World Blown

Damien Hirst:

What did you mean when you called the art at your Fondation Beyeler retrospective “empty”?
What I was speaking about is that artwork, objects, they’re transpondent. You try to pack them with information, that when somebody looks at them, they’re able to have an internal discourse, and when I say that these objects are kind of empty, what I meant is the art’s not there. The art happens inside the viewer, and these objects direct, and communicate to people, and try to manipulate how they feel about a situation, or the type of sensations that they can have. Art happens inside them. Art isn’t something that’s external. It’s always inside the person.

And life's too short for me to stop

Bits and bobs of things that have caught my eye lately:

Wasted Rita aka Rita Gomes. She's kind of my favorite person now. Twisted sense of humor = best sense of humor.

Wolfgang Hutter via but does it float. Fantastic and Dali-esque.

Get Lost, Find Yourself by Philipp Dornbierer - via grain edit

Me oh my, I actually skipped a month in blogging. Other more brain-dead viral activities have been in use: Pinterest, instagram, tumblr, twitter. And not even much of those things. It's been easier to use since there's less thought, it's fun, and it deals less with having to figure out what to write. Lazy lazy lazy.

For a couple weeks now my department has been completely barraged by business (currently blogging from work - I'm on lunch, I promise), and with my other responsibilities I felt way too overloaded. Therefore I deactivated my facebook to free myself up of one more big distraction. We'll see how long it lasts, but so far it's been a nice sabbatical.

Other than that - life is good. As per usual. Lots of things to be grateful for. Thankful for an awesome Disneyland vacation with family. Thankful for a freakin' adorable 5 yr old niece. Favorite moment was when she was getting her princess makeover by her "Godmother-in-training" and told her that her tita was "a princess, too." *Heart implodes* My plans to make her worship me have succeeded.

I'm also lucky and grateful to work at the same place as Bun. I'm so glad that we make it work for us. I feel like we have been in this very assured and casual place for a while. We go to work every day at the same company and sometimes go days without seeing each other in person, lol. And that's fine too. Other times we'll eat lunch together a lot, or with Jen. One of the recent episodes of New Girl, haha, has helped me see one of our advantages. Fights and annoyances. God knows we have tons of those, and it's a good thing! Yay. Zooey Deschanel is teaching me new things every week.



La Roux - Super old but it's been on repeat for me at work. Love all the remixes, too.

River running free you know how I feel

I was going to pin this image up, but as I was writing the description it was getting a bit too wordy.

I knew about this, but HOW DID I MISS THIS TUMBLR?! Marina Abramovic Made Me Cry:

Portraits taken during the MoMA's exhibit of performance artist "Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present".

Abramović sits at a table in silence, and museum guests can sit across from her and stare.

Some people couldn't handle the heat.

I imagine the kind of intense human connection that sparked up during this exhibition. Sitting at a table across from her - this time set aside to look into each other's eyes, for however long you decide. While looking at this tumblr I couldn't help but tear up as well. How often do you just look into someone's eyes. Maybe a lover every now and then. But for how long? What about family, friends, strangers? It's so incredibly intimate. I love how this work had these ripple effects. Apparently there was also an emotional support group on Facebook for the sitters called "Sitting with Marina," but I can't find it. I CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF HER.








Nina Simone

Like glitter's raining on me

Photo bomb from California Academy of Sciences last weekend.

Jessie J

But you just met somebody new

2011 Roundup

Music: Went to 2 his-and-hers concerts this year: Fleet Foxes (hers) at the Greek Theater, and City and Colour (his) at the Fillmore. Both wonderful experiences. I feel as though Fleet Foxes must ONLY be heard live. IT IS GLORIOUS, and meant to be heard in surround sound. City and Colour, I am still not as much of a superfan as Jamie is but I definitely grew an appreciation for his lyrics.

Art/Culture: Completed 1.25 art works. Biggie scratchboard, and Peepers scratchboard. Went to a couple South First Fridays, although it is waning. Time to go to something new. I swear to God one of these days I will actually make it to the Oakland Art Murmur. Cinequest Film Festival was cinequesty. Also visited De Young and MoMA a couple times.

Personal: My Tito Bubot passed away in June. It was/is still difficult for my family, and I hope my cousins are doing well... My canary passed in November out of nowhere. People ask when I'll get another one, and I have entertained the thought but mostly I am good with letting myself grieve for a good long time before I open my heart up again for a little birdie. Jamie and I passed the 3 year mark (with a perfect picnic)...

Work: ... and he got a contracting job @ Tiny Prints! We were pretty much living together with Barb for 3 months, and now we are waiting to hear news if he's a go for full-time at the end of this month. After that, who knows! Hellidays 2011 was also the easiest holidays ever, which freaked a lot of us out. "Shouldn't there be more bugs and problems??" "Why haven't we worked mandatory 14 hour days, 6 days a week, with optional 7 day work weeks???" "Why are we having 8 hour days?!?" Those are thoughts that constantly ran through my mind, and I'm sure my teammates as well. Turns out I had over-prepared, and didn't take ONE desperate, exhausted nap in my car the whole time. Leave it to me to find any excuse to complain, in the easiest holiday ever.

Random: People in my life have paired off, and I feel like for me, 2011 was the year of double-dates galore! Very fun. Also have consumed much more red wine this year than in years past, and I can't really help but feel like a teenager playing at being grown-up when I hold a glass. I also built a fort in my room for Jamie's bday (to have breakfast in bed/fort) and hellidays. It was a magical time, and I think it will now be tradition. Tons more stuff happened but now I can't remember. Oh, also food trucks.

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2012 (projected): The Ting Tings, Rodrigo y Gabriela, produce more art, make the gym a habit, actually use my health insurance, buy clothes/shoes/makeup less, Alexander's (!!!), luxuriate at nice hotel at some point, splurge with a massage, classes, volunteer? Many of these I know I will probably not do, but come on, let me just have my wishful thinking. Winks.


Robyn (THIS is also a good substitute for the music video - adorable, obviously LOVES robyn and made me pay more attention to this otherwise forgettable SNL cast member)

Beautiful quote

I saw this on my tumblr feed some time ago, and I just wanted to put this on my blog as well. It's kind of touchy depending on your religious views, but I just thought what she said was so beautiful.

“When my husband died, because he was so famous & known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me — it still sometimes happens — & ask me if Carl changed at the end & converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage & never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief & precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive & we were together was miraculous — not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance… That pure chance could be so generous & so kind… That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space & the immensity of time… That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me & it’s much more meaningful…

The way he treated me & the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other & our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don’t think I’ll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.“

Ann Druyan, talking about her husband, Carl Sagan

Last night...

I dreamt that I was with my family in our house, which was in a different neighborhood, with huge fields for backyards. It was sometime before Easter, and for some reason my mom was in the chicken business. The way she would hatch chicks was to keep the eggs under big green leaves in our field, and that certain morning all these little chicks started popping out from under these leaves.

[The other day Jamie linked me to a news story of apples randomly raining from the sky, and scientists believed it was some freak wind action that picked up debris (like apples) and would drop them somewhere else]

So in my dream the wind picked up the little chicks and dropped them all over our field-y neighborhood, and there were tons of little children that lived around. And so since it was close to Easter all these kids were like going batshit about cute little chicks, and my family had to spread out and try to retrieve these chicks.

So the remainder of my dream was me fighting with little girls to try to get these little chicks back for my mom.