19. Dear Sasha

Dear Sasha,
I still haven't heard from you. Happy new year. I'm sending you this as a little cute joke gift. It reminds me of your parents and the advice they would try to give us.



S.

p.s. did you and your brother ever talk about the time he caught us?

18. Sasha

Dear Merve,

This is Sasha and this is my story. It's mine - not yours, not hers, and not the version you'd get from any of my clients. I'm a hooker living in Germany (I won't say exactly where, and please understand) and I'm not German and I like it all that way. It's helps me separate the past from the present and know that future is somewhere else, and that whenever hooking doesn't work for me any longer I can just go there, wherever. For now I'm happy, don't get me wrong. This life as an American ex-pat hooker isn't all it's cracked up to be and it sure is a lot of sweaty, dirty work, but it's good, and it's mine. And I like it.

And that ninny Sally (aka S., which is so stupid, by the way) wants to take it away from me. More about her later, unfortunately.

The name my parents gave me is Sasha and I want you to know the real story. My hooker name is Kirsche. I have a small round mouth with nice plump lips and when I lay on the lipstick, it's just all a little cherry in the middle of my face. Kirsche = cherry. Cute, isn't it? And it isn't hard to explain to the dumb ones. All clients get it and they think it's cute. Cute is the game I play. I play kitten and tiny and bubbly and you can pick me up and throw me around. All that stuff most men like. Most men who pay for sex anyway.

I specialize in fur. Anywhere. Just ask for it. Fur is my game. Meow!

So, about Sally. I mean, "S.," as she seems to need privacy these days. My god, the woman is so freaky and always has been. Remember when she stayed up all night long making finger puppets of the nativity scene? Baby Jesus had hair to her knuckles. Unnatural.

She's writing me. Like, constantly. I don't know how she found me but she's calling me Sasha so far and hasn't referred to my job. She hasn't even asked me about it. She probably thinks I'm a fucking foreign exchange student. I should tell her I give discounted blow jobs to the exchange students, see what she says about that. She'd freak out and you know it.

What the hell am I going to do about her? Help me! I'm afraid she's going to fly over here with her nasty little stinky mutt and track me down. I don't want to get the German police all in my business, so I have to avoid this happening. Help, please.

Sasha

p.s. I sure do miss you, baby.

maze

irish wolfhound photo

Yesterday, Laurie and I saw an Irish Wolfhound for the first time. Yes, they are really this big and no, this was not the one. I just google image searched said dog and this came up and I FELL OUT OF MY CHAIR LAUGHING. This photo is priceless.

This is the dog for me.

17. Dear Sasha

Dear Sasha,
it's almost a new year. Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? I'm gonna strap on my boots and run. Slap! Gimme a buck, I'll show you.

S.

p.s. dear, dear Sasha.

mi piel se puso en guardia

Audio may be NSFW (Not Safe For Work) (in Spanish)



Via: Type for you

Link: xnographics studio

animated first crushes

Via: drawn

Made by: Julia Pott

pet library chairs

Link: Makezine

fabulous bedspread

I very, very much like this and said "ooooooo" when I saw it here.

better than tag clouds

Information Aesthetics did it again. Their post on swarm related videos is incredible.

16. Dear Sasha

Dear Sasha,
I'm officially mad.

I wish I could tell you how mad I've been for all these years.

I wish we could play Twister and do algebra homework before dinner and then watch a movie or play Monopoly or Clue with your parents.

I wish we could wear swim suits and leotards and stand in the front yard pretending to be sexy statues.

I wish you could show me your training bra and laugh at my jealousy.

I wish your sister could wedge her way between and make us scream at her.

Remember your pimento cheese spread? I hated that shit.

I am so mad at you.

S.

p.s. Mad!

15. Dear Sasha

Dear Sasha,
winter has definitely descended. Bucky and I went for a walk last night and I knew it was cold when his little toes were laced with ice globs. I asked him to sniff for you. He's no inspector puppy but he sometimes feels up to a challenge. You, my dear, are the challenge of the decade. He sniffed around a little on each block and seemed very disappointed and uninspired. Poor Buck-o. I got his hopes raised too high that he'd get to meet his auntie Sasha.

Unless that's too presumptuous of me? You'd be a good auntie if you could just see his curls.

So for now I'll set up the doggie treadmill in the basement because it's too damn cold outside for any small creature. Especially my beloved.

S.

p.s. When the going gets tough, Sasha, the tough pick up the phone.

poetry stand

How a precocious group of high school poets learned to provide verse on demand.

And so, in the most natural way, people drifted over to the poetry stand to get their free poems. The kids delegated the assignments among themselves based on a batting order we drew up on the ride over, but they made exceptions if a particular request played to one of their strengths. A girl in jeans and a bandana wanted a love poem for Dick Cheney. “Dick Cheney? I got this,” said Zebbi...

From our bench Rich and I watched the greeters intercept people and enjoyed hearing reports of how far the scouts had ventured to send back customers. We tried to predict who would approach the poetry stand on their own and who wouldn’t. A stout guy in a Yankees cap veered toward the tables, then stopped. “C’mon, c’mon,” we rooted. He passed by, then looped back again. It was first-rate people-watching, and it made me wonder about the place of poetry in the lives of ordinary Americans. I thought of the public faces of people; and I thought of the pure emotion that wells up from reading poetry. Who “looks” like they’d be into poetry? Nobody — with the possible exception of those walking around barefoot in wings or a bed sheet. Who loves poetry? Given the right context, everyone who loves music.

14. Dear Sasha

Dear Sasha,
I gave up waiting to hear back. You probably noticed my lack of chatter.

I saved you some Halloween candy because I wondered if you had Halloween in Germany and I didn't want you to be deprived of it another year.

Let me know where to mail it and I will ASAP.

S.

p.s. Will you send pictures of your home and such? By the way, Bucky has anal sac adnocarcinoma.

happy birthday Hugo Minor

happy happy 30th birthday Hugo Hugo Minor Minor!

New camerA

What a difference a lens makes! This photo was taken with my new camera, the Canon Rebel XTi. Look at this beautiful cat!

Underwater sculpture garden

This under water sculpture garden in Granada, West Indies was started by Jason Taylor. It seems that there are several pieces there.

Can you imagine how creepy it would be to come upon this while scuba diving?



Visit: http://www.underwatersculpture.com/
Via: Jenna's shared items

Multimedia message

Rainbow gum.

cutting edge maps

I just found this via monoscope. Cutting edge maps.

laptop idea

Datamancer.net has made these incredible laptop and desktop computers.

orange glass and blog

I was drawn out of Google reader to Andy Bell's photoblog because of this photograph of orange glass. I can't stop looking at it. When I landed on the site, I fell for the blog. I love this interface as a photography blog.

13. Dear Sasha

Dear Sasha,
I'm wondering if this is why I should decide to not have friends much anymore. It's awfully painful. I've tried to have fun finding you - tried to file the past and enliven the future. And I am just not feeling my inner circus right now. The lions are emaciated and the tightrope walkers can't find their magical shoes. It's not in the stars? I'm just not for you?

You might be thinking I'm slow and that I should've known this so many years ago.

I'm not dumb. I just had to try again. I just wasn't ready to give up on you yet.

S.

p.s. The river seems yellow today. Pfffft.

one down, three to go

I am *almost almost* done with my first semester of social work graduate school.

One more 30-page paper and then I'm done with school for a month.

OMG!

I'm feeling energy from thinking about all the SINGING and COOKING and ART MAKING and PHOTO TAKING and RANDOM THOUGHT THINKING and SEWING and KNITTING and LAUGHING and MOVIE WATCHING and CREATIVE NEIGHBORHOOD WALKING and all sorts of other FUN things I get to do REALLY REALLY SOON. (Here I almost come with knitting needles in hand, Martha and Nancy!)

Writing Dear Sasha has been getting me through this end-of-semester intense time.

It's almost here! Vacation! AAA!

!!!!!

12. Dear Sasha

Dear Sasha,
I took Bucky for a walk just now (that's my dog; you'll meet him soon) and was thinking about post-modern theory (like where does reality exist and for what peoples? and is death just like birth in the sense that it's just a dropping out of an experience you've known as the only experience? Etc., etc.) and then checked my email to see if you'd written at all (I'm losing hope, I think, but what does it mean that I still check my email constantly?) and the only mail in there was spam and I wondered why it was all sexy sex spam (I mean I just don't get the appeal there) and worried for all the old people who know how to use email. The old people, when they see sexy sex spam, what do they think? Don't they get really embarrassed? Do they blush and pretend they didn't see it? Do they treat it like pooping in the toilet - flush and don't look? I feel so bad for old people and kind-of hope none of them actually get addicted to email, like me, waiting for anyone to write back, like you, because it just forces me to deal with all the SPAM.

S.

p.s. Bucky says hi. He already responds to the sound of your name with a little perky ear flapping.

Multimedia message

Paper snowflake.

mantra trailers

These images reminded me of my summer roadtrip. I didn't see one, but I kind of feel like I did.

11. Dear Sasha

Dear Sasha,
I'm sorry for the sappy poem. I couldn't help myself in a moment of weakness. I am guessing you're not ready for that kind of intimacy. Forgive my forwardness. Forgive my freakishness. Unless you liked it?

Hey, do you see the same constellations I do? I've been wondering how far apart we really are. Is Germany basically like on the other side of the globe from here? I wonder if I see some constellations half the year that you see the other half the year. I have some interesting science magazines I read that I can send to you if you like. I'm getting greener. You know, I'd rather send you used magazines so you don't have to go and kill more trees just to learn.

S.

p.s. Isn't this fun?

10. Dear Sweet Sasha

Sweet Sasha,
you looked bored
(and were pulling
the threads out of your
sweater one by one
humming a Police song)
that day
until I walked in
you'd crossed my mind
once or twice.
Ever since then
I've felt you inside my mind
bottled up.
Sweet Sasha,
some things and
some people
stay around.
Some go. And come back.
Come back.
Whatever it was
(was it the boys? your grades?
the time I played with
your sister instead of you?)
whatever was done
I'll forget
I'll talk
I'll plea.
Sweet Sasha,
an anxious love poem
is a poor replacement
for live declaration.
Give me the time
to do better
next time.

S.

p.s. Do you speak German?

hamster racetrack

This hamster car fits on this hamster racetrack. So bizarre.
Why am I still surprised at the wacky things people do with animals? I have no idea.

9. Dear Jimi Hendrix

Dear Jimi Hendrix,
the whole world knows you write songs really well. Thanks for that contribution to our society. It most certainly invokes love and peace and kindness into the hearts of everyone at the same time when it comes up on the radio when you do that thing you do.

Hey, Jimi, I have a favor to ask you.

Jimi,
will you and Bob Marley get together and do a duo and send me some dream-like cosmic energy while you're doing it? I don't really believe in GOD so I don't believe in heaven either but I believe in you two and I bet you two are together. So however it's done, will you do it and send it to me?

Write a love song to Sasha. That'll get her.

S.

p.s. Do you two believe in GOD?

8. Dear Sasha

Dear Sasha,
I found this email address of yours when you made that webpage last summer. I found it and your email address was on the bottom of that blue page you made. That's the only reason I know it, I'm not doing anything unusual or illegal here. You put it out, I took it in. Same direction of movement. Floooooow. That's all. >>>>>>>

I'm going to leave all of this to the goddesses to determine. Yes, that's right, not GOD. You should know that by now. We need a few women to help us here. Remember that fortune cookie you got once? We laughed for minutes on end. "Two women can get anything done before noon." We laughed because we'd procrastinated our homework all weekend and then skipped Monday morning classes.

I'm sure that the more I miss those days the more you miss them, too.

It's just doom, gloom and Oprah this afternoon.

Sigh.

S.

p.s. Become my friend on facebook? Listening to Tracy Chapman reminds me of you.

[I must disclaim. I read this blog and one entry made a clever combination of the words "doom, gloom, and Oprah afternoon." This poor fellow has experienced content robbery lately so I need to disclose my actions. After I read those words, I could not get them out of my head.]

sasha?

S.

You're not the only one looking for Sasha.

7. Dear Yahoo

Dear Yahoo,
I just want to make sure things are working right. I've sent six emails to someone in Germany - her name is Sasha for purposes of future referencing in this and other correspondences we may have - and I haven't heard back from her. Is there a problem with your mailing system? Are my email letters getting clogged somewhere en route to Germany? She has not replied and even though I thought she'd need a little coaxing I'm very surprised to not hear anything from her at this point STILL.

Please let me know if you are having technical issues and I will regroup my patience. For now, though, I am broken-hearted and muffled-up over this problem I think may be, in reality, your problem.

S.

p.s. Do you hire extra staff for the holiday season? I have a nephew. He would be good.

bug art

This bug art reminds me of when Hugo tried to get his kitty, Kafka, to paint.

We have a draft horse at the vet hospital who paints with his hooves. I intend to get one before I leave here in May.

another brain image

Oh, I just love these. Everytime I find a new one I am shocked again. This is my favorite so far. It is "a supercomputer simulation of the microcircuitry found within a column from the neocortex of the rat brain."

6. Dear Sasha

Dear Sasha,
this morning I went for my cafe latte and I saw someone who looks just like you. I'm not sure it wasn't you still. It was very crowded in there and you were ten people ahead of me right when I was thinking, "why do I come when all these other bitches come here?" You were there. I thought. Were you? Was that you? Did you come here to find me but not tell me? I haven't seen you since 8th grade and we haven't talked since 10th and now we're over thirty and I don't think we've changed that much you still look like you had the same haircut and shoulder width and fingernails.

I don't know why you won't tell me if you're here or not. If this is a surprise I'll tell you that this is a surprise to you but it's pure anxiety to me!

S.

p.s. You see? If I stay home all day to see if you'll show up and you don't then I lose a whole day but if I leave I'll miss you if you're really here.

brainstem!

This is from the same person/s who did the image in the previous post I made.
This one won 1st place in an international digital imaging competition.
It's so amazing...

5. Dear Sasha

I just can't understand why your parents raised you Catholic. And Irish! Sasha, I hope you've dropped all that nonsense now. Did you know that guilt is a function of self denial? Stop denying yourself. This has gone on too long. Now you see why I had to intervene.

This is the greatest day of my life!

Sasha, I have an idea. Why don't we meet up like they do in the movies. Pick a place and a date and a time and a landmark and a wardrobe color and buy plane tickets. Not here, not there, somewhere else. So you're in Germany now and I'm in New Jersey. Tuscany, perhaps? Let's do it.

I'll buy my ticket first to show you how committed to this I am. Okay? Sometimes you have to trust someone to allow them to trust you. That's what I'm willing to do for you, Sasha.

If you don't send me some dates and times, I'll have to do that too.

S.

p.s. I'll bring my dog along. I hope you're not allergic.

4. Dear Sasha

Hey, Sasha, Sasha, you there? Sasha. You there? Hey. Call me. Sometime. You there?

S.

exploded ipod

This is amazing. An exploded, still functioning, ipod encased in resin.



Via: information aesthetics.

3. Dear Sasha

Dear Sasha,
I'm sorry; I've been prim. It's hard for me not to be self-righteous. You left, not me. That chip dangles from my shoulder like dried poop on a dog's furry butt. I read poetry before I write your letters so that I'm in an existential state so that you'll think I'm smart. You were always so much better than me in math. Are you a science teacher now? How are the German schools?

Sasha, I don't know what I want but I do know I want it.

What would it take for you to see me? Write me? Call me? What can I give you in return? I have been wondering that for 15 years.

S.

p.s. What size shoe do you wear? Your feet were bigger than mine when we were kids and I wonder if that's still true. I wear size 6.

"card postage"

In doing research for my Dear Sasha series, I came across this strange service. You can send a card from a country to a friend when you're not actually in that country?

2. Dear Sasha

Dear Sasha,
I said I'd write again. What did you expect? I'm always true to my word on these matters. I haven't heard from you yet and I just hope that eventually I will. I have to convince you to not be embarrassed about it. Cause I think you are.

Twinkle twinkle go the lights up on the wings of the plane in the sky and I think about that time I flew to see you and your parents and your little sister. Did you stand at the airport gate and watch the plane taxi in? Did you wait and watch each emerging face with all the other people as we emptied out of the door single file? I wish I could remember that moment. It was the last time I felt secure that you loved me. I was so secure that I didn't need to remember it.

I'll go easy on you with this letter because I take it that your lack of a response is that you're still thinking it over. I'll write a little at a time.

S.

p.s. Did your little sister become a real estate executive like she thought she would?

name popularity

There is a graphic on the NY Times today that shows the popularity of surnames in the US. Take a look at which name just made the top 5000 list at number 5000.

1. Dear Sasha

Dear Sasha,
it has been so long that I wonder if you've forgotten me. To be honest, I hope you haven't and I hope you don't tell me if you have. Just tell me something about how you'd thought about writing me too. Remember the last time we talked? It was over winter break in tenth grade. You thought you would have a boyfriend soon. I think you were jealous of mine. I never thought of myself as the lucky one, Sasha, since I lost you, but looking back I guess that's how you must've felt. If it makes you feel any better he didn't last and then he became a dope taker and crack dealer and other things I know nothing about.

More later,
S.

p.s. Do you remember Ronnie in 3rd grade? He pinned me to the brick wall and kissed me and bruised my shoulder. And then he got it. He got detention for like a week. Remember him?

post secret on msnbc

I had no idea Post Secret had become so popular until Laurie told me they're rated as the number one blog in some competition and now I see MSNBC has done some press on them. I think that's pretty amazing.

I've always loved this idea of creative mail. Hugo, Laurie and I have thought about creating a mail in art system via blogging. Pretty impressive how far this one guy has come with his one little idea.

the universe twins in the TWIN cities

We're together again! This time in Twin Cities... how appropriate.

Hugo made a special surprise trip to see our friend Bill Stobb read at a local bookstore. Bill's creative writing class is where we met in 1997 and we reconnected with him in 2003. He's a poet and professor, has a nice new book of poetry out called Nervous Systems, and lives in La Crosse, WI. Yesterday we all met at the Walker Art Center and thoroughly enjoyed the new Frida show.

Today we had many creative adventures. We went on a Guthrie backstage tour (which was way more amazing than Sanguinetti A! realized it would be!), to the Weisman museum (and liked the Kienholz Pedicord Apartments installation best), sneaked a peak at this house, ate at the Namaste Cafe in uptown (where we liked the design of outdoor chairs very much), toured the downtown Minneapolis library (which is by far the most amazing library in existence!), visited the Minnesota Center for Book Arts (where Hugo bought a book that knocked his socks off and describes his favorite font, Bulmer), and finally ended up at the Ax-Man. Woohoo Ax-Man!

It was an amazing creative adventure day!

Now we're making butternut squash stew and preparing ourselves for a night of art-making with old topography maps.

typography storytelling

I saw this at Information Aesthetics today:

duct tape wallet

i think Hugo wanted to make one of these once.

pink and green, perhaps?

animated gifs

Animated gifs can be really bad and they can also be really good. Michael David Murphy over at 2point8 made this gif of Henri Cartier Bresson timing a little leg click with the click of his shutter. Cartier Bresson is one of my all time favorite photographers.



Does anyone else have any favorite animated gifs they'd like to share?

world clock

this is an amazing world clock.

skulladay

When I arrived at my office this morning I discovered that a skull fairy had visited in the night and my keyboard looked like this:



Upon closer inspection I saw that the paper skull, with working jaw movement, had this printed on the back "www.skulladay.com". Naturally, I visited the site and found the most amazing petroleum jelly skull ever.

null

neurons

Art and science combine to identify individual brain neurons.

null

at 7:30 a.m.
at 1 p.m.

Cosmonaut painting

Yuri!

We made a painting for our living room, based on some Soviet art for Russian space exploration. Yuri Gagarin was the first Russian in space, a cosmonaut, so we added his name at the bottom. I must admit I only did the broader strokes of painting, as detailed painting of the edges was difficult for me. I did put in the tiny stars too.

null

poem from last november

Last November while Hugo was doing his third annual nanowrimo, I wrote a poem a day in solidarity since I did not have enough time to write a novel. I write a ton of poetry when life is less than rewarding. And I realize now that I haven't written a poem in months - one negative side effect of happiness.

Thought I'd post a poem I wrote early in the process last November. Last November was hard.

--

You stand naked with your feet cold and your belly hot
under the shower streaming at constant speed,
you see the blue light begin to collect on the walls
white and layered in thick and thin sheets
boards and nails, electrical wire and plumbing pipes

and then you are pulling the electrical wire through a hole the size of a silver dollar
you are opening your fist, closed mostly to itself,
through the paint, the plaster, the sheetrock.
It is 6:24 a.m., everything happening
is rushing down your skull, your shoulders, your spine,
down a drain and into the gutters and oceans. You stand naked;
the material you have to learn is so un-learnable
and imaginary, like God, you wish you could
make something happen in the name of a miracle
you wish it could be like poetry: curious, water-like, warm,
but it is not

everything you have to learn is like falling
your foot slips on some soap
and you fall hard, elbow and shoulder hitting the edge of the tub
hips and spine slamming against the floor
your head suddenly in your hands
as if you were a very small child, sheltering yourself from debris
fallout and rubble
but it is not that
it is only water falling
at 6:26 a.m. What makes you stand up, finally, is the fear of being too late
of disturbing the balance of the day
of not getting up for a long, long time.

volumes of confessions

The most unbelievable birthday adoration yet was a series of compositions from our own Hugo. This is just a tease of what they were. I'm consciously holding onto the rest of them to leak one at a time.

sunflowers from vermont

This arrived in the mail. Just like this. It is Ben and Jerry's fertilized soil with sunflowers for the planting. It'll be a sunflower winter! Yee HAW!

luvaseline

Our good friends N. and Michele made me my very own luVaseline. The next time you see me, ask me why this was such a stellar gift. At LAST!

orchestrated birthday adoration

Sanguinetti A! orchestrated a cascade of birthday love last month. She encouraged many loved ones to send me something creative in the mail to celebrate my 30th birthday. I was pleasantly surprised with postal art for most of October. I'm going to gradually post some of them. Here is the first installment.

book layout

I haven't done one of these in a long time. I'd forgotten how much fun it is.

Prince wants to fight!

I love Prince drama! I love it!

sound sculpture

Matthew Plummer Fernandez has made a chair sculpture based on sound.



Thanks to information aesthetics.

city in a box

What a day! I am finding amazing things in the world of blog.

All of my blogmates will gasp over this: a city in a box. I'm surprised IKEA doesn't sell this.

dinosaury shadow puppets

Tyra N Saurus, you need these.

I find it odd that they can be found on Etsy (Laurie connection: sister Nancy) and that the artist teaches at 826 Chicago (Hugo connection: 826 Valencia.)

gracenote maps

Gracenote lets you see who is listening to what displayed through a map.

collecting dead birds

I woke up at 4 am today, hungry. While I sat in the dark eating a bowl of cereal, I thought about collecting the dead birds I see. I've seen two in the last two months, and I imagine that if I look for them, they're really everywhere.

I envisioned carrying around: latex gloves (I'm not allergic), baggies of various sizes, a metal scooping device, and a Tupperware container of about 5" x 5" x 3".

I'd like to bring them home, organize their feathers and limbs, and take portraits of them against a solid background. I'd like to have a dead bird series even if I don't know how to taxidermy.

word of the day

I very much like the word of the day for November 5.

Woolgathering: Indulgence in idle daydreaming.

Even more, I love the first example sentence:

Similarly, in the meadow, if you laze too late into the fall, woolgathering, snow could fill your mouth. -- Edward Hoagland, "Earth's eye", Sierra, May 1999

Snow could fill your mouth.

Snow could fill your mouth.

Oh my god, I love that phrase.

fall

origami brain

I found this on a blog I sometimes read.

nanowrimo!

I just remembered November is National Novel Writing Month! Hugo has participated in this for, I think, three consecutive years. What about this year, Hugo?

(I'd like to point out that it was started in Oakland, CA - that fabulous little city I just moved from!)

Algorithmic Serendipitous Verbiage

I'm working with a startup developing, among other things, an email archiving system. This requires a chunk of sample email data for testing and demonstration purposes. Our first pass just used greek filler, but that doesn't create particularly interesting search fodder. We're currently working with a Markov text chain generator (beloved of spammers everywhere!) to create email subject lines and headers.

Of course, what you get out depends on what you put in. Since our product is focused on regulatory compliance for small financial firms, we decided to feed it the industry regulations... and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations... and Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class... and Plato's Republic... and a little Edgar Allen Poe and Cory Doctorow for spice:

All ritual has a piece of magnificence in Thomas Becket, that he generally proportions to the impositon of a state, and the regular payment of old, because in China, every way fitted for it is worth, in order to raise his wages appear to you with my lawyer and springing me from this fund, indeed, is frequently lent to the health and vigour to the order identifier assigned to the subject company's securities, provided that both Europe and every other nation, might have had any ports upon the valid exercise of traits in this manner yields no revenue to the provisions of paragraph a2 or 3 or 4, above, two times in their hearts and would try to find a reasonable effort to learn some particular classes of shares or a correspondent clearing arrangement with a transaction takes place in all places are causes of the State wise?

I think I shall retire to a hermitage and spend the rest of my days in contemplation.

death maps

There are some utterly fascinating maps on National Geographic's website depicting the various mortality causes around the world and their disproportionality to population numbers. The information is really fascinating, but even more I was enthralled by the graphics. Whoever did these is a very effective visual communicator.

Here's just one example. The top shows deaths related to war combat and landmines and the bottom compares it to world population:

Tyra N. Saurus

Happy Halloween kiddies!

balloon bowl

photography and google maps

Amy Stein is a genius. Her project, stranded, uses road trips, photographs and google maps. Exploring it is like flipping through her travel journals.

Two greats meet

Hugo and I love some of Laura Owens' monkey paintings. Hugo loves The Believer. Here, they met in 2003. How lovely.

funniest image roll overs ever

The MIT Architecture school has a pretty funny menu. Make sure you roll over and down the choices.

ROLLER DERBY!

The first MN roller derby bout of the season just happened to fall the day after Laurie, aka Tyra N Saurus', birthday. Here's that wild dino:Roller derby was f***ing kick-a**. Oh my god. We died five times that night we enjoyed ourselves so much. Here they are about to start a round about the track:

evening leaf tag

I was supposed to be writing a paper based on Erikson's psychosocial stages of development and instead I accidentally took a two hour nap that felt like (and was only supposed to be) 20 minutes and left me with a raunchy taste in my mouth. I got dressed, look surprisingly fashionable (I have a sleek light blue ensemble going on), grabbed my camera, and walked across the street to the park.

On the way I saw at one end of the park a car running with its lights on and a person sleeping very deeply (head back, mouth open, slouched over) in the driver's seat. I thought they might be dead. I stopped and stared at them and couldn't bring myself to get closer to see if they were really just sleeping. I wondered if they'd run a hose from the exhaust to the inside and killed themselves. I was still half-asleep and felt confused.

At the other end of the park was a kissing couple. I couldn't go make a tag by the kissing couple even though all the good pretty leaves seemed to be over there. I felt so confused. What had happened out here while I'd slept?

I started to make this tag hanging down from the leaves attached to the tree. I wanted to make several streams of leaf chains dangling. I am not Andy Goldsworthy and couldn't pull it off. Before it got too dark I just strung a few together on the ground.

And here's just a close up of the more intricate end:Back to Erikson and brushing my teeth.

yum yum

I photographed this Spam display in a local grocery store. I was astounded that the model would sacrifice her career by allowing her face to appear that close to and with such adoration for Spam.

cell portraits

Scroll down this blog a bit and look at the cell portraits.

New short story

I finished a new short story I have been working on. Here is the first paragraph:

Every night after she takes Ch00 Ch00 for a walk, she strips naked in her bedroom and takes a photograph of herself. She has done this each night for the past six weeks. It's the only use she's found for her outdated digital camera. She stands in the same spot in her bedroom and looks straight ahead at the camera, set up on the dresser so that it photographs from the neck down, so her face is in none of the photos. She's learned to download the pictures onto her computer, where she can scroll through them like a timeline. She can see the changes. Like a primitive cartoon, her body flickers down in size–her breasts begin to rise, hips begin to take shape, and her legs whittle away. Her fingers are even smaller, elbows no longer rest against rolls of skin on her sides – there's actually a gap, a space between elbows and hips. Black triangles like the isoceles of brown hair below her belly. Her belly button is no longer a gaping orifice – it's almost cute. In a few weeks she will send a photograph to Mickey of her face. After she loses ten more pounds.

You can read the rest of the story here.

If you get through it, let me know what your take is on the narrative voice. Too condescending? Too detached? Inappropriate humor/formal voice/switch in tone?

found question

I found this in Stadium Village last week. What do you think was on the tape?

leaf tag

Sanguinetti A! suggested that we make another tag because of the abundance of colorful leaves in our neighborhood right now. I started with this sketch today.

one step closer to my fur suit!

I am not particularly into Halloween or werewolves (aside from a bizarre novella I once wrote about a werewolf named Linda), but I just saw how to make this werewolf costume on Instructables and I got excited because maybe I could follow it to learn how to make my own adult sized baggy fur suit.

I've really been wanting to have it lately. AAghghghAA!@#@!@#!

Edit: I just read the body instructions and got the idea to get a baggy jumpsuit with hoodie and sew fake fur onto it. I'd add a tail and ears. I definitely want to be grey. I'm SO excited about these new ideas.

how to make a table

I really want to make a table like this. I've been wanting to make furniture for so many years now.

I feel a little lame saying it again, but here I go -- I just don't have enough time these days to be creative. It's sad. Maybe I'll hole up in winter break and make furniture and knit legwarmers???

First Frost

This is a sign that winter is coming, but I still think the first frost is gorgeous.

Green Tag

We've talked about nature "graffiti" tags, and so I was impressed to read about these tags using plant material.

conjoined sock monkeys

This is the strangest sock monkey I've ever seen. I came across this because my coworker knows someone who knows one of the roller girls, (and I'm freaking out like a 12 year old on Jolt cola,) we've been talking about since Saturday night's bout. The one and only, Cupcake makes these creations.

Teena's bugs

Teena is a good friend and her work is freshly online now. She makes insect inspired art, orchid holders, rattles and the most amazing wall beetles you've ever seen.

Urban exploration

I came across a collection of photographs of abandoned buildings, mostly in Detroit. (The Roosevelt Warehouse and Michigan Central Train Station sets are especially good.) Many of the photographs are simple snapshots of the exploration process or of notable graffiti, but several are quite striking on their own: