Review: Chocolate

Ahem, I'm two years late on this one. But, if Walter Benjamin's taught me anything, it's that mechanically reproduced media exist outside of historical place and time, so I don't have to care that this was a movie that came out two years ago. Or something like that. Let's call it the idiot unconscious.

Anyway, if you like martial arts movies, you need to get your hands on Chocolate immediately.

Immediately.

I'm not necessarily an expert on martial arts movies, but I know a guy who is, and he's been my personal Yoda for a while here, so I think I can speak with a certain credibility.

The genius of Chocolate is in its synthetism. Apparently, blogger doesn't think synthetism is a word, but I'll be damned if it isn't.

Anyway, the basic plot of the movie is a bit saccharine. Our heroine (Ahem, heroine in a martial arts movie? Even recent greats like Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi aren't given this kind of top-billing, usually dropped in with an ensemble or secondary to male leads.) has autism, a particular variety that allows her to absorb fighting styles simply by observing them optically. It's a hell of a talent, one that I really would like. Beyond my present mastery of the crane style, of course. So, she's got this great skill, which comes in particularly handy because her mother has cancer and needs the treatment. So, our heroine, Zen, and her slightly husky-pants friend Moom embark on a collection campaign, hoping to reclaim debts owed Zen's mother by a whole load of generally shady guys that were part of her past, a past that included defying her clan and falling for Zen's father, a (gasp!) Japanese Yakuza. Wouldn't be a problem if Zen's mom wasn't Chinese. But, of course, being of Chinese descent seems to be rather useful if called to martial arts heroics.

All of this Hallmark card pathos doesn't really matter, except that it provides the backdrop for a story much in line with the enforcer/debt-collector topos of martial arts and western films. Well, except that our enforcer is autistic, hardly speaks, and really can't be much older than about 14 or 15.

Lucky for us all, she is one of the best martial artists I've seen in a while.

And, even more lucky for us, the director, writers, and cinematographer know their history.

Classic en masse henchmen ass kickings and boss battles? Check.

Multiple styles? Check, including one of the best scenes I've seen since the Drunken Boxing in Jackie Chan's Drunken Master series. Zen and a Japanese kid in a gold and black Adidas break-dancing sweatsuit square off in a monkey-style pas de deux. Not only is it an amazing vision of monkey style, but the nod to breakdancing is both obvious and knowing.

Jackie Chan style prop and architecture fighting? Check, with a freakishly amazing scene on and around the facade of a building, street signs, a train trestle, and street level. All at once, in a single scene. And this doesn't even begin to explain the slaughterhouse scene, which can't be described as anything less than a paradigm shifter.

And, for those of you new to the genre, it's even got that hilarity and self-parody that Kung-Fu Hustle had in spades. Less slapsticky, but still self-referential. Who knew that martial arts films were in their pomo phase?

You need to see this pronto.

Absolutely my martial arts film of the year. Or 2008. Whatever.

Me, Humiliating Myself Publicly. Again.

I'm DJing the below opening.

Dwayne Butcher: “Forget What You Know, this is Dwayne”

Date:	Friday, April 9, 2010
Time:	6:00pm - 9:00pm
Location:	Motamedi Gallery
Street:	500 South Second Street
City/Town:	Memphis, TN

Come for the art, which will be great. Much better than the DJ, who intends to play lots and lots of Ted Nugent. Or not. You'll have to come to the opening to find out.

Metal at the End of the World: Appunti per una storia

Let it be known.

I intend to write a book on metal.

See, this past Wednesday, it turns out that two movements of the universe played into my favor.

First, I say the Exodus/Testament/Megadeth 20th Anniversary Rust in Peace tour the night before.

If you need a review, you probably haven't ever listened to any of the bands in question. The only complaint I have is that Testament played the whole of The Legacy instead of the whole of Souls of Black. That's sort of like saying, gee, I wish we'd've won the Super Bowl by more.

Anyway, then, Wednesday, it turns out that the cord that connects the computer to the digital projector in the classroom in which I teach was crushed by some misfortune and thus not working.

So, like any good academic, I improvised and lectured at my students about Benjamin, Barthes, and Megadeth. I was sort of mindblown on the larger cultural significances of going to see Megadeth, absent two original members, playing the whole of an album live that had been released 20 years earlier. I feel like I did a pretty decent job at it and may have created at least one more metalhead amongst America's vulnerable youth. Everyone wins.

I kind of wish someone would break that cord again, but don't tell my boss I said that.

Lecturing about metal is lots of fun.

Thus the book, which is currently a figment of my imagination. In fact, I looked on the ol' amazon.com today and realized that there is actually a nice body of literature out there. Author's note: that's what academics say instead of using normal phrases like "there's a lot of books."

What this means really is that I have no idea if someone has already talked about what I want to talk about, so this may all go belly up. But that's the risk of academia, right? Someone's probably said something similar already. But I'm still hoping to contribute. Right after I manage to figure out when I'm going to have the time to not be a specialist in 20th century Italy.

Anyway, just in case you're a book publisher or grant giver, here is the tentative table of contents. I've made some pretty corny titles out of some of these, so forgive me. In no particular order...

-Apocalyptic City: Politics and Metal at the End of the Cold War

-Roots, Bloody Roots: Sepultura and Post-Colonial Metal

-Metal's Constructed Masculinities, or Why Dave Mustaine had to take His Shirt Off

-The Benjaminian Nostalgia of the Rust in Peace Anniversary Tour

-Metal's Classical Instincts: Anti-Simplicity and Anti-Punk

Review: Marlene Dumas @ David Zwirner

The Wall 2009

Marlene Dumas

Against the Wall

March 18-April 24 2010

David Zwirner

533 West 19th St.

NYC

Well, it's official. I don't hate Marlene Dumas anymore. For years, I've been hearing about her work and seeing the stuff everywhere. Consequently, I blocked it out, victimized by oversaturation and what I thought was a disproportionate excitement over works that struck me as mostly insipid and self-indulgent.

Dumas, like contemporaries Elizabeth Peyton, John Currin, Lisa Yuskavage, and Michael Borremans, paints pictures of people doing things.

Of course, Currin and Yuskavage like to paint people doing slightly titilating things. Like touching tit or tweaking the teats of those with tits. Each, to their credit is odd enough to make the tit tweaking actually tittilating. Currin's figures are squirmy and Mannerist, like Kate Moss, except curiously pretty instead of peculiarly creepy. And Yuskavage's works look like a cotton candy machine on full tilt, so they're fun, if nothing else. And, both can move paint with the best of them.

Peyton, too, who seems to have built a career on painting pictures of people that our collective cultural memory deems important. They're usually doing important people things, like smoking or walking around, so important people doing important people things apparently makes for important paintings. Or dull, were it not that Peyton actually does wonderful things with her materials. Ultimately, we get interesting paintings of interesting paint depicting uninteresting people doing uninteresting things. So we break even.

Borremans is about the same to me. Interesting painter, uninteresting people. And, bless his heart, he looks sort of like a poor man's Luc Tuymans to me, which is the kiss of death, because Tuymans is one of the better painters working today and has maintained a level of consistency that makes the rest of the bunch look like dabblers and dilettantes. But Booremans isn't all bad, and tends to be worth the time.

Dumas was about one show away from being lumped in with the rest of them until this most recent show at Zwirner. Total redemption.

Now, this can't be understood without a nod to the 2008-09 MoMA semi-retrospective Marlene Dumas: Measuring Your Own Grave. Poor Dumas really did get the short end of the stick, with her exhibition running in parallel with MoMA's Miro retrospective. Sort of like watching me shoot hoops with LeBron. Anyway, the PR for the exhibition says it all: "Dumas merges themes of race, sexuality, and social identity with personal experience and art-historical antecedents to create a unique perspective on important and controversial issues of the day." Notwithstanding a worthy and honorable curatorial intention, this is code for "blah blah blah." Or, translated into another over-art historicized English, Dumas makes paintings that suit the omnivorous sado-parasitism of our contemporary media culture. Unfortunately, much like the text, the paintings didn't say much beyond what they were. The paintings were bland, the show was bland, and I left wondering why I'd been guilted into caring about Dumas at all.

Then, I saw the Zwirner show. I like being wrong. Dumas is, in fact, a very strong painter. She seems currently possessed of a fixation on dry application and brushwork that barely sketches the essential elements of any form. And, thankfully, her subject matter has visibly matured, engaging the complex politics of the Middle East, Israel/Palestine in particular.

The Wall is a great one. More or less, compositionally inert, the painting is made of two competing sets of five verticals, one of people, one of the slabs that make up the Wailing Wall. The whole thing is sublimely self-reflexive, a picture of people standing in front of a wall, for people standing in front of a wall looking at a picture hung on a wall. The explicit rectilinearity of things--mostly the perpendicularity of our gaze in relation to the mirrored parallels of the painting, the Wailing Wall, and the gallery wall--stabilizes the composition and reminds me of the depth of tradition of pictures of people looking at pictures. Struth's museum photographs, Rockwell's art critic, they're both in there. It's wonderful stuff, implicitly Modernist in its perpetual flatness and beligerently contemporary in the frozen temporality with which it depicts a recurrent ritual occurring at one of the great palimpsests of both history and politics. Man Watching is much the same, the great repoussoir of the Road Map.

Under Construction swivels the picture plane ever so slightly, implying an eternity of expansion, the infinity of time displaced by the Israeli security fence, that blemish of the now on the land through which our collective history must pass.

Mindblocks was probably my favorite, something a bit Ernstian in its stacked masses and faux-decalcomania. What were once the citadels of Ernst's own apocalyptic imagination are replaced by an insistently mundane stack of stones, blocking a road, probably the one from that Map. The grim inevitability of the present is lost within the diversity of her paint applications, a strange paradox that allows our refuge in the autonomy of abstraction while always reminding us of its connectedness to contemporary events. Painting and politics: never the twain shall not meet.

Go to the site. Read the titles, linger over the word play, consider the truth of which they speak, both political and painterly.

Dumas has done something quite magisterial with this exhibition. She has made paintings that are wonderful to look upon. She has made paintings that are wonderful to think about. She deserves much credit. We should all start paying attention.

Point of Order: Civilization, For the Ladies

Attention members of the fairer sex.

I've already pilloried the guys for this, but now it's your turn.

I realize that public restrooms are often not the most sanitary places.

And, I realize, that as the more evolved of our species, you have developed the ingenious and admittedly more sanitary "squat" technique.

But, ladies, since we all know that intelligence and beauty come at the expense of aim, let me ask the following.

After you have finished, please leave the restroom as clean as possible for the rest of us.

Some of these restrooms are universal.

Maybe I'm a bit precious, but I don't like to walk into a loo that looks like a monsoon has just passed through.

You think you're grossed out, dear reader? Imagine how I felt.

Thanks.

A Lenten Prophet

Well, here we are, somewhere close to Easter. I've never been anything but a half-assed Catholic. Frankly, other than supporting the Fighting Irish and thinking that Saints Francis and Anthony are pretty cool, I'm mostly a whole-assed Catholic.

But, I was out for lunch yesterday with some pals from the 215 and we got to talking about giving things up for Lent. See, every year I give up Lent for Lent. I relieve my soul of some excess blemishing and the Holy See gets its tribute. Everyone wins.

Somehow, we got to talking about indulgences, and I realized that we need to give Elvis just a little bit more credit.

We've already heard about the rock n' roll thing and the amazing style and the photo-ops with Nixon and so forth.

But I'm convinced that Elvis needs to be given additional credit for being the prophet of the American apocalypse.

For Trinitarian reasons.

See, Elvis, in all of his glory inaugurated what I would like to call the trinity of American doom.

And, in true Kingly fashion, did it alliteratively.

So, for this Lenten season, at least for a moment, I would submit that we might replace faith, hope, and charity with fried food, pharmaceuticals, and firearms.

In celebration of the King of Kings.

All praises due.

May God have mercy on my soul.

ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS!

Pell Grant Updates. Congress may not screw us, after all.

One Hell of a Good Idea

Just found out about this, which I think is really a great idea, particularly since so many of my friends and colleagues are right in the midst of the breeding eras of life.

I have a friend from New Jersey who has started a company called Baby Baubles and More which takes your old baby clothes and other child-related fabrics and turns them into quilted Christmas ornaments and other baubles (fig. 1).

This is such a cool idea.

As soon as I can figure out where I've hidden my Underoos, game on.

Quitcherbabycryin'

So, there are some rumors that the Super Bowl, that most sacred of events, may be held in the new J-E-T-S/Fools in Blue stadium, which, as you should all know by now, is actually in the great state of New Jersey.

People are belly aching and baby crying about this already.

Might I offer the following counterpoint?

Do you like how I ask, even though I'm doing it already? I mean, this isn't like, "Ahem, so sorry, but I'm going to have to remove your spleen with chopsticks."

Anyway, what the hell kind of world are we coming to?

Football in the snow is how the Universe intended it.

Ask anyone who cares about the Packers, the Bills, the Steelers, the god-forsaken Patriots.

Hell, even those apostates at the University of Michigan know what I'm talking about.

Football in the snow is what separates the wheat from the chaff.

If you aren't tough enough to bring your long underwear, your three layers of gloves, your hand warmers, and your flask, you don't deserve to be at the game. F'real.

And, teams, if you're such a bunch of weenies that you can't trust your front five, your running backs, and the timing of your timing routes, you don't deserve to be playing in the game. And that's fo sho.

I demand that the Super Bowl be played in a snowstorm. I demand that we return God's game to Lambeau, where it deserves to be, or to any other stadium so close to inclement weather.

It rains in Miami all the time. Are these guys so soft that they're afraid of its frozen cousin?

Look what Tom Brady did to the Titans this past year.

59-0. Six touchdown passes. Five in one quarter.

In one of those verdammte Massachussetts blizzards.

You can't do that?

You don't deserve the Lombardi.

Strap it on, gentlemen. This is football, not pick-up stix.

Point of Order: Civilization

Might I offer the following?

If you are in line at a store, a coffee shop (as I just was), or anywhere else in the universe...

And someone in front of you in line finishes their transaction and moves to find a table...

GET OUT OF THE WAY!

Honestly, this is far beyond my usual fussiness concerning personal space and the demise of manners.

I know a guy who knows a guy who, in order to make the point that car motorists should share the road with bicyclists, built himself an armored cage with protruding metal spikes that would attach to his bicycle when he rode the road.

I'll go borrow me one of those Gwar outfits if I have to, but GET OUT OF THE WAY!

And, if you must be on the phone, use your Church voice. Your inside voice is still too loud.

And turn the volume on your phone down below Armageddon level.

Barbarians.

Un Mystere.

I just had to do one of those "type these word" verification things, and it was "1972 misdeed."

I wasn't even alive in 1972.

But now I'm intrigued.

The End of Days

I may be losing perspective.

My phone has the internet and I was on it earlier killing time, which is exactly why having the internet on your phone is worth every penny it costs.

And on the homepage, in what they are calling "Odd News," was a story about the price of Chicken Wings going up.

I don't think the people at my phone internet news company understand.

This is not odd news.

This is a major crisis.

If we can't get wings, what the hell are we supposed to eat?

In other sort of hard to believe chicken wing news, to be sure that this really happened, I Googled "yahoo odd news chicken wings," and the first thing up returned "Bandits rob delivery man of chicken wings in Georgia." The same return involved the news "Panda found eating like a pig."

A Refutation of Intelligent Design

Now, before somebody gets things all out of whack, and threatens me with excommunication or burning at the stake or one of those tea bag rallies, let's pause for a moment and remember the following.

I don't doubt the existence of a supreme power. But I'll bet it isn't a white guy with a beard.

I don't doubt the theory of evolution. But, most days, I think being a monkey would come with less hassle, so neither am I convinced by its implications of betterment.

But I've been watching a lot of the Tudors these days, so I'm sort of back on my heresy bandwagon, and I thought I'd touch on the topic of intelligent design.

I have nothing against intelligent design.

In fact, I really like El Lissitzky.

But, if this design is so intelligent, explain me the following.

Why, if this design is so intelligent, is it that the aforeimplied intelligent designer decided that it would be wise to design the human finger such that the pain of smashing it accidentally will linger for hours afterwards?

If this design is so intelligent, why are my fingers so fragile?

And why were they put in a place that is so easy for me to smash?

Not really that intelligent if you ask me.

Omnipotentus hic null disegnator intelligentus est.

I made that up, but I figure a little Latin will at least keep the Catholics at bay.

Olympic Crisis!

I'm only going to say this once.

Whoever decided that the Canadian Women's Hockey team should celebrate their gold medal victory with cigars, champagne, and beer on the ice should immediately be made team captain.

Seriously, are we so opposed to joy that we are going to ban gold medal winning athletes from celebrating their victories?

Maybe, yes, there is something somewhat less than tea parties and ascots about blue line boozing, but this is absurd.

We should change the name to the Immediately Opressive Committee.

If I ever win a gold medal, cigars and champagne are going to be the least of the worries.

If I can manage to be found conscious in the same country I'm going to request another medal.

Frankly, if I ever win a gold medal, I'm going to get a limousine, a bunch of friends, and a goat. We're going to dress up the goat in Chuck Taylors, sunglasses and a tuxedo and take it gambling. Once the goat is up a few Gs, we're going to all going to go back to the Olympic Village for photos with the fans. Cigars and champagne for everyone will be subsidized by the goat's winnings.

For real, people, it's the Olympics. Getting a little out of hand is the least we can allow those who are the very best in the world at what they do.

I sure hope Anette Norberg has packed some hooch for today's gold medal match.

Because nothing says party like Swedish curling.

Idiocy Alert!

I've taken this quote from Dan Savage's column in today's Village Voice.

Nancy Elliott, a state representative in New Hampshire, wants to ban same-sex marriage in that state—where it’s been legal for less than three months—and here’s her reasoning: "We’re talking about taking the penis of one man and putting it in the rectum of another man and wiggling it around in excrement. And you have to think…would I allow that to be done to ME?"

I can only imagine what the same-sex couples of New Hampshire are thinking when they have to envision hetero sex. I'll bet that they wouldn't want that done to them.

And I'm willing to bet that all the lesbian couples are offended because, apparently, Rep. Elliott cannot even conceive of their existence. I wonder why two women don't qualify as a same-sex couple...

All excrement aside, I'd like to issue an official warning to the state of New Hampshire.

You are about to be overtaken by idiots.

Be careful, they may be coming in from the Maine side of things. They've already proven their idiocy in this matter.

Fixing America

I'm not a politician and, frankly, I really don't know that much about how politics work.

But I know that I was born here and pay taxes and vote, so I figure that I am entitled to submit the following idea.

Congress should travel.

There are 52 weeks in the year.

There are 50 states.

And 1 District of Columbia.

And I'll give them 1 week of vacation a year.

Even that seems forgiving. I mean, the country is running every second of every day.

And they chose this path.

So, every week, Congress has to go to a different state and all the people in Congress have to travel around that state and meet people and figure out what they are like and what their concerns are.

And then they all get on a train and travel to the next state.

That way they will have lots of time to think and talk and see America.

This will allow every member to go to their home state and be in touch with their constituents and also learn about everybody else's constituencies.

You know...We the People...in order to form a more perfect union...

Well, Congress sure has been a bit underwhelming recently.

So I say we get them the hell out of Washington and send them all over the country instead.

They can vote on the train.

They'll have the internet and phones, so I don't see what the big problem is.

Obviously, I haven't worked out the details, but I think that this is a sound idea.

Notes on Westminster

Clearly, you will all see this ex post facto, but the show results are here, with photo links. For video, you'll have to go elsewhere. Sorry, I don't know how to do simulcast yet.

Dwayne, that's a challenge.

I just started now, in the Working Group.

This is, of course, all based on my own two eyes. I'm not a AKC certified judge of dogs. But I've probably logged more hours at AKC events than most.

• That Weimaraner is beautiful.
• The view from the back of the Black Russian Terrier is a bit, let's say, ample. And his name was ridiculous. And the whole 'not for the first time dog owner' commentary was a bit Cold War, wasn't it?
• That is a beautiful boxer. Especially in profile. I'm not sure that I don't think it's facial markings aren't a bit distracting from the geometry of its head.
• It's true. The Doberman is beautiful. The coloration, especially is so velvety and rich.
• Dogs of French origin are hilarious. Dogue de Bordeaux? Hilarious. PBGV? Hilarious.
• Am I the only one who thinks that the Great Dane is a bit pigeon-toed? And perhaps a pound or two thin? Nice gait, though.
• I'm not into the facial geometries of the Great Pyrenees. Too pinched around the eyes, and too trapezoidal of a muzzle.
• Komondor are awesome. Anyone who doesn't agree is crazy. I can't possibly imagine what their undercarriage must be like filth and dander-wise.
• The Mastiff, as Foucault would've seen it, is an initiator of discursive practice. If we're talking dogs, of course. They're all amazing.
• The Neapolitan Mastiff is pretty wild. The skin distribution on that thing is akin to a Shar Pei, which makes me wonder the extent to which the Venetians, Sig. Polo particularly, can be blamed.
• That Portuguese Water Dog was too spazzy. Leaning in the stack, shaking, and running diagonally.
• Rottweiler. Shout out to Kingston.
• I'm not really into white dogs, but I think the Samoyed might be the coolest of the bunch. Interesting how the olive-brown tones of the handler's shoes draws the eye to the ways in which a white coat actually contains sweeping color gradations. I wonder if she planned that.
• Siberian Huskies are great because they remind us that so many breeds still have a little wolf in them.
• I love the facial coloration on this Standard Schnauzer.
• Tibetan Mastiffs have the most beautifully emotional faces. So many different states of mind simultaneously.
• I just saw the cut. I'd go with the boxer. The Doberman is also great. That Akita would be in my top four. And the Kuvasz would round it out. In that order. There, I said it.
• But I feel bad about the Tibetan Mastiff.
• Yeah, I don't get the Portuguese Water Dog or the Malamute.

Congratulations to Aaron Bradshaw, winner of Junior Showmanship.

May We have the Terrier Group in the ring please...

• Dandie Dinmont Terrier. That's what I'm talking about.
• Am I the only one seeing a weird groom on this Airedale that makes it look like the line of its rib cage carries across its back leg?
• That Am Staff doesn't really want to be touched, does she?
• People think that they look weird, but Bedlington Terriers are quite beautiful if you stop expecting a round headed dog and look at its ovoid rectangularity instead. It's a geometric divergence from the norm, but quite elegant nonetheless.
• If I were you, I wouldn't piss off a Border Terrier. You'll lose. Look at that little bastard. Pure killing machine. That's the thing with Terriers. Up close, you're lunch.
• I don't really know the standard, but that Bull Terrier (Colored) looks like it has extra long front legs. And the Bull Terrier (White) needs to gain weight in its front legs. This makes me think that I really need to read the standard.
• Holy Shit! That's Cathy. Pennywise Kennels, people. Dandie Dinmont Terriers. The best of the best. Don't even ask twice. 2004 AKC Breeder of the Year. She's the best.
• For once in my life, I actually like the coloring on a Smooth Fox Terrier. That's a pretty damn nice dog.
• This Wire Fox Terrier wouldn't be my 14th Best in Show winner. It wouldn't even be in my cut, so far.
• The Glen of Imaal Terrier is really wild. Makes me think of how that's an Irish line of Terrier and not Scottish.
• It's really too bad that Joe Garagiola isn't doing the color commentary anymore. He was amazing, and, for those of you that have seen Best in Show, the prototype. Fred Willard owes him a ton. Tamron Hall, bless her heart, just can't fill those shoes. If anyone knows anyone who works at USA, tell them I'll do it next year.
• So far, I'm going with the Dandie, the Smooth Fox, and the Bedlington. I hope this judge doesn't do something corny and go with one of those breeds that always wins just because they always win. Not that I begrudge the dog the win, but Terrier judging can be a bit traditionalist for my tastes.
• I sort of think that this Parson Russell is ok, but I really don't know the standard at all. Mainly because most of the ones you see running around aren't up to the AKC standard.
• Shit, man. That Scottie is really pretty textbook. I can see why she's winning everything. Gonna be hard for anyone else to beat that. Whoever groomed that dog needs a little credit as well. Propers.
• Speaking of white dogs, but not really all white, the Sealyham Terrier is pretty great.
• The Skye Terrier is proof that judging a dog is a tactile experience. How the hell am I supposed to judge that dog's bone structure on TV?
• Clearly, this judge and I have very different tastes in Terriers. Excepting that Smooth Fox and the Scottie, who will probably win this sucker. This is actually a sort of interesting dilemma. Dogs are judged according to individual breed standards as adopted by the AKC. However, in an ideal show, each dog would be a perfect manifestation of its breed. Thus, the dilemma of taste in relation to a preordained canon. Perhaps this interestingly problematized Greenberg's notions as discussed in 'Can Taste Be Objective?." I've never thought of it that way before.
• If I were handling that Sealyham, I'd be pissed at the woman with the Westie for crowding me.

Best in Show

• Turn the damn lights on. This is about evaluating dogs, not theatre.
• After the first go around, the Brittany is my dark horse candidate, with the Scottie looking best, essentially even is the Doberman.
• Every year this guy has a great poodle, but I'm just not into poodles at all.
• I have absolutely no idea who I'd give this to. Every year it's impossible. I think I'd go with the Doberman, to be honest, but I'd feel really bad about not giving it to the Brittany, and the people who say I should give it to the Scottie have an indisputable argument.
• I hope I'm not the only person that gives that French Bulldog a lot of credit. That's a beautiful dog.
• Well, you can't argue that.

Umm...

So, I'm sitting here watching the dog show and there was just an ad for Simponi.

When they read off all the side-effects and considerations, cancer was brought up. And there was quite a bit of focus on infection.

Umm...

Further Proof That There is a God

Just when I thought the universe had screwed me again and left me out to dry with no more football...

Ladies and Gentlemen, the second greatest sporting event of the year is upon us...

Presently on CNBC , and tomorrow on USA, there is, for our viewing pleasure...

Drum roll please...

The 134th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

Go ahead, try to act like I'm kidding.

By the way, that's a Dandie Dinmont Terrier. You want to root for that one.

An Open Letter to Dave Mustaine

Dear Dave,

I underestimated you. You see, the last time we spent any time together, I was in high school.

High school people don't know what they're talking about. Maybe they do, but their teenage brains are so addled with confusion that they make arbitrary, impulsive, and absolutist decisions.

I decided that I didn't really like your band.

This was sort of your fault.

You're a terrible singer. Or, you were then. Now, I'm better able to appreciate what that sort of thing is about.

And, to make matters worse, I've always been a Metallica fan first. Having made this judgment under the influence of teenaging, I didn't really think much beyond the fact that they threw you out of the band and, like being an NFC East fan, you just have to pick one and hate the other.

Ask my wife about my opinions on the Giants.

Anyway, I chose Metallica. Really, I'd chosen Metallica and Pantera and Testament and Sepultura, so there wasn't any more room at the inn.

You can only pick four. Like suits of cards. Or evangelists. Or cardinal directions.

But I was hasty.

You are significantly better than I'd thought. You are, in fact, one hell of a writer of melodies. And your chord progressions are super interesting. More than most.

So, I just want to say I'm sorry.

And that I'll see you in March when you come here on the 20th anniversary tour.

I'll be the one up front eating crow.

XOXO,

Adrian

PS-I'm glad to hear that Ellefson's back in the band.

Cat Question, Episode 2

Am I the only one with a cat that likes to rest his butt right on the computer mouse?

Confused Yogism

Why does my sphere have to be sphere shaped?

I don't yet understand the nature of its bounding membrane.

Cat Question

Is there anybody out there that has figured out what it is that makes cats so interested in looking at what's in the fridge?

Holy Shit!

As of right now, over 1000 people have gone to this page.

That pretty well blows my mind.

Thanks for reading this craziness.

And please keep telling your friends.

And remember that I'm on the Facebook.

Just search "adrianduranblog" and you'll find me.

If I didn't set it up stupid.

And I think I'm on the Twitter.

If you're into smaller nuggets of idiocy.

I think it's "adrianduranblog" there, too.

But there's always that @ thing involved.

I haven't figured that out yet.

Anyway.

Thanks again.

I Did it Again

So, I've made a film. Not necessarily a follow up to my show at the No-Exit Gallery, which I've discussed here previously, but a certain next thing.

I made it about a week ago. Last Saturday, January 23. In front of Dwayne and Gadsby's house. Dwayne and Morgan were there, so they're the only ones who have seen it. Sort of.

I made the film in my head. I screened it in my brain and described it to Dwayne and Morgan as immediately thereafter as possible.

We rode in the back of Matt's new pickup truck with Gadsby's chiminea alight. Dwayne and Morgan and I. So clearly, it was something of a collaborative process. In fact, Jill shot some of the footage from a car driving along side our truck, on our left.

We drove the car around town for a while, rather swiftly. There was much wind and the according sounds.

So, far, I am certain that the film has to do with the indigenous primitivism of behavior instilled in and subsequently relished by the American male.

And I can't help but think that it has to do with color, because of the black truck and the earthen tones of the chiminea and the color of the flames.

I believe that Jill's shooting of some footage has to do with the inversion of the usual masculine-feminine dialectic of technical expertise in the making of an artistic object, but, to be honest, I'm quite certain that there is much more to Jill's participation than just the easy stuff.

And, as per protocol, I'm still trying to come to some position on the material presence of the art object, here manifest through film as both medium and behavior, as required for the viewing experience.

I think the next step will be to have a retrospective.

Super Bowl Update #2

As we begin the festivities with the Senior Bowl on Saturday and the Pro Bowl on Sunday, I think it is essential that we all consider one thing.

In his biography of Michelangelo, Giorgio Vasari discusses the artist in unhesitatingly Messianic terms.

As the media further deepens its onslaught of football-related media, it is essential for us all to be careful to avoid doing the same.

Despite the individuo-mania of this weekend's exhibitions, this is a team game.

Discussing football players amidst Messianic implications does harm to the player, and it does harm to the team.

Let's leave poor Peyton alone from this point forward so that he can concentrate on the game. If he leads the Colts to victory, only then may we recommence the hyperbolic linguistic gymnastics.

But from now until someone is lifting the trophy, no more.

Super Bowl Update #1

No matter what has happened or what the future holds, I think we all owe both of these men a huge thanks for making this season that much better. See you both in Canton.

Required Reading

For those of you interested in morality, celebrity, or sports...here's a gem.

Selena Roberts is essential reading for those of us who want to worry about things beyond the lines...

And, SI, before you sue the bejesus out of me, be aware of the citation below. In my line of work, it's called research and membership in a scholarly community.

Selena Roberts. "Coming Clean: It's Complicated." Sports Illustrated. Volume 112, No. 3 (January 25, 2010): 68.

http://157.166.224.105/vault/article/magazine/MAG1165035/index.htm

INT. ROOM WITH A FIREPLACE—EVENING

Two men sit in cushioned chairs facing each other under soft lighting. MCGWIRE is a former ballplayer with a graying goatee and a dress shirt open at the collar. He looks smaller than in his playing days, like a grape gone straight to raisin. COSTAS is an ageless TV journalist wearing a serious tie. He has notes in hand but rarely looks at them. He knows this drill.

COSTAS (somewhat incredulous)

What you're sitting here telling me is that you could have done essentially what you did without ever touching performance-enhancing drugs.

MCGWIRE (voice shaking, bites lip)

That's why it's the most regrettable thing I've ever done in my life.

It was good theater, wasn't it? For 48 minutes on Jan. 11, Mark McGwire deluded himself in front of Bob Costas on the MLB Network, the climax to a one-day steroid confessional that began with a statement to the Associated Press and interviews with select major media outlets. Touch 'em all. Call it the Redemption Rollout scene in another baseball chick flick filled with tears, produced to cleanse McGwire's image just in time for his reentry into baseball as the Cardinals' hitting coach.

The director of this p.r. strategy: a sports communications firm run by Ari Fleischer, the spokesman during the early years of W's White House—an administration not well-versed in apologies. But Fleischer didn't require an education in contrition to guide McGwire; he merely had to stage a public display that would go straight to YouTube. Whether a player's I'm sorry spills out evasively (Jason Giambi) or clumsily (Alex Rodriguez), with earnestness (Andy Pettitte) or cluelessness (Manny Ramirez), he need only emit emotion and never admit to cheating. He must calibrate his words like an artful banker: concede mistakes but never confess to perpetrating a fraud built on exotic numbers that brought riches at the expense of clean players and the bill-paying public. Plenty of regret, zero refunds.

And yet as angry as folks are with Wall Street, no one is looking to claw back the loot gained by deceptive athletes. "Sports fans are the most forgiving consumers of any industry," says David Carter, executive director at USC's Sports Business Institute. "If any other business treated its customers the way athletes treat their fans, in a lot of cases they would not have anyone lining up." Outrage barely lasts an inning. After McGwire endures the excoriation period—taking his beatdown from bloggers—he will no doubt become the beneficiary of America's short attention span as everyone Googles the next foolish act by a sports figure. (Gilbert Arenas brandishes pistols in locker room! Lane Kiffin runs out on Vols!)

And why wouldn't elite athletes, already awash in perks from red-carpet passes to punch cards for strippers, feel entitled to unconditional forgiveness once they express sorrow as the cameras roll? (Think it wouldn't have worked for Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds? Just imagine if they had been less defiant.) Wrap up the comeback with a title—think Kobe or A-Rod lifting a championship trophy—and a disgraced star is once again a darling.

But true atonement isn't intertwined with a victory parade. It's a private reckoning—with your conscience and with those you've harmed. What makes McGwire's coming out now most disturbing is how self-serving it is: His confession was a career move. The redheaded slugger had never told his son, Matt, whom he hoisted at the plate after he wrapped his biceps around homer number 62 in September 1998. Had he used Matt as a prop throughout the phony joyride? He had never told Roger Maris's children, who had to grieve the loss of their father's single-season home run record with grace and dignity from the front row that same season. How could McGwire have put them through that? He had never told St. Louis manager Tony La Russa, whose smarty-pants don't quite fit the same after he depicted McGwire to be as pure as spring water all these years. How willfully ignorant does the manager look now?

Of course, if every ball the Cards hit looks as if it's hitched to a comet next season, the collateral damage of McGwire's lies will be largely forgotten. He'll be Big Mac again in a happy Hollywood ending. "There is no sacredness to [sports] anymore," says Charles E. Yesalis, a retired Penn State professor who has written books on PEDs. "The games and the players are seen as another form of entertainment. Look, I like Spielberg movies, and I know there are special effects, but all I want is the movie. I don't want to see how the special effects are made during it. It would wreck it."

To see the reality is to ruin the escapism in sports. So offenders of all kinds are routinely welcomed back to the land of make believe. A St. Louis Dispatch headline last Friday read, MCGWIRE GETS BACK TO WORK; RELIEVED AND "READY TO MOVE ON." I get the need for closure, and certainly there's a place for forgiveness. But only if it is earned through personal accountability and not merely bestowed as a welcome-back present. Shouldn't atonement require more than a staged television event in which the actor takes a deep breath, dabs his eyes and says, "Bless me, Bob Costas, for I have sinned"?

10 from the 00s

Check out my Top Ten of the Decade list over at Art:21.

Also read Ben Street's Top Ten. You can't miss it. It's right above mine.

Review: Yinka Shonibare: Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play @ St. Louis Art Museum

About two weeks ago, on the way to the Italics exhibition at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art (closes Valentine's Day...review to come), we stopped by the St. Louis Art Museum to see the new Yinka Shonibare exhibition Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play (closes March 14).

Installed in their lower level period rooms, we are faced with the same old, same old from Shonibare, who is my nominee for the art world's most heralded one note band. At best, what we are faced with is a slightly clever variation on a theme. And when I say slightly, I mean marginally.

Shonibare has been celebrated, quite rightfully, as one of the more topically engaging artists of the 1990s, emerging from the cauldron of Goldsmith's in London with his own unique tangle of revealing, haunting, and at times absurdist post-colonial identity politics.

In the 1990s, such a brew was magically successful, drawing our attention to so many of those considerations we hadn't considered before and still need to consider more.

This deep into the new millennium, however, Shonibare's go-to methods are beginning to have the flavor of six month old tortilla chips. Frankly, the only marked novelty about these new works is in their poses, which already change from work to work, and their installation in the period rooms of the St. Louis Art Museum, which I guess is supposed to (and actually does, but in a rather frustrating and wandering way) perpetuate a reenactment of the original colonial exploration in search of culturally or fiscally valuable goods (by which we used to mean natural resources and here mean art).

The problem is that we already know the rest. We have for nearly two decades.

We already know Shonibare is the England-born child of Nigerian parents, himself a sort of walking embodiment of our current purported post-colonial and post-national existence.

We already know the batiks are a kind of Post-Pattern and Decoration signifier of the deceptive and forced importation of European garmentry (and culture) into African culture, and the subsequent absorption of said garments to the point of an inauthentic African authenticity.

We already know that the decapitation (non- or anti-capitation, perhaps) of the mannequins resists relational humanity. It is, after all, hard to relate to someone with no head.

We already know that this is, perhaps, also a kind of mantian retribution, in the name of all colonized peoples.

The disturbing reality of all of this is that Shonibare's art has been riding this wave for such a long time, with so little visible modulation or nuancing of what cud we've already been chewing.

And, at the risk of placing blame where it does not belong, the writers of the texts affiliated with the exhibition seem to be rather thrilled with regurgitating the same four or five catch phrases that have followed Shonibare throughout his career and have served as a kind of enabler to our post-colonial self-satisfaction.

You see, if we have an artist that fits the bill, and we support that artist, somehow our historical complicity in colonialism, or in its aftermath, is somehow alleviated. The jury is still out on this one. At least for me. Primarily because I don't quite understand how such an moral-intellectual jump can be made, if it can be made at all.

Which brings me to a rather peripheral concern. Peripheral to the art, at least. I'm confused as to the hows and whys of Yinka Shonibare MBE. I, myself, have never been afforded such an honor as being made a Member of the Order of the British Empire. I'm generally more of an Order of the Phoenix guy to begin with. Anyway...

While, realistically, I must recognize that this is an honorific title, one given to the culturally significant and the Britishly excellent, it still seems rather tricky given all of the post-colonialism we keep rehashing in regards to the work. I have never been an advocate of merging the artist and the work, or expecting that one is causal to the other by necessity. But, since we keep dredging up the spectres of colonialism--and I'll eat my hat if the work doesn't make that its primary concern--is there not a kind of historically problematic recolonialization happening here? Yes, Shonibare is a British citizen--born, raised, and educated--so the MBE is certainly appropriate and, more certainly, deserved for his contributions to British (and global) art.

But, in our post-colonial post-national world of millenial identity politricks, does this suffix not perpetuate the importance of recognition by a once dominant colonial hegemon, within the shadows of what is left of that same hegemon, which, of course, still is a hegemon, only of a different variety? Am I being fussy? Am I, instead, supposed to comfort myself with some kind of intellectual gymnastics wherein this is actually a kind of reappropriation of nomenclature, a subversion of the once uniformly British membership of the Order of the British Empire?

Order of the British Empire? (Natural) Order of the British Empire?

It all sits very oddly with me, to say nothing of the fact that I'm still rather bored by what looks like an artist piping us all out of Hamelin with the same batik-printed, headless tune.

Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play.

Maybe we shouldn't concern ourselves with play. Or let Mother and Father's sacrifice be in its service.

Back to work.

I miss the photographs. But I take comfort in knowing that the mannequins are sharing time with more of the flat stuff these days.