(we) exist

Good BYE! See you in the FUTURE!

2011-03-23T15:21:00.000-07:00

This blog is finally taking its leave. It was great while I was in NY, but back on the good coast, it is time for something new. In the interim, I'll keep tumblr-ing and flickr-ing.
Thanks for the good times!

Mushrooms and their effects on radiation

2011-03-17T21:25:00.000-07:00

Email from Paul Stamets about Mushrooms and their effects on radiation:
(via Olympia Food Co-op)

Folks,

I am being flooded with requests about what mushrooms can do to help prevent damage from radioactivity. There is a lot of confusion, and not surprising, given the rapidly changing circumstances.

First, I think it is important not to exploit this disaster. The Japanese are the victims; we in North America are not.

Realistically, the radioactivity from the failure of the Japanese reactors poses virtually no significant threat to us here in North America. The plume will fan out and disperse before reaching our shore. Still not good, especially for those in close proximity.

This is a HUGE tragedy and puts into focus why nuclear power plants are not safe despite all the assurances. My father was a nuclear engineer, and the spent fuel storage issues (some of which are heating up now, by the way) are something about which he personally had concerns. The threat is significant for those people near the reactors and directly off the Japanese coastline. The drop off in radiation will be more than an inverse square of distance, which is huge considering the distance, before reaching North America.

That being said, mushrooms do help prevent oxidative stress from free radical exposure induced by radiation. Moreover, the melanin in mushrooms (the pigment that makes your skin darken due to light exposure) has the propensity to bind radioactive isotopes into less toxic forms, making them insoluble, so they can be partially purged. However, the studies of which I am aware are not based on human trials- these are lab based, so there is lots of room for speculation here. I doubt if mushrooms can help purge radioactivity once it is in the blood stream.

BUT, some mushrooms hyper accumulate radioactive compounds, and are stimulated in their growth! So yes, I would ingest mushrooms from North America to help augment your immune system. No, I would not eat mushrooms from the or near the fall-out in Japan, or anywhere near polluted areas, since they concentrate heavy metals, with cesium being one of them.

Do not panic.

Consume mushrooms in clean, unpolluted environments to help your immune system.

Cheers!

Paul Stamets

is in the air for you and me

2011-03-14T21:41:00.000-07:00

I can't get this song out of my head, trying not to have any panics, I'm watching old joy and knitting an iridescent shawl, Midnight Apothecary/ Recipes for the Great Turning has some helpful nutritional advice, as well.

I can never let them in to me

2011-03-02T17:00:00.000-08:00

I started watching Bored To Death, and all the YMG medleys were so sweetly nostalgic. I had nearly forgotten them.

2011-02-27T18:12:00.000-08:00

thanks to ben for turning me on to these jammers.

I wish I could bottle up the feeling of waking up in olympia, washington with a pile of friends in a fold-out bed, watching the snow.

snow day

2011-02-24T10:49:00.000-08:00

open your heart door

2011-02-15T20:47:00.000-08:00

still light

2011-02-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

after, and before

2011-02-08T22:47:00.001-08:00

a brief photo essay of my portland life

2011-02-08T22:26:00.000-08:00

please give

2011-01-19T22:11:00.000-08:00

I don' know if these means I've returned to blogging, but I saw a cinematic sequence this evening that I wanted to talk about to cyber space, and it doesn't even exist on youtube! It is the opening sequence of the newest nicole holofcener film, Please Give. not to spoil it (it won't) it contained a roches song, and a rapid succession of mammograms.

In other media consumptives, I'm re-reading the newest william gibson trilogy. On the second book and it is written the worst but has the best/most delicate & resonant story I think on account of a layer a religious practice contrasting a more as-yet-to-be-actualized technology of locative art, or hyperspatial tagging for aesthetic value.
I picked up a copy after watching Somewhere over the weekend. I have not been super into any previous sofia coppola works, but the slice of Somewhere felt more truthful than her other works, maybe? Anyways, it features prominently the chateau marmont, which features hyperrealy in the book.

Also, lots of Have One on Me.

beach intestines

2010-11-30T21:50:00.000-08:00

this blog's gonna take a nap

die a thousand times

2010-11-30T21:49:00.001-08:00

why pants

2010-11-30T21:40:00.001-08:00

is this a weird sentence?

2010-11-24T17:06:00.000-08:00

"Every Kanye West album, until the cancer of the world around him begins to encroach on the parts of his cerebral cortex that control his musical ear, will be excellent and huge."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/arts/music/21kanye.html

2010-11-15T23:03:00.000-08:00

chill out everybody

2010-11-15T20:58:00.000-08:00

do not fuck around or misbehave in the presence of diamanda galas, thank you.

nico muhly

2010-10-14T22:39:00.000-07:00

I know I've composed a number of partial posts about Nico Muhly, but I don't think any ever came to print, so to speak.
A half decent video of "The Only Tune" surfaced in my field of visions:

I love this. I haven't seen Nico Muhly perform, but I did see Sam Amidon solo, at an oft mentioned show at a church in greenpoint.
Muhly came about to me in a great new yorker profile, subsequent new sounds performance - he was/is a media darling in new york, in the best way.
another wonder, here:

Plus he orates the only twitter I've ever enjoyed: @nicomuhly. (From him I learned about bootyshaking on graves)
http://nicomuhly.com/
& stream some new tracks here: http://nicomuhly.bandcamp.com

the need @ berbati's

2010-10-09T16:23:00.000-07:00

my friend and I were making squash tacos and she brought up that the need were playing that evening. a lady roadie friend for the first band got us tickets and away we went.

it was a black metal showcase sorta. upon arrival, I ran into an old acquaintance who promised the next band ruled, but it was an uninspired melvins copy. the audience was primarily men in ragged black; my friend and I wearing between us a floral print dress and a purple knit jumpsuit.

anyhow, a miraculous gender swap occurred: as the need was setting up, the arc of audience transformed to primarily women. they played partially as a three piece, with the third, a younger woman, supplying supplemental percussive elements. in one transition between songs, she stepped to the front with a baseball bat swung over one shoulder. a shiny new aluminum trash bin was rolled out, and she bashed it flat to the beat over the course of the song. at another point, rachel carns pulled off her shirt to reveal the clean line across her chest of a post-mastectomy scar. the set was amazing. a call out for witches to dance on the stage occurred. women united will never be defeated.

and then another black metal band set up and the men returned.

here

2010-10-05T19:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a delicious jam.

Otherwise, I've been jamming out to the nuances of the evergreen channel at work, where there are nuns, trees, and myself, most hours.

On the bus this morning I made a list working out what separates experiential from immersive art. I'm reading a book called Participation that I thought would hand it to me a little better, but alas I must think for m y s e l f .

Lots of fair-isle knitting in the house. About to take on some overly ambitious garment creation. I moved to the delightful Mississippi neighborhood, with the sunsetting bluffs and everything else.

the only upside-down smile is my smashed himmeli.

rosario beach

2010-09-03T22:26:00.001-07:00

yellowfever

2010-08-24T12:53:00.000-07:00

totally into yellowfever. a surfier quix*o*tic sounds good.

kentucky

2010-08-20T23:32:00.000-07:00

I want to go

tour de pdx

2010-08-19T18:58:00.000-07:00

taking around an east coaster/ a belated tour for myself:

24 hr church of elves

kramer's ergot at floating world

morissey at waypost

branx handstamp turned octopus queen

I saw terry richardson on the street in the ne and had the unexpected reaction of wanting to punch him in the face!

2010-08-15T19:33:00.000-07:00

2010-08-10T17:40:00.000-07:00

crater lake

2010-08-08T16:01:00.000-07:00

tie dye party

2010-07-26T23:34:00.001-07:00

the clothesline at Liz's annual tie dye party

jimmie rodgers / chemirocha

2010-07-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

full story here ("half man, half-antelope")
(an extension/prologue to this previous post)

2010-07-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

Stonehenge and windmills. Maryhill, WA

2010-07-20T21:22:00.000-07:00

gowns

2010-07-19T12:37:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to the song "Johnny" by Gowns on a pretty regular repeat lately.

It reminds me in a weird way of that (awful) suicide song, frankie teardrop. Except that it is sortof the antithesis. It comes from a pukekos download of the first gowns cdr that I got last year but nearly forgot about.

I saw gowns play last in new york, at cake shop, and now they've ceased to exist as of earlier this year. I heard recently about Erika Anderson's new band, Some Dark Holler, opening for throbbing gristle, with acre.

smog

2010-07-16T23:08:00.000-07:00

All the sudden I'm into Smog. I never was interested before, only barely heard of him as a boyfriend of Lisa Carver and via cat power covers. So I've order the whole back catalog from the library.
Is there a "must-hear" record?

Fort-building, Ólöf Arnalds

2010-07-13T23:33:00.000-07:00

Fort. Version 1

I built a sleeping fort in the living room with: a saffron robe, a green brocade scarf from (the oracle’s) delphi, a flannel sheet, a crocheted scarf borrowed from a friend on the island, a guatemalan cloth from a moroccan store in the east village, two sun umbrellas, four chairs, two large cushions, four pillows, and a knit blanket I brought with me on the train.

Ólöf Arnalds is the best fort-building music so far, but I am open to suggestions.
The first time I saw her perform, at a church basement in greenpoint, and with Kría Brekkan:

post-swimming tailgate party summer 2010

2010-07-11T17:59:00.000-07:00

summer is ready when you are

2010-07-08T00:07:00.001-07:00

2010-07-05T22:46:00.000-07:00

This is what my life was like in Brooklyn.

flickr

2010-07-05T21:21:00.000-07:00

I have a new flickr page here:

flickr.com/photos/braidedbraids

I'm sortof attempting a chronology of the backlog, and I didn't buy the extra space, so I've already used my quota for the month and I'm at least a year behind, but more next month!
Anyways, I really like using it and I've been meaning to have a more updated one since I always am taking photos. (My old, craft-specific one is here.)

A lot of the photos there have been here, but I'm looking forward to getting to the present with the stream, and I may buy the extra space when I get a job. (Please cross yr fingers.)

2010-06-28T20:11:00.001-07:00

The void could only stop being

2010-06-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

Double Bluff

2010-06-26T23:35:00.000-07:00

flower water / thrones

2010-06-15T13:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went over to my friend Liz's house. She has tea rose and mock orange in full bloom, so we made flower waters with each.

The rose petals at the ready:

and the mock orange:

We simmered each for a few hours, then strained the petals off and let them cool. The rose petal mash (still weirdly flesh-like) reminded me of a recipe I'd read for making your own rosary beads. So we simmered them again, this time in a cast iron pan where they turned purple! The recipes I have seen actually say to do this process for three days, but we opted for an abbreviated version.

The beads, on a wire to dry:

Afterward, we went and saw Thrones at Tube, which was sortof and odd vibrational space. I was leaning against those metal rabbit murals and totally got a back massage from the vibrations.
But yeah, totally great to be back in the NW!

weed demon/ 1993

2010-06-09T23:31:00.004-07:00

I really like this post from Impose, about the current generation's zeitgeistian anthem being "Weed Demon" by Wavves. It has really lingered - both the post and the song. And then I dug out a bunch of Smashing Pumpkins jams as well. & too the wikipedia article "1993 in Music." There is a new Wavves jam that isn't quite as so. Anyways, nothing is ever as good as it was.

june gardening

2010-06-09T22:59:00.003-07:00

when I wake up every morning I check the plants outside to see how much they have grown, as though I am expecting a totoro miracle.

I am cat-sitting some persians in a futuristic eco-complex all summer in portland, oregon. I am growing vegetables and flowers on the porch. Everything is great!

may

2010-05-15T19:31:00.002-07:00

My Mom is visiting for my graduation - here is a little of what we've seen. I'm moving back west in a week and a half!

conceptual activities to aid in the comprehension of an experiential performance art piece

2010-05-07T07:51:00.005-07:00

Created for my Museum Education class at Pratt School of Information & Library Science:
The Artist is Present

Eirik Johnson

2010-05-04T14:13:00.003-07:00

from artforum.com
(Click for larger)
Missed the Henry show, hope to make it here:

lee is a weirdo

2010-05-01T20:45:00.003-07:00

Lee Ranaldo + Alan Licht
performing Text of Light with light show by Gary Panter and Joshua White @
Family pop-up space

it was a really good show

good morning

2010-04-29T04:44:00.000-07:00

morning jams in effect.
in a week and a day i'll be done!!!!!!!!!

The Artist Is Present, or 22min staring down infinity

2010-04-27T16:40:00.002-07:00

here

I'm doing my final for Museum Education class on the exhibit.
I thought it was an exhibit on sacred space as performance, or vice versa, but too it is a portrait show. "You are a part of the art" the guard said to me before I walked in.

The cultural ripples coming off the show are incredible. Even in the piecemeal tumblrs, such as Marina Abramović Made Me Cry. Concepts of performance vs. acting, shadow feminism but also the violence. Check out past works.

It is all very heady and revealing itself still.

god in heaven

2010-04-26T19:18:00.001-07:00

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

oh yea, this:

2010-04-19T21:31:00.002-07:00

I wish

2010-04-19T20:46:00.002-07:00

2010-04-13T18:31:00.002-07:00

2010-04-11T18:32:00.003-07:00

shoe store in Rockaway, Queens

woa, WHITE NOISE

2010-04-10T09:31:00.005-07:00

In an incidental extension of an earlier post, WHITE NOISE!

A friend posted a link about Delia Derbyshire, creator of, among other things the Doctor Who theme. She worked on the "electric sound realisation" in the band.

my commencement speaker/performer

2010-04-05T20:17:00.003-07:00

so psyched - she got me into Rimbaud who got me into surrealism

Drawlings! and, colors of noise

2010-03-30T14:08:00.009-07:00

I saw Drawlings play last night at Death by Audio here in Brooklyn. It was rad. I have been trying to see her play but kept getting waylaid en route every time. (Also on the bill was Love of Everything, City Center, and Soft Circle - as a two piece w/ Ben Vida)

There was a presence of this tone that I kept trying to locate after the first time I went to mutant fest. It is this maximum drone that feels like capacity but not like a brown noise or a pink noise, maybe a purple noise? It is typically concurrent with psychedelic visualizations. I thought I found it on the Chris + Cosey album Trance. It is intense but soothing. I don't know the names of any of the tracks or else I would attempt to identify. The was also a song that sounded like a unicorn romp. And a pulsing red heart behind.

Wait, in lieu of going back and editing, I found this amazing colors of noise audio samples! I stand with purple-ish I think, but will do some more study.

"Green noise is supposedly the background noise of the world. A really long term power spectrum averaged over several outdoor sites." !!

I like that the video here is from Mad Vicky's - it is a place I would have loved to have seen, but, c'est la vie.

five of wands

2010-03-24T18:24:00.003-07:00

Whatever I had originally intended to post has been dissolved by this amazing photo set which leads me believe I can do anything I want and it will all be cool. (ex.)

Super-awesome & kindof quandaried. Listened to this song on repeat after the original writer passed.

Maybe you all have heard this jam band below but I find it wonderful still after many listenings. (This supplemental document might help.) (More jelly jam dreams here.) I already feel better about everything.

may sonic, part one (men)

2010-03-19T18:59:00.006-07:00

Some photos here from the philadelphia grand lodge. The second is my favorite, he was hanging in the gothic-themed knights templar hall where everything was hand carved. The men hung everywhere throughout the building. Even a cheeky george wa. But really, this generally sucks. I (very) briefly dated a mason who told me there is a co-ed sect in france, but otherwise, it is all dudes. Nothing for the ladies. I couldn't even find a bathroom marked such. I had to ask the bookstore lady and she directed me to the "family" closet.

SO! I am pretty stoked then about this lecture coming up about Women in Freemasonry, by the woman who wrote my favorite book on Leonora Carrington.

I shook the hand of a man as I was leaving the temple. It felt good, as I was menstruating, and while they are not specifically follows of Judaism, they incorporate enough of it for me to feel empowered by that simple action of contact.

Artist Interview : Samuela Doyle

2010-03-17T21:05:00.006-07:00

[This blog will now feature interviews! Samuela is the first, Thanks Sam!]

Can you tell me a little about your current project [working with people + places of whidbey island]? And is the geographical space acting as a muse?

As a Buddhist, really the project of portrait paintings is a very big meditation (if meditations had sizes that is) By painting Whidbey Island I am embracing and accepting the moment. In this moment, this is the place I inhabit and the people I paint are also reflections of this area. Most of the portraits belong to people who have grown up here. I also grew up here (and San Antonio, TX) but I don't think I fully appreciated whidbey Island like I do now. Partly this has something to do with the reason I have returned.
I returned to the island due to extreme trauma. I literally had to leave Seattle overnight for my own safety. The first year on the Island I felt really disoriented and disappointed. A lot of people who return feel like they have failed. I must admit that I felt the same way. Over time, I realized that you could go anywhere, and it depended on you to either be miserable or happy. Your inner self is responsible for your outer self, if you can't find inner peace you won't be happy where ever you go. I went out and decided to find the places I hadn't seen on the island and re-visit the places that I had been and had positive experiences in (there is this amazing tree that stands on it's roots, I took a boy under those roots once and told him I loved him. because I meant it. I am painting that tree too!). Ultimately, without realizing it, the island showed me the way to self-healing and restored my mental stability.

Your work often includes mystical references as visual storytelling. Do you find images to be more effective than written words?

No. Writing in itself is an art form. I think that it largely depends on the participant. Some people are more visual and others are more literal. However, with writing, the story is already in place and the visual is completely up to the participant. They create the images inside of their head, almost like a secret. What one person visualizes when reading a story, another will see entirely different and hardly is it shared. Visual art is just the opposite. The image is there and the participant has to figure out the story for themselves. No story is alike but is often shared. It's like gossip! Perhaps then gossip is an art form in itself....another type of story telling, just as movies and dance are too

(From Spooky Inamorata #1 - read the entirety at Samuela's Flickr)

Spooky Inamorata is a time consuming affair. If there is anything I am a perfectionist about, it seems to be the work of comics. I have been drawing comics since I was a pre-teenager. It has been almost ten years since I drew a full comic.

I have seen you work in many different mediums, are there any others you dream of working in?

Yes! I would love to someday make a film. Artistically, my goal is to reach out in anyway I can possibly.

[If you are in NYC, Samuela has a painting up in Charmingwall Gallery on West 4th until the end of the month - it is of me, in the woods.]

Phillllly

2010-03-13T19:41:00.005-08:00

I went on a day trip to Philadelphia yesterday and it was pretty awesome. I went to the Mütter Museum and checked out their endless conjoined twins artifacts and their medicinal herb garden. They even have a contemporary art gallery. I walked down to MAGIC GARDENS, which is a lot like the Number 5 house in Centralia except all mosaiced. There was a little gallery show inside with some drawings:

I went to an indoor market and had an amazing vegan Philly cheese steak and got some unicorn cards from Amish girls. I walked by the Grand Lodge of the Masonic Temple and they were about to have a tour so I went on it. I took a million photos, of which I will post soon, but here is one of the card catalog in the library:
Some animals on Franklin Pkwy:
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is amaazing! I went because Nude Descending a Staircase is there, but I was amazed to see The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even! There were three rooms of Marcel Duchamp, this in "Galerie Rrose Selavy."

Birthday by Dorothea Tanning! There was a Schwitters Merz piece, and much more. I was wowed.
This is by far one of the stranger classical paintings I've ever seen: The Source of Life by Leon Frederic, 1890.
Oh, and I took a little video of the interior of a Duchamp piece called "Given 1. The Waterfall, 2, The Illuminating Gas..." (trans.) as seen through a tiny peephole in a large wooden door. There is a shimmering waterfall is why.

new Eric Copeland jam

2010-03-11T15:50:00.004-08:00

Spring is finally coming to the northeast!

The Invention of Morel!

2010-02-24T15:58:00.008-08:00

I just read the book The Invention of Morel and it was so deeply reminiscent of those wan days of my youth spent playing MYST. I initially checked out a copy on account of Brian's suggestion to see Last Year at Marienbad. I was reading an article a while back that cited Morel as the inspiration for both Marienbad and LOST. Now I've never seen Lost but I guess they bring up this book in season four or something. ANYWAY, the book is wonderful. 1940's speculative fiction - a wonderful examination of consciousness - most studies of consciousness I read are way too hippie-d out or too rife w/ scientific jargon. Quick read, highly recommended.

I like this much better than "we are the world"

2010-02-21T09:02:00.001-08:00

evangelista @ ash's place

2010-02-19T17:57:00.001-08:00

from the show last night. Thrones played after.

an experiment

2010-02-09T18:55:00.003-08:00

Sandra convinced me to make a video for it, and too to post it here.
It was one of the first things I recorded, I think it sounds like the Residents.

ernesto neto @ moma

2010-02-08T16:54:00.002-08:00

Inside, one at a time

I am a great admirer of Ernesto Neto's work, and am forever kicking myself for missing the armory show. Imagine my surprise to come upon this piece at the MOMA today.

Sparks Float Taste Test

2010-02-07T22:38:00.002-08:00

isis

2010-02-06T23:43:00.002-08:00

hallowe'en

2010-02-04T20:34:00.003-08:00

That last post reminded me how much I like the song hallowe'en but I can't embed it. ANyway, I guess Mudhoney covered it but it doesn't sound as good with a dude singing it.

In my museum education class today we were drawing mandalas about our homework and my group drawing also had spiders, bones and ghosts but I drew flowers and there was also a sun wearing sunglasses.

Blogging is getting way too abstract. I have an internship in the Barnard college library where I do all social media stuff. I also am in a class by that same name. I also interviewed for a job at an architecture publishing place today and if I get it I'll likely stay in New York. woa

post-goth

2010-02-03T17:30:00.003-08:00

The new issue of Library Journal has an article exploring and defining goth rock, so as to aid librarians in user advisory. The list of albums is exactly what I was into around ten years ago. I owned every album on the list. The sun used to rise and set around Nick Cave. It may or may not have helped that my boyfriend at the time adopted a similar appearance. When I watched Wings of Desire for the first time it blew my mind in that excited way when all your interests are assembled into one piece of cultural output.

I have taken to following this tumblr lately out of pure nostalgia. When Rowland S. Howard died there was a great memorial of photos and memories. The anonymous-ish blogger answers questions about goth-dom and it is all very charming. The above mentioned article has a "web exclusive" that includes a list of newer bands in the style. That tumblr is all over such bands.

I got a cassette of Murder Ballads on a whim, but I think a lot of it stemmed from blindly ordering Honeymoon in Red (on which the Birthday Party participate) some time in high school. Lydia Lunch was a gateway drug. I had a copy of Sonic Youth's Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, but their collab on Death Valley 69 was it:

At some point years later it all lost meaning.

2010-01-29T23:07:00.002-08:00

the last few videos I favorited on youtube

lawns of dawns

2010-01-28T05:27:00.004-08:00

It is snowing in New York. Many years ago, on a snowy morning I walked to a friend's parent's house and he played me his dad's copy of the Marble Index and I have forever linked it with snow.

news from the nethers

2010-01-27T00:15:00.003-08:00

Joanna Newsome has a new song and I've probably listened to it twenty times already even tho I only heard about it this evening. (I have been alternating with this song, dunno why.)

The best thing I've read in McSweeney's in a while is Michelle Tea's interview with "Dori Midnight, City Witch" in the newspaper issue. It was comforting/familiar. I could not, however, get all the way thru the Miranda July/ James Franco interview. I still haven't seen meta-Franco performance art on General Hospital or whatever. Has anyone reading this seen that? (Is it worth checking out/ watching daytime television for?) The new curator of P.S.1. totally gushes about him.

I watched half of Little Ashes, but paused, as I think Luis Bunuel is about to be an asshole homophobe. I wonder if I only ever watched Un Chien Andalou on account of the Pixies referencing it. Anyways, Edward is way moody as Salvador.

I am knitting something really long with evergreen colored yarn that I got at a thrift store in Aberdeen, Washington. I timed it and I do about a half inch every hour.

I just did a huge load of laundry in the bathtub and my lion t-shirt was hanging up on the wall to dry and keeping me awake I think.

I signed up for a free netflix account and have been watching tooo many movies. Highlights include: Gosford Park, Penelope, Brideshead Revisited and the first two season of Weeds.
(spoiler)=

In other news, I am in charge a student group at school (last semester!) and have a Big Meeting tomorrow. Good night.

norsk

2010-01-21T22:44:00.002-08:00

So I've been studying Norwegian. I got a book from the library to learn more. It proclaimed to only be teaching the Bokmål form, so I looked to wikipedia for more info. A chart compared different expressions in various dialects. The final was: "My hovercraft is full of eels." The best thing ever is when it is Old Norse's turn to take a swing it says: Hovercrafts did not exist when Old Norse was spoken, real serious-like in italics.

Thats's all. I'm sort of tiring of this blog. Reading Birds of America on the subway and it is real good. Interviewed for an internship at Barnard today. Just watched a real good episode of Masterpiece theater whilst knitting. New York kindof sucks.

higher than giants

2010-01-14T22:36:00.001-08:00

going on a road trip today!

2010-01-05T13:05:00.004-08:00

maybe I'll see you there!

night drive (wind day)

2010-01-02T13:33:00.003-08:00

nude as the news

2009-12-31T00:28:00.003-08:00

Being removed now from the intense media saturation of NYC, I can recall earlier pleasure gleaned from the delicate media exposure in a rural island community. Mainland newspapers bring News of the World, but if you do not bother to read the headlines caught in the paper boxes it may as well not be happening. You do not have to watch television.

I feel pressure in New York to keep up with all forms of media. I enjoy television for the first time in years. It feels educational. I understand the greater context. The ads on the subway make more sense. I try to keep my eyes closed the entire subway ride but I find them flickering open at each stop.

Anyway, small town papers are this sweet honey lure - read this news! We aren't trying to scare you! (And the above are not even from the island.) Mass media as a community builder. Is that the original intent? Does shared knowledge enhance our relationships?

collected present

2009-12-25T21:08:00.000-08:00

(a=midwest? b=lichen touchdown c=what my dad saw out the window as a kid d=good times were had by all)

Can we talk now about how literature shapes our future?

2009-12-02T20:26:00.008-08:00

I read somewhere recently that the only medium with any power left was the written word. All others exhausted their ability to shock or transform. While I don't entirely believe that, I do think that the written word has fallen under the radar a bit, especially as an agent of transformation. This reminder came about from the many virtual interfaces that were inspired by works of fiction - most recently learning that Google Earth was inspired by Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. And of course the classic example of William Gibson conceptualizing "cyberspace" in Neuromancer. A little poking around online yielded this audio recording (transcript included) by physicist/ children's lit scholar Janice McAdam precisely on the subject. She follows a slightly quainter (for the most part) route, but I appreciate an examination of the subject by a physicist. Highly appropriate. It is all a really beautiful example of collaborative work. A writer visualizes, thus setting into motion the potential for existence. Designers and developers take it from there and make it real. The reader becomes the user. It is so exciting to know that words caught on paper can create anything we desire. (Beyond just "amusing ourselves to death.") If the writer is the prophet, could we please work on a better future together?

of aural

2009-11-29T23:06:00.005-08:00

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.

2009-11-27T10:46:00.002-08:00

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

green winter

2009-11-23T20:00:00.001-08:00

(sortof) dilly beans / houseplant shadows

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

2009-11-23T00:51:00.003-08:00

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.

2009-11-18T18:49:00.000-08:00

ritual punks

2009-11-15T03:48:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-10T19:37:00.003-08:00

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:

2009-11-08T16:06:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-07T20:53:00.005-08:00

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.

2009-11-04T21:32:00.006-08:00

amyl nitrate / wanda woodward

marigold garland

2009-11-03T14:24:00.003-08:00

videos of Hannah and I making sauerkraut

2009-11-02T08:58:00.001-08:00

black dice / fermenting

2009-11-01T23:10:00.002-08:00

headbangers of the world unite

2009-10-26T10:38:00.002-07:00

Okay, by popular request, the aforementioned headbanging:

PS: I would like to see your headbanging.

2009-10-25T13:40:00.002-07:00

I could maybe do this all day long

tv is more palatable in animated gif form

2009-10-25T13:21:00.001-07:00

giffed

2009-10-25T12:03:00.004-07:00

(the first one I made was of me headbanging)

(behold)

2009-10-20T14:41:00.005-07:00

enter the:

(check out the other movies by this guy)

In other cinematic news, I just got my Olympia Film Fest guide. Oly has Udo Kier, Dame Darcy, and Steven Severin coming to town. Dang.