Preeminent West Coast rapper Calvin Broadus created an extraordinary work of art in his now legendary hybrid animal/human alter ego, Snoop Doggy Dogg. His debut effort, Doggystyle, features an illustrated depiction of a personified hound reaching towards a female counterpart who explicitly props her rear in the air in the standard doggystyle position, which
I first encountered the work of Harry Dodge & Stanya Kahn at the Getty’s California Video exhibit in 2008. In Whacker , 2005, Stanya Kahn is in the middle of one of those abandoned, overgrown hills you see along the road in LA, trying to mow the weeds with a weed whacker. It’s so
In Heiner Müller’s play “Quartet,” the Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont of Les Liaisons Dangereuses have become old, saggy, warty, perhaps syphilitic, but are ever more determined to woo and exchange body fluids with unsuspecting young virgin nieces. Yet in all the rave reviews Wilson’s Quartett has received so far, not a
Many literary purists may dismiss the photographs, colored markings and letter facsimiles of Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as mere gimmicks–flashy pyrotechnics meant to catch the attention of lazy readers. But for the attentive reader these visual artifacts are props in creating the semiotic drama of Foer’s intention. Throughout the
Serge Gainsbourg is one of the most iconic French musicians of all time. His contributions to pop, rock, soundtracks, jazz and the avant-garde are unparalleled in French contemporary music. His concept album “Histoire de Melodie Nelson” ( a rock opera about the seduction of a female nymphet ala Lolita) is one of the greatest
Julien Duvivier is an early 20th century French film director whose work spans 67 films over a 30 year career; prolific is too small of a word for this man.
Navigation by celestial positioning has been as useful to seafarers as to poets. As a result of Peter Gizzi’s newest book of poems, The Outernationale, it is possible—perhaps necessary—to generalize further about the art of locating oneself by approximation of arcs of distance and nearness in relation to true places of heavenly bodies. For
Roy Andersson's "You, the Living" completes the diptych that began with "Songs from the Second Floor" and gives us a message of hope within the ennui of modern life.
A couple months ago I got the chance to witness the grand opening of Kommunitas, a curated “allery” (alley gallery) located just off Townsend between 5th and 6th streets in San Francisco’s SoMa district. I had previously known SoMa’s Bluxome Street corridor well, a staple for graffiti enthusiasts on par with Mission favorites, Clarion
A review of the “The Grandfather Paradox” ; a mix/album put together by production duo AME, Dixon and Henrik Schwarz.
