Oh Dog, you Sleuth!

Vincent Macaluso, Esplanade Avenue, New Orleans, December 2006.

I saw a young woman wearing this t-shirt the other day in Union Square. I should have asked her where she got it, because I can’t find anyone who sells it on the internet.

I noticed on William Greiner’s journal, he had an entry about how Google is using pre-Katrina maps for New Orleans now. This has stirred up some controversy as many people find this offensive and insulting, as there is already the sense in New Orleans and Gulf Coast that their tragedy has largely been forgotten by the rest of America. Not to mention, it’s just wrong to use those images as an information source, since the city is so physically different. I got a sense of this last year when my plane came in over the city, as opposed to the lake. It’s shocking to see these giant stretches of open space in the middle of the city.
And yet, I rushed to look up my old house… and there it was!!! The giant oak tree has not fallen on the house yet. The pool is not full of black sludge. And most importantly, the house is still there! Actually, the entire property is completely bulldozed flat, like many houses in this neighborhood.

So it was kind of interesting, to hover over this map, along the 17th street canal, where it’s all still huge oak trees and swimming pools and see the ghost version.

Rob Lomblad’s amazing kitchen in Bushwick.

I felt pretty humbled by my uselessness after looking around and realizing Rob had built the walls, tables, desk, bed frame and bookshelves in his sunny apartment. He was working on a closet while I was there. Sufjan Stevens used to live in the exact apartment because Rob was still getting his student loan mail from Fannie Mae.

Here’s the number one reason this neighborhood trumps mine: brunch and coffee (and a coffee shop with art and a sign about how they were trolling for myspace friends). Flatbush feels about five years away from that. Somehow the “weave” tumbleweeds just makes me not want brunch, at all.

Benjamin and Shannon, at the best restaurant in Portland, which they own and run, L’Astra.

Here’s another reason to like James Murphy, of LCD Sound System, from the Village Voice:

This surge of success came as an exhilarating surprise to Murphy, already well into his thirties by the time DFA took off. “I suddenly was cool,” he remembers. “I suddenly was able to fly to the south of France and London and DJ. This was totally crazy. I was in my thirties. I’d been a completely failed teenager and twentysomething, deeply failed, deeply deeply failed. Like ’start going to therapy in your late twenties because you had high hopes for yourself and you realized that you were a complete, total, abject failure at everything’ failed. Like proper failure: not just failure financially, but you’re not doing what you set out to do, not making creative work. You don’t have money and you don’t have a job because you’re a musician, but you’re not making music. That kind of failed. And then all of a sudden to be thirtysomething and be flown to all these places to DJ like you’re the next big thing, but you’re way too old to believe any of this . . . “

Steve Hough in his kitchen.

SoHo, with Ryan in the shadows.

Hopper! This was a lot greener in person than I imagined. And faced a lovely John Currin painting.

Drew on the couch, Portland.

Pictures from the first vacation I’ve taken since I was a teenager on a family trip.

Thanks Charles from In Twin Peaks for the tips on how to track down all these great locations, which was a lot of fun.

Also:

Jenny and Donna, Portland.

I went to the Jeff Wall retrospective on Friday at MoMA. My brain is still exploded from the experience and I will now have to stop saying bad things about lightbox as a display choice for photography.

Jeremy, sitting in his living room.

I walked around Chelsea today saw some interesting things:

These were my favorites at the Humble Arts Foundation show at New Century Artists

The early black and white Nan Goldin trannie pictures are up at Matthew Marks right now. I found them pretty boring, except the one above. BUT there was a slide show edited to music in one of the other rooms, showing her trannie pictures through the years. I’ve always wanted to see one of Goldin’s slide shows and thought it was cool that she would show these in bars in the early 80s. Slides are so great… and so cheap when you think about what it costs to make a large print…

Takashi Yasumura’s “Domestic Scandals” at Yossi Milo. These are really amazing prints.

Mitch Epstein, how do you do it? It’s amazing how he does books and exhibition so well. His photo books are incredibly well paced and layed out. And his current show at Sikkema Jenkins, twelve enormous prints (70×92 inchces — you feel like you could walk into them) creates a really visceral experience. His pictures of contemporary America just blow me away.

Here’s some other funny stuff I liked:

There was this great article about the Turner Prize in this week’s New Yorker, I love this quote from video artist Phil Collins (no relation), “I found art school to be liberating, but the commercial art world?” he said. “Is there any place where you could possibly feel smaller? It’s the only place where you can give away free booze and no one turns up.”

Katherine, in her back yard.

On March 2nd, my photography show opened at Newspace in Portland. And it was such an amazing experience. All my friends and lots of people from the art scene came out, even though it was cold and rainy. Best of all, my friend Drew played records throughout the night, which made it feel more like a party.

Thanks to Chris Bennett at Newspace, for curating the show, Lincoln Miller at Pushdot, for printing and Damon Snead, for framing the prints. And check out the wonderful Mariana Tres’ show “Nothing Is Lost”, which shares the gallery space with me for the month of March.