it's the week of the armory show... tuesday night i went to the phillips de pury preview show. big crowd, crowded bar, 2 or 3 good pieces in the whole 2 floors. ran into the writer, anthony hayden guest. we talked boxing and fighting in general... his nose is pretty bashed up, missing some teeth, so he looks the part. my friend andrew miller, former dealer and bon vivant, was visiting from the bahamas. he's known hayden guest for  a while and has some good stories... we took a cab with anthony to the home of the publisher of modern painters and art and auction-- top floor of the richard meyer building on charles street. fully catered (i parked myself at the tray of crabcakes when she started her speech), guys in black walking around with trays of champagne and wine. ran into an old freind, katya and her husband greg, a good painter. she introduced me to some girls from pace wildenstein including arnie glimcher's wife or daughter. the cute pace girl from houston looked at me and said, "you're more a brice marden kinda guy..."

hit some openings last night and somewhat predictably, ended up at an outside table at half king drinking pints... met a gallerist from belgium, jan. cool guy, white glasses and long hair. he didn't seem engaged by talk of painting... fair enough.

which actually brings up the really, really wretched amount of bad photography and video nonsense i've suffered through since tuesday. why are people doing this?? why is it making money? of course the answers to those questions are easy to come by. or maybe not... a lot of it is the blurring between media and culture. 

a lot of it is just having a little art school, a tepid creative buzz and a fear of getting your hands dirty...