Tim Hall – Business Reply Mail

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About 15 years ago I got so sick of those BRCs that fall out of magazines that I began painting/writing nasty messages on them and mailing them back, then liked them so much I began keeping them for myself. It’s my medium, my amanuensis…even my oeuvre, you might say ...”

“Tim Hall’s latest book is How America Died.

Buy it here:  http://undiepress.timhallbooks.com)

Interview & Art – LUIGI CLEMENTE

By Jason Michel

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I’ve been unlucky enough to know Luigi for a number of years now. He is an Italian, from Genova, living in London. His photography is something special. Decadent and, at times, has an everyday Surreality. It reminds me of listening to Madder Rose with him over a beer in London. He is a wry & miserable bugger, though.

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JM: Luigi, inspiration. Where in God’s Balls does it come from?

LC: From the nose.

JM: I’ve seen your nose and I have to say, it is inspirational. I’ve noticed that you use a lot of masks in your Portraits, what’s with that?

LC: Thanks for your question. Now I need to think, and you know I hate doing that. Masks. They don’t hide the identity. They reveal it. They create an identity where there is no identity. Our social avatar (the face we paint, the hair we cut, the body we shape) is not us. There is no us, to be precise. And this disturbing vacuum is revealed in all its inescapable horror when we wrap it in a solid, clear, coloured, definite structure: the mask. Like insects, like cicadas, we need an exoskeleton to move, laugh and sing and live, made of plastic, cardboard or simply sick imagination, as you prefer. Masks. I got one from my cousin.

JM: It is interesting that you mention that “there is no us”. This is an old idea, that goes back to Buddhist thought and modern neuroscience is showing us that it may in fact be true. What influences outside of photography have found their way into your particular art? By this I mean, books, other artists, music?
 
LC: Influences. In photography. A classic one, sorry for being so banal: Cartier-Bresson. I like the composition, the equilibrium of shapes and lines and focus points, the delicate tension, the irony. I like the photoshop artists, like Dragan. I like painting: Renaissance masters, like Raffaello. And for the portraits, may I dare to mention Rembrandt? His masterful way of handling light and darkness? Sharp details and softness? Music. There’s nothing more visual than music. I like dark, gloomy, gothic soft musical textures. Try Hope Sandoval, try Cranes. Dim the lights. Close your eyes. There’s no picture like that. Low saturation, diffused background, high contrast. if you want to smile, a slightly sad smile, listen to Paolo Conte. Books? I can’t read …

JM: Okay, last question … Luigi, how important is place for you? You are Italian, from Genova, yet you live in London. Why did you choose Deare Olde Londinium to live? Grazie tante! Ciao!

LC: The city is both a physical and a metaphysical space. A city is a background for your pictures, portraits or landscapes. It sets the mood and the rules. It gives you subjects: bridges or people. I was born in an old and dying city. Genova is dying of old age. You can walk in the alleys, and get a sense of history, of the past, but no sense of future. The present is confused, still, frozen in amber. People live awaiting. Godot is not coming yet. And when the wind is strong, the voice of the sea grows louder, and you forget where you are, who you are. I missed that sometimes. I missed my sea. I missed my dirty alleys, and small vineries. So I feel out of scale here in London, but then there is the metaphysical aspect. London offers me the gift of the long tail, a chance to socialise around an interest, whatever it is. In this case, photography. I chose London for this. It gave me, and probably will still give me (for a while, at least), the hope of being surprised.

And life without any surprises, what kind of life is it?

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Luigi’s magnificent work can be found: HERE!

A Conversation With Ed Mironiuk

By Jason Michel

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Ed Mironiuk paints women. Curvy & delectable Goddesses peering down on us weak male-of-the-species. His art looks back to The Golden Age of Pin-Ups and drags them through a Pop Culture mudbath to his own style of Low Bizarro Art, as his website says – “a hybrid of pop trash and fetish culture kissed by Dr. Moreau himself”.  Sounds interesting? He agreed to a Conversation with yours truly.

Continue reading A Conversation With Ed Mironiuk

Cocktail Lounge – Flyin’ High Pomtini & Lavender Lemonade Martini

Pomegranates? How easy are those to find for a Stellar’s Jay? Not fuckin’ very. But a good martini is worth lugging huge fruit in one’s talons. A good martini is worth just about any inconvenience. If you’re a simp. Dirty Bird prefers to simply lift the juice from the nearest convenient store rather than pick the pulp from around the seeds after a capricious flight home from the pomegranate field. Wherever you get your heady pom-juice, it makes for a sweet-tart refreshing sort of cocktail. Pomtinis will add lift to your flight. But be careful, they go down easy.

Dirty Bird is always on the look-out for something to cool him down on hot summer days. One afternoon, outside his secret cabin in the forest, Dirty was drinking martinis—as he likes to. He passed out after staggering toward the lavender patch to inhale their uplifting odors. When he came-to, he’d saved his cocktail (of course), though it was full of lavender blossoms. He drank it down after doing his best to blow the purple flower-cups out of his glass. Its flowery finish refreshed Dirty like sunshine spring-water splashing off chiming stones. He went straight to his mixing-lab, snatching up a glassful of flowers on his way. After a day of experimenting, many recipes were born. This one with lemonade comes closest to the refreshing experience of awakening in one’s garden, surprised and delighted by the luck of letting Nature pick a bed of flowers for one’s nap.

The Big Bamboozler speaks! – The Musings Of Paul D Brazill

And There?s More … By Paul Brazill

Posted by Jason Michel on June 13, 2010 at 11:34 AM Comments comments (0)
In his introduction for the crime anthology KILLER YEAR, the thriller writer Lee Child talks about buying records as a working class lad in 1960’s England. At the time, 45 rpm singles cost an ‘affordable’ six shillings and eightpence  but LP records cost so much more that they were a twice a year only event – birthdays and Christmas. Continue reading The Big Bamboozler speaks! – The Musings Of Paul D Brazill

Cocktail Lounge#To Drink Or To Drink …

Mocha Martini & Strawberry Martini

Chocolate is like sex. Coffee is like sex. Vodka, sex. This drink is all about sex. Continue reading Cocktail Lounge#To Drink Or To Drink …

Art/Comics#The Latest

An Interview with Matthew Coleman by Jason Michel

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Matthew Coleman’s images of the world around us are the images of an outsider. They distance us from ourselves. I had the opportunity to interview him.
Hey Matthew!Tell those ignorant swine amongst us a bit about yourself & your influences.Where do the ideas for your photographs come from?
What inspires you?

Art/Comics Archive

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Jodi MacArthur serves imagination raw on an open flame. Bring your fork to www.jodimacarthur.blogspot.com. Published online and in print, she is currently working on her first novel, Devil’s Eye.

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You are invited to Kristin’s virtual home, Le Salon, at the web address http://www.fouquet.cc/


Celluloid -The Story So Far …

Arizona International Film Festival – The Art Of Storytelling

By Matt Dukes Jordan

*Don’t Let Me Drown, 2009, USA

Be Calm and Count to 7, 2008, Iran

Psycho Guru, 2009, USA

The Crimson Mask, 2009, USA*

The cool thing about film festivals is that one can discover hidden, rare, and very innovative films that might not otherwise be widely seen. Along with feature-length films, tons of short films are shown and some are experimental and non-narrative. Unless you search out such films on the internet, you probably won’t see them. It’s good to give them a venue. It’s also good to give indie dramatic features a chance to find an audience and be reviewed… and maybe pick up prizes and distribution. Continue reading Celluloid -The Story So Far …

Music May/June/10

OM ~ Cabaret Sauvage, Paris 3/6/10

OM ~ Al Cisneros (bassist, formerly of the Doom Metal Gods « Sleep ») & Emil Amos (drummer, also with the mighty Grails) ~ are my kinda band. Imagine if John Paul Jones, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward & John Bonham went on a journey around Kashmir & smoked far too of the local greenery & ended up in some mad Tantric monastry in Shambhala & decided to do a concert.

That is what OM sound like to me.

Who wouldn’t want to be there?