Francisco de Zurbar�n Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose 1633
We’re flying to Spain tomorrow for two weeks: Madrid, a motor trip north, ending in Barcelona, from which we fly back on the 16th.
I was in Barcelona in 1961. I was almost arrested for wearing Bermuda shorts while riding around on my bike. I went back to Spain (Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Salamanca) in 1980. the Caudillo was dead, and it felt like one big party; I can’t believe I haven’t been been back in the meantime.
Barry just did a post covering some territory we’re going to have to miss, several benefits and some theatre.
I have no idea whether I’ll have a chance to blog while away. Okay, maybe some pictures if we have good internet connections.
[image from gatochy]
Author: jameswagner
Gore Vidal in New York
Don Bachardy Gore Vidal 1963 pencil and ink wash
“From George Washington to George Bush makes a monkey out of Darwin. [pause] I’m now a creationist.”
And so, punctuating himself with a mischievous smile and a composed chuckle, did Gore Vidal introduce himself before speaking to a group of enthusiastic admirers (many of whom had brought stacks of the great man’s books for his signing). The scene was the Borders store on Columbus Circle yesterday afternoon. The iconic, and iconoclastic, Leftist author, historian and “homosexualist” was in town because he was being honored with the first PEN/Borders Literary Service Award during last night’s PEN Literary Gala.
Vidal reminisced about the era in America past when, if you had scoundrels in office, “you’d hold and election and you’d get them out.” He spoke lovingly of his close relationship, as a boy who loved reading, to his blind Grandfather, the Oklahoma Senator Thomas Pryor Gore, who played an extremely significant role in our federal system as a player in a very different political age. But not completely different, as he indicated when he told us that although the populist, anti-foreign war Senator was an atheist, he had the good sense not to share that fact with his constituents.
Knowing the audience would be interested in his opinion on the subject of the next election, he encouraged us to “Vote for Al Gore,” insisting that Gore did win the 2000 election and was only prevented from assuming the office by the Supreme Court. He also dropped a good word for Pelosi and Kucinich.
He told us he never reads at a book signing, since it’s enough work just to write them, and he would prefer leaving the reading to others. So he asked for the mind or sense of the audience; what did we want to talk about about? There was a brief hesitation, so I shouted out, “revolution!”, which seemed to take him by surprise for a moment. He answered, Revolutions don’t usually end well”, and went on to look for another subject before I thought to retort with a list of those that did, restructurings all provoked by the impossibility of any moderate alternative.
For someone who dismisses the idea of rebellion so lightly, he fails to offer the rest of us any hope, any alternative. “We have rogues in high office and no one wants to do anything about them”, he bellowed. We were very fortunate in our founders, but today “We have no republic”.
Answering a question about 9/11, he admitted, “I’m not a conspiracy theorist; I’m a conspiracy analyst.” He said that this gang in the White House would never have been able to pull it off; everything they do is screwed up completely. On the other hand, he suggested, it would be possible for them to have just stood aside when they learned it was happening. “I’d like to blame them”, Vidal concluded, but he wouldn’t go any further.
[Don Bachardy drawing from americanartists]
NURTUREart benefit
Barry has all the words, and he links to all the important information on his post: Williamsburg’s NUTUREart is having a benefit party, and they’re throwing it in Manhattan. I suppose the location may have been chosen partly for the same reasons presidential candidates come to Manhattan, but CUE Art Foundation also has more room for all the people I would expect are going to want to be there.
It’s a very good thing for emerging artists, and those who love them.
Barry and I would be excited about this event even if we weren’t the honorees, and with William Powhida doing the introductions, it would seem risky to stay away no matter whom he was asked to talk about.
We’re told tickets may be purchased on the website beginning Wednesday.
citizens demand impeachment, occupy Senate offices
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A.R.T. (Activist Response Team) lowers banners inside the Hart Senate Office Building April 26
I was delighted, one day after my French Revolution post, to come across this story. It needs to be circulated to a much wider audience.
In Washington today it may actually be the spring of 1789.
For more, see the citizens at A28 and for a live, recorded sound record of the action, hear guerilla radio via indymedia.
[image, via bloggy, from an email originally sent to newsgrist]
no one will take Bush’s head (although he’d never miss it)
5 years of the jimlog
a survivor of the original IRT numbering system from 1904
I started this blog five years ago today. It was the successor to an eight-month series of emails with which I had been plaguing my friends since September 11.
Jimlog may have begun with a passionate Leftist political take on the follies of this country’s response to the events of that day, still an important part of its content now, but the original dark muse was soon joined by the happier world described by most of the other interests of its author/publisher. Those enthusiasms include queerdom, the arts, history, and the spectacle of a New York which is but a mirror of the beautiful diversity of a much larger world.
Once again I declare that it never could have happened and couldn’t continue without Barry, my patient wizard.
faces on 10th Avenue
untitled (white truck yellow taxi) 2007 diptych
13P throws a fundraising party
still from scene of Winter Miller‘s “The Penetration Play”, produced by 13P in 2004
The feisty Obie-winning playwrights’ collective 13P (“we don’t develop plays. we do them.”) is having a cabaret benefit at Joe’s Pub this Sunday, April 29. Estelle Parsons, Lisa Kron and James Urbaniak will be among the participants on stage.
Tickets are $100 and include reserved seating at the 7:00 pm cabaret, with access to a post-show reception and silent auction at 8:30. There are more details are on their website, but the thumbnail below is an image of one of the auction items, Philip Pearlstein’s 1984 color etching with aquatint, “Nude on Bamboo”.
[“Penetration” image from playscripts; “nude” image from 13P]
Williamsburg galleries on Sunday
This has to be just a teaser, because of time constraints (we’re off to Spain in a few days), but on a beautiful Sunday afternoon Barry and I made the rounds of several Williamsburg galleries, visiting one of them for the very first time (that’s so embarrassing).
This post can’t do justice to everything or anything we found, but it shows something of the quality and the variety of the current Brooklyn scene.
Tastes Like Chicken
installation view showing Holly Lynton‘s construction, “Solid Air”, in the foreground and Chris Burnside‘s “Installation” on the wall
Beth McCaskey Untitled ink on paper 3″ x 4.5″ [installation view]
Tastes Like Chicken is showing “One Pill Makes You Small” in its two exhibition spaces, an installation curated by sculptor Sherry Bittle.
The artists include Chris Burnside, Diane Carr, Mario Camacho, Jeremiah Dickey, Charley Friedman, April Hannah, Paul Katzen, Michelle Loughlin, Holly Lynton, Beth McCaskey, Carolyn Monastra, Michael Rader, Kent Rogowski, Lance Wakeling, Mika Yokobori.
Dam, Stuhltrager
Carol Salmanson Upon Reflection: Column light-emitting diodes, electronic-ballast T4 fluorescent lights, gel filters, stainless steel, acrylic prism rods, electronic components, five pieces, each 21.75″ x 21.75″ x 10.5″ [detail of installation]
one of a series of acrylic paintings on circuit boards, 12″ x 24″, called “Reflections v.1-4” by China Blue
Dam, Stuhltrager has light installations by Carol Salmanson in the first two rooms of the gallery and an interactive sound installation by China Blue in the third, where there is also one painting. That image is not the one included above; instead I’ve captured a similar work from the artist’s own site.
Cinders
view of a part of Space 1026’s installation, including work by O. Roman Hasiuk, Adam Crawford, Isaac Lin, Jesse Olanday, William Buzzell and Damian Weinkrantz (in clumps, left to right)
O. Roman Hasiuk’s “Chimera” print, in artist’s frame [installation view]
CInders has a show of work by Philadelphia’s Space 1026 community, called “No Bad Blood”, including work by Jason Hsu, Courtney Dailey, Ben Woodward, John Freeborn, Bill McRight, O. Roman Hasiuk, Crystal Stokowski, Jayson Musson, Jodi Rice, Jesse Olanday, Elena Nestico, Andrew Jeffrey Wright, William Buzzell, Damian Weinkrantz, Aryone Hoselton, Caitlin Perkins, Thom Lessner, Max Lawrence, Jesse Goldstein, and Mark Price.
Front Room
Melissa Pokorny Winter Day [installation view]
Melissa Pokorny Coming and Going [installation view]
[detail of “Coming and Going”]
Melissa Pokorny has a solo show, “”homemade cultural probes”, in Front Room Gallery. The eight sculptures and one edition are each constructed from any or all of the following materials: digital inkjet prints, poluystyrene foam, silicone, polar fleece, polyeurothane, plexiglass, mdf, found objects.
We first saw her work last year when the gallery showed work at Fountain.
[image of China Blue painting from chinablueart]
Williamsburg spring Sunday
on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Williamsburg
some did chores
some partied in the sun
and some of us enjoyed galleries, including the street gallery
[the third image is a detail of the painted stoop outside The Front Room Gallery on Roebling Street]