The Bridge

Tonight, the IFC cable channel rebroadcast The Bridge, an astonishing, heartbreaking, and brutally honest documentary about people who committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. The filmmakers secretly staked out the bridge throughout 2004 with multiple cameras, and ended up actually photographing 19 of the 24 people who took their lives by going over the railing. This shockingly unshocking footing is interspersed with interviews with loved ones, and stunning shots of the bridge itself.

But it's much more than that. This movie exists in a place almost beyond documentation, possessing the same weird combination of empathy and detachment seen in Gus Van Sandt's fictional Elephant.

Some have claimed the film is exploitive, but I think they're missing the point: The only way to approach the topic of suicide is with clear eyes and the understanding that you'll never understand it. That is, the more you see, the less you know. And that's the point where The Bridge stops being a movie and becomes something else entirely.

Or as one interviewee says:

I don't have any answers. Just a bunch of observations....

Secret, Secret

Although I love PostSecret.org, I never thought I'd ever want to send a secret in. Why? Because I have a big mouth and had not secrets to share. Or so I thought. I spent some time this weekend thinking about it, and came up with at least a dozen secrets--some barely a secret at all, some I wouldn't share with anyone.

So I sent my first card in on Monday. I have another waiting for next week. Several more are lurking in the wings. (I'm saving the juicier stuff for later).

If any of my cards are posted, I'll mention it here. I won't tell you which card is mine. You'll have to guess that on your own. But it will probably have a shirtless man on it.

Just saying.

Best Comic Book Convention...Ever

Tony and I spent Saturday morning trolling the booths at the SPX, the small press expo, somewhere in the hinterlands of Maryland. I've never thought of myself as a "comic book guy." Shameless fanboy, perhaps. But comic books--while I understood how cool they could be--never really created any passion in me. This show changed my mind.

The floor was small but crowded. Almost every booth had a pile of objects to look through. Many were handmade or one-of-a-kind. Styles ranged from exquisite hand painted abstracts, to postmodern pen-and-ink cartoons. The artists were super friendly and everyone had a great story. (And by "great" I mean funny, weird, inspirational, and/or insane.)

I bought an autobiographical book called Shirtlifter from a supremely hot bear artist named Steve MacIsaac. He said it was more "artistic-y than pornographic-y." Having cruised through it last night, I guess he's correct. But it still plenty pornographic-y for me. I'm not sure I get the point of the whole thing, but I think that's commonplace among the small press people: Hold a magnifying glass up to the most arcane, commonplace, or otherwise invisible speck of reality (or surreality) and let it speak for itself.

On the way out, I bought a silkscreen of 16 little line drawings of the same dumpy little man in various states of dress.

I'll let that speak for itself, too.

PostSecret

PostSecret.org has been one of my favorite website/art installations for years. We had a chance to see Frank Warren, the artist behind the project, speak at a local bookstore. He's a very earnest, thoughtful, and apparently kind man, but I have to say his description of the project dimishes it a bit--just as one would expect any great work of art to eclipse its creator. There wasn't a lot of insight to be had, but we did get to see and hold a few actual secrets in our hands. That alone was worth the trip. There's surprising power in those little cards.

Discarded

Discarded is a series of photographs of a streetscape art project from the Australian blog City Traces. According to the author:

This work will explore the idea that the marks on the pavement and the minutiae found in the streets can tell you where you are and provide clues for deciphering the narratives of the cultural terrain.

So very cool.

The Storker Project

Artist Mark Jenkins shows off his tape babies in DC, etc. Funny, creepy, and sad--at the same time.

Architecture Porn

I can't get enough of this website. If only I lived in Italy. And had a $billion. Sigh.

DC Is Still Being Observed

I promised to upload one image per day on my photoblog DC Observed. Unfortunately, work got in the way of that for a while. But I just caught up, adding the pics to the days I forsook. Thank you, amazing time machine!

Other Things Ecstatic

I stumbled upon this site while I was redesigning Everything Ecstatic. These kids take the idea of a blog, add their own fetishes and mediated experiences, mix it with MySpace, and end up completely blowing the concept of a "webpage" out of the water.

Not all are cutting edge: Some still have links in a recognizable order. But others look like the electronic version of a 16-year-old girl's brain. If you want to see the future of online design, communications, publishing, community, and your own teenager, look no further.

"God's Lonely Man"

The original trailer for Taxi Driver. Still dropping jaws after all these years.

Gabba Gabba Hey! It's the Punk Zine Archive

Take a peek at your fav punk zines from 1977 to 1998: Suburban Voice, MaximumRockandRoll, HeartAttaCK, and Flipside are all here. I've never loved reading zines, finding them a little too difficult to actually deal with, but I loved that fact that they existed. Kind of like vampire bats. From Operation Phoenix Records.

DC Observed

I've spent the last few years really trying to become a better fine arts photographer, even to the point of considering an MFA in photography. So it's no surprise that I've created a personal photography blog. Actually, it's more of a personal photography art object project: I'll be posting one image each day for the next year taken in and around DC. It's been up one week. Check it out.

Kreepie Kats

Gawker is a cornucopia of delights, none more delightful than the Kreepie Kats cartoon. Vulgar and hard to explain--I think that sums it up. If you want to know what this week's comic is about, take a look at this Village Voice story.

La Chute

Photographer Denis Darzacq's amazing and dramatic La Chute shows young men floating--or falling--through empty and sterile Paris landscapes.

Whereas E.J. Marey and Harold Edgerton took scientific photographs infused with poetry, Darzacq creates art with a scientist's precision and technique, encouraging us to investigate and question his images, subjects, and landscapes.

Amazing.

Back to the Future

Went to the Corcoran's new exhibit, Modernism: Designing a New World on Friday. The thing was massive, taking up all of the museum's second floor and even a few rooms on the first. It was exhaustive (and even a little exhausting). And truly amazing.

I tend to favor later Modernism, especially mid-Century architecture. (Totally loved the section on Purism--especially Le Corbusier) Seeing the origins and paths the movement took helped me see those old favs in a new light.

Only complaint: The guards are a little too enthusiastic. I paid almost $20 for my tix. If I want to lean against a blank wall, then why don't you cut me some fucking slack. Please.

Update: Here's a 3D animated tour of the interior of Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye (pictured above).

Plastic Bottles, 2007

Artist Chris Jordan creates massive photographs depicting everyday life in America as part of his Running the Numbers piece. The work above--at 60 x 120 inches--shows two million plastics bottles. Or as Jordan says: the number used in the US every five minutes.

Fantastic.

Mother's Day

I've been looking for the perfect Mother's Day post, but haven't found anything that was perfectly true until now. I took this postcard from this week's Postsecrets. (If you've never visited that site, please go. It's one of the best blogs out there and an amazing art piece, to boot.)

Love you, Mom.