Tag Archive for: Stuff I Did

Look At This Something –

So. This – here – is the site – for a company – that I have done a bunch of work for – the Mellow Mushroom.

I didn’t really get to do any designing on this particular version of the site (it is a long and sordid story) – but there are a few touches here and there to find – if you want to.

The real hope is that after getting a bunch of initial set-up done and done . . . then the fun can begin again – and new stuff will start slowly showing up on the site.

We shall see.

Until then – go and look at this pizza of a site.

Neighborhood Watch(er)

I went outside to walk (old) Irving today.

At the same time that I was getting him ready to go around and about – this teenage-style-kid wearing a bright red hood pulled all over his head (which is only important in a second here) was walking down the street holding a boom-box – maybe plugged into an ipod – so that everyone in the world could hear him flipping through song after song after song . . . basically he was drawing a bunch of attention to himself – which made what he was doing even odder.

He was walking very slow – not on the sidewalk – but on the street side of the cars – and I only really started paying attention when I noticed that he was stopping at the cars as he went by – and looking to see what was in the cars.

So my partner Irv and I sprung into action – and walked about 10 (ten) feet behind him until he was far away from our little world – slowing down when he slowed down . . . stopping when he stopped.

He never acknowledged that we were there – and I have no idea how any sort of confrontation would have gone if he had . . . but it was an exciting time for us all.

Now – before anyone gets itchy about “Why can’t a kid in a hoodie listening to a boom-box walk down the street without being followed by the likes of you – then anyway?!” – know this . . . one of the first cars that he stopped to look into . . . was mine. And that bird don’t fly.

Richard Serra [part #1]

Richard Serra is a name that I have heard bandied about for awhile when I was in an art history class or in a conversation about big honking sculpture that was heroic in the amount of testosterone that was used in the process of making it – types of conversations.

Okay – I will admit that there probably weren’t very many of either of the aforementioned conversational varieties being kicked around in my world lately – as art history class happened a long time ago and I have always kind of shied away from conversations where (about) sculptors (who) feel the need to flex their muscles . . . Instead I seem to lean more towards the direction of smaller more personal pieces – which is odd on a completely different front – because – as you will read – gargantuan sculpture seen in the wild (if it is done properly) is kind of fun to see – sometimes it can feel like coming up on some crazy relic from the past – or something.

So – anyway – as I was saying – Richard Serra wasn’t ever really on my radar. I can’t even pinpoint when I first saw one of his pieces . . . so I may go on in life chirping that this-time-here-now is the first time that I have seen his work. Just for the sake of making it easy.

The Dia:Beacon is an art museum located on the Hudson river in Beacon, New York (you know that is my train stop – right?) in what used to be the National Biscuit Carton Making and Printing Plant. It is a super nice old renovated factory with a lot of brick, concrete floors and a nifty roof that has these architectural features (kind of skylights) that bring in bunches of natural light which bounces/diffuses off of the walls and ceilings to light the place very nicely. It is a great place to see art.

I was there recently – doing what I do – you know – walking around looking at stuff – and then there was this room. A huge big long room like you can only find in a factory. And it was filled with several Serra sculptures. They dominated the space in a crazy way that messed with my equilibrium. I think that the thought process went something like – jeez, those are big – i am kind of tiny – how did they get into this building – are they going to topple over an smush me – why do i feel dizzy – i can walk into them – and so on. They had this great presence where it kind of felt like they belonged there – maybe even more than I did – or something. It was a blast walking around them and through them . . . they kind of altered the space.

I read a quote from Serra in an article on CNN where he says: “The subject matter” of this work, he tells you, “is your personal experience of walking into and through and around. There really isn’t any content until you fulfill your exploration” of a piece. So I figure that my brain and I must kind of be on the right path – at least when responding to large pieces of slightly rusty steel.

Was I now a fan of Richard Serra?!

[to be continued – kitten]

The new style [part 2]

Shoot – shoot shoot – I wish that I had a proper before/after that I could put up – but those aren’t going to be done until the end of the month . . .

But just know – that I used (some sort of) gel and then brushed my hair yesterday – I look (pretty darn) ridiculous – aaannnddd I am going to try to keep it up for at least a couple of weeks – although I gotta admit – that this is going to be tough to pull off . . .

Ladies and Gentlemen . . .

The New Style!

A bit batty (part two)

It has been quite some time since I started this little contained trilogy of examples of the losing of some of my precious marbles . . . but never the less here we are again right in the thick of me going “A bit batty.”

[A quick side note – how was that for a build up of an intro?!]

Let me begin by pointing out (emphatically) that I am a bit of a dork. With that said, I will now try very hard to give a bit of the necessary back story to the particular predicament at hand while also trying hard to keep any toes from dipping into the rivers of tangents that sometimes get me lost . . .

(That sentence alone lost me a bit just by itself – but we move on.)

I started reading this series of ridiculous fantasy novels right around the time that the first one came out in 1990 . . . and I am currently reading the 11th (eleventh) book. Even though by all reports the author (Jordan, Robert) has been needlessly drawing the series out, I have to see this thing through to the end . . . I have already read something like 7000 (seven thousand) pages and it simply isn’t possible that I can stop now . . .

So – there I was in a big book store – and to my delight I saw a hard-back of what we will call (for the sake of keeping a tiny bit of dignity) Book #10 (number ten) for the low low price of $5.00 (five dollars). I usually buy the soft-covers (did you know that those are called “Mass Market Paperbacks”?) – but this was so so sooooo cheap – and so I bought it.

I read and read and read and progressively got more miserable as it went on. I even took it on a mini vacation where I tossed and turned wondering why everything was so drawn out and repetitive. When my wife asked how my dorky book was I felt beaten “I just hate it . . . it’s just so not good . . . it is poop . . . in the guise of a book. It is a poop book . . . a poop book.”

[To be fair that whole “poop book” thing is an embellishment – I never really said that – but that is how I felt on the inside . . . so I figured it valid to add it here.]

When I got home, I was 500 (five hundred) pages into the book and for days I had been getting more and more frustrated at the rampant repetition . . . and then a lightning bolt came through the fog of confusion that I had been feeling . . . and I ran to my friend the internet who sat me down on it’s knee and finally let the cat out of the bag . . . I was 500 (five hundred) pages into a book that I had read less than a year before . . .

Not 10 (ten) or even 50 (fifty) – but a full on 500 (five hundred) pages . . . and since I had no idea how it ended . . . I had to, in my shame, read through the last 200 (two hundred) pages not only to prove a point to the book that I was going to beat it in the end . . . but again because I had an honest curiosity as to what the end held.

Now we move more to now for a quick update. I am currently 200 (two hundred) pages into the 11th (eleventh) book and all of the repetitive problems seem to have magically gone away.

The series is supposed to end with the next book which will be strange because I have 16 (sixteen) years invested in this whole thing . . . and I wonder how it’ll feel once it is all over. I really like it when things have a semblance of structure and if they belong to any kind of serial, then I like to read/see them in order because then I get to experience a feeling of achievement/stability from going from point A to point B (though – I honestly get a similar feeling of achievement whenever I manage to finish a jar of peanut butter) so it has been one of my biggest fears (along with nutrias) that something would happen to the author (Jordan, Robert) and the books would never be finished . . .