herpes simplex

chuck

2006-02-02T12:58:00.000-05:00

chuck
Originally uploaded by Zoecole.

consensual exposure.

2005-09-09T17:45:00.000-04:00

so where's the "i did it" rant, smarty pants? still, you should have said no to the mug...

2005-08-29T21:32:00.000-04:00

janne
Originally uploaded by Zoecole.

Jess and I are starting a band.
Don't be too jealous.

We need to get this blog back on track.

2005-07-26T23:23:00.000-04:00

laptop party!

2005-07-23T18:25:00.000-04:00

dear all constituents of the grigg's place laptop party,

do any of you have a version of tiger (os 10.4) that i could borrow?

brendan

Gem bearers...

2005-07-22T21:17:00.000-04:00

..and a certificate to prove it!

2005-07-18T17:40:00.000-04:00

Learn About Scientology

dear abby,

2005-07-14T15:26:00.000-04:00

my friends and i have this thing called a "blog," which is the equivalent of an online journal or diary. we used to all get together in cyberspace and have one massive information/idea transmitting orgy. it always felt so good, but i'm afraid someone may have caught something, or feelings of guilt over such free exchange of ideas may have taken root. now i feel ashamed, and it hasn't been the same in months. do you think my friends hate me now, or are they just feeling insecure?

please help,
confused on the interweb

mom and dad... i did it!

2005-07-09T15:21:00.000-04:00

everyone (ethan) should try and seek out a screening of punk: attitude, don letts' documentary on the evolution of punk. it's as good of a chronicle as anyone could expect for a movie with an hour and a half run time. henry rollins is actually funny and cool in it. its theory on the evolution of the "punk sound" is quite similar to that advanced in please kill me, but that book is every record dork's cream dream so i'll let that slide. i don't know if the film has been widely released yet, it may still be on the festival circuit, but keep your eyes peeled.

bonus points: covering the slits, magazine, p.i.l., dna, james white, and the no wave scene
deductions: the absence of wire, crime, and eighties noise bands

this being said... who wants to assist me with making a documentary on the eighties underground noise scene. big black, scratch acid/jesus lizard, butthole surfers, touch and go records, etc.?

final note: does anyone (ethan?), know the title of the book that just came out in the uk about the early post-punk scene?

HEY SLACKERS! GET BLOGGING!

2005-06-10T16:09:00.000-04:00

Just when you thought people couldn't get any more ridiculous

Keeper of the Jams, I am...

2005-06-04T20:41:00.000-04:00

Did you know that leslie has a music video? You can watch it here

Or check out some footage from last nights show here

This beaded sweater wearing school teacher named BJ Snowden opened for Leslie. She was, in fact, quite awesome. check out here page here

Ms. Snowden's talent was apparent early on when she began playing the piano and composing songs at the tender age of three. As her interest and talent at the piano blossomed, she decided to study music more intensively at the prestigious Berklee College of Music. Snowden graduated from Berklee with a degree in applied music (performance), and has earned her living as a school teacher teaching music in school systems from Boston to Philadelphia. As nightfall beckons however, she dons a sequined outfit, ascends the stage, and singlehandedly performs all of the original music that she has composed.

Be sure to sample the songs, especially In Canada and School Teacher.

i may be drunk, but...

2005-06-01T23:30:00.000-04:00

BEST BLOG EVERRRRR

anybody hungry?

2005-06-01T18:33:00.000-04:00

crabtastic
Originally uploaded by rideon.

Also, check out this HOT music video here.

Debbie likes to Sodomize Laura with a baguette while Laura is Wearing Kanta's Bikini

2005-05-29T02:38:00.000-04:00

The walker arts center is fucking amazing. Everyone should go. They were showing Derek Jarman's BLUE in its entierty. Viennese actionism... so much performance stuff.. a whole floor dedicated to video/film... one of the best museums I've ever been to.

Also, Minneapolis is cool.

Much cooler than I had anticipated.
brendan, your suggestions were great!! I hit almost all of the record stores, thrift shops, etc. Thanks!

In other news, I haven't killed anyone yet. I went to a weird bar/arcade (in Block E) and got totally wasted on tub of margaritas and 8 dollar drinks. I played ski ball and rode a virtual reality snow mobile. Hot. The wedding is tomorrow. I'll let you all know how it goes.. well.. I'm the videographer.. so you can watch the video if you want.

later bitches

let's pretend we don't exist:

2005-05-21T14:46:00.000-04:00

the sunlandic twins by of montreal won't stop blowing my mind. i've kindly asked it to be gentle with my fragile mental state... but it only looks at me with big doe eyes, smiles, and continues ravaging my inner equilibrium.

NAKED!!!!!!!!!

2005-05-16T18:11:00.000-04:00

NUDITY ALRIGHT IN NORTH ADAMS
by BIG RED
Last week, the North Adams city council voted to dismiss a proposal sumitted by councilor Robert R. Moulton Jr. seeeking to prohibit any display of "nude or partially nude female or male" where it might seen in public. The "nude" debacle stemmed from a nude sketch of a female created by local artist and developer Eric Rudd. which hangs in Gallery Row and Berkshire Gifts. The image in question could be seen though the window by those who passed those on the street. Moulton decided last month to make the proposal on "moral grounds"

City solicitor John B. DeRosa recommeded that any ordinace would be unlawful as it would restrict free speech and would duplicate already existing state and federal obsenity laws. DeRosa defined obsenity as anything that " . . .depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way and lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value"

-----------------------------------------------
Some Stuff To Do?

Shadow Play: Scott Snibbe Solo Exhibition
Art Interactive, Cambridge / April 23 - July 3, 2005

Published: April 10, 2005

Curated by Molly Polk

Opening Reception: Friday, April 22, 2005

Shadow Play will feature four interactive wall projections selected from Snibbe's Screen Series and from a new series of work that he is currently developing based on masterpieces of experimental film.

When we engage with works of art, with other people, and with spaces private and public, the responses of our bodies can be revealing. Our stance, the position of our arms or tilt of our heads, our movement near and around an object or person, all vary depending on how comfortable or interested we are in a given setting. But how aware are we of our bodies the corporeal relationship we bear to our environment and the marks of our presence that we leave behind? Scott Snibbe¹s installations probe this question by making our body¹s physical exchange with the systems he has created essential to the works¹ realization. When we interact with his artwork, though, we are more than just active participants in a technological field. We are co-creators with Snibbe of a language composed of gesture, breath, touch, shadow, light, space, and silhouette a language, Snibbe¹s works make manifest, of the human body.

Thursday, May19, 2005 / 6:30-9 pm: "Read-In"

The Traveling Magazine Table (an event dedicated to reading quietly en masse)
Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS), MIT, Cambridge

CAVS presents an event dedicated to reading quietly en masse.

Since November 17 CAVS has proudly hosted the Traveling Magazine Table, a collection of independent publications by artists, artists' collectives, alternative art spaces, and other collaboratives organized by international artists' network Nomads & Residents. This continuously growing collection is presented in different venues twice a year. With each participating venue, the Traveling Magazine Table will be updated with new materials. To guarantee its continuity and growth, Nomads & Residents, its network, and the participating host venues announce and distribute an open call for submissions to receive new publications. http://www.nomadsresidents.org/

forced exposure can you hear me, can you hear me forced exposure...

2005-05-10T10:28:00.000-04:00

my super hot top ten list. so hot, heads at forced exposure will expolode. not only that, you will want to castrate yourself because you'll never be able to meaningfully conceptualize hot again.

-rolling stones: let it bleed
-black sabbath: paranoid
-david bowie: low
-brian eno: another green world
-the who: the who sing my generation
-the sonics: any and all, thanks
-the yardbirds: for your love
-led zeppelin: one

oh man that's only eight... but it's at least fifteen albums worth of awesome!

don't even ask the following questions, all the answers are yes:
-do cutoffs rule
-are you wearing cutoffs right now
-do you like van halen
-is it the seventies
-sweet records, can we hang out
-philosophy all-nighter

these questions are all answered with a no:
-wire (not the band)
-forced exposure
-are you joking
-what about hendrix
-do you think you're funny
-jerry garcia

the best dreams are the wet dreams

2005-05-09T15:27:00.000-04:00

so, i was listening to the new daedelus album, exquisite corpse (crazy amount of reviews here) and was really struck by "welcome home," featuring mike ladd, but couldn't figure out why. then i realized it's like an american version of fennesz's "transit," with david sylvian, off of venice. both very specifically deal with their respective continents lyrically (ladd: "I watch South Park, clutch the sofa, quake and tremble, welcome home" /// sylvian: "all those names of ancestry, too gentle for the stones they bear / somewhere, someone wants to see you / someone's travelling towards us all"). and much more importantly, are just great songs.

check them out and decide if i'm crazy or not (get them now, they're on yousendit and will only be up for a week!)

daedelus -- welcome home (with mike ladd)

fennesz -- transit (with david sylvian)

plato v. peel

2005-05-08T23:22:00.000-04:00

here are some interesting links (which ethan kindly suggested i should share) featuring john peel radio shows in mp3 form:

- the john peel tapes is a wonderful site dedicated to poting/unearthing old john peel radio shows. the mp3's constantly rotate so it's worth checking often. about a week ago i downloaded an amazing 45 minute long mp3 where he exclusively played independent records (circa the show's date of 1980). it showcased some really cool post-punk i never new existed. the mp3 is gone now, but drop a comment if you're dying to hear it and i'll post it up.

- this site has a show documented where peel plays some early slits records. the slits are rad, john peel is groovy, check it out.

support our troops.

2005-05-07T22:10:00.000-04:00

everyone go out and buy a copy of sonic heart right now! sonic heart is a wonderful new magazine covering electronic music in the new england (but mostly boston) community, published by my friend alissa. it's imperative that all friends pursuing worthwhile endeavors are supported to the fullest. as such buy it at: beat research (mondays at the enormous room), newbury comics, twisted village, nuggets, in your ear, or cd spins for only 2 dollars... no shit. matt brown has a nice little interview with dan snaith/caribou/manitoba in it. and word on the street is next month might feature some of my photography on the cover.

seriously buy it or souls will be eaten.

the coronation of the indignant sphincter

2005-05-07T14:22:00.000-04:00

kid kameleon's blog is well worth checking out, as is the mix he just did for mashit (some of whom were playing at the massart show nicole brendan and i went to).

"...and I hope I'm not being too tell all, I learned that at least one of the Matmos's holds down a full time job that is not dissimilar to my job. I've sort of been pondering this all week... I just assumed that Bjork wrote them a check every month and that was that, but no ... man, what kind of country do I live and make music in where Matmos have full time jobs to pay the bills ... C'mon, it's fucking Matmos! ... sigh)

he also came across this: Chocolypse Now, which is really a lot funnier than i thought it would be, i.e. "This is how the world ends / this is how the world ends / not with a truffle / but with a ding-dong." the guys who wrote it have another one called the dada detective, which tickles my fancy as well.

+++

katie taking photos of that U2 cover band* got me thinking: would anyone care to join me in my nirvana cover band, "mosquito libido"? i guarantee entertainment, and no musical experience is necessary--instead of "playing" "instruments" (how antique!) we will instead conduct listening sessions followed by moderated deconstructive critical/artistic discussion. this shall take place entirely on the internet, mind you. see? look how easy! no corporeal presence required!

+++

hot top 10 that will hopefully get me a job:

caribou -- the milk of human kindness
akron/family -- self-titled
13 & god -- self-titled
gang gang dance -- god's money
m.i.a. -- arular
the books -- lost and safe
autechre -- untilted
konono no. 1 -- congotronics
william basinski - melancholia
double leopards and wolf eyes -- breeding turbines vol. 1
scritti politti - early
six organs of admittance -- school of the flower
alva noto - transrapid
jaga jazzist -- what we must
charalambides -- our bed is green
daedelus -- exquisite corpse
les georges leningrad -- deux hot dogs moutade chou
edan -- beauty and the beat
the soft pink truth -- do you want new wave or do you want the soft pink truth?

how the hell am i supposed to narrow that down to ten? i can pick a few out, i guess. m.i.a., jaga jazzist, caribou. maybe edan and the double leopards/wolf eyes, but the rest of it... shit. i've always hated top 10 lists.

+++

zach, i need to hear that new vashti bunyan/animal collective ep. i really can't wait until you get here, it's just not possible. g-g-g-g-gmail* that shit to me? ethanawhite @. i'll love you forever.

+++

I'm gonna go watch andrei rublev. the weather is so miserable that only a three-plus russian epic about god is going to cheer me up.

____________

*i would link to the article but fuck the boston globe for not letting you look at stuff from a week ago without registering.
**i promise to never ever make a g-unit joke again, i just couldn't help it. so totally inappropriate i had to do it. i almost bought a pair of g-unit sneakers at the mall a couple weeks ago. then i decided it would be about as funny as that joke (i.e. not really, and certainly not for more than a day or two). then i thought they were just sneakers and i should just get them if i liked them. i paced around for a minute in extreme pop cultural panic and then decided i can't in my right mind give money to people who wear referee shirts. it was liberating. all this took place after getting a haircut and buying a rubbery thing for my ipod, so don't worry, i'm still a tool.

America... We Are So Strong... Good and Beautiful

2005-05-04T01:19:00.000-04:00

Well, most of you have already heard that I totally blew my Campaign Corps interview. Seriously, they asked me "If you were in a fire and you had save one thing (not a pet or a person) what would it be?" What the hell does that have to do with anything? right. exactly.

So in honor of the fact that I will never ever make it in politics I bring you:

This HOT guy.. and his music video...
AMERICA: We Stand As One

In other news...

Jesus has a live Journal

And just to add to the fun...
A Christian with Touretts Syndrome

i like gof fuck you

2005-05-03T14:23:00.000-04:00

so, i asked my dad if he'd like to play some golf after we do the family thing on mother's day. shut up, all of you--if you can watch red sox games and the simple life, cultivate jane fonda obsessions and wear cut-off jeans with van halen t-shirts then i can spend an afternoon with the man who might potentially continue giving me money even though i'm graduating. anyway, i emailed him about it and the most ridiculous exchange occured.

his reply:

Okay, if this is some phishing email, I get it!!

I'd be thrilled to play as a matter of fact, I was planning on playing that day anyway, and nothing would be better than to play with my favorite son! I'll make the arrangements.

Talk to you soon.

Bill White

(yes, he really does sign all his emails 'Bill White')

i wrote:

excellent. looking forward to embarrassing you out on the links...

ps. phishing? are you calling me a hippy?

and his response:

Phishing: phony emails sent to acquire account info from unsuspecting old
men like me. When I saw golf, I immediately became suspect - only kidding.
This is the best Mothers Day gift I could have asked for.

Bill White

i had no idea this was some sort of internet vernacular that old folks know about but young little hip dudes like me haven't heard. am i the only one?

(PPPPS. le tigre are apparently writing a song for paris hilton? they can both rot in evil pink hell. geez.)

dot dot dot delete dot dot dot

2005-05-02T14:53:00.000-04:00

i just obsessively wrote down everything vito acconci says in the red tapes pt. 2. unfortunately, krasker's copy of surveying the first decade is a piece of shit (though not as bad as the one i watched at the video data bank). what's the deal, zach? i hold you personally responsible.

check out the video for the single off four tet's new album. reminds me of what 'no surprises' would've been like if thom yorke would lighten the fuck up a bit.

back to work. fucking hell.

Celebrity Skin

2005-05-02T01:37:00.000-04:00

Buy Norman Mailer's urnie for $15.00, Dave Navaro's bacteria for $5.75, or Michael Stipe's skin cells for $12.75. Luke Perry's fecal matter is out of stock.

Celebrity Skin

machines for living

2005-04-30T06:18:00.000-04:00

during my travels i read, from bauhaus to our house, by tom wolfe. perhaps he is a bit too rough on his criticisms of modern architecture, but regardless it is damn funny. allow me to share an enjoyable bit, "all at once they are willing to accept that glass of ice water in the face, that bracing slap across the mouth, that reprimanded for the fat of one's bourgeois soul, known as modern architecture."

so i am now back once again to berlin, i will leave tomorrow for boston, i am sad. i have had so much fun, but on the upside i get to see all of you guys so soon (yes this is a positive thing.) thanks again for writing my checks for me and taking care of my car, i greatly appreciate it. it is now time to remove the bar and jacuzzi from my room, i'm sorry to spoil all of the fun. so i just got back from munchen this morning. at first, i was a bit luke warm on munich, but by the end i could not get enough. i took a day trip yesterday to two of king ludwig II's 19th century castles, bascially on the border of austria in the alps, these being neuschwanstein and linderhof. they were both quite remarkable, i was thoughly impressed. our crazy tour guide from seattle, via nashville (he's a song writer too) told the whole bus to go to fruhling fest, the spring version of oktober fest. so, i made friends with this couple my parents age from san diego, carol and steve, they were so cool. they offered to accompany me to the beer hall, so i would not have to endure thousands of crazy, drunk, bavarian men on my own. so, this fruhling fest was like a giant drunken carnival, with beer tents galore. we found the biggest one we could and headed for a picnic table, not only did they only serve beer that was seriously 4 pints in 1 (one could barely lift the glass with one arm), but they also had giant pretzels, roasted chickens, freshly skewed mackerel, and "traditonal" german bands in the full lederhosen attire (except they played american songs with german lyrics ie. get it on (bang a gong) and oh-blah-di oh-blah-da). people were out of control singing and dancing on tables, not to mention the asian tourists getting into the whole thing, so fucking hysterical. so these bucksome beermaids could carry about 10-12 of these monster beers at a time, what a feat! so, needless to say after one augustiner i was severly imparied while stumbling to the train station, i had no problem sleeping though. it was quite a cite to behold.

so, i shall backtrack a bit now...
i had a marvelous time in krakow (last fri, sat, sun), i wish that i had more time in poland, it was great. i met a girl who goes to bc at my hostel, small world, so we went out to a piano-jazz bar called harris' in old town square. there was a polish jazz band playing, in a dank cavernous basement, highly enjoyable. krakow is so cool, everything is in a dank cavernous basement. anyhow, i had a great dark beer, okocim. eastern european dark beers are so tasty and surprisingly light.

the next day i made a pilgrimage to auschwitz and birkenau, definitely worth the journey. highly fucked up and depressing as expected, auschwitz's cites were converted mostly to museums exhibitions such as cases of shoes, suitcases, kitchenware, hair, that had been left behind by the victims, i thought rather effective. birkenau on the otherhand was left basically as an example of what the barracks and the surrouding area would have looked like at the time, except for the people who have built houses around the gates of the camp, can you imagine your front yard facing a concentration camp? fucked up! birkenau was just a massive expanse of nothingness, with 4 crematoria in ruins, due to the nazi's destruction of them before they fled the camp. there was only one row of mens barracks left in birkenau due to their instability upon the creation of the museum, but i believe that most if not all the women's barracks were left in tact. i looked much more like a farm for horses than a concentration camp, also fucked up!

hmm...i think the train couchette was infested...mysterious bites, again!
and then there was vienna...

Screech on Screech

2005-04-29T18:05:00.000-04:00

On April 17, a fuzzy eagle named Screech was " hatched " at RFK Stadium as the Nationals' new mascot. Now, a different "Screech" shared his thoughts on the newly unveiled mascot's given name that he knows too well.

Though Carleen Martin, director of marketing and promotions at the Washington Nationals, did not explain the origin of the team mascot's name, she said, "He was not named after 'Screech' the character from 'Saved by the Bell.'"

Still, Dustin Diamond , otherwise known as "Screech" from "Saved by the Bell," was online to chat about the 6-foot-2 eagle and to answer your questions about his life since the show.

Alexandria, VA: Do you keep in touch with any of the other cast members from Saved By the Bell?

Dustin Diamond: I don't visit the unemployment office that much.

Read the Interview Here

we just named the mouse 'mitt romney'

2005-04-28T21:14:00.000-04:00

i totally saw some dude pulling a marty-mcfly-in-back-to-the-future-2 today; hitching a ride by grabbing onto the back of a moving vehicle! except he was on a bike instead of a hoverboard. oh well. he had massive space-age headphones at least.

i probably won't be posting again for awhile; 3 papers due in the space of two days! in honor of brendan i will give them suitably elaborate titles. "aspectual identification and narrative coercion" anyone?

in the meantime, check out this syllabus for a class on exploitation cinema! fucking awesome! (via jahsonic, how predictable [on my part, not his])

ps. someone bought shares in the blog.

gruss gott!

2005-04-28T15:23:00.000-04:00

i am lost somewhere in bavaria...but at least i have found my way to the internet.

since, i have last posted i left poland, went to vienna for a few days, left vienna and went to salzberg for a day, and now i am in munich...so where do i begin...perhaps i will work backwards...forwards...too much beer makes me indecisive. well, i have not been in munich too long, but my first impression is that the people here are nicer than in berlin and austria for that matter, everyone here loves beer, and i think food too. my tour books said that in the english gardens here people like to lay naked, so i rushed there from the train so i could get a glimpse with my vouyeuristic ways, but nothing. perhaps it was too late in the day or too cold, but instead i got to observe dogs chasing ducks and a swan sitting on a gigantic nest; i'd say it was a fair swap!

so salzberg, in my opinion, was fantastic! thanks for the great suggestion zach. i took the sound of music tour (i know i know, but bus tours are so fun, and anyhow they took us to the lakes region, which is so amazingly beautiful--snowcapped mountains and glacial lakes!) but, while i was at a rather annoying (i will get every cent from you) hostel (with really dumb people, "ah, what is auschwitz?") i found a flyer for "the basics festival" at a place called ARGEKULTUR. mouse on mars was supposed to be playing in salzburg while i was there, but of course they canceled to play a gig in japan! anyhow, this music festival which is all electronic, pop, avant-garde, you get the gist was held at this space where they have a dance studio, a really amazing restaurant/bar, and a concert venue, plus it is in a residential neigborhood, so cool. here is the site, but it's all in german, so it might not be too much of a help, basics festival. the opener was still the same, buka. they were pretty want to be underworld. they had this kinda cheesy video work of algebraic formulas, images that looked like the artist seal, and something else kinda lame on a loop. but the now headliner was rechenzentrum. i thought they were really interesting, very heavy electronica/noise. some of their music had vocal tracks, that were quite good as well. they had better video work than buka, it was more abstract and mesmorizing in my all too sleepy state. i got to the venue a bit early, so i purchased a drink. while i was waiting the guy at the bar turned around and said, "ich bin rob," instantly i could tell he was not austrian or even german for that matter, too friendly. and also his american/german accent gave it away. we bonded over the fact that we both came to see mouse on mars, and i think our americanness too. he is from west palm beach (yes, nicole there are hot people who come from florida, and he's even a jew too! too bad he's in europe, i'd like to set him up with you). so he went to emory for undergrad and now is doing a masters in cultural management at an international school in salzburg, hot! we went to the amazing restaurant/bar after the show and spoke about music and how fucked up america is and then he drove me back to the hostel in his white kidnapper van that he gets to use when he doesn't have to hall art around to the gallery which he works in in the middle of salzburg. i actually checked it out today, but they are between exhibitions, david la chapelle just ended, perhaps this might explain the karl lagerfeld photograph. anyway, i dropped by so he could steal some of my ipod music, but pcs always have to go ruin the fun.

so, i would love to tell you about my wien stint, oh how viennese actionism and apfelstrussel go so well together...but i am just so tired and this is the second time that i have had to write this post because easy everything sucks...i can't even look at zach's porno post or whatever it is with vaginas...anyhow, i feel like whitney or mariah right now in the middle of an exhausting world tour...oh god! the guy next to me won't stop singing, loud arabic! blah!

Randominity

2005-04-27T23:49:00.000-04:00

a work in progress
Not So Interesting

i love machines.

2005-04-26T22:26:00.000-04:00

i would totally pay to watch this hot steamy action.

ethan, this one is more your style.

ethan you will laugh.

2005-04-25T04:11:00.000-04:00

i know that i won't be the only one who chuckles when i think about the paper i've nearly finished. title: composite reality -- an analogous interpretation of john updike's "a sense of shelter" and gerhard richter. yeah who knew they were related, probably no one until i sat down at steve's to eat breakfast at 3:30 yesterday afternoon. yes i've had 3 weeks to write this paper. yes it's due in 8.5 hours. no i didn't start it or even have a topic until 3:45 this afternoon...

no i will not be the only one who laughs, because i know ethan will.

p.s. it's for a philosophy class.

that word 'broadminded' is spelled 'S-I-N'

2005-04-23T12:40:00.000-04:00

i finished the mix i've been working on. download here. now you all must endure the horrible fury of my penchant for novelty songs and bizarre vocals! it will only be up for a week, so get it now. drop a comment if you missed it.

i had a great post all typed up--twice, TWICE i had it finished and ready to post. but no. no. first i was thwarted by blogger, and then by safari. so unfortunately all i can offer is a tracklist, because further attempts to provide happy explanations and informative links will inevitably result in failure and a subsequent murderous rampage. sorry.

all covered in wire and bits of old tire
1. the soft pink truth - "lookin' back (carol channing)"
2. peter l. batsin - "how to make a tape recorder"
3. levy lorenzo - "hamster midi" (webpage)
4. DAT politics - "yha hoo tuning"
5. TRS-80 - "phantom power"
6. steve beresford - "vaio-id14"
7. karera musication - "ten" from ichi the killer (original soundtrack)
8. dave douglas - "the mystic lamb"
9. pancho sings - "i left my heart in san francisco"
10. rosa yemen - "herpes simplex"
11. public image, ltd. - "no birds"
12. boye - "mikrosvet" (via orbis quintus)
13. les georges leningrad - "lollipop lady"
14. dr. octagon - "intro"
15. dosh - "building a strange child"
16. meadow house - "tit for tat" (more info here and here)
17, laurie anderson - "o superman" (top 20 hit in the UK!)

eastern european hospitality.

2005-04-23T08:29:00.000-04:00

i have made it safely to krakow after being hassled by mormon nuns from utah speaking german outside my apartment in berlin, they would not let me go! they asked me how i would feel about there being a prophet for "our time". i was like umm...i dunno...i was pissed cause i couldn't think of anything more witty to say. they insisted on delivering a "book of mormon" to me. i'm a goddamn jew! of course i don't want your book of mormon. so i gave them my old address and a fake name in boston...if only i could see what results...hehe.

it was a rather bumpy and nauseating easyjet flight to krakow. the airport was the smallest international airport that i have ever seen. the planes had to land on the runway and then just park and let people off, then a tram had to take us to the terminal. i realised that the airport was in actuality a chicken farm, this realisation came to me when i took the overcrowed "soviet" bus to the zentrum.

so far i am overwhelmingly enjoying my trip to poland. i think the people are some of the friendliest people i have ever encountered on my travels. several times people have come up to me, start speaking polish and point...hmm? i tell them i don't know polish, but they keep speaking and then laugh and mosey on their way. perhaps, it is my good-looking polish resemblance that throws them, hehe. the old polish people are so cute...i want to take home a polish grandma and grandpa . we have room in the house, right?

krakow reminds me a bit of prague, but minature. it has a similar make up, with a large castle on a hill (with a dragon den, how cool is that?) and an old town square-with cobblestone walkways and winding alleys. krakow has far fewer tourists though and i don't feel like at every second someone wants to a) accost me about buying something because i am a tourist or b) rip me off because i am a tourist. oh, and krakow is the cheapest place i have ever visited!

i found a room in nathan's villa hostel in between the two main areas of town-the old town square/shopping area and kazimierz (the jewish quarter-where there are many very interesting looking smoky bars, lounges, galleries and restaurants). the hostel is a bit scary...one of those "party" hostels where you can't sleep because people are always coming in and out. at like 7am this dude in my room brought a chick back, and i thought they were going to fuck, but luckily they decided to leave, phew!

and then there was...prague

day 1. frank, ron jeremy, and i went to prague last weekend. i quite enjoyed the train ride, once we made it into the czech republic it was very scenic. when we got to prague we decided that maybe we'd go to kutna hora for part of the day because it looked quite interesting, but the trains didn't quite fit into our schedule. so, instead we ate halal indian/pakistani food (rj thought there would be muslim chicks there) and we headed to the castle. we decided to walk uphill with our backpacks, and for some reasons there were swarms of italian tourists who would just stand there and it was also incredibly hot and sweaty. blah. on top of this rj was complaining about his feet the whole time because he only brought harley davidson motorcycle boots, not exactly european walking shoes. so, after the castle we had to go on a sneaker hunt around old town square. it was now 7pm...the tourists were out in full force and the shops were closing. i was quite surprised by all the western stores and the lack of small, independent stores. but bata came to the rescue, it was literally a sauna in there so, i waited outside on a bench. meanwhile, a man in his late teens almost knocked me over to dig in the dirt behind me to get discarded pieces of candy out of it to eat. he could have asked for $, i would have given him some for food. anyhow, we walked around some more seeing the sights. we started our hotel search soon after, but frank and rj were opposed to a hostel, so literally every single place we checked except a five star hotel, "the riverside," across the river, was booked up. so we made sir toby call us a cab, and we headed to the "riverside". i thought the "i just left an iron maiden concert cab driver" was going to kill us on the way.

day 2. i found a kawa, kawa, kawa on the other side of the river, which was a pretty chill internet cafe and they had tasty coffee. then, we headed to the jewish area, josefov. i quite enjoyed the hebrew clock. we ate a "orange moon," i think i am spoiled by boston's amazing asian food. i wanted to go to the national gallery, but we did not have time. so, instead we went to dahab. rj and i smoked a jasmine hookah and i had a very tasty mojito. and that was the end of my rather brief stint to prague. perhaps, i did not spend enough time there. i think that prague a quite nice looking city, but i just cannot get over the excessive hype that everything you read about prague tells you. i think it really puts such a high expectation on one's trip there. ethan, was it very touristy when you were there?

oh berlin how i miss thee...

here are 2 descriptions of bars in prenzlauer berg. the first i have been to, it's really "hip" and they have tasy mojitos. the second description just made me laugh.

wohnzimmer (literally living room)
Chisel-jawed philosophers sitting on flood-damaged furniture acquired from the back door of an auction house. Even so, a rather pleasant little mood is created in this cafe/bar. Put together a couple of kitchen fitments, buy a coffee machine and Bob's your uncle. Sadly, you'll have to drink your beer from the bottle while you breathe in the air of tormented discontentment from Tarquin and his PhD buddies at the table over from you. As with most of Prenzlauer Berg, take a look sooner rather than later while the beer is still under 5 DM.

(The former) Café Schliemann
In this case "alternative" is not a word that can be stressed heavily enough: Lost souls; failed philosophers; men with dogs; dogs with men; men with beards and mullets; dogs with guitars and army jackets; women with mullets, dogs, guitars, army jackets and beards. Don´t wear a tie. These are the dying embers of a once renowned squatting phenomenon whose last few participants refuse to accept that a world of sushi and cocktails has replaced their once treasured freedom. At least this bar keeps them all in the one place.

oh how i love berlin!

misc.
thanks for writing checks for me while i am gone, i really appreciate it...i shall be home Sunday, May 1st in the late afternoon/early evening...just in time for vito acconci and steretotal!

see you at acconci...

2005-04-22T03:56:00.000-04:00

my class has ended and today it is time for me to leave berlin :( i have had to force myself to leave, but i know that it will be worthwhile. i have so much to say about my last week in berlin and my weekend in prague, but this with have to wait. this week has just been so hectic...ahh!! i am stressing. so i am off to krakow in less than 4 hours...very exciting...from there i really have no plan. austria, germany, denmark, perhaps more czech republic, wherever the train takes me. i shall update you with the latest when i reach the next port of call.

now curl the pubic bone up, just like a scorpion

2005-04-22T01:47:00.000-04:00

so i know i'm been somewhat ellusive these past couple weeks, but i'm really stressed about schools. i have to make a decision in a week--and i still haven't heard from chicago!!!

something bizarre happened today: when i got to the video data bank, dewayne was like, "I think we have a mutual friend connection, kind of." apparently, dewayne's partner kim has a sister named claire who lives in north carolina--and she knows brendan! it's a small fucking world.

i'm tearing through the jane fonda bio like a madman. i really have so much respect for her. she has put tons of misconstrued information about her into perspective. her life is amazingly full and rich. i find myself completely entranced on each page. if you can find the time to read it (it's worth it for the vietnam stuff), go for it! you won't be disappointed.

i've been working on remastering old art interviews lately. today i watched two great interviews with hal foster and meredith monk, both extremely well spoken. i also watched a rather long interview with karen finley. i wasn't familiar with her before. i guess she's a well-known performance artist. she was very mid-western but her discussions of her work made me really want to check her stuff out.

ethan: you've got to see stuff by "the halflifers" and anthony disenzia(?). his single channel video work is right-on.

i missed the angels of light show because there was a lampo performance. it was alright--not one of the best. it was this british guy called disinformation, who works with live radio and electrical storm disturbances. he tried to explain his work but faced away from the audience while talking...those brits.

michelle is here this weekend. we've already had deep dish and margie's (ethan, you know what this means)..i don't want to eat again for days.

does anyone know when the fucking basil kirchin record is coming out????

also, who wants to come check out la monte young's dream house with me when i get to new york??? it's going to be running until the 18th of june.

i really hope you all heard about the virgin mary stain that was on a wall under an overpass here in chicago. it was on the front page of cnn.com yesterday. (it looks like a vagina if you ask me.)

you guys should check out goldsmith college in london. they've got a hot ma in digial media and technoculture, among other things.

last random bit: watch "klute": jane fonda's oscar award winning performance as a call girl in 70s new york--HOTT!

License to Drive

2005-04-21T00:41:00.000-04:00

Whatever Happened to Corey Haim?

Youth + Success = Trouble

not for those afflicted with epilepsy

2005-04-21T00:27:00.000-04:00

i can't believe i missed this.

And The World Shifts On Its Axis...

2005-04-20T17:46:00.000-04:00

TRAGIC NEWS FROM E! Entertainment Online!

SIMPLE SPLIT: Paris Hilton releasing a statement confirming that she and Nicole Richie are no longer friends...

"I will not go into the details of what happened. All I will say is that Nicole knows what she did and that's all I am ever going to say about it." - Paris
read more here

Also...
Creeeeeepy
It knows where i've lived!

City Based Inbreeding

2005-04-19T20:22:00.000-04:00

So while listening to Onkyoto on Resonance I was intrigued by a song ( no, Ethan, not the Japanese Alanis Morissette.. though that was great too). I wrote down the record label and visited their website.

News for April 2005

NEW RELEASES

This month we have two new releases: 24/4/05 A Girl From Tokyo - Manami N...EP Manami M’s first EP for Post Office Records brings together Japanese instrumental electronica with haunting vocals and beats. Along with original work the release also contains a strange and beautiful version of The Ballad of Lucy Jordan, as originally performed by Marianne Faithfull on her 1979 LP Broken English. 29/4/05 Skin Picking - Chilopod...Album Chilopod is Chris France and this is his first release for Post Office. It blends together dark sound sculptures with field recordings and electronic beats to create a nightmarish, David Lynchian, trip through the welsh valleys.

Post Office Records

Check out the Films...
Chapel Couture

Delia

Light

Brief Electrical Encounter

The worst Teashop in Goring

More on the Post Office Records site...Check It Out

For a limited time only!

THE SMALL WONDER THEME SONG!

adult kindergarden

2005-04-19T17:10:00.000-04:00

+++ the little mini-interview pitchfork did with devendra banhart about his forthcoming album is hilarious. he's a lot easier to appreciate if you enjoy gibberish. don't know what that says about his music, but whatever...

and this feature on finnish free folk is making me go insane in about four different directions at once (not the least of them being that marvelous alliteration).

+++ famous redheads! amazing stuff in there, especially the historical redheads--napoleon bonaparte, lizzie borden, cleopatra, columbus, general custer, judas, nero, stalin's daughter (no implications are implied in regards to redheads i know, many of them are quite wonderful people when not trying to maim me in some fashion).

+++ jahsonic has been killing it lately... roger corman, folk is not a four letter word, henri-georges clouzot's la prisonniere, and sophia loren (click on that picture, there's more). and this fascinating tidbit:

Female ejaculation and the British film censors
In the United Kingdom, the British Board of Film Classification denies the existence of the phenomenon of female ejaculation, regarding it instead as urination during sex, thus banning its depiction under its rules that ban the depiction of urolagnia. --wikipedia link [Apr 2005]

that site is a vortex i get hopelessly sucked into nearly every day... via clicking on the word misappropriation in an entry about garage music i went from an entry about (correct) appropriation in which the example used titian's venus of urbino to thinking about the mark rappaport films (in which he appropriates that painting amongst others--like peter greenaway but in his own way) to searching jahsonic for mark rappaport which led me to a huge-ass essay by dr. harry m. benshoff which i shall probably read in some distant future but nonetheless looks interesting.

+++ jess! tell us about prague!

Ana Mendieta and Shut The Fuck Up

2005-04-18T19:06:00.000-04:00

ana4
Originally uploaded by Zoecole.

You all MUST read this blog entry on Ana Mendieta.

ARTOPIA

Also, I fucking LOVE this photo. hahahahah

I dedicate the above to the asshole that was yelling shit at us at the bus stop in Harvard Square last night.

I am now off to cough up my left lung.
Have a great day.

Holy Chicken Breast, Batman!

2005-04-18T14:21:00.000-04:00

As I was about to dig into my usual lunch of my dorms "baked chicken," I quickly stopped in my tracks as my eyes met this wonderful relic. I have the utmost respect for Pope John Paul II and I could not believe the resemblance I saw between my piece of chicken breast and him. I am deeply touched that I was chosen to receive this possible visit from the Holy Father. I would now like to share this beautiful likeness of Pope John Paul II with you. And unlike all the unoriginal grilled cheese and Pope hat chips, this is the Only celebrity chicken breast on eBay at the time of listing.

Ebay listing

Pope chicken Breast.com

s/he is her/e

2005-04-16T14:28:00.000-04:00

genesis p-orridge's website is very kickass--an infrequently updated but still excellent blog, tons of writing, and a very cool shop (i totally love this t-shirt). i recommend checking out the "to be ex dream" bio.

in other news: been seeing a ton of great films lately. ichi the killer is fantastic; zach, check it out! intensely gory and way over-the-top, and the boredoms did the soundtrack! caught a selection of ed emshwiller stuff at balangan on thursday: lifelines (1960), film with three dancers (1970), thanatopsis (1962), totem (1963), and relativity (1966), which is justifiably a classic. i remember reading that jaroslav kucera, vera chytilova's husband and the cinematographer for daisies, visited the states and said he enjoyed emshwiller's stuff a lot; there's definitely a connection there. i also caught heaven's gate at the brattle, and a bu cinematheque screening of a documentary about the film, which is perhaps the archetypical example of a giant hollywood film gone out of control (read about it here). i don't think it's quite as bad as the press made it out to be--bullshit like titanic or the godfather is just as bad, if not worse, in my opinion, and the film is actually a rather strong indictment of the government/landowner exploitation of immigrants in the american west, so that's cool. it's still fairly bloated though, and lacking in real artistic value, as you might expect (by the way, my vote for worst place to see a movie in boston goes to the brattle--the projectionist fucked up every single reel change, leaving us sitting in the dark for about five minutes during the final battle sequence, the sound was garbagecantastic, and the fucking screen has big seams down the middle of it--totally lame, especially for a big lush epic like heaven's gate).

i've also been watching jess's documentaries: hell house (fundamentalists are so fucking creepy!), nico: icon, and superstar: the life and times of andy warhol, which is actually a crap documentary but the mere fact that it's about warhol saves it. i don't really think the man's life could ever be uninteresting....

tonight nicole and i are going to see some resnais films at harvard. one is a short he did with chris marker. fucking awesome. tomorrow night: animal collective! and no school on monday because some crazy people are gonna run in the streets!

on tuesday night i caught angels of light and akron/family at great scott (not an altogether terrible place to see a show, for what it's worth; small, and bad views of the stage, but if it's not crowded it'll do). they were fantastic, michael gira is awesome, and i was really impressed with akron/family. i bought a t-shirt, it has geese on it. hooray. visit young god records. read michael gira's latest newsletter (box on the right). recall the piece he did for the wire's "epiphanies" section in the mf doom issue. zach, they're playing in chicago tonight! go!

finally, i should say that i didn't get into teach for america. oh well.

NPWA

2005-04-15T21:11:00.000-04:00

April 13, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: mailto:auction@caedefensefund.org

MASSIVE ART AUCTION WILL SUPPORT INDICTED ARTIST STEVEN KURTZ AS
BIOTERRORISM CHARGE THREAT RETURNS
More benefits and donations needed

An April 17 benefit auction at Paula Cooper Gallery in NYC has
attracted donations from some of the biggest names in the
contemporary art world, including Hans Haacke, Richard Serra, Cindy
Sherman, Martha Rosler, Sol LeWitt, Rub?n Ortiz Torres, Kiki Smith,
Lorna Simpson, Chris Burden, and many others. (See details at bottom
or at here.)

Organizers of this Sunday's auction expect to raise at least a
six-figure sum to help artist Steven Kurtz and scientist Robert
Ferrell defend themselves against politically-motivated federal
charges of mail and wire fraud--and, it now seems likely,
bioterrorism charges as well.

If convicted of the wire and mail fraud charges, Kurtz, a founding
member of the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) and Professor of Art at the
University of Buffalo, and Ferrell, a Professor of Human Genetics at
the University of Pittsburgh, could face up to 20 years in prison.

But worse is possible. On March 17, Steven Barnes, also a founding
member of the Critical Art Ensemble, was served a subpoena to appear
before a Federal Grand Jury in Buffalo on April 19. According to the
subpoena, the FBI is once again seeking charges under Section 175 of
the US Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, as expanded by
the USA PATRIOT Act--charges which a previous Grand Jury appeared to
reject when they handed down indictments of mail and wire fraud last
summer. (See here for full details.)

The addition of bioterrorism charges will add to the heavy financial
and emotional burden of the defendants. But the rising cost to
taxpayers is significant too. Although the New York State Department
of Health quickly deemed that the materials used by Kurtz in his art
posed no threat to public health or safety, and the FBI's own field
and laboratory tests showed that they were not used for any illegal
purpose, the U.S. District Attorney continues to waste vast sums of
public money prosecuting this outlandish, politically motivated case.

Since June 2004, public events in support of the CAE Defense Fund in
the US, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Latin America and Australia, as well
as thousands of individual contributions, have met the rising
defense costs. But as the case moves to trial, Kurtz and Ferrell's
expenses will increase dramatically, and more fundraisers and
donations will be needed. The April 17 auction organizers hope the
auction will serve as a spur for people worldwide to organize new
benefit events and contribute to the fund. Please visit
caedefensefund for more information about how you can help
publicize this auction, organize your own event, donate funds, or
otherwise help support Kurtz and Ferrell in this exceedingly
important case that could widely impact freedom of expression and
more in the US.

AUCTION DETAILS:

When: Sunday, April 17, 2005 (viewing and silent auction 2-8pm, live
auction 5-7pm)

Where: Paula Cooper Gallery, 521 West 21st Street, NYC 10011, tel:
212-255-1105 / day of auction: 212-255-5247

Master of Ceremonies: Wallace Shawn

Artists who have donated work: Acconci Studio, Dennis Adams, Carl
Andre, The Atlas Group, Nayland Blake, Mel Bochner, Cecily Brown,
Chris Burden, Paul Chan, Jeremy Deller, Mark Dion, Sam Durant, Tony
Feher, Andrea Fraser, Joseph Grigely, Hans Haacke, Ann Hamilton,
Rachel Harrison, Emily Jacir, Mike Kelley, Barbara Kruger, William
Pope L., Louise Lawler, Zoe Leonard, Sol LeWitt, Glenn Ligon, Sharon
Lockhart, Brice Marden, Allan McCollum, Julie Mehretu, Arnold
Mesches, Donald Moffett, Dave Muller, Vik Muniz, Takashi Murakami,
Yoshitomo Nara, Cathy Opie, Rub?n Ortiz Torres, Laura Owens, David
Reed, Alexis Rockman, Martha Rosler, Christy Rupp, Carolee
Schneemann, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman, Amy Sillman, Lorna Simpson,
Kiki Smith, Janaina Tschape, and many more.

To view some of the donated art works, please visit:
Paula Cooper Gallery

This benefit is sponsored by the National Association of Artists'
Organizations (NAAO) and Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center
(Buffalo), and is supported by galleries across the US.

For more information please contact Lori at Paula Cooper Gallery, or
visit caedefensefund. Press inquiries may be directed to
mailto:auction@caedefensefund.org.

Incremental Disruption

2005-04-15T21:02:00.000-04:00

making painting a bit more interesting...

Verge of Certainty Acrylic on Board, 2004

taken from The Big Red Shiny
William Betts offers flawlessly crafted stripe paintings with an innovative twist; each painting is based on a sample of digital information taken from a personal photograph. The sample is extruded and the resulting image applied to the panel using a painting machine that Betts designed and built, thereby in the artist’s words, “introducing elements of industrial production to a traditional endeavor.” Due to the precision of Betts’ process in combination with organic source material, his work operates on a completely different visual level from run of the mill stripe paintings. Interestingly, the artist states that “void of forms or context, the visual sensation is isolated from memory and association that would dilute the experience…hopefully the work maintains a comfortable ambiguity between what is known and what is possible between the pictorial truth and our aspirations.”

1 and 2 and 3 and hoooooooooollllllllllllllldddddddddddddd.

2005-04-14T00:35:00.000-04:00

just wanted to let everyone know that scott got an internship with vito acconci this summer!

i'm determined to at least have dinner with him!

zach says: read jane fonda's new autobiography!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ron jeremy saves the day (what's yr take on cassavetes?)

2005-04-13T18:27:00.000-04:00

this week i have been so exhausted. this accounts for my lack of postage. although, i do in fact have lots of things to share, but now i am not quite sure where to begin. does one start from the present or the past? hmm...well frank is here now; he has been here since the end of last week. he really loves berlin, this is definitely a big plus for me (everyday i'm like wouldn't you love to teach english here? you would wouldn't you?). He even took a flyer for a sublet today! good sign. he has even begun to speak german to people on the street, in shops, in restaurants, etc...it is really quite hysterical, but of course not in a patronizing sort of way.

i had searched for the m.i.a cd this week, but of course i was directed to none other than mya or mia, no no no! after all of my hopes were shattered i realised that "arular" is not coming out here until the end of april. so, ron jeremy came today and i made him buy it for me and bring it to germany with him...hehe...it's so amazing. not only did he bring "arular," but i had informed both frank that the toilet paper here is rougher than sand paper here, so now we have about 20 rolls of "american" charmin, really no exaggeration. i wonder what customs would have thought? it's quite a funny mental image if you really thing about it. oh and also the fact that i made frank buy me tampons and bring them here also...i guess that might be a bit more amazing to envision...zach, i can hear your laugh from here...amazing!

oh...yes...before i forget...fucking bridget moved to fucking la to follow her fucking 44-yr old boyfriend...blach!

on a more exciting note i think that eva is coming to boston this summer to stay with us. she is coming for a few days in june and a few days in july, i think. very cool.

i realised a few days ago that le tigre were playing here tonight at maria am ostbahnhof. so, of course trying to figure out how to get tickets and where the concert actually is is quite a challenge. so, before today i kinda figured out where the concert was and also that i thought it was sold out. i didn't think it would be a big problem to get in, but actually it proved to be more of a challenge than i had thought. people here are not necessarily the friendliest and also it didn't seem like anyone had tickets to spare. after the show had already began by a few songs, they released 30 more tickets. so, i did in fact get in...the third time is the charm i guess, considering my other two opportunities in boston had failed. the show was very upbeat, and exciting...very tot home depot berlin style, hot! i finally got to see the matching outfits and dance moves combination that is quite a trademark. i guess people were beating each other up in the front or something, i did not see this, but i didn't expect a le tigre concert to be rowdy...a bit antithetical to their peaceful feminist ideology. i dunno, but my other breakthrough revelation was that katheen hannah does indeed know and try to sound like the x-rayspex. during "hot topic," they had this video with all of this artist memorabila, i guess you could call it and they were one band featured on there. connection confirmed.

there is so much going on here it is really hard to keep up, two nights ago boom bip played at the bastard club in prenzlauer berg but i found out a bit too late.

...and there is more art...
ethan you were definitely correct when you said the hamburger bahnhof is amazing!i have already been there twice already and i really want to go back again! i think that it definitely rivals the mass moca for me. the space is just phenomenal. i especially enjoyed the works of pipilottirist. I think I sat in front of her installations for hours. Partially because there was this gigantic furniture to sit on which was the coolest thing ever. i took frank there once and i think that HE even liked it...

there is also a group of galleries in this warehouse space by the goethe and in the courtyard there are these mechanical installations of these deadchickens. if you pay a euro you can watch them go spastic and die, quite a good way to kill a few minutes in mitte

and i also went to see monade, thanks to zach's tip, at the volksbuhne. the volksbuhne is such a great space. there are three different concert halls in the whole building. last week in the theater there, der meister und der margherita played. there is a great "bar" area to drink beer there with all of these large wooden boards, with old posters from their past shows. eveything from stereototal to autechre (who is playing next week here) to to roccoco rot. i think it was very cool. although, the opening band really was the "highlight" of the evening, their name was 'aisikl and they were compared to bonnie prince billy in the blurb, but they really really sucked...like maybe bonnie prince billy with horrible lyrics and monotonous, boring music. but i really enjoyed monade, they made great use of harmonization, and the trombone. however, i believe that stereolab is better.

more details later...
viel spass.

Fire on the Side

2005-04-10T01:05:00.000-04:00

Just a quick post to give you all an update on my location and a not so funny story.
I've been in NYC for the last two days. Today, around 8am, the fire alarm in Debbie's apartment went off. I was sure it was just someone vacuming. I was so tired I didn't even move. After a few minutes, Debbie went out in the hall to check it out. As soon as she opened the door you could smell the smoke. Oh, yes. Its true. The building was most definitely on fire. So being on the 18th floor we grabbed shoes and I grabbed my inhaler and ran out the door. We ran down 18 flights of stairs (the first 5 of which were really smokey). We ended up in the parking lot at 8:30am in our Pajamas and DAMN was it cold. We sat in the parking lot watching the flames in the windows of the 15th floor. It was actually pretty damn scary. There were a few people trapped in the building and the fire department had to break down the walls of near by apartments to get to them. Luckily, after 5 hours of sitting outside in flannel pants and a tshirt we were allowed back in. We had to walk up 18 flights of stairs, but when we got up there nothing in Debbie's apartment was damaged. Only 6 people were injured. I'm fine, Debbie's fine, Navy (Debbie's cat) is also fine. More later, after I sleep.

official todd solondz report

2005-04-07T18:56:00.000-04:00

so instead of paying some ridiculous amount of money and wading through the crowds at harvard tomorrow night, i decided to skip my poetry class and catch the screening of solondz's new film 'palindromes' at the mfa this afternoon. unfortunately it was a pretty disappointing experience--the film wasn't very good and solondz wasn't the most captivating speaker.

so the most notable thing about 'palindromes' is that it's the story of one girl in her early teens, but the character is played by eight different actresses of varying ages, races, etc. sounds cool, except that in execution it's pretty dumb. according to solondz the idea comes from noticing that a lot of people identified with some of his characters, even though they might not be entirely sympathetic.

quote from the notes handed out at the screening: "The curious thing is how sex, age, race, etc. play so limited a part in determining the degree to which a character is sympathetic. Perhaps this is why a sympathetic character is one that all types of people can relate to... So I wondered what would happen if I cast a number of different types of peopel as one character, a character who is wholly sympathetic. My fear was that it would come across as too much of an intellectual exercise, a show-offy but pointless trick, and alienate the audience. But my hope was that there would be a cumulative effect that would be more emotionally affecting than had there been just one actor: more magic, and less sleight of hand."

so basically he's just trying to cast a wider net--include more actresses of various shapes, sizes, and colors, get more people to identify. of course, this doesn't really make any fucking sense when they all play the same fucking character. jeez. just because the sullen little girl(s) we've seen throughout the film suddenly becomes a fat black woman playing a sullen little girl doesn't mean i'm going to identify any more with a sullen little girl.

of course, i had other problems with the film--i just didn't find it that funny, and solondz also seems to be pushing this idea of the palindrome "as a kind of loose metaphor for the ways in which we DON'T change. Like a palindrome that, instead of developing in different directions, folds back on itself, the self is a part-static thing. It is our 'palindromic' nature that the film explores, that part of ourselves that does NOT change, and that serves as one of the film's central themes: change vs. stasis." unfortunately this comes off in the film as just plain not being able to change, being stuck with your lot in life, because it's shoddy philosophy both conceptually and in execution. if you're going to talk about the 'static' part of the self, then you need to point out how that is not necessarily a defeatist viewpoint, otherwise you're just being morbidly depressing. i'm not some optimist who thinks 'anything is possible if you just try! even unicorns!' but by making the film itself palindromic (this isn't a spoiler, it's the title of the film for fuck's sake...) you're implying that change is impossible. and, if i may be blunt, fuck that.

ok, so i'll talk about what nicole and jess REALLY want to hear about, mr. solondz himself. i should start by saying that he's not as evil or even as stupid as i'm making him out to be here; it was pretty obvious that his heart is in the right place and his ideas for what 'palindromes' was supposed to be weren't so bad (unfortunately his sloppy filmmaking didn't get it across very well). as for his demeanor: imagine a slightly more nervous/awkward woody allen with a very soft, almost feminine voice. he seemed pretty uncomfortable and he stutters a lot, but he actually fielded the questions pretty well once he got into it a bit more, and he had a nice deadpan sense of humor. pretty unexciting, overall. like a jumpy uncle who has to deal with speaking to crowds fairly often but still can't get used to it. he almost fits that "you'd never expect this normal-looking man would make such crazy movies" cliche, which, now that i think about it, is also used in reference to pedophiles and rapists. go figure.

if you have more specific questions, hit dat comment box.

[ps. this would have been up sooner but blogger was pretending it didn't love me anymore.]

Peachtree and Ostrich Eggs

2005-04-06T10:55:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! I am currently writing to you from a hotel in Baltimore, Maryland.

My last few days in Florida were pretty good. I spent an evening at City Walk (which is Universal Studios) drinking 5 dollar Hurricanes with my friend Shannon from Minnesota. We ended up stumbling into a movie theater and seeing The Ring 2.. which was even worse then I thought it would be. And that’s pretty damn bad. Also, Movie theaters at City Walk have bars in them!

Next I rode to Atlanta with a Van full of crazy people. We got from Orlando to Atlanta in 6 hours.. which is record speed if you've ever done the drive before. On the way we passed a van full of Ostriches. Seriously. There were probably 15 of them in a truck. Pictures will be coming soon.

I was shocked at how beautiful Atlanta actually is. I've been there before but I really never noticed all the Modern Art scattered throughout the city. I walked around for a while and taking pictures of some of the sculptures etc. before I decided to do some museum hoping. I went to the GA MOCA I can't say that it was the most impressive museum I've ever been to.. but it was nice. I spent the evening hanging out at an out door Bar called Joe's Jupiter. It was nothing special but the music was nice and the waiters were FLAMING. Which made the place that much more entertaining.

Now I'm headed into DC. I'll write more later and I'll try to include some Ostrich pictures as well as some pictures of billboards I've collected. Got Jesus? I do!

By the way.. My cell phone has been acting all funky outside of Florida but its working now... sorry about that!

mensche, sehr heiß.

2005-04-05T12:17:00.000-04:00

here are the pictures from "the teaches of namosh and peaches," that i have promised you. they were taken by suzie, and they are really hot! just look at those pants!

today i went to the judische museum in Kreuzberg , has anyone been? it moved to a new location fairly recently. i thought that it was just going to be the same shit, actually i quite liked it. however, the building is basically the high point. it was built by daniel libeskind (wtc dude), and he includes a "holocaust tower," like a installation of what it was like to be in a concentration camp, but he does in a rather alternative method and a "garden of exile," which is like a slanted stone "garden" memorial, also very cool. and of course it wouldn't be berlin if there wasn't a cool installation (even in a fricken jewish museum) of these metal faces that one can walk on and it makes this loud, disturbing cacophonic sound.

off to watch italian football (i'm in europe, i must)

sesame roads

2005-04-04T15:09:00.000-04:00

one highlight of a weekend in which i did hardly a damn thing: pat o'neill.

hfa was showing one recent work, "the decay of fiction" (2003), and an older one, "water and power" (1990). totally amazing. read this "decay of fiction" review, it's pretty good. the film has evidently been made into an interactive exhibit, which seems just as good as the film itself (that site also has a good bio)

and zach, you'll be pleased to know that he was the the founding assistant dean of film and video at calarts.

&&&

today i tried to make myself feel better by buying things. it pretty much worked, i must admit. i picked up the april issue of the wire, two new albums (m.i.a.'s arular and akron/family self-titled), a brand-new DVD of takashi miike's ichi the killer (based mostly on the picture nicole posted awhile back but also because this cheesy bravo 'top 100 scariest movie moments' thing--see, my weekend really was that exciting--had a section on another miike film called "audition" that looks quite intense. i need to find more films by the guy who made 'go, go second time virgin'. hello, tokyo... END DIGRESSION). the music is pretty damn good, the wire has an invisible jukebox with ira cohen and primer on the lovely grime i've been so into lately (thanks internet!), and i just found out akron/family is touring as michael gira's (aka. angels of light, aka ex-swans frontman, aka head of young god records) backup band and will be visiting great scott on the twelfth!

so, yeah... buy things? you'll feel better?

^^^^..
------- look a stegosaurus!!!

i really shouldn't post when i'm stoned.

ps. oh fuck, those renaissance palace guard dudes guarding that pile of robes and bones make me crack up. so gangsta. you know if jay-z or p.diddy or some other rich rap mogul had their funeral all planned out they'd have made provisons for that kind of shit. every time someone says "the pope" they should be required to stomp their feet and bang those scepters. "THE POPE!"

fuck kunst

2005-04-04T03:43:00.000-04:00

so this weekend i saw art, drank beer, saw more art, ate good food, slept, drank more beer, and saw more art--oh and a bit of shopping too.

thanks to zach's wonderful recommendation i went to the neue nationalgalerie (exhibition) to see carsten nicolai's "syn cron" installation before it ended on Sunday. it was very cool; the highlight of the museum really. although, they did have some very interesting joseph beuys, barnett newman, bruce nauman, andy warhol (elvis, marilyn, ambulance crash), and a few others, but the installation was the highlight. on the main floor, there was this big white pod that one could go inside of and sit/lay against it and watch lasers dance around and listen to some rather glitchy, yet seemingly serene and calming sounds/noises/beats. i also took a gallerie tour (with the goethe this weekend), there are so many galleriers just hidden in alleys and courtyards around the city center, its so amazing. i will come back to this later, however during this gallerie tour we saw the work of olaf nicolai, which happens to be carsten's brother. he has a work up called "the blondes," at the eigen + art gallerie. It is a photograph documentation of blonde people. germans love their photographic catalogues, don't they, aka august sander. olaf's other work looks interesting too. anyhow, this struck me as interesting.

i also checkout this placed called dock 11 it is a collection of dance studios in this amazing warehouse space in prenzlauer berg. it is an a street called kastanienallee, where there is also great shopping, and many amazing looking restaurants, bars, and cafes. so, I went to go see this video installation/performance art/modern dance performance called how long. the warehouse space that the performance was in was so cool. there was one row of chairs and one row of pillows on the floor for sitting. i sat on the floor. so, there was great electronic music (reminded me of instrumental radiohead) to accompany the video installation (which was projected on 2 screens and the performers were in front of this), which the performers interacted with while they were dancing/performing. they also made interesting use of shadows and props (rocks, flowers, a ladder, a bucket, etc..). the performance was self-reflective, and explored fundamental human questions like life, death, curiosity, restlessness, etc... the entire thing was performed in a very small space probably 30ftx30ft. also, very enjoyable.

and some nite life. 8mmbar is not a good place to go alone. it is very small and everyone stares at you, but they do project films on the wall and play decent music. roter salon, this place is cool too. it is part of a large multi-cultural center called the volksbuehne. i figured out that this is where monade is playing. anyhow, i made the mistake of going when there were really bad swedish and british indie rock bands playing, but it is a cool place regardless. damn! and this was just friday. more later. i need to get to the guggenheim today before class, its free. ciao.

sacrifices...

2005-04-03T19:37:00.000-04:00

dear bostonians,

if anyone is going to see todd solondz this friday at 7 at the HFA, i would like detailed account of his demeaner. it seriously plagues me on a day to day basis and i would like to know what the man is like.
far and away...

motherfuckingfuckfuck

2005-04-03T01:30:00.000-05:00

so. i don't know who knows, but for those of you who don't--i'm in wv for the weekend visiting my parents and sarah.

this place is a shithole. i'm so fucking bored. sarah and i went to wallmart and walked around today--that's how bored i am. we went to the electronics section and turned up all the display radios that were playing to max volume and hid down another aisle....continuing to watch wallmart employees get pissed off...

(why do i feel like i spelled wallmart wrong? or better yet, why do i give a shit?)

scott is in san francisco right now. that fucker. i was so excited to come home because i thought it would be warmer. but of course, it snowed here today.

as for schools: thus far, i've gotten into the museum school, the slade, chicago-undergrad, and san francisco. i got my sfai fin. aid pack today. well, i got a full ride--in fucking loans. the school really just doesn't have money to give out lots of grants. i basically got $43,000 for the whole year. i only need like $25000 of it for tuition. however, only $4000 of it is grant money....the rest--loans, loans, loans. i did get $4000 for workstudy. so right now san fran isn't looking so good.
still waiting to here from chicago for post-bac. i was told that i would get a letter on the 1st of may or after...which is so fucked up because all the other schools what to know if i'm going to go there by the 1st of may!

ethan, the fucking invocation of my demon brother soundtrack! goddamn, i've wanted that for so long! i haven't been to ubuweb in months. now, i'm going every day! i'll call you soon. i have a secret to share with you.

http://www.extenza-eps.com/extenza/contentviewing/viewJournal.do?journalId=186

nicole, did you rectify the blue balls problem??

jess, i can't believe you got down and dirty with peaches! have you gone shopping??? i want shoes and a bag!!!

brendan, when are you visiting the mid-west again? i want to meet up when you are!

i watched antonioni's zabriskie point. hot: 60s california. i can't think of a better combo. and for those of you who haven't seen contempt yet, shame on you!

my life is boring now. more later.

...and there are always some sassy columbians.

2005-03-31T15:47:00.000-05:00

since berlin has not stopped once since i've gotten here; i feel like i can't stop either. by the end i think that it might get a bit exhausted. i guess i will deal with that when the time comes. so i haven't told you anything about my class. there are about 20 people, and everyone is from a different country except there are two americans and two columbians. so, it's very interesting because there are so many languages going on all at once. unfortunately, i haven't found people i can click with in my class or at the institut in general, but i don't really care. this italian kid is really nice, and he wants to party really bad, but doesn't want to alone, so i told him that we can go party together, which will be damn funny i'm sure. as for the class my, teacher's name is oliver. i can't tell if he's gay or just german. he's a really good teacher and i have learned so much german in two days it is incredible. we had this meet and greet yesterday after class and i met this kid who is in the uber advanced level. it just happens to turn out that he is the guatemalan ambassador to Germany's son. and he so would'nt stop flirting with me, and he was damn nasty. i went out to dinner with him and this frenchy and the guatamalan insisted on paying, i said "we don't do that in america!" then he was like, "I didn't know I was going to meet you tonite!" And I was like, "well you did, so what?!" so he tried to get me to go out with him and i was like, "I need to go to bed!" hehe...so gross!
so, tonite i went to this amazing musik performance. it was at the BALLHAUS NAUNYSTRASSE. This "classical" music hall and it is actually in the neighborhood i live in, kreuzberg. It is a few S-Bahn stops away. The ensemble performing was envyloop. It was called the "bleak texas thing tour." There were two guys, Butch Rovan, (clarinet, mac, vocals) an american, who actually is a composer and performer on the faculty of the department of music at Brown, where he co-directs meme@brown (multimedia & electronic music experiments@brown). Before this he worked for the center of experimental music and intermedia, at the university of north texas (mmmm?). And then before this he worked in paris at the Institut de recherche et coordination acoustic, hot! And Ulrich Maiss, (cello, keyboard, vocals) a german, who is a contemporary european chamber music artist. He is now working with lou reed to complete a cello-soloversion of metal machine music called cellomachine. They described tonight's performance as a "dynamic live-electro-improv-acoustic-meltdown duoformed by composer/performers. With their combination of acoustic instruments, live electronics, interactive video and found objects, Rovan and Maiss create an eclectic mix of musical styles." Butch Rovan started off with this crazy cyber glove thing and a blue flourescent ball and he was basically moving his entire body to create sound interactively. He had video work called, "collisions," to go along with it, that he described as his tribute to surrealist film maker, Bunuel. Then both musicians harmonized their instruments, clarinet and cello, with the cacophony of noises coming from their computers. They also took turns making indecipherible sounds into the microphone. There was a video piece, which portrayed a bleak picture of texas, that was screened during this piece. The final piece was inspired by the poem, a room in brooklyn, by anne carson, inspired by andrew hopper and st. augustine, that doesn't sound pretentious of anything! Maiss, recorded himself reading the poem and it was then distorted, which they incorporated into their music, as they played they recorded what they had just played and then played that and played over it...and so on and so on. most enjoyable, and for some reason they said they had technical difficulties, so it was free!

peaches made me do the hustle!

2005-03-31T04:18:00.000-05:00

hey. here's the latest bits...i followed Rick Steve's Bus #100 tour and the Unter Den Linden walking tour from the Brandenburg gate and Alexanderplatz, on Tuesday. Did you know that there is a Starbucks and a Dunkin Donuts at the Brandenburg Gate, oh how i miss communism. I.M. Pei's building for the deutsches historisches museum berlin is phenomenal. I also saw the palast der republik, which, in the days of communism, was east berlin's parliament building and futuristic entertainment complex. It has supposed to have been demolished for years now, but still has not been yet. east berliner's are fighting to keep it standing, though. On the roof, in white neon letters it says, Zweifel, or doubt. The installation was designed by Ramberg .
So, I ventured out to try and find the peach. Of course, I went two stops too far and had to pee really bad, resulting in a public toilet experience (did you know that they play music in there? Das Kool)! Anyhow, I got to a rather non descript apartment very close to Alexanderplatz, with no sign of anything. They like to do this in Berlin, nothing has signs...its actually really cool though. Anyhow, there were two people in front, so i had to know what was going on. So, I asked. They didn't know much either, but now we were in this together. It did result in a very fun night though. I made friends, manuella from northeast italy, robert who had some crazy
grudge against Kreuzberg, suzie who will send me pictures of peaches, and yan, who knows what happened to him i saw him for like 5 minutes. But it was quite a good time. So, we got in after a few minutes, only 4 euro, so everyone was doubtful that peaches would be there. It looked rather low key, like someone's apartment or something. There was a chick dj-ing who was so wanna be peaches with the hair and everything, she played MJ, pulp, etc...and for a while i actually thought it was peaches. Then peaches comes out, mind you this is not like a stage or anything, its just a big room. She is wearing red spandex, high heels,
and a pink wrestling jacket from ohio. She starts yelling, and tells us we need to put our faces down and asses up, then she starts playing face down, and she keeps yelling about how we are not putting out faces down and our asses up, and then see makes us to this stupid dance to the song. then when we are done with that she makes us snowball, which means two people need to start slow dancing and then they need to pick two other people when the music stops and so on...it was chaos. Although, there were only about 200 people in the whole place. So, then she makes us all get in 6 lines and do the hustle. Then her and this namosh dude are wearing knee pads, so they start russian dancing and break dancing, and finally she makes us do disco grind with one another. Luckily, manuella played along with me and was my partner for the dances. Oh and there was this crazy (i think she was american or canadian) chick who rubbing herself against everyone. She came up to suzie and started dancing with her and then licked her arm the whole way up, her face was amazing! but the funny thing was peaches only did her thing for like 15 minutes and then just walked around the club and drank, then i saw her on the street, when i was hailing a cab, with namosh and she also added a see through plastic shirt to her wardrobe. we all danced a bit more when the actual dj's came on again after peaches. those germans sure love their rapture and lcd soundsystem. but it come to an end soon after that, but peaches was most certainly the highlight of
the evening. oh and did i mention i got super drunk on hefe-weissen and rothaus pils--cheap german beer is so good! so, the place where i saw peaches, the zentrale randlage is definitely worth revisitng in the future. why is berlin so cool...much more to tell, but die deutsche Kurs beckons.

I was once a tree house. I lived in a cake. But I never saw the way, the orange slayed the rake.

2005-03-30T23:14:00.000-05:00

I have watched this about fifty times and I still can't figure out why it makes me laugh so damn hard EVERY time.
Llama Llama Duck

and just to add to the stupidity..

world's tiniest poot

2005-03-30T20:30:00.000-05:00

so today i had my teach for america interview, 'twas quite interesting. i was pretty nervous during my sample lesson but whatever, i did good in the actual interviewing. the teach for america employees (both ex-teachers in the program) were kinda scary, in a "it's so great to see all of your interest in joining our movement!" kind of way. i mean, it's definitely for a good cause, but i still felt like i was joining a cult.

some of the sample lessons were frightening though... one girl said hers was intended for "pre-kindergarden" (not an option as far as i know) and proceeded to hand out barnyard animal finger puppets and have us sing "old mcdonald." in the course of doing this she noted that "sheep are important because [something garbled about europe and milk and cows] and their wool is where we get the cotton to make our clothes! [chucks puppet at someone] and we eat their meat. " she's graduating from BU. of course. then another girl had a little lesson about the freedoms granted to us by our constitution which basically amounted to we have the liberty and freedom to work a job, buy a house or a car, and have a family. mmhmm. of course, i made jokes about my hair using double negatives and then quoted george orwell (shut up, it was good example).

if anyone wants some mp3s of jonny greenwood's performance at the ether festival that just took place in london (two totally awesome instrumental pieces--i'm talking like steve reich kinda good--as well as two radiohead tracks) just let me know and i'll gmail them to you.

ALSOALSOALSO!!!! did anyone know that ubuweb has classic avant-garde films you can download and watch? check it out--kenneth anger, un chien andalou, john cage, guy debord, marcel duchamp, 37 short fluxus films, isidore isou, laszlo moholy-nagy, robert morris & stan vanderbeek, robert rauschenberg, man ray, hans richter, harry smith, and jack smith! granted they're probably low-quality rips, but talk about good stuff--holy shit!

(also, mick jagger's soundtrack to 'invocation of my demon brother'. can we award ubuweb the Best Website in the World Award yet?)

oh yes, for katie/non-blogger-users/ghosts/government agents out there who might be reading this, i made comments open to anyone. use that shit!

(ps. more MU.)

Sunny Prestatyn

2005-03-30T17:43:00.000-05:00

Create your own justification for war with this magnetic war rhetoric kit!

Two days in a row with low humidity! Par-tay!!
Friday I went to a multi media/ performance art event at this place called Stardust (which is the only place you can find decent movies around here). There was a kid there doing some live sound performance with projection. It was really interesting and really sad since I was one of only 5 people that showed up.

Yesterday I went to get my hair cut and the guy waiting to go after me was Carrot top! I was shocked to find out that he was waiting to get his hair dyed! Fraud! Carrot top is a fraud! (although I think his hair really is red .. he just dyes it brighter)

I went to a party at my friend Regia's parents mansion outside of Orlando. Their house is incredibly large. They have a pool with several waterfalls and coves which is attached to a cabana seating area with a bar that has beer on tap. They also have a guest house with a full gym and rec room upstairs. We took the golf carts out in the back yard and managed to break one (well.. cathy did not me) and of course.. it wouldn't have been a party had I not injured myself some how. So I did. Scraped my hand while riding the golf cart. nothing too serious.

Last night I went to Spy Bar. You have to walk through this other trashy looking bar to the back, through an employees only door, down a hall and then you're there. There are about 50 TV screens all over the bar that are attached to video cameras all over the other trashier bar. There are camera's in the photo booth, the bathroom, at each table. So when the people at the trashy bar get drunk and start doing stupid shit you can watch it! hahahaha. It was actually really amusing. It was pretty cool... for Orlando that is.

I was trying to keep a tally of all the Bush stickers I've seen here.. but I lost count after the first day.
Being here, among the Christian conservatives and the trashy strip malls has compelled me to go back and read some Philip Larkin Poems.

teaches of namosh and peaches.

2005-03-29T09:26:00.000-05:00

guten abends. today i had orientation at the Goethe institut. it surprisingly is quite nice. i mean all i received was where to send money to and a confirmation that i made it into the program, so i guess it has surpassed my low expectations. i even met this italian dude who is in my class, his name is--damn! i am so bad with names...
so, the building is located on Neue Schönhauser, which is in between Alexanderplatz and the Reichstag, and directly next to a large Diesel store (self-restraint). quite central. the building is located just off the main street, through a cobblestoned courtyard. the interior is very icelandic/norse, you know how they love their frosted glass panels? we had intense placement examinations today, multiple choice, writing componenet, and speaking interview. Luckily, i´m right on track and placed into the next level 2.1. oh and the goethe has a computer lab/library. they have every stereototal cd to take out, hot! damn, why are these keyboards so difficult to use? At least this one has an exclamation point.
To Nicole--on the the way to the Goethe there is the largest Starbucks I have ever seen. There have a whole upper floor via spiral staircase, that is the whole size of espresso just filled with comfy chairs and couches.
so this morning, by the Goethe, i saw a poster that caught my eye. It said the teaches of namosh and peaches, 29.03.05, after a short freakout that that could be last nite, i realised that it was tonite. i searched the internet far and wide to find info about it, none. then when i was about to give up i found it. i think, but since the info was half in german and there was a dearth of it who knows, that they are potentially doing a dj set in prenzlauerberg, (of course, where else is hip enough for peaches?) at the Zentrale Randlage, or maybe there are performing, je ne sais pas. I would post the URL, but the website sucks real bad, so i thought there was no point. There is some info here at http://www.dancefloorstars.de/berlin/zentrale-randlage (sorry url won´t work on this computer), so if anyone has imput? I will be sure to give full details after the "event". freaky, i think spanish e-liz is sitting next to me.

i smell.

2005-03-28T09:19:00.000-05:00

i finally made it to berlin. and everything has run all too smoothly. i even figured out how to use the internet. you guys, you need to come here right now. i'm totally serious. this apartment is way hotter in person, and i thought the pictures were hot. holy shit! it is seriously incredible. the third picture of the apartment is actually a tower that is on top of the apartment that gives a panoramic view of all of east berlin, the U-Bahn, the Spree, the TV tower, you seriously can see it all. and the apartment itself is amazing. the first picture of the widows are actually the windows in the kitchen, which open all the way up for an amazing breeze, they overlook a park and the Spree and this crazy sculpture in the water of two 20 ft tall people. and there are even two bedrooms. there is so much room, ethan bring everyone over we can start the commune in Berlin, who's game?
so Norman's sister, Birge, let me into the place. She is very nice and modelesque, damn europeans! Apparently Her and Norman are both working for the Goethe-Institut. Although, what is even more ironic is that she met her boyfriend in October at the Berlin Film Festival (they were both working there) and he is from Seattle, living in LA, but he was a theater major at BU. small ass world. he was taking the same course that i will be taking at the Goethe, but his just finished. he will be here for a few more works, so i think that i will be meeting him.
alright, i'm much too antsy now...i need to go for a walk....

almost there.

2005-03-28T03:55:00.000-05:00

hey.

i had to get rid of my swiss francs because i'm a dumbass american idiot and i thought they used euros here, so now i need to get rid of them, so here's a post from the airport in zurich. i arrived about 3 hours ago and i feel like i've been here forever, probably because i have not slept yet and i'm still comotose from the inflight games (namely solitaire). Already, I think i chipped a tooth on a croissant, might have provided my credit card number on an unsecure server, and got cut off in line for cappuccino by Russians, who I thought were townies from Revere, hey they were wearing hardcore 80's apparel, denim cowboy boots, teased hair, rhinestone jean jackets, its really an honest mistake. At least I got to see the alps. Damn this keyboard is so annoying, no exclamation points and the "y" is in a weird ass spot. Culture Shock. Not to mention people are smoking everywhere (exclamation pt.). Well my franc change is dwindling, speak to you when i get to Berlin.
T(s)chus.

one two roommate switcheroo.

2005-03-27T20:35:00.000-05:00

there is quite likely a room soon to be available in my appartment. my roommate wants to move out, and move in with his girlfriend. if anyone knows anyone cool who needs a place to live as of may let me know. rent is $687.50/month, heat and hot water included.

perks include: access to massive record collection, high enebriation levels, daily doses of razor sharp wit, free wireless internet, fully furnished living room.

she's a grand ol' flag...

2005-03-24T20:57:00.000-05:00

partial truth
Originally uploaded by theqman.

if only all flags said 'partial truth'... just one more reason to go to the hamburger bahnhof i guess!

don't know if y'all heard about this: banksy hangs his own art in four big new york museums. brilliant. check out his website, he's definitely one of the better graffiti/stencil artists going.

i've always been a big fan of the radiohead documentary meeting people is easy, despite everyone else whinging and whining about how dull it is. i don't know if this proves it's good or not, but some guy wrote a paper called Modernist Thought and Practice in the Documentary Meeting People is Easy by Grant Gee. my first reaction to the introduction (esp. his tenets of modernism) was 'ummm, duh, it's radiohead' but hey, at least someone besides myself likes the film.

a german tropical paradise?

2005-03-24T15:40:00.000-05:00

Believe it or not there is an indoor tropical resort southwest of Berlin. Take a dip in the wellness lagoon, trek through the rainforest, even watch a tropical island musical review entitled "viva brasil" and the best part about it, it's open 24/7! Only 25 euros for six hours during peak time, what a deal!
Don't get a german sunburn!

put my poopy chanel dress

2005-03-23T12:26:00.000-05:00

During one of my quests to find interesting live music in Berlin I stumbled upon the video for
Paris Hilton by MU. I must say that it makes the song just that much better. Is it just me or does anyone feel like Drew Daniel should be in this video?

Oh and if anyone misses me while I am away you can always Rent a German!. Be sure to check out the customer reviews, they are quite insightful.

Still from Dwelling

2005-03-22T14:54:00.000-05:00

Mass (colder darker matter) by Cornelia Parker

Untitled wall painting Gardar Eide Einarsson

Also, I was thinking about Vito Acconci and the whole transition from Performance to Architecture.. and I realized that Chris Burden did the same thing I believe.

And I think he built a very large one room per floor tower too.. I should go back and read the paper I wrote on him ahahaha.

Last but not least...
Charles Long is HOT.

I believe this particular piece can be seen at the Walker Museum.. which I plan to visit when I go to Minneapolis in May.

shake and save

2005-03-22T14:31:00.000-05:00

please save me
check out the image slideshow for little doe-eyed fatness.
Boycott Canadian seafood!

small chunks of happy happy happy

2005-03-22T14:17:00.000-05:00

::We watched a bunch of Bruce Connor in American Independent Film today: Mongoloid, America is Watching, A Movie, Vivian, Take the 5:10 to Dreamland, and Valse Triste. Finally, Ray Carney is coming through on the avant-garde tip. Too bad he never looks at me during class--I actually have things to say now, damn it!

::Drew Daniel's Musique Concrete Smash Hits.

::The Korsakow System. Apparently lets you do real-time image manipulation stuff... I'm in the computer lab so I can't test it out right now, but hey, it's a free download...

SEHR HOT!

2005-03-22T13:57:00.000-05:00

My technological illiteracy has kept me from posting, actually I have no good excuse. So, for the first time in my life waiting until the last minute has paid off. This is my Berlinerhaus for the month of April. It is in Kreuzberg am Mitte and there is a great view of the Spree river. I am still in awe (aka. please come visit me)!

windows.

bedroom.

patio.

don't know exactly what this is...

Here are the links to the bio of the guy I am renting from. He is a writer/journalist who is currently in Pakistan. His websites are worth a look.
DER HERR
VOR ENGLISCHSPRACHIG

i cannot make it!

2005-03-21T15:58:00.000-05:00

well, even though i haven't posted in such a long time, i really don't have that much to say.

however, since nicole's getting ready to go home and so is scott, i think i'm jumping on the bandwagon. (basically, i don't want to stay in chicago for 5 days alone...) at least if i go home, i can probably convince my parents to get me some new clothes since all of mine have holes in them...

ethan, i'm sure you probably know about this program, but i thought i'd still point it out. it seems great for you: a mix of theory and practice. technocultural studies at uc davis douglas kahn is head of the program there...pretty hot...

in other news, i found a subletter today! her name is alaina, and she is a second year law student at the university of michigan. her and some other law friend are going to take the place from may 20th through august!!!!! scott and i are going to leave the place furnished, which is so exciting. for once, i'm going to live minimally! (although i might have to keep my multi-region dvd player because of kim's...and maybe my records plater also....shit...) yes, so scott and i are going to spend the summer in new york (we're 99% sure). i'll expect you all to come down and hang out! right now we're trying to make michelle (scott's old roommate) kick out her roommate so we can get scott's old room for the summer. apparently, the guy hates the place, so it seems pretty likely that we'll get it!

bill fay--methane river--oh yeah!

a thousand years of immortality

2005-03-21T12:36:00.000-05:00

a thousand years of immortality
Originally uploaded by theqman.

this picture is of a fantastically useful and not-at-all-gimmicky construction right beside the memorial to all the people who died trying to escape east berlin. think about it when you're over there, jess. immortality for only a few euros!

also, here is some hamster music. i am somewhat suspicious of a hoax, but only because the music sample he's got up there is actually pretty good. (via pitchfork. did you know drew daniel is reviewing tracks for them now?)

I'll just go ahead and take all the pretension out of this blog of pretension

2005-03-18T21:37:00.000-05:00

Road Side America

find a trashy tourist attraction near you..

Anyone in MA want to see the first Maple Syrup in space?

speaking of dominant cultures and tall pointy things

2005-03-18T21:31:00.000-05:00

someone smashed my window, broke into my brand new car last night

2005-03-18T21:05:00.000-05:00

So I got an email with this picture.. taken outside the Barnes and Noble at 7 this morning...

and for some added amusment.. yes, zach, tori is wearing butterfly wings.

Asshat is a fun word to say.

2005-03-18T13:40:00.000-05:00

all hail the conquering cocks

2005-03-18T12:36:00.000-05:00

big pointy
Originally uploaded by theqman.

i'm gonna keep posting photos of berlin until jess leaves. why not?

this one goes up in dedication to last night's drunken conversation with katie and nicole about how dominant societies seem to be the ones who build the best big pointy things. there's a definite continuity from churches getting ridiculously huge up until, oh, say, the 20th century, when we start seeing things like the washington monument, skyscrapers, tv towers, and so on...

prague (as always) is a good example of this all in one city. the two dominant figures of the skyline are the giant st. vitus cathedral in the castle complex up on the hill, and across the river, the massive tv tower finished by the communists in the late 1980s. interestingly, i can't seem to find a picture anywhere where you can see both of them.

in other news: subterranean cinema has pulled the text of amos vogel's film as subversive art. apparently there's going to be a re-release, and vogel requested it be taken down. i can't find a damn bit of information anywhere else about the book being reprinted (internet, you FAIL me today!) but let's cross our fingers, i guess. maybe he's even adding a chapter or two on recent subversive stuff!

parting shot: totally kick-ass art blog. she seems to have a guest poster of late, but scroll down and read the entries from March 13th and 14th. the archives ain't bad either--i found the site when i was googling vito acconci's the red tapes. awesome.

don't be such a kunst.

2005-03-14T16:12:00.000-05:00

i hear a green world
Originally uploaded by theqman.

speaking of bruce nauman... that's roya from my study abroad program and her boyfriend jackson inside a little nauman construction in berlin.

the hamburger bahnhof is awesome. i don't know if i ever stressed to everyone how amazing what we saw there really was. click on the link and read about the freidrich christian flick collection (click the picture then 'collection').

what we weren't quite aware of at the time beyond the level of rumor* was that the whole thing is rather controversial--apparently flick's grandfather was a well-know nazi war criminal. unfortunately the magazine that the museum administration put together to talk about the various issues at hand is all in german (you can read some general info on the site under 'newspaper'), but handy me found a very general BBC article and a much better one on artnet that interviews some artists as well.
in other weird offspring-of-a-notorious-person news, dario argento's daughter asia has a movie showing at the new york underground film festival called The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things; the trailer is worth checking out. she appears to be an experienced actress (judging by the length of her imdb entry); mostly french films and stuff directed by her father (go figure), although she did star opposite vin diesel in XXX! i remember someone very booby slinking around in the adverts but there are always slinky booby people in spy movies i guess. it also looks like this is the seventh thing she's directed, which could of course be a good or a bad omen, depending on how you look at it. whatever. it's got marilyn manson in it. boringpopculturenamecheckingwoohoo!

*actually roya might have known, i'm a dumbass though and just enjoyed the hell out of it.

we are not so complicated.

2005-03-14T14:36:00.000-05:00

i don't know how i never heard this track until now, but all should check out "kick out the chairs" by munk, with assistance from james murphy (of dfa/lcd soundsytem fame). what a banger... i especially like the whomadewho funk remix. download it here. hot damn.

ichi the killer

2005-03-14T14:09:00.000-05:00

Also, Zach, did you see this Bruce Nauman when you went to PS1?

check this girl out... I really like the CO2 machine... of course she went to SAIC..
Sabrina Raaf

these tapes are dedicated to lizzie borden

2005-03-13T14:34:00.000-05:00

oh my fuck, did i ever go on a binge. i wish i could be more interesting, but the list format is the only possible way of conveying the full extent of the whole thing. ergo:

Odd Obsession/Facets:
Super 8 1/2 (1993) -- Bruce LaBruce
Cremaster Pt. 1 (1995) -- Matthew Barney
The Servant (1963) -- Joseph Losey
Alucarda (1975) -- Juan Lopez Moctezuma
House (Hausu) (1977) -- Nobuhiko Obayashi

Video Data Bank:
Baldessari Sings Lewitt (1972) -- John Baldessari
Weather Diary 3, A Rocky Interlude, 500 Millibars to Ecstasy, Return to the House of Pain (1987, 1990, 1989, 1988) -- George Kuchar
Learn Where the Meat Comes From -- Suzanne Lacy
EVOL (1985) -- Tony Oursler
Face Off, The Red Tapes, Water Ways: Four Saliva Studies (1972, 1976, 1971) -- Vito Acconci
Chris Burden (documentary, 1991) -- Peter Kirby
John Cage: Conversations (interview, 1978) -- Artists TV Network
Joe Dimaggio, The Waltons, When I Was A Monster, I Am Crazy and You're Not Wrong (1991, 1996, 1996, 1997) -- Anne McGuire
Imitations of Life (2003) -- Mike Hoolboom
annnnd
Surveying the First Decade, Program 2: Investigations of the Phenomenal World
Black and White Tapes (excerpt, 1972) -- Paul McCarthy
Stamping In The Studio (excerpt, 1968) -- Bruce Nauman
Double Vision (1971) -- Peter Campus
Boomerang (1974) -- Richard Serra
Island Song (1976) -- Charlemagne Palestine
Cycles of 3's and 7's (excerpt, 1976) -- Tony Conrad
The Children's Tapes (1974) -- Terry Fox
Soundings (1979) -- Gary Hill
Lightning (1976) -- Paul and Marlene Kos
Sweet Light (1977) -- Bill Viola

for what it's worth, i did see a fair bit of the city as well, and had a talk with an admissions person at the SAIC.

battle rhymes for battle times

2005-03-07T14:13:00.000-05:00

PART 1.11: BIG FAT HEAD DAY

i don't want it to seem like i'm chronically reading myself into smart people here (see part 4), but i can't help but quoting a bit of that soft pink truth invisible jukebox and noting that it's pretty much the exact same trajectory i've followed over the past, oh, six or seven years. creepy.

"But I will say that between punk rock and academica for me there is a continuity. When I discovered punk rock I was also discovering a set of critical attitudes towards the society around me which was the key to unlock something. When I discovered certain forms of critical theory like psychoanalysis or Situationist-inflected Marxism, these are keys to unlock what's around you, to criticise ideologies, to criticise gender. What's implicit in a lot of punk rock is a critical stance."

see, i've been fooling myself into believing that i'm smarter than everyone else by submersing myself in media that serve to reinforce that belief for a long time now!

ps. drew daniel has a really goofy laugh.

PART 187: ON AN UNDERCOVER COP

a bunch of people who post on internet message boards about letting music completely bitchwhip their entire lives has created a blog wherein said people post, a track at a time, an entire mix cd. they're working on a third right now. i've put together the first two, and goddamn if there aren't some fucking amazing songs. like grace jones getting a bit lost herself in joy division's "she's lost control." dance/funk/disco weirdness. yes.

the entire effect reminds me very much of the four tet "late night tales" mix, although very much off on a different tangent, but nevertheless a very good thing. yes.

and now that i look at the tracklist of that four tet album--i'm missing the last two songs, including one by manitoba! yes.

"myrth: the brakish truth perspective of a sometimes trash collector"

2005-03-07T01:29:00.000-05:00

PART 4: ZING! SPIFF! POW! SPLAT!

hmm. postmodernism totally rips off dada.

"However, there is one difference between the original Dadaists and these particular postmodernists (or “neo-Dadaists”, as Richter would call them). The original Dadaists all believed that modern culture had become empty and insane, and by tuning into this insanity, they themselves might bring about positive change (Richter 1965; Rubin 1967). For many, Dada was characterized as an attempt to transcend “...the world of stale conventions in society to again face the irrational chaos of life and answer to the nothingness of existence” (Rumold 1996: 205). They saw the world as irrational and mad, but believed that this was acceptable, as long as we all realized and accepted this condition (Dachy 1990; Richtor 1965). This may seem arrogant, but at least it was optimistic. Baudrillard and Lyotard do not share such optimism. They believe that something irreplaceable has been lost, and culture has advanced into a state of implosion and/or emptiness from which it cannot escape (Baudrillard 1988; Connor 1989; Lyotard 1984; Kellner 1990; Youngblood 1989). I argue that this pessimism is ultimately rooted in conservatism."

this has always, in my admittedly peripheral contact with the whole issue, kinda driven me insane. i wrote a whole paper on white noise basically complaining about how people insisted on reading at some sort of bleak empty catastrophe scary pomo thingie, which i think totally misses delillo's point, because he recognizes there's no disconnect in history (i mean, think about it for one fucking second--actually, think about that one fucking second. when exactly was it that history ended? how do you actually prove something like that? oh what's the use, i'll probably read something next week that'll totally change my mind...)

PART 2: DEFENDING THE ISLAND OF NUCLEAR CHILDREN

it is totally not fair that books cost so much sometimes.

examples.

Crisis in the Arts: The History of Dada. Stephen C. Foster, ed.
Circles of Confusion. Hollis Frampton.
Andy Warhol's Interview.

the relative inexpensiveness of certain books makes my wallet leak.

examples. (aka "purchased")
Dada: Art and Anti-Art. Hans Richter.
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol.
Writing on Drugs. Sadie Plant. hardcover. 4 bucks. drugs!
The Writings of Marcel Duchamp. The publisher's website is the only place I could find any info but it was enough to sell me.

And the new Mars Volta because boy do I love me my overblown pomposity in fantastically rocking formats. mars volta, i think, is what hair metal might actually be if it were good.

PART 10: IN WHICH ethan TALKS ABOUT PRETTY THINGS HE SAW ONE TIME AND explodes

animation at the harvard film archive was pretty sweet. since this info doesn't seem to be posted online, i run to the rescue:

Masters of Animation: The Dreaming Mind
This evening of masterful animation shorts, curated by VES visiting animator Lorelei Pepi, is pulled from both the Harvard Film Archive and private collections. These films explore one of the prime aesthetics of the animated film: the fantastical imagination that exists beyond conscious reality. Each film goes into a different realm of the unreal yet present, the unseen yet sense, the unconscious yet known, all pulled into a realized manifestation through the animated moment.

La Picolla Russia. Directed by Gianliuigi Toccafondo, Italy 2003, 16mm, color, 17 min.
Pas de Deux. Directed by Norman McLaren, Canada 1967, 35mm, 13 min.
The Trap. Directed by Amy Kravitz, US 1988, 16mm, color, 6 min.
Street of Crocodiles. Directed by the Brothers Quay, UK 1986, color, 20 min.
Rhinoceros. Directed by Jan Lenica, Poland 1963, 35mm, color, 11 min.
Tale of Tales. Directed by Yuri Norstein, USSR 1979, 16mm, color, 29 min.

I will try to be a good boy and write some comments for these later.

i wanna be the donald rumsfeld of the internet

2005-03-06T11:31:00.000-05:00

don't you fear, little brendan, i have many devious ideas for the corruption of your sanity. oh yes.

like, for example, making a list of all the shows that're going off for the rest of the semester! the ones in bold are the one's i'm definitely converging upon, with and despite all my attendant manias.

thu. 7. apr.
(middle east) sole / pedestrian / dosh

tue. 12. apr.
(paradise) m83 / ulrich schnauss

sun. 17. apr.
(middle east) animal collective / ariel pink

thu. 21. apr.
(middle east) melt banana

tue. 26. apr.
(middle east) dizzee rascal

sat. 30. apr.
(mfa) the books

mon. 2. may
(tt's) mice parade / boom bip

tue. 3. may.
(middle east) caribou / junior boys / russian futurists
ALTERNATIVE:
wed. 4. may.
(bowery ballroom, nyc) same lineup, with four tet
OR:
wed. 6. may.
(north six, brooklyn) four tet, prefuse 73, battles, and beans

wed. 6. may.
(tt's) out hud / hella / certainly sir

sun. 8. may.
(middle east) mountain goats

mon. 9. may.
(paradise) autechre

thu. 12. may.
(tt's) stereo total / les georges leningrad

mon. 16. may.
(avalon) gang of four

wed. 18. may.
(tt's) monade (laetitia sadier)

also, beware beheading hoaxes, for in many cases they lead you to dark places like ogrish.com (because you can't resist clicking on the link that says "CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE EXTREMELY GRAPHIC VIDEO") and you end up spending an hour or two watching people get killed and maimed in various different ways.

see, i told you i gots plans.

for nicole:

2005-03-05T18:00:00.000-05:00

a list of requisite activities in minneapolis:

ART:

walker art center: a very very cool modern/contemporary art museum. it's been closed for over a year now, due to rennovation. check it out. it's very exhibit oriented, but they have an amazing permanent collection, which rennovating will add more space for them to show off and brag to all their friends about. collection includes some amazing chuck close pieces, an awesome charles ray, and lots of cool avant garde video installations.

MUSIC:

hymie's records - east lake street, near st. paul: quite possibly my favorite record store of all time. it's a vintage record store specializing in everything, especially jazz, but do not fret. fog's significant other is one of the proprietors. you'll be amazed at what you can dig up here in any possible genre, maybe even genres you've never conceived in your mind. oh yeah they don't sell anything but vinyl.

treehouse records - lyndale avenue, i think lyndale and 26th: if hymie's isn't my favorite record store, this one has to be. great vinyl and compact discs too. you could find a copy of the wire here. mostly an indie rock store, but there's so much more to find.

cheapo records - lake and hennepin: not the greatest ratio of awesome to shitty music, but still cool. more vinyl then you will see in almost any one place at one time. just go dig and have fun. pretty cheap too, as they never pay more than $5 for a record. their selection of new vinyl is pretty amazing too, but much more expensive. i found an original copy of lady soul by aretha franklin at this store for $5.

(optional) let it be records - eleventh st. and nicollet: lots of cool music. a little expensive (no more than boston though). the people that work there tend towards being dicks. awesome music though.

FOOD/COFFEE:

hard times cafe - franklin and university (on university of minnesota west bank): an amazing cooperatively owned diner. open from 6 am to 4 am daily. all food is either vegan or vegetarian. it's what coffehouses should be like. a place you would hang out at everyday were something so cool to exist in boston.

coffetto - lyndale and 15th maybe: my friend rose's favorite coffeehouse, so i'll assume it's good.

muddy waters - across the street from caffetto: i've been to this coffeehouse and it's a nice place to kill some time. hard times is better (truly amazing food. damn it i want some now). this one is easier to get to.

the wedge co-op - lyndale: also on lyndale is a really nice co-op if you need groceries. it's a co-op, i don't know what else to say.

CLOTHES:

savers - east lake street: want to go thrift shopping? it's an urban renewals sized place, but the hipsters haven't taken everything cool yet. the stuff i mine out of this place is incredible.

ragstock - lake and hennepin: the minneapolis equivalent of the garment district or proletariat. a store that re-sells you stuff from thrift stores, but for really cheap. i find some of my favorite button down shirts here. much worth checking out.

IMBIBING/BOWLING:

the bryant lake bowl - lake st. between hennepin and lyndale: a house of the super fun. drinking, bowling with big balls, great food, and comedic theater productions. it's just fun, super fun. has been moving a little to the bougeouis end of the spectrum from (the culturally bougeouis end of the spectrum) of hipters and indie kids. the bowling lanes are old and shitty, but that's why it's fun.

the red dragon - lyndale and 22 perhaps: an asian food restaurant/hipster/dive bar. around the corner from treehouse records and muddy waters. really fucking cheap mix drinks. that is all you need to know.

the c.c. club - lyndale and 26: like the sihoutte of minneapolis. caddy corner to treehouse records. tends towards being a punk rock bar, but they have $6 pitchers of pbr, and that is good.

the turf club - university ave and snelling in st. paul: if you find the time to make it out to st. paul this place is awesome. huge room upstairs, small room downstairs. small room often hosts really cheap jazz nights (around 3 times a week), this isn't your dad's jazz though, this is the avant garde. i have spent too many hours of my time in the twin cities getting wasted here.

okay that's probably more than you will have time to do in a week since you're going to a wedding, but it's a list of my favorite things in minneapolis/st. paul. be sure to pick up a free print copy of the onion. the weekly magazines: pulse and city pages are really good too, so you should pick them up for the cost of free. a lot of these places are in very close vicinity to one another, located in the area called uptown, which includes anything located on lyndale, e. lake (except savers and hymie's they're a bit out of the way), or hennepin. if i hear that you didn't make it to any of these places i will no longer talk to you. e-mail me and i'll give you a bunch of my friend's numbers so you can meet the finest people this side of the blue states. but fear not minnesota is also blue and minneapolis is a city jammed full of raging liberals, yes! finally if you see a listing for a show that includes dosh, go see it he is a beautiful man that makes beautiful music, and plays it beautifully live. beautiful.

terror. horror. drunk.

2005-03-05T15:06:00.000-05:00

last night a vision of pure unadulterated horror visited my mind. i will call this concept "the ethan room". i'm repulsed, and currently contemplating vomiting, but i simply can't wait for this abtraction to be conceived into a living breathing phenomenom. earth and my mind, i pity you both.

1. spring break = sonic mayhem 2. pomposity 3. i know you know.

2005-03-03T22:23:00.000-05:00

1. spring break looks to be a ripe time for sonic mischief. anyone want to acccompany me?
-3/6 edie segwick @ tt's
-3/8 gris gris @ zuzu (free!)
-3/8 menomena @tt's (not free)
-3/9 les georges leningrad @ pa's lounge

2. if you ever want to get a rise go into a dance music store and ask them if they have any breakcore records... so this afternoon i decided i needed to get out of the house after waht seems like weeks of isolation due to sinus infection. i was walking down mass. ave. and i decided to go into the electronic music store just for kicks. a worker there approached me as soon as i walked in and asked me if he could help me with anything, as such i replied, do you have any breakcore stuff? (momentary pause) breakcore!?!? he suddenly yelps out like a cat getting hit by a car. his co worker then informs me they have hardcore electronic stuff, and breaks, which he says are just well "breaks." the condescension shown towards me was an unparalled experience for me in a record store. i should have just asked him if they had the remix of me having sex with his mother, that definitely would have deserved his squeal, and the pompous atmosphere that could literally be cut with a knife.

3. at a far nicer record store i picked up the jubilee soundtrack. it is simply amazing, as i assume all of you know, but i thought i'd remind anyway.

don't take that liquidizer away from me!

2005-02-28T02:12:00.000-05:00

i watched this at the data bak last week--baby got book ...and yes, it's totally serious--straight from a church in cleveland.

also, you all must watch the soft pink truth's kitchen video--fucking brilliant!

check out the guy's website that i work with at the video data bank: uncle woody sullender make sure you go to the reviews section--he got a pretty good review from the wire in the january issue!!! he's on a two week tour right now. he was supposed to pay boston, but i guess the show fell through..

go listen to drew daniel's invisible jukebox. hot kentucky fag! yeah!

sorry.

2005-02-27T15:07:00.000-05:00

i'm apologize for my seemingly inane posts of late. such happens when you refuse to leave your house, let alone your room, or moreover your bed, for an entire weekend.

this is funny though.

inner and outer space

2005-02-25T02:20:00.000-05:00

edie lives

a favor... a song and a dance...

2005-02-23T15:36:00.000-05:00

dear ethan or anyone else to whom it may apply,

do you have/could you download "red hot car" by squarepusher (the version on go plastic, not the live in japan version from do you know squarepusher) for me and email it to me. i got rid of limewire and will never use it again due to its propensity to fuck up my beautiful baby ibook.

in addtion:

on another note everyone should go to dj c's website. he has an amazing breakcore/raga remix of the one gloved "wonder"'s of billy jean, titled billy jungle, in addition to lots of other mp3's posted under the sounds tab. to those at the quite amazing show on friday you should recognize this immediately. it's so nice to finally be finding really cool art/sounds coming from boston. it's almost worth a 3.5 year period of frustration, almost.

god, jr. what to think, what to think...

2005-02-22T00:11:00.000-05:00

well..it had to happen sooner or later...but dennis cooper now has a website. and it's extremely bizarre in a creepy, exploitative way..but still very much cooper-esque.

read about the japanese "period" cult in the news/calendar section. get lots of links to violent gay porns site in "the sluts" section under "enter the world of 'the sluts'." in the george miles cycle section, read about the guy who dennis cooper's been writing about for the past 10 years--and even see photos of the guy when he was a kid. check out conference photos of dennis cooper with celebs like john waters, stephen malkmus, and thurston moore. also, examine the dennis cooper papers at nyu.

these guys are great: my cat is an alien

the past few days, i've been enjoying perusing the books of atlas press and
serpent's tail.

on my list of things to do in la: the museum of jurassic technology

i've been listening to haco a lot lately. her stereo bugscope 00 is solid.

the tate modern has started an awesome on-line event on audio art there are downloads, essays, and an online forum discussing "the politics of sound / the culture of exchange" with douglas kahn and others. fun, fun!!

i live within walking distance to a hookah lounge. i'm addicted!!!!

i love you... you love me?

2005-02-20T12:45:00.000-05:00

here's a wonderful link (which i cherrypicked from rupture's blog). yeah i don't have any cool links of my own... but in this postmodern internet world it's all about the recontextualization and reappropriation right? love!

church of the transgendered

2005-02-19T13:23:00.000-05:00

so it went to this place called 3030 last night. dewayne, the girl i work with from jp (who apparently is a guy but is now a girl but people at work say both he and she when referring to her/him so confusing), told me about this show called marriage and flight. the venue is kinda in the middle of nowhere and it's a converted church.
so once we find it..of course it's not labled..we go in and the show's not ready. people tell us to hang out "downstairs." we go downstairs and it's like someone's apartment and all these people are hanging out that know each other and then there is scott and i. i thought it was pretty funny.
once we could go upstairs it was pretty cool--everyone sat in pews. there were tons of hardcore dykes and all these men with boobs!
one of my bosses from the data bank showed up--with her girlfriend! that was really entertaining! scott and i brought a 6 pack so i was trying to talk to her but i was drunk that i just kept laughing...
whenever anyone comes to visit, we're definitely going to this place!

as for the hidden cameras, the show was awesome! shows in chicago go sooooo late--it didn't end until 1:45! joel kept on talking about how much he loves chicago and how it's just like canada. i really wanted to go up to him and say--please show me the parts of the city that are like canada because i must be really missing out on something! their van got broken into right before the show, so they had some equipment stolen.

scott's on a harvard kick right now because i guess he heard that saic has such a good name that a lot of the undergrad architecture majors get into harvard for grad school. i told him i'd have to kill him if he was in boston and i wasn't. if i can't eat a fucking anna's burrito then that bastard can't either!

last night was the first time i rode my bike in chicago. it was lots of fun--and easy because it's so flat!

is anyone familiar with kaffe matthews?? on her website, you can read the wire interview with her. i like her sound a lot.

don't touch me; i am electric!

2005-02-18T21:12:00.000-05:00

Thank fuck Zach figured out hyperlinks! Dude--these Wire radio shows are fucking great. I've gotta start listening to Resonance on a regular basis again. And WZBC as well, although unfortunately all my friends' shows are during my classes. I can't believe you didn't like El Topo; I must convert you to the cult of Jodorowsky. Perhaps Holy Mountain will do it (I'm probably gonna break down and order the DVD soon). I'm told it's much crazier.

So, I just finished my Teach for America application. Yeah, I know. Shut up. I have no real expectations from the whole thing. I'm thinking of interning at Cambridge Community Television (which is actually more of a co-op sort of thing where I work for a few hours a week and get access to all their facilities in return, but whatever). Nicole had better get a job there so she can be my boss. Invasion of the avant-garde! (Hey, we can get a show where we sit our dumb asses in front of a camera and have endless stoned discussions about whether or not non-narrative film exists! That's community television, right?)

I think I've linked this in an obtuse manner awhile back, but the jahsonic blog is fucking killer. Recent topics: transgressional fiction (including a special post for Dennis Cooper), Drugs (and our right to them), and an entry on this 18th century artist named Piranesi whose stuff is very bizarre (for the time). I dig this jahsonic dude's style, as well--no long winded explanations of what this and that mean to him, just links, pictures, and short descriptive blurbs. And fuck, what taste! The rest of the site is worth investigating as well.

Hot fuck, we've watched some fantastic shit in Avant-Garde, and I'm a jerk for not talking about it. Here's a list, with some notes for the truly exceptional stuff.

Week 1: Introduction to Ways of Seeing and Structural Film

The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes -- Stan Brakhage
This is on the DVD, but it's pretty damn good. I mean, it's Brakhage let loose in an autopsy room. FUN!

Morning, Serene Velocity, and Eureka -- Ernie Gehr
Serene Velocity is intense; basically it examines the zoom lens; starting in the middle, it flicks back and forth* four frames at a time, along all the different settings of the lens, from a fixed camera position looking down a long institutional (i.e. school) hallway. So gradually the difference between alternations gets bigger and bigger. Trippy. Eureka reappropriates a 1905 single-take film shot from the front of a trolley on Market St. in San Francisco, rephotographing it and slowing it way down. A bit tedious--er, excuse me, "meditative"--but interesting.

Remedial Reading Comprehension, What's Wrong With This Picture? and Thank You Jesus for the Eternal Present -- George Landow
Landow's films are sort of hard to describe. It's a weird blend of found footage and optical printing, very focused on making you think about how film is manipulative. It's structural, but not rigid like Gehr's stuff. A bit more organic, with some social commentary instead of sorta dry investigation of the cinema apparatus.

Week 2/3: Hollis Frampton

From the Hapax Legomena cycle (I, II, III, IV, V, VII): Nostalgia, Poetic Justice, Critical Mass, Travelling Matte, Ordinary Matter, Special Effects
Here's a quick bit from Fred Camper, to save myself the trouble. I would add that Nostalgia is a series of photographs placed on a hot plate and burned. The narration corresponds to the next photo to be shown, and is narrated by Michael Snow. Travelling Matte is filmed on video and consists of Frampton holding his hand in front of the lens, letting only a tiny circle of light through. Conceptually interesting, but also really freakin' long. Whatever. Special Effects is great; the only image is a dotted white box on a black background that vibrates around while a sci-fi synthesizer goes batshit on the audio track. It's actually very funny.

Frampton's writing is pretty brilliant as well... seek out "A Pentagram for Conjuring the Narrative" and "A Lecture". Actually, I can email the .pdf to y'all if you want it. A used copy of his book, Circles of Confusion, goes for about, oh, $250 bucks, so short of the library...

Week 4: Diverse Experimental Approaches

Blues, Corn, Fog Line -- Larry Gottheim
A bit like Warhol's stuff, except without people, and in color. Single long takes, observing changes in a bowl of blueberries in cream, some corn, and a foggy landscape.

Highway Landscape, Science Fiction, Print Generation, Sky Blue Water Light Sign -- J. J. Murphy
The others are interesting in their own right, but Print Generation is fucking great; basically Murphy took a one minute diary-ish film composed of one-second shots and had a whole mess of contact prints made, each one from the next, until all the emulsion was essentially gone. Then he structured the film so that it starts out completely abstract, then images slowly reveal themselves, then the loops fade back into abstraction. He used the same process with the sound (a la Alvin Lucier), recording and re-recording ocean noises and playing them unaltered during the abstract parts, then fading into distortion, then returning to regular mimetic sound at the end. I love this process idea, here and in other works, and the whole thing is just a beautiful experience (it's fifty minutes long).

Table Top Dolly [Breakfast] -- Michael Snow
Exactly what the title says: a long table covered with breakfast goods, which the camera dollies in on. As it moves forward, it pushes everything on the table ahead of it, eventually compacting it all at the end of the table. Another brilliantly simple idea--as the camera "eats" breakfast, it also compresses the original space into two dimensions, flattening the image like a photograph. It's creepy to watch all the products dance around on their own as the camera pushes them, as well.

The Lighted Field -- Andrew Noren
Examines light (duh). We didn't get to watch it all.

We watched some great stuff (Pat O'Neill, Bill Brand) this past week as well, but I'm gonna hold off on posting about it.

Audio:
Boom Bip + Dose One -- Circle
The Soft Pink Truth -- Do You Want New Wave Or Do You Want The Soft Pink Truth?
Christian Marclay -- djTRIO
cLOUDDEAD -- cLOUDDEAD
Excepter -- KA
Jan Jelinek -- Improvisations and Edits: Tokyo, 09/26/2001
Mouse on Mars -- Radical Connector
Psychic TV -- Themes
DJ Rupture -- Special Gunpowder
Morricone -- L'Uccello Dalle Piume Di Cristallo
Tarwater -- Silur
Les Georges Leningrad -- Deux Hot Dogs Moutade Chou

* As I typed "back and forth," Dose One said it on the third song of Circle ("Dead Man's Teal") by him and Boom Bip. Life is weird sometimes.

"Expanded Cinema"

2005-02-17T20:08:00.000-05:00

Thanks Zach! I totally just bought that book off of half.com this morning. hahaha, oh well. FYI you can get a used copy of it for as cheap as 5 dollars! I think you can also find Film as a Subversive Art there and other out of print books for really cheap.

"expanded cinema"

2005-02-17T18:54:00.000-05:00

read the whole book here
it's out of print and recommended by the data bank.

so, today i became in charge of the george kuchar mastering project. the data bank has every video he's made (tons and tons)..i am updating the masters to beta and watching them all to check for any problems. i'm starting out with this special collection that is going to be a 5 dvd set curated by steve reinke. you all would love kuchar's work--it's really difficult to explain: the easy way out is to say campy diary videos..but it's so much more--and not at the same time. if you can find any, rent them!! check krasker!

ethan, nicole - in case either of you do make it to la, i've booked an information session and tour of calarts on the morning of march 7th. right now it's just maureen and i going, but of course it would be great if you're in la to come with us.

the hidden cameras are tonight! (i guess i was wrong about a boston show in the near future, must have gotten it mixed up with something else.)

miss you guys!!!!

The Houseguest and My Mother

2005-02-17T17:29:00.001-05:00

Okay, so, more stuff to write about in this The Blog of Pretension.

I’ve been reading some stuff about the development of multi-media art and the name Jeffrey Shaw keeps coming up. I can’t remember ever studying his work (although I can’t imagine that I haven’t). So I did some reading about him and have slowly become obsessed his early stuff.

(If you know about this.. you can just skip the next 3 paragraphs.)

He did this series of works called Artificial Landscapes. In one piece he hung this giant cloud like structure outside the museum at night. He projected footage of the day sky on it and had smoke and amplified sounds of thunder and wind happening at the same time.

This was an extension of some earlier stuff he did with air structures and projection. He wanted to create “Cinematic environments” that were outdoors. He’d create these transparent domes and had people do different things to them and in them. People would perform inside them causing the part of the projection that was visible to constantly change. Then, for example, they’d spray the interior with a fire extinguisher and the projected image would appear and disappear as the foam dripped down the sides. They’d fill them with things like smoke, steam, water spray, confetti, etc to bring the image back.

I mostly like his early stuff, up to the mid 70’s, because I’m getting all into sculpture right now. He’s still doing work. I believe he works with computer graphics and virtual environments now. Some of it is interesting. He has a self-portrait piece that I think you’d find interesting, Zach.

anyway...

As for Christo’s gates in NY… they were cool looking and I definitely enjoyed wandering around in them when we were in the section that didn’t have a billion tourists. I must say, though, that I think it’s my least favorite of his works. My favorite being what he did in Northern, CA pictured here which, if we’re talking on a purely aesthetic level, is far more interesting. It also reminds me a lot of this piece we read about in Art History last summer, Spiral Jetty.

In other news..uh…I have no other news. I’m making a hideous website for the DFA people and spending a lot of time wishing I was here. I’m alternating between making a pair of giant lungs and building a structure that looks like this: its like a porcupine but with light.

I’ll shut up now. I Hope you’ve all enjoyed this journey into “What usesless things is Nicole doing with all her free time now that she’s a hermit without a real job.”

Oh I almost forgot. This poor child is going to be so traumatized when he/she gets older. But hey, it made me laugh…
Crazy Baby.

That’s all.