26 - 27 June 2009
I hesitated to post one of my ‘quick-ones’ (thus making it not such a quick one, after all, no?) the other night (well my blasted computer and laptop had something to do with it, too); but having just come from Joshua Pieper’s opening at Rosamund Felsen (good show, by the way – conceptual/material handled with a very dry, delicate wit), where I had a conversation with Steve Hurd and friends on this very subject, I’m thinking I’m not the only person in the L.A. art world to have been similarly affected by the sudden (and still so very shocking) death of Michael Jackson – a genius entertainer and true pop superstar, whatever else you want to say about him.
Like so many of my generation (no – I can’t remember what that is exactly – (x + y + z)2, I think), I watched Michael Jackson’s career unfold practically from its inception. I listened and danced to Motown music, including many Jackson 5 singles, some of which struck me as Motown bubblegum, some which actually had an already distinct pop verve – a kind of fusion of Motown-style rhythm & blues and Lennon-McCartney inflected Anglo-American pop (“The Love You Save”; “Never Can Say Goodbye”; “Shake Your Body Down to the Ground” – which seems in retrospect like the Motown precursor to his later “Wanna Be Starting Something” – that brilliant lead track off Thriller). I think “Ben” was actually my favorite Jackson 5 single at the time simply for its sheer perversity. (I confess that my early pop music tastes leaned in the direction of hard blues (Anglo-American, alas) rock and downtown/art/underground sounds (the two poles of which I’m thinking would be somewhere around groups like the Stones and the Velvets). In other words, this was a pretty white pop culture. There were outstanding exceptions, of course: Aretha, Stevie Wonder, to say nothing of scores of black jazz artists from Miles Davis to McCoy Tyner. But jazz and the classical world stand somewhat off to the side of the mainstream pop world. And it was that world that the grown-up Michael Jackson would take by storm and utterly transform within less than a decade from his first solo records for Motown.
That said, it was an explosion heard round the globe that somehow only penetrated my punk downtown world when, inevitably, it penetrated that very white world the way it penetrated almost every style of pop music being produced during the decade that followed – with its sheer exuberance, eclecticism and irresistible rhythmic energy. That ‘force’ had ‘a lot of power.’ Within a couple years of its release, there was no escaping it – and who would want to? I recall a hipper-than-thou loft party in SoHo sometime in 1982 where the dance music mix began and ended with music from Off the Wall. Everyone there was super-smart, punk or professional – or both, hyper-educated, informed, engaged, so cool we would have turned blue if the party didn’t start heating up – and it did. We tried so hard to be detached and dispassionate, clutching our scotch and joints (and checking each other out, too, natch) – but the sound system was very good and the music swept everyone away. There was no holding back. ‘Get on the floor and dance’ the music commanded; and we obeyed. Half-way through the Off the Wall tracks on the mix, the loft was swirling with movement – jagged, lyrical, undulating, pulsating – just like the music. It was pure joy. I don’t think I had sex that night, but I definitely had an orgasm or two.
A couple of years ago, I was on my way home from a late and very frustrating night at my Flynt Building office, feeling like death and wondering for the umpteenth time how I could possibly wake up the next morning for more of the same. I was spinning the radio dial between news, jazz, classical and indie-rock stations aimlessly, not even caring what I heard from one to the next, when the first bars of “Don’t Stop ‘til You Get Enough” – with those urgent moans of Michael’s – suddenly began seeping from my speakers. Something compelled me to turn the volume up. And up – the music poured from the speakers as if on an ecstatic wave (I have a great sound system in my car). At that moment, it was like a musical speedball – dreamy, ecstatic, yet pulsating with energy. I was in heaven. And I wasn’t going to stop ‘til I got enough – which meant a stop at Amoeba to pick up a CD (my vinyl copy bit the dust what seems like millennia ago). (Good thing, too, huh? Amazon reported that the entire Michael Jackson catalog had sold out. They’re going to have to bloody re-issue most of the catalog. Who knows? – Michael’s $400 million debt might be paid off a lot quicker than any of us would have guessed.)
Beyond the music, what made Thriller magical – really a kind of pop miracle no different from one of the great Freed-unit M-G-M musicals – was its conceptualization as a kind of global multi-media entertainment package. The amazing dancing and choreography that may have been born out of disco and musical theatre but went so much further. There was Astaire and Robbins in it, sure – but also Fosse and something you can only call Michael Jackson. We were witnessing the birth of a superstar and it was something to see. Something you had to be blind not to see – you couldn’t take your eyes off him.
Thursday evening (25 June), I was out with Opera Buddy – looking at an opera on film natch – an amazing 2008 Salzburg Festival production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. (Claus Guth did the production and Bertrand de Billy conducts members of the Vienna Philharmonic. The Don Gio is a very powerful Christopher Maltman, but he is almost eclipsed by his amazing – and very sexy – Leporello, played by Erwin Schrott. It’s a strange, almost surreal, very contemporary production – but I loved it; and of course the music is sublime – more on that in a second if I don’t run out of steam.)
Anyway, we almost got into an argument. “Michael Jackson dead!” – she all but cackled. Well, there was no escaping the shock of it. “ … (yawn) Oh so what … another pervert bites the dust…. What was he going to do with his career, anyway?...” Well, setting aside the probable fact that, whether his tour or new material would have been successful or not, whether he would have actually succeeded in making a comeback that, to many, seemed something of a long-shot, there would have been much he might have offered as a producer or mentor for new talent – i.e., the role that Berry Gordy, Quincy Jones and others had played for him; how, I asked, can you deny, not simply his manifest talent, but what he did actually produce. Joy, pure and simple. He brought joy to hundreds of millions if not billions of people all over the planet.
He was a strange cat – completely over-the-top-twisted, screwed up – issues for years. He did weird stuff and some terrible and probably out and out criminal things to some people (although regarding these incidents, you have to wonder: where were these kids’ bloody – more like blood-sucking – parents? – vultures.) And, come on for chrissake – nobody died. In fact they probably had a fabulous time (so they need a few years of therapy – at least we know they can afford it). Jackson was no Phil Spector – a complete menace to society who was a one-man argument for preventive detention years before he actually offed some poor girl.
Maybe Michael’s best years were behind him. Oh they probably were. But, like entertainment geniuses before him, he brought magic to thousands of millions. He brought us joy and will keep on delivering it as long as we can still hear music. No, he was not Mozart; and no we are not always in the right space, physically, emotionally, to enjoy what he offered us. But when we are – and we always will be at some point – it will seem like the amazing gift it is – a bacchant’s cry (and laugh) – a power of rapturous joy that we can never have enough of.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Hunger
17 June 2009
Just a quick one before I pick up where I left off (remember? Aaron Sheppard, et al.? To say nothing of Keith Tyson, Yayoi Kusama, Phoebe Unwin, Edward Cella, etc., et al.) – What’s the deal with museum, gallery or other art/culture events where the wine and/or hard liquor flow, or shall we say, are being poured with a heavy hand (a good thing, all things considered), but the food served is minimal to non-existent? Now, no one expects a gallery to hand you more than a glass of serviceable table wine or a spritzer at the run-of-the-mill vernissage. On the other hand, at what might be characterized as “special” events – special receptions, benefits, collector events, gallery events set off from the usual opening protocol, colloquia or other confabs, etc., where a slightly more ample libation might be offered; especially those events scheduled on ‘school’ nights at those somewhat ambiguous hours between ‘tea’, drinks and/or dinner – it might not be unreasonable to expect something to quell the hunger that, in the absence of an early dinner or a substantial ‘tea’, is surely swelling to a crescendo. Something perhaps slightly more than a breadstick (this is not a criticism of the fare at the Hammer, by the way) or a handful of salted peanuts.
EITHER OF WHICH WE (I speak for MANY of us) WOULD HAVE BEEN DELIGHTED WITH at the MOCA Contemporaries luau at the Catherine Malandrino Maison yesterday evening. In theory, the event was catered by the Malandrino café. In actuality, you could hardly call what we were presented with catering. In fact, you would have been excused for thinking it was a piece of performance art. Whatever it was, it was entirely surreal – the surrealism of it only magnified by the gathering haze of inebriation – inevitable if, like me, your last meal had been not much more than a light lunch and you had been hard at work for most of the day between 9:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. I should have guessed something was afoot when I was presented with a plate of half a dozen of the tiniest stuffed mushroom caps that were the first course of hors d’oeuvres to come out of the kitchen. It would be a long wait for the next plate (and I do mean plate, not platter). After a couple of surprisingly strong champagne & liqueur libations, I was really looking forward to something. As in ANYTHING. Anything appeared in the form of some microscopic-looking cherry tomato thing that looked tiny even on its toothpick. At this point, I was already practically drunk and wandered into the store to see what I scavenge. The wait staff had apparently retreated back to the kitchen again. Now what I saw was simply strategy: get the guests good and plastered and get them to drop a few quid BOTH on MOCA and on Catherine Malandrino shmatte. It made a bit of sense. The shmatte, such as it was, was fabulous. A beige-y draped cocktail dress beautifully draped and detailed in lace and netting would have fit me (once upon a (slightly more flush) time) brilliantly, and there was a quilted multi-colored mini-skirt that I seriously coveted. Unfortunately, my purse could scarcely budge for the parking valet – a situation that was moot because I was now in no condition to drive.
I was not alone. Clusters of guests were now huddling outside the kitchen door waiting to pounce upon whatever emerged from it. But you had to be very fast and very determined to get what there was to be had. The wait staff would rush out by-passing the beggars (us) outside the doors and rapidly fan back into the store – presumably to feed starving sales girls (or models? Presumably with a diet like this, you’d be ready for either the runway or the hospital.) By the second run, I was ready, and all but tackled one of the staff to grab my slightly-less-than-bite-size morsel of something vaguely resembling quiche.
Of course it wasn’t enough. By this time, I had joined a few other guests at the coffee bar, waiting for espressos and gnawing at the morning’s pastries and biscotti. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much left. I didn’t think I could even manage trying on the clothes in my condition and had already schmoozed half the Maison. A lot of people were heading over to LACE for the Fallen Fruit opening and performance, but I was in no condition to drive any more than a few blocks to the closest emporium selling coffee and FOOD (which happened to be Urth Café).
Look – don’t get me wrong. The reception was lovely. The clothes were fabulous. The drinks were …. Well there was Champagne. How bad could it be? But people with empty stomachs, whatever their taste for contemporary art, fashion, or for that matter the size of their wallets, need something MORE. Some galleries really get it (I’m thinking of a few Culver City galleries; a couple in Santa Monica; Lawrence Asher on Wilshire – you know who you are); but too often these are the exception. PLEASE L.A. ART WORLD: go ahead and spring for the Trader Joe’s nosh. The art audience’s (and your customers’) good will is not something that can just be written off.
Just a quick one before I pick up where I left off (remember? Aaron Sheppard, et al.? To say nothing of Keith Tyson, Yayoi Kusama, Phoebe Unwin, Edward Cella, etc., et al.) – What’s the deal with museum, gallery or other art/culture events where the wine and/or hard liquor flow, or shall we say, are being poured with a heavy hand (a good thing, all things considered), but the food served is minimal to non-existent? Now, no one expects a gallery to hand you more than a glass of serviceable table wine or a spritzer at the run-of-the-mill vernissage. On the other hand, at what might be characterized as “special” events – special receptions, benefits, collector events, gallery events set off from the usual opening protocol, colloquia or other confabs, etc., where a slightly more ample libation might be offered; especially those events scheduled on ‘school’ nights at those somewhat ambiguous hours between ‘tea’, drinks and/or dinner – it might not be unreasonable to expect something to quell the hunger that, in the absence of an early dinner or a substantial ‘tea’, is surely swelling to a crescendo. Something perhaps slightly more than a breadstick (this is not a criticism of the fare at the Hammer, by the way) or a handful of salted peanuts.
EITHER OF WHICH WE (I speak for MANY of us) WOULD HAVE BEEN DELIGHTED WITH at the MOCA Contemporaries luau at the Catherine Malandrino Maison yesterday evening. In theory, the event was catered by the Malandrino café. In actuality, you could hardly call what we were presented with catering. In fact, you would have been excused for thinking it was a piece of performance art. Whatever it was, it was entirely surreal – the surrealism of it only magnified by the gathering haze of inebriation – inevitable if, like me, your last meal had been not much more than a light lunch and you had been hard at work for most of the day between 9:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. I should have guessed something was afoot when I was presented with a plate of half a dozen of the tiniest stuffed mushroom caps that were the first course of hors d’oeuvres to come out of the kitchen. It would be a long wait for the next plate (and I do mean plate, not platter). After a couple of surprisingly strong champagne & liqueur libations, I was really looking forward to something. As in ANYTHING. Anything appeared in the form of some microscopic-looking cherry tomato thing that looked tiny even on its toothpick. At this point, I was already practically drunk and wandered into the store to see what I scavenge. The wait staff had apparently retreated back to the kitchen again. Now what I saw was simply strategy: get the guests good and plastered and get them to drop a few quid BOTH on MOCA and on Catherine Malandrino shmatte. It made a bit of sense. The shmatte, such as it was, was fabulous. A beige-y draped cocktail dress beautifully draped and detailed in lace and netting would have fit me (once upon a (slightly more flush) time) brilliantly, and there was a quilted multi-colored mini-skirt that I seriously coveted. Unfortunately, my purse could scarcely budge for the parking valet – a situation that was moot because I was now in no condition to drive.
I was not alone. Clusters of guests were now huddling outside the kitchen door waiting to pounce upon whatever emerged from it. But you had to be very fast and very determined to get what there was to be had. The wait staff would rush out by-passing the beggars (us) outside the doors and rapidly fan back into the store – presumably to feed starving sales girls (or models? Presumably with a diet like this, you’d be ready for either the runway or the hospital.) By the second run, I was ready, and all but tackled one of the staff to grab my slightly-less-than-bite-size morsel of something vaguely resembling quiche.
Of course it wasn’t enough. By this time, I had joined a few other guests at the coffee bar, waiting for espressos and gnawing at the morning’s pastries and biscotti. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much left. I didn’t think I could even manage trying on the clothes in my condition and had already schmoozed half the Maison. A lot of people were heading over to LACE for the Fallen Fruit opening and performance, but I was in no condition to drive any more than a few blocks to the closest emporium selling coffee and FOOD (which happened to be Urth Café).
Look – don’t get me wrong. The reception was lovely. The clothes were fabulous. The drinks were …. Well there was Champagne. How bad could it be? But people with empty stomachs, whatever their taste for contemporary art, fashion, or for that matter the size of their wallets, need something MORE. Some galleries really get it (I’m thinking of a few Culver City galleries; a couple in Santa Monica; Lawrence Asher on Wilshire – you know who you are); but too often these are the exception. PLEASE L.A. ART WORLD: go ahead and spring for the Trader Joe’s nosh. The art audience’s (and your customers’) good will is not something that can just be written off.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Fractured but fabulous
14 June – 15 June 2009
Before I come at you with a truckload of accumulated notes (no – I don’t mean going back the last three months – just the last couple of weeks), let me just tell you what grabbed my attention this week-end. (I hope this doesn’t sound like a Facebook page, which has been a slight, though sometimes entertaining, distraction since the MOCA “Mobilization” dragged me into its web.) First of all, as more than one person has pointed out in a general way, I haven’t been ‘around’ as much as I was prior to my return from the New York fairs. As some of you know, I was dealing with a number of professional, financial, and personal ‘challenges’ that vacuumed away an awful lot of my energy and focus. And crisis or ‘challenge’ aside, I felt an acute need to psychologically regroup and refresh my focus. It’s an on-going struggle and I don’t see myself emerging from it overnight. The more pleasurable side of this is that I find myself spending a bit more time reading (that is to say, reading and actually finishing books and long essays or feature articles). Lately I’ve been researching India and the subcontinent and spent part of this week-end finishing Octavio Paz’s In Light of India – a brilliant, magical sequence of essays about India and his experiences there (he was an envoy, and not long thereafter Mexico’s ambassador to India); needless to say every page is touched with Paz’s special genius. Next up is Sunil Khilnani’s The Idea of India. For pure pleasure I’m reading, Edna O’Brien short stories (she has a new bio of Byron that I’m sure is a hoot) and Colette’s La Retraite sentimentale – a sort of birthday book. (Am I revealing too much about myself? Yes – I guess that’s who I am these days.)
So you can see that ‘tales of the flesh’ might have an irresistible allure for me lately (‘spirit’ too, I suppose – but so much harder to sink one’s teeth – or eyes, ears and hands – into, no?). Besides I hadn’t been to Western Project in a while, I knew Carole Caroompas and Liz Young would be in the show; and – well, I had to go. One of Caroompas’s huge Before and After Frankenstein canvases greeted me as I walked in; and it was interesting studying its iconography for a moment and breathing in that almost hieratic, almost religious (albeit heterodox) quality it radiates. It could almost be an altarpiece, I was thinking for a second – only to turn into the main space of the gallery and be confronted with something that really was a kind of, well, shrine, a sort of devotional tableau – a shrine or an altar with a quasi-Chippendale pediment that – even from a distance – evoked cataclysm, catharsis (or at least a kind of baptism),transfiguration. I had to sort of hold back a bit. It was just a bit too much – with the ‘Chippendale’ topped frame giving way to extensions into the gallery space itself. I had to distract myself with Liz Young’s drawings and another Caroompas before I could really deal with it. (Caroompas – and Liz Young come to think of it – made me think a bit about Kaari Upson’s incendiary work again. What can I say? – the cutting, the re-configuration of flesh – gee, isn’t everyone obsessed with that on some level? At least in New York and L.A. Maybe all of America.)
And then it just happened – it was like I was just caught in some cheesy movie, helpless to resist its magnetic draw. (Upson again: how do you resist something as cheesy as the Grotto? You don’t. You just go with it. Enter that locus of utterly absurd insanity and just make it your own.) I felt the almond eyes of that slightly cartoon-ish, Fractured Fairy Tale Portrait of Dorian Gray figure upon me – to say nothing of that magical, mystical, ever so tactile frame, with its Munch/Jugenstil/Nouveau skulls and bones mouldings. And then of course, it’s there – like the wound of Amfortas in Syberberg’s film of Parsifal – those beautifully glistening labia…. “Don’t worry, Eve. You can always put that where your heart ought to be.”
Do you see what’s happening? Right as we’re writing/reading this? I’m coming apart just re-visualizing it, salivating a bit, even though it’s not strictly speaking that carnal. I’m not giving the artist enough credit. It’s much more articulate, developed – abstractly, symbolically, iconographically, narratively. Oh – the artist: his name is Aaron Sheppard. Like his Debutante in eclipse, or the fearful Symmetry of that transfigured scuba diver, he seems to have blown across the waters like Botticelli’s Venus on the half- (I was about to say clam – can you blame me?) shell. (Come to think of it, he does have a very Botticelli aura in person. Maybe it’s his long flowing hair.) In fact, he blew across the desert sands of Las Vegas (well, they don’t call it Vegas for nothing), which is where Cliff discovered him. And I’m so glad he did. Do you mind if I take a break? I need to eat something. I also need to say something more about Aaron Sheppard. Also about George Bolster, whose work I saw later the same evening at Chung King Project. (His “Madonna of the Tears” made me think of Barbara Hutton. “The bride wore black and carried a scotch and soda.”) In lieu of the Wooster Group’s Il Didone (long story – hopefully I can catch it this week).
Oh by the way, did anybody else notice (as if anyone couldn’t) the scaled-down New York Times Magazine this Sunday? Note to the Editors: BIGGER IS MORE.
Before I come at you with a truckload of accumulated notes (no – I don’t mean going back the last three months – just the last couple of weeks), let me just tell you what grabbed my attention this week-end. (I hope this doesn’t sound like a Facebook page, which has been a slight, though sometimes entertaining, distraction since the MOCA “Mobilization” dragged me into its web.) First of all, as more than one person has pointed out in a general way, I haven’t been ‘around’ as much as I was prior to my return from the New York fairs. As some of you know, I was dealing with a number of professional, financial, and personal ‘challenges’ that vacuumed away an awful lot of my energy and focus. And crisis or ‘challenge’ aside, I felt an acute need to psychologically regroup and refresh my focus. It’s an on-going struggle and I don’t see myself emerging from it overnight. The more pleasurable side of this is that I find myself spending a bit more time reading (that is to say, reading and actually finishing books and long essays or feature articles). Lately I’ve been researching India and the subcontinent and spent part of this week-end finishing Octavio Paz’s In Light of India – a brilliant, magical sequence of essays about India and his experiences there (he was an envoy, and not long thereafter Mexico’s ambassador to India); needless to say every page is touched with Paz’s special genius. Next up is Sunil Khilnani’s The Idea of India. For pure pleasure I’m reading, Edna O’Brien short stories (she has a new bio of Byron that I’m sure is a hoot) and Colette’s La Retraite sentimentale – a sort of birthday book. (Am I revealing too much about myself? Yes – I guess that’s who I am these days.)
So you can see that ‘tales of the flesh’ might have an irresistible allure for me lately (‘spirit’ too, I suppose – but so much harder to sink one’s teeth – or eyes, ears and hands – into, no?). Besides I hadn’t been to Western Project in a while, I knew Carole Caroompas and Liz Young would be in the show; and – well, I had to go. One of Caroompas’s huge Before and After Frankenstein canvases greeted me as I walked in; and it was interesting studying its iconography for a moment and breathing in that almost hieratic, almost religious (albeit heterodox) quality it radiates. It could almost be an altarpiece, I was thinking for a second – only to turn into the main space of the gallery and be confronted with something that really was a kind of, well, shrine, a sort of devotional tableau – a shrine or an altar with a quasi-Chippendale pediment that – even from a distance – evoked cataclysm, catharsis (or at least a kind of baptism),transfiguration. I had to sort of hold back a bit. It was just a bit too much – with the ‘Chippendale’ topped frame giving way to extensions into the gallery space itself. I had to distract myself with Liz Young’s drawings and another Caroompas before I could really deal with it. (Caroompas – and Liz Young come to think of it – made me think a bit about Kaari Upson’s incendiary work again. What can I say? – the cutting, the re-configuration of flesh – gee, isn’t everyone obsessed with that on some level? At least in New York and L.A. Maybe all of America.)
And then it just happened – it was like I was just caught in some cheesy movie, helpless to resist its magnetic draw. (Upson again: how do you resist something as cheesy as the Grotto? You don’t. You just go with it. Enter that locus of utterly absurd insanity and just make it your own.) I felt the almond eyes of that slightly cartoon-ish, Fractured Fairy Tale Portrait of Dorian Gray figure upon me – to say nothing of that magical, mystical, ever so tactile frame, with its Munch/Jugenstil/Nouveau skulls and bones mouldings. And then of course, it’s there – like the wound of Amfortas in Syberberg’s film of Parsifal – those beautifully glistening labia…. “Don’t worry, Eve. You can always put that where your heart ought to be.”
Do you see what’s happening? Right as we’re writing/reading this? I’m coming apart just re-visualizing it, salivating a bit, even though it’s not strictly speaking that carnal. I’m not giving the artist enough credit. It’s much more articulate, developed – abstractly, symbolically, iconographically, narratively. Oh – the artist: his name is Aaron Sheppard. Like his Debutante in eclipse, or the fearful Symmetry of that transfigured scuba diver, he seems to have blown across the waters like Botticelli’s Venus on the half- (I was about to say clam – can you blame me?) shell. (Come to think of it, he does have a very Botticelli aura in person. Maybe it’s his long flowing hair.) In fact, he blew across the desert sands of Las Vegas (well, they don’t call it Vegas for nothing), which is where Cliff discovered him. And I’m so glad he did. Do you mind if I take a break? I need to eat something. I also need to say something more about Aaron Sheppard. Also about George Bolster, whose work I saw later the same evening at Chung King Project. (His “Madonna of the Tears” made me think of Barbara Hutton. “The bride wore black and carried a scotch and soda.”) In lieu of the Wooster Group’s Il Didone (long story – hopefully I can catch it this week).
Oh by the way, did anybody else notice (as if anyone couldn’t) the scaled-down New York Times Magazine this Sunday? Note to the Editors: BIGGER IS MORE.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Sturm und Drang (and Beauty)
6 March 2009 (continued)
It occurs to me I zoom in on irony and desperation (above) in a mere two paragraphs – and certainly the layout of the show’s exhibitors might incline a quick 360 of the general Pier 94 toward those viewpoints; but obviously there’s so much more. And so much more that has nothing to do with either – really the flip side of that sort of impoverished pomposity. (Can there be, specifically, a poverty of pomp? As opposed to a mere dearth of it? Those Sailstorfer giltwood frames certainly addressed this directly.) But such affects must always coexist with their antipodes; and here (as always) desperation is outflanked by invention and the will manifest in any serious artistic enterprise; irony counterpoised against a straightforward determination of the actuality. Beauty trumps all – though it hardly ratifies an artist’s vision by itself. But it was interesting to see a certain range of varieties of beauty scattered amongst the exhibitor spaces on the Pier. You certainly saw that kind of invention and beauty at Sean Kelly. Or maybe it was about finding beauty in a time of almost brutal upheaval and uncertainty. As soon as you walked into the space, you were confronted with this sense of tempest and whirlwind – but also, undeniably, beauty: a beautiful swirl of a piss painting – a piss painting! (what – you didn’t think anyone was doing those anymore?) along side a funneling double helix of steel – almost a tornado of a piece – by Antony Gormley. (There were also some beautiful drawings by Gormley.) Also interesting work by Los Carpinteros that played with the notion of inter-connected structures falling apart; and minimalist studies by Iran do Espirito Santo (a Brazilian minimalist I know very little about) that played on similar themes. Kelly was also showing some classic Mapplethorpe flower studies, which made a stark contrast with the contemporary work foregrounded here. Made only a quarter century ago, one sees Mapplethorpe’s essential classicism in a new light – with their poignancy and solitariness magnified by the passage of time – and certainly our passage into these dark times.
It’s interesting how you’re also reminded at fairs (and not just The Armory Show) of the curves artists can throw one’s way. There were some interesting drawings by Joan Jonas at Wilkinson (London) – flattened, blotted ink studies of a butterfly and a nude figure – the sort of thing that might be done in a minute or over several hours or days. Less surprising were Fia Backstrom’s text drawings; but no sooner had I turned away then I was immediately struck (and that would be just the word) by a sequence of Jimmy de Sana photographs (from roughly 1979-1980) which astonish in their freshness, clarity, drama and anomalous, almost surreal expression, to this day. 'Whatever happened to him?' I wondered aloud – and Amanda Wilkinson was kind enough to fill me in. Sexually explicit, with frank exposures of astonishing debasement, they’re a bit raw (oh, nothing you can’t handle, dear reader) – but (setting aisde the ‘ick’ or ‘ouch’ factor) what they convey has an amazing clarity, and an inchoate sense of both immediacy and uncertain duration of time. Time flies whether and whatever you’re giving or taking. There was also work by Sung Hwan Kim, who is a Korean artist to watch. (Is Korea the ‘new China’? Or was it ‘there’ before and I just happened to miss it?)
(MORE)
It occurs to me I zoom in on irony and desperation (above) in a mere two paragraphs – and certainly the layout of the show’s exhibitors might incline a quick 360 of the general Pier 94 toward those viewpoints; but obviously there’s so much more. And so much more that has nothing to do with either – really the flip side of that sort of impoverished pomposity. (Can there be, specifically, a poverty of pomp? As opposed to a mere dearth of it? Those Sailstorfer giltwood frames certainly addressed this directly.) But such affects must always coexist with their antipodes; and here (as always) desperation is outflanked by invention and the will manifest in any serious artistic enterprise; irony counterpoised against a straightforward determination of the actuality. Beauty trumps all – though it hardly ratifies an artist’s vision by itself. But it was interesting to see a certain range of varieties of beauty scattered amongst the exhibitor spaces on the Pier. You certainly saw that kind of invention and beauty at Sean Kelly. Or maybe it was about finding beauty in a time of almost brutal upheaval and uncertainty. As soon as you walked into the space, you were confronted with this sense of tempest and whirlwind – but also, undeniably, beauty: a beautiful swirl of a piss painting – a piss painting! (what – you didn’t think anyone was doing those anymore?) along side a funneling double helix of steel – almost a tornado of a piece – by Antony Gormley. (There were also some beautiful drawings by Gormley.) Also interesting work by Los Carpinteros that played with the notion of inter-connected structures falling apart; and minimalist studies by Iran do Espirito Santo (a Brazilian minimalist I know very little about) that played on similar themes. Kelly was also showing some classic Mapplethorpe flower studies, which made a stark contrast with the contemporary work foregrounded here. Made only a quarter century ago, one sees Mapplethorpe’s essential classicism in a new light – with their poignancy and solitariness magnified by the passage of time – and certainly our passage into these dark times.
It’s interesting how you’re also reminded at fairs (and not just The Armory Show) of the curves artists can throw one’s way. There were some interesting drawings by Joan Jonas at Wilkinson (London) – flattened, blotted ink studies of a butterfly and a nude figure – the sort of thing that might be done in a minute or over several hours or days. Less surprising were Fia Backstrom’s text drawings; but no sooner had I turned away then I was immediately struck (and that would be just the word) by a sequence of Jimmy de Sana photographs (from roughly 1979-1980) which astonish in their freshness, clarity, drama and anomalous, almost surreal expression, to this day. 'Whatever happened to him?' I wondered aloud – and Amanda Wilkinson was kind enough to fill me in. Sexually explicit, with frank exposures of astonishing debasement, they’re a bit raw (oh, nothing you can’t handle, dear reader) – but (setting aisde the ‘ick’ or ‘ouch’ factor) what they convey has an amazing clarity, and an inchoate sense of both immediacy and uncertain duration of time. Time flies whether and whatever you’re giving or taking. There was also work by Sung Hwan Kim, who is a Korean artist to watch. (Is Korea the ‘new China’? Or was it ‘there’ before and I just happened to miss it?)
(MORE)
Saturday, March 7, 2009
"It's so cold in Alaska." -- with apologies to Lou Reed
6 March 2009
At The Armory Show
At first you wonder: is it as crowded? Is the audience as plentiful as in previous years? Then you consider – based upon the hour and flow of people in and out – yes, it is more or less. (Perhaps less, but not significantly so. Now whether the crowd holds as many willing buyers or collectors is another matter entirely.) What is immediately apparent is a certain deliberative air; not exactly focus – there’s far too much to distract or divert even the most focused eye for that. It’s a ruminative, thoughtful crowd. Collectors or not, people seem a bit more directly engaged with the art. The frenzy is gone – and that is all good. People are here to look, think, process the work, occasionally lubricated by a glass of champagne. The crowd could almost be said to be – and this is almost inconceivable in New York -- moving slowly.
Some of the galleries seem to underscore this newly judicious, deliberative attitude – e.g., a somewhat ironically placed white fluorescent piece by Joseph Kosuth from 1966 on the exterior wall of the Sean Kelly space, telegraphing this subdued mood: “Subject Described, Object Defined.” Others address the panic looming just outside (or presumably in reluctant collectors’ pocketbooks) more directly. The first thing you saw in the Galleria Massimo de Carlo (Milan) space was what looked like a broken marble cornerstone chiseled with the following dedication: “EVERYONE IS BROKE.” It’s by Elmgreen & Dragset, a pair of Irish and Swedish artists working out of London and Berlin, respectively. At Emmanuel Perrotin (Paris), the message was delivered by turns humorously, ironically, and perhaps a little desperately, too. Daniel Arsham showed a painting, predominantly in steel and charcoal grays – a bird’s-eye view of what resembled the shells of unfinished high-rise buildings or apartment blocks, protruding roofs of which spelled out the word, “W-A-N-T.” As you were thinking, ‘does it get any more desperate?’ you’d catch an eyeful of a neon piece by Paola Pivi – an Italian artist working in (get this) Anchorage, Alaska. (That would induce a certain irony and desperation. ) “Stop the complaint, we just bought it.” An artist by the name of Kolkoz had a slightly drier take on the theme with pieces that consisted of nothing but giltwood frames and mouldings – a more or less traditional giltwood frame (or frames) closing in on – more frames and finally simply filled with the frame mouldings. Michael Sailstorfer’s piece was almost a nullification of the spirit of Joseph Kosuth’s 1966 piece – a black polyurethane piece that looked like nothing so much as a set of black fluorescent tubes. I suddenly feel back in Berlin – that is to say, Lou Reed’s Berlin. “It’s so cold in Alaska.”
(MORE)
At The Armory Show
At first you wonder: is it as crowded? Is the audience as plentiful as in previous years? Then you consider – based upon the hour and flow of people in and out – yes, it is more or less. (Perhaps less, but not significantly so. Now whether the crowd holds as many willing buyers or collectors is another matter entirely.) What is immediately apparent is a certain deliberative air; not exactly focus – there’s far too much to distract or divert even the most focused eye for that. It’s a ruminative, thoughtful crowd. Collectors or not, people seem a bit more directly engaged with the art. The frenzy is gone – and that is all good. People are here to look, think, process the work, occasionally lubricated by a glass of champagne. The crowd could almost be said to be – and this is almost inconceivable in New York -- moving slowly.
Some of the galleries seem to underscore this newly judicious, deliberative attitude – e.g., a somewhat ironically placed white fluorescent piece by Joseph Kosuth from 1966 on the exterior wall of the Sean Kelly space, telegraphing this subdued mood: “Subject Described, Object Defined.” Others address the panic looming just outside (or presumably in reluctant collectors’ pocketbooks) more directly. The first thing you saw in the Galleria Massimo de Carlo (Milan) space was what looked like a broken marble cornerstone chiseled with the following dedication: “EVERYONE IS BROKE.” It’s by Elmgreen & Dragset, a pair of Irish and Swedish artists working out of London and Berlin, respectively. At Emmanuel Perrotin (Paris), the message was delivered by turns humorously, ironically, and perhaps a little desperately, too. Daniel Arsham showed a painting, predominantly in steel and charcoal grays – a bird’s-eye view of what resembled the shells of unfinished high-rise buildings or apartment blocks, protruding roofs of which spelled out the word, “W-A-N-T.” As you were thinking, ‘does it get any more desperate?’ you’d catch an eyeful of a neon piece by Paola Pivi – an Italian artist working in (get this) Anchorage, Alaska. (That would induce a certain irony and desperation. ) “Stop the complaint, we just bought it.” An artist by the name of Kolkoz had a slightly drier take on the theme with pieces that consisted of nothing but giltwood frames and mouldings – a more or less traditional giltwood frame (or frames) closing in on – more frames and finally simply filled with the frame mouldings. Michael Sailstorfer’s piece was almost a nullification of the spirit of Joseph Kosuth’s 1966 piece – a black polyurethane piece that looked like nothing so much as a set of black fluorescent tubes. I suddenly feel back in Berlin – that is to say, Lou Reed’s Berlin. “It’s so cold in Alaska.”
(MORE)
The Pornography of Desperation
5 March 2009
My first toe in the snow turned out to be not the Armory Show, but a run through Scope – it was nearly impossible to get to the Piers this particular evening – and frankly I was tempted to stop right at the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall, whose glass-faced façade disclosed a very warm and inviting looking bar and café. I consoled myself that I could always stop in afterwards. Inside (as opposed to outside) the pavilions, Scope has a slightly more manicured look this year – though the twilight may have enhanced the effect. ada (Richmond, Virginia) Gallery’s booth this year is close enough to the entrances that you could practically fall into it (no – I did not stop for a drink at Alice Tully Hall), and it’s always fun running into John Pollard who does such an amazing job with this gallery. This year, the gallery is celebrating the influence of the convulsive, hysterical films of George Kuchar, who is actually scheduled to present a few of his films at special events the gallery will present this Saturday evening (6-8 p.m.) and Sunday afternoon (12-2 p.m.). Kuchar really invented a kind of pornography of desperation; and, to judge from the business and economic news alone, you’d have to say these films have really found their moment. (Me – I’d just love to see some of these Wall Street money mis-managers cast and forced to act through a George Kuchar film.) John always shows something amazing, something surprising that takes you completely off guard; and I’m sure there’s more here that I should be mentioning; but I was most immediately fascinated by paintings and stop-action animations (from the paintings) he showed by Bruce Wilhelm – whose uncanny, abstracted, naïve style I found completely captivating -- e.g., horses and figures cantering into and out of a conventional landscape obscured by, morphing, or dissolving (more apparent in the animations) into other fragmentary elements, bits of landscape or other figures or color fields. Amazing (and not expensive!) There was much more; but, needless to say, I’ll be going back.
I’m not terribly familiar with dFaulken, a local gallery, but I was intrigued by their mix of artists – from expressive (if not tortured) and figurative, to rigorously cool abstraction, and they were friendly enough to invite me in when everyone was getting kicked out. I’m not sure what to make of an artist like Karim Hamid, whose work suggested a number of impressions or images superimposed upon each other and sunk into abstracted fields that might themselves be fragmentary images or merely background elements. A few were recognizably portraits. One of the portraits featured was of Chuck Close, a compelling one, recognizable though face and figure were all but blacked out. I was not so compelled by Sara Carter’s retro-De Stijl channeled abstraction – blocks and bars of color of varying density and transparency against dark fields – but perhaps it’s in synch with a certain mood of deliberation and determination that seems to be in the air. She’s certainly determined. I have more to say about Mark Gagnon, who showed some very interesting work – but I’ll have to come back to him. (He’s terrifically talented.)
Hey look – I know Costa Rica is incredibly beautiful (I’d love a place there myself) – but you can’t just plunk something down there on the beach or against one of those incredible landscapes and call it art. Can you?? (Or can you?) The Jacob/Karpio Galleria of San Jose, Costa Rica was showing some digital photography by Nefertiti Ingalls (love the name) – not without interest; and certainly an almost classical beauty and poise; and those gorgeous backdrops – but so what? This is not tai chi at the beach, honey. (Ya have to wonder – I came back from L.A. for this?)
There was a good deal of Chinese contemporary art and I have to talk about some stuff at Kuckei & Kuckei (Berlin) – but for now I’m putting it on HOLD. Gee, New York looks great under snow (although it’s already melting).
My first toe in the snow turned out to be not the Armory Show, but a run through Scope – it was nearly impossible to get to the Piers this particular evening – and frankly I was tempted to stop right at the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall, whose glass-faced façade disclosed a very warm and inviting looking bar and café. I consoled myself that I could always stop in afterwards. Inside (as opposed to outside) the pavilions, Scope has a slightly more manicured look this year – though the twilight may have enhanced the effect. ada (Richmond, Virginia) Gallery’s booth this year is close enough to the entrances that you could practically fall into it (no – I did not stop for a drink at Alice Tully Hall), and it’s always fun running into John Pollard who does such an amazing job with this gallery. This year, the gallery is celebrating the influence of the convulsive, hysterical films of George Kuchar, who is actually scheduled to present a few of his films at special events the gallery will present this Saturday evening (6-8 p.m.) and Sunday afternoon (12-2 p.m.). Kuchar really invented a kind of pornography of desperation; and, to judge from the business and economic news alone, you’d have to say these films have really found their moment. (Me – I’d just love to see some of these Wall Street money mis-managers cast and forced to act through a George Kuchar film.) John always shows something amazing, something surprising that takes you completely off guard; and I’m sure there’s more here that I should be mentioning; but I was most immediately fascinated by paintings and stop-action animations (from the paintings) he showed by Bruce Wilhelm – whose uncanny, abstracted, naïve style I found completely captivating -- e.g., horses and figures cantering into and out of a conventional landscape obscured by, morphing, or dissolving (more apparent in the animations) into other fragmentary elements, bits of landscape or other figures or color fields. Amazing (and not expensive!) There was much more; but, needless to say, I’ll be going back.
I’m not terribly familiar with dFaulken, a local gallery, but I was intrigued by their mix of artists – from expressive (if not tortured) and figurative, to rigorously cool abstraction, and they were friendly enough to invite me in when everyone was getting kicked out. I’m not sure what to make of an artist like Karim Hamid, whose work suggested a number of impressions or images superimposed upon each other and sunk into abstracted fields that might themselves be fragmentary images or merely background elements. A few were recognizably portraits. One of the portraits featured was of Chuck Close, a compelling one, recognizable though face and figure were all but blacked out. I was not so compelled by Sara Carter’s retro-De Stijl channeled abstraction – blocks and bars of color of varying density and transparency against dark fields – but perhaps it’s in synch with a certain mood of deliberation and determination that seems to be in the air. She’s certainly determined. I have more to say about Mark Gagnon, who showed some very interesting work – but I’ll have to come back to him. (He’s terrifically talented.)
Hey look – I know Costa Rica is incredibly beautiful (I’d love a place there myself) – but you can’t just plunk something down there on the beach or against one of those incredible landscapes and call it art. Can you?? (Or can you?) The Jacob/Karpio Galleria of San Jose, Costa Rica was showing some digital photography by Nefertiti Ingalls (love the name) – not without interest; and certainly an almost classical beauty and poise; and those gorgeous backdrops – but so what? This is not tai chi at the beach, honey. (Ya have to wonder – I came back from L.A. for this?)
There was a good deal of Chinese contemporary art and I have to talk about some stuff at Kuckei & Kuckei (Berlin) – but for now I’m putting it on HOLD. Gee, New York looks great under snow (although it’s already melting).
Friday, March 6, 2009
Baby, It's Cold Outside
4 March 2009
Delays, delays, delays – ‘so what else is new?’, readers of this blog (jeeeeeezus – are you still with me?? I must send you all something fabulous.) are likely to ask. But you all know how much I hate to miss a phree-view or an opening night; and in this instance (i.e., The Armory Show), I have missed both. Look – I’m not crazy about it either. You brave the traffic, the winter cold (and it is freezing); and miss the opening? The injustice of it.
The worst part of it is leaving my apartment an unmitigated disaster zone (yet apparently still ineligible for federal disaster relief!) when people have to come in to take care of my feline daughters (oh you have no idea how many hours – DAYS – I spent trying to clean up. I’ve barely scratched the surface; though I can say that my couch and coffee table can once again be used as they were originally intended. A virtual Everest of books, catalogues, magazines, legal pads and notebooks had to be relocated to the more traditionally book-friendly loci of my apartment – like, uh, the bookshelves, and bookstands in my bedroom. I probably should have called upon earth movers; but instead I tried to do it myself with predictably mixed results. At least now there is the semblance of a flat (as opposed to craggy and mountainous) surface – the surface of the table. There are still a couple of rather imposing stacks of art books at either end of the table; but now there is actually enough room on it for, say, a couple of drinks, a tray of hors d’oeuvres (or, well, my laptop), an ashtray or two or a lighter, and a pack of cigarettes. Two people could actually have a civilized conversation here … as long as they didn’t try to move to another part of the apartment. That includes the kitchen, which belongs to the cats, my coffee cups, and whatever seems to periodically migrate there from my car, more or less in that order.
What am I talking about? No – the worst part is leaving my feline children – or, more accurately, their complete emotional melt-down prior to my departure. No mater how well you plan, how gradually you time the pre-departure organization (which in my case means cramming most of it into the final hours before the taxicab arrives), no matter how well you disguise the packing, there comes a moment when they just go completely haywire and then shut down altogether. (The critical moment sems to be when one of the larger bags either begins to fill up or gets moved closer to the front door.) There are no magic words to say to make them come around (although calling them to a final breakfast or dinner can have a momentary distracting effect) – except perhaps, “Alright, I’ll stay.” But then what? Even if the party of the first (or second) part secretly wants to stay – against her better interests, forsaking duty or obligations, or worse, opportunity for discovery, for pleasure – it’s always awkward. It devolves into a kind of mental shut-down. It’s cozy – a little too cozy – for a few minutes; and then it’s scary. Okay, kids – we’re back in Kansas – we never bothered going to Oz – land of the bleak and home of the gray.
The Kansas, of course, is simply in your mind – but you don’t escape it just by pulling the comforter over your (and your cats’) head(s). Though sometimes it seems as if you have to tear yourself apart to purge it from your system. You rip yourself to shreds, take incalculable losses – throw so much out – to find one fresh, new thing; one kernel of genius, one point of light in the churning sea of darkness.
It’s that delicate balance between hope and desperation.
The losses: well, you can start totting them up the instant you leave home. Half-way to the airport (running LATE!) and you’re already missing something – forget about its readiness for the caregivers. Then the curbside jostling; the rush to the airline counter, baggage check; the careering to the security screening.
Oh yes – the security screening. Well go ahead – screen and screen again. I have no idea why, but no matter how heavy or light I travel, the screening process is not a two tray, not three tray, but a virtual train of trays down that mysterious conveyer belt, in which something (occasionally something important) gets left behind or lost. I am invariably ‘wanded’ (with some electronic scanning device – believe me, it’s no fairy’s touch), prodded, patted down, occasionally probed, and all but asked to disrobe. What is it? The personal jewelry? The scarves? Okay – I wear a lot; but as for the scarves, it’s winter time, I need a couple of woolies around my neck. As for the jewelry, I admit to a certain amount of jewelry build-up – but I’m sure there’s a little something in my arteries by now, too. This time, the ‘agent’ insisted I ‘fold over’ my pants (what – to check for suspicious lingerie? – I knew I should have worn La Perla!). I started to unzip – I mean, I don’t care at this point; I’m in a frantic hurry and trying to monitor seven trays of stuff, including my shoes and a laptop – and she says, “You don’t have to unzip completely, just let me have a look underneath.” (Gee, have I ever used a line like that?) “Honey, these pants are skin-tight. You can’t get more than a finger down there unless I unzip – though you’re welcome to try.” She had her look and sent me running back to my trays.
It’s now been well over seven years since the Twin Towers fell. Guantanamo is scheduled to close within a year; the State Department seems to be reassuming its traditional imperatives after eight years of deferring to the Defense Department-spear-chuckers; and we have a new acutely intelligent, rational and determined President, with an equally focused and determined administration behind him. Hillary Clinton, George Mitchell and a host of other diplomats are flying over the world trying to administer acute first aid to our damaged foreign relations. You’d think traveling would get just a LITTLE easier – wouldn’t you? Or you might think, given our newly rational leadership, they might work out some new, rational form of passenger profiling – having nothing to do with the net for potential terrorists – but making it somewhat easier for the rest of us to pass through the security gauntlet that makes even domestic travel such a nightmare. By now I’m sure the people at LAX and Burbank know my personal jewelry and repertoire of scarves as well as their own stuff. Sometimes I think the only way to do it now is to prepack some plastic trays with all the personal stuff, and head to the airport in nothing but a trench coat (maybe with a bodystocking underneath) and just get dressed there. Chances are, they’re going to see it all anyway. I hope someone can address this at the federal level. It’s getting ridiculous. And I’m about to miss my goddamned flight.
Oh yeah – and I’m missing my earrings – the only ones I brought.
Well here I go.
[ps – I’ll bring you up to date on some of my L.A. notes from the last month, soon – promise.]
Delays, delays, delays – ‘so what else is new?’, readers of this blog (jeeeeeezus – are you still with me?? I must send you all something fabulous.) are likely to ask. But you all know how much I hate to miss a phree-view or an opening night; and in this instance (i.e., The Armory Show), I have missed both. Look – I’m not crazy about it either. You brave the traffic, the winter cold (and it is freezing); and miss the opening? The injustice of it.
The worst part of it is leaving my apartment an unmitigated disaster zone (yet apparently still ineligible for federal disaster relief!) when people have to come in to take care of my feline daughters (oh you have no idea how many hours – DAYS – I spent trying to clean up. I’ve barely scratched the surface; though I can say that my couch and coffee table can once again be used as they were originally intended. A virtual Everest of books, catalogues, magazines, legal pads and notebooks had to be relocated to the more traditionally book-friendly loci of my apartment – like, uh, the bookshelves, and bookstands in my bedroom. I probably should have called upon earth movers; but instead I tried to do it myself with predictably mixed results. At least now there is the semblance of a flat (as opposed to craggy and mountainous) surface – the surface of the table. There are still a couple of rather imposing stacks of art books at either end of the table; but now there is actually enough room on it for, say, a couple of drinks, a tray of hors d’oeuvres (or, well, my laptop), an ashtray or two or a lighter, and a pack of cigarettes. Two people could actually have a civilized conversation here … as long as they didn’t try to move to another part of the apartment. That includes the kitchen, which belongs to the cats, my coffee cups, and whatever seems to periodically migrate there from my car, more or less in that order.
What am I talking about? No – the worst part is leaving my feline children – or, more accurately, their complete emotional melt-down prior to my departure. No mater how well you plan, how gradually you time the pre-departure organization (which in my case means cramming most of it into the final hours before the taxicab arrives), no matter how well you disguise the packing, there comes a moment when they just go completely haywire and then shut down altogether. (The critical moment sems to be when one of the larger bags either begins to fill up or gets moved closer to the front door.) There are no magic words to say to make them come around (although calling them to a final breakfast or dinner can have a momentary distracting effect) – except perhaps, “Alright, I’ll stay.” But then what? Even if the party of the first (or second) part secretly wants to stay – against her better interests, forsaking duty or obligations, or worse, opportunity for discovery, for pleasure – it’s always awkward. It devolves into a kind of mental shut-down. It’s cozy – a little too cozy – for a few minutes; and then it’s scary. Okay, kids – we’re back in Kansas – we never bothered going to Oz – land of the bleak and home of the gray.
The Kansas, of course, is simply in your mind – but you don’t escape it just by pulling the comforter over your (and your cats’) head(s). Though sometimes it seems as if you have to tear yourself apart to purge it from your system. You rip yourself to shreds, take incalculable losses – throw so much out – to find one fresh, new thing; one kernel of genius, one point of light in the churning sea of darkness.
It’s that delicate balance between hope and desperation.
The losses: well, you can start totting them up the instant you leave home. Half-way to the airport (running LATE!) and you’re already missing something – forget about its readiness for the caregivers. Then the curbside jostling; the rush to the airline counter, baggage check; the careering to the security screening.
Oh yes – the security screening. Well go ahead – screen and screen again. I have no idea why, but no matter how heavy or light I travel, the screening process is not a two tray, not three tray, but a virtual train of trays down that mysterious conveyer belt, in which something (occasionally something important) gets left behind or lost. I am invariably ‘wanded’ (with some electronic scanning device – believe me, it’s no fairy’s touch), prodded, patted down, occasionally probed, and all but asked to disrobe. What is it? The personal jewelry? The scarves? Okay – I wear a lot; but as for the scarves, it’s winter time, I need a couple of woolies around my neck. As for the jewelry, I admit to a certain amount of jewelry build-up – but I’m sure there’s a little something in my arteries by now, too. This time, the ‘agent’ insisted I ‘fold over’ my pants (what – to check for suspicious lingerie? – I knew I should have worn La Perla!). I started to unzip – I mean, I don’t care at this point; I’m in a frantic hurry and trying to monitor seven trays of stuff, including my shoes and a laptop – and she says, “You don’t have to unzip completely, just let me have a look underneath.” (Gee, have I ever used a line like that?) “Honey, these pants are skin-tight. You can’t get more than a finger down there unless I unzip – though you’re welcome to try.” She had her look and sent me running back to my trays.
It’s now been well over seven years since the Twin Towers fell. Guantanamo is scheduled to close within a year; the State Department seems to be reassuming its traditional imperatives after eight years of deferring to the Defense Department-spear-chuckers; and we have a new acutely intelligent, rational and determined President, with an equally focused and determined administration behind him. Hillary Clinton, George Mitchell and a host of other diplomats are flying over the world trying to administer acute first aid to our damaged foreign relations. You’d think traveling would get just a LITTLE easier – wouldn’t you? Or you might think, given our newly rational leadership, they might work out some new, rational form of passenger profiling – having nothing to do with the net for potential terrorists – but making it somewhat easier for the rest of us to pass through the security gauntlet that makes even domestic travel such a nightmare. By now I’m sure the people at LAX and Burbank know my personal jewelry and repertoire of scarves as well as their own stuff. Sometimes I think the only way to do it now is to prepack some plastic trays with all the personal stuff, and head to the airport in nothing but a trench coat (maybe with a bodystocking underneath) and just get dressed there. Chances are, they’re going to see it all anyway. I hope someone can address this at the federal level. It’s getting ridiculous. And I’m about to miss my goddamned flight.
Oh yeah – and I’m missing my earrings – the only ones I brought.
Well here I go.
[ps – I’ll bring you up to date on some of my L.A. notes from the last month, soon – promise.]
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