==pla|\|ing lakes==

Saturday, December 04, 2004

I attended Rutgers College in the mid-70s and then again in the early 80s, and enjoyed it for the most part. But how different things might have been if I'd taken art courses when these folks were in town...

In 1959, when Lucas Samaras was a flamboyant, patchwork-dressed undergrad at Rutgers, his senior thesis show included a concrete poem with the word "Fuck fuck fuck fuck . . ." inscribing a near square with a concluding "you" appended at the end. Samaras's brilliantly jejune production resulted in a huge administrative commotion, which led to his teacher Allan Kaprow being passed over for tenure and, in 1961, leaving the school. Such incidents are entirely characteristic of the wild and crazy mood at Rutgers in the late '50s and early '60s. Roy Lichtenstein, perhaps under Kaprow's influence, made his first hand-painted Pop works in 1961 while teaching at Douglass College (Rutgers's women's school) and living in Highland Park, New Jersey. The formative viewer-interactive games, assemblages, and subversive proto-Pop and Mail art strategies of Robert Watts and George Brecht (both Rutgers faculty) were hatched at the Howard Johnson's restaurant in downtown New Brunswick, and their bacchanalian "Yam Festival" ("Yam" is May spelled backward) took place in 1963 at George Segal's nearby chicken farm. Clearly the merry band at Rutgers created a nexus for performance, Pop, Fluxus, and Conceptual art a few years later.

I remember seeing stuff about Red Grooms around campus, but his work didn't strike me then. There's a new book of reproductions and essays that sounds intriguing.

2:51 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Ghulam Dastagir: Forgotten hero of Bhopal's tragedy


8:10 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Duchamp was here

9:20 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, November 28, 2004

More music news: John Cale has a new album out, Hobo Sapiens

The album page is his official EMI page and has shockwave samples of each track for dialup and broadband. It's built around samples.

Nice to see you back John. Heard he was tired of rock/pop music a few years ago, maybe in his autobiography What's Welsh for Zen (short review), which I highly recommend. Though I suspect there's much more to be written about one of the most influential and innovative artists in music.

There's also a new bio of Cale by Tim Mitchell, Sedition and Alchemy: A Biography of John Cale, which I haven't read yet.

This blog's name is from lyrics on his classic Paris 1919 album, which I paid an extravagant $10 for on import LP back in '73, after hearing it on Michael Tearson's great overnight show on WMMR in Philly. Apparently he's still in Philly and still DJing, which is nice to hear.

9:29 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Give yourself the gift of sanity this holiday season: scale it back on all levels so you don't go crazy or kill yourself

Expectations about holiday events, often based on the unrealistic portrayals of healthy, affluent families from television and advertisements, can fuel anxieties during the season.

"Each individual needs to think about how realistic this is," said Taylor. "When people try to live up to that and it's not realistic, people become anxious and try to numb their feelings with alcohol or substance abuse. This can lead to domestic violence."

Seasonal pressures come from a wide range of other sources. Financial obligations mount as holiday spending runs amok, final exams and grade reports put students and parents on edge, and increased demands on time and energy can sap the strength from the most resilient party-goer.

So take it easy amd don't forget to check out William Hung at the Hollywood Christmas parade.

8:20 AM - [Link] - Comments ()