September 2010
2 posts
The Beat Goes On
Now for a word from our sponsors, or a small word of self-promotion. (Also cultural promotion, for that matter). “The Record” has opened at the Nasher Museum at Duke Univeristy. While few of you may get there, all of you should check it out. Dedicated to the crossover between music and art, the catalogue includes my essay from Frieze on the cover Robert Rauschenberg did for the Talking Heads’...
S’MORE SEX
(photo by Colin Purrington)
Recently we had relatives visiting from the UK and introduced them to the joys of S’mores. (For those who don’t know, this is graham crackers, chocolate and melted marshmallow). I explained the history of said that one of the key ingredients the graham cracker was designed to curb sexual appetites.
Now I’ve had a long held interest in the social history of...
August 2010
3 posts
Money Woes and Whisky Hopes
This morning NPR did a story on scotch saving not just Scotland but all of Britain. (It is Scotland’s biggest export – bigger than North Sea oil – which NPR didn’t say). Also whisky’s been saving Scotland since long before the current fiscal crisis. The UK pinned its hopes on whisky all the way back in 1784 after the war with the States (known in these here parts as the Revolutionary War)...
From the Horse's Mouth
Here in the sticks there is little graffiti. When Obama was running, we had a spate of Hopes and stenciled Barack heads ala Shep Fairey. (That’s when I knew Barack would win…). But, through it all one piece has endured up here. Not TJ + Rhonda. Or Tim hearts Tammy, but “Mr Ed” – big, white and spray-painted with dripping Krylon. You can find this wonky masterpiece on a boulder on the way into...
The Inside of an Italian Hospital
That’s how Roger Sterling describes the very deluxe new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce offices in the Time Life Building. And pretty much like the place I grew up, Hollin Hills. Also coincidentally childhood home to Mad Men’s production designer Dan Bishop. A suburb of 450 mid cent modern glass houses, all by one architect (Charles Goodman) with three of modernism’s best landscape...