Mount Vernon not Tacky Enough? Call MICA!

It's an unfortunate fact that, under normal circumstances, not a day goes by that I don't hear someone remark "I hate that Mount Vernon neighborhood, especially around the Washington Monument, it's just too pleasant!"

Thankfully, MICA has offered us a temporary reprieve from not only the beauty of the Mount Vernon Place but also from the unbearable usefulness of cutting through the park to cross the street!  That's right from March 16 through March 29, project Golden Chain Link Fence is on!

Why would MICA surround the parks around the Washington Monument in cheap chain link fence that they spray painted gold?  For an answer to that, you're going to have to go to http://www.goldchainlinkfence.com, or just continue reading.

The website claims that this fence is "temporarily shifting the way the space is seen and used."  This is absolutely true:

There's only one way into the fenced-in area!  

Also, notice their motto: "An Opportunity to Experience Mount Vernon Place from an Alternative Perspective."  I have two problems with this:

1. That's not a sentence!
2. Instead of "Alternative," I would suggest the words "Ugly," "Godawful," or "Tacky."

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I mean, can you imagine the brainstorming session for this art installation?

"We need to do something public!  Something people will notice!"

"We need art in a public places!"

"Hey, what about experiential art?  Something that ordinary people take part in!"

"But how can we do it on our budget?  How will be get people to notice?"

"What if we put something in there way?  Like they have to walk around it?"

"A statue!"

"No!  People are used to walking around things place on pedestals!  We need something that changes the city landscape!"

"Let's close a street!"

"Let's block an intersection!"

"What if we parallel park really poorly so that there's less parking around?"

"Bad parking...how will people notice?"

"We could paint the cars gold!"

"What if we get towed?"

"Let's tear up a sidewalk for unnecessary construction!"

"How will people know it's unnecessary?"

"We could paint it gold!"

"Aren't jackhammers expensive though?"

"Jackhammers are way too phallic anyway!"

"Wait!  I've got it!  We could put up a fence!"

"Where?"

"I don't know, like around some space!  Like it'll totally change the way people use that space!"

"Yeah... I get it!  I mean, normally it's open space, but now it's fenced off!"

"It'll change everyone's understanding of the space!"

"But how will anyone know that it's fenced off to change their understanding and not just because the grass has been reseeded?"

"We could paint it gold!"

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What I don't understand is how they sold this dumb-ass plan to the city.  "We can spread goodwill too by using the fence to create messages!"

Styrofoam cups in the fence to spell a word?  Really?  That's the best you can do?  Don't you go to an art school?  This is your plan for life?  You're going to make art that's good enough to be sold for enough money to feed you?  I mean, I know it's an art school, but isn't there someone there who has the job of saying "Hey, I know you mean well and you really want this to work out, but you just don't have any good ideas.  Perhaps you ought to go over to ComputerTraining.com and take their Online Skills Challenge, I hear that Microsoft Certification can guarantee you a good career in IT management."

They probably sold this to the city by not actually letting on how fucking ugly their fences would really be.  Instead, they probably just showed them pictures of the art installation that don't completely suck.  There are some installed pieces that are actually a little cool, so it's not completely a waste.

Plus, as I just learned this evening, they're tearing down the fence tomorrow.  I was up there over the weekend, when it was as ugly as it could be, but by this weekend you'll apparently be free to walk around Mount Vernon Place again.

Nonetheless, it was a dumb, dumb, dumb idea.  "Visitors are encouraged and possibly even forced to 're-see' and 're-consider' Mount Vernon Place from an alternate perspective." Seriously - just because you can make it sound pretentious doesn't mean it's art.

Stars are Awesome Musicians, Fans of The Wire

Last night I checked out the Stars concert at Sonar.  I've been listening to their latest album, In Our Bedroom after the War, and it's fantastic.  Seriously, you should really check out some of this band's music. 

So anyway, the show:  At first, it kind of seemed like they brought their B-game, the female lead kind of sucked on one of my favorite songs (The Night Starts Here) as they opened.  But the crowd really got into it the show and you could tell that the band got into the groove quickly.  It was awesome, but probably my favorite parts were when they gave shout-outs to The Wire, a show that every Baltimorean should watch and everyone who appreciates great television should love.  It's weird that I haven't posted anything about The Wire before... I think that may be the next post.  

Anyway, near the beginning of the show:

Amy Millan (female singer) - "We're really excited to be in Baltimore (a little noise from the crowd), we've never been here before, but we love The Wire (a lot of appreciative noise from the crowd).  We were looking for Bubbles on every street corner on our way in."

At the end of the show:

Torquil Campbell (male singer) - "This is going to be our last song.  I'm tempted to dedicate it to Stringer Bell (lots of cheering) ... [says some things I miss] ... did you know telling your mother you love her is ganster?  It's about the most gangster thing you can do; maybe if Stringer Bell had called his mother and told her he loved her, shit wouldn't have gone down so badly for him."

Other things that are great about Stars:

• They are so obviously Canadian, so absolutely Montreal, it's actually cool.
• They have a bunch of flowers arranged on the stage and periodically throw some of them into the audience.  This would be even awesomer if they were any good at throwing flowers.  Torquil (the male singer) definitely needs to work on his release point.  Still, throwing flowers to the audience was cool.
• The bassist definitely referred to our fair city as "B-more!" at one point.

Things that were not awesome about the show:

• The opening act was some douchebag who didn't even have a real band.  He got some random band to back him up within the week before the show.  Plus he can't write songs that don't sound stupid.  However, when he let the random band do a couple songs, they were much better, so I recommend Pash.