The Game

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Learning From White Castle

Local

From August 13 to 16, 2010, I ate at White Castle #100034 on 781 Metropolitan Avenue in East Williamsburg 11 times. I live around the corner from the restaurant and use it to guide friends to my apartment all the time (“pass the White Castle, make a right”), but have never actually eaten there prior to this undertaking.

The Spring Festival

Express

When I was 20 years old, and a college student, I defaced a portrait of Chairman Mao. For this act, and without a trial, I was declared a political prisoner and sent to a forced labor prison in Taihu Lake, where I served in a labor reform brigade—in this instance, a stone quarry—for seven years.

ART IS A POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY: Paolo Canevari with Francesca Pietropaolo

Art

On the occasion of his forthcoming exhibition Odi et Amo at Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna e contemporanea in Rome (October 9 – November 7, 2010), Paolo Canevari met with art historian and curator Francesca Pietropaolo to discuss—among other things—art, superheroes, and simplicity.

ELEPHANTS AND HELICOPTERS: Dinh Q. Lê with Carolee Thea

Art

Helicopters played a significant military role during the Vietnam War and became a resonant symbol for the Vietnamese. Now at MoMA, Dinh Q. Lê, the Vietnamese-American artist, is exhibiting a helicopter fashioned from scrap parts by two Vietnamese farmers.

John Elderfield with Phong Bui

Art

On the occasion of Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913 – 1917 at the MoMA (July 18 – October 11, 2010), John Elderfield, who co-organized the exhibition, stopped by Art International Radio to talk with Rail publisher, Phong Bui, about the exhibit.

Coming this Week

The Rail's extra-special 10th anniversary issue will be out by 10/7. Please join us in celebrating at one (or more) of our upcoming events.

Deborah Kass with Terry R. Myers

Art

Lecturer, critic, and independent curator Terry R. Myers recently spoke with artist Deborah Kass, whose forthcoming exhibition MORE feel good paintings for feel bad times will show at Paul Kasmin Gallery September 23 - October 30, 2010, about her life and work.

Frederic Tuten with John Reed

Books

I met Frederic Tuten at the diner we only managed to identify as, “that place a block down from the Strand,” where we talked about his essays, his short stories, and his five novels and his interest in the visual arts.

BERBER BANJOS AND GNAWA TOADS: Searching for the Sounds of Marrakech

Music

There are certain things we expect of common spaces, reliable markers to help us move through the public sphere. If we’re at a shopping mall, we expect signs telling us where the exits are.

Dark Charlie

Fiction

The summer I returned from teaching English in Japan, my Grandmother bought me a spark-blue 1991 Isuzu Amigo with retractable canvas top and on-demand four-wheel drive.

Five for Kenneth Fearing

Poetry

Crime novelist Owen Hill is trying to make a comeback as a poet. His new chapbook is Songs from the G.E. Collective (San Francisco).