Wayne

@wayneb.bsky.social

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usually in California - currently LBC

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my most boomer take: stop writing emails and tweets in first person, unless you are the one typing it. a white lie, one of the 1000 cuts of dishonesty in politics.

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Wayne

on the anniversary of billie holiday's death, i implore you to read james baldwin's review of "porgy and bess" which is basically about her passing and is very possibly my favorite essay of all time www.commentary.org/articles/jam...

On the Horizon: On Catfish Rowwww.commentary.org The film version of George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess is appraised here by the novelist James Baldwin. _____________ Grandiose...

interesting local angle on Bill Viola (RIP), Long Beach Museum of Art and preservation of his video archive (as usual, blogging ftw) longbeachize.com/articles/lon...

Long Beach Lost: Bill Viola's death reminds us we once owned the world's most prominent collection of video art | Longbeachizelongbeachize.com Famed and pioneering video artist Bill Viola died—reminding us we (literally) gave away an important collection of art.

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Wayne

There isn’t a single full-fledged music book on that NYT 100. Here’s a choice baker’s dozen they could have included (and one that they did). 📚 open.substack.com/pub/thegig/p...

The 14 Best Music Books of the 21st Centuryopen.substack.com Following a rigorous survey (of my own bookshelf), a definitive canon

such glaring rube bait, he knows economically California, with the most immigrants, is so far ahead of Ohio.

I oppose this worldview—this theory of America—with every fiber of my being.

HBD Lee Friedlander, - 90 years old today!

“As with Plotinus, the Hellenistic founder of Neoplatonic philosophy, Viola’s installation proposes memory as a perceptual function that allows a human soul to acknowledge its own existence.“ www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Bill Viola, pioneer video artist who explored nature of human consciousness, dies at 73www.latimes.com Artist Bill Viola, whose pioneering work with video since the 1970s opened the door to what would become a major artform internationally, has died. He was 73.

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Wayne

RIP 🖤✨ Bill Viola

his “25 Years” survey at SFMOMA was one of the great art experiences - saw him a few times around Long Beach, he looked very frail, so I held back from fan-boying

RIP

Bill Viola, Video Artist Who Established the Medium as an Integral Part of Contemporary Art, Dies at 73www.artnews.com Bill Viola, whose video artworks helped establish the medium in contemporary art, has died at 73.

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Wayne

in 1981 Sarah Charlesworth made 6x9ft screenprints of one of the earliest photographs, a still life of a set table by Nicéphore Niépce. The work, Tabula Rasa, is now on view in a group show of the same name at Paula Cooper Gallery in NYC greg.org/archive/2024...

every take that doesn't have a concrete plan ("here's the ticket and the rationale why") is just self-harm.

I’m not sure what the surefire way to win the election is but I am fairly certain a sure way to lose is to spend the next 4 months with Democrats talking about how much their candidate sucks and how we’re doomed

doing this again 20 years later! people are in line an hour ahead 😮

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Wayne

One of my favorite pieces in LACMA's collection is this 19th century water color that shows women fainting as Krisnha plays the flute.

French version of the "travel to rust belt diners to talk to Trump voters" article - I'm curious about the media environment in France, is there a Fox equivalent or what is convincing them cities are dangerous and immigrants are taking jobs?

‘We want our peace’: why is France’s far-right support such a rural affair?www.theguardian.com Media rhetoric about migrants and crime is rallying support for the National Rally in the countryside but, say city folk, the reality is different

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Wayne

Necessary vibe shift: Milton Avery, Dancing Trees, 1960

for Gen X every GOP administration in the last 35 years has been a dumpster fire, punctuated by the installation of this gallery of loathsome wretches, each lying to get their lifetime appointment.

sunday palette cleanse: “Where Do We Go,” Bill Frisell, 2001. cover photo by George Tice youtu.be/Qr5YPpOV94M?...

Where Do We Go ?youtu.be Provided to YouTube by NonesuchWhere Do We Go ? · Bill FrisellBlues Dream℗ 2001 Nonesuch RecordsGuitar: Bill FrisellComposer: Bill FrisellAuto-generated by Y...

the thing about this is every single “step aside” take is written by someone that will still vote for Biden despite [waves hands]

basically it feels like the commentariat is composed of children who never seem to consider that politics is made up of many hard decisions and now, confronting the fact that maybe they made the wrong one, are throwing a tantrum and insisting the world instantly manifest their whims.

my LA county neighborhood Nextdoor is filled with gleeful posts, eager to get the police to begin rounding up homeless, each mentioning the SCOTUS decision

Jailing people for being homeless is a classic American policy: stupid, brutal, and very expensive.

“libraries will often pay publishers $55 for one copy of a popular e-book for two years, while the same e-book is sold to consumers for about $15 for perpetual use. “

The Libby app is amazing AND publishers and Overdrive (Libby's owner) are bleeding library budgets dry www.govtech.com/biz/data/beh...

Behind E-Books, Libraries Find Restrictions and High Costswww.govtech.com One of the nation’s largest libraries has nearly doubled its collection spending in the last five years in an attempt to keep up with patrons’ digital demands. But the push has introduced new headache...

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I'm excited to share that today is the official publication date for my new book, Van Gogh and the End of Nature, from Yale University Press, which more firmly grounds Van Gogh within the industrial era in which he lived & worked (thread) yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

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Wayne

Edgar Degas, Factory Smoke, 1877-79, monotype on paper www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

genX memory: at the bookstore chain BORDERS seeing a suitcase-sized CD box “Complete Mozart” (Philips, 1991, 180 CDs) and it was like $1200, or $2500 today. Now you can just listen to Mozart, in order, for $9 a month. And yet people want a flood of derivative AI art (at great carbon cost)?

It's increasingly clear that the people who make generative AI don't like films, don't like books, don't like art of any kind, and don't understand why anyone else does.

between web 1.0 and 2.0 social/apps the most consequential and detrimental technology was AJAX, specifically “infinite scroll”

i just want zoomers to know that computers were actually useful once. before the iphone/ipad/android/chromebook, computers ran software that was just like a program that did what it was supposed to do. also the internet used to have a lot of cool stuff on it that didn't give you an anxiety disorder

best anecdote from the Tadao Ando story. (finally, a member of gen x brave enough to take a sledgehammer to a boomer edifice!)

my start word is sauté

NYT has comment sections for every Wordle and yesterday's Wordle was "MANGA"

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Wayne

In February I totaled my car so I rode public transit for the past three months. Of course I used the opportunity to photograph a side of Los Angeles that many never see. Peep the photo essay at the link and sign up for the Archival Recordings newsletter! www.archivalrecordings.com/bus-pass-2024/

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Wayne

The back of Helen Frankenthaler's Mountains and Sea:

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My teenage self absolutely cannot believe this. My 48-year old self barely can either! Thank you Brad Mehldau for including Dynamic Maximum Tension in this murderer’s row of legendary albums from the Nonesuch Records catalog. I am honored beyond words. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQfK...

Brad Mehldau's Nonesuch Selectswww.youtube.com Brad Mehldau stops by for the 'Nonesuch Selects' video series, in which artists visit the Nonesuch office, pick some of their favorite albums from the music library, and share a few words on their choices. Opening music: Brad Mehldau's 'Between Bach,' from his 2024 album 'After Bach II': https://bradmehldau.lnk.to/afterbachii Brad Mehldau's Nonesuch Selects: 0:20 Richard Goode, 'Richard Goode Plays Brahms' https://richardgoode.lnk.to/Brahms 1:28 Richard Goode & Dawn Upshaw, 'Goethe Lieder' https://richardgoodedawnupshaw.lnk.to/GoetheLieder 2:55 Adam Guettel, 'The Light in the Piazza' https://adamguettel.lnk.to/thelightinthepiazza 4:49 Kronos Quartet, 'Alfred Schnittke: The Complete String Quartets' https://kronosquartet.lnk.to/SchnittkeQuartets 6:18 Darcy James Argue's Secret Society: 'Dynamic Maximum Tension' https://darcyjamesargue.lnk.to/dynamicmaximumtension You can hear a playlist of music from Brad Mehldau's Nonesuch Selects at https://bradmehldau.lnk.to/NonesuchSelects Video by Robert Edridge-Waks #BradMehldau #NonesuchSelects #Nonesuch #NonesuchRecords

as Greg writes, the doc is quite clear about how Twombly reproduced / enlarged Polaroids, but not why one foundation controls his painting, drawing, sculpture, while another the photographs. Old-fashioned photos are lesser art, the value or? The content of certain photos we haven’t seen?

s/o @wayneb.bsky.social for the tip abt Cy Dear, a haunting authorized documentary about Cy Twombly, which reveals way more than it tells, but which also finally helped me figure out Twombly's photo practice: he switched from artisanal French handprinted to color photocopies greg.org/archive/2024...