In Defence of Idiocy

A. Watson A student run arts and culture blog for academic compensation. A conflation of personal experience, internet tendencies, alternative endeavors, and cultural criticism.

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Following up on the censorship and removal of Ai Weiwei's Gangnam Style parody video, sculptor Anish Kapoor along with colleagues, friends, artists, and museums have collaborated on this video, "Gangnam Style to Freedom" to demonstrate solidarity and create awareness for artists and expressionists who have been prosecuted for their work. Galleries and museums from around the world have contributed clips to the video, while the majority of it is shot in an unknown gallery space displaying the names of artists who have been prosecuted by law for expressing particular values, critiques, and criticisms in their work. 

The significance of Gangnam Style here has little to do with the original video, and more to do with solidarity through replication. Ai Weiwei's video was removed from the internet within 24 hours by the Chinese government, and Kapoor has used the cultural timeliness of Gangnam Style to replace Ai's video, while commenting on the importance of human rights within the world of arts. 

Read more: I II III

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Reilly Hodgson is an analog photographer living in the Parkdale area of Toronto, Canada. He photographs his peers, landscapes, skateboarding culture, and the coming of age of youth that surround him. He is the co-founder of Blood Of The Young Zine, and the creative director at No Fun Press. He has been featured in many photo shows and publications, most notably he was featured in a fall issue of Color Magazine. 

His work, along with his partner Dimitri Karakostas contributes largely to the zine community in Ontario, and abroad, having recently released Blood Of The Young #100. They work with contributors and friends to release zines and put on photo shows on a regular basis. BOTY has gained an international following that seems to remain overwhelming to Reilly. In an interview with Studio Beat, he says, "I’m a punk kid. I don’t know business worth hell. It’s all self-taught. I’m pretty good at branding because I grew up writing on stuff. Graffiti is a ridiculous work ethic and marketing teacher. Half the things I know about branding and marketing is just graffiti 101."

Check out the BOTY and No Fun Press shops for zines, apparel, and subscriptions.

**Photos from Studio Beat

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Katie on the F train, Coney Island. December, 2011.

Photo by me.

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Tanner atop 538 Johnson Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. May, 2012.

Photos by me.

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Untitled (wax strips and hair) Part of Patricia Ann Alvarado's Untitled (bodily sculptures) series

Alvarado works primarily by integrating pubic hair (often her own) with different types of media in an effort to challenge traditional notions of gender performance and beauty construction. Previously she has added her own pubic hair to images from Playboy magazine titling the series, "There!". Another series of hers titled "Lol, Gurl Wut R U Hiding" is comprised of multiple self portraits that use everyday items to cover the artist's facial birthmark. Her current series, "I thought you said you liked long hair…" uses close-up photography of unshaven or unwaxed body hair. 

Her work shows consistency and innovation across each project, maintaining an explicit commentary on the regulation of women's bodies through socially constructed ideologies.

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Gypsy covering Archers of Loaf-Web In Front at the Title Fight record release show in Warrior Run, PA.

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Title Fight-Head In The Ceiling Fan/Numb But I Still Feel It

Last month, some friends and I made the trip down to Wilkes-Barre, Pa and later, Philadelphia for some gigs. We left late Friday morning and drove straight through the Pennsylvanian hills (some of my favourite landscapes on east coast America) until we got to Warrior Run. This town is a tiny, blink-and-you-miss-it kind of place just outside of Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. Title Fight had recently put out their second LP titled "Floral Green" and decided to put on their own record release show at the community fire hall in Warrior Run. 

"Floral Green" is without a doubt an evolution of the band's sound. The first time I heard Title Fight, I wasn't that into them. I thought they were a bit poppy and I was listening to  either shoegaze, or east coast hardcore and west coast punk at the time. The band members are about my age and released their demo in 2003 when they were all between 13 and 15. In 2009 when I told my parents I was camping in Welland (sorry mom), I drove to Long Island for a gig that Title Fight was on. Their fan base was huge, and incredibly energetic, but I still wasn't that into them. It took me until the 2011 release of "Shed", their first LP to really appreciate them. For me, "Shed" was something cohesive and consistent, and it finally worked it's way into heavy rotation on my turntable. Since the 2011 release of "Shed", TF has seemed to focus on the sound that they have which is something that weaves between post-hardcore, early emo, and melodic punk. The duelling vocals of Ned Russin and Jamie Rhoden are merging more than ever on this release, while the tracks are a little less stand-outish and tend to blend across the album. 

What is most significant about TF is what was present at their record release show. The scene around Scranton/Wilkes-Barre is something you don't find too often in alternative music scenes. The record release was held on October 19th, in Warrior Run. Tickets sold out within minutes of the online sale, bringing in fans from multiple realms of alternative music. The locals and members of bands playing the gig helped out with renting the hall, setting up the stage, doing the sound, and organizing parking. It was pretty humbling to be in a venue with more people than the population of the town and hear announcements regarding respecting the neighbourhood and not parking near anyone's home. 

Grey Zine, Gypsy, Tigers Jaw, Foundation, and The Menzingers played the show. Gypsy covered Archers of Loaf, and Title Fight covered The Misfits for halloween. The lineup had a pretty good mix of bands allowing the audience to watch a few bands, and hangout intermittently picking who they wanted to watch. People always ask me why I drive so far for a concert that costs less than my hourly wages, or how I have friends in different cities. It's hard and often impossible to explain to someone I might call a "normie" what alternative subculture is like. It's a community that's worth crossing borders for, and in the long run, much more affordable than heading to nearby Toronto for a $150 concert that looks more like cirque du soleil than musicianship.

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Hopefully I can make it to Christian Marcklay's "The Clock" exhibit before it closes in Toronto. I'll leave you with this clip, and story from the New Yorker about the process and background of this project. Expect some form of response if I make it to the Powerplant.

[bloodoftheyoung]

Sure & Faust

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Today's class reminded me that not only are my peers generally uninformed as to what a zine is, but also that there is a possibility they may hold some interest in zine culture once informed. 

A zine most often appears in print form and is an ephemeral piece of literature, photography, art, dialogue, or a combination of all. They are most prominent in alternative arts and music based scenes, and act as a source of information, review, and display. Zines essentially have no rules in regards to size, production, or content. They are most commonly printed on full, half, or quarter sized printer paper, assembled with DIY ethics. They are circulated by hand, or through small (often radical) book and info shops, as well as online shops such as Etsy or Bigcartel. 

I wouldn't suggest that zine makers are "rock critics" as the article suggested, but rather cultural arbiters to some degree. A zine-maker makes a conscious decision on how to write, layout, and distribute their material, which allows the audience to gain an authentic sense of the author's interests, opinions, and values. The temporal quality of zines gives the writer an opportunity to grow within their authorial voice, and make shifts in the content. 

You can find music fanzines, along with a collection of activist or political zines at the OPIRG library on campus. The library also has some material on zines, and zine making. 

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An Open Letter to Idiots Everywhere

Your small town mentality has fashioned you into an irksome presence in the room. Your unabating use of oppressive language is what keeps me from quitting smoking. I understand that you are comfortable being exactly who you are, and I commend you for being so far on the periphery of understanding that who you are, is everything that is wrong with our social world. It takes a lot of sincere disinterest in the world to act the way you do, and I am dazzled by your ability to swallow the commodification of everyday life without an ounce of criticism. 

Your sheer mockery of the arts--theatre, music, film, design, painting & drawing, illustration--is welcomed with open arms; everything needs a little criticism. Although it is your absolutely performative disgust in the world outside of the mainstream that has me wanting to bash my head against a wall.

I've done a little self-reflexive thinking, and I'm going to take a note from Leah Dieterich, and thank you. It is experiences with idiots everywhere that allow me to interact with my peers on a more critical and engaging level. Your mocking words have fostered a new appreciation for living outside of the nullified, lackluster world of mainstream media that you live in. They are reminders that people like you really exist, and really survive on insipid, dichotomous thinking that is so, so disgusting to me. 

You've made it clear that people like you are alive. You sit in the middle ground between right-wing lunatics who are such grandiose idiots that they become admirable, and basic, tolerable normies. You appear to be a normie in your checked button up and mall jeans, although your inability to at least silently accept that culture exists has me rolling in my own haughtiness. Thank you for allowing me to be forever glad to be a part of what I am, and for inciting me to further my trajectory towards "art faggotry". Beware, that is not a direct quote because your callow approach to language would never provide you the ability to change the usage of a noun and alter the properties from "fag" to "faggotry".

Don't change anything about your cultural illiteracy, it makes being an "art fag" so much more fun. 

Sincerely, 

A. Watson

**Disclaimer: any views expressed in this letter are the result of the attitudes of the general population of youth, not a direct attack to one particular person.

[newyorker]

Up and down the East Coast, offices are closing ahead of Hurricane Sandy, and millions of workers are preparing to pretend to work from home. If you’re one of them, let us distract you with this rainy-day reading list. A few of these articles are hurricane-related; others just perfect for...

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Spend your night in with Hurricane Sandy and some great reads from the New Yorker archives. 

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At midnight on October 25th, Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei posted a parody video of k-pop hit "Gangnam Style" titled grass mud horse, a Chinese meme that sounds similar to "fuck your mother". Although Korean singer Psy's song and video are already pieces of cultural criticism, Ai's is a different type. Shot with his friends while on house arrest, the artist wears hot pink and waves around handcuffs while doing the famed giddy-up style dance. Ai's video is one of many acts seeking transparency with the Chinese government who implements strict censorship regulations. Ai's video was removed shortly after its release, to be united with a history of the artist's work removed or destroyed by the Chinese government under censorship law. 

Read more here: I II III IV

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Tampa's genre-bending  Merchandise played Soybomb HQ in downtown Toronto on September 22. SBHQ is not a full-time venue, as it is a residential space, although it does host a fair amount of music events. A local chapter of Food Not Bombs cooks here every Sunday before serving in Allan Gardens. The space is also home to rooftop patio/garden, and a skateboard ramp which doubles as a stage. The bands play in the middle, most concave part of the ramp allowing the audience to cram in around them, as well as observe from the metal coping, normally used to drop in from. The line-up was all local, and unfortunately I missed the first two bands walking in as Mausoleum were setting up. I had never seen them before, but according to my peers, they have a fanbase of primarily Pitchfork readers. After they finished, the space filled up to the unpredictable point of any night at SBHQ where audience members stand at their threshold of the vert and eventually start slipping into a domino effect that gains force with every spilled beer. 

From what I remember, they played everything off their latest release, Children of Desire, and other tracks from their previous releases: Es Muerte, Terminal Jagger Jane’s Addiction Boxset, Merchandise, Gone Are The Silk Gardens of Youth, and Strange Songs (In The Dark). Carson Cox's beguiling voice over their gloomy tone and often poppy beats had the room dancing with a sense of urgency. The crowd confined the three members into a space smaller than the back of a tour van, propelling Cox to climb atop their gear to continue the set as an exhibitionist in the shadows of the holiday lights lining the skate ramp. I won't speak for the audience when I say that the performance was highly ephemeral. Their latest release, to me was something that I always listened to in it's entirety, multiple times a week since it's leak. It was something that remained the backdrop of my commutes on foot, by transit, car, or flight. The tune to my mid-afternoon summertime lethargy. The band's live set engages with the audience giving off an air of nostalgia for early shoegazers and "the scene that celebrates itself". As they have stated in interviews with Pitchfork, the record is not transferrable to live music, and their sets will never fully resemble what they have recorded. They hold an authentic sentiment towards writing, recording, and playing, which makes their live sets highly temporal.

The Spring 2012 release of Children of Desire (Katorga Works) was unique to many. The trio hail from notable punk and hardcore projects in the Tampa area and are members of the DIY scene in Florida. Playing basements, storage units, and lofts is regular practice for them, although with this release they quickly gained popularity and are selling out large venues. The tour that made it to Toronto was stopping at a mix of DIY and corporate spaces, sometimes both in the same city.

Children of Desire was written with inspiration from multiple late 80's/early 90's post-punk, shoegaze, and noise pop groups such as The Smiths, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and My Bloody Valentine. The six track LP comes with a small, binded story made up of multiple journal entries that the lyrics are littered throughout. The title of this small piece of literature reads "Desire in the Mouth of Dogs, by one W. Marchendese". Interviewers and reviewers have allured to this text as part of an experience that the record offers to fans, leaving digital listeners with a portion of the composed experience. Cox says in an interview with Pitchfork that, "[the band does] everything because of a premonition, because of the energy, and it's all one idea."

The group's approach towards their music works to create an experience that is larger than simply notes and lyrics, but one that has listeners associating particular experiences with each track, or release. 

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Blogroll

After today's class, and the general uncertainty the group has expressed about the blogosphere, I've decided to compile a blogroll containing some blogs that I try to keep on track with. I've tried to organize them in an accessible manner, so bear with me. 

Fashion

http://atlantic-pacific.blogspot.ca/

http://www.acontinuouslean.com/

http://jakandjil.com/

http://www.thestylerookie.com/

http://www.thesartorialist.com/

http://www.torontostreetfashion.com/

Food and Decor

http://www.howsweeteats.com/

http://sweetpaul.typepad.com/

http://www.barefootandfrolicking.com/

http://blog.travelchannel.com/anthony-bourdain/

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/

http://www.designsponge.com/

Design and Type

http://uppercasemagazine.com/blog/

http://www.underconsideration.com/fpo/

http://jessicahische.is/thinkingthoughts/

http://typographica.org/

http://www.swiss-miss.com/

Arts and Culture (Writing)

http://ageofsand.com/

http://takimag.com/

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/

http://scott-timberg.blogspot.ca/

http://www.blogto.com/

http://laughingsquid.com/

http://www.artfagcity.com/

http://www.booooooom.com/

http://www.woostercollective.com/

http://ocularoctopus.com/

http://www.steamthing.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/arts/index.html

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/

Literature

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/tendency

http://www.newyorker.com/

http://www.tnr.com/

http://www.slushpile.net/

http://www.publishersweekly.com/

http://www.thevalve.org/

Music & Film

http://www.criterion.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/

http://pitchfork.com/

http://www.chartattack.com/

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Here are two of my favourite books on writing. Stephen King's On Writing; A Memoir of The Craft leads the reader through his efforts in capturing the eye of publishing companies, while also offering advice to writers using strong references to the concise style guide, The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White. I read this in two sittings, getting up only once the first day to buy cigarettes and ginger ale because I was so involved in the text that the written imagery of King at his desk drinking a ginger ale and smoking, had me immediately leap from my chair and head to the store.The Elements of Style is a timeless, pocket-sized necessity for readers, writers, and students alike. With five chapters that cover: "elementary rules of usage", "elementary principles of composition", "a few matters of form", "words and expressions commonly misused", and "an approach to style", this volume includes wise advice necessary for creating readable writing in a manageable size.

Some other references that are dear to me are:

David Foster Wallace's Tense Present; Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage

Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips

Bryan A. Garner's Modern American Usage/Vice Interview

Merriam Webster's Word of the Day

**Disclaimer: all this talk of grammar and usage does not make me a grammarian or a SNOOT (see DFW's Tense Present) by any means, I simply have an interest in the function of discourse and rhetoric, how language twists and turns through time and space, and how we use it with confidence and shame every day. 

-A