Exhibition: Biennial 2004 at the Whitney Museum, NYC. Highlights:

• Mary Kelly: Circa 1968 (2004) compressed lint and projected light.


• Chloe Piene: Blackmouth. 4-minute loop of a girl in her underwear, covered in mud and screaming in slow-motion. Sounds weird? Is weird!


• Alec Soth: Photographs.


• Zak Smith: Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page Of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow. A piece of art rather difficult to understand. Lousy presentation, some of the little pictures were hung so high up that you couldn't see anything. More about book and author.


• Ernest Caivano: Birds (Philapores) in ink on star maps.


• Robert Longo: Giant waves / breakers drawn in charcoal.


• Katy Grannan: Photographs. Placed an ad in search of models; left it to the model how he/she wanted to be depicted.

Snippets:
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Video: Jefferson in Paris (1995). 139 min. w/ Nick Nolte (Thomas Jefferson), Gwyneth Paltrow (Patsy Jefferson, daughter), Thandie Newton (Sally Hemings, slave), Greta Scacchi (Maria Cosway, mistress); director: James Ivory. Jefferson comes to Paris, falls in love with a married woman, and fools around with one of his slaves. Shallow story! Bad acting at times. At least the last 15 minutes are well done. My rating: 3 out of 10.
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Musical: Les Miserables. Shubert Theater New Haven, April 8, 2004. Based on the book by Victor Hugo. Great story. Voices and music was good, but did not reach the quality of a Broadway performance. Gina Milo (Eponine) was the best performer.
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Restaurant: Portobello's, Cafe & Grill, Chaplin, CT 06235. Diner-like; just right for rural CT.
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Recreation: Trailwood, the former home of Edwin Way Teale (see Blog Feb. 13, 2004). Includes trails on and around woodland, field, wetland and ponds. Don't miss the beaver pond!
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Exhibition: Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC: Chuck Close: Prints.
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Recreation: National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.
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Book-on-Tape: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (2003). Unabridged. 11 cassettes with 1.5. hours each. American symbologist gets accused of murdering the curator of the Louvre in Paris. Together with the victim's granddaughter, who happens to be a French cryptologist, he needs to find clues and solve riddles to find the real murderer. Talks a lot about secret societies, the Holy Grail, the Knights Templar etc. Book holds you captive up to about three quarters through, but then the plot gets a little too improbable when the author tries to tie up his lose ends. Overall still worth reading though.
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Language: Look up irregular English verb forms.
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Photography: Model / Pin-Up / Actress: Caprice Bourret.
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News: Drudge Report.
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Video: Biography of the Millennium: 100 People - 1000 Years (1999). 4 video cassettes with ~ 40-45 min each. Counting down the 100 most influencial people of the millennium. First 3 are: (1) Gutenberg (printing press), (2) Newton (physicist) (3) Luther (religious reformer). Complete list. Good overview, but nothing more than that. Use as inspiration for further research.
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