Let’s do some hyperlinked free association with some white folk shall we…

[Jack Daws “Minstrel Mice]

All mass culture “colorless” spaces on the internet are white spaces.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=watermelon

chicken nigger black fried chicken negro nigga fruit melon kfc poor fat chicken and watermelon drugs sex ass kool-aid water weed coon white cock grape soda ghetto cotton green penis dick african crime niggerfruit nigra cracker bling racist drink awesome drinks porch monkey food drunk pussy stupid person booze loser crack dave chappelle vodka queer tomato

The work of art is not hanging on the wall: Ta-coumba Aiken and decentered art/artists

In the same way that the revolution will not be televised, the work of art is never on the page or hanging on the museum wall. A work of art is nothing more than the effect that it has on actual people: those implicated in its creation and its reception.

Yesterday I went with some of the Mellon family to see the art of Ta-Aiken, who was there to greet us and others at the exhibition “Healing Hands, Healing Lands,” at Lowertown Lofts at 255 E. Kellogg Blvd. in downtown St. Paul, on the Farmers’ Market. Incidentally, Ta-coumba (with some help, of course) did the set design for Daak, Call to Action, Ananya Dance Theatre’s new performance, which we will see on June 15 (last summer we saw Pipaashaa).

Radiohead-the “All I Need” video and its discontents

The potential critiques of Radiohead’s “All I Need” video are legion. The most obvious, of course, is the potential conjuring of the helpless groveling third world subject just waiting for a few dollars from you in your first world to help buy some food/school supplies. I think the statement “you’re all I need” here works both ways: the more insidious reading is that the first world child needs the Third World child, subjugated, in order to provide for the first world child’s standard of living. But the lyrics and video mean more than this.

The Love Guru: No witty subtitle here. I’m just–out

I showed this video to my friend and he thought it was a comedy sketch. No, actually it’s a big budget Hollywoood full-length feature. Apparently this was a spiritual journey for Mike Myers in memory of his lost father. I shit you not

Commodity fetishism: Radiohead’s finest moment

Marxism is so passe.

This video is being shown extremely frequently on MTV in France. I think the French version has more words.

More random Target finds

I am seriously starting to be impressed.

Target steps their game up

The real holy trinity?

In the house, in a heartbeat…

John Murphy’s 28 Days Later score deserved more recognition than it got. Godspeed! You Black Emperor, a Canadian anarchist art collective and one of the post-rock scene’s founding lights, was the perfect music for 28 Days Later. It scored the film in Danny Boyle’s head during much of his creative process. Their relationship would be a tortured one.

John Murphy-In the House-In a Heartbeat

Brian Eno-An Ending (Ascent)

28 Weeks Later, Iraq, and the political urgency of the un-metaphor

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about metaphor. The simulacra and illusions of postmodern capitalism is an entire world of metaphors. Money (and perhaps credit) is the metaphor of metaphors for our time. We have become adept at interpreting postmodern capitalism’s doublespeak, it is the second language of almost the entire world.

I generally subscribe very strongly to the spirit of the idea that all art is indirection. Art says things without saying it, obscures things to arrive at an even more striking truth, a truer than truth. But when our world is full of truths that are truthier than truth, might metaphor not work in the opposite direction?

Videos and more after the jump…

How to choose a movie at the cinema: 28 Weeks Later

A few words on going to the movies. Reviews are a very useful tool. They get things wrong sometimes, like with the early hype surrounding 300 and Transformers. But if you learn how to speak the language you will be rewarded.