Limits, specialization and realized compartmentalization are the basis of mercantile culture.  The idea that we can’t know or do everything for ourselves is the basis of the trades, professions, and academic disciplines. This fact also gives us purpose, as my propensities are not yours and likewise. However, there are those whose wits outweigh common dogma, are apt at many things. Sometimes aptitude follows aptitude and those who are really good at something are also good at many. I am haunted by thoughts of the Jeffersonian ideal of an agrarian gentleman scholar, a renaissance man, as skilled as he is well-read. Personally, I set a goal for myself a long time ago to know as much about as much as I could and remember at least 90% of everything I encounter. I am sure you do not need to be a neuroscientist to know how the 90% part has declined over the years, but my will is still good on the ‘know as much, about as much’ it is the ‘i can’ part that has slowed it seems.  Or has it? We are faced with so much information, and so much of it is complete shit, distraction, hassle, spam, bad advertising, and it just keeps coming at us.  With my practice of knowing unmitigated I would have gone mad like some supervillian’s backstory; ‘His only fault was paying attention. Attention to EVERYTHING! He is the Insane Omniscientro!  Driven MAD by the Details!’  No, I have a sharpened double-edged Bullshit Detector, which helps.  But, I still am inclined to get sucked into the desire of knowing, only to be pulled back by a environment staked to mediocrity and status quo.  Environment is a euphemism of course for the place I am in my life: art here, academia here, and community (which I use loosely).  My stubbornness to know is pit against time and capacity, as well as, my moments for implementation of that knowledge. If the problem of knowing is distilled down to the most basic, fundamental moment of everything we might be talking about Physics in practice or Philosophy in epistemological treatment of knowing itself.  But it is Art which parallels life and at times is knowing, or requires knowing something to make new knowledge in the form of new art.  This is not to lionize Art, but to come to terms with why Art is marginalized in the academy, yet it persists in all gradations throughout all places in our lives.  Just because we know something or transform the commonplace to a static memory (like still-life painting and photography), does not make it important.  I am digressing. My point is hovering around a personal stubbornness based on my inflated sense of knowledge interest, capacity and above all time for knowledge acquisition and implementation.

I am stymied by the narrowness of others.  The world is such a vast and wondrous place, yet we fight over two people wanting to officially love and care for one-another because they happen to have the same genitals, and deny civil rights to those we fight in the name of freedom and civility.  And these greater issues find purchase in the little moments, personal moments when it seems a broadness of thought, art practice, and caring for others is found to be a fault rather than a strength.  The world is crazy right now, as I suppose it always is, but that is no excuse to stop to try to learn and grow.  I wish at times it was in my character to make one narrow road of practice and pave it until famous and smooth like warm feet bare and rubbed over frosted ice, until the ice were a perfect flatness ready for a picture to be snapped or painting to be wrought.  I wish I could, but I want to know more about more, and fuck it, I am good at lots of things, and I hope, I mean I really keep waiting for some of this breadth and depth to payoff; breath held and fingers crossed.

I don’t know if I have just acquiesced to the idea that I am hopelessly internet interconnected or my profound case of information overload has become terminal, but more and more I’m okay with my Google Brain.  I know there are videos, blogs, and articles about Google becoming a sentient artificial intelligence.  This is not what I’m talking about.  I’m taking about a low-fi cybernetic relationship between us and Google as stand-in for the internet as a whole and as an extension of our local, native, biological, or natural onboard memory storage system–our brains!  Like eyeglasses for your memory, our Google Brains just help us remember.  I have spent long hours fretting over this idea feeling somehow less smart having to resort to the internet to remember any number of minute facts, names, or places.  But, now that I have friends with 3G iPhones, or access to free wireless hotspots almost anywhere, I am feeling like the time lag I associated with use of my Google Brain has sped-up to make it almost realistically practical to use it in conversation.  On a resent visit from Kristen Spillane (kspill.com) we would be casually walking through the mall, a question would arise and seemingly out of the blue, she would answer it.  Kristen is very smart, but much of the knowledge she forwarded was really obscure, and regurgitation of obscure facts is not intelligence.  It was her iPhone working Google with digital (meaning fingers) acuity to pull information from her Google Brain to her local brain.  Last night at Lowell Beer works a group of my colleagues and I were trying to pullout the bass-player for Spinal Tap’s real name, out popped an iPhone, and the race began, imdb.com was slow and my local brain was quieted slightly by the drawing of an elephant’s ass the waitress drew on the check (really!), and I pulled-out “Harry Shearer” just milliseconds before the iPhone.  I beat the Google Brain this time, but there are numerous times throughout the day I access my Google Brain, and I am getting more comfortable with its use, and I think my acceptance has made my local brain more relaxed and work even better.

Borrowed Eyes took the stage around 9:20 or 9:30 pm with a round setup including a trumpet and trombone player, they were a eclectic mix of sound all firmly placed in America.  They seemed like an appropriate opening act for Cub Country and if they had been the only opening band I would have been delighted.  With Borrowed Eyes I could hear the singer and parse all the music without ear plugs, but something happened with the audio by the time Yoni Gordon and the Goods took the stage, something which seemed to get worse throughout the evening.  Again, Yoni and the Goods played music rooted in an America with a slight twang, absolutely what one would expect in an opening band for Cub Country, however, the audio had shifted and Yoni’s vocals were drowning in his guitar and bass and drums.  I have seen many great band’s shows suffer from a one note johnny sound guy, the worst being the consistently bad sound at the Belly Up in Solana Beach CA in the ’90’s.  Now don’t get me wrong he seemed very attentive stepping out from behind the board, listening, going back, appearing to move things, but the instrumentation just seemed to get louder and louder, leaving the vocals in the background and very hard to make out.  Yoni and the Goods finished their set and then The Big Big Bucks started, and “what the fuck?” was all I could think.  First off they had no business opening for Cub Country, despite well documented punk roots it didn’t work to have Bucks on the bill.  And secondly, they were just not right, The Big Big Bucks did at least three songs on which I’m pretty sure none of the band was in the same key!  This sort of “experimentation” coupled with skewed audio made for a cacophony of crap.  At least their set was short.
So now it is nigh midnight and Jeremy Chatelain and crew take the stage.  By now the thin crowd is even thinner, and it would have been nice to bring the audio down with less bodies in the room, and maybe the audio guy did but not much.  I was delighted by Cub Country, it was the old pros following the juvenile upstarts.  They had a job to do and they did it.  Jeremy apologized about the hour noting their appreciation for us staying as we probably had to go to work.  Cub Country’s set was smooth, if way too short, I wanted to hear more.  Jean and I even danced to one of the new songs, it must have blown the hipster’s minds who stood around almost too cool to head bob.  Professionals to the last, Cub Country played their set and all to soon the show was over with a twinge of sadness.  Walking out I thanked the band and they were genuine in there returned appreciation.  It had a soul, the music that is.

I blame the Middle East for stretching out the bill too far and too late for a Wednesday night, and having some sound issues.

Go see Cub Country in NYC tonight at the Cake Shop or Maxwell’s on Friday or both, praying for longer sets and early on times.

Outside the Lines Studios
70 Colby Street
Medford, MA 02130

Okay so let’s start this by saying I missed most of Big Bear’s set, but what I did catch sent me right back to the noise of my childhood and I could not help thinking this sounded a lot like Santa Cruz circa 1993–with much much much less plaid.  Not to say good or bad, just the kind of discordant soundtrack over cyclical vocals people were playing with in the bay area before the more melodic and directional music leapt the bridges and hit the mainstream.  They were loud, and maybe for good reason.
Next, Sunburned Hand of the Man, started their set with a kind of chanted ‘blessing’ by a black-dressed guy, bearded, ponytailed, and freaky.  The music then poured forth from two drummers and two guitarists plus gadgets.  The music was fine, and the attendees seemed in to it.  They were earnest, but something about them just bubbled-up anger.  Sunburned Hand of the Man, just made me mad.  And not mad, like ‘I just spent 10 bucks and these guys suck,’ but rather a profound visceral soul anger, that made me want to punch someone.  At a point in the set, after cruising along sans vocals, the greasy ponytail snaked his way through the audience frotaging his boozy cigarette stink on me and the Pabst swilling guy next to me, and up to the mic.  As soon as he started singing, more like chanting, my personal anger was hitting a tipping point.  When the bearded ponytail started taunting the audience to dance in post-punk high pitched vocal waves, I couldn’t take it anymore and shot through the audience and grabbed the first non-lethal thing from a sink area next to the band and poorly winged a plastic lid at the entranced band.  At this point I lost my cool totally and yelled at the band, spilling forth nonsense swear words, there bearded ponytail said something about my courage and handed me the mic into which I blew my voice out, I grabbed the bearded ponytail by the lapels and shook him, then sprang back and whipped off one of my flip-flops at a time and threw them at the band.  Regaining my senses for a moment, and needing my shoes, I hit the stage again to retrieve my sandals, which I did along with the poor guitar player’s last Sierra Nevada which he was willing to fight for, so I opened it for him and handed it back.  I’m not sure if this was what Sunburned Hand of the Man was going for but that’s what they did for / to me.
Last up, Onieda.  Onieda is a five-man crew powered by drums.  They sounded like the best soundtrack to the best car chase sequence ever, for an hour plus.  The rhythm holds the tonal drift in tight reins, and moves the transitions smoothy through waves of sound.  Some of their songs had vocals, but where neigh impossible to make out.  The end result was a power meditation, a loud trance state of muscle, poignant feedback and synthesizers, creating a ride more than a show.
Somehow by the time a got home I had torn the front open of my favorite pair of camouflaged shorts.

Tepthida Khmer
115 Chelmsford Street
Lowell, MA  01851

The interior of Tepthida Khmer is elegant but, with a prominent bar and at least one massive flat-screen TV, there is a general comfortable feel to the place.  The service was very good, with ample warnings and questions about how authentic we wanted our food.  This is good and bad.  Good, if this is your first trip to eat South-East Asian food, and are not initiated to the tastes of fish sauce / paste.  Bad, if you are well aware, and just want to order your food.  I am reminded of sending back the calamari at another Lowell jewell, Viet Thai, because it did not have the red pepper to which I am accustomed, asked, “do you want three star?” and I said, “Yes, three star!”  It came back great and spicy.  But, this is really material for another review.

We started with drinks: I with a chinese beer, Harbin; and Jean with a glass of Argentine Cab.  My beer, was a typical asian lager, and Jean’s wine was fine, if a bit long in the tooth for being opened.  The next thing to come out was the crispy rolls in vegetarian, which were really nice, with a light vinegary dippy sauce with peanuts floating in it.  These rolls were perfectly cooked, not greasy, with a filling including mung bean threads and julienned vegetables. For our shared main dishes, we ordered the Cha Greung with chicken, and the Teuk Greung.  Let’s start with the Teuk Greung.  This dish consists of a bowl of ground fish, with lime juice, spices and green onions, and a plate of lightly steamed broccoli, cauliflower, raw eggplant, cucumbers, and cabbage.  We are instructed to eat the salty-sour protein with the vegetables. This was very good, but not for the unadventurous.  The Cha Greung with chicken was more familiar, being one of the many dishes in south-east asian cuisine employing red chillies and basil on meat.  This was really great, the chicken was coated with spices, and green beans carried the bulk of the vegetable component; not too spicy but with enough kick to get me interested.

All and all our meal was excellent, and we plan on going back.

The rejection letter is commonplace for most of us in the Arts, and for that matter Academia. We compete in an ever-expanding market, with an ever-contracting supply. The stuff we produce is marginally quantifiable and highly speculative; as artists can take many positions with vastly different levels of cultural esteem, acceptance, or even understanding – and as academics, educators or researchers we are phantasms to laypeople, and subjects for dissection by peer-review and collegial probing by the anointed. Our job, my job is to be creative, but not ‘creative’ like the team that came up with, “I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!” or the Manhattan Project, or is it? As Artist-Academics we are obligated to find in the world a mode of expression both new and fresh, but fitting within the ‘norms’ or normative forces of hegemonic institutionalization present in keeping a paying gig at the university.

So, as I have defined my job—i.e., make creative research (a.k.a. art), find esteem for it, and keep it understandable by peers, both interdisciplinary and intergenerational—as difficult. Now imagine you have to quantify and qualify this job in the form of multiple-page documents, slides, CDs, DVDs, copy laser copies, letters of reference, websites, word of mouth, and so. One could do a continual hustle just in the documentation and explanation of all the creation and academic protocols, not mention actually making art or teaching. And the reaction, after all this sound and fury, is what? A letter; nice on bond or laid paper with thoughtful logo, neatly typed, and signed by hand—preferably in blue. Maybe I am trying to find the Art in rejection, or at least the professionalism, implying a level of respect, a nod to the time and effort on one’s part in putting all this shit together, proof of your humanity, or at least tangibility—you have an address, on the earth. Now we have another form, the e-mail rejection. It is fast, clean, better than the phone call, no need to hear the faux cheer and understanding, and doesn’t cost your institution the 44¢ of the letter. E-mail is nicely informal, an extra level of coolness in a business filled with ice, coated in the mostly fictional face of creative fertility, academic rigor, and warm nurturing education. We are in just that, business, slow, arty farty, warm and fuzzy, business, so bring on the e-mail rejections just make sure they contain at least a few emoticons. And for my part I will just make a .pdf head shot, and put my artist talk on Youtube and just forward links to everyone on the committees in massive cc’ed e-mail myself.

Community Intersections Tangent Interests Environments and Situations
(C.I.T.I.E.S.): A Drawing of Monumental Scale

by Prof. Stephen Mishol and Prof. Jim Jeffers
Art Department, UMass Lowell

Everyday we travel through the history of the Merrimack: old mill towns, red brick walls, bridges, smokeless smoke stacks, and canals – shaped by the flow of this river, Lawrence, Lowell, and Nashua have persevered as living artifacts. We propose an artwork on the ground of these three cities, focusing on a site of historical loss in each, which takes the viewer / participant on an unexpected journey through experience, perception, and digital artifact.

As artists we have been exploring urban space for years: Mishol, through Painting and Drawing; and Jeffers, through Video, Performance, and Web-Art.

We propose finding one site in each of these three cites, lost to history, and in grand form create drawings on the ground, that in profound fashion illuminate the space for engaged participant and casual viewer alike. As these drawings are being performed for live audience, the signal would feed to a remote exhibition of multi channel video, and recorded for a lasting visual record on a permanent website. The performance / drawings themselves would be created with only ephemeral permanence out of non-toxic materials, utilizing drawing equipment of the type and scale of an athletic field.
(Please see the attached appendix of images of our related work)

We feel deeply that this proposed artwork is a contemporary exploration of the ties we have to the Merrimack valley as artists and educators living and working in Lowell.

We will be utilizing the skills of UMass Lowell Art majors or any interested undergraduate students in this endeavor in joint faculty-student research, as a project of this scale will require at least 15-20 individuals to realize.

Finding places, and revealing spaces, new ways of looking and thinking about our everyday experience is philosophically underpinning both our respective creative research models. Bringing to bear an intermedia approach to an artwork, while presenting a problem solvable only with the resources of undergraduate student participation, and community involvement is an ideal for both of us as contemporary artists and educators.

Budget:

Materials:
3 field chalk lining machines $1200.00
*purchase would allow
re-presentation of the piece
Chalk, in 50lbs quantities, in various colors $1000.00

Video Production Costs:
Videography and wireless feed costs $800.00
3 Scissor Lifts (“cherry pickers”) rentals $800.00
*to allow for aerial video
Dedicated digital archive system / website costs $1500.00

Artist and Crew Costs: $2000.00
Including research time,
Transportation, framing, conventional art materials

Dear Sarah,

Rabbits are great, very clean, litter box trainable.  Logan (our male) we got as a bunny, 8 weeks old, and he chews everything; so, molding gone, no power cords can be left unattended, buttons on remote controls, so on, must be kept safe, but, he might outgrow this.  Uma we adopted, she over a year old, and that is the way to go because getting a rabbit fixed is 10 times the cost of the cute baby bunny from a breeder or pet store, while adoption was only $70 bucks and Uma came sans reproductivity.  Adopting also gave us the chance to take Uma home for a few weeks and see how she fit into the family before committing. Uma does not chew, but is a tad shy (but far less than when we brought her home) and is not as trustworthy with not peeing on the  carpet if her litter box is too far away.  Logan is ours and we are his.  Uma is ours but we are still gaining her trust before we are 100% hers.  Logan is 3.5 pounds and Uma is 5 pounds.  Logan can easily be caught and picked-up, moved and handled without much fuss, Uma is not as easily handled.  Logan will only sit or lay down for petting when he wants it.  Uma, if she is out on the main carpet (their carpet in front of their cage) she will sit and be pet pretty much without limit.  Neither are “cuddly” like a dog and some cats.  Both are super cute, and as rex rabbits are about the softest creatures to the touch on earth (or at least among rabbits).  Rabbits are more like horses than dogs or cats in terms of manner and food likes.  Logan and Uma will play, mostly with things in their way (which they throw) or dangly things like towels, or draw strings and pant legs.  Logan, if in the mood, can reduce a phone book to confetti in a day.  Rabbits like to dig.  Their nails have to be trimmed and with Uma and Logan this ordeal requires long tough sleeves on your shirt and a firm grip on a slick squirming bunny.  They need run around time or they get fat.  They eat a lot of hay and quite a bit of fresh veggies (a couple of cups a day between the two of them).  I think Uma and Logan are pretty active, she lost about a half pound since we brought her home.

In Short, they are great and I would not trade them.  But, they need constant attention, so if we go out of town we have to broad them.

check this out to see Uma before we adopted her:http://www.rabbitnetwork.org/adoption/2008.shtml 

Logan and Jean 'playing'

Uma being a rabbit

Originally submitted at Sierra Trading Post

Closeouts . Smart-looking, trim and comfortable, the Timbuk2 Track daypack offers tough ballistic nylon, a laptop section with full 360-degree padding, pockets for your MP3 player, cell phone and more. Thickly cushioned laptop compartment sits at back for balance and stability. Center section has a…

Timbuk2 Track Daypack
Nice Mid-Sized Bag 

4out of 5

Pros: Comfortable, Highly Adjustable, Good padding, Easy To Load, Large capacity, LightweightBest Uses: Traveling with a computerDescribe Yourself: Casual AdventurerWhat Is Your Gear Style: Comfort Driven

I have owned many Timbuk2 bags. One had seam issues. However, after repairing that backpack myself it took on a two week+ trip to Poland, The Czech Rep. and Germany like a trooper. I hope this bag works out. I like being able to remove my computer at the airport without having to open the whole bag, and the padded handle is great.

(legalese)

Dear Editor:

After going through my sixth advising period as a professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, once again I am left curious and perplexed by the narrow tracks laid down before our students in their navigation of the general education requirements.  I think back to my own undergraduate experience at the University of California – Santa Cruz (yes indeed, one of the oft sited schools of the UC system of which our former Chancellor William Hogan, more than once in my presence, held up as the model for the UMass system), and the ease with which I completed my general education.  Starting first as a Physics major, I completed three quarters of Physics for majors, and three quarters of Calculus for science majors, and then switching to Art, taking Drawing I, Drawing II, Drawing III, five quarters of Art History, all of which ‘counted’ toward my general education requirements as either major.  So, I ask myself, why does the University of Massachusetts Lowell think it must require a Bachelor of Fine Arts major to choose from a very narrow set of courses in Arts and Humanities (AH) for two more AH on top of: two Drawing courses, three Art Foundation courses, two Art History courses, and four Aesthetics and Critical Studies courses, which count for what?  In all fairness, my understanding is our majors do have to take one less AH than other majors.  What I am driving at is the lack of choice our students have in exploring their own paths in becoming generally and liberally educated.  I do not know of another Bachelor of Fine Arts program in which students are required to take three science courses, two with lab.  I am not saying this is a bad thing for some students, like myself as an undergraduate.  But, narrow course offerings and the time intensive nature of Art courses (six contact hours per course per week) means almost all our majors have the same science courses, and if I have a student who is apt with computers (which I have many) and wants to take a programming course, we would have to petition the Gen Ed credit in the very unlikely event the student could even take such a course.  Frankly, our students think the general education program is a set of unrelated courses which will have little to no baring on their lives, as much as I try to convince them otherwise.

Now that I have stated a broad impression of the general education curriculum at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, I want to get specific and take on two irksome points which keep me up at night wondering who my colleagues really are in other fields on the General Education Committee. 

First, Drawing, can you believe drawing is not a general education course, and after repeated submissions to the General Education Committee at the University of Massachusetts Lowell this semester was denied that status?  I cannot!  I have degrees from three different universities, all in the top 100 in the nation (which, with the exciting new hire of Provost Abdelal is now a stated goal for UML), and I have taught at no less than three other universities in the top 100, all of which have drawing as part of their general education curriculum; in fact UMass Amherst has drawing in their general education curriculum.  Why don’t we?  I take personal exception to the exclusion of drawing as worthy of a general education course, as I consider drawing as the basis of my research practice and see it as the foundation of Art and Design, as well as, as an essential communication mode for almost every natural science, engineering, and mathematical expression.  Drawing, since the first pigment was applied to cave walls, has served as the basis of visual communication, which lead to pictograms, to ideograms, to hieroglyphs, eventually to alphabets and literacy.  But, this is not an evolution of replacement; try building a bridge with text-based instructions only.  The importance and essential nature of drawing has not changed in 30,000 years, but its efficacy and application has resulted in quantum leaps in almost every area dealing with the physical world, as well as, the fantastic, creative, expressive and imaginative worlds, how many other fields of study in the university can claim likewise?  Drawing is more than a skill, it changes and strengthens natural world observation, encourages problem solving with kinesthetic input, and unleashes fantasy and creativity in a low-stakes environment; think of Frank Gehry or Antoni Gaudí without their initial architectural risks taking shape in the form of drawing, it would not happen!  I could go on, but I think you get the idea: drawing is at the core of so much, why can’t we see that fact at UML?

Second, is the exclusion of major course work from courses ‘counting’ toward general education requirements.  This is an issue of choice for our majors in Art, who currently have no free elective courses in the 120 (usually 122) units they need to graduate.  Meaning, while at the University of Massachusetts Lowell students graduating with a BFA in Fine Art or Design, have only courses offered in our department (choices of which seem to dwindle with each semester), or perfunctory general education courses from the narrow list heretofore mentioned.  Again, I know there are great courses in the general education catalog, and I helped write some the grants funding this new and very exciting interdisciplinary course work which is taking our faculty into other areas.  If general education courses in the major counted, our students would have at least two free electives.  Allowing them, for example, to take two business / management courses, which, as artist and designers—who are almost always self-employed at some stage in their careers—would be very helpful, and relevant.  At present our students cannot do this.  I know this is also a matter for internal discourse with my colleagues in the Art Department, and at NASAD (National Association of Schools of Art and Design) the body who accredits our department, as well. 

Many people complain, so I will offer up one idea (there are many, just googling ‘general education’ is a wild ride) to help this problem.  Leave the general education requirements the same except for these changes: give all 100 and 200 level courses in all departments a general education code letter, and allow departments and individual instructors to determine criteria for who is allowed to take the course (this assumes all courses in the university are at a college level and draw there foundation from some greater general and educative discipline!); let arts and humanities majors take at least one less science with a lab and replace it with another general education course in any area, our students might surprise us; and let majors satisfy general education requirements within their majors—they will still need to take 120 credits to graduate—but with this new openness could come a whole host of minors, even the never-seen-at-UML BFA in Design with a minor in Business Administration!  Finally, disband the General Education Committee—or at least impose reasonable term limits—without the cumbersome course review process, and with all reasonable introductory courses transferring from the community colleges, and other four-year institutions, with a general education equivalent already on the books at UML: Introduction to Life Science at UNH would just automatically count as a Gen Ed, because Introduction to Life Science at UML would be a Gen Ed (without having to have the chair of Biology sign-off on it)!  Think of it, a university where engineers and artists actually get general education credit for their major course work, so they could perchance take an Ethics class, or Political Science course, which might just help them to become interesting people and participatory citizens.  It seems for far too long at the University of Massachusetts Lowell we have been treating our students, not to a liberal arts model, but to a focus on proprietary majors and disjointed general education.  I see light entering the tunnel, and I have nothing but confidence in both Provost Abdelal, and Chancellor Meehan as leaders and innovators who will address issues like General Education reform, and infrastructure at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

Sincerely,

Prof. Jim Jeffers

Assistant Professor of Art and Design

Art Department

University of Massachusetts Lowell