Chicago: Become Familiar with its Distinctive Neighborhoods

Colette, *what* exactly have you been banging on about? Wanting to dance?

How much of that do you take off at work, Colette?

Day job only, natch.

1. I would probsibly come to a DJ thing.

2. I have been to Monks and it is fine.

3. I love eggs.

And yeah, Liz is pretty cool. We were never close in high school (she was a year above me), but we had a few mutual friends and so I hung out with her a bit. (I remember going to see Ed Wood with her and some other people and dining at Fuddrucker's beforehand. Also her defending Counting Crows in the car on the way there and when I said I liked the song "Anna Begins," she thought I was making fun of her.) Anyway, we fell out of touch, as people do, and then somehow we discovered in early 2005 that we were living a block away from each other, so I went to a Memorial Day party she had, she came to see my band a couple times, I cat-sat for her once, and that's about it. I like her husband, too.

I also remember being in awe of her smarts in high school, too. She wrote an article for the newspaper that used the word "espouse" and a short story for the literary magazine with a title in Latin (NB: our school district didn't offer Latin) (and yes, I'm aware that I used a Latin abbreviation to point that out).

i take off very little at work-- only the hoody at the moment, and coat obviously. it's not a very warm office, and i'm someone that's almost always cold.

i've been telling everyone how much fun it is that london ILX does poptimism once a month, which is hiring out the upstairs of a bar, playing great fun music that doesn't get played elsewhere typically, and dancing in a relaxed environment.

xpost-- i haven't met her husband yet, but look forward to it. it's funny because i've only met her IRL once i think, but have talked online quite a bit.

Oh, then that's almost exactly what this would be. If you can get people to dance, that is. When Nick and I did it a year and a half ago, it was after a C4n4sta show, so the only people that were there were people that had already come to the show and were just looking to extend their night a little while, so they hadn't come with the express purpose of dancing. But there were a few people that shook their tailfeathers, so to speak.

Oh yikes, I'd die in that many layers all day. For one thing I'd be a stuffed sausage, and none of my jeans are even CLOSE to roomy enough to get another layer underneath. For another, I'd overheat as soon as I entered a building. I'm amazed you can do it!

xp Like when P@t L0b0yk0 requested "Erotic City."

i think it would be fun to do some djing again. though i didn't do a great job last time, my choices were too obscure and i worried too much about the segues.

Laurel in that many layers:

http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/ap/a/a181095.jpg

I want to play something from the new Kylie Minogue album.

"Wow" or "Heart Beats Rock."

i haven't heard anything from her new album, but i think i might like it from what i read. and kylie is always good for getting people to dance!

laurel, i look a bit like that as well, but i don't like tight jeans so i can fit the layers under a couple pair i have (not all, which does limit choices in winter)

Would you be DJ Se@worthy?

re: Jesse's quest, expanding on what I wrote yesterday: The Third Coast Cafe dates back to the 1930s. At the time it opened, it was on the same block as Poetry magazine when they were publishing "The Waste Land" and such, and Hemingway lived in an attic room a few doors down as well. It still has some of that feel of a sophisticated city place, more in an intellectual sense than a money one. (That's one of the things I like about Toronto -- the heart of the city is still the heart of the new culture as well.) When I lived above it for a few years, across the street was the Three Arts Club, which housed young poetesses and musicians and sculptors, and they would come into the cafe and hang out and smoke, as well as old couples and law students from Loyola and Northwestern. So I'd again recommend it.

The topic ofthis article (about the guy who did the photographs that Richard Prince wholly appropriated and sold for gajillions) really gets my goat. Best quote (from the photographer whose photographs were photographed by Prince and are now, unattributed, on posters and in museums): "If I italicized ‘Moby-Dick,’ then would it be my book? I don’t know. But I don’t think so.”

i have always wanted to go to monk's, ever since i first moved here and used to ride the green line into the loop everyday. also, is there a thirsty thursday afoot? i'd be down for a couple but i need to get back relatively early so i can get carrots and celery for a beef stew i'm making tonight. i'm going to put it in the crockpot and let it cook overnight. when i get home from work tomorrow i'm going to hit the polish bakery across from tuman's and get some crusty chewey bread and gorge myself on stew.

i've been telling everyone how much fun it is that london ILX does poptimism once a month, which is hiring out the upstairs of a bar, playing great fun music that doesn't get played elsewhere typically, and dancing in a relaxed environment.

substitute "drinking" for "dancing" and you have wednesday's upstairs at delilah's.

I would go to a bar tonight after work if peeps be wanting to go. I went to that Old Timers place earlier in the summer, it was definitely way cheap. I'd also go to a DJ night. I know someone who used to DJ at Rod@n, but he told me the boss yelled at him one night when he played Circle (my friend said it was a krauty number that he thought had enough groove to be ok), and so my friend got pissed and quit doing it.

kevin, dancing is the key part-- it's what keeps you young!

I don't like dancing.

Eric- how did you wind up living in Gold Coast?

What about that topic gets your goat, Eazy? I kind of like Prince, but I know what Peter Schjeldahl means when he describes him as the "quintessential artist in his generation" and not in a good way (as though his impulses toward postmodernism are superficial).

Richard Prince, that is. Not the Purple One.

Today I hate:
* cars that need repairs
* and cost me money I don't have

Thank you that is all.

*Whiskers on kittens
*Stank purple mittens

^^^i read this like you were talking about Prince the musician, and it still sort of makes sense (except for the "not in a good way" part)

xxxpost

*Acerbic young women
*Wearing false eyelashes

Richard Prince's work is what bugs me about the article. The images he uses are visually arresting because a photographer, albeit on a commercial assignment, made it visually arresting. Somehow a photograph of a photograph seems more of a sham than what Warhol and Koons have done, and the idea that this other uncredited and unpaid photographer's arresting image is on banners all around the Guggenheim is just infuriating -- exactly like having someone same 'nasta or the FFs and have that unpaid "hook" be a top-10 hit earning millions for the "musician" who "made" it.

I rented a studio in the Gold Coast from 2002-2005, when I was working in the Loop and working a second job (the one I still do) as well as arty projects -- made sense to have a short commute, and it was at a time when rents were more reasonable (first two years they offered me a free months' rent to take the place).

I checked back with that building, and the rent is crazy now, $950 for a studio.

(like 'having someone sample 'nasta..., that should read)

I'm antsy. I've ants in my pants.

You don't say.

is that for a studio that you can live in or just a practice space type place?

http://cdbaby.name/g/u/gunnarmadsen01.jpg

Wouldn't it be fun to go outside and frolic in the snow?

Yes.

Well, it wasn't until reading that article that I realized that the Marlboro Man photos were taken by a living photographer that prided himself on his art. I'd always assumed, not having seen them in person, that they were from old 1960s print ads where the photographer thought nothing of his assignment and, at any rate, was likely dead. I mean, I guess Prince's work sort of queries the nature of commercial vs. fine art and anonymity vs. fame, which is interesting.

Your example of the unpaid hook in a top 10 hit is not quite analogous unless the artist who appropriated the hook was using it to make an artistic or intellectual statement. I agree that it would suck to be the dude who took the original photo and hear people talking about "that great Richard Prince photo," but part of what Prince is heralded for is not simply the beauty of the image itself but the theoretical subtext.

where the photographer thought nothing of his assignment

I recognize that this is a big assumption and probably a prejudice.

Is money the problem here? What if Prince took the photos, exhibited them, but chose not to sell them? What if Prince included Jim Krantz's name on the description next to the exhibited artwork? What if Prince sold them and gave Krantz half of the proceeds?

The thing is, the two images reproduced in the Times are really visually arresting and beautiful, compositionally. They were carefully staged, with a really talented eye (as the article says, the photographer studied with Ansel Adams). The photographer (or at least the agency creating the Marlboro ads) was definitely aware of creating iconic images; I wouldn't assume that he did so naively.

I think it's the credit as much as the money and the recognition: that Krantz's images are on banners on Fifth Avenue and on posters and on display in this museum, but somehow his photograph is not his own.

I had a friend steal a story of mine to make a screenplay of it, saying that ideas are just "in the air" for the taking. I see what he's saying, but I also think that's the point of view of someone who doesn't have many original ideas; I think Prince is appropriating this other guy's talent.

(different topic: Collete, it was studio with an unobstructed 7th floor view, a rooftop deck, and decent enough closet space, and bookshelves built into one wall. Not huge, but live-able. I loved that place, actually. Paid about $800/mo at the time, which made sense with the two jobs and getting to have a 10-minute commute to work and to live in the heart of the city. (This is how I spend my money instead of buying much of value, if you guys haven't figured that out already.))

xp I mean, I sort of read the work as an indictment of the art world and, by extension, himself, as a participant in the art world: like, "as soon as I remove the Marlboro logo, suddenly this is worth thousands of dollars, just because of who I am?"

but I also think that's the point of view of someone who doesn't have many original ideas

What about DJs who do remixes of other people's records? Would you say that they don't have many original ideas? I'm being deliberately provocative, but still.

djs who do remixes generally change the song they are remixing in some way, they don't just release the same song unmodified under their own name with no credit given to the original artist

xp Or is the difference there that permission is usually sought before said remix is released commercially?

Well, someone who is adapting a short story into a screenplay is also necessarily changing the story, right?

I guess I agree that credit should be given in all of these instances, but I don't want to claim that this kind of appropriation is always artistically bankrupt.

i think what prince is doing, as i understand it, is the definition of pretension, as he's basically saying "oh hi i'm recognizing value and beauty in this advertising that NO ONE ELSE CAN SEE (including the person who created the ad) until i point it out by contextualizing it as artwork."

which is lame

i'm all about recognizing the beauty in the mundane but i think it's more interesting on a personal level than have some dude going "DO YOU SEE? DO YOU SEE?"

having

I think that's only part of it. The problematic relationship between the original and the copy is itself one of the work's themes.

When Mr. Prince started reshooting ads, first prosaic ones of fountain pens and furniture sets and then more traditionally striking ones like those for Marlboro, he said he was trying to get at something he could not get at by creating his own images. He once compared the effect to the funny way that “certain records sound better when someone on the radio station plays them, than when we’re home alone and play the same records ourselves.”

this guy is fucking full of it

I don't see what's wrong with that quote.