Reuben Negrón.

Just. Kills. Me.

And this is your last weekend to see his show at Like The Spice. A dirty, but mighty love.

Massive.

Alex Waterman in the new IPR space at 110 Livingston

Now, this was some excellent news. The Issue Project Room not only scored a 20 year free lease on their new space in downtown Brooklyn, but they also received a $1.1 million grant from the city to help with the renovations. Sa-weet. This couldn't have happened to a better organization. Hands down, some of the best out-there music curation in the city. Even when the schedule isn't my cup of tea (Which isn't often.) I understand and appreciate the direction and intent. Smart and risky, these guys just kept plugging away. Nice to see the recognition. Even nicer to see the survival and the flourishing.

Volume.

The The New York Ear & Eye Festival, a massive festival of music, non-music, and film opened tonight. The fest runs through Sunday night at the Knitting Factory and couple other venues around town. I'm especially looking forward to the record fair on Sunday at the 92nd Street Y in TriBeCa because, well, I just don't have enough music. Heh.

Kitsch-En-Ade

"You can dust it, and you can wipe it with a damp cloth."
--Thomas Kinkade, emphasizing one of the many selling points of his art on the ShopNBC Network tonight.

Well, at least one artist has figured out how to sell their work in the new market. Kinkade's secret? The "Try Me Price". And really, when it comes art, what price isn't a Try Me price? I still want somebody to remake Home For Christmas with my casting and soundtrack suggestions. Oh, if only Hollywood.

Thorny Crown.

Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper), 1985-1986 (detail)

Greg Tate's piece in the Voice, The Man In Our Mirror, will be the best thing you read about Michael Jackson's death today. In fact, this will probably be the best thing you ever read about Michael Jackson, period. The breathtakingly excellent Tate pulls together Jeff Mills, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Marky Mark getting his face punched in, and the socio-economics of Gary, Indiana to write the most clear-eyed and least deifying picture of Jackson and what his death means. This shit is fucked up and complicated, and Tate don't mind. You can go listen to "Who Loving You" or that acappella version of "I'll Be There" again. That's cool. But I'm totally getting out Burnt Sugar's Depends On What You Know trilogy. Because, y'know, it kind of does.

"The unfortunate blessing of his departure is that we can now all go back to loving him as we first found him, without shame, despair, or complication. "Which Michael do you want back?" is the other real question of the hour: Over the years, we've seen him variously as our Hamlet, our Superman, our Peter Pan, our Icarus, our Fred Astaire, our Marcel Marceau, our Houdini, our Charlie Chaplin, our Scarecrow, our Peter Parker and Black Spider-Man, our Ziggy Stardust and Thin White Duke, our Little Richard redux, our Alien vs. Predator, our Elephant Man, our Great Gatsby, our Lon Chaney, our Ol' Blue Eyes, our Elvis, our Frankenstein, our ET, our Mystique, our Dark Phoenix."

But also . . .

"As a people, we have become past-masters of devising strategies for erasing the erasure. Dreaming up what's still the most sublime visual representation of this process is what makes Jean-Michel Basquiat's work not just ingenious, but righteous and profound. His dreaming up the most self-flagellating erasure of self to stymie the erasure is what makes Michael Jackson's story so numbing, so macabre, so absurdly Stephen King."

And yeah. If you were wondering. Jesus is underneath that crown above. While it's shinier and less truthful than Tate's brutal, beautiful, and weirdly loving final paragraph, the parable at the end of the film Basquiat is too replete with echoes for me not to post it. So, here you go.

Midnight Love.

No, I'm not talking about that great Marvin Gaye record. I'm talking about the title of this Pedro Barbeito painting that's in the group show, LOVER, at On Stellar Rays. Oddly enough, the painting makes me think of this Prince song. Not a bad place to start. Actually, even better and more accurately, it reminds me of the incidental music that's playing when Prince takes Apollonia to the bedroom in his parents' basement in Purple Rain. Yeah. Much better. And way more midnight.

I've been thinking about it. 32 artists, man. This could have been such a typical summer show, but it ain't. This shit is tight.

A Salt And Battered Tree.

I wonder if there are lawyers living in those little huts that Richard Woods made for the Public Art Fund? Cuz, yo. The River Café ain't backing down on the whole Olafur-hurt-our-trees front. The Brooklyn Heights Blog reports that the New York Post reports that the RC is totally suing the Public Art Fund and Olafur Eliasson for $3 million for all the tree trauma caused by the NYC Waterfalls. That's a lotta salt water. The River Café doesn't like anybody fooling with their environment. For years GE executives weren't allowed on the premises until they agreed to stop polluting upriver.

Let Me Bring You Songs From The Woods.

Richard Woods' wall and door and roof is at City Hall, but it would have made a lot more sense to have planted these puppies (There's another one on the other side of the building.) in Albany to celebrate the childish clusterfuck of the century.

And yeah. Jethro Tull, muthafuckas! To make you feel much better than you could know.

The Service Economy.

Hey! Remember the amazingly great Free Store that appeared downtown in March? I happened by the storefront the other day, and the space has been filled by a cellular service store. Who needs a there there when there wasn't one there in the first place? Wouldn't it be beyond awesome if the Free Store appeared again somewhere in the city? Let's all keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best.

Hey, Baby. It's The 4th Of July.

Two July's ago, Lawrence Goldhuber rocking his dance piece, Whose Broads Stripes, on the steps of Federal Hall. Yep.

Wait. I found some video. Part 1 and Part 2.

Brad.

River To River.

still from Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell

Last night on Sundance I caught Matt Wolf's amazing film about Arthur Russell, Wild Combination. Besides making me weep in an almost uncontrollable way (Ehh, what am I saying? It was pretty uncontrollable.), the film drew an unintentional line between Russell's music and Spencer Finch's The River That Flows Both Ways on The High Line. Mostly because of the math and the water, but there's also the slow unfolding that both carry no matter the light or speed that happens to be surrounding it.