MOG

meh, Iggy's more brilliant that that shit. Just saw him on Rollins last week.

@ steve: ...yeah, that’s word…”hindsight United” is everyone’s favorite team…that said, I’d love to get a good slice right about...

@michelle: ...I still like the groove on that tune, tho…always have…commercials be damned…

"Start spreading the news. I'm leaving today..." I wish.

Crash -That Lust For Life album is one of those timeless records. A lot of good songs. As for the commercialization of the title track, I recall the Ig being interviewed shortly after Trainspotting got Lust For Life tons of attention, and he said something to like "...it matters not, as the song was not commercially conceived." Indeed: commercials be damned...

I had the pleasure of being in one of Spencer Tunics photos (Limestone, ME - I'm the one over by the...oh forget about it). It was a great experience that some people were so liberated by, they decided to stay naked the rest of the weekend (It was taken at one of Phish's weekend long festivals). It was a lot of fun and a totally different crowd experience when no one has the armor of clothing to stand behind. Every body just had their guard down and was super friendly. Nice experience. I saw a pic of the like 20,000 (?) people in Mexico City. Beautiful.

you were in the phonto cb? hmm, maybe I have to feel differently about it. As an experience, I guess I can see it, but as photos . . . I just don't get it as art. Call me a philistine.

Welcome to the art world. There are certain things that will always "sell", no matter how over done it is. In photography, nudes always work. In painting the people who in some ways reference Greek mythology seem to always manage to get their work shown. It's dull to me, because it's like injected meaning. If I have to see one more "rendition" of Reemus and Romulus sucking the tit of the She Wolf, I'll scream. To me that has no weight or even relevance. Unfortunately, it is so hard to get established as an artist, that if you get known for something, you tend to do a million different variations on that theme, because it sells. So without fail, nudity and photography for some reason go together (yeah, yeah, I know most of art is about form and body...blah, blah), I guess, like referencing Greek Mythology in painting does. Some themes people never tire of in art and non - art- love songs, rainy wet streets in car commercials, talking animals, close up pictures of eyeballs, penguins in computer animation. I'm trained as an artist, but I take very lightly anything the art world takes seriously. Except Banksy - he fucking rocks.

@Mike: me too! I'll add that mebbe a touch of "greener grass syndrome" got to me when I saw that picture of an intersection I used to cross every day was so barren (even early in the AM it's filled traffic)...

@WaN: here, here...(or is that "hear, hear?") welcome back to the States, BTW...

@contra: yeah, I thought that Mexican thing was cool, though the authorities stipulated that he could not have some religious and official buildings w/i the context of any of the shots he published...it is amazing how nakedness makes you, friendlier...I hear you on the Greek stuff, the Rubicon's been crossed in my book too (metaphorical pun intended). I started out as an Art Major, got bored with how a lot of great stuff from Africa, the Americas and Pacific Rim got marginally touched on, and switched to History as a result (although the history books tend to do similar things, at least it's easier to research shite on your own and deduce some of your own conclusions)...I'm down with anyone in the realm of art/ creative endeavors who speak to me through their respective muses, who make me use the old coconut for more than just a hat holder (this includes Banksy, Pollack, De Kooning, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, H. S. Thompson, Richard Wright, de Tocqueville, Kant or Hiedegger to name a few; I won't get into the music)...art, and you don't have to like it all, scribed, synaptic or sonic is good and nourishing for the soul...

Don't forget Ralph Ellison. "Invisible Man" might just be one of my favorite books of all time. Speaking of art that speaks to me and Mr. Ellison, peep this piece by Jeff Wall. When I saw this, I lost my shit. It was kind of like actually seeing a movie (based from a book) actually look the way you pictured it.

@contraband: Ellison, no doubt!...(hard to name them all while thinking up a comment, Samuel Langhorn Clemens/ Mark Twain and his future counterpart and recently deceased Kurt Vonnegut have a grip of stuff I look to for inspiration as well (so does Martha Gellhorn (she wrote an essay on a trip to Haiti that really spoke to me)...re: that photo, I love the light bulbs (when I read that setting in the story when the light goes out, it made me, then a teenager reading it in the wee hours for the first of many times, bolt right up in my bed, I couldn't go to sleep...he was on fire...Eldridge Cleaver/ Iceberg Slim broke it down and put the zap on my dome at an early age too...my uncles had a much better syllabus then any of my teachers at the time...

The boxing scene in the book (invisible man) may be one of the deepest, most profound, most gut wrenching and sick to your stomach moments in fictiondom. Ellison returned to playing, and eventually teaching Jazz after that book. I read it and I was like, no shit, what more could you say. Home Run, outta the park. I know "Juneteenth" was released posthumously, but I can't bring myself to read it, knowing that an editor might have had to bring it to form. Sometimes I think it's better to release one amazing book like this and just walk away.

@contra: yeah, I actually recall seeing a PBS docu on his life and what went down with the "Juneteenth" thing years ago and haven't dove into it for that same reason...he'd been working on it for a minute, the house with original manuscript in it burnt up, started again but died trying to recall all the stuff he'd lost in the flames...sth similar happened with Jimmy Baldwin ( i think he lost a little of his edge once he'd gotten ensconced in France and wasn't hungry all the time...he still typed up some great stories though...I know I'll read Juneteenth at some point, but not just just yet...I'm on a Zadie Smith/ Toby Young jag right now anyway...to keep things light...