Fantastic! Except that it's not coming to DC. Well, fuck, I was meaning to get up to NYC this month, but not to see a movie.
What are you coming up for, Smasher? I could see the Gugg's Russia show being up your alley.
(Which is actually getting good reviews despite the fact that anything requiring an exclamation point in the name should be treated as suspect.)
That's exactly what I want to see. I've been fortunate enough to see the big works in the Gugg show at the Hermitage, but I have to see them again.
I'd say my favorite Townes is High, Low, and In-Between; it has more of my favorite Townes songs. But Abnormal is awesome and is a more coherent album.
The Russia! show is really excellent, not being an art critic or having seen it that recently I'm somewhat at a loss to describe it using more better words.
Wait, I thought you meant 6 to 4. Damn.
Ok, I'm leaving.
Oh, and a lot of the work is from the Tretyakov gallery, not the Hermitage, since the Hermitage in large part featured collections of art work by non-Russian artists.
Yeah, the Russia[!] show is on my list and I'd better suck it up and go because it's closing soon. I'm just annoyed with the Guggenheim so I haven't been able to bring myself to do it yet. It seems like they've done a really bad job installing their exhibits lately and the museum ends up feeling much more crowded than it really is. I left the Aztec exhibit wanting to smack people.
Is that Russia! show going to be anywhere else, or just New York. (Am I going to have get into Russia before they go fully authoritarian again?)
11, no doubt. The signature pieces (Repin, Vrubel, Malevich) are from the Hermitage; I'm guessing that everything else is from either State or Tretyakov.
Did you know that Putin is more or less paying for the whole thing?
Really, if I can channel one message to the people who run art galleries and museums, it would be to plead with them to think about how things will flow and whether people will be able to read the descriptions and enjoy the art when their space is at capacity, not just when attendance is sparse. The Gugg has a tendency to set things up where the crowd looking at item A is standing right in the path of the person looking at item B. The Met's costume gallery, which always puts their plaques on the floor, is the worst offender.
Then again, I'm the same person who complained about Twombly's carpet, so you can feel free to disregard this as me talking out of my ass.
I missed the last 50 years of the Russia!!!1! exhibit becuase the Goog has the temerity to close so early on Sundays... so get there early. but so worth it, especially if -like me- you known "nichivo" about Russia.
Shouldn't someone have used the word "transgressive" by now?
I second the recommendation for listening to High, Low, and In-Between / Late Great as well as his live albums.
His early recordings are fun. He was very musical and creative and that doesn't always come through in the later recordings.
The emotion and directness of the live albums are amazing but I don't always know what to make of them. On The Highway Kind, for example, the first two songs are two of my all time favorites but the version of Darcy Farrow always bothers me. The emotion on the latter seems so out of proportion to the song.
Did you know that Putin is more or less paying for the whole thing?
Do you mean him personally, or the Russian government?
anything requiring an exclamation point in the name should be treated as suspect
Huh, impressive.
Has he finished taking over the oil industry, and now wants to focus his attention on the lucrative art gallery industry?
And will the Putinheim have a reasonable (socialized) student entry fee?
If 27 is a question about the actual Guggenheim in New York as opposed to a hypothetical art museum under the control of the former head of the FSB (not so hypothetical I guess, see discussion of Russian state run art museums above), it's an unreasonable $15 for students.
Late to the party here, but Van Zandt is awesome.
Ronnie, Stevie, and Townes Van Zandt walk into a bar.
"*?" asks the bartender.
"*", says Ronnie.
"*", says Stevie.
"*!", says Townes.
"A ham sandwich", says the rabbi.
Thank you.
Ronnie Van Zandt's grave was desecrated in the year 2000. "How is it possible to desecrate anything related to Lynyrd Skynrd?" you may ask. But amphetamine knows know law. Rogue Doobie or Allmon brothers or cousins are suspected.
It seems like they've done a really bad job installing their exhibits lately
To be fair, it's very hard to install anything in that space (the Ellsworth Kelly retrospective of some years ago being a major exception, but even that was for more overall effect than for individual works.) On the other hand, no, they don't seem to try too hard.
If you miss Russia! at the Gugg, there's still a couple of great reasons to be on Fifth Ave this season: Fra Angelico! at the Met and Memling! at the Frick.
The Fra Angelico catalog came into the office this week. I was checking it out, thinking how terrific it looked, and then thought, Damn, they are gonna sell so much merchandising off this show during Christmas season. So jealous.
anything requiring an exclamation point in the name should be treated as suspect
I used to be suspicious of exclamation points too. That was before I found out about Fafblog!.
Ogged is a vengeful Ogged. But I'm happy to have gotten the last comment on that thread.
I think we should all be grateful for Ogged's brilliance. If someone had actually got to comment 1000 on the other thread, jealousy would have torn the Mineshaft apart. (I, for instance, would have lorded it over the rest of you like nobody's business.)
37 is 1000. Congratulations, Ben.
That accords with my calculations, SB. Many thanks.
This is like showing up at a party around midnight, sober.
Fun was obviously had by all.