“The black soul, if there can be such a thing, belongs in modernism.” Frank Bowling
Chris Ofili ~ ‘The Adoration of Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars (1998)

Katie in Michelle Obama's Chair at Pamela's in Millvale ~Photo by Noir LeBlanc

Watch ManCrunch Super Bowl Ad in Sexy  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com Howard Zinn did not exempt President Obama, whom he called both "a mediocre" and "dangerous president," from his criticism. The last article he wrote appeared in The Nation last week. In it, Zinn argued that Obama's foreign policy was "no different from a Republican," that it was "nationalist, expansionist, imperial and warlike." US history, in Zinn's eyes, was a history of "genocide: brutally and purposefully waged by our rulers in the name of progress." He claimed that these truths were buried "in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth." ~RONALD RADOSH

Pantone declared turquoise the color of the year for 2010.

Bruce Conner

Talese on Salinger
http://www.observer.com/2010/culture/talese-salinger

It is one of the defining tropes of contemporary pop culture that everything illicit should be paraded rather than engaged in discreetly. Everything is not just permitted, but must be photographed, filmed, and posted on the web. ~ean O'Hagan

Jack Beal ~The History of Labor in America
Mural Project for The United States Department of Labor Washington, D.C., 1975-77 The 17th Century: Colonization The 18th Century: Settlement 19th Century: Industry
20th Century: Technology

Metallica working with their therapist, Phil Towle

RICHMOND, Va. - State police confirm skeletal remains found in a remote farm field are those of missing Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington. Investigators said Wednesday the confirmation was based on dental records provided by Harrington's family. The 20-year-old Roanoke woman disappeared in October after attending a Metallica concert in Charlottesville. Her remains were found Tuesday morning by a farmer while he was on a tractor inspecting fences on his 700 acres in the rugged foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The farm is located in southern Albemarle County, about 10 miles from the concert venue. ~YellowBrix, Inc.

Brittany Murphy’s mother Sharon Murphy mourns outside of Brittany Murphy’s Los Angeles home

Brittany Murphy's grieving husband says he's suing Warner Bros. over her death, claiming: "They killed her." Simon Monjack alleges that Murphy died from stress just two weeks after the studio fired her from the "Happy Feet" sequel. Monjack told The Daily Beast's Gerald Posner, "She was devastated . . . You're disposable as an actress or actor." While the cause of Murphy's death has still not been confirmed, Monjack insists it was not due to drugs. He also described the moment she was found unconscious in the bathroom of his Hollywood Hills house in December. "I came running in," he told Posner. "I immediately started doing CPR. I felt a tiny heartbeat. I was pushing with the heel of my hand. And every second I pushed, I felt my hand become stronger and her heart weaker. And then it stopped. And I kept pushing. She died in my arms. I knew she was dead." Warner Bros. did not respond. ~PAGE SIX, NY Post

Renato Zero

The Gallery at the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies Presents:
A FAILED ENTERTAINMENT
Selections from the filmography of James O. Incandenza
Exhibition Dates: Jan 29 - Feb 19th
Videos will be screened continuously during gallery hours.

WOBURN, Mass. - Nancy Kerrigan's low-key family, which struggled with the attention brought on after an attack at a skating competition nearly derailed her Olympic dreams, has again been thrust into the spotlight with the death of her father after what authorities said was a violent struggle with his troubled son. Mark Kerrigan, 45, the brother of figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, is led in handcuffs out of Woburn, Mass. District Court after his arraignment Monday, Jan. 25, 2010. He has been charged with assaulting their 70-year-old father, Daniel, who died over the weekend after a disturbance at the family's Stoneham, Mass. home. (AP Photo/Greg M. Cooper) ~MARK PRATT

Peaches "Mommy Complex" (Dir: Antuong Nguyen for MOOP JAW) from Moop Jaw on Vimeo.

Glove Collage by LeRoy

Viola Frey


Grayson Perry

Big money and yellow snow.
Sketch for KISS MY ASS TAPESTRY for Thomas Campbell. Measures three metres 5 and 1/2 inches high by fifteen metres 5 and 1/2 inches long. Five and one half inches bigger than Victoria Miro's " The Walthamstow Tapestry" by Grayson Perry.

Thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibitions of Renaissance and Baroque tapestries over the last decade, the glorious history of tapestry as art is much better known than it once was. ~Roberta Smith, NY Times, 1.26.10 "Nine Constant Windows, Second Version” (2009), a rug by James Siena.

Last Request, My Dying Father Wants A Beer. Two weeks before my father died he made a last request:  Beer.  It caught me by surprise; I had been busy preparing his nightly dose of crushed meds in applesauce. "What did you say, dad?" I said, while gently shoving trazadone/klonopin/ativan/ laced applesauce into one corner of his mouth. He repeated, "I don't want this.  I want a beer.” Then he spit the applesauce meds out onto the floor. You had to be agile and prepared to dart out of spitting distance. ~Eden Simone, salon.com

Martin Amis has raised a ruckus in his native Britain by suggesting old people should commit suicide to prevent the "silver tsunami" that is coming. Amis, in an interview with the Sunday Times of London, proposed euthanasia booths, where volunteers would be given "a martini and a medal." Otherwise, "There will be a population of demented very old people, like an invasion of terrible immigrants, stinking out restaurants and cafes and shops." The blowback's been as fierce as Amis, whose novel, "The Pregnant Widow," is out next month, probably expected. ~PAGE SIX, NY PostHoward Rourke
Stuyvesant Town

Joaquin Phoenix, who turned heads with his grizzly beard in 2009, has reportedly gone back to his former clean-shaven look (r.). He resurfaced last week in a video for TWLOHA, or To Write Love on Her Arms, a suicide-prevention charity. Also in the video are Phoenix's ex-girlfriend Liv Tyler and Miley Cyrus. ~Daily News

Fog

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
-Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)


Dearest Helga
Please forget it-
then I wont need to be for -
given
with love
- Daddy
Carl Sandburg note to daughter Helga