Puppy Bowl V

For the few of you out there who have not been waiting with fierce anticipation for months for this year's event, we send notice of Puppy Bowl V, riveting Super Bowl counter-programming by the Discovery Channel's four-legged Animal Planet Channel. The two-hour program will be screened seven times during "Super Sunday." [Note that some of you may prefer to watch it 'MOS*' after three or four viewings.]

Last year's innovations included the spectacular Water Bowl Cam that according to the Puppy Bowl Wikipedia page, "provides shots upwards through the transparent bottom of a special water bowl built into the stadium floor, with a wide-angle lens that allows viewers to watch the puppies drink water up close."

And don't miss the feline hijinx during the Kitty Half-Time Show that features, again as researched and reported on the Wikipedia page, "kittens playing for 30 minutes with lights, laser pens, balls of yarn, a scratching post, flint sweepers, and a wide variety of other toys."


* MOS = Mit Out Sound

[video above looking back to highlights of the glory that was Puppy Bowl IV.]

Outlaws at the Art Museum

[Below, reprinted in full from the January 24, 2009 New York Times.]


Outlaws at the Art Museum (and Not for a Heist)
By Randy Kennedy

In 2005, the British artist Banksy — then on the verge of becoming probably the world’s most famous street artist — walked into the Museum of Modern Art and three other New York museums done up in a beige raincoat and fake beard, looking more like a subway flasher than a “quality vandal,” as he called himself. Once inside he furtively mounted his own work among the masterpieces, relying on speed and two-sided tape rather than curatorial consent as his way into the collections, at least until guards noticed.

“These galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires,” he wrote later in an e-mail message to a reporter, explaining his dim view of museums and his desire to see his work inside one purely to poke fun at the whole idea. “The public never has any real say in what art they see.”

But as it turns out, there is more than one way into a museum for street art, the catchall term now used to describe a global explosion of public imagery that began with graffiti in the 1970s and has morphed into dozens of wildly different forms, generally united only by their illegal exhibition on public and private property. On Tuesday, as Barack Obama was being sworn into office, his portrait by the street artist Shepard Fairey — reproduced endlessly during the campaign until it became the defining image of the future president (it towered over a stage at one of the inaugural balls) — was on view at the National Portrait Gallery. A collaged poster of it had just entered the collection along with portraits by artists like Gilbert Stuart (George Washington), Norman Rockwell (Richard Nixon) and Elaine de Kooning (John Kennedy).

It is not Mr. Fairey’s maiden voyage into the museum world; a survey of his work opens next month at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and he is in a few other collections. But the portrait gallery’s decision is arguably the establishment’s most public embrace of a quintessentially anti-establishment brand of art. So it has been hailed by street-art fans as a significant moment, the fine-art world beginning to find a way to recognize a movement that has been growing apace for more than a decade, propelled by a generation of artists who grew up with graffiti and now make work on the streets with materials as varied (and sometimes as ephemeral) as paper, plastic, tape, snow, rubber bands and knitted wool.

And there’s some evidence the recognition is happening. The Tate Modern in London devoted a big show to street art last year, letting artists plaster its facade with the kind of work usually plastered illicitly all around its Southwark neighborhood. Other big street names are also starting to pop up in museum collections, like Swoon, whose ghostly, papery work has been bought by the Museum of Modern Art.

But the Shepard Fairey moment may be less significant for what it says about how museums view street artists than for how those artists have come to view museums — how for many younger artists, street and otherwise, museum enshrinement no longer represents the kind of end zone it did for many who came before, even those like Keith Haring who began with street art and deep misgivings about the establishment.

In interviews, Mr. Fairey, 38, has stressed how honored he is to be in the National Portrait Gallery, part of the Smithsonian Institution and about as American as a museum can be. He has also stressed that he doesn’t see it as a place in a hierarchy but instead on a kind of continuum, right alongside the work he creates with the police on his trail or album covers for bands or work commissioned by huge companies like Dewar’s or Saks Fifth Avenue (in the latter case, recently, militaristic Rodchenko-esque shopping bags that scream “Want It!”).

His view has a parallel these days in the world of digital and video art, where distinctions between museums and galleries and Web vehicles like YouTube are blurring for younger artists — why not try to have it in both places if you can and why does it matter so much which comes first?

One thing they’re doing is simply adhering to an old graffiti work ethic: get your work up anywhere, everywhere, any way you can, as long as you don’t get caught. There’s nothing wrong with getting it into a museum, as some street artists like Banksy might contend, but a museum is also just one among many good places to get your work seen, in Mr. Fairey’s estimation.

“It’s not the audience and the forum that they crave in the way that somebody in an earlier generation might have,” said Carlo McCormick, the New York art critic, of museumgoers and museums. “Shepard has a very predatory gaze,” said Mr. McCormick, who has followed his work and contributed an essay to a 2006 book about it. “If he comes to a town he’s looking at it like a criminal. He’s casing the place and figuring out where he can get his stuff up. And who he really cares about reaching and the ways he cares about reaching them have remained remarkably consistent.”

Carolyn Carr, the portrait gallery’s chief curator, said that the poster acquired by the museum — a 60-by-40-inch mixed-media collage that Mr. Fairey created after making the initial image — was a beautiful work of art. But she added that “one of the reasons the gallery acquired it is that the image — as opposed to the object — is ubiquitous and it became the image of the campaign.”

“There’s no question that it has lasting resonance,” she said.

For a street artist — who, like many, exults in the essential slipperiness of outlaw work — it’s undoubtedly all the more gratifying when you finally make it into a big museum to do so by such epically serpentine means: an oft-arrested political street artist who’s also a highly paid commercial artist offers on his own initiative to make a vaguely Soviet-looking poster for the campaign of an anti-establishment politician (who, interestingly, can’t officially claim the poster because of rights concerns about the news photograph it was based on, snagged by the artist from the Web) and then the politician, surprisingly, sweeps into the establishment with vows to shake it up, taking the outlaw’s non-outlaw poster into the establishment with him.

It’s more than most street artists can hope for, but one of them will probably find a way to top it.

“I’m a populist,” Mr. Fairey said in an interview with a portrait gallery curator. “I’m trying to reach as many people as possible.”

“I love the concept in fine art of making a masterpiece, something that will endure,” he said, adding that he understood, too, how unlikely that is for anyone. “But I also understand how short the attention span of most consumers is and that you really need to work with the metabolism of consumer culture a lot of the time to make something relevant within the zeitgeist.”

Or as he put it more simply, stealing a metaphor from the medium: “It’s not necessary to paint yourself into a corner with categories.”

[Photo by Jewel Samad/Agence France-Press — Getty Images. Caption: "LOOK MA, NO WHEAT PASTE It started as street art, but on Monday Shepard Fairey’s portrait of Barack Obama went up in the National Portrait Gallery, its new permanent home."]

Shanghai Tower

"Shanghai Tower is located in the Luijiazui Finance and Trade Zone, an area of Shanghai that was farmland eighteen years ago. The district is poised to become China's first super-tall district, as Shanghai Tower rises to complete a trio of towers including the adjacent Jin Mao Tower and Shanghai World Financial Center. Together, these three will form a new icon on Shanghai's skyline. While the design of the Jin Mao Tower pays homage to China's past, and the SWFC's design signifies China's recent economic growth, Shanghai Tower's design is a beacon of China's future."

nb: slated for completion in 2014.

more

[text and photography from artdaily.org. Photo caption: "Shanghai Tower will house Class-A office space, retail, a luxury hotel and cultural venues.]




http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=27545&int_modo=1

One in Eight Million

[In case you missed it, for your interest, an example of the continuing transformation of the New York Times from newspaper to media organization.]

One in 8 million

Freezing Man - Art Shanty Projects

[With a salute to the arctic fortitude of Minneosota artists, see below, what appears to be a northern answer to Nevada's Burning Man.]


Soap Factory
518 2nd St. SE
Minneapolis MN

The Soap Factory Presents
Art Shanty Projects
Medicine Lake, Plymouth, MN

Open daily with events on weekends and occasional weekdays. // Exhibition Runs: Jan 17 - Feb 14, 2009

The acclaimed Art Shanty Projects is back on the ice for a fabulous sixth year. During the months of January and February, over 60 artists from Minnesota and around the country will head out to Medicine Lake to create a village of Art Shanties (Ice Fishing Shanty + Art Gallery/Studio).

Artist projects this year include a karaoke shanty, a performance theater, a structure full of bicycle-powered fixtures, a knitting shanty, a French-language Quebecois outpost, a post office, a submarine, an oversized game of dice, multiple museums and research laboratories with varying degrees of tongue-in-cheekiness, and much more.

See website for updated events schedule!

Visitors can park at the East Beach parking lot at Medicine Lake. The Art Car Taxi Shanty provides transportation from the shore to the middle of the lake, where visitors can meet the artists, explore the shanties and experience this unique interpretation of a true piece of Minnesota winter culture.

Presented by the Soap Factory this activity is made possible, in part, by funds provided by The McKnight Foundation and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council from an appropriation by the Minnesota Legislature.

[text and photography from Soap Factory Web site.]

Inaugural Address Snowcloud

[Thanks to MFC in Saugus, CA for the tip. Below a link to Channel 4's word snowcloud for United States President Obama's inaugural address.]

"The Snowcloud condenses Obama's inauguration speech into one image: the bigger the word, the more often it was used."

Word Cloud

[screen grab from Channel 4 Web site.]

President Obama's Mobile Device

Barack Obama to use BlackBerry as president

[article excerpts and photo from Guardian.co.uk Web site. Caption: Barack Obama will be issued a BlackBerry with special encryption, according to reports. Photograph: Jae C Hong/AP]

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 January 2009 22.24 GMT
Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent

"Traditionally, US presidents have shied away from using hi-tech communications such as email and mobile phones for a variety of reasons – including possible interception from foreign powers.

But the main concerns are often more about political responsibility than personal safety, as a result of the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which requires that documents retained by the White House must be released to the public."

Guardian Article

The Inaugural Address

From the New York Times, text of President Obama's inaugural address.

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

[graphic from the New York times Web site.]

"We are the ones we've been waiting for."

As part of the U.S. presidential inauguration festivities, here's Patti Smith's 1988 anthem People Have the Power that was featured prominently in the 2004 Vote for Change Tour, and which clearly remains relevant today.

With Malice Toward None

[with thanks to HP in DC, below is a press release from the Library of Congress about the Lincoln Inaugural Bible.]

President-Elect Obama To Take Oath of Office on Lincoln Inaugural Bible from Library of Congress

President-elect Barack Obama on Jan. 20, 2009, will take the oath of office on a Bible from the Library of Congress'collections that is steeped in history - the same Bible upon which Abraham Lincoln swore March 4, 1861, to uphold the Constitution.

The first Lincoln Inaugural is rife with historical significance, coming at a time when the survival of the United States was never more endangered, according to Clark W. Evans, an expert on Lincoln who heads the Reference Services Section of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress.

Following the lead of seven states in the lower South, Evans noted, the slave states of the upper South were threatening to secede from the Union. Amid fears of assassination, the president-elect had secretly arrived in Washington on Feb. 23, 1861.

To view the Lincoln Inaugural Bible today is to conjure up the remarkable scene which unfolded on the East Front of the Capitol almost 147 years ago. The oath of office was administered by Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, then 84 years old. As the author of the infamous "Dred Scott" decision of 1857, which held in part that Congress did not
have the power to abolish slavery in the territories, Taney was clearly no friend to Lincoln or the cause of emancipation. In the Inaugural Address which followed, President Lincoln appealed to his countrymen to follow "the better angels of our nature."

The Bible was originally purchased by William Thomas Carroll, Clerk of the Supreme Court. The Lincolns' family Bible, which is also in the Library's collections, had been packed with other belongings that were traveling from Springfield.

The Bible itself is bound in burgundy velvet with a gold-washed white metal rim around the three outside edges of both covers. All its edges are heavily gilt. In the center of the top cover is a shield of gold wash over white metal with the words "Holy Bible" chased into it. The book is 15 cm long, 10 cm wide, and 4.5 cm deep when closed. The
1,280-page Bible was published in 1853 by the Oxford University Press.

In the back of the volume, along with the seal of the Supreme Court, it is annotated: "I, William Thomas Carroll, clerk of the said court do hereby certify that the preceding copy of the Holy Bible is that upon which the Honble. R. B. Taney, Chief Justice of the said Court, administered to His Excellency, Abraham Lincoln, the oath of office as President of the United States ... "

The Lincoln Inaugural Bible will go on display at the Library of Congress Feb. 12 to May 9, 2009, as part of an exhibition titled "With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition." The exhibit will then travel to five other American cities.

On March 4, 2009, the 147th anniversary of Lincoln*s first inauguration, the Library of Congress will convene an all-day symposium with several renowned Lincoln scholars. The Library is planning several other events and programming in commemoration of the bicentennial of the nation*s 16th president.

A companion volume, "In Lincoln's Hand: His Original Manuscripts With Commentary by Distinguished Americans," will feature original essays about the most important Lincoln documents* including the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln*s Second Inaugural* by such writers as John Updike, E.L. Doctorow and Walter Mosley; Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush; Lincoln and Civil War scholars Drew Gilpin Faust, Doris Kearns Goodwin and James MacPherson, and actors Liam Neeson and Sam Waterston. The book, published by the Library of Congress with Bantam Dell, goes on sale Jan. 27, 2009.

We Are One

[As part of the U.S. Presidential Inauguration festivities: as of Monday 11:15 a.m. Iowa time, HBO was still making available a stream of yesterday's concert at the Lincoln Memorial, site of Martin Luther King's 1963 celebrated "I Have a Dream" speech. see post below.]

Listen [while you can!]

[screen grab of Bruce Springsteen performing "The Rising" at the concert.]

Let Freedom Ring

[On the occasion of the national Martin Luther King holiday, in conjunction with U.S. Presidential inauguration celebration, a recording of his most famous speech. From the Wikipedia entry for Martin Luther King: ""I Have A Dream" is the popular name given to the public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., when he spoke of his desire for a future where blacks and whites among others would coexist harmoniously as equals. King's delivery of the speech on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement."]

People Have The Power

As part of the U.S. presidential inauguration festivities, here's The Black Eyed Peas' 2003 song Where is the Love? from their album Elephunk. Band member will.i.am created "Yes We Can," a remarkable phenomenon of President-elect Obama's campaign featured last February on the Data Stream.

SPAM Hashbrown Bake

[As part of the U.S. Presidential Inauguration festivities, recognizing the unique place SPAM holds in the cuisine President-elect Obama's home state of Hawai'i, below we serve up a recipe for SPAM Hashbrown Bake. Enjoy.]

SPAM Hashbrown Bake
Main dish
8 Servings

1.00 pk Frozen hashbrown potatoes,
-thawed slightly (32 oz)
0.50 c Butter or margarine, melted
1.00 t Salt
1.00 t Pepper
0.50 t Garlic powder
2.00 c Shredded Cheddar cheese
1.00 cn SPAM Luncheon Meat, cubed
-(12 oz)
1.00 cn Cream of chicken soup
-(10 3/4 oz)
1.50 c Sour cream
0.50 c Milk
0.50 c Chopped onion
0.25 c CHI-CHI's Diced Green
-Chilies, drained
2.00 c Crushed potato chips

Heat oven to 350'F. In large bowl, combine potatoes, melted butter,
salt, pepper, and garlic powder. In another bowl, combine cheese,
SPAM, soup, sour cream, milk, onion, and green chilies. Add SPAM
mixture to potato mixture; mix well. Pour into 2-quart baking dish.
Sprinkle with potato chips. Bake 45-60 minutes or until thoroughly
heated.


[recipe from RecipeSource Web site. Graphic from google image search for 'SPAM.']

The Americans

[As part of our continuing celebration of the U.S. presidential inauguration, here's notice of an exhibition in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of Robert Frank's ground-breaking book, The Americans. From the Wikipedia entry for Frank: "His most notable work, the 1958 photographic book titled simply "The Americans," was heavily influential in the post-war period, and earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and skeptical outsider's view of American society."]

National Gallery of Art
Washington DC
Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans

"First published in France in 1958 and in the United States in 1959, Robert Frank's The Americans is widely celebrated as the most important photography book since World War II. Including 83 photographs made largely in 1955 and 1956 while Frank (b. 1924) traveled around the United States, the book looked beneath the surface of American life to reveal a profound sense of alienation, angst, and loneliness. With these prophetic photographs, Frank redefined the icons of America, noting that cars, jukeboxes, gas stations, diners, and even the road itself were telling symbols of contemporary life. Frank's style—seemingly loose, casual compositions, with often rough, blurred, out-of-focus foregrounds and tilted horizons—was just as controversial and influential as his subject matter. The exhibition celebrates the 50th anniversary of the book's publication by presenting all 83 photographs from The Americans in the order established by the book, and by providing a detailed examination of the book's roots in Frank's earlier work, its construction, and its impact on his later art."

more

[text and photograph from National Gallery Web site. Caption: Robert Frank (American, born Switzerland, 1924), Parade—Hoboken, New Jersey, 1955 gelatin silver print; image: 21.3 x 32.4 cm (8 3/8 x 12 3/4 in.); overall (paper): 27.9 x 35.6 cm (11 x 14 in.) Private collection, San Francisco Photograph © Robert Frank, from The Americans.]

Spin | Feed

[As part of our celebration of the U.S. presidential inauguration, here's the first section of Spin, Filmmaker|artist Brian Springer's brilliant documentary on media and the 1992 election. Zepa 22, who posted the entire film–in six parts–on his YouTube channel, includes the following information:

"Footage you were never supposed to see

Artist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption. The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public's perception of reality."]



The entire film can also be downloaded from the Illegal Art Web site.

Here's to the State of George W.

[As part of a week devoted to the regime change in Washington, D.C., here's a tape of Eddie Vedder on VH1 Storytellers performing Phil Ochs' inspiring "Here's to the State of Mississippi," with updated lyrics.]

Bernadette

BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
Gateshead Quays
Gateshead UK

Duncan Campbell
Bernadette
through January 18

"BALTIC presents a six week screening of Duncan Campbell's powerful film Bernadette, composed of archival material, new footage, animation and scripted voiceover. The film tells the story of Bernadette Devlin, a Northern Irish Republican who became the youngest woman to be elected to the House of Commons."

more

[text and image from Baltic Web site.]

The Sumsing Turbo 3000 Xi Cellphone Multi task

[Below, with a bit of an start of the weekend, fya, with thanks to CRA for the tip, and in case you're not among the 2.8 million who have already viewed this bit of online, time-based media technology humor.]

Tipping Point - RFP

March 18 - 23, 2009
STATE OF THE NATION V: Tipping Point
Art and Performance Festival
New Orleans, LA

State of the Nation is an annual multidisciplinary arts festival and bi-monthly series that brings together student, emerging, and professional performing and visual artists from across the United States who are committed to addressing social, political, and economic issues facing the Gulf South. Co-Produced in New Orleans, LA and Jackson, MS annually since 2004, SON has presented the work of over two hundred and fifty dancers, musicians, theater artists, poets, painters, sculptors, filmmakers, activists and educators. Attended by thousands, this festival provides an opportunity to showcase projects and participate in workshops. At its best, it stands as a forum for democracy –a space for the free discussion of current affairs.

This year’s festival will explore the intersection of art and activism through the presentation of original performance, music, film, workshops, visual art installations and site-specific events. It will take place from March 18-23, 2009 at the 7th Ward Community Center, The Studio at Colton and various site-specific locations throughout New Orleans.

We are currently requesting proposals for artwork, workshops and performances. Proposals should implicitly or explicitly address the theme of a Tipping Point."

RFP

[image from a google search for 'tipping point.']

Tryptich Party!

January 10th 7-9pm
Postmasters Gallery
459 W. 19th St. | NYC NY

Artists Meeting and Postmasters Gallery Present:
Triptych Party
in collaboration with You3b.com

"The art collective Artists Meeting presents an evening of video curiosities: found, outsider and accidental video art, culled from youtube, and spun into triptychs using You3b.com.

Video triptychs involve three simultaneous video loops projected side by side on the gallery wall. While formally simple, the effect of the looping sequences, overlapping sounds and awkward juxtapositions is uncanny and unsettling. This is due to the slippery dis-harmonization of clip lengths, and the conceptual layering of the elements within the videos.

For this 2nd youtube video show at Postmasters Gallery, the curators Thomas Hutchison, Maria Joao Salema and James Andrews have selected dozens of examples of original U3B triptychs created by members of Artists Meeting.

You3b is a tool that allows users to make triptychs out of YouTube videos. An Eyebeam project conceived by Jeff Crouse, produced by Jeff Crouse and Andrew Mahon and designed and coded by Andrew Mahon.

Complimentary drinks will be served.

NOTE: Some of the works presented in this show are graphic and potentially inappropriate for children, the squeamish, and the easily offended."

[graphic from Artists Meeting Web site. Thanks to CB in NYC for the tip.]

tah pah taHbe

Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center
Buffalo, New York

Maria Andelman
tah pah taHbe

"A sequence of photographs brings the viewer to the empty and rusty premises of a Space Research Center. In between simulators, future tower controls, wind tunnels and hangars Hamlet's soliloquy "tah pah taHbe'" or "to be or not to be" is recited in the artificial language Klingon. Klingon was first conceived as a prop for the fictional Star Trek universe and soon developed into "the fastest growing language of the galaxy." When Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI said "You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have heard him in the original Klingon" he created food for thought. Who is Shakespeare, a human or a Klingon and who is the author of the fiction surrounding the fiction? Here sci-fi mythologies acquire flesh and bone and create a tragic-comical maze where fantasy becomes more and more real, invading and ultimately taking over reality. The Klingon Khamlet was published by the Klingon Language Institute, as a result of the Klingon Shakespeare Restoration Project."


[photograph from Curative Projects Web site. Caption: Maria Antelman, tah pagh taHbe, 2006.]

2008 in Review Part 1

[With 2009 HNY's greetings, Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World, lifted from the December 31 edition of the Huffington Post. Click on image to enlarge.]

Section 43

[To ring in the New Year, a vintage recording of Country Joe & The Fish's Section 43, from their seminal 1967 psychedelic album Electric Music for the Body and Mind.

Joe McDonald was born on New Year's Day in 1942.]