Special Offer, A Guaranteed Personality
February 9, 2009 at 12:57pm | In culture, psychology | 2 CommentsTags: astrology, atheism, carl jung's ghost, conceptual art, intp, myers-briggs, personality crisis
Something I’ve been pondering alot lately: how can I reconcile a genuine belief in astrology with my frankly-quite-fanatical atheism? I don’t necessarily want to believe in astrology, but I relate SO, SO strongly to being a Scorpio. It says nearly everything there is to know about me. I’m dating a Pisces who is constantly on my case about how secretive I am and all I can say is, I’m doing the best I can, man! I am a Scorpio: totally intense bitch, secret keeper, loyal yet vindictive, sometimes charming when I wanna be. Rep my fellow water signs and think Geminis are the worst kind of two-faced jerks.
Everything astrology doesn’t say, my Myers-Briggs personality profile (INTP) does:
- Highest in career dissatisfaction
- Least likely to believe in a higher spiritual power
- Lower grades than would be predicted from aptitude scores
- Difficult to get to know well
- Independent/creative/eccentric
- Obsession with “logical correctness”
- Find it extremely difficult to deal with those perceived as less intelligent than themselves
Maybe I am attracted to these systems in the same way some people are attracted to religious belief: as a way to avoid taking responsibility. In this case, responsibility for some of the darker parts of my own personality, the things I think but don’t say out loud because I know how much of an asshole I’d sound like. The secrets spelled out in my Myers-Briggs typography for everyone to see. Like the ghost of Carl Jung is staring into the very depths of my soul or some shit.
I’ve contended for the past several years that February is the dirtiest fucker of a (thankfully, short) month there is. To make February ‘09 more tolerable for myself, I’ve decided to take zero responsibility for my own actions these 28 days! I’m having my astrology.com horoscope texted to me each morning and living entirely according to what it says. “Taking steps to improve my life” one day, “going with the flow” the next. Whatever, it’s conceptual art? I’ll let you know how it went at the end of the month!
Dear reader, what’s your sign????
Punk’s Not Dead
January 20, 2009 at 2:38pm | In culture, design, politics | Leave a CommentTags: atheism, barack obama, t-shirt design, up the punx
I think my favorite part of today was when PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA gave a shoutout to the “non-believers” and everybody in da club cheered! Unironically proud to be an American again this afternoon.
We’re in the money
January 9, 2009 at 12:36pm | In culture, film, sociology | Leave a CommentTags: 2009, awards, fashion, Hollywood, recession
An article in the New York Times film section asks an interesting question – in light of the deepening recession (today, the Times reported that unemployment has hit a 16-year-high at 7.2%), how should Hollywood present itself in the upcoming awards season? The article cites Hollywood’s “long if not proud history of tone-deaf behavior” in response to national crises – references to Marie Antoinette abound. Opinions (of network executives, fashion designers and pop-culture pundits) differ as to whether the glitz and glamour of the typical Hollywood awards show will soothe or enrage the cash-strapped viewing public. For the time being, at least, Hollywood certainly isn’t pulling out any stops, attempting to reinvigorate flagging awards-show ratings (and, yes – the swag is back, too).
What the article overlooks, however, is that the birth of Hollywood glamour came out of the Great Depression. The Roaring ’20s laid the groundwork, but the Golden Age of Hollywood filmmaking was born out of the worst economic conditions. The Depression marked the highest moment for the star and studio systems, the growth of sound and the birth of color. The 1930s gave us Marlene Dietrich, Claudette Colbert, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo and Katharine Hepburn – as well as the rise of the Western, the musical, the period piece and the horror film. Even Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz – perhaps the two most iconic films of Hollywood spectacle – both came out in 1939, at the tail end of the Depression. With cinema well past the 100-year-mark, maybe this recession will give Hollywood an impetus to go back to the well-crafted spectacle on which it was built. Could the economic crisis take us all back to the era of Busby Berkeley?
Up next – Gold Diggers of 2009. It certainly wouldn’t be the first Hollywood remake this year, or the last. Bring on the good old days!
Uncreative Advertising
November 13, 2008 at 4:31pm | In culture, literature, video | Leave a CommentWho knew that Charles Bernstein starred in a series of Yellow Pages ads with Jon Lovitz? What could those ad executives have been thinking? I guess they wanted to secure Yellow Pages as the phonebook-of-choice for the contemporary avant-garde writing set.
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BFFs forever!!
Collect Yourself
November 10, 2008 at 5:49pm | In art, culture, internet | Leave a CommentTags: collections, copy gallery, cults of personality, first friday throwdown, h8in
This month, Copy Gallery in Philadelphia presented an exhibition of personal collections of objects “gleaned from the darkest dustiest corners of artists from Philadelphia and New York.” The show, curated by Luren Jenison, featured Family Circus books belonging to Andrew Jeffrey Wright, squeaky toys from Adam Wallacavage and ski masks from Ben Peterson, among other things.
Writing on the show in Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof’s artblog, Brandon Joyce (of the Philadelphia Institute for Advanced Study) characterizes it as “gathered from the private caches of various New York and Philadelphia obsessives.” He goes on to say that “the nice thing about the Collections Show is that it allows us to see the social utility of our imbalanced fascinations. It welcomes obsession; rather than the proportional, reasonable, and loveless way in which we usually hoard our everyday artifacts.”
In this context, “New York and Philadelphia obsessives” clearly comes to stand for “various well-known personalities of the Philadelphia contemporary art scene.” Rather than really “welcoming obsession” and demonstrating “social utility,” the show illustrates the cult of personality that rules the art world in Philadelphia (or, I’d presume, any art scene, anywhere). These collections are not the points of interest in and of themselves – it is the collectors that are (as always) on display. How, for example, can the viewer account for K-fai Steele’s collection of office stationary “gathered from her temp jobs in New York from 2004-2007″ (below) without seeing it as, not a demonstration of personal obsession, but a work of art meant to illustrate the artist’s past employment struggles?
If, as Joyce writes, the desire to collect on display this month at Copy Gallery is really “contingent, weird, and so specific that it seems to land the collector somewhere on the Aspberger’s spectrum,” for the show to really represent the mind of the obsessive collector, it wouldn’t need to justify a sense of artistic value with collections from the hands of established or up-and-coming local artists.
Missing Everything
May 27, 2008 at 2:59pm | In art, culture, photography | Leave a CommentTags: english literature tropes, man vs nature
“When I shoot, I subtract things,” New York-based photographer Philip Toledano writes. “What if I went to an environment that was missing everything. Instead of subtracting, I would have to add. So I went to the Arctic Circle.” Mr. Toledano’s images of the Arctic Circle contrast nicely with his photographs of recently-abandoned, bankrupt American offices. He dwarfs human and arboreal figures in the landscape of the Arctic, while pencils, books, newspaper clippings, and other ephemera loom large in his images of the modern built environment. No matter what we’d like to think — Mr. Toledano seems to say — we are an afterthought in the greater scope of our world. Or, as one of my high-school English teachers might have put it, the “Man vs. Nature” battle is refreshingly stacked against us.
Via Urban Planning Blog.
Screw Photoshop
May 16, 2008 at 10:48am | In art, culture, design | 1 Comment…wasn’t it better when film posters featured lovingly detailed, hand-drawn images of celebrities?
Where has all the good design gone?
April 28, 2008 at 8:06pm | In art, culture, design, history, illustration, photography | Leave a CommentIf you, like me, recently attended your last day of college EVER and are now desperately in need of some inspiration to get you through finals and help you finish that children’s book you’re supposed to be writing, feast your eyes on these gorgeous babies (courtesy of the National Magazine Cover Archive).
Strange Moments
April 17, 2008 at 10:56am | In art, culture, photography | Leave a CommentTags: matt stuart, street photography, talking heads
Matt Stuart has an amazing eye, and uses it to take pictures of small, strange moments on London streets. As the bio on his website puts it, he’s “not sure which came first, being nosey or an interest in ’street photography.’” Street photography often walks a dangerous line between art and exploitation. Stuart’s images, however, are totally magical and feel imbued with an appreciation for the deep weirdness of human beings and everyday lives. Is it just me, or are these photos sort of the visual manifestation of the Talking Heads’ songs? David Byrne solo, at least.
Via It’s Nice That.
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