Van Vliet Paintings/NYC
Brian Olewnick
showing of his paintings at the Knoedler Gallery on East 70th St
between Fifth and Madison. Don't know details as to the size or
selection. The show runs through 12/5.
Brian Olewnick
Michael H.
see the exhibit on Thursday. I haven't been to NYC in decades. I have to
do a net search for a map to get to the gallery, and I might do a bit of
the "tourist" stuff later in the evening. I don't know where the bus
station is in NYC, nor what is a decent but reasonable hotel. None of
that. I should be able to find that on the net. Maybe I should get a NYC
newspaper at the local store and see what is on. I already have some
nice prints of six paintings from the "New Work" show.
Michael H.
Brikbat9
You should have posted this about a week ago. I could have sent you a NY
Times. I have a route and, well, You can figure out the rest....
Have a good trip.
Jack
MDec500157
>From: brik...@aol.com (Brikbat9)
>Date: Tue, Dec 1, 1998 22:03 EST
>Message-id: <19981201220308...@ng16.aol.com>
>
>Dammit, Michael,
>
>You should have posted this about a week ago. I could have sent you a NY
>Times. I have a route and, well, You can figure out the rest....
>
>Have a good trip.
>
>Jack
Yeah, dammit, Michael! I would've asked you to look at the catalogue and get
the price so I don't have to make a long distance call to NYC.
Well, he'll probably get one anyway. Hope you had a good trip. Michael.
Mike
Michael H.
Thanks guys for the kind wishes. I will report back on my impressions.
Michael H.
JohnKerr.kotp
Michael H. <zol...@netcom.ca> wrote in article
<36652A...@netcom.ca>...
> MDec500157 wrote:
> >
> >
> > Yeah, dammit, Michael! I would've asked you to look at the catalogue
and get
> > the price so I don't have to make a long distance call to NYC.
> >
> > Well, he'll probably get one anyway. Hope you had a good trip. Michael.
>
> Thanks guys for the kind wishes. I will report back on my impressions.
>
>
Michael H.
>>
> have a great trip micheal.
>every one else, for $10 and $3 for shipping sent to
> Knoedler & Company
> 19 East 70 Street
> New York,NY 10021
> will get you the catolouge w/ 6 prints from this new show.
>
>jbk
Jeff Economy
>Yeah, dammit, Michael! I would've asked you to look at the catalogue and get
>the price so I don't have to make a long distance call to NYC.
I popped for the $.45 it took to call NYC (ooh, big spender!) and the nice
lady at the gallery told me it can be had for $12.00 ppd. I do and I do and
I do for you kids...
--
*------------------------------------------------ economy[at]tezcat.com
*----------------------------------------------------------------------
*--- Calling all. This is our last cry before our eternal silence. ---
Michael H.
>
> MDec500157 <mdec5...@aol.com> wrote:
> >Yeah, dammit, Michael! I would've asked you to look at the catalogue and get
> >the price so I don't have to make a long distance call to NYC.
>
> I popped for the $.45 it took to call NYC (ooh, big spender!) and the nice
> lady at the gallery told me it can be had for $12.00 ppd. I do and I do and
> I do for you kids...
I just got back from the Big Apple a couple of hours ago. Didn't sleep
much on the overnighter on the way down, and I am close to nodding off,
so I won't go into detail just now. Let me just say that experiencing
his paintings "live", rather than as prints, is like the difference
between seeing a live performance and hearing a recording. I found that
to be true also when I saw the Van Gogh exhibit in Toronto many years
ago. Just to give an example, for those of you who have (or will get)
the catalogue mentioned above, there is a painting called "Painted
Satchels" that has a green swatch of color at the top centre, going up
to the right. That actually stands about 1/4 inch up from the canvas. He
must have used a whole tube's worth of paint for that one burst of
color. The green is a subtler and lovelier shade than a print could
capture (although the prints are nevertheless about as good as it gets
and represent the paintings extremely well), and so I consider my trip
well worth it just to see the works as they really are. Generally Van
Vliet's paintings have a lot of what I would call topology, but perhaps
"texture" is the word that informed art lovers would use. A lot of
places with thick paint. Some with thin paint, but that is another
dimension in his art. I could go on forever about this. I plan to write
something on paper, type it up, and send it to Graham at The Radar
Station, describing my impressions of the exhibit. I am very much a
layman about art, but, as with the music, I don't think Van Vliet is
trying to target a "schooled" audience with his painting any more than
with his music. I don't think he is "targeting" any audience, in fact.
So I think anybody's honest impressions are valid.
One thing I want to share right away is that while all the paintings
are titled, there were drawings that were numbered with no titles, but I
was told that Don is going to provide titles for them, which means that
he is still at it, and I know that you will all be as appreciative as I
was to hear that.
Michael H.
andy roberts
Indeed. Thanks for that, maybe a bit more after you've caught up on the
sleep.
Andy R
--
Brian Olewnick
1) The paintings are a bit more abstract then I expected, though all
of them, I think, had representational underpinnings, sometimes clear,
sometimes not. The subjects, such as they were, tended to be animals
and plant forms which, I imagine, are totemic icons in DVV's
world-view. That is, the dog image that recurs in the 'Drazy Hoops'
series strikes me as less this or that dog, than an image that serves
as "Animal" for him.
2) Formally, almost all of the paintings are on a white ground (though
that ground is itself usually scrambled and rough) which flattens the
works and gives a graphic, even calligraphic quality to them. If I
might make a musical analogy, it's as if the room were full of 'Peons'
rather than 'Bellerin' Plains'. The size of the canvases are kind of
standardized which makes for a bit of sameness.
3) The three paintings in the 'Drazy Hoop' series provide evidence
that these works are not as spontaneous as one might think. These
three show the same elements (including what I take to be a yellow dog
mounting a black one) iterated with fairly minor modifications. I
found a bit of tightness, a constriction by the paintings' borders
that surprises me, given the expansiveness of DVV's persona; for all
the squishing and moving of paint, there's a sense of it being
'corralled' that I found off-putting.
Generally, I'm not convinced that he's a great painter (not that
that's required). The works have a personal, private character (re:
the apparent significance, to him, of the dog image, etc.) that, for
me, didn't translate too well on public display. And, while there are
plenty of painters working in approximately the same technical style
who are no better than him, he's no De Kooning either.
A short walk up the block to the Frick (shame, Michael, if you didn't
avail yourself of this opportunity!) would reveal, among other
treasures, a painting of Philip IV by Velazquez which, in his gestural
tracery of the embroidery on the king's sleeve, embodies more pure
painting, movement of paint and abstraction made hyper-real than
anything conceived of by ol' CB. Walking home through the park, there
was more messiness, earthiness, colors bright and subtle and chaos of
form than any of his squeezed dollops of paint had to offer.
Just one old CB fan's opinion.
Brian Olewnick
Michael H.
> Saw the Van Vliet show this morning. Some impressions:
Damn, if I new you were a New Yorker I would have e-mailed you to go
there as a team of observers.
> 1) The paintings are a bit more abstract then I expected, though all
> of them, I think, had representational underpinnings, sometimes clear,
> sometimes not. The subjects, such as they were, tended to be animals
> and plant forms which, I imagine, are totemic icons in DVV's
> world-view.
I think he has a wonderful view of what is important.
>That is, the dog image that recurs in the 'Drazy Hoops'
> series strikes me as less this or that dog, than an image that serves
> as "Animal" for him.
The physical and transient nature of our existence? Perhaps.
> 2) Formally, almost all of the paintings are on a white ground (though
> that ground is itself usually scrambled and rough) which flattens the
> works and gives a graphic, even calligraphic quality to them. If I
> might make a musical analogy, it's as if the room were full of 'Peons'
> rather than 'Bellerin' Plains'. The size of the canvases are kind of
> standardized which makes for a bit of sameness.
I never noticed that. I thought that some of the smaller drawings were
as wonderful as the paintings. The world of art is funny like that. The
cost of rendering an idea on canvas with oils, as compared to a crayola
drawing, is probably only a few hundred dollars, yet the prices differ
by tens of thousands of dollars. Go figure.
> 3) The three paintings in the 'Drazy Hoop' series provide evidence
> that these works are not as spontaneous as one might think.
That struck me also. The glass-cased sketch-books made me think that
perhaps he goes at it incessantly until he finds an idea he likes, then
develops it. My first exposure to Beefheart was TMR, which struck me as
cacophony at the time, which it obviously is not, and I think the same
is perhaps true of the painting. It may strike some people like he is
just dabbing the paint any old way, but that is clearly incorrect, as
the three Drazy Hoops paintings show.
>These
> three show the same elements (including what I take to be a yellow dog
> mounting a black one)
I don't see the yellow entity as a dog, and I question the use of the
word "mounting." Did you notice also that there is a variation on the
same theme in the painting, 'Dreams in the Daytime Colored with
Sunshine'? I see the yellow form as something drifting in.
>iterated with fairly minor modifications. I
> found a bit of tightness, a constriction by the paintings' borders
> that surprises me, given the expansiveness of DVV's persona; for all
> the squishing and moving of paint, there's a sense of it being
> 'corralled' that I found off-putting.
I don't understand what you mean by that.
>
> Generally, I'm not convinced that he's a great painter (not that
> that's required). The works have a personal, private character (re:
> the apparent significance, to him, of the dog image, etc.) that, for
> me, didn't translate too well on public display. And, while there are
> plenty of painters working in approximately the same technical style
> who are no better than him, he's no De Kooning either.
Who's to say that? That is like saying that Peon is not Beethoven.
> A short walk up the block to the Frick (shame, Michael, if you didn't
> avail yourself of this opportunity!)
Well the kind people at Knoedler & Company pointed me in that direction
and I did, in fact, see the Frick collection. I bought a print there, in
fact. The Victorian Fairy Collection is absolutely wonderful. That was
something that happened in art that has been largely ignored, and I
congratulate the people at Frick for exhibiting that. They have some
great Gainsboroughs also, among other treasures.
>would reveal, among other
> treasures, a painting of Philip IV by Velazquez which, in his gestural
> tracery of the embroidery on the king's sleeve, embodies more pure
> painting, movement of paint and abstraction made hyper-real than
> anything conceived of by ol' CB.
You seem to gravitate to fastidiousness and meticulousness which makes
it easy to understand why you can't properly appreciate Van Vliet's art.
Although I do think that the fastidiousness and meticulousness is in
there, but not so overtly as some would like.
>Walking home through the park, there
> was more messiness, earthiness, colors bright and subtle and chaos of
> form than any of his squeezed dollops of paint had to offer.
Art can obviously never compete with its subject on its own terms...not
since the invention of the camera.
> Just one old CB fan's opinion.
I appreciate your candor. I disagree with your perspective, but it is a
welcome contribution.
Michael H.
John Gillies
Brian Olewnick (ole...@tribeca.ios.com) writes:
>
> Tell me about it. There's a wonderful, perhaps apocryphal, story of
> Matisse sketching on a napkin in a cafe. A woman comes over and
> annouces she'd like to buy the sketch. Matisse agrees to sell it for
> 10,000 francs. "10,000 francs!? But it only took you ten minutes to
> do!" "Yes," replies Matisse, "ten minutes and a lifetime."
I'm not sure if you've confused this with a true story about Picasso, who
often sketched on the paper tablecloths found in the cafes (unlike Matisse,
who was never hard up enough to sell a sketch on a tablecloth for 10,000
Francs- in the old currency that converts to 100 francs nowadays, which is
around $20 US) and Picasso gave them away for free. At one point later in
Picasso's career some obnoxious American tourists chanced upon the
painter at the Cafe de Flore and asked for Picasso's signature. Picasso
signed the napkin, gave it to them, and then added, 'Don't let it go for
too cheap!'
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Brian Olewnick
wrote:
>
>I'm not sure if you've confused this with a true story about Picasso, who
>often sketched on the paper tablecloths found in the cafes (unlike Matisse,
>who was never hard up enough to sell a sketch on a tablecloth for 10,000
>Francs- in the old currency that converts to 100 francs nowadays, which is
>around $20 US) and Picasso gave them away for free. At one point later in
>Picasso's career some obnoxious American tourists chanced upon the
>painter at the Cafe de Flore and asked for Picasso's signature. Picasso
>signed the napkin, gave it to them, and then added, 'Don't let it go for
>too cheap!'
I get the feeling that ALL of these stories are apocryphal. Or that
there was a germ of truth in one and then other artists, not wanting
to be outdone, included it in their "histories". Sort of like Braque
going back and giving his cubist paintings earlier dates so he could
say it was him, not Picasso, who made the innovations. Damn painters,
can't trust 'em a lick.
Brian Olewnick
Michael H.
> On Sat, 05 Dec 1998 18:55:30 +0500, "Michael H." <zol...@netcom.ca>
> wrote:
> > Damn, if I new you were a New Yorker I would have e-mailed you to go
> >there as a team of observers.
> Don't know if the gallery would've tolerated two arguing CB fans!
That would have been funny. I did notice most of the other people in
the gallery mentioning Captain Beefheart. One woman said loudly to her
friend that her husband likes Captain Beefheart but she couldn't listen
to it. There was a general quiet oohing and ahhing about various
paintings from most of the people, although I didn't try to eavesdrop. I
was just trying to blot everything else out and enjoy the exhibition.
> > I think he has a wonderful view of what is important.
>
> (FWIW, and it mightn't be much, these comments are coming from a
> non-musician painter)
You seem to have a lot of knowledge about art.
> If you're interpreting his paintings as expressing a general love of
> nature, as represented by dogs, trees, longhorn skulls, etc., fine,
> who's to argue? I love my dog, too. It's just not, IMHO, a
> particularly deep or noteworthy observation and his paintings didn't
> have the effect of making me reconsider my attitudes thereof.
Surely you are not saying that Don paints dogs just as a "love dogs"
statement? He is generally regarded as "working out of landscape" (to
quote an art commentator on one of the Beefheart videos), and growing up
in the Mojave, and living today in a very natural setting, one would
expect to see "dogs, tree, longhorn skulls, etc., " in his paintings.
>Except
> insofar as, walking through the park I noted that whereas the fallen
> leaves were more beautiful than anything in DVV's paintings, they were
> _less_ so than a Vermeer tablecloth.
>
> > The physical and transient nature of our existence? Perhaps.
> Maybe so and, while this may come as a revelation for some younger
> viewers, it's not for me and, I dare say, not for DVV. I get the
> impression that many of these recurring images have great personal
> meaning for him; it just didn't translate over to me. That's either my
> shortcoming in perception or his failure in transmission.
Perhaps, but it may also be something akin to hearing Beefheart's music
for the first time. It meant nothing to me at first, and it took quite a
while before I could connect to it. So maybe that happens with the
paintings also. I recall staring for hours at the painting on the back
of Lick My Decals Off, Baby, years ago, and I formed a connection
between what the music was doing and what the art was doing. So when I
see a Van Vliet painting, I tend to be transported to a frame of mind
where I am very open to it. I suppose there is, in some sense, an "ink
blot test" aspect to much modern art, and one sees things according to
one's own history of images and associations, but I think that aspect is
overblown. I recall Stravinsky expressing (in a book) annoyance at the
idea of people listening to music as a "soundtrack" to some emotional
fantasy they have while they listen to the music, and that such people
are not really listening to the music itself, and perhaps something
similar applies to art. Questions like "Is it a dog or a wolf?" are a
distraction from the painting in purely artistic terms. I could be
wrong. I don't know if it is valid to draw such parallels between music
and art.
> > I never noticed that. I thought that some of the smaller drawings were
> >as wonderful as the paintings. The world of art is funny like that. The
> >cost of rendering an idea on canvas with oils, as compared to a crayola
> >drawing, is probably only a few hundred dollars, yet the prices differ
> >by tens of thousands of dollars. Go figure.
> Tell me about it. There's a wonderful, perhaps apocryphal, story of
> Matisse sketching on a napkin in a cafe. A woman comes over and
> annouces she'd like to buy the sketch. Matisse agrees to sell it for
> 10,000 francs. "10,000 francs!? But it only took you ten minutes to
> do!" "Yes," replies Matisse, "ten minutes and a lifetime."
I like that story. There is a very similar story about the engineer
Steinmetz, but that'd be a little off topic here.
> > That struck me also. The glass-cased sketch-books made me think that
> >perhaps he goes at it incessantly until he finds an idea he likes, then
> >develops it. My first exposure to Beefheart was TMR, which struck me as
> >cacophony at the time, which it obviously is not, and I think the same
> >is perhaps true of the painting. It may strike some people like he is
> >just dabbing the paint any old way, but that is clearly incorrect, as
> >the three Drazy Hoops paintings show.
>
> Don't misunderstand, I don't think he's a dabbler; I think he's quite
> serious and knows what he's doing. I just don't hink it always
> succeeds. BTW, I thought the best painting in the show was 'Dirty
> Champagne', though I didn't get the catalog and couldn't go into
> detail on the whys and wherefores.
The catalog only has six of the paintings. I can't recall what Dirty
Champagne looked like. I hope they put out a large coffee-table style
catalog with all the paintings in it.
> > I don't see the yellow entity as a dog, and I question the use of the
> >word "mounting." Did you notice also that there is a variation on the
> >same theme in the painting, 'Dreams in the Daytime Colored with
> >Sunshine'? I see the yellow form as something drifting in.
>
> Man, I'd almost be willing to bet on the 'mounting' aspect. Given the
> subject matter of much of his music, it doesn't strike me as
> far-fetched. 'Drifting in' with a purpose!
It's just that the yellow one is rather smaller than the black dog
shape, and rather amorphous. If anything, it is more feline than canine.
I thought of the idea of a "monkey on one's back," perhaps. The yellow
shape seems to be troubling the dog, whose head is drooped down. But
there is probably a 75% chance you are correct about the "mounting"
connotation. I guess that is the "ink blot" factor coming into play.
> > >iterated with fairly minor modifications. I
> >> found a bit of tightness, a constriction by the paintings' borders
> >> that surprises me, given the expansiveness of DVV's persona; for all
> >> the squishing and moving of paint, there's a sense of it being
> >> 'corralled' that I found off-putting.
> >
> > I don't understand what you mean by that.
>
> In many of the paintings, the images seem to shy away from the border
> of the canvas, as if that border is a real one in the painted world
> that's corralling the images. I would have expected someone with as
> protean a personality as DVV to have less regard for the edge of the
> canvas and to have his images spilling over, unable to be contained,
> to have the strong sense of his world continuing beyond the frame.
But quite a few of the paintings do have patches that spill off the
canvas.
> Then again, he did tend to keep his songs to 4 minutes or less;
> perhaps he's a miniaturist at heart.
>
> >> And while there are
> >> plenty of painters working in approximately the same technical style
> >> who are no better than him, he's no De Kooning either.
> >
> > Who's to say that? That is like saying that Peon is not Beethoven.
>
> Well, not to get into the whole 'subjective taste' argument again, I
> chose De Kooning because his work, in a stylistic sense, is not too
> dissimilar to DVV's and, I'd wager, is admired by him. But the force,
> subtlety and pure painterly power in De Kooning is, IMHO, leagues away
> from DVV, even in his late 'Alzheimer's' period. This isn't a slight
> at DVV; I don't think there are many contemporary painters, abstract
> or otherwise, on De Kooning's level.
De Kooning is amazing, granted. I find some of Van Vliet's
black-on-white paintings very influenced by Franz Kline. Van Vliet
mentions Kline as an influence. Quite frankly, I don't know where he
stands in comparison to these others. It strikes me that when you see a
"Who's Who" list of modern artists, there are thousands of names on it.
That has always been the case, and why it is that only a tiny fraction
of the finests artists from any age tend to be remembered, and what the
basis is for singling out those few...well, these are questions I can't
answer. It is like the world of music, I guess. Forget the millions of
wannabe's. There are still thousands of excellent players, but only a
few who really "make it big."
> It was just to give a broader
> picture of the arena that DVV's entered into. Hey, if he's _only_ a
> great musician, that's enough for me.
I would agree with that. It is hard to know how to rate artists.
> >> A short walk up the block to the Frick (shame, Michael, if you didn't
> >> avail yourself of this opportunity!)
> >
> > Well the kind people at Knoedler & Company pointed me in that direction
> >and I did, in fact, see the Frick collection. I bought a print there, in
> >fact. The Victorian Fairy Collection is absolutely wonderful. That was
> >something that happened in art that has been largely ignored, and I
> >congratulate the people at Frick for exhibiting that. They have some
> >great Gainsboroughs also, among other treasures.
> Man, as much as the Knoedler might not have appreciated our arguing,
> the Frick definitely would've tossed our butts out! Don't get me
> started on Gainsborough and weak English painting in general.
You sound like you have a lot of pet peeves about art. Not a big fan of
Turner I bet. You must really lose it when you see sad-eyed puppies
painted on black velvet.
> It's almost sacriligious to even look at a Gainsborough when there are
> three Vermeers within glancing distance.
But I thought you liked people who can paint fabrics well?
> > You seem to gravitate to fastidiousness and meticulousness which makes
> >it easy to understand why you can't properly appreciate Van Vliet's art.
> >Although I do think that the fastidiousness and meticulousness is in
> >there, but not so overtly as some would like.
>
> Not at all (re: the De Kooning comments above); Velazquez is hardly
> fastidious; he'd regularly daub paint on the side of the canvas to
> test colors and then leave them there--on official portraits! I am,
> personally, a realist painter, but can appreciate various approaches.
> There are plenty of boring fastidious painters and great messy ones,
> and vice versa. Technique is secondary to conception; I just don't
> find DVV's conception that compelling.
I think that his conception is the biggest focus of his work, but
whether it is possible for art to be compelling in terms of anything but
subjective tastes is another unanswerable question for me.
Incidentally, I was informed that about 10-15% of the creation of Van
Vliet's paintings involves getting an appropriate title.
> > Art can obviously never compete with its subject on its own terms...not
> >since the invention of the camera.
>
> Sorry, that's straight from Art History 101
Really? I didn't even take Art History 101.
>and is, IMHO, nonsense.
> Even paintings derived from photos (see Chuck Close) can "see" things
> unimagined by the photographer. I've yet to see a photo as beautiful
> as a blank wall by Vermeer or a hand done in three brushstrokes by
> Velazquez. Until the camera has a brain (and, who knows, that may
> happen one day), a good painter will always see more, and more deeply,
> than a lens.
But in terms of an exact rendering of the visual, it is difficult to
top a camera. You seemed to imply that the actual experiencing of the
leaves in the park was more impressive than DVV's paintings, which is
comparing a subject of a painting with a painting. The closest realistic
rendering of the leaves in the park would be a high-quality color photo,
which would probably not be as interesting as a good painting because
the compositional aspect is so random in the park. I don't think we are
at odds on this point that much. When I have seen Van Gogh paintings of,
say an overgrown field in the summer, and think of putting it side by
side with a photo of that same scene, I have it admit that the Van Gogh
draws me right in and I mentally start to walk right down the nearest
path into the world of the painting, whereas the photo is just a
picture.
What did bug me is that you seemed to be suggesting that perhaps there
is more art involved in painting a photo-realistic picture of an
embroidered rug than in Mondrian painting Broadway Boogie Woogie. There
is certainly more work involved in the physical job of painting the
photo-realistic picture, but there is obviously a lot of
conceptualization in a modern work.
I do not want DVV's work to be caught up in a generic comparison of the
"old masters" against modern artists, and then criticized on the basis
that the photo-realism of older works is a more impressive display of
craftsmanship. I think it would be fairer to compare Van Vliet's
paintings with those of his contemporaries. Did you go upstairs at the
Knoedler gallery? There were paintings by Frank Stella, Adolph Gottlieb,
Helen Frankenthaler, and others. They impressed me a great deal also. I
am not trying to just be the loyal Beefheart fan, and am not going to
suggest that Van Vliet's art is necessarily better or even as good as
those other painters (whatever "good" or "better" might mean in
art-school terms).
> > I appreciate your candor. I disagree with your perspective, but it is a
> >welcome contribution.
>
> Yours also. Hey, I wish I liked his work more. I actually enjoy some
> of the drawings on the albums more than these. They seemed a bit less
> concerned with "art" and more with getting down an image. The one done
> on a shade on 'Ice Cream...' is a particular favorite. So perhaps
> there's hope yet.
With me, Van Vliet's music does something for me that I don't get from
any other music, and much of his art does that same thing.
The gentleman I spoke with at the gallery said that each person has
their own nostalgia concerning how different images affect them, and
that how one relates to a given painting is therefore very personal. I
did notice that two of my favourite four paintings had already been
sold, though. The cover painting on the small catalogue, Dreams in the
Daytime Colored with Sunshine, had sold, as had Painted Satchels. None
of the three versions of Drazy Hoops had sold yet, nor had "Is it a
tree? So why doesn't it fly?" My favourite of the untitled drawings,
#15, had sold. My point is that some of the works I picked out as
favorites were also obviously other people's favorites. So yes, it is
personal, but at the same time, certain ones seem to have a popular
appeal. I was shown a few other Van Vliet drawings upstairs, one of
which I liked even more than the drawings on display.
Michael H.
william
Brian Olewnick wrote:
> <snip>
>
> Sorry, that's straight from Art History 101 and is, IMHO, nonsense.
> Even paintings derived from photos (see Chuck Close) can "see" things
> unimagined by the photographer. I've yet to see a photo as beautiful
> as a blank wall by Vermeer or a hand done in three brushstrokes by
> Velazquez. Until the camera has a brain (and, who knows, that may
> happen one day), a good painter will always see more, and more deeply,
> than a lens.
>
> <snip>
>
> Brian Olewnick
Brian............
A lens is a mechanical device. A lens doesn't see just as a brush doesn't see.
The user of the brush or the lens is the one that "sees". These items are tools
used by human beings to create images which when things go right becomes "art".
"Unimagined by the photographer"? Are you saying that an artist that is both a
painter
and a photographer only sees thing when he is painting? Then he must be able to
switch the creative process at will, or does the picking up of a camera switch off
the creative process automatically?
But whether or not photography and painting are the same thing is beside the
point, since
art resides not in technique but in a knowing application of INSIGHT.
william
Brian Olewnick
wrote:
>A lens is a mechanical device. A lens doesn't see just as a brush doesn't see.
>The user of the brush or the lens is the one that "sees". These items are tools
>used by human beings to create images which when things go right becomes "art".
>"Unimagined by the photographer"? Are you saying that an artist that is both a
>painter
>and a photographer only sees thing when he is painting? Then he must be able to
>switch the creative process at will, or does the picking up of a camera switch off
>the creative process automatically?
(Getting a bit off the Captain, but what the hell....)
A photo, however beautifully done, captures a moment in time. A
painter abstracts from a range of perceptions over time. Movement,
light shifts, perceptual changes, combinations are selected that do
not exist together in the split second the shutter snaps. The play of
light that moves over a wall by Vermeer isn't a snapshot, it's an
abstraction of (presumably) months of observation. Now, this doesn't,
of course, necessarily make for a great painting, but it's a level of
perception, a meta-level if you will, not possible in a photograph.
Photos, on the other hand, can achieve the split second deal quite
handily, much better than a painting; all depends on the subject
matter one's dealing with (and I mean subject both as far as the
actual objects prtrayed and the _meaning_ of those objects within the
artist's philosophical system).
>But whether or not photography and painting are the same thing is beside the
>point, since
>art resides not in technique but in a knowing application of INSIGHT.
To be sure. And a great photo is much more valuable than a lousy
painting; so's, in Meissonier's phrase, a well-made shoe. But
depending on your goal, there might be areas that given art forms are
excluded from, such as a musical description of an apple, or a written
description of 'One Red Rose That I Mean'.
Brian Olewnick
Brian Olewnick
wrote:
> Surely you are not saying that Don paints dogs just as a "love dogs"
>statement?
Well, no, though I wouldn't put that past him.
>He is generally regarded as "working out of landscape" (to
>quote an art commentator on one of the Beefheart videos), and growing up
>in the Mojave, and living today in a very natural setting, one would
>expect to see "dogs, tree, longhorn skulls, etc., " in his paintings.
It's only my personal preference but, to me, expressing a deep love of
say, a landscape, is more richly accomplished by looking at _this_
dog, _this_ skull, etc., showing a reverence for the particular
object. Generalizing or fetishizing objects strikes this viewer as
hubristic in emphasizing the importance and centrality of the artist
as opposed to his subject.
> Perhaps, but it may also be something akin to hearing Beefheart's music
>for the first time. It meant nothing to me at first, and it took quite a
>while before I could connect to it. So maybe that happens with the
>paintings also.
Could be, though I got into TMR immediately enough! ;-)
> I recall Stravinsky expressing (in a book) annoyance at the
>idea of people listening to music as a "soundtrack" to some emotional
>fantasy they have while they listen to the music, and that such people
>are not really listening to the music itself, and perhaps something
>similar applies to art.
Yeah, 20th century artists have tried and tried to shrug off the
importance of subject matter, but it has a nasty habit of nipping at
their heels. DVV _is_ painting certain subjects and not others (or
abstractions); it's not unreasonable to assume they hold some
importance to him and are relevant to comment upon, IMHO.
>Questions like "Is it a dog or a wolf?" are a
>distraction from the painting in purely artistic terms.
Then don't paint an animal, just daub paint. But he doesn't...he makes
another choice.
> I could be
>wrong. I don't know if it is valid to draw such parallels between music
>and art.
Usually, it's a losing proposition until one reaches the rarified air
of the philosophy expressed, and then people just yell at each other
anyway.
>
<snip>
> De Kooning is amazing, granted. I find some of Van Vliet's
>black-on-white paintings very influenced by Franz Kline. Van Vliet
>mentions Kline as an influence.
That's interesting; I like Kline quite a bit also and, to an extent, I
can (in hindsight) see the influence, thouh Kline tends to concentrate
his images in a more explosive manner. Very interesting, though.
<snip>
> You sound like you have a lot of pet peeves about art. Not a big fan of
>Turner I bet.
Got that right; I see enough nicotine clouds around the apartment
produced by my better half. Though in fairness, I've seen some small
watercolor sketches of his that are pretty fine.
> You must really lose it when you see sad-eyed puppies
>painted on black velvet.
Not if it's _my_ puppy_!
>
>> It's almost sacriligious to even look at a Gainsborough when there are
>> three Vermeers within glancing distance.
>
> But I thought you liked people who can paint fabrics well?
Argghhh! A square inch of smeared Velazquezian paint is worth more
than all the Blue Boys in existence! Sometimes I wish that damn Armada
had won...
> I think that his conception is the biggest focus of his work, but
>whether it is possible for art to be compelling in terms of anything but
>subjective tastes is another unanswerable question for me.
Too much to get into here, at any rate. Wouldn't want to interfere
with the Zoogz Rift posts...
> Incidentally, I was informed that about 10-15% of the creation of Van
>Vliet's paintings involves getting an appropriate title.
_That_ I have no trouble believing.
>
> But in terms of an exact rendering of the visual, it is difficult to
>top a camera. You seemed to imply that the actual experiencing of the
>leaves in the park was more impressive than DVV's paintings, which is
>comparing a subject of a painting with a painting. The closest realistic
>rendering of the leaves in the park would be a high-quality color photo,
>which would probably not be as interesting as a good painting because
>the compositional aspect is so random in the park.
See my reply to William in this thread. Depends, to paraphrase a
recent deposed President, on what the definition of "closest" is.
> What did bug me is that you seemed to be suggesting that perhaps there
>is more art involved in painting a photo-realistic picture of an
>embroidered rug than in Mondrian painting Broadway Boogie Woogie. There
>is certainly more work involved in the physical job of painting the
>photo-realistic picture, but there is obviously a lot of
>conceptualization in a modern work.
Not obvious to me. In a given example you might well be correct. Most
Mondrians are, to me, superior to most Wyeths for example. But I'd
hold up realist works by people like Close, Bill Beckman, Bob Bechtle
and others as Mondrian's equal, if not better. Of course, this is a
minority opinion but, hey, the majority likes Celine Dion better than
CB and, believe me, the same moronic prejudices exist in the "serious"
art world.
> I do not want DVV's work to be caught up in a generic comparison of the
>"old masters" against modern artists, and then criticized on the basis
>that the photo-realism of older works is a more impressive display of
>craftsmanship.
Nothing to do with "craftsmanship". There are tons of lousy realist
paintings that took months to do, as well as tons of lousy abstract
ones that took a half-hour.
>I think it would be fairer to compare Van Vliet's
>paintings with those of his contemporaries. Did you go upstairs at the
>Knoedler gallery? There were paintings by Frank Stella, Adolph Gottlieb,
>Helen Frankenthaler, and others.
Damn, no, I didn't realize they were there--and I like Stella a lot.
In fact, I was going to refer to him when we were discussing "going
beyond the canvas" before; he's a great example.
Gee, isn't this more rewarding than discussing whether Henry Kaiser's
an asshole or not?
Brian Olewnick
Michael H.
> On Sun, 06 Dec 1998 14:09:06 +0500, "Michael H." <zol...@netcom.ca>
> wrote:
> > Surely you are not saying that Don paints dogs just as a "love dogs"
> >statement?
> Well, no, though I wouldn't put that past him.
I wouldn't either, but one can't know.
> >He is generally regarded as "working out of landscape" (to
> >quote an art commentator on one of the Beefheart videos), and growing up
> >in the Mojave, and living today in a very natural setting, one would
> >expect to see "dogs, tree, longhorn skulls, etc., " in his paintings.
>
> It's only my personal preference but, to me, expressing a deep love of
> say, a landscape, is more richly accomplished by looking at _this_
> dog, _this_ skull, etc., showing a reverence for the particular
> object. Generalizing or fetishizing objects strikes this viewer as
> hubristic in emphasizing the importance and centrality of the artist
> as opposed to his subject.
Wow. That is a powerful and challenging statement. But aren't you
lapsing into geekishness?
He should have got together with the Beach Boys.
I have absolutely no opinion, but I find the discussion very
enlightening.
> > I do not want DVV's work to be caught up in a generic comparison of the
> >"old masters" against modern artists, and then criticized on the basis
> >that the photo-realism of older works is a more impressive display of
> >craftsmanship.
>
> Nothing to do with "craftsmanship". There are tons of lousy realist
> paintings that took months to do, as well as tons of lousy abstract
> ones that took a half-hour.
That is a reality that I wanted to be stated. Thank you!
> >I think it would be fairer to compare Van Vliet's
> >paintings with those of his contemporaries. Did you go upstairs at the
> >Knoedler gallery? There were paintings by Frank Stella, Adolph Gottlieb,
> >Helen Frankenthaler, and others.
>
> Damn, no, I didn't realize they were there--and I like Stella a lot.
> In fact, I was going to refer to him when we were discussing "going
> beyond the canvas" before; he's a great example.
>
> Gee, isn't this more rewarding than discussing whether Henry Kaiser's
> an asshole or not?
I am ready to acknowledge Kaiser's contribution to the world of the
guitar, thanks mainly to Bill Harkelroad, but worry later about whether
this is a worthwhile discussion, given that details are not likely
forthcoming.
Michael H.
Michael H.
>
> Brian Olewnick (ole...@tribeca.ios.com) writes:
> >
> > Tell me about it. There's a wonderful, perhaps apocryphal, story of
> > Matisse sketching on a napkin in a cafe. A woman comes over and
> > annouces she'd like to buy the sketch. Matisse agrees to sell it for
> > 10,000 francs. "10,000 francs!? But it only took you ten minutes to
> > do!" "Yes," replies Matisse, "ten minutes and a lifetime."
>
> often sketched on the paper tablecloths found in the cafes (unlike Matisse,
> who was never hard up enough to sell a sketch on a tablecloth for 10,000
> Francs- in the old currency that converts to 100 francs nowadays, which is
> around $20 US) and Picasso gave them away for free. At one point later in
> Picasso's career some obnoxious American tourists chanced upon the
> painter at the Cafe de Flore and asked for Picasso's signature. Picasso
> signed the napkin, gave it to them, and then added, 'Don't let it go for
> too cheap!'
So Pablo Picasso had some Don Cherry in him.
Michael H.
>
> On 6 Dec 1998 16:16:47 GMT, ap...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (John Gillies)
> wrote:
>
> >
> >often sketched on the paper tablecloths found in the cafes (unlike Matisse,
> >who was never hard up enough to sell a sketch on a tablecloth for 10,000
> >Francs- in the old currency that converts to 100 francs nowadays, which is
> >around $20 US) and Picasso gave them away for free. At one point later in
> >Picasso's career some obnoxious American tourists chanced upon the
> >painter at the Cafe de Flore and asked for Picasso's signature. Picasso
> >signed the napkin, gave it to them, and then added, 'Don't let it go for
> >too cheap!'
>
> there was a germ of truth in one and then other artists, not wanting
> to be outdone, included it in their "histories". Sort of like Braque
> going back and giving his cubist paintings earlier dates so he could
> say it was him, not Picasso, who made the innovations. Damn painters,
> can't trust 'em a lick.
>
surrounded Steinmetz is that he was called in to fix a huge generator.
He demanded the blueprints for the generator, then went over it, perhaps
with a stethoscope, then said that the problem could be fixed by
drilling through the housing and tightening a certain screw. He offered
to take a piece of chalk and draw a circle on the housing at the
appropriate spot, for a vast sum of money. Knowing where to draw the
circle was the scientific equivalent of Matisse' demands.
Michael H.
william
Brian Olewnick wrote:
> On Sun, 06 Dec 1998 11:49:03 -0800, william <gree...@slip.net>
> wrote:
>
> >A lens is a mechanical device. A lens doesn't see just as a brush doesn't see.
> >The user of the brush or the lens is the one that "sees". These items are tools
> >used by human beings to create images which when things go right becomes "art".
> >"Unimagined by the photographer"? Are you saying that an artist that is both a
> >painter
Ah.......the Baudelaire argument, very good. And I will respond with a quote from
Coomaraswamy, "The problem, then, in not whether photography can be art, but in
confusing art with the finished product or the technique employed. It is the artist's
psychological ATTITUDE toward the process of creation alone that signifies the
artistic validity of the act that produces the "work of art."
It is ironic that you would choose Vermeer as an example, consisting that he used a
camera obscura in his painting - lens defects and all! That, and Vermeers reliance on
the Renaissance system of perspective which has the effect of focusing vision, of
creating a visual field in which "single vision" becomes fixed in a space distinct
from the flow of time, so that one visual event follows another in linear sequence.
It is this sequentially, of course, that is the basis of photography. In a sense
Vermeer was a photographer, photography paper just wasn't invented yet! ;)
william
Michael H.
You guys are getting rather deeply in to the philosophy of art. I am
glad William is sticking up for photography as an art, although I don't
think it was Brian's original intention to knock photography. He had
said that he found the mess of leaves, etc., in the park, to be more
enjoyable that certain abstract paintings, and I had said that the
leaves themselves may have been more enjoyable, but a photo might not
have been, and started making an analogy between the realism of painting
in the pre-camera days compared to contempory abstraction.
The thing with photography is that you cannot re-position the objects
(e.g. a barn and a tree) to make a better compostion, whereas a painter
can do that. However, going back to the leaves in the park, I am sure
that if a person were to wander around the park long enough, there
WOULD, in fact, be some little patch of grass and leaves, etc., that
would be composed nicely just by chance, and there is an art to finding
that. In fact, even with a tree and a barn, a certain amount of
composing can be done with parallax just by moving around and looking at
it from different points of view.
So my opinion is that photography is very definitely an art, although
the craft part of it is obviously very different from painting.
Michael H.
Elaterium
walking to work every morning, which, of course, everyone should do!>>
All 3 movements.
elat...@aol.com (Mark Steven Brooks)
Brikbat9
>So Pablo Picasso had some Don Cherry in him.
>
What's Picasso got to do with a cantankerous hockey coach/ commentator?
Jack
Michael H.
>
> Michael H writes:
(Actually John Gillies wrote this:)
> >So Pablo Picasso had some Don Cherry in him.
> >
> What's Picasso got to do with a cantankerous hockey coach/ commentator?
LOL! I wondered that myself. I was trying to picture a brawl in an art
studio. Maybe a paint fight. Remember "action painting?"
Michael H.
Michael H.
>
> <<Kind of like performing Cage's 4'33" while
> walking to work every morning, which, of course, everyone should do!>>
>
> All 3 movements.
No wonder Brian described the park as being messy. Don't they have
stoop & scoop laws?
Michael H.
Michael H.
> >dimension in his art. I could go on forever about this. I plan to write
> >something on paper, type it up, and send it to Graham at The Radar
> >Station, describing my impressions of the exhibit. I am very much a
> >layman about art, but, as with the music, I don't think Van Vliet is
> >trying to target a "schooled" audience with his painting any more than
> >with his music. I don't think he is "targeting" any audience, in fact.
> >So I think anybody's honest impressions are valid.
> > One thing I want to share right away is that while all the paintings
> >are titled, there were drawings that were numbered with no titles, but I
> >was told that Don is going to provide titles for them, which means that
> >he is still at it, and I know that you will all be as appreciative as I
> >was to hear that.
>
> Indeed. Thanks for that, maybe a bit more after you've caught up on the
> sleep.
>
Actually, my impressions were rather personal, and I felt that some of
the reactions to what I wrote so far made me feel a bit like a lab
animal being vivisected. A little education may be a dangerous thing,
but too much schooling can be a dangerous thing in a different way.
I recall about a year ago posting personal impressions of Beefheart's
music and being kicked around the block by the doctrinaire jazz
academics who think of Beefheart as either a rock novelty act or an
avant-garde upstart that they occasionally listen to for mild diversion
when not listening to "more important" music (i.e. the music that got
them an A+ on their last term paper on the correct way to ooh and aah
over the established jazz greats), and I can see that the same thing
would happen if I were to comment further on Van Vliet's art. A year ago
I would have been ready to duke it out with them to the bitter end, but
it seems pointless to argue with art-school devotees who criticize Van
Vliet on the basis of art school criteria, when Van Vliet makes a point
of claiming to be unschooled. "If you want to be a different fish, you
have to jump out of the school." I might take some art courses, because
I find the history of art interesting, but I certainly won't be try to
collect feathers for my cap if I do that.
I was going to write some sort of impression of the show to submit to
Graham at the Radar Station, but all I want to say is that I liked it
very much and was profoundly affected by it. I do plan to send along
copies of some of the info sheets that were available, plus an interview
with David Yau that I had never seen before. Graham has a copy of the
small catalogue of six of the paintings which I am sure will be up soon,
if not sooner, and that will give people an idea. BrikBat's review there
is very good, and quite close to what I felt, although I interpreted the
drawings in the open artbooks, under the glass case, in a slightly
different way. There will be an article/review in the January 99 edition
of Art in America.
Michael H.
Michael H.
> with David Yau that I had never seen before. Graham has a copy of the
> small catalogue of six of the paintings which I am sure will be up soon,
> if not sooner, and that will give people an idea. BrikBat's review there
~~~~~~
Sorry, it was "neato" who did the review at the Radar Station. I wonder
why I though it was Brikbat9?
Michael H.
>
> "Michael H." (zol...@netcom.ca) writes:
> > Brikbat9 wrote:
> >>
> >> Michael H writes:
> >
> > (Actually John Gillies wrote this:)
>
You are right. Sorry about that.
Michael H.
>
> On Wed, 09 Dec 1998 12:46:32 +0500, "Michael H." <zol...@netcom.ca>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > Actually, my impressions were rather personal, and I felt that some of
> >the reactions to what I wrote so far made me feel a bit like a lab
> >animal being vivisected. A little education may be a dangerous thing,
> >but too much schooling can be a dangerous thing in a different way.
>
> disagreed, so what? It's not the end of the world to have differing
> opinions on things, even CB. You'd think this was a fan club, not a
> discussion group.
I guess the title of the newsgroup confused me.
>At least you took the time (and went way out of your
> way) to see the show and consider it seriously. I, for one, respect
> that.
Thank you.
> I mean, what if ol' DVV came out of musical retirement and released a
> disc that I thought was as miserable as 'Unconditionally Guaranteed'
> and you thought was better than TMR? Who cares?
You mean supposing, say, he had never released LMDOB before, and just
now released it, and you thought it was as miserable as UG, whereas I
thought it was better than TMR? Well if you attempted to PROVE that it
UG is better than LMDOB by suggesting that you have more expertise in
the area of what's good and what isn't, I probably would care. You're
right though, I shouldn't.
> Chin up, guy.
I guess I must have reached my quota.
It's as if person A likes paintings that are completely blank canvas,
and person B likes paintings that are completely blank canvas except for
one small dot, and A says to B, "You don't know anything about art if
you can't see that the paintings you like are way too busy with that dot
there." There does come a point at which it seems peculiar to
gratuitously knock someone's art, especially when you don't know what
they were attempting. Ornette Coleman wrote a symphony called "Skies
Over America," and many critics said that he didn't succeed in what he
was trying to do, and Ornette pointed out that the critics hadn't a clue
what he was trying to do, so how would they know if he had succeeded or
not?
I intended no animosity, and was just being candid, as you were, and in
this case, I am honestly saying that it would make more sense for me to
spend more time off the net appreciating Van Vliet's music and art, and
less time on the net trying to defend it from detractors. Is that
selfish and anti-social? It's not meant to be.
Michael H.
Brikbat9
>Sorry, it was "neato" who did the review at the Radar Station. I wonder
>why I though it was Brikbat9?
>
And to think, I've never been anywhere near New York.
It's nice to be thought of, though.
Jack
Michael H.
Didn't you post that you had the New York Times? I surmised that you
lived in NYC. Actually, the Times doesn't give much info about what's
happening there. When I visited there last week to see Van Vliet's art,
I grabbed a Village Voice. It was free. I was almost going to go see
John Scofield (one of my favorite jazz guitarists) featuring bassist
Steve Swallow (another favorite) and Bill Stewart (who I have not
heard), but I had so many problems earlier trying to find my way to the
art gallery that I was leery of trying to find my way back from
who-knows-where in NYC late at night. I was blown away by the art
exhibit anyway and just wanted to think about that, and I also had an
early morning bus to catch. I plan to go to NYC again soon with my
girlfriend.
One thing I noticed about New York is that the people seem really wide
awake in the morning. They are very friendly people, though. I like it
in New York.
Michael H.
Brikbat9
>Didn't you post that you had the New York Times?
What I said is that I have a New York Times ROUTE. I deliver that paper in
suburban Detroit. The Times has home delivery in and around many major cities
in the USA. I wouldn't be surprised if was available for home delivery in
Toronto, as well. The post was me being a wiseguy. What I was trying to say
was that if you had mentioned earlier that you were going to New York that I'd
havesent you a copy of the paper.
OTOH, they have a website.
Jack
Michael H.
Oh I see. Well I appreciated the thought anyway. So you are in Detroit?
Mike D. is there also. I have only just driven through Detroit going
south across the border crossing there. Actually, the US customs people
at the Detroit border are absolutely brutal. I know lots of Canadians
that tell me that they drive hundreds of miles out of their way to avoid
crossing over from Windsor to Detroit. That is no reflection on the city
of Detroit, though. The border guards are federal. I would like to visit
Detroit sometime. Motown was a Detroit thing, right? Motortown, because
of the auto factories?
Michael H.
Brikbat9
>I have only just driven through Detroit going
>south across the border crossing there.
I hate to be picky, but if you're crossing from Windsor to Detroit, You are
going SOUTH. Windsor is the only part of Canada that is south of some part of
the US.
>I would like to visit
>Detroit sometime. Motown was a Detroit thing, right?
Yes, it is. I think that the Hitsville, USA museum is less than a mile from
where I work. Never been there, though.
Incidedtly, members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra are said to have
moonlighted playing on the Motown records.
>So you are in Detroit?
>Mike D. is there also
Yeah, we've corresponded. If I remember correctly, he lives in one of the
northeast suburbs. I live in Redford, which is immediately west of Detroit.
Michael H.
>
> Michael H. writes:
>
> >I have only just driven through Detroit going
> >south across the border crossing there.
>
> I hate to be picky, but if you're crossing from Windsor to Detroit, You are
> going SOUTH. Windsor is the only part of Canada that is south of some part of
> the US.
You are right. Poor sentence construction on my part. I meant "going
south" as in "to the southern US", meaning from Canada to the US.
> >I would like to visit
> >Detroit sometime. Motown was a Detroit thing, right?
>
> Yes, it is. I think that the Hitsville, USA museum is less than a mile from
> where I work. Never been there, though.
> Incidedtly, members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra are said to have
> moonlighted playing on the Motown records.
Some of those Motown songs had rather lush arrangements, come to think
of it.
> >So you are in Detroit?
> >Mike D. is there also
>
> Yeah, we've corresponded. If I remember correctly, he lives in one of the
> northeast suburbs. I live in Redford, which is immediately west of Detroit.
It would be interesting to get a map of the world and stick brightly
colored tacks into the places where people who visit here are posting
from, then try to figure it out.
Michael H.
andy roberts
> It would be interesting to get a map of the world and stick brightly
>colored tacks into the places where people who visit here are posting
>from, then try to figure it out.
>
> Michael H.
You would need a lot less tacks now than 6 months or a year ago, but at
least there wouldn't be the problem of trying to stick several in one spot
in this city.
Andy R - London, England
--
MDec500157
>From: brik...@aol.com (Brikbat9)
>Date: Sat, Dec 12, 1998 18:57 EST
>Message-id: <19981212185717...@ng44.aol.com>
>
>Michael H. writes:
>
>>I have only just driven through Detroit going
>>south across the border crossing there.
>
>I hate to be picky, but if you're crossing from Windsor to Detroit, You are
>going SOUTH. Windsor is the only part of Canada that is south of some part
>of
>the US.
>
>>Detroit sometime. Motown was a Detroit thing, right?
>
>Yes, it is. I think that the Hitsville, USA museum is less than a mile from
>where I work. Never been there, though.
>
>Incidedtly, members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra are said to have
>moonlighted playing on the Motown records.
>
>>Mike D. is there also
>
>Yeah, we've corresponded. If I remember correctly, he lives in one of the
>northeast suburbs. I live in Redford, which is immediately west of Detroit.
Yep, I live in Roseville. North of Detroit. You'll have to come to my next
gig, Jack. Played a real good one at the Gold Dollar 11/16, but I don't think
you were around then.
I'm working on a benefit for Zoogz, at the Record Collector in Livonia. Then I
hope to bring Robbie Rox from Toronto. Yeah, I found him. He's my buddy
already.
(www.interlog.com/~organism/robbierox/)
And Michael, it's much smoother crossing at the Sarnia/Port Huron border.
Mike
Michael H.
Aah, I never thought of that. I haven't heard of Robbie Rox for a
while. I heard an album at a friend's years ago and was going to get a
copy but couldn't find it anywhere. They were a crazy band.
Michael H.
Michael H.
>
> Michael H. escribió en mensaje <367286...@netcom.ca> :
>
> > It would be interesting to get a map of the world and stick brightly
> >colored tacks into the places where people who visit here are posting
> >from, then try to figure it out.
> >
>
> least there wouldn't be the problem of trying to stick several in one spot
> in this city.
>
really had a McCarthy era in the UK, and "freedom of speech" is perhaps
taken for granted over there to the point that you don't need to
constantly exercise it and the push the envelope. The reason there is so
much "shock talk" stuff over hear stems from people like Lenny Bruce,
and Zappa also, to a great extent, fighting back at the constant
attempts to censor everything. It is easy today for even North Americans
to be offended by the smutty talk of people like Howard Stern, but
unfortunately that is a fight that still needs to be fought, and as
juvenile as it may seem to people looking in on our little bubble here
from overseas, it is necessary for us to occasionally be vulgar. The
rule here is: any freedom not being exercised is a freedom being lost.
So please try to be understanding about it. I don't think vulgarity is
necessary at all on this ng, given that there are about 5 million other
ngs dedicated to it, but if it happens it happens. One always has the
option of ignoring it. Sometimes I think that the "freedom of
expression" battle has already been won on the porno front, to a fault,
and tend to agree with John French's comments about the decay of North
American mass culture, but that issue is a whole different can of worms.
I would love to see some of the posters from a year ago drop by again
from time to time. Especially if Zoot and other Magic Band alumni start
to post here about their latest projects.
Michael H.
msouthg
<zol...@netcom.ca> writes
>It would be interesting to get a map of the world and stick brightly
>colored tacks into the places where people who visit here are posting
>from, then try to figure it out.
There's probably a brightly coloured tax on brightly coloured tacks.
--
Mick Southgate MAG: 11034
Relevant responses to mick <at>msouthg<dot>demon<dot>co<dot>uk
Michael H.
>
> In article <367286...@netcom.ca>, Michael H.
> <zol...@netcom.ca> writes
> >It would be interesting to get a map of the world and stick brightly
> >colored tacks into the places where people who visit here are posting
> >from, then try to figure it out.
>
> There's probably a brightly coloured tax on brightly coloured tacks.
Hahaha!! And in Canada there would be at least two.
Michael H.
Brikbat9
Mike,
If you wait until the weather gets warm, again, I can ride my bike to that one.
Seriously, though, let me know when it is.
Jack
msouthg
<andy...@zetnet.co.uk> writes
>>colored tacks into the places where people who visit here are posting
>>from, then try to figure it out.
>>
>
>You would need a lot less tacks now than 6 months or a year ago, but at
>least there wouldn't be the problem of trying to stick several in one spot
>in this city.
>
Seriously, are you referring to people like 'gs' from whom I don't
remember seeing a post recently?
MDec500157
>From: "Michael H." <zol...@netcom.ca>
>Date: Sun, Dec 13, 1998 02:32 EST
>MDec500157 wrote
>> I'm working on a benefit for Zoogz, at the Record Collector in Livonia.
>Then I
>> hope to bring Robbie Rox from Toronto. Yeah, I found him. He's my buddy
>> already.
>> (www.interlog.com/~organism/robbierox/)
>>
>> And Michael, it's much smoother crossing at the Sarnia/Port Huron border.
>
> Aah, I never thought of that. I haven't heard of Robbie Rox for a
>while. I heard an album at a friend's years ago and was going to get a
>copy but couldn't find it anywhere. They were a crazy band.
>
A GREAT band! He's sending me his two latest Cds (I think). He's gotta get
better distributorship, especially in the U.S. So far I only have "Raw" on
vinyl, found that about 1980. Hardly anyone's heard of him here. I mean to ask
him if Beefheart was an influence.
Mike
MDec500157
>Date: Sun, Dec 13, 1998 21:19 EST
>Message-id: <19981213211950...@ng38.aol.com>
>
>>I'm working on a benefit for Zoogz, at the Record Collector in Livonia.
>
>
>If you wait until the weather gets warm, again, I can ride my bike to that
>one.
> Seriously, though, let me know when it is.
>
>Jack
I'll keep everybody posted, especially on a.f.z-r. but here too.
Mike
andy roberts
>>You would need a lot less tacks now than 6 months or a year ago, but at
>>least there wouldn't be the problem of trying to stick several in one spot
>>in this city.
>>
>"You are Jack the Ripper and I claim my 5GBP".
>Seriously, are you referring to people like 'gs' from whom I don't
>remember seeing a post recently?
Amongst others, yes. Bert I know about, but T. Rigby has wandered off too.
It's all very well to drop out, drop out , but what about after that?
Andy R
--
msouthg
<andy...@zetnet.co.uk> writes
>>Seriously, are you referring to people like 'gs' from whom I don't
>>remember seeing a post recently?
>
>Amongst others, yes. Bert I know about, but T. Rigby has wandered off too.
>It's all very well to drop out, drop out , but what about after that?
After that (I know what you mean) on the sleeve of the 'Electricity' CD
comes "I'm glad", but, in fact, the track list is wrong - for instance,
Tarotplane is actually track 2, but track 15 on the sleeve ?!?!?!?
andy roberts
>>It's all very well to drop out, drop out , but what about after that?
>
>After that (I know what you mean) on the sleeve of the 'Electricity' CD
>comes "I'm glad", but, in fact, the track list is wrong - for instance,
>Tarotplane is actually track 2, but track 15 on the sleeve ?!?!?!?
It took me a while to work out what you mean, or possibly not. Tarotplane is
indeed track 15 , but track 2 is Zig Zag Wanderer. Do you have a different
version of the CD or this some kind of weird secret code ?
Ah I got it - Tarotplane is on Mirror Man - no that's track 1 ......hang on
a minute , what are you referring to in "the track list is wrong" ?
electricty fused my am con
Andy R
--
msouthg
<andy...@zetnet.co.uk> writes
I'm trying to turn one of you Merkuns on to the Capt.
Maybe she hit the random/shuffle play button on the stereo.
I never did understand women.
Michael H.
> I'm trying to turn one of you Merkuns on to the Capt.
> Maybe she hit the random/shuffle play button on the stereo.
> I never did understand women.
What is a Merkun?
Michael H.
Brikbat9
>> I'm trying to turn one of you Merkuns on to the Capt.
>> Maybe she hit the random/shuffle play button on the stereo.
>> I never did understand women.
>
> What is a Merkun?
>
Merkuns are the people who inhabit the chunk of real estate south of Canada.
There's about 250,000,000 of us. I usually spell in "Mercan", but Merkun seems
to capture the spirit of it better. Hope this clears things up.
Was I right, Mick?
Jack
msouthg
<zol...@netcom.ca> writes
>msouthg wrote:
>
>> I'm trying to turn one of you Merkuns on to the Capt.
>> Maybe she hit the random/shuffle play button on the stereo.
>> I never did understand women.
>
> What is a Merkun?
>
A corruption of American.
I know you are in Canada, so I guess that doesn't cover you.
Merry Boxing Day. Cold and wet here, with the hills in the distance
covered in snow.
Michael H.
>
> In article <368130...@netcom.ca>, Michael H.
> <zol...@netcom.ca> writes
> >msouthg wrote:
> >
> >> I'm trying to turn one of you Merkuns on to the Capt.
> >> Maybe she hit the random/shuffle play button on the stereo.
> >> I never did understand women.
> >
> > What is a Merkun?
> >
> > Michael H.
>
> A corruption of American.
> I know you are in Canada, so I guess that doesn't cover you.
Technically, the whole combination of North and South America together
is America. The US of America is one part of North America. You are
right, though, that the word "America" has come to mean that part of
North America that is the United States. I know that some Europeans call
all North Americans "Americans," and culturally there is very little
difference between Canada and the US. Culturally, we are more or less
the 51st state. We are about 10% of the North American population, and
about 10% of entertainers and musicians are from Canada.
> Merry Boxing Day. Cold and wet here, with the hills in the distance
> covered in snow.
We finally got some snow also. This winter had a warm start.
Michael H.