My friend Lizzie Owens showed me this video a while ago. The 23 year old Sinead O'Connor performing her song Mandika at the 1989 Grammys. Its sort of makes you wish TV was still this simple.
Isa Genzken has been one of my favorite artists for a few years, so when I saw her in Chelsea a few weeks ago (wearing some awesome dirt bike riding pants), I figured I'd put a post up of her work. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of info about her life online. I guess that's how it tends to go with artists who are still alive, especially female artists. Isa was born in 1948 in Bad Oldescloe, Germany and studied at the Hamburg College of Fine Arts (1969 - 1971), Berlin University of Fine Arts (1972 - 1973), and Düsseldorf Art Academy (1973 - 1977). For a time she was married to the artist Gerhard Richter. Genzken received the International Art Prize in 2004 and theWolfgang-Hahn-Prize in 2002. One of the things I love about Isa Genzken's work is that she explores all sorts of mediums - sculpture, installation, video, painting, works on paper, photography, and artist books. Genzken uses everything from wood and plaster to found materials. I've always been interested in how she can combine themes that are generally thought of as masculine, such as architecture, modernism, and industrialization, and approach them with a fresh visualization that seems to know no gender or class distinction.
Heart- Crazy On You Nancy Wilson starts this off with an awesome guitar solo. Then sister Ann takes over with killer vocals. Old footage of Heart is just so moving. And you gotta love that the guys are belly bearing Luke Sykwalker types.
Siouxsie and The Banshees- Kiss Them For Me I wish music videos were still this cool.
Vivian Girls - Tell The World Something a little more contemporary
Babes in Toyland - Memory If only MTV still showed girls this cool.
Slapp Happy - Just A Conversation Dagmar Krause of Slapp Happy, Henry Cow and Art Bears is something to aspire to. I wish there was more of her on youtube.
Due to positive response from the Golden Girls episode a few days ago I've got a new clip for you. This one is from the show Maude, which also stared Bea Arthur. Maude was ground breaking not only for the 70s but probably also by today's standards. Having been married four times Maude was no spring chicken and had no qualms talking politics, women's lib., civil rights, or as you'll see from this clip, drugs. In one of the most controversial episodes (actually a 2 episode segment) Maude discovers she's pregnant at 47 and decides after much thought and discussion to have an abortion. Despite that fact that more than 1/3 of American women will have an abortion in their lifetime Maude is the only American show I know of that actually follows through on the decision. Despite some controversial subject matter the show managed to have a great run as a sitcom. Here is a clip of Maude trying to score some weed.
The Hills, and its new spin off The City, are generally shows I avoid. They fall under the category of show that I might watch if I'm cleaning my apartment or home sick. I'm not much of a tv snob but basically nothing ever happens to the girls of The Hills. If something does happen it takes 4 episodes to happen and there are so many awkward silences and dull sighs that it feels like nothing is happening. Occasionally I get really annoyed thinking about how my life would have made a much better tv show when I was 20. Maybe there were no plastic surgery scandals but parties at art school were definitely better than the backyard BBQs on The Hills. I spend a lot of time thinking about language and tone and the nonexistent substance of communication on The Hills. I remember reading in Jane Fonda's biography that women come into their own voices when they mature in to a comfortable confident understanding of themselves. Jane talks about going back and watching her old movies to realize that her voice was much higher and wispier in her most unsure phases. I've also read studies that show that men and women both talk differently when in the presence of their own gender or the opposite gender. Men talk deeper around women(especially unfamiliar ones) and women talk in a higher octave around men. The thing that amuses me with The Hills is that they almost seem unable to communicate at all. No one ever launches into a long opinion on something. No one goes out of a wispy flirty tone. No one is very funny. (Well except for Heidi's boss Kelly Cutrone.) I suppose living under constant televised conditions would instill awkward non conversations. The girls of The Hills have had a sort of second puberty (or social criticism and false identities) at the time when they should be coming into their own as adults. So I suppose its no surprise that they resort to what I've come to think of as punctuation face. They communicate through a ridiculous plethora of facial expressions.....mostly the expected 'surprised face' and 'I understand face'. During the writers strike last year the punctuation face got really out of control. Heidi feigns excitement and Lauren either cries or looks bored. Audrina is sort of like a set of parenthesis with nothing in between. You keep expecting her to be pissed off or sad but she exists in some sort of premature botoxed state. They remind me of Cindy Sherman's "Untitled Film Stills". Is this Cindy Sherman in The City?
I hope that at some point these girls return with loud opinions and excited tirades but until they find their voices vast amounts of MTV viewers will cling to the pages of punctuation their "reality tv" writers must be feeding them.
There's a new movie coming out called Obsessed. If it weren't for Beyonce I bet this movie would be straight to tape. It starts out all Fatal Attraction and looks like it takes a turn for The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. The thing I'm having a hard time letting go of is the line in the trailer that goes " A lot of single girls see the work place as their hunting grounds". Despite the fact that its 2009 Hollywood is still putting out these movies that prey on the concept that single working girls exist to tear apart the family structure. Its not because they need to pay their rent or actually enjoy the work they do. This trailer shows the single girl, Ali Larter, practically raping her boss, although its evident that everyone in the office was playing out this little fantasy in their head. I love how they sexually refer to her as " a temp". It reminds me of how, thanks to Bill Clinton, most kids from my generation grew up thinking "intern" was a scandalous word. She of course doesn't stop there, she next attempts to steal his child and kill his wife (Beyonce). Clearly there are all sort of racial issues going on here as well, I'm guessing something along the line of white women wanting to steal all the "good" black guys. A book could probably be written about that topic, but the thing that really pisses me off is that these movies exist to instill more fear in women. They perpetuate the girl on girl hate that stems from thinking women don't belong in the work place. Of course the men get off clean from their infidelity when it turns out the woman is a homicidal maniac. So in the long run everyone is rooting for Beyonce because she knew her place and stayed at home. As with the over a decade old Fatal Attraction, everyone will be yelling at that screen that someone needs to kill that working girl bitch. Its interesting to note that in the original script for Fatal Attraction the moral of the story is that we all bear a responsibility to those we involve in our lives. There's no maniacal rampage by the single gal, she merely calls the man's home and he feels shitty about it. So its interesting that in this updated version, the workplace (or hunting grounds) is a place to be feared, despite the fact that everyone in the office is ogling and talking about Ali Larter's character. Is the fear of working women part of what makes them a fetish object? When the economy crashed a few months ago Playboy put out an ad asking "women of Wallstreet" to pose for playboy. I guess they figured the girls could use some extra cash. Yet, I wonder if part of this has to do with the fact that if the women were out of work or down on hard times they were easier to deal with, less intimidating. I looked into past issues of Playboy that fetishize career gals. Check out these titillating money makers. I totally dress like this for work, so everyone hold on to your husbands.
The Courage Campaign has one of the most powerful videos I've seen regarding the insanity that was Prop 8. Ken Star has filed legal briefs to nulify the 18,000 marriages that only a few months ago were legal in California. You can sign their petition to overturn Prop 8 at http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/divorce
Unconscious and Irrational is named for the media's common presentation of girls and women as being either "out of control" or simply "passed out". In movies there aren't many female roles that won't show the girl either passing out, being knocked unconscious, or going totally crazy (usually with a car, credit car, or depressed dude).
On this blog I want to show the zillions of other things we do - whether it be music, art, comedy, or politics. I aim to provide you with a variety of gals to look up to- from Romy and Michele to Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug.
Isa Genzken has been one of my favorite artists for a few years, so when I saw her in Chelsea a few weeks ago (wearing some awesome dirt bike riding pants), I figured I'd put a post up of her work. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of info about her life online. I guess that's how it tends to go with artists who are still alive, especially female artists. Isa was born in 1948 in Bad Oldescloe, Germany and studied at the Hamburg College of Fine Arts (1969 - 1971), Berlin University of Fine Arts (1972 - 1973), and Düsseldorf Art Academy (1973 - 1977). For a time she was married to the artist Gerhard Richter. Genzken received the International Art Prize in 2004 and theWolfgang-Hahn-Prize in 2002. One of the things I love about Isa Genzken's work is that she explores all sorts of mediums - sculpture, installation, video, painting, works on paper, photography, and artist books. Genzken uses everything from wood and plaster to found materials. I've always been interested in how she can combine themes that are generally thought of as masculine, such as architecture, modernism, and industrialization, and approach them with a fresh visualization that seems to know no gender or class distinction.
There's a new movie coming out called Obsessed. If it weren't for Beyonce I bet this movie would be straight to tape. It starts out all Fatal Attraction and looks like it takes a turn for The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. The thing I'm having a hard time letting go of is the line in the trailer that goes " A lot of single girls see the work place as their hunting grounds". Despite the fact that its 2009 Hollywood is still putting out these movies that prey on the concept that single working girls exist to tear apart the family structure. Its not because they need to pay their rent or actually enjoy the work they do. This trailer shows the single girl, Ali Larter, practically raping her boss, although its evident that everyone in the office was playing out this little fantasy in their head. I love how they sexually refer to her as " a temp". It reminds me of how, thanks to Bill Clinton, most kids from my generation grew up thinking "intern" was a scandalous word.
