Posts by author
Ari Messer
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Running on Sexy
Sébastien Tellier recently toured the States, bringing a spacious European balance to “sex music” from this side of the pond, such as the brilliant, raunchy new Peaches album, I Feel Cream (which imeem is streaming for free, thanks to XLR8R).…
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Swedish Vibrations
“I got the idea to exchange each word in a poem I’d written with an emotionally equivalent sound. When I had exchanged all the words, I had made an electronic composition without even knowing it. After that I’d found my…
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What You Think is Sad: Gabriele Basilico and San Francisco Noir
She always knew it would come to this. A screaming horde of bucknaked smutcrazed rapists banging on her glass ticket kiosk. She crossed herself and with a single prayer commended her soul to the Lord’s Everafter and consigned her flesh…
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Big Books, Little Books
Kindle, iPhone, Stanza, “media pads,” whatever. Sick of news about things you can’t afford that do things you don’t need done? Head to the Donna Seager Gallery and put your little mits and screen-numbed eyes on the dope selection of…
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Kool-Aid
Having been delivered by a (former) Merry Prankster in a Santa Cruz hospital, I was especially enthralled to learn that Gus Van Sant has received Ken Kesey’s blessing to make a film adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid…
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Donald Richie
Tonight in Berkeley, Donald Richie comes all the way from Tokyo to talk about his life in Japanese film and the arts in general. He’ll be chatting onstage with Telluride Film Fest co-founder Tom Luddy. The event is being put…
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Imagine Finding Me in London
There are a number of reasons I wish I were in London today. Most of them are aesthetic. Take photographer Chino Otsuka’s Imagine Finding Me series, where the Tokyo-born, London-based good-kind-of-manipulator morphs together images of her former and current selves…
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Ari Messer: The Last Book I Loved, The Changing Light at Sandover
I hate agreeing with Harold Bloom. But what can I say? I fall easily and oddly and often (if sceptically) into Bloom’s spells of (particular) historical illumination and (annoying) lucidity.
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In the Art Rags
Despite–or maybe to spite–bitter winds, spring is in the air. The art world and its rags are responding in kind. In Oslo, rabbits are about to do funny things with humans. Vartan Avakian investigates his (heroic!?) namesake for Bidoun. With…
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Cast Your Pod
Pandora too much work for your lazy ass? There’s a new indie-throbbing Music That Matters podcast over at KEXP (via Morr Music). Stellar rock photographer (and folky musician) Henry Diltz was a guest DJ at KCRW–the historical insight is better…
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I Want More Jesus: Noise Pop from Here to America
Too much revelation at your indie fest? Too much Jesus? Shut up, naysayer. I want more.
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In the Art Rags
The new issue of Bidoun has glitter on both covers, smells like a pack of baseball cards, and includes a stellar essay by Negar Azimi, “I Often Dream of Slavs.” The last issue of frieze celebrated FILE Magazine‘s idiosyncrasy; the…