John Rogers
LA museum to unveil artist’s big rock work in June
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A rockin’ good time is planned next month when the Los Angeles County Museum of Art pulls the covers off artist Michael Heizer’s latest creation — a 340-ton boulder positioned to appear as though it’s floating in mid-air.
The gigantic work titled “Levitated Mass” will be unveiled June 24 and is intended to remain forever.
Its centerpiece is the two-story-tall chunk of granite that was hauled 105 miles from a Riverside rock quarry earlier this year. Since then, the rock has been carefully positioned above a 465-foot-long trench that museum visitors can stroll.
From the trench, the rock should appear to be hovering above them.
“We live in a world that’s technological and primordial simultaneously,” Heizer said in a statement released Tuesday by the museum. “I guess the idea is to make art that reflects this premise.”
The 67-year-old artist rarely appears in public, and museum officials didn’t say if he plans to attend the unveiling. He has been quietly overseeing the big rock’s installation over the trench and gave architect Frank Gehry a tour of the site.
On the day of the unveiling, the museum is also opening “Michael Heizer: Actual Size,” an exhibition of more than a dozen gigantic photographs showing other works by the artist.
Heizer may be best known for “Double Negative,” a 1,500-foot-long land sculpture cut into a desert mesa in southern Nevada.
For much of the past 40 years, he has been working on “City,” a project of Mount Rushmore-sized proportions in central Nevada.
He is adamant that no one see “City” until it is complete, but aerial photos show a number of pyramid-like buildings, some as high as 80 feet, stretching across more than a mile of desert.
Heizer has planned for more than 40 years to create “Levitated Mass,” but had to locate the perfect rock. He finally found one in a quarry on the outskirts of Riverside about seven years ago.
It took dozens of people and a specially built trailer to haul it over the surface streets of 22 cities.
The trip lasted nearly two weeks, with the rock traveling only at night and rarely faster than 5 mph. Thousands of people turned out to cheer it on.
To thank those who put up with road closures and other delays, the museum is granting free admission for a week to people who live in zip code areas traversed by the rock.
Octomom at crossroads, broke and considering porn
FILE - A March 11, 2009 file photo shows Nadya Suleman raising her hand as she tries to elude paparazzi outside her home in La Habra, Calif. Suleman has filied for bankruptcy and her home is scheduled to be auctioned on Monday, May 7, 2012. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)(Credit: AP) LOS ANGELES (AP) — From Miracle Mom to Octomom and now, perhaps soon, Homeless Mom, the bizarre life of Nadya Suleman and her 14 children has been a subject that rarely fails to hit a nerve among those who have followed her personal soap opera.
With Suleman on the verge of losing her home and declaring bankruptcy this week with total debts as high as $1 million to everyone from her parents to her baby sitters to the water company, the Octomom Odyssey seems headed for darker days.
Beyond the fascination with her public foibles, such as posing topless in an obscure British magazine and talk of a solo porn film, is the very real concern about the welfare of her octuplets and six older children — all borne from her zeal for in vitro fertilization.
Continue Reading CloseEx-Marine aims camera at self to heal from the war
This Feb. 2006 photo provided by Josh Echeverria shows U.S. Marine Garrett Anderson in a prone firing position in Kunar Province, Afghanistan. Anderson, an ex-Marine filmmaker whose unit carried pocket digital cameras into some of the worst fighting in Iraq is using that footage, and post-war interviews, to open viewers' eyes about combat and help himself deal with the lasting emotional impact. (AP Photo/Josh Echeverria)(Credit: AP) LOS ANGELES (AP) — An ex-Marine filmmaker whose unit carried pocket digital cameras into some of the worst fighting in Iraq is using that footage, and post-war interviews, to open viewers’ eyes about combat and help himself deal with the lasting emotional impact.
The videos are stark. One Marine is so badly hurt he filmed himself giving himself the Last Rites.
Some of the fighters seem unaffected years later in civilian life, while others have gone through severe bouts of post-traumatic stress and one man, who in Iraq saved fellow Marines’ lives, wound up in prison back home.
Continue Reading CloseRodney King reflects on an up-down life since riot
FILE - This March 31, 1991 frame from a video tape shot by George Holliday from his apartment in a suburb of Los Angeles shows what appears to be a group of police officers beating a man with nightsticks and kicking him as other officers look on. The April 29, 1992 acquittal of four police officers in the beating sparked rioting that spread across the city and into neighboring suburbs. Cars were demolished and homes and businesses were burned. Before order was restored, 55 people were dead, 2,300 injured and more than 1,500 buildings were damaged or destroyed. (AP Photo/George Holliday/Courtesy of KTLA Los Angeles)(Credit: AP) LOS ANGELES (AP) — We saw his face a bloody, pulpy mess. And in 1992, when the four Los Angeles police officers who beat him after a traffic stop were acquitted, it touched off anger that affected an entire generation. Now, 20 years later, this is the face of Rodney King, and this is what has happened to him in the interim.
He’s been a record company executive and a reality TV star among many other things.
To millions of Americans, though, he will always be either a victim of one of the most horrific cases of police brutality ever videotaped or just a hooligan who didn’t stop when police attempted to pull him over.
Continue Reading ClosePorn makers dismiss Santorum attack as pandering
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The U.S. porn industry’s movers and shakers accused Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Monday of pandering to conservative voters when he vowed to crack down on their business if elected.
In a statement posted on his website, Santorum said the United States is “suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography,” which he said has been shown to produce brain changes in children and adults, cause the destruction of marriages, and contribute to prostitution and violence against women.
Continue Reading ClosePorn makers dismiss Santorum attack as pandering
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The U.S. porn industry’s movers and shakers accused Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Monday of pandering to conservative voters when he vowed to crack down on their business if elected.
In a statement posted on his website, Santorum said the United States is “suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography,” which he said has been shown to produce brain changes in children and adults, cause the destruction of marriages, and contribute to prostitution and violence against women.
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