This site is so fucking good, been pissing my pants laughing all morning! (While also being quite aware these guys'd probably include me in their sights...) Their old Tumbler is also worth checking out here.
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Monday, February 17, 2014
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Jean Jackets & The Teen Witch
Two things we all love! If you're in Sydney you should go to this for sure. Wilfred was a contributor to HFoS #2 and he obviously knows a thing or two about denim...
From the FB page here:
"Kate Jinx and Wilfred Brandt examine some the more unconventional tropes of Hollywood in this cinematic dissection of adolescence. Wilfred will discuss the history of jean jackets, the birth of the teenager, and the Juvenile Delinquent film and the romanticisation of misspent youth in his ‘JDs in Jean Jackets’ lecture.
A paranormal parallel will be provided by Kate Jinx as she traces the life-cycle of the Teen Witch and teases out its strange comparisons to her own adolescence, in this performance lecture which is part of a greater body of work on the four-corners of cinema."
Monday, February 4, 2013
Motorcycho
I just received this far out little package in the mail the other day from Canada, and I just have to say something about it here. 'Motorcycho' is a motorcycle zine like I always imagined a motorcycle zine should be. In my mind it kicks every other zine/magazine's butt. Why? Because it's content heavy. Well actually each issue is pretty slim, clocking in at 36 pages, but it is full to the brim with writing! Yes. Shit I want to read. Sure I love flicking through any glossy motorcycle porn rag, but I always find it's over way too quick! Motorcycho is a lady who needs time, needs woo-ing, needs to be read. Fuck that's up my alley anyway. Especially when the writing is as hands-down fucking funny as a lot of it is in here – "This bike has got to get not on fire, and I guess it's gonna hafta be us what does it." (Issue #24 page 13)
Motorcycho is a bit like HFoS in that there's no preoccupation or snobbery around any specific sort of bikes, there's plenty of cheap Jap bikes in there with your Harley's and your Brit shit. Everyone in Motorcycho is having fun... with bikes, and writing about it from the heart. There's also a bunch of music cross-over stuff, and it's all up my alley as well – issue #25 has a story about a guy riding a piece of shit CB350 to Portland to see The Mummies play! Holy fuck!
Norman McFuzzybutt is the man behind the madness and he's been doing this for 15 years! Now I've never met the dude but he's obviously a righteously good chap, and I'd highly recommend ya'll to order up any back issues he might happen to still have available. See all issues here – although I don't know what's still available? Norman also runs a blog here. Check it all out and order some issues. They're small, so good for on the bus when your piece of shit Norton lets you down yet again, or keep them right next to the toilet for some quality quiet time.
Cheers Norman!
Sunday, October 9, 2011
The territory of art in society
A bit of a curve ball here, a break from the endless sea of motorcycles, a reference which I wanted to store here for later...
Reading one of my students essays today and she has referenced a book by English artist Stephen Willats called 'Art and Social Function'. I'd been talking to her about locating her work within (or around) existing contexts, histories, and trajectories. Anyway she points out that Willats “defines what he refers to as “the territory of art in society,” or “art’s social environment” as “an environment of institutions and groups of people which effectively maintain it as an identifiable activity within society.”
I've become fairly disenchanted with art over the last few years (too much working for art galleries!), which is only a problem because so many of my friends and colleagues are artists! Anyway Willats points to something here that I've been sort of vaugely thinking about a lot this year, just not in these terms. This idea, that art has a certain territory in society, is interesting. Because a territory is never stable, it's borders are attacked/defended etc, it can move or shift, and shrink or expand. My feeling is that shrinking is what it's been doing. I think our students have a very romantic view about the role of art in contemporary culture. The only people I ever really see at art galleries are other artists.
Reading one of my students essays today and she has referenced a book by English artist Stephen Willats called 'Art and Social Function'. I'd been talking to her about locating her work within (or around) existing contexts, histories, and trajectories. Anyway she points out that Willats “defines what he refers to as “the territory of art in society,” or “art’s social environment” as “an environment of institutions and groups of people which effectively maintain it as an identifiable activity within society.”
I've become fairly disenchanted with art over the last few years (too much working for art galleries!), which is only a problem because so many of my friends and colleagues are artists! Anyway Willats points to something here that I've been sort of vaugely thinking about a lot this year, just not in these terms. This idea, that art has a certain territory in society, is interesting. Because a territory is never stable, it's borders are attacked/defended etc, it can move or shift, and shrink or expand. My feeling is that shrinking is what it's been doing. I think our students have a very romantic view about the role of art in contemporary culture. The only people I ever really see at art galleries are other artists.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Writing to an idea, not a person.
I wanted to write something about my writing to SB. Having read his writing and thinking he was pretty great I actually met him after just having published issue #1 of The National Grid. It was a bit scary. I thought he'd just think we were ripping off DDD, but he didn't and he even said he liked our name more than theirs. SB and PB were a big help to TNG when we were getting started, they helped us gain an international audience, and also wrote letters of support for our funding applications.
Anyway, having met SB I began writing to him under the guise of my Masters... I'd been interested specifically in his comments about Wyndham Lewis and the idea of 'the enemy'. I wrote SB quite a few quite long emails, and he replied. Not as often, but often at length. I was always very excited by his emails. partly I suppose simply because SB was writing to me.
Eventually it happened that I was returning to America for work related stuff and so I organised to visit SB. He offered that I might stay with him for the couple of nights I'd be in LA, and I took him up on this offer. To cut a long post short I'll just say it was a bit weird. My visit I mean. Maybe it was jet-lag? Maybe I was nervous? I don't know why exactly, but the visit felt a bit 'forced'. I'm sure SB felt this too. I was afraid that SB and his girlfriend found me boring. Don't get me wrong, it was a great visit and I still hold SB in very high regard, but something changed after that visit. I haven't written to him so much since, and he hasn't written to me much either.
Until today. I just wrote to him more sort of properly again now. I think it was about 3 years ago that I visited, and I think I've realised now that I liked writing to the idea of SB. By which I guess I mean 'what I thought SB was'. It's funny writing to him since the visit, because I'm very aware of actually how he is now. I suppose I miss that kind of writing to an imaginary friend... writing to an idea, and not a real person. I know that sounds fucked up, but it worked quite well as a sort of editorial strategy for me.
Anyway, having met SB I began writing to him under the guise of my Masters... I'd been interested specifically in his comments about Wyndham Lewis and the idea of 'the enemy'. I wrote SB quite a few quite long emails, and he replied. Not as often, but often at length. I was always very excited by his emails. partly I suppose simply because SB was writing to me.
Eventually it happened that I was returning to America for work related stuff and so I organised to visit SB. He offered that I might stay with him for the couple of nights I'd be in LA, and I took him up on this offer. To cut a long post short I'll just say it was a bit weird. My visit I mean. Maybe it was jet-lag? Maybe I was nervous? I don't know why exactly, but the visit felt a bit 'forced'. I'm sure SB felt this too. I was afraid that SB and his girlfriend found me boring. Don't get me wrong, it was a great visit and I still hold SB in very high regard, but something changed after that visit. I haven't written to him so much since, and he hasn't written to me much either.
Until today. I just wrote to him more sort of properly again now. I think it was about 3 years ago that I visited, and I think I've realised now that I liked writing to the idea of SB. By which I guess I mean 'what I thought SB was'. It's funny writing to him since the visit, because I'm very aware of actually how he is now. I suppose I miss that kind of writing to an imaginary friend... writing to an idea, and not a real person. I know that sounds fucked up, but it worked quite well as a sort of editorial strategy for me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)