Current mood:	Chocolate cake sugar high!
Current music:	Gang of Four from the next office over

Talk(box)in' 'bout Art (mostly)
Some Art

On Saturday, I met up with my oldest friend Vicki [1] at the Brooklyn Museum to see Kehinde Wiley speak about his Passing/Posing exhibit. The art was amazing, and Kehinde Wiley, despite his self-professed nervousness (of which Vicki and I could find almost no trace), was really funny and interesting. The art was gorgeous - no pictures that I have found online do it justice, and I didn't bring my camera, because I thought cameras were not allowed in museums.[2]

He spoke a lot about the concept of masculinity, and how in certain schools (or eras, I guess) of art, the size of the paintings was directly tied in with masculinity and power. One of the things about the paintings that doesn't come through unless you see them up close is that a lot of that beautiful background design is made up of tiny little painted sperm.

Here is a really interesting article on the exhibit.

This picture was enormous, like 20 feet long [3] - and mounted on the ceiling.

This one is my favorite.


The subjects picked their own poses from art books, so some of the poses are exactly the same.





More Art



A couple of weeks ago I went to see "In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger." While the movie was not altogether terrific, it was not bad - and the story of Henry Darger really is fascinating. The movie showed a lot of the art, of course, but they animated quite a bit of it, which was sort of strange. Also, one of the narrators was a little girl, which I thought was a little hokey, but it did not make me want to get up and leave or anything (unlike the Lemon Sisters, which I hate). Here is a link that has some of his art.

Not Art (or, rather, COMEDIC Art)

Wednesday night I ventured out to Cinema Classics to see some comedians and to meet Marianne and Colleen. The show was really fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed all the performers, especially Jon Glaser, Demetri Martin, and Jessica Delfino, who sang an anti-war song called "You don't Lick My Pussy Right." Oh, and when I first walked in, Colleen and Marianne were talking to their friend Zak, who I recognized from Wet Hot American Summer. Later in the night I spotted Michael Showalter. But - I played it cool, meaning that I pretended I had absolutely no idea who they were. I get very nervous around celebrities. Well, not all of them, just the ones that I really respect - and hello, anyone from Wet Hot American Summer is totally impressive in my book. My book, which I will write, called "Anyone From Wet Hot American Summer Is Totally Impressive In My Book (This Book). By Jessie Dean Altman. Age 30. Grade infinity."

[1] Not age-wise, she's not, like, 90 or something; she's just the person who I have known the longest in my life.

[2] Hi, I don't go to a lot of museums. This is something I'm planning to change. Especially since I live with someone who, hello, works at a museum.

[3] I saw the measurements in an online article somewhere, but I can't find the actual info now.