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money money makin'
Post #592 • July 29, 2005, 9:57 AM • 50 Comments
I have a busy work day today, but I'd like to note:
MoCA opening tonight, Karpio Facchini opening tomorrow;
Jim DeFede got screwed.
3.
July 29, 2005, 11:12 AM
I'm on it, #97. Thanks, Alesh.
4.
July 30, 2005, 8:29 AM
One for the books...
A new 10th planet, bigger than Pluto, has been discovered!
"LOS ANGELES -- It's icy, rocky and bigger than Pluto. And according to scientists who found it orbiting the sun, it's the newest planet on our solar system's block. The planet _ the farthest-known object in the solar system _ is currently 9 billion miles away from the sun, or about three times Pluto's current distance from the sun.
"This is the first object to be confirmed to be larger than Pluto in the outer solar system," Michael Brown, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology, said Friday in a telephone briefing announcing the discovery...."
NASA link
5.
July 30, 2005, 8:32 AM
Regarding the 10th planet, what will they name it?
Will they continue to use the names of Greek Gods?
Or will they go the postmodern route and name it Herb?
6.
July 30, 2005, 3:21 PM
They should call it ...Planet X.
7.
July 30, 2005, 6:31 PM
Except for Frances Trombly's piece, the show at MOCA was really shitty. Perhaps absolutely horrendous. My dog shits better art, and I don't even have a dog...
8.
July 30, 2005, 9:02 PM
Maybe Franklin will post about this later, but maybe he won't, so I'll say something. The new show at the Bass, 2000 Years of Latin American Portraits, is sort of like the Spain show at the Norton recently--of greater historical than artistic interest, only more so. The Norton show at least had some gems amidst the relative dross: Bosch, El Greco, Velazquez, Bernini. There's practically nothing on that level here.
This show is of interest as art history, but I doubt it will make many converts of those who've never warmed to Latin American art. Of course, the portrait genre is hardly the best suited for that task. The star attractions, predictably enough, are a self-portrait (what else?) by Frida Kahlo and a schlocky portrait of a socialite by Mr. Frida (Diego Rivera), which looks like it came from a Gables gallery. There are some worthwhile things here and there, such as works by Anita Malfatti and David Siqueiros, but not many.
The Bass, unlike the Norton, didn't jack up its entry fee just for this show, but the fee has gone up (from $6 to $8). When one adds the cost of parking and gas for the trip to the beach, it's not the best deal.
9.
July 31, 2005, 12:20 AM
Leopold Museum in Vienna lets nude visitors in for free What the hay, it's a slow news night.
10.
July 31, 2005, 5:59 AM
Most Miami artist's (have and still do) recieve plenty of financial support from friends and family who buy mostly for regenerative reasons. Those who are sheltered under this umbrella are many in Miami and are 'mom's refridgerator geniuses' . The rest of us continue to lose in this art game and are subject to poverty and rejection consistantly - never magnetized to 'that' refrigerator.
11.
July 31, 2005, 11:32 PM
boo fucking hoo...get a patron, get a job, make some art, stop crying.
12.
August 1, 2005, 7:50 AM
wow, if your idea of aiming high is a show on a kitchen appliance then your in trouble!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
13.
August 1, 2005, 10:30 AM
Moved this more or less off topic response here because the page was shorter.
Couldn't sleep, so I found some links to Matisse pictures...
Purple Robe and Anemones 1937 (29x25 in)
Odalisque with Yellow Persian Robe and Anemones 1937 (29x25 in)
Seated Odalisque, Left Knee Bent, Ornamental Background and Checkerboard 1928
Odalisque with a Screen 1923 (Copenhagen)
Interior with Phonograph 1924
Decorative Figure on an Ornamental Background 1925-26
Odalisque, Harmony in Red 1926 ??
Odalisque with Green Scarf 1926 ??
Odalisques 1928
Odalisque with Gray Culottes 1926-27
Woman with veil This picture is either a FAKE or bad reproduction. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a decent reproduction of this painting which was an absolute masterpiece. The red and green vest was like that, hanging to the right of the painting.
In the a middle gallery there was 10 or so paintings (linked above, sort of) which were absolute jewels.
The grouping accompanied with the textiles was a wounerfull illustration of the process and development of the group of paintings. Some things like the red and green vest were right from the model and not an "invention" as I had once thought.
I have to go back for a 2nd look and to examine the catalog ($45) which had incomplete and only so-so reproductions.
The colors in the paintings it this particular gallery were just radient and jewel like. The reproductions do not do them justice.
Source links:
Link to about 150 Matisse illustrations Change the Matisse3 to another number between 1 and 159
Guardian UK slide Show
Review from Telegraph UK with pics
PS Franklin, I had a hard time with so many links.
14.
August 1, 2005, 7:52 PM
For once lets not discuss painting...and stick with the MOCA show (which included some paintings)
Personally i felt it was a weak show, partly because the presentation. None of the "instalation" artist dealt with the lighting or space.
15.
August 1, 2005, 7:59 PM
Sorry about not posting today. I went to the doctor for immunizations and bloodwork, and am currently having a cross-reaction between the woozies and the heebie-jeebies. Modern Medicine: It's Better Than Dying.™
16.
August 1, 2005, 9:23 PM
Franklin:
Even before the injections, I think you must have come down with something other than the woozies or the heebie-jeebies to get behind Jim deFede.
I don't think Jim deFede got screwed. I think he clearly broke the law. I'll let his defenders' website, and the voluble fools here, split the hairs. Let me just point out what Jim deFede said about losing his job:
"I told them I was willing to accept a suspension and apologize both to the newsroom and our readers. Unfortunately, The Herald decided on the death penalty instead."
This was after the city councilman, in the typical vengeful cowardice of the violent public suicide, ate his gun and put hair on the walls at the Herald.
Jim deFede wost his wittle job. Boo-hoo. And he places it on the same scale as life-and-death. This is arrogance personified. And you, Franklin, and almost 500 other people, line up behind a man --a wordsmith, one assumes, one who lives by the word-- who, upon reflection presumably, blithely publishes the above words.
Can I see a show of hands of those out there who have been unrighteously screwed out of jobs? Thank you. Grown-ups move on.
He's a journalist, people, a profession badly in need of rehabilitation. (Witness the New Times, in your town and ours.)
Maybe you can name the new planet after him; he's about the same size.
Sincerely,
Jerome du Bois
17.
August 1, 2005, 9:41 PM
Hey, y'all, Jerome's back!
At this point, his presence can only mean one thing: deep down, he likes us. Hi Jerome! The longer this goes, the more tolerable--even likable--presence you are.
Ok, so, I don't think most of us are feeling sorry for DeFede; we're sorry for ourselves, because we can't read his columns anymore, and he really didn't deserve to be fired. Was his choice of words poor? Yes, I thought so at the time. In fact, I criticized him on my blog. Actually, I've never read his stuff, so i'm more or less indifferent to the whole thing.
But don't let's get too weepy for Teele - this is a guy who, from my understanding, killed himself specifically because people were going to find out he'd had sex with men, nevermind financial and political ruin and possible jail time. Also keep in mind that all of the above was a result of his own personal abuse of power, which was bestowed on him by our trusting voters, and was his responsibility to use responsibly.
Teele fucked up, and couldn't stand up and accept responsibility. If the media was so bad to him, why was a HERALD COLUMNIST the last person he wanted to talk to?
Franklin ~ George is right - HTML codes are annoying for anyone who is not a geek. If you're trying to promote conversation, wouldn't implementing Textile be a step in that direction? (easier links, easier underline and boldface, and everything else that allows us to slightly better aproximate human conversation at typing speed...)
18.
August 1, 2005, 9:55 PM
Regarding the HTML, I made the remark because I had 14 links in my comment on the Matisse exhibition at the Met. I wrote all the comment links out separately first and made sure I had no missing thingies (they worked). I pasted the checked text into the entry box but had some difficulty when I tried to add additional text (IE 5.1 Mac) It wasn't a big deal.
`s
19.
August 1, 2005, 10:03 PM
Jerome, you should have seen the front page of the Herald - a photo of Teele's body laying supine in a puddle of blood emanating from his head, printed five columns wide, taking up most of the page above the fold. The Herald used Teele's fresh corpse to sell papers, and then had a spasm of guilt and decided to fire one of its better assets over a lapse of judgment that may not even prove to be actionable. "When it comes to maintaining our integrity, we must be absolutists," said Tom Fiedler, apparently mistaking "absolutists" for "hypocrites."
Alesh, the whole comments thing needs to be rethunk. Everybody, let's see a show of hands for Textile. I would probably implement a choice of HTML tags, Textile, or no tags, the last being the default.
20.
August 1, 2005, 10:15 PM
Franklin, I don't have a problem with it the way it is, I can write the tags.
What I would really like to see is for the comments css to use the same font size your original post is. I understand why you have it the way you do but there are a lot of comments on this blog and I have a really hard time reading the text as it is (So I always end up using Navigator 4.8 on the Mac which just ignores all the style sheets so I can read the text easily)
21.
August 1, 2005, 10:23 PM
Do as you wish, Franklin. I am in no position to suggest which form of techno-giggle would result in the most-human interaction as I tend to think that the coffee-shop offers that already.
Nevertheless, I'm thankful that I can get my art and critical thinking fix in a daily dose now too, here. I tend only to be here when I'm done a day's work or when I can't go for a day's work for some reason. Probably seems pretty often based on my contributions over the past month, but summer has its special demands.
My vote should be counted with the 'abstains'.
22.
August 1, 2005, 10:25 PM
Daily dose, with no ads. For that I'll pay double.
23.
August 1, 2005, 10:43 PM
If MacNS4.8 is a viable option for reading my blog, I'm not doing my job. Thanks for sharing that.
Part of the issue is that I'm using pixel-heights on CSS. Switching over to the recommended em-heights caused several readers to go apeshit - it looks like a trade-off between people who have their baseline fonts set to Sight-Impaired and people who have their screen resolutions turned up to eleven. In other words, George, making your display look normal causes Jack's display to look like a copy of See Dick Run. In addition to totally redoing the comments, I need to implement a font-scaler.
But this adds to a greater woe - I just looked at my personal site on WinIE6 and nearly threw up. Christ on cupcake, why does WinIE6 render Times as a cross between Papyrus and burned chopsticks? Why does border: 1px dotted #668; look like it was made with masking tape? I have a friend who only builds sites in Flash specifically so he doesn't have to deal with this.
24.
August 1, 2005, 11:06 PM
Franklin, FWIW, got this trying to comment (just text no html tags or urls)
Precondition Failed
The precondition on the request for the URL /comment.php evaluated to false.
25.
August 1, 2005, 11:08 PM
The server's been a little pokey today, George.
26.
August 1, 2005, 11:27 PM
Franklin, so what are the preconditions?
27.
August 1, 2005, 11:32 PM
Beats me.
28.
August 1, 2005, 11:37 PM
LOL, that's what my programmers would always say.m
29.
August 1, 2005, 11:41 PM
when I switched to Firefox, one of the things I fell in love with is how you can resize fonts by holding downt "ctrl" and moving the scroll wheel. One of many, many problems with web standards (all of which, btw, are Bill Gates'es fault), is that this does not work in IE when PX is used to specify font sizes in CSS. Internet explorer is broken in many ways (most of which are only apparent to webmasters, hence its continued reign), but I'm not sure this is one of them. Ultimately, we would rather set our font sizes once, and have every blog be legible, allowing of reasonable variations according to its owners preferences.
With all that, I changed Critical Miami to EM font specifications early on (to the majority ourside the know, one EM is the size a font would "ordinarily" appear on your screen, whatever that means . . . for example, CM uses .75em font size, with a 1.5em line spacing).
Regarding Textile, I just would like to say that a learning curve is involved in everything. But for the non-geek thinking person, textile (1) will always be much easier to use, and (2) has a much higher chance of being implemented at all. The geeks, who may well prefer (ie may be able to figure out) XHTML, will have a much easier time downshifting to Textile then vice-versa. A link-frenzy such as George demonstrated earlier could very well have been a very natural part of an ongoing conversation. No reason it should take weeks of debugging to post.
I may not be making sense, but you know what I mean. Paradoxes abound.
30.
August 1, 2005, 11:48 PM
Alesh, postingthe links was easy.
I new I had a bunch so I wrote it out in a wordprocesser (BBEdit ;-)
linktext
You get the punctuation correct, dupe it and then paste in the URLs and text.
Actually, what I saw this AM might have nbeen something else because I can't post a simple 313 word count comment. grrrr
µ
31.
August 1, 2005, 11:51 PM
-aye hacheref="url blank" - linktext -/aye-
- are those left and right wedgies-
32.
August 1, 2005, 11:54 PM
Franlin~ Oh yeah, "dotted" looks like shit in WinIE6. We would all happily forget it if 95% of the Internet wasn't using it to look at Artblog.
George~ you may not mind cut'n'pasting href's, but once you use Textile once you'll wonder why the whole world isn't using it.
33.
August 2, 2005, 12:06 AM
Alesh, I'm sure you're right. I taught myself programming in 1987 and up until this year wrote a lot of stuff I use myself in Real Basic. Decided it was taking up too much time from the painting so I don't keep up with much anymore. I kin rite html and 35 years ago I wrote the machine code documentation for the Burroughs b2000 (their first integrated circuit computer) Although I didn't know anything about programming I got good enough at reading gate switches to debug the code (kind of like having the chinese type in phonebooks) At first the programmers thought I was nuts but when they realized I was right, they took me off the timeclock (I hated those things) and we took long lunches together.
34.
August 2, 2005, 12:17 AM
When I was in the Met Sunday, after seeing the Matisse's twice and wandering around trying to find my way out, I had a pleasant realization that in spite of the awful wars going on I was surrounded by objects made with love and caring. I said this outloud to my friend, and the matronly woman in front of us turned and smiled. ⁄
35.
August 2, 2005, 12:27 AM
Again, at the Met. I was standing in front of Matisse's painting "Woman with Veil" It is a startling painting her left side is green and her right side red. At the bottom of the painting, separating the red and the green is a scratchy white mark. I went up close to look and when I turned another matronly woman said knowingly, "he scratched it in with his palette knife" I regret not asking her name. Point, people do look.Ã
36.
August 2, 2005, 8:44 AM
Comment #23: about the appearance of Franklin's personal site.
Under Windows, the only obvious problem under IE 6 is that the type face is quite large. Under Firefox, even this is not a problem.
Both browsers are set up more or less according to "default" values.
I'm running XP Professional over a 1.5 megabit connection.
37.
August 2, 2005, 10:11 AM
On your personal site, Franklin, your thumbnail images render something like 30 pixels too far to the left under win ie6.
If we're voting on formatting here, can I suggest rendering visited tags in something other than boldface? Some commenters use boldface per se. Maybe grey?
The only problem I've had w/IE6 on this site is that uncommon characters like em-dashes and the occasional diacriticals look like car crashes. Luckily they're rare.
I always thought pt was preferrable to px. My understanding was that the whole point of px is to explicitly forbid the user from resizing. I thought the word "pixel" couldn't have much meaning if "10px" fonts were not actually drawn 10 pixels high. It also didn't make much sense to put a 10px font next to a 10-pixel image and inside a 40-pixel box if the user is going to resize the font and ruin the whole thing.
Em is supposed to solve this problem by scaling everything to the body font size. If you set the body font to something like 10pt or 10px, and set all the other fonts and box sizes in em, it's all supposed to render relative to the base size. Theory also says if you change the base size, the rest of the page will change relatively. If you don't set your base size, em will just take whatever the browser's default settings are.
Back on-topic, I agree with Jerome. The reporter said his first instinct when he thought the man was going to kill himself was to roll tape. Maybe hitting 911 on his cell phone was too many buttons. Hitting "record" on his tape machine was only one.
I see Franklin's point entirely, about the paper's scandal-mongering front-page image, making the paper in general no better than its reporter, but I'm not sure that's a strong enough case for me to care about the reporter. Maybe it's better for the reporter to leave and get another job. Seek psychiatric help. Maybe "journalism" screwed up his brain and it would be better for him to go elsewhere, become a private investigator or bounty hunter or insurance salesman or something.
38.
August 2, 2005, 11:27 AM
Pt comes with its own set of issues. Pixels work great to prevent resizing but I'd actually like George to be able to resize so he doesn't have to resort to a non-CSS-enabled browser to read comments here.
Really I ought to switch to ems and provide javascript CSS switching.
I also have an idea to provide optional comment registration. If you do sign up, you get to save your preferred CSS setting, no one else can use your screen name, and you get slight design emphasis in the comment thread. I'd also like a feature where if you were registered, you could save your comment as a draft and work on it later. Any takers?
There's also a javascript hack that may let me get around this Please Close This Window and Refresh the Main Window system we have here, which I've decided is idiotic.
A real post appears this afternoon.
39.
August 2, 2005, 11:41 AM
Franklin, Don't go overboard, it was just a thought.
I use Navigator 4.8 for other reasons. I frequently run it and IE at the same time, using IE for sites which won't display (not won't display correctly formatted) in Navigator. I know it's odd but a lot of tima all I care about is the information, not all that pretty formatting. Besides I hate microsoft because it's noveaux riche technology without class or style.h
40.
August 2, 2005, 2:19 PM
I rarely respond to any of the spew I read at this site and merely check it out cuz I might recognize a name or two and am generally amused by how enveloped with self importance everyone seem to be……anyhow since I feel I might have some insight into some comments made I will add my two cents…..
Regarding MOCA’s two exhibitions For Everyone and No One and Trading Places…as the exhibition coordinator and registrar I worked closely on both installations both with the artists and curator.
Lighting and Space as it pertains to the installations “being weak” is in itself a weak criticism…..please explain. The artists worked at MOCA for more than three weeks (night and day) and they considered every aspect of their work and installations (Lighting and Space) as with the lighting, many ideas were tried, tested, changed and revised until the ARTIST was happy with the final results.
Regarding the space, nothing was left to chance and every detail was considered. Each artist selected and designed their space. As with any exhibition, one visit (especially during the opening night) is never enough to formulate a wholehearted critique of each work in the exhibition. If you return to the exhibition and spend quality time in each space you will get a better appreciation of what each artist accomplished.
For Everyone and No One is unique for a Museum exhibition in the sense that it will be changing throughout the entire run of the show, as new Mail Art submissions are received, the installation will change each week….many people from around the world have been mailing in work and some excellent submissions are on view from Tokyo, Belgium, Paris and Argentina with even a few great works from South Florida.
Most art takes time, and an open mind to appreciate.
Regarding this thread and some others in the past….it seems as if way too much time is spend discussing geeky crap like HTML etc…why don’t you start a separate site to discuss the inner workings of artblog.net, call it [artblogbehindthescenes.net]…..all this technical crap is making me sleepy.
41.
August 2, 2005, 3:12 PM
it seems as if way too much time is spend discussing geeky crap like HTML etc yeh sure. I brought up some technical issues related to HTML, sorry if they put you to sleep, it wasn't my intention. I didn't say anything about your show because I didn't see it but I'm sure if I had I would of.
42.
August 2, 2005, 3:52 PM
Why is it that drive-byers like Arrow start their posts by telling everyone how weary they are with the 'self-important' peons who have the audacity to post their opinions, and how NORMALLY, they're above such things, but they'll make an exception just this once so we can benefit from their profound wisdom? Weird.
At least now those who have criticisms of the MOCA show (not me... like George, I haven't seen it) can direct part of their ire at Arrow.
Seems like the critique of lighting and space was not really that the artists hadn't thought about it (I mean really, who could know that?), but probably more that the artists didn't deal with it successfully. We can disagree about this sort of thing, chalking it up to differences in taste, without resorting to characterizations of closed-mindedness, can't we?
Personally, when I come across parts of the discussion, like the programming-HTML-techno-jargon-stuff, rather than involuntarily losing consciousness, as Arrow does, I just move on to another page, or another part of the discussion that I can input into more intelligently. Perhaps someone else can start a blog site for intellectual narcoleptics, but I say lets leave this one as it is.
43.
August 2, 2005, 3:52 PM
Sorry George, nothing personal...it only seems as if alot of artblog space as been taken up by off topic mumbo jumbo....let's talk about art.
or not...I'm on vacation, I think I'll go trim my hedges.
44.
August 2, 2005, 4:01 PM
Calling what we write "spew" is in itself spew, Mr. Arrow. If you have a criticism, make it specific.
I know nothing about the exhibit in question, but, unfortunately, hard work and making artists happy guarantees nothing.
We have discussed the "open mind" concept (which is almost always invoked by transient, unhappy visitors to Artblog) at great length in past pages. if you had read them I don't think you would be using the term at this point. It usually means "like what I do or you are a bad person".
I am also bored with "geeky crap" but I certainly would never tell users of the blog not to do it. A blog is a free and open place. If you want to introduce something new no one is stopping you
45.
August 2, 2005, 4:06 PM
Matty, the "drive-byer" characterizations in your first paragraph are completely accurate. It is amazing how consistent these comnments are.
46.
August 2, 2005, 4:17 PM
And it's amazing how much space is used dealing with the drive-bys. I'd rather read about the blog logistics than go through this again.
47.
August 2, 2005, 4:17 PM
I also like that your post and mine are basically mirrors of each other, right down to the number and subject of the paragraphs... makes me even more confident I'm on the right track (or else worried that I'm not actually a young Canadian sculptor, but merely an online alter-ego of yours... uh oh).
48.
August 2, 2005, 4:21 PM
What's even MORE amazing is us drive-by folk continue to add posts that do nothing to advance any discussion at all, and yet we still think we're on the high ground. WOO HOO!
49.
August 2, 2005, 4:26 PM
It is amazing how consistent these comnments are.
So consistent that I'm thinking of implementing an Automated Response Page. I'll just link to it when necessary.
50.
August 2, 2005, 4:39 PM
Or even better, an automated complaint form, consisting of blanks that can be filled in with sets of characterizations about us, our writing, our personalities, our failings, the faults of the blog, our degree of open-mindedness, and suggestions for further derogatory terms.
The new page has not "comment" function, you closeminded, fascist punk.
1.
Hovig
July 29, 2005, 10:39 AM
I hate to do this, but news is news. Al Held, 1928-2005.