Hot Lixx Hulahan beat out 20 challengers from around the globe to become the world's champion air guitar player.  The championship takes place in Finland and an American hasn't won since 2004.  Apparently, Hot Lixx has dominated the US competitive field for a couple of years.  Now he's shredded his way to world domination.  What a rock star.

Still from the film Come Wander with Me by Phillip Van.

We live in an age where everyone fancies themselves a filmmaker and they've got a YouTube video to prove it.  On YouTube, you can find plenty of short films competing for your attention.  I've talked to people who've just emerged from a YouTube stupor, their eyes glassy and searching for a horizon.  You can get lost for hours there, wading through junk and occasionally striking gold.  Personally, I appreciate those moments in this modern life when someone or some event comes along to mediate that vast landscape of content, saying "Hey, my media-weary traveler, rest here.  I'll introduce you to really good work. I've spent an entire year looking around so you don't have to."  At times like these, l'll gladly sit my fanny down and eagerly await my fortune. 

So excited about Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which opens here on October 3rd.  I adore Michael Cera.  He plays Nick, who isn't gay, but plays in a queercore band.  Norah is played by Kat Dennings, who was also in 40 Year Old Virgin.  She and Nick are high school seniors and they end up running around Manattan, trying to get over their ex's and looking for a legendary band's secret show.  Of course, Nick and Norah nurse the sexual tension throughout the whole adventure, which just happens to be accompanied by a great soundtrack.  The line-up was just announced by Atlantic Records... check it out:

1.  Chris Bell – “Speed Of Sound”
2.  Devendra Banhart – “Lover”
3.  Bishop Allen – “Middle Management”
4.  Vampire Weekend - Ottoman”
5.  The Dead 60s – “Riot Radio”
6.  Takka Takka – “Fever”
7.  The Submarines – “Xavia”
8.  We Are Scientists – “After Hours”
9.  Band Of Horses – “Our Swords”
10.  Army Navy – “Silvery Sleds”
11.  Richard Hawley – “Baby You're My Light”
12.  Shout Out Louds – “Very Loud”
13.  Paul Tiernan – “How To Say Goodbye”
14.  The Real Tuesday Weld – “Last Words”
15.  Mark Mothersbaugh – “Nick & Norah’s Theme”

The album comes out on September 23rd.  You can pre-order next Tuesday, August 26th on the Atlantic Records website and get a free t-shirt (you have to be one of the first 200).  You can also get the album there in limited edition vinyl.

Though environmentalists would hate the idea of balloons wafting about the landscape, I don't think they'd mind them digitally dropped into our favorite movies.  Take a few minutes to watch.  It's a lovely idea (what a sap I am!).  The balloon punctuates emotional moments in Casablanca, dances with Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain, annoys King Kong, saves the life of Anne Parillaud in La Femme Nikita and meets Clint Eastwood at high noon.  Kudos to Jerry Rees, a director and Cal Arts grad, for creating Helium and Celluloid. 

One of San Diego's most unique voices in art and film criticism died on Monday. Manny Farber was 91 and one of the 20th century's greatest film critics, an influential artist, and a professor at UCSD. Franklin Bruno wrote a great piece about him in The Believer a few years ago.   Here are the thoughts of Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman.  I admire Hoberman's writing a great deal so it makes sense now knowing that Farber was so influential for him.  We'll be doing a remembrance on These Days tomorrow.  I'll post the interview right after the show. (here it is)  So sad....

Mia Zapata, lead singer of The Gits

The Gits were a Seattle punk band led by the raw, blues-fueled voice of its lead singer Mia Zapata.  The band formed at Antioch College in Ohio where Zapata famously jumped on a table during a party and launched into Bessie Smith covers.  It's relayed as one of those college moments where,  if you were there, drunk or sober, you've never forgotten it. The Gits soon moved to Seattle where they found underground fame, a community of fellow punk rockers (like the girl band 7 Year Bitch) and became part of a Seattle scene garnering lots of media attention because of its burgeoning grunge scene.

The Gits found their loyal following and after two album releases and a planned North American tour, they were poised to make it big.  Atlantic Records was ready to sign them.  But on July 7, 1993, Mia Zapata left The Comet Tavern where she'd been hanging out with friends and while on her walk home, she was attacked.  Hours later, Zapata's body was found.  She'd been beaten, raped and murdered.  The tragedy struck the Seattle scene hard and mourners lined up for blocks at her wake.

A new documentary called The Gits will be screened Wednesday night at The Whistle Stop bar in South Park as a fundraiser for the San Diego Women's Film Festival.  The story is so tragic, but so much of the film charts the band's formation and rise that it doesn't feel like a downer.  There's a lot of concert footage, some rougher than others, but I kind of like the grainy, jumpy video.  It's well-matched to the grungy dive bars The Gits played in and to their punk sensibility.  Zapata is amazing to watch, if mostly because of her incredible voice.  She sounds like Lucinda Williams, if Williams left her guitar behind and just went balls out, punk-rock style.   The Gits screens at 9pm - The Whistle Stop is a good place to watch this kind of doc and all proceeds benefit the sixth year of the San Diego Women's Film Festival.  Oh, and Joan Jett and Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill are both in the film - they were big fans of The Gits.   This is one of those school night events that I like to recommend because it's unique in San Diego, the film and the venue are perfectly matched, and it's for a good cause. 

Three fried-egg sandwiches.

An omelet.

A bowl of grits.

Three slices of French toast.

Three chocolate chip pancakes.

Two cups of coffee.

Phelps burns 900-1100 calories per hour in a training session.

Breakfast of arts blogger:

Three cups of coffee.

Power bar.

Calories burned while blogging:  10-15, depending on topic.

San Diego has been the home to world renown artist Eleanor Antin for many years and now it's become a backdrop for her latest body of work.  A solo exhibtion at the San Diego Museum of Art titled Eleanor Antin:  Historical Takes, features over 50 large-scale tableaux photographs in which Antin reimagines and stages scenes from Roman and Greek history and mythology using contemporary actors and models.  Many of the photographs were shot in and around San Diego.  They are lavish, decadent scenes with Antin's wit and extensive research at play.  Take, for example, The Tourists (see below), a photograph in her Helen's Odyssey series.  On a rocky hillside (a recognizable southern California topography as a great stand-in), bloodied Trojan warriors lay scattered in the aftermath of battle. But amidst the savagry, a blonde and a brunette dressed in brightly colored dresses laugh and casually dismiss their surroundings. They carry straw handbags and wear modern sunglasses, perhaps headed to an afternoon of shopping after touring the carnage. In this work, as in many others in Historical Takes, Antin illustrates a corrupt society and the decline of civilization.  The slideshow below has more images from the exhibition.

Antin is a celebrated performance and installation artist, a filmmaker and a photographer.  Her extensive body of work has explored history, identity, gender, and her own Yiddish heritage.  Antin has often cast herself in various roles and narratives to explore her ideas.  She famously became Eleanora Antinova, a black ballerina in Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, writing a fictional memoir for her ballerina persona and making numerous films starring Antinova.

Eleanor Antin:  Historical Takes will be on view at the San Diego Museum of Art through November 2nd.  Make sure to watch the multiple videos at the exhibit documenting the production of these photographs.  It's fascinating to watch what went into this body of work, with the shoots operating like a film set complete with Antin yelling "action" only to have her actors freeze in a tableaux.   

Best.Headline.Ever.  I wish it were mine but, alas, The Guardian gets all the fun.  An outdoor sculpture by American artist Paul McCarthy depicting house-size dog doo came loose from its moorings outside the Paul Klee Centre in Berne and proceeded to knock down power lines and break a window of a children's home.  Any child who happened to be in the room and saw giant inflatable dog poo crash through their window is likely traumatized and will either need years of therapy or become a provocative contemporary artist (or let's face it, both).  The work is titled "Complex Shit."

There is actually a San Diego connection here.  McCarthy is a sculptor and performance artist who lives in L.A., but in 1976 he performed a transgressive piece called Class Fool at UCSD.  He is also sometimes associated with Allen Kaprow, the late Happenings founder and Professor Emeritus in the Visual Arts Department at UCSD.  

The media is having fun with this story.  Another headline:  Paul McCarthy's Art is Complex Shit on the Runs. 

Shanghai. Photo by Dan Eckstein

I've got my sights set on China right now as I watch the Olympics every night.  I can't help but marvel at the venues, especially the aquatic center, otherwise known as the water cube.  This building is incredible, costing over $200 mil to build.   I've been searching around looking for more of a visual context to the Olympic venues and the images on television.  Documentary and fine arts photographer Dan Eckstein has a photographic essay on contemporary China that really fleshes things out.  Eckstein spent eight weeks there in 2006 documenting the changes happening throughout the vast country, from the cities to the rural villages.  His site is easy to navigate, allowing you to follow his journey by region, timeline, or topics.  In addition to his pictures, Eckstein writes short descriptions about many of photo sections, like this excerpt about bang bang workers:

Many of these migrant workers end up as part of what locals call the “Bang Bang Army”. This 100,000 plus army of laborers are identified by the bamboo poles (or bang bang in Chinese) that they use to carry heavy loads around the city. Due to the hilly topography of Chongqing, the bicycles used to transport goods in other Chinese cities have been abandoned and manual labor used instead. Bang bang workers are hired by everyone from business owners to tourists to move all sorts of goods from ships at the port into town or around the city. For their efforts a bang bang man will make an average of 20 Yuan ($2.50) for working a 12 hour day.

Bang Bang worker in Chongqing, Western China. Photo by Dan Eckstein