And it sucks and needs months of editing to make it coherent–but you know what?  I DON’T CARE!  I did it and that’s a hell of lot more than I’ve ever done in the past, ever.

THANKS BE to http://www.nanowrimo.org, without whose inspiring and challenging deadline, I would have continue to just think about doing this “one of these days.”

The Whitney Museum is currently featuring a video projection/film by Sadie Benning entilted “Pause Play.”  You enter a large, darkened room with others standing, some sitting, against the walls.  If you brave the dark open space you may be rewarded with an empty, square ottoman to sit on.

The projection is a series of drawings set to music.

Overall the piece vacillates back and forth between the ordinary, the entertaining, and the tragic.  We see scenes of urban malaise: dilapidated buildings and barren landscapes.

There is an interesting interlude at a local bar, “Ze Bar.”  The night seems to progress in several stages.  First, there is the introduction: Play Pause: Ze Bar Early On

Then, the drowning one’s sorrows: Ze Bar Blues

Finally, there is ebullient celebration as the night gets older and the music at “Ze Bar” gets faster:  Pause Play: At Ze Bar
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Drupal is consistently blowing me away with its vast and eager community.  Now, in my quest to understand Drupal Theming, I have discovered an easy and powerful tool made by the folks over at PSD2CSS.  It’s a free service that allows you to upload a PSD file, and download a zip file containing a new folder you can simply pop into your Drupal install, and Bam!  Instant Theme.

Make sure you drop the entire folder (sites/) into the root of your Drupal install directory

Lady Gaga’s The Fame:

I recently read an interview conducted with Lady Gaga, a young artist whose visual sampling reminds me of the best of early Madonna.  In her videos, she samples everyone from David Bowie and Grace Jones, to Madonna to Paris Hilton, to a scene from Bertolucci’s The Conformist.  She tours and works with a group of collaborators, that she calls the Haus of Gaga.  Some are engineers, some are sculptors, all are young, and together they create the look that is Lady Gaga:

Perhaps it is because she is still on the cusp of stardom, but I can’t recall an artist who talked so humbly about herself, her fans, her collaborators, and her . . . meditation practice.  That’s right, while she’s on tour, and she’s not clipping magazines, watching films and using those as inspiration to design her next tour, she spends her time meditating.

It seems to have paid off. There was a controversy earlier this month where Christina Aguilera, who’s been accused of stealing Lady Gaga’s look, said:

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