Author Archives: Cimaxion

A Brief History of John Baldessari: Narrated by Tom Waits

by Cimaxion

Here is a short humorous biopic about legendary Los Angeles artist John Baldessari. It was directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman as a commission from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It’s wonderfully narrated by Mr. Tom Waits who was apparently picked by Baldessari for the job. If I have criticism of Baldessari, it would probably be that he has too much fun making art. Actually I’m not kidding. It’s a harsh criticism from where I stand. But I still like his work. I know his printer in downtown Los Angeles. He lets me stop by now and then to see what’s cooking on his great big old-fashioned printing press. In fact, I am the proud owner of an original signed Baldessari artist’s proof. It makes me smile with confusion whenever I walk past it. Despite Baldessari’s obvious enthusiasm for making conceptual art, there’s a lurking seriousness underneath all those colored dots and old time movie stills. He makes art in the margin between painting and filmmaking.

 
 

President Obama Declares His Support for Gay Marriage

by Cimaxion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvgJEYuKPyc
 
Well there you go! I knew there was a reason to be proud of our president. Obama today declared his support for gay marriage during an ABC news television interview. He is the first president ever to do so. It has taken him some time and he has decided to do it going into his reelection campaign. Good for him! I think I like him again!
 
At a time when the simpletons of North Carolina have decided to amend their state constitution to ban all marriages except those between a man and a woman because ‘God’ says that’s the way it should be, this president’s declaration of support rings out like a call to civilization, human dignity and simple common sense.
 
There’s a huge swath of our U.S. population cheerfully lining up to be the idiots of history – those people you will eventually see in historic photos displaying their blind range at the very thought of respecting the civil rights of others. Remember all those dead-eyed, raging lunatics in the 50s and 60s who stood in drooling protest against school integration? Remember them? Well they haven’t gone anywhere. Those idiots are still with us in the form of ‘religious’ folk who simply must ‘protect’ marriage from people who love each other and want to spend their lives together. History does not treat bigots very well.
 
Of course Vice President Biden must get enormous credit for declaring his own support for gay marriage just several days ago. His remarks created a shit storm for everyone else just the way they should have.
 
Barack Obama and Joseph Biden just got themselves another campaign donation from me.
 

Maurice Sendak 1928-2012

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

The great children’s book author Maurice Sendak has passed away.  He was 83. I always liked the way he used black edges around figures in many of his drawings. His most famous work, ‘Where the Wild Things Are,’ was always my least favorite. I never liked those particular drawings. They seem confused and fuzzy. I always took the most inspiration from his more controversial book, ‘In the Night Kitchen.’ Its drawings seemed to me to have a calm effortless quality. In fact, when I began this site years ago I often referred to Sendak’s work for simple pointers on illustration. His ‘Nutshell Library’ is the one that goes back the farthest into my own childhood memories. Its incredible simplicity and perfect match of words to pictures make it one of the great all time children’s collections.

Children’s books will suffer for the absence of Mr. Sendak and his incredible genius.

Here’s a relatively recent video with Sendak talking about his work and his admiration for poet William Blake.

Ray Bradbury on Writing

by Cimaxion

Ray Bradbury talks about the function of the writer in civilization and some of how he approaches his work. I often think this writer says stupid things and writes tepid uninspiring books for simple children. But there’s not much here for me to disagree with.