Love like a driving wheel. That's my idea of love.
— Bob Dylan

The thing that makes a creative person is to be creative and that is all there is to it.
— Edward Albee

In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virture of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.
— Carl Sagan

In the end, everything is a gag.
— Charlie Chaplin

Friday Overture: Good morning here's the news and all of it is good / Good evening here's the news and all of it is good / And the weather's good...


LYRICS HERE


NOTA BENE: Particularly since Joe Strummer's no longer around, it's nice to see his former Clash bandmate Mick Jones still fighting the good fight and knocking out great music. I love seeing Mick interviewed now because he's always dressed in a black suit, white shirt, no tie, topped by his less-than-handsome mug that might best aim for a Bogart/Belmondo/Gainsbourg vibe while his head features a classic bald-on-top non-hairdo. He looks like a frumpy middleaged man, but he's the same brilliant musician and the same wide-eyed punk rocker he always was. In 2002, Jones joined forces with fellow punk rock contemporary Tony James to form a duo with the brilliant name of Carbon Silicon, alluding quite directly to the melding of man and technology. Apropos of that, they have made pretty much all their music available for free on the internet as they've produced it. You can download the current CS album at their website. The music ranges from punk to pop with more than a few experimental tangents tossed in to keep things interesting. This week's Overture may be their most well-known track and its a jaunty little number bold enough to express nothing but cockeyed optimism. I hope they catch on and hit it big, whatever big means these days. Because he was a member of a seminal band—for a few short years, when all the cylinders were clicking, they WERE the best band on the planet, for many reasons—his own singular talents don't always get the play they should. Mick has always been a stellar guitarist, songwriter, and, as Joe Strummer pointed out, a spectacular arranger. He's still making great art and it's worth paying attention.

To emphasize my point I'll add that as I was writing, with the iPod on shuffle, some insane track came on with dark sounds and backwards distorted voices and it was so gripping it took me out of my writing and forced me to get up and confirm that it was The Residents. Nope, Carbon Silicon.


@ HALLWALLS thru Feb 28
gallery hours Tues to Fri 11am to 6pm, Sat 11am to 2pm

JILLIAN MCDONALD
REDRUM

Jillian Mcdonald Website


FRANK McCAULEY
CASUAL BEING

Frank MCauley Website


DEADLINE FEB 19




Opening Elsewhere

Kite + Chair: Eric Souther & Elisabeth Pellathy

op @ Squeaky Wheel Sat, Jan 30, 7:30pm
Squeaky Wheel


Lecture on the Weather: John Cage in Buffalo
Thru Feb 14 @ Burchfield Penney Art Center

WITH WORKS BY: Michael Basinski, John Bacon, Brian Milbrand, Andrew Deutsch, Kyle Price, JT Rinker, Tom Kostusiak, Jeff Proctor, William Sack, David Lampe, Peter Ramos, Joan Retallack, Elliot Caplan, David Felder, Ron Ehmke
WITH PERFORMANCES BY: A Musical Feast, Bugallo/Williams Duo, Buffalo State College Percussion Ensemble, Buffluxus, Michael Basinski, John Bacon, Brian MIlbrand, Andrew Deutsch, Kyle Price, JT Rinker, Tom Kostusiak, David Lampe, Peter Ramos, Brad Fuster, Diane Williams, Jan Williams, Pam Swarts, Alan Kryszak

Go HERE for a 23-day performance schedule and Don Metz's thoughtful pdf catalogue for this exciting event.
Buffalo News Dabkowski


"I was surprised that nobody asked how much money they were going to get. Nobody cared, they just wanted to do it. They were totally into it, from the heart, and just wanted to be part of it because of how much they were dedicated to Cage, how important Cage was to them individually."

Buffalo News Don Metz interview


Here's a video I shot at the opening night of Cageapalooza. The footage was just awful, so it's been messed with and given a faux documentary feel and I only used the sections that had discernible sounds or images, and these are edited out of chronology. I don't think Cage would mind:

John Cage Lecture On The Weather from John Massier on Vimeo.

Room To Roam

I was invited recently to curate an online exhibition for the Mid Atlantic Arts foundation, from the works compiled on their online registry. You can check it out here. I won't hold you to reading a long essay that I can't remember writing, but I would recommend you watch the following video by Pahl Hluchen, Rabbit and Teddy Meet Humpty Dumpty Diaperman, which was one of the works curated into the online exhibition. As I wrote in my essay, it was a work that "in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit I may have rationalized into any potential exhibition drawn from the registry, it's just that undeniably whacked-out and difficult—if not impossible—not to love." Decide for yourself:





HERO Design Retrospective @ WNYBAC

op TONIGHT 6—9pm (thru Feb 20)



JUST GO: Jackie Felix Studio Sale





Katie Sehr @ Olean Public Library

op Sat, Jan 30, 3-5pm (thru Feb 27)


Felice Koenig @ Castellani Art Museum

op Sun, Jan 31, 3-5pm (thru May 23)


Robert Hirsch in Fredonia



Esther Neisen @ Carnegie Art Center

op Thurs, Feb 4, 6-9pm (thru Mar 19)


Rita Auerbach, Donna Jordan Dusel, Joan Fitzgerald, Walter Garver, George Grace, Joyce Hill, Anita Johnson, Gerald Mead, Coni Minneci, Lynn Northrup, George Palmer, Russell Ram, Donal Scheller, Victor Shanchuk, Norine Spurling, Christopher Stangler, Dennis Stier, Carol Townshend, Georgia Trimper, Gary Wolfe

op @ Indigo Gallery Fri, Feb 5, 6-9pm (thru March 1)


Reflexive Architecture Machines

op @ UB Art Gallery Thurs, Feb 11, 5pm (thru Mar 20)


Gary Sczerbaniewicz @ Sugar City





CEPA 2010 Members Exhibition

Works due by Jan 29, 5pm • Show opens Feb 6
Juror: Sandra Q. Firmin, Curator, UB Art Galleries
CEPA Members Exhibition



CALL FOR WORK: Olean Public Library

DEADLINE FEB 5
"Submissions for solo or group exhibitions in any media including painting, photography, book arts, printmaking, sound, sculpture, installation and video installation. Artists receive honorarium and travel expenses. For 2011, we will schedule several shows that tie to the library context. Book arts, literacy, and language are some of the possible topics. Selection is based on artistic quality and potential of work, with an emphasis on emerging artists in New York State. Please send a print out of at least 4 images as well as CD or slides, resume and artist statement. Artists interested in exhibiting at the Olean Public Library should send a packet of materials to curators Cynnie Gaasch and Cori Wolff, Olean Public Library, c/o YA-WNY, 16 Linwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14205 by February 5, 2010."


Priscilla Bowen, Michael Morgulis

@ Burchfield Nature & Art Center thru Mar 19

Continuing Elsewhere
• ALBRIGHT KNOX • Fletcher Benton (July 5), Ingrid Calame (Feb 28), Robert Mangold (Jan 31), Topographies (Feb 28), The Dorothy and Herb Vogel Collection (May 9)
• BIG ORBIT • installing
• BUFFALO ARTS STUDIO • Tom Hughes, Baili Liu (Mar 6)
• BURCHFIELD PENNEY • Patrick Robideau (Mar 7), Liz Tower (Apr 4), Park School Students (Mar 28), Charles Cary Rumsey (May 30), Surreal Inclinations (July 11)
• CARNEGIE ART CENTER • installing
• CASTELLANI ART MUSEUM • Andy Warhol (Feb 14), Sightseeing (Feb 28)
• CEPA GALLERY • installing
• EL MUSEO • Spiritual Beings (Jan 30)
• HALLWALLS • Jillian Mcdonald, Frank McCauley (Feb 28)
• UB ANDERSON • renovating
• UB ART GALLERY • Carlos Estévez (Feb 6)
• Luminaries @ Starlight Studio thru Jan 22
• Carol Clark @ Quaker Bonnet thru Jan 31
• Lilla Johnson @ Buffalo Big Print thru Jan 29
• Winter Moments @ Impact thru Jan 27
• Coni Minneci @ CG Jung Center thru Feb 28
• Chrisopher Stangler @ NCCC thru Feb 27
• Joe Whalen @ Kenan Center thru Feb 8
• Michael Gelen @ Betty's thru Mar 14
• Michael Mulley @ Queen City Gallery thru Feb 26

"And while the creators of Lost have assured viewers for much of the last five years that yes, they know the answers to those questions, they acknowledge that they do not yet know exactly how the series will come to a close. The final episodes have not yet been written, much less filmed."

NY Times

"Deitch has always reveled in the idea that there's no difference between art, pop culture, life, fun and high production. Over the years he's shown high art, low art, a fair share of pure crap, graffiti and a certain amount of borderline porn. He's staged fashion shows, produced music and rebuilt whole buildings inside his usually immense plain exhibition spaces. When he's made money and when he hasn't, he's always run his galleries as if they were Kunsthalle carnivals."

artnet Saltz

"What does the Bauhaus mean to us, today?"

artnet Ben Davis

“Our nation had gone through an awful lot — the Vietnam War, civil rights, Watergate — yet the textbooks offered the same fundamental nationalist glorification of country. I got the sense that people were hungry for a different, more honest take.”

NY Times obit

"As a young man, Mr. Salinger yearned ardently for just this kind of attention. He bragged in college about his literary talent and ambitions, and wrote swaggering letters to Whit Burnett, the editor of Story magazine. But success, once it arrived, paled quickly for him."

NY Times obit

I've read a truckload of literary history in my life, but JD Salinger never really entered my personal radar, let alone my head or my heart. Faulkner did. Bukowski did. Even Ross MacDonald did. But when I was young and impressionable and probably filled with the same proportion of self-centered snottiness as any young man, I never even made it half way through The Catcher In The Rye. I knew I was supposed to somehow identify with the book's youthful eternal angst, but I kind of thought Holden Caufield was an asshole and quickly lost interest. It did not make me pine for more work from the same author. None of which is intended as any kind of indictment or commentary on the literary worth of Salinger's body of work. I'm just saying.

“By any standards, Mr. Wild has one of the great piano techniques of the 20th century, and with it a rich, sonorous tone.”

NY Times obit

For Your Netflix Queue...

(190, dir. Don Shebib) This is a tip geared more toward my American friends, as many Canadians will not only know this iconic film well but also its iconic SCTV parody. It's a stellar example of high-grade low budget filmmaking, with solid performances, great direction, wonderful music from the era, and the enchanting tale of two ordinary joes from Nova Scotia who head to the big smoke of Toronto to fulfill their expansive, ill-defined dreams only to be crushed by reality. And visually, it's a spectacular time capsule of 1970s Canada, shot in an array of great locations, including Yonge Street and its seminal store for many years, Sam The Record Man. Great stuff.

Something I listened to this week...

(1970, 2008) THE DOORS • LIVE PITTSBURGH CIVIC ARENA MAY 2, 1970.
Ho-ly shit. Surely there's a half-assed excuse why this recording remained unreleased, particularly given the somewhat mediocre Doors live albums released in its stead. If you're of my generation or older, you have a long history with The Doors, whether you want to or not. By the late 70s, they had become an ironclad staple of FM radioplay and to call their music ubiquitous somewhat misses the mark. I've heard all their music and love much of it, but I never actually realized they were THIS good. Recorded in a time before Jim Morrison fell victim to his own excesses, this document only makes Morrison's passing that much more regrettable. His vocal performance here is tremendous and utterly on point, even when adding improvised lyrics. Meanwhile, the band is locked into a superfunky groove throughout, everything snapping and crackling and slicing together. Everyone is delivering on every cylinder.

The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created—created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.
— John Schaar