Friday, June 5, 2009

midwifery delivery



It's a Girl !

A laborious congratulations to ArtLurker and his recently enhanced family unit.

With cohiba blunts and bouquets of rainbow roses,
may the fruits of your breeding adventure be resplendent.



'mother and child' definitely swampy-cute.

*

venetian water feature



Here in the swamp while some folks are busy raising their children, others are off to the Venice Biennale Art Fair in the old country.



MIA, NY and LA are the art-worlds ghost towns for the time being. Any one who is somebody and every other half-a-name is somewhere else predisposed with avoiding the rainy season.



Why do art freaks flock all the way to Europe for art among the waterways and canals that make Venice world famous...



... when they can just stay here in Miami and get all the Venetian splendor with swampy charm at reduced rates. Todays rain storm caused every kind of urban disruption imaginable but it also produced an awesome rainbow. With heavy flooding of our sea level town comes a damp reminder of what exactly is the nature of our South Floridian diorama, a place where water can reach up to your hi-knees at times.



So it is apt that a new art gallery in the Design District is called SWAMPSPACE.

*

Thursday, June 4, 2009

walk like an Egyptian



If there is a way to humanize the ravages of our times, it is this soldier in Afghanistan doing it swampstyle. Hard working Americans are the backbone, neck-bone and funny-bone of democracy and by extension freedom of expression.



We get up in the morning, say goodbye to the spouse n kids and go to work on tarmacs, factories and farms. Millions of us go to work in the service sector; hair dressers, chefs, plumbers and salesmen... lest we forget that labor precedes capital.



We say 'see ya later' to the loved ones and fire up our labor armor and deflector shields to venture forth to the alter of growth capitalism to make an offering for deals that bring home the bacon.



Service is foremost on the mind of our commander and chief. He sets out to the world to sell ideas. he knows all too well that sales is an art and a science. Was the recent speech a "hinge" moment in history or just a really good day at the office?


It is one thing to sleep with the enemy ( bush tried n failed) but it is quite another to dance the tango of international pomp and circumstance and come out a winner by the end of the work-week.



Guess who is not tickled pink out of his boxers with Obama's address to the people of the middle East this Friday in Cairo.

Just listen to young drunk Israeli-Americans comments, this is what we are up against, scary shocking.




Yahoo certainly did not invent Mondays but whoever figured out Fridays n furlough is a friend in deed.

*

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

SWAMPSPACE

Just when you thought there could no more bandwagon art galleries ...
swampthing is piqued to provide museum quality walls for unworthy art.



Who:
SWAMPSPACE is pleased to join the community of fine arts galleries in Miami's Design District with its inaugural opening titled "What is SWAMPY".

What:

With a focus on themes such as beauty, humor and social relevance, SWAMPSPACE welcomes both casual visitors and seasoned art lovers to enjoy thought-provoking art installations concerning the esthetic of life in the urban tropics.

When:
Monthly Gallery Walk Second Saturdays
June through December 2009

Where:
3821 NE 1 Court
Miami, FL 33137

Why:
Because life in the swamp without art is still worth living... but it would be uneventfully greige.

Contact:
Swampstyle@gmail.com



OPEN CALL FOR ARTIST - Please inquire HERE.



*

Sunday, May 31, 2009

What is Swampy?



Bang Zoom, to the Swamp!

Just a short road-trip north from the Latin-Manhattan that is Miami you will find the seaside town of Coco Beach where the classic TV show "I dream of Jeannie" was filmed. The story begins with an unsuspecting astronaut who finds a washed up bottle on the beach, takes it home and opens it to reveal, shazzam, one hottie of a genie, who becomes something of a wife, tormentor, deliverer of wishes, and a threat to the entire space program. The central task for our hapless space cadet was to keep the genie in the bottle, or at best home n barefoot.



Out of the Bottle, into the Swamp.

Just north of Coco Beach, anchored on the very swamp that gave birth to Barbara Eden's irresistible TV character is Cape Canaveral home for the Kennedy Space Center and the epicenter of the Shuttle/Scuttle Program. If I had to find something that typifies what is Swampstyle, look no further than our very own space program.



UP UP and AWAYYYYYYYYY

Nothing beats the thunder and lightning of a rocket launch. Packing a punch and boom that can tremor through the bones of even the most jaded spectator, every launch is a huge thing. Danger and Beauty are synonymous with the swamp and since the days of our putting a man on the Moon, NASA space program is also totally dangerous and beautiful.




Don't Mess with this Extension of an Identity.

For obnoxious people who lust for wartime stuff like Hummers, how's bout the next generation of peacetime heavy personal transport vehicle to rule the swampways. Can you name other stuff we use everyday courtesy of Space R & D.




Practice Makes Perfectionists.

Imagine going to work, suiting up and jumping in a giant pool filled with tools n toys, yippie thats swampstyle.



Nothing Rhymes with Orange.

There is nothing that can compare to the thrill of leaving this planet and looking back from space to see just how blue it is, just how commanding the energy of gravity is how it keeps us in orbit pulls us back, just like the swamp.




Is there a human in there?

The vacuum of space is a most inhospitable place as is the bug infested swamp, but we are compelled to go there with the dreams of finding our own genie in a bottle... or the perfect donut.



To Go Where No Donut has Gone Before.

Space really is the final frontier, but there is Inner and Outer space, if you know what i mean.
Another TV show i grew up watching was Star Trek, probably just the best space kitsch ever.
All that next generation stuff is nice but the original will always be as swampy as it gets.



Pointy-headed Logic Extraordinair.

Father of all nerds Dr Spock, please come to the emergency room... bring your music. The ears, the hair, the vulcan salutation, all very swampy.



Captain Phallus to the Raunch Pad.

Yes he is still the captain even after all those sorry ass TV commercials for hotel room deals and such. William Shatner's signature sly smile is also swampy.



If I die, Please put my ass in a gold box and send it up to Space.



Top Secret Super Sensitive Cargo.

Yes nothing is safe from you know-it-alls out there.
Now you know what is swampy.



Next installment, I will tell you what is NOT swampy, like you don't already know.

*

Monday, May 25, 2009

7 Dreadful Spins



Rules of the Game of Life.
Charelton Heston displays his guns for all mortals to behold.

According to lore from pre-history, an old man who was very close to the heavens was given the monumental task of delivering the laws of god to regular folk. He called it the Ten Commandments and we live and die by them today. But there are other rules of behavior that are no less consequential to our earthy existence. They have been tweaked through the ages but are basically the same today as in the beginning of time.



Truth in Advertising- using human weakness to sell stuff.



Can we White-wash the Tally at the End of the Trail, No.

Let's be honest, who among us has avoided lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy or pride? When you line up at the big check-out counter, what will the scanner read of your lifetime of trial and error that typify human all experience?




Road-map for personal Growth.

Like google earth, we venture out into the world of virtual illusions. At first kind of slowly then gradually speeding to a frenzy, each personal journey shares a common road; a boulevard that is worn with potholes, speed-bumps and tolls. Be mindful of the signs along your way. All rivers may lead to the ocean, but man has dammed the way with detours and distractions that are cul-de-sacs at best, dead-ends at worst. There is no teflon coating on life's super highway.



In the Garden of Swampy Delights.

As chance would have it, many of us grew up watching silly sit-coms like Gilligan's Island or Star Trek without reading stuff like Rudolph Steiner or the Koran. But what is fascinating today is discovering the hidden lessons in Hollywood's most trivial TV shows.



Tale of the Castaways.

Each member of the cast of Gilligan's Island is the embodiment of one of each of the Seven Deadly Sins. Left to right- The Professor, Mary Ann, Gilligan, Ginger, Thurston Howell III, Mrs Howell, The Captain. Can you guess who is who?



It's getting Hot Up in Here!

Listen to the revealing words of the late great John Pope Paul II.
He said something like this...

...heaven and hell are not a place in the clouds or a hole of fire... they are a state of mind (a construct inside our heads) right here on earth.

*

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Urban Decoration Day



simply iconic.... roy lincolnstein's atomic bomb painting.



Go give money to dear Peace Mom, Cindy Sheehan.



... and have an urbane urban weekend in SOBE, blood.




*

Thursday, May 21, 2009

bloggers-block



DENILE |de-nīl|

NOT
the river in eastern Africa, the longest river in the world, that rises in east central Africa near Lake Victoria and flows 4,160 miles (6,695 km) north through Uganda, Sudan, and Egypt to empty through a large delta into the Mediterranean Sea

"There's a blog born every minute, but there are only X amount newspapers."





ANGER |ˈa ng gər|

NOT
the guy who gained fame and notoriety from the publication of the French version of Hollywood Babylon in Paris in 1959, a tell-all book of the scandals of Hollywood's rich and famous. A pirated (and incomplete) version was first published in the U.S. in 1965. The official U.S. version was not published until 1974.



"So many thoughts (in my little mind), so little time to blog."




ACCEPTANCE |akˈseptəns| noun

Yes the willingness to tolerate a difficult or unpleasant situation : a mood of resigned acceptance.

" World I love You, All is Groovy" George Horner Poster




*





Sunday, May 10, 2009

happy mamasita day



"Tell yo mama i axed you, how she duirn?"
Shirley Q. Liquor




Swampthings mom is the one and only mother nature. Your mom might look like this also.



Or she might be the dearest of dear kind... till she has to screeeeeeeeeeeeeeem your head off.



Your mother might probably be the the type to rent this costume for a night out on the town.



Or she may honestly be the milk and cookies kind of lady that i would never say anything bad about.



But one thing for sure, mother nature is a strange and beautiful thing that bewilders.




This is somebodies mom.






... and it Ain't Bee my business if yo mama's raising eyebrows in Mayberry.


*