embrace

one of these days when i have my very own 4x5 camera and a studio apartment doubling as an actual photo studio, i will shoot these scenes. and yes, i've already started thinking about the payment scheme for such things. provided the j-o-b thing works out, of course.

proposal

let's not talk about 'art'. let's talk about love letters, fantasy, bright lights, material richness and existential situations. let's talk about pathos.

sometimes i still get a pang of 'why didn't i [xyz socially approved action] with my life?'. but then i sort of remember that i'm currently immersed every day and second in some form of art, and i feel like i'm only starting to swim across a very big and unknowable sea, and while i'm busy doing that, i should probably want nothing more.

things men have told me i evoke

-fair trade coffee
-a nutcase
-this fabric pattern, but in a different colour scheme:

heart of brass

they said it never worked quite as well as the old one

things i have been considering of late:
-iconography of steampunk and retro scifi narratives. the romance of prosthetic arms.
-jouissance as a descriptive for that one ineffable moment linking music to your body.
-getting friendly with my holga (rawr!).
-taking a rogue projector to the city surface of los angeles.

and it matches my socks!

para la cena: mideastern platter with raw bell peppers and tahini, oven-toasted lavash bread (the best culinary idea i've had in a looooong time!), and mixed olive/portabella/roasted garlic tapenade. contrary to what the blog suggests, i've actually been too busy to aliment myself properly, which is why i consider today a triumph.

request

that everything you do carries the jouissance of a rock song, 6-23-09

life advice

an art grad student whom i offended once at a party later told me a few things about life after your bfa:

1. i will be so goddamn broke.
2. i will have the most fun i have ever had.
2. i will continue to make art, but at the expense of my day job and my sleep schedule.

he was right on all counts.

my fake plastic love

i started my second gig at the retoucher's today. clicking through the post-production process for a magazine photograph is frightening and perversely fascinating all at once. retouching seems to operate upon the assumption that we are all innately sexually oriented towards smooth, lustrous, and high-contrast surfaces. but if that were the case, wouldn't i want to fuck the shit out of this frank gehry building? wait, do i?

the fancy glasses were completely necessary

y'all hate me because i live down the street from a grocer that sells cheap strawberries and kefir, y'all. y'alls be jealous because this, and approximately four glasses of matcha green tea that will send my pulse wildly skipping through the roof, is breakfast.

ingmar bergman on the ideal man

the character of sara, who uncannily resembles scarlett johansson, in wild strawberries

men named harvey who stroke my intellectual fires

-david harvey
-harvey milk

i speak the truth

guys who would have no game if not for jason schwartzman, fig. 1

why i don't mind having days off from work

in my spare time i'm trying to gather up an animated portfolio piece about, well, love, radiohead and the apocalypse? these two stills are preliminary excerpts from the storyboard. i also eat a lot of cottage cheese, and do yoga. i think i'm starting to reach past the age of cheap thrills.

an extraordinary case of wednesday morning bedhead

i watched brazil last night

been listening to a lot of thom yorke and thinking about falling per usual.

she looks like the real thing

venice-fucking-beach, cali-freaking-fornia.

when in doubt

today's project: public transportation, public library, would that i return alive, preliminary studies for potential video, PARTY. i am the picture of responsibility.

west where the sun can set no farther

it makes a lot of sense to me that los angeles became the epicenter of punk/ska during the 1980s. punk synesthetically sounds like well-worn tennis shoes hitting the concrete and taking flight into an unforgiving sunset. it is geographically bounded, evoking its dissonant tierra with the strike of a chord and the rasp of a voice.

all i do since i've stepped foot in here is think about urbanism and art and life. i've also been making my way through more neruda. current favorite line: come to my heart dressed in white (oda con un lamento, residencia en la tierra).

mira

my bfa thesis is now on youtube. i'm going to try to have it on my site within the next week. i started drawing again and i think i want to start some projects today, one of which is reading mike davis' city of quartz as the definitive guide to los angeles urbanism.

i have seen paradise

paradise feeds you free breakfast and lunch, invites you to take table tennis breaks next to a khoi pond at your leisure, and entices your vision with framed paintings from shrek, kung fu panda and other animated productions in progress. i get to try paradise out for two months before having to wistfully say goodbye because paradise, not immune to the effects of the nosediving californian economy, has so emphatically stated that there will be no p.a. openings. but paradise for two months is still paradise with a lot of free perks on the side. i am overwhelmingly happy.

on other news, i am upset at myself for not having drawn anything major since i laid down my charcoal pencil for my last animation still on april 23. life has been moving very quickly, very quickly, very quickly. i still need to register my car and figure out if i can take the bus down to the public library. one day at a time. the form of our poetries keep on shifting depending on the state of our present lives, but i don't think they ever just go away.