Some oddities.

Yesterday, there was a big obit in the New York Times, about Barry Bingham, Jr. the obit rehashed the family crisis, where Barry Bingham's sister, Sallie, tried to wrest some of the control of the Louisville Courier from her brother, the resulting lawsuits which finally split the family, etc. But of course the settlement that Sallie received provided the initial funding for her son, Barry Ellsworth, to start up Apparatus Productions.

I haven't been to galleries, and i realized that Fred Wilson had a show at Pace, and Yvonne Jacquette had a show at DC Moore. Haven't seen Fred since his show at the Aldrich Museum; ran into Yoshiko Chuma at Nam June Paik's funeral and memorial. (Yoshiko is married to Jacob Burkhardt, who is Yvonne Jacquette's stepson; Yvonne was at Skowhegan the summer that David went there; David came back with notebooks full of drawings... i wonder if Donald Baechler still has those notebooks. I know that Yvonne and Rudy Burckhardt thought that David showed a lot of talent.)

Also this week: VOD (Video On Demand) from Universal. Two films offered on the Internet through some sort of pay service: "Brokeback Mountain" and "King Kong". The demise of the theatrical release continues apace.

It's the brave new world. And it's here. The Weinsteins (in their recent financial maneuvrings) have attempted to find a foothold in this new world, by acquiring interests in cable stations, in DVD distribution, in all those companies which specialized in what used to be seen as the "ancillary" markets, but which are now becoming primary markets.