Tuesday, January 27, 2009

TALES FROM THE DEAD - New York screening tomorrow!

Wednesday, January 28.

Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue at Second Street on the Lower East Side.

Shorts start at 7 PM, Features start at 8 PM.

See the films, then stick around for Q&A with the filmmakers after.

Admission for the whole night is $6 at the box office.

Need more information? Click here.

Friday, January 23, 2009

TALES FROM THE DEAD screens in NYC!

Our man, filmmaker Jason Cuadrado

New Yorkers! Mark your calendars and begin plotting out your routes to the Lower East Side!

Wednesday, January 28 brings you the rare opportunity to enjoy a one-night-only screening of Queens native Jason Cuadrado's Tales From the Dead.

It's being shown as part of an evening of films presented by Latin Horror at the Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue at Second Street.

See the film, then stick around for Q&A with Jason after.

A selection of shorts will be screened at 7 PM, followed by Tales From the Dead at 8 PM.

Admission for the whole night is $6 at the box office.

Remember, Tales is NOT available on DVD, so don't miss out. For more details, click here.

To catch up on what Tales is all about, click here. And be sure to visit the film's official website here.

Big Sur After the Fire

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Georgina Spelvin @ Hustler Hollywood Tonight!

New Texture pal Georgina Spelvin will be reading at Hustler Hollywood TONIGHT!

Click on the flyer below for details.


(click flyer to enlarge)

Monday, January 19, 2009

Scaring the Nation With Their Guns and Ammunition



What a big weekend for Art!

Not only did Andrew Wyeth die, but Leonard E. B. Andrews--Andrew Wyeth's biggest "buyer"--died as well. If the New York Times is to be believed (and why would they lie?) Mr. Andrews died first. While it is possible that Mr. Wyeth died upon hearing is biggest buyer died, the New York Times didn't make that connection.

Even if you hate everything about the New York Times as much and for the same reasons you hate Vanity Fair, you've got to admit their obituaries are a rollicking good times (just as Vanity Fair, though disgusting in every other way, really does have a great horiscope page).

The New York Time's Wyeth obituary brought up this point:

Because of his popularity, a bad sign to many art world insiders, Wyeth came to represent middle-class values and ideals that modernism claimed to reject, so that arguments about his work extended beyond painting to societal splits along class, geographical and educational lines. One art historian, in response to a 1977 survey in Art News magazine about the most underrated and overrated artists of the century, nominated Wyeth for both categories.

Most underrated and most overrated. Some guys have all the luck!

As for Mr. Andrews, the New York Times had this to say:

He made his fortune publishing expensive newsletters on subjects like bankruptcy, asbestos and Iranian assets. For seven years he wrote a daily column of inspirational thoughts for The Daily News called “Ponder This.”...

After working for a bank in Dallas, Mr. Andrews joined the Uni-Serv Corporation, an early credit-card company. When printers stuck New York City newspapers in 1962, he proposed soliciting advertising from Uni-Serv customers to publish a paper during the strike, according to Editor & Publisher.

The resulting paper, The New York Standard, with Mr. Andrews as associate publisher, was the largest of several such strike papers. It produced 67 issues with a peak circulation exceeding 400,000.

Does that make him a publishing scab?

Even if it does,

...Mr. Andrews’s ...poured the money into the art program he had started to help municipal employees and other amateurs exhibit their art. It now has 85 shows in 44 states.

Which is as good a thing as any to do with the money that came gushing in after "he sold them at a profit of perhaps 600 percent." (an estimated $40 million)


The other big news in the art world this weekend was the incarceration of Boy George. Because we so love the red gold and green here at New Texture, we are often on the look out for "the hits" on youtube (what with blogs being the new TV guide and youtube being the new TV.)

In looking for the iconic Junior Murvin hit "Police and Thieves" I happend upon Boy George's "misreading"--and what a glorious misreading it is. You see, while everone else is focused on how close the arrow is to the bull's eye, we at New Texture are more focused (and clearly more tittilated) by how far the arrow is from the target all together, and by that we mean the further the better.

Speaking of Boy George and the red gold and green, the SUN reports that "They put him in a cell with a Rasta Guy to protect him."

Irie...

Joshua Tree


copyright © 2009 Wyatt Doyle

Thursday, January 15, 2009

bashed

On Thursday night I left the office at 5:45 to get over to the 944 offices for their monthly party.

It's a cool network of young professionals in entertainment and advertising, and there were several business acquaintances I expected to see. When I got there around seven, none of them had yet arrived. I had been just barely recovering from a harsh summer cold and didn't feel like drinking, so I took it easy with some soda water at the open bar. I made do with the crowd that was there, and engaged a small group of stylists, who were actually really cool to hang with. It was an hour or so before the people I knew started to show, and by then I had gotten to know almost everyone at the event.

When the party died down around ten, I gave a lift to the stylists who were too drunk to drive. We headed over to the neighborhood just north of Melrose and west of Highland. It was a nice place. I mixed them a few drinks and then left with two of the three, heading over to Jones on Santa Monica. It was not very busy, and I was able to grab a few seats at the bar. I ordered a bottle of wine and some glasses. My two new buddies—a brother and sister—had to hang by the booths, because the girl was under twenty-one. I struck up a conversation with a couple at the bar, and we chatted for a while until they left and I excused myself to the bartender to visit the bathroom. When I returned, there was some girl in my seat, and a few men standing around her. I very lightly touched her shoulder and informed her that she was in my seat. She apologized but did not move. Neither did I. She asked if I wanted her to move, and I pointed to my bottle of wine and the three glasses on the bar, and said, "Yes, I do. Thank you."

She extricated herself and I sat down. One of the gentlemen who had been around her sat down on the barstool alongside me, and as I swiveled to look, he clocked me in the face. And again, and again, and again…

There was no security (though there had been a doorman). It had been the crowd that separated him from me. I was at this point on the ground and being lifted by a few people—including one of my two new friends, who was calling for security as well. The manager approached and I asked him to stop the guy who was at this point leaving the bar. I ordered him to call the police as I wanted to press assault charges against this unknown individual who had just sucker punched me and followed through pretty well afterwards. I had the barback give me a towel with some ice in it, as I could feel my face swelling.

The management did not detain my attacker. They did not get his ID, nor did they interview any of his friends. I was able to get the bar staff to tell the police what happened, as well as get testimony from my crew of two, and by the time I left the bar at three o'clock, I had given my report to the sheriff's department as well.

I had to be at work in three hours, for an important conference call.

Ironically, the only alcohol I had consumed that evening had been the one glass of wine, but a painkiller the cop gave me was a codeine pill, and it made my mouth dry and cottony as though I'd been drinking all night. My body ached, but my mind was sharp. I got a ton of things done at work that day. It was as if I'd become more efficient. That night I stayed in and iced up my face a bit more, as the swelling had been pretty severe. I had a cut under my right eyelid, and the inside of my cheek was torn up from where my own teeth had collided where his fist had connected repeatedly. I also had a pretty good sized lump on my forehead, and overnight Friday the swelling went down considerably. This was an X Games weekend, so bruises weren't necessarily bad to have anyhow.

Feeling much better, and finally well rested, on Saturday I went for a long BMX ride across town, and that evening agreed to drive my friend Paul back from Alhambra after his Harley broke down. He took longer to get to the garage than I did so I went and grabbed some dinner at a Vietnamese pho restaurant called Golden Deli, where I had the best pho, the best egg roll, and the best lemonade I've ever had in my life. When Paul phoned I came back and got him and we headed out to the mountains of Malibu for an outdoor electronic music festival. It was up above the cloud line, and halfway up the hill we had to turn around and go back down to base to get gas, which we did, and then head back up. The performance had already started, and in the pitch black it took about ten minutes to find the path behind the rocks. I used my cell phone light to guide my way.

When we reached the performance area, we made our way to the front. The crowd was camped out on blankets around us, and one couple very close to the front left corner gave me their beers as they were leaving early. They were two Pyramid Hefeweizens, and they were kinda warm, but they were perfect, and I had grabbed my backpack from my trunk before climbing the mountain, so I removed and spread the blanket inside and used the backpack itself as a pillow. It was a clear night up there, while fog covered most of the rest of Los Angeles. I tilted back my head and listened to the band playing, as the peripheral images from the video projection caught the bottom of my face as the stars overtook my vision. The night air crispened and the beer got colder as I took my time to finish it.


copyright © 2007, 2009 Panik

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Meet Victoria Doyle



Victoria Doyle has appeared here before as a poet and tipster, but this clip finds Victoria at her day job - singing.

The song is "Here Alone," from the musical Little Women. The clip was directed, shot and edited by filmmaker Gordon Shoemaker.

You'll be hearing a lot more from both of them.


Rate and comment on Victoria's clip on YouTube by clicking here.

Friday, January 9, 2009

I'm Happy, Hope You're Happy Too!

Ashes to ashes. Oh how I do love that song.

Yesterday wasn't only Tommy Mullane's birthday, it was David Bowie's birthday as well. David Bowie = 62 years young.

Huh?

And so a little David Bowie youtube time. Is that so wrong?

What is the effect of time on music? What is the effect of time on the musician? What is the effect of time on the musicians hair? I aint got not money and I aint got no hair... Can we learn anything about the effects of time on David Bowie and the song "Ashes to Ashes" vis a vis "our" culture in general?

Do "we" even have a culture anymore?

yes yes, the usual lamentations. Seems like the more things change, the more they stay the same. Hands up, who wants to go to Pioneer Square, sing God Bless America and have a good cry?

The Video

The 1980's

The 1990's.

The 1999's

The 2000's

The 2002's

The 2002's some more

The 2003's

The, uh, later on in the 2000's

+ + +

Did you know today is Richard Nixon's birthday?
Did you know tomorrow is Rod Stewart's birthday?

Big Sur After the Fire


copyright © 2009 Wyatt Doyle

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Thursday, January 1, 2009

A Newstastic New Year from Plato Jesus

While many of us were busy getting used to doing this year's holiday shopping at the dollar store, the ever-vigilant Plato Jesus was busy keeping an eye on world events. Now he rouses you from the blurry ache of your New Year's hangover to drop these NEW installments of his much-beloved "That's Newstastic!" series into the fragrant puddle at your feet.

Mind the splash!

Point of No Return for the Arctic Climate?

FDA Nixes Proposed "Prescription Pistol"

North Korean Prison Life Detailed

Supermarket Refuses to Personalize Cake for Child Named "Adolf Hitler"

"I'm Gonna Blow Your B!*#* Off!"

Happy New Year, America!

A web find from Plato Jesus:

(click image to enlarge and read)