It was wild-it was fitful-as wild as the breeze-
It 'art surfed' about into several keys;
It was jerky, spasmodic, and harsh, I'm aware;
But still it distinctly suggested an air!-Ellen McJones Aberdeen
QUOTE: Great art is ALWAYS contemporary art. -Art S. Rev.
miniQUIZ: Frankenstein was a big hit when it appeared in `31. How many of the many sequels in the series can you name? (answer later in this column).
Literature: Morning DJ Don Imus has started the Imus Awards for best books. Prizes total $250,000 which is 10 times more than that of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book award combined. And with 10 million listeners on 90 radio stations he's got the audience, like Oprah's book club, to promote books. (Newsweek). Musea only wishes that either personality would mention the 1,000s and l,000s of ZINES out there...
Tabloid sales have been dropping fast. Since '78 the National Enquirer sales have fallen 59%. 1982 seems to have been the high point in sales for not only the Enquirer (Enquiring minds don't seem to care any more) but also The Star and The Globe. What's the reason for the drop? Maybe the public has wised up, or maybe the mainstream press has integrated tabloid news into such old journalistic bastions as Time and Newsweek (Newsweek)
Quote: "In America, if you talk to anybody about a classic book you've read, people think you're trying to impress them. But what if you really LIKED the book? And really LIKE classics? That seems to never enter their heads." Art S. Rev.
WHAT'S AN AMERICAN VERSION OF TIENEMEN SQUARE? - A welfare mother stands in front of a stretch limo and won't let it pass.
MUSIC: Have you heard of Phil Specter, the record producer, and his 'wall of sound' recording style? Well one of his songs, River Deep, Mountain High, by Ike and Tina Turner (1966) was made in 5 sessions. The 3rd had 21 musicians including 4 guitarists, 3 keyboard players, 2 drummers, 4 bass players, 2 percussionists and a horn section. All this plus 20 background singers! Wow! And then the song peaked at #88 on the charts. Ouch!
HISTORY: When historian Donald Worster (Univ. of Kansas) went to Yale he felt unmoored among his fellow students, "There was no nature in their history, no soil, no countryside, no smell of fungus, no spring peepers trilling from the marsh at dusk. Historians seemed to have forgotten completely that until very recently, almost all people lived as intimately with other species and with the wind and weather as with their own kind. To ignore that long intimacy was to distort history." (Preservation)
Quote: "I think that a great painting is often like a great book or great poem: it speaks to you in different ways at different times and . . .different stages of your life." - Alden Scott Crow.
TV THEMES: Last month we listed our favs. 2 readers have sent in theirs: MICHAEL HELSEM: Perry Mason, Mission Impossible, Hawaii 5-0 (both, the last well covered by the Ventures) Secret Agent [Hunkasaurus does this in concert] (Johnny Rivers), Johnny Quest (the cartoon), Twilight Zone, Branded, Get Smart . & of course Dragnet .MELANIE PRUIT: Mission Impossible, Love American Style, Rawhide, Perry Mason, Speed Racer, The Patty Duke Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Hawaii 5-0, Room 222, Johnny Quest, Dallas, Knot's Landing, Falcon Crest, L.A. Law, Thirtysomething, Friends, The Simpsons, & Remington Steele. Here 's a perfect name for a website: Sit.com. I wonder if anyone is using it?
mini-Quiz Answer: After Frankenstein came: Bride of Frankenstein,'35; Son of Frankenstein, `39; Ghost of Frankenstein `42; Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman,'43; House of Frankenstein, `44; House of Dracula , '45.
Want a major directors advice to aspiring actors? Stanley Kubrick makes it short and simple, "Don't do dopey films!"..
China, in order to maintain her culture, only allows 10 Hollywood films in a year. That might be a good policy for America too...
If you have access to cable and your system has the new Sundance Channel (co-owned by Robert Redford) let me know what you think. From Jan 29-31 the cable channel will offer a free preview to both cable and satellite subscribers with Al Pacino's Looking For Richard (about doing Shakespeare) and Stanley Tucci's Big Night, etc.
As we said in our Musea story Guerilla Theater, most films don't get airplay. It's good that they're finally getting a break because more people will see these indie films on TV than in the theaters! (USA Today)
ART: Key Ideas In Human Thought, a book edited by K. McLeish, defines conceptual art as: "often abstruse, uninterested for the most part in audience comprehension, and designed to inspire indifference." This month Musea has 3 nutty examples: The Jack Tilton Gallery had porn stars, porning away on mattresses strewn across the floor while camera people videoed the audience reaction (this isn't art it's a 2 drink minimum!) (Artnews).
Here's another GEM FROM THE PEN of Dallas Morning News art critic Janet Kutner on work by Brigitte Nahon - (and as always I am NOT making this up!) "One Dallas piece is made of transparent balls held in midair by delicate rayon threads that have been split in half. The other consists of fishbowls filled with water and stacked in vertical rows of seven to form a chest high wall." (Well throw out those dusty Rembrandts, we need room for the fishbowls!) And finally the British conceptual artist Damien Hirst (who has sold pieces (?) for 85 thousand pounds) is at his pickling again. His bit is suspending a variety of animals in formaldehyde! `Alone Yet Together' contained 100 fish suspended in formaldehyde each in separate cabinets. Most of the major British museums now have examples of his work! Yet prices may be declining somewhat for the very practical reasons (aesthetics aside) that these pieces tend to SMELL and there's always the chance of leakage! (The Economist) MORE ART: CHUMP OF THE MONTH goes to Belgium. In 1967 when the widow of Surrealist Magritte offered to sell 50 of his most famous paintings to the Belgian state at a bargain price, they procrastinated so long she changed her mind and sold them on the commercial market. Earlier this year the largest retrospective of his work was shown in Brussels called Rene Magritte Centenary Retrospective. (Europe).. Closer to home one of our own is having an art exhibit. Columnist WEASEL BOY (Kevin E. White) is showing his art work (often featured in his every-other-month column on page 3) at "THE GALLERY at HALF PRICE BOOKS" Lincoln Square/ 770 Road to Six Flags/ Arlington, Tx 76011 (817 274 5251 or see his website by clicking on Musea's and linking up-see page 2). We encourage you to check it out! [His Xmas cards alone are classics!]
MUSEA remembers the passing of NORMAN FELL, TV's Mr. Roper, died in December of cancer. He also played a landlord in the classic film The Graduate . CHUMP OF THE MONTH #2. Well corporate art has done it again! It seems nothing religious is sacred to them. Warners, Disney, etc. now sell for Chanukah : Disney dreidels & Looney Tunes and Winnie-the-Pooh menorahs. (Newsweek) Art 5 Rev. says: I CAN NEVER BE TOO CYNICAL ABOUT CORPORATE ART, THEY CAN ALWAYS PASS MY LEVEL OF CYNICISM WITH THEIR WEASELY-NESS !!!
I wish you the best on this new year! Stay tuned!