Yesterday I concluded my experiment in summer school. Today I leave for a 3-week journey. Will blog from destination.

Another photograph installment- Seoul in July.

Remember these?


Just a street, but notice the barbershop poles on the right. These poles are all over the city, but not because Koreans get their haircut often-- they are, in fact, "massage parlours."


Selling ginseng in the market. While these booths are quite common and the ginseng cheap, our tour bus returning us from the demilitarized zone bordering North Korea (the government requires that everyone go by tour bus to the DMZ so they can check identification and issue badges) took us directly to a government-sponsored ginseng "factory." It was a hard-sell for overpriced ginseng, yet the entire bus left without buying a thing.

So while the dot-com companies take their employees to screenings of Star Wars and microbreweries (actually it’s more like Red Hook), at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center we go to the circus! Last night one of MSG’s PIs used money earned from antibody patents to take his employees and their spouses to the Cirque du Soleil- performing in Renton, Washington. The 25-or-so of us convened 30 miles from Seattle in the VIP tent, where we mingled with clowns and enjoyed the champagne and snacks (and where, at intermission, we refueled with more champagne and desert).

There we were- indulging and celebrating the news of benign tissue in MSG’s mouth, hanging with his cancer research crew, and keeping his circus-ambivalence at bay. I’ve never seen MSG like this- on edge about the carnies somehow sniffing out his circus-blood (you can take the boy out of the circus, but you can’t…?), and also strangely at home. He hadn’t been near the circus since his Big Apple days, and there was a peculiar light in his eyes. It was a strange combination of circumstance.

The performance itself was all we could hope for-- goofy clowns, unbelievable talent, exoticized cultures, young contortionists, and overbearing moaningvoice+guitar music.

An accompaniment to today's Anablog .

Frank Paetzold in Graceland, c. 1994.
Email him and tell him how fabulous he looks.

Ranty Rick in the house.

Some more photographs from Seoul.

[girl-podori, police logo]


[first: are you clear on the color of the sky? second: message to nick]

(referring to the earlier post)

Seattle Times
Oakland Tribune
SF Examiner
LA Times
New York Times

Yesterday I picked up a picket sign that read “KEEP YOUR GUNS OFF OUR DOCKS,” and joined over 3000 marchers traversing the Seattle piers in support of the International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union. The ILWU, representing something like 10-15,000 workers across the west coast, have reached a standstill in contract negotiations with the Pacific Maritime Association. And the Federal Government, fearing a strike or other job action, are threatening to invoke a Taft-Hartley Act injunction that would allow them to stop a strike when “national health or security” is at risk (in his veto of the bill in 1947, President Truman called it a “slave-labor bill”- it passed Congress anyway). And “stop” a strike, indeed: Bush is ready to call in the National Guard, lock the longshoremen out, and fire 10-15,000 workers along the west coast.

It’s reminiscent of the Ronald Reagan air traffic controllers debacle in the early 1980s, only with stronger military presence. All of a sudden it’s starting to feel more like the 1930s or 1940s, and less like 2002 (or even the 1980s, for that matter). Bush, for example, has convened a special task force within commerce, defense, labor, and transportation- as in Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Homeland Security head Tom Ridge, the PMA, and the Westcoast Waterfront Coalition (this last group represents business interests in the ports and is comprised of such companies as the Gap, Home Depot, Walmart, Hewlett Packard, Target, and Best Buy). Noticeably absent from these talks, of course, is the ILWU itself, representing the interests of those merely working in the ports.

This degree of secrecy, mendacity, and disingenuousness is, in fact, somewhat unprecedented. These governmental task forces and resulting policy directives were initially done furtively- without the knowledge of the ILWU, before any formalized strike threat had been brought to the table, and while the employees continued to work with an expired contract (indicating a faith in the bargaining process- this is the way it’s worked for years). There was absolutely no reason for White House involvement at this stage, but if picking a fight was the intention, they’ve now got one on their hands.

What this signals to me is an attack on one of the strongest trade unions, plain and simple. It’s as though the contract expiration was an excuse to declare war on the union- to break up this historically powerful union once and for all. (“Finally! Issues of national security to get rid of this pesky organization!”) And I do think it will be war on the docks if the situation escalates to a strike and lock-out. The ILWU does not back down lightly- they’ve fought (and won) too many battles, suffered too many membership deaths, imprisonments, and deportations. It’s an untenable situation for the White House to pick a fight in this manner.

At the march and rally, I felt a sense of awe- I could feel the ghost of Harry Bridges (who led the ILWU in their fight for a coastwide contract in 1934), the scars of the past (embodied in the fist of the ILWU logo), the enormity of the situation (there were simultaneous marches in the ports of Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, and Long Beach), and, of course, the anger and frustration that people are feeling now, with Bush in office. “Push on Bush” was one of the favorite chants, and there was much talk of Corporate Terrorism, Government Corruption, and Longshoremen Patriotism.

I confess, though- it’s difficult for me to feel optimistic. Can we get rid of Bush in 2004? For the last election I made "LICK BUSH 2000" stickers-- I think next time it'll be "FUCK BUSH 2004."

One of the loveliest meals. While in Seoul last month Simon took us to a small, no-frills restaurant that appeared to serve only this dish. In this place there were gas lines connected to every table (seemed slightly dangerous to me- I tried to sit close to the door), where we let the dish cook while enjoying our soju. As you can see, the delicious juices are just starting to boil underneath, and the fish, greens, and noodles are just starting to cook. mmmmmm.



And our Chef, Simon Jenkins.

Check out the Nick Cave Ephemera Craze- article's from theage.com.au- brought to my attention by none other than Peter Monaghan, Australian Outlaw. More commentary forthcoming- I'm still got to finish writing today's lecture.

Nick of time

By Philippa Hawker, August 6 2002
theage.com.au

Bad seed, boy next door, Good Son. For more than three decades Nick Cave has been a compelling presence, with bands such as the Boys Next Door, the Birthday Party and the Bad Seeds, a striking, iconic figure who can embody anything from chaos to redemption to romance.

Alongside the music, which has ranged from punk to country to cabaret to love songs, there have been all kinds of other activities and manifestations - he has written a novel and an essay on St Mark's gospel, appeared in movies, had his portrait commissioned for the National Portrait Gallery. Now, at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Arts Gallery, he's at the centre of a new show, an exhibition entitled Nick Cave: The Good Son, which assembles paintings, photographs, posters, record covers, lyrics, video clips and ephemera, a collection that testifies to an influential, creative life.

Cave, speaking from London, says that it is flattering to be the subject of this kind of attention, but he generally prefers to keep a distance from it. When he was contacted about the show, he says, "I had the same reaction I have to most things like this. I'm happy for them to go ahead, as long as I don't have to have too much input. But this grew, I think, and became significant, and I sent them a few things, some bits and pieces, so I am implicated in some way."

Cave has sent eight items, including books of notes, drawings, lyrics and photo albums, selected at random. "I have hundreds, maybe tens of cardboard boxes that I haven't unpacked for many years. They just come with me from one place to another. I move constantly, and pack things in boxes and rarely unpack them again."

Cave says he finds it hard to grasp that his boxes might contain archival material of value to collectors, and to institutions such as museums or galleries. "I never think anything is of any worth at the time of doing it. I just write the songs, and they don't have any historical weight, they're just a bunch of words. Years pass, and I guess the songs develop a kind of importance to other people."

The exhibition bears Cave's name and it is full of images of him. But, says curator Rodney James, it was never intended to be biographical: it was always seen as having a broader scope. "If it were just based on Nick's persona, it would be fairly limited." It is, he says, a show that suggests connections, it is about parallel aesthetics and sensibilities. There is a sense, he says, of a particularly creative period in Melbourne, of a St Kilda culture, "a place all sorts of people gravitated to, particularly artists and musicians".

The catalyst for the show was a series of works the gallery had in its permanent collection, three of Jenny Watson's portraits of members of the Boys Next Door. The Good Son includes work that is directly connected with Cave, and pieces that have a less direct relationship with him and the bands he was part of.

Cave needed to be aware of the show, says James. Everyone he approached about material always asked, "Does Nick know about this?"

Jenny Bannister's collage-style dress she wore to a Boys Next Door show is on display opposite Jenny Watson's painting, The Crimean Wars, a retrospective testimony to the significance of St Kilda's Crystal Ballroom. There is a single Bill Henson photograph, in which the model was the young woman who inspired Cave's song Deanna.

There are several small Peter Booth paintings that James regards as having motifs in common with Cave, including a few that Ross Waterman (research consultant for the show) brought in to show Cave during a recording session. (Cave says he knows and likes Booth's work, although the image he mentions is a painting of a grove of trees, illuminated with "a kind of custard-coloured light, a very beautiful picture of nature that had quite an effect on me.")

Three Tony Clark paintings that Cave used on record covers are hung alongside some large Polly Borland photographs.

There are photographs and portraits from the 1970s to the present. The photographers include Waterman, Peter Milne, Andrew Browne and Michel Lawrence: some familiar images, some never seen before, ranging from publicity shots to candid on-the-road pictures to images of the bands on stage, photographs that give a sense of how electrifying, chaotic and unpredictable their performances could be.

Longtime Cave collectors Andrew and Lynne Trute have lent rare posters, videos and ephemera.

Then there is Howard Arkley's large, fluorescent portrait of Cave, commissioned for the National Portrait Gallery, along with some intriguing studies and source material for the work, and a double-sided black-and-white portrait (hung to show only one side). Cave tends to feel uncomfortable with images of himself, he says, and he hates having his photograph taken. Of the Arkley, he says that it's flattering that someone thought he had "played a significant enough role to deserve to be in the National Portrait Gallery. And I've grown to like that picture. I hadn't actually seen it until recently. I'd only seen it in postcards".

He isn't aware of many of the other images in the show. Gareth Sansom, who was one of his art school lecturers at Caulfield Tech, has contributed a photo of Cave as a student and a recent work of his own that incorporates the photo.

Cave says he doesn't recall it, but Sansom used to take photographs of his students holding up cards with their names, to help him remember who they were. He seems amused - "irony of ironies" - at being part of Sansom's work. He was, he points out, a failed art student - "I don't know if he, in particular, failed me ... At the time it was quite a blow, although they were probably quite right to do what they did, and I'm glad that they did".

Among artists at the time, Tony Clark, he says, "had a huge influence on me. He was like an alternative history course, he would show us pictures that totally blew my mind, he introduced me to people like de Chirico and Louis Wain". (Cave has collected 15 or 16 of Wain's cat paintings.)

"What I learnt from watching painters, from watching people like Tony Clark, was how hard they seemed to work - which is something rock musicians aren't really known for. They don't have to. But it seemed to me that the painters I knew then, and the ones I know now, work every day. That's what they do, they go into their studios and they paint. I have always held on to that, the idea that the work is important and you do it all the time."

He's not particularly comfortable, he says, with the obligations that come with the territory. "I'm required to do so many things, and my opinions bore me to tears.

"The only thing I really like doing is going into my office and writing the songs. That's an absolutely necessary part of my life. Then there's recording them, which can be really exciting. And performing them. All the rest of it, I could do without. There's something I really enjoy about being left on my own to write songs, then collecting a few together and taking them to a group of people I trust, and all their energy goes into making those songs into something great, hopefully."

Nick Cave - The Good Son is at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery until September 15. Related events at Linden, St Kilda: Cave unpublished, with photographer Ross Waterman on August 15, and fashion designer Jenny Bannister on August 22. Bookings:92096794

Last week’s news gems are hidden in the Style section of the NY Times- I have to start reading that section first! The piece on secondary virginity is amusing and disturbing enough, but it’s the one on bratty summer interns that I can’t quite get my head around. It’s an amusing piece on rich and famous daughters and sons of the rich and famous, who intern for New York’s “glamour” industries- fashion, publishing, film, and so on. So, they’re well-connected to these industries, they use their name to get the coveted internships, the parents subsidize all living expenses, and they’re precocious brats on the job— shocking news. [Although, rest assured, Barbara Bush Jr. is a “hardworker,” and “not afraid to get her hands dirty,” according to her boss, Designer Lela Rose.]

These famous last names out-dress their employers, out-spend their employers’ salaries on lunch take-outs, take lots of cigarette breaks- this kind of thing. The general sentiment is that they’re privileged and for some strange reason have a sense of entitlement. Hmmm.

But then the article shifts to a more general discussion of bratty interns- mostly in fashion. They’re coming from all over- University of Michigan, Bard, or University of Rhode Island, for example- and they’re not just “fashion” or “merchandising” majors (art history or [gulp] media studies majors, for example). Anyway, the interns turn bratty because they often feel their “talents ignored” within the unpaid work environment- they feel underused and overeducated to be doing grunt work.

“I mean, how much time can you spend in front of a copying machine?” one intern asks.

What? This is where I’m stuck. The whole political economy of US unpaid internships is a stunning capitalist accomplishment anyway (another rant, another time), but what I’m left thinking about are my students- the 20-year olds that I see every day. No, wait, the bratty 20-year olds that I see every day.

In thinking about academe as a changing institution and my role in it, I’m inevitably lead to consider resultant changes in the student body. And I think there are changes. I’m so often bewildered by students’ boldness, audacity, lack of humility, and general sense of ENTITLEMENT. It’s in epidemic proportions, really- seemingly cutting across race, class, or gender boundaries (I also think this is one of the most under-considered topics in more formal discussions of pedagogy, but that’s for another time).

The students (and parents, if they’re paying) demand; we instructors supply. It’s an increasingly customer/service provider relationship, complete with consumer-rights language and “you work for me” attitude (this rhetoric comes out quite strongly whenever there’s some sort of labor dispute or public ideological debate at the university). If it weren’t for this damn mercenary system, indeed.

But you know, after reading this article on bratty interns, I’m thinking maybe the University Student Brat is a phenomenon much much much larger than just a business-model fall-out. Much larger, but I can’t put my finger on it. Can we blame it on the 80s? Or George W., The Education President? Or is it just me- getting older, starting the process of youth idealization?


Oh, and incidentally—just yesterday (7 weeks into the summer term), my students told me that class is supposed to end at 2:10 instead of 2:15. They’ve let me keep them 5 minutes over the scheduled time all term.

Operation P.I.O.

Dear Diary,

Who are all these imaginary friends? Lindsay and Amy? Peter and Paul? And why don't my real-life friends ever come to Seattle? Do I even have friends, dear diary? And for that matter, how can I change this damn "Mayhem" title that Bob gave me? It's all food, er good, really.

Yours truly,
M

testing one two three …

Until very recently I thought that all my friends had taken up the blog on their own, moved by the power of words and desperate to communicate with each other through prose. Turns out Bob’s been signing us all up. So here I am, beginning my public self-conversation.

In Seoul a pig’s head signifies good luck. Here’s mine -digitized from Seoul, July 2002.