Had a chance to catch Shepard Fairey, Al Farrow and Paul D. Miller’sRegime Change Starts at Home show at the Irvine Contemporary while visiting DC recently. Shepard postered a legal alley behind the gallery and we caught his work in other random places throughout the city. It’s hard to see in photos, but the series in the alley consists of layers-upon-layers of work. The peace sign is actually a fighter jet, while the text on one of them reads: War for Sale/No Thank You. Here is the actual “thank you” letter Obama sent Fairey for using his talent in such a way. Now there is talk of the Smithsonian buying his original fine art Obama print. Why isn’t there more anti-war art right now? Behold these things of beauty.
Archive for November, 2008
21
Nov
08
the Kindred Spirit
Tucked into the dunes of Sunset Beach/Bird Isle, NC, there is a mailbox filled with notebooks where passersby write their thoughts, prayers, secrets and dreams. Some mystery person has maintained the “Kindred Spirit” for years, replacing the notebooks when full. I’ve lived in southeastern North Carolina for four years now, and I had to hear about this phenomena from my friend Majsan, in Sweden. Enchanted by this legend, me, Majsan and a visiting writer we’ll just call “the unibomber” drove 45 minutes from Wilmington and trekked the mile and a half down Sunset Beach on a mild November day to find it was real. The entries ranged from “I’ve been coming here for years” and “My grandma dragged me here…” to “We’re on our honeymoon and just discovered this mailbox” to one dated Nov. 6th, 2008: “Thank you, God, for allowing this country to be open enough to elect a person of color. May he be a strong and compassionate leader.” We left our own, too, of course. Gorgeous day and beautiful idea. Maybe every town should have a “kindred spirit” hidden somewhere?
“Peace in the Middle East!” American rappers shout this rhyme, this wish—this prayer—so casually from stages at fancy awards shows. I’ve often wondered if it truly is what everyone wants. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been ongoing since before I was born. We hear about it on television, but honestly, in the peripheral of my conscious mind, bad news becomes monotonous—especially when it’s so far from home and doesn’t seem to affect me. So yeah, I knew about the battle for the Gaza Strip and animosity between Jewish people and Arabs, but only in a general sense. Neither my Jewish-American friends nor Arab and Muslim-American friends bring the subject up much.
In June I heard from an old friend in Denmark—we’d met 17 years ago as Journalism 101 students at the University of Maryland. She asked me to work this summer as a Language Editor in a program she chaired called Crossing Borders. According to their website, they are a non-governmental agency aiming “to provide impartial dialogue space and skills training for youth and educators, with special focus on the Middle East, to fully participate in the development process of their societies.” Their ‘media skills’ course planned to bring journalists and journalism students from the Middle East to the Danish countryside to live and work on a magazine together; I told my friend that I was “just an arts reporter,” and she soothed my fears of inadequacy in saying they just needed a native English speaker who understood journalistic concepts. The three-week position included a trip to Denmark, too, so I jumped at the chance.
I didn’t say much the first few days there. As the only American and native English speaker in a group of 40 people, I suddenly felt as if I represented the entire western hemisphere, and, hoping to avoid any accidentally imperialistic action, kept to myself and my Danish friend. Plus, I was also embarrassingly ignorant of the complexities of “the conflict” they kept referring to, and wanted to learn more.
The hostility began immediately.
10
Nov
08
Swindle Icons 3
I’m very pleased to announce that Swindle Magazine‘s annual “icons issue” has hit newsstands, and it’s stuffed cover-to-cover with features of today’s cultural pioneers. I contributed profiles of Los Angeles celeb tattoo artist Mark Mahoney and pro-skater Alan “Ollie” Gelfand (the namesake of the ollie skate-move). I carry the work of Mahoney on my skin forever, so it was an honor to honor him here. As I mention in the piece, his “creations walk the earth on living canvasses.” Others in this issue: Merle Haggard, Ice Cube, Ice-T, Pee Wee Herman, Tura Satana, Niagara, Tommy Chong, Dita Von Teese, Sherman Alexie and many many more. This is the third icons issue for the magazine; the staff spent a year putting this one together and it truly shows.
