At the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden:
Nam June Paik, Video Flag, 1985-1996
Mindy Shapero, The Infinite Truths of Flatterland (inside the black thing there remains everything, perpetually without motion), 2006
Juan Munoz, Last Conversation Piece, 1994-1995
Dan Steinhilber, Untitled, 2002, (paper-clad wire hangers)
At the National Air and Space Museum:
At the National Museum of Natural History:
our travels visualized on TravellersPoint.com
In seven weeks, we'll be in Turku, Finland, working on our next video project. Five weeks from now, we'll be Kökar, on the Åland archipelago, filming. Four weeks from now, we'll be exploring Hamburg with Murray's sister. In three weeks, it'll be Berlin.
Two weeks from now, I'll be in New Orleans on the 4th day of a cross-country road trip with a good friend and her three-year-old, en route from Providence to deliver the dog to my generous parents, who offered to keep him for the summer while Murray and I are in Europe.
In the span of the next seven weeks, I'm going to spend time in Boston; Providence; Baltimore; DC; Fredericksburg, VA; Asheville, NC; New Orleans; Houston; Dallas; London; Berlin; Bremen; Hamburg; Helsinki; Kökar; and Turku, Finland.
Forgive us if blogging is light for the next week or so as we finish up all the coordination needed to accomplish this journey. Once we're on our way, though, you can expect regular, daily updates.
This Turkish Pavilion is in Tower Grove park, across the street from our place.
Arrived tonight.
We're in Tucson, Arizona, in route to Dallas today (if we're lucky).
A building wrapped in plastic in LA
For the last week we've been boxing our place to move to St. Louis. We're just about packed up, I'm making more crates for art, and Megan's at the BlogHer conference in San Jose.
We're currently in St Louis, looking for a new studio and place to live. There are so many amazing brick storefronts with flats above. One we looked at today had a 3-bedroom apartment with carved wood cabinets with art deco stained glass. The building dated back to 1901, and was over 3000 square feet. It cost one-third of the price of the cheapest, dinkiest 2-bedroom stucco in our neighborhood in LA.
I'm trying to soak up as much of the West Coast as possible before we head inland. The weather in Baja was perfect: cool, overcast in the morning, bright sun in the warm afternoons, cool water, a light sweater needed come evening. The company, two of my closest friends from college days, was refreshing as well.
On the way back to LA, we saw Strand New World: Art and Design from Tijuana at MCASD: a great show, particularly to see on the heels of a trip over the border, which deserves its own post tomorrow.
Time check: 01:02:03 on 04/05/06
Just outside of El Paso and halfway there.
Arriving in Dallas.
We're planning a trip to Chinati, and I'm wondering if anyone has recommendations for where to stay in Marfa, Alpine, or Fort Davis. (I know, I know, we missed the big Open House, including the performance of the fantastic Yo La Tengo... but you gotta go when you can get away).
[update: we've narrowed it down to staying in Marfa, either the Hotel Paisano or the newly opened Thunderbird. Maybe. Unless Alpine or Fort Davis would be better.]
first came the rain
then came a rainbow
then came the last lunar exclipse until 2007
I was flipping through the new Anthropologie catalogue in our bathroom and stumbled across this alteration.
I realized over the weekend that my computer had been hacked into. I had two new user accounts and a hijacked master password. Like all unfortunate events, this is supposed to happen to other people.
How safe are our digital files? Privacy is nice, but not as important to me as always having them.
Megan and I usually back up with cds & dvds, which is slow and increasingly impractical for video. We knew spending $140 on a backup hard-drive was the way, but it just wasn't a sexy enough option. However, after spending the money we saw things differently: having reliable back up is intoxicating. We're now talking about getting a second one to back up the first one--and to keep somewhere else.
Isn't it funny how sometimes decisions can be put off and put off until what's needed isn't simply a one-step solution but a tidal wave?
We walked to lunch, and on the way home, her dog Scruffy (the little white Maltese) stopped to say hi to his friend Dexter (the big black Lab). Since Murray and I are considering making an investment in the 7610, but weren't sure if it would work with our blog set-up, Jen shot some test footage and posted it remotely to our blog. Works like a charm.
More from our roadtrip: fake dinosaurs near the Petrified Forest National Park on I-40 in Arizona.
A quicktime movie of driving through the Mojave Desert in California and listening to James Brown.
We just got back from a whimsical, rainy wedding in the Taos Ski Valley. Somewhere in Arizona on I-40 — clouds.
Our favorite, hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant, Renu Nakorn, made title credit in today's LA Weekly article, Jonathan Gold's 99 Essential L.A. Restaurants - Part 3: From Renu Nakorn to Zankou.
We visit the delicious, and unpretentious, Thai restaurant so often that we're considered regulars, and I'm often brought a hot pot of Tom Ka Kai soup (medium spicy), with a side of sticky rice, without being asked. You've got to love a place that the New York Times has called "one of the best Thai restaurants in the country," that's in a strip mall adjacent to a fishing tackle store and a donut shop, and a few doors down from a threadbare hockey rink. And in Norwalk, of all places.
Zankou Chicken, another L.A. treasure singled out by the article, and mentioned in the Beck song Debra (i wanna do you like that Zankou Chicken), is another favorite of ours. It's cheap, fresh, well-prepared Mediterranean food, and sports a super-cool bright yellow freeway map of LA on its walls, with all the Zankou locations marked with groovy stickers.
[Related: I rhapsodized about Renu Nakorn on my old blog here.]
[The following is a guest post by Andrew Hamilton.]
I have a strange memory.
My wife repeatedly tells me things I cannot for the life of me recall a mere two minutes later. This is a regular, nearly daily occurrence. She accuses me of not listening to her, and she may well be right, though I will never admit to it.
It’s not that I have a bad memory. I have a strange memory, or (in fairness to my wife) what might be called a selective memory. I can’t remember that she told me take out the trash or check on a pending bill, but I can pinpoint the precise moment in my high school history class (sophomore year) when I learned that the dissenting Protestants in 17th century England were called “Roundheads.” I could cite countless examples of this unfortunate phenomenon, if I could only remember them.
Last March, my wife and I traveled to New York with some friends. It was my first visit, and I was impressed. We toured the new MOMA, the Whitney, and the labyrinthine conglomerate of galleries that is Chelsea. We saw many poignant, important things, which I vaguely remember formulating poignant, important impressions about, all of which I have subsequently forgotten.
Continue reading "Andrew Hamilton on NYC, Food, and Roundheads" »
We just drove in from a week up north, camping in Big Sur and art-seeing in Ess Eff. Since the last two hours of the drive were spent tamped down next to our fellow Angelenos on the southbound 5, and we just walked into the presence of one stressed-out Siamese (who apparently made it through two earthquakes in our absence), I'll save a recounting of our adventures for tomorrow. For now, it'll suffice to say that we had a fan-tab-u-lous trip.
Photo by Francine Orr for the L.A. Times
Francine Orr, a reporter for the L.A. Times, traveled to Northern Uganda in Sept. 2003 and again in April 2005. Today, online, she presents a powerful narrated photo essay on the Horror in Uganda, one that we all need to see and never forget.
from the essay:
Michael Oruni: "I wish there was a powerful machine somewhere — a satellite — to see the number of bones in the bushes of Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan."
Ways to Help:
Action Against Hunger
World Food Programme
World Vision
Africa Focus
Daily Monitor
Refugees International
Human Rights Watch
U.S. Aid
And World Vision has a readymade letter to your senators and representative about the need to take action in the region.
Cate McMillan as Cate McMillan in
27 Acknowledged and Sanctioned People
My sister Cate travelled to Germany as a foreign exchange student in high school and never came back. She's been in Deutschland for 8 years and now thinks in German. She has a vision for taking care of the homeless, and in particular, punk rock youth. She and her friends have put together a group that provides basic services, as well as a cafe and a street theater. All without a visa, until now.
She didn't qualify for existing visas, however, as of last week they created a whole new category of visa for her because they "think what she is doing is worthwhile." She is now classified as a "freely-creating artist with social interests."
Model bureaucracy.
Yesterday I was driving over by the big Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights. On a whim, I turned down a random street in a residential neighborhood. Sitting on the sidewalk next to a house with a "for sale/sold" sign was a complete dining room set with six chairs and two extra leaves.
My brother-in-law Christopher, who is a football player/director/actor with a sense of humor, has asked me to submit an entry to his high school's patriot-themed mascot design contest. I google image-searched "patriot," a perfect dictionary substitute, and believe the proposal above which combines search results, would fit squarely on team helmets and gym walls. Who's gonna mess with a team with an American high-yield payload? It's time to move past benign birds, farm animals, and industries and focus on real power. Another consideration might include an appropriated image of the cowboy riding the missile from Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Megan is reading Camus and read me some highlights over our dinner of melted cheese, tortillas, guacamole, eggs and wine. Oh my, what a great thinker.
There is something odd about the AP photo of the President and the First Lady above, which is unedited aside from the horses, numbers and sunglasses.
Last weekend, we were planning on hitting several of the fabulous art events that were happening in the LA area, most notably, the opening of THING. Then we got a last minute invitation from some friends to go up to a cabin in Big Bear, and we decided to ditch the art world and go play in the snow. There's a whole lot of snow in the mountains this year, and it was very relaxing to watch a cute two-year-old make a snow angel and to revive our rusty card-playing skills.
When I was little, elementary-school-little, my dad made box tunnel mazes for my birthdays. This wasn't your average couple-o-boxes-together job. He is an engineer with a flair for the dramatic. This was a planned-for-months/refrigerator box/my-reputation-is-on-the-line job. The final tunnel for my fifth-grade birthday had three stories, hidden pits and a 12' slide in the middle. Everything was tape sealed to be pitch black and took up two rooms of our house. Kids would show up for months asking if this was the house that the tunnels were in.
It's striking how you become how you played as a child. It's makes me laugh when I think about how boxy my work is — and how Megan and I choreograph people similar to how we played as children with dolls and houses, action figures and bases (dolls and houses).
I have a swift metabolism. This makes it easier for me to consume large amounts of trash. Unfortunately, fast metabolisms have a dark side: I gain weight just as fast as I lose it. Case in point: this Christmas, where I gained 5 pounds in two weeks. I had also stopped exercising. I didn't have my exercise outfit with me. Yes, I have an all-red exercise outfit. I was shopping at Target, saw it, and chuckled myself to the checkout counter. It's fast.
Oh my and the food. It was really good food.
I'm paying for it now. After working hard getting it back off I gained another pound. Fast metabolisms not only are vindictive but have a memory. They want those pounds. They remember the fat.
Our lunch-time conversation today — during winter break, we get to eat all our meals together — revolved around the idea of discipline and seasons. The notion that there are seasons in life where one area will become the primary focus, pushing other areas down lower on the priority list. Our twenties were about relationship and marriage, education and career. Our thirties, which Murray is already well into and I stand a few months on the cusp of, necessarily will be about other things. Perhaps discipline.
I just sent in an application to adopt this 4-month-old rescued Black Lab/German Shepherd mix.
We're back from two weeks in Texas; just drove in this evening. Spectacular to see pouring rain in Tucson and rainbows over Red Rocks and then to get within KCRW range and hear that I5 north of LA is closed because of snow. After two solid days on the road, we're wiped. I, for one, am dumping a whole bunch of my Christmas Burt's Bees Bath Salts into the tub and intend to soak that muddy long road off of me.
It's so nice to take a break from our regularly scheduled life. We're here and there, up and down, enjoying a change of pace. Expect a return to original programming in about a week, with new and improved posts full of interesting, relevant essays about life, the universe and everything. Sorry we're not living up to our usual buzz, but right now, we're busy enjoying an afternoon hotspotting with cofffee before we head out to see The Life Aquatic.
We're still so thrilled to be done with our semester that we might take some some liberties and lighten up on holiday blogging. We'll check in periodically. In the meantime, I invited my step-dad Richard to say a few words:
I am very honored to be a guest blogger today. I have been wanting to blog for years, ever since I saw Meg's blog. But, unfortunately, I do not type. As someone is actually blogging for me, this is actually your only opportunity to gain any insight into my life. I hope you all know, my life really is truly exciting, and I wish I had the opportunity to share with you all the wonderful thoughts and feelings I experience each day. Unfortunately, this is it. Life is great, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as me. Merry Christmas to all.
We just attended a delightful wedding yesterday. The kind in a big spanish style church with massive painted wood rafters. Elegant yet simple. Good people and talk. Fuel for happy memories.
Have you ever been to an awful wedding? If you have you know what I'm talking about. Oh my. It's times like these I wish I wrote with a pseudonym.
Sort of like a pseudonym, I had a college professor (actually I never took his class, but I nevertheless was influenced by him) named William Eastman who apparently traded places with another person for an entire year (previous to teaching, of course). Jobs, cars, drivers licenses, apartments, clothes, everything. I remember something about him not recommending it.
The other day, Murray and I were talking about how we store information in our respective memories — one of those fascinating conversations where you end up learning a thing or two about how you work. Murray says that he has to think through his day, and he sorts through all the events and conversations and decides which to keep and which to ditch. Of the memories he keeps, he then has to link those events to related memories in his memory storage and retrieval system, or MSRS (this is my understanding of what he said).
I'm a little different, but I also have to sort through my day and process all the information. I usually do this before falling asleep. But I don't ditch anything; instead, I pack it down really tight, like a compression file. Just like a compressed file, I often find that when I retrieve that information at a later date, I've lost a lot of the detail in the memory. But in true Texas tall-tale-teller fashion, I tend to make up brand-new detail that's probably much more interesting than the original version.
My memories tend to be reconstituted ones, with more flavor than the real events. Murray's are either perfectly factual and exact, or they're completely non-existent. How do you store your memories?
What are the silly things that you truly care about? I have some strong feelings about exceptionally unimportant issues. One of these issues is backing up your computer files. Yes, of course it's important. The silly part is that I'm passionate about it. I love that feeling of being protected. My data sleeping soundly in both soft and hard media. The other side is the nervous itchy feeling of recently completing a project with no backup. Don't even breath.
I tried to prank call my friend D the other day but I couldn't do it. I had a whole routine worked out, I knew what to say, but in the end I panicked when he answered. I admitted that I was going to prank call and he agreed that it wouldn't have worked. The problem is that I'm horrible with voices. I've got a friend named G that will put you in stitches. He can do just about anything. I, on the other hand, am severely limited. Megan says I do the same voice no matter the character. It's true. I really envy anyone with talent in this area.
My sense of humor works better in the rebound. This is where I explain to D (the same D that I was going to prank) when he answers the phone that I was going to prank him but I didn't think I could do it. He then asks for an example and I do it and he then laughs because I'm so bad. This is the rebound I'm talking about –– not a direct punch-line, but an interesting lack of one.
You'd think I would have checked the website to make sure that MOCA is actually open on Tuesdays (seeing that I bothered to link to the darn website in my earlier post) before I drove all the way downtown, parked the stupid car, paid for the stupid parking, and hiked to the stupid museum from the stupid parking place. Only to find out the MOCA is CLOSED ON TUESDAYS. Not closed on Mondays, like every other blasted museum in the world, (except stupid LACMA, which is closed on Wednesdays).
You'd think that after having been to MOCA at least fifty million times since I've lived in LA, I'd know this without having to check the website. But you'd be wrong, because I only ever go on Thursdays, when it's free all day. Unless, of course, I have to write a paper due on a Wednesday, and therefore have to go on a Tuesday, when I have no classes to interfere with my museum-going. Lucky me, I've got a contingency plan. What I don't have, however, is the money I paid for gas ($2.50 a gallon, 25 miles round trip, gotta love Los Angeles) and parking to get to the museum to find out that it is actually closed. I also don't have the two hours I spent finding this out in person.
It's the end of the semester. Lots of deadlines for us both, with tons of extracurricular activity to boot. Consequently, we're not having our annual Bad Art Christmas Party this year, which is too bad, because that party is a blast. Next year, it'll be a blow-out: promise. There'll be enough little Smokies and red velvet cake and velveeta spread and clown paintings for everyone!
I miss entertaining; it seems like lately we've been far too busy to keep up any sort of social schedule. And I do love a full social schedule! Maybe I'll host an online Bad Art Christmas Party and everyone can post images that are truly atrocious and I'll deck the virtual halls with kitschy Christmas clip-art. That might be fun. But nothing like projecting the elf dentist claymation film onto the garage wall by our patio decked out with Christmas lights and playing Elvis and records of the 1953 Southwestern Boys choir harmonizing rockin' carols.
Today I'm going to MOCA again to buy the catalog so I can write a lengthy review of the Robert Smithson show, due tomorrow. Thursday brings another paper deadline, with my last one due a week from Wednesday. The week after: three final exams.
Dec. 16, we're both finished. Then, we enter the blissful holiday break, where the life of an academic all seems worthwhile. Yessireebob. Six weeks vacation.
Our Thanksgiving was unfamiliar and different this year, unlike any other either of us has experienced before. Usually, we are surrounded with family, packed into one house and spilling out. Some of us gather around to watch the boys. Others of us gather at kitchen counters, cutting celery, mashing yams, talking idly about not much.
Usually, I don't like to brag, but I've got to let the world know: I have mad research skillz. I can find anything. I am tireless and pursue my target like a locked-on missile. I cross-check references and then cross-check my cross-checks. I am speedy and efficient. I am on-task until my task is exhaustively complete. Yes, I have mutated my copy-editing skills into research skills. Same obsession. Same euphoria at the ultimately double-checked perfection.
And, on a related note, when it's my turn at the self-check station at Home Depot, I can easily complete my transaction in less than a minute. I was born for self-check stations, unlike some of the bumbling confused masses who have to ask for help from the Home Depot self-check assist clerk. People who aren't familiar with computers should not get in line for the self-check stations.
I've got something to admit. There is a lot of it that I don't know the full story about. I'm endlessly hearing the real story and going, "Oh--that's what that's about!" Don't get me wrong, I like to believe I know my stuff. It's just that: I know my stuff, but I don't know the other stuff. There's so much of it.
It's time to take a step forward if you've never let someone assume you know what they're talking about when in fact you're hopelessly lost. I'm in the group behind you, however, I'm listening to this book on tape about getting your act together and before you know it I'll know what you're talking about.
I have a bad toothache. For those who don't know my history with teeth, let it suffice to say that I've had quite a bit of trouble over the years, largely stemming from compounded problems from two separate sports accidents in my teens.
My present toothache is coming from a tooth that's already got quite a history. In hysterics yesterday, I called my childhood dentist, a family friend, who is very familiar with my tooth troubles. I was terrified that if I admitted how much my tooth was hurting, I'd be signing myself up for a long, painful, and expensive solution to the problem. The good news is that he thinks it'll be a relatively simple procedure. He told me to go to my regular dentist on Monday morning, where I'll probably just have a root canal. He also called in a prescription for an antibiotic and painkiller.
A simple root canal, I can handle. Thanks, Ed.
[Update: the tooth thing may not be such an easy fix. I went in last Monday, expecting a root canal, only to find that I've already had one in that tooth, which means I might have to have another root-canal-through-the-gum thing. I've got an appointment with an endodontist on Monday, so we'll see.]
I have a love/hate relationship with computers that is more on the love side now that I have a job that isn't based on them. I'm curious about carpel tunnel and its obvious expanded future for many full-time computer users.
Note that computer keyboards are based on typewriter keyboards that were designed to slow you down. True story. The first typewriters had fast keyboards which were problematic because the fastest typers would jam the letter strokes. Nobody wants to re-learn how to type so all the important letters are still located in inconvenient positions.
We got back from the opening--a fun time--and I decided to top off the evening creating a Christmas list. What's more fun than making a list of things you would enjoy being given? Actually, at my age it's a bit unattractive, especially before Thanksgiving, so I'm appropriately embarrassed, but this is America after all, and we are approaching the holiday season--excuse me, Holiday Season--and that means making a Christmas list.
Just so you know, world peace is my number one.
I just got back from Tijuana yesterday. I joined a team to make a house for a family living there. The organization that we worked for supervises low-income housing projects, they realize that the need is bigger than they are, but have a mission to help one family at a time. I was expecting to make more of a shelter, but the end product was a complete two room house with a concrete floor and trussed roof.
I got back yesterday and became ill. I think it was a combination of the work, the anxiety of our show this weekend, and a McDonald's Sausage McMuffin. I'm better now but shaky. I cried last night because of how much I have and how much the family in Tijuana doesn't. You just have to see it to understand.
I'm royally goofing off this Saturday morning. I'm still in PJs, drinking my second cup of coffee, looking at the Anthropologie catalogue, listening to Glassworks far too loudly (there's a brand-new baby upstairs, but I'm not feeling generous enough to turn the music down), wishing we could go to the Bang on a Can All-Stars with Philip Glass at UCLA on Wednesday. Even if I hadn't just blown our extra spending money yesterday on some new Levi's, we'll be too busy getting this animation project ready to hand over to the gallery on Friday.
Shameless plug: Boundary Crossings, the group show we're participating in, opens Sunday, Nov. 14 from 5-8pm at the Cal State Long Beach Gatov Galleries: directions here. Yes, we're officially in "show mode," despite my Saturday morning lazy-fest.
Really, I should know better than to be signed up for Anthropologie's email newsletter. And when the newsletter hits my inbox, I should delete it immediately. I should not click on the lovely picture and find myself on the store website. And I should never, never, ever click on the home decor "view all" sale link: dear readers, be strong! If you love bargains, but still don't have extra money for frivolity, don't follow that link!
Now I've done it. This lovely Japanese patchwork bedding is only $49.95. O, cruel world!
[update: this darling pillow is only $12.95. O, crewel world!]
"I regret to have to be laid away in a foreign country." -Oliver Loving, "The Dean of Texas Trail Drivers," 1812-1867
MarengoOut of the sump rise the marigolds.
From the rim of the marsh, muslin with mosquitoes,
rises the egret, in his cloud-cloth.
Through the soft rain, like mist, and mica,
the withered acres of moss begin again.When I have to die, I would like to die
on a day of rain--
long rain, slow rain, the kind you think will never end.And I would like to have whatever little ceremony there might be
take place while the rain is shoveled and shoveled out of the sky,and anyone who comes must travel, slowly and with thought,
as around the edges of the great swamp.-Mary Oliver
I apologize for the excessive animal posts, especially for the unfortunate happenstance of two such posts in a row. What can I say? It was late, and L.A.Blogs asked. Also, perhaps I haven't mentioned that it's midterm, and I'm supposed to be studying for exams and writing several big papers. In fact, I have about 100 post-1945 slides to memorize. I'll get back to the meatier topics immediately, as I'm sure you're dying to know what I think about post-structuralism and the death of Derrida.
Yesterday was a long, long day that began with Baudelaire and ended with a performance by the Reverend Ethan Acres, and I'm just plain art-ed out. I going to try something new: no art writing, no graduate school woes, no pictures of Stella. What will I write about? Particularly without breaking my self-imposed ban on anything political?
How about a little story about golden retrievers?
I'm ready to dive, no longer afraid of you. Let quality flutter in the search for the bottom. The heart. Sincerely placed, however, too melodramatic and sophomoric. Why is it so easy to critique but so difficult to build?
The fear of man and woman and its silent partner, pride.
"So if you're smart, why can't you do it?" the voice in my lungs and ears rings. Simultaneously running and standing firm--feeling guilty that I'm not giving enough to the people I love because I'm taking care of the people at work. Feeling guilty that I'm not taking care of the people at work because I'm taking care of the people I love.
Finding the balance between things is never fun.
You look up and something catches your eye. While your eye is looking you're thinking about what she meant by that. Your looking eye and your thoughts about her are in different places, however, they're both in the car.
I remember this road along a creek near Austin Texas, in the hill country. Moving from side to side over bridges, with that grass that looks so good in the sun. The kind of place you expect two kids to be fishing.
One saying, "When we get back, don't tell anyone I said that." The other saying, "Don't worry, I won't."
Wasn't the first 15 minutes sensational?
I first started listening to NPR when I was radio surfing in college. I was in Kansas City and radio was, well, limited. Probably a under-funded station, the KC NPR station didn't have all the slick programming we now enjoy in LA. They mostly broadcasted political forums and it was these debates that hooked me. I was interested in the speakers, lobbyist, professional politicians, pundits and lawyers who spoke like Jedi priests with their perfumed arguments, passion and zeal.
What makes you happy? Perhaps pursuing happiness has the potential for success. Maybe. A sure way to be happy is to make someone else happy.
Fresh, juicy, grilled shrimp.
