Yesterday’s rain turned to light snow this morning so the snow stuck to the top surface of every branch. It was beautiful. I had some packages to mail and I was dreading the lines at the Post Office so I decided to drive along the lake over to the Charlotte office. Charlotte in the winter is doggone forlorn. But there were only three people on line, the new AC DC was playing in the backroom and the clerks were very friendly. I was tempted to stop down at the LDR to visit Patty. She and Rick (the “R’ in the LDR) are back running the place. And Rick’s dad, Russ, still cuts the meat each morning. There was nice article about them in Saturday’s paper. Their steak sandwiches are so good we become meat eaters when we walk in the door. Same thing happens over at Vic & Irv’s but that is usually only when Duane is in town and he goes off his macrobiotic diet.
60 Minutes did another one of its hit pieces on modern art when they interviewed Julian Schnabel last Sunday. The artwork they showed did look pretty bad and his Basquiat movie was pretty bad and the cd he put out was astoundingly bad but “The Diving Bell” is a damn good movie so far. We took a break about halfway through and plan to finish it tonight after the Margaret Explosion gig so I will report back.
1 Comment
I had/have the same reaction to Schnabel. I find his artwork to be a lot of hot air, his interviews to be boringly self-absorbed.
I’ve have seen him around NYC over the years, in galleries or museums, dressed the way you dress on a Sat AM if you only plan to read the paper & have coffee in bed, leading this person or that loudly thru some show, pontificating on everything down to the push-pins holding the little description cards next to the work.
I also thought Basquiat was pretty ruff as a film. Shallowly written & directed. Flat & cliche driven, he had no clue what to do with Bowie as Warhol. Pretty funny that he had slender Gary Oldman play him, and that he just happened to be the one who privately gave Basquiat the best art advice of his life, with no one else around to witness it.
I didnt see his cuban movie, mostly because of Basquiat, so I was equally suspicious of the Butterfly & the Diving Bell.
I’m on my 3rd slice of humble pie, because that film is a masterpiece.
I don’t know where, deep down, Schnabel dug to find that masterful light touch in both directing & editing, or the simplistic grace of those soft focus shots. The emotion, the humor, etc. Very original & convincing in every corner. Its really a great film.
I guess we really do live in a Yin / Yang world. I still believe everything I wrote above about Schnabel, AND the film is a masterpiece.