Thursday, January 25, 2007

Anarchists vs. Hippies















In Berkley, California, a fine line divides the anachist frozen soy stick vegans from the organic goat cheese eating vegetarians: rats. I witnessed an instant of battle. The anarchists killed a house rat in a trap in the house and the vegetarians winced. The anarchists called the vegetarians wimpy and pathetic and the vegetarians put their heads in pool of soppy soy milk granola. I have to say that I sided with the vegetarians despite my fondness for zines and intolerance. I hate to see a dead rat and now the kitchen is filled with infinite little ghost rat cries.

California is like a caricature of itself when in Berkley. Drugs and tea and new age and sun. Good food, ugly buildings. Tanned homeless people and vast hills. Dumpster diving and car pooling. These are the things my california dreams are made of. And this is why I missed my plane when I tried to come home.
Sara Blaylock's curatorial endeavor at Blank Space Gallery seemed to go well. This is her friend Jamie who lovingly spray painted every beer can with pink or brown. One old college acquaintance saw the card for the show with my name on it in San Francisco and came to say hi. That was very exciting. I like to pretend she is my fan base. Her and my mom.
The show was very professionally presented. It was weird to be reunited with my work after such a long time, especially because it hadn't seemed much like art to me before, more like mail. But it was a good experience to have made a piece and to let it go out into the world with out getting my grimey hands all over it. Here is a picture of the piece:

These guys spent about 2 hours talking with me about NY, cable cars, and a movie called 'Remo Williams' which they went and got for me during a lapse in our conversation.

Anyway, my project was born out of running into a Swiss girl in Iceland. We kept in touch and decided to do a project where I designed a construction site and she made the appropriate building that would come out of it. So I made scaffolding for a floating skyscraper and she made a homeless building that fit inside. Then Sara made an Oakland version where there were homeless boxes for roaming mini people.

The highlight of the trip was either heading to Marin County and tromping around in the Headlands or missing my plane due to sitting in Paul's yard with way too much coffee and nice california sun complaining about the anarchists and 'pop'apocalypse (paul's version includes a reversal of the poles and massive volcanic eruptions in 2012).

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