people are taking notice! good people, with good blogs, even. what a privilege to be seen and rebroadcast to their readers. check them out:

COLLAGE CLEARING HOUSE + THINKMULE!!!

please pray for our marvelous friend, ben. he was badly injured this week in a motorcycle crash and today had an 8-hr surgery to begin repairing a crushed pelvis, fractured knee and fractured foot.

we love him dearly and would move the earth to be with him now if we could.

happy birthday to my son, marvelous charlie, who turned 1 year old today. his grandpa made him his own wooden motorcycle. he wishes his dad would get the cash and the balls to get his own. uncle marv will be glad to know his first word was “book” (several months ago). his second was “rauschenberg”. here’s his birthday party invitation/poster… happy birthday buddy!

I found this flyer taped to a tree a few blocks from my place:

[click image to see full size]

It’s the summer soltice, gang; we are half way through the year. Therefore, I thought that instead of waiting until year’s end to do my all-to-cliched favorite records list I thought it best to give the run down while theres still more sunshine in the days. Oh, sun-shiny folk, sunny folk.

Below is a group of songs from some of my favorites that when downloaded and copied into your itunes should play in a nice little sequence that will last just long enough for a short drive to the store, the park, or your favorite mother nature loving heathen-ass soltice campfire druid party:

01. Song to Bobby – Cat Power

Everybody is in love with Chan Marshal. Who can deny an erratic former junkie with smoky voice and good looks? At first I missed the sparse acoustic ramblings found on her previous records, but her latest JUKEBOX grew on me quickly – its soulful and great to listen to at night.

02. Harper Road – Sun Kil Moon

Mark Kozelek is one of my favorites, ever. Erin and I saw him perform at Ottobar in Baltimore last week and he was as stunning live as on record. He’s a poet, too, and kind of an asshole, which endears me to him even more.

03. Sun Is Below & Above – These United States

TUS is a local DC band. Although, the term ‘band’ is used loosely. The moniker is used by a guy named Jesse who writes and records with our friend Paleo, then plays live with all sorts of talented other local DC folks, namely Vandaveer. These are all people I would like to be friends with, but dont have the balls to introduce myself to them at shows.

04. Eyelids – The Dodos
05. Fools – The Dodos

The Dodos are fun. They’ve been performing with all-time favorites Akron/Family recently, and I just cant imagine how great that must be. Their record VISITER is a romp; Erin and I love to play air drums to it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBufpx-BG8w]

-Wot a Night, from 1931.

In this fanciful and surreal period piece MarvelousJoey plays Tom, the tall cab driver who loses his skin, while MarvelousMarv plays Jerry, the shorter/rounder one who beats the blackface skeletons in craps.

This is a lesson to all of you: never give a ride to bearded identical twins in a thunderstorm.

My students had their final critiques this week.  In advance of the crits they asked if I would (read: challenged me to) make something to show along with them.  I accepted the proposition and made four collages.  I hope I get an A.

Here is my artist statment:

Truth of the matter was, stories was everything and everything was stories.
Everybody told stories. It was a way of saying who they were in the world.
It was their understanding of themselves.  It was letting themselves know how
they believe the world worked – the right way and the way that was not so right.
-Novelist Harry Crews on growing up in the South, 2003

I believe my work is inextricably bound to my experience of growing up in the South, specifically to the unique tradition of storytelling that exists there.  While not adhering to the traditional structure of narrative by eschewing plot, conflict and resolution I seek to open relationships between fragments of content – combining images to form ad-hoc narratives, representations of memories and embodiments of fears.  The pieces and parts work together as an amalgamation of connotations and allusions that describe an archeology of the present through a personal vernacular that is tangential and ambiguously melancholic.

I was in a line at the supermarket the other day, and I had all my things on the little conveyor belt there. There’s a gal in front of me that is staring at me and I’m getting a little nervous and she continues to stare at me. And I keep looking the other way. And then, finally she comes over closer to me and she says: “I apologize for staring, that must have been annoying. I, I…you look so much like my son, who died. I just can’t take my eyes off you.” And she precedes to go into her purse and she pulls out a photograph of her son who’d died. And he looks absolutely nothing like me. In fact, he’s Chinese. Anyway, we chatted a little bit. And she says: “I’m sorry, I have to ask you. Would you mind, as I leave the supermarket here, would you mind saying “Goodbye mom” to me? I, I know it’s a strange request but I haven’t heard my son say, “Goodbye mom” to me in so long, and it would mean so much to me to hear it.” And I said: “Well, you know, okay, yeah, sure… I can say that.” And so, she gets her groceries all checked out, and as she’s going out the door she waves at me and she hollers across the store: “Goodbye son!” And I look up and I wave and I say: “Goodbye mom!” And then she goes.

So I get my few things there, on the conveyor belt and the checker checks out my things. He gives me the total and he says: “That’ll be four hundred and seventy nine dollars.” And I said: “Well, how is that possible!?! I’ve only got a little tuna fish, and some skimmed milk, and mustard and a loaf of bread.” He goes: “Well, you’re also paying for the groceries for your mother. She told me you’d take care of the bill for her.” And I said: “Well, wait a minute! That’s not my mother!” And he says: “Well I distinctly heard her say as she left the store, ‘Bye son!’ and you said ‘Bye mom!’ and so what are you trying to say here?” I said: “Well, JESUS!” And I looked out into the parking lot and she was just getting into her car. And I ran out there. And she was just closing the door, and she had a little bit of her leg sticking out of the door and she was pulling away and I grabbed her leg and I started pulling it…

Just like the way I’m pulling yours.

-Tom Waits, “Missing My Son,” from ORPHANS – Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards