[Photo via Manchester Evening News]
Leonard Cohen was placed on this Earth to (1) freak us out with his baritone vocals and (2) provide a stunning counterpoint to what can happen when we press pause on the American Idol/Hannah Montana mediocrity machine that's been sucking the life out of our musical landscape for the past decade. You think you're embarrassed by Bush's colloquial mishaps and brain-dead foreign policy maneuvers?
Just know that when foreigners meet you for the first time, their initial thought is that the U.S.'s biggest export is crappy, white-washed pop music and that you, the neanderthal-American, are responsible for the Hannah Montana-ing of the global record industry. So strike a blow for quality music lovers everywhere and check out Dave Eggers' art exhibit Lots of Things Like This, which includes art and words from the likes of Cohen, Kurt Vonnegut, and David Mamet, among others. The pieces aren't limited to music or literature, but given Eggers hobby/cultural phenomenon, I'd say they're pretty safe bets. A few of Eggers' completely non-McSweeney's-esque ramblings below. Try not to pull a muscle:
"Being loathe to draw conclusions about the artists' motivations...we're instead going to list some questions that occurred to us and might occur to you and might help the show blow your mind completely: (1) Why is it that so many of these artists aren't so great at spelling? And why is it that when they screw up one of their words, instead of starting over, they just cross the word out and write it again? (2) Why is it important to many of the artists that the drawings appear casual, even rushed? Is absurdity more appealing when it comes across as humble? (3) What is the line between a doodle, a cartoon, a gag, a work of fine art, and will there ever be a time when someone doesn't insist on writing a similar kind of silly and rhetorical sentence in an art catalog?"
ApexArt [Official Site]