at 6:17 p.m.

a large plum rolled down 16th street in san francisco, and turned down delores. 

my 100th blog entry!

why not celebrate with cool stuff!?

1.

2. SFMOMA exhibit of Ann Hamiton’s indigo blue, an interesting commentary on class and economy. go to the link and click, “start program” and watch the three videos of installation inception and intention.

3. strange creatures found in antarctic waters.

4.  fm3 buddha machine.  asmall plastic machine producing ambient noises by toggle switching.  mine is orange!

5.  the journal of popular noise.  this is a journal of sound, of noise. each issue is a 45rpm record. and it looks like this:

i haven’t had a chance to listen to mine yet, because my 45 insert is too small (weird?) and i have to get new ones. but i am sure it will rock my noise loving world!

6.  installations at cca, specifically MINE! i did/am doing a nature simulation installation in the studio. right now it’s just a 3d sketch of something i hope to expand later…some how. pictures forth coming.  idea is cooler than product right now.

7.  my pals catherine, dene, joanna, and robert for taking me out in SF last night and for filling me with jack n gingers and intelligent, funny company! xo! pictures forthcoming?

more art that i like and that you should too.

1. emilie clark. i found this artist rather unconventionally. i was scanning book covers during my Thursday internship at small press distribution and came across a plain white book of poetry with red globs of pomegranate-like forms on the lower corner of the cover. i, of course, forget which book this was, but emilie’s work, mimicking sea life and floral fluidity, looks like this:

and my favorite:

click here to see more.

2. noah k. you may recognize this guy as the youtube superstar who took pictures of himself everyday for six years. here is the video as a refresher:

well, he has a flickr account too, where we can see 584 of his photographs. i have seen a couple dozen of them, and they are pretty interesting. maybe a little too contrived,

but none the less pleasing to the eye…at times.

see his pictures here.

3. patricia gillespie. i saw her work at first fridays art walk in oakland. her work was featured in the esteban sabar gallery. she hand stitches a fabric backgrounds and places painted wood figures over it. like this:

and this:

and my fav:

i just love her work. there is a lot of communication and story in her pieces. snapshots on quilts. she does larger scale pieces as well, like on brick walls! see more of her stuff at her website sharpstickstudio.com

i can’t function normally anymore

last night, february 13th, tay and i drove over the bay bridge to san francisco, down geary street, stopped in at panda express for a bite, and then walked two blocks to the fillmore where we saw siouxsie motherfucking sioux‘s mantaray tour.

i don’t even think i can do anything normal after seeing such an amazing show.

siouxsie and the banshees formed in 1976-quickly becoming a vital part of the british punk scene. they put out album after brilliant album (all of which i own!) and 20 years later they split. since (and during) then, siouxsie (frontwoman) and her now ex husband (budgie- drummer) released music as the creatures.

2007 saw siouxsie’s first solo album, mantaray. i bought it as soon as it hit the U.S. (september?) and have been listening to it everyday since. i can say she is the most influential musician to me, so seeing her perform last night left me entranced and speechless.

the crowd was a great mix of old and new goths, punk kids, and cardigan wearers.  (i realized being there, i have become too normal looking- tho i do have a rocking haircut right now!)  she played the entire mantaray album and then some classic banshees which made me freeeak out and sing at the top of my lungs! when she busted out spellbound, she came over to my side of the stage (i was right up there) and sang to me! i swear- it lasted like 7 seconds!

ha. clad in a silver and black lycra suit and leather utility belt, she commanded the stage and fucking rocked out. i can’t even believe she’s 51. she is super hot and energetic! my life is now complete and i can die happily.  although, i do feel the need to actually meet her. how will i finagle that? read a great article about her album here.

plastination and turkey day: what they have in common

so on wednesday, the day before thanksgiving, my pals (robert, jordan, candra) and i drove to san jose (stopped at in-n-out for milkshakes and burgers), and went to the tech to see the bodyworlds exhibit. if you have not heard of bodyworlds, it is an exhibit of (dead) human bodies preserved through a process called plastination. it looks just like it sounds- plastic.

  

the exhibit had people posed, individual body parts in glass cases, and breakdown of the nerve systems, etc.  it was pretty cool to see these things, and not too gross. my favorite was the slices of human pressed between fiberglass: 

but i did have some MAJOR problems with the exhibit.  firstly, there were 5 or 6 rooms and we did not see a female body until the third room, and she was, or course, pregnant.besides this being offensive or disturbing to some people, she is in a sexualized position.fucked up right? also, the other women (about 5 outta 24ish bodies) were in yoga, ballet, or ice skating positions. FUCKED UP. we saw plenty of male bodies (with their stringy skinless testes) with explanations of their makeup. how can we hypersexualize the female body so ruthlessly?also, there was a huge picture of reagan in the alzheimer’s section. and non smoking, and anti-”obesity” campaigns both in and-outside of the exhibit, with quit now pamplets and body mass index scales.bodyworlds is an overly priced republican commentary on human health. i felt used and pissed off.and i still do. obviously.so what does this have to do with turkey day? because i cooked my very first turkey- and it was 20 lbs. of raw nasty flesh. i am never doing it again.  we did have a great day though. about 9 of us just ate, drank, watched football, and chilled. it was really great to have my best pals together and happily stuffed! no pun intended- really.

Big A little a

I had a pretty great end to my weekend. Emm, Tay, and I went to 21 grand to see a noise band i really love- Aa . They are Brooklyn based and finally made a trip out to the West coast. besides the fact that they have gut-melting drumming and fucking trance-like vocals, they are just some dudes doing what they love. They set up in the middle of the room (no stage power-structure bullshit)  and everyone surrounds them as if they were part of the beats.

there are 3 drummers, a rather energetic keyboard/vocals dude, and another vocal dude. I just love them. Support these guys and buy their music. Most of all- go see them live because there is nothing else like Aa.

Pictures and a video from the show are soon to come…

Mortified

This weekend was a great break in routine! Friday after work, my pals and I went into SF to see Mortified live. Mortified is, as my cousin Jaclyn describes, a mix between post-secret and Augusten Burroughs. Yes.

 

In actuality, it is a book compiled of old journal and diary entries from 80’s teen angst, sexual fantasies, religious inquisitions, and desperate means of survival. Needless to say, this stuff is super hilarious, but also a little unsettling due to similarities of personal growing pains.

 

The event was held at the Make-Out Room on 22^nd between Valencia (where all the dirty, sexy young kids hang out) and Market (where there are too many abandoned beautiful old theaters and eye glass stores).

 

The Make-Out Room is decked out in anything and everything glittery and sardonic. Silver streamers whirled from the ceiling, Mardi Gras beads framed the lazy spin of the disco ball, and the walls were lined with dense flower-printed chairs hiked up under Formica end tables- glued to the blue and orange vinyl flooring, and muddied-turquoise love-booths prevented walking room at the front of the bar/performance theater caboosed by a petite dark stage.

 

My favorite journal writer performed there on Friday too (Will Seymore)! It was they guy who wrote about his “Aunt Liza” (Minnelli that is), his unhealthy obsession with the soap opera The Guiding Light, his accidental shop-lifting habit, hatred of all things gym class, and infatuation with lemon bar recipes and salt-dough wreaths.

 

I laughed the whole way through as former geeks, Presbyterian nymphos, and utopian tendencied Goth chicks read their most embarrassing entries, through the competition of “worst teenage poet,” and through bursts of the-best-of-the-best 80’s tunes. I left with pit stains and laugh cramps and can’t wait to go again when they are back next month! Wanna come with?

 

Then on Saturday, we went to see Knocked-Up. Normally I would have been completely put off by this crude title (and the basic premise of the movie), but my boys from Freaks and Geeks

were in it, so I had to see it. I must admit, I laughed way too much and have no regrets on seeing it. There were some questionable areas, but dammit I needed to let loose and I did! Don’t pay $10 for it though- wait till its out on video.

i just did something terrible

i went to a chinese buffet.

i know i know. i dont know why i did it. but it happened. and i wish it hadnt. i shouldve known, considering it was in fremont, which not only is a wasteland, but does not have a high Chinese population.

you would have thought, also, that the condition of the restrooms would’ve clued me in to what i was about to endure. chartreuse lychen grew up the back of the toilet and the faucet only ran two temperatures: bone bursting cold and flesh melting hot.

but no. we continued on- holding our cafeteria trays and sliding past each basin of luke-warm wads of over-sauced meat and bug-eyed seafood.

again, i shouldve known not to proceed as i walked over to the salad bar and nine dozen prawns were staring up at me…nuzzled together like clams in mud.

i couldn’t save them. they were already dead.

so we sank into the plastic sheathed booths, avoiding eye contact and wondering silently why we were two of 7 people there.

$7.99 for unlimited msg to fill my howling gut seemed like a good idea until i bit into the “kung pao” chicken and decided i was actually eating pigeon- or possibly something canine.

i spit out the half-gummed carcass, and tried the shu mai. it was stuffed with sausage and cold in the middle. strike two.

gyoza- like road kill wrapped in tire rubber. strike three.

did i keep going? yes.

my roommate attempted her “meal” next. sweet and sour chicken? no. “pizza?” no. sushi? definitely not.

we decided after her attempt at dessert and my inability to decipher if i was chewing lo mein or tape worms,

to run out of the place, puke in the parking lot, and drive the 27.5 miles home.

we each sucked down a camel light (didnt help) and then finished off my $2 container of hippy gum.

i dont think i will eat for the rest of today. whenver i look at my cat harold, i feel guilty cause i just ingested his cousin.

Vivienne Westwood at de Young

this weekend is the last that Vivienne Westwood’s “36 years in fashion” collection will be on exhibit at the de young museum in san francisco’s golden gate park. vivienne westwood

popularized the iconic “punk” fashion of the late 70′s and early 80′s. she incorporated the DIY look into her chicken bone t-shirts,

in her rubber bondage suits and in the incorporation of the scottish tartan:

my favorite (of course) had to be the “siouxsie shoe”
(sorry i couldn’t find a picture, but i swear they fuckin rocked! buckles and rubber. hot).
Vivienne created architecture for the body; with dips and peaks of fabric consistent through her pirate, scottish, corset, and ballgown collections. westwood takes a traditional style and totally fucks it up….but not completely. for instance, she makes a mockery of turn-of-the-century british fashion, by recreating the styles with original tweeds and wools, but she makes the jackets bright and over-sized, and adds crinoline to shorter and shorter skirts, and uses rubber penis buttons to close her shrugs. also, in her ballgown collection she twists tradition just enough- the gowns are gorgeous in their superfluity and not exactly typical- a border westwood enjoys teetering on

while clinging to her ideals of androgyny.

i couldn’t help but think desperately of the music popular during each of her creative explosions, which also lead me to seeing some of my favorite literature characters in some of her outfits . for instance dominique francon from ayn rand’s “the fountainhead” is (hard to describe) a demure woman with an unavoidable attractive casing and passive aggressive sexuality who enjoys emotionally torturing the man she obsesses over and loves. ok, that was the best description i could do for now. but she would wear this:

note the huge darts over each breast. i suddenly found myself in love with dominique, and then with vivienne westwood after walking and reading throughout her exhibit- it’s only stop in the US. i really enjoyed the show because it was different. it was kooky. it was beautifully executed and effortless. i like an experience that evokes thought and brow crinkles.

how i love thee dear oakland

i saw a toilet on the side of the road last evening. just sitting there, waiting to be sat on. or teetered on its side. like an ode to marcel duchamp.

i decided what to do with my bracelet that is blue

i took her to the hotel utah saloon in SF:
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she met the famous wooden mermaid…
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she had a drink…
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saw some live music…
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and all with good company…
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thoughting to work

these are things that swarmed my half awake-brain as i rode the NL 20 minutes into dowtown Oakland:

1. i hate wearing my glasses because i feel like it impares my hearing (i finally realized today that this may be absurd)

2. i saw a man, in full winter get up (it was 60 degrees today) standing under a trelis, not moving. he was standing there- hat, coat, scarf, gloves- just standing and looking. i wanted to leap off the bus and poke him. or give him a hug and a handshake.

3. the man whom usually stands outside of my building and hollers songs about love and frank sinatra- hasn’t been there for 4 days. he is there every morning. and today he wasnt. i missed his taught sun burned skin and rain hat. he hates when people look at him.

4. a group of bella vista 8 year olds (i’m talkin 2 dozen) leapt onto the bus and filled the remaining empty seats with their courduroy butts and vinyl bookbags. normally i would cringe and retreat into myself from their sqealing and gregorious hum…but it was actually really beautiful. 24 kids of different shades, heights, haircuts- all having fun together on the bus. just a beautiful sea of children.

5. possibly the most puzzling- i walked one block from my bus stop to my building and passed a metal shopping cart swirling with children’s books. novel soup. i stopped and look intensely at the cart. tried to count the books. seriously contemplating wheeling the cart back to where the children got off the bus. but just kept walking wishing to spend the day handing out picture books to business people swinging their brief cases up and down broadway.

6. what if there was an express train from tokyo to montana?