While I trust that the magazine speaks for itself, both for good and ill, I suppose I could say by way of explanation that, beyond all the sex, drugs and rock’n'roll, that is, beyond the pure visceral FUN of punk and life in the underground, there were also deeply serious issues of politics, of social justice and, above all, of aesthetics that connected and inspired the many people involved in the Damage project. Because these concerns were particularly articulated in the scene as it existed in San Francisco three decades ago, Damage’s importance today, like that of the other zines, is as a kind of constant witness to an unique time, place and circumstance; one that spoke and one hopes still speaks to the immanent primacy of youthful idealism and to the notion that there is a deep and abiding value in a radical, even desperate rejection of the commonplace, the accepted, the normal. Conformity and regimentation then, as now, are the foresworn enemies of the creative energy that is the essence and the wellspring of youth. That stance of absolute defiance to which the punk aesthetic aspires and which, in fact, is it’s raison d’etre is no less a viable ideal today than it was 30 years ago. If anything, it is more necessary and more important. Damage sought, in its own small way, to encompass all the twisted, topsy-turvy and convulsive energies of a scene (or series of scenes) that defied easy definition, seeking to discover in the multiplicity of personalities and creative expressions a commonality of interest that could speak to the eternal youth in us all, the spiky-haired, black-garbed snarling punk boy or girl whose “blue eyes gleam with a necessary cruelty” (Aragon). That we both succeeded admirably and failed miserably is finally and equally a tribute to our own exquisite innocence and to the dark realities that all too often doom our youthful ideals to feckless compromise and even extinction.

We have been ben occupato with plenty of work, social whirl-a-gigging and the usual run of art shows. Of the latter, by far the most important has been the new Caravaggio exhibition up the street from our digs at the Scuderie. With a mere 27 canvases, it is unquestionably a life-changing event for anyone who loves art. Brilliant, beautiful and deeply moving on as many levels as one has head and heart to experience. I truly cannot remember a time when I was so reluctant to leave a gallery, feeling as if the hours spent hardly began to encompass the treasures that were there present. There is of course something eerily modern in Caravaggio’s flat surfaces redolent with startling, almost abstract, explosions of color and shadow. There were times when I found myself unable to actually grasp  — at least on a physical level — that these were works produced over 400 years ago, so contemporary was their affect. We plan on returning several more times before the show closes in the middle of June.

While the Caravaggio show is manifestly the must-see event this season, we also had a pretty swell time touring the vast Fascist-era Ministry of Corporations (1932) designed by Marcello Piancentini and featuring what has to be one of the most extraordinary stained-glass windows I’ve ever seen, this by the great Mario Sironi, as well as a series of eight mind-bogglingly exquisite (and downright WEIRD) tapestries by Ferruccio Ferrazzi. Whilst they purport to depict the various corporations into which the Fascist economy was (dis)organized, they read more like something out of science fiction, think Phillip K. Dick meets Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. My favorite shows veri-colored male figures being born out of some bizarre industrial process akin to steel-making or the manufacture of umbrellas. In a famililar phrase, fun ahoy!

Gagosian’s gallery here is featuring a new installation by Chris Burden which we plan on taking in sometime soon. I haven’t really seen anything he’s done recently, but the word on the street is BIG YAWN and I really can’t pretend to be surprised. Burden was here for a day or so for the opening and submitted himself to one of those horrible public “question and answer” things. I would have liked to have gone just for old time’s sake, but ennui and the bad weather left me feeling that there’s greater pleasure in letting the dead bury the dead.

There were only a few pieces in the exhibition, but it was not difficult to see why John Singer Sargent famously proclaimed Mancini the “greatest living artist.” Following a recent purchase of 15 canvases, the Philadelphia Museum of Art presented the first U.S. show wholly devoted to the artist in 2007. Here’s an excerpt from their website:

Mancini worked at the forefront of Verismo, an indigenous Italian response to nineteenth-century realism, producing haunting portrayals of circus performers, street musicians, and impoverished children taken from the streets of Naples. After suffering a disabling mental illness, Mancini settled in Rome, and with the support of American and Dutch patrons managed for many years to eke out a precarious existence. Many of Mancini’s paintings incorporated thick impasto, whose glittering light effects he enhanced by adding bits of glass, metal foil, and other materials.

The New York Times in the guise of Roberta Smith reviewed the exhibition with considerable verve in January 2008 and very thoughtfully provided a multi-media slideshow of the works in the Philadelphia collection. In addition, Yale has published a new book on the artist by Ulrich Hiesinger entitled Antonio Mancini: Nineteenth Century Italian Master. If a century too late, it would appear that Mancini’s 15 minutes have indeed arrived.

As always, we have been busy with work and the usual sundry social adventures. E. has single-handedly determined that we must perforce make up for any and all deficiencies in our cultural diet by a steady stream of visits to galleries, museums and decaying palaces. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen more than 600 paintings and other works of art and hauled ourselves up several majestic ceremonial staircases into the past glories of renaissance and baroque Rome. The weather has been in the main chilly and damp, with a few glorious sunny days that seem to exist as a kind of psychological caesura providing a much needed pause amidst the on-going gloom.

When not being dragged kicking and screaming to yet another cultural highlight, I’ve been reading lots and writing a little. After years of unsuccessfully trying to read Henry James, I seem to have finally found a place where his work is all at once and suddenly accessible. I am at present reading Portrait of a Lady and loving every page, much to my own amazement and also perhaps chagrin. I’ve diss’ed him for so long and in so many settings that it seems almost contra natura to be enjoying his dense impenetrable prose as much as I am.

Now that we are officially poor people, we’ve mainly been eating at home which has the dual excellence of helping to save money and keep the calories within reason. I’ve lost a bit of weight which is good and we’ve not spent a huge amount of money which is better. We visited our regular joints of course and have a few new places to try, but all in all there’s not a lot to report on the cuisine front. Well, that’s not exactly true, on Thursday, we are going to a lecture at the American Academy by Leonard Barkan entitled “Loving the Grape: Food and High Culture in Early Modern Europe” which, given the brilliance of his book Unearthing the Past (which I’m currently reading) ought to be highly entertaining and, yes, perhaps even nutritious. Here’s a link to the book at Amazon: Unearthing the Past

We did have one minor mishap worth noting. On Saturday morning, E. went to the ATM to withdraw some cash and it proceeded to eat his card, informing him to contact our bank immediately. We did so in the afternoon where we learned that his card and pin-number had been skimmed by some machine or another and that over a $1000 had been withdrawn in Bulgaria. Yes, BULGARIA! Happily, they caught the fraud and we were spared the indignity of losing money that we don’t really have, but the lesson of course is beware, beware and be more ware. I’d read about these ATM skimming devices, but it appears that they are now becoming ubiquitous both here and in the States.

(209) she met some random, took his vcard, peed in his bed, left, and then requested him as her boyfriend on facebook

(405) I think in growing up..I’ve been having a hard time masterbating to fictional character.

(770) I just sat in the Taco Bell drive-thru waiting for a trash can to take my order. Yes, that high.

(906) i decided to cut a 3rd hole in to my snuggie so i could masturbate all the time.. all time low? or genius?

(613) I spent all night sexting your girlfriend for you because you were too drunk. You’re welcome.

(504) She was so drunk yelling at me in my driveway to fuck her. It was the ghetto version of Romeo and Juliet.

(213) I told him to show what he was made of and he came on my face.

(425) The last girl i hooked up with and the last guy i hooked up with are hooking up right now. this is where bisexuality becomes a problem.

A 17-year-old boy accused of killing his mother last week intentionally strangled her to death and sexually abused her corpse before dumping her body in a trash can, according to a juvenile court document released Monday.

Johnson City Juvenile Court Judge Sharon Green ordered Codey Wayne Miller, 17, held at the Upper East Tennessee Juvenile Detention Center pending a June 5 status hearing, when she will hear motions in the case, including prosecutors’ request to transfer the teenager to adult Criminal Court for trial.

Miller is charged with first-degree murder, felony murder and abuse of a corpse in the death of his mother, Sherry R. Cooper, 36, at her Lake Terrace housing development apartment on Thursday.

Assistant Public Defender Ivan Lilly, appointed to represent Miller, waived the teen’s detention hearing after telling Green that details from the homicide had not been released to news media or Miller’s family.

State law allows juvenile judges to grant media access to juvenile hearings on some cases, including murder, and Green granted a request from the Press. She also released documents that are public record in the case due to the charges involved, which allowed Miller’s name to become public record. Most juvenile records are sealed by state law.

Christopher A. Johnson, 36, 1355 Breedlove Ave., Memphis, is also charged along with Miller. He’s being held on charges of felony murder and abuse of a corpse. Washington County Sessions Judge Robert Lincoln arraigned Johnson by video Monday morning and appointed attorney Jim Lonon to represent him.

If convicted as an adult, Miller faces life in prison as would Johnson. If his case remains in juvenile court and his case is handled there, Miller could only be held in custody until he is 19 years old.

Johnson is accused of watching Miller kill Cooper sometime on May 7. According to a court affidavit, Johnson did not intervene in the killing or contact authorities after it happened.

Police also wrote in the court document that Johnson retrieved a trash can from outside the residence and “instructed the juvenile to place the victim’s body inside the trash can.”

One or both of them put the can back outside, according to police, but Cooper’s body was not discovered until around 1:30 a.m. May 9.

When police responded to 2472 Mint Hill Road about 1:30 a.m. Saturday on a death investigation, Tony Hyder was sitting over top of Cooper’s body in the side yard of the apartment building crying, according to the police report. Hyder, 58, 446 S. Broadway St., was apparently Cooper’s boyfriend.

Investigators remained silent Monday about details of the killing, including what prompted them to charge Miller and Johnson with felony murder. Felony murder requires that the killing occurred during the commission of one of a list of specific crimes that include acts of terrorism, arson, rape, robbery, burglary, theft, kidnapping, aggravated child abuse, aggravated child neglect, aircraft piracy or discharging a bomb.

“We’re not releasing that until we get the autopsy back,” said Johnson City Police Lt. Steve Sherfey. He did confirm that Cooper suffered no trauma, no knife wounds and no gunshot wounds.

“The autopsy has not been done. They should be doing that (Tuesday),” he said. An investigator in the case will likely be present for that procedure, Sherfey said.

District Attorney General Tony Clark said earlier in the day that he planned to petition Johnson City Juvenile Court to transfer the boy to adult court for trial, and Assistant District Attorney General Kelly McCoy told Green the state will file that motion.

Johnson remains jailed on a $150,000 bond.

Whatever one might think of his work (and, in fact, there is so much of it that it virtually defies categorization), there is no question that it is invariably provocative and, for me at least, goes a long way to defining what “avant garde” signifies both in the best and broadest sense of the word and in any meaningful contemporary usage. I think that a major reason why Skot’s art remains so woefully (in fact, tragically) under-appreciated may well be that his very prolificness conspires to make it difficult to easily encompass the work as a whole.  Its sheer volume and variety defies easy labeling and this of course plays directly to the intellectual laziness and commercial corruption of the art establishment.

Of late, Skot has been delighting cineastes everywhere with Bunker Vision, his wonderful film column in Tulsa Kinney’s artzine Artillery. Perhaps more easily accessible than his painting and work in other media, the column nevertheless reflects the same playful yet transgressive sensibility that informs and illuminates all of his art and that makes it at once so delightful and yet disturbing .

Links:

BUNKER VISION (column)              PALIMPSESTS (web site)