KY | RACCOONS

We've counted a lot of dead raccoons this fall. We think there are more than usual. But I looked online and couldn't find anything about overpopulation or a decline of their predators. I suppose the people who would report on such things are in the field, counting and trapping and tagging. We'll hear the report a few years from now and say 'We thought so! Remember all those raccoons?' Some of them are standard roadkill-looking, with just the tails being the for-sure identifier, but most of them are whole and full, just laying around downtown, like they've been stuffed and put there.

Griffin and I talk about raccoons a lot anyway. He told me he was born in the year of the Monkey, but actually he was born in the year of the Cock, so we agreed that a raccoon is a more accurate spirit animal for him because they're the most monkey-like animal native to Kentucky. We had some balloon people make a shape of a raccoon for us in our epic union/honeymoon in Santa Barbara, then I gave him a gigantic card with one on it that said "Cheer Up!" right when he needed cheering up, and then one walked into our living room while I was on the computer.

We've made plans to be folk art raccoons one Halloween down the road and I'm wondering if I should buy a preowned 'coon fur coat for good luck.

KY | NEW YEAR

Preteens have started going all the same way from their somewheres with homework both on their backs and in their arms  Waddling  Mostly alone  But as the weeks go on some start going together

It's magic then that today a threesome of girls in all white went running  Bearing nothing  Hair waving behind them  The front girl was blond even  They were laughing even  And going the other way back toward the somewheres

SF | PAINT, BALLOONS, BUILDINGS & VIOLENCE

A couple weeks ago I started brainstorming with my friend, Luca, about throwing paint balloons to make paintings. Along the conversation, I started poking my nose around the internet and quickly found a thread that would read: paint is a common way to both allude to and evade violence, condemned architecture is often the object of alluded to and evaded violence.

So, now we want to explode houses with paint. And our idea is, of course, WAY different than any of these below...


Paintballing
- image from Paintball Galaxy





Community paint balloon slingshot demolition
- see full text

Pittsburgh, PA, balloons were lauched by a 25 foot tall slingshot constructed by Johnny Lee and Joshua Atlas as a public art installation to give community members an opportunity to take part in transforming the high-rise into one of the largest art monuments in the country before its scheduled demolition.





Gordon Matta-Clark
- text from Object To Be Destroyed: The Work Of Gordon Matta-Clark by Pamela M. Lee (pg 116)
- additional reading and image reference from an article discussing anarchitecture

On the afternoon of the opening...Matta-Clark appeared with a BB gun...and asked MacNair permission to shoot out a couple of the windows of the Institute [for Architecture and Urban Studies]... The windows were already cracked, he reasoned...

MacNair agreed conditionally to Matta-Clark's proposal, but it was a decision he would come to regret. Describing the artist as "incredibly wrecked," he watched horrified as Matta-Clark proceeded to shoot out all the windows on the floor of the Institute, all the while raging against its esteemed members and the architectural ideologies they supported.






Jonathan Glazer's half paint-as-fireworks-display, half paint-as-demolition-explosion advertising concept for Sony Bravia.
- watch the commercial
- watch the making of the commercial

SF | SED IS 25

Sed is here. She got sick on the plane and is walking very slowly. I really wanted to take her to the Exploratorium so I looked on their website and saw that they have wheelchairs. We got one for her. Here is Sed, on her 25th birthday, being pushed around a science museum with her admissions sticker stuck in her hair.

SF | TAKING STOCK PHOTOS

David and I were part of The Trampoline Hall Lectures this past Monday at 12 Galaxies. We were asked to make the set decoration for the evening. We made souvenirs instead. We handed people slips of paper and on them were three prompts, instructions to have their keychains photographed (by Bridget), and the promise that they would get a souvenir at the end of the night.

They got the picture of their keys with the three words they used to respond to the prompts. The three prompts were:
· Think of someone who is often on your mind. Now write one word that describes your relationship with them.
· What was the first thing you thought of this morning, in a word?
· Which of your favorite body parts is your favorite?

Here's my own souvenir from the night, and by the way, my someone-often-on-my-mind was dear Sed:

SF | UP IN FAIRFAX

Jacob's co-corsetiere, Calico, recently met a woman while she was looking at notions at the town fabric store and they set up a time to look at the woman's buttons. Jacob wanted buttons too, so on Sunday, he and I went up the road a ways to Fairfax, where Calico and Michael live. Later we walked around the reservoir. I think it's interesting when municipal utilities sites become places of leisure and recreation.

Calico had the idea to have Michael photograph a flipbook of this:

Click To Play

SF | HOT FOR TEACHER

On Fridays I'm enrolled in a class with Harrell Fletcher called Some People. I'll talk more about it here, I'm sure, but what I want to talk about right now is what I do on the every-other-Friday it doesn't meet, which is to go to George Kuchar's class.

He makes a movie with his class every single semester. Linda is a big part of these projects and has been acting in them for seventeen years. The scene from moment to moment could easily be called chaotic - nobody knows what scene we're shooting next, or what miniature set or lighting configuration is coming up, or what character you might be playing until it's time to know about them. But in the larger environment of the space, we all move organically from camera to sound to set design to acting, communicating opinions and enlisting help as needed.

Essentially, it's a 6 hour weekly lesson in collective consciousness, social dynamics anticipation, and learning when to pick up and when to let go.

And in short, I am deeply in love with George Kuchar.

Here is George working, and a deep bow to Palmer, who so created the insect costume, that he cast the eyes in latex from a disco ball.

Click To Play