January 2012
2 posts
Is there a copy of Janet Malcolm's "A Girl of the...
“Sischy once said to me, ‘My greatest love is Conceptual art. I may be even more interested in thinking than in art.’ She added, ‘René and I used to have an argument. He’d say something like, ‘Well, that work is really beautiful,’ and I’d say ‘So?’ and he’d say ‘Well, you hate art if you say ‘So?’ about something...
“Man was made for the highest activity, which is, in fact, his rest.”
– Thomas Merton, quoted by Pico Iyer in The Joy of Quiet
December 2011
4 posts
"Which do you think is the most important, your... →
Ernest Hemingway: war hero, big-game hunter, ‘gin-soaked abusive monster’ by James Campbell
“Style is the how of the what.”
– Sven Birkerts, The Pump You Pump The Water From
"the sport of the Eurotrashy, Hedge-fundy,...
Charles Saatchi on the hideousness of the art world (read a response here)
Jerry Saltz takes down Adam Lindermann: POINT TO MR. SALTZ! BOOM!
Blake Gopnik answers the question Why Is Art So Damned Expensive?
November 2011
4 posts
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life:...”
– Quoted in a Gawker comment; I believe this is the source.
Frieze Magazine | Archive | [Insert Title Here] →
A partial typology of anglophone exhibition titles
October 2011
14 posts
Generation Catalano: The generation stuck between... →
“I’m not Gen X and I’m not a Millennial either; I’m some low-birthrate in-between thing. WHO WILL SPEAK FOR ME.”
“That’s like asking me if I won Wimbledon.”
– Sandra, on our misplaced belief in her ability to place during the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii
Generation X Doesn't Want To Hear It →
Right now, Generation X just wants a beer and to be left alone. It just wants to sit here quietly and think for a minute. Can you just do that, okay? It knows that you are so very special and so very numerous, but can you just leave it alone? Just for a little bit? Just long enough to sneak one last fucking cigarette? No?
Whatever. It’s cool.
Like or as.
I drive like a tranquilized granny.
My style is best described as “post-punk with a Muslim touch.” (Thanks, Samito. I think.)
“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”
– Steve Jobs quoting The Whole Earth Catalog during a commencement address he delivered at Stanford University on June 12, 2005 (Mr. Jobs died today, Oct. 6, 2011. He was 56.)
Sleepy.
Me: My brain has shut down.
Baba: It's on screen saver.
Rapunzel's Razor (a one-sentence story)
She looked in the mirror and dismayed at the hirsuteness of her face.
Webster’s Third was a “tepid ooze of Midcult.” |... →
[T]he furor over Webster’s Third also marked the end of an era. It’s a safe bet that no new dictionary will ever incite a similar uproar, whatever it contains. The dictionary simply doesn’t have the symbolic importance it did a half-century ago, when critics saw the Third as a capitulation to the despised culture of middlebrow, what Dwight Macdonald called the “tepid ooze of Midcult.” That was...
September 2011
12 posts
Newspapers as "artisanal cheese" | Ian Jack | The... →
The great skill of traditional newspaper-making came out of its limitations. Space was rationed by pagination, in turn governed by advertising; lead type was inflexible; stories came out of typewriters one paragraph at a time so that they could be quickly divided among the operatives of Linotype machines. Writers wrote. Editors rejected or accepted. Sub-editors corrected, shortened and...
Uncreative Writing - The Chronicle Review - The... →
“[T]oday’s writer resembles more a programmer than a tortured genius, brilliantly conceptualizing, constructing, executing, and maintaining a writing machine.”
Hmm. So what happens if I want to be a tortured genius?
Dec, this one's for you.
Real-world cakes aren’t enough? That’s just… okay, fine.
Dear Dacs,
Remember when I was Ant and you were Dec? How about when I was Nwanda and you were Knox?
Yeah, that was in high school. When we were going to have the Bestest. Research. Project. Ever. and go to the USA and kick butt and become super-famous scientists and cure cancer with garlic.
Only you and Dyan (she...
Sharif Ali: Fashion Icon
Sharif Ali (right), as played by Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Keanu Reeves as Neo in The Matrix (1999)
The Evangelist, VMAN fashion spread (2011)
“[O]ur notebooks give us away, for however dutifully we record what we see around...”
– Joan Didion, “On Keeping a Notebook”
Missing from Palestine:
A wet dog…
… and a little girl in pink stopping and searching, both of them by Banksy.
Read all about it here.
ManilArt 2011: Rumors and darkness
People go to an art fair for the art. They don’t go to the exclusive evening preview because they want their eardrums assaulted by loud music. Neither do they want to stand around in heels for one-and-a-half-hours while doused in darkness—darkness that prevented them from seeing the art that they came for.
For P2,500 a ticket to ManilArt 2011’s gala, valued clients expected to get first dibs...
August 2011
20 posts
Genre busting: the origin of music categories |... →
Read this while listening to this.
"The sky is low and full of clouds. The grey... →
Paris Review - Little Expressionless Animals, David Foster Wallace
“Writing nonfiction is more like sculpture, a matter of shaping the research into...”
– Paris Review - The Art of Nonfiction No. 1, Joan Didion
Dance: Encantada by Agnes Locsin
This was so GOOD. I got tears in my eyes.
Agnes Locsin is AMAZING.
The Guardias Civil (above) were like a pack of mindless animals, possessed of a head-cocking herd mentality; Frailes, whirling dervish sorcerers; and the Kababaihan, flailing wild-haired women who were both water and fire.
I caught a musical after, which was a mistake. Word of advice: if you are seeing both a musical and dance...
Ateneo Art Awards 2011: Anatomy of Autonomy |...
Bomba by Kawayan de Guia (Jorge B. Vargas Museum)
Echo Studies by Maria Taniguchi (Jorge B. Vargas Museum)
House Blends by Bembol dela Cruz (Blanc Compound)
Fun fact: Our table of three was batting 0/9 in guessing who would win. We sucked.
(the Ateneo Art Awards exhibit of shortlisted winners is on view at Ateneo Art Gallery until September 10; images courtesy of Ateneo Art Gallery)
Writing is bad for you | Rick Gekoski | Books |... →
“I’m not sure about the improving influence of reading, but I’m certain that writing brings out the worst in me.”
Irving Sandler: Scene It All - The Chronicle... →
To Sandler, the biggest mistake we make in looking at art is judging it prematurely. The late, great critic Clement Greenberg, by contrast, was infamous for visiting artists in their studios and telling them exactly how they could improve their art, advising them what to do next.
Sandler, on the other hand, has never been interested in pushing art one way or another. He claims his role is...
The Economist has the best blog names
Babbage
Bagehot
Banyan
Baobab
Blighty
Buttonwood
Charlemagne
Clausewitz
Gulliver
Johnson
Leviathan
Lexington
Prospero
Schumpeter
Exhibit: Ruel Caasi's Life Is Beautiful
The Day Before the World Ends
The Day After the World Has Ended
Blue Skull
Related quote: “We begin to die as soon as we are born, and the end is linked to the beginning.” — attributed to Marcus Manilius
(on view at West Gallery until August 13)