PHILLIES WIN!!!!!

"It's out-a heeeeerrrreeeee!!"
Philadelphia wins with Joe Blanton's gem and four homers. Phil's lead series 3 games to 1, and can clinch World Series title with home win tomorrow night! Go Phillies!!!!

Ryan Howard watches his first one go.

Joe Blanton becomes the 15th pitcher in World Series history to take one out of the yard.

Jayson Werth does his best Shane Victorino impression for stroke #3 of the night.

Howard's encore is the nail in the coffin. When he drops the bat at home, say goodbye to Mr. Spaulding.

Phillies strike first. Take 1-0 lead in World series.

Utley starts the scoring with a two-run homer in the first.

NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPIONS!

The Flyin' Hawaiian drops a bomb on L.A.

Phillies 7, Dodgers 5
Phillies lead series 3 - 1
C0-MVPs: Shane Victorino and Matt Stairs (Victorino ties it with a two run homer in the 8th, Stairs follows up two batters later with a two-run wallop to put the Phils up for good). Honorable mentions go to Chase Utley's and Jimmy Rollins' gloves, and Ryan Madsen's and Brad "Lights Out" Lidge's arms.

Matt Stairs trots off a pinch-hit dinger that landed in a sea of limp rally towels. I hope they work for tears too!

Game 3 Highlights

Shane Victorino commented: "The 'P' stands for Pearl Harbor. Don't forget what happened next."

A dehydrated Manny Ramirez nearly collapses and is assisted to the clubhouse bathroom after a mid-inning bout of Montezuma's Revenge.

Phillies 8, Dodgers 5
Phillies lead series 2 - 0
MVP: Tough one, but I'm going with pitcher Brett Myers. (5 IP, 5 runs, 6 SO, 3 for 3 batting, 3 RBIs, first pitcher in league championship history to post three hits)
Go Phillies!

Phillies 3, Dodgers 2
Phillies lead series 1 - 0
MVP: Chase Utley (2 for 4, 2-run game tying homer, started game winning rally)
Go Phillies!

Chase Utley strokes a homer to even the score.

Phillies 6, Brewers 2
NLDS Champs!
MVP: Pat Burrell (3 for 4, 2 home runs, 4 RBI)
Go Phils!! Bring on the Dodgers!

Phillies 5, Brewers 2
Phillies up 2-0 in series
MVP: Shane "The Flyin' Hawaiian" Victorino (3 for 4, walk, 4 RBI, Grand Slam)
Go Phils!!

Phillies 3, Brewers 1
Phillies up 1-0 in series
MVP: Cole Hamels (8 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs)
Go Phils!!

Here are a couple of funny things I happened across:

Ever wonder what your name would be if you were born to Sarah Palin? Try the Sarah Palin baby name generator. My name? Drill Swollen Palin... and my brother Scott's name? Beretta Hockey Palin. Awesome.

If you ever saw the movie Cool Runnings, and cried (like I did) when they picked up the bobsled and carried it across the finish line, then you'll appreciate this: Bolt 4 Bobsled

Bragging Rights


The worst part of attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago was the fact that there were no sports teams. C'mon... Savannah College of Art and Design has sports. My buddy Keith went there on a baseball scholarship - and he's a good artist. There's Yale, Columbia, etc... I would have loved to play baseball for the Art Institute. I know we would have stunk. Doesn't matter. All that matters is who wins that yearly throw-down between SAIC and RISD. (What up, Ru!?)

So, one thing that was most exciting about teaching at Trinity Christian College was the fact that I had sports teams to pull for again. I realize that an NAIA volleyball powerhouse doesn't engender the same barstool arguments, or grant the bragging rights that D-1 football does, but your team is your team.

Nothing, however, prepared me for the bliss that was my introduction to TCC's mascot: The Troll.


That's right. Trinity Christian College Trolls. Now that's a mascot sure to win a barstool argument. So you have a fighting leprechaun? My Troll will smash you as flat as a shamrock with his giant, knobby club. Wolverine? Ate it for dinner last night. Smoked it with a combination of hickory and Buckeyes.

A giant, hungry, blue beast with unlimited magical power, and a Carl Andre drawing on his chest is pretty much the baddest mascot that ever was, or ever will be created.

Carl Andre, Inverted Henge (Meditation on the Year 1960), 1971

ESPN agreed, by naming the TCC Troll one of the top ten college mascots. I would point out that this list is in alphabetical order, which puts us at #10. But you will no doubt notice that numbers 1 - 9 were actually chosen by the Troll as his favorite side salad, before his favorite meal: Florida Gator.

Back to Blogger

Welcome to the re-re-located Dayton is Not in Ohio. I've decided to come back to Blogger because it's just easier to work with. Hopefully this will motivate me to post more frequently on what's happening in art here in the windy city.

One thing that's happening is that I'm now teaching full time at Trinity Christian College. It's an absolute whirlwind right now. It's enjoyable, and a boat load of work. Between Intro to Sculpture (never actually took a sculpture class), Figure Drawing and 2-D Design (neither of which have I taken for a decade and a half), my life has become a rhythm of preparing to teach, teaching all day, crashing on the couch, and preparing to teach again. It's a pretty common experience for a new instructor I've heard, and everyone assures me that it gets a little better after a year or so. No problem. At least I know what my new year's resolution in 2010 will be: Catch up on sleep.

This Friday night was the big gallery season kick-off. The west loop gallery district was hopping - so hopping, in fact, that by 9pm, after catching up with dozens of folks that I had not seen all summer, I was beat and headed straight home. I found out about several upcoming shows that friends are having and I'll report on those a little later. I honestly didn't see much of the art, with all of the catching up with friends, and the fact that almost every gallery was like an oven-baked can of sardines. Pretty typical of the first Friday in September... Here are a few of the things that caught my eye, though:

Diana Guerrero-Macia at Tony Wight
The Bigger Picture, Wool, vinyl, leather and cotton on canvas, 2008, 72" x 64"


Reena Saini Kallat at Walsh Gallery
Synonym B, Painted Acrylic on Rubberstamps, 2008, 72"x48"

One highlight was the inaugural show at The School (of the Art Institute of Chicago)'s new exhibition space. Wow. The space was incredible, covering the entire 7th floor of Louis Sullivan's 33 S. State St. structure (can you say, 32,000 sq. ft.). The floor to ceiling windows along the west and north walls of the gallery made the space seen even larger than its already humongous footprint.

The show was titled Decadence and featured a cross-section of recent and not-so-recent Art Institute alumni and faculty. Curator Lisa Wainwright (interim dean of faculty at SAIC) knows she's leveraging the irony of a title that could describe half the work that I've seen at nearly every show at The School since I've been here. Decadence as a show title, then, is interesting, but certainly not shocking, and predictably tried to live into it's title through (spoiler alert!) explorations of decadent sexuality.

No!?

Surprised?

No one else will be either. The tendency toward this kind of work is so common at this point that even work which doesn't attempt to be humorous, becomes so, by effect of over-saturation. Perhaps by Wainwright's ham-handed naming of it, she can kill it off. It's become fairly boring.

Everything wasn't boring, though, and I cracked up at my friend Ben Fain's very smart critique of the decadent sexuality that permeated the show. Ben's video depicted a group of young men and women in a makeshift pizza-scattered tent, that devolves into a mostly-clothed, pizza-smearing mass of writhing bodies. It was an interesting commentary on indulgent, pizza-mad, and sex-obsessed American culture. The clear downside, however, is that I never want to eat pizza again.

Nick Cave stayed above the fray with this gorgeous, Rococo "Soundsuit."

Nick Cave, Soundsuit

Predictably sexually ridiculous, was SAIC photo faculty member Barbara DeGenevieve. Her piece La-Bas (Down There) for LW was a giant swatch of pink fur with a little mouth/vagina dentata that chats incessantly about, what else, vaginas. I hear the real money is in selling these ideas to Spencer's Gifts.

Barbara DeGenevieve, La-Bas (Down There) for LW