of aural

I have become a bit enamored lately with audio storytelling. The new yorker has a great podcast reading of old fiction works from the magazine followed by a little discussion. I tend to spend long periods of time alone, and by the time I realize that I might enjoy company it is an odd hour, where the recorded voice stands substitute. I love oral traditions. I made a book about knowledge shared orally from mothers to daughters (obliquely captured). It came about from a frustration in a disappearance of oral storytelling. This current resurgence came about I think from extended listening to TED talks, and there is one specifically that talks about art as a powerful tool to affect change - with oral storytelling as a key example. This is too premature to say that it is something that I plan on doing more of, but I would at least like to put out there how much I value it. There is truly universal appeal.
Here is a bit that I recorded in the first part of this year.

mary temple at the museum of art & design (that light is painted)
and I'm happy that pee wee is back!

green winter

(sortof) dilly beans / houseplant shadows

Fever Ray put out the best album of the year. Animal Collective is also very good.

I can't sleep, and this incarnation of insomnia has me thinking of what is the best record of the year. It always seemed silly to me that declarations are made so far before the end of the year, but I can always say "I told you so" to myself later if I come up with a better/rebuttal.

To be fair, the top song played in my itunes over the last year was "Daily Routine" by Animal Collective from Merriweather Post Pavilion. I love it. I listened to the album on repeat for days on end. But when all is said and done, I don't know if it will be favorite out of the greater body of work. That is why I like Fever Ray's self-titled debut. It is like it came out of nowhere. I had been into The Knife, but it is something different altogether.

Karin Dreijer is amazing. In her work with The Knife (the group w/ her brother) she did the whole dropping vocals into lower registers until she was the sole vocalist for the group. As Fever Ray she is a vocal spectrum. Every time I hear one if the songs it sends me back to when I first heard it, which was winter and I was just coming to terms with living in New York. It is empowering. It is weird. I love it.

Apologies if this is too early, but perhaps now I can sleep.

ritual punks

Since attending a Scandinavian performance art fest last week, my long interest in performance as contemporary ritual has solidified to a point where I am interested in studying it further, especially within the punk community, and women artists.

The freak-folk movement over that last several years launched a new mystical/psychedelia in the punk underground (and commodified mainstream). Yet some of the only reference points the punk community has to go on are such far-out tribes like Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, and others even more extreme.
At one point I thought I would pursue my doctoral studies via the art realms, and was definitely going towards something like "Female performance artists' use of ritual as contemporary religious practice." (I think now I am sticking to information studies, and am not certain if I will go for a doctorate anytime soon.)

Scientists supposedly (now being contested) have isolated a "god-spot" in the brain that can be artificially stimulated, (and also more commonly by psychedelic substances). What I'm saying is, there is likely an anatomical part of our brain that is interested in this sort of thing, and so it makes sense to pursue it. (Major religions are seeing declines in followers, but that is not to say that there is a loss of interest in religious belief.)

I would like to study if there are common threads throughout. If anyone reading this has any insight I would really appreciate any thoughts you have. {You can email me at eyekendra (at) gmail (dot) com.}

candy + noise + comics

candy smokes/ noise tapes

dang. today, hannah and I went to the most intense candy store, the most seriously specific noise store, and the comic store, where I read the entire paperrad comp book. I am having a hard time doing my homework now.

hospital put out an album by zaimph:

grass widow & crystal stilts @ brooklyn museum /who shot rock and roll

Grass Widow.

Everyone is taking photos for a flickr series for Brooklyn Museum, they even have a front area reserved for anyone with a camera and there are these girls getting up in with moms a few steps back.

Crystal Stilts.

I used to be really into Bow Wow Wow - I think the singer was around 14 in this picture. (They were another Malcom Mclaren creation.) This was in the packed Who Shot Rock and Roll show. A security guard is yelling at me as I am taking this.

a confection of an installation

The whole event was great. There was a baton twirler in the center of the space at the beginning, and then a marching band with color guard came through. People were eating fried chicken or drinking wine and there were lots of kids all over and music nerds too.

amyl nitrate / wanda woodward

marigold garland

videos of Hannah and I making sauerkraut

black dice / fermenting