Month: August 2011

you can’t steer a train

The New York whirlwind weekend seems to have sprouted wings! It just so happens that Dances Of Vice is throwing a party the Saturday we’re there, Enchantment Under The Sea, a 50’s prom themed gala at Morningside Castle, and then the Coilhouse crew has just scheduled their Black & White & Red All Over Fundraising Ball for the Sunday! Given that I planned this about as carefully as a drunken carpenter, this is brilliant luck. Apparently there couldn’t be better timing!

Today’s other good news: I’ve scored a ride to Burning Man with my friend Jordan.

love makes the world go ’round, or so I’ve been told, and I think I believe it

Essential Reading: Iceland’s Ongoing Revolution.

“What happened next was extraordinary. The belief that citizens had to pay for the mistakes of a financial monopoly, that an entire nation must be taxed to pay off private debts was shattered, transforming the relationship between citizens and their political institutions and eventually driving Iceland’s leaders to the side of their constituents. The Head of State, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, refused to ratify the law that would have made Iceland’s citizens responsible for its bankers’ debts, and accepted calls for a referendum. […]

To write the new constitution, the people of Iceland elected twenty-five citizens from among 522 adults not belonging to any political party but recommended by at least thirty citizens. This document was not the work of a handful of politicians, but was written on the internet. The constituent’s meetings are streamed on-line, and citizens can send their comments and suggestions, witnessing the document as it takes shape. The constitution that eventually emerges from this participatory democratic process will be submitted to parliament for approval after the next elections.”

like a rose left on a digital doorstep

To celebrate my insanely exciting travel/adventure news, I’ve been blasting my facebook with the good times virus. Here’s a round-up of some of the cheerful links, as well as a few extras:

  • A video of Mariachi Connecticut serenading a beluga whale at the Mystic Aquarium.
  • A video of a plane to plane skydive, taken by one of the skydivers.
  • A Swedish man was arrested for trying to split atoms in a home kitchen reactor. “Mr. Handl, 31, said he had tried for months to set up a nuclear reactor at home and kept a blog about his experiments, describing how he created a small meltdown on his stove. Only later did he realize it might not be legal and sent a question to Sweden’s Radiation Authority, which answered by sending the police.”
  • Revival, Beats Antique’s brand shiny new music video.
  • One of the best sci-fi trailer-teasers ever made. (I wish it were for a new favourite television show, but no, it’s for a terrible video game).
  • According to Gawker, Newt Gingrich might have paid for the majority of his Twitter followers.
  • Art installation: books rupturing through a wall of an advertising agency in a building that used to be a library.
  • Starting next August, U.S. insurance providers will be required to cover all FDA-approved birth control methods.
  • Timelapse of 3D printout of Stephen Colbert’s head.
  • Explain like I’m five, simply worded answers to complicated questions.
  • Fastest Shave Ever.

    • conjunction

    just a trim

    “Don’t tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon.” – Paul Brandt

    As unlikely and unexpected as it might be, I have even more good news! Not only am I going to Burning Man, I’m going back to New York. Not as time-serious a trip as last time, but a weekend jaunt concocted just to see the PunchDrunk show, Sleep No More, an astoundingly intricate 100 room retelling of Macbeth.

    Ridiculous, a bit, as it was playing while I was there, but I didn’t find out until after my trip, when Mordicai attended then posted about it, so now I’m flying all the way back just to see it! It’s wiping out my emergency savings and much of what I earned as the photographer at Mishka’s wedding, but I figure that after three years of scraping, living in crazy poverty to pay back Heart of the World, it’s about damned time I starve for a good reason, something that makes me happy instead of twisting me bitter. It also helps that I’ve been managing to move forward with surprising rapidity with Burning Man prep. Though I’ll still probably be scrounging until the last minute, (still no ride, still nowhere set to camp, etc), I think it will all be okay. I don’t think there’s going to be any reason to panic.

    In a lucky turn, Tony’s going to come with me, which also makes my heart glad. I was willing to go alone, but I suspect it might have been a little bit of a tragedy, as Sleep No More is designed, down to the last bit of insane writing on the wall, to every minuscule atom of splendid performance, to be shared. Everyone that goes in walks a different path, discovers different scenes, finds different hidden treasures. Everyone gets a unique narrative, an incredible, very personal experience, so it’s extra important to be able to share. (I would probably go twice if I could even remotely afford it). I’m also getting contact lenses for the first time, all proper like, just so I can wear the mask. I’ve only worn them once before, found the learning curve to be a little bit crazy, but this time, I can barely wait. I’ve been dancing everywhere, ever since we booked our tickets.

    We fly out of Seattle late Thursday evening, and arrive first thing, the morning of Aug 19th. (We’re staying in Greenwich and leaving Monday evening.) We have tickets to the Friday, 7 pm, Sleep No More show, and for the Sunday’s Fuerza Bruta, (because Tony wanted to see it, after my rave reviews). Besides that, we have nothing planned.

    Are you there, too? What are you up to that weekend? Let’s visit!

    box made in italy, music made in switzerland

    Victoria Victoria Victoria

    Promotional headshots for my mother, electronic multimedia artist Victoria Gibson, for the Guelph Nuit Blanche 2011!

    My mother brought me a small, wooden jewelry box yesterday. It’s a beautiful thing, laquered marquetry and celadon tinted birdseye maple, as finely crafted as an expensive guitar. Inside is a music box mechanism, one of those spring-wound revolving cylinders, that plays Impossible, a song hauntingly familiar yet difficult to place, (always the mark of a classic). I adore it. I am a sucker for music box mechanisms. I used to regularly carry them, the manual kind that you place on a surface and wind by hand to control the rotation of the barrel, hey jude, canon in d, as time goes by, until the constant wear against the other things in my pockets would break the metal keys off the comb. I love how clever they are, how much clockwork goes into them, how very simple yet complex they can be, how much strange and wonderful history they contain, the first mechanical music, the basis of the first programming, the melodic birth of the computer. Now there is a small graveyard of them in my room, each one flawed in some essential way, each one with a snapped off spot in the melody, a haunting gap where a remembered note should play, as perfect as a zen garden.

    Really she came over for a photoshoot, the box was a bonus, something she bought me years ago, but lost in her house until recently. Rather than cash, she’s paying me in Burning Man gear, a good sleeping bag, two 5L water jugs, and a big, hefty cooler, which is completely fantastic. Also, due to a mix-up last year, Lung has a spare tent I can use, and Tony’s offering to split a bunch of our left over supplies from last year. Crowd-sourcing for the win! Now I need a ride, a place to camp, a bedroll, and to figure out a week’s worth of food, sugary electrolytes, and wet wipes, all on a budget of close to zero. Andrew’s bet twenty bucks I can pull it off. Screw being reasonable, I’m not going to let him down.