Appreciation: Humor was Bruce Conner’s art
by Kenneth Baker, Chronicle Art Critic
San Francisco Chronicle
July 11, 2008

Having announced his death on two previous occasions, Bruce Conner actually did die on Monday at 74.

The false alarms were part of his continual toying with the nature of personal and artistic identity. Conner liked to have control - the neatness of his house attested to that - and the nearest he could come to controlling public information about himself was to inject it with ruses and contradictions.

The shaggy look of his early assemblages earned Conner a place in the Bay Area tendency briefly known as Funk art. But that shagginess is deceptive. The unflinching, albeit intuitive, control he brought to those works’ composition accounts for the inventive power that still burns through their period quality when encountered half a century later.

Long before the shaky ground of selfhood became a theme of postmodernism, Conner was working and playing with it. The work in his 2000 retrospective at the de Young Museum was so diverse that, as I wrote at the time, “it could almost be taken for the output of a movement rather than an individual.” (more…)

The saga continues…

Czech artists to be retried over nuclear blast prank
CTV.ca
July 7, 2008

Prague (AP) — An appeals court has ordered a retrial for a group of artists who hacked into a national television weather broadcast to show a fake nuclear explosion in the Czech mountains, an official said Monday.

Members of the Prague-based Ztohoven art group admitted tampering with equipment at the public broadcaster Czech Television so viewers watching a live panoramic shot of the Krkonose, or Giant Mountains, in June last year saw a flash of bright light and a fiery mushroom cloud rising on the horizon.

Seven artists were acquitted of spreading false information in March but the state prosecutor appealed the verdict. An appeals court in Hradec Kralove, east of the capital Prague, overturned the decision last week in a ruling made public Monday, court spokesman Michal Strnad said. (more…)

From the HBO Website:

The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not for Sale is the unusual story of the rise and fall of a major talent, along with Julian Schnabel and Jean-Michel Basquiat, from the 1980s art world. Though he was extremely talented with a profitable collection of work, Chuck Connelly ended up alienating every collector and gallery owner he worked with. This 63-minute documentary (currently airing on HBO) follows the life of this brilliant yet enigmatic painter, who had great success as a young artist but who now sees his career fading.

Driven by desperation, and left by his wife during the course of this documentary, Connelly hires an actor to pose as a young, upcoming artist to sell Chuck’s work to galleries and art dealers.

For more information, check out:

(more…)

From Charlie Todd, July 6, 2008:

For our latest mission, we filled a subway car with identical twins, creating a human mirror. Enjoy the video first and then check our Website for our report with tons of photos.

Edited by Matt Adams, song by Tyler Walker

From zeroslotm

From Norm Magnusson:

Greetings far-flung art lovers,

In case you missed my recent installation of “Youth Culture in America”…

. . . here are some upcoming exhibitions to put on your calendar:

(more…)

The 10 Most Awesome Ass-Rocket Moments

From Cotton and Sand where you’ll find the other nine!

thanks Erin

Breaking News: President Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Presidency

From The Onion, via Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish

Another example of astroturfing and viral marketing:

Guys fill their jeans with helium
by Unbuttoned Films

via Damn Cool Pics

Here’s another wonderful Animator vs. Animation piece by Alan Becker. Click on this link and enjoy. thanks Erin

Related Link:

Animator vs. Animation, by Alan Becker, June 9, 2008.

San Francisco to vote on naming sewer after George Bush
by Guy Adams
The Independent
27 June 2008

Some presidents get carved into Mt Rushmore; others have airports, motorways, and even entire cities named in their honour. But when George Bush leaves office, his most visible memorial may be a mouldering patch of
human effluent.

In November, alongside casting their ballot for the next president, the people of San Francisco will also vote on a measure to rename one of the city’s largest sewage works the George W Bush Sewage Plant, to provide a “fitting monument” to the outgoing commander-in-chief’s achievements.

Activists from the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco, a mischievously-named group behind the move, will ask supporters to participate in a “synchronised flush”.

It may sound like a student prank, but the proposal is almost certain to be passed. Democrats usually secure between 70 and 80 per cent of the vote in San Francisco - and in 2006 passed a proposition to impeach Mr Bush and his Vice-President Dick Cheney by a majority of almost two to one. (more…)

Revealed after 50 years: The secret of the greatest-ever student prank
by Laura Clark
Mail Online
27th June 2008

It was probably the most ingenious student prank of all time.

In June 1958, Cambridge awoke to see a car perched at the apex of an inaccessible rooftop, looking as if it were driving across the skyline.

The spectacle made headlines around the world and left police, firefighters and civil defence units battling for nearly a week to hoist the vehicle back down before giving in and taking it to pieces with blowtorches.

The shadowy group of engineering students who executed the stunt were never identified and the mystery of how they did it has baffled successive undergraduates and provided fodder for countless tourist guides.

Now, 50 years on, the group have reunited to disclose their identities and reveal how they winched an Austin Seven to the top of the university’s 70ft-high Senate House. (more…)

High fuel prices put pinch on Nevada brothels
by Martin Griffith
1010Wins (AP)
June 29, 2008

… In response to a 5 percent drop in business, the Shady Lady Ranch along U.S. 95 about 150 miles north of Las Vegas…offers special monthly discounts, including an offer of 45 minutes of services for $175 instead of the usual rate of $200.

Under a promotion under way at the Moonlite BunnyRanch near Carson City, the first 100 customers who arrive with government stimulus checks receive twice the services for the same regular price.

“We’re calling it double your stimulus,” said BunnyRanch owner Dennis Hof. “The brothel industry is having to get more creative just like all consumer products in America. Everybody has got to deal, and we’re doing the same thing.”

Read the whole article here.

Art Buchwald Couldn’t Make This Man Laugh
by Daniel Carty
CBS.com
June 25, 2008

Famed Columnist’s FBI File Shows J. Edgar Hoover Was No Fan

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Art Buchwald poked fun at the powerful during his storied career - but one frequent target, longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, wasn’t laughing.

Hoover, who ran the federal law enforcement agency for nearly a half century, ordered agents to keep close tabs on the humorist - even having one G-man report on a Buchwald interview in Playboy, the columnist’s FBI file reveals.

Buchwald’s columns - including one in which he suggested Hoover didn’t exist and was a phantom named after the vacuum cleaner company - apparently rankled the FBI boss. Hoover repeatedly referred to Buchwald as a “sick comic,” according to the file, amassed over nearly two decades.

The 239-page file was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, which allows such documents to become public after the subject dies. Buchwald, whose Washington Post-based column was syndicated for decades, died in January 2007.

Editor’s Note: CBSNews.com producer Daniel Carty obtained the FBI file on Art Buchwald last year while a student at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. (more…)

Update June 27, 2008 from Brad Carter:

Looks like someone put the below instructional to good use and drove the employees and manager of a Burger King nuts:

Burger King Drive Thru Takeover

via fitzmxr

Submitted by Brad Carter from Phone Losers of America, March 30, 2008:

Here’s a video that shows you how to modify an old CB radio to broadcast on fast food frequencies. The things said to the customers at the end of the video are hilarious. And mean. It’s a cool little hack, though.