feather2pixels

Another month, another wedding. Devoted readers will recall feather2pixel’s breaking coverage of ex-Explainer Akiko‘s surprise birthday/marriage proposition party in October. Well, she accepted and nine months later her and eighty of her friends and family were getting drunk at the summit of Pacific Heights on a clear Saturday afternoon. Anna from Germany was there. The mushroom soup was excellent.

I had the opportunity to meet Tilden Park’s famous herd of landscaping goats in the Berkeley Hills. Apparently, they get penned on a swath of land and simply eat their way through until the terrain is clear. It’s basically the same way things work in San Francisco, except instead of goats we use real estate developers. Three new block-sized projects are set to wrap construction within spitting distance of CELLspace this year and I foresee things getting pretty ugly at the Bryant and Mariposa streets Starbucks. Why can’t other people gentrify the way I gentrify?

I saw some really bad art and music last weekend. The art in question was the Bay Area Now exhibition, touted as (T)he seminal showcase of talent in the region, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Seems to me that it works much more successfully as a deconstruction of why it can be hard for the rest of the country and world and me to take the Bay Area seriously. As far as I am concerned, conceptual art has to be pretty fucking amazing to be worth my time: gluing a jiggling laytex vibrator to the wall next to a statement about “paying homage to the sexually compulsive” is not just an unoriginal idea, it’s a poorly executed one.

And the only thing worse than artists doing less with less is artists doing less with more. Between one bassist and two guitarists, I counted no less than twenty-five effects pedals on stage at Cafe Du Nord last night. Curious about how heroically un-dynamic a band could possibly make all that gear sound? Check out Film School from L.A.—in a way, it’s really impressive.

The Creative Geometry art show was a success. The gallery at the Museum of Children’s Art was the perfect size, the art looked great on the walls, and most importantly, people showed up. I think the students were in to it. It made me sorry that I did not extend personal invitations to my friends. Sorry everyone. As a consolation, I put together a really low quality three minute video from my digital camera clips. Behold as throughout the day I slowly drive Adrienne crazier. It’s just how we work together.

Our Creative Geometry art show is this weekend! At a real museum! Check out the flier:

And check out how crazily beyond expectations Edward‘s collage map is. It depicts his family’s migration from Mexico to Northern California.  Christ, he made the road out of sandpaper.

Bulldogger recently bought a 1996 black Volkswagen Jetta. The good thing about it is that it has only logged 50,000 miles. The bad thing about it is that the driver side window dismantled itself almost immediately. So I agreed to join her quest to repair it in Oakland. The most remarkable thing about Bulldogger’s 1996 black Volkswagen Jetta was how thoroughly she had managed to blanket it with bird shit in only a week—-it’s hard to imagine how she would achieve a more consistent coat if she were trying. I opened the passenger door carefully, slid in the passenger seat, and we drove across the bridge to downtown Oakland.

While a commune of mechanics replaced the small motor, we took a walk around the deceptively long perimeter of Lake Merrit and talked about dressing up: another conversation prompted by my newly acquired Vietnamese suit (it is enjoying a second voyage around the far side of the earth and I will see it in September). Of course the literal begets the metaphorical. “I feel less feminine in dresses, like I’m an impostor,” she said, and even though it’s been over a decade since I was in one one myself, dressed up as Lillian Gish for Mrs. French-Folk’s social studies class, I knew exactly what she meant. One continuous observation since finding myself back on dry land has been an excess of style over substance. I’m not against that, necessarily, but does anyone really fit into the 94110? A little later on, smoothies in hand, she announced her independence from the Mission, the City, and the particular complications of her hurried and cluttered life. “I am ready to slow things down,” she said. Which begs the question: should I accept her offer to split the Berkeley Hills house that she inherited from her father?

Specifically: one room, the equivalent second room made from half an art studio and half a garage, eternal sunshine, and a thirty foot walk to the wilds of Tilden Park. “Get a dog if you want.” She’s moving this month.

Jesus, that is tempting.

But it doesn’t feel quite right; funny thing is, I can’t really convince myself why. Maybe it too much resembles the kind of settling that I promised myself wasn’t happening when I accepted a full time job last year. Maybe a part of me needs to feel dressed up with nowhere to go in order to actually get anywhere. Or maybe I am still too infatuated with the city to imagine leaving—-the Berkeley Hills are magical but they lack the majesty of the coast. This is more or less the same internal quarrel I experience every time I leave the city limits of San Francisco. Oh, why do all of the dilemmas always blow in from the East?

The sudden (re)emergence in my life of the Ashby BART station in Berkeley has yielded interesting results. The area seems like ground zero for the classic back to the earth, crafts night, east bay living. Maybe that atmosphere is a result of proximity to the Berkeley Bowl (the most well-known of the Bay Area’s left-leaning groceries), the Thai Temple (where you can get a Sunday morning curry feast, mega-church picnic style), and/or the enigmatic semi-private hot springs someone set up in their backyard. Anyways, I’ve found myself with less patience than usual for San Francisco Cool culture in the last few weeks.

Like, I went to a public roller skating party on Friday night (coincidentally, at the place where I am silkscreening) and it was lots of fun, but part of me couldn’t help feeling a little disgusted at what an event it had to be. And, at the risk of sounding self-righteous, why do people wear hip clothes to make messy art? And why do the alternative weeklies seem to exist primarily for purpose of beating the city down with their perverted vision of the San Francisco dream? Why does everything seem so trifling?

So I convinced my screening instructor to let me print with him on Saturday. I should have a series of 6 new postcards by Thursday. I’ve enthusiastically got $40 worth of postage waiting in the wings.

I tried to start this blog post a bunch of times but it hasn’t worked. I guess that means I can’t figure myself out. I can’t. The imaginary is a drug and I am addicted to it. And that inevitably means pushing away the real and the people who actually have something positive to offer me. I am powerless. I live to torment myself. But hey, it was another wholesome weekend. I went surfing for the first time. I got a plant. I went to a Berkeley party where people had names like Pepper and Io. I ate Taco Bell. Check out these Polaroids!