El Celso and C-Monster are on the road.  Where they’re going, nobody knows.  But they stopped at Ant Farm’s Cadillac Ranch long enough to throw some serious colour onto one of those old Caddies.

I miss Cadillac Ranch, ya’all are making me road-sick.  Here’s the same car back in [...]]]>

El Celso and C-Monster are on the road.  Where they’re going, nobody knows.  But they stopped at Ant Farm’s Cadillac Ranch long enough to throw some serious colour onto one of those old Caddies.

I miss Cadillac Ranch, ya’all are making me road-sick.  Here’s the same car back in 2006.

I don’t have any way of proving this, but this super ominous, super awesome painting has a “shot for a trade paperback” vibe to it.  Definitely a lot of 1970′s cover art flavour going on, regardless.  Are those Sardaukar there?  Found in the basement of an antique mall in Astoria, Oregon, I was [...]]]>

I don’t have any way of proving this, but this super ominous, super awesome painting has a “shot for a trade paperback” vibe to it.  Definitely a lot of 1970′s cover art flavour going on, regardless.  Are those Sardaukar there?  Found in the basement of an antique mall in Astoria, Oregon, I was hard pressed not to buy it.  Is it the greatest piece of art of its era?  Not sure, but it might be.

If this has engorged your hunger for science fiction book covers, Lawrence Pearce just threw up some fresh cover scans on his site.

I’ve been processing some of the non-exhibition photos from my trip to Thailand this year.  Yesterday I put up a series of photos of cargo barges and ships taken in Sriracha Harbour, a largely breakbulk operation.  I took these pictures while accompanying S. Ian Song to the island of Ko Si Chang, which [...]]]>

I’ve been processing some of the non-exhibition photos from my trip to Thailand this year.  Yesterday I put up a series of photos of cargo barges and ships taken in Sriracha Harbour, a largely breakbulk operation.  I took these pictures while accompanying S. Ian Song to the island of Ko Si Chang, which is famous for its multiple temples and meditation sea caves.

Anyone who’s been on the river in Bangkok would recognize these barges, which constantly move through the city, carrying a variety of tarp-covered goods and materials.  What’s most interesting about them isn’t the alternate system for moving goods (the Eastern United States, and in many ways the political evolution of the whole country, was once defined by rivers-as-superhighways), but the little houses at the back of each barge.

Above – It’s my understanding that throughout Southeast Asia there’s a tradition of whole communities, either floating or elevated above the waterline on stilts, thriving for generations, up and down the coast.  Laundry hanging, these barges are not just the homes of their operators, they’re home to whole families who live a waterborne life.  I’ve seen children playing on the barges, women cooking, men drinking and gambling as the time passes – the whole spectrum of totally ordinary, everyday Thai life.  It’s worth noticing that the housing on the barges is pretty standardized – having evolved to a point of effiency and practicality.

One of the things that’s most interesting about Thailand, that’s different from the States is the way that the movement of goods occurs on a much more human scale.  Objects are rarely moved around by forklifts or cranes, but they are hauled about by gangs of workers, their faces covered (often with ski masks) to protect them both from the sun and the dust.  You don’t see 40-foot shipping containers in Thailand, but you see 20-footers.  Even more than that, you see specific goods strapped to everything from motorcycles to rainbow painted, 30-year old Hino trucks, to barges like the one above.

Above – Several barges at work, unloading cargo from the Thai Dawn.  While Sriracha Harbour has one great long pier where cargo is unloaded to trucks, most of the action seems to be done at sea.  I saw coal being unloaded from one ship, being dumped right onto the deck of a barge, accompanied by massive clouds of black dust – at first, at a distance, I thought the ship was on fire, the dust was rising so high into the sky.

Living adjacent to one of the world’s largest port, I’m no stranger to containerized traffic, but seeing these ships unloaded onto family-owned or operated barges at sea was amazing.  Let’s not forget that it’s not just Thai families that live on their boats for years at a time – each of these cargo ships is likely crewed by a small group of men, separated from their nation and family, who likely only step on land every few weeks or even months.  Some of the ships I saw in Sriracha Harbour looked like they might not be capable of moving on their own – perhaps they are used as floating warehouses until their economic value can only be realized by a shipbreaker?  Perhaps they are simply abandoned…

I think it’s part of the re-realization regarding the ongoing population disaster, and in the United States, the housing apocalypse, that so many people are exploring ideas of alternate living spaces.  Also, as the world changes, people have always been forced, or had the opportunity, to live in unexpected and non-traditional places.  There’s been a lot of talk online about upscale hipster yuppies (yupsters?) building expensive green houses and using shipping containers as architectural elements and inspiration, but I think the future of the world looks a lot more like the homes on barges above, or the shacks of the urban poor in Mumbai.

Other interesting housing related posts:

Dinosaurs and Robots’ Mr. Jalopy recently started a post about tar paper, only to find himself exploring and arguing for new homesteading in America, something that a lot of folks feel is way overdue.  Why has America never had a great urban squatter/homesteader movement?  Is now the right time, finally?

Bldgblog recently posted about both an inhabitable wind turbine and Babu Sassi, the crane operator who is rumored to be making his home at the top of the under construction Burj Dubai.

And although it’s not intended as a livable structure, I find some kind of plant-based-housing inspiration in LACMA’s upcoming exhibition of Sigmar Polke’s Potato House Object.

Technorati Tags: Thailand, Sri Racha, Sriracha Harbour, barges, housing, cargo ships, breakbulk, shipping, trade, Tar Paper, Urban Homesteading, Dinosaurs and Robots, Mr. Jalopy, Bldgblog, wind turbine, Burj Dubai, Babu Sassi, LACMA, Sigmar Polke, Potato House Object

Seen on the highway between Springfield and Branson in Missouri.

Technorati Tags: On the Road, billboard, religion, christianity, Assemblies of God, [...]]]>

Seen on the highway between Springfield and Branson in Missouri.

Technorati Tags: On the Road, billboard, religion, christianity, Assemblies of God, Missouri

Driving back from the more than excellent RJ’s Bob-B-Que, we rolled up on this, a tiny piece of a huge pair of murals decorating the Foxx Equipment building. Making it better is that Foxx is a beer and beverage equipment supplier. The mechanical backbone of modern Baccanalia, sponsoring lowbrow, psychedelic anthropomorphic, animal-based graffiti [...]]]>

Driving back from the more than excellent RJ’s Bob-B-Que, we rolled up on this, a tiny piece of a huge pair of murals decorating the Foxx Equipment building. Making it better is that Foxx is a beer and beverage equipment supplier. The mechanical backbone of modern Baccanalia, sponsoring lowbrow, psychedelic anthropomorphic, animal-based graffiti art! Nothing could be finer.

Front Mural – Desert Feud – It’s got anthropomorphic animal, old west action! And a giant hamster ball!

Rear Mural – Dinosaurs and Cavemen – It’s got tar pits, cavemen, dinosaurs, flying saucers and a Kilroy! (seen at top)

This search has all the images of the murals. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Foxx Equipment, Kansas City, street art, graffiti, mural, Kilroy Was Here, Kilroy, art

The Gao Brothers (Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang) – Miss Mao – painted fiberglass, 2006 (label)

Chinese, post-pop art is everywhere. If you’re Chinese and you can produce anything big, bright and with a reasonable symbolic relevance, it’s your turn at the art market ATM machine.

Technorati Tags: Gao Brothers, Kemper Museum, fiberglass, [...]]]>

The Gao Brothers (Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang) – Miss Mao – painted fiberglass, 2006 (label)

Chinese, post-pop art is everywhere. If you’re Chinese and you can produce anything big, bright and with a reasonable symbolic relevance, it’s your turn at the art market ATM machine.

Technorati Tags: Gao Brothers, Kemper Museum, fiberglass, sculpture, Miss Mao, Mao, Chairman Mao, red

I’m on the road in Missouri, eating as much BBQ as is humanely possible, and a little bit stuffed and sick from it. I also just spent two days marveling at the joys of the Nelson-Atkins Museum, the Kemper Museum, the National WWI Museum and the Toy and Miniature Museum in glorious, smoky [...]]]>

I’m on the road in Missouri, eating as much BBQ as is humanely possible, and a little bit stuffed and sick from it. I also just spent two days marveling at the joys of the Nelson-Atkins Museum, the Kemper Museum, the National WWI Museum and the Toy and Miniature Museum in glorious, smoky scented and fountain kissed Kansas City. What to do if you’re back in LA? Probably go to Comicon in San Diego, actually, if you can bear the crowds, and you’ve managed to get the stains out of your Pokemon fursuit, yet. Or hit Jay Bee’s House of Fine Bar-B-Que and get the best LA has to offer on the BBQ front. Join me in my smoke ringed paradise…

Back to art. I’d like to recommend one exhibition for my friends in LA, Looky See (.pdf press release here), at the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis. A group show featuring lots of excellent folks, featuring Emily de Araújo, Eric Beltz, Barbara Berk, Joe Biel, Sandow Birk, Ann Diener, Roy Dowell, Erin Dunn, Erica Eyres, Iva Gueorguieva, Penelope Gottlieb, Richard Keely and Anna O’Cain, Takehito Koganezawa, Tucker Neel, Claudia Nieto, Aaron Noble, Chris Oatey, Ruby Osorio, Ebony G. Patterson, Ron Santos, Mindy Shapero, Fran Siegel, Coleen Sterritt, Fred Stonehouse, Randal Thurston, Elizabeth Turk and Xawery Wolski. It opens tomorrow, Saturday July 26, and the reception is from 6-8 PM.

At Top: Sneak preview image of Fran Siegel’s installation for Looky See.

Technorati Tags: Emily de Araújo, Eric Beltz, Barbara Berk, Joe Biel, Sandow Birk, Ann Diener, Roy Dowell, Erin Dunn, Erica Eyres, Iva Gueorguieva, Penelope Gottlieb, Richard Keely and Anna O’Cain, Takehito Koganezawa, Tucker Neel, Claudia Nieto, Aaron Noble, Chris Oatey, Ruby Osorio, Ebony G. Patterson, Ron Santos, Mindy Shapero, Fran Siegel, Coleen Sterritt, Fred Stonehouse, Randal Thurston, Elizabeth Turk, Xawery Wolski, Otis, Ben Maltz Gallery, Looky See, LA Art, art, contemporary art

Note: I’m writing this offline, and some of my posts from Thailand will no doubt be wackily out of order as I screw around with the time zones on my computer. Oh, and Flickr is working but being slow, so no matter how fast I can process, there seems to be a bottleneck [...]]]>

Note: I’m writing this offline, and some of my posts from Thailand will no doubt be wackily out of order as I screw around with the time zones on my computer. Oh, and Flickr is working but being slow, so no matter how fast I can process, there seems to be a bottleneck on the bandwidth end.

Part One: Written in Narita

As far as I know, Japan solely consists of Narita Airport, my stopover on my way to Thailand. Last time I was here I had to bolt to take a bus to the other terminal, an experience which disillusioned me of any sort of ideas about Japan as a perfection of mass transit and organization. In fact, the more I work with people who are from Japan or who live there now, I’ve come to the conclusion that Japan organized organically, much like a medieval city. So what seems frighteningly organized has grown from something chaotic and necessary. This time at Narita I traveled to my terminal by going below the ground on a series of escalators, traveling down a quarter mile-long, white, cylindrical hallway, intersperced with brief supergraphics of eaggeratedly pixelated clouds and then re-emerging from the cloud city bowels of the airport to Satellite Terminal 4. Where I am currently waiting for my flight.

I forgot to pull my camera out before I sat down, and missed the opportunity to photograph two ANA airline meals, one a rather large array consisting of soba, a katsu don with an astoundingly microwaved piece of broccoli (which was kind of good in a junky way) and an antipasto salad who’s saving grace was the presence of a suprisingly good gherkin pickle. Note to self: slurping noodles on a plane is a sure fired way to make a mess of your shirt. The second meal consisted of a sort of instant take on eggplant parmagana, which I had to pick apart due to the evil presence of my enemy, cheese. This was paired with a bean salad (something rather questionable to serve to 300 people trapped in a tiny space, IMHO) and a fruit salad containing almost disturbingly fresh pineapple.

One thing I like about being on a Japanese airline, is that no one seems to bat an eyelash if you want to down beers halfway across the world. The flight attendants are almost too eager to keep them coming. And it helps, when you decide to subject yourself to watching 10,000 B.C. at 30,000 feet. Possibly the worst caveman movie ever made, and I slept through half of it. If I had watched the whole thing, I probably would thing that it’s worse than that. That’s coming from someone who’s watched the whole of the re-make of Teenage Caveman. But it was made up for being able to watch All The President’s Men on demand, a sure-fire filmic bad taste remover.

Oh, and the ground crews bow to the planes here before they take off. If Japan is anything, it’s classy.

On to Bangkok…

Technorati Tags: flying, travel, ANA, airline food, food, Narita, 10000 B.C., bad movies

Technorati Tags: Spindle, Dustin Shuler, Route 66, American art, Americana, cars, art cars, sculpture, public sculpture, Berywn, art, shame, [...]]]>

After removing the top two cars, the whole sculpture was torn apart. Dustin Shuler’s Spindle is dead. This is the saddest day in public art ever. I can’t think of anything else to say.

Technorati Tags: Spindle, Dustin Shuler, Route 66, American art, Americana, cars, art cars, sculpture, public sculpture, Berywn, art, shame, destruction, demolition, art crime

I’m at the Tallahasse airport (which has free power and free WiFi!), and I’m one happy Californian, topping off a too short trip with a much deserved and lusted after meal at the roadside shrine of my pagan faith, a Waffle House.

Technorati Tags: Waffle House, Marshall Astor, After I’ve Eaten, On The [...]]]>

I’m at the Tallahasse airport (which has free power and free WiFi!), and I’m one happy Californian, topping off a too short trip with a much deserved and lusted after meal at the roadside shrine of my pagan faith, a Waffle House.

Technorati Tags: Waffle House, Marshall Astor, After I’ve Eaten, On The Road, Travel, Food Pornography