Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Daniel Clowes


Eightball covers gallery at zines

A heaping helping of modern misery: The complete Mister Wonderful at the New York Times

Sunday, December 14, 2008

s & b film of the week 3 - double feature


Downtown 81 and Permanent Vacation





These two films should really be watched together, as opposite sides of a debased currency, a good/bad penny coughed up from the dying lungs of the 'underground' circa 1980. One side is shiny mint, the other scuffed and marred. Basquiat's optimistic fantasy plays prelude to fairy tale success and rock star death, while Jarmusch's anonymous antihero pushes off into nowhere. Somewhere along the way art dies and commerce becomes cool...

Friday, December 12, 2008

the poetry of Leif Segerstam



Esteemed Finnish conductor and wildman Leif Segerstam has a unique insight into the expressive possibilities of the English language:

"I have words for everything that can be expressed:

Coincidentimently
Embryomalic
Electrifically
Fiveishness
Flimmer
Inexclickable
Fenugrish five things
I am fluxating in 8.
It is a Valsefy."

Graham Nasby has an extensive archive of Segerstam's astonishing neologisms.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

parisian paperback purchases

Even on a dark, wintry evening, with a gelid wind blowing along the Seine, one may find the odd stalwart bookseller plying his trade.



Saturday, December 6, 2008

far away fluxus


The Dream of Fluxus at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art is the largest Fluxus show ever held in Britain, and I would love to see it. Unfortunately the BALTIC is in Gateshead and I can't see myself schlepping so far north, even for an exhibition as interesting as this promises to be. It might as well be at the Pole...