This is what I look like with too much makeup on
Thursday, August 31, 2006
To Fag
I watched this documentary How to Draw a Bunny last night about Ray Johnson, a lesser known artist who was a contemporary of Warhol and Lichetenstein and that whole crowd. He killed himself on Friday the 13th at the age of 67 (6+7=13) while staying in room 247 (2+4+7=13) by throwing himself off a bridge. (Apparently he was obsessed with floating bodies too.)
I want to be a gay man. Seriously, and not just because I love men. Maybe its not having to think about having a family or not having to work too hard to get your basic carnal needs met, but whatever it is, damn if they don't get a lot of shit done. When Ray Johnson died, he had hundreds of boxes full of his art work tidly placed on shelves throughout his house. It's not that I want to die and leave behind a huge body of work; that's ridiculous. It's that I want to work that much. I want to be so consistent in making things, to have a practice, so that whatever idea I have actually gets made.
My other work ethic inspiration is Edmund White. White is most famous for the book The Joy of Gay Sex (which I haven't read) but primarily wrote autobiographical essays, novels, and an amazing account of the climate of the gay communities in all major cities in the US during the 1980s called States of Desire. His nephew, who lived with him while in high school, published an essay in the journal Granta a few years ago. He said that his uncle told him that a gentleman's day should be divided equally between work and pleasure, and that he should never wake up after 10 no matter how late he had stayed out the night before. Apparently, Mr. White composed The Joy in the mornings while listening to Brahm's 3rd symphony. This is balance.
And this is what I, like most Americans, and particularly the Williams lack. In this world, we are much more likely to be impressed by someone working out on a stairmaster for 45 minutes every day for three years than someone who climbs the three flights of stairs to their apartment everyday for 50 years. The stairmaster (to borrow an idea from Mirelle Guiliano) is an icon. We walk past it, feeling guilty for not using it but secure knowing its there, and get on the elevator. This is America. God bless us.
Perhaps many gay men have divorced themselves from that whole obsessional, Puritan, self-denial, masochistic thing that we love to roll around in like not getting enough sleep,
extreme dieting, over-working, over-exercising, not being able to not finish a book, eating diet cheese, and all these other bizarre things many of us do and secretly feel proud of. It's like we're afraid that if we stop doing all these things, we'll fall into a hedonistic cesspool and wake up gay, tan, and wearing a neon pink wife beater.
But by binging on self-denial and asceticism, you're already being extreme. I mean, some people find sexual pleasure in being hit in the face and others make themselves read Proust.
When I was at Brigham Young University, the epicenter of cheerful masochism, one of my classmates was amazed that I was eating a donut. She said, "I haven't eaten a donut in like three years." Now that is seriously kinky.
I want to be a gay man. Seriously, and not just because I love men. Maybe its not having to think about having a family or not having to work too hard to get your basic carnal needs met, but whatever it is, damn if they don't get a lot of shit done. When Ray Johnson died, he had hundreds of boxes full of his art work tidly placed on shelves throughout his house. It's not that I want to die and leave behind a huge body of work; that's ridiculous. It's that I want to work that much. I want to be so consistent in making things, to have a practice, so that whatever idea I have actually gets made.
My other work ethic inspiration is Edmund White. White is most famous for the book The Joy of Gay Sex (which I haven't read) but primarily wrote autobiographical essays, novels, and an amazing account of the climate of the gay communities in all major cities in the US during the 1980s called States of Desire. His nephew, who lived with him while in high school, published an essay in the journal Granta a few years ago. He said that his uncle told him that a gentleman's day should be divided equally between work and pleasure, and that he should never wake up after 10 no matter how late he had stayed out the night before. Apparently, Mr. White composed The Joy in the mornings while listening to Brahm's 3rd symphony. This is balance.
And this is what I, like most Americans, and particularly the Williams lack. In this world, we are much more likely to be impressed by someone working out on a stairmaster for 45 minutes every day for three years than someone who climbs the three flights of stairs to their apartment everyday for 50 years. The stairmaster (to borrow an idea from Mirelle Guiliano) is an icon. We walk past it, feeling guilty for not using it but secure knowing its there, and get on the elevator. This is America. God bless us.
Perhaps many gay men have divorced themselves from that whole obsessional, Puritan, self-denial, masochistic thing that we love to roll around in like not getting enough sleep,
extreme dieting, over-working, over-exercising, not being able to not finish a book, eating diet cheese, and all these other bizarre things many of us do and secretly feel proud of. It's like we're afraid that if we stop doing all these things, we'll fall into a hedonistic cesspool and wake up gay, tan, and wearing a neon pink wife beater.
But by binging on self-denial and asceticism, you're already being extreme. I mean, some people find sexual pleasure in being hit in the face and others make themselves read Proust.
When I was at Brigham Young University, the epicenter of cheerful masochism, one of my classmates was amazed that I was eating a donut. She said, "I haven't eaten a donut in like three years." Now that is seriously kinky.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Grandma's Feather Bed
It was nine feet high, six feet wide, soft as a downy chick
It was made from the feathers of forty-leven geese
Took a whole bolt of cloth for the tick
It could hold eight geese, four hound dogs,
and piggy-wiggy stole from the shed
We didn't get a lot of sleep but we had a lot of fun
In grandma's feather bed.
Did you sing this song in elementary school?
For sixth grade graduation, we sang a song to the tune of Grandma's Feather Bed that went like this:
It was K-6 rain or shine, some snow but we didn't mind
Mother always made us come to school
Unless we were about to die
Oak Grove, you have so many kids
And I was only one
We got a lot of work but we had a lot of fun
At Oak Grove, but now we're done.
I hate the tone of poems for kids. They annoy the shit out of me. Last night I was reciting some of my old poetry from when I was a kid to Morgan and it was annoying the shit out of me.
I hate fake wholesomeness, and I'm certain it's because I relished in it at the peak of my awkwardness at age 10.
During my Laura Ingalls Wilder obsession, I wore an apron around the house while I picked shit up off the floor. I also braided my hair and wore mismatched kneesocks while I played in the woods that I had named "Susanville." Before I went into Susanville, I had to hold my hands like Dr.Spock and swear that I would "Play hard and have a good time." At this point I tried out for a play that I didn't make and my only line would have been, "Mother the pudding is singing in the copper!"
Bless my heart.
In the Bay Area, folks put stuff out on their sidewalks instead of taking it to the goodwill. I have some art girl neighbors and I got a couple of yards of clean fabric that looks like matress ticking. I should make a jumper.
It was made from the feathers of forty-leven geese
Took a whole bolt of cloth for the tick
It could hold eight geese, four hound dogs,
and piggy-wiggy stole from the shed
We didn't get a lot of sleep but we had a lot of fun
In grandma's feather bed.
Did you sing this song in elementary school?
For sixth grade graduation, we sang a song to the tune of Grandma's Feather Bed that went like this:
It was K-6 rain or shine, some snow but we didn't mind
Mother always made us come to school
Unless we were about to die
Oak Grove, you have so many kids
And I was only one
We got a lot of work but we had a lot of fun
At Oak Grove, but now we're done.
I hate the tone of poems for kids. They annoy the shit out of me. Last night I was reciting some of my old poetry from when I was a kid to Morgan and it was annoying the shit out of me.
I hate fake wholesomeness, and I'm certain it's because I relished in it at the peak of my awkwardness at age 10.
During my Laura Ingalls Wilder obsession, I wore an apron around the house while I picked shit up off the floor. I also braided my hair and wore mismatched kneesocks while I played in the woods that I had named "Susanville." Before I went into Susanville, I had to hold my hands like Dr.Spock and swear that I would "Play hard and have a good time." At this point I tried out for a play that I didn't make and my only line would have been, "Mother the pudding is singing in the copper!"
Bless my heart.
In the Bay Area, folks put stuff out on their sidewalks instead of taking it to the goodwill. I have some art girl neighbors and I got a couple of yards of clean fabric that looks like matress ticking. I should make a jumper.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Beet Soup
This is the best:
Take 3 or 4 beets and cut the stems off. Boil them whole, in their skins until their really soft. Let them cool. Slip the skins off and chop them into little pieces, almost like you've minced them. Mix them with a cup of plain yogurt (if you live in the Bay Area I cannot recommend Straus Family Creamery's whole milk yogurt highly enough), a minced shallot, a dash of cumin, and salt and pepper. Let it refrigerate for a few hours and serve it garnished with fresh dill.
Damn.
Take 3 or 4 beets and cut the stems off. Boil them whole, in their skins until their really soft. Let them cool. Slip the skins off and chop them into little pieces, almost like you've minced them. Mix them with a cup of plain yogurt (if you live in the Bay Area I cannot recommend Straus Family Creamery's whole milk yogurt highly enough), a minced shallot, a dash of cumin, and salt and pepper. Let it refrigerate for a few hours and serve it garnished with fresh dill.
Damn.
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