slowness

 a long winter break...just the same as ever. 

sick at the beginning like always. exhausted from the exertion of the semester, my body finally gives up. by the time i'm better, i've adjusted to the new pace of time at home with the family. i'm slowed.

laziness, mixed with the annual official list of Things To Be Done:

buy the tree 

trim the tree

trim the house

do the dishes

sleep in

bake forever

clean the rooms

do the dishes

make the coffee

read the sunday times 

buy last minute gifts

go to holiday parties with the parents

do the dishes

then there are exotic chores, like walking the new dog on the path along the water, and re-discovering the old waffle iron....and eventually remembering that the first waffle always gets ruined. and remembering that i really like to cook, and proceeding to make lasagne and cookies and more waffles and potatoes and chocolate-just-about-anything.

there is the ritual cutting of my brother's hair, and also the ritual of him sitting on my feet while we watch tv, to keep them warm. really, there is a lot of tv. nature shows (everyone) dog shows (mom) movies (dad and me) and snowboarding videos, (brother) mostly. 

friends stop. time stops. work stops. there is only family. we re-learn how to be inside our family unit. we re-take up our roles. there is silver to polish for the table, and we drip wax into the bases to fit the new candles into the old candlesticks.

finally, there is dressing up and not leaving the house, as family arrives for christmas dinner. putting on fancy shoes just to wear in the living room has always felt odd.

a short lived snow land

Edward Gorey-Worthy

Ravens. No where else in the neighborhood, nowhere else on the block. Just screaming all around my house. you can't see them all here. There were hundreds, and they were big and the sky was grey.

gentleman

HP Lovecraft

kickin it in the basement

Balm of 100 Lovers

"The artist Dario Robleto visited us here in Los Angeles last week. He has been collecting 50 pairs of lovers' heartbeats for a while now. He took this photo of me and my boyfriend of ten years, artist Jeremy Blake, recording each others' hearts in our Venice pad.

Hearing Jeremy's heart like this was amazing, like staring through a telescope at a vast and previously undiscovered world. The beats sounded so powerful, and yet so temporary. We are just another damn song....

Dario says he will record the beats when he is done on a vinyl record, which he then will turn into a petroleum jelly that the purchaser can rub over their chest to soothe heartache.

He is selecting the couples slowly and very carefully.

The piece will be called "Balm of 100 Lovers."

From Theresa Duncan's Blog The Wit of the Staircase
Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Dear Mr. Lovecraft,

birthday

had to clean it up

set sail

It has become clear, after some slow and careful investigation, that there is only one way to have these flickering dreams about bed sheets and sails, and bodies moving within them, and that is to sleep in the bed with you.

Bas Jan Ader?

Auntie Mame

It doesn't get much better than this.
The color and the drama.
The Mame.

I think I've seen it ten times, always on a rainy day, preferably with a slight cold, always under a blanket.

holy crapola

Joseph Beuys, "Sonne Statt Reagan" (1982)
1982
From UbuWeb:

"Beuys tried his luck as a pop singer as part of his political commitment. His song 'Sonne statt Reagan' attacks Ronald Reagan's arms policy. The song was issued as a record and Beuys appeared before big audiences with it during the peace movement's demonstrations and also with the group Die Desserteure in the ARD television broadcast 'Bananas' on 3.7.1982.

'Regen'', pronounced like 'Reagan', is the German for 'rain.'"

recently

OLAF

Olaf Breuning

Brian, 2008
mounted c-print on 6mm sintra, framed
60 x 75 inches

Olaf Breuning

Installation view, 2008
Metro Pictures, New York

Olaf Breuning

Why Can You Not Be Nice With Nature? 2008
mounted c-print on 6mm sintra, framed
60 x 75 inches

Thank god for swiss boob-man Olaf Breuning kicking some ass at Metro Pictures this weekend, otherwise the whole trip would have been a freakin wash.

Don'tcha Want One?

You can order a sticker, for free, courtesy of Mr. Fairey and moveon.org:

https://pol.moveon.org/shepstickers/

the link seems to be down as of this post, it looks like millions have been ordered.

hopefully they'll fix it soon.

Black President

Fela Kuti, Black President

rue de l'espoir

This is Everything

i almost can't take it.

we can do it.

can't fight the feeling

Trenton Doyle Hancock

Miracle Machine n. 20 or The End of Glory, 2006

it's ridiculous. 

i'm so moved by this work. 

i gotta really go for it now. 

jah cold stone creamery

can i take a photograph of you?

rosie pile

got through the mid term critique with a bang, 

but only Rosie could really "activate the space."

by sleeping on it. 

sleeping on the pile.

thanks buddy

it was so good to see you.

really going for it

i'm really trying to cure myself of this white-on-white disease.

taking it all apart

I think maybe I'm finally getting somewhere.
It's not about divorcing myself entirely from who I was, but instead re-imagining and re-assembling the pieces in a smarter, more synthesized way. If I don't fuck this up, it's going to be really good. Possible titles: "Everything white collected in my studio over the last four years" or "C'mon, d'you feel me now?"

grass-root

wow. these guys are awesome.

just seeds

new word tuesday

per·i·pa·tet·ic (pr-p-ttk)

adj.

1. Walking about or from place to place; traveling on foot.

2. Peripatetic Of or relating to the philosophy or teaching methods of Aristotle, who conducted discussions while walking about in the Lyceum of ancient Athens.

n.

1. One who walks from place to place; an itinerant.

2. Peripatetic A follower of the philosophy of Aristotle; an Aristotelian.

late late late

charm wears off.

nina, harlem, 1969

watching me as i ride by

MFAs are hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise is nothing like me.

The only mime allowed at the factory.

mr muscle and pappy oyster

Philip Ross, smarty pants.

HOT SHIT

wowzah treasure trove

come on. come ON.

the flag project, update

I sent my flag-project-ephemera off to my mystery partner, Grace, in Dallas this weekend.
It was harder and easier than I thought to choose a group of objects that represent me.
I needed them to convey so much, and to be au courant, but also not to seem dated.
And I needed them to be lovely and special, but also to be able to part with them.

I can't wait to see what she sends me in return.

Mister Starling, have you tried the mussels?

Time to try not to back away, just because someone more famous and powerful and Turner-Prize-errific got there first.

RISD

A steep and rocky beginning.

And Counting:

And Counting:

0 days until RISD starts.

1 pool house painted various shades of blue & white, floor to ceiling. 

1 apartment painted various shades of blue & white, floor to ceiling.

1 trip to the dump.

1 case of Carpal-tunnel in my hands from too much painting.

1 super-rad job at the nature lab.

1 super-rad brother who lifts & paints and does it all.

1 new Irish roommate, en route to Providence.

1 gorgeous retro Gitane Bicycle from mom, for tooling around.

1 Brand New Laptop. 

1 old friend re-connected with. 

1 vietnamese sandwich shop discovered in a nasty part of town. 

2 awesome parents.

2 intrepid out-of-town- visitors.

2 trips to the beach.

2 flag projects underway.

4 trips to Radio Shack.

5 trips to Ocean State Job Lot.

37 nights since i've had a good night's sleep.

199 repairs attended to.

Untold bug bites.

with thanks to piloto de pruebas flickr stream for the photo. 

flag project

http://improvedorderofunitedartificers.blogspot.com/

i can't wait.

Hurts so Good

Somebody had to get there first.
Go, little swimmer. Can't wait.

http://switchbacksea.org/frameset.html

Mr. Waits is a Real Person,

and it blows my mind.

hot box

last night i turned my air conditioner on, and let it get nice and cool.
later, when i reached into a drawer for a spoon, it was like a sauna inside.

Heaven In the Canyon

Last week, we drove up into the canyons in Montecito,
and visited Ganna Walska's LotusLand.

It was good, it wild, it was perfect.
It was like walking through Midsummer Night's Dream.

In regards to Friday night with LB at the Guggenheim.

I haven't bothered to go since the Matthew Barney spectacle in 2003, which (like Iron Man, or some other big cheesy summer blockbuster) I couldn't resist.

This show pitched a woo that I could not resist. The juxtaposition of Bourgeois' supercharged objects against the gentle, curved Frank Lloyd Wright interiors is a brilliant success. There is a tension, a conversation between them. The work looks natural in the space, instead of forced or flailing, as so much has before. While the Guggenheim's winding walkway lends itself to retrospective, it is perhaps the most difficult exhibition space in the world, and I think it's met its match.

I liked the new-ish cells very much, and I think Louise Bourgeois has found her inner Bower bird, as have I of late.



www.fritzhaeg.com


my studio yesterday (Blue Luxury, in Progress)



www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/exhibition_pages/bourgeois/exhibition.html


my studio, last week (Red Luxury, in Progress)

buffalo stance

trying to soak it all in

I walked through Soho, I talked on the phone. I drank too much iced coffee, too fast. I saw two little red-haired boys talking to each other via imaginary cellphones (their hands) while they walked down the street. Comedians. I went to the bank. I opened a savings account. I ate some chicken on the street. It was New York. It was thrilling, and banal, and insanely muggy. The people were knocking me out. And knocking me over. I was sweating around the edges of my waistband. I took the subway, I let Century 21 send me into a frenzy; as soon as I was inside, I was lost. I wandered the escalators, arms suddenly laden heavy with items I had chosen in the heat of the moment. Handbags! Wallets! Sandals! I lugged these things and more, knowing full well I would do as I'd always done - quietly put them all down near the cashier and make a run for the door...empty-handed.

I walked down to Battery Park and let the gloaming take me in and comfort me. I watched the last Liberty Ferry come back to shore. I sat under an old tree in a dark patch of grass behind some sort of shouting pick-up Shakespearean types, and I tried in vain to photograph the fairy-land of fireflies while they floated, blinking languidly all around me. Finally it was dark, just the homeless men on the park benches and me. I ambled into an unknown part of downtown, found some random deli to sell me cranberries and iced tea, and got on the nearest Brooklyn-bound train I could find.

(I was gambling on this unknown train that it would take my tired flat feet within walking distance of Union Street. For once, the gamble paid off.) I walked home, past the darkened and be-gardened building where Jonathan Lethem writes my favorite stories, and across the Gowanus Canal. All quiet in South Brooklyn tonight.

it's all coming to a close

i keep pushing it away,
and then pulling it close.

brooklyn.

crack

there was a crack in the world last night, around 8:30pm eastern standard time.

old things

williamsburg waterfront, with nellie and scruffy.
14 May 2000

rash heat

even the breeze off the gowanus is a welcome chill,
if a somewhat stinky one.

escape to the hudson valley is tomorrow,
and even that seems too far away.

ghetto gold

i thought everyone was going to really overdo it on to-go cup margaritas from the 'nest at MIA, after watching half the show without a ticket, from the wrong side of the fence. embarrassingly, apparently, it was just me. i got this picture of emily out of it though.

june

post-piñata.

dear gowanus,

explain.

jauchem & meech

magic monday.