Untitled (St. Simons Island, Georgia), 1978

“Untitled,” circa 1975

“Untitled,” 1973

Peter Schjeldahl, in his New Yorker review Local Color: William Eggleston at the Whitney states:

You can always tell a William Eggleston photograph. It’s the one in color that hits you in the face and leaves you confused and happy, and perhaps convinces you that you don’t understand photography nearly as well as you thought you did. To view “William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008,” at the Whitney, is to be pummelled by eccentric beauty, and to wonder about it.

Schejeldahl’s review is is lucid, poetic and charming. He encapsulates so well the appeal and art of Eggelston’s work. Heres another gem:

…there’s no gainsaying Eggleston’s results. He shoots like a shutterbug and executes like a painter. Synthetic gorgeousness iconizes pictures that flaunt the nonchalance of snapshots.

I only disagree with Schjeldahl’s assertion that:

… the emotional key to his genius is a stoical loathing, unblinking in the face of one scandalously uncongenial otherness after another. His subjects have no ascertainable dignity, except that of stubbornly existing.

No dignity?

The girl at the commonplace counter with her red hair glowing like its own sunset stands as regally as the famous Elizabeth Siddal (Rossetti’s muse and a painter in her own right) whom she so resembles.

The girl lying sprawled on the grass is like a modern Ophelia (camera in hand, not flowers) who will, after soaking up the sun, not drown but jump up and run around the yard again.

.

I think Eggleston’s subjects, prosaic as they are, are fascinating precisely because of their homely rightness. His work does not look like loathing to me, rather detached observation but not angry, not demeaning. His photos are fascinating precisely because of their normality. A good photographer can make an attractive photograph out of a beautiful sunset or view or model but for me, the artistry, the genius of Eggelston is that he finds and distills the the interesting or the beautiful out of the dull or garish or common that surrounds us all the time.

(see more images at Time and The New York Times and The Eggelston Trust)

Max and Coralie and I were discussing cover songs the other day and Max came up with a challenge to list 10 cover songs we prefer to the original. Below are my choices (and here are Coralie’s).

1. The Clash, Brand New Cadillac

vs. Vince Taylor and His Playboys. No question, the Clash version kicks ass.

2. Devo’s Satisfaction

vs. Rolling Stones. Cuz I am a geek.

3. Cake, I Will Survive

vs. Gloria Gaynor. This was super-hard, the original is fantastic, so passionate, an anthem really but I love the Cake version.

4. Iron and Wine, Such Great Heights

I like the original by The Postal Service but I love the slowness, solemnness of the Iron and Wine version.

5. t.A.T.u., How Soon is Now

vs. The Smiths. I know, I know, this is heresy, how can I prefer the cheap pop version of a song which moved generations of pale morose people like me? But I do, I love the t.A.T.u. version, it’s both light, fun and, to my mind, there’s a plaintive ache in the voice which suit the lyrics.

6. UB40, Can’t Help Falling in Love

vs. Elvis. There’s a sort of tradition in Ska music to do covers. I love Ali Campbell’s voice and the horn section is brilliant (UB40 hon mention: I Got You Babe)

7. Save Ferris, Come On Eileen

vs. Dexy’s Midnight Runners. I love the original but the Save Ferris cover gets me really revv-ed up and like I said, I’m a ska fan - I can’t help it, it’s the horns, the beat. etc.

8. Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Higher Ground
vs. Stevie Wonder. This is the Chilli Peppers at their best, pumped up and kicking it.

9. Tricky, Black Steel,

(see the actual video but embedding disabled) vs. Public Enemy. I love the original, a classic, but Martina Topley-Bird’s voice and delivery are fantastic.

10. The song which started the discussion, Faith No More’s cover of Easy Like Sunday Morning:

vs Lionel Richie’s

Extra: Hallelujah seems to be the classic cover song debate and many people are absolute and unyielding in their opinion. I know there is a strong Buckley faction but my preference is between Rufus and Leonard and it’s difficult to choose between the two. Rufus’ version is one of my all time favorite songs, but Leonard’s moves me. Rufus sings like an angel, his voice is gorgeous; Leonard’s voice is rough, a bit unsteady but passionate. Rufus’ version sounds like a hymn; Leonard’s more like some fervent prayer in the dark. I feel like Leonard means what he is singing. I’m probably always going to end up preferring the love song that is on it’s knees with yearning vs. one that soars above so for me this is an example where the original still tops a really excellent cover.

Rufus’ version:

vs. Leonard Cohen’s original

Addendum: There were a few songs I was on the fence about and decided I like them both, but favored the original slightly more:
- Bjork’s and Death Cab For Cutie’s All is Full of Love.
- The Cure’s and Tricky’s Love Cats.

I can’t decide between Kate Bush’s vs. Placebo’s version of Running up that Hill. I love the darkness of the Placebo version and the passion of Kate Bush’s version.

Honorable mentions: Arctic Monkeys cover of Shirley Bassey’s Diamonds are Forever (Alex Turner has an incredible voice); Elvis Costello’s Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood and The Cardigan’s cover of Iron Man.

Lastly, but most cheesily, just for fun, Richard Cheese’s version of Creep is a must-listen.

–

Update: Another honorable mention is Rachid Taha’s part Arabic cover of The Clash’s Rock the Casbah. Also, it’s almost impossible to find a better cover of any song Nina Simone did, she just rips it up and owns it (see the Be Misunderstood hon mention above), but on the way home, I remembered this Muse cover of Feeling Good - an incredibly sexy song

update 9 November:
Another amazing image from Shepard Fairey

The posters quickly sold out but you can still buy the stickers

—–
Yes we did!

There is something happening when Americans who are young in age and in spirit – who have never before participated in politics – turn out in numbers we’ve never seen because they know in their hearts that this time must be different…

…we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in America’s story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea – Yes. We. Can.
- Barack Obama, January 2008

more fantastic images from Shepard Fairey (obeygiant.com)

I’ve been feeling by turns edgy, angry and down lately. I went through a very low time a few weeks ago and I hate feeling out of sorts again so soon.

One of the almost existential problems of depression for me, at least, is the gradual distrust I’ve come to have of my own impressions of what is real. I ask myself how I can be sure what is real or not when the world seems so different during the depression than during the times I’m not depressed. I also start to question which is the real me, the me who is sad, upset and down or the one who is buoyed temporarily by the right, if fleeting, combination of brain chemicals? I know in some ways that my bouts of depression can be thought to be from a bad mix of chemicals and I described it to someone once as my brain dripping poison. Maybe a better metaphor is an extended emotional eclipse. I suppose both are the real me, the happy and the sad and that the poison is mine as much as the lack of it, the light and the darkness.

I wish I could look forward to things more; wish I could picture the good more than what might be difficult or tiring or uncomfortable; wish I wasn’t so swamped with anxiety or sadness or just the desire to hide out. I know I’ll likely bounce back, feel better, see things more clearly and smile in a few days or weeks, but I know I’ll likely feel like this again too.

Beauty in Decay is another wonderful, haunting series from Dark Roasted Blend:

See also the series on Abandoned Tunnels and Vast Underground Spaces. The below image makes me think of a modern Moria, the dwarf city from Lord of the Rings:

From the ever-wonderful Dark Roasted Blend, an ad for the Anagram bookstore in Prague:

My results for the What Breed of Liberal Are You? quiz

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Social Justice Crusader, also known as a rights activist. You believe in equality, fairness, and preventing neo-Confederate conservative troglodytes from rolling back fifty years of civil rights gains.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

Some of the questions are stupid but I’d say this is the kind of liberal I am actually.

I was very sad to read of David Foster Wallace’s suicide last week. I’d enjoyed A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again and the more I read about him afterwards, the more I was moved and awed by the intelligence, consideration, sensitivity of his thinking and writing.

A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. Here’s one example of the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness, because it’s so socially repulsive, but it’s pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default-setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: There is no experience you’ve had that you were not at the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real — you get the idea. But please don’t worry that I’m getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called “virtues.” This is not a matter of virtue — it’s a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default-setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.

People who can adjust their natural default-setting this way are often described as being “well adjusted,” which I suggest to you is not an accidental term…

But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the “rat race” — the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.
-David Foster Wallace on Life and Work

“It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.”
– Agatha Christie

I would only add that this happens too when playing an ongoing game of email signature tag with someone and getting one like the above. Other favorites include:

“Lord, beer me strength”
Jim [from The Office]