Paul McCarthy again

Paul McCarthy recently combined his love for creating giant inflatable sculptures with his scatalogical bent with this barn-sized piece of dog shit installed at an exhibition in Switzerland. Various news sources reported a few weeks ago that it escaped its moorings during a wind storm and blew away, knocking down a power line and smashing the window of an orphanage! The incident was certainly rich fodder for headline writers, as you can see if you google the story.

Nick Cave

I wish I'd seen him in a lush old theater, but, that's a minor complaint. This band was very good last night at the Showbox Sodo.

Thai Ghosts in Lightbulb Ad

Speaking of Thai cinema, here's an awesome tv ad for light bulbs...

อภิชาติพงศ์ วีระเศรษฐกุล

Apichatpong Weerasethakul is apparently filming a project inspired by his battles with Thai censors. He was unable to show his last feature, Syndromes and a Century, in his home country because the government (which has a Cultural Surveillance Department) objected to, among other things, a scene depicting a Buddhist monk playing with a remote-controlled UFO. I saw the (uncensored) film at SIFF last year and it was awesome. Weerasethakul has started a protest movement against the Thai government's censorship of Thai film -- no joke, the official that heads up the Ministry of Culture has stated the the populace is too uneducated for art movies, and that filmmakers should be churning out simple comedies. More details available at http://www.kickthemachine.com/.

Helios Creed

Helios Creed was great last night at the Funhouse. This will give you the general idea.

Paul McCarthy and Santa's Village

I read that Paul McCarthy recently made a failed bid to buy Santa's Village. Too bad; he would have been an interesting proprietor. At left is a still from what is still my favorite Christmas movie, Santa Claus (1959), Mexico.

Pierre Bonnard

This summer I visited my brother in Little Rock and he took me to a museum that had a decent collection of impressionist paintings. I was particularly pleased to see a Pierre Bonnard because I had just read The Sea, by John Banville, and the protagonist is doing a study of Bonnard, who is probably the king of painting your wife in the bathtub, or about to get in the bathtub, or having just got out of the bathtub. The interesting thing is that Bonnard paints his wife as a young girl even though when she posed for him she was like seventy. Anyhow, I was just reading this interview with the painter Peter Doig, and the topic of Bonnard came up; I thought this comment was interesting:

"He somehow manages to create a space between what he is looking at and thinking about, because a lot of his work - especially when he is painting his wife - is thinking back. Somehow he is painting the space that is behind the eyes. It's as if you were lying in bed trying hard to remember what something looked like. And Bonnard managed to paint that strange state."

Masaya Nakahara

Masaya Nakahara, aka Violent Onsen Geisha, aka Hair Stylistics, has a new project going called "Monthly Hair Stylistics," in which he publishes a release every month. So far there are 5 cds and t-shirt. I bought the first 4 of the discs in the series and they are sending me into happy noiseland.