-
- No events.
9 March 2010
Warming up for a new season
A nice behind the scenes picture of one of the first bands I worked with, The National, rehearsing for a round of shows that will preview their new album, High Violet. Via Mr. Brandon Reid, their most excellent production manager.
New album drops May 11th. I’ve heard it. It’s good. They even have a Twitter now, too. Man, how times change.
I was not paid to post this post. I’m just feeling it.
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Brandon Reid, High Violet, Internet Poem, The National, The Problem With Nostalgia
Leave a Comment
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
Leave a Comment
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
1 Comment
16 February 2010
Some thoughts on Black Mountain College & the nature of communities
If you know nothing about Black Mountain College, where the above photo was taken, start here. Its teaching ranks were not populated by academics but practitioners. Among those who taught there during its brief, 24-year lifespan were Josef and Anni Albers, Alfred Kazin, John Cage, Harry Callahan, Robert Creeley, Merce Cunningham, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Walter Gropius, Franz Kline, Charles Olson, Aaron Siskind, and Robert Motherwell. (I’ll let you Google the unfamiliar names.) Guest lecturers included Albert Einstein, Clement Greenberg and William Carlos Williams. (You better know them.) It wasn’t just a school, it was a community with a unique gravitational pull.
There was also fun with problems. To jump right into it, here’s a passage from Martin Duberman’s history of the place, Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community
- “Drawing on the familiar distinction between negative freedom from rules and restraint, and positive freedom to be constructive and creative, Wallen argued that Black Mountain had concentrated too much on producing the first kind of freedom (‘laissez-faire’) and not enough on the second (‘democracy’). The difference between the two hinged on the lack of structure and leadership characteristic of the laissez-faire climate. Their absence created insecurity and frustration, which brought passivity and confusion, which led to a reversion back to autocratic methods in order to restore some semblance of productivity and harmony.”
For evidence of that laissez-faire spirit espy these two photographs. At left, a 1951 picture of writer Francine du Plessix Gray next to poet Joel Oppenheimer. At right, a snap of inventor and gadfly Buckminster Fuller.
Bucky — as his friends knew him — was really into these things:
Not exactly well-ordered! Or, well, so extremely well-ordered, in such a specific manner, that there was inevitably static:
I wish to say we could always use more wonder in the world. But communities require more than that; and communes–which is more or less what Black Mountain was–require far more than wonder to survive and thrive.
Read more »
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Asheville, Black Mountain College, Communes, Cults, Martin Duberman, Niche Culture, Photos, Subculture, The Community Function, The Problem With Nostalgia, The Problem With the Avant Garde
Leave a Comment
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