GREEN PORNO

Isabella Rossellini did these two minute videos for sundance about the mating rituals of insects. i like the bee one best i think.

ELLA DOES IT BETTER

FATHER

this is my dad.  i don't mean to display him like this, and if he knew these were "on the computer" he wouldn't like it.  but when i see him in photos i don't believe we share blood.  he is holding two carvings he did out of antler and horn.  his house is bedecked in bones and fur and taxidermy.  

i think my favourites are the tiny reindeer head and the antler chandelier in his entryway.  i didn't get a photo of that because i only see him once a year and it seemed wrong to spend the time photographing his home instead of conversing.

i think i'm becoming one of those family photo blogs where they post for the relations.  next i'm going to send out a christmas letter.

GOT ME HOPIN YOU'LL PAGE ME

                                          still fantastic.

antony/pta mom?

BELLS IN A CAVE

i recently read a book entitled, Terra Incognita; Travels in Antarctica, by Sara Wheeler. It harkens a return for me to my one-time favourite sort of literature, Travel Writing! I am years away from being able to afford any sort of travel beyond the armchair variety... Some day though. This book is wonderful because it feels like and i think was intended as an introduction to Antarctica. Wheeler quotes all the big names of Antarctic exploration heavily and those were the passages that won me over.

I quote:

"When you look upon such things there comes surging through the confusion of the mind an awareness of the dignity of the earth, of the unaccountable importance of being alive, and the thought comes out of nowhere that unhappiness rises not from lacking as from having too much...And you guess the end of the world will probably look like that, and the last men retreating from the cliffs will look out upon some such horizon, with all things at last in equilibrium, the winds quiet, the sea frozen, the sky composed, and the earth in glacial quietude."

-Richard E. Byrd, from Discovery

Doesn't that just kill you? I'm making a list of books from the bibliography to read.

BORED

HANNAH IRENE <3 <3

this is my sister hannah.

this photo's caption on myspace is:

"NEW-I got kicked outta class sooo i took pics"

and here is another, just so you can see her range.



HANNAH I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU AND CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU.

ANTI ROYALIST TRASH

i love these propaganda cartoons.  i can't find any images of the really dirty stuff.  A lot of the pamphlets circulating were about how she was having sex with every man, woman and animal she could find.  i know there exist really cool illustrations but i can't find them, which makes me think i should do them myself.

FUN FACT:  One euphemism for lesbianism in France was "the german vice" which is sorta funny, but wasn't so great for antoinette, who was from austria. 

PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS.

RITA MITSOUKO

 

KERAMIC

weiner werkstatte ceramic.

AITOR THROUP

art crush, big time.  he does clothing and sculpture and draws the most beautiful things.  see a fraction of that here on his website.  i have been doing sort of planar figures, messing with proportions and exaggerating, giving lines weight...i found him at a good time,  serendipitous.

JOHN FEODOROV

John Feodorov does alot of work that deals with modern societies need for spirituality, and the kitcshy treatment of the existing tribal cultures.  i was most impressed by his "Collectibles" series of altered family photos that he added text to from those mail-outs for cheesy porcelain native american statuettes.   

I liked too his altered 'see and say.'  we all had them, i loved mine (muppet and farm-friends versions.)  feodorov made his into a ritualistic implement.  i think more than anything i like his work because it establishes this current trend of putting feathers and rainbows on everything in a solid artistic tradition.  while i think some contemporaries of mine may or may not share his ideas, it sort of allows me to like their work in spite of a general feeling that it lacks content.  of course there is a history of artists working with these ideas, it never stopped from the time when it was simply what people were and did, to what people lack and long-for and try to mimic or reproduce.  

it was ignorant of me to think it sprung a year ago from nowhere as a fad.  long live animal skulls and neon geometrics!

PERSIAN LAMB

i'm obsessed with persian lamb.  it is the most disgusting beautiful texture ever.  its a brain of hair.  i am hunting for a coat of it in black.

ROSSY DE PALMA

i was google imaging the actress Rossy De Palma, for obvious reasons...when i discovered that 1.) pedro almodovar has a blog.  2.) he has a new film due for release in march 2009!

i fall more in love with his movies everytime i see them.  and every new one i see becomes a favourite.  i recently saw The Law of Desire.  incredible!  as per  usual a synopsis is impossible.  i love that he'll have a woman play a transexual man, and a transexual actress (Bibiana Fernandez) play a woman and mother.  also i always thought Antonio Banderas was just cheese, but he was a looker when he was young, pre-pony-tail, and a pretty good actor.

i could go on and on but just watch his films. 

i still need to see High Heels, Labyrinth of Passions, Pepi, Luci, Bom, What Have I done to Deserve This?, and Matador.  

LIKE A GHOST

i'm leaving minneapolis when my lease is up.  i can feel changes, they are a commin.  i generally mourn things for a really long time before realizing that my reasons for doing so are dumb or at least misguided.  i did in the end get alot from being here.  i'm gonna float on out, and up!  I WISH IT WAS ON THIS, THE MANNED CLOUD.

Passion Pit, "Sleepyhead"

Hercules and Love Affair, "Blind"

Antony and the Johnsons, "Shake That Devil"

i've been doing work again!  i'm sort of letting a comic idea bake.  also some patterns. 

JOAN

i'm really interested in joan of arc lately. i saw a film entitled "The Passion of Joan of Arc." really intense silent film of her trial and burning. the actress who plays her is really beautiful and she has these really deep crazy eyes. the film has an interesting back-story. the original was lost in a fire, eventually a version very close to the original was found in a mental hospital in Norway, in a janitor's closet. i recommend seeing it, its beautiful. i was turned onto it by the stills.   

Did you know that the technical reason they had for burning her was a law from biblical times about gender specific dress codes? 

LAUREN KALMAN

i've been craving material possessions of late. i don't know what that is. i think my slightly bolstered income=me thinking i can afford things. i'm still scraping by for bread, don't be fooled.

this woman's work spoke to that obsessive little spender in me though. i read her artists statement about these monstrous beauties. the series is called "hard wear" and she uses expensive coveted materials and produces these growths that look pus filled and painful. some do inflect physical pain. watch the video of her stringing the pearls through her teeth which can be found on her website.

timely i think. did i learn a lesson though? because now i want that gigantic-gross-golden-gum-goiter.


http://www.laurenkalman.com/lauren/Hard_Wear.html
(linking?)

P.S. REMEMBER WHEN MY FACE WAS INFECTED AND WENT TO THE E.R. TO REMOVE THE PIERCING IT REMINDS ME OF THAT, YES.

ROOMFULS

DIANA ROSS IS THE BOSS

i can't stop talking about diana ross, to people-anyone who is standing still near me for any amount of time. i love the way she moves. like a cat that has swallowed a bird whole and has it moving around in it's belly, if you get that. and moves! she has got em. and her music, solo or with the supremes...supremes tunes actually remind me of my childhood, partly because of sister act, and also because my dad's ex girlfriend marlene always had the oldies station on.

watch these videos from her 1983 concert in central park. epic.


here is what andy warhol said in his diaries about it:

"I could never really describe the Diana Ross concert in Central Park. The sky darkened and the rain came and it was the most incredible thing i've ever seen. Just the event of the century-her hair blowing and soaking wet...it was like a dream, like a hallucination, watching this spectacle. It was like the greatest scene from a movie ever. When they do her life story in the movies you can just see this huge event and then later she's crying and saying, "Why did this happen to me?" and then drinking and slitting her wrists. But oh, the thunder and lightning looked so great. So beautiful."

-Andy Warhol.

FALL

i want a suit. a really nice tailored suit. one that looks like these.




i also want a new winter coat. One that looks something like this.



and I found this clothing line called Obedient Sons. They are sort of following this collegiate thing thats happening, but with a name like that its okay. I always wanted to come from old money. And there is something Gatsby-esque about the details...i love the pant leg being just slightly too short, socks showing.



my new style icon is the late Yves St Laurent. He was the ultimate dandy when he was young.

OH MY GAWD WHAT

FACT: Molly's bike was stolen from the entry of my old apt about three weeks ago.

FACT: i posted about twenty times on craigslist with an attitude and detailed description of the bike.

FACT: every time, the theif flagged the posting for removal.

FACT: about three days ago i stopped a gorgeous older officer in uptown, asked him what could be done, he said nothing.

FACT: yesterday i went on a rampage with noah and naomi looking for a couch for noah's new apt.

FACT: we got lost in st paul, in a seedy area.

FACT: we stop to turn around, see a gold beat up bike on the sidewalk. someone says, look a bike. i say in a joking way, i'm getting out to see if it's molly's. i pick it up. IT IS FUCKING MOLLY'S BIKE IN ST PAUL MILES AND MILES AWAY FROM ANYTHING I KNEW EXISTED. we put it in the car. a lady opens her window and says, is that your bike, its been here for a few hours, and i didnt know what to do. i say, yeah, it was stolen a while ago from my apt in uptown mpls.

FACT: i immediatley got a headache and also believed in some sort of higher power.

is this not amazing, i can't wrap my head around it. the chances of me being on that street. the chances of me being in st paul (that was really like the third time) the chances the chances the chances... the bike was fizucked but deff molly's. i'm not out $100, molly's isn't out a bike. one up god.

YURI NORSTEIN

GOODBYE APARTMENT

i'm going to miss this apartment.

roof-top meals, right in the middle of everything whittier has to offer, spyhouse, our tangerine-dream walls, the care-takers thelma and louise, the back porch, the front stoop, knowing that (for a while) nobody else lived in the building and being loud loud, smoking in the bathroom while applying false eyelashes, ben playing guitar in bedroom bathroom living room porch, brief kitten disaster, slideshows......