hillbilly epicurean.

New Eye Candy: Walton Ford

2009-09-10T18:05:00.000-04:00

I don't "surf" much - normally when I look something up I have something in mind, either very specifically or generally. There are a few sites that break that mold, of course, sites that I come back to daily or weekly because they're just darned interesting (e.g. BoingBoing, Neatorama, io9, and Uniwatch). One of those, that may be a bit surprising, is the homepage of PBS. Why do I like their page? Well, its great for lunch - you know, articles that can be read in about ten, fifteen minutes and, of course, tons of fireworks for the ojos. Recently I came across an interesting little feature on PBS that I felt was flat out cool enough to give it its very own, very special bookmark on my browser - specifically, it was the website for the television show Art: 21. Now, I'll admit - I have never seen an episode (I wonder whether my local affiliate carries it and, perhaps more significantly, why I haven't bothered to look and see when it comes on my living room companion Ol' Brainmelter). But the website is pretty nifty and has the added advantage of hitting me in the face with a lot of excellent artists who have never had a show in Wise, Virginia. Geez. Regardless, one of these artists in particular blew my mind - Mr. Walton Ford. Ford can only be described as, and I mean this seriously, Audubon and Albrecht Dürer's intellectual love child - with figurative clues from Rodin. I know. It is insane.

It is difficult to summarize Ford's work - it is a humanized, politicized variant on Audubon's work - faithful in detail and technique but departing in imagery radically - I truly feel as if he has taken the social scientist's vision of the world and translated it with watercolor and gouche into a journal of life and death and struggle. It is powerful, like those most perfect Greek masterworks that portray the moment before one figure triumphs over another (I immediately think of The Death of Laocoon but there are many, many others that would fit the bill equally) or, alternatively, of the writhing human figures in Rodin's The Gates of Hell or Bosch's portrayals of the Inferno.

Well, you're not interested in my pseudo-intellectual hobnobbery - you want to taste the meal, dig into the chicken pot pie of Ford's work. Can't blame you. While a Google search is always in order, I want to recommend a couple sites to start at. First, hit Ford's entry at Art: 21 - it is a great starting point. Secondly, I'd dig on his gallery works displayed at the site of the Paul Kasmin Gallery - a simple presentation that doesn't take away from the work in the least. Also, hit up the blog Wunderkammer for large selection of his work, not to mention Cool Hunting's piece. Enjoy - I know I will.

You Should Be Listening To: Cake's "Jolene"

2009-09-10T17:34:00.000-04:00

You Should Be Listening To: Coheed & Cambria's "Welcome Home"

2009-09-10T16:47:00.000-04:00

New Eye Candy: Bjarne Melgaard

2009-09-09T22:22:00.000-04:00

So, Bjarne Melgaard - I never heard of him before today. I know. Hard to believe that I have never heard of someone with such a totally awesome name. Well, today I remedied that error - thank-you Google! Basically, I was looking, as I often do, for expressionist artists to draw inspiration from and bring up at cocktail parties with people who wear primarily black and embroidered flowers. And, naturally, I found a man who - well, let me quote my friend Wik E. Pedia:

Bjarne Melgaard (born 1967) is an artist based in Berlin.

Melgaard was born in Sydney, raised in Norway and works and lives in Berlin. Early in his career Melgaard created controversial installations referencing subversive subcultures such as S&M and heavy rock music. Currently, his practice consists of an emphasis on expressionistic paintings and drawings, often containing text.

Okay, totally cool right - Australian-Norwegian-German? DAMN. I'll bet he wears lederhosen and plays rugby and drinks lutefisk and Jagermeister milkshakes.

Okay, that is totally pointless. Let's get to the meat. Like so many of my favorite contemporary expressionist artists Melgaard dabbles in the use of pop imagery - sometimes brushy, sometimes very refined. His work is often sexual, often verging on cartoony, and very frequently filled with boy-parts. Yeah, that's right. boy parts. If you didn't know, that's a sign you might not want to Google Mr. Melgaard in the public library - or with whippersnappers around. Regardless, his imagery is power, often political, and just as often indecipherable. Melgaard isn't afraid of mixed media either - his use of texture is one of his hallmarks, whether or not it is actual impasto or inferred through shading. Also he is obsessed with dogs. Utterly obsessed. And penises.

Honestly, however, the only way I can describe Melgaard's work accurately is to insist you imagine the palette and political intentions of Anselm Kiefer and Keith Haring - now integrate them, imperfectly and in different quantities over time and over evolving movements and sexualize them (think Gary Basing's more sexual works and Philip Guston's paintings of Klansmen). Really, truly wonderful work. So Google Mr. Melgaard if you don't mind a little risque. You'll appreciate what you see.

New Eye Candy: Maakies

2009-09-08T21:32:00.001-04:00

I remember very clearly the first time I saw that most disturbing of comics, Maakies. My parents had taken my little brother and I out of town - I was in high school, a freshman I think, and Trev was till blowing his silver trumpet in the middle school band room. I don't remember which town it was - Roanoke, Virginia maybe, or Charlotte, North Carolina, or any of a million other medium-sized Southern cities with a huge white and beige faceless mall. We were eating in a chain restaurant, a nice one as I remember, and it was raining outside. I had distractedly picked up one of those entertainment weeklies (as I still do) hoping for comics, a decent news story from an unexpected angle, or at least a crossword. And then I saw it - a four panel comic that had all the beauty of the great comic strips from the earliest years of that art - Little Nemo, Krazy Kat, and of course the early pie-eyed, newspaper version of Mickey Mouse a la "Plane Krazy" and "The Sky Pirates."

There was, however, a most substantial difference. Maakies is totally, utterly, completely insane. It is vulgar, violent, and post-modern - it makes jokes out of life's greatest horrors. It takes the Platonic, immortal, classic cartoon character and, to be frank, makes it Nihilist. And it is brilliant.

Why is this comic brilliant? Is it because it is a perfect expression of hopelessness and human banality in the form of a cute little crow (who is a suicidal alcoholic) and a mildly non-un-cute monkey (who is an alcoholic nymphomaniac)? Perhaps - I am reminded of Vikings and I'm convinced that it uses the iconography of Moby Dick repeated for a reason. But then, well, maybe I'm stretching.

Okay, here is the link to Tony Millionaire's website. And this, this here is the link to Adult Swim's page for The Drinky Crow Show. They are both totally awesome. Be warned - it ain't for kids. It is the definition of not for kids. But, like so many things not for kids and full of sadism (e.g. Rome, Fight Club, Everybody Loves Raymond) it is fantastic. Trust me. We're totally in the Trust Tree.

You Should Be Listening To: Soul Coughing "True Dreams of Wichita"

2009-09-08T17:29:00.001-04:00

You Should Be Listening To: The Presidents of the United States of America's "Some Postman"

2009-09-08T17:18:00.000-04:00

"It's noon now and all the mailboxes have been emptied
And all the letters are inside
He counts them, he checks them, he looks for clues and finds
The ones with hearts on the outside."

You Should Be Listening To: Spoon's "Don't You Evah"

2009-09-07T21:39:00.000-04:00

"Bet you never think it's right
Bet you think you have to but it doesn't feel right
Bet you never think it feels right
Famous-sounding words make your head feel light

Petals getting picked with the love-yous and the love-you-nots
Five years going by, everyone is staying on their side"

New Eye Candy: The Halloween Guy

2009-09-07T18:02:00.001-04:00

I started keeping up with Spookshows.com this past spring - it is one of those simple websites where someone (the Halloween Guy) decided to (A) put together a collection of something cool (vintage Halloween goods and decorations) and (B) make little money by re-integrating these beautiful designs back into our lexicon. In point of fact, I'm going to throw three separate but equally important websites at you:

Spookshows.com itself. Go on. Peruse. I'll wait.
The Halloween Guy's Flickr Photostream (the visual impact of most of this stuff is absolutely magnificent - I keep thinking about the work of Gary Baseman.
The Halloween Guy's specific Flickr photo set of Vintage Halloween goods. I'm salivating. Really. I totally am.

Halloween Guy - I love you. Manly, Platonic love, but love none the less. Why? Because you've reminded me of how I used to sit in my living room floor and draw and redraw the ghosts, bats, cats, and haunted houses of the Halloween bags that I never threw out until they were ratty and thin (and which now, in retrospect, I perhaps should have never let go).

Only fifty-four days till the goblins come out - - - perhaps it is time for a little Ichabod Crane on DVD.

New Eye Candy: Mercator's Map of the World, 1569

2009-09-07T12:51:00.000-04:00

You Should Be Listening To: K'naan's "In the Beginning"

2009-09-07T12:24:00.001-04:00

"Say -
It's better to light a candle than to curse the dark
In the eyes of the youth there are question marks
Like freedom
Freedom for the mind and soul
We don't see them
See them for their worth at all
That's why we lead them
Lead them to these wars and what is it we feed them
Feed them our impurities and who it is we treat them
Treat them like the enemy humanity will need them
Need them like the blood we spill and where freedom

Freedom for the hearts we fill
Mislead them
They hunger for the love we give
But we cheat them

The cops beat them when all he wants is his freedom
So they defeat them
Whatever spirit he's got
Beat them

And they teach them that the rest of the world don't need him
And he believes it's a disease that he's heathen
Put up your fists if all you want is freedom
Put up your fists if all you want is . . . ."

You Should Be Listening To: Vampire Weekend's "A-Punk"

2009-09-07T12:14:00.000-04:00

His Honor drove southward seeking exotica.
Down to the Pueblo huts of New Mexico.
Cut his teeth on turquoise harmonicas.
Oh-oh-oh.

Delicious Cuneiform: David Walls' "On the Naming of Appalachia"

2009-09-07T09:49:00.002-04:00

"On the Naming of Appalachia" is a short essay, the kind you can read after you've consumed your lunch at your desk when you're looking to fill ten or fifteen minutes. As such it has all the things you're looking for for just a moment:

It is free and online - no need to print it out or buy it and remember to bring it to work. Your desk is far too clogged as it is.
It has pictures - a number of tremendous maps of the region, the earliest made by Spanish conquistadors. Lunchtime reading is like reading at the beach - it should be sound, but diversionary. An otherwise dense piece is made delicious with a visual spoonful of sugar.
It is scholarly without being incomprehensibly dense - you'll learn something but you won't feel flooded with incomprehensible jargon (which is how you'll inevitably feel once you close this window and go back to whatever it is you're being paid to do for a living).

Genuinely, though, this is a great single shot reading - self-contained, well-done, and well-researched. And, crucially, it addresses a topic I've often debated with myself but never have read a really interesting discussion of. You should be reading "On the Naming of Appalachia."

During the eighteenth century, the term Allegheny emerged as the principal rival to Appalachian. By convention the southern half of the eastern mountain chain was known as the Appalachians and the northern half the Alleghenies. The overall designation alternated between the two. Ambivalence about the appropriate term for the entire region is apparent in Washington Irving's proposal for a more accurate name for the country than "United States of America." In a letter to the editor of the The Knickerbocker in 1839 signed "Geoffrey Crayon," Irving suggested, perhaps tongue in cheek:
"We have it in our power to furnish ourselves with such a national appellation from one of the grand and eternal features of our country; from that noble chain of mountains which formed its backbone, and ran through the "old confederacy," when it first declared our national independence: I allude to the Appalachian or Allegheny mountains. We might do this without any very inconvenient change in our present titles. We might still use the phrase "The United States," substituting Appalachia, or Alleghenia, (I should prefer the latter,) in place of America. The title of Appalachian, or Alleghenian, would still announce us as Americans, but would specify us as citizens of the Great Republic. Even our old national cypher of U.S.A. might remain unaltered, designating the United States of Alleghenia."

You Should Be Listening To: Weezer's "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variation on a Shaker Hymn)

2009-09-07T00:04:00.001-04:00

You Should Be Listening To: Ludo's "Love Me Dead"

2009-09-06T22:05:00.002-04:00