(no subject)
Finally went to Scottsdale MOCA to see the Warhol exhibit. They had a lot of good stuff for a small space -- the Marilyns, the Maos, the Soup Cans, the famous Jews, the Cowboys and Indians, a number of self-portraits. To support them I bought The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. Not as good as Popism in terms of Warhol books.
"No, a person has to be very careful about what he's buying these days or else he'll wind up buying junk. And paying a lot for it too. So this means that if you see a well-dressed person today, you know that they've thought a lot about clothes and how they look. And then that ruins it because you shouldn't be thinking about how you look so much."
This is the book that has one of my favorite sentiments about his work and egalitarian nature though. I think this is a key to his art: "What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."
I love this thought. He's clearly got some kind of liberal socialist leanings, he did after all say that "America really is The Beautiful, but it would be more beautiful if everyone had enough money to live", but he takes what is usually considered a negative, the American Cultural Hegemony of things like McDonald's and all the things it's accused of--standardization, sterilization, etc.. and totally rejects it as a negative. Kind of a shocking thought. I'm not sure why more defenders of so-called 'globalization' and such don't use this line of thought.
Then went over to 5th Ave. to see the show of this bartender I know through someone at my work who won a 'Best of Scottsdale' artists contest thing, Stevie G. Mostly abstract color field-y type stuff.
Tupac: Thug Angel - nice documentary. Not as good as Resurrection, but good stuff from Quincy Jones and Shock "G" talking and footage of Tupac when he was like 17 (he died at only 25!). Amazing the difference between the young man and the thug to come. He tells a story about how much respect he has for women (he says 'b's' -- he won't even say 'bitches' at this point) and how his heart was broken because a girl he wanted to date told him he was too nice. It also did a good job of talking about how utterly ridiculous the so-called rape charges against him later were. I often wonder what combination of industry pressure, disillusionment and being constantly high or drunk caused such a sea change.
One of the extras was a list of books that Tupac had read with his first manager when he was living with her. Lot of Eastern stuff, Buddhist, the Gita, Tibetan Book of the Dead, Alan Watts, Khalil Gibran, along with Mertin and Kempis. The diary of Anais Nin was a little surprising.
Ordered Jenia's 13 inch macbook in black today. it's got almost twice the ram and hd space of my 15" powerbook, plus a faster chip and cost $1000 less.
"No, a person has to be very careful about what he's buying these days or else he'll wind up buying junk. And paying a lot for it too. So this means that if you see a well-dressed person today, you know that they've thought a lot about clothes and how they look. And then that ruins it because you shouldn't be thinking about how you look so much."
This is the book that has one of my favorite sentiments about his work and egalitarian nature though. I think this is a key to his art: "What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."
I love this thought. He's clearly got some kind of liberal socialist leanings, he did after all say that "America really is The Beautiful, but it would be more beautiful if everyone had enough money to live", but he takes what is usually considered a negative, the American Cultural Hegemony of things like McDonald's and all the things it's accused of--standardization, sterilization, etc.. and totally rejects it as a negative. Kind of a shocking thought. I'm not sure why more defenders of so-called 'globalization' and such don't use this line of thought.
Then went over to 5th Ave. to see the show of this bartender I know through someone at my work who won a 'Best of Scottsdale' artists contest thing, Stevie G. Mostly abstract color field-y type stuff.
Tupac: Thug Angel - nice documentary. Not as good as Resurrection, but good stuff from Quincy Jones and Shock "G" talking and footage of Tupac when he was like 17 (he died at only 25!). Amazing the difference between the young man and the thug to come. He tells a story about how much respect he has for women (he says 'b's' -- he won't even say 'bitches' at this point) and how his heart was broken because a girl he wanted to date told him he was too nice. It also did a good job of talking about how utterly ridiculous the so-called rape charges against him later were. I often wonder what combination of industry pressure, disillusionment and being constantly high or drunk caused such a sea change.
One of the extras was a list of books that Tupac had read with his first manager when he was living with her. Lot of Eastern stuff, Buddhist, the Gita, Tibetan Book of the Dead, Alan Watts, Khalil Gibran, along with Mertin and Kempis. The diary of Anais Nin was a little surprising.
Ordered Jenia's 13 inch macbook in black today. it's got almost twice the ram and hd space of my 15" powerbook, plus a faster chip and cost $1000 less.