snow deluge 04.12.10

Are you bored of the snow updates yet? Because I'm getting mighty sick of the snow.

Mind you, it seems to be abating a little. And at least I've still got running water so that's something.

Jonathan Horowitz @ DCA

For the screening of Jonathan Horowitz’s 20-minute film Apocalypto Now, the audience is seated in a chamber that’s declared to be entirely carbon-neutral and impeccably eco-friendly. We’re gathered here to see a film that cuts up Hollywood disaster movies with news reports of environmental destruction, an Armageddon presided over by the smirking, would-be lovable rogue Mel Gibson, earnestly propagating his faith while flirting with a starstruck interviewer. This gripping, terrible spectacle has the fickle gallery crowd glued to their seats. Nobody moves for the duration, truly a rarity on a busy opening night. Apocalypto Now is the explosive centrepiece of Horowitz’s solo show at the DCA, Minimalist Works from the Holocaust Museum. Presenting art that dares to tackle heavy subjects, his work delivers big themes with a direct approach, sweetening the pill with doses of elegance and wit. Pink Curve remakes an Ellsworth Kelly sculpture from the Washington DC Holocaust Museum, here presented in the colour pink used to mark out homosexuals in Nazi Germany. The pristine white Pillow Talk Bed features pillows emblazoned with the names of renowned couples of recent history, unfathomable personal relationships now put up for public consumption. Throughout the display we find art that plays a reassuringly straight bat, accessible and easy to digest. When discussing politics and popular culture, such an approach is surely reasonable enough. As to whether it’s then necessary to hand out leaflets explaining the meanings of each artwork, that’s when your correspondent starts to pine for something that retains at least an element of mystery. It could just be me, but I don’t need telling what tofu is. Despite all this, Minimalist Works from the Holocaust Museum undoubtedly succeeds in its own strident fashion. This is the end of the world as media event, a rapid jump cut from phosphorus rocket fire to the twinkling of Mel’s eye.

snow deluge 03.12.10

Icicles on the kitchen window


The view from the front

Pipes have frozen. Plumbing fail

sorry

Extract from Peter Sotos, Comfort and Critique:

One wants to see this as being created by humans. Instead of faceless mannequins working for corporations with heads full of money and teeth full of idiots. The "For Sarah" campaign had a face that looked more like News of the World editor Rebekah Wade than mother Sara Payne. But the crime facts were all mom. The crime reporting done on the back of the little dead girl reads fashionable London college girls with tight asses and hard-cocked cynics that stopped aging.
How long before one of the reporters on the case actually stops feeling sorry and starts looking for the truth in the story. They wouldn't even have to be cruel. To anyone who didn't fucking deserve it. Just maybe how they saw stress levels rising and the spreading circulation advantages that were easy to wedge and pry open.
Tell the mother to stop crying so that you might understand what she's been failing to say. And if you still can't make out that it's gibberish, stick a cheap frame around her and tell her as loudly as possible to keep fucking going. See if you can title it without making a headline about the havoc of loss and the strength that rises from despair.

snow deluge 02.12.10

The snow's not going anywhere, and neither am I.

Facebook | Music shuffle thingy.......

Time for yet another inconsequential parlour game on Facebook:



Once you've been tagged...

(1) Turn on your MP3 player or music player on your computer.

(2) Go to SHUFFLE songs mode. (if it doesn't do that just say play all in shuffle mode and note the songs it picks)

(3) Write down the first 25 songs that come up--song title and artist--NO editing/cheating, please.

(4) Choose 25 people to be tagged. It is generally considered to be in good taste to tag the person who tagged you.



If I tagged you, it's because I'm betting that your musical selection is entertaining, or at least amusing. To do this, go to "NOTES" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, enter your 25 Shuffle Songs, Tag 25 people (under the post) - including me!- then click Publish.



Here goes.......



Dopplereffekt – Voice Activated

Fabio Frizzi – Voci Dal Nulla

Ennio Morricone – Come Un Madrigal

Delia Derbyshire – Frozen Waste

Hazell Dean – Who’s Leaving Who

Fabio Frizzi – Verso L’Ignoto

Delia Derbyshire – 65 Bubbles

Legowelt & Orge Electronique - Fancyman

Martin Denny – Cast Your Fate To The Wind

The Other People Place – Lifestyles Of The Casual

Whitehouse - Baby

Kim Walker – A Bellwater Cricket

Serge Gainsbourg – L’Anamour

Coil – Red Skeletons

Ende Shneafliet – Animals From Outer Space

Delia Derbyshire – Pot Au Feu

The Other People Place – It’s Your Love

Vladimir Ussachevsky – Wireless Fantasy

Delia Derbyshire – Tardis Land

Chris & Cosey – Re-Education Through Labour

Martin Denny – I Talk To The Trees

Drexciya – Black Sea

Liaisons Dangereuses Kess Kill Fé Show

Chris Carter - Interloop

Delia Derbyshire – Galactic Travel

So what conclusions can we draw? Only that I have a disproportionate amount of Delia Derbyshire's music on my hard drive.

snow deluge 01.12.10

No way am I going out in this.