Birthday Bosch
Louise Glück, “Unpainted Door” Poems 1962-2012 / Ingmar Bergman, Bergman On Bergman interviews with Stig Bjorkman, Torsten Manns and Jonas Sima / Moonlight 2017 dir. Barry Jenkins / Fiona Apple, Second Bite interview by Craig McLean, The Guardian / Eighth Grade 2018 dir. Bo Burnham / Norman Rockwell, Little Girl Looking Downstairs at Christmas Party / Anne Carson, “The Anthropology of Water” in Plainwater
also idk what transgender child needs to hear this the salon/barber will not give u a cool emo haircut you gotta do that shit with scissors and a razor at your sink
what is funny about ad Reinhardt and yves Klein? i want to be let in on the joke
so yves klein was a color field painter, also known as those guys who just paint a canvas blue, all blue, all the same color of blue, and sell it for a shitton of money. actually when it came to blue, yves klein was kind of The Guy.
BLUE
but back before all the fame and the blue, he made “yves peintures,” which was a catalog of his monochromes, pictured here:
the joke is that it’s bullshit! it’s just squares of construction paper glued on the page with little titles written below them. even the preface isn’t a preface – it’s just horizontal lines that he had a buddy of his sign with his name. one time yves klein and his art pals all hyped up a big big gallery show that he was opening. a solo exhibition! very exciting! all the critics and fancy motherfuckers showed up – three thousand people came. with great drama, they were led into a completely empty gallery. “welcome,” yves klein said. “I call it THE SPECIALIZATION OF SENSIBILITY IN THE RAW MATERIAL STAT INTO STABILIZED PICTORIAL SENSIBILITY, LE VIDE (THE VOID).” he was, in every way, a total fucker who loved bright colors and pranking the art world.
meanwhile, ad reinhardt – what’s ad reinhardt’s gig?
ad reinhardt’s gig is BLACK
more specifically, black-on-black grids of very slightly varying shades of black, applied in a very matte, powdery way that left the paintings with almost no sheen. it’s a pretty cool effect in person (if vantablack 2.0 had been a thing in the 50s, ad reinhardt would have busted a nut)
unfortunately, the way he did the paint makes the paintings incredibly difficult to maintain. if you touch one, the oils on your hands will immediately stain the painting, and it can’t be cleaned or repaired.
“no prob, bob,” ad reinhardt said to the flustered museum curators and collectors. “if you mess it up i’ll just replace it.”
“but what about our original ad reinhardt!” said the curators and collectors
“yeah i’ll replace it,” ad reinhardt said, “with the same original painting but not fucked up.” this caused some consternation
incidentally, he also made this small comic, which never fails to tickle me:
YOU, SIR, ARE A SPACE TOO!
one of my real favorite artworks in this vein is by robert rauschenberg, and i’m going to include the story of it because it makes me very happy. rauschenberg was an insane post-modernist – one of his most famous pieces includes a taxidermy goat with paint thrown all over it and a car tire around its neck, that kind of thing – and i love his piece titled “erased de kooning drawing”
so willem de kooning was the husband of elaine de kooning, who painted sick abstract expressionist portraits and was slamming hot
wow
willem was also an artist, and kind of a big deal in his own right, and friends with rauschenberg
one day rauschenberg calls him up like “hey i have an idea for a collaboration between us two art bastards. i need you to do me a drawing, in pencil”
and willem said “why”
and rauschenberg said “wouldn’t you like to know”
and willem said “why”
and rauschenberg said “because i’m gay, give it”
and willem said “that’s not a reason”
and rauschenberg said “fine, i wanna make a commentary on the value of art even after it’s destroyed and palimpsests and ephemerality and shit i guess, so i need a drawing by a famous dude to erase, and you’re famous”
willem de kooning said “okay” and proceeded to find the wettest, most difficult to erase grease pencil in his studio, which he then used to make several drawings until he came up with one he liked and sent it to rauschenberg
and to his credit, rauschenberg erased that motherfucker. he put in the effort. in a spectacular show of spite countering spite, he very nearly got rid of it all. look at this shit:
if that almost-blank piece of paper isn’t a work of art, i don’t know what is
I love "i would kill for you" ship dynamics but what about "i would stop killing" ship dynamic??
I would lay down my sword for you. I would change my nature and go against everything i've known. I would resist the easy way out of solving my problems. I would give up the adrenaline of battle to stay by your side and make tea instead. I'm not sure I know who I am without a weapon in my hand because I've had to fight for so long but for you I'm willing to try and figure this out.
It must be hard. To put down your weapon that's protected you for so long. It's allowed you to stay alive it's kept you from getting hurt--physically and mentally. Because you've never had to worry about a real relationship if you think you'll be dead at the next battle. And you feel naked without it and it feels like you're ripping off an extension of yourself. Are you even whole without it? Are you worthy of being loved if you can't prove it by risking your life? And yet they've found someone who's asking them for something much harder than dying in battle on their behalf. They've found someone who wants them to live. And that's much more terrifying.
hmmm
Item: Jumbo Jorb (Jeans Orb). Jiant, even. Jigantic. Jinormous. Jeez that’s a Jenerous Jorb
illustration for class about transness, the divine alchemy of the self and the bravery of coming out
So it turns out that ChatGPT not only uses a ton shit of energy, but also a ton shit of water. This is according to a new study by a group of researchers from the University of Colorado Riverside and the University of Texas Arlington, Futurism reports.
Which sounds INSANE but also makes sense when you think of it. You know what happens to, for example, your computer when it’s doing a LOT of work and processing. You gotta cool those machines.
And what’s worrying about this is that water shortages are already an issue almost everywhere, and over this summer, and the next summers, will become more and more of a problem with the rising temperatures all over the world. So it’s important to have this in mind and share the info. Big part of how we ended up where we are with the climate crisis is that for a long time politicians KNEW about the science, but the large public didn’t have all the facts. We didn’t have access to it. KNOWING about things and sharing that info can be a real game-changer. Because then we know up to what point we, as individuals, can have effective actions in our daily lives and what we need to be asking our legislators for.
And with all the issues AI can pose, I think this is such an important argument to add to the conversation.
I'd like to look at this, after it's been peer reviewed. The paper they're referencing has not been published, but if found without flaw this is big news!
people always praise taylor swift like "ough she wrote an album that told a story shes so original and brave and talented" ok well sure she wrote a concept album about women being sad. you know what else is a concept album? janelle monáe's five-suite metropolis saga spanning 3 albums telling the story of her time-travelling android alter ego, cindi mayweather, who is slated to be dissasembled after committing the forbidden act of falling in love with a human and, while on the run, learns that shes destined to be the savior that liberates all androids through social justice and funky tunes. why dont you listen to that?
another doodle page to celebrate the fact i finished watching ds9 for the first time i love star trek so much, its so stupidly silly
Shirt
Versace
1991-1992
McCord Museum (Object Number: M999.18.4)
hey why are the Van Helsings always the Vampire Hunting Family in modern Dracula stories. Abraham Van Helsing might be the guy who knows stuff but his family is off in the Netherlands and/or dead and totally uninvolved in the plot. Abraham's great-great grandson has no reason to be doing backflips and chopping off heads or whatever
You know who is a family who hates Dracula so so much and would totally teach their kids how to hunt vampires? The Harkers. Give me a modern vampire story where the protagonists are about to die when out pops Quincey Arthur John Lucy Abraham Murray Harker the Fifth, armed with a giant knife and an encyclopedic knowledge of train schedules
NOPE (Jordan Peele) / Regarding the Pain of Others (Susan Sontag)
its out of touch thursday
I scheduled this a year and a half in advance so it would be Out of Touch May the 4th 🕺





