Magic Camp

Ben and Paul have returned from a lackluster performance in the 2024 Paris Olympics breakdancing competition with something new for the campers. This week, we're trying out a new concept where we read snippets from the preferred written content medium of our time: The Email Newsletter. Highlights include a Petersonian meditation on Marcus Aurelius, slightly sexy poem snippets, and some bare knuckle badass writing from Paul's copywriting arch nemesis.

Bowie. Warhol. Chalamet. Need we say more? Paul and Ben reunite to discuss Dune Pt. 2, the fall of an iconic trad arts publication, and how to create a sun dial from a deconstructed milk carton.

It's Super Bowl Sunday, campers. And you know what that means—Ben and Paul participate in the futile but entertaining pastime of ranking and coronating the ineffable—pop songs, painters, and quarterbacks. So grab an Impossible chicken wing or three and crank the Tracy Chapman, because it's football night in America.

After a hiatus, Paul and Ben return to admit which member of the doomed Roy family they are, the horrors of AI art (have you ever wondered what's going on *outside* the frame of your favorite paintings?), and the glory of Nikola Jokic, Denver's favorite bear who learned ballet.

That's right: It's Fashion Week, campers. Not sure what to wear besides your favorite Punisher tee and under armor shorts that go past your knees? Don't sweat it. Ben and Paul offer a few tips to stay drippy on your local coffee shop cat walk this week, unpack a sexy new prestige TV program about copywriters called "Mad Men", and establish the ground rules for cafe culture in our "new normal" WFH world. Thanks to Trevor Welch for the groovy, enigmatic tunes. Check him out at trevor.money.

Shhh! This is a library, not a dance hall! But seriously, libraries are actually a pretty cool place to hang out, no cap. This week, Ben guides us through the arduous but healthy process of Shelf Maturation. We also talk about our old friend Cezanne, our new friend from the U.P. Joe Pera, and Nathan Fielder, our Canadian friend. Thanks to Trevor Welch for the tunes, as always. Check him out at trevor.money.

Summer is here, campers! Paul returns from walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain with keen insights, a backpack full of good vibes, and one of st. James's finger bones. Ben asks incisive cultural questions like "Do they have trucks there?", and tells us how to spot an American Fascist, a la Umberto Eco. Hint: it's all in the color palette. We gave Trevor Welch the week off, so special thanks to Canadian boy band B4-4 for their song "Get Down," a certified summer slapper.

Ben and Paul unpack an underwhelming experience at the world's largest Chuck E. Cheese, otherwise known as Meow Wolf, share their respective calisthenics routines, and consider a problematic usage of the word "balm," among other creepy descriptions of art. Remember, we already know what art is: it's pictures of horses. Thanks again to Trevor Welch for providing the tunes for our second season of Magic Camp. You can find Trev's music at trevor.money.

Happy New Year, campers. This week, Paul and Ben take a closer look (with John Berger's help)at the raw and revelatory paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Then Paul summons the spirit of the great Sufi poet Rumi to take us once again into the mystic. Links to follow along as we look at SAMO's work: https://arthur.io/art/jean-michel-basquiat "Boy and Dog in a Johnny Pump" https://arthur.io/art/jean-michel-basquiat/boy-and-dog-in-a-johnnypump "Hollywood Africans" https://whitney.org/collection/works/453 Thanks again to Trevor Welch for his tunes. Find him at trevor.money and @trevorwelch on Twitter.

Magic Camp resumes after Paul's Omicron sabbatical to discuss the Dadaists, the radical jesters of the early 20th European art scene. Paul test Ben's knowledge of notable thinkers while Ben lavishes praise on Paul's recent essay, linked here: https://therumpus.net/2021/12/picasso-shares-his-screen/. Thanks to our friend Trevor Welch for lending some of his music. Follow @trevorwelch on twitter and find more of his music at the links below: trevor.money ladyboyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/onsen

The Magic Camp Manifesto We the head counselors of Magic Camp declare, That a painting is not a painting unless it is made of paint. That the entirety of New York-based abstract expression art is one gigantic op, conceived and carried out by the Congress for Cultural Freedom and Central Intelligence Agency, we name Taos, New Mexico the artistic center of America. That the word moist is fine, you're just stupid. That art is magic and that we need a lot more of it, push comes to shove it, we'll go toe to toe with Jackson Pollock if it's blood you covet. Get it? He bled on his paintings. Or was it piss? We name the following Certified Bald Pimps: Picasso, Michael Jordan, Matt Lucas, Ghandi, Tyrese Gibson, Saul of Tarsus, St. Francis of Assisi, Kelly Slater, and Thomas Merton; and the following Bald Hacks: Jeff Bezos, Vin Diesel, Paul of Tarsus, Damien Hirst, and Martin Luther We the counselors with dreadlocks believe, That churches only want art to say they have it. That pastors in Affliction tees are hot, get over it. That Augustine could turn a phrase now and again but he's not to be trusted, especially considering what he did with those pears. Heretofore it has been regarded that Van Gogh cut his ear off from excessive horniness, whereas the truth is this: that Gauguin broke his heart in the platonic sense, no homo, by ditching him at the Yellow House. He therefore owes Vincent one ear and is a prick, but we forgive him because his paintings are good. We affirm the agenda of those who work in a toll booth all week and paint jungle landscapes on the weekend, of the Sunday painter, the open-minded 90 year old who sketches the bare trees in his backyard and is cool with drag. So long as their art is marketed successfully on instagram or can be segued into a lucrative MLM, it's cool. But actually: we affirm a rigorous and deep art, an art of the earth, of the desert, the jungle, and the cave. We affirm the carnal and the banal, the abstract and academic, the indigenous, the queer, and the bald. The only non-fungible token in life is deez nuts We affirm the merits of productive unemployment, creative truancy, and collaborative disenchantment as prerequisites for new forms. We firmly declare the right to firmly declare, and along with it we acknowledge that to proclaim is to imprison. That if your uncle could have done it he would have done it. Not saying he still can't, though. This is a cult and John Berger is our leader. Immediately after Paris is destroyed in WWIII he will return in a flying saucer and we will all drink a special mixture of absinthe, turpentine and cadmium yellow light and join him in the clouds at his right hand. For more details and a precise timeline of these events, please visit the Sistine chapel. These are the Magic Camp rules for art and life 1. Always paint with a boner; or a semi at leas 2. Make art, not war. Shoot film, not the Taliban 3. Respect the museum 4. Fuck the museum 5. Preach the gospel daily, if necessary, use paint Follow @trevorwelch on twitter and find more of his at: trevor.money and ladyboyrecords.bandcamp/album/onsen

Horror movie buffs Ben and Paul discuss Robert Eggers' masterpiece of puritan paranoia The VVitch and take down the needlessly sadistic and extremely f***ed up films of Ari Aster. Ben shocks Paul with some gory paintings from Francisco Goya and others, the original arty-goth kids. All Hail King Phillip the Black, he rules the land with mirth! Thanks to Trevor Welch for the new tracks for this episode. Follow @trevorwelch on twitter and find more of his music at the links below: trevor.money ladyboyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/onsen

Hope you brought your flashlights, campers, because this week we journey to the place where art began: the cave. Ben reflects on the primal power of well-drawn line—be it of a horse's mane or a real big piggy. Paul confesses his past love for Trad-Indie Folk music. Speaking of music, thanks to our friend Trevor Welch for lending some of his. Follow @trevorwelch on twitter and find more of his music at the links below: trevor.money ladyboyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/onsen

Ben and Paul return to Christian camp to check in on an old nemesis: Mark Driscoll. Not much art in this episode—just the way Mark would have wanted it. Thanks again to Trevor Welch for the bangers. Check him out at: @trevorwelch on Twitter trevor.welch or soundcloud.com/trevorwelch

S2 E3: Rousseau and Cezanne Go to Space by Magic Camp

S2 E3: Rousseau and Cezanne Go to Space by Magic Camp

Ben and Paul venture into the desert to encounter the art of the Transcendental Painting Group and the Taos Society of Artists, just two of the under-appreciated groups who made the mystical landscapes of New Mexico their primary subject matter in the mid 20th century. Paul considers the poetic but largely unintelligible Desert Fathers, whose lives and words remind us that in the desert, there is no such thing as Orthodoxy. Then, Ben EPICALLY OWNS Thomas Aquinas with logic, while Paul gives St. Augustine something to cry about besides a couple lousy pears. Music provided by our friend Trevor Welch. Follow @trevorwelch on twitter and find more of his music at the links below: trevor.money ladyboyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/onsen

Welcome back campers. Claim your bunk and get ready for a discussion about the Paris Avant-Garde. We're reading from the Manifesto of Cubism, sizing up Hemingway & seeing what the Evangelicals are up to. Music provided by our friend Trevor Welch. Follow @trevorwelch on twitter and find more of his music at the links below: http://trevor.money https://ladyboyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/onsen

Happy Christmas campers. We're discussing degrees of kitsch in advent art, from Thomas Kinkade to Norman Rockwell. Finally we ask: what if the infinite became finite in the womb of Charlie Brown?

Breaking news: the president has covid! It took a while to post, but in this episode your counselors chat about Sweaty Walt Whitman, Lodge 49 and Zen.

Dream with us as we consider the works of Andre Brenton and his Surrealist coven. Check out the Manifesto of Surrealism and apply the SECRETS OF THE MAGICAL SURREALIST ART to your own society today!

Bust out the hemp bracelets, we're back at Christian camp. Paul describes how Giotto spread the humanist vision St. Francis to the masses of disgusting, illiterate peasants and helped spawn the Renaissance.

We're camping with the Italian Futurists. Were they fascists or were they just in their twenties? Marinetti gets drunk and crashes into some fluid. Ben rolls coal. Paul swirls a glass of finely aged vino. We read from Manifesto of Futurism and Futurist Painting: Technical Manifesto.

Your counselors are talking Caravaggio, Italian master and absolute pimp.

Your camp counselors talk about Vincent Van Gogh and how you might not have enjoyed hanging out with him. Now everyone wants to be his friend. No texts for this one, but check out "At Eternity's Gate".

We're talking John Berger: lefty art critic, novelist, artist, brit and Black Panther patron. Our guide is his classic book and BBC series "Ways of Seeing".

We talk about the visionary poet, painter and printmaker William Blake. Death of God theologian Thomas JJ Altizer helps us parse the radical theology with his book "The New Apocalypse: The Radical Christian Vision of William Blake".

Ben & Paul talk about American cowboy-painter Jackson Pollock and how the CIA boosted Abstract Expressionism in order to look cooler than Communists. We draw heavily on "The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters" by Frances Stonor Saunders.