Here’s the tried-and-true formula for making “successful” art photographs in 2006: Shoot color. Shoot digital. Use Photoshop to make your images eerily “perfect.” Make prints as large as your budget allows (regardless of what you’re trying to say). Pick a singular subject and exhaust it. It’s best if these subjects are “types”—executive washrooms, security guards, […]
Chas Bowie
Posted inArt
Houston
Some people I know believe that there’s a scant difference between an artist who tries to make metaphors and unique objects of beauty for the world around her, and an adman who employs a bevy of marketing tools to convince you to switch to Geico. Their rationale is that an emotionally stirring Nike commercial or […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Finally, a Happy 9/11 Movie!
World Trade Center: Worse than the Actual Event
It might shock you to hear this, but I wasn’t personally invited to the pre-production meeting between director Oliver Stone and World Trade Center screenwriter Andrea Berloff. But having suffered through this hilariously bad movie—not once, but twice—I think I have a pretty good idea how the meeting went down.—CB Oliver Stone: Okay, Andrea. You […]
Posted inArt
Maximum Warriors
We typically don’t review art shows that hang in coffee shops, boutiques, or bars. It’s not because we think art has to be validated by Pearl District spaces where the employees look at you dirty if you try to peek at what’s hanging in the back office. It’s only because coffee shops, boutiques, and bars […]
Posted inZINES
Sixth Annual Portland Zine Symposium
“What, have they never heard of blogs?” Every time the Portland Zine Symposium (PZS) comes up in conversation, some variation of this snarky question is put forth. The assumption is that anything zines can do, blogs can do flashier and cheaper. The hundreds of zinesters set to descend upon Portland State University campus for this […]
Posted inMusic
What’s Diplo’s Problem?
Or Rather, What’re People’s Problems With Diplo?
IT’S A WEIRD TIME for Diplo, AKA Wesley Pentz, the trailblazing DJ/producer who founded Hollertronix and introduced the world to M.I.A. There are few worse spots for celebrated artists to be than a couple years removed from enormous celebration and praise. When Diplo’s legendary mixtape, Piracy Funds Terrorism, hit the streets in 2004, everyone from […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Finally, a Happy 9/11 Movie!
World Trade Center: Worse than the Actual Event
It might shock you to hear this, but I wasn’t personally invited to the pre-production meeting between director Oliver Stone and World Trade Center screenwriter Andrea Berloff. But having suffered through this hilariously bad movie—not once, but twice—I think I have a pretty good idea how the meeting went down.—CB Oliver Stone: Okay, Andrea. You […]
Posted inBooks
Photo Book Roundup
Perhaps more than any other medium, photography is best suited for books. The flatness of a photograph mimics the book page; historically, the scale of photos and books are comparable (at least until the bigger-is-better photo boom of recent years); many of our deepest emotional connections with photography came from turning album pages; and technological […]
Posted inMusic
Life After “Free Fallin'”
Tom Petty is the Coolest Geezer on the Planet
IT’S BEEN TOO LONG since somebody demonstrated that getting old and getting lame are not the same thing. Rock ‘n’ roll in particular is without a figurehead or an icon to exemplify how to age and rock with dignity. Johnny Cash is dead; Neil Young is puffy and writing ham-fisted songs like “Impeach the President”; […]
Posted inMusic
The Coup de Funk
Can Politics and Party Music Still Coexist?
THE COUP’S BOOTS RILEY is talking to me from Vermont, where he’s grabbing some mid-afternoon Subway. “‘Not Your Soldier,’” he says, referring to the name of the Coup’s current tour, “comes from the Not Your Soldier campaign, who we’re teaming up with. They teach workshops on how to keep recruiters off of your campuses and […]
Posted inArt
James Boulton
The week I went to see Traffication, James Boulton’s exhibition of new paintings, a coworker’s laptop fizzled in an overdose of analog gibberish; I made myself sick on handfuls of post-expiration date candy corn; the Israeli army and Hezbollah rebels took turns decimating Lebanese cities; and an anonymous bandit “tagged” our office with plushy stuffed […]