PicoBlog

99 Canal is a project run by artists, for artists. Our residency program and public program seek to amplify artist perspectives and promote equitable access to studio spaces and experimental art practices in the heart of Chinatown, New York City. No thanksncG1vNJzZmhxaZiur63LrKurnZWpe7TBwayrmpubY7CwuY4%3D

Some time ago, musing on the appeal of the “every single X” mission — examples: crossing every single bridge in Venice, visiting every single dog run in New York, using every single subway stop in Toronto, etc. — I landed on the idea of visiting every public library in New Orleans. I didn’t start immediately because I was busy with bill-paying projects, and because I’m lazy. Also, while I like libraries, what I really wanted to do was visit different parts of town, with the library serving as my exploratory MacGuffin.

The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government began its business this week. The hearings were not been especially interesting, replaying old grievances of how Trump had been mistreated, with a star FBI whistleblower who turned out to have left government in the last century. What is more interesting is the way in which the idea of “weaponization” itself has emerged and been, well, weaponized. Share The creation of the new subcommittee represents the formalization of a new trope that has quickly become part of the partisan language of government, serving as a linguistic shorthand for an array of imagined misdeeds, in the way that “woke” or “CRT” has come to do.

I’m often inspired by those younger than I who work tirelessly to help our country survive and thrive. But at 92, it’s not every day I find someone older who is such an inspiration. Grace Linn is a spry 101-year-old with strong opinions about what’s happening where she lives in Martin County, Florida. The school board there has been at the forefront of book bans in the state, removing more than 80 titles from county classrooms.

Facebook acquired Oculus VR for $2.3 billion in 2014. Palmer Luckey founded Oculus when he was 19 years old. He had dropped out of college where he was studying journalism. His parents were concerned about his decision to drop out of college. In less than 2 years his company Oculus VR was acquired by Facebook. Palmer Luckey is now the founder of Anduril Industries. Palmer has raised more than $385 million in funding with Anduril from various investors.

My new video is about how Swedish director Ingmar Bergman frames and composes faces on screen. And while this is the element of Bergman's work that I felt would be most interesting to showcase on screen in a video essay- I've been completely captivated by many aspects of his filmmaking over the last year. From the variety of deeply personal, profound issues and topics he explores, to the diversity in his narrative approaches to those topics.

I joke to my friends that I’m like Pavlov’s dog. There’s something coded into my brain where the minute it rains, I start craving deep-fried food. Not fried chicken. Or fish and chips. But Indian deep-fried goodies. The ones I grew up indulging in, pakora. Given how much it rains in Auckland, I’ll leave you to guess what this hard coding has done to my waistline.  I get it. Fried goodies are not for everyone (luckily, those people are not my friends).

Hello!  We have a new episode for you, an interview with Ezra Klein where he talks about what we can do about this scary moment in media, where so many of the outlets we love are dying or being gutted. It gave me a shot of hope and direction after a bleak few months.   Here’s the episode. After the link, I’m going to jump right into some breaking news.  We’re trying something new.

“You like bars, right?” I’ve met John Wray outside of his brownstone, which is convenient as I live in his garden apartment. I was supposed to live here a year, a deal we made seven and a half years ago. John is very aware that I like bars. Our walk today will be to the Three Jolly Pigeons, a pub in Bay Ridge that is one of the oldest continuously operating bars in all of Brooklyn, and thus all of New York.