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Art That Goes Boom!

I had a great experience volunteering for artist Cai Guo-Qiang's gunpowder paintings. Here's an account & video of what went on.

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The diagnosis

Read Xeni Jardin's moving and personal account of the day her life changed.

A small bit of it:

The gravity in this place is different. I've spoken to others who've traveled out here, too, and returned home safely. When you become one of them, you learn quickly that you share a language others can't understand.

The trick, these fellow travelers tell me, is to accept the not knowing and find your equilibrium in that new gravity. Calm the mind. Find your balance out on the cold planet, whether or not you know the next step, or the date of the next appointment, or what good or bad news the Technetium-99 isotopes floating around in your blood during the last scan reveal.

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Learning to draw...the 50 states

I'm kind of hot for teacher.

Kenny O'Brien teaches online drawing classes on Mahalo. He's a little bit dorky in a Mr. Rodgers kind of way, but mostly he's kind and funny and extremely good at teaching. The first thing that hooked me with these courses was the way he made drawing the NW states look easy. This is the easiest chunk of the country to draw, but I found it pretty hard - the sketch above took over an hour.

I've started watching Kenny's lessons on my computer and following along using my iPad as a tablet. I highly recommend investing $15 in a stylus if you are going to try this. It works a lot better than drawing on the screen with your finger. Mahalo also has a drawing course iPad app hosted by Kenny that is worth the nominal fee.

Kenny also encourages students to email him sketches and questions and seems like a total sweetheart. I am taking this from the very beginning now and learning how to hold a pencil properly. Kenny promises that I'll be drawing SpongeBob in no time!

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A tree fell on my car last night. 

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Over lunch, over the phone, over email, and some simple eavesdropping, I’ve noticed a pattern. Because the social constructs of a greeting includes a banal how-are-you salutation, people tend to answer abruptly. And recently, I’ve heard people answer most often using a single word: “busy.”

The...

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in praise of Powell's Books

Powell's Books in Portland is the best book shop on the planet. The gigantic main store (Powell's City of Books) is full of great book reading mojo and proud, intelligent employees. They have an app that provides turn-by-turn directions to find books within their store. 

I often lurk on their website learning about new books to read. But what I do most of all is lust after their Indiespensable offerings. Subscribe to Indiespensable and you get a semi-monthly shipment featuring a gorgeous, limited-edition printing of a recommended book and some other goodies that the Powell's staff chooses. Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus came with (among other things) salted caramel corn. Anne Patchett's State of Wonder came with an advance copy of the new Miriam Toews novel and the first edition of McSweeneys/David Chang's food magazine Lucky Peach. The packages are always clever and full of well-curated items. It's book porn, I tell you.

An Indiespensable subscription is $39.99 for each shipment, and while I think it's worth every penny, I'm having trouble pulling the trigger on buying it. I spend at least that much on books every month and really want to support such a fantastic indie bookseller, but I'm hesitant to start steady flow of physical stuff coming into the house. I wish Powell's had a way to sell me books for my Kindle - I'd love to give them money that way. I'd totally subscribe to a monthly e-book deal.

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skateboard graveyard

I'm trying to research this - does anyone know the story?

There are a shit ton of broken skateboard decks on one of the pilings about 20 feet below the Embankment bridge.

Who is doing this...and why? Do skateboarders save their broken decks in order to throw them here? Do they sometimes miss and end up with boards in the Thames? 

I haven't found an answer yet, but it sure is intriguing. Anyone? I'm going to try and figure this out tomorrow - will report back if knowledge is found.

ADDENDUM: I posted this on Craigslist last night. Have a skate deck to throw off the bridge? (Embankment) - please, please let someone reply.

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Oh man...the 80's are back! Penguin Prison is a NY artist named Chris Glover who makes post-disco songs about money and ladies akin to ABC's "How to be a...Zillionaire." It's got more groove than ABC ever had, though. I think I like it.

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I had a lovely time at Brixton Market today.

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Chuck Klosterman on TV, culture, morality...and why Breaking Bad might be the best show ever.

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I just can't get enough of this new Mayer Hawthorne song. Here's to hoping that pop music veers towards freaky and soulful with Mayer and Cee-Lo and Janelle Monáe versus the relentless auto-tune that dominates these days. 

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california love

June 17, 2008 was the day that same-sex marriage went into effect in California. ..before Prop 8 took away this right the following November. I was so proud that our state was part of leading the way that I showed up at Beverly Hills city hall with a camera and without a plan, hoping to share in the joy of the day.

It turned out that quite a few couples were so swept up that they forgot about photos. Many of them welcomed me into their ceremonies as their photographer...and often as their witness.

The ministers began calling on me throughout the day when couples needed a witness or wanted photos.

I can't think of a day before or since when I felt so much a part of something important. I hope to do it again when this state gets off its ass and offers equal rights to everyone.

Soon, people.

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the view from my window on "the view from your window"

Being a big fan of Andrew Sullivan, having my photo on his blog is very exciting. That is indeed a view from my office window.

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the desktop wallpaper project

Bobby Sullivan has been offering up a free, beautiful desktop wallpaper on The Desktop Wallpaper Project every week since 2007. He works with incredible painters, designers and photographers from around the world. His blog is called The Fox is Black and it's all about design and art.

The image above is my favorite wallpaper from Cole Gerst/Option G.

Thanks Bobby.

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His name is Doctor, but he is not in the mood to heal.

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feral honey

  We put this website together about the honey we make...and by "we" I mean our bees. The bees make the honey, we make the website. FeralHoney.com