From Amsterdam:

The frenzy of being me stops. I am walking to the Van Gogh to look long & hard at his Wheat Field with Crows, his deathsong. But filming one of the world's great guitarists for 3 days has me filled with hope & vim. And conversations with one of the world's great drummers has me keeping time a bit more wisely.

From the highway between Madrid and Caceres, in Extremadura:

Leaving Madrid to the wild west, extremadura. Anguished flamenco on radio, new turbo diesel has only 500 miles, first stop is with truckers at smelly joint for manchego and chorizo and bread we can only imagine anywhere other than Spain!

From Portugal:

. . . don't like to spill beans, but in Coimbra, Portugal, where last night I had a very interesting experience watching John Cale (ex-Velvet Underground) and getting a lesson in rock and roll. The movie about his drummer Michael Jerome looks cool, and this very fresh (to my ear) sound jumping out at me was 100% surprise. Life, a trip! Two more shows, then USA, then Mardi Gras, another band, more movie, more hilarity!

Andy's birthday is not an event to sneeze at. Or to sniff or sneer or snooze at. Andy's birthday is about the confluence of wind and rain, traffic lights and Boursin, widows and woolly bison. He gets dolled up in the facepaint, a reflection of his native tides, and Sandra and Maya pose with gusto. A friend drops by, and then another, and before you know it creativity has been sparked and off we got. Sean kept the shutters firing, as did Andres and Mr. Hooker, and Saturday turned out just fine. Elsewhere, here, there is a hilarious video of Sean singing 'Generation Zero' as part of the old Black Hole Buddha show, while everyone gallops along to their own inner impulse. Must see Tv except it's on the net!

He gives Warhol his due as a master of media, but can't help pointing out how vapid he finds the person behind the graphic art. Comparing Klimt with Leonardo is asinine, as Hughes notes, but that is what these "ridiculous rich dudes" do. They pay the money, and then need to assure themselves they've done something wise. The beauty of this particular encounter between collector and critic is the devilish laugh Hughes gives when Mugrabi admits he overpays for artworks to achieve a sort of immortality. That's where Hughes is much, much more than critic. He's exposing a shallow stooge for being a shallow stooge, judging art and artist by price tag. What give Hughes his heft as a critic who laughs at Mugrabi are his towering books on the history of Barcelona and on the history of the British transportation which formed the modern Australian character. He is not a critic in these works, but a keen observer of psychology and a student of society's structures; you could say Hughes has made a new kind of history to supplement Braudel, who simply laughs at the historians who write history as a never-ending tussle between generals: the price of Barley is more important to Braudel and Hughes than whether or not Wellington took advantage of Napoleon's hemorrhoids in that Belgian field. Hughes has weight far beyond criticism. He is a creator of his own perspective and his own history, and I'll be every penny I have that Mugrabi junior has never read Fatal Shores or Barcelona and has simply taken the path of ordinary rich people, the same jerks who buy "the best" because they can and not because they have a sliver of knowledge or instinct about what the artworks represent or how the artist saw the world around him. Van Gogh or Goya would vomit upon meeting Mugrabi; it is exactly this sort of jackal on the outskirts of creativity that every artist loathes. That laugh of Hughes, a chortle of pure contempt, at Mugrabi's idea that he is buying immortality, is a trap set for an idiot, effortlessly, intended with utmost malevolence, and Mugrabi steps into it with both feet. This is a fantastic video, required viewing for any artist who speculates on her or his own assets.

Mysterious character Valentina sparks expressions of concern from photo master Donna Ferrato in a short scene puntuated by the song "The Fool" from the Moonlight Project by Blue, Peter Fox & Steve McCormick, sung by Kristen Mooney. Video produced by Seanie Blue & David Snider for the Bubble Lounge.

Audacious camera king Donna Ferrato previews a map of memes in the form of a 10-minute short movie at Tribeca's Bubble Lounge on Sunday evening. Two showings of the movie, at 8:30 and at 10:30, free entry, and you'll be pixelated if you attend. Ferrato explores several of her book and photo ideas in a series of sketches and impulses about her life in the triangle below Canal. Produced by Blue & David Snider in crystal-clear blu-ray quality.

++++++++++++++ Poster design is by Jyl Freeman for Trophy Design & the Mechanical Swan