Custom Made

Last Saturday I attended the opening of Custom Made/ Tsitslem te stem te ck'ultenskuc at the Kamloops Art Gallery. Guest curated by Tania Willard, this exhibition "focuses on artists referencing skill-based artistic production within a contemporary and transformative context."

The image atop this post is from Ursula Johnson's Basket Weaving (2015), a performance in which the artist weaves herself inside a basket, then breaks from it.

Expect my full review at Canadian Art online sometime in mid-July

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Clay Pot Heater

Ages ago I posted a video on how to make a clay pot heater with a candle. Then people started posting on the dangers of clay pot heaters. The video above claims to be a new and improved clay pot heater.

"Baby's In Black" (1965)

The Beatles' last (paying) concert was on August 29, 1966 at Candlestick Park, San Francisco. Of the 11 songs they performed atop that relatively small rectangle inside that relatively large oval, the fifth was "Baby's In Black."

Candlestick Park (1960-2015)

Millions visited San Francisco's Candlestick Park during its 55 years as a venue for baseball, football and other cultural events.

The picture up top -- a Smithsonian "ruin in reverse" -- was taken in the late-1950s, during the stadium's construction. The picture below was taken in February, 2015, during its demolition.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The Long, Long Trailer Trailer

"We're just goin' along as we please/ breezin' along with a breeze"

Trailer Trash

The renovation begins.

Eighty-Five Feet Per Picture

Before there was Google Maps, the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation decided the best way to maintain provincial roads was to "photolog" them by car every 85 feet and send the images to the capital, where they could be analyzed by engineers.

The above "photolog" was shot in 1966. It begins at the Canada-U.S. border (Osoyoos-Oroville) and travels north on Highyway 97 to Penticton.

Thanks to Scott Moore for bringing these films to my attention, and to the CBC for its story on the "B.C. Road Trip Time Machine."

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

"I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" (1936)

I'm gonna get up in the mornin'
I believe I'll dust my broom
I'm gonna get up in the mornin'
I believe I'll dust my broom
Girlfriend, the black man you been lovin'
Girlfriend, can get my room
I'm gonna write a letter
Telephone every town I know
I'm gonna write a letter
Telephone every town I know
If I can't find her in West Helena
She must be in East Monroe I know
I don't want no woman
Wants every downtown man she meet
I don't want no woman
Wants every downtown man she meet
She's a no good doney
They shouldn't allow her on the street
I believe, I believe I'll go back home
I believe, I believe I'll go back home
You can mistreat me here, babe
But you can't when I go home
And I'm gettin' up in the mornin'
I believe I'll dust my broom
I'm gettin' up in the mornin'
I believe I'll dust my broom
Girlfriend, the black man you been lovin'
Girlfriend, can get my room
I'm gonna call up Chiney
See is my good girl over there
I'm gonna call up China
See is my good girl over there
I can't find her on Philippine's island
She must be in Ethiopia somewhere

Sewn Broom

In this era of 3D printing, it is nice to know you can still sew a broom.

A small room inside a bay window. A single bed, a table and chair, and a sink. I could manage something larger, with more conveniences, but I could never match the view.

Atop my table, where yesterday stood a vase (and inside that vase, a dried-out rose), a stack of magazines, and atop that, a pair of nose scissors.

Yesterday I cut from these magazines anything I could find of our bodies' holes: nostrils, open mouths, anything.

Once gathered, I arranged these holes into a seven-petalled flower, which I glued to a piece of straw that fell from my neighbour's broom.

Today's vase will have in it that flower.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Bach in Black

It was on a Martin D 28 acoustic guitar that Paul McCartney turned Bach's "Bourrée in E minor" into this 1968 song.

"Mr Brown" (1970)

Instances of crows in Glen Adams and Bob Marley's composition "Mr Brown"

(Who-oo-oo-oo is Mr Brown?)
Mr Brown is a clown who rides through town in a coffin
(Where he be found?)
In the coffin where there is
Three crows on top and two is laughing
Oh, what a confusion! Ooh, yeah, yeah!
What a botheration! Ooh, now, now!

Who is Mr Brown? I wanna know now!
He is nowhere to be found

From Mandeville to Sligoville, coffin runnin' around,
Upsetting, upsetting, upsetting the town,
Asking for Mr Brown
From Mandeville to Sligoville, coffin runnin' around,
Upsetting, upsetting, upsetting the town,
Asking for Mr Brown
I wanna know who (is Mr Brown)?
Is Mr Brown controlled by remote?

O-o-oh, calling duppy conqueror,
I'm the ghost-catcher!
This is your chance, oh big, big Bill bull-bucka,
Take your chance! Prove yourself! Oh, yeah!

Down in parade
People runnin like a masquerade
The police make a raid,
But the - oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
The thing get fade

What a thing in town
Crows chauffeur-driven around,
Skankin' as if they had never known
The man they call "Mr Brown"

I can't tell you where he's from now

From Mandeville to Sligoville, coffin runnin' around,
Upsetting, upsetting, upsetting the town,
Asking for Mr Brown
From Mandeville to Sligoville...

A small room inside a bay window. A single bed, a table and chair, and a sink. I could manage something larger, with more conveniences, but I could never match the view.

Another golden morning. Easy to keep the light out, but not the crows.

One of them noticed the raspberries and is calling to the others. That, or complaining about them; how this year's batch is nowhere near as tasty as last year's.

How is a crow constructed to make such a noise?

Nowhere, that's how.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Portage Tutorial

Canoe lifting techniques for one and two people.

"The Canoe Song" (1935)

Russian-born composer Mischa Spoliansky (1898-1985) wrote four songs for American singer Paul Robeson. The best known is "The Canoe Song," which appears in the film Sanders of the River (1935).

Two Canoes

One by Dorland, the other by Doig.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////

Vancouver Especially (2015)

Ken Lum's scale model of a "Vancouver Special" located at a value accruing (aka vacant) Chinatown lot. Although mounted this past winter, Lum first proposed the project some ten years ago, for what is now King Edward Village at the southeast corner of Kingsway and Knight.

Independent Variable

A common explanation for the high (and climbing) cost of real estate in Vancouver is foreign investment. Those who disagree range from progressive media outlets like The Mainlander to hog wild real estate entrepreneurs like Bob Rennie -- both of whom are quick to accuse those who hold such a view as racist.

Two weeks ago, Rennie presented 19 reasons why Vancouver real estate is so high. In an attempt to downplay "Overseas investment -- not just from China," he placed it 11th on a list where all 19 reasons, despite their ranked placement, are given equal weight.

While I think that most of Rennie's reasons can be quantified (and ranked), all are part of a larger reservoir, of which foreign investment is the penstock.

Art and Real Estate

BlackRock, Inc. is the world's largest asset manager. Based in New York City, BlackRock advises the world on where to invest its money.

In April, BlackRock's Laurence D. Fink announced that gold was no longer the best (and safest) bet for storing wealth.

"The two greatest stores of wealth internationally today is contemporary art…and I don't mean that as a joke, I mean that as a serious asset class," said Fink in an article published by Bloomberg Business. "And two, the other store of wealth today is apartments in Manhattan, apartments in Vancouver, in London."

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Miss Scarlett and Prissy

The Poetry Foundation website carries a poem by Vanessa Place entitled "Miss Scarlett" (2009), with a contextual note at the bottom. Over at Jacket2, Jacob Edmond provides an essay entitled "On Not Repeating Gone With the Wind" (2012).

Missy Suicide

Suicide Girls' Missy Suicide speaks with Fox News about Richard Prince's latest appropriation.

Place and Prince

Vanessa Place and Richard Prince are two smash mouth artists who proceed with their conceptual/appropriation projects as if backed by the pulverizing weight of modernist vanguardism. For Place, Twitter is her latest staging ground, and it is not going smoothly for this part-time criminal appellate attorney. For Prince, he has broken with Twitter's tacit protocols, as established by Ashton Kutcher, and has, in effect, out-punked him.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////