5.17.2005
return of the ten good things
haven't done one of these in a while...
ten good things for the springtime ("the only pretty ring time")
10. led zeppelin's "custard pie" sounded every bit as good to me in my mother's car last weekend as it did when i was twelve years old. "custard pie" is the first track from physical graffiti, an album which-- to this day-- remains my all time favorite summer record. the perfect soundtrack to the atmosphere of ease that has risen across my city as a miserable and seemingly-endless winter finally makes its exit. good fucking riddance.
9. i've been working the occasional shift at the museum, and putting the non-eating fifteen minutes of my lunch break to good use. a quick detour to gawk at henri rousseau's carnival evening, for example, becomes not only the high point of my day, but also a valueable reminder of why i took the damn job in the first place...
8. my grandmother is awesome. she's a half a year away from turning eighty, and hasn't a trace of the grumpiness that's become my bread-and-butter at 28. she's the most light-hearted totally neurotic person i know. a rare mix. my grandmother's ability to fear the tiniest nuances of her daily routine is matched only by her uncompromising ability to laugh at herself. i don't take after my grandmother much, but if there's one thing we have in common, it's a sense that the idea of "ourselves" is funny. meaning that we both consider that if the cosmos is capable of creating a specimen as peculiar as the one we each have to look at in the mirror each day, then the cosmos must have a sense of humor. and it's a damn good sense of humor sometimes.
7. last plane to jakarta is the blog of john darnielle, main dude from the mountain goats. in addition to making good music (his new record has some fantastic shit on it), he also writes well and thoughtfully about music.
6.
... fat, born-again stephen baldwin, while not by any means a "good thing," is at least a pleasant reminder that-- though they elected our president and have their hungry eyes on our courts-- the religious right of this country remain deeply, miserably, insufferably lame.
5. and on that note, you might want to take a look at this. (thanks carl.)
(...sorry my blog is turning into VH-1 lately...)
4. for whatever reason, it's taken me 28 years to look into the films of jean renoir. but i'm glad i finally did. most of the criterion re-issues of his films include introductions by him, and he seems like an awfully nice person. and even better-- his films seem to draw much of their power from this very nice-ness-- in their ensemble nature, their ambivalent power dynamics, their deceptive light-heartedness, etc. how many "great artists" can you say that about???
3. the CVS pharmacy at 15th and chestnut is emblematic of the clashing aesthetics of philadelphia, as well as the all-around omnipotence of corporate culture. but there's something so shockingly "off" about it i can't help having a bit of a soft spot for it. being located literally a block-and-a-half from city hall, the pharmacy was basically plopped into the bottom floor of a gorgeous, 19th century building structure. this is not uncommon in center city, and i usually hate it when this shit happens (the neon signage adorning the ross dept. store now occupying the historical "litt bros." building a few blocks down is a particularly blasphemous example). but the CVS ups-the-ante a bit, in that the room it occupies is at least two storeys high, and the top half of it inculdes the preserved original woodwork. accordingly, the pharmacy appears half finished-- it's crappy pharmacy for the first ten feet and victorian fantasy from there on out. it's like catching corporate take-over "in the act." a weird, amusing feeling.
2. i'm making this new drawing, and i can sincerely say it has been "inspired" (awful word) by the work i've read of octavia butler. maybe it's just that i'm getting older and more comfortable with my own sensibilities, but it feels really legitimate to make a drawing based on a novel (or, more accurately, a series of novels). i don't feel obligated to whip up a bunch of referential nonsense to justify what i'm doing anymore (at least not in my brain), so when i actually want to draw from something it feels fresh and natural, i guess.
1. flowers are in bloom on trees in the city. seven solid years of art school and i still love flowers. but i guess all my aesthetic training has at least made me more alert to the presence of flowers, even if it hasn't replaced my affection for them with something more sexy and controversial.
ten good things for the springtime ("the only pretty ring time")
10. led zeppelin's "custard pie" sounded every bit as good to me in my mother's car last weekend as it did when i was twelve years old. "custard pie" is the first track from physical graffiti, an album which-- to this day-- remains my all time favorite summer record. the perfect soundtrack to the atmosphere of ease that has risen across my city as a miserable and seemingly-endless winter finally makes its exit. good fucking riddance.
9. i've been working the occasional shift at the museum, and putting the non-eating fifteen minutes of my lunch break to good use. a quick detour to gawk at henri rousseau's carnival evening, for example, becomes not only the high point of my day, but also a valueable reminder of why i took the damn job in the first place...
8. my grandmother is awesome. she's a half a year away from turning eighty, and hasn't a trace of the grumpiness that's become my bread-and-butter at 28. she's the most light-hearted totally neurotic person i know. a rare mix. my grandmother's ability to fear the tiniest nuances of her daily routine is matched only by her uncompromising ability to laugh at herself. i don't take after my grandmother much, but if there's one thing we have in common, it's a sense that the idea of "ourselves" is funny. meaning that we both consider that if the cosmos is capable of creating a specimen as peculiar as the one we each have to look at in the mirror each day, then the cosmos must have a sense of humor. and it's a damn good sense of humor sometimes.
7. last plane to jakarta is the blog of john darnielle, main dude from the mountain goats. in addition to making good music (his new record has some fantastic shit on it), he also writes well and thoughtfully about music.
6.
... fat, born-again stephen baldwin, while not by any means a "good thing," is at least a pleasant reminder that-- though they elected our president and have their hungry eyes on our courts-- the religious right of this country remain deeply, miserably, insufferably lame.
5. and on that note, you might want to take a look at this. (thanks carl.)
(...sorry my blog is turning into VH-1 lately...)
4. for whatever reason, it's taken me 28 years to look into the films of jean renoir. but i'm glad i finally did. most of the criterion re-issues of his films include introductions by him, and he seems like an awfully nice person. and even better-- his films seem to draw much of their power from this very nice-ness-- in their ensemble nature, their ambivalent power dynamics, their deceptive light-heartedness, etc. how many "great artists" can you say that about???
3. the CVS pharmacy at 15th and chestnut is emblematic of the clashing aesthetics of philadelphia, as well as the all-around omnipotence of corporate culture. but there's something so shockingly "off" about it i can't help having a bit of a soft spot for it. being located literally a block-and-a-half from city hall, the pharmacy was basically plopped into the bottom floor of a gorgeous, 19th century building structure. this is not uncommon in center city, and i usually hate it when this shit happens (the neon signage adorning the ross dept. store now occupying the historical "litt bros." building a few blocks down is a particularly blasphemous example). but the CVS ups-the-ante a bit, in that the room it occupies is at least two storeys high, and the top half of it inculdes the preserved original woodwork. accordingly, the pharmacy appears half finished-- it's crappy pharmacy for the first ten feet and victorian fantasy from there on out. it's like catching corporate take-over "in the act." a weird, amusing feeling.
2. i'm making this new drawing, and i can sincerely say it has been "inspired" (awful word) by the work i've read of octavia butler. maybe it's just that i'm getting older and more comfortable with my own sensibilities, but it feels really legitimate to make a drawing based on a novel (or, more accurately, a series of novels). i don't feel obligated to whip up a bunch of referential nonsense to justify what i'm doing anymore (at least not in my brain), so when i actually want to draw from something it feels fresh and natural, i guess.
1. flowers are in bloom on trees in the city. seven solid years of art school and i still love flowers. but i guess all my aesthetic training has at least made me more alert to the presence of flowers, even if it hasn't replaced my affection for them with something more sexy and controversial.
