xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
In April, London’s National Portrait Gallery showed an hour-long video of star soccer player David Beckham, sleeping; artist Sam Taylor-Wood said she wanted to do an original of the ubiquitously photographed Beckham and realized there was not much that hadn’t already been done.
At a March exhibit at London’s Nelson’s Column, guest performers took turns reading Japanese artist On Kawara’s book that consists only of 271,000 selected dates that occurred between 998,031 B.C. and A.D. 1,001,980. (Said a gallery director, “On Kawara’s work speaks simply and directly about a subject relevant to us all, the passage and marking of time.”)
William Basil Armstrong, 56, was charged with robbing the Clark Mart in Akron, Ohio, in May; he gave up partway through, though, and had to ask the clerk to please run out to Armstrong’s car and retrieve his oxygen tank, which he requires for a respiratory condition.
Not only does San Francisco’s Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center (i.e., the city dump) have an “artist in residence,” but sculptor Rick Carpenter is actually the 43rd person to hold that position, according to an April San Francisco Chronicle report. Carpenter said his specialty is discarded bulk items, citing, for example, the weaving he made from 40 orange extension cords, and his latest, an object stuffed with the contents of a 5-gallon bucket of wigs someone tossed.
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Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD