Wherein we take the art for a walk

Brian's participating in ArtSpan's open studios again this year. This time, he'll also be in the group show at the SomArts Gallery (on Brannan St., right by the Trader Joe's). He finished his piece for the group show last night; this morning we brought it over to SomArts. Here it is in his studio this morning, right before we headed out. The show opens October 5th.


This is the smallest piece Brian's made in a while. We were both a little excited about how portable it is (that's not a portal into some woolen vortex, by the way. Just my sweater).



Here we are, waiting for the train.


This is the only picture in which Brian doesn't have the 'Woman, why do you insist on taking my photo?' look on is face.


See?


Up the escalator


Through the station,


And finally we were there.


"Are you taking pictures of my butt?" Brian asked. Yes, sweetie. Yes I am.





Brian's studio will be open the third weekend in October (the 18 & 19), from 11 AM to 6 PM. He's at 2221 15th St., through the side door by the garage. Hope to see you all there.

Want more photos of art, and less of my nonsense? Check out my flickr page

The only thing keeping me sane this election season

Is this song on repeat.



(And as an aside, why isn't Sharon Jones ten times more famous?)

Hm.

Back when I had an office job, I was often amused by the post-it notes that adorned my desk. Sure, I'd written them, but more often than not they seemed to have been left for me as signs by some alien intelligence intent upon making itself known. "Mailbox fix?" they asked. "Axial yoga?"

Now that I have neither a job nor post-its, my computer is left to carry on the task of confusing me with my own past ideas and inquiries. My google search window remembers past inquires and makes suggestions as I type, filling in what it thinks I might mean from just a few letters. So now I'm wondering, when did I google 'epic poem colma underworld'? And what on earth was I looking for?

A New-to-Me Meme in Honor of Sarah Palin

So, after reading in the news this morning that Sarah Palin tried to force her town librarian to ban books that 'some voters might find objectionable, here's a list of books banned at one time or another in the US. (I originally wanted to list the ones Palin tried to ban, but couldn't find a list anywhere). Books I have read are bold. Books I have loved* are bold and italicized. Books I'm gonna run out and get from my library are just italicized.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio (I've read bits of this -- plus all of 'The Women's Decameron,' which is awesome.)
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell (wait, that's not by Judy Blume?? O! All my memories of fourth grade are cast into doubt.)
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence (does it count if I just skimmed for dirty bits?)
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective (remind me to tell you my 'the first time I read the word anus' story).
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles (I might have loved it, but I took the line about 'sarcasm being the last refuge of the weak' a little personally).
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff (Despite jr high rumors to the contrary, I don't read dictionaries in their entirety just for fun -- though the occasional page or two can be an awesome way to dither away an hour. Also, this was banned? wtf?)
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth


*My criteria for whether or not I've loved a book? If I automatically think, "Omigod yes" after reading the title, that's love. Anything less is a strong like.