Graffiti (or “street art”) used to be subversive and mean some about redefining public space. But as the recent controversy over an accidentally erased graffiti in Sao Paulo shows, Street Art is the new equestrian statue: signed and authorial, curated, protected and endorsed by public authorities. When you take subversiveness, anonymity and transience away from graffiti, what remains are images that are always nauseatingly tacky.
Rock music used to be “the voice of [my] generation”, and we came to expect this from rock. It was a made-for-tv, morning news platitude to assert it. Nowadays, however, it is difficult to think a person with a guitar is on par with his times; the latest bands could just as well be playing jazz. Ok Computer might have been the last time rock mattered - and some people rushed in to say it was not rock anymore.
I never understood the thing between hipsters and knitting/stitching: it’s ironic, sure, but the joke wears thin pretty quickly. You people got over it, right? Right?
Nifty interview with Rosalind Williams, author of Notes on the Underground, a book about that which lies beneath our feet - as the article puts it, “how actual and imaginary underworlds shaped our attitudes toward the manufactured environments that we inhabit.”
And troubles in Hamburg, small town in Good Home Iowa: The town’s sheriff’s 17 year-old niece climbs up a stage and strips off her clothes, the art card is played on the behalf of those involved, and controversy ensues: Is stripping art? “Dance has been considered one of the arts, as is sculpture, painting and anything else like that. What Clarence has is a club where people can come and perform,” says laywer. “(…) While she was there, she felt like dancing so she got up and danced on the stage and then she took her clothes off. Trouble with that is she’s the sheriff’s niece.” (btw: no pictures)
This reminds me of another, more troublesome court case in Canada a few years back. I’ll see if I can google it later.
I might have deleted some legitimate comments in the approval queue (I need to update wordpress, apparently the spam filter is outdated). Sorry if that was the case.
Bookseller buys stash of books from old lady, whose husband had recently passed away. Arriving home, he checks the material and finds hollowed-out books packed with pornographic polaroids of said deceased husband and what must have been his lovers. Uncertain what to do with such treasure, he asks the Internet.
(Apropos: I had seen a step-by-step guide to assemble hollowed-out books some time ago somehwere on the Internets. I don’t remember where, though, and I doubt I have the manual skills to pull it off decently. Are they difficult to come by? What are the secret mercadolivre keywords?)
