 |
|
|
[Unlike the two ads I posted earlier on FSC -- this one and this one -- this new Yahoo! ad doesn't resemble Dreamlife so much as Bembo's Zoo, the superb webification of a graphemic bestiary. This Yahoo! ad is pretty ugly, that is until you realize the cluster of letters -- which is randomly arranged -- does little pop-ups with roll-overs, and becomes legible when you click on them. Pretty amazing wha tyou can do with 29k.]
This is the most amusing piece that I found in the Times this weekend, about a real American eccentric named Sidney N. Laverents, a sort of Nancarrow of film who made some great stuff with relatively primitive machinery. I've already emailed this guy to get copies of his videos -- tough going, he emailed me back once claiming to have included an attachment with prices, etc., but it wasn't there, and he's not returned any of my emails since. He's also apparently done some wonderful nature "documentaries" shot in his backyard, kind of doing for snails what Jean Painleve did for sea horses, showing these little hermaphrodites falling in love, procreating, generally going about their business, kind of like Microkosmos with a bolex.
This story was written by Matt Haber, who has a nice blog called www.lowculture.com.
IN the video for OutKast's "Hey Ya!," André 3000 sings and dances, backed by a band of seven digitally replicated Andrés.
The effect may have helped to make the video one of the year's most popular. But to fans of the outsider filmmaker Sidney N. Laverents, the computer graphics trickery looked familiar. Mr. Laverents, an engineer and self-taught film hobbyist, created a primitive version of the same effect in "Multiple SIDosis," a nine-minute film from 1970. Working at home in suburban San Diego, he used a reel-to-reel, two-track Roberts recorder, a retrofitted 16-millimeter Bolex camera and eight musical instruments from his vaudeville days as a one-man band.
The star of the film? The paunchy, middle-aged Mr. Laverents — a square with a comb-over and ample musical talent.
Shot over four years with the help of his third wife, Adelaide, "Multiple SIDosis" went on to win dozens of awards at amateur filmmaker conventions all over the world. In 2000, it became the first amateur work included in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. And now, 34 years after it was shot, a 35-millimeter version (cleaned up by by Ross Lipman, who also has restored films by John Cassavetes and John Sayles) is the centerpiece of "The Wonderful World of Sid's Cinema," a retrospective to be held on Friday at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles.
A One-Man Band Who Created an Oeuvre
David Perry has posted on poem by Emily Greenley in the comments section. (BTW, the poet I couldn't remember in the last post was not Robert Fitterman but Mara Galvez-Breton.) Here are the three from Arras and the one David posted in the comments section.
Outside in Wichita
Are you going for a walk alone?
It will germinate in your head
How many people do you love at once?
I don't see the bumps in your head
from the crown inside your head
Are you in need of company?
You just left your sister at the house:
You just left your sins at home
You are only walking in line
Do you plan to make money
by your identity?
for Noah
body's the tool
of the soul, and
proxy for anyone
one knows
so I extend
to you far as
I reach, or
three feet:
expend your
self on me
it's welcome
that weight
Your mind
There's a chance someone could see
You standing behind a tree
Or while you change underwear
In a closet at lunchtime.
When you wanted not to act
Someone called you for a date;
You sat on the porch at night
To take a chill because you were bored.
You wanted the world to seem
Enjoyable, to stop dreaming.
for I.
I wish I lived in a blue black glass
or I wish I hadn't lived at all,
& I dream of subliming to a free essence,
watching, invisible, rambling,
& I want to go to a theatre
where your head is a huge balloon
Resting gravely above the audience,
and my special head none the less.
I seem to have made a typo in the Arras issue -- "it's" was originally printed as "its" in the poem "for Noah," or perhaps that's the way it came to me -- I dont' have the original ms. available. I can't think of anything sadder than the thought of someone taking their own life so young.
The great Sergio Bessa, poet and indefatigable -- yes -- Haroldo de Campos scholar, has forwarded to me the following translation and bio of the late poet.
There is, of course, a whole load of interesting stuff on ubu.com (Haroldo de Campos search) -- including the Pilot Plan for Concrete Poetry written by the Noigandres group and partly inspired by Lucia Costa's "Pilot Plan for Brazil."
Brazil's version of Concrete poetry may be the only art movement ever premised on the idea of a creating an "exportable" art form -- specifically for exchange within the global economy. Though I can't find the exact quote that states this, the Pilot Plan ends: "A general art of the word. The poem-product: useful object." I'm sure you neo-Romantics will find this yucky.
The following poem is from de Campos' post-Concrete phase:
The Education Of The Five Senses
1.
chatoboys (oswald)
itching
like fleas
peirce (proust?) considering
a color—violet
or an odor—
cabbage
rotten
rot—consider
this word: wines,
horace, odes
(principle of a
poem—
ogre)
2.
the purgatory is this:
enter / inter-
consider
the journey from the word stella
to the word styx
3.
(marx: the education of the five
senses
the tactile the mobile
the difficult
to read / readable
visibilia / invisibilia
the audible / the unheard
the hand
the eye
the hearing
the foot
the nerve
the tendon)
4.
the air
lapidary: see
how connects, this word,
to this other
language: my
consciousness (a parallelogram
of forces not a simple
equation of one
sole
unknown factor): this
language is made of air
and vocal cord
the hand that instills the thread of the
trellis / the breath
that unites this to that
voice: the point
of torsion
diaphanous work but that
is made (throughout) with the five
senses
with the color the odor the cabbage the fleas
5.
rare labor such as
to spin a top on one’s
nail
but that leaves its trace
minimal (non prescinded)
in the common division (incision)
of labor
pulsating trace / pulse
of the senses that are (pre) formed:
un-prescinded (if minimal)
the flicker of sunlight in the eye
—claritas: flash of epiphany!
a few registers modulations
rough paper or smooth a fold
secure a cut
a sure shot
on the bull's eye
in a flash the tiger trail the deer
(sousândrade)
the tiger-like assault
6.
that what accrues
rests
(in the senses)
even though minimal
(hubris of the minimal
that rests)
Translated by A.S. Bessa
Haroldo de Campos, (1929-2003), gained worldwide recognition in the early 1950s as one of the founders of Noigandres, the Brazilian group of poets who set the agenda for concrete poetry. Campos earned a law degree in 1952, but never practiced in that profession. He taught literary theory at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica, in São Paulo, for most of his life, and published several volumes on translation theory and on Brazilian and international literature. In 1972 Campos defended a controversial doctoral dissertation on Macunaima, a landmark of Brazilian modernism, based on the theories of Vladimir Propp. A decade later, his book on Gregório de Mattos, an elusive figure of the Brazilian baroque, also created a stir among academic circles in Brazil. Campos's "anti-logocentric" readings of Brazilian literature, admittedly influenced by Derrida's deconstructive model, have been of capital importance in the re-evaluation of authors such as Mattos, Kilkerry, Sousândrade and Oswald de Andrade—authors who, according to Campos, constitute a "tradition of rupture" in Brazilian literature. He was a prolific translator who introduced the work of many foreign poets to Brazil, beginning in the early 1950s with Ezra Pound, and most recently Charles Bernstein. His last work of translation, Homer's Iliad, has been published in two volumes by Mandarim, in São Paulo. An English volume of his collected poems and essays is due next spring by Northwestern University Press.
Haroldo de Campos died last Saturday, August 16, at the Hospital Oswaldo Cruz, in São Paulo.
If the name sounds like Woyzeck, it should -- Herzog's original intention was to make a film based on Buchner's play, but he instead made a movie about three very strange Germans who make their way to Wisconsin, buy a trailer home, become (respectively) a prostitute, an acolyte of Mesmer and a car mechanic, and who end up (respectively) in Vancouver, in jail and dead on a ski lift holding a big butterball Turkey. I encourage everyone to see this film, which I saw last night on DVD. The actress, Eva Mattes, is not in the photo below, which features Clayton Szlapinski (an American car mechanic that Herzog met when his truck broke down), Clemens Scheitz and the amazing latter-day miestersanger Bruno S. -- read about him below. I've only been disappointed with Herzog once, in that crappy made for TV thing about mountain climbing that starred Donald Sutherland, but otherwise he is simply too rich to describe, and quite often he is just letting the camera run on things he knows are overwhelmingly strange and beautiful.
The story behind its making is almost as interesting as the film itself. Documentarian Errol Morris wanted to make a film about the town of Plainfield, Wisconsin, from which eight serial murderers came, including the infamous Ed Gein, inspiration for Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Morris discovered that Gein dug up all the graves in a circle around that of his mother, and he and his friend Herzog decided that the only way to find out if he dug up his mother's grave too was to dig it up themselves. Morris never showed up for their meeting, and Herzog's car broke down in Plainfield. His experiences, and many of the people he met there, are here in this film. That story is seamlessly blended into the life story of Bruno S., the star. Bruno was abused by his drug-addict mother and abandoned when he was three. He spent the next 23 years of his life in various mental hospitals and prisons. Herzog discovered him as a gifted street musician and cast him in his The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, whose story also echoed Bruno's life. (Read rest at link above.)
[My new favorite writer of late has been Denton Welch -- I've read both In Youth Is Pleasure and A Voice Through A Cloud in the past month. I have a bad cold, however, so outside of providing this caricature that I found online, I'm just going to have to paste some prose I had found on a Denton Welch fan site that gives a pretty accurate description of what it's like reading him.
Burroughs was a fan, as was Edith Sitwell and W.H. Auden; Rod Smith also wrote about him in Rain Taxi a few years ago. Welch reminds me most of Rimbaud, though, especially in In Youth Is Pleasure -- some of these paragraphs are so well put together, and so full of imagistic detail, and he is so openn to all sorts of experiences -- ranging from the Tennysonian temper of his interest in ruins and castles, the Huck Finn-like taking to the open road, to the more Genet-like moments of putting on make-up or even self-flagellation just because it piques his interest to do so -- you think you're reading someone whose senses were just coming to life, and certainly he was quite brave to take on the responsibility of investigation.]
It would be difficult to find any more intensely cultural, or cultured world in literature than Welch's. His obsession with old churches, rambling gardens, ruling-class mansions, period furniture and all the smaller artefacts, like 'Gothic Revival toast-racks', that are special emblems of Englishness make him more English, more pre-War, and more literary in the Bloomsbury sense than any other writer of his time and place.
And yet what you will find in these excerpts, as in all of his work, is a highly-coloured, imagistic, raw and seemingly unsophisticated style that seems to invite ridicule, before the reader realises it is his or her own psychological defences that Welch's clear, factual voice has aroused. While its grammatical construction is precise to the point of sounding stiff to our ears, Welch's language continually stimulates because it is uncensored in terms of the private experiences it unfolds. The author is continually saying what is unsayable, even 'unthinkable' in daily social life, and the anarchic result is hilarious and moving.
Like Austen or Proust, Denton Welch achieves a surgical accuracy of description of the poltroons, wasters and fops of his own class. Few writers etch the vanity of human beings with too much money and too little experience so sharply as he. But in his writing there is also a frankness about his own oddities of mind that is disarming and deceptively easy to read (as it surely is not easy to write). A passage of Welch leads us to understand how charm can have a serious evaluative meaning in prose. It is a lesson in good style. It astounds me that a person whose social world was so rarefied and hermetic could write with such sensitivity to human suffering and with no sense of self-importance or pretence. Welch writes about human feelings and motivations with an unblinking candour that we associate with a Sartre or Camus: his gaze on the world is of such clarity that he leads me to wonder what the greats of French literature could have achieved if they, like Denton Welch, were never tempted into intellectual posturing.
Shutting Down an Entire Artists Network over an Unresolved Complaint about One Site Sets a Worrisome Precedent for Corporate Control over the Work of Artists
NEW YORK CITY, NY -- In the contemporary Internet climate of consolidation, it is increasingly difficult for artists and arts organizations to find a safe harbor where they are free to create and where what they create is protected from the limitations and chilling effects of Internet filters, server content restrictions, and corporate dominance.
The legendary THE THING has been an Internet Presence Provider for activist and arts organizations primarily in the New York area for ten years. It hosts arts and activist groups and publications including P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center; ARTFORUM; Mabou Mines; Willoughby Sharp Gallery; ZINGMAGAZINE; JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY ART; and Tenant.net. Among many others, artists and projects associated with thing.net have included Sawad Brooks, Heath Bunting, Vuk Cosic, etoy, John Klima, Jenny Marketou, Mariko Mori, Prema Murty, Mark Napier, Joseph Nechvatal, Phil Niblock, Daniel Pflumm, Francesca da Rimini, Beat Streuli, and Beth Stryker. It also offers dial-up access; authoring and design services; arts-oriented newsletters, and online conversation spaces. Vistors can log on as a guest and visit discussions such as undercurrents: a forum about the interrelations of cyberfeminism, new technologies and globalization, moderated by Irina Aristahrkova, Maria Fernandez, Coco Fusco, and Faith Wilding.
But in December, after receiving legal threats from the Dow Chemical Corporation, thing.net's Internet access provider, NTT/Verio, temporarily shut of all the sites which thing.net hosts and subsequently gave notice that it will unilaterally terminate thing.net's contract on February 28.
In the letter to Verio, Dow's lawyers asserted that in a parody site, the Yes Men -- a group who infiltrate "the fortified compounds of commerce" to call attention to corporate/political abuses -- had violated the Digital Milenium Copyright Act (DMCA) by using copyrighted texts and images and had also violated the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which makes it unlawful for a person to register a domain name incorporating the famous trademarks of another and provides for statutory damages of up to $300,000.
The Yes Men site was implemented online by thing.net-hosted RTMark which publicizes corporate subversion of the democratic process and fosters art work which investigates corporate activities. Yes Men's parody looked like a real communication from Dow on the 18th anniversary of the disaster in which thousands of people died as a result of an accident at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. Union Carbide is now owned by Dow. In part, the fake press release read:
"'We are being portrayed as a heartless giant which doesn't care about the 20,000 lives lost due to Bhopal over the years,' said Dow President and CEO Michael D. Parker. 'But this just isn't true. Many individuals within Dow feel tremendous sorrow about the Bhopal disaster, and many individuals within Dow would like the corporation to admit its responsibility, so that the public can then decide on the best course of action, as is appropriate in any democracy. "Unfortunately, we have responsibilities to our shareholders and our industry colleagues that make action on Bhopal impossible. And being clear about this has been a very big step.'"
Parody and the use of corporate-owned images in artworks have been found to be protected in some cases. For instance, last year a federal court dismissed toymaker Mattel's lawsuit which sought to stop artist Tom Forsythe from using the Barbie doll in a series of photographs commenting on the doll and the values it embodies.
"The intellectual property laws do not grant corporations the right to control all artistic speech concerning the role of products and corporations in our society," Annette L. Hurst, Lead Counsel from the law firm Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin, which represented Forsythe in Mattel v. Walking Mountain Productions, commented about that case.
In the Dow case -- if, as the Yes Men put forth on their web site, they filed for the domain name dow-chemical.com using the name and the home address of James Parker, the son of the Dow CEO -- the situation may be complicated because of compounded cybersquatting issues.
However, Verio's shutting down of an entire network over an unresolved complaint about one site sets a worrisome precedent for corporate control over the work of artists -- making it possible to intimidate a provider to the point where the existence of challenging art on the Internet could be in jeopardy.
"If we could afford a good legal team I think we could challenge them on the grounds that they didn't have to shut down thing.net's complete c-class network (256 IPs) to get rid of the RTMark site. (which occupies only one out of the 256 addresses). To shut down the complete network is not something they were required to do by the DMCA," artist Wolfgang Staehle, Executive Director of thing.net, emphasized.
THE THING -- which since 1991 has fostered network artists, critics, curators, and activists and in the shifting Internet climate of the last decade, has sought ways to interconnect their diverse interests and activities -- now seeks to locate on a system which will be hospitable to art and activist content.
In response to a question from CURRENT about what kind of systems thing.net would implement if it were to set up its own autonomous network, Wolfgang Staehle commented that "Our intention is to build redundancies into the system by setting up backup servers with cooperative ISPs in Europe and elsewhere. Another solution we've been discussing is to purchase a block of 4096 IPs from ARIN [American Registry for Internet Numbers] and have two upstream providers. This won't solve all the problems but it could give us a bit more room to maneuver in similar future situations, should they arise."
Meanwhile, a lot of people have offered some kind of support -- including donations from two to 200 dollars, Brian Boucher, Editor of THING.REVIEWS, told NYFA Current. "We've been around for ten years. People really do appreciate what we do; it's very encouraging -- a matter of raising some money; evaluating offers; seeing how things work out with Verio." Boucher also noted that in response to articles in THE NEW YORK TIMES and WIRED, many people have contacted Verio. "Verio originally told us that they would work out a timetable. We are going on the assumption that we have until February 28, but they have not yet followed up on the timetable," he commented.
Although the Yes Men parody site now bounces to the real Dow Chemical site, many mirror sites have sprung up, including: www.dowethics.com www.dowindia.com and www.mad-dow-disease.com
Trying to suppress such a site "is like the proverbial fight with the Hydra," commented Wolfgang Staehle. "For the Yes Men and their supporters, the site is a parody, and I personally tend to agree. If they were to put a disclaimer on the page it wouldn't work -- it wouldn't have the same effect. So for the parody to be effective, they had to use the logos and the corporate lingo and so on. What the Yes Men are doing is really performance art. Only they prefer the arena of the real world to the theater or the gallery."
Sources/resources:
THING.NET -- bbs.thing.net
THE YES MEN -- www.theyesmen.org
RTMARK -- www.rtmark.com
NTT/VERIO -- www.nttverio.com
EDUCAUSE -- www.educause.edu _DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT (DMCA) -- www.educause.edu/issues/dmca.html
ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION -- www.eff.org _ANTICYBERSQUATTING CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT -- -- www.eff.org/GII_NII/DNS_control/s1255_1999_bill.html
"First Amendment Protects Criticism of Barbie Doll and the Values it Represents, Federal Court Affirms" Arts Wire CURRENT -- www.nyfa.org/current_archive/2001/cur091101.html September 11, 2001
"The Lawsuit Against etoy is Dropped" Arts Wire Current -- www.nyfa.org/current_archive/2000/cur020800.html February 8, 2000 Volume 9, No. 6
Matthew Mirapaul "Cyberspace Artists Paint Themselves Into a Corner" THE NEW YORK TIMES -- www.nytimes.com/2002/12/23/arts/design/23ARTS.html December 12, 2002
Michelle Delio "DMCA: Dow What It Wants to Do" WIRED - www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,57011,00.html
December 31, 2002
[Always a good thing to have handy. Click more for the actual staff picks, which are usually more interesting than the top sellers.]
1. Boards of Canada "Geogaddi" (Warp)
2. Interpol "Turn on the Bright Lights" (Matador)
3. Mum "Finally We Are No One" (Fat Cat)
4. Yo La Tengo "Sounds of the Sounds of Science" (Egon)
5. Clinic "Walking With Thee" (Domino)
6. Notwist "Neon Golden" (City Slang)
7. Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Yeah Yeah Yeahs" (Touch and Go)
8. Flaming Lips "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" (Warner)
9. Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
10. Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (Nonesuch)
11. Gary Wilson "You Think You Really Know Me" reissue (Motel)
12. Ladytron "Light and Magic" (Emperor Norton)
13. Beth Gibbons and Rustin' Man "Out of Season" (Go Beat)
14. Smokey and Miho "Smokey and Miho" (Afro Sambas)
15. Soviet "We Are Eyes We Are Builders" (Head)
16. RJD2 "Deadringer" (Def Jux)
17. Black Dice "Beaches and Canyons" (DFA)
18. Sigur Ros "()" (MCA)
19. A Certain Ratio "Early" (Soul Jazz)
20. Belle and Sebastian "Storytelling" (Jeepster/Matador)
21. Sleater-Kinney "One Beat" (Kill Rock Stars)
22. Various Artists "Blue Skied an' Clear" (Morr)
23. Various Artists "In the Beginning There Was Rhythm" (Soul Jazz)
24. The Streets "Original Pirate Material" (Pure Groove/Locked On)
25. DJ Shadow "Private Press" (MCA)
26. Beck "Sea Change" (DGC)
27. Pavement "Slanted & Enchanted/Luxe & Reduxe" reissue (Matador)
28. Cody Chesnutt "Headphone Masterpiece" (Ready Set Go)
29. Metro Area "Metro Area" (Environ)
30. Boards of Canada "Twoism" reissue (Warp)
GEOFF ALBORES
Alice Coltrane "Universal Consciousness" reissue (Verve)
A Certain Ratio "Early" (Soul Jazz)
Mr. Lif "I Phantom" (Def Jux)
Super Collider "Raw Digits" (Rise Robots Rise)
Burnt Sugar "Volumes 1-3" (Trugoid)
Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
Town and Country "C'mon" (Thrill Jockey)
Fertile Ground "Seasons Change" (Counterpoint)
Derrick Carter "Square Dancing in a Round Room" (Classic)
Stereotyp "My Sound" (G Stone)
Nicole Mitchell "Afrika Rising" (Dreamtime)
William Parker "Raining on the Moon" (Thirsty Ear)
Sticks and Stones "Sticks and Stones" (482)
Mia Doi Todd "Golden State" (Sony)
Ethiopiques 11 "Alemu Aga/Harp of King David" (Buda Musique)
MATT CONNORS
A Certain Ratio "Early" (Soul Jazz)
Future/Human League "Golden Hour of the Future" reissue
(Black Melody)
Richard Hawley "Late Night Final" (Bar/None)
Horace Andy "Dance Hall Style" reissue (Wackies)
Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
Clinic "Walking With Thee (Domino)
Closer Music "After Love" (Kompakt)
Donovan "Open Road" reissue (Repertoire)
Ethiopiques 11 "Alemu Aga/Harp of King David" (Buda Musique)
Interpol "Turn on the Bright Lights" (Matador)
[V.A.] "8 Women/Original Soundtrack" (Rhino)
Devendra Banhart "Oh Me Oh My" (Young God)
J DENNIS
Closer Musik "After Love" (Kompakt)
[V.A.] "Disco Not Disco 2" (Strut)
Donna Regina "Northern Classic" (Karaoke Kalk)
Annie Gosfield "Flying Sparks and Heavy Machinery" (Tzadik)
Hrvatski "Swarm and Dither" (Planet Mu)
Love Joys "Lovers Rock" & "Reggae Vibes" reissues (Wackies)
Metro Area "Metro Area" (Environ)
The Sound "Jeopardy" reissue (Renascent)
Swayzak "Dirty Dancing" (K7)
Theorem THX "Experiments in Synchronicity" (Minus)
Akufen "My Way" (Force Inc.)
Thomas Fehlmann "Visions of Blah" (Kompakt)
Smash TV "Electrified" (Bpitch)
Stereotyp "My Sound" (G Stone)
Tom and Joyce "Partir" (Yellow)
DANIEL DEROGATIS
Sutekh "Fell" (Orthlorng)
DJ/Rupture "Minesweeper Suite" (Tigerbeat6)
Ethiopiques 11 "Alemu Aga/Harp of King David" (Buda Musique)
Lawrence "Lawrence" (Ladomat)
Rhythm & Sound/Chosen Brothers "Making History" (Burial Mix)
Ekkehard Ehlers "Plays" (Staubgold)
Michael Mayer "Immer" (Kompakt)
William Basinski "Disintegration Loops" (Mosex)
Justus Kohncke "Was Ist Musik?" (Kompakt)
Missy Elliot "Under Construction" (Elektra)
LISA GARRETT
Revlon 9 "Revlon 9" (Self-released)
Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Yeah Yeah Yeahs" (Touch and Go)
Rapture "House of Jealous Lovers" 12"-single (DFA)
[V.A.] "Studio One Hustle" (Soul Jazz)
Rogers Sisters "Purely Evil" (Troubleman)
Missy Elliot "Under Construction" (Elektra)
ESG "Step Off" (Soul Jazz)
Metro Area "Metro Area" (Environ)
Polyphonic Spree - Live Show, Brooklyn Lyceum, CMJ 2002
Hot Hot Heat "Knock Knock Knock" (Sub Pop)
ANDY GILES
Orchid "Gatefold" (Ebullition)
Xiu Xiu "Knife Play" (5RC)
Frog Eyes "Bloody Hand" (Global Symphonic)
Sigur Ros "()" (MCA)
Death of Marat "All Eyes Open" (Stickfigure)
Josef K "Young and Stupid" reissue (LTM)
Jacobites "Robespierres Velvet Basement" reissue
(Secretly Canadian)
Die Todliche Doris "Kinderringellreihen Fur Wahren Toren" reissue
(Psychedelic Pig)
Swans "Great Annihilator" reissue (Young God)
Nikki Sudden/Roland S. Howard "Kiss You Kidnapped Charabanc"
reissue (Secretly Canadian)
DANIEL GIVENS
Nettle "Build a Fort, Set That on Fire" (Agriculture)
Josh Abrams "Busride Interview" (Lucky Kitchen)
William Basinski "Disintegration Loops" (Mosex)
Rhythm and Sound "10-inch Series" (Basic Channel)
Guillermo E. Brown "Soul at the Hands of the Machine"
(Thirsty Ear/Blue Series)
Me'Shell NdegeOcello "Cookie" (Warner)
[V.A.] "Studio One Series" (Soul Jazz)
Stereotyp "My Sound" (G Stone)
Derrick Carter "Squaredancing in a Round House" (Classic)
Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
Ethiopiques 11 "Alemu Aga/Harp of King David" (Buda Musique)
ESG "Step Off" (Soul Jazz)
GERALD HAMMILL
Revlon 9 "Revlon 9" (Self-released)
Michael Mayer "Immer" (Kompakt)
ESG "Step Off" (Soul Jazz)
Mum "Finally We are No One" (Fat Cat)
[V. A.] "In the Beginning There Was Rhythm (Soul Jazz)
Love Joys "Lovers Rock" reissue (Wackies)
Donna Regina "Northern Classic" (Karaoke Kalk)
Keith Fullerton Whitman "Playthroughs" (Kranky)
Clinic "Walking With Thee" (Domino)
[V.A.] "Disco Not Disco 2" (Strut)
Noonday Underground "Surface Noise" (Setanta)
Rapture "House of Jealous Lovers" 12"-single (DFA)
ROB HATCH-MILLER
A Certain Ratio "Early" (Soul Jazz)
Notwist "Neon Golden" (City Slang)
[V.A.] "Can't Stop It" (Chapter)
Black Dice "Beaches and Canyons" (DFA)
Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (Nonesuch)
Marz "Love Streams" (Karaoke Kalk)
Casino Verus Japan "Whole Numbers Play the Basics" (Carpark)
Love Joys "Reggae Vibes" reissue (Wackies)
Archie Shepp "Yasmina, a Black Woman" reissue (Sunspots)
Fennesz "Field Recordings" (Touch)
Single of the Year: Rapture "House of Jealous Lovers" (DFA)
DUANE HARRIOTT
Amerie "Why Don't We Fall In Love" 12"-single (Sony)
Rapture "House of Jealous Lovers" 12"-single (DFA)
Revlon 9 "Revlon 9" (Self-released)
ESG "Step Off" (Soul Jazz)
Saint Etienne "Action" 12"-single (Heavenly)
Linda Lewis "Reach for the Truth" reissue (Rhino/WSM/Reprise)
[V.A.] "Disco Connection" (WSM)
Slum Village "Trinity" (Capitol)
Akfuen "Deck the House" 12"-single (Force Inc.)
Metro Area "Miura" 12"-single (Environ)
KEAN HOLTKAMP
Eliane Radigue ""Adnos 1 to 3" (Table of the Elements)
Minamo ".kgs" (360 Degree)
Mitchell Akiyama "Temporary Music" (Raster-Noton)
Michael Hurley "Blueberry Wine" reissue (Locust)
Toshiya Tsunoda "Pieces of Air" (Lucky Kitchen)
Phil Niblock "G2, 44+x2" (Moikai)
Charlemagne Palestine "Music for Big Ears" (Staalplaat)
Stina Nordenstam "This Is" (Independiente)
Music Tapes "2nd Imaginary Symphony" (Self-released)
DAN HOUGHLAND
The glow-sticks in the Paul McCartney "Back in the USA"
CD/DVD/Cassette commercial
Woodbine "Woodbine" (Domino) -skip to track 3, then it's expert
sailing
Trad, Gras Och Stenar "Djungelns Lag" reissue (1/2 Special)
Metro Area "Metro Area" (Environ) & live at Joe's Pub on 12/27/02
Black Dice "Beaches and Canyons" (DFA)
Black Dice "Lost Valley" EP (Tigerbeat6)
Animal Collective "Hollinndagain Live" (Secretly Canadian)
The Double "CD-R" (forthcoming release)
The Occasion "CD-R" (forthcoming release)
No Neck Blues Band "Mr. a Fan" (Trademark Quality)
Vote Robot "Five Score Six Bicycle" (Catsup Plate)
MICHAEL KLAUSMAN
Devendra Banhart "Oh Me Oh My" (Young God)
Michael Hurley "Blueberry Wine" reissue (Locust)
Eliane Radigue "Geelriandre/Arthesis" (Fringes)
William Basinksi "Disintegration Loops" (Mosex)
Dando Shaft "Anthology" (RPM)
Ilitch "10 Suicides" reissue (Fractal)
Fairport Convention "Heyday" reissue (Island)
Duncan Browne "Duncan Browne" reissue (RAK/EMI)
Chris Smither "Don't Drag It On" reissue (Tomato)
23 Skidoo "Gospel Comes to New Guinea" (Ronin)
NICOLE LANG
Iron and Wine "Creek Drank the Cradle" (Sub Pop) - Favorite album
of 2002!
William Basinski "Disintegration Loops" (Mosex)
Henry Flynt "C Tune" (Locust Music)
Missy Elliot "Under Construction" (Elektra)
Sondre Lerche "Faces Down" (Astralwerks)
Joshua "Gold Cosmos" (Feather One's Nest)
Duncan Browne "Duncan Browne" reissue (RAK/EMI)
Les Rallizes Denude "Live 1977" reissue (Fun Fun Fun)
Out Hud "S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D. (Kranky)
Breeders "Title TK (4AD/Elektra)
NOAH LENNOX
Theorem THX "Experiments in Synchronicity" (Minus)
Thomas and Richard Frost "Visualize" reissue (Revola)
Donna Regina "Northern Classic" (Karaoke Kalk)
Jay-Jay Johansen "Antenna" (RCA UK)
Lawrence "Lawrence" (Ladomat)
Durutti Column "Return of the Sporadic Recordings" reissue (Kooky)
Kaito "Special Life" (Kompakt)
Coldplay "A Rush of Blood to the Head" (Capitol)
Maja Ratkje "Voice" (Rune Grammafon)
Youngsbower "Relayer" (VHF)
JOSH MADELL
Devendra Banhart "Oh Me Oh My" (Young God)
Akufen "My Way" (Force Inc.)
Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
Notwist "Neon Golden" (City Slang)
Noonday Underground "Surface Noise" (Setanta)
Metro Area "Metro Area" (Environ)
ESG "Step Off" (Soul Jazz)
Polyphonic Spree "Beginning Stages of" (Good)
LIANE MOCCIA
Brendan Benson "Lapalco" (Star Time)
Ms. John Soda "No P. or D." (Morr)
Deerhoof "Reveille" (Kill Rock Stars)
Interpol "Turn on the Bright Lights" (Matador)
Tyondai Braxton "History That Has No Effect" (JMZ)
Bola "Fyuti" (Skam)
Revlon 9 "Revlon 9" (Self-released)
Michael Hurley "Blueberry Wine" (Locust)
Metro Area "Metro Area" (Environ)
El-P "Fantastic Damage" (Def Jux)
SCOTT MOU
Michael Mayer "Immer" (Kompakt)
[V.A.] "Opensource.code" (Source)
Carsten Jost "Pink/Silver" (Sender)
M. Mayer "Love is Stronger Than Pride" (Kompakt)
Donna Regina "Northern Classic" (Karaoke Kalk)
Suntanama "The Suntanama" (Drag City)
Future/Human League "The Golden Our of the Future" reissue
(Black Melody)
Lawrence "Lawrence" (Ladomat)
Jane - NYC - "Coconuts" (Self-released)
Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist "Hollindagain Live" (Secretly
Canadian)
JENNIFER OROZCO
Michael Hurley "Blueberry Wine" reissue (Locust)
Leslie Winer "Witch" reissue (Virgin France)
Love Joys "Lovers Rock" reissue (Wackies)
Sharon Jones "Dap Dippin'" (Daptones)
Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
A Certain Ratio "Early" (Soul Jazz)
ESG "Step Off" (Soul Jazz)
Nagisa Ni Te "On the Love Beach" reissue (Jagjaguwar)
Breeders "Title TK" (4AD/Elektra)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer "The Musical"
JEREMY SPONDER
Ryan Adams "Demolition" (Universal)
Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (Nonesuch)
Interpol "Turn on the Bright Lights" (Matador)
Akufen "My Way" (Force Inc.)
Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
Paul Westerberg "Stereo/Mono" (Vagrant)
Metro Area "Metro Area" (Environ)
Coldplay "A Rush of Blood to the Head" (Capitol)
Doves "Last Broadcast" (Heavenly)
Mum "Finally We are No One" (Fat Cat)
Single of the Year: Rapture "House of Jealous Lovers" (DFA)
ROY STYLES
Destroyer "This Night" (Merge)
Richard and Thomas Frost "Visualize" reissue (Revola)
Sunshine Company "Sunshine Company" reissue (Revola)
Blades of Grass "Are Not for Smoking" reissue (Revola)
Sandy Salisbury "Falling to Pieces" reissue (Revola)
The Moon "Without Earth and the Moon" reissue (Revola)
Eternity's Children "Eternity's Children" reissue (Revola)
Polyphonic Spree "The Beginning Stages of" (Good)
Josef K "Only Fun in Town" reissue (LTM)
Mum "Finally We are No One" (Fat Cat)
Bola "Fyuti" (Skam)
[V.A.] "Blue Skied an' Clear" (Morr)
Black Dice "Lost Valley EP" (Tigerbeat6)
Clientele "Lost Weekend EP " (Acuarela)
Hrvatski "Swarm and Dither" (Planet Mu)
CHRIS VANDERLOO
Grandpaboy "Mono" (Vagrant)
Paul Westerberg "Stereo" (Vagrant)
[V.A.] "Kompakt Total 4" (Kompakt)
William Basinski "Disintegration Loops" (Mosex)
Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (Nonesuch)
Marz "Love Streams" (Karaoke Kalk)
Walkmen "Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone" (Star Time)
Donovan "Open Road" reissue (Repertoire)
PHIL WALDORF
Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (Nonesuch)
Destroyer "This Night" (Merge)
Spoon "Kill the Moonlight" (Merge)
Fennesz "Field Recordings" (Touch)
Loscil "Submers" (Kranky)
Pavement "Slanted & Enchanted/Luxe & Reduxe" reissue (Matador)
Gary Wilson "You Think You Really Know Me" reissue (Motel)
Okkervil River "Don't Fall in Love With Everyone You See"
(Jagjaguwar)
Television Personalities "Painted Word" reissue (Fire)
[V.A.] "Madagascar: Merina Country" (Ocora)
Nikki Sudden (Various LPs reissued this year on Secretly Canadian)
Here is my first official Free Space Comix scoop! I have these 6 images of designs Antoni Gaudí created in 1908 for a hotel in New York on what became the WTC site. A panel discussing these images will be held:
Thursday, January 23, 6 pm.
The Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue/34th Street
There's also a website with more images, essays, etc.
[I don't have anything really new to publish today except this bit that came through the Net Art list announcing a new addition to the entropy8zuper site. Haven't checked it out yet myself.]
'Tale of Tales' is the new game-design division of the ever-morphing entropy8zuper.org. Currently, tale-of-tales.com hosts plans for a Sleeping Beauty-based project entitled '8,' scheduled for completion some time in 2003. More substantive is a bulletin board focused solely on the theory and practice of game development. Michael (zuper!) and Auriea (entropy8) regularly post on topics ranging from low-res, 3D aesthetics to non-linear, plot storyboarding. Add your own insights to the dialogue, or just lurk & learn. Art as play as narrative as environment as play as play as play. - Curt Cloninger
What did I read this morning, when I woke up way too early and had gotten bored working on the redesign of THE BLOG? Well, a book by David Choe -- the critics rave:
I hate david choe why? Because he makes me feel
old,tired,talentless, and unwilling to take chances.
As you might expect, Choe is young,energetic,
prodigiously talented, and takes many chances.
his use (abuse?) of the English language is fresh and uncontrived;
His schizophrenically restless art school technique
( dropping macaroni noodles, seamlessly blending clip art,
photo collage and childhood scrawling)
is startlingly unpretentious; and his utter fearless approach
to sexuality is a cold blast of water in the desert of inhibition
and near-puritanical sexual avoidance inherent
in almost all of American media.
-Robet Young editor of The Comics Interpreter
I couldn't have said it better myself. He really is an awful speller, not much of a typographer -- but none of these are faults as every "mistake" he makes is more interesting than most of our successes (take a look at the Bauhausian angles of this page, for instance, and tell me if they make you want to get off the couch and party). There is a fantastic little sequence called "Yoffee Toffee" about his trip to the beach in Gaza and visit with the black Jews of Israel in the town of Dimona. The writing is really fresh, not at all indebted to the Beatnik line but all L.A.
If you are interested in this guy check out www.davidchoe.com. And here's my first attempt at putting an image in THE BLOG.
