"Margaret Hooks’s Surreal Eden tells the story of Edward James: wealthy British surrealist-art benefactor turned rural Mexican architect, demi-god and dreamer. James’s legacy is Los Pozas, a wild personal Disneyland of fantastic forms and useless grandeur—a jungle complex that’s haunting for its apparent lack of purpose, made from temple-like ruins."
The look, format and chi of the Park are currently being realigned. Should be about a month before we're ready to roll again.
Current Events:
hello there, friends. hope this message finds you all well.
posts have been and will remain infrequent for a period indefinite.
goin' through changes. explanation forthcoming.
ttys,
ll
Click to enlarge these fiber-ific macro studies that my esteemed co-worker and seasoned shutterbug Joe Hunt sent over last week.
Aside from the macros, Joe's flickr page also features some really nice shots from his trips to China and Africa.
Killer infographica from Icaro Doria. Click to enlarge your perspective.
I asked our favorite shark and sailor, Jonah Whalebelly, to keep us posted on his whereabouts - both physical and spiritual - while he's out to sea for the next few months. Here's his most recent dispatch and your required reading for the month. -Longlunch
We have had a week of moonless nights, which I didn’t even think was possible. Perhaps it’s the shifting place in time and direction we are sailing, or maybe I just never noticed before. Some nights have been cloudy, but most have been clear, with the whole clockwork of stars pushpinned into the canopy. Offshore, away from the lights of man, you can still see the Milky Way pouring across the galaxy. When the moon is gravestoned around the other side of the world, hidden from the view of midnight, and when it’s really clear, you can see satellites. Occasionally, meteors streak white, the spark and the stream as bright as the failing, trailing ends of the last flash of the 4th of July.
Out here, at sea, in the void between continents, a body can breathe as it’s meant to. There, the city, the traffic, the dull monotonous death of the mailman and the electric company, the clicking swerve of the looped newscaster, the same on every station, it all forces the choke and the retch down the esophagus. Where it is concentrated, the city leaks, the land is polluted, the citizens become as sewers for a vast social drainpipe, filling with bile and empty politics. Where it sprawls, it thins the blood down to grey water. A body can begin to feel like glue and gristle, animated meat, gut's peristalsis chewing on yesterdays’ unfulfilled expectations. Days alone can be hollow, yet heavy, awkward, thudding, and clumsy. It takes a city like Manhattan to be the closest equal to an ocean; everywhere in motion, everywhere some kind of vibrant happening. A city like Karachi is the same thing, viewed through the lens of apocalypse.
About a year ago, Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues was performed at the Atlantic Theaters in the Ricotta Park headquarters of sunny Atlantic Beach, FL. The show was advertised on the marquee for a day or two before a woman - who had driven by the theater with her 12-year old niece - called and complained about the word "vagina" being displayed publicly..
After some arguing, threats, etc, the manager changed the marquee to read "The Hoohaa Monologues." I saw the sign the afternoon that the change was made, thought it seemed an odd change, called the theater, got the story from the manager and wrote about it. The Hoohaa story was also covered by the local alt-weekly, a local television station, as well as major national and international news outlets. People around the world were outraged with both the woman's ignorant repression and the theater's weak-kneed appeasement of her.
A few days later, the folks at bOING bOING linked to my post and my daily traffic went through the roof. More outrage, more comments, tons of inbound links from other sites and blogs. And while the story is long-since dead, the Hoohaa post - a year old and still getting dozens of direct hits a day - remains the most popular one on this site.
But the post's popularity hasn't endured because people are still incensed about a hoohaa in the lower fringes of the Bible Belt, but rather because people are searching for LOTS of other vagina-related content on the internet. Big surprise, I know.
Below the fold is a list of the most popular Google-based keyword searches from the last six months or so that have led people to my original post. The list ranges from celebratory (fantastic female vaginas) to supernatural (girl could put out fire with vagina) to creepy (12 year old girls vaginas) to international (how to say vagina in spain) to hell yeah bro (the coolest things that girls do with there vaginas) to complete shock (you can see her vagina!) to Canadian indie rock sirens (+""emily haines"" pic +vagina).
I've left the punctuation as-is. Feel free to discuss your favorites.
I'm working on another recap post for later in the day. Until then, dig the new Derek Waters joint, Drunk History Part Two. It features Eric Falconer, some famous guy and Michael Cera's writing partner, Clark Duke. Warning: This one gets a little sloppy. Twice.
Crowder, the Cowboy of Carnage hisself disses on some Juno today. He's just mad because he just got, like, three girls pregnant the other day and nobody's making a movie about him. Anywhosies, enjoy. -Longlunch
Alas, football season is over, and another goddamn Manning has the ring to rule them all. Now we get to look forward to a year of wacky commercials in which Peyton and Eli compare rings and dick size and the number of cousins they’ve sodomized. In the meantime, we can catch up on movies.
Hey, Juno fans. You’re wrong.
Enough has been said about this film’s super-cute, labored dialogue, the abrupt I’m-in-love-with-George-Michael-Bluth revelation, and the fact that all the cultural references made by the titular character—a 16-year-old in 2007—are obviously from the pen of someone who spent her formative years in the ‘80s. I’ll leave those alone. What I’d like to talk about is her taste in music.
Here's the last segment of Ian Svenonious' interview with MBV's Kevin Shields. From the former's excellent VBS.TV show, Soft Focus.
Park Pick for Best Alt-Rock Legend Intellectual Toss-Off: Shields refuting Svenonious' notion that MBV's Glider EP continues a tradition of transportation-based rock n' roll metaphors. "Eh...we just made up that name."
And for good measure, here's my favorite jam off of the EP in question. Listen, in particular, to the last two minutes, when the vocals and "glider" guitar try - and fail - to keep up with each other. By the track's end, they've both descended to and gotten lost in a beautifully stormy lower register.
Off Your Face - My Bloody Valentine
***Some of you might not be able to view the Brightcove video, in which case you either need to get on board and download the plug-in or watch some lo-fi youtube-age here.***
Recent Comments