Monday, January 31, 2011

Minimal Melbourne




All photos Tom Blachford. Via German and Portugese.


Friday, January 28, 2011

Are All Ryan Gosling Movies the Same Movie, A Perspective

Hey, #protip to anyone with a comcast ondemand subscription: All Good Things, that Ryan Gosling movie, is available for only $5, a pretty nice discount from what you'd pay for a theatre ticket. So because of that, I got to watching it yesterday, and then I found Blue Valentine online for streaming (thanks Harvey Weinstein screeners!) today, and.... I must ask you, as a blog readership, if these were supposed to be two different movies. Because they weren't. Here we go-

Ryan Gosling is dapper-looking young man who meets a sweet young blonde girl. They look very attractive together.

 



Next stop, the chapel!

                                    

That Ryan Gosling, always getting married.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the inevitable abortion clinic visit.




Whoops! But lest you think everyone's just running around killing babies all the time, do note that there are times when everyone takes a nice, long break and just bums around the country in that quaint way that country folk do. (To add to the morbidity, there's also a dead dog featured in both films.)




Oh, and have I mentioned what these lovely ladies do for a living? Because it seems like different incantations of Ryan Gosling have managed to find the only two attractive, blonde ladies who happily pursue the study of medicine. Yes, with the blood and the guts and stuff. That medicine.



And maybe this is a demand that Ryan insists on for all of his characters, but DAMN does dude smoke a lot of cigarettes and/or weed. Just constantly smoking, that guy.




But good thing he's got the comfort of a good lady.




That is until he brutally murders the one and gets divorced by the other. I would say "oh spoiler alert" but both of those are pretty much the entire movie plot summary, so what's the point.

The last similarity happens to be that you get to see both of these women topless in the shower with Ryan, but I won't repost those pictures here because c&uw doesn't need to carry a NSFW tag.

So, I'm not going to review these movies. There's enough people doing that. Needless to say, Michelle deserves her Oscar nod and more. She's exquisite and heartbreaking. Ryan, on the other hand... Does he even have to show up to set any more? The boy is undeniably good-looking, but we (the viewership) need to demand that he choose some variety for his next project. I suggest a bromance movie with Andrew Garfield and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Who wouldn't buy a ticket for that? No one. That's who.

Let's just hope that The Goss manages to age slightly better than his characters. A shiver-inducing sign off-


Saturday, January 15, 2011

Mid-January Update

I had an application due yesterday, which meant I spent most of it completely procrastinating and learning a lot of interesting things that were completely irrelevant to the task at hand. First, via Gawker, some excellent images and history of the now-abandoned North Brother Island, "closer to the Empire State Building than much of Brooklyn," and, for historical buffs, the once-home of Typhoid Mary during her quarantine and eventual site of the beached PS General Slocum. The island was used for quarantine hospitals for many years as well as dormitories for GIs coming to New York to study then finally recovering addicts. It has been abandoned since 1963. Pictures and captions via.

An iron spiral staircase on the eastern tip of the southern wing. 
This room was originally a screened-in porch.
A former childrens' ward was converted to a library when Riverside became a rehabilitation hospital.

An old phone book found in the maintenance building.

Some more odds and ends that should consume your thoughts: 
The largest maritime disaster in US History: SS Sultana
If you're feeling just a little too good about the world, the Australian government didn't issue a formal apology for the 'Stolen Generations' until February of 2008. As late as 2000, during the Howard Government, the term 'Stolen Generation' was debated, since, according to John Herron, "only 10%" of aboriginal children were taken, and that didn't constitute a "generation." In matters of public, civil discourse... I can't even make this a logical argument. It's illogical not to get it. Anti-racism, anti-formalized racism, anti-genocide. Good?
Good. Now, need a cheery film rec

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Checking in with Oceania...

Christchurch Art Gallery, artfully photographed by Murray Hedwig

Not to be confused with Murray Hewitt, one of four other people I know from New Zealand. (Two of the others are Bret and Jemaine, yes. Sad.)

The Buchan Group in Melbourne is quite satisfied to leave me to my belief that Oceanic architecture is the best kind of architecture. I love it when my beliefs aren't challenged. Lets me sleep peacefully and all of that. The things I like are the best things, and the things I appreciate have every reason to be appreciated. That sort of thing.

I love the use of glass, but almost as importantly, I love the fact that in non-professional photos of the place, it can look as murky as the river it takes its inspiration from. For instance, look at the wiki picture of it, a decidedly non-promotional photo:


There is something non-reflective in that glass, or possibly even more reflective than the sparkles of the prior photo's glass. It reflects a reality that is, definitively is. The murk and the grime, two constants of our society, even in the far-off, enchanting NZ. Perhaps all glass buildings have these two sides. Perhaps I haven't been looking at them long enough.

I'm not easily fooled by the glitz and the glam. But the movement, which continues to the interior, is fluid and outstanding.



What exceptional art to house what I can only hope is exceptional art.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

bon voyage, sophisme

Cape Town Via

Monday, January 3, 2011

how not to talk about religion, a 1-part series

But Stuart is right that this was a very cohesive community, and the women I met there seemed to acclimate fully to those Vedic scriptures, to all the injunctions, some of which did seem kind of absurd. Like the ones about cows, the ones about dress ... I never could quite understand and I used to ask Stu, why do they have to wear the fuckin' 2,000 year old dress? How does that bring them closer to God? Again, I'm not sure of the fine print in the scriptures, but ostensibly the rationale is simply "we want to be close to the original goatherds and Gopis that loved Krishna, because by emulating them, we, by some sort of symbiotic identification, will advance closer to Krishna himself." Krishna, by the way, might be a fictitious being, but that's another story.



Everybody else looks identical, perfectly homogeneous. And Stuey and I are sitting with them, but in jeans and Pink Floyd T-shirts.

Text provided by Stuart Resnick 
Photo by Svetlana Larina

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Should old acquaintance be forgot

and never brought to mind



should old acquaintance be forgot



and days of auld lang syne






May your 2011 be something of note, readers.


(all photos Farley Post Office, NY, courtesy of Nick Carr.)