In 2011 I watched a movie on cable TV called Sisters. It’s a very early (1973) Brian DePalma thriller/murder-mystery about a local Staten Island journalist (played by Jennifer Salt) who sees a murder from her apartment window—my apartment window!
Well, my apartment window or the window of one of the other five apartments directly above or below me. What a strange experience to watch an actress (in my living room) look out a window (in my living room) while I’m sitting in said living room. I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I kept watching for clues to location. Was it really my apartment? Soon enough I see the actress leave through the front door of my apartment building and get into her car on my street. (more…)
Sounds carry historical and political significance, even when they are intended as pure entertainment. Alternative meanings shimmer just beneath the surface as accepted meanings—safer meanings—give way to the attentive listener. Consider the sound of fireworks. According to Wikipedia, fireworks “were originally invented in ancient China in the 12th century to scare away evil spirits, as a natural extension of the Chinese invention of gunpowder.”
A commercial display of baked goods is an art form built on the strategic use of separation.
I took this photograph with my cell phone a couple of months ago, at a local Staten Island diner. It is not an unusual scene in a diner. The monster cookies. I was enamored of their inflated forms piled high on a metal pedestal. Who eats these cookies? Does anyone? Does anyone eat the lemon meringue pies with the fake egg white swirl that’s higher than Elvis’ hair? I’ve never seen a person eat a slice from one of those pies. Do the same cookies and pies stay in their respective spots, uneaten, forever? Are they immortal props that complete the “authentic” diner experience? Maybe they were bought 25 years ago when the diner first opened and have stuck around ever since — dusted occasionally — along with the framed first fiver over the cashier’s counter. 
President Obama brings out the best in everybody! (Well, almost everybody.) This is especially evident in the creative community. It’s no secret that visual artists have been particularly captivated by Obama’s message and visage. But they are not alone. It seems that writers, poets, composers and musicians have been inspired as well.
I just finished Michael Frayn’s Headlong, a novel given to me by a friend. She and I saw “Top Girls” on Broadway last year, and we were both intrigued by Dulle Griet, one of the characters in the play, and the namesake of one of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s more bizarre paintings.
If I were writing a blog about Brad Pitt or David Archuleta (America’s former Really Cute American Idol), instead of a blog about political and intellectual territories re-envisioned through art practice, I would never mention Barack Obama. The sexiest man alive (meaning Pitt rather than Obama, though a strong case could be made for Obama rather than Pitt), might share with us the fastest way to lose ten pounds so I can outrun the tax collector in 2009, though President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama (Say it loud! Say it proud!) promises a refund and a tax cut since the economy’s wheels have come off, and who has money to pay taxes anyway? Certainly not me.
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