This is my favorite song.

Louisville TMBG Pictures.

I went to the They Might Be Giants' Concert in Louisville Kentucky recently. I took some pictures. Enjoy!

Accordion Printmaking

As I might have mentioned before, I like printmaking. Here are some recent linocut prints of accordions. I plan to make an accordion bound book about accordions. A pun, yes, but I do like accordions.

A Night In Berea

Visited the coffee shop today. Where Liza Minnelli followed Leonard Cohen on the speakers. We found that although the music might have been dance-able, after she started singing, it was only downhill. :)

They might be Haikus.

I drew this picture forever ago, but it works for this post:

So I found out from the Wiki, I believe, that TMBG did a thing on Their myspace asking for haikus. They issued a 'Haiku challenge' apparently.
I don't have a myspace.
I don't want one.....
But I do like doing geeky things, and since They incouraged me..
...instead of doing more important things, i wrote some.
you know, like in solidarity, and why not?

They are broken up into sections:

----------

The Problem:

I'm no myspace ho
They tell us to write poems
Oh, you silly Johns.
----------

On John(s):

Hey you, John Linnell!
Will you teach me the ways of
an accordian?
---
Flansy! What is up?
Love your glasses and tummy
a nerd teddy bear.
-----------
The concert poems:

My senior year of

high school. You play nearby me.

very memorable.

---
I was front row at
the centre college show and
you played doctor worm
---
I was up front and
I think you smiled at me
but I looked down, John.
---
You didn't play my
favorite song but that is
okay. How could you know?
---

You didn't come out

afterwards. You are shy, I

know. ...I wish you had.

---
They might be giants!
Please tour kentucky again!
Hey! Take my money!
---------

"Fandom" poems:

I have some coffee
here. Would you like a sugar?
Do you prefer black?
---
All i want to do
is to punch "crying girl". Does
this make me evil?
---
They Might Be Giants
on the internet! Just say
no to slash fiction!

---------

Song Poems:

The nature of zen

What's that blue thing doing here?

That is beautiful.
---
I like you a lot
You taught me about mammals.
and Mister K Polk.
---
Went to Chicago
Saw Ensor at museum
you bet i was glad!
---

James K. Polk was a
manifest destiny jerk.
I think you knew that

--------

Other Poems:

They are lucky. I
wish Sarah Vowell was my friend.
...I guess I would drive.
---
Ah, My cassette broke.
Wish I had ya on vinyl
I dropped my iPod.
---
John! guitar solo!
Everything is catching on
fire! so worth it.
---

If you read all that, you are 1. a very good friend. 2. probably now clinically insane. 3. Might hate me now. 4. If you don't know who They Might Be Giants are and read this. then... what is wrong with your life?

Meet James Ensor, because They might.

---
It actually wasn't an Art-gasam, so much, as Nick had described it.
An 'Art-gasam' would be my reactions to the Picassos and the Impressionists.
This was more a They Might Be Giants'-Gasam, which is twice as sad and geeky.

It's a curious thing that James Ensor has a song written about him.
He's not too famous, I mean, yes he is. He is famous in Art History circles and in Belgium, but he is not famous like Monet, Picasso, or O'Keefe.
For Example, I told my friend I was writing about him--
me: gimmie a minute, i'm writing about James Ensor.
Shae: who the f*ck is james ensor?
me: Belguins famous painter.
Shae: *blinks* belguins, eh?
Shae: freaking belguins

Anyway, James Ensor is considered to be an innovator who influenced those such as the Surrealists.

Most younger people hear of him, if they hear about him at all, is from the They Might be Giants song about the artist.

I'm not a huge fan of Ensor, myself. This comic is misleading.
I'm a much bigger more rabid fan of the band that sings about him.


(A James Ensor Painting: Christ's Entry into Brussels.)

They Might Be Giants is John Linnell and John Flansburgh, along with their traveling hired band companions, and their first album was released in 1986. They are generally funny, witty, clever, or considered 'quirky' by fans, and have been my favorite band since I was 6.
I got to see them my Senior year of high school at a nearby college, where they rocked my socks off and maybe restored my faith in humanity.
just kidding.
But they were fantastic.
And I'm sure that they would be rather amused at the hoopla a dumb art student caused at the viewing of a James Ensor painting.
All because of Them.
---
anyway, more about the art museum.

I already knew I loved the Impressioninsts.
More than as artists but as pioneers.
The rebels of the Salon become the fathers of Modern Art.
...just goes to show, todays avant garde cowboys are on your coffee cup tomorrow.
They opened the world of color and abstraction to the artist that they had never had before.
(By no means am I saying 'classical' art using the classical conventions is less valid or not as wonderful. I believe one might not be able to find something better than one of the madonnas by Raphael. )

But in Chicago....
Utlimeltly i was disapointed.
Perhaps i was looking for some kind of enlightenment from the museum, that going might shed light on myself as an artist.
A kind of art-quasi-religious experience?
Oh, and yes, they are fantastic in person.
The art in the museum is fantastic. They have an excellent collection.
O'keefe, Piccasso, Pissarro, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec....
but... I wasn't left breathless and fullfilled like I did when I went to the Cincinatti musuem of art. It doesn't make any sense since Chicago has so much more....

In Cincinatti, I saw a Rothko.
My work, being pretty much being retyping what the art history book tells me, I had 'seen' a Rothko before, in books and in slides.
I hated Rothoko. I didn't get it. I found it stupid and easy.
(Above: a good example of Rothko)
But I when I was standing there in front of it, I began to understand why.
Rothkos are just swatches of colors to the eye, and I generally dislike purely nonrepresntaional nonobjective art, but standing there his colors seemed to float on top of each other. I didn't hate it. I didn't dislike it. Not anymore, in fact, I could say it moved me.
Which is utterly shocking.

In Chicago it'd been a long day, and i wasn't with other artists, like I was when I went to Cinccinatti. Could that have been part of it?
What was I looking for?
Someone to rip out my heart?
Mary Cassatt's The Bath may have been able to do it, but sadly, they had that room closed off because of photographers.

Also, unlike Cinccinati, Chicago's museum was rennovating, and i didn't get to see many late 20th century artists. (uhm... yeah that's my favorite era currently...) Perhaps it was the disapointment, but I won't let it discourage me. I just came out of season, i suppose...

I intend to return someday to Chicago's museum. Maybe I shouldn't excecpt to experience something like I did with the Rothoko but I will be looking for it just the same.
Looking for another change in my heart.

haha

---

Info on Rothko I found at work:

"The Canvases of Mark Rothko (1903 - 1970) consist of traslucent, soft edged blocks of color that float myseriously on the surfaces of yet other fields of color. Rothko's huge, senuous compositions derive their power from the subtle interaction of rich ocolors, which seem to glow from within; but they are not mere studies in color relationships. Rothko himself insisted that his subject matter was 'tragedy, ecstasy, and doom' states of mind that are bes appreciated by close - 18 inches, advised the artist- contemplation of the luminous origionals, whose subtlety is lost in photographic reproduction. "The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them, "he contended, " and if you... are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point.
Rothko took his own life in 1970."

(from THE HUMANISTIC TRADITION BY GLORIA K. FIERO VOLUME 2)

It all makes a little more sense now, I think.

Do you remember the first time? (I'm getting sentimental over you)

---

Even we are not immune.
It is an intresting thing, i think.

I wonder how many bands I've become obessessed over, and how my friend and I have been enables for the other music-wise. (along with emotionally, ha!)
--Did you hear this odd B-side from a Belle and Sebastian release?
--Oooh! Did I send you that They Might Be Giants live song I found? It was fantastic!
--I think we should start living our lives like Jarivs Cocker, if not in actually pratice, then perhaps in spirit.
--Did you hear the new Utada Hikaru single?

What came first the music or the misery?

Maybe it's just that we always seemed to relate over music, or that it was a selling point of our relationship. That she'd be the only one to care about when I bought the John Flansburgh solo effort for a quarter on Ebay, or that I'd squeal if she told me all about her Belle and Sebastian vinyl singles.

And then, of course, is our shared obession with the internet, pop music, and the book/movie High Fidelity. A movie we've left partys for to just sit and watch. (Albeit they were probably not fun parties, but I digress.)
How could a common obsession for music, mixtapes (playlists to those who don't use those 'cassette' things anymore), dorky comic books and collaging (ha!) lead us down a road where I find that I value her advice more than most? When something fantastic or awful happens that I can't wait to tell her about it?

If it weren't for her, I'd not know how hot Jarivs Cocker or Stewart Murdoch are. (ha!)
Or probably survived my third semester of college... or my senior year of high school.
Because even someone off hours away telling me she believes in me
it ends up meaning a lot.
Because someone across the table screenprinting music lyrics on shirts with you perhaps isn't the true meaning of Solidarity, really, but it still makes me smile.

Everyone in High School thought I was in love with her, which I find very humorous.
I just like her as much as she deserves, although she'd probably counter that point telling her that she's not so great.
But I can't tell.
I'm sentimental.
But I do know that I'm very glad to know her.

I'm not exactly sure what set this off.
Maybe watching music videos on YouTube all day did it.

---


Oh? yeah. The title?
A Pulp song and a They Might Be Giants song. Of Course!
boo-yah.
^__^

---

Don’t dream it, be it.

Printmaking extra credit paper!
Felt like I should not let it's ridiclousness in existing to go to waste.

-----

Every Halloween many people flock to their local theatres at midnight to engage in a cinema tradition: the midnight movie. Dressed in their trashiest finery, they go downtown to catch the midnight showing of ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ Even if they are only going there for a good time, a thought may not cross their minds. The ‘art’ of Rocky Horror is not just in it’s on-screen performances by Tim Curry or Barry Boswick or in the songs or costumes and set designs. The art in Rocky Horror is delivered thru its audience. Although different beasts, the cult classic ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ and early performance art do have some similarities in concept.

Avant-Garde artists in the 1960s were looking for new forms of inspiration and expression; they found themselves making temporary works that were later called ‘performance art’. “In such work, movements, gestures, and sounds of persons communication with an audience, whose members may or may not participate in the event, replace physical objects.” ¹ This included things like throwing paint at blank canvases, swimming in mud to shape it, or covering oneself in honey and sitting with a dead rabbit. The expanses of performance art are endless.

If one has been to a live showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show, it’s pretty obvious that the viewers are not idly watching the movie. They are not so much viewer as they are willing participants. The audience has certain obligations to the movie, like shouting things at appropriate times, throwing rice, toast, or toilet paper, or covering their heads with newspapers. One completely removed from society since ‘Rocky Horror’ became a cult phenomenon could easily think that they were watching some kind of weird performance art, since many of the showings and audience participation are very refined.

In theatres where the movie plays on a regular basis, fans have even formed casts. They act out the movie on the floor in front of the movie scene. Many of these actors can perform the whole movie without even looking at the screen and this act really strengthens the ties between performance art and rocky horror, having actually artists in the room. Most theatres even have a pre-show act of ‘performance art’ by finding those in the audience who have never seen the movie before. People who’ve never seen it before are called virgins, and before the movie starts regulars to the movie, usually the shadow casts, go on a ‘virgin’ hunt. They sometimes make them do humiliating things in the spirit of the film. They write ‘V’s with lipstick on their foreheads and make them fake orgasm in the front of the theatre. Different theatres had different traditions, but many make the most out of the fun tradition and make these new viewers ‘one of them’.

A difference between ‘Rocky Horror’ and performance art is that the viewers in a way become artists. Adding dialog to shout back at screen, creation of costumes for the event, and other participatory elements creates an atmosphere of creativity, even if it is within set perimeters of the movie. Every watcher becomes an artist in their reaction, in the act of throwing cards or bread or rice. Every viewer becomes artist by contributing to the act of watching. Is art still art when there is no one looking? Perhaps, but Rocky Horror is nothing without its audience. Before finding a home to the lovers of camp and midnight showings, Rocky Horror was a disaster at the box office.

Like performance art, after the last seat has been emptied, the last bit of cards and toast swept up, there is no object left. The object isn’t’ the point, like performance art, the point of rocky horror is that there is no ‘object’ left behind. There is no trace left behind for later generations to enjoy. While later generations may enjoy going to Rocky Horror at midnight themselves, it will never be the same way twice. The movie may last a couple hours, but the act of togetherness it creates is momentary, while the idea lasts forever as memory. All that is left is some photographs, memories, and the feeling it gave you as a participant and artist, and all you can hope for is that the theatre hurries up and shows it again, so you can be part of the experience and memory again.

Biblography

Kleiner, Fred S., Mamiya Christin J. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages.12^th Ed. Vol. II Belmont,

CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2005

Wikipedia. (LOL!)