Two were killed from the explosion of a homemade bomb in Helman Province, Afghanistan.
These last few days of 2009 seem jam packed with “Top Ten” lists. The Top Ten best movies and the Top Ten worst. The Top Ten breakout designs and their designers. The Top Ten most shocking celebrity moments. The Top Ten best commercials, best albums, best nose jobs – the lists only gets more inane. Who decided on ten anyway? When we’re talking about the year in general, ten just doesn’t cut it. To spare you yet another numbered list, the New York Times recently published “2009: The Year in Pictures,” because sometimes words just aren’t enough. Take a minute to scroll through the significant moments from this past year.
The duo of Andy Bell and Vince Clarke have been making techno-pop for decades now. Formed in the mid-80s after Clarke’s successful turns in both Depeche Mode and Yaz, Erasure never quite got the respect they deserved. Which is odd for a band that has scored multi-platinum albums on both sides of the Atlantic.
Modern Art Notes, Tyler Green’s modern & contemporary art blog, has an interesting post about some seemingly glaring omissions in the mainstream press regarding the sexuality of some of the world’s most famous artists. First noting that most obituaries of Robert Rauschenberg omitted the fact that he was gay when the artist died last May, Green goes on to discuss David Hockney.
The New York Times ran a story on Hockney this past Sunday discussing his move from Los Angeles in recent years and the soon to be unveiled body of work the artist has created in East Yorkshire, where he’s lived since his US departure in 2005. The article, Green points out, missed the point.
According to Green “Hockney did not leave California because the East Yorkshire landscape romantically called him home to England. Hockney left because the United States government would not allow his partner, John Fitzherbert, back into the country.” It is a shame that the Times missed the chance to put a face, a very famous face, in the center of the fight of marriage equality. Pictures of these inequalities need to be painted in the mainstream press.
As I walked south on Sixth Avenue this morning, like any thinking person, I declined two different people’s attempts to give me a free copy of the New York Post. Not really my kind of paper.
It wasn’t until I got comfortable at my desk and read the day’s news, online natch, that I realized that wasn’t really the Post they were giving out. I should have known by the hippie clothes of the paper holders. Methinks Posts workers wouldn’t wear vintage plaid bell bottoms.
The Yes Men, the collective that produced the paper, have done this before. Last November they printed and distributed a fake New York Times. While the fake Times was about Iraq, this fake Post is all about the environment. You can check it out online here.
13,000 people dancing in the streets recreating a Michael Jackson video? In Mexico. The world’s largest meatballs and cheesecakes? Baked in Mexico. And the biggest pair of pants ever made? Of course they have a tag stitched inside “made in Mexico.” And while Guinness Book of World Records has been happy to bestow many an honor on the Mexicans, the Times’ writes one such record Guinness opted against. “Michel Lagravere, an 11-year-old bullfighter, had set the record at his age for the most baby bulls killed in a two-hour fight. But Guinness refused to recognize the effort, declaring on its Web site that” they don’t accept awards involving animal cruelty. But those involving stupidity (the world’s largest sandwich?) are obviously allowed.
Michael Bierut over at Design Observer has written a great essay about NYC’s Times Square and the recent purchase by the city of 376 lawn chairs. The chairs were a hit with tourists, but not with design snobs and were quickly replaced to more tasteful chairs. But are the people sitting on these new chairs any more or any less happy than they were before? Probably not.
He writes “when it comes to fulfilling simple human desires, can design get in the way?” Maybe. The Times wrote ”the pedestrian mall, it must be said, looks a little unworthy of New York. The city may be reeling from recession, but the huge orange plastic containers and tatty hardware-store chairs give the sense that it’s already letting itself go, like some Lehman Brothers wife who has not just forsaken her golden highlights, but given up on grooming altogether.”
It’s an interesting question. Should those using the chairs have the final say? Or those simply watching from afar? In this case the designb critics won.
The New York Times ran a slide show the other day featuring famous doctored photos from the past. In the age of image manipulation and Photoshop it is interesting to see that images have been manipulated since day one. Said Hany Farid, a professor of computer science at Dartmouth University and a detective of photographic fakery: “The very nature of photography was to record events. You’d think there would have been a grace period of respect for this new technology.”
The article delves into a few other famous images. The above shot of Lincoln has his head on a more regal body. And it also features a debate about Joe Rosenthal’s image of Marine’s raising the flag at Iwo Jima, one of the most famous photos in the world. That shot, unlike those in the above gallery, seems to be real.
The New York Times today ran an interesting story on an old topic: beef between rappers in the hip-hop community. The article focuses on Joe Budden, a new school rapper, and Raekwon, a 90s rap relic, famous for being a member of Wu-Tang Clan.
Budden has built a following, and a means of attack, via the internet. He actively posts YouTube videos and Tweets about other hip-hop artists. Raekwon, however, is one of the old guard. Then rappers talked shit about one another over the radio or on bootleg records. Times have changed.
After Budden’s recent internet attacks on Method Man, another member of Wu-Tang, Raekwon fought back with fists and camera. He and his entourage jumped Budden, beating him badly. This time it was caught on video and will likely surface online giving Budden a taste of his own medicine. Hip-hop stars are fighting via new media. How very savvy.
New Yorkers don’t have pools. We just don’t have the space. But all of that is changing thanks to MacroSea, a design firm that is reinventing the swimming pool. Taking recycling to the next level the group has remade three trash dumpsters, converting them into swimming pools.
The concept of taking existing storage containers and making something new from them has been done before. Take a look at this New York Times slideshow of a Texas home made from shipping containers. But the idea of using a trash dumpster for a swimming pool is a new one. Too bad the pools are currently invite-only.
Bravo, the network that made Project Runway, Top Chef and all those Housewives famous, is at again. This time they’re going high-brown rather than the usual low. Casting a new series, produced by Sarah Jessica Parker, the network held a call for artists looking to be the next big Warhol. Yes, a reality show competition pitting artists in weekly challenges. Yikes.
While I am a big fan of Bravo I am doubtful the art world will translate into compelling television. But their track record is impressive so I am withholding judgment until the first elimination. The New York Times wonders “What would be the equivalent, for example, of a “quickfire challenge,” the part of “Top Chef” in which cooks have to whip up a dish lightning fast? Life drawing with a stopwatch? Found-art scavenger-hunt race? Best post-ironic conceptual gambit in under a minute?”
Anyone who is a fashion lover, and really, what good gay isn’t, has been watching Style.com religiously the last month as major fashion weeks have come and gone. The New York Times’ amazing blog The Moment recently spotlighted the men’s fashion week shows in Milan and Paris.
But don’t expect to see the clothes. Those of us on the outside of the fashion world (which is a much safer place to be btw) rarely, if ever, get to see the elaborate invitations to the runway shows. Not anymore. Blogger Jun Li shows us the best of the invites including an orange hat for DSquared and a message in a bottle from Kenzo.
Two were killed from the explosion of a homemade bomb in Helman Province, Afghanistan.
