But there are always exceptions.
I am in awe of this video of Amanda Baggs–who is autistic and does not speak–eloquently communicating the ineffable.
My language is not about designing words or even visual symbols for people to interpret. It is about being in a constant conversation with every aspect of my environment, reacting physically to all parts of my surroundings.
Read more about her in these articles from Wired and The NY Times.
I wonder why I like these prints so much.
‘Keep calm and carry on’, a message fly-posted around Britain during World War Two. These hand-pulled silk screen prints have been produced as a modern tribute to that statement. As appropriate now as ever!
from Keep Calm Ltd
Probably because you can virtually read their British accents in the copy.
Thursday, I plan to spend the day with yours truly (i.e., me) happily enjoying the much anticipated and heavily discussed Indie flick Teeth.
High school student Dawn works hard at suppressing her budding sexuality by being the local chastity group’s most active participant. Her task is made even more difficult by her bad boy stepbrother Brad’s increasingly provocative behavior at home. A stranger to her own body, innocent Dawn discovers she has a toothed vagina when she becomes the object of violence. As she struggles to comprehend her anatomical uniqueness, Dawn experiences both the pitfalls and the power of being a living example of the vagina dentata myth.
from Teeth, the movie.
Written and directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein, starring Jess Weixler as Dawn, John Hensley as Brad and introducing that animatronic shark from Jaws as the Vagina Dentata.
The story of a castrating birth canal isn’t exactly original. And it’s not exactly a myth anymore, as the rapex condom demonstrates.
Folklore from many cultures, specifically of the North American tribes, warn of terrible demons who end the fates of men while they sleep. The lucky die immediately. The unlucky ones wake bleeding from large gaping wounds where their manhood once were. Continue reading ‘How I’ll Spend 2/14′
Love, Lollipops & the Exquisite Corpse
an exhibition of collaborative art by more than 50 couples, opening on Valentine’s Day. Curated by Suckers & Biters
chashama Exhibit Space, 169 Avenue C
(at 11th Street, M14C, M14D buses, F to 2nd Ave., L to 1st Ave.)
14 February - 1 March 2008
Thursday - Saturday, 1-7pm
OPENING RECEPTION Thursday, February 14, 6-9pm
Exhibition and all events FREE and open to the public.
An adaptation of “the exquisite corpse”, suckers and biters is essentially an artistic communication game for couples. Our title, born out of a discussion on lollipop psychology, reflects the sweetly monstrous results of the game and the messy, painful, sensual drama that love can be. We’re all familiar with the terms “love is for suckers” and “love bites” but thankfully, we wholeheartedly play on.
Were I not predisposed on Wednesday eve, I would be spending it at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop for a night of readings by three very talented writers.
Reading: Ed Lin, Lisa Chen and Tao Lin
An evening of fiction and poetry. In This Is a Bust (Kaya Press, 2007), Ed Lin turns the conventions of hard-boiled pulp stories on their head by exploring the unexotic and very real complexities of New York City’s Chinatown, circa 1976, through the eyes of a Chinese-American cop. Mouth (Kaya Press, 2007), Lisa Chen’s debut collection of poetry, gives voice to things that occur below the level of hearing or just beyond our notice by way of fables, instructions, classified ads and reality shows. Tao Lin’s debut novel Eeeee Eee Eeee (Melville House, 2007) uneasily documents the life of a recent college graduate, Andrew, with surreal touches - celebrity cameos, bears, and dolphins who say “Eeeee Eee Eeee” to express emotion. Cosponsored by Singha Beer.
@ The Workshop
16 West 32nd Street, 10th Floor
(btwn Broadway & 5th Avenue)$5 suggested donation
I’ve heard Tao Lin read before. “Unique” doesn’t describe him well enough. Read his work and judge for yourself. The dry, blunt and lackadaisical prose is delivered appropriately by Tao Lin’s monotonous voice. At times Tao Lin would be reading and you can tell he’s just trying his hardest to hold back from laughing at his own jokes. Or maybe the whole thing is a joke in and of itself. Either way, the kid is brilliant. The kind of guy you expect would write about bears abducting pizza delivery persons. And also Jhumpa Lahiri.
Normally Tao Lin is best experienced with those generic writers who followed the rules of mainstream success, bending over at the whim of their Big Publishing House overlords. Because Tao Lin and Melville House will never hold back their distaste at those fools. But I’m sure he’s got nothing against Kaya Press, so the reading might just be tame enough for the AAWW regulars.
Meanwhile, I’ll be chilling with Melissa Li, Abe Rybeck, and one mystery guest at the Belasco for a performance of Passing Strange.
Dear Bronwen:
On my last semester of Hampshire, ironically the most sobering and geeked out point of my life, I became your teaching assistant for Brain and Cognition II. I got to teach impressionable kiddies like you how to hook up people’s scalps to electrons in search of brainwaves. You were all dumbfounded. I was far too knee deep in the fecal matter of my own final project to bother with your questions, and was honestly too jaded to care. I don’t recall much about the experience. But I do remember you, Bronwen, the punky sprite who got even more obsessed about neuropsycholinguistics than I ever was. The ex ballerina with a dark, mysterious past. I had a total unabashed gaymancrush on you. So it hit me real bad when I read last week in my alumni magazine that you are no more.
Recently, I find myself asking the younger ex-Hampsters about you. At first I was worried I’d be that fellow who brought everyone down by bringing up bad memories. I was inundated instead with wonderful stories of how you lived.
The last we met, I was ringing the Div III bell at camp Hamp, as with tradition, stopping only to snap this capricious shot of you being you. OK, so I added the tree blossoms and cigarette, but I think it represented you well.
And here I am now writing to you as if you were alive, because I never got a chance to say good bye. But I am comforted that you are now immortal in the pages of facebook forever baking that fruit cobbler, in LexisNexis, and now on flickr.
