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William Powhida at Platform Gallery (Seattle)

Art

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artwork by Tom Sanford

If you find yourself in Seattle in early September, don’t miss William Powhida opening at Platform, our favorite gallery in that city. I hear there will be music, record swapping, and more. To get prepared, check out Bad At Sports’s interview with him on their podcast. He starts about 8 or 9 minutes in. You can hear his side of the story on Zach Feuer getting his NYC gallery (Schroeder Romero) kicked out of the NADA Art Fair because of an artwork by William in which he put a hex on Zach.

Linkage - Republican National Convention hasn't even started edition

Linkage

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CBS Outdoor decides billboards such as this one by Suzanne Opton as part of her billboard project cannot be run during the Republican National Convention.

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[Click here if you don’t see the video]

Minneapolis police confiscate equipment, notes, and computers from the Glass Bead Collective without their consent. The collective are the people who released the video of an NYPD officer assaulting a bicyclist. The Minneapolis police officer told them they were confiscating their belongings for “Homeland Security” reasons.

Good Anti-McCain ad

Politics

Via Paul Schmelzer. Go here if you don’t see the video above. Actually you might as well click on that link anyway if you want to see wacky comments. “Obama is 100% Marxist” for example. In this country anyone who wants something other than a banana republic with a rich elite and no middle class is a crazy lefty.

Why does anyone still read Maureen Dowd?

Politics

And better yet, why does anyone consider her a Democrat or a liberal or even a rational human being? As BooMan says:

I still run into old friends occasionally that not only think Maureen Dowd is a good columnist but that she is a liberal and uses her column to advocate for the Left. Without fail, these friends are busy people that have not spent the Bush years reading alternative media and blogs. They’re somewhat like Democrats that were trapped in amber sometime in 2000-2001, just before the rise of the Blogosphere. They have puzzled about why Dowd spent the last three months of the 2000 campaign writing about how horrible Al Gore was as a candidate, but then they remember those zingers she put down on Dick ‘Big Time’ Cheney and his geographically-impaired sidekick. Ooh…that felt sooo good.

This is a message to my old friends trapped in amber. Maureen Dowd doesn’t root for Democrats. She uses her column to mock Democrats, drive wedges between Democrats, and to reinforce negative stereotypes about Democrats. Yes, she is somewhat irreverent and she does her share of blasting Republicans. Occasionally, when her righteous ire is up, she can really let the Republicans have it. But you can start a count now. It’s August 13th. Dowd does two columns a week. If she doesn’t take any time off, she’ll write thirty-three more columns between now and the election. I guarantee you that the majority of them will not be helpful to the cause of Barack Obama. Today’s column is about as unhelpful as it gets.

Dowd is also the columnist that said, in the run-up to the 2000 election:

Al Gore is so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct, he’s practically lactating.

Tod Seelie at Cinders Gallery - Last Day is Saturday

Art

tod seelie - nolahouseandlines

Nola House and Lines, 2008, Digital C Print, 15 × 15 inches, edition of 8

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Bicycle Riot Cops, 2007, Digital C Print, 12.25 × 8.25 inches, edition of 10

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Dead Man (Mississippi Series), 2006, Digital C Print, 12″ × 12 inches, edition of 8

Tomorrow (Saturday the 9th) is the last day to see Tod Seelie show, titled Slowdancing to Slayer, at Cinders Gallery in Williamsburg — their first photo show. They’ve had something come up and are not open today, so head on over tomorrow for some great photography at bargain prices. The prints are approximately $200-600, framed. There is something for everyone, from portraits of people along the Mississippi to shots of punk shows in abandoned warehouses.

In addition to really loving this show, I have another connection. Everyone asks about the balsa wood squirrel sculpture in our living room, hanging on an old column. It’s by Kim Schifino and James and I bought it a year ago at The Porch Show at Cinders. Tod is currently touring with the band she formed with Matt Johnson, Matt and Kim, and CSS. Check out his blog suckapants.com for photos. You can buy Matt and Kim CDs at Cinders. That’s where I got mine.

All images above are from the Cinders Gallery website.