What can I find to eat on a plane?

What I ate in the last 24 hours:

-a $4 bottle of fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice from JFK airport*
-crunchy airport apple
-oily chickpea airport salad
-large black airport tea
-mushy orzo and steamed vegetable "sweet and sour" slop on the airplane (one of the more disgusting vegan airplane meals in a while)
-brown airplane roll with margarine
-airplane fruit
-airplane salad greens
-breakfast airplane banana
-nature valley airplane breakfast granola bar
-airplane tea
-hotel coffee
-street falafel
-dinner ramen with vegs
-kimchee
-seaweed salad
-inordinate amount of midnight prezels (Brezels)
-1,5 liter bottle of water...my body begs for home.

*I didn't pay for it. The second time I've gotten a fancy drink as a result of a "clerical error" in my favor in the last week. I'm not giving it back.

Braggy-Braggy

This post is just to say that, while MasterGote may never experience the pains of childbirth, running a marathon, or occupying the highest tax bracket, riding an off-brand, $125, 17kg behemoth of a mountain bike with a loose saddle through snow, mud, sand, and occasional stretches of asphalt for 74km can now be checked off the list of the quite painful (but potentially awesome) things to do in life. Sore bottom, sunburn, and multiple bruises notwithstanding, it was one of the funnest things I've done so far in Russia. The people were absolutely lovely for letting a bum like me join in on their ride, considering I've never "ridden" longer than from Brooklyn to Queens and back and didn't even know the right way to change gears for going uphill (wha? there's a way to go up a hill without standing on the pedals???). Anyway, here are some pictures and here are some more braggy-braggy stats about the ride (in Russian). People back in the BK, start training...

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?

Eureka!

I've got a dissertation title:

"Moscow Conceptualism: Crazy Free-for-All, 1976-1995." Enh? Ennnnh???

And some other notes for the short of attention span:

1) VDNKh: I don't have to tell you twice.



Well, maybe just a little:


Also, don't you know it, people's friendship has officially been "outlived." Whew! Guess we don't have to worry about that anymore.

2) You'll get your point across better if you're naked. Witness:

Carolee Scheeman, Interior Scroll, 1975

Linda Benglis, ad in Artforum (Nov. 1974).

Wait, what was their point again? It also helps if you actually have something to say. Not sure this lady does. (But, twice in one slide-show...good work, ъ!)

Eloise Fornieles, performance at the opening of "Natural Wonders: New Art from London" at Baibakova Art Projects at Red October Candy Factory.

...natural wonders, indeed.

3) Woody Allen thinks he can get away with the same lame-ass shit he's always pulled but now with extra-perky tits. That's right, I said it. (I'm sure many others have, too.)

4) Andrei Kuz'kin inspires me with his pessimism. But he lets me touch his art, so I don't mind.

Andrei Kuz'kin - the caption reads something like: "Please, save that baby! Save it, for god's sake! Perform a caesarean section, please!!!!"

There were other, better works of his at the ArtStrelka show, but like I said, you've got to be naked to get on in the internets, so all I could find was this naked baby.

More about the Kuz'kin show here. (In Russian.)

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.

Notes on Texture

(Click to enlarge)

Another Boris Mikhailov show = more visual treats.

I love this picture. I love how blitheley the woman from the past stares out of it and is then beheaded by the horizon line (of time?). I love how he's taken a pen to the photograph and carved out little cigarette burn holes onto its surface, breaking the spell that it casts and rhyming at the same time with the weird spots on the seated woman's back. They are the traces of the cupping glass remedy meant to suck the illness out of the lungs or draw the blood up to the surface or something less predictable. But look how those spots continue even onto her underpants, the Soviet blight covering all surfaces with its sickly spots... The only thing I do not like is the pink magic marker lines on her brazier. I never did like his painted-over pictures. Too much, too much too much.

Anyway, sorry to go on like this. I haven't written in a while, and thought I'd post something so GWB's smug little mug wouldn't stare at you any longer. I cannot wait to stream the debates tomorrow morning. Did you hear? I think Obama's like 9 points ahead! Also, I may have made a mistake with my phone number. If you think my cell phone number ends in a 5, it is not true. It ends in a 3. The rest is definitely right. I love you all, good night!

Weekend Avventura

1) The Boris Mikhailov "Retrospective" (in big fat quotes). Not that I'm complaining, I don't really care for a complete career run-down anyway. Plus, these images.

(Sorry in advance for the reflections in the photos. Better job next time.)

This is the show's opening image:

It is quite large (at least 1 meter across?), and the text appears to be a sheet of grammar exercises. The questions in parentheses are meant to test the student's knowledge of Russian case endings, but end up sounding vaguely poetic.

Approximate and fairly literal translation:
For a long time and (how?) sweetly sang the red robin about the hot light of the sun, about the honey clovers. The merry Zheltukhin again went to check the space.

Exercise # 4

How? well, firmly, exce...
Where? here, there, in the front
Where to? to the left, into the distance, in front
When? earlier, now, sometimes
Where from? from the right, from above, from below

11 April
Classroom
Exercises

All of these are from the series "Susie and Others" from the 1960s-70s. Apart from that first one with the text, these were all small images, perhaps the size you might find in an old photo-album, not quite as big as the 5x7" we're used to now, perhaps 4x5"? There were also many many more of these than I'm posting here, and looking over my "catch," I am realizing just how odd many of the ones I did not photograph actually were. There were a lot more bulgy, manic nudes like pencil-belly and melon-boobs up there, as well as more odd little things like that furry clump of a hat on the red table-cloth. For some reason, I think my self-defense mechanism against this onslaught of the unheimlich was to photograph the more classically-composed, comfortably genre-specific images.

Still, even the ones here have a satisfying edge to them. They are confusing and odd in a way my eye does not expect. What is this floral-patterned (not shown) world where women stand in dirt lots lifting up their skirts (not shown) and men's scabby penises look like walruses in close-up (definitely not shown)? And, by extension, what is the viewer's relationship to the people who live there? Are we voyeurs or co-conspirators? Are they posing for us, or are we snatching glimpses?

The world depicted here feels much more expansive than just the Thaw-era aspirations to capture individuality, expressiveness, a space outside socially-prescribed and circumscribed codes of appearance and behavior. (As claimed in the curatorial wall text.)

And, AND, what about the relentless play of forms? The crooked horizon lines, the visual rhymes, the tiny format that packs a punch by managing to squeeze in the whole joke?

New Museum Buddy has resolved to judge art by the criterion of work put in. Meaning that: she will appreciate the meticulous craft and the sustained thought evident in the artist's work rather than some prescribed formal criteria. I agree, but see it from the other, perhaps less reliably quantifiable, perspective: the more the work sustains my attention (literally, the longer I want to stand looking and wondering, the more I want to labor at it), the better it is.

Thoughts?

2) This stray lump made me think of Leonard Farnsworth. I hope this little guy knows how to stay warm at night.

3) We saw this:

4) Then we noticed this:

5) And then, finally, after many a-wandering, we brought our two themes together. Awesome creamy veg soup in a hollowed-out warm and toasty brown bread loaf. Slightly disturbing*, but so warm and good. The picture does not convey the awesomeness.

*"Architectural," according to NMB. But looking at this picture, just the big gaping hole in a sideways loaf is creepy.

6) Then I rode home on the metro and dreamed about airplanes.

Twins with the World!

Look who I found on my way to AM's this afternoon...


Highland Park, is this a subtle hint?

Bonus image (zoom in for 3D effecktz):

Further Notes on Anonymity

Mastergote will not lie, he is afraid of the internets. He fears their slippery tentacles and their grabby hooks. However, Mastergote also knows the secret of internet anonymity, the achilles heel of virtual connectivity. That achilles heel is Google!

Google, dear readers, does not know anything *first hand* and only relies on second-hand information, a.k.a. "links," a.k.a. "hearsay." Google does not bother with real sense-experience, preferring, instead, to let the world do its feeling and thinking for it. Google does not know that Mastergote exists (try it!), and so Mastergote can continue saying goodbye to his arm and deconstructing his sausagey leg casings in relative peace.

And so, feeling protected by a shroud of second-hand silence, Mastergote has joined a nudist colony. Meet Mastergote's new friend, Lamar:


Lamar does not even have a blog. We are in love.

On Saying Goodbye

GOODBYE!

Notes on Enlightenment

This morning [ahem, a morning in the past two weeks] was spent in the sweaty clutches of a search. A search? A search!

Triggered, perhaps, by the cheesy and delightful Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (The Gleaners and I; Agnès Varda, 2000) screened in the company of numerous bronzed and bespectacled New Yorkers, all over the age of 65 and enjoying their MoMA senior discounts and the poem that is old age in New York. [More on this poem in a future post.]

Triggered, perhaps, by Varda's fuge on the people who glean from what remains from the habitual grind and the wonderful things that they find - food, scraps, artistic inspiration. But in my case, on this particular day [in the past two weeks] isolated, identified, and beaten to a sweaty pulp with the hard sticks of oneness of being and spiritual release. I'm talking, of course, about the Sunday morning yoga class. And so, without any further prolegomenon...what have we gleaned?

Some Field Notes on Enlightenment:

1) Enlightenment cannot be achieved unless one is thoroughly embarrassed. One must humble one's gotely body before one's fellow gotes in order to find one's way to the shiny path. One must sweat visibly and profusely, mopping one's face, legs, and mat with a scummy towel while others sit quietly with their legs balanced lightly on their own shoulders or extended in various directions as if held up by invisible karmic marionette strings. One must wear small, tight black shorts that squeeze one's furry and uninstructed flesh into the meekest and humblest of truth-seeking gote-sausages. And, after the requisite hour and a half, one must remove all the trappings of modesty, becoming pure and innocent, alone in one's innocence, all the while trying not to bump too familiarly into the other naked pilgrims waiting in line for the baptismal font of the group shower.

2) Enlightenment cannot be achieved through the brain. Thinking about other people's marionette strings will not help you grow your own.

3) In fact, thinking about other people's marionette strings only helps the Republican Party gain more votes.

4) *But* if you ignore it all long enough, you may have a vision.



That vision, for that split second, may be your enlightenment.

Or it may not be. But it's worth a shot.