It's Seasonal Museum Directors Swap!

UPDATE!!!!! I posted this on April 1st, thinking everybody would see the joke...But no! I got some emails commenting on the post, etc. So it worked and I had my fun, but to answer some email questions I have received: I haven't the foggiest idea what Michael Govan is up to!
This being said, pre-April Fools Day this item was published... I saw it after posting mine.



Every 2 years at the same period, there seems to be some new rumors about museum directors leaving, arriving, "being resigned" and so forth. It's so ritual it is starting to look like a Pagan renewal rite. Gossip goes exponential, rumors fly, stuff is being whispered, hopes rise and expectations are being crushed. Earlier this year we heard about Philippe de Montebello retiring from the Met (my money is on Neil McGregor), there's been the swap at the Walker, etc, etc. You'd think in LA we would be safe, since we've underwent that directors dance not so long ago.
So I was flabbergasted this weekend when I heard rumors that LACMA's director was starting to get tired of itt all. What??? The guy's only been here 2 years, got the most massive media exposure this side of Britney Spears and already wants to leave? I found it hard to believe (and still do, frankly), but my dinner companions seemed to have it on high authority. No names were given (actually they were, but I was to far from the people talking to really make sense of what I was hearing), but it apparently went that way: one local gallery owner got it at the Whitney Biennial opening from one of his NYC collector who himself heard it from one of the museum trustees.
It seems Govan is disillusioned with the dearth of generous benefactors and donors in Los Angeles, and the very low level of fundraising possible here. In addition the sartorial provincialism of the trustees is kind of grinding, and he finds it hard at the museum galas when he stands out in his Dior Homme suits and cowboy boots among the tuxedo-clads penguins (just kidding, that one I just made up!).

But seriously he's been really impaired in his quest to redo the entire LACMA campus by his inability to raise money locally. Like, the Wunderkind has lost his mojo, once transplanted in the LA desert. So the word is he's gonna try to drag it for another year and see if he can get some Back East Serious Money to invest in Poor Auntie Fairfax-Wilshire. The plan is to have some serious party here in February when they freeze their asses on 5th Avenue, show them the potential to have their very own buildings (Your Name Here!) under the palm trees (hey, much better than dedicate MoMA's men's restrooms!), entertain them at some Oscar party with some C-celebrities in attendance, and if all of this fails, then he will go back to NYC where at least donors know who Jeff Wall is and that "dialectics" is not a dirty word.
The lack-of-fundraising opportunities doesn't surprise me, nor the homesickness (at least in NYC there's no earthquakes, fires, mudslides, and you don't spend 5 hours a day stuck in traffic). But the calling it quits so early, I find it weird, and I voiced my puzzlement in between the weak jokes (such as "well, he was really hoping to move in a Neutra or even a Koenig house, but all he got was a mock-Tudor").
To which one side of the table answered something along the lines of " well, now that Thomas Krens is stepping aside, there's a golden opportunity to lead a museum in need of a major rejuvenation, housed in a 20th Century's architectural landmark. And Govan really digs modern architecture".
Ah. Not unrealistic, if still surprising.
Anyway, I'm awaiting developments, as I still find it very hard to believe. Stay tuned!


Photo courtesy of Donna Grayson.

Stargazing At The Huntington

To make you patient a little bit, here are a few stars from the Huntington Garden. Will you be able to recognize Robert Smith, Rocco Siffredi, the mysterious kissers, Laocoon and his sons, and which American Idol contestant are hidden within plain sight?
On the day where the pictures were taken we actually saw Stephen Hawking and his entourage.

Closed until Tuesday

Hello Everybody,

I'm on a couple of deadlines, so no FBC! until either very late Monday evening, or more likely on Tuesday morning. There will be a few updates on the Glendale Gallery exhibition, some current local art world gossip, and a few short posts about my NYC trip early this month.
Meanwhile, enjoy your weekend, and see you on Tuesday!

The Coolest Exhibition In April

Next month is a great one. First of all, it's my B-Day, yay! Send the cupcakes, the macarons, and everything else on my wishlist, plus if you know someone who has a nice, reliable Japanese car under $4,000 to sell, drop me a line. I'm still looking.
But most importantly, 4 days after my B-Day is the opening of my very dear friend Jonathan Herder at Daniel Weinberg. Not only Jon is a great artist, but he is also a great person! Sweet, humble, kind, and like me he loves food! Did I also mentioned he's a great friend? He's also married to a wonderful person (sorry ladies, he's taken) and he and his family are very dear to my heart.
So on April 26, 4 days after my B-Day, Jon decided to give me a great present and show up in person at his opening! So on that day drop everything and please come in droves look at his work, buy it, say hi to Jon and spread the word!

Jonathan Herder, Daniel Weinberg Gallery at 6150 Wilshire Blvd, LA 90036.

This Was So Not Happening - Kaprow at the Geffen

Last weekend I continued my lucky streak of hitching rides to art events and ended up at the MoCA Allan Kaprow public opening. The evening had started greatly, with dinner with friends in Silverlake. Great company, great conversation, good food, everything that put me in a great mood and eager to see what MoCA was going to do out of Kaprow.
Disclaimer: I am not a Kaprow specialist whatsoever. I did teach a class or two on Fluxus in the past, have seen some Kaprow works here and there, know about how seminal he's been not only to performance artists the world over but also as a teacher, especially here in Southern California. But I certainly don't know his work in deep, so I was eager to learn more.
As a matter of fact, a few years ago when Kaprow was still alive and the venerable institution I worked for was scratching its brains to show more Los Angeles/Southern California-based artists in its program (because, there's a shortage of good artists in the region, right?); I did suggest to my then-boss to do something with him, maybe even a retrospective as I didn't know whether he already had one or not. The answer I got was a typical "oh his work isn't that good anymore".
It's even more typical he got a big show in Los Angeles after his death. Ah well, the vagaries of curating contemporary art in the US...
[Speaking of which, I'm waiting for the Los Angeles curator who's going to reconcile all sides of the Douglas Huebler Estate and organize a great retrospective. It sounds right Ann Goldstein's alley. Now that would be a public service exhibition. Ann, encore un petit effort!].

So I was all excited to get to the Geffen and see what was being done with Allan Kaprow. In effect, MoCA had asked a few LA artists to re-create/re-interpret some of Kaprow's Happenings. The result was... extremely confusing.
There is a row of early paintings that nobody was looking at, but which are probably going to be the regular audience favorite pieces once they walk in and the cacophony of the opening has died out. The show comes out of Chris Dercon's turf (Dercon was a very hot curator in the 1990s, and now, well...) and from the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, an institution I like most particularly. I suppose that as curated in Europe, in cities far smaller and less spread out than Los Angeles, the concept of having volunteers "reinventing" early happenings was working out rather well, and it probably was possible for the public to go to as many events as possible. But as played out in Los Angeles, it's hard to grasp what really is at stakes.

For one thing it is hard to comprehend, when you walk into the Geffen, that a bunch of events are being re-created elsewhere in the city. The museum's website is more practical and I'd recommend you have a look before you hop to Little Tokyo.
The other thing is the way the show is laid out, the retrospective aspect isn't overtly obvious. I remember walking out with some art people and discussing how the whole thing seemed totally disrespectful of Kaprow's memory, amateurishly mounted and not historically explicative.
There is certainly a paradox in wanting to see wall labels and elaborate didactics to explain the whats and the whys of an artist whose work was experimental, collaborative and free, but as is the show is not understandable for a lay person. The general feeling was repeated over and over by every single person I ran into that evening "This is so not happening". I must have heard it a dozen times, and joke aside it rang totally true.

There was a series of "early Environments reinterpreted by artists John Baldessari and Skylar Haskard, Allen Ruppersberg, and Barbara T. Smith; projects by artists Paul McCarthy and Suzanne Lacy with Peter Kirby and Michael Rotundi" in the main exhibition space.
Some volunteers were wearing cling wrap film while moving around blue furniture, and I'm saddened to report no one really looked at them, and they looked like they had no ideas what they were doing. Someone was calling or pretending to call from an phone booth, people were typing stuff on typewriter, or writing on apples (I did that too). There were some B&W projections on the wall of historical documents, but they were lost in the general chaos. There was a sentiment of utter confusion, everyone looked dead serious, and the result of audience participation gave, hmmm, somewhat boring results.

It's the same type of thing that happened when Nicolas Bourriaud resurrected participative art in the 1990s under the theoretically weak banner of "relational aesthetics". Basically, you just have to quote Beuys on "Everyone is an artist", and you look at the results. In the 21st Century, it gives us Web 2.0, with high, half-naked kids babbling on Myspace, error-ridden Web encyclopedias written by just anybody ("Hi! I'm Just Anybody Without Credentials and I'm going to give you the lowdown on Fractals! My sources are this great little leaflet published by the Church of Scientology in 1963, and my cousin's explanations. He's taking AP math classes at Levittown High!"), and YouTube entry after YouTube entry of terrible musicians, singers and actors persuaded they're going to change the world. Or find success, whichever comes first.

Yes, everyone can participate and make art, but is it good? Can good art result from self-expression? Does self-expression have a resounding impact and meaning for the viewer or spectator? Can it be not boring?
Most people, given the chance to express themselves, alas reveal a great poverty of thoughts and reflections. The messages on those apples ranged from the sweet but banal "I love you" to the boring and banal "it sucks". So public participation didn't yield fascinating results. Not speaking about that part of the audience that doesn't want to participate. It's surprisingly large.
The results seem a bit mitigated. I have no doubts the volunteers on Saturday had a great time trying to "reinvent" happenings and events, but to look at it felt sad and depressing. A few people I met who are involved in future re-creations even expressed their frustration at how un-historically conceived the whole thing was, and also at being asked to volunteer. A tiny fee would have been a nice gesture in expressing the institutions gratitude for what is, in essence, free work performed by the people, some of whom are professional artists and as such deserve to make a living.

My fellow opening-goers (most of them artists, with yours truly, one foodie IT person and one gallery person being the exceptions) and I concurred on how not interesting the event was, and we were somewhat remembering the heydays of Rirkrit Tiravanija's fame, when he was cooking curry at his openings, and the day after all the regular audience got to see was smelly, crusty leftover. There was no after party for the unlucky, paying public, just a sense of having been robbed of whatever had happened the evening (or several days or weeks) before. The other topics of discussions were about how the same LA institutions (MoCA, LACMA, the Getty) that asked local artists to volunteer or reinvent the Kaprow happenings wouldn't be caught dead asking the same people to show their own work within their walls. And how lacking in imagination the same institutions are, all asking contemporary artists to curate/interpret/design/showcase older art, as if it was always fitting. Your truly has curated one show like this in the past, and collaborated on another one along the same lines, so I'm guilty as everyone else who's doing it now.
But I think to do so legitimately and successfully you have to sit down and think about it and try very hard to match relevant artists who have stuff to say about the others' work. I don't see much sense in sending a "general appeal to the community" about reinventing an artist's work, especially when the artist isn't here anymore to give a few directions, express his approval or his displeasure at how things are conducted. And given what we've seen last Saturday, I doubt any of us was willing to attend any other Happening "reinvented".

So to conclude our evening, we went out sagely to a famous FroYo outpost (no, the other one) and had a great discussion about post-punk rock roller derbies, food, mink skeletons hanging from trees in Canadian forests, food, freak shows and cabaret acts in Silverlake, food, and owls severing pigeons wings in the California High Desert. And food. All in all, a conversation Kaprow might have enjoyed.

Aram Moshayedi Fills The Silence Of Infinite Space

Being without a car in Los Angeles is not only very unpractical, but also extremely time-consuming. Whatever takes 20 to 30 min at best usually can take up to 3 hours when you have to rely on the MTA. Of course going to see shows is even more complicated, so my Frenchy self has failed to see the Kara Walker show and totally missed the Michael Asher show. It's closing in 2 weeks so hopefully I'll get to see it before. I don't even know what's going on at Redcat.

But thankfully FBC! has quite a few art-oriented friends, so I hitched a ride on a couple of magic carpets last weekend to attend the great show curated by Aram Moshayedi at the Glendale College Gallery. The GCG is managed, curated and programmed by Roger Dickes, who entirely renovated the space 3 years ago, and managed on a shoestring to create a great hub for LA artists. His yearly budget is so low it's a miracle he has succeeded in programing such good shows, and basically started from scratch an exhibition space that routinely attracts a great audience, despite some handicaps. Such as: being in Glendale, away from the LA art world center of gravity, and having openings receptions on Fridays, right when traffic is horrendous. Let's hope upcoming budget issues won't kill in the bud such a great space, which provides a non-commercial showcase to many young artists and guest curators.

So last Friday I went there with my friend the Australian artist Ian Haig, who's currently in residency at 18th Street and kindly offered to be my magic, flying carpet. We got lost a few times en route, thanks to that thing. I was very excited to see the very first show curated by Aram, whom you may know as the friendly assistant curator at LAXart. The show is called The Silence Of Infinite Space, I suppose after Blaise Pascal's quote "Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie". I'm not going to extrapolate on Aram's supposed Jansenism, but rather expand on his exhibition, and the great job he did from filling that silence. There's nothing to be really afraid of.

Ian and I were really enthusiastic about the show, for several reasons. Ian was relieved that there wasn't any painting on view, as it is shocking for an international visitor to witness how much mediocre pictorial activity there is on display in Los Angeles art spaces on any given day. I've written enough here about generic figurative or abstract painting for you to know how I loathe it. So it was good to see mostly installation and sculpture.
In addition, the show was very well installed, a skill that is sufficiently rare enough amongst curators to be noted here. I was also very impressed because Aram told me it was his very first exhibition, and he did really well.
Group shows are not always easy, as you have to pick up a strong line-up of artists, and get good artworks from each of them without any artist upstaging all the others, it has to be coherent intellectually and visually, be intelligent and if possible not too dry* and most importantly look good. That's where many, many exhibitions usually fail, by lack of that special visual kick that makes you feel like it's happening, hic et nunc, and not promising some kind of future intellectual fulfillment though means of textual by-products.
On all these points Aram scored, which means he's probably destined to become a kick ass curator. Of course he picked up very good, solid artists, many of them well-known locally and nationally (Skylar Haskard, Justin Beal, Jedediah Caesar) though the work that gave me the biggest kick was Shana Lutker ** whose post-conceptual installation had a very 1990s, elegant look while being really, really fun (you had to look at all the book titles to see it). Haskard's worked well because of its placement, though I am not sure the work would be so strong presented elsewhere.
The mobile unit was the type of "relational aesthetic"-oriented work (Nicolas Bourriaud, oh I wish you had chosen a less ugly brand name for your theoretical brainchild) that functions well, and everyone loved it. It provided a focal point without being overwhelming, despite its size, and brought loads of fun all around.

I spoke earlier about how Aram used the space so well, and in my mind I contrasted it with my recent visit at the New Museum in NYC (more on this in future post) . With all due respect to the different sizes of the shows, I compared the way both were installed. Both shows were object/sculpture/installation/new media-oriented, and both were staged on open floor spaces without that much wall surface, something always difficult to master. Both shows were aiming to say something about a type of current art that is somewhat (at least in certain respect) less market-focused than most recent paintings, while showing youngish but already recognized artists. Most of them recent UCLA MFA recipients, and/or showing at my favorite gallery in Culver City (Hi Susanne!), living in Los Angeles.

So: Aram Moshayedi: 1-New Museum: 0.

Of course the New Museum's exhibition space is a bitch (more on that in another post) while the Glendale Gallery's is lovely, but the New Museum show curators did a very poor job of using it intelligently, of picking up artists and artworks wisely and displaying them in a way that a) made sense and b) didn't make each artwork conflict with the others. I've rarely seen a show that was as poorly installed as Unmonumental, and God knows how many Documentas, Biennials, Art Fairs and Pompidou Center exhibitions I've seen. Only academics suck as much when they install exhibitions.

To sum it up, I came out of Aram's show very excited, and elated. Because, believe it or not it's one of the best group shows I've seen in a very, very long time. Good works, good artists, great installation, the feeling that the show would look just as good on the days after the opening, and that the show was alive. Hm, the metaphysical aspect (see Pascal quote above) wasn't particularly obvious, but FBC! doesn't really care, having outgrown a sense for metaphysics in my early tweens.
So long live Aram Moshayedi, and if the New Museum people try to hire you, show them how to curate good exhibitions. Because they don't know how.


PS: for the socially inclined, a list of the people there: artists Nancy Popp and Susan Stilton, Fette from Fette Gallery, of The Flog fame with her husband, Lauri Firstenberg and Peter Zeller, Peter Kim, and Nancy Meyer from Michael Kohn Gallery.

*FBC! must confess a deep appreciation for conceptual, post-conceptual, dry, smart artworks and exhibitions. But because FBC! is human, I can also recognize the need for a bit of pizazz here and there...
** She shows at Susanne Vielmetter in May. So, yes, another artist from her stable I really like. I've said a few times it was one of the best galleries in LA, and I'm not afraid to repeat it.

If The NYT Ends Up Down The Drain

It will totally deserves it. It's been Socialite-worshiping for too long and the writing is really sloppy, or maybe they never recovered from their lack of fact-checking. Not speaking about their lame art coverage.
Not that the LAT is much better, mind you, especially now that it belongs to a Giant Garden Gnome, but at least it doesn't pretend to be the newspaper of record... I'm not so sure it's great neither Eli Broad nor David Geffen couldn't buy it, as at least they are local, somewhat art-interested, and Broad's idea of turning the newspaper in a non-profit doesn't strike me as entirely stupid.

Full Disclosure

Dear Devoted, Beloved Readership,

It's time for me to confess. No, I haven't been caught in a political sex scandal, besides I aim for Daniel Craig, not for a cheap boy-toy for rent. I haven't knowingly bought and sold looted art either, nor have I divorced Paul McCartney ugly. I never screwed any French presidents, and at the rate they are going it will probably never happen. I like my men smart and educated with a great sense of humor. I can do ugly but not vulgar (nor egomaniac and paranoid, while I'm at it).

So what is it are you asking, my dear devoted readers, that Frenchy has to disclose? Well, nothing too shocking I guess. In addition to my little bro, I also happen to have a sister. The slightly original thing is she's my identical twin, something that happens to roughly 125 million people the world over, so get over your sense of awe, it's pretty common. To get it out of the way: yes, we look exactly the same and we have the same voice. No, we do not get sick at the same time nor are we telepathically communicating, or whatever voodoo beliefs you may entertain.
Anyway, there are a few things we share: migraines, we both love reading, we sing badly (so does our brother), we cook and we blog.
My sister is actually the great cook in the family. She has 2 cooking and pastry chef professional degrees, but even waaaaay before getting those she would ask for a Kenwood robot mixer for her 12th birthday, and a marble slab to make candy when she was 8. She even started her own cooking school a few years back, but exchanged that recently for the security of a real paycheck. When we were little I didn't really cook because she took up all the space in the family kitchen, so much so that I finally moved to Los Angeles to finally be able to cook (not for the art scene, really)!


Last time I saw her at Christmas we were speaking about culinary blogs, and I was voicing my frustration at several of the best-known ones, like Chocolate and Zucchini: the prose is refreshing, but the 4 recipes I've tried were resounding flops. There's also a French one I find unbearable called Mercotte, by a snobbish, loaded and condescending matron whose recipes call for impossible-to-find expensive ingredients and revolve only around a) macarons and b) verrines (layered various food stuff in glasses). She is also using "professional" (i.e. jargonish) terms that a lay person doesn't know. If you're fluent in French, have a look, it reeks of so much bourgeois condescension you'll instantly understand the class issues and endemic riots in my native land.
If you look closely at most culinary blogs, they also tend to reproduce each others: you'll see the same chocolate cakes over and over, the same ingredients fads (Tonka bean, Pandan extract, pistachio paste) etc. So, according to my sister, I must have said something like: "I don't see why you don't start your own blog since you're sooooo much better than most stuff out there", and voila, here it is!
It's all in French, so you guys can practice your language skills, the recipes are all tried and true, and unlike my own blog it looks clear, neat and practical to navigate.
Enjoy, and say hi to my elder ( by 10 minutes) sister!

I stole the picture from her blog: it's an Easter cake made by people from Spaniards-In-North-Africa descent, like my sister and I, called "La Mouna". I'm making 4 of these for the weekend.

Your Social Life At Home

Hello my huge readership,

I'm sorry I've been a bit absent lately, but being without a car in LA is damn complicated (grocery shopping can take up to 3 hours and 4 bus rides, instead of a 10 minutes drive). I'm shopping for a new used one at present, so not much time to write. I promise I'll post about my NYC museums and gallery trip as soon as I have a bit of time, as it will be a very long post.

Meanwhile, for you fortunate LA people who have cars, I'd like to announce the upcoming show curated by Aram Moshayedi of LAXart fame at Glendale College Gallery, The Silence Of Infinite Space. It's certainly well worth braving the Friday night traffic, and I hope to find a ride if I haven't bought and DMVed a car by Friday. If I cannot make it, please say hi to Aram for me, and to Roger Dickes and his delightful wife Robin.

I've also received the following in my mailbox:

PERFORMANCE:

FIRE WALK WITH MOI

SATURDAY 22 MARCH 2008

10:34PM

HYPERION TAVERN

1941 HYPERION TAVERN
LOS ANGELES CA 90027

By one Natascha Snellman whom I do not know and whose IMDB says she's been "a vegetarian since age 13", she played in Elephant by Gus Van Sandt, and is from Portland, Oregon, a city where I may move at the end of the year. I'm no sure I'll be able to swing by, but I really like the title of her performance. If you go and want to send me a short report complete with photos, feel free, even if you're Natascha Snellman BFF (but in that case be honest and tell us, thanks!)

Meanwhile, you can go see the current show at LAXart, Kara Walker at the Hammer. I'd reserve LACMA until April 2nd and the opening of the Rita Gonzalez-curated (with Howard Fox) Phantom Sightings.

FBC! Is Looking For A Backer

Not for the blog, but for publishing artist books. I've been wanting to do this for a while, in addition to curating. I've always loved publishing art catalogues, and I love beautiful objects. If I could find a backer I'd love to start a small, artisanal business with maybe 2 or 3 people. I've been doing a bit of math and budgeting, and I'm not sure whether a small business or a non-profit type setting would be best, but if you think you know people who may be interested, drop me a mail, let's meet and brainstorm.

Also, there's a scheduled outage/maintenance at Blogger in about an hour, so you may have trouble to access FBC for a little while.

US Political Scandals Are So Much Fun!

Hello my dear beloved, devoted readership,

It's been a while! FBC! is back from NYC where I've been to the Whitney, MoMa, the Met, the New Museum, Chelsea, and most importantly at Joel Robuchon. So the next few posts will be about art, food, and other stuff.
Meanwhile, loads of stuff happened! For instance, someone was killed by an arrow in Lancaster, something unbelievable that recalls to mind a similar crime in London in the 1990s I believe, when a woman was killed by someone using an arbalet. Sounds like story fodder for our writer friends.
Also you American people got a new funny political sex scandal! Pretty risible compared to what happens in France, you know.
I'm totally befuddled with US politics, I must say. The Dems fighting each others in their primaries campaign, instead of, I don't know, outlining clearly their plans for universal healthcare, fighting recession, joining the Kyoto protocol, pulling out of Irak, general foreign policy, and their respective plans for governance.
I also think any candidate refusing the possibility of being on a common ticket for the general election is suicidal for the Democratic Party at large. Whoever wins these fratricidal primaries would better get a solid, strong and VERY CHARISMATIC person for the VP slot. Just sayin'.
I think you guys (and I, by ricochet) are going to get John McCain as next Prez. If I'm right (and I sure hope I'm not) I've seen the future and it's damn ugly.
If the country and the rest of the world are heading for a full-blown recession, we're going to need compassionate social reforms and federal help for the poor, since most of us are going to be just that.

Anyway, on to your funny scandal! I understand getting a moral crusader caught in a prostitution scandal sounds like poetic justice to many journalists, Republicans, Wall Street white collar crooks, and Christian Evangelists. After all, it usually happens to them! You see, me, I'd love for some of my evil former colleagues in various art places, yes you, you know who you are people to have their own car stolen, or be sued, or be in painful but non-disabling car accidents (there's a limit to my Schadenfreunde). That kind of stuff.
Though, as my delightful friend said, next time it happens it would be great if: a)humiliated political wife were to have her own press conference to say: "he's an a..hole and I'm kicking him out of the house!" and: b) if common press conference, said humiliated political wife wouldn't stand behind the male political corpse. Being humiliated once is enough!

But, hm, as far as scandal goes, it's not biggie, you know, compared to French stuff. A French Rep. would spend public money to visit his poules de luxe, not his own! And wouldn't be caught dead with just one and the same rental lady, it's so lame, so petit-bourgeois, when you can stage your own orgies and swinger parties! Keep your mistress and love child housed in palatial properties belonging to the government! Cheat on your wife for years with many, many women, stage a tearful facade when she divorces you, and then remarry a former model turned boring chanteuse with a bad facelift 3 months later! We also had a late 19th Century French president dying suddenly while shagging his mistress at the Elysee (no less!), and another one who was innocently climbing trees and jumping off moving trains (his sex scandals are less funny).

Anyway, if you ask me, the Clinton-Lewinsky thingy was also not a big deal (impeached for that???). Now if McCain and Romney (sounds a bit like Laurel and Hardy to me, or maybe the Two Stooges?) were to be caught in each other arms in a dungeon, now that would be fun!

The picture is a detail of Martin Kippenberger, Martin Go In A Corner And Shame On You, 1989, at MoMA. Feel free to reproduce but please link to FBC!

FBC! En Route for NYC

Hello sweet readers of mine,

FBC is flying to NYC tomorrow for about a week, to see the Whitney, the New Museum, Chelsea, if possible the Met Greek and Roman Art Galleries, and most importantly be reunited with my very dear friends. Not sure I'll be able to post from there, but I will certainly report. In ana ct of intrepid optimism and bravura, FBC! isn't taking her wonderful lime green and orange galoshes, so hopefully it won't snow.
Meanwhile, if you guys have tips about what kind of decent but nonetheless cheapo (used) car I can get myself, let me know. I see the poll has been the most successful so far since all 9 of you readers of mine has responded. Though I must say you've been pretty tame in choosing an eternity of Celine Dion singing as punishment for the ass....s who stole my car. That's 55% of you.
Anyway, I will come up with other polls later. Have a nice week in LA while FBC! freezes her feet in NYC.