Pittsburgh

Travel!!!

So now that I'm a free agent again and not spending all of my free time visiting NYC/hosting in Chicago I can go where ever my little brain tells me it wants to go. I am, right now, in the middle of a road trip, live blogging from our nation's capital, jerks, and I thought I'd give you all a little taste of my trip so far.

So Pittsburgh is one of those cities you either from, or go to college to at, or never visit (I think). But I've always been fascinated by the idea of the city of bridges (446 and counting), so decided to give it a go. I mean I can't hold the Steeler's and their dirty style of football or bathroom raping against the town where from they are from, can I? Plus anyplace where they say 'yinz' instead of 'y'all' has got to be pretty interesting...

Museums!!!

So being the art museum nerd that I am, I wanted to check out what Penciltucky's second largest city had to offer. I only had time to visit two out of three of the big boys, sorry Carnegie museum of art, I'll catch you my next time when I have the time to dip to the east end.

The first museum I went to was the Andy Warhol, which would have been amazing if I really dug on Andy Warhol. It was interesting to learn about the Artist's life (his net worth when he died was 220 million dollars), cool seeing some of his more obscure (late) paintings and drawings, rad checking his installations (watching the children play in the silver cloud room was heart warming), and gratifying to check out selections from dude's shoe and leather jacket collection. BUT, Andy Warhol's photography and film, which make up or take up about 2/5ths of he museum, is hackish at best. Sorry, subject matter alone does not make for good photos or films.



The second museum(s) I went to was the mattress factory, which was AMAZING!!! It was worth the visit alone to check out the curatorial spaces, a renovated multi-floored warehouse and a old Victorian house/store front. Highlights included a multi-dimensional exhibit on race and racism in contemporary Cuban art and several permanent installations. The Cuban Race exhibit offered up some of the best contemporary painting I've seen in quite some time if you get the chance check out Pedro Alvarez or Alexis Esquive, do so, you won't regret. My favorite piece of art was probably a room created by James Turrell called Pleiades. Basically a neigh pitch dark gallery, that you approach from a pitch dark ramped corridor, where if you sit and stare long enough you see what appears to be an amorphous sphere of purple and blue that glows and glimmers, shrinking when you eyes try to focus on it and enlarging when you look at it's periphery. The whole experience is major in so many ways- 1) obviously it's a great metaphor for actually finding meaning in works or art, 2) you are forced to let go of your ability to see, which is a litmus test for different personalities, in how you react to this sacrifice (I got quiet, others responded by getting loud and goofy)3. It was a great excuse to let strangers feel you up. Anyway, I can't really say enough good things about this museum, if you are ever in Pittsburgh it is a definite must.


FOOD!!!

You know a gangster had to sample the local delicacies, as they say, when in Rome, right? So everyone I asked, the two people from Pittsburgh that I actually know, recommended that I get a sandwich from the Primanti Brothers. I had the pastrami, which was fried to perfection with a piece of provolone cheese melted on top, stuffed into two choice pieces of Italian bread with greasy/salty hand cut fries and zesty vinegar based coleslaw. I don't have a digital camera, and my smart phone can not muster up the intelligence to let me upload pictures to the web (I don't think) so you will have to settle for a stock photo found on google images (thanks WEBZ!). The sandwich was delicious, I went to the original location, which is nestled in an area of town called the strip, which houses Pittsburgh's remaining food market's, which was a crucial in itself in an old worldy sort of way.




Music!!!

So I went to this crazy record store when I was in Pittsburgh- please peep this video-

It's the type of place you could dig through for days and days, finding all sorts of diamonds in the rough along your way. Also, here is my 6th best album of 2010(*footnote- little josh). It's by a group called, Twin Shadow and it's named, Forget. As I've already rambled on way too long for one blog post I will keep the review short and sweet. Imagine Morrissey-esque vocals with new-new wave musical accompaniment, boom, you got it.

I'm a Snow Man Looking for a Snow Woman.

WORDS!!!

So, When I was thinking about all my favorite albums of 2010, I could not really help but also think about the best books that I had read in the previous year as well. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell is not only choice, but also happens to be contemporary, pressed in, you guessed it, 2010! The book mostly takes place on the Island of Dejima, an artificial island created in the port of Nagasaki, where Dutch traders were allowed stay and trade with the island of Japan. If you like historical fiction and are in anyway interested in the period of Japanese seclusion or the links between trading and European imperialism this book is for you! If those things don't tickle your fancy, check it anyway, because there is tons of adventure, romance, and adventure in there for you-it is incredibly intelligently written, fun and easy to read. I hope that if you do, it will be your gateway book to some of David Mitchell's
other treasures: Ghostwritten, number9dream, Cloud Atlas, and Black Swan Green.



The Beauty of a Hermetic, Corrupt World by Ruth Franklin | The New York Review of Books

MUSIC!!!

Well here it is, my number 7 album of 2010. Now this guy didn't really make very many people's Best Of lists, but I'll chalk that up to it's late release date, it came out in mid December, which in it self is proof positive that Best Of lists should only come at a leisurely pace, lest little gems like this get over looked. Anyway, R. Kelly's, Love Letter, proves again, that when R Dot decides to actually focus on something with a majority of his attention, the sky is the limit. This record, supposedly inspired by a Sam Cooke party thrown by the Pied Piper of R and B himself here in Chicago, is an homage to classical soul. Now, I don't really hear a lot of Sam Cooke on the record, probably more Marvin Gaye circa, For You My Dear, but just the same, the record is full of the harmony, simple, but direct, catchy vocals hooks, and cheerful loving spirit that R Kelly beguiled us with at the beginning of his career. The only real downside to this jump-off, it is a reminder that I have not full filled one of my major life goals: seeing R Kelly Live in concert with someone that I am in love with. Luckily, this record is an inspiration for all those unlucky souls, like myself, that need to learn to love again.



R Kelly- Love Letter

Interview between Will Oldham and R Kelly for Interview Magazine-MUST READ!!! (foot note: Josh Kalven).

SNOW!!!

This is a public service announcement. Despite the city of Chicago's best efforts to clear away the residual snow left over from our most recent blizzard. There still are numerous snow mounds on street corners, vast quantities of narrow passages between what can be only described as straights of snow, and hidden patches of slippery ice on every side walk and street. Please be on the look out for heinous predators that will use these aforementioned phenomena as instruments of advantage for their violent agendas . Watch the following video and be forewarned.

Outsider Photography?

IMAGES!!!





So, my Chicago peoples in the place to be. I know it's cold outside and the amassed snow from this famed city's third largest (recorded) blizzard has made getting around the city a huge pain in the ass. Fret not, because there is an absolutely amazing photography exhibit going on at my favorite place in the whole wide world, that's right, you guessed, THE CHICAGO CULTURAL CENTER! Easily accessible by any means of Chicago Public Transportation or even the METRA, ensconced in other interesting cultural exposes, and best of all, FREE FREE FREE!

Long story short: this lady, Vivian Maier, took a ton of street photographs, hardly ever actually developing her negatives, and stored undeveloped and developed negatives along with a copious amount of other artifacts, she deemed worth of archiving in a storage unit, which went up for auction due to non-payment after her death in 2009. This guy, John Maloof, bought the contents of the storage unit, realized that the Photographs were actually amazing, and started developing, scanning, and printing from her negatives. So this exhibit is fascinating for many, many reasons: 1) Because she was not formally trained in the arts, we get to consider her an outsider artist (yeah an outsider street photographer!)-although blurbs about her suggest that she did avidly follow the artistic trends of her day. 2) What's more bonkers than a person spending all her free time (as a nanny, I imagine which was in scarce supply) taking pictures that she never developed? 3) Are there ethical issues with printing the artistic work of someone else and then exhibiting said work in a public forum? What happened when dude starts selling prints? Anyway, like I said major, major stuff, man. Check out more images at, dude's blog on Vivian Maier. It will make you wish women still wore fancy hats, more people hung out in the streets, and the poor could be as poor as the wanted to be with out worrying about car payments or high definition televisions.

MUSIC!!!



So here it is: Number 8 on the list of my top ten albums of 2010. Free Energy's Stuck on Nothing. Basically one of my favorite bands, Hockey Night decided to kick out 3/5s of their band (their drummers (yes they had two)and bassist) and upgrade their rhythm section with a new rhythm guitarist (their lead's big brother), bassist, and drummer. And thus transformed themselves from indie rock weirdos to indie stadium rock weirdos. Just imagine thin Lizzy guitars, nice disco bass lines, and break beat drum parts topped off with a poor man's Steve Malkmus vocals. Yep, happy, fun times!!! Check em out live if you get the chance, too, because they throw down, something nothing nice.