Empire in decline, or Grave New World

Posted on January 26, 2018 by Brian D. Butler

One week ago, members of the infamous street art collective known as Indecline commemorated Tangerine Mussolini’s ascent to power with a guerrilla art installation of a faux cemetery near his Bedminster, New Jersey golf course. Using a truck disguised as a cable repair van, they planted a set of “gravestones” and erected a fake Trump Cemetery sign.

According to Indecline. “Grave New World” marked the end of decency in America, surrender to climate change, the end of DACA, and “a diverse selection of things Trump fucked up.”

The cemetery has already been removed, I don’t think that we’ve seen the last from the folks who also brought us roaming, naked Trump statues. Here’s the official video clip on their NJ action.

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Effective Dreams

Posted on January 25, 2018 by Brian D. Butler

I was saddened to read this week of the death of the legendary writer Ursula K. Le Guin. One of America’s literary greats of the 20th and 21st centuries, she was also an inspirational feminist pioneer and steadfast opponent of corporate monopolists and capitalist exploiters.

If you haven’t yet read her work, there’s a lot to choose from. Le Guin wrote more than 50 books of science fiction, fantasy, poetry, short stories, and criticism. I first discovered the multiverse of her writing through her 1971 bleak dystopian novel The Lathe of Heaven. Set in a very wet, warm, and polluted Portland in 2002, the book was chillingly prescient. Le Guin warned us of the coming global climate change and myriad environmental catastrophes. With a long-suffering protagonist named for George Orwell and a Big Brother-like government operating under the “New Federal Constitution of 1984”, the novel may yet prove to be prophetic as well.

You can get some valuable insight into Le Guin as a social and artistic activist in the short clip below from the 2014 National Book Award event where she received the Medal for Distinguished Contributions to American Letters. RIP

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Whisper to Me

Posted on January 24, 2018 by Brian D. Butler

New York magazine is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and to mark the occasion, the publication has announced the release of a series of 50 special covers.

Eight of the covers, created by Yoko Ono, Alex Katz, Barbara Kruger, Mel Bochner, John Giorno, Marilyn Minter, Rob Pruitt, and Hank Willis Thomas, went up on walls around 25 locations around the city.

The full list of 50 artists has not been released, although the magazine has revealed that Maurizio Cattelan, Kerry James Marshall, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Will Cotton, and Nina Chanel Abney are among the participating artists.Later this year, the 50 designs will be shown at an exhibition.

The eight released covers showcase new work made for the magazine. Many of the covers are dominated by text. Hank Willis Thomas’ all-black cover is highlighted by white text reading “ALL LI ES MATTER” in white upper case lettering. Yoko Ono’s cover is strikingly sparse, all white bearing three simple words of text: “Whisper to me”. Rob Pruitt has made use of a more contemporary alphabet than his peers, taking Milton Glaser’s “I ♥ NY” and changing it into emojis displayed on an iPhone.

 

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Addicted to Street Art

Posted on January 23, 2018 by Brian D. Butler

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My Kind of Recycling

Posted on January 22, 2018 by Brian D. Butler

During the last eight months, the trash collectors in the Çankaya District of Ankara, Turkey have rescued more than 5,000 books from the garbage. Thanks to their diligence, a lending library has been created in the townhall. The library is open to all, but municipal workers are the main users.

 

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Stephen King To The Rescue

Posted on January 21, 2018 by Brian D. Butler

Gerald Winters & Son is a rare bookstore and major collector of Stephen King books and memorabilia. The recently opened book shop, which specializes in Stephen King, J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin, and J.K. Rowling books is located in downtown Bangor, Maine. Every book seller’s nightmare came true for Winters last Tuesday morning when a water main broke, flooding the basement of his shop with chest-high water. Winters had recently moved much of his stock into the basement while he re-organized his shop, but neglected to store the books and memorabilia in protective boxes. Among the many losses were the original typed manuscripts for seven of King’s works, including Dolan’s Cadillac, Maximum Overdrive, and The Eyes of the Dragon.

Winters estimates that at least 2,000 items were seriously damaged or ruined by the flood, including many first editions, signed books, and irreplaceable ephemera. In a very generous move, Stephen King has offered to help the shop reopen with both financial support and replacement items.

Few of us could count on a Stephen King to step in and bail us out, so take a lesson and carefully store your valuable books.

 

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Worth Revisiting

Posted on January 20, 2018 by Brian D. Butler

h/t Shepard Fairey

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You can’t get there from here

Posted on January 19, 2018 by Brian D. Butler

Helsinki-based geographer Topi Tjukanov is a wizard at using spatial data from new perspectives. If you’ve ever done any roadtripping in the US, this map of optimal routes by car from the geographic center of the country to all counties will blow your mind.

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New York City Exposed

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Brian D. Butler

Double Exposure: NYC is a surreal, but oddly meditative fly-over video of my favorite city. The mesmerizing 4K video was shot by the very talented 20 year-old New York photographer Humza Deas. Be sure to watch it in full screen view.

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Still Nothing

Posted on January 17, 2018 by Brian D. Butler

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