Jack Kerouac, as Sal Paradise once said: "I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion." And I think that's a rather apt description of my blog over the years, and perhaps the most perfect description of me in general that I've ever read. So that's what this blog is, a collection of the falling stars that are beckoning me at any time.

20 November 2005

must... stop... progress... of...time

We have officially entered the part of the semester where I spend every ounce of time not spent working or unconcious in the pressroom. hell this semester there's even a plan in place to spend the unconscious hours in the pressroom. Ashley, Frances and I are comandeering the storage closet as sleeping quarters.

I'm now 2/3 done with my 'he's the hammer' stationary project. The press I'm using has some kind of goo on it that's not allowing for proper ink cleanup so I'm worried that it's going to fuck my last run. I was hoping to get the last 250 or so sheets pressed tomorrow, but if the purple from this last run starts bleeding into the green I've got to pull tomorrow it might seriously set back my projection.

I might actually get 'celebrity wedding' done in time for the critique on Tuesday, I've managed never to miss a deadline this semester, but this one is pushing it, it's definitely the most hateful project this semester. I think I gave myself nerve damage cutting all those damn pages out of plexiglass. and I still haven't managed to find the caulk I need or to drill the holes for the string lights.

Definitely feeling the end of the semester stress. so many giant projects and so little time.

The student art show is next week and I still haven't settled on what pieces I'm putting in. I think the osteocyte painting and the print of the freedom fighters on horseback for sure but I'm not sure on what else. Can we just add like 3 more weeks to November?

06 November 2005

swaps galore

okey dokey, here is where I catch up on talking about the swap stuff that I'm so woefully behind on talking on.

Blogging by Mail 2; the real reason I've been so behind on gushing about this is that I can't figure out where I put the damn postcards that included the idenity of my partner so I can't properly give thanks or credit until I find them. This is the curse of being a sometimes disorganised person living in too small an area in a house with a really really unorganised, messy and borderline hoarder person ( I have this theory that one day if I live either on my own in a place that has adequate storage and space for my possessions or with someone who is neat to a fault and have adequate storage I will actually be a very neat and organised person, because I was practically anal about things being where they belonged and in order in the various stores I worked in and in the shack at my current job. and though I've always had a messy room I still maintain that a very large reason for that is that I don't have adequate room to live and work and store things in a place that is just theirs and I end up feeling in the face of all that that I might as well just not care at all. I know I know excuses excuses) But anyway, my partner was from Georgia and he sent me some amazingly good chocolate mousse cookies and some gourmet chocolates from a local chocolatier and a couple jars of peach chutney and a bag of grits and recipes for said cookies and chutney. The theme was good stuff from Georgia. And when I find the damn postcards (depicting of course tourist shots from Georgia) then I will properly credit him and send him some thank yous.

Next on the agenda-- Backtack

I did actually finished by the 31st but I didn't get it mailed by then because I kept having to be at work or school during the hours the post office was open. But I went to school late on Thursday and mailed it


I think that my oliver octopus bag came out pretty close to how I envisioned it. I'll probably make a few tweaks to it if I decide to sell them if I ever get bonjour miette going. I'd like to make him more round so he doesn't look as much like a jellyfish. He was a big hit with the people in my bookbinding class where I spent a lot of time working on him (I have no workspace at home so if I ever have projects to do I always end up just going to the book lab where I spend half my life anyway for class at night to do them.)


so for the kit, my person mentioned embroidery so I got her a shit ton of floss, a hoop (I like that kind way better than the ones you have to tighten) a couple of iron on classic embroidery patterns of kittens and then because I'm not much of a traditional design person I got her some pattern transfer paper and some line drawings of cute animals and a couple of my own line drawings of sea creatures and of course dead guy becuase who doesn't want to embroider deadguy the lovable beret wearing skeleton on their tea towel? I also got her some floss bobbins, a pack of embroidery needles and one of those little wheels to use the transfer paper. Oh and also a blank book with a Japanese stab binding. Hopefully she likes it.

As for my backtack goodies, A Susi had me and she sent me a gorgeous tote bag full of roving and needles to start learning to needle felt.

that's her picture of what she sent I was lazy and just hosted a copy myself, since her photo looks nicer than the one I took. I'm quite glad I participated in backtack I had a lot of fun and it got me to get off my ass and make that bag.

I'd sworn I wasn't going to get into another swap until after the semester was done so I wouldn't over extend myself worrying about so many deadlines, but I've signed up for another one anyway at purple pink and orange for the november craft swap, but I figure I can send blank books, so it's already connected to what I'm doing in school anyway, I'll just make extras and it will be all good. but seriously no more until the semester is over. I really mean it this time.

24 October 2005

back like a bad 80s fad

I've been so absent from the web this month, and it's not just been lacking time there's been a real lack of desire on my part ot write a damn thing, which is odd. Perhaps it's that the daily letter correspondance takes away my need to hash out my life in blog form or perhaps there has just been a real malaise over me from financial and job woes. But, if that's the case my friends I think the tide is turning. I completely did not get the casino job I was up for when last I wrote here. In fact I felt the whole experience of being turned down for the job slightly dehumanising as you're not only not given any sort of idea of the reason they passed on you, but you don't even get to find out from a person, you have to call a phoneline and have a robot tell you to sod off.

I have however managed to find another job, the pay is the same as my old job which isn't the greatest, but it is infinitely closer to my house and they won't dick me around on my hours which offsets that. So now I'm working as a cashier at one of the longterm parking lots at the airport. This is my last week at Kwik shop and my first at the lot, I've only given kwik shop one week's notice instead of my customary polite 2 weeks or more, but really I don't feel bad about it in the slightest because of the way I've been jerked around. Today there was supposed to be a staff meeting at 8am becuase they're getting a new manager and I just clocked out and left instead of staying (there didn't seem much point to me in hanging around) and the district manager (the one I can't stand and fantasize nightly about quitting nad stranding to finish my shift. it's true I like to imagine that I were a not so reliable and conscientious person) was like where are you going and I said "well it's my last week, so I don't see the point in staying. and she was like 'what?' and I said "I quit Thursday is my last day.' and she said 'so we're not getting 2 weeks?' and I just paused for about 2 seconds then said 'nope. I gave one.' and left. And this was in front of the rest of the staff. It was such a wonderful bouyant feeling. That's when you know you've hated a job way more than you should have had to, that airless feeling knowing that you don't have to worry about any of the bullshit anymore. I have 2 nights left and it's oh so nice.

The new job is pretty cush too. I can read or do homework or bind books or watch dvds or whatever in my little booth between customers (tonight I plan to try to finish the scarf I'm making for Ben which is now a definitely belated brithday present. (I had to debate for a moment on whether to knit him one since I've always felt that somehow a gift of the knitted variety has heavy connotations, I don't know where I got this idea since I think perhaps it's really only sweater knitting that has sort of the possessive connotations when you do it for someone of your preferred dating gender that you like. (not that I wouldn't like to have the kind of position to say back off bithces he's mine with a scarf :)) but no matter how daydreamy and hopeful I can sometimes become I like to remain grounded in the reality of the situation so I don't want to send such an implication, but in the end I thought, well the whole scarf hunt he's been on conversation tipped the balance in favour of the scarf knitting so that's that.)

stay tuned for gushing (yes quite belatedly) on the package I got from my blogging by mail partner. I've just realised that I didn't give a shout out to him, g-d I've been a terrible interneteer in October.

02 October 2005

malaise

where have I been? I don't even know anymore. I'm feeling grouchy and malcontent today. It's been another trying weekend and I've another miserable evening of work ahead of me. Tomorrow I have an interview at the casino for a job as a security observer, but I'm not feeling highly confident that I've even got a chance at getting it as I've no experience in security or loss prevention other than your basic retail look for shoplifters to scare them out of doing it. One has to try though I guess. I have to get some other job, my paycheque was only 140 again this week, at this rate I'll never pay off my tuition let alone do that and raise the needed money to go to the UK to see Ben.

I'm just really frustrated lately.

I baked by stuff to send to my blogging by mail partner, but I'm not sure whether I think they came out great or not. They smell good and look okay, but I wasn't very happy with how the crust came out to even put in the pan, I'll definitely have to imporvise on what the recipe calls for next time I make them. It's a vegan recipe so I should have thought in advance that I was going to have to add something to counteract the dryness that every vegan baked good recipe I've ever made seems to be cursed with. That dryness is almot always totally counteractable so I don't get why no one ever seems to build it into the recipe. I think I forgot about it because I'd already rendered it not vegan by using butter anyway (I can't stand margarine I think it tastes disgusting on top of being just as bad for you as butter anyway) I'd proabably think they were good enough, but checking out my partner's blog they're a bit of a foodie, so I feel inadequate off the startblock. So I'll be getting that off in the post along with some food inspired mix cds tomorrow and then the only thing I'll have left to focus on is back tack. oh wait and a mail art thing and a zine project, and all the book arts projects for school. ...oh for a simple life.

You know I miss Ben, that doesn't make any sense, how can you miss someone that you've never actually met? But the distinct feeling is missing. I think the feeling of longing, or being lonely those are totally different emotional sensations from that of missing and for some reason the feeling I have is not that of someone who's met someone online and chatted for months and really can't wait to meet them, it's one of someone who's been separated a great distance and can't wait to get back in the same room with someone else. I don't know if the fact that that's the way I feel should scare me or worry me or should be some good omen. all I know is that 3 and a half months seems like an excrutiatingly long time and the thought that it could be longer due to shitty finances is the most depressing thing ever just now.

I was going to write about this really great Hungarian film I just saw, but I think i'll leave that for another post.

22 September 2005

mix madness

I've gotten 2 more dual disc debacle mixes in the post today,yay.

this means that so far I've gotten the following mixes:

Sophomore Mix from Jenny B with the nice note included. This mix I have listened to because I got it over a week ago, but have just been remiss about mentioning it here (sorry Jenny) It's a great mix with lots of British invasion sound. Also I had forgotten how much I liked the Dead Kennedys' California Uber Alles, until it came on while I was walking from the shuttle lot up to campus (that's my idea of exercise of late parking all the way over there but not taking the shuttle and just walking. )

Today I got Raquel from Portugal's Portugese sounds with the gloriously cool cover art, which I shall be listening to tonight. And I also got Cindy from California's cds.

my room is in desparate need of cleaning it's really awful, I've just been sort of lietting it go to pot because I've been sleeping upstairs in the tv room all summer and now it's a fright, and I've got to figure out how to get to the bed to sleep this weekend becuase my uncle Gwill will be in town from Wales this weekend starting tomorrow. I'm quite excited to see him, it's been over a decade since I last have actually thinking on how old I am now it may have actually been 2 decades since I've seen him. My family never gets to see our relatives, which is another reason I'm keen on going to the UK after graduation, though more and more it's quite detirmined in my mind that I am not just going for a visit, but moving. and yes damnit Ben has a lot to do with the fact that I've made up my mind that way, but even if somehow we didn't hit it off in person the way we do in email and phonecall, I'd still want to move falling madly in smit is just the kind of thing that catalyses one to stop skittering around ideas and actually try to go for them. I've been purposely vague about my intentions to my family, though I think my dad has gotten a suspicion that I'm sersiouly considering a move overseas and I think in a round about way he thinks it's a good idea (though I think he thinks it will make me all rah rah america, well I know they think that I don't have a clue about how life in other countries is, but the fact is that I do, I've never thought that anywhere had an idyllic life there are pros and cons to every place, and I do pay attention to foreign news sources to see what those are. )

21 September 2005

hooky

I should be in advanced fiction studio right now, but I'm not, I stayed put in my chair in the computing lab. I'd done my work, my assinine set of questions for the manuscripts going today, but I just didn't feel like going. I just hate that class, it sucks all the joy out of life and it shouldn't. I used to love my fiction studios at Emerson, but I think that's because the professors at Emerson were awesome and not full of self-importance the way this professor is. This professor turns the emphasis off people working on their writing, off them improving in whatever voice and topic they happen to have, makes it about joylessness and her idea of what she wants to read. There are the same share of career workshoppers, they're everywhere that pompous, pretentious breed of writers who can't shut up about their experiences through writing and how somehow, someway everything anyone can ever write or think relates back to them. Who always have the same points of view as the professor, no matter that the last time you had a class with them they did the same thing, only the professor had opposite views; always belabour over some obvious point, some error of structure, as though it were the most important thing in the universe and they just can't get past it; who feign what has to be fake obtuseness about the meanings of absolutely clear things as though they get and are picking up on what it is you are trying to make but they refuse to attribute it to your intention as though you were making a mistake and somehow they are so clever that they're pointing it out to you so you can fix it. I hate these fuckers, but I rest assured in the belief that they are the airless sort who will never make it out of acadamia because that is the only place that such utter bullshit is ever thought or humoured. I know that it's true because half of the types of things that they'd never get or would have had a fieldday trying to change is the sort of thing that's not only published, but becomes an underground hit, a sensation amongst people with half a mind. So bI'm not going to class. I have 2 unexcused abscences a semester and I'm taking one of them right now and I'm not sorry. I didn't have a particular desire to discuss the manuscripts for this week anyway, I was mostly unwowed. Has there been an ebb in people who want to do edgy in university? A failed spectacular attempt is more desirable to me than a half successful bit of boring.

19 September 2005

woohoo mixology

hah I have finally got my dual disc debacle discs ready to post, they'd actually be there already only the mailers I bought to mail them in it appears are too narrow for my packaging, oops. So i've got to buy new ones tomorrow.

Sure I could wait to post details, but no one knows who I have so it will still be a surprise and besides I'm quite proud of how the packaging turned out, it was such a pain in the ass.


here is a shot of each of the sideseach disc nestles into the centre of a bomb. Up top on the fuse is an accordian book of the tracklisting with a little slip around then to keep them flat when you don't want to look at them.


this is a close-up of one of the accoridan books.

They'd obviously look better if I had the blackcore foam board instead of having to use a sharpie to colour whiteboard black, also if I had a proper saw to cut the board my utility knifes were all either too dull to work well or too flimsy.

The tracks:

red wire......................................green wire
future sounds of london- dead cities.............st thomas- railroad
deltron 3030- mastermind.........................the dears- who are you defenders
rem- oddfellows local 151....................................of the universe
mountain goats- lion's teeth.....................aisler's set- mission bells
girls against boys- she's lost control...........beat happening- bad seeds
mclucsky- to hell with good intentions...........relaxed muscle- let it ride
leonard cohen- first we take manhattan...........madrugada- come on home to me
the faint- psycho killer.........................sneaker pimps- blue movie
toure kunde- in the air tonight..................girls against boys- 300 looks for
alizee- moi lolita...........................................................summer
cat power- crossbones style......................lois- charles atlas
mountain goats- dilaudid.........................the organ- brother
arab strap- flirt................................ariel pinks haunted graffiti- jules
jarvis cocker- a cheat...............................................lost his jewels
mirah- the garden................................tigers & monkeys- somethings
fischerspooner- just let go..............................................got to give
mirah- apples in the trees.......................young marble giants- brand
.................................................mountain goats- alpha rats nest
.................................................amazing pilots- price of winter
.................................................slumber party- black heart road
.................................................dufus- wrinkle
.................................................stephen jones- we all make the
.......................................................................flowers grow

18 September 2005

don't worry about me, I'm just being murdered over here

If there was ever any question that I am quitting my job post haste it has been answered. Last night somtime during second shift (presumably at the time when the sun went down and they became necessary) the canopy lights shut off plunging the parking lot into pitch blackness. The electrician of contract either didn't feel like coming in, or no one bothered to call him, actully more likley fucking bitch district advisor decided that it wasn't necessary to call electrician to come in until morning, and the brilliant solution ot the problem of no lights on in the parking lot and looking pretty closed from the street was that the lights override should be used, since that will turn the lights on for 45 minutes in case of storms where it gets dark dirng the day. Now this is a stupid idea of a solution for an entire night because you can't push the pverride until the lights shut off, the lights will not come back up again from the override for at least half and hour to 45 minutes becuase they have to cool down completely before they will turn back on, Or worse, and what happened to me is the lights will shut down and even after they've cooled they won't turn back on. I was stuck by myself, alone, from 1:30 am until 5:45 am surrounded on all sides by pitch black parking lot, with no customers coming in becuase people thought we were closed for some reason, in a not so good neighbourhood. (Now the neighbourhood is not the quasi compton that some people in the are would have you believe, and I'm not really concerned working there overnight on normal days, it's well lit and busy enough that there aren't big periods of time where no one is around, but the 48th and Q, where the neighbourhood is really bad and not all that long ago soething really unpleasant happened to the night clerk to the point that the regulars still come in my store concerned that I'm on single coverage and make a point to come in and check on me if they just came to fill up outside and don't see me at the register becuase I'm in the back cleaning or something, is only a couple of blocks south of me)

What makes me more livid about it is that the disctrict advisor knew about the lack of lights, knew that the 3rd shift is a lone female, and was more concerned about the $10 in sales that we might still get. What was the point of leaving me in a position where if the worst did happen and a robber came in or a rapist and I got shot or stabbed and couldn't get to the phone to call the paramedics after it was over? I'd bleed to death before a customer showed up to find me becuase they all thought we were closed becuase of no lights? I had maybe 5 customers the whole shift, they can't have even produced enough of a profit to pay for my shitty low wage for those hours.

If I'd really thought about it before the shift change was complete I would have said 'oh hell no I'm not working here by myself.' but I didn't, not until the lights didn't come back on from the override timing out and by then it was too late.

But this is certainly, if not my last week, very damn close to it.

16 September 2005

my job makes me need to be leisure class

It's been a pretty lousy day, the only thing I actually got accomplished from my list was my passport application. I was pretty livid when I went to go get my schedule for this week (this week started today) and my checque at 2:30 and not only was there no checque yet, but there wasn't a schedule. Just stepping foot in that place puts me in a bad mood. I really don't want to go back tonight for my shift. they aren't even giving me near what my hours are supposed to be. I'm beginning to think that I'd be better off even working at some damn fast food place. One of these days I'm probably just going to snap and quit, the only reason I haven't is because i've so many other expenses that I can't really afford to go unemployed while I go about getting another job.

In happier news, my correspondance with Ben contiues to be brilliat. If I weren't already totally smitten with him anyway I would certainly have become so after the following little diatribe on typfaces:
' I have a thing about fonts, which is probably another vestigial trace of the calligraphist in me. I'm just coming out of a big apathy for serif fonts, as I've realised I quite like century schoolbook. I'm digging century gothic right now, and always, always hating copperplate. If I see anything in copperplate I automatically despise it. And I like plain sans serifs, but helvetica is fucking boring and I hate it (although I adore Futura). If fonts were people, helv would be an accountant. Copperplate would be the fat american guy with just-for-men hair who wants to haggle over an 'antique' that's actually a reproduction with a barcode on the lable. Comic sans is the Downs Syndrome guy wearing dungarees and a hat with a propellor on the top (believe it or not I actually saw such a person in a shop in Norwich). Futura and Cooper are current faves.'


it's pure genius.

I also got my fabric to make the bag I'm making my back tack person today. The guy at the fabric shop assured me it said squid loud and clear, so we shall see.

fortunately it's friday, maybe I can catch up now

Malteasers are the worst invention in the world, and when I say worst I mean the absolute best candy ever, therefore the worst because they hijack your sense of moderation. Luckily the bag shall soon be gone and I won't have to think about whether I can prevent myself from melting anymore of them on the roof of my mouth. Unfortunately there are still several large milk bars yet untouched. It probably wouldn't be so bad did I not miss good British candy so much that Ben's package of sugary confectionary goodness makes me feel like a 5 year old on halloween. It's so sweet too because he felt guilty about sending so much sugar that he also sent a tube of a toothpaste that's not available in the states. The distance to the end of year seems longer everyday I swear.

I got my passport photos yesterday and they look frighteningly like some bad celebrity mugshot ridiculed on Conan. I'm starting to develop a theory that the more important the identification paper the worse the photo will be. At least you can smile in driver's licenses.

I'm just here finisheing up my dual disc debacle mix, I've run out of time to make separate mixes for everyone, I've just had too much to do with school. Speaking of school, my damn linoleum better be in at Dick Blick today, I really, really need to get started cutting. It seems early in the semester now, but with so many different cuts to make it's actually late.

When I was hunting for something to shove in my lunch kit for lunch at the grocery I ran across these new connoisseur cheese spreads, I tried the brie and oh man am I hooked. They also have gorgonzola and asiago so I think I shall have to give them a try too. I so love cheese.

15 September 2005

the weekend is almost upon me

So I've been getting a lot of spam as comments and I've had to turn on word verification. That's pretty sad, actually it's sad because I don't get a lot of comments so I'd see the "youve got a comment email in my inbox and be all secited and then it would be about penis enlargement cream or something and I'd be sad becuase I don't even have a penis to enlarge. (not that I'd want a penis, but at least they could tailor the spam to fit my gender circumstances you know, I'd like to feel like I'm really being courted as a demographic for my spam.)

I've got to make a concertina book for binding class this weekend, I've decided to be too creative for mere paper and make it out of balsa wood. that whould be fun.

A little survey for my mysterious backtack partner: (I'm so excited about this whole thing it's going to be so much fun)


Which craft have you always wanted to pursue, but just haven't been able to
find the time, etc., to explore? needle felting

Fave colors? blues, dutch fireball red (I'm surprised I'm not listing pantone numbers here :) that ink is about the nicest shade of red i've seen though) and that darkish yellow green colour that seems a cousin of both lime and olive. I don't care much for yellow. Yellow is definitely my least favourite colour.

Do you prefer to make functional items or do you make decorative items as
well? I think I tend to be more functional, I've always been the one who used things that you weren't really supposed to: the tiny ornate guest soaps, the heirloom quilt, the throw pilloe. In fact I've always fancied the idea of getting some of those silly franklin mint plates from a tag sale or something and then serving dinner off them because I think it would be kind of fun to finish my rice and have Scarlet at Tara or Elvis at Graceland appear from underneath. Also because it would apall Franklin Mint collectors everywhere.

Fave artists or designers?
I love Mark Rothko, Maija Fiebig, Edvard munch, Umberto Boccioni (at least the states of mind series) I pretty much love anything produced by Alessi as well as koziol. I like minimalist and modern with bits of whimsy thrown in for contrast.

Natural world or ethereal realm? natural world. I don't like faires and dragons and that sort of thing at all. owls, bears and octopi are where it's at.

Fuzzy, shiny, sparkly or clean-lines? clean lines. I'm definitely not a sparkly person, but furry and shiny have thier places in moderation.

50's, 60's, 70's, 80's or another era? Why? I like the 20s because I've always had a thing for flappers and especially Louise Brooks. I like the reckless fun, the defiant whimsy and the stubborn naivete of the era. I like the late 30s-mid 40s becuase I love the smart lines of the clothes and that's when all the great screwball comedies were made. And I've always had a great affinity for the 50s as depicted in the illustrations of chidren's books of that era, it's one of the very clear childhood memories of why I loved books when I was growing up, looking at the illustrations in children's books of etiquette and party giving as well as novels for kids like 'Gone Away Lake' and 'the Rock Hounds'

Hand-made or machine made? handmade. I can be ridiculously anti-deluvean at times, but I like that last little hold out against technology, it maks me feel like I could still cope if the word's computers crashed.

Computer or good ole paper and graphite? definitely paper and graphite. for the same reasons

Anything else you'd like me to know about you??? Hmm... I don't know... I can't roll my tongue into that little u tube thing even though everyone in my family can and I hear that's a genetic trait.

13 September 2005

self portrait tuesday



my favourite area of the body is the area from the earlobe to the clavicle. I've a weakness for a nice throat. I think it's the most underrated erogenous zone. It is fascinatingly complicated and graceful the muscles and tendons.

12 September 2005

I'm no wage faust

what is the deal with companies who expect you to sell yourself into slavery to work for them? I went to apply for a wharehouse job order picking for a large novelty company here because they pay way more than the job I have now which isn't cutting it when it comes my current expenses (in the next 13 weeks I have to pay my tuition, pay for a us passport so that I can pay for my British passport [for some reason because I've never had either passport and I'm living in the US I have to send in a copy of my US passport in order to get my British one processed which, if you ask me is silly because I have the necessary documents to prove my claim to British citizenship and damn it I didn't enter this country on a passport I was born here. I don't even want a US passport, if I'm going to travel the world I'm better off using my British one anyway. so it seems like a big waste of money to have to pay the fees to get one), get an eye exam and pay for new specs, buy plane tickets to the UK for after graduation. and on a cheque of only $200 a week, that's just not cutting it.) I went through all the application rigamarole but couldn't get the job because there are 3 nights from now until the end of December that I am unavailable to work. 3 nights. not 3 nights a week, not even three nights in the same week, one's a tuesday in a couple weeks, one's a wednesday in October and the other is a Saturday in October, that's not even the xmas busy season, whatthe fuck. I left a bit pissed, but in a way glad because any company that thinks it owns you that much is probably the shittiest place on earth to work for, so the new job hunt continues.

I need to finish my labyrinth book for my binding class tonight, but now that I've decided to make it a double book, I seem to be stuck on a second poem for the other side. I hit the jackpot at the friends of the library book sale, I found this old yellow plastic national geographic box full of maps, it's so awesome, so I cut one into a labyrinth book for my class project. It was a map of north american bird migrations with the migration route on one side and just a map of the americas on the other, on the side that mostly opens on the regular maps I used Gord Downie's 'Nothing but heartache in your social life' for the text, and I needed to take it home to tweak a couple of things anyway, but I thought I needed to put a different poem on the side with the migration map but I'm having a time finding the right one.

I got my first mixes from the Dual Disc Debacle today in the post, I totally wasn't expecting that at all yet. Now I feel quite behind. It's good because I'll have something to listen to at school tomorrow.

I'm such a damn kid at the core I saw these disposable utensils at the supermarket and had to buy them to put in my lunch kit instead of bringing the good silverware

I'm so addicted to cute things, even though I've tried to get away from hello kitty now that she is obnoxiously trendy and adorning half of target, I still am a sucker for cute. I sort of went over to san-x once the onslaught of mainstream hit.

Tomorrow Ben and I are to have a proper phone conversation (meaning landline to landline as he's only regularly got a cell and one from a totally different area than he's living in and the reception is awful so up til now there have been lot of 2 minute calls back to back as the calls keep getting dropped mid sentance. Also the lag calling between the countries is awful, you'd think that by 2005 in two very modern and advanced techonogically western countries this wouldn't be a problem.

11 September 2005

just some random babblings

Time to focus again all these brilliant swaps I've signed up for are finally rolling so I've got to stop neglaecting the land of blog.

I was thinking of doing 5 entirely different double mixes for the dual disc debacle making certain that no one gets the same mix, I'm not sure whether or not I'll feel quite so ambitiouss over the next couple of days, whilst I am crafting the musical awesomeness, It will actually probably be easier to come up with 10 discs of music rather than narrowing my insanely extensive collection down to two.

I'm thinking of making some lovely apricot-date bars for my blogging by mail pal, probably becaue I've been having a jones for them of late so they sound like a good idea. That or divinity, but I know if I make divinity I'll end up eating a bunch of it and that will totally ruin my diet.

And of course I've got to get busy lurking on my back tack buddy's blog to find out what to make a kit on. I suppose logically that would mean I really ought to start posting in here more to give ideas to whoever has me.

I went to see Me, You and Everone we Know, yesterday. My friends at the cinema kept telling me about all the people who walked out because of some of the content, so stupid. It was such a beautiful film and in fact all the content these puritans found objectionable was really tame by today's standards and were quite funny. well too bad for them I guess, they missed the rest of a lovely film.

The aristocrats opens this coming week-end and I am definitely all about seeing it. Also it's nice to know the guy who pretty much runs the cinema so my poor student ass doens't have to pay admission. I've got to find a new job, everyone's hours have gotten cut at my current one and I wasn't making enough money to pay my tuition as it was, now I'm really past broke. The job sucked anyway because we were so ridiculously mircromanaged that I half expect some Simon Legree to pop out whip in hand if ever I dare to go to the washroom on my shift. I also rather dislike being the only person on from midnight til 8 am. I haven't been robbed yet, but the store about a mile or two down the street has been hit twice in the last couple of months. I think I'm going to apply for seasonal work in the distribution warehouse of a novelty company here doing order picking 3rd shift. Not a terribly exciting job, but with shift differential and incentives you can earn up to 12.73 an hour which is good money, and seasonal probably means up til the new year which is how long I'm planning to be in town anyway, plus if I need to and I'm not a shitty employee then that's the kind of place where I could stay on if I should need to build up some more money in January before I embark to whatever corner of the globe I'll be off to as a graduate.

I put in my linoleum order for my book projects and it's still not in yet, I should have ordered it online, then I would have gotten it in a few business days instead of 2 weeks, it's occurred to me that there are a mere 13 weeks left in the semester, I think I have to finish cutting at least 2 pages of illustrations a week, to be even remotely on track. Yipes! If only I could find a way to harness time where it would go slowly when I need more time to work on things and zip by in two shakes when I don't want to do something. That would be a good thing for someone to invent.

01 September 2005

pictures and tidbits

yikes, I've been so non-blogging since school started again, I guess that could be a slightly positive thing since it means that instead of spending all my freetiime between classes and such online I'm working on art or fiction writing or something (ok I do spend a few hours online, but they are spent in composing long thoughtful emails to the Scottish fellow who's been steadily stealing my heart and that's pretty much mandatory computer time as far as I'm concerned, I get far too much joy out of our correspondence for it not to be, but Idon't spend too much more time online of late)

Actually I was thinking that its interesting the patterns in which we blog and take time away from it and how they vary in ways that tell a lot about our individual lives. Those with families and kids seem to have their hiatuses during the summer when there is an abundance of time to spend with the kids and take summer vacations, the scholastic of us have those beginning and end of semester lulls where we're focused on the newness of school or freaking out under the end of the deadline crunch. I guess it's like our bones have the story of our life written on them in bumps and textures , our blogging habits can tell alot about us.

but anyway: things I probably would have said over the course of many posts, but that are now condensed into one convienient post (it's like the reader's digest of my blog)

1. I was reading Myla Goldberg's 'Bee Season' in an anthology of Jewish writer's called 'Lost Tribe: Jewish fiction from the edge' It's about a girl who competes in spelling bees and in becoming a spelling protege suddenly becomes uninvisible to her father. And at the end where she's just spelled the word that will ein her the state championship if she gets it correct and she's waiting for the judge to confirm or deny it there is the most wonderful sentence I've read in a long time:
'Resounding, palpable silence. Nothing moves. Eliza
wonders if death is not a sleep you can't wake up from
but life reduced to one inescapable moment.'

2. I got the best lunch kit ever at Target, I really can't go into that store it's too dangerous I spend money I don't have to spend. I went to go get a usb drive that was on sale so I can convieniently carry around things I need to print or work on between my computer and computers attached to printers, and I ended up coming out with some school supplies I don't entirely need and a twin pack of polaroid film for my polaroid one (which isn't even the polaroid I own hat I have been hankering to use) but I did need a lunch kit really, I spend so much time at school that it's practical. so this is my new lunchbox:


3. I've been meaning to make my post about the goodies recieved in the fabric scrap swap. I got some really great peices of fabric and had a lot of fun participating. Hopefully people liked at least a few of the scraps I sent, I felt a bit sheepish when all the scraps I got in return were all in nice and neat squares and rectangles, I did go to the effort of trying to make the main 8 peices that everyone got the same of square, but for some reason I've never been a square scrap leaver, so the mounds of random scraps weren't very square, just wild. And I fept finding all kinds of crazy odd patterns squirreled away in the fabric room most of it vintage from the 70s so I felt compelled to send that around the world instead of sticking to all more normal fare. True to the form of these scrap posts here is a photo of some of my favourite of the scraps,

there were too many favourite ones to fit in one artful display so this is merely a selection, plus I've insane amounts more of toehr scraps now, I'm defintely glad that I participated it was a great experience.

4. Kevin sent me a link for craiglist for a guy selling a 16mm bolex for $100, sucre I don't have a spare $100, but damn it when will I ever run across a working bolex for so cheap, I wrote teh guy and am very interested in getting it, though if he hasn't already sold it yet, I'll probably inquire why he's not going to milk it on ebay and if the answer doesn't sound too fishy I'll probably buy it. I do really hunger to get my own bolex and start making films again, especially now that I understand where I and film stand on our needs of eachother.

5. so much linoleum! I'm pressing myself to do a lot of cuts right now that aren't related to anything else I need to do cuts for, personal work, whether this is going to lead to printmaking burnout with the amount of cuts I need to do for both of my book projects let alone anything I may do for a binding project I don't know but at present it makes me feel really industrious and on top of what I should be doing. I'm working alot in the personal realm on doing portrait cuts sort of like the one on the right of this photo from the edition book I did last semester

(bonus points to you if you know who that was a photo of) I'm doing a few of peole like that, celebrities, but I'm really also trying to convert a lot of the portraits of people that I've photographed into prints, sort of an I don't have access to a darkroom so I'll just turn my photos into linoleum prints :)
I'd still have to say that my favourite print I've made has been far more simple:

also a piece from my edition book. I've been considering printing up some prints to sell as sort of a fundraiser for my go to Wales and visit my famiily after graduation and of course take that essential little hop skip and jump up the UK to visit Ben. But I really don't know how saleable such stuff is, I've never actually done my art as an edition meant to sell or tried to sell it, mainly it's just been in a student gallery show and then retired to my own home, so damn if I know how much one charrged for anything let alone goes hey do you want to buy this.

well, tis about time to leave for class so that ends this post.

23 August 2005

fall has finally arrived.

My final semester starts today, I'm so excited, not just that in four short months I shall finally be a graduate after ten and a half years of educational nomadism, but also with the exception of an inward groan that my final fiction studio has to be with Anna, whose teaching style and complete arbitraryess of grading in the past leaves me not at all excited to work on novel writing with her, I'm really excited about the course load. It's true I'll be practially living in the pressroom especially on Tues and Thursdays, but I can't wait to see what I push myself to create theis semester in both hand produced book 2 and bookbinding.

Things worked out for the best for once and that freshman comp class I was worried that I was going to have to take because of a a mixup involving recieving credit for my AP exam at my first college but not this one. All is therefore fixed and I'm all good to go for degree application.

20 August 2005

I've built my little soap-box out of post industrial scavanged boards

I've spent the last couple of days clicking links to vendor sites from the Renegade that's going to be in Chicago, I definitely have wanted to go, I was even planning to somehow find enough people in the art department to make the cost of gasoline for such a road trip quite affordable (it's been a while since I made the trek from here to Chicago, since I moved back east for years until this little blip for the degree conferring, but it's only a 7 hour drive [depending on who's doing the driving and whether the stupid state patrols are hovering around trying to boost state revenue that day] so I think 4 tanks of gas would cover the round trip so with three other people the gas bill would only be $25 a piece instead of a most unworth it 100.), but I'm already going to have to take off an extra day that week for the Sufjan Stevens show, and besides I'm sure as hell not going to have any money to spend there anyway. My tuition is almost 2 grand this semester right now and if I get forced into having to register for that freshman comp class that the last advisor swore to me I wouldn't have to take because I already have 8 jillion credits in writing (the trouble being that I took AP English in high school and took the AP exam, so at Emerson I didn't have to take the Comp 1 requirement because my exam counted for it, and so I just had to take comp 2, but the univeersity I'm at now won't take the AP exam as credit so technically I don't meet the English writing requirements for graduation. Actually they are claiming there is another class I don't have involving writing, all of this is stupid seeing as one of my specialisations is writer's workshop and I have umpteen classes demonstrating that I know how to string words together in understandable thoughts, I've got several screenwriting classes, a comedy writing class, a shit-ton of fiction studios, let alone film theory and criticism where I had to write a dissertation on feminist imagry and symbolism in the films of Jane Campion (ok so it wasn't like they handed me that and said, here you look like a girl who'd like to muck on watching the Piano about 20 times this semester and counting the number of oppressive camera angles, I saddled myself with that topic after the research on my original topic turned out to be a bust, but still, if that paper doesn't count for an entire comp class then there is something wrong with the halls of higher learning.) I'm already going to be under a considerable workload this semester with my final fiction studio which is geared toward novel writing, book 2, and then bookbinding, so trying to cram in a piddly freshman level busy work composition class, which will add another $500 to my tuition that I'm already going to struggle to be able to pay ontime as it is, is really going to frustrate me, even worse if the last advisor I talked to before I took my little 3 year sabbatical was extra full of shit and I have to take 2 such classes. I have to graduate this December, there is simply no exception to this. I'm not staying here until June, not over freshman comp.

As much as it would suck this would not be the crisis that it is right now if my parents had helped me out on last semester's tuition, especially since I had a hard time finding work when I got back. As it was I spent the entire summer putting forth my measly earnings toward paying off Spring semester and the extra 200 in late fees I had because I couldn't pay by in time for the billing dates. (this wouldn't be exactly the bone of contention in me were it not for the fact that my narly 25 year old brother who's never worked a day in his life, is still completely supported by them financially and has his tuition paid for what is going on the same exact number of years in school once you take into account the fact that I took the 3 years off to get my shit together in Connecticut.

But, I guess there's no use getting stressed about it until I speak to an advisor to do my official senior check which hopefully I'll take care of Monday, after all a little computer trying to randmonly do your degree check isn't going to really be able to do the figuring where it comes to all those credits from Emerson that don't match up to anything here.

But I digressed, I was talking about web boutiques, only I'm no longer in the mood to rant about what a complete waste of important marketing buzz it is to be listed amongst the vendors on the site for a pretty large sized independent design and arts colective sale, and not even have a brief page put up to talk up your wares and where people can get them or offer a mailing list when you do get a shop up and running. I know this whole "diy" movement seems to have taken on the air that no one should look like they care about making a dime nor should they look like they know their head from their arse when it comes to having any kind of business sense because that might take on that consumerist edge if you admitted you'd like to possibly make a living off your creative talents, but, for pete's sake, in a burgeoning industry that's really starting to take on the tinge of glut, you should at least know enough to know that getting your name and vision out there and as much as possible is more and more vital to your survival. If you are serious enough about your products and art to apply and pay into being a part of the event, then you should care enough to put up at least some kind of homepage, if for nothing else so that after the event you can keep customers who are keen to supprt your work and buy more stuff in the future informed of where you get places to carry your stuff or when you have new stuff. In fact if you're serious enough to do a major event like this your web store or page shouldn't look like you let a chimp with lou gehrig's disease design it. I mean you don't have to go get some fancy graphic design firm do it up, that wouldn't be very independent (Yes I have a real pet peeve about the misuse of the term "diy." It's diy if you decide to put in your own sink instead of having a plumbing contractor do it, it's diy if you see a Marc Jacob's dress that you think is absolutely the most beautiful thing ever and so you whip up a pattern yourself and recreate it or at least somehting similar, it's diy if you think spending 20 buck on a wallet at some lame mall chain store so you just design and make your own. It is not diy if you design something, produce it in a small edition or as a one of a kind item with the intetions of selling it, that is being an independent small retailer. The reason I dislike the misuse of the term isn't just nit-pickery for me, it's something I see as a belittling of not only the people who put in the work and effort into producing these goods, but as something which is an instrument of big business and and behemoth retailors to subvert mass consumption backlash. I think that as a culture of craft and the tendency of our business ventures in goods that aren't mass produced and entirely machine made to have risen out of a love of crafts that we started as a hobby, we take on the term without really considering the implications that the word puts over our goods. DIY is a term that implies a lack of professionalism, that what is produced is the result of a casual hobby. I know we can all raise our hands and admit to having had at least one occaision where when asked about something we either made or bought from someone who handmakes their items when we brought up that it was handmade or diy, we were treated to a comment expressing surprise that it "almost looks good enough to have come from a store" as though if it weren't made by some 12 year old Cambodian for 2 cents a day in a room with no ventilhation it can only be inferiour. Handmade used to be the mark of real quality, it's a notion that seems to have died off about the time that we stopped calling people milliners and artisans.

To me all of the wonderful things out there for sale by people who decided to pursue that dream of selling thier creations to the world, the only thing diy about them is their ethos. That spirit of screw you corporate media, you can't tell us how to think, feel or what to like, and if you won't put out our records, if you won't give us magazine content that has substance and interest, if you won't design clothes that fit our real selves and not some ideal you try to feed us, if you won't give us what we actually want instead of what you're trying to tell us we should want then we will, like the people who founded your damn companies back when they had 5 employees that they actually viewed as people and not disposable machines that they try to cover their disdain for by giving them inflated sounding names to make it seem like they really do care about you, take that risk that there are others who share our views and tastes and make our own damn company, or magazine, or record label, or movie production company and the world will probably be a better place for it.

Right so that was a soapbox full :) I tend to be the sort of person who gets an opinion and gets it passionately, I'd have been great in the old days of fiery stump speeches and riding around in the back of locomotives campaigning. I'm too long winded for our soundbite times though I fear.

18 August 2005

letting illness repress me: vorbotten

I'm starting to feel relatively more on the human side than not, though still quite ill. One of the worst things about being sick, regardless of what it is you're sick from, is that you're constantly having to relegate life into things you think you're well enough to tackle and things you're going to have to wait to start until you get better. I am far too much of a get an idea and go person than one who can wait around to start it, usually because if I wait I've had a dozen new ideas an I'm just not interested anymore.

I saw photos of other moustache softies on plush rush which is another one of those things I'd love to submit to and participate in, but there are so many people out there with far better sewing skills and experience than me, so odds on getting aomething in is low enough that it hardly seems worth the bother. Morris will at least be happy to know htat he has stuffed moustache bretheren.

Today I ran across swank signs a photo collection of all the truly odd and wonderful public works signs from all over the globe, complete with an area for all the smart asses to invent funny captions or speculate just what was going through the warning sign makers' heads when they created something so odd. It's definitely a big bonus for the timewasters who like to laugh aout there.

15 August 2005

self portrait tuesday a few hours early



I stopped taking my paxil on Thursday, After over 2 years on it i feel it's time for a noble experiment in trying to manage my own emotions, after all I'm a very different person than the one who was talked into to taking anti depressents in the first place, my thought processes are a lot healthier. I know that the conventional advice is to ween yourself off them, but the idea of 6 months of hit or miss sickness from level lowering doesn't appeal to me, I'd rahter, it's true just take the month of withdrawal and be done with it. Right now that's not feeling like such a great plan as I am horribly ill with nausea and fatigue and those annoying power surge feelings in my head. What it does though is make me angry. Angry that i was lied to about how "oh paxil isn't habit forming, you'd just have a few side effects if you stopped like a potential increase in your original symptoms." It's bullshit, it's like saying well crack's not addictive, you'll just have some negative side effects if you don't smoke that next rock. I could really deal with my moods and emotions being a bit wonky for awhile as my brain makes the transition. That much would be fine. But, you know what, glaxo-smith kiline, or whoever you are, nowhere in the original symptoms of my depression did I feel like an electric surge went off in my head when I moved, did moving too much make me feel that i was going to vomit. I'm not going to go refill my prescription though, I've made it this far I'll just remain detirmined to deal with it for a little longer. (it might be one thing if I had health insurance to just abandon this detox, but I don't, so I've got to keep in mind that the worst part is probably half over now, and I've just got to be strong enough to make it to the slight discomfort stage and then I'm home free.)

So, alright this isn't a very crafty post or even artsy, but it does have a self portrait, so there's something. :)

14 August 2005

sundays I talk about art

So a couple sundays ago I mentioned that Bansky, the British graffitti artist now famous for smuggling pieces into New York museums, was one of my heroes specifically for the museum stunts. I also mentioned that I have a general dislike of art museums in general and said I'd elaborate some other sunday, well today is that sunday.

Obviously I go to museums, and I always find a lot of art that I'm really into when I go, I prefer to go to gallery showings far more than I like going to the Met or the Louvre however and the reason is that art museums don't really foster the kind of visceral experience with the art. Museums are all about hero worship of what a select few have decided are the artists and works that you simply must be excited about. There's no real sense of democracy or personal reaction to them. They say, these artists are simply the best, and that's how it is, we're the exclusive group. Museums seek to take art from the people and make it snobbish and exclusive and the artist who manages to get his or her works accepted is placed on a pedastal.

I think the reactions of the museums who were "hit" with Banksy works really speaks volumes to me about how removed from the common man and self enshrouded in an air of superiority the art world has become. The general feelings of those in the illustrious power seats viewed what Banksy had done as an affront to art, a slap in the face to the legacy of greatness, that how dare just anyone think they could hang a work in a museum for the public to see. But what could be more appropriate than "just anyone" hanging work in a museum? Doesn't it challenge us all to consider what exactly it is that makes a work of art something for all times and what makes it minor? Doesn't it inspire us to consider the whole nature of art and what it is? To consider all the groundbreaking rebelliousness of art particularly in the 20th century and beyond? I'm by no means saying that the works that Banksy hung are the kind of works that will endure for any length of time as great art (in fact I was less impressed with most of them than with the bulk of his graffitti pieces) but to me what was important and groundbreaking and art about what he did was the fact that he did it at all, it was the intorduction of populist pieces into the patrician world of illustrious museums, it was the attempt to shake up the neurons of the art spectator.

That's one of the things that I like about the guerrilla art movement, that much of it is really about getting people to take a peep outside their tunnel and really look once again at the world that actually surrounds them, to view for a minute the places they've trudged through everyday for ten years to the point that they don't even notice they are actually alive there anymore as a tourist does on his first visit, to interact with their lives again. It's about reclaiming one's life again in a world where we've given it up for habit and mechanisation.

You'll note that I really don't think that enough attention is being given to guerilla art, everyone is so damn focused on smooching up to 'outsider art' (a term which i hate to the ends of the earth)not that there aren't a lot of great outsider artists, but I think too much attention is paid to that, when there isn't even really any such thing as outsider art, this so called movement is built up of self-taught artists and folk artists, which are right there two serparate forms of art and not something you ought to just lump together under some pretentious word that someone thinks sounds better.

But anyway, yes I don't like museums because they foist an opinion on you about the works in them, and really never give you much of a feel into the world into which these works and movements sprung forth. And I like to form my own opinions, even if often they aren't at the same eye level as the critics :)

13 August 2005

opthomalogical manifest destiny

I've been in need of a new prescription for my specs for an eon, I really need to do something about it in the next few months before I graduate and go back to the real world financial blahs of rent, and dear readers, I present the frames that will be mine! Have I bought them yet, oh no, but it is certainly manifest destiny that these frames will brigde my nose one day!

(If there is one item of fashion that I will have no problem paying for it is the eyewear frame, since after all, the spectacle is so prominent that it really telegraphs your personality at first glance, one day I'll have a spec collection the way Manhattan socialiites have Jimmy Choo and Malo Blahnik shoe collections. And in actuality this frame happens to not be in the super pricey range, at least not on the site I found selling it, plus as blind as I am the painful part of buying specs is how much the lenses cost especially by the time you've got all the protective coatings and had the sides polished so it's not glaringly obvious that I wear coke bottles [also I'm not exaggerating, I've yet to find anyone who could beat me inthe battle of myopia, I'm -10.75 in both eyes, or at least was last time I got them proerly checked]. So it would seem that my only hard decision is whether I covet the red with black or the black with green frames more.)

These by the way are Alain Mikli, who is, at least in my estimation, the darling of eyewear design right now, having spectacular successful buzz at being behind those brilliant and gorgeous frames Cillian Murphy was wearing in Batman Begins.

here I refrain from making bad jokes about rides

I whipped out my Softie for the month whilst watching my typical Friday night cavalcade of forensic shows and I think he actually turned out better than I thought he might. So here is Morris the Moustache.


you'll see he makes an excellent disguise for tharting the sheriff...


I know you're like, but Chloe, what the hell does that have to do with the wild west. Well to be honest when I think of the wild west the first thing I think of after cowboys, indians and cheap whores in red can can dresses is big droopy handle bar snidley whiplash moustaches. So I thought why not eschew the horse and cow and other more well known and probably #1 common picks and go with a portable stuffed moustache. (also it sort of reminds me of that episode of the Tick :))

I was originally thinking of making a jackalope, but I could never settle on a design I liked and since this project is supposed to be about fun and not frustration I decided to work on something else that I could get a suitable design out of.

12 August 2005

swaps ops and brainstorms

I'm totally becoming addicted to swaps I think. I've written in to sign up for backtack 2 after being completely wowed by everyone's posts on version one, and I've even started coming up with a cool design for a bag for it. I'm also going to do blogging by mail 2, because how perfect, I've been moaning for awhile that I've just got the desire to bake things, but as I've no one to bake them for I just end up either eating a whole forest of cupcakes myself or half of them go to waste, so this way other people get snackies, and I don't feel so guilty about consming a ton of sweeties because they were made by someone else and it would be rude not to eat them all :) (yes my sense of healthy eating can be convinced quite easily to shut up with a good excuse :)) Also it's looking like Shell is going to run with my suggestion of an artist trading cards swap (I'm too lazy, plus I think I've too few readers to be the central cog in organising one anyway) so I'll definitely be in on that. The department at school was supposed to be doing one this summer, at least amongst us non-digital printmakers and letterpress folks, but I've not heard a peep about it and summer's almost up, so either it got abandoned or it's not going to get into gear until the semester starts in about a week. Speaking of my prints I've got a half finished block yelling at me to get to work on it, where has my summer gone?

I've finally figured out what I'm making for MOS this month, whihc makes me happy because I've been hating every design I drew out for the last 2 weeks, finally I tried an old comedy writing brainstorm technique of just writing down a bunch of words and viola an idea was born.

Now I just need to come up with my theme for the double disc debacle and I am right back on creative track for the month.

10 August 2005

Prufrockian times these

If you know me personally your concept of who I am generally falls somewhere around the idea that I am possibly the most cynical person you ever knew, and for the most part I'll cop to that for the most part, I read far too much to be anything less than savvy that way, but as you may expect I have one achilles heel of childish stubborn optimism. And that weak spot is, well I refer to it as the mythical henry, you know the elusive perfect guy, the One. Yes, I am a hopeless romantic way down there in the cockle region of the heart. I've sustained an unerring belief all these years, and through all these spectacularly dissapointing crushes and dates and relationships that somewhere out there is my John-Cusack-movie ending; the rain moment; the screwball comedy romance; the fountain dancing. I'm waiting for it. The only thing is I refuse to settle, I don't want to be with someone who doesn't make me feel like composing silly odes to them and an explosion of ladyfingers inside, therefore though my attempts at love have been laregly horrendous there haven't been very many of them, for most of the time the object of my smit hasn't really been too keen on me, or ever noticed my massive pining. Somehow I suspect that makes it easier though.

However, I have a massive attraction to a guy I've only corresponded with through the internet and it grows more giddy day by day, every time in fact I learn some new bit of trivia about his life and personality, because every time it is revealed even more randomly that he is more and more my type. He's admitted to having a large crush on me right back which only makes it worse. The trouble is he lives in the UK and I am of course here in the states. Even though it's true that I'm only tied to being here until I graduate in December and I am actually a British citizen as well as an american because my dad is from Wales, still that's a fact I try to push out of my head, I'm actually trying really very hard not to just let my brain run off on it's poetic flights of fancy and become totally stupid on the man, but damn it's hard to fight against one's natural tendency towards beautiful rash exuberance. (it's also hard to cousel oneself out of silly movie-esque ending scenarios, when one has knowledge of how random and simularly cinematic was the history that led to my existence in the first place. My dad was living and working in Bermuda, my mother went there on vacation with a friend of hers who had been asked out on a date by some other local guy, but would only agree to go as a double date so the guy, who worked with my dad, dragged my dad along and even though my mother said it was the worst date she'd ever been on and my dad had barely said a word the entire time, somehow it got to the point that they got married, he moved to the US, they had me and my little brother and they've been married 30 years. So really is meeting someone through a random internet site and a random email really all that far-fetched?)

Still the fight for emotional prudence is being waged, even though I suspect I'm going to lose out to my impetuous star-eyed nature.

09 August 2005

self portrait tuesday


It wows me how thin I'd gotten back then, I really need to stop being lazy and hit the fitness center more often, I haven't turned into an orca or anything I would just feel better if I got myself healthier again.

I have no title line today

Summer is quickly winding down, which is both a little scary in how fast the year is moving and rather nice, because it will feel good to get back into the pressroom again and to be ever that much closer to graduation. I'd better kick it up a gear on my painting if I plan to actually get it finished before the semester starts. I need to finish it so I get at least one of the bunch of projects I swore I'd get done over the break.

It's definitely a week for brainstorming. I'm still not sure what I want to do for this month's month of softies, despite living currently in one of those cowboy sort of towns I'm not a very western country sort of person. About the only thing I was ever enamoured with in the old west was the idea of making a house out of sod. Ok, and that indian hole with the rock over it in the native craft book that used to be in my house. (I think it was given up to the goodwill after I ignored all the actual crafts in it and decided to dig a big hole in the yard to hide from bears.) I also need to decide on my theme for the dual disc debacle so I can start to pick out songs for it.

I finally broke down and signed up with netflix, I'm excited that around tomorrow the Godfrey Reggio series should be arriving. I've seen Nagoyqatsi once before, but I'm excited to watch all 3 together.

02 August 2005

ebay acquisitions and not much else

I just bought this garlic press on ebay, it cost me $5 including the shipping, so I think it was a pretty excellent snag.

I've been wicked obsessed with watching cash in the attic on BBC of late, even though I get really irritated that every episode their first lots will do smashingly well and then they'll have like one item that comes in 5 pounds under and they'll act like oh no there's no way they'll make their target now. which is kind of annoying. I just love that the one valuer's name is Jaunty, someties I think that cant' possibly be any gorwn man's name, perhaps it's really John T. but then it would be quite off that they call him John T all the time instead of just John, so it must be Jaunty.

01 August 2005

sundays I talk about art (maija fiebig)

ok so technically it's monday,so I'm late :) I'm always running late.

No dissertation on art today simply some of the work of one of my favourite artists Maija Fiebig. I actually discovered her art on one of my link trolling days when I was flipping through the goods that Velocity had to offer. volocity's Maija Fiebig pages

Now I'm absolutely in love with her stuff, I wish she had her own homepage, but alas. One day when I'm rich enough to afford to buy some full priced art, I'm going to buy a few of hers. Also her work has really influenced my my linoprint work, and to some extent my painting, though there's always been a bit of a simularity in our pattern and texture, the influence of textiles. Anyway finish babbling and commence showing art...




29 July 2005

fridays are for window shopping

I love amet and sasha's clothes. They actually began my vow that instead of wasting money here and there on a lot of cheap clothes that I'd get sick of and send back off into the thrift system that I was going to spend the extra money to get some nice quirky and functional pieces from up and coming designers, that or make some of my own scribbled out designs happen. Well I still haven't exactly had the money to buy any clothes let alone ones with heftier price tags than the outlet stores, but this particular amet and sasha skirt remains on the top of my list for the splurge I'm going to make when I lose the rest of the depo/hockey retirement weight and when I have the cash.

I love assymetrical lines especially when it comes to hems.

there's no escape from the hoarding gene

I like to pretend that I've managed not to inherit the hoarder gene that's severely present in the females on the matriarchal line of my family tree, but to be honest I've only refined it, mainly through my habit of picking up and moving to and fro. Keeping one's life pared down to what one can cram into a Ford Escort hatchback is one way to ensure that you never have enough crap that it will take one week's to find your body should you die.

What I am is a digital hoarder, the harddrive to my old computer has every email I ever sent or got from someone, a billion and a half old usenet posts, mailing list post, etc. It's a biographer's dream of my internet social life in the mid to late 90s.

I don't email so much now, or really have too many people to email, I'm bad at keeping in touch and besides getting an email was never as exciting as getting a piece of real mail, I'm far too archaic sometimes to really appreciate digital life, other than of course the ease at which it keeps me in touch with the whole globe at once almost like a teleport device. I'm planning a move at the beginning of the year back east after I've got my degree, and actually I'm really feeling more convinced inside that I really should move to the UK in the next 5 years. It's something I've always wanted to do, assert my British citizenship and move, and the more I look at where the US is heading it doesn't seem like such a frightening idea anymore (I've always an excuse in my head why I should stay, the economy is bad in Europe, the cost of living is much higher, unemployment is high, antisemitism is on the rise, but you know they are really all just excuses because I'm not exactly in the middle class, if I'm doomed to crap retail jobs and eating beans and rice it' doesn't really matter where you have your garret :)) So with more moves on the horizon I'm a little loathe to start any big collection, so for now I hoarde links. My blog list is up to 120. (well plus my regular lj friends on my personal journal) and my shopping links are unwieldy, I of course save everything remotely cool for the day I win the lotto or something and can afford to shop til I drop :) I also hoarde Mp3s, at last look I had some 67 gigs of music on my harddrive, I think between that and my cd collection I could listen to music for a year straight and not be back at the beginning of the loop.

28 July 2005

take your pet to blog day

this is Moshe, he's maybe 3 months old

and the fellow on top is Cobra Commander, Cobie for short, and Moshe again.


So by and large one thing I've noticed about all the crafty bloggers I regularly read is that they are a group of cat fanciers. There are a few dog people out there, but generally they oen a cat too. Well me, I'm a rat owner. I think I kind of like that I have to always defend the honour of my little guys from everyone who is gorssed out by rat ownership becasue rats have naked tails. In fact the number one reason that people don't like rats seems to be naked tails. It's prejudice! Rats are highly intelligent, have a memory longer than 3 seconds, learn from each other, social, and loving, not to mention cute. (now mice are crappy pets, I owned a few mice once and they smell, they're too small to hang with and they chew their way out of anything that's not glass.) But rats are like very small cats that like you more but have naked tails. Pet store rats are kind of hit and miss on the love (my current ones are pet store rats because there aren't any reliable breeders that I know of in my current location) but if you get ones who are bred not to be feeders for reptiles and who were touched at a very early age they arn't skittish around people at all. I'm actually really allergic to rats, but I love them so much that i still keep owning them, just in smaller numbers. At one point before it was detirmined that they were what was setting off my asthma so badly, I had 13 of them at once, this was mainly because between my roommate and I we were such suckers for saving them from being eaten by snakes that every time we'd go into the store to get food the girl who worked there would bring out a couple of terribly sute ones and talk about how they were going to be feeders so we'd rescue them. When you have so many it's really fun and amazing to see how varied and completely different their personalities are from each other, in fact they have like a little rat soap opera going on every day becuase one doesn't get on with another and then they start taking sides in the disagreement. Or how they come up with little tricks they know will get you to give them more attention than their brothers (all my rats have been boys) I had one who had a respiratory problem and whenever he knew you were listening his breathing would sound like he was about to die of tuberculousis, but oddly if you'd just got home or he didn't know you were around and could hear he sounded just fine, because he knew you'd be worried about him and come over and talk to him or pet him and try to see what was up and of course petting just cured those lungs right up. They are hams, but clever hams. The only downside to rat ownership is that their lifespans are very short only a couple of years and if you spoil them alot and keep them well fed (which is hard not to do, becuase well they are just too cute not to spoil) it shortens their life span more. They are also prone to caners and respiratory problems and it's hard to find a vet who really knows their stuff when it comes to rodents. So I've gone through a lot more tears than if I just got a dog.

26 July 2005

of osteocytes and picture books

I work the night shift at a gas station currently, last night I started writing a children's book in between my usual stream of customers asking me if I'm not afraid of working by myself all night. (obviously I can't be too afraid otherwise I wouldn't be doing it would I? I think it's supremely screwed up that my company forces the 3rd shift in an area of town like the one I work in to be single coverage, but I'm not really scared of doing it. Life is too short to run about being afraid of your own shadow, or actually the shadow of an armed robber. I'll just give them the money, and all the booze they can carry and more likley than not they'll just be on their way in a minute or so. Plus it's not like I seem to have much of a choice the way people have been hiring, or rather not hiring of late and I'll be degreed and all that at year end so oh well) anyway back to the children's book. It's called 'Hooray for Emperor Penguin' I googled it and it doesn't seem to be taken since it didn't have any title hits. It's going to be about how the penguins, or rather a penguin named Owen, drive the polar bears out of the south pole. (yeah sort of like st. patty driving the snakes out of ireland and St. Urho the grasshoppers out of Finland [I love St Urho's tay simply because the entire thing from the date to the grasshopper legend was invented by this Finnish exPat in Michigan who got tired of all the "everyone's Irish" on st Patty's day stuff.] and he happens to be named Owen after Owen Glendawr the last king of Wales because I am not Irish, I'm Welsh :) )

I decided to post a shot of a small bit of my painting so it would make sense why I complain about how it's slow going :) since it's kind of hard to explain verbally what it is. As far as my paintings go, I'm into a biology period, I really like microscopic organisms and cellular material. I'm usually between just the structural patterns and geometry of the cells and a simularity between cells and oriental minimalist design or textiles. which is all the pretentious artist statement sort of speak for I like to paint really repetitive and time consuming abstract patterns based on what I can see in a microscope. The current project is a 4'x3' canvas featuring a giant osteocyte, part of which you can see here, to get an idea of what I mean when I say I have to paint a lot of litle lines

25 July 2005

weekends decently spent

despite the heat I managed to be fairly productive (heat combined with humidity just makes me feel like doing nothing but sleeping through history programs on tv, even if inside in central air) I got a lot done on my painting , in fact there's enough of the meticulous linework done to be able to get an idea of how it's going to look finished now, which is quite a feat. It was beginning to feel a bit like I'd not make my goal of finishing it before fall semester starts up, I've never tried to do one of my paintings in such a huge size so it's quite a large change doing a 4 foot canvas with some 10,000 little lines on it compared to my usual 2 foot canvases.

I also busted forth and finally made a skirt out of the old pair of paratrooper pants I used to wear all the time in film school. I ended up chucking the idea of making them into a long skirt and lopped them off just under the big cargo pockets. Then I decided to sew a piece of this pink satiny material in the area where there's that triangle from where the crotch was, because I think it's sort of a nice contrast to the manly olive drab, then I embroidered some vines and pink flowers around the bottom. I decided not to hem it because I rather liked the rough edge and the embroidered line there still gives it kind of a finished look rather than just a lopped off one. I'm pretty pleased with how it came out for a sort of what the heck why not sort of project. Here's a few pictures (which came out absolute crap becuase the digital camera didn't seem to want to cooperate with the mirrors today which is another reason I don't like digitals all that much, but for just snapshots I guess I can stop being purist about it)


24 July 2005

extra: the cutest vintage kitchenware ever

yikes I wish I had spare cashola floating around to bid on these : vintage measuring cups that make a beehive when stacked on ebay. They are the frigging cutest things ever and would make cupcake baking even more fun.

I figure just in case anyone who is also addicted to cute kitchen goods is reading my blog in time to get in on bidding on these, I'd post a heads up.

sundays I write about art

I've been increasingly fascinated with the concept of public art, not so much the decently funded and group organised public art projects you see like the "painted figure" phenomonon that seems to have invaded a number of North American cities simultaneously (Toronto had it's painted moose, Hartford it's cows (why cows in someplace as urban as Hartford/West Hartford CT, I'll never know, maybe they got their figure shipments confused iwth Omaha) Omaha had its John Doe project, sort of shapeless little men. Somewhere else I think had bison, I'm sure there were countless others, those were just the cities I've seen the end result in. Oddly each city's figures though done quite independently by local artists seemed to have a really similar result in terms of decoration and themes for the most part.

I'm more interested in the guerrilla side of public art, and yes that includes grafitti, though I have a love hate relationship with graffitti because a lot of what goes up is not art just grafitti and a lot of the people doing graf art seem to have no respect for the art of architecture. I guess that's not so much a problem with actual graf artists as it is with a bunch of losers who try to hide behind the edifice of graf art when they aren't any better than uncreative vandals making it infinitely harder for real graf artists to both practice their art and to be taken seriously as artists.

I'm drawn to the whole temporary and democraticness of public art. How so much of it seems to be things that people just thought would be a cool thing, or how it's in a sense designed to make those who witness it rethink the area where they see it. It makes people at least for a couple minutes become more aware of their surroundings and the context of an area they probably passed through a thousand times without even looking at it, and maybe pay attention and take a look around the world they inhabit more often.

Some of the stuff people have been doing that's caught my eye lately (on the web or through artist lectures anyway as there hasn't been too much of that stuff popping up lately where I live) has been graffitti painted ceramic decoy geese ("urban camoflauged geese") left in a park in Denver gnerally overpopulated by migrating geese(sorry no photos, the artist said he left them on his way out of town),
mario question blocks created and hung by a cool fellow from Toronto. (I've been seriously considering making some of these myself and hitting at a minimum campus in the fall), now pretty much world famous banksy's Met stunt. In fact to be honest beyond being amazingly cool, the stunt made Banksy one of my personal heroes. One day I'll write an entry explaining why, but it has to do with a sort of general, let's call it non-preference, I have for art museums. Also I'm totally Enamored with a capital E with the work of Songyi Kim, she happens to be in a residency at the Bemis Centre which is Omaha's progressive art centre, which is how I got hip to her. She's primarily a video artist and performance artist, but I to an extent consider it to be public art since some of her video projects have been about the same sorts of reactin from the public that I think the other projects I've mentioned are about.

Most recently I've been wowed by the storker project's clear babies Made out of clear tape, these infants have been dropped in several eastern cities. I like that sometimes they seem to be left quiet randomly, sometimes there is a really very powerful social context between their surroundings and them, and sometimes their placement is just sheer amusing whimsy like this:

21 July 2005

Thursday= project logjam

Today I'm having one of those days where there are too many possibilities for the day and in the end I end up not doing anything at all because I'm too busy trying to decide what to do. I could put in some more work on my painting, that progress seems to have ground to a halt on as soon as it got swelteringly hot out and I pulled out the sofa-bed in my old bedroom/ now studio of sorts because it's cooler to sleep there, plus it has a TV. I could finish up the carving for the first layer of the linocut I started working on a month or so ago. I could felt that wool I bought to play around with dying and felting. I could design a quilt to start. I could make that old pair of army pants into a skirt like I've been telling myself I was going to do since like November. I could work on that guerilla art project I declared was going to be my summer project.

So all in all I have too many projects I want to work on and what will end up happening is I'll end up not working on any of them, but just sitting around reading Ulysses instead. Well I guess as long as I do actually read instead of watching lousy daytime TV then something constructive will be occurring.

19 July 2005

introducing Alphonse Striperson, supermonkey

I was indeed motivated enough to not lay around too much, but to make my month of softies monkey whilst laying about. Therefore I would like to introduce you to Alphonse Striperson.

Alphonse is a super monkey, as such he has a very nifty stripey cape (partially because I made him out of knee socks and so I had an extra big chunk of sock left that happened to be cape shaped, lucky for him.


Here he is waiting for danger to call in his secret lair cum wicker swing


I've never made a stuffed animal, not even a sockmonkey so despite being worried the whole time that he was going to be lumpy or mishapen or ill proportioned during the process, I'm actually pretty pleased with how he came out in the end.

hooked on a feeling (and that feeling is undiluted mirth at the cheeseballness)

I just saw what is either the best thing ever or a crime against humanity,
the new David Hasslehof music video There is seriously nothing more ridiculous than Hasselhof's music career, even though, I know, I know the Germans love him. I might have said ok, William Shatner's music career, but then he did that album with Ben Folds where he did the brilliant cover of Pulp's common people (I do so love Jarvis Cocker.) Plus Shatner was always just bad, Hasselhof is cheesy in the most imaginably cheesy way and being that ridiculous is sort of his marketing gimmick. This video does not disappoint, it's almost more shamelessly cheesy than Bollywood musical numbers in the middle of police action dramas. and we make money not art is my hero for the day for posting the link.

I swore upon getting up that today I would be making my sock monkey for MOS, let's see if I can motivate myself to not be lazy. It is after all an imperative that someone with sockmonkeyrevolt as an email and aim name make a sock monkey I should think.

18 July 2005

postal adventures.

today I annoyed the post office by sitting down on the floor amidst a nest of mailing boxes and fabric scraps while I sorted out each package for mecozy's fabric scrap swap. I ended up deciding to raid the fabric room of my hoarder mother, becuase there's so much vintage fabris in there that won't ever go to good use, such a mess of a room, tipes. I found what has to be the ugliest fabric ever made, some odd brown and orage print from the 70s with jungle and baboons, so naturally I felt it was imperative to send everyone at least a scrap of it, it's sort of a trainwreck. :) I can't wait to start getting scraps from everyone else, I might actually have to start a new quilt when I do.

It's funny how everyone in the postal queue glares at you when you have a huge stack of parcels to mail.

15 July 2005

it's 100+ out, but I'm a knitting fool

I started my scarf set knitting in earnest a couple days ago, telling myself I'd get on the ball and get the shop up and running this fall, instead of just talking about how I was going to do it yet another year, but to be honest I think it probably isn't going to happen until at least after I've finished my degree and relocated, so I guess I'm merely in making stock and working on figuring out what things I like. And now that I'm starting a separate blog for all my adventures in crafting and handmade stuff, this would be a good place to post phtots of two toque and scarf sets I think came out pretty swell.


This one is called Oscar and Lucinda, I definitely bet it becomes my favourite to wear out this winter, I almost wish it was snowing already


this one's called raspberry cream. I was trying to break myself of the habit of trying to make perfect stripes, because the idea of really straight stripes just bored me, it's not quite uneven, but it's not quite perfect.

12 July 2005

first

as though I don't do enough blogging, I've decided to start my own crafty blog and future blog of my future webfront boutique.