I *heart* Japan

If you're like I am, then you'll be happy to check out Raymondo's Dance-O-Rama today.

I want my weekends back...

Time is going too fast. But yo,

Check this track. It's pretty much the question to ask.

Hello!

Arkitip has a new issue out. Go get me a copy. :P

Is art boring?

Is art boring?

It's an opinion I've held since 1998. Back then, I was a 3rd year student. The illest painter in the world. I still think I am. Even though I gave it up in my senior year. I told myself painting is antiquated and I developed a huge interest in interactive, computer and internet art. Soon enough I gave that up too. Art is boring. All of it. Looking at art most of the time, is so depressing. After you've seen the classics, it's almost never impressive. Or so I thought.

I had dinner last Friday with a young woman who held the opposite opinion of mine. She loves art. At first I was arrogant and thought that she was crazy. I didn't say that, but I thought it.

Art is boring, my mind held on.

Over the weekend, in between the busy madness that is my regular day, I dis-thought my stance on art using a foreign point of view. Her point of view. I remembered how exciting paint once was. I remembered how looking at painting was once so interesting, so wild on the mind. I remember the first time I saw a de Kooning, the hours I spent with a certain Picasso at the MOMA just before Y2K. I remember how I had stayed up all night reading about the early 1900's in Paris and being fascinated by the art world of yesterday. I remembered a time in my life when art was not boring.

Yesterday evening it hit me like cold rain on a hot day. Art is not boring. My opinion on art is boring. Perhaps I wasn't looking at it right, or not looking deep enough or maybe I have been seeing a lot of low quality art. Low quality art can be boring. But so can low quality music, as can low quality blockbuster movies. But how to make high quality art? Or where to see high quality art? What is quality art? The little answer I have, is right here.

"Art is -- among other things -- continuity, and unthinkable without it. Lacking the past of art, and the need and compulsion to maintain its standards of excellence, Modernist art would lack both substance and justification." © Clement Greenberg

Janis, thanks for making me read that. Thank you for teaching me to paint.

do the hustle

Look at that stash! And that women's pants!

the end is nigh?

And now the fake news. And some absurd real news.

it's the new millenium...

and I'm still old school. My grandmother is proud of me. Who else is there to impress?


So, I know not that many people read this blog but you see the font for that capital C? I need that. Email me. info at rockonski.com PLEASE.

Cal Tjader is someone you should know. Buy a CD. Lick it up. Music lovers know. I like how the Verve logo on the white breaks up the horizontal on the above sleeve. It's obviousness... is what I like about it. The green is handsome yes?

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Gratuitous photo of Pelé macking fur coated women...

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& Senor Coconut:

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Audrey Hepburn's slicked wisp's are kinda ill too.

Crazy weekend. Should be a solid week. I miss you. Yeah, a lot. See you soon.

Summer's Ending...

As far as reggae goes, it's a type of music that reminds me of heat, beers on the beach, palm trees and the Caribbean. So this track is for me an oddity. It could be a rock song, though I'm uncertain, from up north where they have seasons and then simply covered by Joe Gibbs et al. Regardless this track just goes and goes and goes. Just like this summer in Toronto. It's hot and humid mid September. I'm eating it up.

they call me toni kay but...

...you can call me Young Skywalker.

if you don't know, now you know...

What I love about good design...

...is that it's apparent, it needs no explanation. You see it, and it works, you fall in love with it, you pine for it and you wonder if you'll ever be that good. My brother sent me this atelier from France via email with a simple subject line of "Oh brother..." - he left no explanation.

Look at this day bed:


Beauty is truth and needs no further elucidation.

Johnny come lately.

2 weeks ago or so Raekwon rocked it out with El Michels Affair in NYC. Just now I found a small video clip of the combo going through C.R.E.A.M. - it's kinda ill.

There ain't no such thing as half way crooks..

To be honest I'm tired of mashups. Don't get me wrong I like em, but the standard fare of a rock track versus a hip hop track has gone stale. So it's refreshing to hear these Bobb Deep mashups. It's daring to hear Bob's voice echo off on the Shook Ones remix; I-I-I-I. The keyboard on the loops is equally tight. Somehow it's Bob, but it holds that wierd Mobb Deep eeriness going.

*gun finger in the air

Terry Fox Adidas

New Orleans is sinking man, and I don't wanna swim. © Tragically Hip

And that shoes is niiice.