It's a holiday today -- Day of the Dead -- so some places are closed and the city is mellower. There are openings this week at the Jumex Collection and Jimmie Durham at Kurimanzutto. Gang Gang Dance is playing somewhere in D.F. on Saturday. That should be interesting.
Today I'm reading about an exciting act of defiance against state censorship in Mexico, thanks to the legendary Los Tigres del Norte, and also an illuminating check-in on Julian Casablancas, of The Strokes.
It's a familiar story of exile and rebirth: Downtown New York artist rises fast, burns out, and moves to an equivalent neighborhood but a mellower and more fulfilling lifestyle in Los Angeles. Then their art ... changes:
On Tuesday his first solo album, "Phrazes for the Young," will be released on Cult Records/RCA. Cult is his own, newly started and self-financed imprint, with a handful of bicoastal employees. He wrote and arranged all the music and played much of it himself. In Los Angeles he’s been getting a band together and prepping madly for a tour that will include a series of residencies with elaborate stage shows. Evident ambition has replaced obtuse ennui.
Casablancas sounds so positive and peppy in the piece, like he's 'gone native.' It struck me; a lot of creative people in California talk this way, about valuing firstly personal happiness, community happiness, and family, and rejecting destructive behaviors.
Do we need a term for this phenomenon? California Positivism?
* Check out some recent posts of mine at The Faster Times Mexico here, here, here, and here.