by Seth Colter Walls

Did the Internet eat a pallet-full of Grade F stank beef earlier this week? Because I smelled combat gas all the way over here, in the part of the Internet where people don’t even use Tumblr. (For, as Paul would have it in First Corinthians, the body does not consist of only one part, but of many.) Even though I hadn’t actually stepped to anyone all week long, I went ahead and took some good advice and took a day off from the city and the Internet. A pal wanted to go to Beacon, NY, to check the contemporary art museum dia:beacon. I realized I had never been. Also, trees are nice to look at, and Beacon, NY has those, too.

It costs $13, during Metro-North off-peak hours, to head from Grand Central to the Beacon stop on the Hudson line. dia:beacon charges a non-negotiable $10 entry fee, so if you limit yourself to a modest lunch, you can round-trip a whole day of culture and walking through a small town for under $50.

My companion was all about Richard Serra’s massive Torqued Ellipses. The structures’ tall, 2-inch-thick steel plates stand freely in the middle of a sun-dappled industrial garage. The narrow openings in each outer shell invite you inside what turn out to be Serra’s sculptures of negative space. Or, per the brochure: “For in these works space shifts and moves in wholly unpredictable and unprecedented ways: so destabilizing yet so beguiling is this sensation of movement that the spectator quickly gets caught up in an exploration of extended duration.”

I liked it pretty well, but then again, I live in a NYC-sized studio, and thus know all about staying in destablizing areas for extended durations.

The real winner for me was dia’s Bruce Nauman basement, which offered a nice mix of the artist’s early neon-based work (like Double Poke in the Eye II, above), as well as a recent video installation entitled Mapping the Studio. Nauman’s mind is an unmistakably dark one — and its outputs have appealed to me ever since I encountered his work during my teenage years. That first point of contact was Nauman’s multi-channel installation Clown Torture, of which there turns out to be a fairly decent (if non-pro) YouTube representation:

Nauman stretches this gauze — stitched of humor, paranoia and sadness — across lots of his works. Since the subtext is often about the fraught quality of social interaction — hey, like a party I went to earlier in the week! — it’s sometimes best to experience his work on a solo basis. Get a roomful of people staring at a Nauman piece like Mean Clown Welcome, and everyone starts to feel pretty weird about the phalluses going soft when the characters shake hands.

Understandably, there’s not a lot of Nauman’s video or neon work excerpted on the dia:beacon site, either, as it’s rather difficult to summarize in 2D form. But Mapping the Studio is actually set up for a group experience, with a series of chairs placed in the middle of the room. According to Nauman/the museum:

This new installation with multiple projections records nocturnal activity by the artist’s cat and various mice in his studio over the summer of 2000. “I used this traffic as a way of mapping the leftover parts and work areas of the last several years of other completed, unfinished, or discarded projects,” Nauman has stated.

That inclusiveness — both in terms of user-experience as well in its incorporation of fragments from multiple pieces — made me wonder if Nauman has been feeling a more social vibe, of late. His work for the last Venice Biennale seemed to suggest as much, at least in terms of the only way I was able to experience it (again, via YouTube).

After an afternoon stewing in the Nauman psyche, though, I was ready to head back to New York, and the internet. Like Emily Haines, I figure no one else wants to fight me like you do.

When he’s not taking the day off, Seth Colter Walls has a day job.

Top photo of dia by Madabandon from Flickr. Richard Serra photo by Robzand from Flickr.

by John Murray

With gubernatorial elections coming to twelve Mexican states this Sunday, a definitive test for Mexico is taking place. By most accounts, the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI, is riding a big wave of momentum, capitalizing on the public perception that the cataclysmic violence of the past few years is the fault of Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s war on the Mexican cartels. But more than for the parties themselves, the elections have become a symbol of whether or not Mexico can still hold its basic institutions together in the face of the threat posed by the rampant and insidious drug cartels.

As if designed to express this point, violence across the country has increased dramatically over the past few weeks. June 11th was the bloodiest day in the history of the recent drug war, with 85 people murdered throughout Mexico, including another slaughter in a drug rehab center in Chihuahua, where 18 people died. The violence culminated this week with the murder of Rodolfo Torre Cantu, a PRI candidate for governor in the state of Tamaulipas, which has become a war zone recently, with intense fighting between the dominant drug-trafficking groups in the region, Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel.

Torre Cantu’s assassination was immediately met with shock and anger. Shot 40 times while riding in an SUV (with the image of his own face painted on the side), there’s no mistaking a cartel hand in the audacious murder. This was the first major assassination of a political candidate in Mexico since the drug war began, and perhaps the most high-profile assassination since 1994, when presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was murdered. Torre Cantu was the major figure in the Todos Tamaulipas (“We are all Tamaulipas”) campaign, which strove to unite citizens of the embattled state, whose streets have become battle zones for warring crime organizations, with cars and fires barricading streets and scores of gunmen firing on each other in daylight.

The crime instantly triggered a condemnation from Calderon, who used it as an example of the pervasive threat of the cartels to Mexican society and the need for the country to unite to deal with them as enemies of the state.

“Today,” he said, “has proven that organized crime is a permanent threat and that we should close ranks to confront it and prevent it from repeating acts such as the cowardly assassination that shocked the country today. We cannot and should not permit crime to impose its will or its perverse rules.”

Unfortunately, Torre Cantu’s murder has not been the only homicide with political implications in the recent weeks, even though it may have been the most public. One of the leaders of the PAN, Pedro Brito Ocampo, was found murdered in an abandoned house in the state of Guerrero, the scene of another important election for a state plagued with narcoviolence.

And the mayor of the town of Guadalupe Distrito Bravo, a town in the Valley of Juarez, was murdered in the city a week and a half ago.

And on Wednesday, the decapitated body of an as-of-yet unidentified man was dumped outside the home of Juarez mayoral candidate Hector Murguia Lardizabal, a politician with the PRI. Five other Mexican governors have claimed to have received death threats in recent weeks, all of them PRI politicians.

In terms of assessing what this means, the motives behind these murders have first to do with groups of drug traffickers trying to ensure their influence in regions that are strategically important. While it’s impossible to speculate on the exact reasons each of these figures were killed or threatened, it boils down to the problem of systemic corruption and the sway the cartels hold with politicians. The cartels are accustomed to being able to control people in positions of power with the traditional offer of ‘Plato o Plomo’-’silver or lead.’ Either politicians take money from the cartels and work with them or they are killed. In the current climate, with the state bearing down on them and becoming a more legitimate threat to their existence, it could be that their ‘with us or against us’ philosophy is more ruthlessly and publicly on display.

It’s safe to say Rodolfo Torre Cantu may have made the more dangerous choice. The Zetas and the Gulf Cartel are fighting for control of the state, and Torre Cantu’s work to unite its citizens, who have been cowed into hiding in their homes during the day, is an affront to their magnanimity. He was the leading candidate to win, and his agenda may have been seen as a threat.

The larger implication of his murder is the threat it represents to the actual function of democracy in Mexico. The cartels, probably due to the pressure exerted by the government and its war on drug trafficking, are acting out more brazenly than they ever have before. Committing high profile murders and leaving bodies in the street with limbs and heads removed has become the standard action for groups that used to try to disappear people so that they would never be found.

It’s an attack on democracy and the population’s role in shaping their own fate. Torre Cantu’s murder is a signal sent to the citizens of Tamaulipas: no one on the side of government or the law can protect you. It’s a blatant attempt to scare people away from the polls on July 4th, and it’s also an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the election in general. And that is an extremely dangerous proposition. If the cartels can succeed in puncturing a basic function of government in the hearts and minds of the people, then what hope can they have for Mexico or themselves?

This sort of sentiment is summed up in the general opinions of the Mexicans who complain about Calderon and the PAN. Their belief that the inescapable violence is the fault of Calderon’s war on the cartels, rather than the fault of the cartels actually committing the crimes themselves, shows that the cartels have to some extent already achieved their goals of subjecting the population to their rule-or at least conditioning them to their existence in public life. It’s as if they’re saying, “If we leave them alone, they’ll leave us alone.”

The question of how to deal with this sort of threat is a tough one, and rather than militarize election day, the Juarez police force has decided to maintain a low presence, choosing to stay away from the polls for fear of scaring or intimidating voters any more than they already are. The El Paso Times reports a Juarez elections department official saying: “Police could scare people away, and instead of people feeling comfortable, they could feel that they will be inspected or detained. We want people to be happy so they can go out and vote.” It’s a psychological retaliation to the psychological blows of the assassinations.

And maybe this a manner in which we can assist Mexico in fighting the cartels. In all of the ways the US is tied up with Mexico — through trade, business, immigration and security concerns to name a few — at some point a threat to democracy in Mexico has to be viewed as a threat to our own interests. We can’t simply ignore it anymore.

This fact seems to be subconsciously manifesting itself along the border lately. It can be seen in the huge uproar over the border crosser shot and killed by Border Patrol along the Rio Grande a few weeks ago. Just Wednesday, shots from a murder occurring near the border in Juarez sent bullets through the windows of El Paso City Hall. We’ve intervened in other nations countless times on the basis of the idea that “a threat to freedom anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere,” and nowhere is that threat more real or close to US citizens, businesses and actual territory than in Mexico. It’s something that requires a closer look from foreign policy strategists, our own lawmakers and the United Nations, to see if we can help Mexico assert its authority as a democratic institution.

John Murray is a lover of obscurity. He lives and writes in Arizona.

Another Manhattan store has been shut down because of a bedbug infestation! The Abercrombie & Fitch at the South Street Seaport — which, it should be noted, is a corporate cousin of the Hollister store in Soho that was invaded by bedbugs earlier this week — has closed its doors to deal with what it is delicately calling “a similar problem.” This coincidence has got the Ohio-based company a little freaked out: “Abercrombie chairman and CEO Michael S. Jeffries asked for ‘leadership and guidance’ on how best to address the problem.” But he was rebuffed by the DOH, a spokeswoman for which said, “It is the responsibility of companies to handle bed bugs on their own.” No more handouts of exterminators’ business cards for you, Abercrombie!

More importantly, one has to wonder what the source of this problem is. Could it be a warehouse issue? A reality of moving suburbia into urban settings? Or is someone taking revenge on the Abercrombie company’s New York outposts — an anti-mall zealot, an anti-male-nipples crusader, a person who had a really bad reaction to hearing LFO’s “Summer Girls” while on line at Duane Reade?

Which store could be next? Because you can never be too sure, the WSJ offers some important dressing-room tips:

# Check behind dressing room mirrors and any other crevices where bed bugs could hide — even wall sockets — before trying on clothing.
# Hang your clothes on hooks, rather than lay them across cushioned seats in dressing rooms or on the carpeted floor as these are safe and popular havens for bed bugs.

Imagine if these things were unleashed in Daffy’s? Oh God, now I’m itching all over.

[Via / Pic via]

Would the above clips from the barreling-down-the-pike CBS comedy Bleep My Dad Says — based on the Shit My Dad Says Twitter account — be funnier if they were without a laugh track? Or if they were uttered by someone a little less self-aware than William “Priceline Negotiator Slash Ben Folds Collaborator” Shatner? Or without the protestations that this show, despite its salty title, has, you know, heart and is relatable and above all is actually a depiction of a man who’s totally free (but not allowed to swear as much as he does on the Internet)? I’m going to guess “probably not.” Yeah. [Via]

by Dan Horton

Dan Horton, a friend and former colleague, works on tugboats out of the New York Harbor for a living. Two weeks ago, he flew down to Louisiana to take a job on a barge unloading crude oil from the skimmer boats that clean the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. Crew are only allowed to send and receive one email a day; his girlfriend, Lori, passes along his daily email to friends and family. With their permission, we’re passing them along to you. -Dave Bry

Subject: Daily Dan: Pilottown report

Date: Wednesday, June 30th

Hey Babe,


We are tied up alongside a defunct oil dock at Pilottown on the 
Mississippi, just below where Octave Pass and Main Pass converge with the big 
river. It looks like it got hit one time too hard by some hurricane and was 
never repaired afterward. There’s well-picked-over trash on the main pier 
where the product transfers would happen and some wooden bulkheads with 
cleats on top of them were half-falling down. There are big ships going by 
with some speed on them so we had to really button it up good, it was a 
procedure tying up this big unit. I stayed up into the next watch. It was 
pouring rain, we wrestled eight heavy lines and wires onto the caissons at 
the bow and stern. On the smaller barge I was working for the last three years, 
getting the lines out was usually a pretty damn easy affair. This thing is 
five times the capacity of that, so it’s bound to be that much more of a 
hassle getting it together.

Plus, there were no line handlers at this dock, 
and we were well above the bits and hooks. I got the first line out with a 
throw (it was the second throw; man I’m not used to tossing these big 
big lines) and after that, we put a ladder out so a man could go down and put a turn in the eye so they’d hold better.

Sometime today a barge will come 
alongside so we can discharge the oil/seawater mix we have onboard-might as well get this done while we are all held up by the storm.
 It does look like there are a ton of boats up in these waters, 
judging by the AIS system (which gives the names of registered vessels on 
the computer chart). I don’t know what the AIS would look like in normal 
times, but I can see that there are a good number of “Responder” units near 
Venice. They are all named after whatever location they are stationed in 
and there are a good number of states and regions represented here 
tonight: Virginia, Texas, Mississippi, Gulf Coast, Southern, Louisiana, 
Delaware. I’m guessing that these vessels are between 185 to 215 feet long 
and built to deal with spills. That there are so many of them in 
one place is a testament to the size of the task at hand and it’s a damn 
shame that they (and we) are weather-bound here. That hole in the ocean 
floor keeps disgorging however many thousands of barrels a day, regardless 
of the weather.


When I went outside to check the lines (which we do once an hour) 
I couldn’t believe the sounds of the peepers and mosquitos and whatever else 
was out there in the weeds just off the river. Weird winding cycles of 
noise. It had a life of its own… Funky. And the horseflies are monsters. I walked past one of our yellow bug lights on deck and they were swarming up 
around it. I whacked one out of the air that came too close to my face and it 
felt like I was palm-swatting a badminton shuttlecock. Dragonflies all 
over the place, too, and I’m told that there are “dog flies” that will 
bite you through your jeans. I put that in scare quotes because I’m not 
sure if the guy who told me that was pulling my leg or not. It’s usually 
wise not to believe everything you hear on boats, especially when you are the 
only Yankee on a Southern watch. (I’m glad nobody tried to get me on the 
”mail buoy” routine, that one is usually reserved for greenhorns.)


Dad came to mind again tonight. I was reflecting on the fact 
that he would have been disappointed that I wasn’t the cook onboard, since he 
loved to talk about whatever meal was on the burner and the variations, side 
dishes and improvements that could be made to it. (My payscale is better not being the cook, however.) He grieved the loss of his appetite 
last fall… that was hard to witness. I’m eating a lot of high cholesterol 
vittles in his honor.


I’m glad I got to talk to you today (in network no less!) There’s no 
helping what a pathetic mush I am when I’m off on a boat. Wanted to write 
you earlier but we lost internet connection again, so I’m back up in the 
crows nest, 80 feet off the water using the satellite system.
 It’s time to check the lines again. I miss you and will see you 
soon. Not sure when exactly, but soon.


Love,
Dan

Subject: Daily Dan Departs

Date: Thursday, July 1st


Lori,

I am off the boat, writing on my own computer and waiting on a flight in NOLA. The knock came on my door just after eight a.m. (I must have been asleep for all of fifteen minutes.) We were getting supplies from one of the crew boats and they were heading back to Bud’s Boat Rental at Venice. My plane ticket had already been purchased by the company travel agent and the captain actually gave me a personal loan to make sure that I had enough cash to make it back to New Orleans (the cab costs $200… And probably another $30 to get to the airport.) There were some guys on the crew boat who worked for MSRC-the company with the Responder boats I mentioned yesterday. I picked their minds as best as I could to get an idea of what their end of the project looked like, but mostly talked with an engineer who usually works on the Hawaii Responder; the boats on the BP site were crewed with folks from all over the place. He was ex-Navy, and thinking about working tug and barge units in Hawaii as a chief engineer. That really sounds like a plan to me.

Another of the Responder people was a deckhand from Alaska. (I’m not making this up. It sounds way too symmetrical doesn’t it? If this was fiction, I’d change it to one of the lower 48, just so I didn’t have to represent the two non-continental states in such quick order.) He had a rental car that was dropped off by his relief-not an uncommon arrangement when changing crew on the fly. I grabbed him and asked him for a lift and thereby saved myself a pile of money (which I needed for the US Airways overweight bag fee… Grumble, mope, pout.) Paid for his lunch and at the end of the ride forced some more money on him just because. He was grateful to have a copilot, driving in big cities wasn’t his thing (after thirty-some-odd years living fifty miles north of Anchorage.) Lord knows I could have used a copilot on my trip down. I had no idea that there were so many roads named “90,” and somehow managed to loop back around to the Huey Long bridge when I thought I was on my way out to Venice; the second time over the Mississippi river bridge I swore I was in the twilight zone. It was incomprehensible. But I digress…

I’m tired as hell and needing caffeine. My bag fell apart at the ticket counter after a hasty attempt at unpacking to lighten it, giving up (it was hopeless) and badly repacking. It’s well wrapped in packing tape now, but this will be its last hurrah. I really hope they don’t feel the need to search it, that would be bad.

If you will have me, my dear, I shall be Commack bound this eve. It’s a good thing you have tomorrow off. Heh heh heh.

Dan

I was correct! The Times Economix blog, the AP, Reuters, CNBC and the Telegraph have all agreed in the last hour the that U.S. economy is losing steam! Noooo! Our steam! Without the steam, we are lost! I don’t have any steam left to give either. What about our giant steam engines? That once made all our precious steam? Sad day…. for steam and its enthusiasts. (No but seriously we’re maybe as screwed as I’ve always said we would be, which is weird and unlikely!)

Now available for free download, just in time for the long weekend: The Big Boi Mixtape For Dummies: Guide To Global Greatness — 28 tracks mixing up old and new material from the half of OutKast who, may we remind you once more, has a new album coming out next week. (You can preview it here! It’s quite good!)

Recently, NPR aired the word “goddamned” again, this time in a quote from a Tom Cruise-in-character-as-Les Grossman appearance, and boy howdy is America upset about the taking of the Lord’s name in vain. But don’t worry, NPR’s ombudsman (who is a woman! Which gives me pause that she should be opining on language usage!) is on the case. She writes: “I’m seeing the question through a different lens-one that is not based in the New York-Washington corridor, where this example of offensive language often goes in one ear and out the other.” While it’s surely true that in “real America” it is sometimes considered offensive to Christians to use “God” or “Jesus” or “The Lord” as an oath, there is no way that you can convince me or ANYONE ELSE IN AMERICA that “swear words,” especially including goddamned, are a “beltway,” “corridor” thing. (Elitist corridor Vice President Joe Biden be damned, of course.)

“Florida Keys, Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas” have a “61 to 80 percent” chance of being “oiled,” “due to the potential influence of the Loop Current. Any oil reaching this area would have spent considerable time degrading and dispersing and would be in the form of scattered tar balls and not a large surface slick of oil.”

Here is a video documenting what happened when a blogger at the AOL tech blog Switched left the confines of his cube and headed out to ask Times Square visitors whether or not they were aware of Foursquare, the not-a-contest social-networking application that is currently making both money and waves. Spoiler alert: “Huh?” is a common theme! I do wonder what the cutting-room floor footage might look like, as well as what the results of this experiment would be in other neighborhoods / cities / worlds. [Via]