Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Dissectionist At Home






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It's coming for all of us.





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But before it gets here, look at these cool trains I have.





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Maybe that's what it's all about.


I remember this poem that a friend of mine I used to know wrote. John Hughes, you still out there?


Anyway, in this poem it was all these people flying in space, falling or being pulled into the sun, where they were consumed. And there was this big, black book and the thing was that each person would scribble something into it as they were falling into the sun, and just before they burst into flames they would huck the book back behind them to the person just a little farther out, who would grab it and begin their own furious scribbling.

As the heat built and the edges of the page began to blacken.

Then they'd throw it back, to a never ending line of folks headed for their destruction.


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Maybe it wasn't the best poem, but it stuck with me.



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Earlier this week I had the uncomfortable experience of seeing myself through the eyes of someone else, someone who kind of knows me, has worked with me, and....wow.

I did not at all like the person they saw in me.


It kind of rocked me back on my heels.



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I mean, I know I'm an asshole and all....but still.



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The thing is, that's who I am to that person. That's who I am to a lot of people, apparently.

It has its own kind of reality to it.



It isn't imaginary.



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Ah, well, joke 'em if they can't take a fuck.


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Namaste.



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Sunday, April 17, 2011

Crossing The Channel




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It's all uncharted waters.



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Last night we watched Marwencol. I cried like a baby watching it. In a good way, I think. This movie was all about fear and art. Mark Hogancamp got his shit stacked by a bunch of thugs that didn't like that he was a cross-dresser. He was so badly beaten that he spent forty days in the hospital, nine of them in a coma, and he suffered permanent brain damage.

He lost all memory of his life before the attack.


He started playing with GI Joes and barbie dolls, and created a fictional town for them, Marwencol, which he set in WWII. The main character is Mark, and he interacts with this town full of beatiful, dangerous women, all of whom love and protect him. Nazi soldiers are a constant menace to Mark and the women, and their lives swing back and forth between triumph and tragedy.

Mark built the whole town to scale in his yard and then spent all his time photographing the story. The film follows him through his attack, his creation of Marwencol, his loneliness and sadness and deep, gripping fear, his discovery by the filmmaker, and the opening of his show in New York.


Fucking beautiful, is what.


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Fear.

Art.

Love.

Food.

Sex.


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Engage in each, I suppose.



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PS- This sonofabitch can flat write. It will maim you to read him.




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Namaste.



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Saturday, April 16, 2011

Tasty Salted Pig Parts







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When you absolutely cannot stand it anymore,
get thee to The City.




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we made our escape yesterday. what did we do.

bhan mi and grilled eggplant with cherry blossom rice at Pho 69 in San Jose.

ketel one martinis and oysters on the half-shell at The Slanted Door in the Ferry Terminal.

a goddamn snow-cone full of salted pork products from Boccalone. Seriously, three bucks for a paper cup full of brown sugar and fennel salami, coppacolla, and soppresata.

A cheese plate from the Cow-girl Creamery with cheeses, almonds, dates, crusty dark bread, arugula.

lemon-grass pork with vermicelli from the Back Door.

sushi rolls from the japanese deli.

chocolate bar and vodka from the corner liquor store.

art to murder us at the DeYoung Museum.

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and etc.


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whatever is taken from us, we yet lay claim to this kind of pleasure.


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nor will we be dissuaded from it.



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it is enough to renew our parched souls.



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enough and more.




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Namaste.




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Monday, April 11, 2011

Falleni Sits For His Portrait





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I do not care for perfection.




I love the odd and disfigured.






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Good thing, too.







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Lately whenever I am frustrated or despairing of human activity I picture us all as a big, unruly troop of chimpanzees.


It really helps.




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Namaste.



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Saturday, April 09, 2011

She Wasn't Sorry For It






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The Buddhists say we all take turns, being one kind of thing and then another. They seem to have a lot of good ideas about how to break down the intricate, high walls our ego erects around the little button of our soul, trying in vain to protect it.


The Buddhists would say there is nothing to protect, and nothing to be protected from.


I yet reserve judgement on this.


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After several months of hopeful, if incremental, progress, the Wild Woman of Borneo has gone off the reservation.


Whereabouts unknown.


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Maybe it only seems like utter destruction. From this vantage point it's hard to tell. Of course, by the time we figure it out, we'll all have been swept so far downstream that the knowledge of whether some past event was what it seemed like it was back when it happened will be of small comfort either way.


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There is all kinds of destruction afoot. Women swinging axes at the foundations, monkeys with fire poker peg-legs crying doom, dog-bite curs underfoot, embers and soot in the air all around. Just because the devil is urging them on doesn't mean what they're doing is all bad, right?


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Just making room for the new.



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It could be that I am the most fearful little boy there ever was.



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Namaste.



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Sunday, April 03, 2011

American Crocodile




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"And heaven, heaven is a place, 
a place where nothing,
nothing ever happens."

                             David Byrne, The Talking Heads



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Sometimes I think it's gone forever.




But then an image like this comes into being.




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I feel so lucky to have Photoshop. It gives me the ability to create what my soul hungers for in a way that I just can't do in any other medium. I need the strangeness I can create by juxtaposition of disparate imagery, and more than that I need the photographic realism of the image so it tells my eyes and my heart that what is being seen is no longer only imaginary. I need the ability to layer and grunge with organic detritus from the real world to give the image depth and coherence. I need the ability to transfigure light so the image reads as real to the engineer in my brain, the one who interprets space and depth and locality.

It is a way to give my dark soul voice in this world, and for it I will forever be grateful.


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I continue in my faults unabated.




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Namaste.



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Saturday, April 02, 2011

Paella Redux



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Last night we had friends over for dinner, a rare event here. We had a hell of a nice time at it, we really did. Both of us usually dread social engagements just a bit more than dental surgery, but last night was a real pleasure.


I tried my hand at paella. Chiringuito seafood paella from a recipe in the LA times. 


All that seafoody goodness: calamari and clams, Argentine red shrimp, thick, flaky cod, a couple of andouille sausages for good measure, and then all cooked up in a big pan with saffron-infused arborio rice. And here was the kicker for me- garlicky allioli to top it off and lend its creamy richness to an already rich meal. Add a mixed green salad of pickled onions, pomegranate seeds, feta cheese, balsalmic vinaigrette. Add crusty seeded baguette. Add Ezra's asparagus (WOOT! Thanks, dude! That stuff rocks.) Add a couple of good bottles of lusty, over-the-top reds. Add good conversation, real conversation, with good friends.

Add watching Lucy jump up on the coffee table and eat the cheese plate.

"Believe what you like. I'm taking the fifth."


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Bliss.



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So, the picture at the top is not how it looked last night. The picture at the top is how it looked for brunch this morning.




Fuck me running, it were good.


All that seafood and garlic and the fresh, sharp bite of the pickled onions and cucumbers, the crusty bread, and hot, dark coffee and a whole day of nothing else ahead of us but lounging around watching Netflix and napping out in the studio?














Weekend Plans







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Well, it just doesn't get any better.




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Namaste.




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