Rabbit Run from Alex Itin on Vimeo.
now before I forget:
those not busy being born are busy dying.
Category Archives: Allan Stone
La Familigia Rex
Since I’m all about Press these days, I wanted to share with you all my favorite interview ever. It was given to me as an Xmas gift by my nephew Max. I thought I’d share it here for Easter… the whole death birth death rebirth thing feeling appropriate. In the end, blood is thicker than salt water.
Play mingus while you read:
A Mingus Amoung Us from Alex Itin on Vimeo.
Fetish
My mom sent me a snap of an old painting of mine up at a musem show in Maine about the Allan Stone collection. This bad boy hung next a deKooning in Allan’s office during the mind blowing retrospective they put on years ago. They almost sold it and I almost sold it… but no one ever bought it. It just is. Body and Soul. It is made out of several years worth of empty paint tubes. It was heavy… in many ways.
AfteRain See Chelsea Sea
Did a Birthday Art Crawl Friday and actually had a nice time talking to people in the Picasso show and running into old friends from the Allan Stone Gallery. It felt the Neo Good Old Days… and boy could that Picasso fucker paint. It was one of those rainy Chelsea spring days where you somtimes have to duck into a little pub for a whiskey while the rain blows over. It reminded me of this Coltrane song and also this older vide with The Velvets and Nico doing Chealsea girl. 2006 I think. It was raining then too.
In Imago Speramus (1,000 Bills)
Each page $100. Use the video counter. Buy in bulk for great savings!
Brown Ain't No Place For White Shoes
Been on some sort of reunion vibe these last few months… some sort of black sheep returneth trip or what have you. So in keeping with that mode, I went for a little dumpling picknick with one of my favorite Alums of old Camp Bruno and we blathered for a long time and drank beer from paper bags in the park while the chinese kids played handball and layed out a pang thud thud pang soundtrack in the summer night.
Earlier, I had a near religious experience (not only was someone sky writing x and y all over brooklyn, but…) when I crossed Manhattan bridge by foot, the light came behind the brooklyn in such a way that it cast a magnificent reverse gothic arch shadow across the flaming sunset water… the key hole arches both cut out in fire on the water. It was only there for about sixty seconds, but good shit it was glorious and luckily I was on a nikon safari. New York is just a magnificent place sometimes and its filled with people that you know and love, but didn’t know were living so close to you. One big urban reunion project.
Kodachrome Nikon Daze
the animated bunny is from Brian Raszka for The Library Project. The first image is of my archive under my house in CT where all the old days are stored… outdoors… it’s a long story… you should read the old days of the blog, etc…. anyways I made that shit to last and last they shall and fuck time and fuck space and rain and….
gee don’t I sound like king lear?
Well a house devided, etc.
Pittsburgh Going Ashore – Pittsburgh Coming Aboard
ABC is as easy as 1 2 3 as easy as Do Ray Me, you see?
Once I saw the changing of command on the USS Pittsburgh at Grotton, CT with my brother from a Bolex mother. When The Captain leaves the ship they blow a dog whistle and say: “Pittsburgh going Ashore.” It is as if the soul of the boat has left the boat. When The new Captain walks the gangplank, the dog whistle is blown in opposite progression and the Ensign speaks these magic jazz hand words: “Pittsburgh Coming Aboard!” and it is as if the boat is born again.
Me and Pat call melady Young Pas (or green onion in Korean, or Sly to the Midwesterners or Sylvie to you… etc.): Pittsburgh. She is the Captain my Captain. She is the queen of that little steel Swiss, but rusting Town in the middle of the Eastern Sea Board. I was throwing out all my old clothes yesterday and getting rid of all the wire and plastic hangers… nothing but wood is good quoath Pittsburgh and I concurred while wearing the buddhist Stettson and the silk guns and the Star Wars blasters still in the a tiny casket to be burried by the IRA somwhere beside the river Liffey. I tripped and fell upon a Bazooka shell full of old memories of Pittsburgh’s youth and there were steller shots of her as Stella amongst the stars and my street car named desire and some calling cards from old beaux and a shot of her leaning away from a dire wolf… him stealling kisses and trying to eat her heart out and I realize it is good to walk with pax but always have silk guns in a silk casket somewhere… the silent big stick as the Church on the Hill said, or was it The Mac daddy Author, or Ike? Yes Ike who I like if only because he said, “Beware the military industrial complex”… The king can speak the truth, but the wolves are still there… stealing kisses, and hearts, and gold, and souls.
I became quite green with jealousy looking at the explosive contents of the shell… and then I found a receipt for the first futon we ever shared and a letter I wrote to fair Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh when I was in the Tower of Pain and hats and song. It was not the most regal of things… a manic all night scrawl on yellow legal paper… but you know what? It was really a very romantic letter. It brought a single tear to my eye that dropped into the vast Atlantic… How can a shell hold such wealth I thought? For in that moment I realized that this was a contract signed thirteen years ago… So Why has it taken me so long to honor it and honor fair Pittsburgh?
… Because you see, I have been hiding in plain sight, playing the fool on the hill. Now it is time to wear the purple robes and take the crown that is mine. Today Pittsburgh. Tomorrow the world. It is my job to be her knight in shining armor coming to her emotional rescue on a fine Arab charger. It is my job to keep the dire wolves at bay. Hail Pittsburgh hail the Queen.
I was at Freddy’s the night Sly Fox left for Las Vegas and I gave two guys my moleskin and said, “Make me a drawing, buy me a beer…sort of as a joke…and I went outside to smoke… when I got back they had drawn this and bought me a magic hat #9… it is names of the superbowl champion (two years in a row) Steelers from the seventies when I used to wear the black and gold slicker to protect me from the hard rain…. Coin see dances coincidences…. They were Pittsburgher… friends from many moons ago… reunited in the city on a drunkes Spree… fiddle di di.
Leave A Stone
I went to the memorial/bash/wake… I don’t know what to call it… for Allan Stone last night. It was a fairly joyous event as far as anyone can be joyous around the subject of death. There was a lot of laughter. Still, walking home in the fridgid city, I couldn’t help but feel a real sense of loss and a sense of my own mortality. He bought the first painting I ever sold… I think twenty years ago. It seems impossible.
The drawing is a collage from the drawings I made for the video.
