The Council On Spiritual Practices offers information on psychoactive sacramentals in their Enthogen Project.

While the New York Times reports on emerging studies with psychoactives.

This is much along the lines of Aldous Huxley‘s beautiful deathbed experience.

Troublesome Creek could be the name of your next band/novel/screenplay. Maybe this is where the term “blue blood” originated, though I don’t think they had a clan of Kentucky hillbillies in mind.

In the lives of modern American families, this is pop culture gone adorably wild. As Rebecca Mack aptly describes, this video demonstrates the “dangers of rigid gender roles.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb9eL3ejXmE

And if you thought it just couldn’t get any cuter, please observe this orangutan and hound, who are clearly soul mates. WARNING. This may be too cute to handle. Please beware before following the link.

But sometimes, you just need a friend. Again, this is bromance.

This article includes a photo of some roadies, speaking of bros. I may plagiarize parts for my resume.

Though this blend of talent and ambition with the irony of their theme will likely dominate more of my time. To quote Animal: “DRUMS!”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl82N69B7qw

Here is a heartwarming photo project, made possible by the blog era. Everyone make art!

Musicians comment about the new heath care bill. I found Franz Nicolay‘s comments to be very relevant to my own life as a freelance artist. Lord help us.

Side note: I just wanted to mention that this video is extremely gay. And not in the “I’m-going-to-give-you-a-wedgie-you-can-use-for-earmuffs” kind of way, but a “this-video-has-a-penis-and-may-have-interest-in-touching-your-video’s-penis” kind of way. Particularly if your video happens to be wearing assless chaps. I mean super gay. Even for George Michael. It’s awesome.

W.A.G.E., meanwhile, offers information and support for artists who are tired (and hungry) of not getting paid to make the world more interesting. Musicians should pay attention to this, because fine art usually is a little ahead of the curve conceptually — in this case, in the practice of fucking over the creative element.

Working Class Magazine is a great little upstart out of the Lower East Side. I find it very personable and sophisticated at the same time. Keep up the good work, guys.

Meanwhile in Brooklyn, Ry Pepper lends her circumspect eye to arts and crafts reporting in her blog, Arts and Dafts. It’s anecdotal, practical, and warm-hearted. Very nice indeed.

If you want to remember how basic is the need for humans to participate in acts of beauty, you may want to refer to this report from the UK’s Daily Mail to witness what may be the oldest living artistic genre known to man. It will take your breath away, I imagine.

I know that this here love letter sure did it for me. My Beloved, you are the apogee of enchantment.

…But this guy ain’t no chopped liver.

Much Love, y’all.

Okay, obviously some of these photos were taken in Manhattan, but it is interesting to see how many pictures one can take on a single theme, and within four blocks. I love New York.

Anyways, I would like to tell you about my inspiration here. In college, I had a wonderful 20th Century Art History professor, Stephen Myers, who really turned me on to some previously under-appreciated movements in modern art. While I always found De Stjl to be aesthetically pleasant, before Professor Myers’ fine tutelage, I hardly grasped the sociological commentary, much less it’s spiritual underpinnings:

Proponents of De Stijl sought to express a new utopian ideal of spiritual harmony and order. They advocated pure abstraction and universality by a reduction to the essentials of form and colour; they simplified visual compositions to the vertical and horizontal directions, and used only primary colors along with black and white.

According to Professor Myers, Mondrian was the first artist to request that gallery walls be painted white while exhibiting his work. The idea was that the viewer would be able to imagine the parallel and perpendicular lines of his paintings extending into infinity, creating a meditative atmosphere which preceded the works of Kandinsky, Klee, Rothko, etc.

(Side note: I was recently asked to participate in an informal personality test, in which I described my feelings of being in a white room. I said I would find it peaceful yet dull. The white room, apparently, represents death.)

While Cubism aimed to represent three dimensions simultaneously on a two-dimensional plane, De Stjl was shooting for the fourth dimension and beyond. At the same time, further east, in what was soon to become the Soviet Republic, a movement called Suprematism was evolving. Founded by Kazimir Malevich and his peers, Suprematism sought to replace the lush Russian Orthodox icons found in most households with simplified shapes such as perfect squares and circles, painted as carefully as a Tibetan sand painting, an illuminated manuscript or a rich traditional needlepoint.

While Malevich participated closely in the cultural movement surrounding the Russian Revolution, creating propaganda and populist design for everyday use, he soon found himself alienated from the new regime:

This development in artistic expression came about when Russia was in a revolutionary state, ideas were in ferment, and the old order was being swept away. As the new order became established, and Stalinism took hold from 1924 on, the state began limiting the freedom of artists. From the late 1920s the Russian avant-garde experienced direct and harsh criticism from the authorities and in 1934 the doctrine of Socialist Realism became official policy, and prohibited abstraction and divergence of artistic expression.

While Suprematism directly influenced the Bauhaus and other user-friendly schools of high design, Malevich himself did not fare so well. Persecuted by his government, yet unwilling to leave his beloved homeland, Malevich spent the rest of his days designing his own tomb. Although he may be less well-known than those he influenced (and remarkably more subtle in his execution of his ideas), his presence is certainly felt to this day. His clean design aesthetic has become a part of our everyday lives, the new icon lovingly stored in the corner of the kitchen.

I began to think of Malevich and Mondrian upon reading the following passage from Wilhelm‘s translation of the I Ching (Hexagram 2, The Receptive), so I will leave you with that:

Six in the second place means:
Straight, square, great.
WIthout purpose,
Yet nothing remains unfurthered.

The symbol of heaven is the circle, and that of earth is the square. Thus squareness is a primary quality of the earth. On the other hand, movement in a straight line, as well as magnitude, is a primary quality of the Creative. But all square things have their origin in a straight line and in turn from solid bodies. In mathematics, when we discriminate between lines, planes and solids, we find that rectangular planes result from straight lines, and cubic magnitudes from rectangular planes. The Receptive accommodates itself to the qualities of the Creative and makes them its own. Thus a square develops out of a straight line and a cube out of a square. this is compliance with the laws of the Creative; nothing is taken away, nothing added. Therefore the Receptive has no need of a special purpose of its own, nor of any effort; yet everything turns out as it should.

Well well, Mr. Richardson, the cat’s out of the bag. Looks like you’ll have to put the snake back in the basket. As of this post, Terry Richardson, fashion photog/enfant terrible has been involved in enough controversy that his Wikipedia page is one long scandal sheet. Hardly any references to his work or style remain, and frankly, isn’t it about time?

By now, the bleached-out, candid-style photography popularized by the likes of Dash Snow have fully permeated the culture, particularly fashion photography. While such sordid images initially had an impact of shock and unexpected intimacy, the tenderness has been subsumed by all-too-common depictions of torporific female subjection. There is nothing intimate about a 100 foot billboard of a barely-legal teen in her underpants on Houston Street, or another fucking nude chick in Vice. It’s boring, bloodless, colorless. If you’re so excited about people who (look like they) use heroin, just join a rock band and write the obligatory smack song for your third album.

In the meantime, is anyone surprised that Richardson has been accused of lewd conduct in his professional life? While some defend his sexual harassment as an occupational hazard, others are sane enough to realize that this behavior is a clear demonstration of Richardson’s abuse of power, not to mention sheer douchebaggery.

Jezebel reports:

Frankly, “creep” seems inadequate to the task of describing Richardson’s behavior. While it’s important to note that Peck [ed note: Jamie Peck, fashion model] does not imply that she didn’t consent to what went on with Richardson, it is troubling that she describes “zooming out” during their encounter. The environment she writes about at the studio, where she is surrounded by Richardson and his assistants, all armed with cameras (and, apparently, towels), all cheering her along, and all acting like it’s the most natural thing in the world for a photographer to interrupt a shoot and demand a hand job from his model, is even more troubling. “Inappropriate” and “unprofessional” don’t even begin to cover it. Given the power differential that exists between Richardson, who is old, wealthy, regarded as an artist, and vastly influential, and most of his model subjects, can the consent of these women even be said to be freely given? Richardson is a guy who publishes books with Taschen, hangs out with celebrities, and photographs the President. Peck was a “nerdy as hell” college freshman when she met him. Most professional models are even younger.

To those who would argue that any nude shoot carries an implied risk of lewd behavior on the part of the photographer, or that models should be aware of Richardson’s oeuvre and avoid him if they don’t like working in a sexualized environment, I say: Bullshit. Nudity is common in fashion, and when the clothes come off, it doesn’t denote a holiday from the responsibilities of maintaining a safe working environment. When I modeled, I shot both topless and implied nude with a variety of photographers — in fact, my first editorial shoot, for Italian Glamour, was topless — and never was I sexually harassed on a set. Nor did I expect, or feel that I deserved, to be simply because of the kind of work I was there to do. Instead, I expected those around me to not violate my dignity at work. Peck agrees that Richardson’s behavior is exceptional, and crosses some clear lines. “Of all the fine folks I’ve frolicked au naturel for, he’s the only one who’s left me feeling like I needed to take two showers.”

It’s not terribly surprising that Peck, who describes herself as “not a model, just a vain girl with nice tits who likes to pose for the occasional cheesecake photo,” is more comfortable speaking out about her experiences with Richardson than many professional models. Rie Rasmussen is one notable, and courageous, exception, but the fact of Richardson’s immense power within the industry, his long-standing relationships with both influential magazines like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Vogue Paris, and commercial clients like Miu Miu, Gucci, and Sisley, makes it difficult for most working models to openly criticize him. Pointing out the wrongfulness of his behavior risks hurting you more than it will him. And so agencies continue sending their young charges to castings with him, in the hopes of him giving one a big break. And so magazine editors who would never for a moment consider leaving their teenage daughters alone with someone like Terry Richardson continue booking him for shoots with other people’s teenage daughters.

Remind any of you music industry professionals of the unspoken gag rule surrounding the recent Ticketmaster/LiveNation merger? But I digress….

The fact is that women can be professional models, as well as sexy and provocative, without being exploited. And personally, I would prefer fashion to return to an aesthetic that’s not so overtly sexually exploitative and downright depressing. We’re all broke now, for Pete’s sake. Bring on the color, the richness, the lushness and the joy, please! I really miss seeing pictures of women having fun and engaging in vibrant behavior — I can relate to that. Is this why I haven’t gone shopping for so many years? Does poly-cotton no longer apply to people with self-esteem?

At the very least, please let it be the end of an era in which the visual environment is ruled by a guy like this:

“(Richardson) spoke in the effeminate tones of someone trying very hard not to come off as sexually threatening despite the fact that he was basically walking around in a hipster pedophile costume.”

Gross. But unfortunately, at present, sadly ubiquitous. Here’s hoping that it won’t be for much longer.

Thanks to my photographer friend Jesse Untracht-Oakner for thrilling me to this story.

I found this orphaned certificate of appreciation on the sidewalk, next to a piece of dogshit. We appreciate your appreciation.

Fool your friends into thinking you grew a single grey sideburn in one night!

Fool your friends with this realistic arm! Still useful, though clearly severed from life-sized sex doll.

Don’t worry, the inanimate sex arm is totally into it.

Yeah, that is totally sweet.

Education reform would appear to be the next Obama administration effort to clean up another Bush-league mess — in this case, the educator-and-student-detested “No Child Left Behind” program. Susan Engel‘s New York Times Op-Ed outlines priorities in curriculum, namely the core skills a person needs to help them learn rather than the regurgitation of mandated facts. This portion jumped out at me:

During the school day, there should be extended time for play. Research has shown unequivocally that children learn best when they are interested in the material or activity they are learning(…) A classroom like this would provide lots of time for children to learn to collaborate with one another, a skill easily as important as math or reading. It takes time and guidance to learn how to get along, to listen to one another and to cooperate. These skills cannot be picked up casually at the corners of the day.

An organization called Peace First aims to arm children with the skills to create peaceful communities and efficient group relationships. They foster the kind of personal empowerment that can only come from helping and collaborating with others. From their website:

Peace First has taught over 40,000 students critical conflict resolution skills; created over 2,500 peacemaker projects that improved communities and instilled a sense of civic engagement in students; recruited over 4,000 volunteers who provided 400,000 hours of volunteer teaching service; and trained 2,500 teachers in conflict resolution and classroom management skills. We have seen remarkable results in each of our schools: a 60 percent reduction in violence, but more importantly, a 70-80 percent increase in instances of children breaking up fights, including others and helping one another—resulting in better schools and better potential for each child in that school.

One hopes that their model of success will be recognized and applied to all grade schools as part of core curriculum. Right now, their methods benefit just four schools in New York and a number of others in Boston and Los Angeles.

In her Op-Ed, Engel also suggests the following criteria for thriving learning environments:

In this classroom, children would spend two hours each day hearing stories read aloud, reading aloud themselves, telling stories to one another and reading on their own. After all, the first step to literacy is simply being immersed, through conversation and storytelling, in a reading environment; the second is to read a lot and often. A school day where every child is given ample opportunities to read and discuss books would give teachers more time to help those students who need more instruction in order to become good readers.

Children would also spend an hour a day writing things that have actual meaning to them — stories, newspaper articles, captions for cartoons, letters to one another. People write best when they use writing to think and to communicate, rather than to get a good grade.

The idea of fostering enthusiasm for learning by including materials that “have actual meaning for them” is vitally important. Media literacy must take precedence in a cultural environment flooded with information. My first day teaching in an early childhood learning center, I noticed immediately that most of the children’s clothing and even diapers had licensed cartoon characters on them. I found that children as young as 14 months had distinct awareness of media commodities such as Mickey Mouse and Big Bird. However, many of the adults around had never considered the powerful subliminal associations formed through such deeply integrated visual stimuli.

In recent years, media and access to information has become omnipresent, and the ability to directly participate seemingly effortless. The use and distribution of images has become as important as verbal literacy skills. Yet the ability to assess and critique media, much less understand the legal implications of distributing content via new media, has not advanced at the same rate. A fine example of this is (at the time of this writing) 1,031 people’s willingness to participate in American Apparel’s “Search for the Best Bottom in the World.”

Organizations dedicated to the self-empowerment of girls, which aim to foster a healthy sense of self-image, such as Hardy Girls Healthy Women, make the following claim in their letter-writing protest of American Apparel’s “model” search:

American Apparel is directly and unconscionably undermining girls’ healthy development by equating confidence with looking sexy, winning with being judged on their appearance, and personal value with 15 seconds of fame.

So let’s talk about fame — either the kind that lasts 15 seconds, or the kind that gets people quoting that very phrase for eternity. Andy Warhol himself landed on Forbes‘ yearly list of top earning dead celebrities, which itemizes the amount earned in life and in death, typically on intellectual property but also on their own image. For example, James Dean, who commonly makes the list, acted in a mere three films during his life, yet his profile is ubiquitous. And licensed carefully by a crack team of copyright attorneys, I’m sure.

For years, feminists have complained that the female body has been commodified and exploited, associating a woman’s sexualized body (and in the American Apparel case, which is a pretty standard one, sexualized body parts), with something which can or cannot be owned according to the affordability of the product it represents. The argument is that when free access to a desired commodity is denied, the price inflates and violence is used to gain or deny access. This structure is commonly seen in the illegal drug trade, for example. A precedent of the correlation between women in media and pathological violence is described in Eldridge Cleaver‘s autobiography Soul On Ice.

Clearly, the motivation to enter these kinds of contests is not monetary (the top ten rated receive a grab bag worth $300 of American Apparel items! Whee!). The grand prize winner wins a flight and three-day stay in Los Angeles, where they will be required to participate in a panties-themed photo shoot, presumably to be used in advertisements for the company doling out the “prize.” All images submitted by any contestant become property of the company (again, that’s more than 3000 people). All monetary value remains firmly in the hands of the advertiser. They make millions and you might get a bag of panties.

I believe the key motivation here is inclusion, participation, a chance to be assessed favorably in a collective environment. Without the opportunity to participate in a cooperative group in school, and the alternative of having their use of sexuality condemned by a progressively prudish feminist “left,” young women seek a chance to prove that their physical, intellectual, and emotional property is theirs to control without mitigation from political interests. Yet where ideologies enforce codes of morality, businesses literally offer incorporation — albeit in a very, very bum deal.

My point is, if a cartoon of you is going to end wrapped around someone else’s bum, be sure you’re getting royalties. Your ass is worth it.

Hello lovelies!

While you may be used to seeing kids around Halloween raising funds for UNICEF, this year for Valentine’s Day, please consider sending your loved ones the fruits of my picture-making labors to support needy children around the world. UNICEF is an organization which has helped countless women and children stricken by poverty, famine, and disaster, and in the wake of the horrific earthquakes in Haiti, they need our help more than ever.

I have created a PDF book called “Epistle: Love Letters to the Visual Environment.” It is a collection of eight pages from my collage book, all along the themes of romance, sweetness, delight, and whole-heartedness. Volume One is called “Doo-Wop,” and is appropriate for anyone who likes jukeboxes.

A PayPal donation can be made here:

http://nortonanalog.blogspot.com/2010/02/valentines-day-fundraiser-for-unicef.html

Please donate $5 or more, and your loved one will receive a link to download this PDF book in their inbox on Valentine’s Day, knowing that your affection for them has been forwarded to children in need. 80% of all proceeds will go directly to UNICEF.

Send me a request at nortonanalog@gmail.com. Include your e-mail address, the recipient’s e-mail address, and, if you wish, a personal greeting of up to 100 characters (leave blank if you wish to remain a secret admirer!).

For more information about UNICEF, visit the link below:

http://www.unicef.org/

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a DJ set by the esteemed DJ Krush at the Bowery Ballroom. A few months ago, I got to see him with Method of Defiance, the atmospheric-nerd-core supergroup featuring Bill Laswell, Bernie Worrell, and others. Zorn was there. The crowd was a mite thin for my druthers, but, you know, that’s avant hip-hop for ya.

The more recent experience held many moments of nostalgia. Specifically, I was reminded of those days in the mid-to-late 1990s when hip-hop was creatively suffocated by an industry that preferred glorified tales of violence and the publicizing of bitchy artist in-fighting to producing culturally relevant records. Underground dance parties became prominent as DJs sought venues for experimentation, and huge crowds sought fresh beats and groovy drugs. One fed the other, I suppose. Charged with youth, illicit experiences and perhaps some chemical enhancement, we learned to go all night, and that making a dance floor happen was everyone’s responsibility.

Many of these underground DJs inspired the visceral, psychedelic sounds that informed the best hip-hop of the early oughts. I’m always happy to recall the many wonderful experiences of my former days as a drum-n-bass/jungalist, and am grateful that the underground beats scene has been around to keep progressive sonic collage alive while the big players continue to annoy us with mediocre hype.

Krush himself straddles that grey area between DJ Shadow (he played some tracks from groundbreaking works such as Entroducing and the mysterious Private Press) and Susumu Yakota. There is a tenderness, a dark interior space, like wandering through the forest of the Soul. Krush is noted for his use of both sound samples from the natural world and traditional instruments in free-jazz inspired fills. He creates a spontaneous symphony of scratches, layered drums and rhythm textures that have a distinctly narrative feel. It is the cold, interior world of sorrow without self-absorption, isolation without hopelessness, a landscape of dreams and hauntings, occasionally punctuated by frenetic beats and looming, cracked bass figures.

At the same time, Krush is firmly rooted in the hip-hop tradition. He was instantly inspired to become a musician having seen Wild Style, shortly after which he abandoned his brief fling with the Japanese mafia. The mesmerizing tones of Krush’s soothing and downtempo set gave way to some choice vocal tracks from the Pharcyde, Cypress Hill and others. Over the years, Krush’s work with some of the finest MCs around has gotten many dance floors greasy, and last night’s crowd of sonic-soaked beat nerds were no exception. Essentially, it was an evening to listen, to be moved from the inside out and the perfect scene for a dark January evening.

I look forward to what Krush comes up with next, as his productions are always transportive and engaging. Certainly, I’ll make the effort to see him mix live at any opportunity. I don’t want to understand why the forest is dark and haunted, but I still want to wander through it. So I’m glad that Krush scatters beat-heavy breadcrumbs along that spooky moonlit path. I will leave you with one of my favorite tracks:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9ORLo7ntMY

Much Love.

Possibly some of you, like myself, have been deeply entrenched in the winter doldrums. January, the nebulous season after the heady trip of Christmas lights, holiday parties, and New Year’s drunken splendor/debauchery, can drop a soul’s morale right on it’s ass when Old Man Winter’s blustering is no longer buffered by December’s pagan hoot-n-nanny.

As of late, I have found the weather dreary, the bank account drained, and my exuberance stemmed. Luckily, I am in a fine position to self-medicate with colored pencils and a large paper bag. Last week I began to circumvent my insomnia and restlessness by creating pictures of the cutest, cheeriest possible creatures (and a couple cranky ones) I could imagine. The following are a sample, and I hope that they make you smile like they did for me. If you like those, check out another fleet at NortonAnalog.

Feel the Love!

Astonishing, disturbing, hilarious and unexpected, the mischievous presence of Mark Spalding is always refreshing. I met him while in the sordid little burg of Savannah Georgia, where we lived in mutual disgust. One could always count on Mark to moon passing cars at the slightest provocation, at any time of day.

Now we live in New York, where his candor is no less of a boon to a weary, sardonic soul. He moved here a couple years before me, where he acquired a fleet of strange tattoos and spent time working in the fashion industry.

Generally, I shy away from emphasizing an artist’s persona, which only feeds the weird cult-of-personality/marketing monster that so often overshadows a creator’s work. But Mark’s growing collection of indelible ink is certainly part of his ouvre, and an accurate manifestation of his style. Mark’s drawings are always spontaneous, absurd and inspired — regardless of the level of care is put into their rendering. The most casual napkin scrawl can expose the full force of his subject’s ridiculousness and vulnerability, and illuminates the cumulative disaster to which we belong — a society that is gross, desperate and ultimately adorable, despite it’s attempts to appear otherwise.

Artist-statement-speak aside, visiting Mark’s website is highly recommended. His work should provide relief/inspiration to any contrarian — a bucket of scathing laughter that leaves one with a feeling of filthy tenderness. In the end, he sees you as you see yourself: wretched, struggling, perpetually on the verge, yet determined to pluck through the muck. Look out for Mark Spalding. And do send him money for drawings!