a popular concept

folklore - associated w. nostalgia, triviality and Error.

interest: vernacular cultural forms and practices in the making of social life.

how do people construct for themselves, individually and collectively, a sense of a shared past, and membership in various communities?

changing expressions of historical and communal consciousness in the mundane process of everyday life as well as fomal and stylized events --> define and renew social identity

whatever the scale or profile of the social phenomena, i want to investigate on transactions- material, verbal, and ritual. this is integral to overall poetics and politics of ordinary life.

i am--> in a process of meaning-making

warm embrace

being pulled into the new year, being pulled into (new things rooting from old things, well, maybe things have not changed):

-eastern europe & greece
-returning to Curiosity
-deep feelings/old & new people
-language
-writing (w/o care)
-family/california

bad news: the family dog is sick. tumor in the eye, skin growing over the tumor, less of an eye than ever before. medical advice: ointment

good news: new dreams

hunger

i. life to be carried in a certain way
a. unrequited desire
b. day dreaming
c. hunger

ii. a mouth of broken teeth
a. disaster
1. hunger
2. hunger

no money, no cell phone lost in las vegas right now and hanging out at the mac store.


rescued by brother

infinite variety
infinite mystery

after the shower

my world is lavender fox tails and there are soft-small bananas everywhere.
my dream is a favor

emotional definition for los angeles: driving through abbott kinney to get anywhere, palm tree lined streets, wind in between my legs, hanging in my garden, bbq-ed oxtail, seeing the beach just down the street

adapting to: living in a tiny studio kitchenette, no door bathroom (baths only), greenhouse windowed bedroom settled in cement santa monica above mothers make shift antique forrest, learning how to run to the ocean and back (60 blocks to and fro)

i dont know how to say it? an old man in his kimono house this week gave me an anime called 'dirty pair'. he said i would like it. from this same place i got this beautiful button of the lone ranger that now sits on my red southwestern travel bag.

my week in san francisco was marvelous. from this week i'd like to pick out the warm welcome, the holiday dinner, the long walk, long talks and every breakfast and meal of pho i ate.

pictured below is a fern i woke up to. i stared at it for a good ten minutes one morning. easy to say that i am obsessed with it. it has these furry ringlets that i just love. also pictured below is my unraveled sweater and a drawing i did of the fern.






mostly on my mind:
-options
-the conflict of options (you or you? or both?)
-keeping it real/acting this out appropriately
-learning french in the car (j'ai oubliée!)
-my teeth

and something to be excited for:

i could never let you know how much i love you

yesterday was a horrible day, but the incident was well treated when i received 3 letters from my favorite favorite people.

a stretching letter from e. youle
a quaint postcard from e. young
a glorious multimedia care package from z. iannazzi

i was on fire last night. i turned into a sharp knife, a popping pimple, an exploding volcano, but everything i got, in letter and support, soothed me.

let us prepare for the new year by going to my favorite beach, el matador!



see you tomorrow california

pictured: bill cunningham, cute old man that loves (ny) fashion. he makes really good audio slideshows- so cute, so good.

my mother

im on the phone w her and she is talking about how her two fishes are depressed from the cold weather. she is afraid of them dying. she's walking our dog sumo now, and he just pooped and and covered all of his poop by kicking up the dirt and she was frustrated that she couldn't find it. after she went all around the block, she found popcorn all over her porch- she said, "what's going on here?"

i am so excited for california. this week hasn't been that bad at all so that has made me feel really good. i am eating well, sleeping well, and dreaming well.



i visited a show i have my work in. and almost done w a book, finally!

your tongue, my serpent

today there have been an uncanny no. of alaska references after watching into the wild last night. it has kind of freaked me out. the movie really freaked me out.

i. at the bar, a documentary on hunting laws in alaska
ii. a character in the book i am reading leaves for alaska on this very same day
iii. another show on wild life in alaska
iv. met a man from alaska



i had a dream last night that i was in florida. and i wanted to go swimming in the knee water of cypress trees. and i did but i was wearing boots of iron and i just couldn't swim. so i drowned and they found me washed away as a heron. i was there to met a friend of mine who never showed up.



im wearing the biggest wool sweater and i am still so cold. should i buy an electric fireplace?

An interviewer once asked Robert Adams why he was drawn to trees again and again in his photographs. "Trees smell good, feel good, sound good, and look good," he answered, adding, "And as if that weren't enough, they point beyond themselves."

are you sensitive about territory?
i am sensitive about territory.
-> cultural ecology, following the historical changes of landscapes by way of culture

E: did you take pictures?
Z: i brought my video camera, there was a little bit of blood and a lot of feathers, but there were a lot of feathers there already
Z: i think they ate the egg laying chicken! we were eating the last of the eggs, but they ended up getting burned when we realized a chicken was missing
E: hole in the fence?
Z: hole in the fence.

r.i.p. zach's egg laying chicken

huge bat penis

cut my finger for a bitch today.

on a lighter note, look at this huge bat dick:




also, i really want to go here:

(Ocklawaha River, Florida)

the following desires were introduced by mark dion

The peasant and his body

Pierre Bourdieu
Collège de France

Based on a study of his childhood village of Béarn in southwestern France in the 1960s combining social history, statistics, and ethnography, the author shows how economic and social standing influence the rising rates of bachelorhood in a peasant society based on primogeniture through the mediation of the embodied consciousness that men acquire of this standing. The scene of a local ball on the margins of which bachelors gather serves to highlight and dissect the cultural clash between country and city and the resulting devaluation of the young men from the hamlet as urban categories of judgment penetrate the rural world. Because their upbringing and social position lead them to be sensitive to ‘tenue’ (appearance, clothing, bearing, conduct) as well as open to the ideals of the town, young women assimilate the cultural patterns issued from the city more quickly than the men, which condemns the latter to be gauged against yardsticks that make them worthless in the eyes of potential marriage partners. As the peasant internalizes in turn the devalued image that others form of him through the prism of urban categories, he comes to perceive his own body as an ‘em-peasanted’ body, burdened with the traces of the activities and attitudes associated with agricultural life. The wretched consciousness that he gains of his body leads him to break solidarity with it and to adopt an introverted attitude that amplifies the shyness and gaucheness produced by social relations marked by the extreme segregation of the sexes and the repression of the sharing of emotions.

what a strangely successful day. a desire for progression was the precedent for today. there was a small portion of disappointment but it was replaced by the fulfilling presence of an old companion.

things going my way. the head is feeling clear, and my heart is feeling very big. im getting speed on finding the time to work, and to think about my work (i am so lucky, extended div iii). we read a great book under a statue this morning that revealed some burning interests i had not yet recognized.

took advantage of the light today. it was patterned from my curtains and my sheets. 2-3 pm my room gets the most light. living room gets my favorite light around 9 or 10 am.

i have also been driven by my new favorite song called will you touch me by yoko ono, the version that john lennon records for her. acoustic.

and have been thinking about reinstating painting (very large brush strokes; fauvism; the beast!), video (wind blowing through long prairie grass, japanese forest grass, or someone finding me buried in the badlands some where), and ethnography (something that looks like authorship even though there may be no intention of publication/yoking together a multi-faceted representation)

i looked back at my recent entries, and they really disturbed me. i've decided that i no longer confide in the camera phone. they tell too many things, and really the world is so much better when you can't see everything.

the things we always come back to?

i. california
ii. koudelka
iii. helene smith
iv. putting all of my eggs in one basket
v. the uplifting confidence of autonomy/isolation
vi. listening to one song on repeat
vii. black & white

thanksgiving meant holiday with the camacho's this year. meeting family is weird/amazing. we (kate and i) understand china at another level now. i walked her dog bubba w. her dad. we walked about 90 ft, and talked about the wall he has been working on for 20 yrs. it is a real wall... made of grannite and limestone from old churches and buildings. he says that people think it's so hard to build a wall, but isn't it hard to wake up in the morning sometimes? her dad is so cool.

so we met the family, got swallowed up in their history, and i missed my own family. we also went on grocery errands, and i did so much sleeping as a rock.








and before that, alex and max came and stayed with us. i like to think of that neil young song off of silver and gold called "good to see you". we listened to dance hall as alex likes to call it, ate hoagies and cannolis. it is a really nice feeling to sit around w. someone and have it be so easy. that's the measure i have for people i like.








this year, i am most thankful for my mother, my family, and my friends. all unparalleled individuals in my support network.

general desires

america is a nation of whiners

my last word though, i can't stand archetypes

me at the beach!


we made respectful burgers tonight. and then we all sat on the couch crafting.

i did a bit of planning. am starting to realize that im actually compiling a new body of work quite slowly. im excited to see what territory it ventures in. i think the photographs i have been making are thank you photographs. i think how do i pronounce security, loyalty and gratefulness? i've been making still lives around the house mostly. i think about my light houses.

light house as in who is your light, who leads your way when you are lost- things of security, things of comfort.

"i get these really intense longings. they're longings about different things. it happened to me today for about 3 hours where i just missed and missed and missed. i just sit there and think about all the things and people i miss, and it hurts. it pains me the way someone would sit on your chest, slowly and intermittently harder."
-estelle 11/17/07

ah, the year is cyclical. perpetual appreciation is the positive thing to call it.

i think about kissing the facial surfaces of all kinds of friends with tender four-cornered lips, to gently layer their skin w my saliva. gnaw gnaw gnaw gnaw them with my wide cheeks and hug hug hug hug hug. and i want to suspend them so wonderfully over me. you lose the things you don't hold on to.


voicemails:
1. annie "it's going to take longer than i thought..."
2. annie "...i hear you might be asleep?"
3. dad "[in a hearty, healthy voice] i miss you! ... i am thinking of your Right now!"
4. american red cross "please donate at the hampshire mall today"
5. anonymous "[background sound]
6. josh "... phone tag... this weekend?..."

WHAT!!!! THIS IS THE BEST WEBSITE EVERRRR!!!!





I DREAM OF THIS STUFF ALLLLL THE TIME

WHATTT!!!!

fucking timeless