Art for Sale Page 2

by Free Britney at October 11, 2012 12:15 pm

A naked Rihanna bares all on the cover of her new album Unapolegetic.

It’s an aptly-titled name for the controversial singer’s record. Peep it:

Unapolegetic is her seventh studio album. Rihanna Tweeted the art earlier:

“The side effects of #R7 are starting to kick in, less than an hour!”

As for the release date, she added: “#navy is it that time? My NEW album “UNAPOLOGETIC” will be released on NOVEMBER 19th WORLDWIDE #Navy”

Hopefully the #Navy got the message, and isn’t bitter about Chris Brown.

Obama-Romney Debate Won By President (VIDEO)

Posted: 10/17/2012 12:48 am EDT Updated: 10/17/2012 3:20 am EDT

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — President Barack Obama stepped onto the stage here on Long Island ready to brawl. Within moments, he had called a Mitt Romney assertion “not true” and ridiculed his opponent’s five-point plan as a one-point plan — that one point being that the wealthy play by one set of rules, while everyone else plays by another.

It was a very different Obama from the one who barely showed up for the first debate. “Very little of what Governor Romney just said is true,” Obama said early in the debate. During the first debate, Obama looked down at his notes or his shoes while Romney spoke. Tonight, he turned away from the audience early to squarely face Romney while directly attacking him.

Romney gave it back to the president, as the two stood nose to nose, each looking as if he’d rather be swinging at his opponent than debating him. “That wasn’t a question, that was a statement,” Romney told Obama early on, attempting to assert the dominance he won by default in the last debate.

It’s easier to lose a debate than to win one. Romney was able to unambiguously win the first debate because Obama so clearly lost. Tonight’s debate went to Obama, but not by as wide a margin. “If you were scoring it on points, Obama wins on points,” arch-conservative Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News. Laura Ingraham and Joe Scarborough took to Twitter to ratify Krauthammer’s view.

The result is a race that is at once clearer and just as uncertain. It’s clearer because both candidates crystalized their vision of their opponent. For Obama, Romney is an out-of-touch plutocrat who invests in China and pays a lower tax rate than you, has a “sketchy deal” for you, and is more extreme than George W. Bush.

For Romney, Obama is simply a failure, and the sluggish economy is the evidence.

The lines drawn, it remains to be seen whether Obama will be tossed out of office for his inability to spur more economic growth — a potentially fatal consequence of an obsession with the deficit that predates even his election — or whether the remaining undecided voters give Obama a second term, reasoning that he did as well as possible under difficult circumstances largely brought about by policies Romney wants to restore.

Tonight, Obama won clear points on a range of issues, from pay equity and contraception access, to immigration and China policy. Despite a disadvantage on Libya going into the debate, one of Obama’s most decisive knockdowns came when Romney thought he had the president cornered on the issue. After spending weeks hammering the Obama administration for mishandling the crisis that took the lives of four Americans in Benghazi, Romney once again fumbled the facts.

The president had just reminded the audience that on the day after the attack, he called it an act of terror and pledged to bring justice to the attackers. Obama also handed his opponent a huge opportunity by conceding for the first time that he took full responsibility for the attacks that took place on the anniversary of Sept. 11. But Romney chose not to press Obama on a perceived intelligence failure that caused the attack — something the administration has struggled to explain — but instead challenged the president on semantics.

“I think it’s interesting the president said something, which is on the day after the attack he went in the Rose Garden and said this was an act of terror,” Romney said, then turning to the president. “You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack, it was an act of terror? It was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you are saying?”

“I want to make sure we get that for the record,” Romney continued, his eyes widening. “It took the president 14 days before he called it an act of terror.”

To this, Obama responded, “Get the transcript,” but moderator Candy Crowley was quick to fact-check Romney. “He did, in fact, call it an act of terror,” she told Romney, to which the president quipped, “Could you say that a little louder, Candy? Terror.” The moderator did, however, point out that in the days following the attack, the administration indicated it was due to protests over an anti-Islamic video.

Still, in one of his most heated moments of the night, Obama delivered a sharp response to Romney for accusing the White House of playing politics with the crisis. The crowd applauded Obama loudly, breaking the rules, and Twitter went over capacity.

“Romney is fumbling through a question on Libya that he should be owning,” Scarborough tweeted, contributing to that brief collapse. “Considering how badly the Obama administration handled Benghazi, I’m surprised by Romney’s jumbled response to the Libya question.”

Obama also succeeded at getting under Romney’s skin. The surprisingly warm Romney of the last debate was clearly ruffled, as he ignored questions from the town hall audience to re-engage arguments that had just ended. The crowd audibly gasped early in the debate at one Romney brush-off of the president, according to the pool report.

And Romney blundered by making reference to his 47 percent remarks during his closing statement, promising that he would look out for 100 percent of Americans. That gave Obama the opening he needed to mention what Romney said he thinks of nearly half the country, and it gave Romney no chance to respond.

But the Romney campaign made the main — and perhaps only — point that it needs to make: The economy is rotten. It’s a message Romney delivers persuasively and effectively. And it happens to be true.

Following the debate, the Romney campaign blasted out video of Obama saying, “There are jobs that aren’t coming back.” He was referring to low-wage jobs that have gone to China, but the Romney camp clearly sees an opening.

Romney is also seizing on Obama’s argument that gas prices are higher now because the economy is doing better. “According to Barack Obama, everything’s good in the Middle East, everything’s good at home. The reason you’re paying $4 gas is because everyone’s making so much money,” said Stuart Stevens, Romney’s campaign manager, mocking Obama in the spin room. “If you ever want to hold up evidence that you know absolutely nothing about economics or about gas prices, I think that would be the perfect answer.”

The impact of the first debate on the polls was almost instantaneous. A host of national polls showed Romney enjoying a significant bounce, closing Obama’s lead and even gaining a slight advantage in some surveys. But while the GOP nominee successfully portrayed himself as an able leader and saw his favorability ratings climb, key swing states continued to project a narrow lead for Obama.

Romney’s advantage in the first debate came from his willingness to untether his comments both from reality and from his previous positions. He did so with authority and a certainty that gave the assertions the air of validity. What he said was true because he said it was true.

When it came to his 20 percent across-the-board tax cut, for instance, he insisted that it would not add to the deficit, despite the obvious fact that that is what tax cuts do. Otherwise they’re not tax cuts.

“What I’ve said is I won’t put in place a tax cut that adds to the deficit,” Romney said. “So there’s no economist [who] can say Mitt Romney’s tax plan adds 5 trillion [dollars] if I say I will not add to the deficit with my tax plan.”

Obama called out Romney early and often for inconsistency or untrue assertions, cutting off Romney’s most successful prior tactic. Romney backers tried to paint the more aggressive Obama as desperate. “He tried to do a somewhat charmless version of Joe Biden, but I don’t think it worked particularly well,” Stevens said. “When you saw a different Al Gore [in 2000] in every debate, I think people find that disconcerting. One thing they want in a president is a steadiness and a dependability. They see a person one week ago and they see a different person tonight, and they think, what’s next?”

Boca Raton, Fla., is next, on Monday evening.

First Major All Street Art and Graffiti Auction in New York Is Now On

By Marina Galperina | October 16, 2012 – 12:15PM

In about an hour, the Doyle New York Auction House will kick off its Inaugural Street Art Auction featuring graffiti and street art spanning from the 1980′s to the present. The 49 lots feature pretty much everyone, from Banksy to COPE2 to Faile to FUTURA to Dalek to D*FACE to Shepard Fairey to Anthony Lister.

Phillips de Pury and other houses have made a consistent successful street art sales, bundled along with their more art-art offerings, often for “emerging” buyers — but this is the first all street art/graffiti auction of its kind in the US. Consider it gone full legit.

There are a couple of pieces in the catalogue that stand out. David Choe’s much boasted about “rare watercolor” ($5,000 – $7,000) is actually killer, although the psycho-psychedelic Mickey Mouse motif is a bit too derivative of Ralph Steadman, but great. The INVADER tile comes with an official label inscribed with “Location/N. La Brea/Melrose Av./Los Angeles” — couple of blocks away from Mr. Brainwash’s warehouse of WTF. Speaking of which, who’s going to buy “Mr. Brainwash’s debut exhibition” piece “as seen in Exit Through The Giftshop” (est. $16,000-20,000), please, really, who?

Bernette Johnson Set To Become Louisiana’s First Black Chief Justice

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN 10/16/12 09:50 PM ET EDT

NEW ORLEANS — The Louisiana Supreme Court resolved a racially tinged power struggle inside its own ranks, ruling Tuesday that Bernette Johnson should be the state’s first black chief justice.

Johnson’s years of appointed and elected service on the high court give her the seniority to succeed Chief Justice Catherine “Kitty” Kimball early next year, the court said in a unanimous ruling. Justice Jeffrey Victory, who is white, argued Johnson’s appointed service shouldn’t count and he deserved to be chief justice.

Voters elected Johnson in 1994 to the state appeals court, and she was assigned to the Supreme Court as part of settlement of an earlier lawsuit that claimed the system for electing justices diluted black voting strength and violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

She served an eighth Supreme Court district centered in New Orleans until the court reverted back to seven districts in 2000, when she was elected to the high court.

The racial dynamics of the case reverberated outside Louisiana. A long list of elected officials and civil rights advocates, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, called for Johnson to get the position. The New York Times published two editorials supporting her, one of which called the dispute an “unsettling example of how power can trample voting rights even where they should be sacrosanct.”

The court said its ruling was based strictly on the law.

“Although commentators have loudly emphasized them, factors which we do not ascribe any importance to in answering the constitutional question before us include issues of gender, geography, personality, philosophy, political affiliation, and race – all of which have the potential to inflame passion,” the court said.

James Williams, one of Johnson’s attorneys, said his client was thrilled.

“It means she can put this bitter fight behind her and begin to unify the judiciary,” he said. “This is not a fight that Justice Johnson went looking for. We all wish this result could have happened without the fighting.”

Any requests for the court to reconsider must be filed within five days. An attorney for Victory didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

Victory joined the court in 1995, a year after Johnson, but said her years of appointed service shouldn’t count when deciding which justice is “oldest in point of service” under the state constitution. The court disagreed.

“Both election and appointment are described by the constitution as legitimate methods to commence service on this court,” its opinion said.

“We’re glad that the Louisiana Supreme Court was able to resolve this important issue and look forward to working with Bernette Johnson as Louisiana’s next chief justice,” said Shannon Bates, a spokeswoman for Gov. Bobby Jindal’s office.

Johnson, Victory and a third judge who stood to be second-in-line if Victory’s argument prevailed were recused from the dispute. Three state appeals court judges sat in their place and made the ruling along with four other justices.

In July, Johnson filed a federal lawsuit after her colleagues said they would debate the matter. U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan ruled Johnson had more seniority, but stopped short of ordering the state’s highest court to name Johnson as Kimball’s successor.

Lawyers for Gov. Bobby Jindal’s office have asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review Morgan’s Sept. 1 ruling. A lawyer for Jindal has said the governor wasn’t taking a position on which justice should succeed Kimball but believed the state Supreme Court should decide the matter.

“As we’ve said all along, this was an issue for Louisiana courts to decide and we’re glad this important issue was decided by the Louisiana Supreme Court. We won’t be moving forward with an appeal,” said attorney Kevin R. Tully, in a statement emailed late Tuesday.

‘Visions Of Our 44th President,’ Exhibit Of Barack Obama Art, Opens At Detroit Museum (PHOTOS)

The Huffington Post | By Kate Abbey-Lambertz
Posted: 10/16/2012 3:10 pm EDT Updated: 10/16/2012 3:10 pm EDT

Though they started out blank, the 44 busts of President Barack Obama in the gallery of a Detroit museum are now a wild array of color, pattern and style.

“Visions of our 44th President,” a show at Detroit’s Charles H Wright Museum of African American History, represents a cross-section of contemporary art with 44 African-American artists from across the country, including several from Detroit. But while they work in a range of media and styles, the artists — Faith Ringold, Allie McGhee, Mildred Howard, Tyree Guyton, Hebru Brantley and many more — all had the same canvas. It’s a blank bust of the president, modeled after an original by Matthew Gonzales, an artist included in the exhibition.

“I was very impressed with the way some artists that don’t usually work in three dimensions have managed to somehow alter their practice to accommodate this bust,” said guest curator Ashley Whitfield. “They really came alive in a way that was almost kind of eerie … all of a sudden I’m sitting in this space … surrounded by 44 busts of President Obama.”

Whitfield said the exhibition was not meant to be political, and it was actually supposed to go up earlier but was pushed to election season after several delays.

“This exhibition is about marking a moment in history and not about supporting a campaign,” she said. “What makes it possible for there to be an African-American president … something that was at one point was completely unimaginable is now happening.”

But those who walk into the Wright’s exhibition and are confronted by a six-foot-tall reproduction of Obama’s birth certificate might have trouble disassociating the exhibit from the presidential race.

“The birther attack is also part of this historical moment,” Whitfield said. “Being the first African-American president has not come without questions and criticisms that go beyond what some of our presidents have experienced.”

Whitfield said she saw the birth certificate as a way to show a portrait of an individual in an exhibit where she purposely excluded images of Obama as a political figure.

“Museum are great at historicizing moments, but here we’re able to be both part of this moment and reflect on it at the same time,” she said. “Contemporary art … creates a platform for discussion, debate, disagreement, excitement, disgust and everything else that comes out.”

Artists have taken on Obama’s likeness before. Shepard Fairey’s “HOPE” poster became a ubiquitous image for the 2008 campaign, a work that has ended up giving the artist some trouble — he was recently sentenced to two years of probation in a legal battle with the Associated Press, who owned the rights to the photograph he used as inspiration for the work.

On the other side of the political spectrum, conservative Jon McNaughton is asking six figures for his anti-Obama paintings, one of which he sold to Fox News host Sean Hannity, according to BuzzFeed.

And there’s always the Bad Paintings of Barack Obama blog.

“Visions of Our 44th President” is a joint effort of the Wright Museum and Peter Kaplan of Our World, LLC, who developed the idea for the show. The exhibit runs at the Wright on 315 East Warren Avenue in Midtown Detroit through August 2013 and will then travel to other museums.

Below, see images of the artists’ interpretations of President Obama.

“Visions Of Our 44th President”

Obama Endorsed by Honey Boo Boo on ‘Kimmel’ (Video)

*First President Obama was criticized for answering a Mariah Carey/Nicki Minaj question on live radio. Now comes news that he has picked up the endorsement of national laughingstock Honey Boo Boo.

During Monday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” the star of TLC’s “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” (real name Alana Thompson) said that she would vote for the incumbent over Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

Kimmel pushed further, informing the 7-year-old that Romney recently said he preferred Snooki over the beauty pageant queen. Thompson then said she would vote for “Marack Obama.”

Kim Kardashian’s Sexy Halloween Costume: Star Poses In See-Through Leopard Bodysuit (PHOTO)

Rawwwr!!! (As Kim Kardashian would say).

The reality star, 31, tweeted a photo of herself sporting a see-through leopard bodysuit while out Halloween costume shopping in Miami, Fla., on Oct. 13. Kardashian flaunted her breasts and toned tummy as she posed for a mirror shot in the risque costume, which comes complete with ears and a tail.

“Rawwwr!!! Halloween Costume shopping,” Kardashian posted, along with the picture on Instagram.

Kim K must be in the Halloween spirit. Not only did she share a photo of herself as a flapper at Eva Longoria’s themed birthday party in 2011, but she even retweeted a photo of fans dressed up as her and boyfriend Kanye West for a costume party, writing, “OMG amazing!”

What do you think of Kardashian’s frisky feline costume?

Beauty Study 1196 Nudes by Howard Schatz (PHOTOS)

The photographs of Howard Schatz are exhibited in museums and photography galleries internationally and are included in innumerable private collections. He has received international acclaim for his work which has been published in eighteen monographs.

His most recently published, WITH child, is the result of a 20-year long exploration of the landscape of the human body in the last two weeks of pregnancy. It is his eighteenth book. Looking ahead to the fall of 2012, Sports Illustrated will published Schatz’s monumental study of boxing and boxers: AT THE FIGHTS: Inside the World of Professional Boxing.

In 2007, Bulfinch Press published the third in Schatz’s series of explorations of imagery made on, over and underwater. It is a breathtaking feat of underwater photography and a visionary celebration of movement and form. Working with uncommonly graceful and aquatically gifted dancers, models, and performers, photographer Howard Schatz has found joyous inspiration underwater. The images in H2O take advantage of water’s unique properties- light, clarity, buoyancy, and reflectivity-to create a delightfully serene and otherworldly aesthetic. At once uncanny, lithe, athletic, and mysterious, the figures in Schatz’s photographs transform the pool into studio and stage. Howard Schatz first established a following in the 1990s with two collections of underwater photography, Water Dance and Pool Light. With H2O, Schatz takes the magic of weightlessness and the beauty of dance to new heights. Whether in single portraits or as part of a larger, spectacular ballet, his dancers are as utterly elegant as they are phantasmagorical. They appear before the camera as though borrowed from a dream.

In Character: Actors Acting Schatz’s sixteenth book of photographs, was published in April 2006 by Bulfinch Press. Schatz photographed 100 actors of stage, screen and television, directing them in one-on-one improvisation. Botanica (Bulfinch 2005) and Athlete, (HarperCollins, 2002) were Schatz’s two other most recently published books of photographs. Schatz’s books are known worldwide; other titles include: Nude Body Nude; Body Knots, Passion & Line, and Pool Light. Schatz’s editorial work has been published in magazines around the world, including Time, Sports Illustrated, Vogue, Vogue Italia, GQ Italia, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Stern, Life, Black/White, American Photo, Photo France, and Photo Italia. His work has been featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America, NPR, Fox Sports Network, the Discovery Channel and widely in Europe.

He has made extraordinary images for such advertising clients as Ralph Lauren RLX, Escada, Sergio Tacchini, Nike, Reebok, Wolford, Etienne Aigner, Sony, Adidas, Finlandia Vodka, MGM Grand Hotel, Virgin Records, and Mercedes-Benz.

Howard Schatz’s fine art work is represented in New York by the Staley-Wise Gallery, in Denver, by Gallery M, and in Los Angeles by the David Gallery. A full listing of other galleries in the United States and abroad can be found in the Galleries section of the website.

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Jenna Dewan’s ‘American Horror Story’ Look: Star Wears Sheer Dress For Premiere

Jenna Dewan-Tatum looked amazing at the premiere of “American Horror Story: Asylum” in Los Angeles, Calif., last night (Oct. 13).

The actress, 31, walked the red carpet at Paramount Studios in a white Reem Acra dress with an embellished see-through side that perfectly accentuated her incredible figure. Mrs. Channing Tatum is the new star of FX’s creepy series, which was created by “Glee’s” Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk.

Speaking of “Glee,” the show’s stars (and real-life lovebirds), Lea Michele and Cory Monteith, walked the carpet together, both in black ensembles. Michele wore an Old Hollywood-esque Armani gown, while her man looked dapper in a suit.

“So happy for my dear friends @MrRPMurphy and @BFalchuk! And my girl @jennaldewan is SO amazing in the first episode!” Michele tweeted last night, adding, “Love you Jenna!”

Halle Berry, Sarah Palin: Actress Related To Former Vice Presidential Candidate

Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry disclosed a surprising fact about herself this week: She is related to former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

“You wanna know who I’m related to? Sarah Palin!” the “Cloud Atlas” actress told “Extra” in a video interview, laughing as she spoke. “That’s what I said, ‘Nooo!’ Some twisted way — somebody sent me this information that she was my distant [relative].”

Thanks to popular shows like NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?” and the website ancestry.com, more celebrities are finding surprising genealogical connections with other famous faces. Researchers recently tied Justin Bieber to fellow Canadian superstars Celine Dion and Ryan Gosling, making some wonder if there were such a thing as a “celebrity gene.” And on the political front, President Obama’s family tree was linked to Dick Cheney, George Bush and — you betcha — Sarah Palin, who is his tenth cousin.

Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild: Eric Clapton Sells Painting For $34 Million At Auction

Eric Clapton proved this week that his art collecting skills are anything but amateur. The guitarist sold a Gerhard Richter painting at Sotheby’s for £21.3 million ($34.2 million) on Friday, amounting to the highest price ever paid at auction for a living artist. The best part though? Clapton originally bought the painting for £2million ($3.2 million) in 2001, only to sell it for 10 times the price tag 11 years later, the Daily Mail reports.

The painting, titled “Abstraktes Bild,” was expected to sell between £9 million and £12 million ($14.5 million and $19.3 million), according to the Sotheby’s listing. But a bidding war erupted between two anonymous buyers, catapulting the Richter squeegee painting to double that amount. The sale, which took place on Friday in London, broke the previous record for a work by a living artist, which was established by Jasper Johns in 2010 after his “Flag” sold for £17.8 million ($28.6 million) at Christie’s.

Richter’s work has performed well at auction lately, particularly in the wake of recent retrospectives at London’s Tate Museum and the Neu Nationalgalerie in Berlin. A sale of his works at Christie’s earlier this year resulted in a total hammer price of $21,810,500. In a recent article, Georgina Adam at The Telegraph describes the allure of Richter’s paintings as follows:

“Richter’s late, abstract works are particularly sought after because of their broad appeal: colourful abstracts which can fit into any interior, cannot offend anyone (unlike some of his tougher earlier works which deal with death or politics) and are recognizable trophies which give the owner immense bragging rights.”

The Temptations’ Eddie Kendricks Remembered

eddie_kendricks2012-med-big — Eddie Kendricks

*It was January 1992 when I got the call from Tunis Wilson who had been the road manager for the former trio of lead singers of The Temptations – David Ruffin (who had died just seven months prior), Eddie Kendricks, and Dennis Edwards. He said Eddie wanted me to come down to a location in the South Bay of California to talk about some songs I had written.

This would not be the first time we’d met. Back in the ‘70’s he and Ruffin had become aware of my songwriting abilities. We had kept in touch through the years. After Ruffin died I had met with Eddie where he was performing at The Strand in Redondo Beach and gave him a copy of several of my songs, so I was looking forward to his call.

It was a great meeting even though I could see that Eddie was pretty exhausted. We reminisced, and played some old Temptations songs. He was surprised that I really loved his performance on the Smokey Robinson tune “You’re Not An Ordinary Girl” which was the ‘B’ side of “Beauty’s Only Skin Deep.” We talked about old friends, and some of the hang-outs in Detroit. We high-fived, joked – laughed at some things, cussed about some others.

I remember telling Eddie that he and all his other Motown co-horts were so busy making history that they did not really fully grasp the impact they’d made. I promised him I would do whatever I could to try and let the world know of their sacrifices and hard work, and the struggles they went through to bring us their wonderful music…how it encouraged and elevated us. He thanked me for that.

As we were listening to my songs he nodded and gave his feedback – told me which ones he liked – then when the tribute song I wrote for Ruffin called “Soul Man (A Song For David)” came on, he really responded to it and said he wanted to record it! He even autographed the lyric sheet of the song that I still have. Sadly, I was told by Wilson that Eddie had been working on the song but had not finished it at the time of his death several months later.

Eddie (center) with Temptations

Eddie’s voice came on the national scene as a lead singer with “The Way You Do The Things You Do.” What many fans don’t know is that on another Smokey Robinson-penned tune “Two Lovers” by Mary Wells, it was Eddie harmonizing with her on the chorus (listen to it again with new ears). Eddie went on to record “Girl Why You Wanna Make Me Blue,” “The Girl’s Alright With Me,” “What Love Has Joined Together,” “Get Ready,” ‘Just My Imagination,” and many, many other hits with The Temptations. His duet with Ruffin on “You’re My Everything” is classic (See Eddie and the Temptations perform the song below)! And who can forget his timeless inimitable version of “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

It’s been reported that during one period, Eddie was the top grossing male solo artist on the Motown roster.

Afterwards, he had a stream of hits as a soloist with “Can I,” “Keep On Truckin’,” “Boogie Down,” “Happy,” and so many others. It’s been reported that during one period, Eddie was the top grossing male solo artist on the Motown roster. One song he recorded that I love so much – I first heard it in October 1974 – is “Tell Her Love Has Felt The Need.” My Aunt Jacqui brought the song over to our house on her birthday October 5th and played it for us. It was a rainy October night there in Detroit, and Eddie’s voice…his emotion in that song will live on in my mind forever. Eddie died October 5^th 1992. God bless him, and may his music live forever.

Larry Buford is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer. Author of “Things Are Gettin’ Outta Hand” (Steuben Pub) www.amazon.com. Articles frequently appear (among others) in the Los Angeles Sentinel Op-Ed section. Visit the author at www.larrybuford.com. (213) 220-8101

Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst refers to ‘Verity’ as a “modern-day allegory for truth and justice.” Those who have to look at it, like Northam resident Gwyneth Barnes, call the 66-foot bronze statue of a half-exposed pregnant woman “soft porn masqueraded as art.” After two years of planning and production, the controversial sculpture has finally arrived in Devon, and the once quaint beach town will never be the same.

And one for good luck…

Artist Ian Williams’ Obama, Romney Play-Doh Creations Win Award