Best Art Show

It's June and I'm walking into the depths of Chelsea, this can mean only one thing: I'm headed to another art school graduate art show! (click here for last year's art show, the one that belonged to Lexia)



This year's graduate,


Mr. Jared Clark.


And his work...


Jared was a graduate of the VCU Painting program, so he had to explain to a lot of people why 300lbs worth of figurines fused together by...uh...resin(?) was a painting. Come on, people. If it this isn't a painting, then what is it? (Hint: it's not a sculpture because the culture exhibition was in a different room)


Bonus: Here's a post on Jared's blog about the birth of this piece.

Another painting of Jared's. Better photos of this very difficult to photograph well piece available here on his blog.



Jared's work provoked admiration and contemplation in all who observed it.


Let us consider some of Jared's fellow art exhibitors. I bet going to Art School is really fun, you know, coming up with ideas and concepts, implementing ideas and concepts, constantly defending and validating your ideas and concepts and (if you so choose) attacking and invalidating the arts and concepts you encounter from day to day. Some of what I saw at the show I liked, some I did not.

Under "Like" we can definitely file this whale:



Feathers. The best way to convey the concept of "baleen." The one thing I definitely learned in kindergarten was what baleen was. And who Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't, but that's another story.

I was feeling these paper rolls, too. Stalactites/Stalagmites. Also an important thing you learn about at about kindergarten age.

And I liked this parachute drop. In kindergarten I would not have agreed to a ride on the Knott's Berry Farm parachute drop. But let me try to move away from this sudden kindergarten fixation. I need to be talking about art.

Spend enough time at an art show and you start considering the aesthetics of everything, including the walls of the elevator.

Volcanoes were big this year. I counted at least 2 volcano paintings. This would be the btter of the two.


This painting is made of paint and holes drilled in the wall.


Dozens if not hundreds of hand-painted graphs.


This cat gave me a gross feeling inside. It's the one disagreeable thing I saw that day that I photographed. One thing that I did see that I wasn't buying was a sculpture involving strings, ceramics, and a record player. Sorry. No me gusto.

I think it was pretty much unanimously agreed amongst Jared's friends that Jared's work was the best in the show. Congratulations were in order. I think it's pretty cool that Jared's thing is art and that he's totally making it work for himself. He knows where his Captain Jack compass points and he's following it.

Best Wholesome Early Morning Competitive Activity

Today I got up with the squirrels


To learn a little about lawn bowling


Jeff and Jared


vs. Jeff and Brigham


The competition was fierce




And for every two or three bowls bowled out of bounds, there was a winner by my hand.


Post-bowling I invented a new game: When you're walking in the park and you see a statue, you must guess: "Artist, Thinker, Patriot, or Philanthropist." I guessed Patriot for Giuseppe here and I was right! (p.s. "Artist" includes musician, writer can fall under "Artist", "Thinker", or [in rare cases] "Patriot" depending on the sort of writing done.)


The Italian cheeseburger?

Best XIXth Gathering

Hey, ever wonder what the inside of a Guitar Hero guitar looks like?


Anyway, thunderstorms turned last week's Guitar Hero from Kim's roof turned into Guitar Hero from Kim's living room and it was a triumph. But I think it's understood that when Rocks the 80s comes out we'll have ourselves a proper debut from the roof. Stay tuned...

Best Concert of the Summer, the Update

Hello readers. Clark & Michael Episode #4? Hmm, I don't know. But 3 out of 4 isn't bad. or, "ain't bad", as they often say. I hope saying that doesn't mean I'll lose my link on their homepage.

Anyway, the other night I finally asked Jeff a question that had been welling up inside of me despite my efforts to ignore it. The Question: Would his early-August wedding date mean they would not be making it to the Daft Punk show on August 9? The Horrible Answer: Yes, they would not be making it to the Daft Punk show on August 9. BUT I was informed that they had tried and tried to plan their wedding date around the concert but nothing else worked. I salute that.

Last night I found this little video of Daft Punk droppin' "Da Funk" at the end of a show in Miami. Watch just a bit of it and you'll see why this is a band worth trying to plan your honeymoon around.


Just listen to the poor little camera not be able to handle the bass when the song kicks in. Awesome. I know many of you have tickets to the show, but I wish all of you were going.

(YouTube searches will net you an abundance of this sort of goodness if you're hungry for more)

PS Here's the Original "Best Concert of the Summer" post. Link

Best Various Information

In absolutely no chronological order, here are some happenings...

Saturday

In the PM, Collin and I headed up to East Harlem because it had been so long since the last taco. When we got there it was clear that our voyage was perhaps not properly planned. We arrived just as Pre-Puerto Rican-Day Parade festivities were winding down. If wars were happy, it was Fallujah up there. I think Hot 97 should be held liable for the millions upon billions of flyers snowed out through the streets. (And I do not wish this photo to be deceptive, it was not one street that had been barricaded off for partying, it was blocks and blocks.)


Thursday

A joyous reunion, Jenna was in town for the weekend.


And I know, I know, no cellphones on the roofdeck, but this is me being briefly reunited with Karisa.


Sunday

Common interests lead to the blossoming of a brilliant new friendship.


Monday (8 days ago)

Former fellow wardmember Jon Tarbet ran a musical performance at this church beneath a skyscraper. Not the same as our chapel.



(The St. Peter's Lutheran Church lives beneath the Citibank Tower in midtown. They were the original owners of the land, but they sold to Citi with the caveat that there could still be a church, so the tower is sort built on stilts and the church fits in under them. Err. You sort of need to see it yourself.)

Best Surprise Discovery

Last fall I had lunch with the Rustens and Karen took some pictures of me. (As slightly accounted for in this post) I was really excited about this because Karen just has a way of always taking great, great pictures so I was looking forward to seeing my likeness captured by her skill. Unfortunately, Karen pretty much immediately emailed me to tell me that she accidentally erased her memory card that same day!

Bummer.

But guess what Karen found on her computer and sent to me last week?





I do not know what miracle preserved these photos, but I am grateful that they are alive.

Karen has LOTS of websites, but I'll start you off with these two:

A portal to amazing things
Karen + Weddings

Best Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before

Beware. This belated post might look nearly exactly the same as Cindy's post from the same day...but I promise you these are all my own pictures from my own camera.

Anyway. First of all, did you know my building has a roof deck now? I used to read real estate listings for the John Adams that boasted of a furnished roof deck and would think "Lies!" at the sight of it but this last month it became true. We've got a roof deck! And some members of the 12th Street Guitar Hero Fanciers' Association have already deemed it the finest in the city! I'll admit it is fun to have a view of downtown, midtown, Jersey, the village, AND the private decks of my building's top-floor apartments.





One problem with the deck: Excessive cell phone use by inconsiderate sunbathers. This second warning should fix everything, though.


All right. Now for the day's main activity. Cindy, Rebecca, and I trekked out to the Redhook Ballfields to put those Latin American food tents to work. But first, we had to get to Red Hook, which requires a visit to New York's highest subway stop.



When you see this mural you'll know you're in the right place.


So, yes. The Redhook Ballfields. There were a lot more white people there than the first time I went but I can't complain as I was there with the man that wrote the article that blew the lid off this place for Manhattanites as he researched the article. I forged my own undoing. But really, it still wasn't that crowded and the food was still disgustingly delicious. This trip I sat down with a spicy pork huarache and it nearly did me in. But I managed to have a bit of taco (too bad it was from Mexico and not Ecuador) and an elote, too.





Let's go over what makes an elote so delicious: the corn is grilled, then slathered in mayonnaise, then coated with queso cotija and dusted with chili powder and finished off with a squeeze of lime. The first time I saw one being made in Mexico I was like "No, no! You're doing it all wrong!" (in my mind) but now I know that I was the one who had it all wrong.


Now, my fellow frequent frequenters of Casa de los Tacos: It is summer. It is time to get serious. Let us set aside our nighttime journeys to East Harlem for Saturday afternoons at the ballfields. It is the right thing to do. Just sitting around on the grass, watching the soccer games, talking about going to the public pool nearby. Awesome.

Best I Knew I Was Right

I had been thinking that the impending success of the Tranformers movie would set off a scramble to produce more movies based on toys/cartoons from the 80's and now word is out that Warner Brothers has optioned a Thundercats script. While I did watch the cartoon fairly regularly and had their lunchbox and got my friend John a Panthro figure for his birthday (and my sisters a Snarf figure for Christmas) I can't say the Thundercats hold a place in my heart at all like GI Joe and the Transformers do. (And I can't really say I'd be as excited to see a GI Joe movie as I am to see this Transformers movie). Still, it will be interesting to see if this movie gets made.

Here is the aintitcool article that I just read on the matter.

ALSO, in case you haven't been reading all the comments around here, it turns out that if you blog about Clark and Michael then they will find out about it and link to your post on their website and all of a sudden you've got traffic again.

Best TV Shows: Flight of the Conchords & Clark and Michael

The best TV shows I've watched recently (meaning: in the last 24 hrs) have both been on the internet. And they were really good.

First, last night I received two emails within the same hour encouraging me to watch the first episode of HBO's new comedy series, "Flight of the Conchords", which is available online. Flight of the Conchords are a pair of fellows from New Zealand who sing funny songs and now they're going to have a tv show this summer on HBO about them coming to New York and trying to become famous musicians. Anyway, the first episode (which, I don't think I've yet mentioned, is available online) was really funny.

Here's a song that they sing in the first episode:



Now Click Here to Watch All of It!

(also, by the way, these same fellows have a movie coming out soon called "Eagle vs. Shark" which looks pretty funny, too. Trailer)

Second, this morning I finally watched a very important internet show called "Clark and Michael." "Clark and Michael" refers to two young actor/writers Clark Duncan and Michael Cera and now they have an internet tv show (I think it's through an arrangement with CBS) about them being young actor/writers goint to Los Angeles to sell a show. The first two episodes are online now and I watched them in reverse order and they were great! I cannot wait for more and more episodes from these guys. I'm getting the idea that every character Will Arnett plays post-Arrested Development is going to be GOB and that might eventually get tiresome but I think I could never get mad at Michael Cera for being George Michael. Watching this little internet program I can't help but be astounded by how cool and funny these kids are. It makes me feel like I grew up wrong. I should have auditioned for more Nickelodeon stuff.

Here's a preview montage:



Now Click Here to Watch All of It!

PS I don't want this to be a post that you read (which I know can be hard for you if there aren't any pictures and even if there are pictures you probably don't read many of the words and that's why people think I went to Salt Lake this weekend) and then think "that's nice that Brigham found things on the internet that he liked." NO, I really want you to watch these internet TV shows because I want your days to be happy.

Best Completing of the Circle

As you may have learned from Cindy, or perhaps Rebecca, we all went and saw Pirates 3 last Wednesday night. And as you may have also learned from Cindy, or perhaps Rebecca, the three of us saw the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie together on opening night back in 2003.


BUT what Steady Mobbin' can add to this excess of coverage is photos from that night that we saw Pirates at the Scera in Orem!

The night began with a bunch of familiar faces chowing down at the El Azteca on Bulldog. Everyone was talking about seeing Pirates that night and I was like "I don't know, I really should get back to Salt Lake tonight."



But eventually I stopped being lame and decided I was down with the midnight Pirates excitement.

Marsha.


Rebecca.


Cindy and Rebecca.


There was a pirate costume contest that went on way too long before the movie. I was a staunch supporter of the pirate with the accordion.


I crashed at Cindy's that night and in the morning Marsha made me a quesadilla with shrimp on top.


Okay, now let's fast forward back to Wednesday night. During the movie I started to crave Taco Bell, so after the show the visitors and I made a little Taco Bell stop.



How rarely do I order quesadillas. Wait. Holy cow. Watched Pirates 1-->ate a quesadilla. Watched Pirates 3-->ate a quesadilla. Can you believe it?

Best Mumbai Real Estate Development

60-story private home coming to Mumbai, India.

This is how I like my billionaires. Crazy with their money and demanding a live in staff of 600 to take care of themselves, their mom, their wife and three kids.

I cannot wait for pictures of this place to start showing up on flickr.

Best Celebrity Sighting Ever. EVER!

Today I saw Dog the Bounty Hunter and his wife Beth pretty much dressed up as Dog the Bounty Hunter and Beth (respecitvely) outside the TimeWarner Center chatting jovially with people in suits.

This is probably the only celebrity sighting of my life that has left me with a feeling of regret that I did not say hello to the person.

But awesome. I saw Dog.