jeffwall

hi. got this jeff wall book today @ the libes.
i like jeff wall. more specifically i like this early photograph-
Picture for Women. 1979.

I could stare at this for a while, well i DID stare at this for a while. and now i'm going to immortalize it on this blog that i am sort of starting to take seriously.
it looks like since November 2007, according to my rate of postings, i've started a steady relationship with this blog. i have always thought of it as more of a trash bin. but i'm changing my tune.

of note pt. 2

subhankar banerjee's stuff is so sick i don't even know where to start. i've seen it before, but it strikes a chord with me now.

annika

slowly taking notes for the crucial nyc to-do list. which is a feat in-and-of itself, as i haven't felt this resourceful about sucking manhattan, since 1998. i'm not kidding you here. i'm really not.

sf doings on -
+yo yo yo hi-def cam live view city by bay.
+what up wit da photographers having funny names.
+in nyc i had a secret desire to be a quiet lounge singer, similar to the caliber of annie hall. the vision specifically: after work, go to your bar, put your breifcase down, stand in front of 8 men, sing "wouldn't it be nice", receive a few claps, and maybe someone would clear their throat. here in sf, that same vision exists - only the desire has switched to burlesque dancing. seems like a logical switch. it happened the day i moved, and has only increased since.
+2 of my fave movies on big screen this wknd: big l @ red vic & raging bull @ the castro. don't you just wanna see that blonde get mad and cry and croon on the big screen?
+elf power show friday w/ audrey.
+saturday is finally finally your chance to go try to get into one of cobrasnakes frames. he will be here with his poplovedj dim mak. 103 harriet.
+headlands on sunday open house. major cool because will oldham is now in residency.
+fashion: fedoras. it occured to me on sunday, that here in california, the baseball cap has been replaced by the fedora. few men can pull this off, but those who do - can simply rip out my heart, and sew it, still beating, to their tight bicep sleeves.

where the children play

today was "stripe tuesday".

i know i know. i didn't get the memo either.


in washington dc, the children play on the bronze einstein.
in new york they play on the welded jungle gym.
here in california, the children play on the gnarled tree.



conversation with emmett on the way to the pizza joint.
e: anise? what is the tallest tree in the world?
a: the redwood. and guess what?! they live here in california.
e: lets go see them!!
a: OK emmitt. i will point out the next redwood i see.

and then about 5 minutes later (we were in mill valley) i pointed out some redwoods to the kids. they stopped in their little tracks, took a minute, looked up, and exclaimed "wow".



its this type of stuff that actually makes me feel GUILTY for taking money at the end of the night.
its this kind of stuff that centers me, calms me down.
some people try yoga.
some people ring gongs.
some people listen to electronica while sipping on a pacifier while tripping on acid.
i've found that hanging out with these simple, pure minds, can be pretty nice.

annoying spider.

close my eyes close my eyes close my eyes close my eyes close my eyes close my eyes.

its still there.

shit.

otherside

who wants to admit they lay around snuggling with the dog while listening to townes van zandt live at the old quarter houston texas, on a beautiful sunny saturday afternoon?

the first song t.van zandt learned to fingerpick was "cocaine blues".

waiting until the sun god-damn sets.

those wild night owls.

hoot

hoot hoot hoot who.

those wild night owl friends of yours. you keep them on the back burner. they aren't people to share with other people. they always have a joint. they roll their own cigarettes. they always open the door for you.

they can be kind of loud. around them, you are the quiet one. cuz when you go through these fits where you need those wild night owl friends - for the most part, you've got nothing to say. they introduce you as "doesn't have much to say, but man she's golden."

and you just kind of just smile. and you just kind of get silently drunk. and just kind of stay drunk. and just kind of stay stoned.

thinking about how she mothers you. and he hardens you. and they spend too much. and the guy over there is being too obnoxious. oh who is that in the corner. maybe its another person who spent money on themselves to only go home and listen to townes van zandt. and there you both are. pretty post townes van zandt.

in his pocket is your next drink.

who wants to raise their lazy spent hands and claim.

lyrics

To be alone with you by sufjan stevens

I'd swim across Lake Michigan
I'd sell my shoes
I'd give my body to be back again
In the rest of the room
To be alone with you
To be alone with you
To be alone with you
To be alone with you

You gave your body to the lonely
They took your clothes
You gave up a wife and a family
You gave your ghost
To be alone with me
To be alone with me
To be alone with me
You went up on a tree

To be alone with me
You went up on a tree

I've never known a man who loved me

of note

nirvana
2nd balcony
on cv's
zachary
magic happens!
mantra
kites

1/2 way through.

as i read about experiences during unemployment, and hear their stories. the same underlying theme remains.
their eyes get wistful. their backs straightens. they look you in the eyes. or their blogs get direct. and they have the same message "live it up".
like a gym teacher talking to you after class, telling you high school will be the best time of your life.
like your mom telling you to take a ton of pictures while you are in new york.
like the mormons telling you to keep a journal for family history.

unemployment is a part of life that people look back on - relish. relishing the time. jealous. jealousing the time. doling out advice. not spending money. you have no wants when you have nothing. you appreciate libraries. you have the time for libraries. you appreciate coffee houses. you have the time for coffee houses. you appreciate walks. you take your time. you can go a few days with no shower. you can shower 4 times a day. you can go weeks without makeup. you can spend an afternoon at the MAC counter making friends with the make-up girls.

i'm halfway through my unemployment. and i am already starting to look back wistfully at the months gone by. i've set up a business, learned how to make sourdough bread, paid all my bills, stopped taking the happy drugs.

a reprogramming of the essence of life sets in. a reprogramming.
sure. i wonder while i ride the bike "what will i do when i cant spend 2 hours a day riding my bike?" but its this reprogramming that takes over and calms me - making me answer that question with "it will all work out."

hartfistory

there are a few things that i like fat.

babies
cats
motherwells.


i find it funny that for a woman who's entire career is based off of self portraits, she doesn't have a picture on wikipedia. ha.

the girls at my old office in nyc would have loved the fact that cindy sherman didn't leave her ny apt. for the first few months she lived there. why? she was scared of the cat-calling. the girls at my office used to come over to my desk and compare stories of the cat-calls they received on the way to work. i used to take certain routes in the morning just to avoid the calls. after moving to sf, i actually MISSED the calls. here, the calls only come from the animal immigrants. so i am back to hating them. in italy the cat-calling is so absolutely unbearable that anna and i used to spit at them and call them cockroaches. southern italy might as well be egypt, might as well be jerusalem, might as well be kabul. its all the same once you go south of rome.
cindy sherman, after her success, did a bunch of photos of grotesque images as a backlash. she simply said "i wanted to make art that no one would buy." in a way "how dare they think my art is cute enough to hang in their living rooms? i'd like to see them hang this huge bleeding cunt above the mantle". and of course someone bought it. i mean, its cindy sherman. of this, robert longo said "she seemed rather upset during this period. i find it to be her strongest sense of work."

instead of putting cindy's cunt up here, i'll put one of my favorite longo's. will the skinny tie ever not be hot?

wow. there is more computing power in your cell phones than what was in the first apollo mission to the moon. -60 minutes.

muxtape

if you want to spend a few hours listening to new music for free - check out muxtape.com.
my account (nothing is new or spectacular there yet) is hellodeer.muxtape.com of course.

check back from time to time in the event that i want to blow your ears off.

1st thursday.

god so many things happened today. i discovered a new pizza place at the thursday mkt that makes pizza just like napoli. thank god. but i wasn't hungry. thank god. so i got a strawberry lemonade - thank god. i've NEVER had a strawberry lemonade that amazing. it was like pounding 18 stawberries with a hint of lemon.

tonight was "first thursday of the month" which means that artbusiness.com needs all the feet he can get to cover the galleries. "he" is alan. there are a couple of pay-to-plays, but for the most part there were some pretty solid shows. my favorite one was photos of a guy taking pictures of kids who ride the trains. maybe i like it because of paranoid park last night. or maybe i just like it. and then i liked the crowd at the michael kenna show. but the art was hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

so 49 geary is a cool new thing i've discovered. i know i'm on to something cool if i am annoyed but enlightened by the painful beautiful hipsters and ugly artists and overstuffed adults and spectacle wearing men and sleek women. i saw 3 women today my age - just fuckign dressed to the 9.5's. i mean - we checked each other out - and i almost said "can we be friends".

oh yeah oh yeah - i saw that annoying hipster girl from flickr that i used to crush on. she was SO ANNOYING. with her new boyfriend and her hipster friend. it was so great to finally see her out in the open, and see the real deal. blaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

in the car on the way home, i thought about how i miss getting checked for lice. i want to see one of those long sticks with a cotton swab on the end. and for the school nurse to interrupt 4th period social studies, so she can quietly go around the room and lift up quarters of our hair with her cotton swab stick. and then put the used stick in the white paper bag she carries with her.
and then it finally dawned on me! i finally have a fetish! i've been wanting a fetish. i've been thinking about fetishes - but none of them really struck a chord. so i think i'm going to own the "check me for lice" fetish.
its either that, or cleaning ears. i like it when i get my ears cleaned with hydrogen peroxide. have you ever done that? its like pop! fizz! in your ear. its chilling and then it turns warm, etc. all teh while cleaning your ears. the only thing is, i don't really want to own that as a fetish because well, my mom was the only one who used to clean my ears. so i dunno, i see that as a maternal thing - i guess i'll stick with being checked for lice.



i can't wait to see the photos from tonight. i really got ballsy on some shots. but then i worry there was no film in my camera. its an ongoing worry - like the common worry of being naked in front of an audience.

i started my bike ride today crying. who knows why. its just one of those things. i mean, i know why i was crying. i'm just saying - who knows why it struck on the bike. i didnt' want to bike. i'm so tired of biking! but i have to bike. i have to do SOMETHING. so i biked to whole foods and got a shot of wheatgrass. talked to the guy cutting mangos. told him my current problem. he didn't really understand me. he hardly spoke english. but it felt good to tell someone. so he cut me a large slice of mango, and i got back on the bike.

today's highlight - actually it should have been the start of this very post - was that i registered my business with the county of marin. the state of california. the fictitious company name is registered. the business is official. i can now pay for things and say "its on the company" or say "i can write it off as a business expense" which is really cool to me.

speaking of gov. i guess barack obama is a phoney. i can see it in the art kids eyes too. all those little art kids have stopped talking about the election, and taken off their obama pins, and they just have that vacant look again. the "OH WELL" deal. and then on npr they were talking about bear sterns and then a depression and then terry gross asked "so where is all the money?" and dude didn't even answer the question. he answered the question saying people are at their desks making bets all day. i just don't get it. even i feel the "OH WELL" coming on. i promised myself i would vote though.

in a jar

i want to somehow - SOMEHOW - put the first 15 minutes of paranoid park in a jar and keep it on my desk so i can listen and watch it whenever i want.
what was up with that soundtrack? gosh. what it must be like to live in quiet portland, and work with g.van s. quiet, ugly portland. with brilliant, gay g. van sant. i just can't imagine what it must be like. just another pocket of america i guess.

the part at the hot-tub where the boy licks/kisses his knee. we've all done that. didn't that hit you in the gut? or maybe the nose? or maybe it made you stick your pinky finger in your ear and then smell the wax?

the whole thing was such a package. but the first captivating jaw-dropping 15 minutes really are what made me actually say the word "brilliant" in the theatre of 8 people.
and it was funny? it was like, laugh out loud funny? but yeah, the first 15 minutes were a deal-breaker for me.

the beach scene was so oregon - like hits your gut oregon. what a gorgeous state.

wow. the today show has this spunky woman on, talking about 7 ways to boost your marriage.

she just suggested getting an adrenaline rush with your spouse. ie: jumping out of an airplane. apparently it brings you together.

then another thing is ditch the sweats at home. pretend for one day a month that you are having an affair with your husband.

then another thing (and i find this interesting) is to go for a walk at least once a week. men tend to open up when they are not facing you. when they are walking around or driving around. it is apparently easier for them to tell you how they feel.
i've heard this before. and its interesting to me. i forgot about it though, so thought i should write it down.

i want to be an even, equal spouse. i want to be a rock. but one that is easily moved. not something like this:


anyway, about the driving. dan and i were driving for 4 hours one time. it was a nice quiet drive. we played steve miller band and talked about sailing. after the drive, we were at our destination, and just when i thought this person had enough of me, he proceeds to make us some dinner, and tell me that his mom has cancer. his dad is already dead of cancer, so this was kind of upsetting. all i could say was "wow. we just spent 4 hours in a car together and you never said anything".

what kind of response is that? women expect our minds to be read. women are just terrible sometimes. after realizing that my response was so lame and selfish, i sat down and asked him questions and then just shut up and listened.

30 to 20 to 10 to 0

was march not the longest month ever? geesh. and its not even over yet.

beginning my 30's has made me think more insightfully about my childhood. ??? i read these things we all write - we are all starting our 30's - we have enough knowledge at this point to know that its going to fly by. so we are all writing about what?

our childhoods. our formers. our pasts.

childhood contains 20's too. i mean, during my 20's i said things like "oh who cares. we are just kids." we were just kids. i said that mostly because the older influences in my life were calling me a kid. so it made sense. "oh. i AM a kid"

but i stopped saying that.

now. lets work this out. why are we all writing so profusely about our days past?

maybe because at this point the idea of "dreaming" has been slightly crushed. we are more realistic. we are grounded - in a mud we don't really love, but grounded none the less. so writing about a time in our life when anything was possible - is sort of like a soothsayer. a pot of good coffee. a trip to the grand canyon.

or maybe its because we finally have something to write about. finally. now that i am older, i sort of roll my eyes if i hear someone getting published before 30. i think "oh what a spoiled brat. who'd they get to fund? daddy?" the 20's now seem so flakey and tired and boring and electronic. but its no different than what a 30 year old would have said about me during my 20's.

so everything is right with the world.

art fair

in sf, they call these things (or at least alan calls them) "pay to play".

video of the art fairs in nyc right now.
this girl totally bugs me. i'm sure she's super annoying at parties in williamsburg, but i'm sure her hairdresser thinks she's mag.

can we start saying mag for magnificent?

its so mag. mag. or maybe pronounced with the same g from the word magic. mag. wow. thats stel. for stellar.

ok. thats going overboard. ovrbrd.

hey - don't you think michael musto is mag in that video? he makes me really hate art along side him. yah know? i sent him an email in the 90's once. and he wrote me back. i wonder if i still have that? dowt it.

hey - today i was stopped out in the open wild of the wild, and asked to put a leash on my dog. the woman said "your dog hasn't been on a leash since its been out here." i wanted so say "neither have you". but i didn't, and put the leash on the dog.

hey - i wanna keep art alive in twenty-five. met a guy named theron today at the farmers mkt. he was wearing flowers in his hair, so i stopped him for a picture. he gave me his business card which is a picture of him with flowers in his hair, with his phone number written on the back. so we are going to do a photo shoot of him with flowers in his hair. sure. why not.

hey - he's got those santa cruz eyes. well they all have those eyes when they are part animal.

hey - still flirting with the coffee boy. its stage 1 crush right now. it started when he flipped up his shades 2 ago, to check me and smile. so i thought "hm". and then it entered stage 1, when i thought about him while getting dressed this morning. and then all the way to his booth, and then while i asked for a small coffee. and then when he smiled. and then. and then. and then. i pushed moka java. got soy. he watched. i wonder what it means to him when a girl gets soy.

hey - one left without asking. one asked and then left. and now i'm back to making flyers.


i wanna shove this shopping cart down my throat.

i gotta go get the potatoes out of the ovn.

april screensaver

april's screensaver is going to be beautiful ryan mcginley. he is an inspiration to me, and he is gorgeous. he just had a baby that he named jade, with a girl named secret.
so basically while i'm waiting for programs to load, or files to send, i can channel the artist. and he's my age! doesn't he look so fresh? for 30? its cuz he's rad. his current show is here.



photo is by skullset of course. i mean seriously - i'll never be this cool to chill with ryan mc g.