their words, not mine!

another good line from the article author: “Chicago was trying to win consecutive games for the first time since June 16-17.”

Now this is what I call a scouting report!

Phillies in San Francisco, you can see almost the entire Giants team in the frame – all but the left fielder. Ryan Howard eventually hit the ball to the second baseman, in the outfield. An outfield single that resulted in an out at first! Howard may be a “natural home run hitter” but this frame shows to me why he’s an over-valued $25million/year player. He doesn’t posses opposite-field threat the way Rodriguez or Pujols do. Maybe it’s a left-handed hitter thing, but Howard almost always pulls the ball. When he goes the other way it’s usually not intentional, and you can see even with two outs the Giants were willing to give up a double (he doesn’t run that fast) if he did go the other way because odds were he was going to pull it to right field and at least force a play.

from the same game click here to see a video of one of the most spectacular double plays imaginable – at the 30second mark

If you’re a baseball fan like me you might have signed up – impulse buy – for MLB’s Postseason.tv package. Frankly I would rather have flushed a $10 bill down the toilet for the novelty of the moment, rather than endure the frustrations of launching this service.

The image above shows you what you get, more or less. And when you’re thinking about buying the service you probably see splashy windows or slick features designed to empty your wallet. But then you notice things. And pretty quickly, because they’re important to the function of watching baseball. Like there’s no HUD. No balls-strikes count, no inning, no mini box score, no nothing. There’s no information to assist you as a watcher.

Of course you could also launch their “gameday” feature, which will give you all of that information. But then you’d require a second monitor if you wanted to watch the game proper fullscreen! Or there are these other buttons for “highlights”, “summary” etc that show you the information you want, but it overlays over the actual game! So you miss the game if you’re trying to look for information to help you with watching the game!

Now they try and sell you with the “create your own experience” angle. With each stadium there are around 6-12 cameras to choose from that you can pump to your screen. Of course, they don’t tell you sometimes your screen will be flooded with tech garble:

Fuck the what!?

And no matter how many times I hit that flipping “SYNC” button it never works:

note Clayton Kershaw in his delivery in the bottom-left, but with Martin already approaching the mound in the top right.

Furthermore they’re pumping you the TBS audio, but the video is not the TBS national television broadcast. So sometimes the announcers are talking about things that are being shown for a television audience, but as a web-user you’re clueless.

And oh yeah, that yellow bounding box around the selected video – scroll back up to the header image to see what I’m talking about – there’s no way to get that yellow box to disappear!

This thread over at mlbsupport shows the frustrations that so many users have had with purchasing this postseason package.

Fans beware!

This is an interesting use of Twitter-tracking (called “Pulse”) that I found integrated into the boxscore/wrap review of Game 1 of the NLDS between the St. Louis Cardinals and the LA Dodgers. The Redbirds unfortunately lost, and this timeline-graph shows a correlation between game highlights and spikes in activity on Twitter tracking the game; the other spikes were probably due to non-highlight pressures like loaded bases, pitcher-hitter matchups, defensive plays, etc.

Does the team that Twitters the most, win? It’s an interesting thought.

I’ve never left a baseball game before the last out. Even when things are desperate (like last week when I saw my Cardinals get obliterated by the Mets, 9-0 at New Shea Stadium in Queens), you still see remarkable baseball in those twilight hours, the type of thing you’ll hear about later and wish you would have stayed to see it. These screencaps from a game yesterday with the Florida Marlins (my pick for the NL East this year) in Philly show that Philadelphia fans clearly don’t feel the same, even though they’re defending World Series champions and currently atop the NL East (before the series with the Marlins they were ahead by 7.0 games, now only 4.0 games, which shows how fast one series can turn the tides!). Their fans, upset by the Ejectorino incident, multiple Ryan Howard hits into double-plays, Werth’s glove blunder, and general Philly ‘tude lead to an abandonment of the park by their supporters.

Look at their crowd, their support, in the bottom of the first inning:

now look at their crowd in the 9th, more blue seats than red shirts:

10-3 is not a lost cause I might add. I’ve seen Boston rally from down 6-1 to 6-5 in the ninth, ending with a bases loaded play, against and at the cathedral of their arch rival Yankees. The night before my Cardinals got obliterated even, they rallied from down 7-4 at one point to tie it at 7 by the ninth, then blow it out of the water in the 10th to win, 12-7 (game results here). It can happen. You can see it happen. But you have to stay. Until the final out.

Oh yeah, who the HELL is Chris Coghlin? He’s already set a multihit streak for Florida, but his bio is empty and he has no stats. Where does Florida get these guys from!?

A good lookin’ bunch of boys they are (boys? Heck. They could sire me! I can’t believe I’m older than most of these youngins!)

And it’s true, we currently are the Best team in baseball. Boston could tie us with another win but we’re better than everybody else by at least one win or one loss. That’s good enough for me. I really do like our chances. I’ve liked Greene since before they acquired him (he just needs to hit a little better, and commit fewer errors); the Ludwick/Pujols combo is a force to be reckoned with, both are power hitters who can small ball when the situation calls for it; Duncan seems to be improving his patience at the plate; Molina, nuff said!; I’d like to see some control improvement from Wellemeyer and when we get Carpenter back in mid-May watch out! And will someone just give Franklin the closer-ball already! He’s been my Fantasy closer for four bloody months now.

Go Redbirds! (stupid cubbies)

158 more games to go. fun fun fun.

This is more of a gripe than anything reflective about the old pasttime or even vaguely commentary about the sport. Rather, I simply can’t afford it anymore. For the past three seasons I’ve subscribed to MLB.tv’s online streaming package, so that I could watch a ton of games all season, except for national blackout games and games aired in my billing zip code (which includes the Yankees and Mets which was disappointing to learn only after subscribing the first year that’s how it works).

And while this year is $10 cheaper than last year and includes lots of great new features and will no doubt be an improvement over last year’s quality and control (as was last year the year before it), I simply can’t afford it anymore. My argument is more than fiscal however. I can’t afford to contribute to a sport where the Yankees’s signings of Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett costs a staggering $423.5 million. Still my argument isn’t actually about those players, or any player for that matter. If the players are making that much money, that means the sport as a business model has to be making more than that for it to be profitable. Because no one would be interested in baseball these days if it wasn’t profitable. So imagine how much money the owners of MLB and these stadiums must be raking in.

So it saddens me. It saddens me that I get so much out of the game and especially out of watching the game, as many millions of other fans do each year. But this year I won’t be subscribing to MLB.tv online and I’ll have to be very cautious if inclined at all to go to the ballparks this year. The economy definitely has something to do with it. But I can’t stomach anymore reading about Manny holding out to be the highest paid player; or A-Rod making $200+ mil over the next 9 seasons while his legacy is tainted; or CC Sabathia making an average of $3,000 per pitch over the course of his contract. So I won’t subscribe in the hope that my lost $109 subscription will be felt throughout MLB. As if they’re even listening.

(like I said, it’s a gripe. It’ll probably fade by Opening Day. I don’t have a television so it’s been my only means to watch the sport. I also have to sort out the conundrum I just made for myself: creating a baseball category then professing I won’t have anything to do with it anymore!)

Straight up: I love Albert Pujols.

As Spring Training has begun I can’t help but get excited by my Cardinals prospects this upcoming season. I only mention baseball so often around these parts but always try to ensure my comments are about some nuance or subtlety to the game, or in the case of Scott Spiezio pitching flat-out awesome (which, by the way, the video has been deleted from the YouTube site but seems to be streaming correctly as an embedded file! Suckers!).

But Albert Pujols is an all-around amazing individual, not only a likely Hall of Famer with a consistent .357 average, but someone who does a lot for his community and given the wake of the whole A-Rod PED scandal, an even more-amazing individual because you can tell his game is au natural. You can see it in his eyes. And you can hear the honesty in his voice when he says things like this:

People from other teams want to play in St. Louis and they’re jealous that we’re in St. Louis because the fans are unbelievable. So why would you want to leave a place like St. Louis to go somewhere else and make $3 or $4 more million a year? It’s not about the money. I already got my money. It’s about winning and that’s it. It’s about accomplishing my goal and my goal is to try to win. If this organization shifts the other way then I have to go the other way.

In other words, if management shift their approach to team-building he would consider other clubs, otherwise it’s clear St. Louis is the city to play for. Words like this could only have come from someone nutured in the midwest I reckon, the firm belief that it’s not about the money, it’s about what the money signifies. Sure, money is nice but in the end, it’s all about HIT IT TO THE PITCHER!

full article here

So I’m working on my laptop early morning style, sitting on the balcony (it’s the only place to get WiFi for some reason) and I left the television running on CNN because it’s the only English station (with Hungarian commercials) and I hear the ‘Play of the Day’ in “World Sport”. It’s Rick Ankiel of the St. Louis Cardinals! He went deep twice and made an amazing catch in the 8th (after his two homers, proving offensive and defensive maneuvers!).

Hopefully Ankiels’ return will give a morale boost to the Redbirds and we’ll see the NL Central heat up a bit. First we need to get to .500, but with plenty of games left and only 6.5 games behind the Brewers, and 5 behind the Cubs, August and September could prove very interesting.

In other Redbirds related news, two evenings ago I saw the SKAtalites play at the World Music stage at the Sziget festival, and there in the crowd on an island of 40,000+ people, I found the lone other Cardinals fan:

[full-size on Flickr]

In no particular order:

Queens, the Blackout, the Sunnyside Gate

I took this photo a year ago today. It was the 2006 Queens Blackout [Gothamist article from same day].

[full-res image on Flickr]

I still have the NYTimes article from that weekend laying around. The Blackout (capital B) eventually went for a full 10 days, service in my home didn’t get partially restored until the ninth. I still think about the Blackout a lot, mostly for how it drove people out of their homes – at a certain point it was cooler outside in the shade than trapped in your brick-oven apartment – and the number of conversations that took place on the streets that wouldn’t have happened otherwise; how people on Steinway Street watched the ConEd workers pace back and forth in their trenches, scratching their heads; how much equipment surfaced that I had never seen before, boxes with weird appendages, trucks with huge hoses, and how now a lot of that hardware seems common (did the Blackout allow for bigspending?).

The Blackout was also the first time I became intimately engaged with the Sunnyside Gate, or arch. The gate, an 80s art deco style entrance to the heart of Sunnyside, has been in disrepair for some time. During the Blackout I was moved by the ConEd worker moving below it, the entrance blocked off by his truck, manhole and orange barrier ribbon, the irony of him navigating subterranean networks trying to fix a grid in the shadow of something that hadn’t worked in years. As ugly as the gate may be, I understood its silent beauty and wished for it to be lit up, like a beacon.

To this day I continue looking at the gate, and will routinely take the 7 train another stop out just to get another look, take another photo, watch the scene as people pass around, under and through this defunct, monolithic, pitiful structure.

Then the Queens Crapper recently highlighted that indeed money has been reserved for improving the gate, although it hasn’t exactly been well-managed.

Baseball

Earlier this week I caught another game at The Stadium, this time to watch the Yankees take on the Toronto Blue Jays. A friend’s little brother has season tickets and he couldn’t go, so my friend offered to go with me. She once bragged that her father has behind-dugout season tickets, and while I thought if her brother had anything comparable that would be great, as it’s a game of baseball I’ll go no matter what. As it would turn out, these aren’t your father’s behind-dugout tickets:

(the transition from day to night during the course of the game is something I love about evening games, the field flickers and changes right in front of you)

Still, way more exciting than the previous game I went to at Yankee Stadium against the Red Sox, where I spent as much time fearing for my life as I did watching the game! For this game though the Jays put up a good fight and at times shut the crowd up with their game, but when it mattered it mattered and I still suspect it was the cheering and overwhelming noise of the crowd which in the bottom of the ninth made the Toronto pitcher accidentally balk in the tying run, eventually going extra innings which the Yankees won with a walk-off single in the bottom of the 10th from Robinson Cano to score Alex Rodriguez from second base. Pretty spectacular.

We celebrated with a ceremonial peanut smashing:

Hungary – Emergency!

A couple days ago I heard that it was hot in Hungary, like reeeeal hot. Hot enough to be classified a stay-in-your-homes heat wave. Then I came across this website, oddly enough ran from Hungary, which is the best and most-comprehensive Emergency and Disaster Information Service I have ever seen! If you want to be completely aware of how unaware you are of the sheer number of disasters – man-made and natural – that occur every hour of every day, then this is the website for you. It’s fucking impressive. And they have a feed too so you can subscribe to that. 30… 50 disasters a day. With comprehensive summaries and occasional photos, maps, etc. FUCKING IMPRESSIVE!

old wallet, new wallet, and caramel

Talking about Hungary. I figured I should square away a few things about my person before I go on this trip. One of those included finally getting round to acquiring a new wallet. I didn’t want to go abroad looking like a total buffoon:

I still have cards in here from London, that’s almost three years ago! Never cleared the thing out.

that zipper and top ripped a looooong time ago!

where did it all go? all the vitals are in there!

it came with a crisp new buck.

I mean, a buffoon sure, but not a total buffoon! I won’t detail the horror stories about how long I had been carrying that old wallet around… with caramel melted in the change purse! Years… years I say.

the new Transformers movie

I still haven’t seen it. But I have seen this!

and now you have too!

And now… perhaps critically speaking:

Yeah, buried way down here. Way near the end of the post. It’s been a long time coming, but I think it’s finally time to start considering my role and possible departure from the Flux Factory, the live-work artist collective I’ve been a part of for the last two years. Two fruitful and exciting years, but eventually the scales have to tip, and they’ve tipped in favor of a different path.

There are two distinct aspects to life at Flux Factory: what we call the House (living), and the not-for-profit (working), the organization. The House is solid. It’s fun and wacky and is always full of new life (literally, people rotate out of this place about every 3 months). But it has too many overlaps and is too burdened by its association with the organization, or so I have come to believe. It’s a symbiotic relationship yes, but increasingly the organization milks more from the House than it can supply. And I am at conceptual odds, and have been since I stepped foot in the place, with how things are ran.

The fact is that it isn’t a collective. There isn’t an established democratic process and eventually all decisions lie in the hands of a small pool of people, the group that have been here the longest. It was, after all, founded and built up by them, it’s only human that they organize themselves in this way. But as I told one of my housemates last week: if a project isn’t entirely sound, if the artists involved aren’t committed entirely, I would rather see projects not happen, not be forced to happen (just for the sake of fulfilling grant requirements and other burdens). I would then organize all the material, the debates, the notes, the work that never fabricated, into the work. That would be the work!

Around here they force work to happen. There’s always this notion of a ‘last minute push’ – they have devised this very notion because for the most part we spend most of our collective time not making art. While many of the people involved are good thinkers, and crafty people, some are excellent builders, etc., they don’t spend their spare time making work. There’s no ‘little art’, nothing that would show you the working methods, the thinking process, or ever the failed works – only these huge gargantuan installations that are excessive in their resources and use of materials. Furthermore, they don’t know how to document. What’s the point of not making little art – drawings, notes, collage, photos, short videos, etc. – and only relying on these monumental installations if you don’t at least properly document the damned things? Seriously.

Like I said, conceptual odds.

I have many points of contention, many examples, but I’m not looking to build a case study. However, the final blow was finally delivered not in a single moment but over the course of the past two months. I only then realized what I was working with.

The photo that opened this section and the images below show the current state of the Flux Factory gallery, an approximate 2,000 sq. ft. space, your typical rectangular white box space, 12 ft. ceilings, etc. For the course of the summer we were aware that there would be no exhibition proper in our gallery space, and so some of us championed the notion of turning the gallery into work spaces, like mini studios, for people to work on their own projects and especially to work on the upcoming project Sziget. I looked forward to not having to work in my bedroom all the time, and quickly set up camp after the last show was dismantled and its contents put to one side.

Whereas I tried to maintain a healthy working space, overturning my materials, making new work, collapsing some work and refashioning it into newer work, the rest of the gallery eventually degraded into a dumping ground for various people and various reasons. Some things people just didn’t want to deal with in their rooms; some people who made messes and never clean up after themselves; but all seem to not know just how precious this space and time really was. Given the cost of NY real estate and that we are all artists, I was baffled that, this was the best they could come up with?

Some other Fluxers felt alienated by this space, and commented that they could never come to work in it, given the mess. This is the weight of one, two or three people burdening the collective. This upsets me. I can’t contribute to this model any further.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually think the mess and detritus is inspiring. There’s a lot of shit going on in there! But if that isn’t the point, if that isn’t the work, then I’m just confused. This isn’t a Tomoko Takahashi or Thomas Hirschhorn installation – this is just crap.

Time isn’t money, and space isn’t just a way to comprehend the third dimension, these two together are what life is made up of. As an artist if you have very little space but lots of time, you will find a way to carve out for yourself more space (not the carving part but this notion reminds me of that White Stripes song, ‘Little Room’); if you have massive amounts of space but little time, chances are it’s because you’re busy, making more work. For the first time in the 2+ years I’ve lived here we had an opportunity to really understand time and space as it relates to our own and our collective work. I think we squandered the opportunity. Given the chance to do it again, I don’t think a single thing would change. I think this is our eternal collective damnation. Personally, I want a change of scenery.

Asides:

The beard: I’m going to do it. I’m going to shave it off! I’ve had facial hair for nearly nine months, ever since I started growing it last october for the playoffs. At times it has been fairly long, but it is time to go.

Hard drive: I had a failure on my primary… well my only, backup drive. This was beginning to be where I kept everything. It failed suddenly. No indications, no warnings. I have many tricks up my sleeve but they all failed – kaputz! Data recovery is in the $600-$1000 range. All of my documents related to my artistic practice are on this drive – there’s no way to measure that ‘value’, it must be recovered. Data loss has gutted me and will drive me broke.

And I’m out…

it’s a testament to the game of baseball that the 2007 All-Star balloting includes the option to cast a Japanese-translated ballot. English and Spanish are the only other options. Is it possible to cast a vote from outside the US? I don’t see why not. Voting online only requests your name, email and birthday, pitting your details against a database of entered information – you can vote up to 25 times. Votes from Japan (and everywhere else for that matter) no doubt would be included in the results.

Pretty remarkable to consider how well the game of baseball has grown in Japan: last year not only did that country win the premiere World Baseball Classic but that same series saw Daisuke Matsuzaka named MVP, who has since been acquired by the Boston Red Sox. With the quality of their athletes, and so many players being acquired by Major League teams, American baseball is increasing its fan-base abroad. In return, those fans are allowed to vote for the All-Star Game, in their native language.

Influence spills both ways it would seem.

6 days left to vote. Don’t know who to vote for? Might I recommend voting for Albert Pujols where applicable, and writing him in for every other position! Pujols for shortstop. Pujols for catcher. That’d be a great game of baseball!

Related websites:
Baseball has been around in Japan for longer than you might think (wikipedia)
How everybody else is beating us at our own game

revenge can be sweet I admit. Wait, revenge? Justice? Ah let’s just have some fun!

The Cardinals current series in Oakland sure has been exciting thus far – and it ain’t over yet! (game-time today 4:05 EST)

Everybody knows the Athletics are good. The second-lowest team-ERA in the majors (after the Padres) means they are likely to shut down the opposing team’s hitting game, even if they themselves aren’t a high-scoring team. One run difference is all it takes (speaking of the Padres, take their ninth-inning home run against Zambrano yesterday on a 3-2 count with 1 out for a 1-0 win over the Chicago Cubs – in total only a 4-hit game! Oh and p.s. Soriano is a primadonna).

But these haven’t been one-run games, coming from two of the lower-scoring teams in the league right now! And other exciting factors have trickled in:

the opening game saw what looked like an aggressive offensive Cardinals lineup scoring against a pitcher with the lowest ERA, Dan Haren, a previous Cardinal himself. Haren entered the game at 1.58 and the Cardinals scored 3 runs off of him in the first three innings; this guy thus far had only allowed 10 runs in the first three innings all year! He now holds a 1.64 ERA.

but after those 3 runs the Cardinals wouldn’t score again and in fact the A’s rebounded with multiple 6-run innings, and closed out with a 14-3 victory. Ouch!

Perhaps because of those excessive numbers, or perhaps to give his bullpen some relief, or perhaps just for the sheer novelty of it, Tony La Russa put in Scott Spiezio to pitch the bottom of the 8th! Yes, Spiezio! La Russa of course won a world series ring with the A’s in 1989 and Scott Spiezio broke into the majors in 1996 with the A’s, so the fans were loving it! And for those that don’t know, Spiezio is NOT a pitcher – he’s a field position player! So this was exciting!

Spiezio opened with a strike and pitched a no-hit inning, walking one. During his warm-up he was all smiles, and left to a standing ovation! Ahh the spectacle of baseball!

Spiezio’s grip

Spiezio’s delivery

Here’ see for yourself:
[UPDATE: unfortunately Major League Baseball had YouTube delete my video. Sorry everybody. That thing had over 1,300 views in three days too, dagnabbit!]

[UPDATE 2: for those still coming round these parts, I put a Quicktime mov file online of Scott Spiezio pitching. I'll leave it online for a month or so. Grab it now while you can. SPIEZIO QUICKTIME MOV - (right click 'save file as')]

The following evening though our Cardinals would enact their revenge: Taguchi had four hits, Encarnacion drove in 3 runs (and now has a sixteen-game hit-streak, best for the Cardinals this year), and Duncan had a pinch-hit grand slam in the fifth, the first of his career, and part of a 10-run – yes, 10-run! – inning that would propel the Cardinals to a then 15-3 score! The A’s would bounce back with a 3-run home run the bottom of the same inning, and while both teams would be scoreless the rest of the game it was a rollercoaster – the A’s had 14 hits but only 6 runs, that tells you how many LOBs they had. Final 15-6. WOW!

Interleague play continues!

ALSO, Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there!

Earlier this week I finally made it out to Yankee Stadium – The Stadium – for the first time, to see a tension-laden, one could even say downright aggressive, standoff between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Of course, when I say aggressive, I’m not talking about the teams – sure the Yankees were aggressive early on hitting two home runs off Wakefield in as many innings – but the crowd! My lordy! I’ve never felt so threatened for my personal space and my company’s security, while supposedly enjoying an American pastime sport, than this past Monday evening! And it wasn’t all New York fans, don’t get me wrong.

Because of the proximity and history of these two towns and teams, there’s a lot of banter from both sides. Well there’s banter and then there’s downright slander: “Fuck Boston!” Me, I’m a Cardinals fan! I went with my buddy Dan Mulcare and at one point he asked, but isn’t there a deep rivalry between the Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs, don’t St. Louis fans act the same? No! Absolutely not! We cheer when the opposing team’s pitcher is pulled from the game after he pitches us 7 shutout innings! Because we recognize he’s that good! I like to see good baseball, and my definition of that is baseball that achieves some sophistication and amazement. “Boston Sucks” t-shirts are about as puerile as they come, and to be a middle-aged man wearing that to a public sporting event, well, need I say more? (However, I will add, the Mets are Pond Scum – that’s for you Josh!)

I saw a good dozen fights break out and my party reckon that somewhere between 60 to 100 people got ejected from the game that day. It was pure ruckus.

But back to the Stadium. Like I say this was my first time there and I’m starting to become interested in the presence of stadiums. Yankee Stadium from the outside feels trapped, condensed. There’s no open swathe of land surrounding it. There’s no way to really step back from it, to take it in. The train buzzes above and trees block lines of sight all around; shadows from nearby buildings cut the light and there’s no opening through/into the stadium to be seen from street level. Instead baseball-themed shops surround part of the Stadium. But once you get in the Stadium, that sense of density disappears and makes way for an incredible openness. The Stadium almost feels like it’s the only thing on the planet; you can barely see anything outside of the Stadium except for a small pack of mid-rise apartment complexes and the occasional train passing between a sliver of space out beyond right-center field. Suddenly you forget about anything but baseball. And once the sun sets, a capacity crowd of over 55,000 helps one focus their attention to the matters at hand.

And as you probably guessed from my telling of Wakefield’s early beating, unfortunately the Bosox lost, 6-2. Dan wasn’t too happy with the results.

(Meanwhile my team rebounded from a five-game loosing streak to sweep the Pittsburgh Pirates for three tonight back in the new Busch Stadium, which is great. After tonight Molina is hitting above .300 and Eckstein, Pujols and now Encarnacion upon his return are all starting to show signs of improved hitting. Bottom line is we’re hungry. A sweep of the Nationals starting tomorrow would really boost morale and if Chicago and Houston both loose their next couple games could put us in 2nd within a half-dozen games behind the Brewers.)

Meanwhile:
My first full beard finally met its match: spring is here!

Spring has been here for some time actually, but I was apprehensive to depart with something which took so long to acquire and was so attached to me – it’s on my face after all! Additionally, I have yet to see myself with a beardless face and my new otchkies, so that still makes me a little nervous!

Shaving off the long hair really brought out the red and white of the roots. It also makes me look a full decade younger, even though I’m not that old to begin with! Oddly, if I was to shave the stubble off now, I’d look another decade younger, something I’ve always been amazed with the ability of my face and its features to achieve. Truly… odd!

Nearby:

the Peter Fischli & David Weiss opening was at the Swiss Institute this past week, presenting ‘Books, Editions and the Like’ (i.e. posters & video). Some really great paper works are on view here, simple but amazing uses of prints, books, drawings, found images, etc. Got me thinking again – and excited for – about the possibility of basic paper-based work and how simple selection-processes can go a long way and actually form a cornerstone of one’s practice.

Elsewhere:

• Pandora redesigned their interface. Immediately much-more clean and fluid. Items placed in menus make more sense now – thanks!
• Banksy has been revealed
• Sammy reminds me of all that is strange and wonderful about the net
• Jeanne d’Arc et les Melons – premiered at and celebrating Kerry’s bye bye boobie party

Ahead:
I only just realized yesterday I’m not working this weekend, so I’m taking a quick trip out of town this weekend, to a farm upstate, ahead of a grudgingly looooooong work-week next week of around 50+ hours. They have a pool and two huge labradors and fresh chicken eggs and a newly-acquired Xbox 360. It will be a tough life for a few days. Point is I won’t be blogging for that time – I might be drafting things but you won’t see any activity around here for a good 3-4 days. Enjoy your weekend everybody – I’ll see ya when I see ya!

(when that screenshot was taken it was 1-1 with Eckstein on 2nd, Duncan on 1st; Pujols hit a beautiful shot to right-center field, splitting the outfielders, for a standing double, allowing Eckstein and Duncan to score, making it 3-1. no outs. more to come!)

another ‘four day’ stint without focused commitment to blogging and I found myself staring at the ‘post box’ as it’s called and wondering how to regain my momentum. and oddly enough it’s not a dilemma of not knowing what to say, it’s a dilemma of having too much and trying to remember where to begin again, of how to collect everything I should have said between then and now. i don’t want to ramble but i’m just too excited by it all so hopefully you’ll bear with me.

it was a crazy past-week for openings and shows. and it’s an even crazier week ahead. Don’t forget to sleep.

the 10th (has it really been that long?) was the Project 1981 opening. I did manage to put some photos up on my Flickr account (oh there I gone and done it now! I said my Flickr! egads!) but I never got around to the meat of the show. I got talking with a friend at the opening about the dilemma of openings themselves. I mentioned that somebody else said I missed completely one piece in the show: because of the crowd, I managed to walk around a vitrine – I later went back to view it once the crowd started to breathe a little bit, but the point is that at openings, depending on the size of the crowd and the size of the space, sometimes seeing the work is just not possible. Not seeing it with certain comforts that is, like space, time and the absence of noise. My friend elaborated: I was told that the opening for the show was basically the run of the show. The work might stay up for another few weeks but it would be by appointment only, not ‘open’ per se. I was unaware of this and commented that it’s difficult because you want as many people to gather at the openings as possible, but you also want to see the work (or in the case of one piece to hear it, impossible at openings because of the noise volume of the crowd). As it would turn out the show is up for a couple extra weeks (the website indeed says until the 28th, by appointment), but for shows that really do only last a week, or a couple of days even, the problem of having the space and time to see the work and maximizing attendance is impossible to solve. But now that I think on it that we were even having that conversation, while immersed in the crowd, is the interesting bit – unable to enjoy the work as it should be but still able to exchange ideas.

two days later I returned to work, still sick at the time, and we had less than two days to complete our installation. while the largest group show I have seen installed in our space, the process was pretty chill and most things were dealt with simply as they arose. and while the opening was a success, I still can’t help but reflect back to the process of these installations themselves, which are sometimes easily the most rewarding part of organizing and installing shows:

(and sometimes way cooler than the work you’re meant to be installing!)

moving ahead Thursday night was the ‘My Country’ opening at the Hungarian Cultural Center. The two artists – Andrea Dezso and Miwa Koizumi, both artists I have worked with on other projects before – are highly aesthetically driven. Miwa carried out a performance for the opening where she used paper-shredded ‘wishes’ written down by viewers to create these small geological-esque paper hill formations and other structures; Andrea’s main body of work on display were approximately 40 small embroideries that illustrated things her mother once told her, many of which manage to be simultaneously sinister and fantastical, touching on topics such as sex, semen, aliens, digestive tracts – you get the idea!

Somewhere in the midst of all this activity also, Manami Fujimori paid a visit out to Flux Factory. Manami is an absolute delight! She’s nothing but energy, completely excited to see work and the spaces of artistic production and life. She was writing about Flux Factory and the crossover of artists who also involve themselves within an arts organization. She’s full of interesting questions and I can’t wait to read her thoughts (it’ll also help kick me in the butt and remind me to finally develop a ‘press’ section in the blog already!).

Finally a 3-day weekend!

Saturday night was the Building Show opening at Exit Art. It’s been a while since I’ve managed to get to an Exit Art opening, but as always it was well-crowded and generally up-beat. I got into discussions with several people since the opening and found that some people are more put-off by Exit Art than I ever have been or even thought to be. Their argument was that too much of the work tends to be ‘redundant’ or copied, and they’re not convinced by the progression of shows over the years. On the contrary I look at the space (I’ve only ever been aware of their 10th Ave site) and I’m completely in awe. And I’m not simply talking about the physical space, but the whole package: the space, the work, the location, the crowd, it all works for me. When I consider how much of the rest of the city is clogged with tourist traps and shitty bars, of course I find haven in a place like Exit Art which has consistently made me think and wonder about it’s programme. Maybe it’s more-easy for others to come to finite conclusions about their opinions, but I like to keep my nerves on-end!

Continuing on, I managed to squeeze in a few house parties as well, including one hosted by Stacey Allan, an old acquaintance that I studied with in Chicago and recently ran into again (again again I should say). Twas good to see her and she had a great crowd, including some Canadian friends of hers that I got discussing with about ‘Artist-Run Centres‘, a phrase and organizational structure I was really only recently introduced to – was intriguing to have such a primary conversation conclude so well, and made me want to travel to Canada this year to view and exchange with some ARCs. And thanks to the President’s Day holiday I was able to enjoy a birthday party on Sunday night for Marcela Cussolin whom I recently befriended (oh who am I kidding holiday or not I would have gone and partiiiiieeed wooooo … ahem). Another great crowd, I told another friend of mine that it reminded me of parties in the Midwest, where people are generally warm, relaxed but enjoying themselves, where the kitchen is usually a focus area (after all that’s where the liquor is) and music is of good selection (speaking of one of the hosts, Chris, had one of the largest selections of ‘mash-ups’ I’ve seen, and was the first person I’ve ever seen to actually interface with Front Row on the Macintosh).

Marcela Cussolin with Andy and cake (NOTE the cake was effing delish!)

OHHHHHH otherwise it was the same-ol’ same-ol’. Yeah, right. In other news I finally got cracking on my upcoming lulu book, working from a newly acquired Epson V350 photo scanner. That thing is a beaut! Most-importantly for my own work, and it’s such a simple design feature that really goes far, is the lid can detach and fold back so you can get large items on the flatbed! Wonderful! The other thing heavily weighing on my mind these days is baseball. Spring training games are just about to begin, and I’m about to do something I’ve never done before, which is invest in a major league sport: I plan on purchasing the ‘premium’ package that allows you to listen to/view every game online. I thought of doing this last year but got deterred because of a couple of reasons; but this year I’m committed to it, I want to see specific pitchers pitch, certain batters hit, and follow more games and players. It’s a hefty investment but it’s not about a financial question, it’s a love for the game.

And the week ahead is nothing easy. Is February always this busy? this weekend initiates THE weekend of art fairs around the city, and for the first time I can say that I’m possibly not interested in them. Of course I’ll end up attending one or two, but I won’t be thinking if I don’t see them all then I’ve fallen short, the way I have in the past (oh the guilt!). Truth is there’s always more going on than one can achieve, so one can’t imagine to do it all. Okay okay, you could imagine, but like I’ve said being from the Midwest means practical living and if I can’t do it all then I’ll just do what I like and be happy with that.

See you next time, folks!

Related websites:
Flickr folder for Project1981 opening
Flickr folder for the Building Show opening at Exit Art
Flickr folder for Marcela Cussolin’s 26th Bday party

The Cardinals were more than just the underdog. They came into the post-season with the worst regular-season winning average of all time, at .516! But even as such, they never gave up hope. They, of all teams, know that statistics like this don’t mean diddlysquat! After all they lost in 1987 to the .525 (previous worst!) Minnesota Twins and in 1985 to the .562 (tied for previous fourth worst!) Kansas City Royals, both Midwest teams.

And here we were against the Tigers, undoubtedly one of the best and most-feared AL teams, especially throughout the first half of the regular season. Again, both Midwest teams. And while at the beginning of the playoffs everybody was talking about a Tigers vs Mets or even a repeat ’subway series’ of Yankees vs Mets, I was pushing the notion of a Midwest World Series. How great would that be! And now, after the series, is something even the likes of Bob DuPuy, MLB’s President and chief operating officer mentioned:

To have them win the World Series for the 10th time with the great players they have and keep the championship in the Midwest — in the heartland — is a great thing for baseball.

And most things defied the odds, but worked! Jeff Weaver came from nowhere to go 1-1 this World Series (and probably would have been 2-0 were it not for cheating Kenny Rogers and the “Dirtgate” scandal, more later); Molina hit above .300; Wainwright had to step up as closer to replace Isringhausen and showed what he was made of, shutting up both Carlos Beltran and Brandon Inge, on potentially game-winning at-bats; and Eckstein, you little squeaker, you deserve the MVP!

While the Tiger’s pitching staff will be remembered for committing an unprecedented five errors by four pitchers in five consecutive games, which undoubtedly led to runs for the Cardinals, it also must be remembered that the Cardinals pitching staff shut down the Tigers offense, who batted the second lowest in World Series history, at around .190! If you were to tell me the 95-win Tigers would bat below .200, including Placido Polanco going 0 for 17, I would let you know in Gnarls Barkley fashion, “Well, I think you’re crazy! I think you’re crazy!”

But also, crazy, “just like me“! Like other fans, I grew out my playoff beard, or stubble in my case; I wore a St. Louis t-shirt underneath all my October layers that I didn’t take off or wash in nearly three weeks (I STANK!); and for every World Series game I wore – and never took off – a Cardinals hat that my friend Ashley Sell gave me a couple of months back when I visited my hometown and saw a couple of Cardinals games at the new Busch Stadium (did I mention they won the Championship in the first year of their new stadium? Cmon, that’s pretty fucking magical!!).

But perhaps most magical is the ‘Sea of Red’ effect. This is a phenomenon I have been trying to explain to non-fans and fans from other cities for some time now. I went to a Mets game at Shea Stadium in September, after they had already clinched their division, which was probably why there weren’t a huge number of fans in the stands, but worst was the fans who were there were barely representing their team colors, blue and orange, two great complimentary colors! Whereas Cardinals fans are especially known to wear red no matter the weather or the situation. For our own players we give them something to revel in (from Flickr); for the opposing team we overwhelm them (from Flickr) with the Sea of Red:

We even overwhelm other cities with the Sea of Red!

As for Dirtgate:

I don’t want to hinge on our only loss to the Tigers, after all I never wanted a sweep, but I do want to keep a few things in perspective. Okay so Rogers joins an elite few with 20-plus scoreless innings pitched; but as has already been pointed out, he had this questionable ‘dirt’ on his palm as early as game 3 of the ALCS (from ESPN, pretty reliable source!) against the Oakland Athletics. So 7 of those 23 innings came after he washed his hands after the first inning of game 2 of the World Series, but who knows how many of those previous 14 innings were streakless from cheating? My prediction, or perhaps how I would like to see history avenge Rogers’s work ethic, is that Kenny Rogers will never again reach the postseason, and so his scoreless streak will end full stop at 23. Any pitcher who says this is a blatant liar:

I didn’t know it was there. They told me about [the substance], but it was no big deal.

How the hell do you not notice a “big clump of dirt” (Rogers’s words!) on your PITCHING HAND? That would be like a welder not realizing they are wearing 3D glasses instead of a standard welder’s mask! It’s just plain ridiculous! Your pitching hand is your main tool, and it’s filthy!

You are a cheater Kenny Rogers! And you committed your acts live on television in front of 18.2 million viewers:

Shame on you!

Related websites:
Speaking of the Sea of Red, check out this shot of Kiener Plaza in downtown St. Louis!
Another youtube video that exemplifies the Sea of Red effect, from Game 4 of the 2006 World Series

As I prepared dinner this evening, I had a few minutes to collect my thoughts and then it hit me: the St. Louis Cardinals are one game away from going to the World Series!! The bubble in my throat is nervousness. And wouldn’t you know they’re playing in my borough, Queens, against the Mets.

In the ‘best of 3′ series (after being tied 2-2) they won the first, in St. Louis, then lost the second last night but put up a great fight in the 9th; they’re now playing for keeps, and are tied 1-1 in the beginning of the third.

LETS GO CARDINALS LETS GO!!!

the Cardinals won game 1 of the NLDS; now they’re up 2-0 in game 2, outhitting the Padres 7-2 (after 5 innings). i’m predicting the future now: we win tonight, win game 3 in St. Louis; rest up Carpenter; then we win the World Series. see, wasn’t that simple!

They don’t know what they missed, because it was one of the best baseball games I have seen, ever.

Chris Duncan hit a first-pitch pinch-hit home run in the bottom of the eighth to tie the game 2-2 and began a four-run rally to put the Cardinals up 5-2! All four runs that inning were spectacularly played! And Duncan’s home run was a firecracker. The instant you heard the crack of the bat you knew it was out of the park!

But all the while, what was going through my head was how to organize my digital photos. Earlier in the day I was searching through google links for the means to better organize and tag photos. I use and am a very strong proponent of Picasa, a Google technology. But even Picasa has limitations. Such as the photos above-linked: do I put them in a ‘Friends’ folder for Josh and Ash; in a ‘Cardinals’ folder for the baseball game; or under the rubric ‘St. Louis Trip 2006′ for everything from this trip, and have to visually search for photos therein when I need to? Perhaps the latter makes the most sense now, but I’m not so sure of that even, especially if I wind up taking over 600 photos on this trip, which is looking very likely — how do I find that one photo of Ashley in the crowd of the baseball game?

So one of the first links I stumbled upon in my searches was this post over at the official Google Blog where they mention recently acquiring Neven Vision and their technology which is potentially capable of scanning images and extracting information for you, to heighten search functionality.

I thought, “That’s great” and found it ironic that Google was already pre-eminating this psychological concern among digital photo enthusiasts. But of course they were!! They’re Google!

But then I got wondering about Neven Vision, and who they actually are. My searches were quick and futile, and it shows how when Google acquires technology they really move fast:

went to a STL Cardinals game last night at the new Busch Stadium. I must say the stadium is nice; I wasn’t so sure of the ‘retro’ look they were going for, but there are some choice elements to the structure. My only criticism of the layout is that the condiments trucks are sometimes in open patio areas, and at the game last night it happened to rain early on, so all the napkins became soaked, wasted, and tossed, and not replaced!

And unfortunately the Cardinals lost in terrible fashion to the… ughhhh… Florida Marlins. 9-1. terrible. I’m going to another game tomorrow night with my friends Josh Picker and Ashley Sell, so hopefully that’ll be our retribution.