Author: foxtongue

fricking frack: things I hate to miss more than

It’s that time of year again…

12th Annual Eastside Culture Crawl
November 21, 22, & 23
The 2008 Crawl map.

FRIDAY November 21st 5:00pm – 10:00pm
SATURDAY November 22nd 11:00am – 6:00pm
SUNDAY November 23rd 11:00am – 6:00pm

The Eastside Culture Crawl is a free, annual 3-day arts festival that involves artists opening their doors to let the public tramp through their creative studio-spaces, (and sometimes homes), to exhibit work for sale.

“Painters, jewelers, sculptors, furniture makers, musicians, weavers, potters, writers, printmakers, photographers, glassblowers; from emerging artists to those of international fame… these are just a sampling of the exciting talents featured during this unique chance to meet local artists in their studios.

Purchase something that strikes your fancy, commission something to be uniquely yours, or just browse through the studios and meet the artists, learning about their specific works of art, materials and tools, approaches and techniques. This is a once a year opportunity to meet many diversely talented artists and view their creations in the studios where they work. Be part of this exciting event, which brings people from all over the Lower Mainland, and share in the imaginations that enrich our neighbourhood and lives.”

Last year Dillon and I went to a bit of it, and it was absolutely spectacular. Almost endlessly fascinating, as every room contained an entirely new collection of art. 1000 Parker St., especially, as it has the highest concentration of artists. (Though there seems to be more paintings of crows at 1000 Parker St. than there are actual crows in a fifteen mile radius of the building itself. Go figure.) Thankfully few studios were devoted to watercolour trees or flowers, instead it was a little like coming home, exploring every room as new, colour-spattered, welcoming universe. Last year there were over 300 artists showing. This year there’s going to be more.

It’s one of the few Vancouver events I consider unmissable, which is why it’s killing me a little that I’m not going to be in town while it’s happening. Instead I’m going to be in Seattle, and then hopefully on a plane, making my way South, towards Lung and the Salton Sea, the ecological disaster desert west outside of L.A. Take pictures, everyone. Attend, discover, and explore.

don’t know what movie yet

Karen and Par bring parenting to the best level:
P: So I’m ready to go out now, to get your Honey Bunches of Goats.
J: No! Honey Bunches of Oats! (exasperated sigh) Do I have to write it down for you?

The painting we started is finally finished, a week after it should have been. Hallelujah. It’s not all finished, of course, but the walls we started have been done and that’s all we really need for now. Our home improvements have been all one step at a time, one per pay-cheque, and now the Great Reddening has been accomplished, we can proceed with another two weeks of uninterrupted unpacking and sorting and shuffling things about.

(Until the next pay period episode of fix: a Weekend of Wallpaper! *music sting*)

Already the difference is immense. The endless bookcases have been dragged out of the hall and installed, clearing a definitive walking space, and some of the towering stacks of boxes have become rows upon rows of colourful, interesting books, engaging and pretty and, more importantly, shelved. Two of the mirrors have been put up, framing the still curtainless window where plants are now living, draped cheerfully over David’s giant, smiling terracotta Buddha, the futon is bookended by soft, paper lamps, and my old chest of drawers, the 100 year old vanity, has found a new home in the livingroom, transformed into an entertainment center, as we fill it with our DVD’s.

There are still boxes and clutter everywhere, but we’re limping along, and it’s getting better every day, though we took some breaks we took this weekend. Saturday, after a trip to IKEA with Ray, Nicole, and her new roommate Trevor, we went to the closing night of The Velvet Edge, the period gothic-horror Lovecraft play Duncan and Erin were in, and on Sunday we took two new friends from Portland out on the town for a best-of-Vancouver tour, (the Naam, Zulu Records, True Confections), before throwing our backs into it again.

Today our Portland friends are coming over around 6:30 for tea and a movie, (feel free to join us), so we’re not likely to get a lot done, but I think taking an evening to just appreciate what we’ve accomplished will be exactly the sort of treat we need. Almost all of our attention has been given over to figuring out where to put pots and pans and what cupboard should hold what that we haven’t had a lot of time to be social. It’s about time we have people over. I’d hate to imagine what would happen otherwise. Terrifying atrophy. An inability to go out in sunlight. Possibly even pointy teeth.

for his birthday, we got 100,000 hits on the Buttmachine video


HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SWEETHEART!
Awoooo!

Mike’s birthday was yesterday, and it was the most low key, anticlimactic one yet. He didn’t even have a gig, he spent it driving from Albuquerque to Tucson, ate Subway for lunch and Taco bell for dinner, so I want everyone to comment here with Happy Birthday wishes to make up for it!

Tour Dates:

November 15 – The Rialto Theatre w/ Buckethead – Tucson, AZ
November 16 – The Clubhouse Music Venue w/ Buckethead – Tempe, AZ
November 19 – McNear’s Mystic Theater w/ Buckethead – Petaluma, CA
November 20 – The Catalyst w/ Buckethead – Santa Cruz, CA
November 21 – Big Fox Night Club w/ Buckethead – Redwood City, CA
November 22 – House of Blues w/ Buckethead – Anaheim, CA

I want to talk to someone like me again

Every time I listen to Let The Devil In, from the TV On The Radio album Return to Cookie Mountain, I’m inspired to track down a bunch of musicians, get them drunk, and have a giant sing-along house party. I blame Naysayer.

Also, does anyone have Talvin Singh’s Heavy Rotation Radio Refixx remix of OK?

Tales of The Unexpected: a Roald Dahl inspired Tim Walker fashion editorial featuring, among others, Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter.

The weather today is a slow molasses jazz of rain and cold wind, but last night was gloriously different. The skies were profoundly open, a bit of silk fluttering dark black and blue pinned in place with a bright, round, almost full moon. My mother and I took a night ride on her motorcycle, enjoying the last drop out of her last day with insurance, out to the store, the long way around. Five layers of clothing against the cold, three jackets, stockings, tights, black leather gloves, my matching black helmet. I’m still not used to how small she is against me on the bike in the same way I’m not used to how big her newest bike is. There’s nothing like realizing you’ve grown bigger than a parent to remind yourself of mortality.

Riding out into the night, we flew downtown, soared across the Burrard St Bridge, and out to UBC, to circle around and come back along Spanish Banks, the most splendid view to be found in Vancouver. The glut of ugly picket-fence condo development that’s been climbing up the mountains is transformed into a skein of tangerine gemstone glitter at night, tiger striped black by the remaining runnels of nature that drip from the tops of the peaks all the way down to the ocean. Downtown becomes a dream of skyline, a precious, tiny thing floating on water, but like it’s in the sky, held up by a willing suspension of disbelief. Everything that wasn’t lit up didn’t exist. I felt like we were something new, my mother and I, connected better than we have been, the city blocked out by the motorbike, separated from our weekends and bleak days. As if to prove my fresh perspective, or to reward the moment with permanent memory, I looked up over her head at just the right time to see an airplane perfectly silhouetted as it flew over the moon.

artpost: possibly one of the most unique interfaces I’ve ever seen

http://www.bio-bak.nl

The wicked playful, amazing and just downright weirdo-funny portfolio of talented, award winning, dutch flash artist/designer Coen Grift.

Make sure to zoom in on everything, there’s an obscene amount of detail packed into the 1000 megapixels of art, comedy, and minigames.

To start, find the raccoon with the metal detector. He’s hanging out by the tree of carrot death.

via James Everett

get it here

Nato, a dear, dreadfully clever and entirely nifty friend of mine, has gone into the very niche business of selling LED Christmas Trees at LEDtrees.com. This thrills me. Oh yes. For I have seen these trees, and lo, they are awesome.

The first time I encountered an LED tree was years and years ago while I was still in the habit of occasionally Christmas shopping, (yes, I’ve mostly recovered). The retailers had rented a gutted section of failed stores, taken down the plywood frontage, littered the space with enchanting, glowing trees, and didn’t install any lights. Stepping from the grossly shiny Christmas shopping bustle, commercials and glam into a dark, fairy-tale area of soft, gleaming, colourful trees… It was stellar, wondrous. Completely Narnia. I may never forget it. It felt like creeping around a corner and stumbling sideways into the fantastic. Science as a substitute for the mad ceremonial waste of precious tree flesh. Pretty science. Pretty and really, really neat, making me happy in a gleeful child sort of way, like that “magic” wand I posted.

I love the internet world we live in, how connected we can be to anything we like. I love that something I’d always thought of as skin riveting rare is something that a friend is in business in. I especially like the white ones that look like some deliriously designed set piece created for a preposterous yet super stylish retro-future. Timeless and absurd, all at once, the Christmas tree Barbarella would ask for to go with her albino bearskin space-ship, or a fashionable, couture Dexter, (Showtime’s nonsensical, blood-splatter serial killer who feels nothing, but for ANGST!), to go with his immaculate, crimson clean lab. I’m obscurely proud that Nato keeps one hanging upside down above his desk, a cheerful lunatic lamp all year round. I want to do the same.

Of course, that said, it’s not like I’ve done Christmas for several years. This year, though, David and I are batting around the idea of having a Hannekuweenmas house-warming party, (it’s not our fault he wasn’t moved in by October 31st), an all day non-denominational, costumes optional, holiday social and house party, with crepes in the morning, tea in the afternoon, and candle-lit silent black and white horror films until dawn. What do you think? Would you come?

Thanks to a new technique, DNA strands can be easily converted into tiny fibre optic cables that guide light along their length.

though I like whoever carved I LIKE FOOD into the Kamloops bus-station tree

The interior of BC is a funny place, a reclusive mix of unassailable nature speckled with tiny towns that call anywhere with a strip mall a city. The communities there aren’t like the spindrift of settlements that line the coasts, they’re far more stubbornly isolated. Trying to find a connection to the rest of the world proves difficult, and asking after the internet gets you Looks. I wonder at the youth of these places, why they stay, why so many don’t wish to escape. There’s so much planet to explore, and they could always come back later.

consider

“When my daughter Alison was born, in the tradition of a new parent, I began to photograph her, initially in a separate and private body of work.”

Every day since the last week of October Dominique pops up on my messenger with the same message, “Still pregnant.” A small thing, but powerful, as every time it reminds me she’s carrying an entire human being curled in her belly. Tiny hands, tiny feet, an entirely separate heart-beat. I’ll be glad when it’s born, though not as glad as her, I’m sure, who complains daily that she wants it out already. “I think it’s staying,” she messages me, despairing, “I’m over-due.” I know I can’t relate, not really, though I try, and feel I understand to a point.

I had a nightmare, once, that I was pregnant. I could see inside my belly, which had distended to translucency, and see that the child had sharp, triangular, razorblade teeth.

When the message doesn’t come, I wonder, “did it happen? Is she at the hospital now?” I’m torn between relief and wonder and disbelief, that she could be doing anything so incredible as I sit at my desk and help people with media software issues, until it is my turn to message her and ask, “Not yet?”, soothing the day back into something mundane. Earlier today she had an appointment with her midwife for a membrane sweep, and I was blaming that for her lack of message, while with a less rational part of my brain, I was crossing my fingers until she returned.

“Still round?” I asked, and eventually she replied, “Home again. Think I’m in labour, though.” “Excited?” “Contractions about every four minutes. Will check again in an hour or so. I am SO READY to be vacated.”

I know her contractions didn’t necessarily mean anything, she’s been having them on and off for over a week, but that was this afternoon and I haven’t heard word back since. That hour later check in never happened. Those fingers are still crossed. Maybe she’s having her child right now. I was hoping for a Hallowe’en baby, but November 12th should do just fine, too.