Cute

I've been out of the blogging scene for a bit... moving to Hawaii in a week. But I thought these were super cute. Girl moment boys.

http://www.parentdish.com/2009/09/16/the-marshmallow-test-cute-or-cruel/?icid=mainaimdl7link2http%3A%2F%2Fwww.parentdish.com%2F2009%2F09%2F16%2Fthe-marshmallow-test-cute-or-cruel%2F

http://wimp.com/inefficientdrinker/

Side Ponies

I almost bought a pair of skinny jeans with zippers in the back last weekend. I already own a pair of high tops. So, if the eighties are officially back, can we bring the side pony back too? I rocked a side pony (with a braid to be specific) the entire fourth grade. I even refused to practice head balls in soccer because it would of messed up my hair, I was a premadonna way before my time.

Last night we had a BBQ at a friends house and I got some great shots of side ponies.

Ken Block

This is awsome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ7R_buZPSo

Katie says

www.lostateminor.com

My Milk Shake Brings All the Boys to the Yard

New years morning we went to breakfast at the diner Relish in Brooklyn. They filmed the video for Milkshake there and the location perfectly fits the lyrics. The interior, not so much. There was a white plastic Christmas Tree inside with orange decorations and a big purple star on top. The diner was jammed full of Williamsburgh hipsters and they played Wooden Ships by Crosby, Stills and Nash over the load speaker. My friend Laura from high school invited us there with her friend Carlos.

We spent the night prior out until the wee hours of the morning. After a breif visit to a house party, we went to Buddakan in Chelsea. I didn't realize until much later that this is the same restaurant that Carrie Bradshaw had her rehersal dinner at in the movie Sex and the City. The walls were lined with desperate housewives and there had to be more botox in the entrance way then there was in all of Vermont. We had a bottle of champagne left over from the party we had just came from so we went to the bar and asked for some champagne glasses while we tried to blend in as if we had purchased the bottle there (definitely one of the more classy moments in my life). After a very long night we headed back to Brooklyn and dropped Laura off at her house on the way. When she called in the morning letting us know she was coming to pick us up for breakfast with her friend Carlos I was surprised.

Carlos pulled up in a hatchback with California plates. He said he had just moved here a few weeks ago to start a graffiti store with some friends. I wondered how that worked seeing as graffiti is usually not only unwanted, but also unpaid for. I was too tired to ask. At breakfast I quickly learned that Laura had just met Carlos the night before and as he ate his super sized breakfast (with wheat toast, organic cheeses and free range eggs) as if he hadn't eaten in months I became more weary of him. After breakfast he brought us to the store he and his friend were opening. He had forgotten his keys so we wandered through a building, down a flight of stairs that reminded me more of the Saw III movie then any kind of apartment building and into a basement filled with artsy hipsters. Luckily they were all very nice. Soon after we entered they all got up to leave and forgot that we were there. Carlos walked upstairs with them and we were left stranded in this brooklyn basement. We laughed about how we could of not only stayed there all day and hung out, but also rob them of all thier things... yet none of them seemed to care. I remembered I had my left over sandwich in his car, so we walked upstairs to find them. By the time we got there Carlos was driving away with my sandwich and a car full of people. He stopped and told us he would be right back, and we said ok and as he drove away we walked to the subway headed home.

I was back in Brooklyn last weekend and as I stood in an organic cheese store I remembered that morning and I realized that although your milkshake can still bring the boys to the yard in much of NYC, you are increasingly more likely in Brooklyn to meet a boy and have him bring you to a yard and serve you a milkshake... in a recycled container with organic milk. I'm still pissed about losing my sandwich that morning by the way.

Matt says

my blog is so gay.

I really love this song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY7OWxkPpwk

Nubble Point

Summers we used to drive to Maine to go to the ocean. Growing up in Upstate NY you are pretty land locked, so venturing out to Maine was really exciting for us. My dad always loved this one light house, Nubble Point. It's not far from the New Hampshire border and its really beautiful there.

I remember being really young and not realizing there was even a world outside of the neighborhood I lived in until I had to go to school. And then it only expanded a few blocks at a time. Needless to say, we didn't travel much. Once a year though, we made it out somewhere. If it wasn't to Maine, it was to Florida, Atlantic City or somewhere on the east coast. It always seemed that these vacations had some kind of family curse on them. When we went to Disney my brother got an allergic reaction to the sun block he used; and from then forward (forward meaning until we left for college) we were not allowed to use sunblock. His face swelled up like a balloon and he had to wear a daffy duck hat the whole time to cover himself. When we went to Myrtle Beach one year we got the flu and everyone in our hotel called us the Vomiting Vona's. One time we went to Old Orchard Beach and Hurricane Hugo decided to hit the day after we arrived. We had to evacuate to Portland where my cousins lived. I watched a tree sucked from the ground, roots and all that year. Later, when I was in college we went back to Maine, near Nubble Point and it rained every day for seven days. It was so bad the the one day it stopped raining everyone crammed onto the beach in their bathing suits as if it was 80 degrees and sunny. It was still 65 and drizzling.

We didn't take family trips to Europe or Mexico. And despite the fact that we seemed to have a curse on our vacations, we always laughed much more then we cried. We laughed about all of it. We laughted about the vomiting, the rain, and the way more then half of our family photo's involved my mom hiding behind my dad because the weather made her hair frizz or my brother and I frowning pointing out the cuts or bug bites we got. The one place that we never had any problems at was Nubble Point. Maybe that is why we hold it very close to our heart. We would go to the light house and climb on the rocks, take pictures, pick up seashells from the ocean and then gorge ourselves with the finest lobster around.

"If you could read my mind love, what a tale my thoughts would tell"

Last weekend I had the pleasure of meeting Kim's highschool friends for the first time since I met her 11 years ago in college. I remebered their names and some of thier faces from pictures I had seen plastered across her freshman dorm years ago. So, instead of packing and getting ready for our long drive back to VT from Chicago we decided to drink, reminisce and stay out until 4am, ending our night almost getting run over by a cream puff on a skate board (literally there was a guy in a blow up sumo restler costume on a skateboard we stumbled directly into).

Worlds collided that night as we fondly remembered the late 90's and its somewhat universal disasterous effect it had on all american teenagers. I heard about how thier band "visual roots" got its name (and no, it's not what you think. It involved something more like tree bark and intense vomiting shortlly after), saw pictures of some very dangerous diamond print leggings and laughed when Max claimed Columbine "ruined the black trench coat look" for him.

I was happy to see Kim had the kind of friends from highschool I have. Ones who are much more like family then they ever were like friends. People who you happened to share some very bad, very sad times with but who you also shared some very very fun and funny times with as well. I think of my good friend Renee who got married in June. Kerri and I, her best childhood friends, joked about the fact that we had been replaced when she casually asked her college friends to hold up her dress when she peed instead of us or when she ran straight passed us on the dance floor when her favorite song came on. But we know about Renee's "wall collection" and how her dad made her scrub it off when she was five. Or how we all bonded over the 32 detentions we had together in middle school or the fact that we had our prom in our highschool cafeteria and it's theme was "Labrynth".

A teacher once said to me that "the only constant in life is change" and this is true. New friends and new beginnings, but one thing is for sure "time may change us, but we can't change time".

Chi-town

I fly to Chicago today to help my good friend Kim pack up from a law internship she had there this summer and drive back to VT. We've been friends for a very long time and I'm looking forward to spending some road time together with her.

She has a car we call Lucy2, because it is the exact same year, make, model and color of the last car her dad got for her (which is now at the local dump after being used in a demolition derby). It's like a beige 1992 Nissan Maxima, how do you manage to replicate that? Or more importantly, why Wally? When she got it, the drivers side door was falling off and I wondered how this was an upgrade from the first. But Lucy2 made it all the way to her first law internship in Texas and by the time I went there to visit last summer the door was so bad that you either had to climb in through the drivers side window or through the passengers side.

Eventually she got that door fixed and I just heard from her today that Lucy2 has brand new brakes as well. Which is great because I have an ex boyfriend whose faulty brakes made him drive straight through the front of a Jolly Mart a few years back. I'm no stranger to car problems myself. I have even walked two miles on the NY State Thruway in high school, in a prom dress, when our limo broke down on the way to dinner. So I'm thinking, new brakes, new door... couple of crossed fingers and we should make it back in a few days.

Nobody knows but the cops

Whenever I would ask my dad a question that he didn't know the answer to when I was little he would tell me "nobody knows but the cops". As you can imagine, I heard this a lot and because I heard this for so long I really thought that the cops knew everything. I never knew why he said this until one day I got smart enough to ask and it turns out his cousin Jack used to always say that to him when he was little. He just looked at me like "sorry! I know I fed you a bunch of bologna for so many years but you were asking questions that had no answer!"

It reminded me of all the things you pass on from one generation to the next without ever realizing how symbolic they are. My mom always called my brother and I mommie. I got so confused because she was the mom! Later I realized that it is a term on endearment that a lot of ethnic groups use. I also have an Aunt Teresa, who I never knew until I was beyond the age of "should have known" that she really isn't related to me at all. She is just a very good family friend who my parents thought I should call Aunt.

I guess what does it really matter if your kids are your mommies and your friends are your aunts and nobody knows but the cops. Maybe the world would be a nicer place if that was really true.

Anthony says:
http://rulesformyunbornson.tumblr.com/

Ive got a brand new pair of rollerskates

This song has been stuck in my head all weekend!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p02DgHeGdyI&feature=fvw

People never rollerskate anymore! I wouldn't even know where to find a pair, but I recently took up skateboarding with my friend Jenny. We cruise around really good on those things! When we bought them the store offered us a free lesson with our purchase. The coupon said "for children 12 and under".

Chelsea Art Museum

I went to the Chelsea Art Museum a few months ago. This guys work is really cool. He was filming an interview while we were there. Also, the stairs in the museum are kreepy! They are made of some sort of sea glass, feels like you could fall right through them! Then of course there was the moving sculpture mounted on the walls............  

http://chelseaartmuseum.org/exhibits/2009/visualcrescendo/index.html

April 7 - August 1, 2009

 

Jean Miotte: Visual Crescendo 

Insurrection, 1996, 196 x 118 in
Acrylic on canvas

Born in 1926, Jean Miotte began exhibiting in 1952 and continues to this day. As one of the important protagonists of L'Art Informel, his work is inspired by the desire of the postwar generation to create a universal human language through art, a path to peace, a way to overcome frontiers after the horrors of war. Miotte's work is greatly influenced by jazz, and especially by dance.

 

The Miotte Foundation, housed in the Chelsea Art Museum, preserves the oeuvre of Jean Miotte and fosters research into the Informel movement. 

Does anyone remember Tank Girl?

Tank Girl

As the name suggests, Tank Girl drives a tank, which is also her home. She undertakes a series of missions for a nebulous organization before making a serious mistake and being declared an outlaw for her sexual inclinations and her substance abuse. The comic centers on her misadventures with her boyfriend, Booga, a mutant kangaroo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Girl

HA! The 90's were such a disaster! I miss her. I think she had a stint in 2008 with Suicide Girls and is supposed to have a book out this summer.

Anthony Says

www.notcot.org
www.notcouture.com

good.

Art Now

I didn't start this blog just to write posts about my life. I started it so I could have a way to share my art and my love of art with my friends who share the same interests.

There are infinite numbers of galleries, magazines and websites with infinite numbers of artists showing infinite styles of work that sometimes I think art has turned into a complete shit show. But I realize that what has come of it is a direct reflection of our world, our culture and our sense of self... and truly I think that the shit show we have created is great and beautiful and honest.

My favorite magazines are ANP Quarterly, ISM and BOMB. These are much better then Art in America or Art Review because they show you that with art its important just to do, be whatever that may be. Without pages and pages of stuffy art reviews, much less advertising junk and frankly I think they are just more fun.

ANP QUARTERLY

ANPQuarterly is an arts magazine published by RVCA that focuses on a broader sense of art and community. The idea behind this endeavor is to make a magazine that will educate and inform openly and without the social or financial restrictions that plague many publications today. Our goal is not to focus on current events or “who’s hot” but rather to bring forward people and phenomena that deserve acknowledgment and coverage regardless of their place in time.

W: www.rvcaanpq.com
M: www.myspace.com/anpquarterly

ISM

http://www.ismcommunity.org/

ISM: a community project is a non-profit organization dedicated to benefiting the youth of our society through the artistic enrichment of our community.

BOMB MAGAZINE

BOMB Magazine, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, represents the artist’s voice through in-depth interviews between visual artists, writers, composers, directors, architects…. BOMB’s mission is to reveal artists’ ideas, their thoughts and creative processes, as well as their progress, through carefully developed dialogues—now and for posterity.

http://www.bombsite.com/issues/0/articles/3326

My Brothers Graduation

My brother is defending his thesis this Wednesday at MIT. His thesis is on the Virtual Articulation and Kinematic Abstraction in Robotics. I'm not really sure what that means, he has been working on things like this since he was born, and I've never understood a word of it, but I have followed him and watched him admirably as any younger sibling would through all of it.

When we would go on vacation he would read math books on the beach instead of making sand castles, and when we would go to the toy store to get a toy I would get a new purple My Little Pony and he would ask for a C++ programming book from Barnes and Noble. When I was 5 and he was 6 1/2 he built a light bulb out of a mayonnaise jar with some old wires and a battery. He was the kid who built the rockets in our neighborhood that didn't need to be lit with a match because they were remote controlled. I was the kid that had to go get them when they landed through some neighbors window or across the field. When I would be outside trying to convince the neighborhood kids that we really could dig a pool in the backyard and line it with garbage bags to hold the water, he was in our basement working on the tool bench my Uncle Feet built for him trying to figure out how to put back together the Commedore 64 we just bought that he decided to take apart.

My neighbors and I used to dance ballet when we were small, so we would put on the Nutcracker every summer in their basement. My brother did all of the lighting and effects by taking apart old light brites and using Lego's. He won the science fair every year without fail. But by middle school they refused to give him first place because they would not believe that a twelve year old could construct such a sophisticated circuit board. They were sure my dad did it for him (my dad could not work a fax machine, let alone design a circuit board). He was valedictorian of our high school. The day he gave his valedictorian speech my dad had just bought a new camcorder. He was so proud and so excited to take this video he read the instructions 5 times with me the night before. When my brother got up to speak, we turned it on and it died after the first minute. We realized we had done everything except charge the battery.

At his college graduation, he was being given a very special award and I can't forget the day because I (and this was not the first time) managed to find a way to lock the keys in our car with the car running. Needless to say some of us missed this ceremony (sorry mom!). After college he got his masters and then went to work for NASA. He worked on the CAD programming for the two mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. He also won the award that year for the most innovative team at NASA.

Now, in two days he will graduate with his PhD. The last step in his journey towards a career. He got a job as a professor at a very prestigious university in Boston and I couldn't be more proud of him then I am right now. Good luck on Wednesday, I know you will do great and this time I promise to be there without locking keys in a car or forgetting the batteries to our camera.

Blog

I'm blogging now. It might end up like the rest of the things in my life. Open and unfinished. But here it goes.... enjoy!