May 31, 2010
May 30, 2010
May 29, 2010
May 28, 2010
May 27, 2010
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May 25, 2010
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May 15, 2010
May 14, 2010
Antique Cigar-Box Girl #24
If you think a girl is pretty, blow smoke in her face. Pretty girls LOVE that.
May 11, 2010
May 10, 2010
May 08, 2010
May 06, 2010
Lowell Darling for California Governor
Yes, there is someone you should vote for in the California gubernatorial race, my dear Californian readers. His name is Lowell Darling, the profession noted below his name on the ballot in the Democratic primary on June 8, 2010 is "Independent Artist". Darling ran for governor of California once before, in 1977, and he's taking another shot at it. His only campaign promise is to do nothing until the legislative idiocy that prevents California from doing anything about it's perennial fiscal apocalypse is fixed. Read more in this nice little N.Y Times piece about him if you wish:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/us/14calif.html
and please do have a look at his video art here:
http://www.lowelldarling.com/archive.html
Ally Given, installment #6
When the phone starts ringing Ally is in the downstairs bathroom, her face 4 inches from the mirror, popping zits. It’s recently become difficult not to disappear into the minutiae of her own deeply imperfect visage. The shame of these daily obsessive excavations combined with not wanting people to yell at her to hurry up and pound the door has produced a sort of nocturnal double- a late night resident of the house who creeps around distributing tiny spots of pus to reflective surfaces.
The phone rings once and the echo reverberates in the kitchen and through the hallway. It seems to shake the bathroom door. It’s wicked late for anyone to be calling, Ally thinks. Must be a wrong number. But it stopped after that first ring. Which means someone picked it up. Murphy’s got the portable in his room. It’s been there all summer- she knows because when the battery dies on the handheld it beeps- muffled by the ratty folds of Murphy’s comforter in the deep shadows of his sunless unkempt bedroom- until Ally goes in to find it and put it back on the receiver in the den downstairs. The phone has, many times, provided an excuse for Ally to rummage through the well-worn Playboy magazines in the drawer of Murphy’s bedside table; to stare, astonished, as naked women recline, spread their legs, offer themselves to anyone, even to her, in the musty, penumbral light.
Without hesitation- no ethical considerations, maybe the barest practical fear of discovery- Ally walks down the hall and picks up the receiver on the kitchen phone, covers the mouthpiece, holds it to her ear. There is a girl on the line, and she’s crying. Murphy’s voice, strained, a voice Ally almost doesn’t recognize, says
Nadia. Nadia. calm down.
I won’t fucking calm down!
I don’t know what you want me to do. I-
Fuck you!
Total silence, as if the Fuck you abruptly changed her mood.Then Murphy:
Does your mother know?
NO.
Nadia practically snorts at the end of this “NO”. Whatever is being discussed, the idea that her mother would know about it is the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever suggested to her.
Well, I mean…maybe you should tell her.
What?
Okay, don’t. I just….I don’t know what you want me to do.
There is resignation is his voice that reminds Ally of a much older man.
Just fuck off! She says, then
Just be a man. Fuck!
The girl is indignant, but just beneath the surface of her indignation is something flailing. Something that can’t get a grip. Her valiant attempt at getting a grip is that “Just be a man. Fuck!” projected with inherited, and therefore false, conviction.
Murphy says nothing. Ally hears him breathing out hard, through his nose, and she knows he is probably sitting on the edge of his bed in the dark, in his shorts, elbows on his knees, with one hand on the phone and the other one gripping his forehead, pushing back his rust-colored cowlick.
Ally doesn’t think she knows her brother very well- who he is, really, on the inside- but she knows all his physical gestures and characteristics almost as well as her own, through years of (totally disinterested) observation while being forced to inhabit the same house. Now, suddenly, she feels a sharp physical pain in her chest, and it has something to do with him, with the mysterious happenings of his life that she knows are none of her business. Ally hangs up the phone and wishes she could have been content not to hear, to know nothing more about Murphy than what she could easily understand.
May 05, 2010
Special Report: Is there a correlation between deep-fried beer-battered octopus brains & vivid dreamscapes?
On Sunday evening, I made Irma Rombauer's beer batter recipe from The Joy of Cooking (using Rogue's Dead Guy Ale) at Cosmo Wernicky & Olaf Mary's residence in West Oakland, California. We deep-fried fresh squid, baby octopuses [sic], brussels sprouts, mushrooms & squash blossoms. (We also drank plum sake from Berkeley.) It was delicious. And it left me thoroughly wiped-out, we couldn't even get to our art project. There was some debate about whether or not to take the brains out of the baby octopuses, but, since they were fresh (from the Berkeley Bowl) and cleaned, most were left in. The following text messages are from Monday morning:
Cosmo Wernicky, 11:43:57am:
Octopus brains give me vivid dreams
Me, 11:53:39am:
No fucking way! I had the most crazy vivid dreams last night too!!
Cosmo Wernicky, 11:56:37am:
What?! There's something to this...did you dream about the moon and falling out of a window and floating down to a soft bed of leaves?
Me, 12:08:15pm:
No, I dreamt about a beef "double down" sandwich ad from KFC where the bread is replaced by meat also, costing $27 & you can only buy it once.
Cosmo Wernicky, 15:18:09pm
Ewww
May 04, 2010
Catering Conversation #63,056: "The white fish is whitefish"
The Menu
[...] Second Course:
Chef's Selection of Seasonal White Fish
Grilled Hanger Steak
Pasta Primavera [...]
Interior - ballroom - staff meeting.
Maitre D: [discussing the menu with staff]: ...And, shit, Enrique always does this, he doesn't specify what kind of fish.
Interior - ballroom - later - loud, crowded banquet.
Me: Good evening, were you having fish or steak?
Guest no. 1: What kind of fish?
Me: Some kind of white fish, would you like me to find out what kind?
Guest no. 1: Yes, please.
Interior - kitchen.
Me: What kind of fish is the white fish?
Chef: Is white fish.
Me: What kind of white fish?
Chef: Whitefish.
Interior - ballroom
Me: The white fish is whitefish.
Guest no. 1: Oh, okay, then I'll have steak.
Me: Okay.
Guest no. 1: Actually, no, I'll have the fish.
Me: Were you having fish or steak?
Guest no. 2: What kind of fish?
Me: Whitefish.
Guest no. 2: What kind of white fish?
Me: The whitefish is whitefish.
Guest no. 2: Is there a vegetarian option?[This goes on all night.]
May 03, 2010
May 02, 2010
May 01, 2010
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