Prince is on TV!

too bad you can't see his heels.

i think these women are saying "oh, prince."

No reply at all

Chris Ware

Yesterday i saw Daniel Raeburn's talk about Chris Ware at the MCA. He focused on the "language of comics" that Chris Ware is trying to advance, that will enable (is enabling) a previously primitive art form, one limited to broad comedy or dumb action, to conjure emotions with the subtlety of great music or film, etc.

So, yeah, i guess that sounds a little pretentious, and i guess a semi-academic lecture like this is bound to. But Ware's work to me is not at all pretentious. Although he's incredibly ambitious with the contortions and extensions that he subjects his medium to, his images and stories are always captivating enough to engage you and amply reward all the effort that you put into examining all the microscopic panels.

He had interesting things to say about the relation of architecture to comics, and a lot of great insight into the presentation of Ware's work. Raeburn also defined comics as neither a solely visual or written medium, but one that necessarily exists between the two. For this reason, the exhibition of Ware's work itself was a bit unusual, displaying for the most part only uncompleted sketches of pages from Jimmy Corrigan, Rusty Brown, and Building Stories. It was great to see these (in particular the images from Jimmy Corrigan showing the Chicago World's Fair,) especially as many of them are rather large and allow a real study of the details in the imagery. The best part, for me, was the commentary provided by Ware and the story notes and mock-ups from the production of Jimmy Corrigan that were on display.

If you're a fan of Ware, it's definitely worth while, and you can check out the Warhol display. Personally, i had a near-religious experience in front of one of the Elvis prints, and these early prints are among the best of his work that i've seen.

Meanwhile, i'm eargerly looking forward to the continuation of Ware's Rusty Brown story. I think that it may end up being the best of his work; i was particularly excited with the story line that follows Rusty's father and the story contained in his science fiction novel. Ware's skill with page layout has gotten almost frightening, and it's particularly overwhelming to look at them all layed out next to each other in one of his collections. Which i guess explains why i keep buying those pricy hardcovers.

Hillary IS the Great Satan

To those who still have some fond memories of Hillary and the good old days of her universal health care plans, or her grand addresses at reproductive rights conferences, you may want to look at her recent rhetoric concerning Iran.

I believe that we lost critical time in dealing with Iran because the White House chose to downplay the threats and to outsource the negotiations. I don't believe you face threats like Iran or North Korea by outsourcing it to others and standing on the sidelines. But let's be clear about the threat we face now: A nuclear Iran is a danger to Israel, to its neighbors and beyond. The regime's pro-terrorist, anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric only underscores the urgency of the threat it poses. U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal. We cannot and should not--must not--permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. In order to prevent that from occurring, we must have more support vigorously and publicly expressed by China and Russia, and we must move as quickly as feasible for sanctions in the United Nations. And we cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iran--that they will not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons.

Oh boy! Aren't you excited about that Clinton/Obama bill for 2008? We know that there won't be any embarrassing policy disagreements on dropping all those smart bombs on Iranians heads!

That kind of bus

I rode in an accordion bus yesterday, the ones with the gray stretchy thing in the middle. It was exactly as cool as i always thought it would be. There are people sitting in that stretchy middle part.

***

They reissued the first three Wire albums, which are all awesome. But i remember one time the third one (154) was on at a party and me and Pete got freaked the fuck out. It's a pretty scary record.

Neil Young is Old

Word. But Neil Young's still at it. He's streaming his new protest album, Living With War from his web page, to be followed by it's release as a download, to be followed by the CD. It's a three-tiered release strategy, the suits will tell you.

It's pretty rockin' from what i've heard, and what's more interesting is that almost every track features a 100 member amateur choir backing up old Shakey. The choir seems like a direct cotinuation with his interest in populist, participatory musical events that he showcased in his Greendale project, as does the entire conception and distribution of this album.

Even if these songs don't become classics, it seems like that isn't really the point, given that the album was supposedly recorded in a few months, and the songs are all referencing current events in pretty specific ways. He supposedly floats Obama as a presidential candidate in one song, which is lame, but you see what i mean. Rock music, the white CNN.

***

I had a dream about Neil Young last night. We was doin some kind of tour, by himself, and i was hanging out with him. He was pretty tight-lipped, and i remember saying, "hey after this next show, let's make some time to hang out." And he just kinda nodded and said, "OK."

So we're at a show, and Neil invites me and a young woman (i can't remember what she was doing there) on stage to take guitar solos while he sings. He'd ditched his guitar and was just singing to a backing track (wierd.) I had an arch top guitar with no markings on the fret board, so i was freaking out thinking that i wouldn't know what notes i was playing. I spent most of the first song plugging the guitar into an elaborate set up of effects pedals.

Then the second song started. Neil sang to another back up track. The woman started playing some licks, then she and Neil looked at me, encouraging me to play. I did my best, but i guess i had forgotten to engage the distortion pedal (which i had set to "disrupt") cause it sounded all twangy and pathetic. Apparently my playing was also at issue. The song just sorta stopped, as if everyone was shocked by my ineptitude. Neil just shrugged, he didn't seem too upset, although he and the woman did make fun of how i ended all my guitar lines with the same minor third interval.

***

One time i looked in a bathroom mirror at myself. I was unshowered and i was showing some chest hair. I realized that i look like the fat Baldwin brother.