Scary

Why Bush doesn't read the news. Need I say more?

Spiderman detourned

This actually quite old from BoingBoing: detourned Spiderman comic strips. Just keeping hitting the refresh button to see a new one. There's about 20 in all - some of them are really stupid, but others are pretty funny.

GPS drawings

This just in from RandomURL: GPS drawings. Neat idea anyway.

Stuff

I haven't been up to much after the excesses of Rose's 40th last weekend. It was a bit of a doozy, and I think it's safe to say a good time was had by all. I don't know how I'm going to top it when my turn comes around, but at least I've got more than five years to suss it out.

I missed the Seraphine Pick and Jason Greig opening at Hamish's on Tuesday night, but I did go to a particularly crap Peter Adsett opening at McLeavey's on Wednesday. There were four abstract paintings made with acrylic, urine, hair from a hairbrush, and water. It was funny how the crowd was quite different from the usual one. I think it was mostly people looking for an investment and family.

Matt and I headed off to the pub instead, where we bumped into Rob McLeod and some guy called Victor, and proceeded to get thrashed at pool by them.

Pics

I've been sending some phonecam pics off to Sent, some that're on the website and some that aren't. If you see one of a whole lot of people with Maori sovereignty flags standing in front of the Beehive and Parliament Buildings, for example, you're pretty safe in saying that's one of mine.

There's some good ones, but I find the random pic thing a bit of a pain in the ass. Certain pics keep on showing up over and over again. They need a page of thumbnails or something, so you can check them all out without seeing some of them 50 million times.

Noise

Rose and I went along to listen to Rosy Parlane, Richard Francis and Campbell Kneale at the Adam tonight. They separately produced their own brand of noise for about 10 to 15 minutes each first and then melded them together for about half an hour or so. It was bloody cold but that kind of went with it, especially for the wind howling one. I picked up a couple of Birchville Cat Motel records (including this one) and a Rosy Parlane CD on the way out.

I had a quick squizz round that part of the Prospect show during the break. Most of it was pretty boring, though I did quite like the Francis Upritchard stuff. It was the old school desk that did it for me.

Shiny and new

I'm typing this on my shiny new iBook. I went and picked it up today. Now comes the onerous task of installing software and transferring files, though that might have to wait till tomorrow.

It's been a pretty boring week otherwise. At least I've got over being crook. It's Rose's 40th birthday next weekend, and I've no idea what to get her. Sussing that out will have to be a mission for next week. I wonder if I'll be able to find a copy of that song Life begins at forty?

Bilderberger frenzy

To offset the overly diaryish nature of the previous posts (since I started working full-time the old posts have got more infrequent, longer, and much more diaryish), here's the Guardian on the Bilderberg group's net presence.

Dear diary

I've been sick as a dog the last few days. It's meant I had two and a half days off work, had to flag going up to Palmy, and haven't made a start on this freelance job yet (I should of course be doing so now but am instead sitting here typing this).

I started to feel a bit more human yesterday. As I had just been paid a huge wodge of dosh from a previous freelance job, Rose and I headed into town so I could buy a swish new iBook (I am so hanging out to ditch the horrible old PC). Unfortunately, though, bastard MagnumMac were closed for Liz's birthday. I'm going to have to take a long lunch next week and do it.

We decided to go check out the City Gallery part of the Prospect show (and naturally I took some sneaky photos). You'll have noticed I flagged going to the openings last week. I can't take City Gallery openings any more - the large crowd of nobs, the dreadful speeches (it's hard to decide which is worse: the corporate sponsor ones or Paula Savage's - that woman seriously needs to do some public speaking professional development).

I took photos of the ones that grabbed me the most first off. The top two are from the ground floor gallery - Ian Scott's pin up girls in front of hard-edged geometric abstractions (kind of funny), Liz Maw's paintings (stupendous), and a Peter Robinson sculpture. The bottom two are from the main first floor gallery - works by Sean Kerr and Ronnie van Hout. There was some other good stuff there, and some incredibly dull stuff as well (I hated the et al. installation and the Dick Frizzell painting the most I think).

I find the way these kind of curated survey shows group things together thematically pretty annoying on the whole. There's a good contrast with Te Manawa's current show - over 600 works from their collection that are ordered alphabetically (and that jam up on the walls from floor to ceiling) - works from wildly different periods and strands of NZ art history (such as it is) sit next to each other, leading to all sorts of surprising juxtapositions. The self-consciously curated shows try to force particular readings of, and associations between, the works on you. Bloody curators.

One thing in particular pissed me off about the way the City Gallery was arranged. Sean Kerr's Mountain was directly facing a DVD projection of Sarah Jane Parton singing karaoke. This meant that her singing along to Cyndi Lauper drowned out the droning coming from the Mountain. It even drowned the audio components of Ronnie van Hout's thing, which was down the other end of the room.

There was also Tracey Emin's Fear, War and The Scream downstairs. This featured drawings, paintings, photos, a neon sculpture, and a video work (and apparently they were thinking of bringing her tent over but decided against it - oops). It was all anguished, heartfelt, and confessional, just as you'd expect, but I was a bit surprised. I thought the colours and drawing would be stronger, bolder.

Having been stymied in my iBook purchase and revved up by contemporary NZ art, we then went on a record buying frenzy. I got It's bigger than both of us on CD (a great compilation of NZ singles from 1979-81). I also got a pile of vinyl: Another year by Nocturnal Projections - a truly fantastic 45 from 1982 - and The last great challenge in a dull world by Peter Jefferies (number 130 out of 1000), Caul of the outlaw by King Loser, a re-pressing on nice thick 180gm vinyl of The Stooges' debut album, a Jad Fair 45, Bongwater's Too much sleep, and David Bowie's Space oddity.

Here we go again

This freelance job arrives tomorrow, just in time for Queen's Birthday (cheers Liz). It's a collection of academic essays on a particular piece of legislation. I can't wait. I'm planning to head up to Palmy on Friday for Simon's birthday (and to pick up my work), so expect I won't be making a good start on it till Sunday. It'll be a rerun of the last few weekends I imagine.

Last weekend was pretty much a dead loss for painting (except for Sunday arvo/evening). We had end of the month drinks at work, starting at half four, where I downed a few wines in quick succession (it'd been a reasonably long week). I then met the Matts and co at Thistle Hall, where Cortina were playing at a private function for some short film (which I hated, though they did have a seemingly endless keg and piles of Hell pizza to make up for it). Cortina rocked, then we headed down to Happy to see New Zealand, again featuring the inimitable Bek Coogan. After that, it gets hazy. I can vaguely recollect Motel, Matt Hunt, Tequila Sunrises, and White Russians, all jumbled up, and then staggering home at about five in the morning.

That was it for the rest of the weekend - wiped out. I've got all these bits of wood I scavenged, so I might try and gesso them up before the weekend, get them underway anyway.

Charming

No Right Turn pointed me to this salutary tale of freedom of expression in the USA - what happens when a gallery in San Francisco's North Beach, the home of the Beats, and where Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights fame still hangs out, puts up a painting of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.

If it's like that there, what the hell's it like in the rest of the country?