Observations from the Gallery 3.3

A rather unusual late night at the gallery or I guess what I should call the Salon for now. Some random thoughts from the beginning of my personal Art Week.

During the recently ended Fashion Week the Village seemed just slightly more vivid than normal. The cafes, coffee shops and bars were filled with colorful fashionistas in town for the shows. As Art Week begins everything has turned just a bit darker because black, as always, is the color of choice of artists and all their associates.

A little known fact, or a well kept secret, I just discovered is that the Air France lounge at JFK has one hell of a wine selection. In all my years of bartending I don't remember ever having made a french 75 but if you are at the Air France Lounge and not French it's the drink to order. I have no idea why cause they taste like crap.

Here is a bit of conversation in the car back from JFK today. Bernard Z, "So is everybody excited?" Nicole, "Kate forgot all about it." Ash, *rolls eyes. Me, "well". Gwen Z, "Katelyn is a reveur, they forget everything. It is allowed." So from this day forward my excuse for my pathetic short term memory is I am a reveur. It may be true, it may be not be true, but it does have a certain cultured ring to it.

There is nothing quite like listening to French, Dutch, and Swiss individuals arguing over what Chinese food to order from the Szechuan restaurant down the street. One thing you learn quick about Euros is that gestures are as important as words in a conversation and omg they have plenty of them and use them with abandon.

I know a little German to go with my French but I'm keeping that fact to myself. It seems the gallerists from Amsterdam don't especially like the Parisian variety and vice versa and I prefer they didn't know I understood what they were saying. I'm just evil to the end.

This should be a very interesting week at the Salon. 

Observations on Art 3.3

A change of topic here as, Rush Limbaugh be damned, politics takes a much overdue back seat to art. I was chatting with a friend a couple nights ago when a 'holy shit' alarm went off in my head as she mentioned it was March. Suddenly I realized Art Week and all that goes with it had snuck up on me. Honestly you would think the stack of show catalogs somebody had conveniently left on my window seat would have given it away but you would be wrong. Sometimes I just get so wrapped up in politics I forget everything else but how I forgot this is beyond me. Highlights of the week ahead.

Brucennial 2012, Circle in the Square Theater, 159 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village. March 1 - April 20.

Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of Modern Art, 945 Madison Avenue. March 1 - May 27.

Salon Zurcher, 33 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village. The ultimate in missed clues. Really the owners flying in later today should have given this one away but sometimes my head is just is off in another world. Galleries from Amsterdam and Paris are setting up this weekend so it should be fascinating.
March 5 - March 12.

ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America) Art Show, Park Avenue Armory. This is the 50^th edition of the longest running art fair in America. A must see here will be an all-women booth at Galerie LeLong, featuring works by Louise Bourgeois, Petah Coyne, Jane Hammond, Ana Mendieta, Yoko Ono, Nancy Spero, Ursula von Rydingsvard and others.
March 7 - March 11.

Scope New York, the so called Scope Pavilion, 57^th Street and 12^th Avenue. Scope benefits the Chashama Foundation which converts vacant properties into art spaces.
March 7 - March 11.

Volta New York, 7 West 34^th Street. The New York edition of the Basel art fair calls itself a platform for challenging, often complementary, sometimes competing ideas about contemporary art.
March 8 - March 11.

The Armory Show, Piers 92 & 94, Manhattan. This year the huge contemporary and modern art fair has fewer dealers with larger areas, hopefully no neon fences, and an opening night party at the Museum of Modern Art.
March 8 - March 11.

You can add to these the Independent, Moving Image Video Art Fair, Korean Art Show, Fountain Art Fair, PooL Art Fair, New City Art Fair, the Cindy Sherman exhibit at MOMA, and the John Chamberlain exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum.

That should give you a pretty good idea of Art Week 2012.

Observations

"I've never wished another man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." Mark Twain.

Arch conservative commentator, film maker, and total ass Andrew Breitbart died today. His website reported Breitbart, just 43, collapsed while walking near his home just after midnight. The best I can say is I would never wish anybody dead, especially that young, and I'll leave it at that. To put my feelings in better perspective this is what Breitbart wrote on twitter upon hearing Senator Edward Kennedy had passed away, "Rest in Chappaquiddick."

The official twitter account of Occupy Congress posted this video today along with these words, "Andrew Breitbart spoke strong words against us, but at the end the day, we're all one people." That works as well as anything I could say.


link

Observations on Art 2.29

For my handful of stargazing friends out there, or the one or two, not including my brother and the astrological version. Whatever, enjoy. The description is fascinating and I only posted about half of it so be sure to follow the link. Perfect for Leap Day ...


Temporal Distortion from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.

"What you see is real, but you can't see it this way with the naked eye. It is the result of thousands of 20-30 second exposures, edited together to produce the time lapse. This allows you to see the Milky Way, Aurora and other Phenomena, in a way you wouldn't normally see them.

In the opening "Dakotalapse" title shot, you see bands of red and green moving across the sky. After asking several Astronomers, they are possible noctilucent clouds, airglow or faint Aurora. I never got a definite answer to what it is. You can also see the red and green bands in other shots.

At :53 and 2:17 seconds into the video you see a Meteor with a Persistent Train. Which is ionizing gases, which lasted over a half hour in the cameras frame. Phil Plait wrote an article about the phenomena here (Discover). There is a second Meteor with a much shorter persistent train at 2:51 in the video. This one wasn't backlit by the moon like the first, and moves out of the frame quickly. The Aurora were shot in central South Dakota in September 2011 and near Madison, Wisconsin on October 25, 2011."

Observations from the Bar 2.27

I was sitting at the bar watching the first ever Monday Daytona 500 which was also the first one ever run under the lights. This happened because of rain on Sunday which caused me to waste a Sunday afternoon at the bar with nothing to watch until a totally lousy Oscar show Sunday night. All things considered it was a normal race until it wasn't and just became totally bizarre. While the race was under yellow something broke on Juan Pablo Montoya's car causing him to spin up into a truck that was blowing off the track with jet engine, yes jet engine. The crash wrecked the truck's trailer and spilled 200 gallons of jet fuel onto the track which than ignited. While track crews put out the fire and cleaned up the mess the drivers wandered around the track talking as if they were stuck in traffic on the interstate.

I only bothered with that story because it ties in with something I had started writing earlier today. After watching the Oscar show last night I seem to have developed a social media pet peeve.  Anybody who knows me at all or reads this blog knows I have wildly varied interests. Art, politics, and sports constantly fight for space in my mind with other things that are always butting in. On twitter I just post whats on my mind or what I'm reading so you never know what you will get. Sometimes its the same thing for days on end and sometimes I go off in tangents by the hour.

Some people evidently have singular interests and others have accounts to just post on a single subject, both are fine with me. I have no prob with that because they usually have the best info or their subject anyway. What I do have a prob with is when some complain that other people aren't serious enough about the world's problems. I post about gay rights I lose followers, I post about Occupy I lose others, and the gods forbid anybody post about the Academy Awards because all hell breaks loose.

You know the world and its multiple problems are serious enough and we all need to escape now and than. Sometimes that includes watching a totally lame Oscar show and tweeting a photo of a gorgeous Milla Jovovich. Get the fuck over it.

For the record Milla looked totally awesome as does Danica tonight. Now back to racing.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 2.24

"What did liberals do that was so offensive to the Republican party?  I'll tell you what they did. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act.

What did conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator. Because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor."

That was written by Lawrence O'Donnell for an episode of The West Wing in 2005. Notice he is saying liberal and conservative and not Democrat and Republican. Politics today has become so polarized that anybody reading that now will unconsciously substitute the political parties for the political theories. That's totally understandable if you have seen any of the recent GOP debates where birth control seemed more important than the economy. Now consider this quote from a speech Rick Santorum gave at about the same time as O'Donnell wrote that script.

"All the rights in the Constitution, which are individually based rights, according to our founders were not there for the individual’s gain, but the reason we established those rights was for the common good. The right to privacy is not the right to a common good. It’s a me-centered right, that obviously started in the sexual revolution with contraception and obviously quickly evolved to abortion, and now has found its way into the marriage debate. And all those acts that were self-giving acts, self-sacrificing acts, have been polluted by this right to privacy."

Scary to read after a week in which equal rights were vetoed in one state and the legality of contraceptives were debated as if it were actually an issue. Now being queer I don't have much use for birth control but I have to wonder if there are any 20 or 30 year old women out there who in their worst nightmares thought their ability to buy birth control pills would ever be in doubt.

In 1928 Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis argued that the writers of the Constitution had created a framework for what he considered the greatest right of all, "the right to be left alone."

Every day it seems more like that is the right the second American revolution will be fought over.

Observations

It was a warm day in the Village today and you could just smell it in the air, the first hint of spring, and more importantly....

Observations from the Coffee Shop 2.21

Today is Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, the day before Lent begins, or Carnival if you are lucky enough to be in the right spot. Beads, booze, and boobs are what usually come to mind, lots of them. Being a
non-believing type of girl I don't go in for that giving up something for Lent thing the way a more superstitious girl would, this year is different. I can think of numerous things I should give up but what I have in mind is something I want to give up, need to give up for my sanity. I want to give up any further thoughts of Rick Santorum for forty days, its not nearly long enough but it'll just have to do

In order to accomplish that feat I need to purge my mind of that man, pretty much pass him off on all of you, so here are a few things for you to think about for the next month. At the risk of ruining my dream of Santorum being the GOP nominee for President, and as a former Pennsylvanian, I feel the need to warn the rest of the country before it's too late. Or as John Baer said in yesterday's Philadelphia Daily News, "Are they nuts?" For a start I think you need to read that column but I have a few things to add.

Santorum is obsessed with gays, women, and birth control and this is nothing new. What is new is the fact that the people voting for him either don't believe him to be serious, he is, or they agree with him. The later just scares the shit out of me.

Recently he gave a speech about women in combat in which he said it was simple fact that neither nature nor  god designed the female body for the stress of combat. He added men have greater size, upper body strength and stamina for a reason, god intended them to use that strength to protect women and children. Women would become too emotional in combat and the men would forget their mission as they protected the crying cowering females. The man makes me want to hurl.

There is literary, archaeological, and artistic evidence that women have historically played a role in combat, that is till the rise of the modern Catholic Church and our supposedly progressive western civilization. Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, led a revolt against the Roman Empire in the 3^rd century. After initially defeating the Romans the "Warrior Queen" ruled most of the modern Middle East from for a decade. The Emperor Aurelian finally defeated Zenobia and she was led through the streets of Rome held by golden chains in a victory parade that also included a dozen Gothic women. The Historia Augusta, a Roman collection of biographies, includes this, "ten women who, dressed in male attire, had been captured fighting among the Goths, after many others of them had died, and whom a placard indicated to be the Amazons."

I could also remind the Catholic Santorum, and his church, of Joan of Arc. But than again they burned her at the stake when she was 19 years old only to make her a saint.

I'm Not Dead

One can't be totally serious all the time now can one? Quite
possibly the best ad for jewelry I have ever seen.


Nicole Trunfio - BARE from Nicole Trunfio on Vimeo.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 2.18

What a totally fascinating week it has been.

It started with Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, a Democrat, signing into law a gay marriage bill passed by that state's House and Senate both passed the previous week. The law will take effect 90 days after the legislature's session ends or June 1^st. It will in all probability be put on hold till after the November election as opponents have filed to have both it and a question defining marriage as between a woman and a man put on the ballot. They must have 120,000 signatures by June to challenge the law and 240,000 signatures by July to have the marriage question entered. I was surprised to learn that 30 states (map) have constitutional
amendments defining marriage as between a woman and a man, I didn't realize it was that many.

In New Jersey the state Senate passed a gay marriage bill on Monday by a vote of 24-16 and the state House passed the same bill Thursday. The House vote was 42-33 with not one Republican voting in favor of it. Late Friday, just before the start of a holiday weekend, Republican Gov. Chris Christie did as he had promised and vetoed the bill. Christie proved that, just as the playground bully he is, his demeanor is all a show to cover the fact that he is afraid of his own very ample shadow. The New Jersey legislatures have until the current session ends in January 2014 to override the veto and can vote as many times as is necessary. 

Also yesterday the Maryland House of Delegates, after a sometimes mind boggling debate, passed a gay marriage bill by a vote of 72-67 and the state Senate is expected to pass the bill next week. Gov. Martin O'Malley, also a Democrat, introduced the bill himself and will sign it. Here again opponents promise to have  the law on the November ballot. The surprising thing in Maryland is ho vehemently African American churches oppose it. All I can wonder is what their reaction would be if it were their rights that were being put to a vote. I think you know the answer to that one.

Going back for a second, both Gregoire and Christie are practicing Catholics and last month she offered to talk to Christie about the religious aspects of the gay marriage issue. I only mention their faith because of my final, and totally unreal, story of the week.

On Thursday Republican Rep. Darrell Issa held a circus he choose to call a hearing on President Obama's new birth control payment rule. I can honestly say that birth control is an issue, if it is an issue at all, that I pay very little attention to but this was total insanity. Five middle aged men testifying on an issue that predominately concerns women and not one woman witness was allowed to speak. Issa must know that a majority of Americans, including a majority of both Catholics and Republicans, think he is dead wrong. He also must know that a majority of registered voters are women. The GOP's argument against birth control is principally one of religious freedom or pretty much if god wanted a woman to have birth control he would have given her a bottle of aspirin (Google it) which brings this counter argument to mind. If god wanted a man to have a hard-on he would have given them a bottle of Viagra, something I'm sure insurance covers.

Like I said what a week. I just typed hard-on.

Observations on the 2012 Election

Ever since I was in college I have survived on very little sleep and if I get five hours in a night I'm perfectly happy. I'm only telling you that because I'm starting to write this at 5 AM and I have been awake since 2:30 after having a five hour 'nap' or a full night's sleep.

I was just reading a little about Rick Santorum and thinking again how much of a dream come true it would be for him to win the GOP nomination. I don't think President Obama could ask for more, I mean seriously Sarah Palin would stand a better chance of beating him in November. With no primaries this coming week the still surging Santorum is leading in almost every poll now. Next up is Michigan and a loss by Romney there could send Willard and his millions to the ass heap of political history.

Even some states where Romney won he has now lost. First in Iowa where the state GOP reversed itself and declared Santorum the winner and now it could possibly happen again in Maine. On February 12^th Romney was declared the winner of the Maine Caucus by a margin of 194 votes over Ron Paul. Some towns postponed their caucuses due to weather and some vote counts were just flat out missed yet Romney was declared the winner that night. In the end it doesn't matter much because a caucus is a non-binding party function, not bound by state election controls, and what counts is the delegate selection convention where Paul always thought he would win. Still for Willard a reverse in Maine would be another hole in a suddenly floundering campaign. 

Short of a new disaster the GOP now has little hope of beating Obama on his handling of the economy so it's now shifting to its backup plan, a return to the culture wars, and Santorum only emphasizes that. The latest chapter of the war has the GOP calling Obama's contraceptive mandate the opening of a 'war on religion' even though the mandate is the national equivalent of laws already on the books in 28 states. It is lost on them and their allies, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, that the largest Catholic university in the nation, DePaul, offers free contraceptives and has for years.

Finally I give you the 1990 Supreme Court case, Oregon v. Smith, in which the court ruled the states have the power to accommodate religious beliefs but they aren't constitutionally obligated to do so. The author of this decision? Arch conservative and catholic Justice Antonin Scalia. If anybody started a war on religion it was this man.

noon update - A poll that just came out now has Santorum leading in Ohio with 42^% to Romney's 24^%.

Observations on the 2012 Election

“It’s now time to clear the air, and when we saw the latest Republican frontrunner, Rick Santorum, speaking before a crowd yesterday, all we could think of was George Orwell’s novel, '1984,' about a society dominated by the most extreme form of totalitarianism. The similarities with George Orwell’s novel, and that movie, are not just superficial. No, Rick Santorum holds some pretty stern views on a number of important issues and he regularly sounds like a theocrat,” MSNBC anchor
Martin Bashir.


link

Observations on the 2012 Election

CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, was last week and it was highlighted by current wingnut tard in chief Andrew Breitbart being dragged away by aides as he screamed “animals” at Occupy protesters outside the DC Marriot. Speakers inside the hall described Democrats, liberals, and President Obama as racists, animals, radicals, freaks, and parasites, who were stupid and arrogant. We use racial division, class warfare, religious bigotry, and hate to divide the country creating a climate of fear. Fascinating coming from those who say the Democrats are the name callers.

Fox News talking head and wingnut columnist Cal Thomas was down right effing ugly. After the Heritage’s Genevieve Wood played a quote of Rachel Maddow debunking the conservative argument on contraception Thomas said, “I’m glad that you played the Rachel Maddow clip because I think she is the best argument in favor of her parents using contraception. I would be all for that.” Thomas later apologized.

CPAC also marked the return to the national stage of Sarah Palin, but enough said on that subject.

One of those arrogant liberals, Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, had a good quote today when talking about Obama's proposed budget and the GOP plan to attack it on MSNBC's Now with Alex Wagner. She said Social Security is not an entitlement but a right Americans pay for all their lives. Very true but I have never heard put quite like that before.

At the final GOP debate in Florida Rick Santorum, always my personal fav, insisted that he should be the nominee of the party because he'd caught on earlier than Newt or Willard to the global warming hoax. This as North America is in the middle of the driest winter in history. NASA recently updated its “Blue Marble” photo which was originally taken in 1972. In this new version North America is almost completely snow and cloud free, in the middle of January. I know it's a lot to ask but I pray to the political gods every night hoping Santorum will be the GOP nominee. I can only imagine how entertaining a debate between that man and President Obama would be.

I'll end this with a simple question. Does the GOP have any plan at all other than defeating President Obama in November? All else seems to take a back seat to that goal. The economy, health care, you, me, the country, the human race. Other than that they only care about corporations and the gilded barons that run them. Those barons that fill their pockets with dollars that come from the tax cuts they are given in return.

Happy Valentine's Day

I was trying to think of something to write today but Valentine's Day isn't one of my best topics. Than I saw something a friend posted on Flickr and there is no way in hell I can top this so I'm going to borrow it. I hope she doesn't mind.

"In 1958, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, who lived in Virginia, were married in the District of Columbia to avoid Virginia’s ‘Racial Integrity’ law which outlawed marriage between different races. After returning home, Virginia police broke into their house and found them sleeping in bed together, for which they were arrested. In 1959 they were sentenced to one year in prison. The judge in the trial invoked religious arguments, stating that since God had created the races on different continents, He clearly did not mean for them to marry. The Lovings chose a 25 year suspended sentence on the condition they moved out of their home state of Virginia. In 1963 The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Lovings, which wound its way to the Supreme Court of the United States, which unanimously ruled the Virginia law unconstitutional (Loving v Virginia, 1967).

The Court wrote “Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes … is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law.”
In 1945, after the US had helped win the right of freedom from oppression for people around the world, people of different races could not marry in 30 of 48 states (www.lovingday.org/legal-map).
Luckily, progress happens

My point on this Valentine’s Day? Governor Christie of New Jersey (and others), positive change is happening - don’t be on the wrong side of history."

Happy Valentine's Day