RIP, JRM

This card arrived via snail mail a few days after its announced start date (no fault of the USPS; that was the Jazz Record Mart’s long-standing M. O.).

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Alas, the business closed fifteen days before the sale was to have ended.

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No more

  • free “brunches” on Sunday mornings during free festivals
  • suburban teen musicians commuting in to work at the store
  • impromptu film festivals
  • visits by gods of the music, in town for gigs
  • massive moves to a new address a block away every few years
  • beat-up vintage posters
  • newsletters in desperate need of proofreading (Lord knows, we tried)
  • (got another one? Send it in!)

Update: we were on the Left Coast when JRM went to heaven, and repeated e-mails did not get a rise out of the ghost, so we contacted the family’s record company. They sent the CD of our choice and the difference. Everybody else goes to heaven as well.

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2016/02/29
Categories: Uncategorized . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: Leave a comment

Props to Nicholas Nixon

The Giorgio Armani ad campaign, begun last month, flatters sincerely through imitation.

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2016/02/28
Categories: Uncategorized . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: Leave a comment

Tod Papageorge

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“Taking so many pictures taught me a lot, even unconsciously, about being out in the world and using a camera to make pictures.  It also taught me a lot about different picture forms, and the use of space.  Many students today are completely ignorant about that, so the pictures are generally something plopped in the center of the frame and digitally printed to 40×50.  I shouldn’t castigate the students, but it turns up in the galleries too, and it’s just not very interesting; it’s not very satisfying as a visual experience.”

(As is often the case at http://mpdrolet.tumblr.com -ed.)

“Maybe it’s simply a case of finding a number of interestingly tormented people.  Garry Winogrand, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander – they were all lunatics.”

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2016/02/11
Categories: Artist's Statement, Words of Wisdom . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: Leave a comment

Mr. Gitz Speculates

“The future, Mr. Gitz!”

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The Next Revolution in Photography Is Coming

What is 21st Century Photography?

2016/02/07
Categories: Tools & Materials . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: Leave a comment

John Pfahl

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“At that time there was a lot of conceptual art around which was documented by photographic means, but generally without any formal or even photographic interest. Nothing was there but the idea, and it was preferably shown in its most minimal form — as a poorly lighted, exposed, and printed black and white photo. You could not get lost in the print itself; you were always confronted with the idea.

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“I always felt that one of the basic beauties of the medium of photography was that there could be many levels of interpretation; a certain richness of multiple meanings. That is where I veered away from conceptual art. My photographs exist completely as photographs, with all the complexity intact, not merely as illustrations of literal concepts. I like to consider them more as formal experiments dealing with the properties, history, and aesthetics of photography and concept of illusion, beauty, and landscape.”

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2016/02/03
Categories: Artist's Statement, Tools & Materials, Words of Wisdom . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: Leave a comment