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I promise this'll be my final post on Antony Gormely's controversial Event Horizon project. There was a great article about the installation in yesterday's New York Times which you should all check out here, if you're so inclined. I have to say, I've become a bit obsessed with the whole thing. On my walks to work in the mornings, I can't stop myself from scanning the rooftops for more of Gormely's enigmatic silhouettes. I haven't spotted all of them, although I gather he's still in the process of rolling them out. My wife thinks it's totally creepy and tasteless (being that NYC still does have the occasional jumper), but it's struck me that nine out of ten New Yorkers I've passed on the street don't even notice them. In any case, below are some pics of the ones I've spotted around Madison Square (click on them to enlarge). I've yet to spot the one on the Empire State, alas.
Yes, I've been rooting around on Flickr again. I came across two images last night in a set by a photographer named Dave Sanders that really took me back to my Upper East Side childhood. Let's review, shall we?
If you've been there recently, you know that the Central Park Zoo is a pretty nice affair. While not nearly as expansive as the Bronx Zoo, it still has some very cool attractions. This, however, was not always the case. Back in the 1970s, the Central Park Zoo seemed more like a rancid animal prison than a proper zoo. It was a bit of an olfactory nightmare and an overall dreary experience. The Children's Zoo (pictured) just a few steps to its north was equally grim. The petting zoo had a few mangy llamas and a sheep or two, and the paint was chipping everywhere (notably on the giant Moby Dick in the center). If memory serves, you could walk inside the whale's mouth and see a rather underwhelming fish tank. But as a bright-eyed child in the single-digits, walking around the place was still a magical experience. Detail-obsessed cinema-buffs might recognize it from a super-fleeting scene in the 1970's Jane Fonda/Donald Sutherland hooker-death plot thriller, "Klute." In any case, this was the zoo of my youth.
Next up is a great shot of the old Woolworth's on the northeast corner of East 86th street & Third Avenue (sorta the Gateway to Yorkville, if you will). This was taken in 1984, I gather. When I was but a little tot, I was frequently taken here by my grandparents (the "five & dime" store, they called it). In my grade school and high school years, I used to visit the place to check out their record department. It was here that I first procured the vinyl LPs of Let There Be Rock by AC/DC, Fragile by Yes, Volume. 4 by Black Sabbath, Rocket to Russia by the Ramones and …er… Pac Man Fever by Buckner & Garcia (yes, sadly, I bought the album). If I'm not mistaken, they tore this building down sometime in the late 80's. I think there's a Banana Republic there today.
Anyway, cheers to Dave Sanders for capturing these otherwise forgotten images.
Well, I have my answer. As a reader noted in the commentary in the last post, it turns out the figure in Madison Square perched atop the Pentagram building is in fact part of an art installation. Artist Antony Gormley is in the process of putting up these life-sized, anatomically-correct sculptures around Manhattan. Sure enough, on my walk to work this morning, I spotted no fewer than four between 22nd Street and 30th Street, and I have to say, I bought right into the game. Instead of ruminating on the inevitable dreary minutia of the work day in front of me, I found myself strolling Fifth Avenue, gazing up at the tall building like a tourist, searching for more of those strangely static, copper-colored sentinels. From the street, the sight of them is quite striking. They all seem to be waiting for some secret signal to dive to their invariably messy demises. I didn't spot any north of 30th street, but perhaps Gormley isn't finished yet (there is supposedly going to be one on the Empire State Building).
As far as I'm concerned, this project is much more compelling than those cows several years back, although I can see how the sight of a human form perched precariously on the edge of a building might give the uniformed viewer pause. I guess that's just part of the idea. Tasteless? You decide.
I remember watching some ridiculous puff piece on Jon Bon Jovi about a decade ago on MTV or Vh1 or something wherein the interviewer asked the poodle-haired pop-metal meister if he'd ever listened to any Punk Rock. Jon started waxing about an older brother or a hip cousin or someone sitting him down in the basement of his family's home in the late 1970's and playing him records by the Ramones, the Dead Boys and a few other notables. Bon Jovi claimed that "he got it," but that it wasn't for him. Now, I've never liked Bon Jovi, but my disdain for the man (who, admittedly, otherwise seems like a perfectly nice guy) inflated irreparably. I found it incredibly hard to fathom how someone could listen to the (to my mind) vital, galvanizing music of The Ramones and still go onto to make (to my mind) some of the most lifelessly banal pop-crap imaginable.
I have a worrying tendency to get a bit high and mighty about music (you can read more about this unfortunate syndrome here). Not only do I occasionally lord my dubious expertise over unsuspecting (and often uncaring) parties, I tend to project my opinions and convictions elsewhere. As such, I'm cartoonishly outraged when elements of music I hold sacred are appropriated by artists I consider "lesser." When, for example, country artist Shania Twain was photographed wearing a Ramones t-shirt, I shot my mouth off somewhat vociferously on the ILX music discussion boards. Below is a choice paragraph of same.
Y'know what I think it is that's so upsetting about Shania wearing Ramones and AC/DC shirts? It's that she herself is nothing but a sparkless careerist. Based on her press, she's has nothing but contempt for her audience and positively LOATHES being a "public person." Beyond that, her music is completely inconsequential, banal and rife with the same amount of meaningless cliché that plagues, say, the Corrs! Meanwhile, whether you appreciate them or not, the Ramones and AC/DC are artists who have *INSPIRED* people. There are more bands that were spawned in the wake of these two giant names than Shania could ever hope to affect. The Ramones and AC/DC inspire *PASSION* in their fans, whereas Shania merely manufactures fucking PRODUCT and shifts units to consumers who clearly don't have very high musical standards (does this make them subhuman? No, just that music doesn't interest them). Therefore, it is offensive to folks who *DO* take music seriously (whether you think that's silly or not) that Shania is limply trying to imply some affinity/appreciation for individuals who actually make music of quality. I doubt Shania even enjoys music to begin with.
Nice, right?
Anyway, while I regret coming across as imperiously snooty and elitist about such things, the fact remains that I cannot really help it. This past weekend, I had a similar moment when I stumbled across a picture of vacuous pop irritant, Ke$ha, sporting a t-shirt emblazoned with the old Void insignia (see pic above). For those who may be unfamiliar, Void was one of the crucial early hardcore bands out of the storied Washington D.C. scene in the early 1980s (hear their music here). The notion of the shrill whistehead behind "Tik Tok" being a fan of Void – let alone knowing who they were – seemed laughable. I should point out that I'm a vehement believer that if you're not a fan of the band, you really shouldn't be wearing their goddamn t-shirt (a point I've laboriously beaten into the ground here a couple of times). When I came into work on Monday morning, I told my colleague/fellow classic hardcore fan, Drew about it (this after discussing the fact that Lady Gaga sports a leather jacket with the GISM logo on it in her new video). "Dude," said Drew, "check out Ke$ha's MySpace page … she's a fan of a lot of a far out stuff."
Sure enough, I clicked over to Ke$ha's bandwidth-eating, brower-worrying MySpace page and was somewhat flabbergasted as the list of artists she considers "influences." They are as follows…
MIA, Beck, Rolling Stones, Devo, Flock of Seagulls, kraftwork, Daniel Johnson, talking Heads, David Bowie, Donovan, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Janet and Sir Michael Jackson, Avenue A, The Go! Team, Mika, Sonic Youth, Elton John, Willlie Nelson, Gwen Stefani, Madonna, Beastie Boys, Eagles of Death Metal, Black Keys, Black Eyed Peas, Daft Punk, Electric 6, Teenager, Tonite Only, Prince,Mirwais, Afrika Bambaata, Peaches, Rock&Roll, Richard X, Cornelius, ESG,6ths, ackron family, al green, andrew bird, anthrax, aphex twin, aphid ant constructions, arcade fire, archers of loaf, ataxia, badfinger, the bang up, beck, belle &; sebastian, ben lee, beulah, big star, black flag, the blow, boards of canada, bob dylan, brian eno, brian wilson, bright eyes, built to spill, butthole surfers, the cardigans, the carpenters, casiotone for the painfully alone, the clash, the clutters, daft punk, the damned, the dandy warhols, david bowie, the dead milkmen, devandra banhart, donovan, dresden dolls, the eels, elvis costello, eric's trip, the fall, the features, fischerspooner, frank black, frank sinatra, franz ferdinand, futurheads, gary glitter, generation x, ghostface killah, gogol bordello, gorillaz, guided by voices, her space holiday, how i became the bomb, human television, iggy pop, islands, jackson 5, jawbreaker, jenny lewis, jim o'rourke, joan jett, joe jack talcum, john frusciante, johnny thunders, the killers, kimya dawson, the kinks, kraftwerk, LCD soundsystem, le tigre, the lemonheads, leonard cohen, little ones, lou barlow, love, the lovely feathers, marshal crenshaw, matisyahu, matmos, miles davis, minor threat, modest mouse, mos def, mott the hoople, the mountain goats, moving units, my darling YOU!, neil diamond, neil young, neko case, neutral milk hotel, neva dinova, nico, of montreal, oh no! oh my!, optiganally yours, ornamental wigwam, otis redding, the pastels, peaches, pere ubu, peter bjorn and john, pink spiders, pixies, pj harvey, postal service, public enemy, pulp, queen, r.e.m., r.l. burnside, radiohead, the raincoats, rancid, the rapture, the rascals, ratatat, the ravonettes, regina spektor, replacements, roky erickson, rolling stones, ryan adams, screeching weasel, the shins, the small faces, the smiths, smoking popes, sparklehorse, spinto band, squarepusher, stellastarr*, stiff little fingers, the stranglers, the streets, the streets, the strokes, surfjan stevens, the sundays, sun ra, t rex, ted leo and the pharmacists, television, tilly and the wall, they might be giants, tom jones, tracy + the plastics, troubled hubble, tv on the radio, U2, the unicorns, the vaselines, the velvet underground, the ventures, verde, violent femmes, the walkmen, wilco, wire, X, yeah yeah yeahs, yo la tengo, the zebras, the zombies
Now, assuming this list is all legit (and not cobbled together to enhance credibility), one again wonders how a musician with such richly nuanced and diverse taste (really?? A 23-year–old who's heard of – let alone likes – both The Carpenters and Pere Ubu??) is capable of making music that is as jaw-droppingly bad as this.
By the same token, Ke$ha's hatefully intolerable brand of shrill, horrible pop is also wildly successful, so who laughs last? Whatever. Leave Void out of it, that's all I'm asking.
Kids today, I tell ya…
(1) Mateo Pericoli's illustration.
(2) The Astor Place stencil
(3) The Green Street scene
(4) The Skyline shot
(5) The Mike Coles/Don McCullin/Killing Joke ripoff
(6) Or the current one, the 12th Street Rooftop
Help me decide! Thanks!
I'd stopped in there are recently as Valentine's Day, when I was looking to pick up some treats for my kids. World of Nuts & Ice Cream on East 8th Street between Fifth Avenue and University Place wasn't a fancy spot by any means, but it was staffed by an amiable Indian gentleman who was always very kind when my children pressed their little faces against the glass of his front widow, gazing at the PEZ-dispensing Elmos and chocolate goodies. I remember asking him how business was on that day. He stoically mentioned that it had been a slower year than most, but he was genuinely hoping that business would pick up the next day (V-day, a big seller for chocolatiers, I'd imagine). Evidently, it didn't pick up enough. I spotted the "Space Available" sign in its window yesterday, peered inside and found it completely empty. My kids will be very sad to see it gone.
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