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- No events.
4 March 2010
David Bowie sang a song called cha-cha-cha-cha-changes.
Just remember, life is always a rehearsal & nobody is perfect. Even David Bowie.
Also, mix engineers are very important.
And sometimes enigmatic is best.
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Changes, David Bowie, Rehearsal, The Problem With Glamour, The Problem With Nostalgia
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19 February 2010
Die Antwoord transcend & transgress (NSFW): A (particulary) short attention span essay on one strand of South African culture
Read this interview with Die Antwoord. Or this one. Or, better yet, catch up with them by reading this informative, catch-all post. Or just listen to their music here.
Where does it seem like their music belongs? South Africa where they’re all from? Or is it strangely Japanese in some way? Or proudly internationalist despite their talk of being provincial?
What is their cultural niche? Hipster parody? A one-note effort to garner crossover attention? Or something meant for mooks and simple rednecks?
Yes, Pitchfork has been on this for over two weeks. (I’m so behind!) But what’s the RIYL: Vanilla Ice? Kool Keith? “Weird Al” Yankovic? Zomby? Aphex Twin?
Laughing at them? Definitely not.
Giggling nervously about what it all means? Perhaps.
Like it? Hate it? Love it? Grossed out by it? Or do you find it poignant? Well, yes, the sidekick (?!?) has progeria. His name is Leon Botha. He is a painter, and one of the oldest living people afflicted with that disease.
Verdict: Completely dystopian yet hopeful, random yet specific, confusing yet compelling. WTF factor x∞!?!
Read more »
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Bogan, Chav, Die Antwoord, Ethics, J.M. Coetzee, Next Level Beats, NSFW, PC Computers, Pitchfork, Progeria, Rare Diseases, Redneck, Roger Ballen, South Africa, The Problem With Glamour, The Problem With Nostalgia, The Problem With the Avant Garde, Zef
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12 February 2010
The world-wide visual culture industry
from Calvin Tomkins Lives of the Artists:
- “The art world, which used to be a community, is now part of the world wide visual culture industry, which includes film, fashion, television, and advertising, and works overtime to trample down the boundaries that used to keep them separate.”
And what are my thoughts exactly? Read more »
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Alexander McQueen, Bjork, Calvin Tomkins, Damien Hirst, Death, Lady Gaga, Obituary, The Community Function, The New Yorker, The Problem With Glamour, The Problem With Nostalgia
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4 February 2010
Seven pictures from Los Angeles & a slur against the city’s good name
To you, my western friends, with your new California babies,
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Abstraction in Real Life, Autism, California, Clean Rooms, Direct Dial Phones, Groceries, Los Angeles, Photos, Shopping, Shopping Carts, Strawberries, The Problem With Glamour
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28 January 2010
Ultimate effacement
Indeed. His name is JD Salinger, and now he’s dead.
In some ways, it feels wrong to reproduce that picture, but let it underscore the mechanical age we live in, an age in which people’s likenesses and personalities are reproduced with the same brutal efficiency as texts and records and automobiles and television shows and microwave ovens. It was the exact thing Salinger’s life seemed a silent protest against. This Rick Moody tribute which appeared on NPR today encapsulated a number of my thoughts. His one time literary home The New Yorker is running a memorial, including subscriber-only access to his stories.
My main thought is about the work which might await us. Yes, there’s been speculation about boxes of unpublished work, recapitulations of Salinger’s statement in 1963, a few years before he went quiet…
“I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.”
…but there’s been little notion that maybe now (or at least soon) these writings will be published. Let’s remember it’s not publication that Salinger seemed to mind, so much as it was the dangerous, self-exposing, quintessentially modern phenomenon of widespread renown. He committed to staying away from the spotlight, and stuck to it like few others one can recall.
Greta Garbo said: “I never said, ‘I want to be alone.’ I only said, ‘I want to be let alone.’”
Artie Shaw said: “Tell ‘em I’m insane. A nice, young American boy walking away from a million dollars, wouldn’t you call that insane?”
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: 30 Rock, Artie Shaw, Effacement, Greta Garbo, JD Salinger, Obituary, Rick Moody, The New Yorker, The Problem With Glamour, The Problem With Nostalgia, Walter Benjamin