Est. Read Time: 4 minutes. Read Time brought to you once again by the Ashburton Energy + Hair Logistics Group, in association with the Bradley Hills Bureau of Corrections.
UPCOMING SHOWS:
Saturday 3/26 Silver Lake Backyard Show (Details tbd)
Sunday 3/27 8PM (The Hollywood Comedy)
Sunday 4/2 8PM (The Hollywood Comedy)
Tuesday 4/12 10:30PM (Roast Battle @ The Comedy Store)
Hellooo Sternal Journalists!
Today, I went to the Broad Museum in downtown LA with some friends who were in town (also why it may be one more week for the New Sternal Journal Interview ;)1 ). It was, as usual, very cool and I saw a lot of paintings and otherwise pieces of art that made me “ooh” and “aah.”
Also, one of my friends texted their sister who is an artist to say we were at a museum and she—who will remain nameless—said “Anything interesting or just a bunch of rich white people parking their money?”
Incredibly fair counterpoint. I would assume a little bit of both, or at least I would assume that some rich white people are using it to park their money but also there’s always some stuff that I find interesting. And today, I decided to commemorate those things by buying some postcards!
Of course, postcards of art are not a fair representation of what a piece of art actually makes you feel or think or say when you see it in person. And especially photos of postcards of art are not that. But I’ve spent too many years going back to the Broad every 13 months or so and thinking, “Oh shit, I forgot all about this painting. Who’s it by? Why’s it always make me feel like that?” And then forgetting about it for another 13 months.
So I have a postcard now of this piece, Green Blue Red, by Ellsworth Kelly, which is obviously one of those paintings that would make most skeptics and a whole lotta realists go a little bit “Mmmreally? This is hard? Why is this supposed to be special?”
But to quote one of my friends today, it also makes you say, “What the hell did they paint this with? It hurts my eyes.” Yes, it may be a little painful, but there’s undeniably something about looking at this sheer amount of these colors all in one place that knocks you back a little bit in a way that might not be noticeable if it was more complex. And that’s what I always think about when I look at it.
(Also I like these quotes from this article I just perused on Kelly: “To hell with pictures. They should be the wall.” / “I had the shapes: the curves and the triangles. What I needed to do was take the figure out.”)
This one—Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell by John Baldessari—is so my shit. Irreverent, annoying, nanny-nanny-boo-boo chic. He found some tips for selling art in a trade magazine, and made a painting of those tips that did not follow any of the tips. Now, it’s in a fancy museum collection of someone who paid a lot of money to have it.
Also, he had sign painters do it instead of doing it himself. Not sure how I feel about that part, but it does add to the nanny-nanny-boo-boo-chic (had to say it twice).
And finally, my favorite: Ed Ruscha’s Norm’s, La Cienega, On Fire. I love Norm’s. It’s a diner chain in Southern California whose slogan “We’re Always Open” inspired years of bits between my friend Evan and I where we’d act out various scenarios—earthquake, mafia shakedown, the sinking of the Titanic that is somehow taking place at a Norm’s—always ending in the stoic, iron-jawed manager of Norm’s refusing to give up and uttering through gritted teeth, “we’re… always… open.”
So a few years ago, when I saw that there was a paining of a Norm’s going through such an unimaginable disaster as a twenty-foot-tall blaze, suffice it to say I was giddy.
And then today—because I finally bought a postcard so I finally remembered to look it up—I found out that there never was a fire at the La Cienega Norm’s. Ruscha just, for some reason, decided to put Norm’s through all that, immortalized in a now iconic painting.
I don’t know that he was pulling at the same thread Evan and I pulled at in our bits, but isn’t the point of art that it doesn’t matter what he intended? That if I look at it and imagine the manager, face awash in flames, still flipping flapjacks til the last plastic-y diner booth is reduced to ash, shouting to no one but himself, “ALWAAAYS,” that that’s then what this is supposed to be about?
I don't know, but that’s what I think about when I look at that picture of a postcard of a painting.
Recommendations
Little Prince. Song. MoCo Sternal Journalists should check out this song because it’s by a band on the rise called Spring Silver (self-described as “queer metal, they/themcore” on Bandcamp), which is both so fking MoCo and, to me, really underscores how magical a name Silver Spring (Maryland D.C. suburb) is. Great song, planning to listen to the album. Check out the write-up of Spring Silver in the Washington Post and h/t to Mollie for putting me on to them!
Straight Rhymez. Song. I’m starting to listen to a lot of British rap. Aitch—who is already very famous, I just didn’t know about him—is one of my new faves.
FYP Comedy. Show. My friends Sam and Max—who you will know from TeachTok and HeyHowIsThatGoldenEyePauseMusicComingAlongTok—are putting on a show of only TikTokers who are actually also funny stand-ups (they actually are, I promise, I swear! I wouldn’t be going if they weren’t). I plan to be there. You live on the Westside? Come sit with meee!
Endless Thread: MEMES. Podcast. I love this WBUR podcast about Reddit (even though I’m not a Redditor at all—truly not sure how I avoided that addiction). I’m only three episodes in, but this mini-series about memes has all of their trademark joy and wonder. So far, they’ve covered Kilroy Was Here (potentially the true original meme), and talked to Scumbag Steve and his mom (they are not scumbags!), as well as Rick Astley. It’s a hoot!
Alright, that’s all! Hope you have a week full of art and maybe some memes!
Love,
Julian
P.S. I spend anywhere between two and twelve hours a week on the Sternal Journal. If you enjoy receiving it (and are RICH) consider becoming a paying subscriber. For just a few bucks a month, you can provide me with a bit more time to come up with fun topics, poems, and interviews; and you with probably fewer typos.
But come on, if you know the Sternal Journal, you know that taking a while to deliver larger projects is the sign of an upcoming Sternal Age of Abundance. Sorry, Olivia!