…especially a very good response by Stephen LaRose, who writes for Planet S. You can see his “letter” to Brad Wall here, in which he points out the massive subsidies – subsidies, money, cash gifts, etc. – that many industries receive from the Wall government. Did someone say something about making an industry stand on it’s own two feet?

LaRose is easily the best political writer we have in this province, and his coverage of the FNUC was both considered and honest. He’s a good reason to read Planet S, when some of their other writers are a little too “knee jerk” for their own good….

You can see his response to the Film Tax Credit decision here, just scroll a ways down the page.

…which is a paraphrase from Serena Ryder, but also true, and perhaps a bit of obfuscation that I’ve misplaced the MP3 file that is this week’s A Word, hah.

I could repost the show, but there’s not a great deal happening right now, and the most significant aspect was my talking about the exhibition which is closing at SCYAP, Through Afghan Eyes, and this will be traveling across the country, as its already traversed a ways to get here, literally and metaphorically.

As to the dream: I dreamed that I’d written an article in Planet S, that was a strange mish mash of my review of SPRAWL and my review of the Under Skirt exhibition, and that at least four letter writers had taken issue with my comments on post modernism. In my dream, I couldn’t understand what they were saying, though I could read it, and also found myself not really caring, distinctly remembering that this – writing letters about Po Mo – must have been an assigned project in a grad seminar.

Not as weird as the previous night, when I dreamed I had a baby boy who was already talking….

Merry Christmas, to all my listeners and visitors, and I plan to be posting some new reviews in the mid to later part of January and already have some guests slated to appear. Stay warm.

Modern art was CIA ‘weapon’

Revealed: how the spy agency used unwitting artists such as Pollock and de Kooning in a cultural Cold War!

Oh, come on now: is anyone really surprised? Read the rest here.

Wait, does this mean that CSIS may have provided money for the iTunes Visualizer exhibit currently at the Mendel, with our very own karaoke modernist ? (What I like to call the Optimism of Nepotism? And perhaps some of those articles “written” about the show – really, they’re just hand jobs –  should be not that he continues to “influence”, so much as provides an opportunity to line your pockets at the taxpayers’ expense – I mean, at least the CIA and American taxpayer subsidized QUALITY artists.)

Oh, probably not: everybody in the article in the Independent was actually a good, quality artist : but since we have U.S.A. envy, maybe that would have given the karaoke modernists here an edge (“I can make it look just like Newman, but at half the price!”).

Sigh. When will this karaoke be done, at the gallery, and we’ll return to showing quality local artists, or quality national ones, instead of engineered myths of mediocre artists whom are unknown – deservedly – once you go 50 miles in any direction….thank god for Under Skirt.

Yes, I like to read the Globe and Mail, sometimes for no other reason than for the sheer amusement at its ignorance (Roy MacGregor’s two or three days in Moose Jaw and the resulting “op ed” he wrote on the Saskatchewan Provincial Election is typical of the coverage we can expect from Canada’s National Newspaper, or as I told the mother of an ex, visiting from Hong Kong, its good that the National Post is around, as the G & M has at least one national newspaper its better than…but I don’t know if I think that anymore).

But there is a worthwhile article in today’s Groping Male, whoops, Globe and Mail, on Brion Gysin: and I’d point out that the show they mention that was organzied by the Art Gallery of Alberta also made an appearance here, at the Mendel.

Nice to see an artist who doesn’t depend on regionalist pandering and who is recognized in a broader context: oh, and did I mention that a new, fairly comprehensive and interesting text, “The Visual Arts in Canada : The Twentieth Century”, edited by Whitelaw, Foss and Paikowsky, only assigns one line – in conjunction with mentioning several other painters – to William Perehudoff, whom the Mendel will be presenting as a (supposedly unfairly) neglected “giant” of Canadian abstraction? And before we begin the knee jerk “those eastern bastards just ignored us”, I’d point out that the Regina Five and other worthwhile artists of the west are given much space……

Pick it up, if you’re an art history student who’d like something other than the local gospel, or continue to read Dennis Reid’s pandering piece of crap, which I seem to remember several art history students ritually burning several years ago…..

….besides seeing if the next installment of Preacher is in, or to give in and just buy all the trade paperbacks of Alan Moore’s groundbreaking and amazing run on Swamp Thing, back when I was a teenager.

Unreal City has another art opening this Friday, June 25th from 6 to 10 pm.  The show will feature original comic art by Saskatoon’s Riley Rossmo from Proof which is published by Image Comics.  Also, musician and artist Sean Viloria has created custom action figures, sculptures, and vinyl figures based on the characters from Proof which will be on display.

Admission is $5 which gets you one of two limited edition numbered Proof posters.  Refreshments will be served. And the site for Unreal City can be found here.

And this is an event happening this Friday night, coming to you from Aleyna Mae at paved art + new media.

An excellent op ed piece in the Star Phoenix about the idiotic, ignorant and obviously ideologically motivated (hence no connection to reality) decision to cut SCN : one might ask why SCN is being cut when its a fine example of Neo Con “assertions” of financial diligence, when no one has been fired for their Potash miscalculations….well, Grant – whoops, I mean Brad – is having a hard time.

Here’s the article, by someone, unlike the government, that knows what’s going on…..

As some of you have noticed, the gray on white is not so amenable to tired eyes: so I’m playing / experimenting / making a large mess with the aesthetics of the site. Your patience is appreciated.