Did you know that today is Equal Pay Day? Did you also know...
1. ... that the Equal Pay Act was signed in 1963? Women made 59 cents on average for every dollar made by men.
2. The definition of pay equity: evaluating and compensating jobs based on skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions, and not on the people who hold the jobs.
3. In 2003, after studying 18 years worth of data, a report by the General Accounting Office found a 20% earning gap between women and men that could not be explained. The consensus? Discrimination.
4. By 2009, women were making 77 cents on average for every dollar made by men. A bit of an improvement, yes, but a narrowing of the wage gap by less than half a cent a year.
5. This wage difference costs the average American woman between $700,000 to $2 million over a working lifetime. It impacts Social Security benefits and pensions.
6. As of 2011, according to The Gender Wage Gap by Occupation report published by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, women earn less than men in 107 of 111 occupations, regardless of levels of education.
What can be done? Passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act which was reintroduced to Congress today. Please spread the word...
While browsing in the men's section of Bloomingdale's downtown, I kept feeling like someone was watching me. I turned around and found myself eye to eye with this odd, bearded sailor fellow. Next to him was another bearded man whose thatch of brown hair was offset by a seasick green visage. They stared me down as I approached. When I got close enough to touch--their eery open-eyed gazes unwavering--I realized that they were, in fact, made out of paper. Lots and lots of paper. I couldn't really comprehend what I was seeing; moreover, I couldn't believe that what I was looking was some seriously AWESOME artwork right there in the basement of Bloomingdale's.
This is the work of Nick Georgiou, a Tucson-based visual artist who is inspired by "the death of the printed word." Nick makes sculpture out of books and newspapers in an attempt to convey our shift towards digital domination. A former New Yorker, Nick also draws inspiration from the surroundings in his new desert Southwest home. His sculptures run the gamut from portraits and still life tableaus to spooked looking animal creatures. It's weirdly wonderful work, subversively genius. You know what's also weird and wonderful? That Bloomingdale's is exposing the masses to such interesting art. Bravo.
Let me just say this about the new Cartoon Network show, The Problem Solverz: There's a "half anteater, half man, and half dog" character named Alfe (pronounced al-FAY) who loves pizza. Also, there's a robot named Roba who isn't really a robot, just a neurotic boy who dresses like a robot to combat his fear of humanity. Then there's Horace who's totally normal except he pals around with these two crazies who, um, drive him crazy all while they're trying to--wait for it--solve problems.
Airing on Cartoon Network on Monday nights, The Problem Solverz is the brainchild of artist Ben Jones, he of the ultra-awesome art collective Paper Rad. Ben's work has been shown at PaceWildenstein, Deitch Projects, Tate Britain, and The New Museum of Contemporary Art among many others, and he has done animation for everyone from M.I.A. and Beck to the Nick Jr. show Yo Gabba Gabba. With The Problem Solverz, comes a whole new bag of neon magic. I think I've watched the "Pizza Time" clip a dozen times already. H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S. Don't miss this show.
One of the pleasures of living near friends in NYC is popping over for a spontaneous movie night. I hosted the most recent one, and in between wine sips and ice cream scoops we took in the romantic slo-mo tableaus of Xavier Dolan's Les Amours Imaginaires, aka Heartbeats. The sophomore effort from the young French-Canadian director/actor/writer is a menage a trois love story of sorts set in modern day Montreal. The plot isn't totally new or completely fleshed out (pun intended), but the aforementioned slow motion closeups are so bright and beautiful you find yourself desperate for Pepto-pink dresses, thick eyeliner, or a straw boater--if only just to have the baby blue lined hat box it rests in. A hit at Cannes, Heartbeats is a lovely, lazy romp through French New Wave fields that are dotted with Almodóvar poppies, and there are delightful performances from the entire cast, especially the hilarious Monia Chokri, who can count me as one of her new style stalkers. The Good Neighbor Film Society (which I've just dubbed us) suggests you watch it tonight on demand!
It's ridiculous how much I want this belt. Isn't it amazing?! It's the cast bronze wonder-work of Brooklyn-based Serra Victoria Bothwell Fels, an artist, traveler, designer, jeweler, metalsmith, teacher, writer, illustrator, and rusty object collector. That's just a preliminary list of Serra's polymath-like descriptions, FYI. She currently makes awkwardly shaped house installations in places like a former convent and will be showcasing new work at the Gowanus Ballroom's Art + Architecture show opening this Friday. Go check it out!
"Black is the uniform of poets. We lined them up and gave them new customs..." - Poem #2 by Richard Hell and Patti Smith
I have not wept openly at a concert since I witnessed Tori Amos sing "Me and a Gun" a capella in the firefly light of Austin, TX, sometime around 1996. Last night marks occasion #2. We arrived at Milk Studios around 8pm for Steven Sebring's ILLUMINATION: Who Are Poets exhibition expecting a short poetry reading, as promised, by his friend and subject Patti Smith. The entire exhibition celebrates the work of poets--lyrical and otherwise--such as Jim Carroll, Neil Young, Michael Stipe, Philip Glass, Joey Ramone, Richard Hell, and Ms. Smith herself. The performance that was given, however, was something else altogether.
The room was wall to wall with the usual black bedraggled fashion-slash-artist armada, and we all staked our spots in front of the small, piano covered stage an hour before anything started. It was sweaty and close, but no one cared, and when the music finally faded (REM over the loudspeakers, coincidentally), Michael Stipe took the stage to snap us to attention with his fingers. Patti emerged, her hands clutching several sheets of paper, and she gave a ferocious reading of Poem #2, dedicating it to Richard Hell, and finished by tossing all of her sheets to the nonexistent wind as the piano tinkered on, the rest of us hooping and hollering, happy with what we thought was the entire performance. But, lo, there was more...
What followed was Patti singing a soft, stripped-down version of Neil Young's "It's a Dream" (which started my tear-train), her longtime bandmate Lenny Kaye honoring his other former bandmate Jim Carroll with a song, and Patti reciting her emotional poem, Radio Baghdad, while her daughter Jessie Smith played a Philip Glass piece on the piano. Then there was the moment of true tears, the opening chords to REM's "Everybody Hurts." Everyone looked over at Mr. Stipe, who was standing behind the piano merely watching, mind you, clearly not intending to participate. Then, as Patti began to sing, she "accidentally" forgot all of the words, and he jumped on the stage to rescue her. Together they led us all in a sing-a-long which saw not only me, but several softies, bawling our eyes out as we shouted the lyrics with not one, but two of our heroes in a smallish concrete room on the westside of Manhattan.
I know I'm being dramatic as I type this, but it was that kind of night. This was not the song that ended the show, however. Joey Ramone was the last honored poet, and his musical homage included another sing-a-long which Patti insisted the audience lead, this time to "Blitzkrieg Bop." There wasn't a single person in that place--not even the coolest of the cool--who wasn't smiling and singing along to the chorus. It made me wonder, hope really, that maybe we could all leave that room remembering the importance of a poet's words, be they spoken, shouted, keyed, strummed, or read.
They're piling in the backseat
They're generating steam heat
Pulsating to the back beat
The Blitzkrieg Bop
Chest-diving deer. Treehouse heart explosions. Girls and cats, messy and intertwined. I love the tangled-haired sleeping beauties drawn by Canadian artist Marigold Santos.
