Cultural Decay: TONY Edition #9

We gave the benighted bohemians of Brooklyn a much-needed respite last week, and in return we are now tormented by the Must-See Museums edition of Time Out New York (TONY).  Clearly, no good deed goes unpunished, as the good people of the editorial staff have once again committed crimes of taste, lack-of-discernment and muddled reportage. 

This being TONY, the Museum Must-Sees article highlights the artistic detritus that can only be found in the Whitney Museum of American Art.  (I am sure it’s no surprise that the Whitney is listed below the Museum of Sex, or, perhaps they were purposely grouped by type?)  The Whiney is currently showcasing work by Cory Arcangel, which are essentially video game images projected on the wall.  Or, as TONY writes, “you’ll be bombarded by seven bowling video games, dating between the late ‘70s and the early 2000s.  The backgrounds are projected onto the wall in a row, like the lanes in any alley.  Two cool things to note: The artist hacked each game and programmed it to bowl only gutter balls; and you get to see some awesomely retro consoles, including ‘80s and ‘90s Nintendos and an Atari 2600 from 1977.”  In other words, your garage sale is now big-ticket art.

The Whitney is also displaying No Title by Eva Hesse, “considered one of the Whitney’s treasures” TONY obligingly tells us.  No Title is, of course, that bit of plastic-covered netting hanging from the ceiling.  Or, as curator Donna De Salvo writes, “it’s a paradigm shifting work … [that] captures that whole moment that was going on after Minimalism, moving beyond rigid objects defined by solid borders.”  Well, that’s what Ms. De Salvo wrote, and we can only imagine that her check cleared.

Page 26, the Shopping & Style section, profiles Rob Ordonez.  Mr. Ordonez is a rather beefy young man with a blue Mohawk haircut and a ring through his nose.  But, let’s have Mr. Ordonez explain himself:  “I’m inspired by freaks, skins and people that don’t fit in with regular society … I have six piercings, and I brought my diamond hoop earring to cheer myself up after a bad breakup.”  One shudders to think of what would happen if he were truly heart-broken.

Finally, TONY again demonstrates that it is incapable of admiration for truly distinguished work on page 88, when Looking Forward describes 1968 film great Planet of the Apes as a “campy we-are-the-chimp-ions classic.”  Campy?  Meaning … it’s intended to be good?  Sigh.  Once again, TONY shoots from the Hip.

More next week!

Cultural Decay: TONY Edition #8

The tragic thing about this weekly visit with the cultural rot that is Time Out New York (TONY) is that, on some horrible level, I have grown to enjoy it.  Much like Philip debasing himself to Mildred in Maugham’s Of Human Bondage, wallowing in the swill that is TONY has its own peculiar, addictive satisfaction.  Now, I eagerly await each issue, thinking … what abomination have they for me next?  And … I like it. 

The stupidity begins as early as page 6 (the Staff Question section), where TONY-toilers were asked, “what’s your ideal night in?”  Fairly simple?  The Associate Editor, Features (no need to embarrass her again by naming her), says, “On an ideal Friday evening, you’ll find me holed up in my apartment, gorging on spicy chicken-and-vegetable red curry, and watching Glee or Buffy reruns.”  This is bad enough, but it’s not a patch on the reply of TONY’s Senior Designer, who responds, “video games, booze and bad movies.  My Netflix queue is overflowing with box-office turds that must be watched!”  Now … we can be charitable and simply believe these ironic Gothamites are simply struggling to be clever.  Or, more tragically, we can take them at their word…

Art on page 49 includes a write-up of the MoMa PS1 show, Nancy Grossman: Heads.  Now, to the credit of TONY reporter Claire Barliant, she does wonder if this collection of S/M leather masks in an almost empty room is really “a celebration of sadomasochism or a commentary on patriarchal oppression.”  Or something.  I would ask, perhaps, if it was merely junk.  However, the howler in the article is this quote by Susan Sontag, “the color is black, the material is leather, the seduction is beauty, the justification is honesty, the aim is ecstasy, the fantasy is death.”  Now, among dimwits embraced by a benighted intelligentsia, Sontag hovers somewhere behind the goofy and unbalanced Ayn Rand.   One can only read scrofulous prose like this with an indulgent smile and the fervent hope the writer will eventually recover. 

Page 105, in the Off Broadway Theater section, reviews Sex on the Beach.  In this play, “former Classical Theatre of Harlem chief Alfred Preisser directs the Off Broadway premiere of Roy Arias’s 2006 portrait of three Caribbean sex workers: one male, one female and another in-between.”  I have a somewhat better title for them: The Riddle of the Sands.

More next week!

Cultural Decay: TONY Edition #7

And so, Time Out New York (TONY) has once again hit the stands.  You know the drill: inane criticism, lead-footed irony, poor reportage… So, let’s get to it.

On page 54 (the Your Perfect Weekend section), we find: “Even though Keith Olbermann is starting his new gig as the host of the relaunched Countdown with Keith Olbermann on June 20, it’s unlikely that he’ll delve into the show too much tonight.  Instead, the former MSNBC talking head will discuss humorist James Thurber, who regularly penned pieces for The New Yorker before his death in 1961.  Olbermann isn’t the only one celebrating Thurber tonight: New Yorker contributors Calvin Trillin and Robert Mankoff will also be there, as will Thurber’s daughter, Rosemary.”  Now, your correspondent is second to none in his admiration for Olbermann.  I once met him where he presented on a forum dedicated to humorists Bob and Ray, where I was happy to shake his hand and call him a true American patriot.  However … is this notice really about Olbermann?  Is this, just perhaps, really about James Thurber?  And wouldn’t TONY have been more correct to say something (albeit briefly?) about Thurber?  And perhaps even Trillin and Mankoff?  Perhaps TONY should file this under a brand new section, called Bury the Lead.

Best by Day on page 58 includes the Underground Rebel Bingo Club, which reads “London import Underground Rebel Bingo Club dispels the notion that bingo is for losers and old people.  This raucous party, which will take place in a secret Gramercy location [?], involves burlesque dancers, trippy prizes (like LED-covered umbrellas), and drawing all over strangers’ bodies with brightly colored pens.”  Suddenly, losers and old people look very appealing to us.

Same section, page 71, details Reverend Billy and the Church of Earthalujah, with the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir.  There, “Anticonsumerism activist Reverend Billy brings his chorus to Housing Works for a performance to celebrate the release of his forthcoming book, The Reverend Billy Project: From Rehearsal Hall to Super Mall with the Church of Life After Shopping.”  Wait a minute … doesn’t that mean he wants us to buy his book?  No matter; gospel music has the delightful side-effect of shutting down all normal brain function.

Art on page 77 has two treats for us this week.  First off, we have David LaChapelle, “Raging Toward Truth.”  Here we are told, “The famed photog tries his hand at collage, using his own ripped-up images as material, as well as watercolor and drawing.  The show’s centerpiece is a large-scale take on Raft of the Medusa, the 1818 masterpiece by Theodore Gericault.  Instead of starved sailors, however, the benighted vessel in LaCahpelle’s version is crewed by naked fashion models.”  The puerility of this supposition is just too easy to comment upon; have we really descended from making masterpieces ourselves to playing vapid Post Modern tricks on the few we legitimately have? 

Same page, we have John O’Reilly, “Recent Montage.”  Here we are told “The artist’s photomontages blend elements of Old Master art with softcore homoerotic pornography.”  Once again, insert your own joke here.

More next week!

Cultural Decay: TONY Edition #6

While still reeling from the unmitigated disaster that is Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, your correspondent was in desperate need of a tonic.  And what could be more bracing than a look at the weekly wallow of cultural decay that is Time Out New York (TONY)?  So, let’s see what America’s most witless publication has on hand this week…

Starting with the end of it, page 98 (in the ever-reliable The Off-Off List section) we find notice of the Summerworks Festival.  There “Clubbed Thumb continues its new-works festival, one of the best ways to see which local playwrights have had their digits whacked with the talent hammer.”  Hint – look for tears in their eyes.

Page 76 (in the Music section) includes a notice for Marduk + Aura Noir + Black Anvil + Panzerfaust + HOD + Natur.  At this event “Ultra-blasphemous Swedish black-metal outfit Marduk, which favors breakneck tempos, vomited vocals and darkly atmospheric textures, plays behind a new EP, Iron Dawn.”  What I find fascinating here is how often TONY uses the word “vomit” as a descriptor of available cultural wares.  Scarcely an issue goes by without something being likened to vomit.  Is this, perhaps, a tacit admission of our cultural state?  Or, perhaps, an optimistic view that things are always coming, in not looking, up?  Hum…..

The same page includes a brief chat with Aloe Blacc, who appears to be a musician of some sort.  When asked about the current “soul revival,” the worthy Mr. Blacc said, “I often think that it’s because the oldie demographic – maybe 25-plus – when they’re not in a nightclub, they want to hear music that speaks to their mature sensibility.”  Hold the phone.  The “oldie demographic” is … 25-plus?  And we wonder why our music, or film, and the language of our ongoing cultural discussion seem so adolescent! 

More next week!

Cultural Decay: TONY Edition #5

In terms of cultural decay, few institutions can successfully compete with Time Out New York (TONY).  However, a real contender to the title remains The Whitney Museum of American Art, that pulsating junk heap piled high with the discarded detritus of Modernism, Post Modernism, and all the other schools that make up the intellectual garage sale we currently call art.

And so, here is a helping of both the Whitney and TONY, all in one sumptuous paragraph:

Page 42 (in the Art section) details Cory Arcangel: Pro Tools.  To quote fully:  “You might describe Arcangel as an Internet-age existentialist, a sort of “I play Xbox, therefore I am” type who hacks old 8-bit Nintendo game cartridges to showcase his own version of a first-person shooter called I Shot Andy Warhol, and uses basic Photoshop color-gradient moves to create trippy digital abstractions printed as large photos … highlights include a projection-video bowling alley, made with backgrounds from bowling video games, as well as a golf game that invites viewer participation.  No need to bring your own clubs.”  I would, however, recommend a good caddy.

Page 76 (in the Music section) Orange Goblin + The Gates of Slumber + Naam + Kings Destroy, described as: “Hammy fun U.K. stoner-metal heavyweights Orange Goblin head up a bell-bottom friendly affair chez Andrew W.K.  Indianapolis doom diehards sow their deep downer vibes in the penultimate slot, supporting an aptly named new slab, The Wretch.”  I have now both read and typed this, and still have no idea what it means….

Finally, on page 94 (the always fecund Off-Off List), we find news of Standards of Decency 3:  300 Vaginas Before Breakfast.  “Taking inspiration from a quote by bard-we-deserve John Mayer, the Blue Coyote Theater pack … creates an evening of short plays about online porn.”  I think I’ll grab a bagel, instead.

More next week!

Cultural Decay: TONY Edition #4

Pull up a chair and let’s see the latest bits of foolishness Time Out New York (TONY) serves up this week.  As always, TONY does not disappoint – the magazine remains a perfect bellwether of our cultural decay.

Page 44 (in the Best by Day section) promises Naked Girls Reading Presents Naked Girls Eating.  There “the in-the-buff bookworms Nasty Canasta, Darlinda Just Darlinda, the Naked Librarian and Legs Malone whet the appetite with selections from their favorite culinary writers.  Grab a Food Porn cocktail ….”  Emily Dickinson fans beware!

Page 57 (in the Books section!) includes a notice for Derangement of the Senses.  At this event “Kevin Carter amps up the standard reading format with multimedia performances from writers, and lit-minded burlesque dancers accompanied by an electronic laser harp.”  Too bad Somerset Maugham is dead … I hear he was a great little dancer.

The Theater section on page 108 lists my favorite of the week: My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend.  It is described thus: “in his latest solo show, slacker comedian Mike Birbiglia shares stories about love, loss and vomit in a stoner’s drawl.”  I suppose you can’t keep a good man down.

More next week!

Cultural Decay: TONY Edition #3

To the cultural observer, Time Out New York (TONY) offers a rich and varied menu of tasty bits of critical ineptitude.  Written with syrupy irony for the intellectually undemanding, TONY catalogs the decay of a once healthy and vibrant culture.  This week’s bounty includes the following tidbits:

Page 24 features a style profile of one Charley Hendee, who is “enraptured by the formal dress of Edwardian English gentlemen.”  The photos include this worthy in his “Edwardian” garb, sporting a ring through his nose.  Insert your own joke here.

Page 47 (in the Books section!) includes a notice for the Nevada Rose Book Release After Party.  This event takes “place after an exhibition of ‘cathouse’ photos from Nevada Rose at nearby Umbrage Gallery … [and features] performance artist Amber Martin, musician Julia Haltigan, fetish model Mika Tan and one of the book’s subjects, Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hof.”    In the immortal words of Louis B. Mayer, “include me out.”

The Off-Off List page always offers one tasty example of cultural rot.  This week, we find a listing for the event Be Story Free.  It promises “a whole passel of Brooklyn’s finest experimentalists wage war on narrative in the ‘story addiction destruction system,’ which promises to wean your mind off conventional theatrical paradigms.”  But, that’s another story.

The most instructive article, though, is found on page 72, which features an interview with someone named Albert “Prodigy” Johnson.  “Prodigy,” recently released from prison for weapons possession, has penned his autobiography, My Infamous Life.  “Prodigy” summarizes his book by saying, “I’m just not a happy-go-lucky mother[expletive].”  “Prodigy” has high hopes that his book will raise awareness of his band, Mobb Deep.  “Intellectuals that read a lot of books might not have been interested in Mobb Deep before My Infamous Life, but now they might go ‘Who are these guys?’ and check us out.”  Or, perhaps, run for cover.

More next week!

Cultural Decay: TONY Edition #2

Every week, Time Out New York (TONY) offers stunning examples of our national cultural decay.  Written in an obnoxious ‘knowing’ style (the first draft probably in crayon) by mostly unwashed and underfed adolescents, TONY cheerfully revels in its own cultural illiteracy.  This week’s bounty includes the following jewels:

Page 126 includes a listing for Radio Play by Tommy Smith and Reggie Watts, who “modeled this surreal sonic experience on old-timey radio shows.” Now, the ubiquity of the fatuous locution “old-timey” has been a mystery to your correspondent.  It can be heard most everywhere, either in hushed tones of respect or dismissive derision.  TONY uses it indiscriminately, employing “old-timey” to describe everything from classic American cinema to the Italian Renaissance.  In context for TONY readers, I believe “old-timey” can be defined either as (1) anything pre-1980 or (2) anything worthwhile and irony-free.

(The same page describes The Tempest as “Shakespeare’s spectacular drama about a retiring magician,” which would not pass muster in one of our less-demanding high schools.  Perhaps TONY does not understand the distinction between “retired” and “exiled.”)

The most infelicitous bit of prose, however, can be found in the theater review on page 117.  Writer Adam Feldman begins: “The People in the Picture renders its story the way fat is rendered in an old Jewish home: over low heat, with traditional tools, in the service of making schmaltz.”  Allow me to introduce a new word to TONY readers: Yuck.

More next week!

Cultural Decay: TONY Edition #1

There is no better yardstick of America’s tragic cultural decay than the weekly horror show that is Time Out New York (TONY).

Written with rancid ironic wit by arrested adolescents self-congratulatory in their cultural aridity, TONY has a loyal readership of hygiene-challenged “hipsters” who live in one of Manhattan’s outer boroughs.  Each week, TONY provides tragic/comic illustrations of our intellectual and cultural decay.  This week’s issue does not disappoint.

Page 42 includes a listing for The Poetry Brothel, which “presents a literary cathouse, where male and female ‘poetry whores’ provide private readings behind closed curtains.”  I imagine it’s only half-price if you want a quick limerick.

Page 88 (in the Classical and Opera listings!) includes a listing for Anti-Social Music, which celebrates 10 years “of punctuating the ‘who cares if you listen’ attitude of some modernist composers with a punk rock middle finger.”  I suppose we should be grateful the tradition of serious music is in such good hands.  Or fingers.

Page 89 of the same section lists the Philadelphia Orchestra, which is too delicious not to quote in whole.  “It’s okay to feel giddy when Charles Dutoit brings his awesome Philly players to town, especially when the program features a pair of mythical Stravinsky sizzlers, Apollo and Oedipus Rex, with dynamo soloists Paul Groves as Oedipus and Petra Lang as his mama, Jocaste.”  This may be Dadaism, but I’m not sure.

More next week!