So how does one land a gig whipping up compressed-air-powered robots? For Iowa-born Kal Spelletich of San Francisco’s extreme-technology/postindustrial folk-art collective the Seemen, it required resume-building stints as squatter, dishwasher, carpenter, auto mechanic, day laborer, “street scammer,” plumber, grocery clerk, salesman, teacher, union activist, stagehand and “fix-it guy.” Today, the University of Texas at Austin… Continue reading Seemen mixer
Undressed for success
Tania Katan has no boobs, but don’t cry for her. The ASU grad turned Renaissance woman has overcome dual mastectomies, transforming herself from a “nerdy 21-year-old” lesbian just trying to get laid into an author, performance artist, topless 5K runner, topless dancer wanna-be, and raconteur deluxe. She lost her first breast in college, her second… Continue reading Undressed for success
Art with balls
The lady in heels knitted her brow, bent her knees and took a mighty swing, as if she were gunning for the 18th green at Augusta. There was a loud crack of coated plastic meeting painted wood as her ball caromed off the gaping maw of Elvis and ricocheted around like a hot-pink bullet before… Continue reading Art with balls
Adam and Eve hit the sauza
In Hannah and Her Sisters, Daniel Stern plays a rock star looking to buy artwork he doesn’t claim to appreciate from an embittered intellectual portrayed by Max von Sydow. Von Sydow won’t sell to this putz, who measures art by how it looks over a sofa. There’s something similar going on with George Holz’s “Original… Continue reading Adam and Eve hit the sauza
This is art. All is well.
Here’s something your don’t see everyday: Peter Parker’s sweet Mary Jane (American actress Kirsten Dunst, of Spider-Man fame) doing a Katy Perry meets Bo-Peep turn as a living anime character in a Japanese pop-art short film most people mistake for a music video of Dunst covering the 1980 hit “Turning Japanese” by the English new-wave… Continue reading This is art. All is well.
Capitaine Blood
GALVESTON, TEXAS — “They ‘ave been accusing me of taking American sheeps seence 1812. I do not steal from my own corn creeb!” As Todd Jensen calmly recites his lines for the umpteenth time, a roaring din surrounds him; the L.A. actor’s a placid atoll in a storm-tossed sea of technical dither — appropriate considering… Continue reading Capitaine Blood
Creature features
Some people — okay, me — would classify Gidget as a monster movie. No, Sandra Dee was not the Devil and Moondoggie wasn’t her slavering hellhound, but their 1959 flick ushered in the frightful genre known as the beach-party movie. Now, Gidget was foul, but it was at least digestible. Its most notorious spawn, American… Continue reading Creature features
The menu that fell to Earth
The Internet come-on might’ve piqued the interest of extreme adventurer Tim Cahill, author of the tomes A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg and Jaguars Ripped My Flesh. Regular-guy Cahill makes a living doing irregular-guy kinda stuff — drunken diving for sea snakes, that sort of thing; when he’s not dodging hails of smugglers’ bullets in… Continue reading The menu that fell to Earth
“Small Deaths: Kate Breakey”
Who among us — out on an evening stroll, say — hasn’t had the sort of pedestrian encounter with mortality that photographer and University of Texas at Austin instructor Breakey portrays with such aching, indelible beauty in this traveling exhibit? Still, there’s nothing prosaic about Breakey’s pieces. Her petite portraits of exanimate animals and plants… Continue reading “Small Deaths: Kate Breakey”
70,000 Wonder Stuff fans can’t be wrong
“We’re an alternative to the alternative, which is just a clever way of saying we’re the mainstream,” says Miles Hunt of The Wonder Stuff. “We’re just a pop band.” Being a pop band, though, places The Wonder Stuff squarely on music’s cutting edge. Pop is so old it’s brand-new again. The Wonder Stuff had been… Continue reading 70,000 Wonder Stuff fans can’t be wrong