Thomas Cave's Tattoo: March 2009

Friday, March 27, 2009

A Sow's Ear

In this the era of the New Depression, one of contemporary life's largest luxury goods - art - seems headed towards the door more quickly than last year's handbag. Auction houses, galleries, magazines, parties - the great shiny objects that were the fun, irresponsibility and success of the contemporary art market are all hobbled and limping, like they're trying to work an opening on a broken (stiletto) heel.

So it was with some interest that I attended a public symposium last night on "Recessional Aesthetics: New Publics or Business as Usual," a discussion chaired by two crown princes of the contemporary art world, Hal Foster, a near-name-brand critic who holds court at Princeton and David Joselit, who holds court at Yale. The event was held in the old Dia Foundation space on West 22nd Street in Chelsea - Dia decamped several years ago to Beacon, a failing ex-industrial town upstate, where real estate was cheap. 'Ex-Dia' in Chelsea is for the year, in the absence of the new building owner's ability to do anything else with the property in this climate, a temporary art center called "X."

Well, who do you think won? New Publics or Business as Usual? In what could have been an evening of hard truths, fact-facing, frightening discourse, adventurous risk-taking, and the brilliant, combustive explosions of original thought that you would have imagined a room full of a hundred-plus accomplished art-types to be uniquely qualified to foster (sorry Hal), we got an evening that was as self-obsessed, beautifully stupid, self-consciously and uncomplicatedly entitled as a supermodel. Prince Hal (sorry Foster) and Prince David made the last few French Louises look like New Jersey turnpike tollbooth attendants, when it comes to being in touch with the public. But then, their public has been academe and the art world - and real estate agents in Hudson and Mattituck (and now possibly Beacon) - for so long that it's not absolutely necessary to talk to the rest of us. Tenure took care of that.

And, to give credit where credit is due, they're really good, as are their followers, at doing what they do. To be an important, celebrated, 'cool,' art ... thinker ... who ... thinks ... about art ... because ... art ... is really ... about ... everything ... (and ... anything) ... when you think about it ... you need to be soft-spoken (microphones do the work here), gently ironic (humor is such a human touch), you have to be able to talk in circles - really big ones - without pausing or looking down, but you also need to be flesh-eating, impatient and generally superior. You need to pretend you understand what people who don't speak your language are saying, but, only up to a point. Then you have to be decisively dismissive - in a soft, gentle, but rich and regal way. Kind of a 'Gandhi Wears Prada' thing. (Streep did it in the movie: low, powdery hate that you had to listen really hard for.)

Which is sad. Because I got the feeling, as I left the event - after an hour, they were still quietly mired in the third of ten save-the-art-world questions the panel-pair intended to address - that nobody was learning anything from the pain of the present Depression. At least, not yet. The saving graces for the common, wounded soul are probably to be found elsewhere right now, and not in the arms of contemporary art.

You can't turn a purse into a sow's ear, I realized.

Thank you for listening, ma'am.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

That Was Then; This Is Now

The New York Times has been running video features on its website, pairing the situation 'now' with the situation 'then,' which happens to be the Great Depression. People who lived through 'that,' who have relatives living through 'this.' A kind of Gen X meets Then X - unemployed young people whose grandmothers when young lived through the big D, and now - god bless 'em - provide interesting relief to the plight of those living through the New - don't say it - D. D2. Remember - it's the Great Recession, as per the media christening.

Watch the videos, though. You'll learn a lot, and be entertained, by what's - not going on. FYI, if the government taxes the executive bonuses at 90 percent, as per today's news, that 10 percent is still probably about fourteen times what you'll make this year. Before taxes. Happy almost April. How do you like your coffee? In a cup, fool.

Also in the paper of record, a sterling article on all the people who've decided - or realized - that employment just isn't the way to go these days. People are going into business for themselves, in the absence of employers. A great popular uprising of entrepreneurship. This sounds like the best news yet: an awakening, and optimism at last.

Put out the shingle. Main Street's back in town. (We would appreciate any and all stories of businesses you've opened - we promise to post each and every one of them.)

Thank you for listening, ma'am.

This just in. The Obamas are planting a vegetable garden on the White House lawn, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt's victory garden during World War II. Do you have any doubt that Depression-era homesteading is a style, about to become a trend? Or, that the right publicity will get your electric car farther down the road than a battery? (the other Obama story: Barack on Leno. A kind of late-night State of the Union. Or, the President Twittering on TV.)

Friday, March 6, 2009

Shaken and Stirred

It's been brought to my attention that I published a book on cocktails, "Shaken and Stirred" (HarperCollins; 2004), which is a collection of columns, on the new golden age of cocktail culture, for the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times. I stopped drinking professionally when the cement seemed set on the trend - who wants to try leaving their historical mark on a dry sidewalk? The Times apparently. And then - the Pink Slip would be an excellent idea for a cocktail. I call on the bartenders of New York to expedite the idea. Audrey Saunders, Jason and Dushan, Dale DeGroff in particular. Maybe you'll see it here one day soon.

I drank vodka gimlets in the day. These days I drink dirty martinis. Life's gotten a little dirtier, and a little less sweet, all around.

For one drink, and another: six ounces gin, 2 TB white French vermouth, one TB olive brine. I like olives stuffed with jalapeno pepper. Shake it or stir it: frankly, I don't give a damn. And then, as the Times says, serve.

I brought to my own attention, with a slow backward flip through "Raising the Bar" by Nick Mautone, the fact that FDR drank dirty martinis. He popularized them, if Mr. Mautone is to be believed. He served one to Stalin?

The New Deal? The Raw Deal? The Real Deal?

Which, iced drink in hand, brings me to my point. The Great American Depression served one excellent purpose: it ended Prohibition.

Where would we be as a nation without our great great gift for mistakes?

Thank you for listening, ma'am. And cheers.

Marvelous and Ridiculous.

A steady Depression diet might likely make it easier for navel-gazers to find their navel. Such would seem the case with Alexandra Peers' article in New York magazine, "Arte Povera: Why Recession Isn't Good for Art."

Ms. Peer's characterizes the low-water marks of the high-tide of contemporary art as, "marvelous and ridiculous." And this in defense. I'll take three. Have them sent to my refrigerator box, second from the end under the elevated bridge at 125th St.

Would someone step forward with the notion that art can save us, by making great art? There is no cynicism in that.

Thank you for listening, ma'am.

Roll Up the Rug

Breaking news. Real people showed up at Thomas Cave's Tattoo today, and broke up the party. An ex-colleague from the Times, who followed an escaping balloon to Miami, and chased it around the city until it was out of air, wrote me today out of the blue (blue skies of Miami).

"Here’s a picture of my father in the 1930s."

"He graduated from high school in 1929. No work. So he and his brothers formed a little orchestra, and drove around North and South Dakota. Just like O Brother, Where Art Thou. They would spy a radio station (tall tower), drive toward it. Knock on the door. Perform for 30 minutes. Tell people to come to the grange hall, or a barn, that night. People would pay whatever they had, whether it was a chicken (admits four), or some bread, a little money or even a gallon of gas.

Then the Lee brothers would perform: Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue; Little Grass Shack; etc. Lots of foxtrots. My dad was a strings guy: guitar, mandolin, ukulele, banjo.

That’s how he spent the Depression.

My mother’s people had it even worse. They arrived from Norway to Minnesota (in the 1850s) in time to live in a sod hut (the original green building style, you know) and to go through Indian raids (some settlers and relatives were killed), blizzards (including the big one in 1888), a prairie fire that killed more of my relatives; swarms of locusts (1865, 66, 67, 68), financial panics of 1857, 1869 (with Depression), 1873 (with Depression), and another one in 1893. And a couple of flu epidemics.

I’m attaching another photo, of my great, great grandmother, in front of the family house in 1867 in Belmont, Minnesota.

When I feel sorry for myself (house in Miami close to foreclosure, no job, can’t find a job, been looking for almost two years, etc.), son having his first child… on Medicaid … when I feel sorry for myself, I look at those ancestors, and figure I really don’t have it too bad."

Thank you Linda, and, thank you for listening, ma'am.

To see the foxtrot in action, visit "Foxtrot Videos." And roll up the rug.

The Bandwagon

We are not alone.

An 'Editorial Observer' piece by Adam Cohen in yesterday's New York Times details the new popularity of 'recession' blogs. Well, they almost got it right. What starts with a D?

Mentioned are 'Above the Law's "Notes From the Breadline" feature, written by an out-of-work lawyer. (That's pretty hard to do, actually, to be an out-of-work lawyer.) There's 'recessionwire.com' (two biz-mag ex-editors: their tag is 'The Upside of the Downturn'), 'Pink Slips Are the New Black,' the 405 Club (maximum weekly unemployment benefits figure), and a blog by a 93 year-old on Depression cooking, greatdepressioncooking.com.

The gist - everything from advice on your first five minutes of being laid-off to tips on DIY frugality to recipes involving hot dogs. (Hey, I gave you guys brisket. See Friday, Feb. 27.)

Here, for example, is the 405 Club's 'Affiliates' list:

Check them out. Who knew there'd be job insecurity in unemployment. The bandwagon's getting crowded, and people are starting to push.

Thank you for listening, ma'am.

FYI, the 1953 film "The Band Wagon," illustrated at top, starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse and directed by Vicente Minnelli, is a send-up of show-biz's 'putting on a show' theme, and features "Dancing in the Dark."

Thomas Cave's Tattoo