Another Lo had the same idea!

A busy week calls for more links, and today, there are plenty of good ones!

• Kurt Vonnegut on teaching creative writing (via MaudNewton.com).
• Doug Harvey visits two Southern California monuments: the new Getty Villa and the Regan Library.
• Dana Stevens reviews "The Tenants" with surprising seroiusness.
• The BHL backlash continues... (via TheMorningNews.org)
• Nikki Finke, going in for the nasty (and unimportant) punches. (Thanks, Defamer!)
• Reflections on The Ambassador Hotel, recent victim to the wrecking ball.
• And, Bush's favorite SOTU words.

Links for Wednesday

1. Though I am still curious about what breeds insanity in the postal service working environment, this was too cute not to link (via MaudNewton.com).
2. Speaking of "par avion", a gallery of Vintage Travel Labels. (via ThingsMagazine.net)
3. An interview with Shea Zellwegger, outsider logician.
4. Harry the Brave. (via DrudgeReport.com)
5. Hot Mama (on Swapatorium)
6. And if you haven't read Garrison Keillor's wonderful invective, "On the Road Avec H. Levy", scooch on over there now! Justified bashing also available at the Boston Globe. Both c/o Arts and Letters Daily.

Grappling with Hirschhorn

Jerry Salz recently wrote about Thomas Hirschhorn's new show at Barbara Gladstone. Since I live in L.A., I don't think I'll get the chance to see it any time soon, but I did get to visit "Utopia, Utopia = One World, One War, One Army, One Dress" while I was in Boston over new year's. The show, comprehensive as the examples of camoflauge were, was tiring. Hirschhorn brings up a good point in the show's introductory video, though: isn't it weird that camoflauge is both militant uniform and a sometimes-trendy fabric. And that's what sets the tone for the rest of your tour. I really loved the video, and the dollhouses, and the Barbie dolls doing splits in those dollhouses. And I love it when he tries to tape over un-tape-able places and inserts those cancerous-looking protrusions. They're really interesting aesthetic cues that clue us into the open-ness of his work; that great, fresh, unfinished quality about it, and his interest in the abject. But, I still hunger for something as enveloping as "Cavemanman".

And I'm beginning to believe that he'll never really top "Cavemanman". (Michael Kimmelman's review certainly does justice to the show.) It was the perfect forum for him to be excessive with aluminum foil, with flourescent lights, with gobs of packing tape and cardboard. It was so great because the entire environment was transformed such that you believed the world he was describing--its endlessness, its hopelessness--and you wanted to get a better sense of what a dude in an aluminum cave would want to start thinking about in his isolation. Plus, the different caves were so much fun to wander around in and out of. When I went, there were kids playing in the little alcoves, really delighting in this strange amusement -- and it proved that great contemporary art can be entertaining for everyone, and especially fruitful if you wanted to figure out how foil-covered mannequins and gigantic replicas of volumes of Heidegger and Foucault could coexist in the same space. It changed the way I looked at art entirely, for all its subversiveness, and for all its ridiculous yet well-thought out aesthetics.

Hirschhorn's most recent taxonomies are interesting, but they don't have that same jolt. It's not so much because we've seen what he's done before (because we certainly haven't), but rather something else: these current jabs at the real world don't feel quite so successful for me because he's confronting a present condition, not extracting us from it. What I loved most about Cavemanman was the fact that Hirschhorn created an environment/work/tiny amusement park that was historical, transformative, gritty, and slapdash. It was basically the ultimate art funland, even though it was deviously serious. It raised my expectations for what installation could be. I suppose, in a way, you could say that Hirschhorn made his own bed, and the beds for all the other people who try to create environments in their work, and try to make them smart and interesting and fun all at the same time. And even though it makes it harder, for that, he's got to be one of the most pivotal figures of art in the early 21st century.

The Noms

Oh, George Clooney! You rascal!

Mr. Clooney added humorously that he was surprised that these were his first
nominations: "I was a little disappointed I didn't win for best actor in a
batsuit with nipples," he said referring to his much-mocked performance in
"Batman & Robin." " But I needed a specific category." (via NYTimes.com)

I really do think Clooney's a hugely strange dork with one of the most handsome faces in the world...

Here is the full list of nominations and some commentary from Tim O'Neil via TheEnvelope.com. I'm interested in how things in the animated motion picture category will shake down (Miyazaki is up against Wallace and Gromit), and am hoping -- very much -- that we'll get to see Ang Lee be adorable and grateful on the Oscar podium. Also, thank goodness "The Squid and the Whale" got the nomination for original screenplay. But too bad Jeff Daniels* didn't get a nod; he was so deliciously pretentious and awful in it... More thoughts to come...

*Thanks, Liz!

The Right-iest Day of My Life. (Plus, Links)

Yesterday, friends and I trekked over to the Crystal Cathedral (home to "The Hour of Power") and the Nixon Library and Birthplace. This amounted to the most conservative day of my life, but it was really interesting to see the business of religion in full form (we went to a service!), as well as the full story of the tainted legacy that is Richard Nixon's.

I find it absolutely fascinating that a man who is preaching to people through the cathode rays of a television set can justify spending money on architectural monuments by great architects. The first indication that Schuller had a palatable taste for architecture was Richard Neutra's Drive-In Church in 1962. The entirely original concept was that some parishioners would sit in pews inside the church walls, and some would drive their cars up to the parking lot, and Schuller would stroll and preach between the indoor podium and the outdoor balcony. [Sylvia Lavin's article "Richard Neutra and the Psychology of the American Spectator" does this much more justice than I ever could here...] He also employed Neutra to build the Tower of Hope, campanile and offices, which, in person, has a quality of regal simplicity. Then, later on, in 1980, Philip Johnson lent his expertise to build the Crystal Cathedral. And in 2004, Richard Meier's elaborate, Getty-esque Center for Possibility Thinking was unveiled. Pretty amazing. Also, as I was informed this weekend, the legacy of the televised Schullers continued with a new generation on MTV's "Laguna Beach: The Real O.C." (Season 1).

The Nixon Library and Birthplace was also really interesting. Weirdly, the grounds have a full-scale replica of the White House East Room, in addition to the main museum and the original kit-model house in which Nixon was born. While there is a great deal of bias (especially the Watergate exhibit), to be sure, but it was really interesting to see evidence of the different parts of Nixon's life -- from his and Pat Nixon's only wedding picture to his failed California gubernatorial bid; from the first presidential visit to China to the speech he would have given if Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had found themselves stranded on the moon. And, of course, Pat's gowns are a treat too, no matter if you side red or blue.

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On a completely unrelated note (and back in my religious and political comfort zones), here are some links for a lazy Monday:

• The Bear is a perpetual favorite.
• Things Magazine links to an interesting deal: Buy the house, and they'll throw in the Ferari for free!
• I've been thinking a lot about Victoria Morton recently.
• And, more seriously: John Carey's book on the personal experience of art, and why literature is art's most supreme form. (Thank you, Arts and Letters Daily.)