wednesday morning intervention

sleepers, 2010
i wondered if this abandoned mattress still held the bodies that had lived there once before.

heart shaped box

finally convinced the boss to have a grunge rock morning and discovered that reliving my favorite nirvana album still makes me shake and palpitate slowly. nirvana's mtv unplugged session reposes in peace, a mona lisa of an icon on the shelf of my teenage shrine. dusting it off every now and then still gives me that twitchy regretful bite the inside of your lip break out of your body and hope for something wonderful feeling that i have yet to feel in full, since. worked away in secret bliss all morning.

appetite for destruction

catalyst: i still had a bit of alligator left in my freezer, and like any legitimately broke beatnik, i was not about to let a $15 cut of swamp meat go to waste. after thinking through everything that had gastronomically gone wrong with the last time i tried to cook this vile creature, i made some adjustments and ended up with the best tasting gator of my life. i think the alcohol helped.

alligator in red wine reduction

1/2 lb alligator, cut into strips
3/4 cup pinot noir, or some other red wine
2 T balsamic vinegar
1 T sugar
2 T olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

heat the olive oil in a saucepan. saute the alligator until it is no longer translucent, about 3 minutes. add the pinot noir, balsamic vinegar, and sugar. mix well. simmer on high until most of the alcohol has boiled away, leaving about a T of sauce, about 10 minutes. salt and pepper to taste. serve over micro greens with the rest of your pinot noir, and revel in your mastery over natural predators.

cherry bomb

i am on a mission to incorporate the word 'joan-jett-tastic' into everyday use.

on a brighter note

wild turkeys! in your front yard! in central california!

but you can try

today's dream

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festering thought

one thing that i think western thought lags behind on is its emphasis on addressing the symptoms rather than the structure of social issues. for example, our response to poverty in america is to encourage college attendance, which will presumably lead to job security. but now a significant number of people with bachelor's degrees are flooding the workforce - now a graduate education is required to escape menial drudgery. the core of the problem isn't educational attainment but a system that enforces a hierarchy with a small amount of people in high-paying jobs. economic disparity will not change unless the system changes (and now i'm starting to sound like karl marx). same with the environmental issue. instead of exploiting gasoline, we're turning our attention to exploiting other fuel resources that too will become unsustainable, instead of curbing the unrestrained consumption that drives the oil crisis. i often think that breaking issues down to the ethos of things makes it easier to approach on a personal level, and provides clarity for action.

maybe sending this message out into the internet will somehow make the world a better place. maybe, just maybe.

animal

raiders of the lost art

boyfriend's birthday was yesterday, so, you know.

i am still having dreams about modernist interiors. this one was sunny and was about meeting my former piano teacher and steel doors.

unquiet sleep

i keep on having dreams that suggest restlessness and conflict between two states of being. running through corridors, staircases, courtyards that connect two separate rooms or spaces - an architectural allegory for internal conflict. feeling condemnation. saturated lurid colors, especially yellow (my dreams are usually very pleasant pastels). being called upon to perform difficult tasks. recurring presence of key figures in my life (the idol, the wanderer, the anchor).

creative output is at a zero right now, motivation is starting to dip into the negative part of the y-axis. to pacify myself, i dope myself on sugar, which inflames my body dysmorphia, hardcore. i feel nervous and unquiet in the daytime too.

how i'm feeling right now

um, cranky. cranky and overworked.

brandon flowers and chequers pt. 2

there are some things that i should be embarrassed to like, but am not. one of them is the killers' debut album hot fuss, which over the years has acquired the status of a sonic comfort object. encountering it always feels like encountering a barely-working transistor radio in the middle of a burned and charred las vegas desert, and brings with it a similar feeling of hope, relief, and regret. the sound so familiar, but so glittering and far away as you hold it to your chest in the middle of the night.

another idea: that muzak in shopping spaces plays a large part in our cultural programming and sense of collective memory. how else could david bowie have such a visceral impact on me?

this weekend

i listened to cat power and took some pictures in my room






and it rained on sunset boulevard

poorly articulated thought

it never occurs to me that my approach to my artistic subject is not universally shared. doesn't everyone feel a sad longing kind of love when they set about their work? no, no they don't, carol.

the thought only came to me today when i was looking at a french design monograph. one of the works was a collage of anonymous bodies that conveyed an air of dissatisfaction. i realized that i had never felt the way this artist feels when making his work--namely, the feeling of cutting up other people, and figuratively spitting on them.

you don't have to be hateful to be relevant, y'know.

and i am unashamed

major cities always seem to be pockmarked with food stands and lean-tos on every corner, all vending a variation on the city's signature comfort food. in new york, it's bagels and pizza. in los angeles, the "round-thing-with-hole" and "round-thing-with-cheese" equivalent is donuts and tacos. i have gastronomically adjusted to los angeles, for the most part, except last night i was hit with the worst craving for the thinnest, cheesiest, largest slice of new-york-city-cheese-pizza. in college, pizza was a short walk away, but last night i drove around dark rainy stretches of sunset boulevard only to find a handful of pizza shops that were either closed (at 11pm?!), or not worth it. dejected, my stomach rumbled throughout the night. my search ended today at a mexican pizza place, where, in between errands and paper work, i demolished a carne asada personal pizza. it wasn't quite new york, but, as farmer arthur says in babe, it'll do, pig. it'll do.

new life motto

and while we're being nerdy about typefaces and letter spacing, i'm searching for a good western font for my birthday tattoo. something between a rosewood and a mesquite, without the cheesiness of a coney island?

2 comix for the price of 1

hopefully the last comic explains the anticapitalist title and intentions of the series? maybe maybe? i've been -SURPRISE- busy with one thing or another, but hopefully projects will start to make their way onto the internet more steadily - because trust me, they're happening. art art art, work work work, boyfriend boyfriend boyfriend. that's seriously what my life has become, with 'apply to grad school' as an undercurrent through it all. the only thing missing is the think think existential reflection think. remember the days when we were required to read books and produce thoughts? oh man.

i bought a dslr last week. right now i'm using it to indulge my vanity on lookbook, but i trust that it will eventually be put to good use. exhibit a: in a month, i will be breaking it out at COACHELLA ELLA ELLA ELLA AYYYYYYYYY!