August 29, 2007

Work Ethics in Cincinnati

(Cincinnati, August 28, 2007 ) Procter & Gamble Co, headquartered in Cincinnati, announced that its chief executive received $27.7 million in compensation in the latest fiscal year....

(Cincinnati, August 29, 2007) Cincinnati's 2006 poverty rate was 27.8 percent. That's third-highest among major cities behind Detroit and Buffalo - according to a new estimate released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau....[For a family of four with two children the 2006 poverty level was $20,444.]

Can you help work this into my sentence on art theory? In any event, if you're playing the numbers, 27 looks hot.

One good sentence on art theory?

Now, gone again [to Ann Arbor] and back again. Preparing for my first art theory class of the semester. Trying to condense into one sentence the reasons for the explosion in art theory, critical theory, visual studies, visual culture, etc., etc. Why have these courses? Why is this important at all? Why does this discipline [essentially super-charged art criticism] always bleed well beyond the confines of art history and art practice? Here's a candidate for the sentence. It's awkward and portentous, I know. So help me out.

As the advocates of real power [centralized, integrated economic and military authority] * become more adept, more agile at the nearly instantaneous appropriation and assimilation of art's techniques, art criticism and theory become indispensable for analyzing and challenging power.

I'd also like the sentence to incorporate the sense of John Berger's idea that [paraphrasing] only ill-informed people think artists/critics welcome the intrusion of politics into art. Politics intrudes, period; it's already there and it's always been there. Also, the sentence should convey to students the ideas that (1) art refers to a vast array of practices; (2) since the cradle, they have been tickled, taught, comforted, persuaded, lied to, assaulted, smothered with art; (3) and

someone, please stop me before...

*Should I just use Ike's 'military/industrial complex?' Sounds too tendentious, right? And, who are the advocates? Corporate media, major political parties, advertising firms, lobbyists, public relations firms, [art museums?], etc. -- just follow the money.

August 17, 2007

Back from Cincinnati and Wisconsin

Thanks for asking. I was gone, but I brought you something. In Cincinnati, I attended the shoot for Bootsy Collins' new video. You know Bootsy, right? He's from Cincinnati, where he got his start at age 15 playing bass for James Brown (who recorded at the Queen City's famous King Records). Now Bootsy's settled there and has his own recording studio. My brother's a musician and teacher in Cincinnati and recently worked on a project with him. So, when Bootsy needed some young musicians for his Bengals music video, "Who Dey," he called Bruce. (The Bootzilla devoted Bengals fan.) I took some pictures. The setting is a tacky river boat nightclub on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River. Those are real stadium characters around the margins. (If you click on the pix they should get bigger.)






ps: some more Bootsy sites:
http://www.funky-stuff.com/bootsy/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlHzHLGL60c&mode=related&search=
(this is a highly recommended campy funk Godzilla inflected weirdness)