Month: March 2005

found in urban_decay:

Justo Gallego Martínez is building his very own Cathedral in Mejorada del Campo near Madrid, Spain. This is no “model” cathedral and he is neither a qualified architect, nor engineer, nor bricklayer — he is a farmer. “The plans have only ever existed in my head” and have evolved over time in response to opportunity and inspiration. Nor does he have formal planning permission from the authorities of Mejorada del Campo — the town in which it is located (20 km from Madrid under the flight-path to the Barajas airport)….

…He has financed his work by rent from some inherited farmland — some of which he has already sold. Donations from supporters and visitors are welcomed. Most of the construction materials used are recycled (buckets, pieces of wood, plastic tubes, etc) — occasionally obtained from business and construction companies with excess materials for a job. Progress on the cathedral is therefore visibly marked by the nature and quality of materials that he acquires in this way. The columns are moulded using old petrol drums, the window arches carry the marks of the tires they were moulded in and bicycle wheels have been used as pulleys. Strength is ensured by using extra quantities of cement. There has as yet been little time for finishing surfaces. The rose window is without glass — but there is a long mosaic staircase leading to the main entrance.

also on citynoise: Lascaux in the subway

as found on boingboing:

Friday, March 4, 2005
Canadian politico tears Condi Rice a new one
“Former Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs and UN bigshot Lloyd Axeworthy published this scathing open letter to Condi Rice.”

I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.

But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat cautious types who can’t quite see laying down billions of dollars in a three-dud poker game.

As our erstwhile Prairie-born and bred (and therefore prudent) finance minister pointed out in presenting his recent budget, we’ve had eight years of balanced or surplus financial accounts. If we’re going to spend money, Mr. Goodale added, it will be on day-care and health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defence.

Sure, that doesn’t match the gargantuan, multi-billion-dollar deficits that your government blithely runs up fighting a “liberation war” in Iraq, laying out more than half of all weapons expenditures in the world, and giving massive tax breaks to the top one per cent of your population while cutting food programs for poor children.

LINK

The day broke when she kissed me, I could see the shattered pieces scattered on the floor. Splintered history, shards of world war two crunching underneath my feet as I stepped past her to look outside. Her hands on her hips was a moment of beauty, perfect posed entropy. I was slowing, turning to look at her in slower motion that I thought I was capable of. Wind came from the kitchen, moving her hair into the air like curving snakes of gold. She spoke and I listened, but I can’t tell you anything she said. It was like I was drunk, it was like she was god. The floor was tilting, throwing me off my feet onto my knees, an appropriate place for begging. She insinuated her way to hands on my head, her fingers full of thorns, stripping my flesh away, out of her way. She stroked my hair, suddenly pulling me up to her, cradling me in her arms as if I might disappear. Confusion reigned, motionless inside my body. I thought of secrets, of drugs, of the patterns which suddenly swirled complex across her skin.

Alright, food is happening now. Shaking I can deal with, but the taste of losing conciousness is an entirely different story… The post office will wait.

cowboy bebop, 7:30 tonight, my place

tank!

It took me awhile to remember, but this morning a bell rang clearly in my mind and I flashed the sound of water, the smell of cold and trees in city darkness. The first time I had sex outside, I was seventeen. It must have been winter or fall, as Gavin had left for Calgary and I was trying to love a man named Ian who went by Lidd. We both wore trenchcoats and he wanted us to pretend we were strangers. It was cold and uncomfortable and I didn’t want to be there, sitting in the dark, waiting for him to find me next to the stream. I lived in Kitsilano then, I was on a stone that everyone in Vancouver must know, it’s under trees next to the Planetarium. There’s a new bridge there, a perfect arc of metal and wood, a half circle to clop over, perfect for pretending to be a billy goat. FEE FI FO FUM, EAT MY BROTHER, NOT ME. I have so many memories attached to that park, stretching back before I lived here. Push the troll off. Splash. I was tiny, white hair running toward the water in bright sunlight. Summertime green grass, I had pink shoes and had just found the biggest rhubarb the world had ever seen. “Mother!” I called, and my cheeks cracked with smiling. I had a chinese yo-yo in my hand, blue and yellow barberstripe curling around the paper. It unwound as I applauded in one of the vast white tents. My father carried me on his shoulders. I was taller than trees.

We think Lidd might be dead now, just another meth overdose over the water in Victoria. No one has seen him in at least a year, and the downward spiral was glaringly apparent. He staggered up to Marissa downtown, a derelict who somehow knew her name. The reek of alcohol forced her back three steps and he told her to give me a hello. Our harshest piece of evidence? I haven’t received a call for my birthday in two years. Last time I talked to him, he was drunk on a pay-phone using quarters he’d earned by reciting poetry to people in the street. His newest scheme was rooftop gardens, enviro-friendly. He claimed to be making pamphlets and getting into bicycle energy. Then gradually I pulled from him that he was homeless. He’d found a place but the people who lived there beat him up and threw him out, “For no reason at all” which I don’t believe in the slightest. I could see his sneer perfectly in my mind. He was a violent alcoholic. Grady lived with him once and was driven out by the extreme destructiveness. My time was punctuated with locking myself in the bathroom, with sitting at night on the balcony, crying. Until now, he’s been the only person I’ve been with who wasn’t an artist, though he would insist he was. Cruel when he was stoned, savage under alcohol, in between the cracks of conversation the death of his mother shone through. I wrote letters to her, asking questions I could never answer.

I used to write to the dead a lot. Now I have this.

Rarely I remember him, our six months, eight months. I don’t look back with enough emotion to call for clarity. When he accused me of hawking his mothers wedding rings, I left him, left the city. Went to Toronto to remember how to be alive again. Break the cocoon, calling out to heaven and love again. I tell people that I remembered how to smile. It’s the show, it’s the grand and glorious world we live in. The thought occurs sometimes to go find him, stay at Mishka’s and scour the streets. Victoria is a very small place. I’d like to leave flowers at his grave, whether he’s breathing or not.

I’m home with his voice in my blood, pulsing with every beat of my warm heart. If it weren’t for antique honour, if it weren’t for the right thing to do. I believe in smoothed flashes of desire tonight, of ragged edges honed down to bone. We’re good at telling catholic beads of guilt, dreams unbound to fly, however against the rules. Time, I say, and time, and I want to scream my betrayal and I don’t know how. I’m wanting, I’m waiting, there’s tension. I have a handy backdoor, a trapdoor in pain, a country to visit, a life to regain, but that’s a curtain call, a final shout out to the audience at large of one and only, my only, my love. I leaned against a cold stone wall and let my pants drop to my ankles, both feet trying to plant themselves firmly in sand. No one walked by until later, small miracle timing buckling belts and softest skin. There’s never been anyone to touch like this, to walk with at night. I have been waiting. Bastard boy, impatience before me, satin in my hands. Transgression hesitation, we’re eating tongues, words. Swallow souls, flying, sliding down like candy. My mouth can’t wait to strain my vocabulary of sweets. springwound like binding like a tight cord his hand at my neck, my breath, my breath it burns to see you go like fire, fire, tingling he’s not here no crimson flushed cheek tide, no silk tide, currents of hair to drown in sweetly calling my name his name our breath candlelight slow slow tearing wanting more and dying dying drying up inside not allowed to not allowed no not ever can’t shant won’t today tonight he’s not here and there’s music playing and I don’t know who gave it to me but I’m alone and the bed is empty

Rowan‘s latest post was a gift. He’s written where to find two happiness treats I thought were unattainable in Vancouver, flaming coffee and maple fondue. Flaming coffee has rather a lot of liqueur in it, (Kahlua, Grand Marnier and Brandy), so it’s not something I would normally touch, but it’s worth it for the blue flame pouring against gravity from the cup. Maple Fondue is just that, and not for insulin addicts. A sweet tooth is required. The first is to be found only, (he says), at Poncho’s Mexican Restaurant, 827 Denman Street, (I’ve never been), and fondue at La Zizanie in Kits.

More things to put on my list of ‘things to drag people to’, obviously. To confuse matters, R.C. tells of a Masquerade party this Saturday, put on my the Work Less Party, so now I’ve no clue what I’m doing this weekend. Saturday has too many pretty options. The one with costumes might easily win though, in spite of the kissing booth. I’m rather addicted to dressing up.

On a more commercial vein, word say that due to a massive rent increase, several of the shops in the 800 block of Granville Street are moving or closing their doors. This means that Cheap Thrills is closing shop, gone at the end of the month. I would presume this to mean that they’re having a bit of a sale, so I would recommend hopping down and nabbing that must have gothy trinket that you’ve been eyeing before it’s too late.

As something not quite so local, David Gough is offering prints for $8.49, which is just obscene. I’m tempted to start up at paypal again simply to get one. I’m not a fan of fantasy, but his urban fae serious is addictive. He did a picture of Springheel Jack this winter for which I would have sold a childhood memory.

Also, ana is doing a bit of a clean. She’s offering these for $60 american. Seemed the sort of thing my f-list would be interested in. Just as this is. Motivational posters using comicbook characters. It sounds worse than it is. They’re honestly adorable in a vaguely dark manner. Nothing that will leave a scar, though it might burn a little.

Ironic that now that I’ve left California, I am continually finding events there I would dearly love to go to. TIM BURTON’S GARAGE SALE (!!!) being one of them.

Friday, March 11, Saturday, March 12 and Sunday, March 13, 2005
207 North Aspan Avenue Azusa, CA 91702
9:00am – 4:00pm
(Absolutely No Early Previews or Early Sales)

Previously owned items by director Tim Burton and his former girlfriend Lisa Marie. Designer furniture (Herman Miller, Noguchi, Knoll, Ashland & Hill), clothing (Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, YSL), lamps, ceramic kiln, fine crystal, make-up, electronics, Tiffany & Co. Sterling Silver, movie memorabilia, props from movie sets and tons more. This sale will be held in a warehouse in Azusa, CA, a 45 minute drive from Studio City.

Goths Playing Poker and Kinksters Bowling should both be black velvet paintings. I’ve been talking with Brian for the past few hours. We’re discussing polyamory and the integrity inherent in honour. It’s still decided that I’m not poly, which amuses me because damned well everyone else is. Sometimes I feel like a bastion of olde world sensibility dancing to a tune no one’s heard of. It’s thought that sensibility will see me through, as apparently I’m intelligent enough to be trustworthy? It’s a good afternoon conversation, if we were talking in person, we would be lounging together somewhere with hot chocolate. He’s thin, but wonderful to lean into. I’m suspicious of compliments, I tell him, and he laughs. I’m brave, he tells me, I walk into death without noticing. I don’t believe it because it’s built in. That he can give me examples makes my denial twitch. I’m a cat trying to brush something off my fur. Living anarchy streets with no wrong turns. It’s something new to integrate into my self view. I’m stuck against the wall, pinned by someone smarter than me. Actually, cancel that. I don’t need the image of being pinned against a wall by Brian. He’s slightly too svelte for that and my mind far too amused.

This is for mckenzee who has broken his arm at the elbow and has to take time off from being a photographer cable guy.

She took the shiny tab of the zipper and pulled it all the way up. My flesh went taut and to distract myself I studied the way her painted nails glittered sharp and tear shaped against her faux leather pants. “What were you expecting?” she asked, “Surgery is over. That was it.” Her hands had trespassed, forcing skin open, cutting with a scalpel the skin of my chest. I found something erotic in the way she sang with the knife. I imagined taking it and making her cry, but instead I only held myself still as she broke me open. I was scared, trembling, though yesterday I was calm, dreaming quietly of blue steel teeth. There will never be a chance of infection. Yesterday is far away now, this procedure is irrevocable, the flesh won’t knit back. I wanted to be perfect. I wanted to be accessible. She looks bored as she helps me sit up. I adore her, I worship her. Now, finally, my lovers can touch my heart.

It occurred to me today that I would like very much to set fire to a house. Create a conflagration for the for the beauty of heat red and gold. Flames licking out windows as if the building were cleaning its mouth of human inhabitants. It would have been a home once, it might have been where someone grew up. In my mind I am removing it from history in beauty, in sparks showering the sky with new stars which wink out as they fall back to earth. Bathed in gold, we could stand there, you and I and I, holding hands, the light reflecting off my glasses, shimmering inside your eyes.

I’ve never seen a real building burn down.

I want it to have an attic. I want it to have peeling wall paper and wooden floors with crooked nails. There should be a space where the bath-tub used to be before it was ripped out. I want scuff marks, crayon on a wall, the parts and pieces of absence. For the night to be perfect? Musicians sitting in full rental gear, black tie. Four of them sawing bows across strings in long languid strokes and a piano to counterpoint the cello, the dan bou, the two viola players.

This house never had a white picket fence. Instead it stands behind a low stone wall, shoring up the elevation of ground upon which it was laid. In a movie, there would be helicopters and spotlights shining, piercing the dark to kill us with night blindness. In real life, the girl never twists her ankle, never falls when she’s running in sensible shoes. Instead she flies on legs like wind, on pistoning feet while she laughs, but there would be no reason to run. No reason to leave the flame. We’ll sit in the street eventually and crane out necks back to look at our pet sun.

my music and something webby found by andrew *pun*