{"id":23897,"date":"2015-01-27T13:28:49","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T18:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/?p=23897"},"modified":"2015-01-31T11:46:15","modified_gmt":"2015-01-31T16:46:15","slug":"american-sniper-craft-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/the-bomb\/2015\/01\/27\/american-sniper-craft-service\/","title":{"rendered":"~AMERICAN SNIPER . . ‘CRAFT’ SERVICE ?!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

so.
\nso, I was<\/strong> right !!
\nabout . . ‘AMERICAN SNIPER’ – being all about craft.
\n‘skills’ – marksmanship, sharpshooters, snipers – as American as the Civil War, as homemade as apple pie.<\/p>\n

turns out the real CHRIS KYLE had a sharpshooter \/ SWAT team training business, and it was called … ?<\/p>\n

CRAFT !!
\nCRAFT INTERNATIONAL LLC. oh yeah.<\/p>\n

talkin’ about – graphic design !!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nthe CHRIS KYLE – CRAFT INTERNATIONAL LLC – LOGO.
\n‘despite what your momma told you . . . violence does solve problems’.<\/p>\n

I’m always dumbstruck by the violence of the American Civil war re-enactments.
\nI’m always dumbstruck by the violence and threat of our real-time global disaster of a DNA doomed low IQ habitat. and hell, no. I don’t want Iran to have nukes<\/strong>.
\nthat’s totally the wrong-ass approach: take-away nuclear capability, don’t make even one more . . nuke the norm.
\nfuck treaties, disarm<\/strong>.
\narm-to-arm combat any day, over total extinction.
\nhooray for snipers. they kill one person at a time, not whole islands. <\/p>\n

but, hey.
\naway from our deeply wired & totally embedded fucked-up bio-genetic make-up – and, back to: ‘craft’ !!
\nback to: ART.
\ndoes art today – have any meaning, any skills – what a dumb question.
\nof course, and it’s coming to you, as a ‘SELFIE’, as in ‘a first person bio-narrative’ – this particular time around.<\/p>\n

I’ve seen a lot of ‘skulls and crossbones’ in my travails in the art world, and so have you – from the punk underground, biker clubs, on up into the diamond-encrusted secondary markets . . so if you are any kind of artist, or just curious art fan with any ‘eye’, you also should have <\/strong> noticed those great, silk-screened, gray ghost-like skulls that appeared on the American soldiers’ uniforms, and maybe also on the gear, towards the end of the movie. for sure – I was: who silk-screened that ?
\ngreat job. <\/p>\n

I just re-checked the ‘American Sniper’ trailer – but there were no skull bearing ‘frames’ to screen grab.
\nkeep your eye out for them, next time around.<\/p>\n

I thought they were really exceptional, very ‘ghostly’, as in ‘deadly’, minimal, but eerie, no words but doomed as hell. like, art-wise they are life . . . life slip, slip-sliding away, kind of melting with a curiously not funny cartoon ‘edge’ to them. a kind of street tagger all-American Casper the friendly ghost – who got way pissed off. lethal. yeah, that’s it, they speak to lethal, design-wise. no threats, just doing. zero tolerance. zero chances. in a word fed up, and seen too much. the scale of the design was just right, too. I kind of noticed them, but then shook them off, just long enough to think, did someone on the movie crew do that . . did a kind of random day job gaffer, street artist by night, just happen to be on the set, and they let him loose ?
\nwas it the costume design pros, having a little fun ?<\/p>\n

I sort of accepted it as a kind of folk art that soldiers do, painting scary icons on the noses of their fighter planes. wartime folk art. it’s called: sending a ‘message’.
\nalso known as . . the visual arts, in general.<\/p>\n

but then when I read this random article, below, in the ‘Business and Finance’ section (!!) of the Wall Street Journal, and found out about Chris Kyles’ enterprise, named: ‘CRAFT INTERNATIONAL’, I realized – damn I nailed it.<\/p>\n

yep. dead right center in the cross hairs of understanding ‘American Sniper’.
\nsharpshooting is a skill, and CLINT EASTWOOD told . . a hell of a technical beauty of a tale.<\/p>\n

see: “Legal Sniping Behind ‘Sniper’ Movie” – by KATY STECH, Wall Street Journal, Jan 24, 2015<\/a><\/p>\n

“despite what your momma told you \/ violence does solve problems.”
\nis that not an all-American ‘SELFIE’<\/strong> . . to reflect upon, or what ?!!<\/p>\n

a ‘SELFIE’ – that speaks from . . experience.<\/p>\n

don’t tread on me, an early American colonial battle cry – if you know your American quilt history, you know it . . well.
\nit was writ large, sewed into many a cozy bed cover, and later found prominently re-born among confederate civil war flags, the accompanying motif always being a very pissed-off snake, uncoiling upward. <\/p>\n

in other words: <\/p>\n

for better (old Europe) or worse (Native Americans), American vs American re slavery rights: <\/p>\n

don’t mess with me, or there will<\/strong> be no more ‘SELFIE’<\/strong> – for you !!
\nold American mantra.
\nold American arts & crafts<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

so. so, I was right !! about . . ‘AMERICAN SNIPER’ – being all about craft. ‘skills’ – marksmanship, sharpshooters, snipers – as American as the Civil War, as homemade as apple pie. turns out the real CHRIS KYLE had a sharpshooter \/ SWAT team training business, and it was called … ? CRAFT !! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23897"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23897"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23943,"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23897\/revisions\/23943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}