The Story of Hena

In this sometimes sad evil world we live in I honestly find it hard to be shocked by anything I see on the news. Call me cold if you must but I sometimes just expect the worst out of my fellow human beings. But having said this I also have to say that the story of 14 year old Hena Akhter brought tears to my eyes. It's quite possibly one of the saddest stories I have ever heard and one I feel the need to pass on.

Hena was a Bangladeshi girl who was attacked by an older man when she went to an outdoor toilet. She was than bound, gagged, and raped by that man who turned out to be her 42 year old cousin, Mahbub Khan. The wife of the Khan saw it happen but instead of helping Hena she dragged her to their hut where she beat her. The imam of the local mosque found Hena guilty of adultery and ordered she be punished and a ramshackle local court sentenced her to 100 lashes in a public whipping. Hena continued to plead her innocence as she was led to the village square for the sentence to be carried out. A CNN blog post said that the parents “had no choice but to mind the imam’s order. They watched as the whip broke the skin of their youngest child and she fell unconscious to the ground.” She dropped after 70 lashes and died in a hospital a week later.

Immediately following her death doctors recorded it as a suicide because women and girls who are raped are supposed to commit suicide to spare the family, I would say the men of the family, embarrassment. Currently these doctors and others, including Khan, are under arrest and investigation because Bangladesh outlawed Sharia and fatwas over ten years ago. The United Nations estimates that almost half of Bangladeshi women suffer from domestic violence and many also commonly endure rape, beatings, and death because of the country’s male dominated system.

I can think of no definition of the word crime that Hena could have been found guilty of. You may have figured out by now that I am in no way a religious girl, quite the opposite. At the same time I won’t fault somebody their religion as long as they don’t try to force it on me but after this I think the mere sight of the word Sharia will make me sick. Sharia justified the absolutely inhumane whipping to death of a young girl who committed no crime at all. It seems to me her only crime was being born a female in a male dominated society.

Hena wasn’t even old enough to get married.

Observations

Alye Pollack, a 13-year-old girl in Connecticut, posted an absolutely haunting video where she, without ever speaking a word, describes the bullying she has endured every day since 6th grade. Titled "Words are worse than Sticks and Stones," the video has had more than 150,000 hits since it was posted on March 14.

"For inquiries, please send an email to wordsdohurt@gmail.com
and not directly to Alye. Thank you, her family."

Observations from the Library 3.30

I dont know why I am doing this but here are a few things that just totally irritate me. Maybe it's like a spring cleaning for my head ....

I hate when somebody is painting with good brushes than just drops them in a can of solvent, doesn't clean them, just drops them in the can. Kolinsky sable hair filberts are not just brushes and they deserve better than sharing a can with the brush that you used to spread latex on the wall.

It drives me crazy when people smoke while they drive than just toss the cigarette out the window. Nothing like cruising down the interstate on a dark night only to have a cigarette butt hit your windshield and explode in a shower of sparks. And while I'm on the subject of smoking I absolutely can't stand second hand smoke. I know I have smoked for years but it's true. Smoke filled bars or clubs just give me a headache, I rarely if ever smoke inside, and don't even get me started on smoking in the car with the windows up.

I think I remember now why I started this, supposedly well educated people who refuse to believe President Obama was born in the Hawaii or is a citizen of the US. Yesterday I got into a discussion with somebody who turned out to have way more conservative views than I have. So I asked him where he thought President Obama was born. Kenya was the answer I got and it was as if a trip wire in my head had been yanked. I just don't know how to deal with people like that and I ended the discussion right there.

I have a theory on this whole 'birther' thing. Personally I think that it is just pure racism and ignorance wrapped in the American flag to make it more presentable. Seriously, if you are so damn sure Obama isn’t a citizen just impeach him, take it to court, do something other than bitch and whine about it. If they can try to impeach Clinton for not having sexual relations with that girl surely you can impeach Obama for lying about his birth place. But that is only if you are sure about it; otherwise please just shut the hell up.

And than there are those modern day robber barons at GE, Exxon, and and ....

Iggy Pop feat. Sum 41 - Little Know It All

Observations from the Gallery 3.28

This will probably be a rather short post because I'm about to try something new. I downloaded the Google Blogger app for my Droid today. I wanted to try it out so I think this will be my first ever posting by phone. I have no idea how it is going to look when published and the app doesn't have a spell checker so I may be doomed from the start but I still must try.

Another thing missing is the ability to edit previously published posts. That is nothing totally Earth shattering but it means I can't keep a running post going by phone, unless I can save and post over and over, I must ponder that one. But for now yes, just another app on my phone.

Soon I'm going to need one of those newer droids that can run more than one app at a time. Now I have blog apps, sports apps, mail apps, twitter, facebook, music; what the hell did we do before we had apps on our phones?

Well it's time to hit the publish button and see what happens. Hopefully the world doesn't come to an end.

(I did learn one thing, don't try and use code, it doesn't work. On top of that don't try and fix it if you do try and use code, it just makes a mess of it)

Observations from the Edge 3.27

I was finishing a day of shopping with a friend when I got one of those calls I sometimes get. She called just to hear me answer, to see if I was alright, basically to see if I was alive. There was a time when the calls bothered me, I thought people didn't trust me, but I learned over time it wasn't a matter of trust but that the caller cared and really just wanted to make sure I was well.

Sadly there was another reason for the call. She had just lost an acquaintance who she told me was the smartest person she had ever met in her life yet she had never seen a day when he wasn't wasted on something. He was a star lacrosse and soccer player in high school and in a gifted student program all his life. He was attending a major university where he had been awarded an honors scholarship to study psychology.

Now he is dead, he overdosed on a mixture of heroin and fentanyl* which is otherwise known as magic. I recently read somewhere that a one dose bag of heroin is cheaper than a six pack of beer, it really is a messed up world we live in. Such a terrible sad fucking waste.

I really don't mind the calls at all.

*If you don't know fentanyl is a synthetic opiate about eighty times as powerful as morphine and the use of it and heroin together is a hundred times more likely to lead to overdose and death than the use of either alone.

Observations 3.26

"A Robin!"

And with that simple two word text from my sister I realised that, weather or not, it really is spring and it's time to start feeling like it. Been through some warm days, watched a Phillies game, and even sat on the roof but I just didn't feel like winter was ever going to let go until I got that message today. The knowledge that somewhere in my world, anywhere in it, there was a robin that had returned from wherever it is that robins go on hiatus was enough. Yes Katie there will be a spring, you just may have to wait the slightest bit longer.

I have some major events to coming up so I really wish it would warm up and let me get in a warm weather mood. The 2nd of April is the first day of trout season in southeastern Pennsylvania and there is talk of all four of us going out together for the first time in years. For now that is dependent on the weather because I refuse to wear a winter coat to fish for trout. I was never one for ice fishing and I'm not about to start now. Than in mid-May the local minor league baseball team is honoring my sister's field hockey team for their district championship. The beginning of June brings the sis' high school graduation and rumor has it a pig roast to celebrate. I better get Foxy's oil changed because it seems I have a lot of driving to do.

So yes I'm ready for spring's warmth and with it family, fishing, sports, roast pork, and driving with the top down. What more could I ask for? I'm thinking cold beer.

And finally, before all the others ....

Observations on Hate

A couple days ago I was skimming through articles and blog posts about the than upcoming (it happened 3/23) US vote in support of a United Nations Human Rights Council motion that condemned violence against persons for their sexual orientation or gender identity. A total turn around from the Bush years when the US wouldn't support it on 'technical' grounds. The motion was co-signed by 85 nations.

It's one of those moments when you start to think things are going so well for the LBGT community and have been for some time. Maybe, just maybe, people's opinions are finally starting to change for the better. Than I stumbled on something that all but threw me into one of my more radical tirades

I clicked on a link to a blog post that was just a YouTube video of President Obama discussing Dr. Martin Luther King's legacy. Below is a series of outbursts I found in the comments to that post. The person who posted the video did try to answer but it is totally hopeless to try with somebody that thinks this way. I'll gladly provide a link if anybody wants it but it isn't really important. I am only posting it to remind you, as it reminded me, that it just doesn't matter to some people. If you have the wrong skin color, love the wrong person, worship the wrong god, or eat the wrong flavor jelly bean they are going to hate you. They just want to hate and nothing you do is going to change that simple fact.

I think that was relatively mild for me, I'll really try and do better next time.

- Gays have Civil Rights. What these sick bitches want is special privileges due to their sickly behavior which is nothing more than sexual deviancy which is immoral within any case.

- Gays are abominations. Do you think God will treat all people equally on the Day of Judgment? Some will not make it. The perverts such as gays will not make it. The sodomites will be turned away and will be in Hell where they belong for perverting and corrupting his creations. But then again, it was the work of Satan. Homosexual lifestyle overwhelmingly increases HIV and AIDS rate, it is sick, and it confuses as well as destroys civil society.

- Gays do indeed choose their lifestyles. Like we make choices every single day. Gays as well as lesbians choose to engage in nasty, filthy, homosexual activities which are wrong. Then these sicko groups wish to change definitions of legal marriage. It will not happen. Good, decent, rational thinking Christian people will not allow it so. To allow it would mean the downfall of American society, death to morality and to Christianity itself. God will truly allow America to die.

- The Bible is the word of God. He is the master. Morally, the Bible is the BACKBONE of all Western societies. Gays are an abomination just as lesbians are. Gays, that lifestyle, period, is wrong. Call me a bigot, well might as well call creator of the universe one as well.

And so it goes.

Observations from the Window 3.21

After a late start Saturday I made it to Nittany Valley for the Lady Lions game against Dayton with plenty of time to spare. With plenty of time to spare to drink that beer that my brother had waiting for me in the parking lot because he had faith in my arrival time even if I was skeptical about it. PSU won its opening round game 75-66 in what was the start of a big day in Penn State sports. It was also the opening day of spring football practice which next month culminates in the annual Blue & White game. The Blue & White game is probably the only football scrimmage played that draws 100,000 spectators. You might call us weird but we like our football team up here in the Valley. The day ended with Penn State wrestlers winning the NCAA team title in Philadelphia where among others they defeated three time defending champion Iowa.

Sean and I were long gone from the mountains before any wrestling championship celebrations began. Part of the basketball ticket deal was that I give him a ride home after the game but he was also kind enough to offer to drive so that I could take a nap. That was the plan anyway but you know how the best laid plans go, I never did get my nap. The problem is the two of us like to talk politics which is a habit we probably picked up from my dad and developed over years of fishing in a lake that seemed to contain no fish.

What you get here is the scientist and the artist trying to solve all the geo-political problems of the world as we speed down the interstate. Things seem to go much smoother when we are in separate cars because we are too busy playing interstate tag to worry about the rest of the world except the part of the world that has a flashing light on its roof. But that’s another story for another time.

We ended up dwelling on two totally separate things. The first was related to the events in the Middle East. After Saudi Arabia blatantly thumbed its nose at the United States by sending troops into neighboring Bahrain to help subdue protests what happens when it becomes the Saudi's turn? Another autocratic family run regime that not only happens to sit on the world's largest oil reserves but also rules a country that contains the holiest city in Islam. We figure this is one the West can't touch, just stay the hell away from it no matter what, and start producing those electric cars soon.

The second was a little closer to home; almost a philosophical sports question if that is possible. With today’s sad economy it's sickening to watch the NFL and the NFL Players Association fight over a $9 billion a year. The owners take a billion off the top before the players get any and now they want another billion because they all want a stadium like the NFL version of Versailles that Dallas owner Jerry Jones has built. Thing is it seems the taxpayers end up footing the bill for the stadiums anyway, ask NJ Governor Chris Christie about that. He wants to cut education to cut the states budget deficit yet the state still owes $300,000 on the original Meadowlands which no longer exists. What we think is that the owners should take that billion dollars and give it to the NCAA to help make up for state budget cuts to colleges and universities. After all the NFL uses the NCAA as its minor league anyway, maybe it’s time they started paying for it.

Here is to the all the little peeps, from the parking lot attendants to the peanut vendors, that are all forgotten when billionaires argue with millionaires. Welcome to America ....

The Raveonettes - Recharge & Revolt

13:00 update - keeping with the PSU sports, I saw this on the Penn State Athletics website. "The Big Ten Conference today announced the intention to recommend the establishment of men's ice hockey as an official conference sport, with The Pennsylvania State University one of the six institutions that would compete for the 2013-14 academic year." Good stuff ....

Observations from the Roof 3.18

After a long hiatus blogging, and more importantly drinking, has returned to the MacDougal Street roof. Five of us may not make a quorum but it's should be enough to declare the roof again open. It seems more like a mid June night than a mid March one but I'm not about to complain as I sit looking at a blazing super moon hanging over the Village. But I do want to know why the full moon seems to keep falling on a Friday. Neither Fridays nor full moons are anywhere near lucky for me so the combination is enough to make me reach for another drink.

Speaking of drinking, a major topic of conversation today was my theory that adding green food dye to beer makes the next day's hangover worse. I’ll call it the green hangover. Normally beer doesn’t give me a hangover but today I woke up with, well, a hangover. Almost like the drinking gods were trying to tell me that green beer isn’t natural, as if I didn’t already know that. I actually ordered a bloody mary with breakfast but than wasn’t quite sure if a green hangover required a green bloody mary along with the green eggs and ham. I seriously drew the line at a green bagel because that’s just a totally different green and I'm not going there. Hemingway supposedly alternated drinking tomato juice with one hand and beer with the other to rid himself of a hangover. I rather like the thought of that but I've never tried it, maybe next time.

But enough of all that drinking talk. I have a road trip to make early tomorrow and I really have to try and keep Ash from tossing bottle caps off the roof. I don’t care if she thinks it’s some kind of tradition or not, it just aint kewl.

Supposedly POTUS picked 24 of the first 26 NCAA men’s games right, I only hope he did is well in the women's tournament.

Damn this moon is fucking bright ....

Observations from the Bar 3.17, March Madness

Yes you read the header correctly, from the bar on a Thursday afternoon. So don't ask, just enjoy the green beer.

See my own version of 'March Madness' began today to coincide with the normal version. Penn State is playing Temple in Tucson, Arizona in what is the PSU men's first NCAA tournament appearance since 2001. Why two Pennsylvania teams aren't just playing in the East regional in DC is beyond me but I’m sure there has to be a good reason, airline lobbyist’s maybe. My only problem with this game is how far do I take PSU in my bracket picks? As I write this things are looking good, I'll update with a final score later.

Than Saturday morning the Penn State Lady Lions will make their first NCAA tournament appearance in six years when they play Dayton at the Bryce Jordan Center in University Park. Penn State is hosting the first two rounds of the East Regional with the final rounds in Philadelphia. The added beauty of this is that I just found out last night that thanks to my brother I will be at the game.

I should add here that I'm more than a little pissed at Basketball Fan in Chief Barrack Obama who picked brackets for both the NCAA men's and women's tournaments. Two PSU teams to pick from and he only picks one total win. One? And they say the man knows basketball.

Next up are my Phillies. With a lineup of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt, and Cole Hamels the Phillies have arguably the best starting rotation in the history of baseball. They open their season April 1st at home against Houston and no I don't have a ticket, not yet. Honestly I'm not sure I like the idea of the most promising Phillies season ever opening on April Fools' Day.

Finally there are the Flyers. At one point they had the best record in the NHL but now they are in a fight just to finish with the best record in the Eastern Conference. Every year they go into a funk at some point and I’m more than a little worried that they picked the wrong time this year. The Stanley Cup playoffs begin April 13th.

So my March Madness began today at 2PM with green beer and basketball to be followed by the big road trip to Penn State Saturday. Than it's home after the game for Foxy's soft top and all will be right with the world, for now.

Happy State Patty's Day everybody! I love this time of year ....

AC/DC - Thunderstruck

17:50 update - So maybe President Obama knows more about basketball than I was willing to admit. Penn State fell to Temple 66-64 on a desperation shot with 0.4 seconds left in the game. Talor Battle finishes his carrer as Penn State's all time leading scorer and only the third NCAA Division I player ever to total 2,000 points, 600 rebounds and 500 assists.
Been trying to drown my sorrows in green beer but I'm finding it very hard with a damn giant leprechaun in the bar. I'm going to see if a big juicy bacon cheeseburger helps, one smothered in onions, and maybe some peppers too.

From GoPSUSports.com - Battle Tested Lions Leave Everything on the Floor at NCAA Tournament

Help Japan ....

 

Help Japan

 A print by Rob Dobi.

All profits from poster to benefit disaster recovery in Japan.

“Every good act is charity. A man's true wealth hereafter is the good that he does in this world to his fellows.”
 Moliere

As you must know, a massive earthquake and tsunami hit Japan leaving behind a trail of destruction, devastation, and death. They could really use our help right now. An easy way to give to Japan is by donating to the Red Cross. You can either go to the Red Cross website, the Red Cross Japan fundraising page on Facebook, or simply text ‘Red Cross” to 90999. If you decide to text $10 will be automatically charged to your phone bill as a donation. Global Giving is another donation option and you can even give through the iTunes store.

New York City residents can donate through The Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City by dialling 311 or visiting the 311 website.

Even if you cannot donate financially you might keep Japan in your thoughts. While you are thinking you might add Bahrain and Libya, sad times ....

日本の人々に感謝


22:15 update - "It is heartbreaking to see a renegade country like Libya shoot pro-democracy protesters. But it’s even more wrenching to watch America’s ally, Bahrain, pull a Qaddafi and use American tanks, guns and tear gas as well as foreign mercenaries to crush a pro-democracy movement — as we stay mostly silent." Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times.

Observations from the Window 3.16, Spring

With the clocks changed and less than a week till the first day of spring I seem to be getting that feeling that this winter from hell will in fact end this year. This will be my second spring in the Village and I think I might do better this time around, I’m hoping I do anyway. I know last year it was as much a sad time as happy one because I missed my spring in the mountains but those mountains are farther in the past now, another time. I’m not so sure I believe that but it helps some to say it. So now that I did a good job of reminding myself of the mountains let me see what spring brings.

Tax day. Tax day is enough to make me want to drink and it's a good thing because St. Patties Day is Thursday. Green beer, green Corona with lime, green Mexican beer on an Irish Catholic Saint's day, that just makes my head spin. So maybe we should skip to Easter. If I see a pink bunny walking down Bleeker Street I know I have had too much to drink. This paragraph is just sad but its how my mind seems to work sometimes.

Sorry, I was off on a drinking tangent there, let me get back to thoughts of spring. The little buds I see on the trees below me along the street. Those first flowers blooming in the sunshine, a little known secret being that I love flowers, fresh cut flowers. Flowers, candles, a bottle of wine, and a nice warm bath do the trick every time. Grilling hamburgers on the roof, watching the sunset, and drinking cold beer as the last light falls into the river is another one that works. Oh it's just hopeless; all my thoughts of spring seem to lead to alcohol.

Yet with spring two things non-alcoholic are certain. It's time to take Foxy out on the road again this weekend. Time to drive down to my Dad's and get the soft top back on her. And it's time for my seasonal change in musical tastes. Time to lay off the Lady Gaga, nice ass or not, and turn up the Foo Fighters.

Happy spring people ....

Foo Fighters - Rope

Let The Madness Begin

Penn State vs. Temple, tip-off 2:10PM Thursday, Tuscon Arizona ....

Observations on Politics 3.12

I was watching Rachel Maddow's special on state politics Thursday night and I just began to wonder where it all went wrong with the Republican Party, a party that still likes to call itself the party of Lincoln. I even made a few phone calls to my Dad and a prof I had at Penn State for some help. Staying away from 'moral' issues I took a quick look at Republican Presidents since World War II and came up with a few things.

Dwight Eisenhower was pretty much a status quo President but one who started the interstate highway system and warned the country of the coming military industrial complex. If only the country had listened to him the world could be so much different today. Richard Nixon is just a bitter pill to swallow. Arguably one of the worst Presidents in history he also created the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and signed the Clean Air Act. Noam Chomsky, of all people, once remarked (in the year 2000) that, in many respects, Nixon was "the last liberal president." Gerald Ford was basically a caretaker President who supported and signed the Equal Rights Amendment and opposed Roe vs. Wade.

Ronald Reagan is one I needed help with because it's hard to find anything personally bad about the man yet he did fire the air traffic controllers leading indirectly to Wisconsin today. So I called my Dad and asked him about Reagan. What he said intrigued me; he said Reagan was the only Republican he had ever voted for President and than just for his second term. He also said Reagan did something that needed to be done one ways or another. He made America believe in itself again. I guess you can't fault the man for that. George H. W. Bush seems like another caretaker President but he signed the Americans with Disabilities Act and reauthorized the Clean Air Act. His downfall is that he fathered an ass of a son who would gladly have torn up every constructive thing I have mentioned so far. Well except the highways I suppose, he just wouldn’t have payed for their upkeep.

Somehow things went terribly wrong in the years that followed the elder Bush and politics became war in this country. One has to look all the way back to Herbert Hoover to find a President as anti-middle class as George W. Bush and I can't stomach writing about him. During the sixteen years of the Clinton/Bush Presidencies the Republican Party morphed into the party of the haves against the have nots, the take from the poor and give to the rich, the reverse Robin Hoods. And now as I watch events in Wisconsin and other states, sadly now including my native Pennsylvania, I can think only one thing. This so called Democracy I'm watching is more the Democracy of the People's Republic of America than it is the United State of America.

As for my question, where did it go wrong? I have no clue but we better fix it soon before the America as we 'think' we know it comes to an end and we simply become the 23rd province of the People's Republic of China.

Audioslave - Seven Nation Army

3/13 update - After a few reactions to this I think some further explanation might be needed. The point I was trying to make was that at least since the Depression neither party has gravitated completely to the extreme left or right before. I was in no way praising Republican Presidents, if I had included social or ‘moral’ issues it would have been much uglier. The fact remains they did do those things and now most Republican officials don’t even put up the facade of caring about the average American. They seem to care more about who pays them the most than who actually pays their salary. I mentioned many of the things I did because they were enacted by Republican Presidents yet Republicans today would do away with all of them if they could.

I don’t know if this helps at all or just makes it all the more confusing. It was just the occasionally bewildered mind of one dark excruciatingly liberal lesbian looking at a party that has done good things in the past but now seems filled with hate, cares about no one but the wealthy, and whose god is the bronze Wall Street Bull in Bowling Green Park.

Observations

Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota during a hearing on radical Islam in America, recounting the story of a Muslim rescue worker who was a first responder in New York on Sept. 11, 2001.



Full statement video

Observations from the Coffee Shop 3.11

I haven’t posted anything for a couple days because I have been busy getting caught up after last week and getting the gallery back to normal for the coming weekend. But also because I have been thinking about where I want to go with this blog. I totally enjoyed writing about Armory Week and about the art so I think I'll be doing a lot more of that in one way or another. I also had a suggestion that I use more photos with my posts so I may try to do that too. Other than those changes I suppose it's just going to be more of the same ranting for now because I enjoying ranting and you should do what you do best.

But I did have a few other theories on new directions to take like sports, sex, horoscopes, or maybe just a combination of all three. I could read the stars and predict this weekend’s game results while I answer questions. Sort of Dan Savage meets Chris Berman. That's an idea I have to ponder longer but one problem I already foresee is the stars say Philly teams are going to win everything. Now that won’t go over big with any New York fans I happen to know.

Just to get back into it I’m going to throw in one micro-rant here. Something I could go on about but Stephen Colbert said it much better on Twitter last night. "@StephenAtHome: Scott Walker took down the unions! Wisconsin's budget problem is fixed! Now on to the part of the deficit caused by gay marriage."

Stay tuned ....

The Boxer Rebellion - Flashing Red Light Means Go

Observations from the Coffee Shop 3.8

I suppose it is finally time to wrap up my writing on Armory Week and get back to the real world. Maybe it would be better to say my world which doesn't seem all that real sometimes. It's a little sad because I enjoyed the week and enjoyed writing about it so don't be surprised if you see me doing a lot more art writing.

Here are some final thoughts ....

In a week filled with art a few things did leave a lasting impression. Among the best was a set of seven, out of 23 known, brightly colored plaster busts from the series "Heads" by the late David Wojnarowicz. A collector had spent years putting the seven together and the complete set sold for $300,000. For me another real treat to see was a Robert Mapplethorpe dye transfer print the name of which escapes me. Dye transfer itself is a dying photo printing technique due to the fact that Kodak no longer makes the chemicals needed to do it.

Something that made a very negative impression was Ivan Navarro's glowing neon-lit fence titled "The Armory Fence." So many people said so many good things about it but I just didn't like it at all. Maybe it would have worked for me at a Las Vegas Art Fair along with the velvet Elvis paintings but it just didn't work for me here. The fence totaled 82 feet around an open floor and was priced at $40,000 per seven foot section but I have no idea if any of them sold. You might look for it at a trailer park near you.

A question I heard often was whether New York, a city filled with galleries and museums, really needs a major art fair at all. The best answer I found to the question was this; "New York is a city without parallel in this world, and we want to support it, and keep in contact with curators here," said Tim Marlow, director of London gallery White Cube. I'm no expert on these things but I personally think New York without a major Art Fair would be like San Francisco without a major Gay Pride event. It just shouldn’t be allowed to happen if we expect the world to keep spinning in the proper direction.

In the end Armory Week may be the closest I'll ever come to a Penn State football weekend in New York City. Except it only happens once a year, it lasts a week, there probably isn't as much to eat or drink, and the attire of choice is a bit darker in New York.

Metric - Black Sheep

In Memory Of ....

I didn't know Sabrinaa Nightfire but I did know the name well. I saw her in SL one time years ago at one art opening or another where I noticed a 'cousin' of mine flitting around putting finishing touches on her work. Sadly I know more about her now than I did before her passing. Because of my mom I always feel a little sad when I hear that somebody has succumbed to cancer. Still I wouldn't be writing this except that she seems to have touched so many lives in her SL family and touched them in a good way. In the end I suppose that is all any artist can ask for, to be remembered in a good way.

A friend of mine sent me a a blog post by Rowan Derryth that contains a description that I'm borrowing here without permission, I hope she doesn't mind. It tells me all I need to know about Sabrinaa Nightfire.

".... Only one work here speaks of her struggle: Stage 4, a simple platform with phrases that vocalize her thoughts of anger at having stage four cancer. The one that hit me the hardest was “I have a lot more art to make.” A pose ball with the text “I am SO Angry!” allows one to have a virtual tantrum – something that some might find theraputic today."

Another thing about artists is that they are never finished with their work.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 3.7

There is one thing I have yet to get used to about New York. I met the VQ for lunch today and ordered a Philly cheesesteak because I was totally famished. Where the hell is the sauce? I still forget I have to ask for sauce here. Damn Yankee fans.

When you first arrive at the Armory Show you are greeted by an industrial size elevator that takes you to the main floor. What is fun is taking a quick look at who joins you for that ride and if your lucky enough you will get a microcosm of the art world itself. My first group was mainly female but still a varied group. Among them a younger girl in camo fatigues and headphones, an older woman in fur talking on her cell phone, two Eastern European model types dressed in black and knee high boots, and a middle aged man who looked like my dad if my dad had been a physics professor with a penchant for Hawaiian print polo shirts and silk scarves.

What had to be my fav line of the whole week was this. I was eating dinner one night with a group of friends when a friend of Ash came to the table to say hello. One guy was sitting at the table with us and Ash's friend leaned over and said to him “I’m sorry but I have to say this but I hate men! Not you though, I don’t even know you."

Something I try to never do is the Euro cheek kiss greeting but I totally had major problems with that this week. To many Euros around to start with plus in the shows you can't see far enough ahead to get yourself ready before somebody sees you and boom heyas kiss kiss. But my height still comes in handy in these situations because not many people carry a stool around with them.

I know Armory Week is now passed and it's time to move on to other things including a piece I want to write on Contemporary Art. But I don't think this is my last Armory Week post because I just have so much I still need to get out of my head.

Kings Of Leon - Pyro

Armory Week Randomness 3.6

In the end I may remember the people more than anything else from this week. Deep down I really am just an observer because what I like to do is sit back and take everything in. Still the excitement of the last few days has been just contagious at times and next week could be a big let down after the constant buzz of this one. I've been so intrigued all week by everybody at the shows, at the gallery, and just talking to friends about art.

My brain has just been on sensory overload for days now and for the last few I have been trying to come up with a way to describe it better and have yet to find it. Maybe because it is the first time I experienced anything quite like this. I have been to other shows, galleries, museums, and exhibitions but this is something so totally different and I can't find the right words for it. I might keep trying but I honestly don't know if it's possible.

The always amazing VQ doesn't seemed to have slept more than a couple hours a night since the fairs began and yet she was still all perky at breakfast today. Actually she was probably all perky before breakfast, that would be before she woke me up with a cell call asking what I wanted for breakfast. While I have been into the people she has been into the art and texting me a constant stream of opinions on one gallery's works or another. It's been fun to watch her because more than anything else she reminds me of seeing my sister in a Toys"R"Us at Christmas time.

Finally, between the owners and the connoisseur I haveve worked on my French more than I have in some time. I even came up with a favorite line I used more than once during one conversation or another. "Pourriez-vous me faire parvenir un billet s'il vous plaît?"

I haven't gotten a positive response yet.

Observations from the Window 3.4.1

So many things on my mind that I want to write about but I'm so totally wiped that they will just have to wait. It seems I might be writing about the things Armory Week has me thinking about long after the fair itself is passed. It's been a long time since I thought about what art actually is but questions a friend has been asking about the fair have me doing just that. My earlier post about Modern Art is one result of that and I think there are going to be more once I get through this busy weekend.

I know I was here last year during Armory Week but I didn't go and it didn’t make much of an impression on me. I guess partly because I was still torn about whether I was even going to stay in the Village at all or go back to the mountains. I'm much deeper into the art world up here now, and also Ash's business side of art, so in ways the whole week has been eye opening. I could write a post on just the forum on Art Funds that Ash went to today but maybe I should just quit thinking, get some sleep, and enjoy the last couple days. Maybe I will.

But first there is one thing I want to mention. I was up early this morning to go to breakfast with the VQs and than get to the gallery by nine or so. While I was eating I got a chance to see the Times review in honest to god print and it just made me smile. What made me smile more was when I got to the gallery and the florist arrived, than the next one, and than the next. Seems it’s the thing they do when you get yourself in “ArtsBeat,” the New York Times arts blog, but it was totally unexpected on my part and I was just smiling all day.

So thank you to anybody out there who is reading this and happened to send flowers. That has to be the high point of the week for me and at the moment I don't see how anything can top it. But there are still two days left so I'll just have to wait and see what happens next.

But for now my bed is crying for me ....

Observations from the Window 3.4

It’s early, I’m tired, and I have to go to breakfast but I wanted to pass something on. We all had a big surprise at the gallery yesterday, a big effing fun surprise. Seems we found ourselves right there in the New York Times. We didn’t have any idea it was going to happen so it was just one of those fun moments and everybody was so excited.

“If you don’t have a booth at one of this week’s big fairs, the thinking goes, you’re invisible — especially if you’re a smaller gallery that’s slightly off the beaten track. The solution? Become a fair yourself. That’s what Zürcher Studio has done, carving its space into six booths and inviting in like-minded downtown and Brooklyn dealers ….”

Read the full review
(A version of this review appeared in print on March 4, 2011, on page C25 of the New York edition.)

Yup one of those moments and now I think I need coffee. Bad ....

Armory Week Randomness 3.3

Today I spent most of the afternoon at the Armory Show and I have one overall observation. It's big, real big, be sure to grab a map or you'll get lost kind of big. I have been to big art shows before but never anything like these two cavernous piers filled with a maze of hundreds of booths and stands. At times the Contemporary section seemed a bit overcrowded, maybe they should cut back on the number of galleries allowed, but the Modern section was less crowded and the spaces seemed much larger.

Something that I noticed right away the number of iPads all the galleries seemed to be using instead of, or along side, catalogs with most booths having more than one. I was told it's the wave of the future but I don't see one in my future at all.

One thing you can not miss seeing, even if you wanted to, is a huge neon glowing fence by Chilean sculptor Ivan Navarro. It radiates bright blueish light in every direction and some neighboring dealers weren't to happy about it. I guess you need to get attention anyway possible at one of these things and after all it was a relative bargain at $40,000 per 7 foot section. Still it just reminded me of some kind of trailer trash yard decoration.

As with anything there was some good, bad, and some pretty effing ugly to be see at the Armory Show. I have to say most of what i consider bad was in the Contemporary section. Taste wise I just tend to shy away from what I consider Post-Modern art, but that is for another post when I get to it.

Observations from Armory Week 3.3

Today the big Armory Show/Fair itself opens to the public on the two 12th street docks, divided between the modern show and the contemporary show. So what actually is the difference between Modern and Contemporary art?

The Modern Art era is said to have begun during the American Civil War period, the 1860s, even more precisely in 1863 with the work of Manet. Modern art is characterized by the attempt to capture the essence of a subject rather than the resemblance of it. For just this reason it moved more and more towards abstract as time went by.

The major painters of the early modern period include Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, and Claude Monet, or the Impressionists and Post-impressionists. The early 20th century was dominated by the rivalry between the Cubism of Pablo Picasso and the Fauvism of Henri Matisse. The interwar period saw the rise of Salvador Dali, Marc Chagall, and the Bauhaus of Wassily Kandinsky.

Finally the post war years saw the birth of Abstract Expressionism which the first American movement to dominate art worldwide. For the first time New York City, and not Paris, was the center of the art world. Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, James Brooks, and many others define this period.

My personal opinion is that the Modern Art period began to end with the death of Jackson Pollock who pioneered the 'drip painting' method in which he laid a canvas on the floor and threw paint on it. But technically the period was extended into the 1960s and even the 70s by the rise of Lyrical Abstraction which was a movement once again dominated by Europeans as the United States struggled with the Vietnam War and it's aftermath.

Either way the era had ended before I ever set eyes on my first brush.

The idea here was to explain the difference between the Modern and Contemporary eras but I seem to have gotten a little carried away so I think I'll make two posts out of this. Hope this was easy enough to understand.

*I tried not to turn this into a masters thesis but keep in mind there at least a dozen major movements in the Modern era and each can be broken down into three or four sub-movements.

Armory Week Randomness 3.2

I hope you don't know why I am writing this but let me just say I will never ever completely trust spell check again, that's all I'm going to say on the subject.

The Armory Show is named for a 1913 exhibition that took place at the 69th Regiment Armory and for the first time showed European Modern art in America. The current fair was started in 1994 in a Gramercy Park hotel and now occupies over 200,000 square feet on piers 92 and 94. Try not to confuse that with The Art Show which starts today at the Park Avenue Armory.

I have never in my life seen so many black leather jackets in one place and no that statement doesn't include my closet. Anyway yesterday I said an art fair was part convention and part art show. Now it seems I need to add a biker rally to that, like an artistic Sturgis without the bikes. Now that's a thought though, we need bikes.

I was on my way up to Armory when I ran into a new Manhattan trend that I'm not at all thrilled about. On my way I stopped in a random coffee shop for a quick lunch and cup of coffee. I sat down with my coffee, opened up my net book, and promptly had another patron point out a sign that said no electronic devices allowed. I blurted out something on the order of "you've got to be freakin kidding me," gulped down my coffee, and bought a pretzel outside. I have no idea how they expect to compete with Starbucks and its free wifi.

Phantogram - When I'm Small

17:45 update - Everything I heard today said that sales were brisk last night at the VIP opening. Highest price tag I saw today was $2.2 million for a work by the late German painter Martin Kippenberger. The only other major highlight was seeing Sotheby's Vice President Lisa Dennison. Rumor had it Courtney Love was there too but I didn't see her or I would have offered her a bite of my pretzel.

Observations from Armory Week 3.1

A few days ago I was asked what and art fair actually was. An art fair is an event unlike any other museum exhibition or gallery show. It’s really a hard thing to describe because it is part art show, in that everything is for sale, and part a convention of some sort. The major fairs are in Switzerland (Art Basil being the original), Madrid, Cologne, Hong Kong, Shanghai, London, Miami, and New York.

The show side of a fair generally starts the day or night before the public opening with the VIP preview for mostly invited guests that include major galleries and collectors. The public is allowed in the next day for a fee, so basically you are paying for the right to buy something but only if you can afford it and only if the VIPs didn’t snap it up before you. This also means the fair organizer is making money off both the public and the gallery owners. A minimum booth at the Armory Fair costs $40,000 and a one day general admission ticket costs $30. The prevailing opinion is that it has to be a buyers market because there is so much art around but I have already seen things priced in the hundreds of thousands of dollars so I don't know how true that could be.

For the past few years it’s been hard for galleries, especially new galleries, to make any money at fairs so now they tend to use the events as a chance to build relationships with other galleries and artists. Yet, as I said, booths are expensive so most everything is for sale however there is no law that says an owner has to sell it to you and some dealers are always looking to place their works with well known collectors. For an emerging artist trying to establish a career it's just to be seen at the fairs. Than again there are many artists like myself who have almost a private relationship with their work and feel strange seeing it viewed in public. I'm far from being the only artist who could best be described as an enigma.

With dealers, galleries, curators and collectors all attending it's a convention with a very artistic side. The social aspect of a major art fair can turn the city into one big block part with shows, parties, dinners, and special events crowding the calendar. A place to see and be seen, to network, to meet that gallery owner or artist or curator, find funding for a project, or maybe finally land that solo show.

Among the things I personally want to see is a forum with Gary Tinterow the curator of the recent Picasso exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It seems to be sold out but I’m still working on that, I’ll get myself in there one way or another.