I know the whole "pop art" thing is totally played out and unoriginal, but I think this picture of me is pretty cool:

Another Interesting Person

Lest you think that I am solely interested in autistic semi-geniuses who live in caves while naked, let me introduce you to another really interesting person-- someone with more panache and talent than someone should legally be allowed to have. This person has built, among other things:

• A furby that breathes fire;
• A 52-inch HD Etch-a-Sketch;
• And a race car chassis from discarded tube steel.

But that's not nearly all. Most impressive of all (so impressive that I haven't got the technical know-how to even know how difficult this must have been) is that she reverse-engineered a Commodore 64, audio and visual systems both, by looking at a picture of the relevant silicon, and then recreating it on a field-programmable gate array. Imagine looking at a picture of the Notre Dame cathedral, memorizing it, and then building an exact scale-model replica out of matchsticks.

And there's more! Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Jeri Ellsworth:

Lifehacker Extraordinaire

Detox

Here is a picture I made today, called Detox:

(Click for bigness).

My Two Minutes Snorting, Righteous Anger

Oh, look, "Male Studies"!

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/04/08/males

Rubbish. An attempt to lend an academic sheen to the petulant desire not to give up one's precious stereotypes and self-indulgences. One senses that Lionel Tiger (and his colleagues, Hunter Beefneck and Lance Squatthrust) couldn't give a toss about gender identity and the fulfillment of the male individual-- rather, they just want a hefty essay to cite when their girlfriends get on their case about cracking open their 14th Miller Lite of the day while watching "Big Butt Babes go Bananas Vol. XXVI: Cancun!!". "But babe, don't you see? This systematic shaming attempt just reinforces the marginalization-based framework currently eating away at the actualization of the male in today's society! I refer you to Steed R. Horse, Our Hummers, Our Selves, op cit."

Art is So Good

Having recently had the chance to check out the SF MOMA, I wanted to draw your attention to a few exhibits I think are worth your consideration. The first (and maybe my favorite) was "Three Screen Ray", by Bruce Connor. It juxtaposed a live audio performance by Ray Charles of "What'd I Say" with three separate screens, each showing a dazzling, dizzying, sensual display of media which took the erotic essence of the song and blew it up to insane proportions, incorporating advertising, cartoons, and old war footage.

I thought it was completely great. It sent the Kundalini energy shooting right up from my parts. It was frantic, frenzied, disorienting, strange, and hypnotic.

Three Screen Ray:

http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/404

The next was something I didn't notice the title of until well after I'd seen the piece itself. Walking past the room it was in, I thought, "Hm, I hear rushing water". But it wasn't water-- what I was hearing was the roar of an air-conditioning unit attached to a large metal box. Dangling from opposite walls of the box were those long strips of clear plastic you see used in industrial refrigeration. I took a tentative step through them and into the box.

Inside it was painfully cold, and there was a startling object-- I couldn't tell what it was at first, but seemed to be made to human scale. It looked like a bench or a rack, made out of some odd substance-- shiny, greasy, a pale seasick color. Embedded in the object were a few steel items of unknown use or application.

It all filled me with a terrific sense of dread and terror. The cold, cruel, grotesque feeling of the piece had the feel of some medical nightmare. And (this is where I really have to praise it) it wasn't done with anything obvious or expected-- no blood, body parts, or boogymen. Just several strange, frightening things put together with devastating effect.

http://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/4759

When I saw the next piece, at first I thought, "How silly can you get?" It just looked like a huge red square, parked there. But then when I got closer to it, I suddenly realized it wasn't just blank color-- it was a deep, glossy, captivating red, made out of some strange reflective material. I found myself peering intently at my image, reflected in it-- I had become fascinated. I realized that this red expanse was many different things at once. It was a feeling, a color, a mirror, a door into another world, a statement, and something that absorbed everything else in the room and reflected it back in a new, changed way.

Spiegel, Blutrot:

http://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/25611

The second floor had a Picasso. What can one say about Picasso? Simply that I felt this painting was alive and moving with more joy and life and energy and prettiness than almost any other painting I saw that day, or most any other day. (It was much more vibrant in real life, too).

La Cruche Fleurie:

http://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/255

This next piece was huge. The picture doesn't do it anything approaching justice-- it's an entire room unto itself. The imagery I thought was unusual and arresting, and it made me feel a lot of things such as sympathy and confusion (two pretty good ways to feel upon looking at art, I think). It's visceral on some level, and awfully earthy, and has the power of mythology behind it. It's kind of the visual equivalent of something like the novel "Beloved".

No words can Adequately reflect the Remorse this Negress feels...

http://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/101243

This piece reminded me of a heart. Not necessarily how one looks, but how one sometimes feels.

The Lens of Rotterdam:

http://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/130162

There were, of course, tons of other great, great works. I also liked The Spirits That Lend Strength are Invisible, Matisse's Femme au Chapeau, and the works of Robert Gober. Click, if you like, and discover!