Anodyne
Friday, October 31, 2014
 

"Panaglide — you strap it on, and off you go, and there’s more freedom in the movement, freedom to track up stairs, around corners, follow characters. I was determined to use that so a lot of scenes were done in one take."

[....]

"The opening shot was inspired by Touch Of Evil. Orson Welles did a couple of one-take sequences, but the most astonishing is not the opening sequence which everybody remembers. In a motel room, in the middle of the movie, a man is broken by Orson Welles’ character. It’s almost a reel-long one-shot. It’s astonishing. I was inspired by the idea of that. So in the opening scene, we were coming up on the outside of the house, around and up the back steps, and as we passed through a room going into another room the crew would re-light it behind us. We were just flying on the edge, but that was the spectacle, the money shot. Plus we had a naked girl upstairs! You couldn’t ask for more than that. There are a couple of cuts in that first shot. The mask allowed us to do a cut, and there were botched takes — we didn’t make it up the stairs, there was a camera shadow, something would happen. But it was fun."
- posted by cjb @ 9:34 PM
 

"One staff member, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, said one question she has repeatedly faced since the scandal erupted is how the voice on the radio, who portrayed himself as a feminist and sensitive, can be accused of such things. Her response was simple: He was often 'reading other people’s words.'"
- posted by cjb @ 9:15 PM
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
 

Kato Cat, magnificent. Courtesy L.
- posted by cjb @ 9:39 PM
Sunday, October 26, 2014
 

Jack Shadbolt, Primavera No. 4

First artwork I ever bought (& then carried home to the North Shore, all 31" x 44" of it, on public transit). 

Still on display chez CJB today.
- posted by cjb @ 10:12 AM
 

Left hand edge of Fortified Door, about 6' from its right hand cousin, seen a few weeks ago.
- posted by cjb @ 7:24 AM
Saturday, October 25, 2014
 

JW, Daybreak, 2011. Sleeping workers after the olive harvest on a farm in the Negev. 

Pretty sure the buildings in the background are Nafha Prison.
- posted by cjb @ 10:42 PM
Sunday, October 19, 2014
 
These concepts are relevant, too, but only negatively, insofar as some critics of my "performative" photographs have read them as disruptions, or critiques of, their sources. (Memory of some particularly dim Emily Carr student taking pictures of Stan Douglas' house, etc. and presenting them as legitimate challenges to power).

"A heckler is a person who harasses and tries to disconcert others with questions, challenges, or gibes. Hecklers are often known to shout disparaging comments at a performance or event, or to interrupt set-piece speeches, with the intent of disturbing performers and/or participants."

"Trolling is a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players. The troll attempts to pass as a legitimate participant, sharing the group's common interests and concerns; the newsgroups members, if they are cognizant of trolls and other identity deceptions, attempt to both distinguish real from trolling postings, and upon judging a poster a troll, make the offending poster leave the group. Their success at the former depends on how well they – and the troll – understand identity cues; their success at the latter depends on whether the troll's enjoyment is sufficiently diminished or outweighed by the costs imposed by the group."
- posted by cjb @ 10:48 AM
 
Archive of Vernacular Snapshots of Road Signs in California - See more at: http://www.harpersbooks.com/pages/books/17596/california-dreaming/archive-of-vernacular-snapshots-of-road-signs-in-california#sthash.qPJ5DDoV.dpuf
Archive of Vernacular Snapshots of Road Signs in California - See more at: http://www.harpersbooks.com/pages/books/17596/california-dreaming/archive-of-vernacular-snapshots-of-road-signs-in-california#sthash.qPJ5DDoV.dpuf
 Archive of Vernacular Snapshots of Road Signs in California

"Collection of 149 vernacular photographs of road signs throughout California and the southwestern United States, taken by an individual unknown photographer. Prints vary in size, with mostly 3 X 4 1/2 inch and 2 1/2 X 3 1/2 inch snapshots. The overwhelming majority depict diamond-shaped signs, with arrows to campgrounds and natural sites or lists of distances to nearby localities, surrounded by a receding expanse of desert, forest, or sky. Several signs are riddled with bullet holes and various prints are written on or stamped on the verso. In addition, the collection includes 5 images of the couple who presumably took the pictures, with the Ford coupe they traveled in. Photographs are stored in clear protective sheets and plastic sleeves in a container, with a selection organized by a previous owner (not the photographer) in a photo album labeled 'Riding Shotgun' and a group encased in a small cowhide accordion-fold photo case. A meditation on indexicality, and the typology of signs in the aesthetic of Ed Ruscha, presaging the open road iconography of Jack Kerouac. Prints in near fine condition, with minor fading and edge wear."

Second-to-last sentence just phones in the semblance of critical context, but the actual object's amazing.
- posted by cjb @ 10:27 AM
Saturday, October 18, 2014
 

Source for Cutoff Tree, 2010-5.

Next exhibition, fall 2015, consists of pictures after Wall, Reichardt, Hockney, Carpenter, McFarland & Bejar.  Plus some of my own.

"'A guy once just yelled, "Me!" in the middle of my set. It was amazing. This guy’s heckle directly equalled its heartbreaking subtext – "Me!"' Silverman, an avid fan of Howard Stern, went on to describe a poignant moment she remembers from listening to his radio show: one of the many callers who turns out to be an asshole is about to be hung up on when, just before the line goes dead, he blurts out, in a crazed, stuttering voice, 'I exist!'"
- posted by cjb @ 10:51 PM
 

Frederick Horsman Varley, Mountain Climbers
- posted by cjb @ 10:32 PM
 
"On February 3, 2012 at approximately 5:00 p.m., Mr. Deboo was driving a pickup truck northbound on Highway 8 near Spence's Bridge headed for Shiloh, Manitoba."

More crime drama from the BCSC.  Paragraph #25 FTW.
- posted by cjb @ 9:50 PM
Saturday, October 11, 2014
 
It's not as easy as it was, or as difficult as it could be...
- posted by cjb @ 9:30 PM
Thursday, October 09, 2014
 

"Know what else I see?"

 He didn't.  He didn't have a clue.

 "That's what makes you brave."

 It took a moment for that to sink in.  "What?"

 "You think I don't know?  Why you keep mouthing off to the wrong people?  Why you sabotaged your own career every step of the way?  Why you can't help but face off against anybody who has any power over you?"

 [....]

 "You're saying I overcame my fear," he began.

 "I'm saying you gave in to it!  Every time!  You're so scared of being seen as a coward you'd jump off a cliff just to prove you weren't!  You think I never saw it?  I was your wife, for God's sake.  I saw your knees knocking every time you ever stood up to the schoolyard bully and got your teeth kicked in for your troubles.  Your whole damn life has been one unending act of overcompensation, and you know something, love?  It's just as well. Because people need to stand up now and then, and who else is going to?"

(Peter Watts, Echopraxia, p. 321)
- posted by cjb @ 10:24 PM
Monday, October 06, 2014
 

I'll see you again in 25 years.
- posted by cjb @ 7:22 PM
Thursday, October 02, 2014
 
He Said He Boiled My Gun. Did He Boil the Guns?

"It’s not like in the movies. Nobody shoots with two hands."
- posted by cjb @ 6:33 PM

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