Young Lonigan by James T. Farrell
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Highlights Magazine (which is what truly shaped me in to the terrible man i am today)
18 March 2008
Rand's Upcoming Performances
Saturday Randall Bailey, Camilla Ha and I play dress-up in Club Sashay (music at myspace.com/clubsashay)
Sunday Rotten Milk and I play kitchen electronics
Tuesday I'm DJing sweet italioelectrdisco and sour ghettotronix
Sunday Rotten Milk and I play kitchen electronics
Tuesday I'm DJing sweet italioelectrdisco and sour ghettotronix
17 March 2008
pamela's list
1. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
2. "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" by Jorge Luis Borges
3. A History of Colors by Manlio Brusatin
4. if on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino
5. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
2. "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" by Jorge Luis Borges
3. A History of Colors by Manlio Brusatin
4. if on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino
5. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Karen Kilimnik Possessed, NYTimes Style Section
Karen Kilimnik, Possessed, NYTimes Style Section, January 20, 2008THE world is a complicated place. So perhaps it is fitting that we should conjure a pointedly optimistic way of thinking just to dispel the voices of certain doom and jaded irony. The first says, “It can’t be done”; the second says, “It has been done to death.”
Proponents of blue-sky thinking often cite the Wright brothers as validation. But why not the artist Karen Kilimnik? Like an all-too-human version of Giselle, the blithe princess in “Enchanted,” Ms. Kilimnik has expressed her brand of blue-sky thinking, most recently with a show, at 303 Gallery in Chelsea, of small paintings of, yes, blue skies. Some are even circular, suggesting the bowl of heaven. And though there are a few cirrus-y wisps wafting across her skies, they are, like all of her paintings, free of irony.
It is hard to believe that Ms. Kilimnik is sincere in a world ruled by archness and artifice, but there it is. The woman loves a forest, loves Kate Moss, loves an Alpine landscape, loves a blue sky, and her paintings say so. It’s kind of conceptual minimalism.
“I don’t know why, I just like it,” she said last week. She was talking about one of her favorite things: a bottle of Penhaligon’s Bluebell perfume. But Ms. Kilimnik, who is notoriously shy, could have been explaining the reasoning behind any of the myriad subjects she has painted, or articulating an entire aesthetic manifesto.
In the case of Bluebell, at least, the reasons can be documented. In the 1970s, when Ms. Kilimnik was a struggling artist, she saw the flowery British perfume at Saks Fifth Avenue. “I couldn’t afford it,” she said, recalling how the old-fashioned packaging and English heritage tugged at her heartstrings.
“I always loved England,” said Ms. Kilimnik, whose Anglophilia was practiced at great distance, from her childhood in Philadelphia. “I liked the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Sherlock Holmes and Mary Poppins and ‘The Avengers.’ But mostly the Beatles.”
Over the years she also developed a soft spot for British royalty, especially Prince Charles and Diana, who, as luck would have it, was herself an ardent fan of Bluebell — at least, according to Penhaligon’s, which holds the royal warrant. “I read all the books about her, and none of them ever mentioned Bluebell,” Ms. Kilimnik said suspiciously.
By late 1998 Ms. Kilimnik had become enough of a success to go to London in style on an art fellowship. There, in a pharmacy, she came face to face with her old flame.
“I thought, I shouldn’t spend all that,” she said. “I had never bought a real perfume for myself.” But spend all that she did. (Today a 100-milliliter bottle is $90.) One might think that the perfume reminds her of this glorious moment, of having arrived professionally, and in London no less, but Ms. Kilimnik said no.
“I love the apothecary shape of the bottle,” she said. “I love the label, which is so old-fashioned, and I love the royal warrants. But primarily I just love the smell. It’s very pure and essential. It smells like fresh-cut grass.”
The perfume is stored in Ms. Kilimnik’s refrigerator; she’s not taking any chances with its going bad. “Although it didn’t stop the last bottle from turning green after a while,” she said.
More than a sweet aroma, though, the perfume distills rather nicely the genius of Ms. Kilimnik’s blue-skied world. In a culture where you open yourself up to ridicule for liking anything — headbands, Kelly Clarkson, Los Angeles — unless you’re doing it ironically, Ms. Kilimnik has tapped into the sweet smell of her own world, and her own creation.
And if you don’t like it, well, why don’t you try?
16 March 2008
3/17: The UIC Faculty Screening Series, Part One (BEN RUSSELL)
To Whom It May Concern;
You are cordially invited to attend an informal screening of THE SELECTED WORKS OF BEN RUSSELL on Monday the 17th of March at 6:00pm. This screening of film and/or video works* by UIC Faculty Member BEN RUSSELL (in person) will take place in The Screening Room (ADH 3320) on the 3rd Floor of 400 S. Peoria. Discussion and refreshments are encouraged.
Yours Truly,
The Management
*FEATURING: Black and White Trypps Number One (6:30, 16mm, 2005), Black and White Trypps Number Two (9:00, 16mm, 2006), Black and White Trypps Number Three (12:00, 16mm, 2007), Black and White Trypps Number Four (10:30, 16mm, 2008), Trypps #5 (Dubai) (3:00, 16mm, 2008), Workers Leaving the Factory (Dubai) (8:00, 16mm, 2008)
* * * * * * * * *
NOTE: This screening marks the first of THE SELECTED WORKS OF UIC
FACULTY screenings. Numbers 2 - 6 shall transpire as follows:
#2) 31 March: The Selected Works of JENNIFER MONTGOMERY
#3) 07 April: The Selected Works of BUKI BODUNRIN and EMILY KUEHN
#4) 14 April: The Selected Works of SILVIA MALAGRINO
#5) 21 April: The Selected Works of DOUG ISCHAR
#6) 28 April: The Selected Works of DEBORAH STRATMAN and PAUL DICKINSON
quick reads on big art
http://grammarpolice.net/
light weight industry stuff.
also:
A 35-minute documentary on the discourse surrounding the 2005 vandalism of a deer sculpture by New York artist Marc Swanson, titled 'Fits and Starts.' More than just a timeline of events, the documentary traces the public discussion about the vandalism--from Facebook to the DePauw newspaper, to the 'rally' and D3TV, student/faculty protests and some considered thoughts, from faculty, staff and students in the following weeks. The film doesn't attempt to sway opinion or incite emotion, but it instead works to capture the local reaction to a very unique and largely polarized event.
On a larger scale, the film is an examination of university culture at a small liberal arts school that was the setting for the vandalism of a $60,000 work of public art. Was this incident specific to DePauw or is it just as probable at any liberal arts school or university? Who points at whom when public art is vandalized? And most importantly, who is responsible?
light weight industry stuff.
also:
A 35-minute documentary on the discourse surrounding the 2005 vandalism of a deer sculpture by New York artist Marc Swanson, titled 'Fits and Starts.' More than just a timeline of events, the documentary traces the public discussion about the vandalism--from Facebook to the DePauw newspaper, to the 'rally' and D3TV, student/faculty protests and some considered thoughts, from faculty, staff and students in the following weeks. The film doesn't attempt to sway opinion or incite emotion, but it instead works to capture the local reaction to a very unique and largely polarized event.
On a larger scale, the film is an examination of university culture at a small liberal arts school that was the setting for the vandalism of a $60,000 work of public art. Was this incident specific to DePauw or is it just as probable at any liberal arts school or university? Who points at whom when public art is vandalized? And most importantly, who is responsible?
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