Getting set to party at the Tropicana in Havana. (Image courtesy of San Suzie.)
Hey y’all, San Suzie — the Art Nurse otherwise known as Rosa Lowinger — is quoted all over a story in the September issue of Vanity Fair on the history of Havana’s Tropicana nightclub. Unfortunately, the article is only available in the print magazine, but it’s worth the newsstand price for the anecdote about the 18-inch penis. (Seriously.) In addition, the photos are by none other than William Eggleston. Speaking of which, if you haven’t picked up Lowinger’s highly-readable book on Tropicana, this is as good a time as any.
Random Linkage
- Sort of related: Julia Cooke on black market dining in Havana.
- Must-read piece by Peter Oborne in The Telegraph on how Britain’s upper class is no different from the rioters who have made off with TV sets and designer clothes. An instructive piece for the American oligarchy, too.
- Christopher Hawthorne looks at the World Trade Center’s design-by-committee.
- This makes me want to get a fake moustache and a cable knit sweater: The STASI plays dress-up.
- “Art is too serious a thing to be made by artists.”
- I’ve really been enjoying the “These Americans” photo essays put together by American Suburb X — collections of images from public photographic archives that cover a range of subject areas. These include topics that are horrifying and necessary: segregation, mental illness and a staggering set of images devoted to lynching. But there are lighter subjects, too. Some of my favorites include 1960s strippers (the hair!), 1980s wrestling (um, wow) and roadside Americana. The latter set just reaffirms my love of the Mitchell Corn Palace.
- “[Joan] Mitchell regarded Pop as ‘all money and no cathedral’; she accused a friend who owned two cats and a David Salle painting of animal abuse.” — Lance Esplund reviews Patricia Albers’ new bio on Mitchell, Lady Painter.
- Spatial anomalies in Kubrick’s The Shining.
- Christopher Knight gives those Art of the Streets attendance numbers a thorough going over.
- The Day in Art Merch: $2,000 Roy Lichtenstein dresses edition.
- Sad Etsy dogs. (Thank you, Sabine.)
