ha ha ha.

Here's a funny story:

Sometimes I want just lean over and kiss you and eradicate the weirdness planted there, that abysmal performance of sometimes-friendship. I used to scorn impossible relationships. Now I'm trapped in one, one eye shut and the other looking away. How you do that to me. You're hand is still on the wheel and I'm racking my brain for the words that used to count.

"How did we get here?" Oh wait. How did I? (cue in the strangely autobiographical reverb of my roommate's guitar-playing). How how how how how... Did did did did... I I i i i?


Let's pretend this is my story, and the author decided I needed a foil and then the task befell upon you. Like one of those one-act plays and the strange, contiguous events that borderline "scripted" and uncomfortably real. Our worlds collided like clockwork. There was that one song.

"No way!"

And that gut feeling leading the blind astray. "No way!" Why did it feel like magic? We should have stopped with the high school shit but "no" turned out to be "yes", "yes" turned out to be "more" and it was Opposite Day. We looked forward but each with one foot out the door. Vans, high tops. Chucks, low tops. And now you're staring blankly ahead, hand on steering wheel, barefoot. I'm trying to mentally make out with you, but it's like I forgot how to kiss.

Life is funny that way. (muttering under my breath "love" in size 5.6 font) is funny too. You're really funny. In hindsight, I was funnier when I thought it was a comedy or maybe a joke. But then I realized my heart was the punchline.

NY ART BOOK FAIR

Just got an email from Nieves Books about the NY Art Book Fair happening this Friday October 24 through Sunday October 26. Taking place at Phillips de Pury & Co., this one looks like a surefire visual-gasm of sorts. Over 140 international publishers, booksellers, and "antiquarian dealers" (straight quote from the website, guys) will be showing off their wares. This means, art magazines, 'zines, catalogues, books, you name it.

Just looking at the website, I'm already feeling a bit overly excited. The NY ART BOOK FAIR Committee includes Philip Aarons, AA Bronson, Skuta Helgason, Carolina Nitsch, Richard Prince, Dieter von Graffenreid, John Waters, Matthew Zucker- a who's who of the contemporary art world (which means, borderline annoying and pretentious but awesome at the same time). Just had to name drop (which means I'm borderline annoying and pretentious but ...)


Exhibitors include a few of my personal favez: Ooga Booga, Butt Magazine, D.A.P., Arkitip, Nieves, Pin-Up mag, RAM, Printed Matter, etc. etc. etc.

IF YOU'RE IN NY...

New York tomorrow am.

I won't be here but....

++++++++++++SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE!++++++++++++++
Please join designer Mary Ping this Friday, 7-10pm at our shop to
celebrate her two-week Slow and Steady Wins the Race special installation,
inspired by a Kiki Smith quote! Then, visit our neighboring shops' events
that night too (see flyer below)!
Slow and Steady Wins the Race is a clothing label by NY designer Mary Ping,
cataloguing ideas that are focused on a specific and fundamental characteristic
of clothing design.
+Friday evening 7-10pm in Ooga Booga courtyard! Tunes by DJ Anh Do!
For more info:
www.oogaboogastore.com/news
www.slowandsteadywinstherace.com
www.maryping.com

FYI...


Come out and buy lots of drinks- let's help Obama's crew get paid!

ps. no drinking and driving folks. only drinking and dancing.

brand or unbrand

Tomorrow night, artist Hank Willis Thomas will be speaking at the Hammer on the subject of his monograph, Pitch Blackness, as well as his much-praised B®anded series. An excerpt from his website:

“The B®anded series is a result of an exploration, and subsequent appropriation of the language of advertising. By employing the ubiquitous language of advertising in my work, I am able to talk explicitly about race, class and history in a medium that the almost everyone can decode.”

I really like his “Unbranded” series, appropriated advertisements from the 60’s to present day, related to black people/culture from which he’s stripped away logos and emblems. It’s scary how the media-fostered portrayal of American black culture hasn’t really changed much in the last 40 some years. It has me visualizing Sambo, I mean, what’s so different? (see some of my own appropriated pics from his website below)









Hammer Museum website: Calendar

7 PM

don't leave without a cuddle.

We went to bed kind of fighting. Kind of, meaning, I let my mouth run off, spewing the most offensive dangling modifiers and other grammatical errors. Your face was tucked into sweaty forearms (your own), back against me and my unapologetic face.

You might have been sleeping.

We didn't cuddle that night, in fact, far from cuddling we were magnetically pulled apart. You were drawn towards the wall and I was half falling off the bed's edge. Usually, we like to do this weird "couple-ly" thing: We spoon, legs entangled, your arm probably cramping from the weight of my head. This practice is especially fervent right before your flights back to Seattle. I was also wearing this incredibly unflattering and unsexy potato-sack of a t-shirt to bed. But you're not shallow like that anyway ("it's what's underneath that counts"). Haha.

As usual, the alarm goes off at 4 am and your uncomplicated process of leaving me begins. I wake up this time, and with one eye open, watch your dark figure move unfettered by emotional exhaustion, morning breath, and regret. Lump in throat forms and I want to wait until you leave before lump snowballs into tears.

"I'm leaving, babe." Silence and low-octave mumbling ensues.

Crawling under the covers one last time, you wrap your leather-jacketed arm around me because you know that I'm praying so hard for this and that I'm biting my tongue for all the mean-spirited comments and childish follies of yesterday. And despite my brattiness, you risk missing the early flight for one more cuddle because our next is two weeks away.

This is why I'm in love with you.