1.31.2004
sodafine is moving
kudos to my friends at the sodafine boutique (look at my friends' links in my side column... also stop by erin's art site as well), for introducing me to the thriving culture of DIY fashion. whereas previously, i may have lumped indie rock clothing culture in with the anorexic-ironic-mullets of the world, i now consider the concept of making your own clothes decidedly punk rock (in a good way). hopefully, the sewing machine/knitting needle will find its place alongside the rock guitar or turntable as an icon of countercultural expression...
anyway, for all you lazy asses who can't click on my sidebar link, here's the details of their re-opening. february 14th, so bring your valentine...
grand opening party february 14th at our new space at 246 dekalb avenue, brooklyn !
directions to our new shop:
we are located in the fort greene neighborhood of brooklyn at the intersection of dekalb and vanderbilt. take the 'C' to clinton/washington, walk north on clinton (towards layfayette), turn left on dekalb. or; take the 'G' to clinton st, walk north to dekalb and turn left. we're right next door to Tillie's coffee shop.
while i'm at it, craftster is a wonderful site you should check out along these lines, even if i am increasingly tired of websites ending in "ster"...
anyway, for all you lazy asses who can't click on my sidebar link, here's the details of their re-opening. february 14th, so bring your valentine...
grand opening party february 14th at our new space at 246 dekalb avenue, brooklyn !
directions to our new shop:
we are located in the fort greene neighborhood of brooklyn at the intersection of dekalb and vanderbilt. take the 'C' to clinton/washington, walk north on clinton (towards layfayette), turn left on dekalb. or; take the 'G' to clinton st, walk north to dekalb and turn left. we're right next door to Tillie's coffee shop.
while i'm at it, craftster is a wonderful site you should check out along these lines, even if i am increasingly tired of websites ending in "ster"...
i dream i am possessed
i went looking for a quote by antonin artaud and i found one:
"I believe in spontaneous bewitchments. It is impossible that I shall not some day discover a truth somewhere on the routes my blood carries me."
(from "Fragments of a Journey in Hell," trans. David Rattray in Artaud Anthology, p. 41)
... i've been kind of gloomy all day, and i've resorted to a familiar (albeit a bit peculiar) fantasy of mine: to stop being myself. this is an indulgence i only allow when my actions become repulsively habitual. or to be even more confusing: when i sense myself being typically "myself" in one way or another. the outcome is always dismal and predictable.
my brain has been on a groundhog day-esque loop the past few days, and i think the problem is that my life is playing out too closely to my inner logic.
i picked up artaud thinking that his thought maintains an interesting relationship to my fantasy. in artaud, one is jettisoned out of one's self, and the results are usually a compelling mix of the profound and the diabolical.
what i've been imagining bears slightly different characteristics. artaud is an irrevocable pessimist at times (e.g. "...I have chosen the domain of sorrow and shadow..."), and yet he seems so exciting, and so artistically applicable that it makes his life of addiction and madness all the more tragic. so-- to lay all my cards on the table-- i wish for an idealized version of artaud's "journey into hell." i wonder what kind of pleasure could be found in such a state. not a "state of grace," perhaps. more like a barrage of unpredicatable tickling. sometimes i get so bogged down with opinions and inclinations that i become dull as a receptor. the forces trapped within me and crudely branded "myself" become a trail of chains. all the good stuff enters my dumb flesh only to exit without sufficient shaking and strutting.
1.29.2004
ten great movies for or pertaining to children
(listed alphabetically)
the 400 blows
a.i.
alice
city of the lost children
the little fugitive
microcosmos
my name is ivan
spirited away
where is the friend's home?
willie wonka and the chocolate factory
the 400 blows
a.i.
alice
city of the lost children
the little fugitive
microcosmos
my name is ivan
spirited away
where is the friend's home?
willie wonka and the chocolate factory
an equation
where i've been
create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide
stole this from olivia... i counted places i've just driven through as well as stayed and visited (or lived in, which is a growing number)... most of the drive throughs are between NY and maine...
1.27.2004
thought of the day revisited
i just wrote and deleted a long post about empathy and difference that got into deleuze, werner herzog and my relationship with my cat. suffice to say it strolled into sucky town pretty quick. anyway, i've been wondering if i spend too much time dressing up my thoughts with references... so here it is (straight. no chaser. well. almost.)...
in my studio, and in my life (or whatever), i'm pretty preoccupied with these two notions (empathy and difference). i like the warmth which attends my concept of empathy, and i think it's something i find lacking in a lot of the art i enjoy (note: it's not lacking in contemporary art though, in a general sense... but i want to steer clear of the nouveau sincerity/sentimentality that's been fashionable of late). at the same time, there's a component to empathy of appropriation which strikes me as problematic. in the sense that it seeks to make that which it confronts like itself. incorporating familiar traits to ease the horror of difference. this often results in crude mimicry dressed up as profound emotion. a particularly bitter pill for me.
*this is why i was posting about my cat. at its worst, a pet is the perfect example of this (and deleuze-- rather fittingly-- hated pets).*
anyway, i'm looking towards examples (in art, in life, in my cat... in your brain, dear reader) of empathy that are indifferent-- or at least resistant-- to this easy-way-out of appropriation. and luckily i've found several of late, such as lynne ramsey's brilliant film morvern callar. the film has a fairly pervasive sense of the anomalous. appropriately, many of the negative reviews of the film fault it for failing to get "under the skin" of its main character.
i'm considering, to greater and greater a degree, the value of attempting to emote from without. one of the great strengths of a film like morvern callar (which i assure you i will post more about soon) is its ability to recognize the latent violence of an attempt to "get under one's skin." meaning the dissective elements which formulate alongside any sort of relationship (the "figuring-out"). instead, ramsey ignores this sort of approach all together. instead, she tells the story of a fundamentally inexplicable woman-- and manages to do so with deep care and concern.
i hope i'm not evoking some sort of antiquated formalism here. "aesthetic disinterest" doesn't move me in the least. to complicate things further, if one is to remain fascinated with someone or something, there is inevitably an element of investigation at work. an active curiosity that i see as more positive than "dissection," and less lazy than "meaninglessness," or some such thing. but it's hard to define these states, and to what extent to utilize them in my work as an artist. i guess i'm just increasingly curious about those complex moments where--following initial, eager enthusiasm-- the comforts of explanation fail to set in. at their best, such moments are neither cold nor horrible. they are distant in a meaningful way.
in my studio, and in my life (or whatever), i'm pretty preoccupied with these two notions (empathy and difference). i like the warmth which attends my concept of empathy, and i think it's something i find lacking in a lot of the art i enjoy (note: it's not lacking in contemporary art though, in a general sense... but i want to steer clear of the nouveau sincerity/sentimentality that's been fashionable of late). at the same time, there's a component to empathy of appropriation which strikes me as problematic. in the sense that it seeks to make that which it confronts like itself. incorporating familiar traits to ease the horror of difference. this often results in crude mimicry dressed up as profound emotion. a particularly bitter pill for me.
*this is why i was posting about my cat. at its worst, a pet is the perfect example of this (and deleuze-- rather fittingly-- hated pets).*
anyway, i'm looking towards examples (in art, in life, in my cat... in your brain, dear reader) of empathy that are indifferent-- or at least resistant-- to this easy-way-out of appropriation. and luckily i've found several of late, such as lynne ramsey's brilliant film morvern callar. the film has a fairly pervasive sense of the anomalous. appropriately, many of the negative reviews of the film fault it for failing to get "under the skin" of its main character.
i'm considering, to greater and greater a degree, the value of attempting to emote from without. one of the great strengths of a film like morvern callar (which i assure you i will post more about soon) is its ability to recognize the latent violence of an attempt to "get under one's skin." meaning the dissective elements which formulate alongside any sort of relationship (the "figuring-out"). instead, ramsey ignores this sort of approach all together. instead, she tells the story of a fundamentally inexplicable woman-- and manages to do so with deep care and concern.
i hope i'm not evoking some sort of antiquated formalism here. "aesthetic disinterest" doesn't move me in the least. to complicate things further, if one is to remain fascinated with someone or something, there is inevitably an element of investigation at work. an active curiosity that i see as more positive than "dissection," and less lazy than "meaninglessness," or some such thing. but it's hard to define these states, and to what extent to utilize them in my work as an artist. i guess i'm just increasingly curious about those complex moments where--following initial, eager enthusiasm-- the comforts of explanation fail to set in. at their best, such moments are neither cold nor horrible. they are distant in a meaningful way.
where are my comments????
so, inexplicably, my comments section has disappeared... you'd think with a name like "haloscan" my host would be a little more reliable (but hey, it's free). also, apologies if you're experiencing a friendster-esque delay in loading up the blog... i plan on upgrading it when blogger finishes re-tooling its fancier version. man, i'm tired of this shit....
