Unfortunately, not a joke.

For an ambiva­lent clotheshorse like myself, there was never a better reason to follow main­stream fash­ion. A huge loss in a rough year for cre­ativ­ity. Watch em and weep, even you, boys.

The gov­er­nor of my home­town has pro­posed budget cuts to the New York public school system of 5%, and health care is get­ting as they say slashed by $1 bil­lion, includ­ing reduc­tions to Med­ic­aid providers. Agency spend­ing is being cut by another $1 bil­lion, includ­ing $500 mil­lion across-the-board cuts, and $250 mil­lion in nego­ti­ated work­force sav­ings. And, for some­thing that will really hit home to at least one member of the DE com­mu­nity, also on the table is a $1 per-​pack increase in the cig­a­rette tax–that will take the price of a pack of Camels to $8.50.

The only good news is, if the gov’s budget passes, we’ll be able to buy wine in gro­cery stores.

The point is, anyone who has kids in New York, who teaches or who knows some­one who teaches in a New York public school, knows how dis­as­trous a 5% budget cut for school spend­ing would be to the hot mess that is the public school system in the Empire State. As usual, those cuts are likely to be directed first and fore­most at after­school and week­end pro­grams, the ones that keep kids out of unsafe and, in some cases, unliv­able envi­ron­ments for a few extra hours.

Fugged­aboutit!

Artist’s talks—up for review, like a gallery show or spread in Art­fo­rum? A few nights ago I saw pho­tog­ra­pher, video artist, and film­maker Laurel Naka­date give a pre­sen­ta­tion on her work at SAIC, and it was one hell of a mind­spin. As I see it, Naka­date makes two kinds of work: the kind she’s in, and the kind she’s not in. Inter­est­ingly enough, I can’t seem to find any images of the latter on the internet—which prob­a­bly has some­thing to do with the fact that, when Naka­date puts her­self in front of her camera, she’s usu­ally wear­ing little to no cloth­ing, unless she’s dressed up in what I roll my own eyes to call Lolita-​esque getups.