Holly Andres, “Behind the Old Painting,” 2007, C-Print at Quality Pictures Contemporary Art.
Portland-based artist/photographer/writer (formerly of Houston, TX) Chas Bowie, who once brought us the totally awesome blog YOUR DAILY AWESOME is back in the blogging business. For those of us who were bummed when Bowie quit showing us cool shit (even though it was probably taxing to find something cool every single day, we can now be happy again. According to Bowie, "The goal of That's a Negative is to provide a voice of critical discourse about the medium, to examine the lineage of contemporary trends, and to attempt to make sense of the practice and theories of global photography. I am exposed to photography in Portland more than anywhere else in the world, so the site will also serve as an ongoing record of photographic activity in Portland."
He's already got some great stuff up, so check it out.
OK, at the beginning of the year I said that I was taking myself off of MySpace and Facebook because I felt too old to be doing such hoo-la-la. I mean, when one of the friends' 14 year old kid asked me to be her friend on Facebook, I felt like a big loser. But hey! What was my problem? What's wrong with having friends not simply of all races, creeds, and colors, but of all ages, too? Heck, bring it on.
So anyway, I actually did take myself off of MySpace, but it's simply not that easy to do with Facebook. I couldn't do it, anyway. But I can't seem to send off a personal message to a single person without accidentally sending it to 50 people. Oh, but there are so many joys to Facebook! Now that I'm back on it, I can piss off half the day by playing Scrabulous. And I can discover the joys of the Edinburgh-based comedy stylings of Idiots of Ants:
More importantly, I can keep up with loads of people I haven't seen or even thought about in years! One such person is Robin Jones, a guy that was going to the University of Houston when I was in the Creative Writing Program there and was teaching Comp 101 as a teaching assistant. Talented Robin was always popping up in the most unexpected places. Once he burst into my classroom, tap-dancing and singing about wanting to know about gerunds. Another night in some late '80's December, I was sitting in Cafe Express with a couple of friends, and a Santa Claus freaked me out when he made a run for me and sat on my lap. Needless to say, Mr. Claus was, in actuality, Mr. Jones.
Well, he's one of those people I hadn't seen or thought about for years. No, that's not true. Every time I've thought about gerunds, or Santa, for the past 20 years, he's the first thing that pops into my head. So now we've found each other again on Facebook, and the magic's back in my life! I thought that I was the biggest pop-culture geek on the planet, but I've found my match. Robin Jones has three pretty amazing blogs, and they all address everything from Robert Culp to Mannix. It's well-written, pretty entertaining stuff, and if you get bored with Facebook, you can always spend hours watching old TV trailers. I know I do: Your Fiend Mr. Jones Mr. Jones Challenges You to Cast a Fictitious Remake You Know the Face... He's a real find. Even if he doesn't know what a gerund is.
Holly Andres, “Behind the Old Painting,” 2007, C-Print at Quality Pictures Contemporary Art.
