The Glencairn Plays

Suddenly in love with Eugene O'Neill. Or The Wooster Group/New York City Players' version of him. Clunky words, cockney accents, spat out mechanically, like acting robots on a metal pipe scaffolding stage. Couplers and tubes. Sea shanties and dreams of solid land.

I always thought O'Neill's plays were a little thin compared to Chechov's or Ibsen's, slightly odd with his characters, these unlikeable people out of pulp novels or something. And the language always seemed contrived and a little embarrassing to me with the Emperor Jones's "sho' has!" and all that. But here they just put that up front, read it out like words on a page, and let the feelings underneath those words just sit there, jabbing you.

A bit in the first play (Moon of the Caribbees?) where a sailor breaks a bottle and the glass gets shattered all over the ship deck and they just walk on it. And it never gets cleaned up and then in the second one (The Long Voyage Home), another lug of a sailor has an accident and dies in agony in his bunk and then they just drag him shirtless over the glass. Those sharp edges seem to be what's underneath there. Forget complex psychology or metaphors. The dull ache of being on a ship or trying to sell alcohol to a bunch of drunken sailors or being the woman tossed around the bar is enough as it is.

Warm and Crusty

Justine Lai, Join or Die,* 2007

I cannot stop looking at these paintings. On the surface of it, the project sounds super-stupid: a 24-year-old recent college grad paints self-portraits of herself getting it on with each President of the United States in chronological order. Yup, that's right. But there's something about them that's kind of amazing. I'm going to try to describe it, but maybe it's just a gut feeling, so feel free to skip these next three parts.

I'm surprised, first of all, because I'm really not into art that's about artists' own sex lives.** Koons's brand of pop being the prime example of why: it feels exhibitionist, flashy, conversation-halting, kind of gross, and not really as interested in exploring meanings as using sex to get a rise. What's most annoying about this is that the rise is temporary. You either put it in the art category, or you don't. If not, you may just say it's pornography, which is fine. We've all got genitals, why not? But even if you do accept it into the hallowed halls of, say, the MCA, it's still, as Koons himself says, just a "ta-da" moment. (Not my thing, art- or porn-wise.)

Lai's works don't work this way. Certainly, her pop roots are strong. There's the initial shock of the subject-matter, the magpie treatment of cultural icons, the play with reality and fantasy. But there's also this other thing, what I think of as the sustainable side of pop. It's like this curious calling-attention-to that touches off more thoughts and resists that Koonsian hardening of the surface.***

For example, John Tyler's strange, blind fingering in her mouth and her fearful one-eyed gaze while grabbing his wrist. What's that about? Or Abe Lincoln's weary teat and wearier face. Of course! Of course, that's what that would look like! As Lai herself writes, it's about the vulnerability and the ambiguity. It becomes more than a game of three-card monte with "the artist," "the presidential likeness," and "the viewer" each cycling through their proper positions. They escape becoming fixed or known entities in the exchange, while the range of emotions on display ensures that the stakes remain fairly high, not jokey. I suspect this will become harder with the more recent presidents, since their roles in our collective sex fantasies are more clearly scripted. The first 18, though, are really impressive.

Justine Lai, Join or Die, 2008

To what else does this post's title refer? Why, homemade bread, of course. I've got a batch of this 20-hour creature rising and bubbling by the radiator right now. Should be ready to go by late-morning tomorrow. In this video, the baker from whom Bittman cribbed the recipe demonstrates how everything, even bread - especially bread! - has all this secret knowledge behind it involving squiggles and cracks, crumbs, crusts, and bubbles, proportions, substrates, and who knows what else? In other words, like snuggling up to a fat Martin Van Buren, delicious. Good night.

*No idea what the title means...
**Strange, I'm having trouble coming up with other examples not by Koons where the artist him/herself figures into the explicit image and not just images of partners, implied partners, or stand-ins. Comments?
***Like a printing error in a Warhol Car Crash.

ETA: The bread was a disaster. Better luck next time?

The Comforts of Home (update)

Two notes to share:

1) Home-made haircuts are OUT. MG has lost his mad skilz. Or perhaps he never actually had any and was just deluding himself/never looking at the back of his head. It's been known to happen.

As luck would have it, though, there is a basement parikmakherskaya just around the corner from my woodland hut that charges 100 rubles* for a haircut, doesn't rush you or question how short and implicitly unfeminine the desired haircut happens to be, does not cause any bleeding of fingers or ears throughout the duration of the haircut, and asks you whether you are indeed Natalie Portman, the person in the picture you brought with you for reference. It was bar none and hands down the most enjoyable (not to mention most decent, and I'm not just eating up the flattery) haircut I've ever received. And whilst I waited, I got to watch some of the most impressive back-combing outside of Memphis happening all around me, for free. Gulia will be seeing me again rel'soon.

Question: how/how much do you tip a stylist on a 100 ruble haircut? Is it kosher to give the receptionist 100 rubles and the stylist 500? Or is that insulting?

*That's $2.90, people.

2) This is a sparrow hawk.


I think these are his eggs.

They are now in this gote's tum tum.

ETA: Okay, okay, okay, maybe not literally his eggs, and maybe not literally captured from the air by yours truly. But maybe his:


Or at least certainly captured by this king of Russky Produkt and at in turn by MasterGote? Or, can we at least agree that shopping in Russia is a kind of hunting? And MG did cunningly find this medal winner in his local cooler section. Enh? Ennnnh?

Happy Valentine's Day from MG

Ugh, That Was Totally Uncalled For! What Was That Lady Thinking? Gross!

Okay, two things.

One:



OMFG, how did I not know about this ahead of time? I suppose this raises a question: what's more important - religious sentiment or sheer awesomeness? Cause, you know, they're dunkin' for Jeebus, people. (via)

And two: Have you seen Rachel Maddow's interview with Gov. F-word, a.k.a. Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich? If you have not, you need to download it on the itunes or get it on the youtube or whatever. It is mesmerizing. This man is an absolute maniac and I found it nearly impossible to turn away from his car-wreck of a self-defense. Here's how crazy it was: I actually agreed with him about the "innocent until proven guilty" thing and wished that other politicians *ahem, Eliot Spitzer* would stick up for themselves a bit more instead of slinking off and letting those sharks have the last laugh. What?! Eliot "I am a fucking steamroller" Spitzer? This is some strong brew. Fasten your seat-belts.

Veto

Family obligation obligated me to eat, for the first time in my life, a cheburek.

Although this is not an image of the very cheburek that I consumed, these pimple-faced, meat-filled twinsies resemble the very one very well. And I trust you will not be surprised when I tell you that the verdict is in:

VETO!!!!!

In Memoriam

MasterGote mourns the passing of fellow bearded Defender of Values and Denoucer of Vices. Rest in peace, Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008).