November 2001, 6 posts, 214 lines
First off, people who work at Wendy's don't make the chili. The chili is manufactured at a food processing plant, all the employees do is reheat the food.
what? Are you trying to say something about Donald Judd? Jon Smith wrote: First off, people who work at Wendy's don't make the chili. The chili is manufactured at a food processing plant, all the employees do is reheat the food.
Hello. I may be jumping into the middle of a conversation..... but... I got a good laugh with your fine Wendy's comparison. For the record I get alot of (much welcomed) food for thought for Jud's work but in many ways I definatley feel as if Judd's work is fast food art........ and yes I occasionally eat at those restaurants but I could'nt live off the stuff.
Tim
Subject: chicago artist arrested for art
more specifically, Michael Hernandez de Luna, who makes fake stamps, then sends them through the mail. last month he made an Anthrax stamp, stuck it on a letter and sent it to himself. it was discovered at the processing station downtown and freaked some people out. now the police are saying he could be facing 5 years in prison for "mail fraud": [http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0111190175nov19.story] what the fuck!! let a brother chill with his stamps & shit
He aint in jail yet..
And they are a lot easier to take than USPO madonna and child stamps. There ought to be a law separating State and Church.
/jno
Bulka et all,
Actually as an artist, de Luna should be arrested for being a 'One Trick Pony' and he should move on to new and more interesting endeavors. The work is often nicely designed and witty but he knows what the result of making fake stamps will be and he continues to prove his hypothesis correctly by playing the same game over and over again. Yes the stamps will sometimes make it through so he can go ahead and sell them to people who need a good conversation piece.
Yes the post office will get mad that it was duped. He has completed his experiment fifty times over. It is now boring. If he did in fact make the Anthrax stamp then it seems like an extremely desperate bid for attention.
That said, I just got back from Mexico and for anyone traveling internationally, let me assure you that customs is not to be fucked with right now. In fact, you may as well not even bring any luggage. In fact, even if you traveled naked, that would probably appear suspect and customs would probably stick an x-ray machine up your ass.
O'Hare was trouble free and I got to Mexico fine, though my bags were quite thoroughly inspected by customs upon picking them up at the baggage claim in Mexico City. I have no idea what the non-English speaking inspector made of the thousands of loose photos and other scraps of paper I was bringing in to use in an exhibit but they took a nice look at everything.
When leaving Mexico to return to the U.S. the security at the airline check in counter was not to be believed. I was flying United/Mexicana and just before you could check in at the main desk, they searched EVERY SINGLE BAG right then and there - carry on luggage AND luggage being checked into the plane. You can imagine how long this took - about an hour and twenty minutes for maybe 40 people.
Things really ground to a halt when a woman was found to have a bottle (of water I assume) that for whatever reason was wrapped in newspaper and some string. At least 3 customs officials opened and sniffed into the bottle before making some kind of determination. After allowing security to quickly inspect my dirty laundry, toiletries, un-used photo collections, and an obligatory pile of weird Mexican magazines, I was given my boarding pass and let through to enjoy the next customs proceedings. Before I left I was asked a final time about if I had any knives or toe nail clippers in my carry on bag.
Fortunately I clipped my toes before leaving Cuernavaca so I felt safe packing them into my checked in luggage. I gave a Stanley Knife away to a friend in Mexico before leaving because I didn't want to have to deal with that at all in the airport.
To enter the gate my carry on luggage was x-rayed and searched yet again and 6 loose AA batteries were confiscated from me. The security person apologetically explained that they had to take all loose batteries because they could be used to power a bomb. I was also thoroughly patted down because I was wearing shoes that had enough steel in the toes or eyelets to make it impossible to stop setting off the metal detector. Keep that in mind as well and be sure to travel barefoot.
And then, for one last final little customs surprise, they searched all carry on luggage AGAIN right before entering the plane. I was delighted to see all of the same friendly security people from the very first check in point got relocated right in front of the boarding entrance. It was like a little reunion! This time it was my bottle of water in a Fanta bottle that was carefully sniffed and a pen in my pocket set off the metal detector wand that was waived over me. Fortunately upon arriving in Chicago, they waived everyone through - apparently assuming that one fine toothed comb inspection of all baggage is enough for any one person to endure.
So anyone traveling to Mexico and thinking about trying to buy one of those Osama Bin Laden Halloween masks that were written about in the Chicago Tribune (I looked but couldn't find them) might want to think twice. Anyone traveling internationally should probably avoid packing bags of flour, anything sharper than a toothpick, unmarked bottles of any kind of fluid, or really anything that doesn't make you appear to be the most boring generic tourist in the world. There needs to be a new word invented that combines 'Tourist' and 'Terrorist' to describe a person that inadvertently packs anything in their luggage that causes airport lines to be held up.
Marc