#canvas print of one of the scenes in the movie and it’s still hanging in my room

[blueberryjam1201]

The Moon movie

Director: Kim Yong-Hwa

Producer: Choi Ji-Sun

Release Date: August 2, 2023

Runtime: 129 min.

Distributor: CJ Entertainment

Country: South Korea

Cast: Doh KyungSoo, Sol KyungGu, Hong SeungHee, Kim HeeAe

Finally, I was able to watch this breathtaking movie and I wish to share a couple of words.

All under the cut together with few snaps🍪🍪🍪

If you still haven’t watched, please take note this review consists of many spoilers!

Enjoy!❤️

First couple of minutes we learned about past events, which was a great idea because we would not waste time later with explanations.

Woori - the lunar spaceship is heading for the moon together with three astronauts. However, an unfortunate accident occurs, and two of them lose their lives, leaving SunWoo - the main character alone in space, fighting for life.

Accidents are happening one after another. An eventful two-hour movie run is holding us at the end of our seats almost all the time! SunWoo is receiving indescribable help and thanks to that he survives.

Now, I'll write my personal opinion which is both Yes and Nay nay.

The positive part:

Firstly, I am in love with this movie's visuals and animation. I could make a screenshot for most of the views and places, print it on a canvas and hang it on the wall all over my home!

Smart choice of music used.

Actors are a heaven. I am KyungSoo biased, but they all had a big impact on the script.

If we're talking about THE acting that made us forget how to breathe, then it will definitely be KyungSoo, Kyunggu and HeeAe! All three were fabulous and carried this movie on their back.

If we are speaking about the comedy side, yes we had it! Special thanks to Jo HanChul who made sure to make us smile every time he is on the screen.

...and! Hong SeungHee, this girl! She made me laugh a lot, but her character was a crucial part of the main plot. Her ideas were like a breath of fresh air. And even if she every time made us laugh, thanks to her SunWoo was able to be heard by the world. Recording his voice and streaming it on YouTube. Funny but at the same time the most effective.

I hope she and KyungSoo will have a drama together in the near future.

The Nay nay:

As I mentioned before, this is my personal. I didn't like the way SangWon died. He was badly injured so should be e.g. floating powerlessly and speaking with SunWoo by communicator, but he just stood next to the widow, which was weird. And the way they talked was a little comical, I laughed inside...

I didn't like the timing of the scene when SunWoo was upset with ex-director, blaming his father's death on him and acting like a spoiled brat. I get it! But, just a few seconds ago he was crying, fighting for life and survived thanks to this man! Maybe it's just me but this doesn't seem in place.

That's not a bad point, just a side note - don't expect a thirsty, cold-blooded, heartbreaking thriller.

This movie was made for everyone and I was totally happy with this. Take your son, mother, grandmother, husband, or whoever you wish to!

Summary:

The scene where SunWoo is landing on a near side of the moon will make everyone tear up, I guarantee! I have many favourite scenes but the last 20 minutes including the post-credit scene I can count as one long favourite.

If you are looking for this kind of drama which will take you for a long space journey, with an eventful plot and no filler scenes, top notch actors, and gold jokes then I recommend this movie for you!

It will stay for a long time on my favorite list.

Meanwhile, thanks for reading.

If you made it to the end, please check the caps below and leave a heart ❤️

Thanks!

#kdrama #kmovie #the moon #the moon movie #the moon kmovie #the moon 2023 #KyungSoo #d.o. kyungsoo #doh kyungsoo #do kyung soo #do kyungsoo #exo kyungsoo #kyungsoo #exo d.o. #exo d.o #exo do kyungsoo #sol kyunggu #kim hee ae #seunghee #review #movie review #movie recommendation #movie recap #kmovie review

[hannahreynoldsartappreciation]

Sketchbook 1

1. Hello, my name is Hannah! One little known fact about me is that I love to bake and read. I play the violin and I love making art and listening to music. 

Judy Chicago 1974-1979 The Dinner Party Facts: 

There are 39 place settings, each for an important woman in history. 

This piece represents a ceremonial banquet. 

1038 women were honored by this piece, 999 of their names having been inscribed in gold on the triangle floor in the middle of the room. 

This piece was an icon in feminist art of the 20th century. 

Judy Chicago is still alive and is a feminist artist and art educator. 

My interpretation of "The Dinner Party” has changed since I first looked at it. I originally saw the symmetry in the art and focused on the use of triangles throughout the piece and how evenly everything was placed. After learning the context behind the art, I learned that this was a feminist piece. I like how I can now see this piece was made to honor over 1000 women in a simplistic and meaningful way with names and placemats. 

2. The art media used to create this was a metal/tin canvas with ink that was printed onto it. It was bought online and likely designed online too. This art has a use of being a movie poster that shows the love the two characters felt, representing a dance scene from the movie La La Land. I do believe this piece is beautiful because I love this movie and the color scheme, they gave the art piece a withered and vintage look. I love how well the woman’s white dress pops and how the characters glow against the dark blue background, with the simplicity of the stars that also fill the negative space. 

3. Some baggage I bring along when I look at art are that I am 17 years old and a female. I am from Venice, Florida and I am white. For fun I like to watch shows and movies, read, bake, make art, and hang out with my friends. I am a member of an organized group. I am a server at Bob Evans, and I babysit kids. I feel that what makes me uniquely me is that I am a Christian because it shapes how I aspire to act every day, my mindset for life, and what I do with my days in the week, going to church for a few of them. 

4. In my daily life, I am fascinated by nature, especially by flowers, leaves, trees, and clouds. The most fascinating thing to me though, is the rain. I believe this piece can represent my life because it shows many different materials and parts coming together to make one picture. 

[mainsheaven]

Stranger things poster

#STRANGER THINGS POSTER MOVIE#

#STRANGER THINGS POSTER SERIES#

#STRANGER THINGS POSTER DOWNLOAD#

Original Stranger Things poster: Decorate your room with this splendid paper kraft. In the meantime, check out our breakdown of the Stranger Things season 4, Volume 2 ending, including who died and all of the Easter Eggs we spotted. Decorate your home in the colors of your favorite hero with this Mike Stranger Things 3 poster, printed with premium ink on beautiful paper.

#STRANGER THINGS POSTER MOVIE#

We’ll have to wait until the fifth and final season to see if any of these theories have any merit. Stranger t/s Things Season 4 Joseph Quinn Movie Poster Glossy Print Photo Wall Art Canvas Poster Canvas Poster Wall Art Decor Print Picture Paintings for Living Room (No Framde,8x12inch) 8.88 8. You can also upload and share your favorite Stranger Things 4k wallpapers.

#STRANGER THINGS POSTER DOWNLOAD#

Although, this wouldn’t be the first time a dead character has returned to Hawkins. Tons of awesome Stranger Things 4k wallpapers to download for free. Of course, we saw Alice was killed by Henry in the flashbacks at his house so it would take some explaining to see how she survived this. Even Enzo had more screen time but he didn't get one."

#STRANGER THINGS POSTER SERIES#

Are you a fan of this amazing Netflix series If yes then these posters are great way to. Shop affordable wall art to hang in dorms, bedrooms, offices, or anywhere blank walls arent. Find the New Release Stranger Things Posters in August 2022. They commented: "I feel like that is a true theory because, in the last scene of episode 9, Alice said: 'Mommy look it’s snowing.' And Karen knew something." While a third added: "I’m still so confused on why she had a poster. Unique Stranger Things Posters designed and sold by artists. One viewer suggested: "I think this will be in season 5." While a second pointed out Karen's reaction at the end of episode 9 when the Upside Down particles were descending on Hawkins. Our Stranger Things Merch Store delivers fast and free worldwide. You can get T-shirts, hoodies, coats or figures, stickers, mugs, bags, masks, and whatever you want. She was seemingly killed by Henry, but some viewers still think she could make a return. Stranger Things Merch Store Our Collection Our official Stranger Things Merch Store is the perfect place for you to buy Stranger Things Merch in a variety of sizes and styles. Free shipping on many items Browse your favorite. Just know that you might come face to face. Trends International Netflix Stranger Things: Season 3 - Key Art Magnetic Framed Wall Poster Prints 22.99 - 32. Answer the yellow phone at Joyce’s house, play games at the Palace Arcade, and take a stroll through the Russian Lab, if you dare. Discover some of the show's most iconic locations and check out all of the gnarly merch and rad activities waiting inside. We briefly met Alice as a young girl in flashbacks with her family. Get the best deals on Stranger Things Poster when you shop the largest online selection at . Step into the official Stranger Things Store. This has spawned a theory that she could actually be Henry’s sister Alice Creel.

#Stranger things poster

[lilgynt]

i think it’s fun looking at my old stuff or like any of my childhood or teen years and being like. hm. hm. should have clocked the autism sooner

#personal #some of it i’m like ah. embarrassing. #others i’m like aw. im fond of younger me #most of it is like. again why did no one seriously consider until my sexually harassing manager 😭😭😭 #seriously consider autsim #no but this was triggered by seeing a dvd for an old special intrest and i distinctly remember #my brothers girlfriend calling DIBS and buying the movie like #a month or two before my bday #and my family was soooo mad bc everyone was like that was my fucking plan #my eldest brother is so cute he bought me this likec #canvas print of one of the scenes in the movie and it’s still hanging in my room #i kinda hate the movie now bc of reasons but like the memories of the dvd and print i’m like #i’m a little embarrassed but mainly just feel loved #but very funny every holiday or birthday everyone has to text my brother like hey what’s the thing graham’s obsessed with this year or is #is it still the last thing

[breanime]

Quality (Part Two)

Request by @kind-wolf:  Ask for requests and you shall receive! 😉 I would absolutely love a sequel to "Quality". Like maybe the next time they're overseas and about to go home, Billy’s again nervous because this time he wants to ask the big question 💍 Idk. I just thought about that immediately after I read the story back then. If you're not inspired and can't write it, that's ok too! ILY ❤ Also: Your new ink is great! 😍

Thanks for the request, sweetheart! And thank you--I love my tattoos!

*gif not mine*

“You put in your PTO?” Billy asked you, smiling as he leaned closer to the computer screen.

You smiled back, and Billy wished he was with you, wished he could feel that smile against his own. “Yup,” you answered, “as requested, even though you still haven’t told me what you’re planning.”

“You’ll see,” he said back, “Five more days, and you’ll see.”

He and Frank were coming off of another tour and were currently in France awaiting their flight back to the States. As much as he liked being a soldier—a Lieutenant now—Billy really enjoyed this in-between time. He wanted to go home to you, of course, but he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t hard. He always felt a little off when he came home from active duty, like he needed to practice being a civilian again, and he felt guilty as hell bringing his shit home to you. So, he appreciated the time between active duty and going home, liked that he was able to talk to you and have time to come down from soldier mode before he got to you. Especially now. It was almost insane to him, thinking about two years ago when he wasn’t even sure if you’d be at the airport to now; living with you, telling you he loved you, being loved in return… It was a crazy turn of events—the best kind of crazy.

Which is why he bought a ring in Paris.

“Usually, when you get home,” you said with a smirk, “We don’t leave the apartment for the first few days…”

“Oh, we’re definitely doing that,” Billy assured you, “But I’m gonna take you out, too. Show you off.” Get down on one knee and ask you to be with me for the rest of our lives. “You get that package that I sent you?”

“The one with 300 American dollars stapled to the teddy bear?” You asked back, eyebrow raised. “Yes, I did. I told you about sending me money—”

“Yeah, yeah. But this is a part of my plans,” he said, “I want you to get your hair and nails done, okay baby? And buy something pretty and lacy that I can tear off of you.”

You rolled your eyes, still smiling. “I don’t get why you like to spend money on lingerie when you just ruin it the first time you see it.”

Billy grinned wolfishly. Not a day went by that he didn’t think about your body pressed against his, your mouth on his, the way you sighed and moaned when he was touching you, inside you…the look on your face—devilish and scandalized—when he tore off your lingerie, devouring you with his eyes and hands and mouth. “Ruining it is kind of the point,” he answered.

The two of you talked for a little while longer, alternatively flirting and discussing your plans and making arrangements for his arrival, before Billy had to go. Your “I love you” rang in his ears long after you’d hung up, and while he knew your words were true, he also hoped you loved him at least half as much as he loved you. He hoped you’d say yes.

“What if she doesn’t say yes?” He asked hours later. He, Frank, and Curtis were in the hotel bar, having a few well-earned drinks before they had to head to the airport and hop another plane. Neither of them was drunk—the hooch in Afghanistan was way stronger than anything he’d get in France or the U.S—but it was nice to sit and drink like regular guys.

“She’s gonna say yes,” Frank said, not missing a beat. He and Billy had this conversation at least once a week since the thought of proposing popped in Billy’s head…over a year ago.

“Y/N is absolutely crazy about you, Russo,” Curtis added, “She’s definitely going to say yes.”

“Yeah, but…” Billy rotated his neck, a nervous habit he’d had since childhood. “But what if she doesn’t?”

“In what world would that happen, Bill?” Frank asked, leaning back in his seat.

“It’s possible…”

“Show us the ring again,” Curtis prompted.

Billy took the black, velvet box out of his pocket and popped it open. The diamonds glittered in the light, shining almost as brightly as your smile. That was why he chose it; it glittered like your smile, it gleamed like your pretty eyes, it was almost as beautiful as you. Almost.

“Oh yeah,” Curtis said confidently, “She’s gonna say yes.”

“Hell, give me a rock like that, and I’ll say yes.” Frank added, eyes wide even though he’d probably seen the damn thing nearly every day in the last few weeks as Billy’s nerves grew worse.

Billy laughed back, tucking the ring back into his pocket where it was safe and secure. “That’s why you’re my back-up, Frankie. If things don’t work out with Y/N, I’ll just marry you and make Curt my side chick.”

“I’ll be expecting a ring, too,” Curtis said, “And a candy thong.”

“Well now I want to have Curtis for my side chick, too,” Frank mused.

Billy laughed again, letting his friends distract him with their nonsense. In five days, he’d be back with you, and he would take you out and romance you, get down on one knee, and ask the only woman he ever loved to spend the rest of her life with him…

…or he’d just keep the ring in his pocket until you were both old and grey. He still wasn’t sure.

As the days approached, and Billy got closer and closer to New York, he wrestled with the idea of proposing. Originally, when he’d come to the conclusion that he wanted to marry you, he’d pictured himself taking you out to a nice dinner and giving you a big speech before he asked. Then he thought about doing it at home, in case you said no, so he could nurse his wounded pride in private, but that thought depressed him, so he tried not to dwell on that. He thought about doing it at Frank’s place; Maria always had a nice barbeque with family and close friends a few weeks after they got home, but the thought of you rejecting him there, in front of the only people he cared about, was way too terrifying for Billy. The thought of you rejecting him was too terrifying. But Billy was a pessimist at heart, and he couldn’t think about proposing without thinking about the worst-case scenario. It was almost enough to keep him from proposing at all, except… the best-case scenario—you saying yes, becoming his wife, becoming Mrs. Russo and maybe one day even bearing his children—God, that simple possibility was so damn appealing, he had to chance it.

He needed you.

He sat next to the window on the plane back to New York, staring out at the clouds and thinking of you. Frank was next to him, knocked out with his head on Billy’s shoulder, and Curtis was in the aisle across from them, reading a book and listening to music. Billy had his headphones in, too, but he wasn’t listening to music. He was listening to voicemails.

“So,” your voice was clear, “Remember how I was bragging about you to Gavin because his boyfriend’s a model and he’s always insufferable about it? I showed him a picture of you—and I probably shouldn’t have, but he needed to know! Like, his boyfriend looks like an uncooked noodle with a whole tomato for lips, or like, like that monster from Monsters Inc—have you seen that movie? Did they let you watch movies during your sad childhood?” Billy chuckled to himself as he listened. You had found a way to hook his cell to his email and had gotten into the habit of leaving him rambling voicemails on days you weren’t able to talk. He saved them all on his phone, his email, and a separate USB, and listened to them religiously. “Anyway,” you went on, “Remember the week before you deployed? And we went to the wine and canvas and you kept being unnecessarily sexy and whispering all those dirty things to me while I was painting? Of course you do, you pervert. Remember how I got all obsessed with painting and we bought a bunch of supplies and took them home because I, after one session at a wine and canvas where we painted a sunset and I turned it into a horror movie scene, was a natural expert? And we brought all those canvases and paint and wine and tried to paint each other? Well, I showed him the picture of you after we got into that red paint-blue paint fight, you know the one where you were shirtless, and had my hand prints all over your chest and your hair was all messy and you were smirking at me and you looked so hot? Yeah, I showed Gavin that one.” The smile was evident in your voice. “Man, that was a good night. I don’t think my legs stopped shaking for hours after… Anyway—Gavin agrees that you’re way hotter than his boyfriend, and has asked if he can borrow you for a night. I declined on your behalf. Mama don’t share.”

The next one played immediately after. Billy loved this one, your voice was soft and sleepy, and he always imagined you in bed, wearing one of his shirts hanging off of your shoulder, no pants. He loved you like that, soft and sweet, a picture that was for him only. He closed his eyes as he listened, imagining you in real time talking right into his ear. “I miss you, baby. I went to that café you like, the one with all the paintings of professional, artsy cats wearing people clothes, and it made me miss you more than usual. I love you. I know you’re doing good work, and I’m proud of you, but I miss you. Do you remember when we went to Miami and ended up doing it in an alley behind the club?” You laughed, a musical sound that Billy wanted to hear for the rest of his life. “My knees were so scrapped up after that.” You sighed. “I miss you so much, baby. I dreamt of you this morning. I love you, and I hope you’re safe. Talk to you later.”

The next message was short, but it was exactly what Billy needed to hear. “My mom called asking about you again,” your voice sounded irritated, “She went on and on about how it wasn’t fair for me to wait on someone who was thousand of miles away, and how you were ‘a nice enough man’, but you’re gonna hurt me and blah blah blah… I tried to ignore it, and I even tried to tell her about your idea for the security business, and how you, Frank, and Curtis were going to partner up and stuff, but she just… Ugh,” you sighed, “She was just committed to being negative, and…” Another sigh. “She just doesn’t get it. I mean, she married my dad when she was 17 because she got pregnant, and when he left, he took all her notions of love with him, and… I mean, I get it. I felt that way too, you know? Like love was a lie, a waste, a weakness, but… Then I met you. And the way you make me feel, Billy… I know love is real. I know you love me, and I love you. And yeah, this… This is hard, loving you and being away from you, not being able to talk to you for days at a time, worrying about you… It’s so incredibly hard, Billy…” There was a pause. “But you know what? It’s worth it. You’re worth it. And if I had to do this for the rest of my life, waiting for you to come home, talking to your voicemail until you got a chance to write me a letter or send me an email or whatever… I would do it. Because I’d do anything to be with you. Anything. And I’m sure Mom’s gonna bitch for a while longer, but she’ll see. You mean everything to me, Billy…” There was a brief pause, and the sound of cloth shuffling. “That’s Mom on the other line. Talk to you later, baby.”

Billy opened his eyes as the next message (you updating him on your latest TV obsession Love After Lockup), and stared at the clouds. You loved him so much. You were willing to go against your mother just to wait around for him. After that day, when he’d called you back, you cried on the phone with him, and he’d tried his best to soothe you, wishing he could hold you in his arms and kiss your tears away. After he’d gotten off of the phone with you, Billy had called your mom, and a few weeks after that, he called her again and asked her for her blessing to propose. She’d given him her blessing and promised not to ruin the surprise, and Billy had sent her a picture of the ring when he bought it. She called him crying, overjoyed, and called him “son-in-law”. Thinking back on that, and your voicemail saying how much you loved him, Billy knew what he had to do. He closed his eyes and slept for the rest of the flight.

Billy, as always, walked a few feet behind Frank and Curtis as they walked off the plane and into the lobby. And, as always, Maria and the kids tackled him in hugs; crying and laughing. Curt’s brothers were there, and they greeted him with hugs and laughs as well. There was a small crowd watching from the sidelines, cheering as the vets reunited with their families. Billy frowned; he hated having an audience like that, it made him feel like an animal in a zoo.

“Billy!”

The sound of your voice muted everything around him; the laughing and crying and cheering all melted away. The people melted away, the crowd and his brothers alike. All there was, all that mattered, was you. You launched yourself into his arms, and Billy held onto you tight, taking in your sweet scent, the concrete feel of you against him, the sound of your laughter and heavy breathing as you said his name over and over. No matter how many times he did this, he would never get tired of this moment, the reunion. He pulled back and kissed you, an act that he knew he’d be able to do for the rest of his life. Your eyes were still closed, and he reached out and ran his thumb over your bottom lip. You opened your eyes, and he wanted to drown in them, wanted to wake up and go to sleep to those eyes staring at him until the day he died. He never wanted anything more in his life—and Billy had spent almost his entire existence wanting and coveting and desiring, so that was saying a lot. Now he knew, all that time wishing and wanting, he’d been wishing for you. And now you were here: his dream come true. He stepped back from you, eyes focused on you and you only…

…and dropped down to one knee.

Your mouth fell open, and he could see tears shimmering in your gorgeous eyes. His vision spread, he could see Frank, kneeling on the ground, arms around his kids, grinning widely as Maria stood behind him, practically jumping up and down. Curtis had his phone out, getting it all on video. The crowd was still on the edge of his peripheral, but you were the center of his attention. Billy reached out and took your hand in his; your hands were soft, recently manicured like he’d asked, and his brain supplied an image of your hand with his ring on it. He had to make that happen.

“Y/N,” he said, taking a steadying breath as he took out the ring, opening it and feeling his heart race as your eyes widened at the ring, “will you marry me?”

“Yes,” you breathed out.

That was all he needed to hear. Billy jumped up and crushed you to his chest, kissing the side of your neck. His heart was pounding. He heard shouts and cheers and clapping, and normally, he’d be embarrassed and probably irritated at the attention, but right now all he could feel was relief. You said yes. You were going to marry him. You were going to be his wife.

You pulled back and kissed him, long and hard and slow, and Billy wanted to rip your clothes off and take you then and there. In fact, he wanted you wearing nothing but his ring for at least the next 72 hours. That in mind, Billy, grinning from ear to ear, slid the ring on your waiting finger, kissing your face as he did so.

“I was so nervous,” he whispered against your lips, still smiling.

You were engulfed in a huge group hug before you could respond, Maria, Curtis, Frank and the kids wrapping you in their arms and giving congratulations and “I knew it”s all around. As you all walked out of the airport, hand in Billy’s, ring proudly displayed on your pretty finger, he felt, for the first time in his life, like he was a complete man.

He bent his head so that his mouth was by your ear. “You’re really gonna need your time off now,” he whispered.

You grinned up at him. “Don’t I always?” You put your hand up, admiring the ring. “I can’t believe I’m going to be Mrs. Billy Russo.”

Billy glanced over at Frank, who shot him a proud smile. He turned back to you, his fiancé, his future wife, and saw his entire future standing next to him. “Well, you know,” he shrugged, smiling, “quality over quantity, baby.”

*******************************************************************************************

Please let me know what you think! Thanks for reading! 

Taglist: @lexxierave @loveintheroyalfamily @suchatinyinfinity @fanfictionrecommendations-com  @maxslime-blog @elanor-of-imladris @songforhema @lucielandss @fandomlifeandeverythingelse @themadhatter92 @realduckvader @the-blind-assassin-12 @christinawxxx @anabella-baby @blackcoffeeandgreenteaforme @luminex3 @littlemermaidprobz @ashkuuuu @luckysstrikes @carlaangel86 @floralpeaceofmind @dylanobrusso @teacuplotus @iaintnofurry @thesumofmychoices @ymariejp @its-my-little-dumpster-fire @mrsjaxtellerfan @whovianayesha @holamor @drinix @rhabakoli @stories-you-wont-hear @king4thesirens @starkrobb @marauderskeeper @charlylama @thesandbeneathmytoes @miss-nerd95 @something-tofightfor @banditthewriter  @binbons-is-theloml @thebabblingbookworm @khuangpu13

#billy russo x reader #billy russo imagine #the punisher imagine

[aamjp]

“I was a writer,” said the old man.

“But I gave it up. This typewriter was a gift from my father. An affectionate and cultured man who lived to the age of ninety-three. An essentially good man. A man who believed in progress, it goes without saying. My poor father. He believed in progress and of course he believed in the intrinsic goodness of human beings. I too believe in the intrinsic goodness of human beings, but it means nothing. In their hearts, killers are good, as we Germans have reason to know. So what? I might spend a night drinking with a killer, and as the two of us watch the sun come up, perhaps we’ll burst into song or hum some Beethoven. So what? The killer might weep on my shoulder. Naturally. Being a killer isn’t easy, as you and I well know. It isn’t easy at all. It requires purity and will, will and purity. Crystalline purity and steel-hard will. And I myself might even weep on the killer’s shoulder and whisper sweet words to him, words like ‘brother,’ ‘friend,’ ‘comrade in misfortune.’ At this moment the killer is good, because he’s intrinsically good, and I’m an idiot, because I’m intrinsically an idiot, and we’re both sentimental, because our culture tends inexorably toward sentimentality. But when the performance is over and I’m alone, the killer will open the window of my room and come tiptoeing in like a nurse and slit my throat, bleed me dry.

“My poor father. I was a writer, I was a writer, but my indolent, voracious brain gnawed at my own entrails. Vulture of my Prometheus self or Prometheus of my vulture self, one day I understood that I might go so far as to publish excellent articles in magazines and newspapers, and even books that weren’t unworthy of the paper on which they were printed. But I also understood that I would never manage to create anything like a masterpiece. You may say that literature doesn’t consist solely of masterpieces, but rather is populated by so-called minor works. I believed that, too. Literature is a vast forest and the masterpieces are the lakes, the towering trees or strange trees, the lovely, eloquent flowers, the hidden caves, but a forest is also made up of ordinary trees, patches of grass, puddles, clinging vines, mushrooms, and little wild-flowers. I was wrong. There’s actually no such thing as a minor work. I mean: the author of the minor work isn’t Mr. X or Mr. Y. Mr. X and Mr. Y do exist, there’s no question about that, and they struggle and toil and publish in newspapers and magazines and sometimes they even come out with a book that isn’t unworthy of the paper it’s printed on, but those books or articles, if you pay close attention, are not written by them.

“Every minor work has a secret author and every secret author is, by definition, a writer of masterpieces. Who writes the minor work? A minor writer, or so it appears. The poor man’s wife can testify to that, she’s seen him sitting at the table, bent over the blank pages, restless in his chair, his pen racing over the paper. The evidence would seem to be incontrovertible. But what she’s seen is only the outside. The shell of literature. A semblance,” said the old man to Archimboldi and Archimboldi thought of Ansky. “The person who really writes the minor work is a secret writer who accepts only the dictates of a masterpiece.

“Our good craftsman writes. He’s absorbed in what takes shape well or badly on the page. His wife, though he doesn’t know it, is watching him. It really is he who’s writing. But if his wife had X-ray vision she would see that instead of being present at an exercise of literary creation, she’s witnessing a session of hypnosis. There’s nothing inside the man who sits there writing. Nothing of himself, I mean. How much better off the poor man would be if he devoted himself to reading. Reading is pleasure and happiness to be alive or sadness to be alive and above all it’s knowledge and questions. Writing, meanwhile, is almost always empty. There’s nothing in the guts of the man who sits there writing. Nothing, I mean to say, that his wife, at a given moment, might recognize. He writes like someone taking dictation. His novel or book of poems, decent, adequate, arises not from an exercise of style or will, as the poor unfortunate believes, but as the result of an exercise of concealment. There must be many books, many lovely pines, to shield from hungry eyes the book that really matters, the wretched cave of our misfortune, the magic flower of winter!

“Excuse the metaphors. Sometimes, in my excitement, I wax romantic. But listen. Every work that isn’t a masterpiece is, in a sense, a part of a vast camouflage. You’ve been a soldier, I imagine, and you know what I mean. Every book that isn’t a masterpiece is cannon fodder, a slogging foot soldier, a piece to be sacrificed, since in multiple ways it mimics the design of the masterpiece. When I came to this realization, I gave up writing. Still, my mind didn’t stop working. In fact, it worked better when I wasn’t writing. I asked myself: why does a masterpiece need to be hidden? what strange forces wreath it in secrecy and mystery?

“By now I knew it was pointless to write. Or that it was worth it only if one was prepared to write a masterpiece. Most writers are deluded or playing. Perhaps delusion and play are the same thing, two sides of the same coin. The truth is we never stop being children, terrible children covered in sores and knotty veins and tumors and age spots, but ultimately children, in other words we never stop clinging to life because we are life. One might also say: we’re theater, we’re music. By the same token, few are the writers who give up. We play at believing ourselves immortal. We delude ourselves in the appraisal of our own works and in our perpetual misappraisal of the works of others. See you at the Nobel, writers say, as one might say: see you in hell.

“Once I saw an American gangster movie. In one scene a detective kills a crook and before he fires the fatal shot he says: see you in hell. He’s playing. The detective is playing and he’s deluded. The crook, who meets his gaze and curses him just before he dies, is also playing and deluded, although his fields of play and delusion have been reduced to almost zero, since in the next shot he’s going to die. The director of the film is also playing. So is the scriptwriter. See you at the Nobel. We’ll go down in history. We have the gratitude of the German people. A heroic battle remembered for generations to come. An immortal love. A name inscribed in marble. The time of the Muses. Even a phrase as seemingly innocent as echoes of Greek prose is all play and delusion.

“Play and delusion are the blindfold and spur of minor writers. Also: the promise of their future happiness. A forest that grows at a vertiginous rate, a forest no one can fence in, not even the academies, in fact, the academies make sure it flourishes unhindered, as do boosters and universities (breeding grounds for the shameless) and government institutions and patrons and cultural associations and declaimers of poetry— all aid the forest to grow and hide what must be hidden, all aid the forest to reproduce what must be reproduced, since the process is inevitable, though no one ever sees what exactly is being reproduced, what is being tamely mirrored back.

“Plagiarism, you say? Yes, plagiarism, in the sense that all minor works, all works from the pen of a minor writer, can be nothing but plagiarism of some masterpiece. The small difference is that here we’re talking about sanctioned plagiarism. Plagiarism as camouflage as some wood and canvas scenery as a charade that leads us, likely as not, into the void.

“In a word: experience is best. I won’t say you can’t get experience by hanging around libraries, but libraries are second to experience. Experience is the mother of science, it is often said. When I was young and I still thought I would make a career in the world of letters, I met a great writer. A great writer who had probably written a single masterpiece, although in my judgment everything he had written was a masterpiece.

“I won’t tell you his name. It’ll do you no good to learn it, nor do you need to know it for the purposes of this story. Suffice it to say that he was German and one day he came to Cologne to give a few lectures. Of course, I didn’t miss a single one of the three he gave at the university. At the last lecture I got a seat in the front row, and rather than listen (the truth is he repeated things he’d already said in the first and second lectures), I spent the time observing him in detail, his hands, for example, bony and energetic, his old man’s neck, like the neck of a turkey or a plucked rooster, his faintly Slavic cheekbones, his lifeless lips, lips that one could slash with a knife and from which one could be sure not a single drop of blood would fall, his gray temples like a stormy sea, and especially his eyes, deep eyes that at the slightest tilt of his head seemed at times like two endless tunnels, two abandoned tunnels on the verge of collapse.

“Of course, once the lecture was over he was mobbed by local worthies and I wasn’t even able to shake his hand and tell him how much I admired him. Time went by. The writer died, and, as one might expect, I continued to read and reread him. The day came when I decided to give up literature. I gave it up. This was in no way traumatic but rather liberating. Between you and me, I’ll confess that it was like losing my virginity. What a relief to give up literature, to give up writing and simply read!

“But that’s another story. We can discuss it when you return my typewriter. And yet I couldn’t forget the great writer and his visit. Meanwhile, I began to work at a factory that made optical instruments. I did well for myself. I was a bachelor, I had money, every week I went to the movies, the theater, exhibitions, and I also studied English and French and visited bookshops where I bought whatever books struck my fancy.

“A comfortable life. But I couldn’t shake the memory of the great writer’s visit, and what’s more, I realized abruptly that I remembered only the third lecture, and my memories were limited to the writer’s face, as if it was supposed to tell me something that in the end it didn’t. But what? One day, for reasons that are beside the point, I went with a doctor friend of mine to the university morgue. I doubt you’ve ever been there. The morgue is underground and it’s a long room with white-tiled walls and a wooden ceiling. In the middle there’s a stage where autopsies, dissections, and other scientific atrocities are performed. Then there are two small offices, one for the dean of forensic studies and the other for another professor. At each end are the refrigerated rooms where the corpses are stored, the bodies of the destitute or people without papers visited by death in cheap hotel rooms.

“In those days I showed a doubtless morbid interest in these facilities and my doctor friend kindly took it upon himself to give me a detailed tour. We even attended the last autopsy of the day. Then my friend went into the dean’s office and I was left alone outside in the corridor, waiting for him, as the students left and a kind of crepuscular lethargy crept from under the doors like poison gas. After ten minutes of waiting I was startled by a noise from one of the refrigerated rooms. In those days, I promise you, that was enough to frighten anyone, but I’ve never been particularly cowardly and I went to see what it was.

“When I opened the door a gust of cold air hit me in the face. At the back of the room, by a stretcher, a man was trying to open one of the lockers to stow away a corpse, but no matter how hard he struggled, the door to the locker or cell wouldn’t budge. Without moving from the threshold, I asked whether he needed help. The man straightened up, he was very tall, and gave me what seemed to me a despairing look. Perhaps it was because I sensed despair in his gaze that I was emboldened to approach him. As I did, flanked by corpses, I lit a cigarette to calm my nerves and when I reached him the first thing I did was offer him another cigarette, perhaps forcing a false camaraderie.

“Only then did the morgue worker look at me and it was as if I had gone back in time. His eyes were exactly like the eyes of the great writer whose Cologne lectures I had devoutly attended. I confess that just then, for a few seconds, I even thought I was going mad. It was the morgue worker’s voice, nothing like the warm voice of the great writer, that rescued me from my panic. He said: smoking isn’t allowed here.

“I didn’t know what to answer. He added: smoke is harmful to the dead. I laughed. He supplied an explanatory note: smoke interferes with the process of preservation. I made a noncommittal gesture. He tried a last time: he spoke about filters, he spoke about moisture levels, he uttered the word purity. I offered him a cigarette again and he announced with resignation that he didn’t smoke. I asked whether he had worked there for a long time. In an impersonal and somewhat shrill voice, he said he had worked at the university since long before the 1914 war.

‘”Always at the morgue?’ I asked.

“‘Here and nowhere else,’ he answered.

“‘It’s funny,’ I said, ‘but your face, and especially your eyes, remind me of a great German writer.’ At this point I mentioned the writer’s name.

‘”I’ve never heard of him,’ was his response.

“In earlier days this reply would have outraged me, but thanks God I was living a new life. I remarked that working at the morgue must surely prompt wise or at least original reflections on human fate. He looked at me as if I were mocking him or speaking French. I insisted. These surroundings, I said, with a gesture that encompassed the whole morgue, are in a certain way the ideal place to contemplate the brevity of life, the unfathomable fate of mankind, the futility of earthly strife.

“With a shudder of horror, I was suddenly aware that I was talking to him as if he were the great German writer and this was the conversation we’d never had. I don’t have much time, he said. I looked him in the eye again. There could be no doubt about it: he had the eyes of my idol. And his reply: I don’t have much time. How many doors it opened! How many paths were suddenly cleared, revealed to me!

“I don’t have much time, I have to haul corpses. I don’t have much time, I have to breathe, eat, drink, sleep. I don’t have much time, I have to keep the gears meshing. I don’t have much time, I’m busy living. I don’t have much time, I’m busy dying. As you can imagine, there were no more questions. I helped him open the locker. I wanted to help him slide the corpse in, but my clumsiness was such that the sheet slipped and then I saw the face of the corpse and I closed my eyes and bowed my head and let him work in peace.

“When my friend came out he watched me from the door in silence. Everything all right? he asked. I couldn’t answer, or didn’t know how to answer. Maybe I said: everything’s wrong. But that wasn’t what I meant to say.”

Before Archimboldi left, after they’d had a cup of tea, the man who rented him the typewriter said:

“Jesus is the masterpiece. The thieves are minor works. Why are they there? Not to frame the crucifixion, as some innocent souls believe, but to hide it.”

#Bolano.Roberto

[welldresseddadblog]

Welcome to the 13th instalment of the “Garmsman Dozen” question and answer session. The response so far has been tremendous. Did you miss earlier ones? There are links at the end of the page.

This week we welcome to the Garmsman Dozen Christopher Laverty from Great Britain!

Who are you, where do you live and what interests you?

Christopher Laverty. York, UK. 40 years old.

Author of book Fashion in Film, broadcaster, creator of website Clothes on Film and costume consultant.

Twitter: @clothesonfilm, Instagram: @lordlaverty, @christopherlaverty, Facebook: @clothesonfilm.

I enjoy movies, decent TV, clothes, clothes in movies, clothes in decent TV, bourbon, pipe smoking, cigars (preferably Cuban), cocktail making, cycling, running and twirling my moustache.

Thinking back to your childhood, what were your most memorable or favourite clothes?

Honestly, I don’t remember much of my childhood. Controversially I don’t many of us really do, we just piece together memories from what we’re told and photographs. With that in mind, I’ll go to my late teenage years when I first remember becoming interested in clothes. It was the mid-late 1990s so a lot of pale, shapeless denim jeans worn way too long with thick, oversized shirts and suede Kickers. This is probably why I gravitated toward the vintage scene which at this time was big on 1970s retro revival. My favourite buy was a tan leather trench coat, probably from the late 1970s, made in Egypt with a Selfridges label. It was immaculate. I purchased for £25 from Covent Garden market and still have it today. I don’t wear the coat much as it’s a little on the nose these days and verging on dress up, but at least it still fits! I do come from a family interested in clothes, particularly my dad. I was born to older parents (they are in their late eighties now) and with an older brother (now 60) and sister (53). I was spoilt rotten. Apparently, I even had a tailored coat, which to a working-class family is quite a fancy thing. My appreciation of clothes comes from understanding how they are made, their design, influences and appropriateness to the era. This is all born in me I think.

How would you describe your style today, and what are your influences?

It’s one of two things depending on my mood, time of year, facial hair and hairstyle: 1) denim and workwear, Edwardian influenced to 1930s OR 2) 1970s lounge with flared three-piece suits. I like to change things up because I get bored easily. It does have to be a specific look though – I have to feel that it ticks certain boxes, although saying that I do loathe the idea of sticking rigidly to eras or historical accuracy. My main influence for the 70’s is television programmes such as The Persuaders! and The Professionals and films such as Fear is the Key and Carlito’s Way. For workwear, it’s more print-based influences, like old photographs of miners and ranchers, but also films like The First Great Train Robbery and There Will Be Blood. I pull from wherever I like, really. Again, it’s not rigid; I’m not a re-enactor, I’m just someone who enjoys a period-specific feel to their dress.

How do you think others would describe your style and garments, do you get any reaction from friends and random strangers?

Totally, though a lot of that comes from random moustache admirers/hecklers. I don’t mind, so long as it’s polite. People will always point out what is different and, if I’m honest, I get a kick out of it. I think my friends just list random people they consider could be associated with my look – I’ve had everything from Shaft to a Spitfire pilot. It’s all good fun unless you choose to be offended (which I don’t because life is far too short to be cross and moaning all the time).

When looking for clothes, what factors play into your selections?

Need, mainly. I don’t really seek out any clothing unless I’m specifically short on something, like a henley t-shirt or new pair of boots. Most clothes come to me, in that I might stumble across a charity shop find or somebody acquires a shirt or whatever they think I’d like. I don’t really pay full price for anything. For example, I bought some suede chukka boots by Alfred Sargent last year, but only because they were offered to me by a friend who’d found them (in immaculate condition I might add) in a charity shop. I certainly didn’t need the boots but I’ll not turn my nose up at a bargain. I love clothes, though my wardrobe is actually quite capsule. I think there’s nothing worse than just buying willy-nilly and ending up with so much gear you can hardly store it all. This actually diminishes sartorial creativity in my view.

When putting together an outfit combination, do you spend a lot of time considering it?

Not really. I think I know what works and just go with that. I’ll plan more if it’s an occasion outfit but for every day I just grab what I like depending on the weather. Putting together an ensemble can be fun, but I do think if you take too long it becomes fussy and convoluted. If in doubt, take it out.

Most garmsmen will have a few “grail items” in their collection. Not to out you, but if your house is burning, which garments do you grab?

Probably my RM Williams boots. They are Craftsman Yearling, the finest boot RM Williams make in my opinion and they work with almost any outfit. I purchased on eBay nearly a decade ago for about £100. The leather is cracking a tad now but I couldn’t be without them. That said, I wouldn’t burn alive for them either so this better be a fairly mild fire we’re talking about here.

Photo by Ben Bentley

Are you budget-conscious or spendthrift? Are you a single-shot shopper, or go large and buy bulk? Where are you on slow-fashion and buying less?

I’m not spendthrift, even less so if I’m buying for others. If something fits and looks great and I can afford it and need it, I’ll buy it. I do like things that are in a sale or reduced though – it just feels more fun to make that purchase. In this respect, I wish I could support more artisan brands but they are just too rich for my blood. The sad thing is I know that the guys running these places and making these clothes and footwear are just getting by as is. If I was rich I’d probably shop with an eye toward supporting homegrown brands, but as things stand whoever can give me what I want for the best possible price is going to get my money.

Having a large collection of clothes can lead to changing outfit on a daily basis, but if you were going to wear a single outfit the next two weeks, what would it be?

My go to is probably a green ribbed cotton henley (from H&M), Marlboro leather and canvas braces (charity shop), Levi LVC 1878 jeans (eBay) and my RM Williams boots. This outfit suits just about every occasion, unless you want me attending your wedding or something. It’s comfortable to travel, work, socialise and chill in. Simple but effective in my opinion.

What would you never wear?

That’s a tough one. Basically, anything that looks awful on me, so very baggy trousers or jeans (I’m a short-ass), super-tight muscle tees (they are hilarious even if you have the body) and chunky hi-top trainers (love them on other people but I look like a failed hip-hop artist). Oh and baseball caps. Every time I put one on I look like I’m dying of some disease.

Photo by David Wade

What are your best tips for buying?

If you’re talking specifically about buying for my look, either workwear or 70’s inspired, then I’d say eBay, charity shops and vintage fairs. Got to be patient though and realise that, in the main, if you’ve found a bargain, someone else has too. People know their stuff a lot more these days so everyone has their eye out. For basics, I find H&M hard to beat. It’s not the highest quality and sometimes their stores are saturated with desperately on-trend crap, but in general, for easy tees and shirts, they are a goldmine (plus have lots of year-round sales).

Do you have a dream garment you’d love to own?

A few years ago I would have said a Savile Row suit but I think I desired one for the wrong reasons. It was a case of wanting to say I’ve had a suit cut on Savile Row rather than wanting the garment itself. I must admit I have always hankered after a beautifully tailored flared leg suit from the 1970s. I have a couple of off-the-peg examples but I’d love one bespoke. Suits of this era with that distinctive cut, the high waist, flared leg, high double vents and pagoda shoulder are not impossibly hard to find, though ones made from high-quality wool suiting are. Also, I’m a sucker for LVC Levi. I’d buy most of it just to hang on my wall and salivate over.

Anyone that buys clothes will have made mistakes, what is your most memorable bad buy?

Loads! When I used to buy more and think later I grabbed many a mistake. Possibly my worst was a pair of loose Abercrombie & Fitch jeans, from eBay if I remember correctly. Not sure what look I was going for. LA surfer, possibly? Or maybe just asshole. Either way, unsurprisingly, they didn’t work.

Do you have any style icons, historic or current?

Most of the looks I covet are from films so were put together by costume designers rather than the stars in question. Then again, stars and icons had stylists back in the day and they have stylists now. Cary Grant always nailed it. James Coburn could rock the Ivy. Nowadays Sebastian Stan constantly looks interesting without going too bananas (he has a brilliant stylist and an easy to dress bod too, mind). My elderly dad has a wonderfully open love of bright colour, which I admire and is daring for a former market trader from the East End of London. ‘Be more like him’ I often think.

Who are your favourite Instagram profiles?

What you mean apart from @Welldresseddad??? 😉 I like all the sartorial based accounts I follow. Two, in particular, indulge my passion for high-end workwear denim that I can’t afford: @kingchung501 and @vorstenbos. Anyone who doesn’t take it all too seriously, basically.

How do you think trends such as denim and heritage style will evolve and survive? What will be the next big thing?

I think more and more people will get into making their own clothes. We are not there yet, and I certainly don’t presently have the skills, but big picture I feel this will get easier and easier to do in our own home. Sustainability is a big trend and not going anywhere – and really it can’t afford to. Denim especially will go down this route. Like I said we are a way off, but with current textile innovations and online communities, it is coming.

Thank you!

Thank you for your Garmsman Chris!

Photo by David Wade

Did you miss the first Garmsman Dozens?

Jon from Great Britain

Shaun from Scotland

Klaus from Germany

Roland from Italy

Daniel from Sweden

Enoch from the USA

Even from Norway

Kris from Belgium

Michael from Great Britain

Liam from Great Britain

Lee from Great Britain

Iain from Great Britain

Michael from Italy

PS: If you have suggestions for participants, let me know. Or have your mother suggest you, if you’re a bit keen to suggest yourself. My email is WellDressedDad (@) gmail.com

  The Garmsman Dozen #14: Chris from Great Britain Welcome to the 13th instalment of the "Garmsman Dozen" question and answer session. The response so far has been tremendous.

#christopher laverty #Denim #film costumes #garmsman dozen #men&039;s style #mens fashion #menswear #workwear

[ballsdeepincorona]

Day 5: Friday, March 20 2020

You know how you usually wake up on Friday pumped because it’s Friday?  Not so much right now.  Friday feels like Wednesday feels like Monday and they all feel weird.  Working from home was again pretty busy throughout the morning, then around 11:45 I realized I hadn’t brushed my teeth yet all day. It’s probably been over a decade since the last time I crept towards noon without doing that.  Big fan of dental hygiene, very unlike me.  Things are not normal.  We took another noon HIIT class and it’s amazing how many people don’t turn off their front-facing camera for these classes.  Whenever I take a yoga class in person and somebody falls during a balance exercise, in my head I always immediately turn into Dennis Reynolds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85-GjKLToik).  This goes quadruple for when people are working out in their homes.  Not only am I judging your form, fitness, and outfit, but also aggressively judging your home décor. Lady, why didn’t you clean out your basement before inviting 100 strangers to look at all those discarded boxes?  If you didn’t want to clean, just turn off your camera.  Move them out of the frame.  Do you not know how this works?  Of the three zoom classes I’ve taken so far, one was a yoga class where the instructor had both a dog and a bird climb on top of her mid instruction.  The other two HIIT classes each featured a lot of people with questionable furniture purchases.  One woman, who was probably in her mid 50s, didn’t prop the phone up on a stand, but instead held it like she was taking a selfie FOR THE ENTIRE CLASS. Maybe we’re better off confined in our homes than out in the world with these people.

Going to need so start watching more movies than TV shows.  Lacey has never seen Goodfellas and it’s on Netflix, but I just know deep down that isn’t going to happen.  What an amazing movie though, holy shit, I still love watching it from start to finish every time it’s on.  Scalding hot take – Goodfellas is a great movie.  When I moved into Budd Street, the first piece of “art” I ordered was a canvas print of Tommy’s mom’s painting.  Some people referred to it as a “movie poster” to make it seem like a white trash choice of decoration and that couldn’t have been more inaccurate. It was a great canvas painting from a great scene in a great movie.  Don’t lump me in with people who used sticky-tack to hang posters in their college dorm.  Or Brooke Burke posters, we all hung those in college.  I ended up watching The Amazing Jonathan movie which was about a dying magician/comedian who had a Comedy Central special back in the day. Apparently he had terminal cancer and loved smoking meth.  Not sure if the two were related.  At some point Jonathan invited another company to come and make an additional documentary, so the one I was watching turned into the filmmaker complaining about how butt-hurt he was that this dying magician wanted multiple movies made of his dying moments.  Didn’t really register.  It’s an interesting story but I don’t recommend watching the documentary. Maybe the other one is better.  

[ltdedngallery-blog]

THE BIG INTERVIEW … DAN BALDWIN

(Originally published Nov 2014)

BRITISH ARTIST DAN BALDWIN RECENTLY RETURNED FROM HIS STUNNING SOLO SHOW ‘END OF INNOCENCE’ IN NEW YORK CITY…AFTER 101 DIFFERENT INTERVIEWS ABOUT THE SHOW & THE NEW WORK, WE CAUGHT UP WITH HIM TO TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE…

LTD/EDN… Hey Dan, you are so often described, perhaps incorrectly, as an urban artist.  It doesn’t get anymore urban than NYC, so how the hell was New York? Could you ever live there?

DAN…We had that very conversation out there, could we live here? We thought Yes and No .

If we had a massive loft in the Meatpacking District… Yes!

Although the TV Shows, disclaimers and adverts… that was driving us to a No!  One commercial actually announced ‘If your erection lasts for more than four hours, seek medical advice’ and they invent words like ‘ruggedise’ and ‘dramadies’!

So as long as that loft apartment has no TV, you’ll be fine! Did you get to see any more of the City on this trip, or was it just work, work work? Any favourite spots?

Some good friends flew in from Brighton, and we visited all the usual places… Central Park, Liberty Island, Trump Tower, Dakota Building, Times Square, The MoMA, Soho, Cast Iron District, Ground Zero.

The Meatpacking District was the area we liked the most – round by Chelsea market and the historic High Line. I took photos I’m going to use in my new paintings which I’ve never done before – really interesting architecture, great buildings etc.

As for that Urban Artist tag, I guess I’m not easily labelled.

My paintings can be figurative, abstract, landscape, or non-perspective and they move forwards fast –  I make sculpture and paint pots, I didn’t grow up in an inner city – but I’m not from the countryside either. My work may have urban appeal, and that may link back to my passion towards skateboarding and it’s art and music. I grew up in a very exciting time with music, that has inspired me.

When I started in 1990 (or 1996 if you exclude college) there was no Urban tags, until 2006, I guess art movements or chapters need to be boxed into a category.

Like they did with Pop Art – many of the Pop artists weren’t, like Ed Rusche, who was a young exciting painter making eye catching art at the same time as Rauschenberg – who actually wasn’t POP either, but was dating Jasper Johns, who was quite POP. I guess we all just love to categorise.

Brit’s taking and breaking the US has been a UK obsession in music and art for generations. With your management team PMM at your side are you part of a new British invasion?

Hopefully – who knows – what I loved was the response to my art from such a diverse mix of people – and selling art direct to people walking in from Texas, Canada, Australia, Germany and NYC, that doesn’t happen in my experience as much in London.

Can you tell us a little more about how it works with you and PMM Art Projects?

PMM will oversee all aspects of putting a show on for me – Pat, Roger, Richard will agree dates that work best, Roger will scout out venues across the city, Pat will then agree, then employ PR to maximise on Press, Roger will spread the word ‘like a scud missile’, Richard will deal in sales and clients, the hanging of the show, and email enquiries, Chippy will deal in decal, graphic design , show preview, lists, poster and sign, Marta will help deal in all admin, and take care of logistics; like cars, flights, hotel, crates, shipping etc -​ Pat had 700 posters distributed across NYC, and arranged a dinner for special clients and collectors the night before the opening. We all do our bit, I focus on making the art, then photographing it all, packing ready for crates and shippers,​ and I am there to hang it with Richard and a specialist hanger.

Pat and Roger also oversee any specific projects I may be asked to do, other than a show, like the deal with my recent Paolo Nutini project – If I’m approached by a company for example, I will run it past PMM.

It’s like I have a backbone of support and it all will come together on a show.

Do you pay attention to the American art scene? Feel different to London/UK?  Any current artists out there you like? We heard that Shepard Fairey is a collector…

Not really – I rarely get time for other UK shows. I am aware of a lot of artists​ and try to keep my eyes open, but I’m 6 days a week absorbed in my own work so it’s not so easy.

I went to MoMA NYC just to see if there was a Basquiat, but sadly it was in storage. I was thrilled to see my favourite Rauschenberg again ‘Canyon’, I hadn’t seen that since I was about 19. It’s a mixed media collage on canvas with a eagle stuck to the bottom on wood, with paint and cardboard and as a young artist it made me realise you can do anything in art. I also still get a buzz from seeing Warhol like the huge black red Disaster piece/car crash .

I remember going out to a show in London after my LA show and it was so pretentious compared to LA, which is very much dress down laid back in its vibe. NYC was cool, good people.

Shep isn’t a collector of mine as such, but he has a lot of art – he came to my LA show and requested to meet me, which was great as I saw him there and was like Fuck, its OBEY ! . . Weirdly I had bought myself an Obey print when I first went full time in 2006.

We had a good chat about music mainly and my art and the next day he invited us to his downtown Hollywood studio, which was amazing – he was incredibly generous and gave me 12 prints, and two books, so I pasted some onto a canvas and made a Baldwin on top of some Obeys and one was a Martha Cooper, so it’s a one off Baldwin on some Shepard Fairey Martha cooper prints! I then sent it back to him. (pictured above left).

That meeting was a highlight of our LA trip and years later I had no idea it would link up to PMM via Logan Hicks.

You have a number of other celebrity collectors. If you could collect something from a celebrity what would it be?

I think something from the classic car collection of Jay Leno would be a nice one … I don’t know.

​I do want a 50s American car, a 58 Plymouth Fury, after my top 3 favourite movie Christine,​ or some original Westwood punk gear.

I collected badges as a kid… Now i collect stuff for my art – something from Elvis’s Gracelands, perhaps or a bit of James Dean’s wardrobe, or his conga drums. One of Andy Warhol’s striped t-shirts would be cool or a Basquiat scrap of paper or something from his studio – similarly something from Bacon’s studio. A drum kit from Adam Ant was on my childhood wish list… They gave one away on ”Jim’ll Fix it’.

We covet inanimate objects – is it nostalgia? or sentimentalism? There, I invented a word! Or maybe not. I have a cabinet full of objects we collect. Old children’s dice, a dead Bee, a cats whisker, it’s memory and object – I like nostalgia.

Your Cyclone piece was recently used by Paolo Nutini on his album sleeve artwork – if you could design any album for any band through history what would it be?

Album art used to be so important, I never forget the power Frankie Goes to Hollywood had with their first album, and the symbolism they used, the heart, the bullet, the crucifix, the sperm. It made a big impact on me, as did Adam Ant, but that was more his look and that great logo.

So did Santa bring you anything exciting this year? What was on your list to Santa? Did any goodies cross over with your son’s list?

We escaped the misery of Dads Army, Quality Street, the Two Ronnies repeat from 1978 and you know, all the rest of it and celebrated Rome.

Is finding out that Santa doesn’t exist the real ‘End of Innocence’?  

He doesn’t?

Ha, so enough of Christmas, it’s a New Year…What’s up next?

Thursday (Jan 8th 2015) sees the opening of a new print show alongside Peter Blake at the GX Gallery (www.gxgallery.com/exhibition/fame-promise) I have made 5 new works on paper for it.

I also have a lot of loose ends since NYC, some commissions to do, two charity events coming up, and making new art. I am itching to continue my SUBVERT series and make more bronzes.

There will be a lot going on over the next 12 months, we are also planning to move and relocate the studio. Plus I’m already planning my new show! In my head anyway!

Lastly, talking of your head, one question about the Show…. We noticed a splendid hat, move over Pharrell…Where did you get that hat, where did you get that hat?

Ha, I’m not brave enough for ‘Child of the Jago’, yet, but you know, all in time .. but in NYC it was essential.

​I like the look of some of these www.nickfouquet.com

In the 90’s, or earlier, when England was full of casuals and mullets, if I said then imagine if all the young casuals started to dress like it was the 1940’s – braces, hats, cloth caps, brogue boots, beards you would have laughed – but now it’s  true!

Everything comes round in circles. Look at Duchamp, ​putting an urinal in a gallery in 1917, how ahead of his time was he? Anyway you know the old saying ‘if you want to get ahead, get a hat ‘…1934 that slogan was created.

Thank you Dan for your time, we look forward to new work in 2016.

#art #artists on tumblr #danbaldwin #new york #maddox gallery

[kiliarobus-blog]

Fiona Banner

Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press (born 1966) is an English artist, who was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2002. In 2010, she produced new work for a Duveen Hall commission at Tate Britain. She is one of the Young British Artists.

Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press was born in Merseyside, North West England. She studied at Kingston University and completed her MA at Goldsmiths College in 1993. The next year she held her first solo exhibition at City Racing.

In 1995, she was included in General Release: Young British Artists held at the XLVI Venice Biennale. She is one of the “key names”, along with Jake and Dinos Chapman, Gary Hume, Sam Taylor-Wood, Tacita Dean and Douglas Gordon, of the Young British Artists.

Her early work took the form of “wordscapes” or “still films"—blow-by-blow accounts written in her own words of feature films including Point Break (1991) and The Desert (1994). Her work took the form of solid single blocks of text, often the same shape and size as a cinema screen. In 1997, she founded The Vanity Press, through which she published her own works, such as the Nam, The Bastard Word and All The World’s Fighter Planes. The Nam (1997), is a 1,000-page book which describes the plots of six Vietnam films in their entirety: the films are Apocalypse Now, Born on the Fourth of July, The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill and Platoon. Since then she has published many works, some in the form of books, some sculptural, some performance based. In 2009 she issued herself an ISBN number and registered herself as a publication under her own name. Humour, conflict and language are at the core of her work.

Following her shows at the Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, and Dundee Contemporary Arts, Banner was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2002. The wall of her show in the Turner Prize exhibition at was dominated by a 6 x 4-metre advertising billboard, titled Arsewoman in Wonderland. The billboard presented a written description of a pornographic film. The Guardian asked, "It’s art. But is it porn?” calling in “Britain’s biggest porn star”, Ben Dover, to comment.The prize was won that year by Lancastrian artist Keith Tyson.

In 2010, she was selected to create the 10th Duveen Hall commission at Tate Britain for which she transformed and displayed two decommissioned Royal Air Force fighter jets. Other recent exhibitions include: Runway AW17, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, Netherlands (2017),Buoys Boys, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, UK (2016),Scroll Down And Keep Scrolling, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK (2015) and Kunsthalle Nuremberg, Germany (2016), Wp Wp Wp, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield (2014).

Banner’s work includes sculpture, drawing and installation; text is the core of her oeuvre. She has also treated the idea of the classic, art-historical nude, observing a life model and transcribing the pose and form in a similar vein to her earlier transcription of films.

On 1 October 2010, in an open letter to the British government’s culture secretary Jeremy Hunt—co-signed by a further 27 previous Turner prize nominees, and 19 winners—Banner opposed any future cuts in public funding for the arts. In the letter the cosignatories described the arts in Britain as a “remarkable and fertile landscape of culture and creativity.”

Fiona Banner, Born 1966. Lives and works in London. 1986–9 Kingston Polytechnic 1992–3 Goldsmiths College of Art. She is fascinated by the near impossibility of containing action and time in a prescribed form. She is best known for making hand-written and printed texts 'wordscapes' or 'still films', that retell in her own words entire feature films or sequences of events[fn]Only the Lonely: Fiona Banner, Bridget Smith exh. cat. Frith Street Gallery, 1997, p.13[/fn]. These personal transcriptions, which began in 1994 with the film Top Gun, also highlight the way in which actual or imagined events are fictionalised and mythologised. In a recent body of work based on Vietnam war films, Banner has deliberately posed questions about the fictionalisation of historical events.In 1997 she published THE NAM 1997, a one thousand-page book comprising her own frame by frame descriptions in continuous text of the Vietnam war movies Apocalypse Now, Born on the Fourth of July, The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill and Platoon. Her texts, representing eleven unbroken hours of harrowing film, hint at the excessive nature of imagery in our culture. When Banner asked a friend to read THE NAM he concluded that in its entirety it was 'unreadable'. This prompted Banner to makeTrance, a twenty-hour, twenty-two cassette unabridged reading of the book in which the action movies unfold in an hypnotic stream of words.The format of Banner's work is always carefully considered in relation to its content. For example, The desert 1994/95, Banner's retelling of David Lean's epic film Lawrence of Arabia, suggests the panoramic scale of a cinema screen, as well as the vast horizontal expanse of the desert.You gota lot of nerve 1998 is inspired by Bob Dylan's classic song Positively 4th Street. With their accusatory use of the word 'you' Dylan's lyrics seem designed to address specific individuals on a widespread scale. The monumental scale of Banner's canvas, and the proximity of its confrontational words to the viewer, suggests that the 'you' in her text is directed personally to each visitor. Banner's rendering of the acrimonious words are incised into the canvas.[fn]Banner's text begins, for example, with the lines:You gota lot of nerve to say you are my friend, you just wanna be on the side that's winning. You gota lot of nerve to say you got a helping hand to lend, when I was down you just stood there grinning'.[/fn] Ironically this leaves the canvas fragile and vulnerable – the biting words, which bear down on the viewer, are strangely hollow, existing only as negatives or shadows. In this way the artist alludes to what she perceives as the constant power struggle between words and their meaning. Banner is also interested in such seminal and iconic figures as Dylan, who never seem comfortable with celebrity and fail to live up to their own mythic image.In a series of works based on the genre of the car chase, Banner succeeds in giving visual and literary form to a genre virtually found only in films. The most recent work in this series, Break Point, is based on the chase scene in Kathryn Bigelow's cult film Point Break (1991). The slogan featured in the advertisement for the film was, perhaps accurately in this case, '100% pure adrenalin'. Banner transforms and contains the nail-biting and seemingly endless chase into an arresting landscape of words. As the distance between pursuer and pursued closes, the space between the letters and lines of text stencilled on to the canvas in hazard red correspondingly collapses, until the climax of the chase ends in a crash of words at the bottom of the canvas. But significantly, the chase does not reach completion - when the pursuer finally catches his human quarry, he lets him get away.[fn]Banner describes this moment as follows:He shouts something and it echoes across, the guy still running jumps at the wire fence, up there he's hanging off it. He turns round and his face is close and breathless, he wants him so badly. Can't shoot, staring the bullet right out, he stares through the crack in his face. He's still down there clutching the gun, he falls onto his back, holding the gun like it's everything. He glances at the other guy high on the fence, then he stares straight up and the bullets volley into the sky.'[/fn]In 1997 Banner exhibited a neon work in the shape of a full stop, 'the smallest neon in the world'.[fn]op cit Only the Lonely[/fn] Following this she has made a group of enormously enlarged full stops carved in polystyrene. Although varying in size from about two to four and a half foot high they are all enlarged to scale from a variety of such fonts as Courier, Nuptial, Garamond, Blippo, Zapf Chancery, Century and Wing. They each have the same point size but the expanded scale reveals the curious anomalies latent within an apparently universal and uniform symbol.These sculptures evolved from a group of large-scale pencil drawings of full stops in which Banner attempted to investigate the supposed immateriality or insignificance of a full stop. Sanded down, the white polystyrene sculptures have an illusory surface, their distorted ovoid shapes humorously mimicking the perfect forms of the sculptures of Brancusi. Placed on the floor rather than on plinths, the full stops have to be negotiated as physical objects. The artist has referred to the floor as 'the bottom line'. In this sense visitors might be seen to function as letters mingling amongst the punctuation marks, giving meaning to the spaces between.The full stop represents an ending but also signifies a beginning, an in between or a gap. Like the polystyrene, which is used as a packing material or 'space-filler', the full stop is transient. The names of the fonts are displayed on accompanying packing boxes, providing a possible titling system for the sculptures. The boxes also reinforce the idea that the full stops are transportable and multilingual.A full stop denotes the end, and in this sense these works relate to Banner's enduring fascination with the framing or definition of a subject. They also draw attention to the intelligent yet playful investigation of various forms of mark-making, which underpins much of her work.Text written by Virginia Button.