August 16, 2010
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This last weekend I went camping. One night solo and then a bunch of people came up for Saturday night. I like camping. I am pretty happy with my set-up too. Everything is light and compact. I think I may look into a mattress pad or blow up mattress thing next. The weather was real nice, and I did a fair amount of swimming in the forbidden lake, as well as a few swings on the rope.
I went to No Lights No Lycra last week.
The previous weekend I partied; Poker with Gino, a rock show in a woodworking shop, and a party on Emily’s roof in honor of Miranda going off to grad school.
The weekend before that I went to the beach with Esha.
Film
Life During Wartime — by the guy who made Happiness and Palindromes, and some other movies I haven’t seen. Weird. I liked it enough.
Pope of Greenwich Village — just some goofball italian dudes in the old neighborhood.
Home — French or Swiss or SwissFrench movie about these folks that live in a house near an abandoned highway.
Youth in Revolt — even though everyone’s supposed to be over Michael Cera, I found this movie entertaining.
The Lost Weekend — An oldie about an alcoholic writer.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller — Western. The thing that really struck me was the main characters drink of choice — whiskey with a raw egg cracked into it.
The Red Shoes — I turned it off, I don’t see what all the fuss is about?
August 3, 2010
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Europe
Part One
We left New York on a Monday evening and arrived at the EuroAirport on Tuesday morning. Took a taxi to our hotel in Germany and then to the Vitra Design museum to go directly to work in the archive and conservation warehouse area surrounded by nearly every iconic piece of furniture from the latter half of the century … Nelson, Noguchi, Eames, Gehry, FLW, Memphis … all those people. There were lots of lamps too. We spent our time down there digging through and maniacally photographing 40 years of Alexander Girard’s archives. There was so much more than any of us expected to see and it was generally very inspiring. There was very little free time, KR, Jason and I managed to go out for a bier most nights. However that was mostly for posterity and we were exhausted. There was a lot of pizza eaten as well.
…
Part Two
We took a train in to the Bernese Oberlan Mountain region. This is Rick Steves territory folks! The routine was to get up, guzzle a small pot of coffee, steal a knife, go to the grocery store for picnic supplies (bread, cheese, fruit, wine, cucumber, chocolate) and hit the trails. Hike for a couple hours. Eat lunch. Get a little hiking buzz going. Hike a couple more hours. Get a bier on one of the mountain-side restaurants. Hike an hour or so back to the hotel. Rest. Dinner. Try and drink another beer. Watch weird TV. Sleep by 11. The trails were really easy. No switchbacks, ropes or cables. The first and third day we really hiked hard. It was very quiet up there. Hikers are quiet people. It was picturesque to say the least. I bought a floppy hat, but left it on the train on the way back to Basel. We spent an afternoon in Basel, it was old and charming and you could watch heads float down the river while you drank bier with teens, but compared to the glory of the mountains, it seemed more like a mall. We stayed in a hotel that was formerly a prison. Nice trip overall. I’ll probably never go back.
July 12, 2010
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So there we were, Jen, Aug, Willow, myself, all stuffed from a big brunch at Diner. Walking around sort of aimless. Eventually the plan was to go to Jen’s and drink beer and do some arts and crafting. Jen pops in to her laundromat and asks if they stole some of her clothes. Meanwhile this dog follows her in. Let me describe this dog — cute. Piercing icy blue eyes, white fur, pink nose. It’s an Australian Shepard we later learned. This dog is coming up to everyone. Nuzzling, laying on it’s back for belly rubs, not barking. This local lady is going on and on about the dog, how it just walked up and was running loose and how she’s taken in two cats and how her husband didn’t want the cats at first but now he’s really into them. So we hear her out, and finally tell her we’d take care of it, and she blesses us and finally leaves us alone. Someone calls the vet number on the tag. They’re located in Texas and not open. We call local dog places and no one has called them looking for her. We take her to a vet to see if she has the micro chip buried in her. She doesn’t. We make hand-drawn posters of her and put the phone number on there. We can’t believe no one is running around frantically looking for this amazing dog. We’re walking her all over the place. People keep stopping us. “Can I take picture of your dog?” Then we tell them how she’s lost and they hadn’t seen her before, but will gladly take her if no one claims her and they chime in with their various advices and dognapping horror tales.
We walk and walk and walk. We see all kinds of people we know, people from our pasts, friends of friends, etc. From like 2pm til about 8pm. The only person to contact us was a text message from someone who loved one of the signs and had fallen in love with whomever made it, and they hoped we were a cute single boy. We get the dog back to Jen’s and feed her and the dog is still totally stoked and having a great time. At this point we’re all day-dreaming about how we’re going to change our lives for this dog. Who’s gonna try and keep her. Or if we can’t keep her — what qualities we seek in future owner. We don’t want the day to end, so we go to the movie rental shop and pick out an animal documentary and I wanted some pizza, so we went a little bit out of our way for that. I’m inside getting the pizza. I come out of the pizza store. I see Jen talking to another dog owner. Then I see two gals coming up out the subway. Their faces light up. I think “oh brother, another person who thinks we got a cute dog.” One says something to the other, “oh that looks like my dog. Wait, that’s is my dog! That’s my sweetie!” Apparently her roommate is stupid or something and must have left the door open as the dog was supposed to be in the back yard. She’d been gone all day and had no idea her dog was loose. She didn’t even know she was supposed to be fretting and worried sick. And … get this — the dog is deaf. We’d thought it was just real cool and didn’t care what we had to say, but it couldn’t even hear us. Anyhow, the dog was turned over. The dog owner lives across from Jen, so hopefully we’ll see Data (the dog’s name) again.
Yesterday I told this story many times.
July 7, 2010
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Last weekend was the 4th of July. This year featured One Van to Rule Them All, mix CDs, louder music, glowing in the dark, receipt collection, great weather, pool time, raging bonfires, sparkler typography, food, Coors Light, dinner table jokes, weird god’s eyes, tie dyes, tubeology, sissy paddling, no traffic. All in all pretty fun, pretty smooth. After three consecutive years, we have probably squeezed all the fun out of Slide Mountain.
Film
Dogtooth — totally weird Greek film. Made up language, isolated family.
Winter’s Bone — this girl in the Ozarks is trying to find her meth head daddy. Really good movie I thought. Everyone looks so miserable in it.
Screwed — stupid movie starring two great comedians. I thought it would be sorta good, but wasn’t.
White Dog — this dog is racists.
June 28, 2010
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Went camping again at the usual spot the previous weekend. Swam a bit this time. Got in trouble towards the end of the stay by the park ranger fellow. Informed us there was no swimming or camping. Tore down the “no swimming” sign on the way out.
Mom’s Weekend Visit Rundown
Thursday
Plane arrived late. 12:00am arrival. Waiting for her at the top of the stairs. Didn’t show up with the throngs of people. Went downstairs to luggage claim. She was waiting there in wheelchair with attendant. “I was afraid I would get lost.”
Friday
Visited my office — “Awesome.” Showed her the books we’ve made. Pointing to a photograph: “you drew that?” Yeah, I guess so mom. Went to Governor’s Island for a picnic. Mom, we’re going to ride on a boat to the park. We get off the ferry, “when are we going to ride on the boat?” Did not want to eat an avocado sandwich because avocados look weird. Ate pizza at Carmine’s for dinner. That was pretty good. Met some of my good peoples at Harefield Road. KR introduced her to the delicious mixture of vodka + tonic. Home by 9pm.
Saturday
Went to Diner. Everything was excellent. Thankfully it was unusually uncrowded that day thanks to the World Cup. Was treated very well by our as-standard-per-Diner-cute waitress. Molly gave my mom a pretty big hug on the way out. Went to a Staten Island Yankees game that night. Probably asked me who was playing about ten times. Asked the guy in the next seat once for verification. Hot dogs, beers, peanuts, Cracker Jacks. No complaints there. Was plans to get another vodka and tonic that night, but it became too late in the evening.
Sunday
Went to church in Williamsburg. Very boring. I don’t think I saw more than 3 people actively paying attention. The cathedral is pretty and I daydreamed about someone playing ‘Great Balls of Fire’ on the massive organ in there. That entertained me for about 2 minutes. Then I slyly played with my phone the remainder of the mass. Went to see an old movie at Film Forum and just barely missed the Gay Pride parade madness. There were a bunch of barely dressed people in rainbow swimsuits on the train and a pretty convincing trans gal on there, but I don’t think my mom noticed anything. Dinner at Pepe Rosso!
Was super hot and muggy. Had a little longer than usual walk to the subway and I think mom was pretty much out of gas at that point.
Monday
Went to the airport. Delta terminal at Laguardia is a complete mess. I feel bad for the TSA employees assigned there. Just a real bad layout in there.
Film
The Squid and the Whale — Not sure why I’d never seen this. Really enjoyed it. Nearly every minute.
Raw Deal — 1948. At the end of the movie, this old feller in the theater clapped and said pretty loudly “now that’s classic film noir!” I agreed.
The Wrestler — I thought Rocky was better.
June 15, 2010
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Last weekend I rode my bike from Babylon to Montauk. This was the third time I’ve done this, and every time it gets harder. I think I was out of gas about 40 miles in. I don’t think I’ll do this particular route, but I wouldn’t mind an opportunity to redeem myself later in the summer. Maybe I’ll train up a little and remind myself to take more breaks. While there, I bought some too-small shorts, paid $17 for 2 hard shell tacos, did a sake bomb, ate breakfast, then left.
Film
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains — movie about an all girl band, kind of like The Runaways, but fictional.
June 8, 2010
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Last weekend a few of us went to suburban New Jersey in honor of my birthday and also Molly’s birthday. We ate, drank, watched tv and played some games. Mostly people were talking. I didn’t wear shoes or leave the house at all.
The prior 2 weekends I went camping up at Harriman State Park. In my opinion, camping is the thing to do this summer. Especially if you have a nice spot. One time I went with up Mike K, another time I went up with Mike K and August. Dave said he was gonna go the second time, but I think he was too afraid of bugs or something and didn’t go. There was also a BBQ at Mary’s on Memorial Day weekend.
I’m 30 years old now. Everyone keeps asking me how that feels. I don’t really know what to say, or why they are asking, as most everyone who asks is 30+ themselves. Uhh.. It feels fantastic! I feel about the same. I do feel less interested in going out and drinking, but I think that might also be a side effect of exercise. I’m still doing P90X, but less intensely. Probably what I’m doing now is just working out like some normal people do. Also, I want to travel less.
Film
A Face in the Crowd — Highly recommend. First movie I’ve watched in a long while that I have really liked.
Lost in America — Sort of funny. But depressed me on account of my birthday. This couple quit their jobs (they seem around 30ish) and sell their house and use their nest egg to buy a RV and travel the country. That’s all well and good, but I have no nest egg so to speak. So I was all hung up on the idea that I pretty much go to work everyday in order to break even in life.
Windy City Heat — Somewhat funny. Interesting, but once I thought about it, was kinda fucked.
Suddenly, Last Summer — One of those older movies that has a lot of yelling.
May 19, 2010
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Portland
Flew out on Thursday after work. I will add EWR to my list of acceptable airports in the NYC region from now on. Arrived around 10pm Pacific time. Took the train into Portland and went to a couple bars. Ran into this dude Joe that I’d met a few weeks earlier in NY. Stayed the night in some person’s apartment. Woke up and moved to some other person’s apartment. Well, a friend of Jeff’s friend. It was a swank bachelor pad in SW Portland near the University where the the conference we were attending was. It made our lives and trip extremely more pleasant. The posh style living made me consider getting my shit together and working harder in order to have a nice fancy apartment too. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we were either running around Portland dancing and taking pictures, or doing art conference stuff. I kind of came to the conclusion I didn’t really know much about the stuff people were talking about at the conference. I most enjoyed the first session we attended, which was about ping pong. After the talk, we played ping pong and I got a lesson. So I’m kinda stoked on ping pong now. The main event for our crew was on Monday night to close the conference down. The whole trip we were taking pictures that we could edit into a video to create dance moves. Then we projected the video and danced along. Then invited other people to dance with us. It was a big hit I think and it felt good. I am exhausted now though. Overall Portland is a nice pleasant place. I don’t think I’ll be going back too soon though — it’s too far away.
May 11, 2010
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Went up to Dia Beacon for I duno how many-th time. There was day drinking for KR’s bday. Things have been fairly relaxed. Went to this thing on a Tuesday evening, No Lights No Lycra. Just dancing in a dark church basement for 1.5 hours. Locked myself out of my apartment last weekend for a couple days, missed a day of P90X on account of that. Had drinks and snacks on Sarah G’s rooftop Friday. Emily fed me lunch on Saturday, went to a BBQ of Mike K’s friend that night for more free food. Had a windy, cold bike ride home. Trying to ride my bike and put off buying a metrocard until my second pay period of the month.
Film
We Live in Public — Doc about one of the first internet entrepreneurs. Crazy times in NYC in the late 90s.
Death at a Funeral — Nothing special.
A Serious Man — I seriously don’t know where this movie was going.
Gran Torino — Clint Eastwood is an old racist who at heart is only kind of a racist.
Internet has returned to my apartment, so I’ve been watching Treme and Season 3 of Breaking Bad.
April 30, 2010
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Last weekend there was a birthday party on Friday. I wore a suit. Saturday was another successful FEAST. No chaos, great food, raised lots of $. Went for beers after, but didn’t last long as we’d been drinking all afternoon while we worked.
Yesterday KR and I went to the movies, then to get ramen, then to a fancy tour of the NYPL, then I got snuck in to the Patti Smith talk. She talked about literature and Robert Mapplethorpe and sang a few songs. Not your average everday typical work day right?
I put my vegetable plants outside on my fire escape today. Hopefully they will turn into food someday. Also I’ve been doing my exercise videos pretty regular. Brock made a video to prove it.
Film
The Edge of Heaven — German. One of those movies with parallel stories where everything connects in the end. Pretty good.
The Fireman’s Ball — A madcap comedy romp … in Russian!
Dillinger is Dead — popped it in and realized I’d already seen it. FFW’d to the end.
Extract — some funny moments, but not what I was hoping for.
Sex, Lies, and Videotape — I think maybe I’d seen this on TBS in the past. Was okay. Mostly lies.
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men — Movie based on a DFW book. Was okay.
Rear Window — Old Hitchcock classic with Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly.
Glengarry Glen Ross — A movie based on a play about salesmen. No women.
Jerry Baker’s Gardening Tips — This old kook mixes up all kinds of tonics for his garden. The only info I really took from it was to soak seeds in a weak solution of tea.
Brilliantlove — saw this at the Tribeca Film Fest. Didn’t like it. Sick of the bohemian artist dude in saggy white briefs walking around scratching himself pretending to be oblivious to the rest of the world cause he’s so eccentric.
Earth Days — the history of Earth Day. Caught it on PBS. Enjoyed it.