04w09:1 The Gates Roundup Posted February 28th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 9 number 1 (The Gates roundup) ——————————————————————— The closer you got, the worse it looked | Sarah Milroy http://tinyurl.com/5j6vm “By any estimation, as an intervention into public space, The Gates must be measured a triumph, unleashing a frolicsome joie de vivre in the direst depths of winter — no mean feat. The vibe even swept over the 49th parallel to engulf our own northern breed of pale, thin-lipped hibernators, many of whom migrated south en masse to check out the great event. […]What has been revealed in New York over the past few weeks is that Christo and Jean-Claude are brilliant strategists, passionate advocates for freedom of expression, with an unparalleled ability to mobilize the public behind an idea. But they are not strictly speaking sculptors, in the traditional sense of being form makers. Their wrapping and draping projects have been great because they adhere to, and enhance, three-dimensional forms that exist already. The artists then lay claim to these forms, designating them as things of beauty, drawing our attention to their historical or topographical resonances, and setting them alight with shimmering fabrics as a way of declaring their transcendence, and the transcendence of the human imagination. These works are works of genius. The Gates, alas, was something rather less.” With $3.50 and a Dream, the ‘Anti-Christo’ Is Born | Sarah Boxer http://tinyurl.com/4jcnp “You’ve seen Christo’s ‘Gates’ in Central Park. But what about Hargo’s ‘Gates’ in Somerville, Mass.? Sure, Hargo is unabashedly riding on the coattails of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. But it did take him some time to make his gates: 0.002 years, he estimates. That’s a good chunk of a day. You may as well take a look: not-rocket-science.com/gates.htm” Gated | Peter Schjeldahl http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?talk/050228ta_talk_schjeldahl “Of course, ‘The Gates’ is art, because what else would it be? Art used to mean paintings and statues. Now it means practically anything human-made that is unclassifiable otherwise. This loss of a commonsense definition is a big art-critical problem, but not in Central Park, not this week. What the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude have been doing for three and a half decades is self-evident. They propose a grandiose, entirely pointless alteration of a public place, then advance their plan in the face of a predictable public and bureaucratic resistance, which gradually comes to seem mean-spirited and foolish for want of a reasonable argument against them. They build a constituency of supporters, including collectors who help finance the project by buying Christo’s drawings and collages of it. What then occurs is like an annual festival – Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a high-school prom – without the parts about its being annual or a festival. It feels vaguely religious. The zealous installers and minders, identifiable on site by their uniforms and chatty pride, are like acolytes. As with any ritual – though ‘The Gates’ can’t be a ritual, because it is performed just once – how people behave during the installation is what it is for and about. Then it’s gone, before it has a chance to become boring or, for that matter, interesting. “ The Gates on The Daily Show | The Daily Show http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/commentary/2005/02/gates-on-daily-show.html “Simply put, The Gates is a triumph Jon, an artistic milestone that may finally put New York on the cultural map. I don’t want to get ahead of myself here Jon, but I think this may do for the Big Apple what The West Wing has done for Washington DC, or what the band Asia did for that continent.” Conceptual Advertising | Timothy Comeau http://blogto.com/arts/2005/02/conceptual_advertising/ “In yesterday’s Globe and Mail [Simon Houpt wrote] ‘The most enlightening comment I’ve heard so far about The Gates came from a man who had no idea what it was,’ writes Houpt, ‘I don’t mean he couldn’t parse the meanings of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s 7,5000 five-metre high doorframes hung with fabric around Central Park, or that he didn’t know whether to call it conceptual art or environmental art or an installation. No, this guy didn’t even know it was art. […] He’d somehow missed all the pre-event press coverage. So as he gazed northward at the thousands of orange shower curtains flapping in the wind, he turned and asked me, ‘Are they advertising that fabric? ‘Christo and Jeanne-Claude call their piece ‘interventions’ because they intrude, or impose themselves and their works, on public spaces. This apparently freaks us out. We’re used to one very specific sort of intervention: commercial ones, otherwise known as advertisements. Indeed, many visitors to Central Park have quipped that it’s a shame the artists don’t accept sponsorships, since the nylon orange is a perfect match for the corporate colours of Home Depot’. ” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Monday 28 February 2005 @ 2:54 PM
05w08:4 Canada Council Roundup Posted February 23rd, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 8 number 4 (canada council roundup) Because it’s Budget Day in Canada, seems apropos to revisit the proposed changes to the Canada Council, since after all, it’s all about Ottawa’s money, and it coincides with Monday’s publication in the Globe and Mail of an article by Kevin Temple on the subject, which he’s allowed me to reproduce on the Goodreads site. – Timothy ——————————————————————— Marketplace will dictate Canada Council funding, artists say | Kevin Temple http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/kevintemple/ “Nothing puts knots in the smocks of the country’s artists like messing with the Canada Council for the Arts. The current twist – a proposal from the visual-arts section of the Council that fundamentally changes the way it funds individual artists – caused confusion last fall and set off an outburst of blogging, e-mailing and petition-signing in the art community bumptious enough for the Council to reconsider its plans”. Note: there are additional related links on the page National Consultations with Visual Artists | The Canada Council for the Arts http://www.canadacouncil.ca/visualarts/rx127512282596987500.htm —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Wednesday 23 February 2005 @ 12:46 PM
Charles Taylor on Religion and Violence Posted February 22nd, 2005 by timothy. 1 Comment Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 8 number 3 (Charles Taylor on Religion and Violence) ——————————————————————— Religion and Violence | Charles Taylor http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/lectures/taylor/rel_violence04.html “Religion and Violence explores the complex relationship among modernity, religion, and categorical violence – namely, violence directed against people on the basis of their belonging to a certain category or group. Professor Charles Taylor will discuss the rising tide of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and terrorism, and ask what connection this phenomenon has to modernity.” Note: I went to this lecture in November, and these are the notes Charles Taylor on Religion and Violence | The Sunday Edition with Michael Enright http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/media/taylor_se041128.ram Real Audio file on the above lecture, recorded a week later (48.53min) —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Tuesday 22 February 2005 @ 4:09 PM
05w08:2 Award This Posted February 21st, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 8 number 2 (award this) But first, the news:Blogto.com is a new website dedicated to the city of Toronto and being better than the Torontoist (so cute it makes Antonia Zerbisias want to hurl), and for which I’m writing for. Last week I posted about the Untitled Art Awards, and last night I found the article on literary prizes on the This Magazine blog, and hence, I saw a theme. So, ‘On Awards’ via the blogosphere and shameless self-promotion. As well, Jennifer McMackon is running a new series of submitted questionnaires. I sent mine in on the weekend, which you can check out here, the questions running as previous posts to that entry. – Timothy ——————————————————————— Fiction as a winner-take-all market | Andrew Potter http://blog.thismagazine.ca/archives/2005/02/fiction_as_a_wi.html “I’d like to see someone start a prize that comes with zero dollars attached. Not even a medal or a trophy. You just get some cheapo certificate, like you got in grade 6 for having perfect attendance or something. The trick would be to make it such a prestigious prize, that the very notion that mere money would accompany it would be offensive.” The Untitled Art Awards | Timothy Comeau http://tinyurl.com/4kh6k “Art awards like this are merely props to support a status quo, an attempt to create a monolithic cultural identity, which is unwise, especially in a city as diverse as Toronto. It’s also unwise since monolithic cultural identities are games that Empires play, empires like USA and it’s Greek tutors, the Brits. It doesn’t fit Canada at all, and seems like another example of the Canadian streak of insecure provincialism.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Monday 21 February 2005 @ 3:07 PM
05w08:1 Paris Hilton Antoinette Posted February 21st, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 8 number 1 (Paris Hilton Antoinette) You may have heard about this Paris Hilton thing … about her cellphone getting hacked over the weekend, and all the details (including celebrity phone numbers, her email, and photos) have been posted on the web….the invasion of privacy thing might have some weight if they weren’t always trying to sell us stuff and convince they’re so godamn special. Besides, she’s wicked (see reading #2). So, it’s with pleasure that I do my part to bring the world this magic link. – TimothyPS: Who knows how long it will be up, so if it’s gone by the time you check it, apologies. ——————————————————————— Somebody got hizacked | Anonymous http://www.sunroad.pe.kr/paris/ We’ll never have Paris again | Lloyd Grove http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/264804p-226754c.html “The arc of Paris’ ‘career’ – from rich, witless party girl to rich, witless party girl with a hit television show – is an insult to the American sense of fairness: the idea that you get ahead by working hard, playing by the rules and acquiring a skill of some sort. Paris has bothered with none of the above, and yet society continues to reward her with money and fame. The British actor Stephen Fry put it best when he observed recently to Lowdown that being Paris ‘takes a startling vanity, an enormous lack of selfknowledge and a huge amount of greed and desire.’ What is it about this otherwise unremarkable 23-year-old that can provoke such seething outrage? Let me count the ways….” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Monday 21 February 2005 @ 1:33 AM
05w07:2 Video Valentines Posted February 16th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 7 number 2 (video valentines) Dear 640480,I love you PS: I’m only late with this because I was out of Instant Coffee until today. Timothy ——————————————————————— 3rd Annual Video Valentine | 640480 Collective http://www.640480.com/valentine/main.html 13 Quicktime Movs —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Wednesday 16 February 2005 @ 8:31 PM
05w07:1 Nostalgia Posted February 15th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 7 number 1 (Nostalgia) By the way, I have 50 Gmail invites to give away incase anyone’s interested – Timothy ——————————————————————— Stuck still | John Elledge http://www.ak13.com/article.php?id=278 “Instead, it has all been endless nostalgia, cultural flashbacks since. Retro fads, I love 1960s, I love 1970s, I love 1980s, music designed by committee rather than those with something to say, reality TV that involves no creativity almost by definition, britpop, boybands, girlbands, remixes, remakes, New Labour, New Democrats, nu-metal ? none of which had much new about them ? and a regression to 1950s paranoia and values in the US. No new tunes, just variations on a theme. This is not the ranting of a middle-aged guy complaining that the great days are behind us […] I was born in 1980. I have spent ten years waiting for my generation’s cultural zeitgeist ? not, admittedly, doing much in the way of creating it myself ? but found nothing but commercialised music and a hundred splintered interest groups with nothing to bind them but the use of the Internet. It says something that one of what passed for the fads of 2004 was for ‘eclectic’ DJs ? they created nothing new, they merely rearranged the old in a more interesting way. “ We Hate the 80’s | Jeff Leeds http://tinyurl.com/6zr55 “‘The 80’s nostalgia was starting to roll in, and I was like, ‘Wait a minute! Did you people actually listen to the same decade I did? You had eight years of Reagan. There was cocaine everywhere. There were yuppies. We were oppressed by this whole notion of baby boomers trying to cash out.’ At past parties, attended by people wearing parachute pants and Members Only jackets, local bands performed their most hated 80’s memories on Casio keyboards, which they promptly demolished at the end of their set. ‘One year,’ he recalled, ‘a performer called Evil Pappy Twin played Van Halen covers on a classical Renaissance lute.’ In any case, the clock is running out. Whether you love it or hate it, the second coming of the 80’s has already lasted almost as long as the original decade – unheard of in the ever-quickening cycles of cultural nostalgia. Mr. Hirschorn of VH1 admits that ‘the early 80’s are sort of getting long in the tooth.’ Besides which, the 90’s – remember them? – are ready for their retouched close-up. “ Dead Disco | Metric http://www.lyricsdomain.com/13/metric/dead_disco.html “Dead disco / Dead funk / Dead rock and roll / Remodel / Everything has been done / La la la la la la la la la la ” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Tuesday 15 February 2005 @ 10:51 PM
05w06:3 Documents from the Future Posted February 11th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 6 number 3 (documents from the future) ——————————————————————— Former President George W. Bush Dead at 72 | Greil Marcus http://www.citypages.com/databank/25/1248/article12626.asp “Policy Review, October 5, 2018–George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, died today at Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. He was 72. The cause of death was announced as heart failure.” EPIC | Broom.org http://www.broom.org/epic/ “In the year 2014, The New York Times has gone offline. The Fourth Estate’s fortunes have waned. What happened to the news? And what is EPIC?”Flash presentation, 8 minutes August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web | Paul Ford http://www.ftrain.com/google_takes_all.html “It’s hard to believe Google – which is now the world’s largest single online marketplace – came on the scene only a little more than 8 years ago, back in the days when Amazon and Ebay reigned supreme. So how did Google become the world’s single largest marketplace?” The Microsoft Memo | Gary Wolf http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/microsoft.html “DATE: 10.31.2008 TO: BILL FROM: LINUS RE: Will Steve kill WinX? […] After all our technical and strategic conflicts, I bet you never guessed we’d be at each other’s throats over a matter of pronunciation. But the fact is, when Steve goes to a marketing meeting, as he did yesterday, and pronounces our desktop system ‘Winux,’ he jeopardizes not only my personal reputation, but, more important, the very foundation of our business and software approach for the next decade. The desktop system is not ‘Winux,’ as in Linux. As he knows very well. WinX is pronounced like ‘winks.’ “ Jon Stewart for President | Paul Matthews http://www.maisonneuve.org/article.php?article_id=487 “September 25, 2008 – During the foreign-policy debate, Stewart scores points by calling the Governor on his campaign and its promises: ‘Arnie is selling you a dream that Survivor: Iraq is finally going to end with the cute guy as the winner. And you?re all lapping it up. This is politics, people, not a movie!'”Future part here is from the article’s sidebar, printed at the end —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Friday 11 February 2005 @ 2:57 PM (Permalink)
05w06:2 Death of a Salesman Posted February 11th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 6 number 2 (death of a salesman) ——————————————————————— Arthur Miller, Legendary American Playwright, Is Dead at 89 | Marilyn Berger http://tinyurl.com/48w3u “Arthur Miller, one of the great American playwrights, whose work exposed the flaws in the fabric of the American dream, died Thursday night at his home in Roxbury, Conn. He was 89. The cause was congestive heart failure, said Julia Bolus, his assistant.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Friday 11 February 2005 @ 2:28 PM
05w06:1 The Good Reader in the White House Posted February 8th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments ood Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 6 number 1 (the good reader in the White House) Of George W. Bush, we may often think of this quote of Mark Twain: “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” And yet, apparently Bush does read. Although a few years ago he told reporters that his favorite book was a children’s story, and while he is now historically associated with My Pet Goat an enthralling tale which he couldn’t drag himself away from that Tuesday morning, lately he’s found new books other than the Bible to proselytize about. – Timothy ——————————————————————— The odd couple | The Economist http://www.economist.com/printedition/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=3623386 “Yet for the past few months this paragon of good ol’ boy common sense has been infatuated with a book about an abstract noun by a Jewish intellectual. Mr Bush recommends Natan Sharansky’s ‘The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror’ (Public Affairs) to almost everyone he meets (including Condoleezza Rice, who mentioned the book during her opening remarks at her Senate confirmation hearing). Nine days after winning re-election he spent over an hour discussing the book in the White House with Mr Sharansky himself. The meeting must have sounded extraordinary, given Mr Sharansky’s thick Russian accent and Mr Bush’s Texan drawl. But by all accounts they got on famously. “ White House Letter: Why is Bush reading Tom Wolfe? Don’t ask | Elisabeth Bumiller http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/02/06/news/letter.html “What the official list omits in Tom Wolfe’s racy new beer-and-sex soaked novel, ‘I am Charlotte Simmons’. The president, a Wolfe fan, has not only read the book but is enthusiastically recommending it to friends.” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Tuesday 08 February 2005 @ 3:00 PM
