Hanksy Makes Good: From Art Goof To Art Star
In 2012, Hanksy was a street artist gaining a degree of notoriety for his street art depicting Tom Hanks as a Banksy rat. Since then, he has sold out multiple New York gallery shows, created a large and loyal band of internet supporters, energetic detractors, and is about to open his first show in Los Angeles, at Gallery 1988. Since my first interview with Hanksy, we have become good friends. I do not believe this infringes on my ability to ask questions about pun-based street art.
EA: Hanksy, we meet again. The first time I interviewed you was in February of 2012. How much has your life changed since then?
Hanksy: Well damn, time flies. And so does my "art career" apparently. It's been hectic and nonstop. When we first chatted I had just wrapped up my first show and I was unsure what to do next.
EA: And now you're about to do your first west coast show at a new gallery.
Hanksy: Yeah! Crazy. I sadly moved away from exclusively mashing up my namesake with iconic Banksy images. And with this new work came new opportunities. I had a second sold-out NYC exhibition back in December of 2012 and now I'm out in LA, ready to give the West Coast some light-hearted pun in the sun.
EA: Can you talk about moving away from the solely Tom Hanks/Banksy image? What was the impetus?
Hanksy: Well after my first show, I was wondering how long or far I could take this whole pun thing. Like how many times could I beat the horse before it ceased to exist? So I made myself a deal: put up one round of work, all revolving around celebrity puns that did not involve my century's greatest thespian. And if the public or my lonely internet fans liked it, I'd keep going. And the response was great. Probably better than anything I had received previously. So I kept going and going. And here I am today. Killing the pun game, yo!
EA: Were you concerned about criticism that you were a one-trick pony? READ MORE
New York City, May 16, 2013
★★★★ The smell of growing things came through the door, but that was the only change to mark the crossing from indoors to out. The air flowing under a shirt in public was indistinguishable from the air in private. Sun shone white on the treetops in Dante Park; birdsong was general. The bodega had peonies and watermelons out. Now things had overshot equilibrium, and a light sweat started and evaporated. On the office roof, the scotch in the lowball glasses was golden, and the light was heading that way. Thermal balance had returned. In a crosswalk, raw threads poked out from a dress chopped off short. Uptown in the evening there were light blue clouds against a deep blue zenith, and deep blue clouds against the light blue west.
In Support of Credit Card Points, With Caveats
My husband and I put almost all of our expenses on our Costco American Express card. Dinner, groceries, gas, travel—it all goes on the card. And then once a month, I use money from our joint checking account to pay the bill in full. Sometimes we've had an expensive month: We've been doing a lot of traveling lately, and we're preparing for a cross-country move, so our credit card bills have been much higher than usual lately. When that happens, I figure out how much more money we need, and we each transfer that amount from our individual accounts to the joint one (we have a standard amount we put in the account each month that covers normal expenses, so the extra transfers only happen when we buy something big, like furniture or plane tickets).
This works for us because we don't live paycheck-to-paycheck. I would never recommend making heavy use of credit if you're coming up lean at the end of every month. But we do have enough that we could pay off last month's credit card bill and pay for this month's spending. So always being one month behind in paying for things, so to speak, isn't something that worries me. Besides, when I calculate how much money we have, I always subtract the current credit card balance from whatever's in savings. I'm very aware of the fact that at any given point in the month, our checking balance isn't accurate until I account for what our credit card bill will be. READ MORE
What It's Like To Be Eaten By A Bear, Particularly If You Are A Camera
"Terrifying footage shows what it is like to be eaten by a bear." Trigger warning, I guess, if you've been eaten by a bear before.
Supposedly Dead Rapper Accused Of Being Not Dead
"A recent news story claims that Tim Dog 'may be up to his biggest scam yet'—faking his own death. WREG in Memphis interviewed Esther Pilgrim, one of the women featured in this Dateline story back in June of last year, who had been one of many victims reportedly swindled out of money by the rapper, and she alleges that a death certificate for Timothy Blair (the Dog’s government name) has not been found by a private investigator she hired. The news station also did some diggin’ and supposedly didn’t come up with anything either. And here’s the kicker: their P.I. did, however, locate an Atlanta address 'active' since last month for the supposedly deceased rapper!"
—Our friends at ego trip report on a weird emerging scandal involving one of their all-time favorites. Did Bronx rapper Tim Dog trick us all into thinking he had died in February? (Like Jim Morrison and Elvis and Tupac?) According to the title track of his 2003 album, YES.
"Meet three young women who want to teach our repressed society how to explore its relationship with death."
The Annotated Wisdom of Amy Poehler
Amy Poehler has a pretty solid resume as both a comedian and a person. After spending time studying at Second City and iO in Chicago, Poehler moved to New York with friends Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, and Ian Roberts to found the Upright Citizens Brigade, which has since grown into the massive community of learners and performers of long-form improv and sketch that it is today. In more recent years, on her off time from her TV work on SNL and Parks and Recreation, Poehler and friends Meredith Walker and Amy Miles started Smart Girls at the Party, an online network to encourage and educate young women about being smart by being themselves. Along the way, Amy Poehler has proven in countless interviews, podcasts, and articles, that she is smart, kind, and funny, about every topic from feminism to Hell to old TV. READ MORE
"Full Disclosure"
I'm an adviser to John McCain's campaign. 1
Siri calls me “Funk Deity.” 2
Aside from lessons in pole dancing—another fad workout sweeping Southern California—this may be the least macho exercise of all time. 3
I am not a cat person. 4
My mother was one for many years. 5
I am a professor of Shakespeare, among other subjects, at UCLA,
and this has never happened to me. 6
I am a sucker for the man-befriends-nonhuman-creature genre of sitcoms. 7
I have no complaints about how much I make. 8
When the New America Foundation moves its offices in D.C., next week,
Foreign Policy will become our tenants,
but I hasten to add, in the spirit of nonprofit-dom,
that we are billing them at cost. 9
Cillizza is wearing my jacket on MSNBC right now. 10
I am a member. 11
Yes. 12
I'm proud to call David a friend. 13
I used to intern for Miller. 14
My husband received a one-year fellowship from the Charles Koch Foundation,
and works for Reason Magazine,
which I believe receives some funding from David Koch. 15 READ MORE
You Won't Believe These 3 Amazing Pieces By Erik Satie
This being the day on which Erik Satie was born way back in 1866, let's take a couple moments to listen to a few of his compositions. If you're at work put on some headphones, and wherever you are free yourself of all distractions, and let these wash over you for a short while. You will feel calmed, refreshed and ready to face the rest of the day. And then? Weekend! Everybody wins. READ MORE
You Know What Era Can't End A Moment Too Soon? The Bloomberg Era
.@mikebloomberg says, because it can't be automated, becoming a plumber is a better deal economically than going to Harvard.
— Kate Taylor (@katetaylornyt) May 17, 2013
Bloomberg: "We would love to get billionaires from around the world to move here; they're the ones who go to the stores, spend a lot of $."
— Kate Taylor (@katetaylornyt) May 17, 2013
Good grief! I mean "at least he doesn't smoke crack" I guess?
One Playlist For Driving Around Seattle
This One Playlist for Driving Around Seattle is brought to you by the all-new 2013 Buick Encore, the luxury crossover that's always the perfect fit. Learn more.
It's been 22 years since Nirvana's Nevermind and Pearl Jam's Ten first catapulted what critics were then calling "the Seattle Sound" into the mainstream. And while Seattle's legacy will be forever linked to the image of the flannel-clad, generationally apathetic masses, the city's music scene has long been a source of era-defining music.
In tribute, here is just one playlist for driving around Seattle, inspired by some of the music that helps makes it great.
Sir Mix-a-Lot – Posse on Broadway
Woe, Woe, Your TumblrCities Lies In Dust
Mark Ghuneim and David Peris dug up this delicious chestnut from January, 1999: "Internet search engine Yahoo! Inc. confirmed Thursday it will buy GeoCities, a fast-growing Web site community, in a $3.6 billion deal that will further solidify Yahoo!'s position as a frontrunner in the online popularity contest." RIMSHOT.
Makes a billion dollars for Tumblr seem like a steal. Here's what I don't understand: who's blabbin' about the potential acquisition of Tumblr by Yahoo!? Oh, gosh, whoever benefits from that. Tumblr made $13 million in 2012, so $1,000,000,000 sounds totally natural.
Oh, and how was GeoCities at the time of its Yahoo! acquisition? "In a separate announcement, GeoCities posted a net loss of $8.4 million…. For the year, the company lost $19.8 million."
While you're planning your outfits for this weekend, let's check in with what's going on at Guantanamo! There'll be a live-chat at 2 p.m. today, but, spoiler! "The current hunger strike at Guantanamo has entered its fourth month, with resistance growing to involve 100 detainees. More medics have been flown in to assist with force-feeding 29 inmates, and five are currently hospitalized."
11 Great Things To Do In NYC This Weekend And 1 Thing To Maybe Avoid
Can't even tell you how good this weekend is, just look and indulge.
Goodbye To America's Last Expert
Whether godless or godly, we all consult a private pantheon of authorities, living or dead, to gauge our comportment. We read ethics columns on subway trains and in cafes for vicarious solutions to our secret troubles. Since the days of Dear Abby and Ann Landers, the availability of emotional and behavioral self-help information has grown exponentially. In the digital age, now adrift in a wide, shallow sea of media outlets, wondering where to turn for advice only increases our anxiety. Cable TV and the Internet have left us splintered and atomized; they've negated the comforting clarity of our few favorite go-to gurus.
One such erstwhile guru has just left us for official divinity. You probably hadn’t seen Dr. Joyce Brothers on the small screen in a while (though you may still catch the AlertUSA emergency response ad in some TV markets) and were perhaps surprised that she had been yet among us. But if you are of a certain age, she was already wedged into your psyche, an unacknowledged aspect of your superego guiding your attitudes and behavior. For a significant hunk of the 20th century, millions of us asked: “What Would Dr. Joyce Brothers Do?”
A PhD research psychologist (Columbia University, '55), Brothers’ only clinical practice manifested itself at the one-to-many level via mass media. Her syndicated columns were read over breakfast tables for decades, but it was television that made her a household icon. Unlike TV stars like Ed Sullivan, Milton Berle, Phyllis Diller or Lucille Ball, contemporaries with whom she began her long, multi-faceted television career, Brothers stuck around for party after party and made herself useful. She was always there, in a variety of guises and venues, from the almost-beginning of TV in the mid-20th century to the almost-end of TV in the early 21st century, (and like Barbara Walters, Brothers’ career also mirrored television’s trajectory). Americans relied on her counsel for all manner of desperate issues and intractable problems. Journalists and talk show hosts consulted her on every imaginable subject from asking one’s boss for a raise, why we go gaga for the Beatles, what our movie preferences say about us, how to tell if your spouse is unfaithful and even how to cope with a national tragedy. The enormously eclectic range of topics she addressed spanned the decades, giving a snapshot of American cultural history: how to get a grip on gas line behavior, the streaking fad, the space shuttle explosion, the emotional benefits of answering machines, Pamela and Tommy Lee’s relationship, Princess Di’s death, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the anthrax panic, and so on. READ MORE
New York City, May 15, 2013
★★★ The IRS hold music played and played as the briefly clear morning darkened over. The toddler came back from the park, chased by drizzle. Most of the flame-colored tulips had blown out, leaving only the pink, hairy-edged ones standing. The early chill had brought out leather and leatherette, probably the last chance for that. By late afternoon that chance was over, the sun returning, the air heavy and warm. The buildings away down Amsterdam whitened in the haze, as if pressed under layers of waxed paper. The sun was a zone of brightness, the way painters depict it in the pink Martian sky. Twilight didn't fall over the city so much as condense out of the air, everywhere at once.
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