p.s. Hey. First, it's the artist and d.l. Oscar B's birthday today, so to those of you who won't be wishing her HBD over on Facebook and would like to do so, fire away. It's also my sister's birthday, but since she has never looked at this blog in her life, I won't bother trying to gather wishes for her. What else ... you're getting Elaine Sturtevant today because a whole bunch of us are going to the big grand opening shebang tonight for her retrospective at the Musee d'Art Moderne, so, in addition to her being great and all that, the post is kind of a sharing deal too, I guess. Lastly, I'll be in another rush again today due to my facing another long day of rehearsals. ** Andrew worthington, Hey, greetings, welcome. Well, yeah, I guess. I like that Feb. 3 story on your blog. I just read it right now even though I don't have time to read it. Says something about it or me or the combination or something. Kudos. ** No more teenagekicks, I loved seeing you/yours get love over on HTMLG. I've got to read that story. Did I talk about Watts Towers in relationship to 'God Jr.'? I can't remember, but they were one of the biggest things in my head, no surprise. Oh, sure, use that stuff. My lips are sealed. Get the thesis nailed. ** Rigby, Hey, R. So I'll just keep imagining where else you go then, choosing mystery as you rightfully and wisely have, ha ha. Oh, and the thanks are all mine, man. ** Bollo, If that show begins to materialize, thank you, and I'll let you know fast. I don't think Alissa Bennett's novel was ever published, but I'm not positive. I seem to remember it being sidelined or abandoned by her for some reason or another. ** Misanthrope, Birds are cool. I have friends who are friends with birds. I mean the birds hang out with them daily and eat their offerings. Gisele said it would be hard to put a price thing on the puppets since they were handmade but that I could tell you each of the puppets is insured for 6000 euros. How come everyone gets to dream about me but I don't even get to dream about anything for all intents and purposes since I don't remember them so they might as well never have happened? ** Put The Lotion In The Basket, Thanks, Nick. I was really hoping you would find it okay. Great! ** Wolf, My guess on why the Towers got a Spanish name is because LA has a huge historical relationship with Mexico -- its very name, obviously -- and I think in those days Watts was mostly a Hispanic neighborhood, but I'm not positive about that one. I would have gotten to see you perform on Sunday too? Fucking hell. ** David Ehrenstein, Oh, that Fisher Broadway show sounds tasty. No doubt it'll end up filmed and on TV/DVD. I'll see 'Hurt Locker' for sure. It's on DVD here already. Happy for Bigelow, too long in the shadows. And, yeah, 'Near Dark' is superb. Yeah, I saw that about Leif Garrett. Poor guy. ** NB, More dreams. I bet there's some religion where the preponderance of all these dreams in which I'm getting referenced means I'm either going to die soon or ... no, probably just die soon. That would suck. I suck with languages too. I hear you. Practice, practice? ** Alan, Hey, man. Yeah, the lack of reentry hassle must be quite the salve. Enjoy and report in the meantime. ** Joseph, I would guess with Poppy that the ongoing berating from her fans who wanted her to go back to the more goth material might have irked her into silence too. Yeah, not kvetching re: the lit mag is probably the coolest, sanest option. Fuck them. Sure, you can mention my name in the review. Gosh, thanks! So, how was 'Art Walk' then, if you went? ** Nicki, You're most welcome, and thank you, pal. ** L@rstonivich, Oh, very cool about that imprint. I like the sound of that a lot. And I like the name too. ** Empty Frame, No, I don't know that Jarvis Cocker doc. I'll see if I can find it, and I'll see if I can track down that French house too. LA has a few of those, really nice. I guess the most famous is Grandma's Prisbee's Bottle Village. Kill that cold and zoom back to utter sprightliness immediately, young man! ** Joseph S. Nockles, Nice sighting of Gilbert. Not just a sighting but an insight. Yeah, grr, no doubt the Five Years event is going to rock. 'Jerk' has already been in London last year. It would be cool to do it there again, and if any place there fishes, I'm sure we'll bite. ** Bill, Chrystel is being elusive on my end too, meaning she's not been in the office. Might explain something. I'll be looking every day until I catch her. Awesome for me that you'll likely be around in March, no surprise. Ultra-best on your rehearsing. ** Stan_cz, Hey, S! Yeah, I figured your awayness was a Wifi-related thing. Eating at Denny's, ha ha. You're really doing LA in classic style. No doubt you're going to get extremely high marks on that English test. It might as well be your first language, you're so sharp at it. I hope the classes thing works out greatly to your benefit, man. ** JW Veldhoen, Interesting, the job description. Mysterious yet serious. Well, fingers still crossed all to hell. I'll have to go look at that Brooksley Born link/thing again when I'm resettled post-stuff 'cos it was too serious for the rushing brain I house at the moment. ** Sypha, When do you talk to the district manager? Sounds like a solid move. ** Jose, That essay sounds very interesting. I'm kind of into the Unreal engine story, although I haven't kept up with the latest developments over here. Second Life still exists? I've been wondering. You couldn't get away from references to that place for a while, and now I haven't heard a peep about it in a long time. Is it still incredibly ugly and clunky? ** Oscar B, Happy birthday!!!! I'm going to call you as soon as I finish this to coordinate the trip to the museum. I'm thinking we should depart at 6 pm, but I'll confer with you, KP, Scott, and Paul before I head off into rehearsal sequestering. Cool about the absinthe. I want to ... see it. ** Kier, Oh, man, sorry to hear you've been down, but I'm real glad you're upwardly mobile again. That is cool about Jonny staying with you. Why is he coming up there? You're going to write about me? Wow, thanks, pal. I'm insanely honored, wow. On the Recollets, well, first, I don't think being a student forms a valid reason to stay here. I think you'd need to apply as an artist who has a project that necessitates you being here. Affording it-wise, the rents run from about 900 euros to 1600 euros a month, depending on the room. For August, you should apply before too long. I can explain it better, if you like. Maybe we could do a phoner. Do you have Skype? ** _Black_Acrylic, Those older art works of yours looking really good/ intriguing on a first, quick look. I'll explore more later. Have you basically quit making installation/gallery oriented art? Everyone, really interesting, somewhat older artworks by _Black_Acrylic aka the artist Ben Robinson can be viewed right here. Check them out. ** Steevee, No, I haven't heard the new Magnetic Fields. I'll definitely try it and probably get it. I honestly haven't loved their/his stuff for quite a while. I didn't even like '69 Love Songs' much at all. But I always want to hear what he's doing. ** Christopher/ Mark, Thank you again so much for letting me house the photos! That's Ger van Elk? Wow, interesting. Yeah, I know his work well. Well, at the risk of seeming greedy, yes, I would love to get and share those photos of 'Merzbarn'. That would be totally amazing, if you really don't mind. Did you ever know/cross paths with Sturtevant? ** Kyle Brod, Wow, that Egyptian compound place was crazy good. Fucking awful that it was demolished! I love stuff like that. I just put together a future post about an amazing, now demolished place. And while doing the related search, I was reading about that very French town you mentioned. I really want to go see it. There's an abandoned town in Italy that's kind of interesting too. Anyway, yeah, thanks for even more goodies. You're on quite the roll. Everyone, yesterday d.l. Kyle Brod linked over to something very cool via the comments arena that you should see, so here's his link, and do use it. ** Tigersare, Oh, cool. Thanks, Guy. ** Creative Massacre, I don't know if you saw Sypha's comment, but he said the probe thing isn't too awful. I hope it isn't, and I guess it's best to just do what the doctor says and get this figured out and then totally out of your hair, but, yeah, I wish getting rid of it wasn't so protracted and difficult. Ugh, pal. When romantic relationships end, it's just the worst thing ever. Even when they end on good terms, it's always so complicated in some way, much less when it's a really painful break. The way people can become so incredibly important to each other is such a mixed blessing when things go wrong. Anyway, I guess just hang in there until you can come peace with all of that somehow, and I'm really, really sorry that it's being so rough. All of it, all at once, Jesus. It's no revenge though, don't think that. Lots of love, my friend. ** Justin, We have DVD versions of the pieces, but it's just basic documentation stuff to send out to curators. It'd be great to do a real, multi-camera filming. We've talked about it, and there are plans in the works to adapt 'Jerk' into an indie feature film, but we'll see. Ultimately, they're very much about being seen live, and probably any filming of them would kind of diminish them severely, I'd guess. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, The sink is fixed. The floor is dry. They say God is in the details. That Bendy is such a noble guy, I guess, right? He came out of that fists-filled story well, no? I hope he slides into your view today. I read about that death cat, or, no, I saw something on TV about that death cat. You don't forget something like that. Hm, I'm not sure about that Sia song. I don't think I like her voice. It seems kind of like a emotionally faked-up voice, but I'm probably wrong. I've taken Mucinex. I think it was mildly helpful like most things. My day: Quickly, 'cos I'm already running late ... Gisele came to the Recollets to check out the room that she and SOMA might move into at around 11 am, and I went along. The room's awesome, a vast loft. So that was a big plus. The remaining issues are sound related, i.e. the woman in the room that a shares a wall with their potential room is about to have a baby, and SOMA/Stephen plays heavy metal music all the time, so there's going to be a sound test this weekend that will make or break the moving in or not thing. Then I went with G. to the photo studio where her doll portraits are being worked on, and that was kind of interesting for a while, but then I got bored and smoked outside in the rain for last part of the visit. Then we went to Centquatre for the rehearsals. Man, that place is amazing. I'm going to photograph it and the rehearsals and post that at some point. The rehearsals were long and helpful but kind of tedious since it was basically working on this long part at the beginning of the new piece where Margaret and Jonathan do this fucked up gymnastics warm up movement thing that'll probably last about 40 minutes in the final version. It's complicated and difficult to get right, so we were just fiddling and fiddling with little movements and gestures for about seven hours. More of that today too. I got home at 8:30 pm or something and gobbled down whatever I could find in the fridge, which were veggie dogs, mustard, mozzarella cheese, and some tortillas. Beggars can't be choosers and all that. Then I did some internet stuff and crashed. The day was probably a little better than I made it sound. You, you, you? ** Alec Niedenthal, Contemporary art ... that's big. Do you read Artforum? That could be one decent nosedive? But it's a big field. What options are you considering? The classes sound pretty interesting, yeah. Oh, in-putty ... I wrote that too quickly and pseudo-cleverly. I mean full of in-put, basically. In-put-ty maybe? No, that looks weird too. I'm okay, just too busy for my liking at the moment, but okay enough. Existing productively without much thinking about the existence involved, or something. ** Tender Prey, Hey, Marc. Great and whew that you're videoing it. I've got to see that. ** Chris (British), Obviously, I like that plan of yours to research and write and end up in an MA program. That does sound like the ticket, for sure. I don't have a visa to be here. I just go in and out as a tourist, making sure to leave the EU about every three months. Technically, you're not allowed to be in the EU for more than something seven months of the year as a tourist, but the customs people don't give a shit. Half the time, they don't even stamp my passport. My pal Stephen O'Malley got a real visa to be here, an artist's visa I think, and he said it was a massive hassle although not that hard to actually qualify for. ** Slatted Light, Sire. Yep, so true and bright about the Watts Towers. You ever seen them 'in the flesh'? The 'MLT' film stuff is a fucking nightmare, but I can't talk about it here, and it's really not that interesting to hear about in detail anyway. We'll see. No, I've never been to Legoland. There's one in Southern California, and the word is so-so on it, but if I go to Scandinavia, and a leisurely trip through those countries is a large dream of mine, I wouldn't miss seeing the original, if for no other reason than for the lego dark ride/spooky house there. I mean, whoa. Sure, I'll send along an email to Peter, assuming the email address I have for him is still valid, and I think it is. Sure, I'd be very happy to. All right, I'm off too, man. I wish us both marvelous off-blog adventures. ** Postitbreakup, No problem, J. It's just the truth. Take care, my friend. ** Okay, I have to go do my stuff now. Check out Sturtevant if you will, and I'll see you on the other side aka tomorrow and all that.