Huey P. Newton

VOTE VOTE VOTE or die!

Please vote tomorrow!! A lovely reminder from my friend Peter is below. Thanks Matt Damon!

Hello friends and family in NY --

Tomorrow is election day, and I'm excited. Prospects may look dim nationally, but here in New York, we have an opportunity to win a huge progressive victory. We have the Working Families Party.

Tomorrow, I'm going to vote for my all favorite candidates, including Eric Schneiderman for Attorney General, on the Working Families Party line. I hope you will join me. If you don't know where to vote, find out here: http://gis.nyc.gov/vote/ps/index.htm

Voting on the WFP line (row E on the ballot) counts just as much as voting on the Democratic line. But it has the extra benefit of sending a powerful message to Albany -- that I stand with working people, not party bosses. That I support the WFP's fight for a cleaner environment, for raising wages, for clean energy jobs, for education funding, and all the other good progressive policies they champion. I know the folks at the WFP pretty well, and they say that to pass critical legislation next year, they need every vote they can get tomorrow.

If you don't believe me, ask Matt Damon. Yep, the actor Matt Damon. He recorded this (pretty frickin' funny) video for the WFP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24m1PZ9iZoY

Basically, no matter what happens nationally, here in New York you can't afford to stay home and not vote. Don't get last-minute-lazy, don't pretend your vote doesn't matter, and don't give up your democratic rights. Trust me, I know how easy it is to get distracted and overwhelmed. But millions of Americans fought -- and some died -- for the right to vote. Don't take it for granted.

Plus, if you don't vote, everyone will know. By law, anyone can get a copy of the NYS voter file and look you up. (They can't tell how you voted, just if you voted.) It would be embarrassing for your friends to know you shirked your civic duty, right? :)

SO GO VOTE!!

Love,
Peter

Oil + Water: Fashion or Fail?

American fashion photographer, Steven Meisel turns his lens towards the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico with his most recent spread for Italian Vogue. The fashion editorial features models dipped in black crude and sprawled across rocky coastline dressed in plummage and leather. There's been a lot of debate on whether the spread is in bad taste or not but we applaud his courage in fanning the outrage and keeping the debate in headlines about offshore drilling and America's addiction to oil. A great reminder that the whole world is watching the BP oil spill that is STILL spilling into the Gulf. -Thanks Rukhs!

MIA "Born Free"

Check the new short film by MIA and Romain-Gavras of Justice fame. Gave me chills. Getit girl!!!

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

Food Print NYC Mini Conference

Foodprint NYC is the first in a series of international conversations about food and the city. From a cluster analysis of bodega inventories to the cultural impact of the ice-box, and from food deserts to peak phosphorus, panelists will examine the hidden corsetry that gives shape to urban foodscapes, and collaboratively speculate on how to feed New York in the future. The free afternoon program will include designers, policy-makers, flavor scientists, culinary historians, food retailers, and others, for a wide-ranging discussion of New York’s food systems, past and present, as well as opportunities to transform our edible landscape through technology, architecture, legislation, and education.

Date: Saturday, February 27

Time: 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Location: Studio-X (180 Varick St., Suite 1610, New York, NY 10014)

Free and open to the public

T-Pain Obama Autotune

T-Pain x Obama = awesome. Thanks Nate.

Friday Fun: DC Tea Party

Living in New York, Brooklyn in particular, I realize that we live in a kind of bubble. With over 138 languages spoken between the 8 million folks who populate our strange little community, our city is a pretty amazing cultural experiment in at least tolerance, and at best a celebration of diversity. In light of President Obama's recent push for a public solution to the health insurance quandry and some of the reactions coming out of the townhall meetings, it shouldnt have surprised me to see and hear some of the comments from the folks who participated in a recent anti-big governmentTea Party. But its a different reality to actually see the faces and hear the misinformation coming from protesters. On 9.12.2009, reporters from New Left Media went to Washington DC to document the Tea Party protests against, well, a lot of things, including health insurance reform, the IRS, abortion, global warming, and our "socialist/communist/fascist/Nazi/Muslim " president, Barack Obama. Some of them called for a return to McCarthyism, while others called for Glenn Beck to run for office--indeed, it seemed the only thing that everyone agreed on was Fox News. Thanks Dame!

Dragan's Lair

How did a Serbian war criminal hide from the world as a bioenergy-channeling, alternative-medicine-peddling, bearded and, well, nutty guru? After hiding out for the first half of this decade, Radovan Karadzic emerged in 2005 as Dragan Dabic. Tribunal investigators say they believe that the Serbian secret police issued Karadzic documentation in the name of an existing man, a rural innocent who had not traveled much, if ever, and so made a perfect foundation on which to build a character. As Dabic, Karadzic found refuge in the world of alternative medicine with the likes of Mina Minic, center, a Serbian soothsayer and "maestro of radiesthesia." Beautiful portraiture by Lars Tunbjork. Check the slideshow and read more here.

Donate Your Phone, Save a Life

Hope Phones, a program dedicated to recycling old phones to medical clinics in developing countries, does a great service for both clinics in need and for folks who need to get rid of an unused phone. Leave a comment if you'd like to donate a phone and we'll get collection materials together to send off a box of 50!!

Every cell phone given to community health workers connects distant patients to a medical clinic. A $10 cell phone will give 50 families access to emergency medical care, health information, transport services, and clinic resources.

When your old phone is received by the recycling center, it is given a value. We’ll use this value to purchase appropriate, usable cell phones for community health workers at the medical clinics. The average donated phone in the US will allow us to purchase 2-3 cell phones for clinics.Thanks SwissMiss for the info!

William Shatner, Poet Extraordinaire

To help American audiences understand the nuances of former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin's send-off speech, Conan O'Brian enlisted William Shatner to read the speech verbatim in its "intended" poetic form.

Free Iran

Ashkahn is back again. He made these beautiful FREE IRAN posters! Download to your desktop, print it up at your local print shop and circulate amongst friends or buy the T-shirt for $10 here! President Obama called a midday press conference today condemning the Iranian crackdown against demonstrators and declaring the rest of the world "appalled and outraged" by the violence going on there. Read the NYTimes coverage here.

Changing the Art on the White House Walls

Alma Thomas Evening Glow, 1972

By AMY CHOZICK and KELLY CROW

The Obamas are sending ripples through the art world as they put the call out to museums, galleries and private collectors that they’d like to borrow modern art by African-American, Asian, Hispanic and female artists for the White House. In a sharp departure from the 19th-century still lifes, pastorals and portraits that dominate the White House’s public rooms, they are choosing bold, abstract art works.

The overhaul is an important event for the art market. The Obamas’ art choices could affect the market values of the works and artists they decide to display. Museums and collectors have been moving quickly to offer up works for inclusion in the iconic space.

Last week the first family installed seven works on loan from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington in the White House’s private residence, including “Sky Light” and “Watusi (Hard Edge),” a pair of blue and yellow abstracts by lesser-known African-American abstract artist Alma Thomas, acclaimed for her post-war paintings of geometric shapes in cheery colors.

The National Gallery of Art has loaned the family at least five works this year, including “Numerals, 0 through 9,” a lead relief sculpture by Jasper Johns, “Berkeley No. 52,” a splashy large-scale painting by Richard Diebenkorn, and a blood-red Edward Ruscha canvas featuring the words, “I think maybe I’ll…,” fitting for a president known for lengthy bouts of contemplation. The Jasper Johns sculpture was installed in the residence on Inauguration Day, along with modern works by Robert Rauschenberg and Louise Nevelson, also on loan from the National Gallery.

Collectors say the art picks by the Obamas will likely affect the artists’ market values—or at least raise their profiles. After George W. Bush displayed El Paso, Texas-born artist Tom Lea’s “Rio Grande,” a photorealistic view of a cactus set against gray clouds, in the Oval Office, the price of the artist’s paintings shot up roughly 300%, says Adair Margo, owner of an El Paso gallery that sells Mr. Lea’s work. (Mr. Lea passed away in 2001, which also boosted the value of his work.)

The Obamas’ interest in modern art began before they moved to Washington. The couple’s Hyde Park home featured modern art and black-and-white photographs, according to several Chicago friends. On one of their first dates, Mr. Obama took Michelle Robinson to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Read the full article from the Wall Street Journal.

Join or Die

Join Or Die, 2008. Oil on canvas, 18x24 inches.

Justine Lai says, FUCK THE MAN! In the artist's Join or Die series, she paints herself having sex with the US Presidents in chronological order.

Artist Statement:
I am interested in humanizing and demythologizing the Presidents by addressing their public legacies and private lives. The presidency itself is a seemingly immortal and impenetrable institution; by inserting myself in its timeline, I attempt to locate something intimate and mortal. I use this intimacy to subvert authority, but it demands that I make myself vulnerable along with the Presidents. A power lies in rendering these patriarchal figures the possible object of shame, ridicule and desire, but it is a power that is constantly negotiated.