Dear Al,

With much enthusiasm, I recently contributed financially to your campaign, and just last week I had the pleasure of meeting you at the annual Whittier Alliance May Day Soiree. I live in Whittier and work at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, just across the street from my home. Many of my friends and colleagues at the museum and at other arts organizations such as the Walker Art Center (heard of it?) support your campaign both ideologically and, just as importantly, financially. It is our hope that we will be able to continue our support for your candidacy.

And continue we will. Continue, that is, if we can count on your support of the arts once you take office. Together, Al, my colleagues and I might be said to represent “Big Art.” And as you probably know, both the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center (you may be familiar with it—it’s on Hennepin) are extremely BIG. And once the new congress takes over in 2009, we are expecting even BIGGER things to come. We, Big Art, expect to see some extremely BIG art in Washington, Al, and, moreover, we expect to see the same back here in Minnesota. That is precisely why we have continued to support your candidacy—philosophically, to be sure, but most especially in the realm of finance. Capiche?

Make no mistake: So far, we have contributed generously to your campaign to the tune of nearly a hundred dollars*, and we, so far, have had no reason to believe that our support for your candidacy will result in anything but enormously BIG, BIG ART. Still, we hope very much that things don’t go awry the way they have with the current administration and with our current senator, Norm Coleman. Personally, I don’t think our “senior” senator would know Big Art from a very large boulder, or a Ford F-350 pickup. (That’s a full-sized, “professional grade” truck, Al). No. We in Big Art believe that you, Al Franken, know Big Art when you see it, and that you will work hard to make certain that this country invests nearly a fraction of a penny of every hard-earned dollar that the government projects will likely be collected in taxes sometime in 2013 or later on some extremely important and extremely BIG, BIG ART.

We hope very sincerely that you see things the way we do. Thank you for your time.

Yours truly,

Steven Lang

P.S. To my knowledge, neither the Minneapolis Institute of Arts nor the Walker Art Center officially endorses your campaign, nor does either institution know anything about this letter.

*Best guess estimate, not for reporting purposes.

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An incredible trove of art, facts, and artifacts.

Click here:

Ubu.com

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I can’t stand how cool this is. Click on the pic above and check it out.

Here is an interesting slideshow that photographer Alec Soth made about his recent trip to Las Vegas.

Enjoy…

Las Vegas Birthday Slideshow from Little Brown Mushroom on Vimeo.

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I found this here.

Was Steve Jobs really this far ahead of his time?

Today I’m launching a WordPress rebuild of my website. I hope you like it! I hope you like it!! (I’m not usually one to repeat myself, but I am very fond of this new version of my site, so I indeed hope you like it. Let me know what you experience…)

–Steve

Before I attended this particular event, I was already aware of the agonizing chasm between comedy and poise. In other words, if you aren’t willing to step off the cliff, you’ll never be funny. Unfortunately, many of the contestants who had signed up to participate appeared reluctant to fall into and explore the depths of this chasm, and thus were never able to fully invest themselves in the game. Sure, there was a giggle here or there, but throughout the evening I found myself neither laughing with nor laughing at most of the performers. I would have gladly settled for either scenario, just so long as I was laughing at something.

Here’s a potential scenario to help describe what I mean. Let’s say that Gene Wilder, portraying the young Doctor Frankenstein, found himself hoodwinked into giving a lecture on a topic having absolutely nothing to do with his area of expertise (whatever that, in fact, was). If you can imagine what might ensue, then you can imagine how hilarious this game has the potential to be in the hands of someone who knows how to artfully let poise slip away. By way of contrast, now picture Young Frankenstein’s unfortunate “abnormal” monster, as portrayed Peter Boyle, trying to give an impromptu speech on current approaches to criminal rehabilitation. That is how painfully, wrenchingly funny this game can become when played by someone who never knew poise to begin with. However, from what I saw, those with too much experience giving real PowerPoint presentations and not much training in slyly–or not so slyly–losing their poise were unable to bridge the gap and get everyone laughing.

Indeed, if you’ve ever been subjected to a truly dismal PowerPoint presentation, you know just how dim the lights of creativity can get. If you haven’t, first of all consider yourself lucky, and then imagine for a moment the following scenario. Martin Luther King, instead of giving his “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, has decided to present his vision via PowerPoint, complete with all the requisite, mind-numbing bullet lists. He steps to the podium, and addresses the audience thus:

• Nation to rise up
• All men created equal
• People judged by character vs. color
• Each valley exalted
• Everyone holding hands
• Free at last

Informative? Yes. Inspiring? Hardly. PowerPoint is what it is. But when you take the typical PowerPoint out of its original context, suddenly the banal corporate-speak, flow charts, and stock images can (and indeed should) become fertile ground for lively absurdity and all-out mockery. Sadly, of the approximately ten participants I saw on November 5th, most appeared to have given PowerPoint presentations in the past in a business setting–a liability that became more and more apparent as the night progressed. The three-judge panel and sufficiently lubricated audience (via the sponsored happy hour prior to the event) helped, but the competition itself lacked for any real hilarity until the eventual winner, a red-headed vamp named Carly Wicks, took firm comedic control from the get-go (and whom, in the interest of full disclosure, I happen to know personally). Appearing as the second-to-last contestant, she ended up the hands-down crowd and judge favorite. I never knew coffee mugs were so Dada, but there you have it.

I had originally signed up to perform myself, but the organizers ran short on time, depriving a few registered contestants of their chance to take the stage and face the flowcharts, bar graphs, cagey judges and heckling crowd. Too bad, because I was planning to go up and kill. Ah, well. Maybe next time. Until then, I, too, have a dream….

Looking around the empty lake (and by the way, the sun was absolutely beaming off the water, it was beautiful, I’m telling you, you missed it, you must have missed it, because I was alone out there, except for some geese), I began to imagine that the venerable quaterback might be more than just the best quarterback of his time, of our time, of all time. Much more. I envisioned him waking each morning at 5 a.m., donning his number 4 jersey, and driving to the Wisconsin border (in a purple Escalade). Once there, grinning behind his facemask, he crouches, dips his right hand into the St. Croix River and plucks out the sun, then does a quick pump fake, and suddenly sends it hurtling westward across the sky. (Man, what a spiral! He’s still got it!)

And here I was, missing the game. I circled Lake of the Isles, then Cedar Lake, where I made a foray off the paved path down to the water at the lake’s north shore. The geese there seemed particularly startled by my presence, as if they somehow knew the third quarter had just begun. Although the setting was delightful (gorgeous, actually—something like On Golden Pond, but with fewer Fondas), I left the water and the geese behind, and returned to the bike trail heading downtown. A last-minute decision sent me crossing the pedestrian-and-bicycle bridge that spans the Linden Yards (where the city stores everything from giant mounds of earth to derelict cars). At the halfway point I stopped. This out-of-the-way bridge offers a fairly good view of the new Twins stadium in its rather uninspiring context, tucked between the parking garages and the freeway ramps and the incinerator. They could have put an IKEA there. It made me think further about the presence of Favre. I turned back.

Now heading south, I made my way home. Once there, I switched on the game. The Vikings for a time had been well ahead, but Green Bay had mounted an impressive comeback, cutting the lead to one possession. Enter Favre. Or should I say, game over. The man tosses the sun, for God’s sake! He isn’t going to let a little thing like a blown lead phase him. Now hang your heads, Packer fans! You lose! Woot!
Okay, fine. But winning isn’t the only thing. Stadiums sell tickets, too. So what about that crappy municipal dome Brett finds himself schlepping around in these days? Well, I’m fairly certain I’m not the only one who sees this season as a prelude to yet another new sports stadium in Minneapolis. In some ways, it’s an obvious narrative: If the Vikings win the Super Bowl, we’re a shoo-in for a new outdoor field. If they don’t, well…we would have if we had been playing outdoors all season. In short: If we win it, they will build. If we build it, they will win. But if sports fans are so precipitously excited to get back outdoors, why were the geese and I the only ones enjoying the lakes during the game today? For one thing, you can’t TiVo the weather. And come December, that puffy, comfy dome might not seem so darn Podunk after all.
I hesitate to use geese as a living example of mindfulness, but think about it. They spend an entire day relaxing on the water, taking in a little fall sun, and knowing all too well that when November hits they’ll point their feathers south and start flapping. On the other hand, if Favre were playing on this field-of-the-future right now—and it will be built, sooner or later—it is entirely feasible that these same geese might seize the opportunity to soar overhead and watch Brett hurl a pass downfield, possibly on a trajectory not unlike the sun’s, or at least not unlike the southern migration route these geese are smart enough to take each fall. Yes, without a doubt, Favre football is fun to watch. And whether or not the Vikings nab a Super Bowl title this year, Brett himself is sure to follow that same trajectory south this winter, to Mississippi, where, week-in and week-out, he always has home field advantage. Once there, maybe he and the geese can share a few laughs about Minnesota weather each morning when Brett drives to the Alabama border, shakes the kinks out of his throwing arm, and sends the sun skyward once again—quite possibly for the last time. (I mean, come on…he has to retire eventually.)