considered it a mental condition which the pharmaceutical industry had, uncharacteristically, not managed to medicate yet. she called it “severe context anxiety.” she reminded herself to write a letter to pfizer.
“but honey, c’mon! i mean…”
“forget it. playtime is over. get dressed.” she tossed rumpled boxers in his general direction, not looking to see where they landed.
“what the fuck? what did i say?”
he had taken it in stride thus far. but he was beginning to get fed up. that was clear enough. he never swore. she never bothered to explain because she knew it sounded ridiculous. she just couldn’t help it. it was context anxiety and it was defiantly severe. she couldn’t even look at him.
“honey, please…”
he approached her, his pants not yet zipped, she could see the softening lump under his boxers. she felt guilty. how many times had she done this to him in the past year? the words still flashed in her mind, chirping dove, chirping dove. christ.
“what is the problem? you have to talk to me.”
the problem was simple, she was ultra sensitive during intimacy to anything cliche. music was never allowed because it almost always illicited one of these fits. an ounce of prevention. but there was nothing she could do to prevent dialogue that sounded like it was ripped off from some shitty b-movie script. chirping dove was beyond bad movie, more like bad theater in the round. it was too much.
“i feel sick, o.k.? i have diarrhea. my head hurts. whatever. you should go.”
“no, i’m gonna stay. i don’t want to take the train all the way back. it’s like a blizzard outside…”
but she knew coitus-interuptus had to be followed this time by a swift homo-ejectus.
“...do you mind?”
she liked him a lot, didn’t love him exactly, but he was a good guy.
“honey?”
he loved her, she knew that. he put up with her shit. when he kept his mouth shut he was a great lay. if she sent him out into the snow he might never come back, she knew that too. the lump in his boxers was long gone, his hair was messed up. he stood there, finally silent. she wondered if the trains even ran this late on the weekends.
“yeah, i mind.”
lives of the saints (3)
“i’m sorry.”
it may as well be his mantra he repeats it with such frequency. she hates it. it totally befuddles her.
“why? you have nothing to be sorry about.”
where as other people habitually light a cigarette, or collapse into sleep after sex, he goes on a apologizing jag, then gets sullen and quiet like he’s twelve and just got caught playing with himself in the bathtub. she can’t begin to understand. result of some earlier trial and evident error? she pets him, kisses his shoulder.
“don’t apologize ok? you don’t need to.”
he usually molds his self-hatred into a more palatable self depreciating humor, gruff and curmudgeonly but ok for public consumption. after sex it’s another story all together. he is totally bare. he’s like a skeleton in a cold wind. he stares at the floor or off into space, not a shred of funny on him.
“yeah.” he snorts and closes his eyes.
it’s hard for her. she can’t seem to help him and can’t get him to stop. his apparent joylessness scares her and pisses her off alternately. “does he even like me?” or “what the fuck is his problem?” neither one a nice post-coital sentiment to come away with. as the months in his bed have rolled by she’s started to visualize them in her mind as sheets peeling away from a desk calendar.
“you want some strawberries? i want some.” she attempts, sweetly upbeat. but no answer.
she’s responded in different ways, testing the waters to ascertain how best to pull him from the undertow. initially, in their first month, she would try to address it head on, pushing a bit to better understand his reasons. she’d say something forthright but good natured. “it’s all mind games babe, you’re doing this to yourself, i had a great time.” he’d only become indignant, shifting the direction of his anger with surprising ease, sneering, “thanks for that assessment dr. freud.” later she tried preemption, telling him it was “great” and “amazing” before he had a chance to slip into his funk. she’d be rewarded with a tirade about not patronizing him. there was no winning and no helping. she got up, the strawberries wouldn’t wash themselves.
“so do you want some, or not?”
“whatever.”
she stops and just she stands over him, looks at him. looks at his greasy hair, his slumped shoulders. she wants to smack him, scratch his face. “asshole!” she thinks. “what a fucking jerk. what am i doing here?” he looks sour faced, crumpled, pathetic. he is either unaware or just uninterested in the poison he spreads.
“whatever?”
she realizes suddenly that this is him. this spiteful, childish, behind-closed-doors personality is the real one. this is the person she has been fucking these last months. this is the person she’s cooked meals for, whose
toothbrush is next to hers, who she shares a towels with. the funny, confident guy she met at the japanese bookstore is not hers, he exists only for strangers and acquaintances. it is this surly lump who is her boyfriend. the lump looks up at her. he is red faced, sad.
“listen, you have to stop doing this. you have to stop apologizing every time. it’s ridiculous. do you understand? it’s beyond baggage. it’s beyond performance anxiety. ok? you HAVE to stop acting like this or we’re going to stop fucking. and then what? it’s no fun.”
he does not look away. does not answer. just keeps looking at her.
“you have to just relax. i want to have fun. i want us to have fun… like normal people.”
he’s silent but it’s plain she’s gotten through. his eyes soften. he looks away. she feels better, having said it, getting it off her chest without having to resort to threats. without having to pack any bags.
“honey?” she wants a response. needs one.
he grabs her around the calves, looking sheepish. embarrassed at the truth of it no doubt. the room’s small. their shared collection of books rising above the low shelves and stacked high in corners. her cosmetics are piled on the windowsill. his stinky gym clothes are scattered by her feet.
“your right. of course your right. i’m sorry.”
hope you enjoyed. more to come…
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viewmistress vladimir
awards for cleverness are handed out on a daily basis here on the good ol’ interweb. they’re plentiful and short lived. maybe not very valuable. they are called blog posts. i’ve been trying to make it standard practice to hand out my gee-whiz back-pats in the “two cents” section and save the main column whenever possible for commentary and original content. this particular site deserves its spot in the main section though, regardless of how “clever” the idea might initially strike you. through sheer force of attention to detail, good design, and high mindedness of content these homemade viewmaster disks, called vladmasters by their 27 year old creator vladimir, are pretty fantastic as objects. the four available are kafka’s parables, italo calvino’s invisible cities, the public life of jeremiah barnes, and lucifugia thigmotaxis. i love them. (via the cartoonist)
chain reaction
spoke with a friend this morning who mentioned there was a new robert gober show up at matthew marks gallery. for some reason his descriptions of the work, which were detailed and complicated (wax lawnchair / beheaded jesus with water shooting from nipples into a hole in the ground / showers with steam and wax legs) reminded me of something totally different. this set off a chain reaction of sorts…
a) descriptions of robert gober work leads to—
b) memory of a wonderful piece called the way things go by artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss. “Using elemental means - fire and fireworks, blasts of air, gravity, and a variety of corrosive liquids - the artists manage to sustain a chain reaction of evermore absurd materials and events for 30 minutes.” searching for this piece lead to—
c) a honda ad called cog which somehow i’d managed never to see, and though pretty clearly drawing on the way things go manages still to be pretty gorgeous. the ad site lead me to—
d) a further bastardization in the form of a extremely silly cog paradoy. not satisfied to let my own chain reaction end on such a silly note i reversed course, which lead me to—
e) rube goldberg. i’m sure most people are at least somewhat familiar with rube goldberg’s ‘invention’ comic strips in which a simple action is reinvented to be as overly complex and absurd as possible. (many pictured here, click for full size). “goldberg’s cartoon inventions reflected the Machine Age ideals of progress but, in their unnecessary complexity, mocked its zeal for efficiency. His cartoons are rife with anti-machines that satirize the assembly line, the conveyor belt, and the automated world in general.” they’re great. as it turns out—
f) there are annual “rube goldberg device” competitions to build the most elaborate and ultimately pointless machines possible. searching for further examples lead me to the tangentially related—
g) jean tinuely famous for kinetic sculptures of the 60’s and 70’s, like homage to new york for instance, a self destroying machine built in the old moma’s sculpture garden. more googling under kinetic sculpture lead me to—
h) arthur ganson’s machines. very cool, some of which you can see in motion. ganson in turn lead me to—
i) tim prentice and his largely wind driven kinetic sculpture. which somehow, maybe from a boot kick striking a match which lit a candle which burned some string lead me to both—
j) the cellar which houses some devices by artist maarten huizinga, as well as to matthew steinke and his bizarre animatronic sound sculptures. at this point i felt as if i’d somehow gotten off the track, that my chain reaction was tottering dangerously out of control and if i was going to keep it from exploding i’d better get back to the original theme. searching again more strictly for “chain reactions” proper i came to what may as well be the most famous non nuclear chain reaction ever sold to innocent children—
k) milton bradley’s classic:
mouse trap
. somehow, with that, i feel my own google chain reaction came to an extremely satisfactory conclusion.
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