28 August 2008

Away from the Wind.

So, After moving at breakneck pace for the entire summer. Physically moving apartments in 2 hours in torturous heat on monday, and two whirlwind days of classes, I am being asked to leave town. Made to leave town.

I just got settled.


Everything was unpacked, I was riding the mini bike to school everyday. All two of them.
I started walking down to the Community Coffee house on Magazine in the evenings to read and map.
And I have to pack up what ever is dearest to me and make for somewhere called Temple, Texas.


And that is another thing...how on earth do you fit all the important things into one suitcase? Carpooling = 1 suitcase)
I sat here for hours this afternoon trying to think of what to take.
Some clothes. Identity Papers. Mapping supplies, Mac.


I am too exhausted to think.
At 8am, I will be headed to Texas. I already miss my place. Cross your fingers that it's still here on Thursday.

19 August 2008

J'ai besoin d'une histoire

Harmony St, New Orleans. 4:30pm



I need something of an adventure. I need a story, the sort I read as a child. All giants that snatched children from their beds, or witches that held conventions in posh seaside resorts. I'd settle for that particular witch who used to live in a house perched on chicken legs and rode a round in a spoon driven tea cup. I need a prince in blue pajamas tending volcanoes and a solitary rose.
Dour little girls secret;y resurrecting gardens or boys setting off hundreds of miles down river. I need imaginary, a transport.
I need to use my imagination because so much of what I read, or am offered to read, is entirely too possible. Deplorable people doing deplorable things and in turn being hunted down by more baddies, groups of baddies, corporations of baddies. No, thanks. I get enough of that in the newspaper or on television.
Often times I have to make due with poetry, which sometimes affords me the luxury of suspending my disbelief (If it's really good, my beleif). And I don't mean classical poetry, but rather poetic language. A little romanticism. The last book I read was about the ghost of a man, bound to his house, who passes his days observing the generations of people who move into his house (David Long's The Inhabited World). A little hokey, but it did the trick. Still A dive back into kid-lit may be in order. Perhaps I will actually manage to find a new Philip Pullman out there. Recommendations would be fantastic.

13 August 2008

Films: Broken English, Zoe Cassavetes (2007)

Recommended by BWP. Thanks BWP for renewing my romantic belief that love just kinda finds you.
I was this close to being ok with the hard cold truth that it doesn't work that way without serious editing and multiple camera angles.

12 August 2008

Featured Artist: The Presets

Try to ignore that they look like they ought to be singing Chim-Chim-Cherie in the video and focus on the brilliant cinematography of the fight sequences. They remind me of what I was trying to capture in drawings a few years back.

11 August 2008

For Me, For Fall

Nude, beige, white, grey, chocolates, khaki, camel, charcoal, bleu marine & navy (and some choice metals), as of now anyway.

Lanvin,
These I actually might buy.

These maybe not, but damn hot none the less.

As always layering. However this time trying to do it in a more elegant way. Lighter weights, leaner shapes. Volume play.
Lots of fabric shopping at Promenade on St. Charles for wools that feel like jersey and some down time with the Singer are to come.
Burburry Porsum,




Still looking for the perfect hoodie to combat the year round A/C in the Tulane design lab.
Unstructured Grey's
D-Line,


Tailored Grey's....perhaps not in flannel though as this is the hottest place on earth.


I have pretty much the same build as the guy below, and I really like the idea of a baggy trouser. Maybe once a week.
I have a lot of maybes in this wish list.
Thin layers.
Sistere



Ombe dipped sneakers. Don't you wish you could do this at home! Thankfully I have a craft shop in which to do just that.
Raf Simons


Silver Jeans. Risky, but worth the risk I think. I think. Still, you must admit to the brilliance of their existence.
Again, Raff Simons


Woven silver. These are vying against the Lanvin hightops for a spot on my two mad-pricey shoe buys for the year.
I think the other is going to be a pair of red leather Prada loafers with a green croc penny strap I saw at Saks this weekend.
Bottega Veneta,

10 August 2008

Dirty Linen Party




I'm not even sure where to start with this one. The Dirty Linen party is the dirtier answer to last weeks more ....er, refined (?) White Linen Party on Julia Street. And dirty it was. Paired with the already less than fresh, but still beautiful French Quarter, were near naked girls being hand painted in the middle of the street in day glow colours, millions of little plastic cups in varying states of emptiness, and several men of varying degrees of hirstutness in red dresses. The girls were part of an exhibition by the Painted Alive gallery, one of 50 participating galleries. Which is where the little cups came from, gallons and gallons of free drinks. And good ones too. In two hours I had consumed a Cabernet, a Chardonnay, Champagne, and what may now be my drink of choice, the Old New Orleans rum strawberry and basil mojito. I had two of those, asking Selena to hold my half empty glass in order to get back in line for another. The men in dresses were from a foot race run by...men in red dresses. Add into this the famous super heated night air of New Orleans and boil. Dear God it was a hot night.


The art was on par for art in the quarter, a lot of outsider art and art that was largely process driven. That sort that is great fun to make but really has no substantial meaning taken out side of the studio. Lots of folks buying vague impressionist studies of Jackson Square to match the cararra marble counter top of the mini-bar. There were fantastic things too, like the brilliant paintings of roosters at Galerie Dalray, one of which is pictured above. On the wall 'round the corner is another fantastic oil of stacked oreos wich is a magnificent study of brown and blue ranges. In that series there are also giant studies of stacked waffles and stacked hamburgers which were torture as I am on the official tuna sandwich and apple poverty diet. After walking Selena to Frenchmen Street from Canal Street through the steaming mass of the quarter, earning me massive gentleman points, I met up with friends at the Bourbon Pub where I drank more dinner and met a nice guy named Aaron, who is not the
dancer in the photo stream.



Ricky and Friends. The one in the lower photo has fantastic eyes.



David, fantastic bartender and new proud Papa.

Random yet stunning couple at the pub.

07 August 2008

Maintaining Consciousness while Moving




So I ran again last night and did not experience any sort of out of head experience.
I have other things to make up for it though. Such as my tea cup balanced on a charging elephants bum of a
financial situation. Why do people pay talented people so crapily(two p's in crapily?)? Why do talented people
work for such crappy pay? Seriously, not just me, someone had to set the precedent. That said why do I do it?!
Partly because I honestly can't do anything else, I've only ever worked in theatre thereby ruining my chances
at any sort of viable occupation at this point. Do I stop caring about what I do? Do I only give as much design
as I'm being paid for?
"Here Love, Here is your half a suit and partial tie. Be grateful, the rest of the cast are in hefty bags and knee socks."
I don't think I could do that either. A friend just sent me a message telling me to stop working at realizing the dreams
of others who have no regard for my own...it sounds clearer in french. I think this is quite wise, and true, only in this
business the only one who ever gets to really dream the majority of the time are the directors. And the bloody
playwrights who dream up swimming pools as stage sets and multi-cast actors who change clothes in four lines.

I've decided to focus on set design for a while. And to give Tulane another semester since they are paying me to be
here. I still plan on submitting apps to other programs. Or who knows. Not me, not this instant anyway.

As thought that weren't enough. Of the two guys I've been seeing one is moving to North Carolina, professining
his adoration the whole time. I tried a long distance thing before and it was enough to know better than to do it again.
The other is adorable, but about as constant as a comet. Plans were made to see Batman this evening, and I've heard
nothing. What I really need are friends. I have friends, great, fantastic, melt in you mouth friends, just none in the city.
Everyone I know is married, otherwise engaged, or a little to close to the line of Acquaintance to be comfortable.

06 August 2008

SketchbooK

Compiled from the last 3 years...ish.


05 August 2008

Films: Boy Meets Girl, Leos Carax (1984)

Semi-Unconcious on Saint Charles Avenue.



And not in a drunken fratty sort of way. More of in a jogging along at eleven o'clock at night and suddenly found myself on the ground kind of way.The whole event lasted perhaps four minutes and was more amusing than terrifying. A few cars passing by, some distant joggers and thankfully no street cars were around. In the event I did manage to loose my keys to the building and apartment at the site of the black-out, which I did not realize until I got home. Luckily there they were nestled among mardi gras beads and bottle caps. I even ended up finishing my run since I had to go all the way back out, and managed not to fall over.

04 August 2008

Homesickness

Continental Divide, New Mexico.

01 August 2008

From Vökuró


Langt í burt
Vakir veröld stór
Grimmum töfrum tryllt
Eirðarlaus
Ottast nótt og dag
Augu þín
Ottalaus og hrein
Brosa við mér björt


(Far away
Wakes the great world
Mad with grim enchantment
Disquieted
Fearful of night and day
Your eyes
Fearless and serene
Smile bright at me)