Art from the Outskirts

Album cover

This gem is from my 2007 portfolio archives. Take a look. This guy is well worth one!

By La Penna Prolifica™ | 2007

B. Nice: Do the Nice Thing
Reviewed by Mikey Mystik

What do you get when you cross the old school stealthy, tight flows of A Tribe Called Quest and the teacher mentality of KRS-One with the effortless freestyles of Eminem and a Master’s Degree in Multi-cultural Humanistic Education? Answer: Long Island born, non-novelty, Caucasian emcee and hip hop humanitarian, Brian “B. Nice” Birkeland and his new indie disc Do the Nice Thing. This musical equivalent of education on wax touches the brain on all points.

From the motivational speech of “Full Time” where Mr. Nice bluntly spits over confident horns and an easy-bumpin,’ mid-tempo kick drum… “Too much to accomplish/What the Hell would I chill for?/Level-headed Imma get it instead/ I’ll work hard now and rest when I’m dead!” to the life lessons of “Life Learner” and “Do 4 U” where he imparts, “It don’t matter if you can’t read or write as long as you are literate to the hatred and greed in life.” The education continues on the schoolhouse friendly “Cryin’” in which the “emceeducator” tells tales of his parents’ broken marriage, his teenage love, and the loss of his friends to the ills of the world with such transparency that you may actually find yourself reliving ten years of your life all over again in three and a half minutes. Nice truly is the “optimal optimist always seein’ positive [transforming] ahead of [his] prime just like Optimus.”

Producer Peter Perfect tags along on the tracks of Nice’s train of rhymes as the graffiti artist of old school breaks that Kanye hasn’t used yet. What Perfect lacks in resources he makes up for in diversity. On “Lovely Day” he creates a radio-friendly summertime joint to roll to without allowing his wingman to lose a step. Perfect summons the funk of Kool Keith on “Bionic Man” without making it sound like Kool Keith, and “Block Boys” thumps just enough not to overpower Nice’s lashing wordplay.

Overall, this is an excellent album. The only con I can find is that somehow Do the Nice Thing sounds like it could be even more. Is the “distinguished gentlemen with a bounce like gelatin” holding out on us? Of course he is! Rating 4/5

Album available at myspace.com/bniceakaniceb

Until we meet again… from the Outskirts!

Alexey Titarenko City of Shadows Series (1992-1994)
Alexey Titarenko.Website
Below is my poem inspired by the photo:

“The Thickness of These Clouds”

My God, these clouds are thick,
So thick, they choke our tears
And evaporate them with years passed.
We know those years are gone
But we still hope that they have been hollowed
With newness and breath as we exhale the smoke.

You see, the storefronts still read “open”
To show our hearts unhardened.
We see a resolution
Upon which sins are pardoned.

Beneath the rock and rubble
We walk toward green pastures
Even if only in our minds and sinews of our legs,
We walk on!
We walk on!
God, please be with us!

Citadel of Progress (2008)

At a height of 1.3 kilometers, this building is taller than any existing today. It is my largest and most ambitious creation to date, and it could probably house an entire city’s residential and commercial operations if it were built. Each level has a hexagonal cross-section, and the structure consists of increasingly thinner hexagonal layers. On each level, I emphasize different geometric shapes, designs, and colors. In this building, I try to embody the upward aspiration in humans – the urge to progress, to improve, to build more, better, and higher things. This building conveys all the color and vibrancy of the most noble drive in man – the desire for the continual amelioration of life.

Discourses of the functions of art have been long-held tradition in innumerable cultures throughout time. The discussion becomes even more culturally constrained when discussing the role of architecture in a given society .Many cultures seek a unique,
visceral or spiritual experience. This is evident in the wondrous cave paintings of pre-historic man the grandiose pyramids and temples of the ancient Egyptians and Maya, the elegant Zen gardens of Japan and the majestic cathedrals of modern. Conversely art may function as mechanism for daily living in the logistics of a factory, the tidiness of an office or the confinement of a jail cell. Yet very often such stringent boundaries do not appear so readily defined. Though many times form may meet mechanism and logistical purpose or a stucture may be built solely to evoke spiritual awareness, there are occasions in which the logical and the visceral must meet at a common point. Gennady Stolyarov II’s City of Antideath is just such a place.

Created with Google imagining software, Antideath is an experiment in digital architecture and is a tribute to liberty, creativity and the hope for a deathless world. As Stolyarov is a professed Atheist, he prefers to think that paradise is plausible on Earth rather than only in the hereafter as he ponders the possibility of a cure for death ala Cory Doctorow’s novella Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Each model in the set is named for a person or historical movement exemplary of Stolyarov’s vision of perpetual life, liberty and happiness for all people.

It is to be noted Stolyarov is not a professional architect or artist but an intellectual and regular contributor to the Today.com blogosphere In this sense, his art is indeed from the Outskirts.

From the Artist:

Why is this city called Antideath?

The viewer can note a cleanliness and deliberateness with each piece. Each line corresponds to the mathematical precision with which it was designed. Stolyarov also includes a description of the dimensions and intentions of each piece. He feels again that each piece with its grand stature and stoic look will embody the personal right to life all free people invoke just by living.

To view all pieces, comment or to add to this project visit Stolyarov’ blog here. This is an open-ended community-inclusive project.

…Stay tuned for more from the Outskirts!

Hey Ladies and Gents, in an effort to make this blog as dynamic and Unique as possible. I’m calling for all you brilliant rebel artists and performers who might who might want contribute to this blog to hit the comment boards boards and let me know your availability and what you do. Interviews, galleries, album reviews, book reviews, retrospectives and so forth. So if any of you have a need to gain exposure (no photography pun intended :)).

*Serious inquiries only*

Oscar Wilde on Art

+ Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

+ It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.

+ Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

+ Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

+ The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it immensely. All art is useless.

+ I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

+ No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did he would cease to be an artist.

….Our definitions of what is good art or design may vary according to our own tastes and aesthetics captures this aspect of design very well indeed. But what does it say about our sexual attractions to others?

To say that another person is like art is probably something on might here in Shakespearian sonnet. But is it actually that odd? To answer this s not the easiest of tasks but the “attractee,”so to say, can start by looking where his or her own individuality lies: inside the human mind.

In his 1957 book The Psychology of Sexual Emotion Dr. Vernon W. Grant explores this topic is his section entitled “Sex Attraction and Art” Grant argues that the link between artistic beauty is an old theory and has a place in may in the theories of many of psychology’s great thinkers:

Freud felt sure that the attraction of beauty was rooted in sex: ” `Beauty’ and `attraction’ are first of all the attributes of a sexual object.” For Edward Spranger, “The spiritual relation of the two sexes is . . . insofar as physical sexuality does not take the upper hand, an aesthetic one.” Santayana thinks that aesthetic responsiveness comes from sexual processes “remotely stirred.” It is clear that sex psychology must come to terms of some sort with general aesthetics.

Yet Feud’s and other theories fall short of something. Whereas in sexual pursuit, a person’s ultimate agenda is to have sex, in art there is no such end. We may in fact want to touch a work of art. (This may very well be the reasoning behind all the “Do not touch the painting” signs in art galleries). However touching a painting and copulating with it are quiet different.

The Psychological Aesthetics of Sexual Attraction as Artistic Appreciation

A Commentary by Michael LaPenna

“Introduction”

It begins innocently enough: A young man gazes from across the room at a little diner in suburban Chicago. His eyes have fixed themselves upon the seemingly angelic presence of a vibrant, young, women in a gently draped pink, cotton blouse and white, Capri pants that both appear to fit quite well with her body’s contours. She has features that he’s rarely seen: richly carameled skin, and wavy, black hair that falls to the nape of her neck. All the while he can’t help but notice that her hair has the faintest indigo tint in the room’s light. As she turns her eyes toward him, the young man notices her familiar dark brown, walnut shaped eyes quite craftily and symmetrically woven into her face. Her nose is kitten-like and her mouth’s lines seem to invite him to conversation with her…and so the young man carefully approaches the women.

“Hi” he says. She looks calm back at him. “Dave?” she asks. Moksha” he exclaimed!
“How are you?” I knew it was you!”
Oh, I’m pretty well, I’d say.”
“Babe, c’mere! You remember Moksha from the figure drawing class? Ya know… the model.”

“Dressing Table” Pino Dangelico

Has this type of scenario ever happened to you? Have you noticed someone so striking that you couldn’t help but think of that person as a kind of art? Every line, curve, dip, dimple and indentation was almost palpably pleasing to you If so, you may, like me, be the type of person who occasionally visits art galleries, paints, writes, etcetera. On the other hand, you might be like a lot of folks on the planet who simply know what they like in any object, whether that object be a painting, a flower or yes…even a person! Do I risk credulity or misogyny in assuming this? Many if not most of us have likely admired aesthetic niceties, but more often we think the word aesthetic itself belongs tagged on to a piece of furniture as in “The craftsmanship of that chair is amazing!” or “This house looks Victorian.” or in the look of a particular film as in “That movie reminded me of a Hitchcock film.” But the world actually means specifically that which relates to the perception of beauty in art or nature. In this sense something that looks a particular way, feels, seems or reminds and so forth is expressed aesthetically. In other words, it is a that part of us which is not confined to rigid definitions of beauty, attractiveness or ugliness within the strictures of scientifically precise measurements. Whereas a person can know what the standard of beauty is mathematically, symmetrically and with regard to markers of health such as coloration or body mass index, there are those aspects which never quite conform to the prescribed definitions given by science such as Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky expressed in his 1864 novella Notes from the Underground When the Underground Man declared, “I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.” In the same way, art is objectively placed far beyond the mechanics of science. Sometimes attraction is as well.

Stay tuned for Section 2!

Hey, Folks! For those of you reading this, I’ll first say thank you. But right now I’d like to take the time to show you some features I have in store for you in the coming days and months ahead. I intend to bring you the most unique, innovative and sometimes little-known art, music, performance and creative literature of today. Everything from interviews and biographies to gallery reviews and musical masterpieces will be fair game.

The site will be broken down into several segments:

Profiles will feature a bio of a particular individual or group to make an impact in any of the arts.

Perspectives will tell a particular artist’s vision though his or her own lens.

In Review will give be my personal take on a particular work and will likely be the most first-person oriented of all the sections.

In A Picture in Words I will write a short piece based solely from my analysis of a single picture.

Beyond these, I’m really just opening myself to whatever little muse may come my way. I hope you have as much fun as I will!

For my first post, I’m keeping things to the point. What is art to you? Sure, you know what people call art and you know the one man treasure is another’s trash proverb, yet there’s much more to this question than what a society says is art. I really believe that often art is an emotional response to the way the world is or how an individual thinks it should be. It’s both the known an unknown variable – the intangible. But what is it to you? Post some comments and let me know. I want to get a feel for who my readers are.

Keep in mind that your definition doesn’t have to be conventional. Art might be made conceiving and giving birth to a child, skateboarding or dying your hair or cooking a meal.

Thanks for your time!