Antisocial Media

I'm a driver; I'm a winner...  Things are gonna change, I can feel it.

Huh!  According to whatever the hell a widget is, I can now post to my long-negected-lamented blog from the dashboard function of Sarah's and my new MacBook computer.  Pretty slick!   I'm in the Temescal Cafe, and thanks to iTunes' complete lack of respect for personal privacy I'm piggy-backing onto the soul-revealing musical library of some joker named Greg Hottinger.  Of course, I'm sure my new BFF Greg is silently laughing himself silly at the ur-nerdy preponderance of Talking Heads and They Might Be Giants (TMBG to you, n00b) in my own iTunes library. In all seriousness, Greg, if you're reading this, we have a lot of music in common, and I'm listening to your imprint of Beck's Loser  for the fourth time in a row as my bagel-with-lox grows cold.  So no hard feelings, alright?  Man, this song rocks too hard.  I had great  taste in high school. 

Spaightwood Galleries formerly occupied a large Victorian house at the corner of Spaight and Few, just across the street from Orton Park, and pretty much equidistant between Sarah's and my two Madison apartments. I think the gallery has moved to New York--it's definitely not in Madison any more. The link above takes you to the prints from Rouault's Miserere series--really quality images.

Of course I'll wait to update this damn thing until the end of the semester, when all the shit I've been putting off for the last few weeks and months is cascading down on me like a fountain of lukewarm Coors Light. After Tuesday, things will be a little less hectic, but frankly I'm just looking ahead to the end of the week. If anyone has any ideas about applying a psychoanalytic method of art criticism to the devotional aspects of Georges Rouault's Miserere (in particular Plate 23, Rue des Solitaires) and the pros and cons of doing so, I'd love to hear about it.

I think my friend E-Fantastico 's nightmares might look a little like this: Carpet Caterpillars are apparently on a rampage in Sweden, relentlessly creating haunting, Christo-like tableaus for the aesthetic enjoyment of those cold, lonely Vikings. Thank you, Caterpillars, thank you for making the world a stranger place! (I found the original post at boingboing.net)

My Dad and his buddies spend a couple of weekends a year up north at Bill's cabin in Bayfield, WI, puttering and being guys. They've started a Poplar-influencing project, bending saplings into art, which I think is way cool. So do these guys , who are making living houses out of bent trees. Here's a more recent post linking to an interview with arborsculptor Richard Reames:

Freaky Russian sculptures are the proof.

Bandai!

But I think I need to take a couple minutes to let this news sit. In the meantime, here's something I found linked to on Boingboing.net: The Day the Cow Sneezed , one of my favorite books when I was a kid, is in fact a lost artistic treasure!

One for the little bitty baby who was born in Bethlehem. Sitting in my room in the early afternoon, listening to Nina Simone with bright California sun and cool breezes coming in the windows, and I got hit by a bolt of lightning. Our friends Keith and June just had their baby. Welcome to the world, Lillian Hayley. Wow. The topic of Keith's email was "My daughter, Lillian Hayley Epstein" and when I saw it I thought, no, that can't be right--total cognitive dissonance. Then I read the text and saw the pictures, and started sobbing and laughing at the same time. Man oh man, what a thing. Congratulations, Keith and June--we are so happy for you!

One google later, I have spotted the elusive Frunchy lurking in the thickets of PlayFeed.Com He's easier to spot if you look for his distinctive markings, ie: his nom de blog "Michael Cardiff". Very cool stuff, and very psyched for tha Eff-Dawg.

We leave Oakland tonight at 11:30 on a red-eye bound for Portland, Maine. Not so psyched. I'm feeling a little over-traveled, and under-quality-time-with-Sarah-ed. I couldn't even think of a less-awkward way to make that sentence happen (or this one, it would seem). Sarah's school just had their Medicine Show yesterday, and the illustrious Frunch and I drove up to hang out and check out the proceedings. Sarah and all her classmates had the medicines and beers and wines and foods and products they'd been making all semester displayed on tables in the garden, and family, friends, and interested folks from the area came up to check out the scene and the items, and soak up the gemuetlichkeit (anyone know how to help a brother out with a little umlaut?). It was a lot of fun, and great in particular to A: hang out with Frunch, and B: watch Sarah tear it up selling medicines and the ginger beer we made. $60! She didn't expect to sell anything, and she made $60! N...

Ladies and Gentlemen, Josh Orton! How's about that! Former high school compadre Jorton is writing a blog for Huffington Post, and Executive Producer of The Majority Report With Sam Seder and Janeane Garofalo! Josh attended the much-discussed Dinner, and filed this report from DC . A short excerpt: "Here were some of the most dangerous men in recent US history, and everyone seemed content to glad-hand them, complement their tux, and ask for a snapshot. “Oh hey, haven’t seen you in forever, you look great!” says CNN blow-dry. “Thanks, thanks, I’m quite well. How are your kids?” responds war criminal."

Housemate E-Fantastico has some great photos of our house Beltane celebration on her blog. Follow the above link--well worth the checking out.

We were interrupted from our important work of finding queer readings of biblical texts by the cries of, "Back up! Back up! Back up! Back up--you're on my foooooooot!!!!" The windows of the classroom were open to Ridge Rd. and Euclid Ave, and a young woman whose foot had just been run over. During break, it was clear from the two police motorcycles, the firetruck, and the ambulance, that she was in good hands. Still, it was amazing to be inside of a room of potential ministers (myself included) who were all paralyzed by the prospect of another human in pain. Walking home tonight I witnessed a confrontation between a young Black man, and an older White man pushing a shopping cart with a big American flag on the front. Do I minister, try to mediate? Do I save my safety and integrity for other conflicts? To what extent am I owned by my position as the child of the White middle class? Also, I'm writing final papers. If anyone has thoughts on Andy Goldsworthy or ...

about the David Byrne piece I quoted below: the phrase "Where we see difference they would see similarity," resonated with me like someone had hit me like I was a gong. I keep coming back to Chris Hedges' War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning , and his insight into the generation of perception-of-difference/uniqueness as essential to nationalism and war-making. It's a dynamic you also see in dysfunctional and/or alcoholic families, the sense that, "we're separate from the rest of the community because we're special/better-than-them; we're misunderstood, and oppressed at all sides so we have to stick together and be loyal to each other above all else." What holds us separate? What keeps us separated? What, after all is done, still connects us?

David Byrne , former Talking Head, current talking head, drops some serious knowledge in his journal entry of April 29, 2006 . Here's an excerpt of the final paragraphs: "Darwinists claim the opposite — that this common genetic base or framework proves that we all came from the same place. That to have needed real genetic additions evolution would have happened even more slowly than it did. So, in their opinion, this system was the way it had to happen. At least in the time scale we observe. And the genius of the design is that it uses simple building blocks but makes the absolute most out of them. One can make a simple brick, or a skyscraper, but the ingredients are identical. "What that says to me then is that most life on Earth is, genetically speaking, one organism. I don’t mean this metaphorically, I mean it literally. The various shapes and forms that life takes are ways that it, the uber organism, has found to occupy every available niche — but it is the always th...

Whoever gave Stephen Colbert 25 minutes at the White House Correspondent's Association dinner must have had some idea of what they were unleashing. I just watched it, and, well, it rocked my world. I, personally, think he killed. Even if you think he bombed, you have to admire the vast amounts of chutzpah it took to deliver this material, with the POTUS sitting ten feet from the podium. I'm talking about smelly oily gallons of guts. Colbert's Finest Hour? We report, you decide. I think I have a new American hero. Step aside, Kurt Angle .

Whoa...Sitting here knitting and listening to the hip-hop, I just caught Talib Kweli reference Octavia Butler and her incredible book Parable of the Sower. I'm sure it will change, but at the moment it feels like the older I get, the more I understand, like there is hidden knowledge that ties the entire universe together. Of course, the search for that type of knowledge was what drove Smeagol under the Misty Mountains, what twisted him into Gollum. I think I'm up too late.

Pardon my French, but what the fuck? Joe posted on my mysterious boom entry below with this link to the most recent local article in regards to boom: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060427-9999-1n27boom.html Personally, I bet you could catch some hella big marlin out there in Whiskey 291. Or get shot to death and turned into chum. Tax dollars at work indeed. I just came from seeing Dave Chappelle's Block Party (Dir. Michel Gondry) at The Parkway Theater with Zsolt and Julia. If you're looking for a movie that's like the total Bizzaro-World mirror image of sub-sonic-boom-producing-US-military-black-ops-classified-top-secret-bullshit, go see this film. Dave Chappelle drives around southern Ohio inviting people to a concert in Brooklyn featuring all the extra-progressive hip-hop heads you care to name. Then he has lunch at HaHa motherfuckin' Pizza. I wish to God I still had that t-shirt. That was the best t-shirt of my life. The whole experience made ...