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Looking for green in all the wrong places, I ran across an article by Bruce Sterling in the current Artforum this morning. In it he critiques the recent spate of articles on the eco-crisis in the fashion rags like Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Elle. I'm a big fan of Sterling; and though I've really enjoyed much of his writing in the past, I'm a little over him revelling in the sound of his own hyperbole - like a heavy bernaise, his sense of cleverness drowns out his sense of conviction.

And in the back of my mind, I somehow felt that his validation of the fashionistas was, in a way, a validation of Artforum becoming a fashion magazine. After all, I needed some eye candy this morning. Pics of Farrah Fawcett and Tracy Lords at parties speaks volumes about one corner of the art world but remains mute about contemporary art.

Nonetheless, a few of Sterling's lines caught my attention:

  • "Seven emergency experts have been offered the plum job of head of FEMA under Bush since the hurricane that killed the Big Easy. Not a one of them has taken it, precisely because they know better than to run inside a building while it's collapsing."
  • "...Vogue would never bother to pick on Greens for being so blatantly ugly and out of it, any more than Vogue would dropkick the Amish. Greens, by stark contrast, immediately attacked Vogue's eco-issue for - get this - failing to use recycled paper."
  • "When New Orleans high-maintenance girls dress up to party nowadays, they are really dressing up to party. They're no longer doing that out of daffy rich-chick whimsey, they're doing it for the same grim and vital reason that women in the London Blitz used to draw lines up the back of their legs so as to mimic nylons."

Other pieces of B.S. archived in Artforum online.

A couple of weeks ago I found an equally witty, if somewhat more substantive piece on the crisis: video of Al Gore doing stand-up at the TED Conference. Lots of other really interesting lectures on the TED site as well.