if you regularly deal with clients who, um, how to say this delicately…have a problem paying for artists’ work, then head on over to wikipedia’s free image resource. it’s an exhaustive collection of links to free-for-use imagery under various no-pay license structures. and after you’ve done that a couple of times, you can begin gently nudging your clients into understanding how much work it is to make anything.
google. hitachi. lotus. microsoft. all of these company names have etymologies. some happened by accident, some were nonsense, some were carefully thought out. most are reasonably interesting.
you know, i’ve never had much time for anyone’s god. too many thees and thous and burning bushes and silly thou shalt nots. patric king is not about the thou shalt nots, you know? he’s about fun. and with that, i enter into discipleship under the invisible pink unicorn. may her full-bodied and cute mane wave over your insignificance.
in a move showing amazing finesse and maturity for a nationally-read (i’m told) newspaper, the chicago tribune has a total fucking hissy fit. in, like, public. ew.
(or trucker cap hate, whichever)
um, just so everyone knows…the chicago tribune is reporting on the popularity of ponchos for the wimminfolk, so i guess it means the trend is completely over. if it hits the trib, you’re safe to bet something’s deader’n’rick james.
in other news, i still actually see people in trucker caps in wicker park. it’s kinda cute to see the optimism happening.
go buy diesel rabox jeans. immediately. gives even the flattest ass a bump. (that flat ass would be mine, and the bump is definitely there).
skip the whiskering, go straight for the dark denims. buy a size smaller than your usual, they stretch out nice’n’comfy.
god, i’m shallow. did i mention my hair’s really cute today?
…there’s some dumb redheaded homo designer with a silly mohawk in the wall street journal today? being interviewed? by ian mount? neat.
if there’s one thing i hate more than twinks from iowa visiting chicago so thay can hit hydrate for a dick and some coke, it’s gay art. there’s shitloads of it out there. gay people usually make terrible art about their sexuality. i just flip the hell out every time i run across it in public.
in terms of literature, the nadir of gay lit (which is usually awful anyway, unless you look for quality writing) is any piece of make-a-buck-quick garbage from kingston press. they so clearly pander to the sanitized, harmless gay stereotypes media people love love love (“you’re all so funny! and outspoken!” kill me, please). i go crazy every time i see one in a bookstore. the stories are maybe a click-and-a-half worse than harlequin romances and the design is utterly reprehensible. just trash.
on the photographic side, it’s black and white portraiture of buff guys the photographer clearly wants to screw—herb ritts, i’m talking to your pathetic vision—that whole thing needs to just stop a little, you know? there’s just too much, to the point that it’s becoem this thing we’re almost required to like. it makes me just so embarrassed to be gay.
via jonno, i think i’ve finally run across a quote-gay-unquote artist i can actually deal with and would actually collect. besides wolfgang tillmans, i mean. his work both eroticizes and celebrates the individuality of his subjects. it’s ambiguous enough to actually be sexy—you can’t really tell if his gaze is one of desire or not. check it out.
speaking of terrible art, does anyone remember chicago’s hilarious/too-embarrassing-not-to-look parade of fiberglass cows a few years ago? this was one of the worst displays of public art i’d seen since leaving the crafts fairs of tennessee. the work was only a tiny aesthetic step away from the garbage i grew up with in the south…art driven by economics. the public equivalent of a nouveau riche couple displaying something someone told them was art—regardless of how they actually feel about it. why? to display revenue.
the trib, on whom i love to bust for their milquetoast reporting, has finally enilsted someone to ask, “was that art?” to the trib’s credit, they’ve been reporting more aggressively lately.
the counterargument seems to be that the giant fake art is generating tons of local revenue for various urban areas, so it must be good. i counter that with: not art. it’s a circus freakshow where people come to sniff out the weird.
“But they were out on the streets. People could see the colors,” says chicago commissioner of cultural affairs. given that logic, i could puke on the sidewalk and be considered public art.
immediate revenue generation does not make great public art, long-term expansion of emotional value does. emotional value creates a willingness to put a higher dollar value on something, “just because,” and it’s hard as hell to destroy.
it also helps a person “own” a public piece by allowing them to attach themselves to other personal stories happening in relation to the piece… and that’s when a work becomes eternal: it drives human stories.
so i’ve been busier than an altarboy alone in a church with a…oh, never mind. gay priest jokes are completely 2002. i’ve been busy. that’s enough. but not so busy that i can’t collect pretties. there’s always time for the cute, you know?
anyway.
via jesse, here’s the bestest ever collection of japanese childrens’ book illustrations from the 1920’s. hot stuff, totally hot. no disclaimers, i know nary a thing about this except that it’s japanese and therefore totally hot. i post, you take. that’s the deal.
also, being very much down with my inner 16-year-old-girl, if you’re hooked up to digital cable, the n is the only possible channel you could watch at this point and expect me to still talk to you. like ever. they run degrassi, they run my so called life, they run daria. run, don’t walk. that link brought to you by the buttholes at comcast who finally dd something right.
this is about as much as business strategists can puke up about working online. it’s sad. oh, wait: it gets sadder. there’s a soundtrack. ohmigod, the thought of a convention hall full of dicks in dockers rocking out to this makes me want to eat tinfoil.
1) i’m kinda sick and tired of hearing how brilliant bjork is. please stop playing her new album at me; i never liked her and probably never will. besides, bobby mcferrin did it first. wasn’t cute then, either.
2) su and i just returned from florida, the most aesthetically offensive waste of land in the states, and will soon post a short assfucking of that dump’s cultural state of affairs. there are pictures.
3) the management has also just returned from the cutest wedding of the year. the bride, aprés link.
now that’s class!
i will now join the rest of you in the twenty-first century where it’s warm near the glow of technology. i have a new phone. camera, too. goodbye candybar and your crappy connection, hello flip.
i gotta tell you, people, crobar chicago has totally fallen face-down into the gutter since they gussied themselves all up. if there’s something the chicago audience knows, a club with a crapload of visible money…is going to suck. we like our clubs loud, sleazy, dirty, and huge. the old crobar was great for just that reason. the strippers from the white horse next door provided the entiertainment, rodman provided the drugs (natch), and we all had a grand old time.
su and i were there last night primarily because i’m a roaring alcoholic with a short attention span and i just had to get out of the house. even with double vision, i saw all of about a hundred people in attendance. one of the hosts confided to me that the crobar crowd kinda goes back and forth between there and sound bar, nowhere else. apparently these people are completely incapable of life without overstated architecture and the same damned DJs that spin at every major club in the city. me, i just need something unexpected. crobar wasn’t that. sorry, guys. nevertheless, a few pictures after the link. enjoy.
trust me, it looks better than it was.
