tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-212172932008-07-24T19:53:51.718-04:00kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comBlogger356125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-34450097349396607632008-07-24T12:09:00.007-04:002008-07-24T16:08:47.527-04:00

With thousands of art school graduates flooding New York just as galleries close for the summer, I thought it would be a good time to share some "survival tips." 1) NYC has 3,300 CEMUSA ad platforms disguised as "bus shelters" (left) up or on the way.  If you want to get noticed, hang your pictures on their walls or install your sculpture inside. 2) Open a cafe inside a bus shelter.  Buy some

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-65640423199315002212008-07-23T10:51:00.008-04:002008-07-23T20:00:50.128-04:00

You think you can run and hide. But you know what?  It's like there's this all-seeing buzzard doing lazy figure 8s in a blinding white desert sky, and you're the last piece of meat on earth.  You run and run until, parched and exhausted, you collapse and fade into the superheated haze. When you wake up you're floating on an air mattress in a resort pool with a shapely white-uniformed nurse

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-23964695034704514142008-07-21T19:48:00.001-04:002008-07-24T19:53:51.739-04:00

These images are from the Restless #1 Blurb book I put together (see badge on right sidebar).  Some images have funny borders, to fit Blurb photo slots.

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-12713688484093025242008-07-19T08:36:00.001-04:002008-07-19T08:39:29.799-04:00

My place stores heat.  I'm lucky to get it down to 81 F in hot weather, and my brain's melting point is 82 F.  So when I saw this gigantic portable air conditioner / iron lung on E 10th St, I was thinking "hijack." In lieu of criminal activity, here are two pictures I saved for hot weather.  The mini-blizzard was pretty unpleasant when I took the picture from the Pulaski Bridge, below right,

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-28955057479261791282008-07-17T08:05:00.005-04:002008-07-18T06:47:14.040-04:00

...a soap opera.  Episode 1: As the Row Rotates. (The bells of the Russian Orthodox church on McCarren Park hammer out the call to prayer as the sun rises over Karl Fisher City like a burning bucket of popcorn chicken.  The camera zooms in on a figure sprawled on a bench in the park; after a few seconds the figure stirs...) I wake up feeling like a crowbar's stuck in my head, with two little

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-33483144428324929932008-07-15T06:57:00.002-04:002008-07-17T10:42:43.638-04:00

I noticed the cloud a few blocks earlier, but waited for it to pose on the wire here at N 12th and Berry in Williamsburg. That scene just happens to be right next to my favorite petrified ivy tree, below right.

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-87507677277458040102008-07-11T12:33:00.010-04:002008-07-11T16:31:20.049-04:00

Here we cloak the slobbering big brother of Karl Fischer Row (20 Bayard) in a Frank Gehry outfit. Note below that I've made sure the empty clock-face / eyeball -- the signature element of Karl's design -- still peeks out the hood. [ Fixing Karl Fischer 1 ]

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-51525827322978589892008-07-11T12:32:00.004-04:002008-07-14T20:35:01.402-04:00

I guess it's obvious I get my writing tips from the cheesy "So You Want to Be a Writer" magazines above the literary journals at Barnes & Noble. My favorite chart (top) is from one of those magazines, Scriptwriting Secrets, and spells out the stages of a movie plot.  I haven't put it to the ultimate test yet, but with the chart, and the knowledge that a typical Hollywood movie has 182 scenes,

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-91506105585710912342008-07-07T14:08:00.007-04:002008-07-15T07:25:47.603-04:00

The name Igor popped into my head when I first saw this building months ago (right; at N 8th and Roebling in Williamsburg). It was so ugly I felt sorry for it.  Not only does it have a lumpy, stegosaurus-like roof line, but it's been painted a nasty plastic turquoise from Day One. Being a positive person, its ugliness just made me look harder for something redeeming, like the way the

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-36683131222893520312008-07-07T08:46:00.004-04:002008-07-09T16:10:22.973-04:00

Above, a spill on the Williamsburg Bridge, and the hairy ornamental letter S. Shadows lead to the unlit regions where fairy tales grow. I can never ignore the fact that Greenpoint's Poland Spring water distributor sits on beautiful but poisoned Newtown Creek.

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-75353341837744067712008-07-04T07:38:00.010-04:002008-07-05T06:15:17.680-04:00

Here are a few plastic things I put together. I had fond memories of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, which has a lot of references to the plastics industry, until I re-read it recently.  Pynchon produces some mind-bending nuggets you won't find anywhere else, but you have to pick them out of hundreds of pages of overindulgence and forced mystification.  The chief attraction is witnessing

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-18842114294896459412008-06-30T07:26:00.015-04:002008-06-30T16:04:17.882-04:00

I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as... It's heartening to see a tagger take that first step toward poetry -- especially with such well-formed script -- but I'm still upset the Williamsburg Bridge maintenance crew saw fit to erase the Chance Mexico map above (before left, after right) but preserve lee lee go pee pee. (I'd like to thank TV, the Internet, and the Academy for the

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-12978620498808005082008-06-27T07:50:00.004-04:002008-06-27T19:02:40.309-04:00

I've had more friends visit New York this year than ever before. Mike, Terri and young Rocco were here from the Bay Area not long ago, and I like these pictures so much I had to post them (and give them a title: The Active Family). We went to the Met, to Central Park, to B&H; we stopped at places I pass by all the time. I'm glad I live in a place discriminating people like to visit.  Let's

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-76779112697797329972008-06-26T14:32:00.017-04:002008-07-14T17:20:01.157-04:00

Real estate magnate Bruce Ratner's problem is that he thinks too big.  If he had quietly bought a block at a time and hired Karl Fischer, Atlantic Yards would be done by now (above left: Phase 1; above right: Phase 2).  Instead, it's every other block of Williamsburg that gets an arbitrary eyesore from the napkin doodles of The Master. I saw this hole (left) at a construction site where one of

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-16136607945193567612008-06-25T07:54:00.003-04:002008-06-25T12:04:02.106-04:00

It may have evolved from the old "sand trap" public ashtray, but it looks like a whole new species: the outdoor "butt receptacle" or "ash urn." I suppose they all have catchy brand names, but the "Smoker's Oasis," above left, hits the nail on the head: that first puff after an hour of nicotine depletion is just like diving into a cool, sparkling pool after staggering for days across blistering

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-63331277970210381502008-06-25T07:50:00.008-04:002008-07-23T09:56:38.645-04:00

I was born with something missing. I've felt it nearby: in the bittersweet wail of a hip hop chorus; in a high mountain meadow on a summer day; in the woman with eyes lit from inside and a brain too big for her head, so its storms played over her face while she slept. It floats just above the horizon as the day burns down, then flees for the other side of the world. Until one warm night it

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-40838579621739651312008-06-23T11:18:00.008-04:002008-06-23T13:26:27.918-04:00

What with faked concrete-strength tests and killer cranes, hellbent development has outstripped city government's ability to act like it cares about what goes up or comes down. And being a typically pragmatic artistic type, my first thought is: How can I cash in on this? One way would be to provide maps, updated weekly, that mark potentially dangerous sites to avoid in NYC.  Something like the

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-16011637276747098702008-06-20T15:56:00.001-04:002008-06-20T15:57:43.987-04:00

Above left, a bright ghost chimney on Bowery; above right, what was left after they peeled off the bandage, just off Park Ave. South at 29th. And below, on 45th off 6th Ave., an Indian Palace.

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-14674245128993387212008-06-18T07:28:00.010-04:002008-06-18T16:58:30.699-04:00

It's not a great photo, but: the nails are stuck by their heads to the surface with polyester resin, pointing at the viewer (those diagonal lines are shadows).  The color is spattered spray paint.  It was 36 by 48 inches, and so poorly built (by me) that it fell apart in a few years. I'm shocked I'm still alive after all the stuff I inhaled making this and a few other things with resin and

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-54521265065676862102008-06-18T07:27:00.006-04:002008-06-18T16:58:44.399-04:00

I have penthouse taste but a basement budget, so I thought this lookout tower in Long Island City (middle of photo, left) was the best I could do.  It's got a great view, but not much in the way of privacy or climate control. Then I saw the trailer attached to billboards, below, that tower over the Long Island Expressway.  Trailers have all the comforts of home. And following the economic model

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-87221033442161892832008-06-17T06:38:00.003-04:002008-06-17T07:34:56.854-04:00

Replace the chef hat with a beret and the chalkboard with a palette, and the pizza chef (at Ave. B & E. 4th St.) becomes a portrait painter sighting along his missing thumb, trying to get the sitter's nose just right.

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-15618793005518223802008-06-13T07:01:00.011-04:002008-07-07T08:45:21.694-04:00

Above, free $peech in the park.  Left, a Hollywood Squares promo for a bank in Bryant Park.  Right: Ikea's "studio apartment in a box" at Union Square. The promo youth must be a little embarrassed in those dorky uniforms, but part of the value of a first job is teaching the young rebel that all that stuff they heard about being a unique individual was just advertising. Above, two pictures

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-70338419954618063172008-06-10T07:39:00.011-04:002008-06-10T07:54:12.033-04:00

Another sweltering day coming up; luckily I saved some pictures from last winter. Above left: Driggs Ave. along McCarren Park.  Above right: Union Square; note lifeguard tower to left of statue, a recruitment prop. Right: an orphan lot full of junk in a supermarket parking lot on McGuinness.  Everything looks better with snow!

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-85844504651874625302008-06-06T09:34:00.032-04:002008-06-10T07:40:26.728-04:00

Obama's victory was inspiring, but this morning's gray skies brought back dark thoughts about art and money that go with the clichéd photos above. Artists -- with money the next-to-last thing on their mind -- bring life to a struggling neighborhood.  Then hedonist youth (aka hipsters) bring money and soften things up for the bourgeoisie.  Then developers arrive -- with nothing but money on

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21217293.post-79018715528080164762008-06-05T08:47:00.006-04:002008-06-05T13:46:31.564-04:00

To fix this Karl Fischer monstrosity, lurking like a one eyed pervert at the edge of McCarren Park: Find the oiliest strain of ivy you can find, plant it on top, and grow a massive, verdant Jheri curl (plus extensions on the side). Sorry, I know it's not the greatest illustration.  But digital animators in Hollywood have spent billions trying to simulate realistic hair and it still looks phony

kurthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08623746609059372431noreply@blogger.com