from: George Billis Gallery (L.A.)

ARTIST STATEMENT

I am not a landscape painter. My goal is not to depict the way light plays on treetops, but I do want to get inside to see the rings of the tree, explore the structure of roots and branches, understand the bark. Lately, I’ve been using maps to find my way. I was seduced by these obsolete weathered pages–their elegant lines revealing eons of geological shifts and erosion–all translated by human mind and hand. The risk I was taking and the implied violation inherent in putting my first marks on the antique paper was bracing. It brought drawing back into my paintings, erased the horizon line, and provided me with a ground on which to excavate and impose images. As if I am walking through nature with a magnifying glass and a telescope, I find cells, mushrooms, thunderheads; pebbles, cliffs, continents.

I tilt these flattened lands into the frontal plane and then I seek routes and valleys back into space. I’m hoping for vertigo. There is no one way to lose my balance. I follow a river with ink. I clog a harbor with oil paint. The name of a town or mountain might require something more literal–Rabbit Hills, Burning Spring. After the Fall of 2001, I found I needed to erect buildings out of the grid work of the maps. I could no longer avoid the human presence in my work or continue to invent a pastoral universe.

When I was 8 years old, I’d lie on my stomach in my bedroom and draw with colored pencils in ring bound sketchbooks. These drawings (now yellow with age) are full of monsters, winged beings, organic machines with gears and tendrils and bolts of electric current. Drawing on these old topographic maps with their sepia mazes returned those lost shapes and memories to me and provided me with a new framework for painting, a way to navigate space.

Amazing SELFKISS photo-montages by Pupsam aka David Puel and Thomas Libé.

The gay news media have been tracking for several days now the story that Bush’s nominee for Surgeon General is subject to the kind of religious mania faith which convinces him that homosexuality is a curable condition. I thought that the mainstream US press would quickly pick up on it and expose the man’s unsuitability for such a responsible position. Shoulda known better, right? At the time of writing ABC have covered the story in detail, the NYT looked at some of the gay reaction, while the Washington Post and USA Today have failed to pick up on it at all.

Via Raw Story:

On Thursday, ABC News reported that President Bush’s nominee for surgeon-general, Dr. James Holsinger, may be in trouble because of his “homophobic statements.”

In 1991, Holsinger wrote a paper on “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality” for the United Methodist Church, in which he argued that homosexuality is unnatural and unhealthy. As reported in The Nation, “Holsinger argues that male-female ‘reproductive systems are fully complementary’ because ‘anatomically the vagina is designed to receive the penis.’ The remainder of his paper is a graphic account of the ‘delicate’ rectum which is ‘incapable’ of ‘protection’ if ‘objects that are large, sharp, or pointed are inserted’ into it.”

“Gay rights groups are outraged,” reports ABC, adding that Holsinger also helped found a church that promises to “‘cure’ gays of their sexual orientation,” a claim that major medical organizations dispute.

“A confirmation fight is exactly what the administration does not need,” says commentator David Gergen. “There has been a growing criticism of the administration favoring ideology over competence and this nomination smacks of that.”

Adding to Holsinger’s problems, ABC concludes, the committee which will consider his nomination is chaired by Senator Ted Kennedy, a supporter of gay rights, and includes among its members presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Chris Dodd.

Senator Obama (D-IL) released the following statement Thursday morning, “America’s top doctor should be a doctor for all Americans, and so I have serious reservations about nominating someone who would inject his own anti-gay ideology into critical decisions about the health and well-being of our nation.”

“As with other nominees, I will listen to the testimony of Dr. James Holsinger, but this Administration must know that the United States Surgeon General’s office is no place for bigotry or ideology that would trump sound science and good judgment,” Obama’s statement continued.

From the NYT:

As president of the Methodist Church’s national Judicial Council, Holsinger voted last year to support a pastor who blocked a gay man from joining a congregation. In 2004, he voted to expel a lesbian from the clergy. The majority of the panel voted to keep the lesbian associate pastor in place, citing questions about whether she had openly declared her homosexuality, but Holsinger dissented.

Yes, there’s still eighteen months of despicable bullshit like this to get through.

JC

Of Walking In Ice
Munich – Paris, 23 November – 14 December 1974
Werner Herzog
Publisher: Free Association

“Our inaugural title: the diary of filmmaker Werner Herzog, unpublished in the US since 1978. A modern-day Odyssey, this text follows filmmaker Werner Herzog as he treks through an endless blizzard to save a dear friend from her near-fatal illness. It is filled with philosophical absurdities, humanistic rantings, and poetic descriptions of every snowflake fallen and blister endured during his three-week-long quest. This is an uncompromising Herzog in his own words.”

English
June 2007
Softcover, 5 x 8 in
112 pages
ISBN 978-0-9796121-0-7

$25 (+ $5 S&H) usa
$25 (+ $10 S&H) intl

Artist unidentified. Northeastern United States, possibly Maine c. 1860. Wool appliqué and embroidery on wool, 112 x 158 in.

Attributed to Elvira Curtis Hulett (c. 1805–1895). Probably Hancock, Massachusetts c. 1890–1895. Wool, 50 in. diam.

In Arthur No. 9, Dave Catching invited us into his kitchen and shows us how to make New Orleans Soul Red Beans, Rice and Corn Bread. We’re still using his recipe at Arthur HQ! Bless Dave Catching, a true American in the finest sense of the word.

Click here to buy advance tickets.

Tomgram: How Permanent Are Those Bases?

The Great American Disconnect

Iraq Has Always Been “South Korea” for the Bush Administration

By Tom Engelhardt

Finally, the great American disconnect may be ending. Only four years after the invasion of Iraq, the crucial facts-on-the-ground might finally be coming into sight in this country — not the carnage or the mayhem; not the suicide car bombs or the chlorine truck bombs; not the massive flight of middle-class professionals, the assassination campaign against academics, or the collapse of the best health-care service in the region; not the spiking American and Iraqi casualties, the lack of electricity, the growth of Shia militias, the crumbling of the “coalition of the willing,” or the uprooting of 15% or more of Iraq’s population; not even the sharp increase in fundamentalism and extremism, the rise of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the swelling of sectarian killings, or the inability of the Iraqi government to get oil out of the ground or an oil law, designed in Washington and meant to turn the clock back decades in the Middle East, passed inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone — no, none of that. What’s finally coming into view is just what George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, the top officials of their administration, the civilian leadership at the Pentagon, and their neocon followers had in mind when they invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003.

But let me approach this issue another way. For the last week, news jockeys have been plunged into a debate about the “Korea model,” which, according to the New York Times and other media outlets, the President is suddenly considering as the model for Iraq. (“Mr. Bush has told recent visitors to the White House that he was seeking a model similar to the American presence in South Korea.”) You know, a limited number of major American bases tucked away out of urban areas; a limited number of American troops (say, 30,000-40,000), largely confined to those bases but ready to strike at any moment; a friendly government in Baghdad; and (as in South Korea where our troops have been for six decades) maybe another half century-plus of quiet garrisoning. In other words, this is the time equivalent of a geographic “over the horizon redeployment” of American troops. In this case, “over the horizon” would mean through 2057 and beyond.

This, we are now told, is a new stage in administration thinking. White House spokesman Tony Snow seconded the “Korea model” (“You have the United States there in what has been described as an over-the-horizon support role… — as we have in South Korea, where for many years there have been American forces stationed there as a way of maintaining stability and assurance on the part of the South Korean people against a North Korean neighbor that is a menace…”); Defense Secretary Robert Gates threw his weight behind it as a way of reassuring Iraqis that the U.S. “will not withdraw from Iraq as it did from Vietnam, ‘lock, stock and barrel,'” as did “surge plan” second-in-command in Baghdad, Lt. General Ray Odierno. (“Q Do you agree that we will likely have a South Korean-style force there for years to come? GEN. ODIERNO: Well, I think that’s a strategic decision, and I think that’s between us and — the government of the United States and the government of Iraq. I think it’s a great idea.”)

Arthur presents…

New Energy Music Sesh with djs Arrok and Paulus

Tonight!

Thursday June 7th 10pm
at Little Joy 1477 W. Sunset Blvd.

Paulus is inclined towards heavy moves and hesher rock.
This probably means Steeleye Span, Savage Rose, Cactus, and early Scorps.

Arrok favors ethno-psych and water brother vibes. He’ll be busting out
Moroccan hippy beat, California laid-back, and revolutionary French dropout rock primarily.

“Dear Convention Guests,

Tomorrow,

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6th

we stage the entertainment portion of our trade show.

The venue is:

LA CITA
(3rd/Hill St. Downtown)

Shuttle will be running every half hour from all our partner-hotel-properties.

Frankie Delmane & his TEENAGE FRAMES perform!

JIMI HEY DJs!

Be sure to wear your official placard at all times to guarantee admission.

Meet & Greet, light refreshments, and marketing seminar to take place simultaneously on the patio.

This is your one-stop networking dream!

Thank-You

-Your convention hosts

RAH-RAH-RAH”