Engineer's Daughter

ani difranco | the fillmore | 03.27.2012

anticipate
splinter
lag time
promiscuity
present/infant
unworry
life boat
swan dive
coming up
j
reckoning
as is
see see see
if yr not
fire door
{radical feminist poetry interlude}
mariachi
garden of simple
untouchable face
which side are you on?
-----
both hands
overlap

discomfit

Unknown photographer, erotic ring and cigarette, Germany, 1940

here is always somewhere else

Bas Jan Ader

Bas Jan Ader

Bas Jan Ader

"I do not make body sculpture, body art or body works.  When I fell off the roof of my house or into a canal, it was because gravity made itself master over me."  --Bas Jan Ader

I was first introduced to the work of Bas Jan Ader in June 2006 at the Camden Arts Centre in London, where they were mounting the first solo show of his work ever in the UK.  I was practically hard-wired to fall deeply in love with his work, steeped as it is in a very Dutch sense of humor and irony and melancholy, and this was even before I learned he had been lost at sea in 1975 in his ultimate artistic project, In Search of the Miraculous.  In his documentary Here Is Always Somewhere Else filmmaker (and Bas's friend) Rene Daalder sketches out Ader's career and thoughtfully explores the possible motivations for his attempt to cross the Atlantic in a too-tiny boat.  The boat was found off Ireland; Ader never was.  Along the way Daalder interviews the artist's widow, his best friend Ger van Elk, and contemporary artists who have been influenced by his work like the always-amazing Tacita Dean.  Daalder's film screened Friday night at the Berkeley Art Museum in conjunction with their awesome State of Mind exhibition (more on that in a future post), and it was incredibly moving to hear Ader's friends and family give their first-hand accounts of his artistic vision.  From Jonathan Monk's essay in the Camden Arts Centre's Bas Jan Ader "file note":

He made very few pieces in his short lifetime, all though, very beautiful and precious.  He was (and is) an important teacher and many of his students (us all) sometimes cannot deal with his/their loss, fantasizing all kinds of scenarios and even his eventual safe return.  I also hope he is still alive, living on an island in the South Seas, watching from a distance, his work magically continuing without him... the artist as consumer of extreme comfort.

See also:

• Here Is Always Somewhere Else
• Bas Jan Ader
• State of Mind

seattle 2012

Wednesday
-mental soundtrack ---> Imperial Teen
-enjoying the brief bit of sun glimpsed from my airplane seat above the clouds, especially because I know it might be the last I see for days
-Pearl Jam piped into the bathroom at SEA-TAC
-my 16th-floor room at the snazzy Hyatt at Olive 8
-lunch at Il Corvo: an Aranciata + garganelli with mushrooms, black olives, tomato
-two hours in town and I just gave correct directions to someone on the street
-Susie J. Lee at Lawrimore Project: contact prints floating in water and a machine that only wants contact
-a wonderfully expansive and inclusive collection at the Seattle Art Museum, with the added bonus of the spectacular Gauguin Polynesia show I saw in Copenhagen
-happy hour in the museum restaurant: a Four Roses Sazerac + rosemary frites
-emergency boot purchase at Romax Shoes when the pair I took along sprang a leak
-dinner at Travelers Thali House: a Mongoose I.P.A. + a full thali
-ORCA...anagram for One Card to Rule them All?
-everyone I've met so far is either a Bay Area transplant or planning a move there

Thursday
-mental soundtrack ---> Piney Gir
-breakfast at Le Panier: a cafe mocha + pain au chocolat
-light reigns in James Turrell's Skyscape at the Henry Art Gallery
-lunch at Shultzy's Sausage: a Köstritzer + mushroom Swiss veggie burger
-a ramble around Volunteer Park including a stop in the Conservatory
-acres of amazing ikat at the Seattle Asian Art Museum
-the views of the city from the top of the Water Tower observation deck
-lemon pound cake and a chai at Volunteer Park Cafe while the soundtracks to every single Wes Anderson movie ever rotate in the background
-chilling out in Elliott Bay Book Company for a couple hours, reading Trinie Dalton short stories and planning my next vacation
-happy hour at Oddfellows with a Patrick and two Laurens: an Amaro cooler + their fruit, nut, and cheese plate
-dinner at Sitka & Spruce: a bottle of Valdecampana + soudough and butter + fava bean falafel with orange, radish, and warm date salad + ful, avocado, and carrot meze with coffee-soaked egg and dukkah + braised parsnip with hazelnut gremolata and red sauerkraut + spinach borani with whole roasted beets and pomegranate + a date tartlet

Friday
-mental soundtrack ---> Darkness Falls
-breakfast at Lowell's: orange juice + cheesy eggs/spinach/tomato sandwich
-Richard Serra's Wake in the Olympic Sculpture Park making my entire trip worth it right there
-a walk along the waterfront in Myrtle Edwards Park
-Morris Graves and other northwestern masters at Woodside/Braseth Gallery
-sniffing Kusmi Tea and sampling the chocolatey wares at Marie & Frères
-a longing look into Honeychurch Antiques, currently in the process of relocating
-canoes, kayaks, skiffs, and lots more at the Center for Wooden Boats
-lunch at Tilikum Place Cafe: a Maritime Islander pale ale + a savory cauliflower, carrot, and feta tart
-tramping over bridges and through marshlands on the Arboretum Waterfront Trail
-splitting a Marie & Frères macaron at the Arboretum visitor center
-dinner at Barolo: a glass of Sangiovese + porcini tortelloni in a truffle-leek sauce + sauteed spinach + cannoli
-the pure unadulterated inspiration that is the Raincoats live at their first-ever show in Seattle (at Chop Suey) with Grass Widow opening to boot

Saturday
-mental soundtrack ---> Sadao China
-snow!
-breakfast at Toulouse Petit: a creole Bloody Mary + beignets + avocado/tomato eggs Benedict
-the magnificent vista from Kerry Park
-finally getting to meet Boomba, certifiably one of the best cats ever
-a tour of charming Ballard courtesy of Lauren
-dinner at Elemental: a Sazerac + truffled popcorn + endive and avocado salad + Indian-spiced soup + ravioli in a caper sauce + panko-crusted eggplant with potatoes three ways + portabello Irish stew + sweet potato tart + chocolate cake tier with fresh cream and cocoa nibs + pecan cookie and caramel ice cream.  There were wine pairings for each course too so I might not have gotten that all exactly right.  And next time I'm leaving room for the cheese course.

Sunday
-mental soundtrack ---> First Aid Kit
-breakfast at Le Pichet: orange juice + brioche with butter and marmalade + yogurt with honey and walnuts
-I'll be back soon, Seattle!

enceinte

NEDDA: SICILIAN SKETCH

"The family fireside was for me a figure of speech, useful as a frame for the mildest and calmest of emotions, on a par with moonbeams kissing blonde tresses; but I used to smile whenever I heard people telling me that the fire in the hearth is a sort of friend.  There were times when in truth it seemed to me to be too demanding a friend, annoying and despotic, that would have liked to take you gradually by the hands, or by the feet, and drag you into its smoky cavern and kiss you after the manner of Judas.  I was unaware of the pastime of poking the logs, or the joy of feeling yourself engulfed in the warmth of the flames; I had no understanding of the teasing language of the log that crackles and grumbles as it burns; my eye never grew accustomed to the bizarre designs of the sparks rushing like fireflies over the blackened firebrands, to the fantastic shapes that the wood assumes as it blazes away, to the thousand and one chiaroscuro effects of the blue and red tongues of flame that timidly lick and gracefully caress before bursting petulantly and arrogantly into life.  But once I was initiated into the mysteries of the tongs and the bellows, I fell hopelessly in love with the hearth's potential for blissful idleness.  I fling my body on to the armchair beside the fire as though I were casting off a suit of clothes, allowing the flames to make the blood flow more warmly through my veins and cause my heart to quicken its beat, and entrusting the sparks, darting and fluttering like enamoured moths, with the task of keeping me awake and making my thoughts wander off in the same capricious fashion.  There is something charming and indefinable in the spectacle of your thoughts taking leave of you and flying off at random into the distance, whence they shower your heart with unexpected tokens of bittersweet melancholy.  Your cigar half-spent, your eyes half-closed, your fingers holding loosely on to the tongs, you see your other self careering dizzily off into the far distance; you sense the currents of strange worlds passing through your sinews; you smile as you experience a thousand and one sensations that would turn your hair grey and line your forehead with wrinkles, without moving a finger or taking a solitary step."

--Giovanni Verga from Cavalleria and Other Stories, 1890

seattle pics

Until I get a full write-up done please enjoy a set of photos from my recent trip to Seattle.  And what a wonderful city it is.  I could move there for the Elliott Bay Book Company alone.

gedankenexperiment

TOP: A hotel sign in Malaysia banning visitors from eating the durian fruit (photo: Hiang Kee).
ABOVE: the foul-smelling Durian (W.H.L. Skeen & Co.'s studio, c.1890)

show 234

playlist

...and now I am taking a break from the DJing, hopefully only a short one.  To find out where I next pop up on the KALX schedule follow me on facebook or on Google+.  In the meantime I send a ginormous thank you to my loyal Sunday morning listeners, and to Sharkey for dedicating a Melvins track to me.

clearing the cache

Recently closed - Jet Lag, New Works by Luis Urculo at Popular Workshop

Recently closed - At War at SOMArts, curated by and featuring art by Peter Max Lawrence and Truong Tran

Recently closed - Space, Time and Architecture at Royal Nonesuch Gallery featuring work by Luca Antonucci and Cybele Lyle

Recently closed - Josh Short: Bomb Shelter Radio and Tenderloin Self-Defense Club at Ever Gold Gallery

Recently closed - Hybrid Narrative: Video Mediations of the Self and Imagined Self at MacArthur B Arthur

Through March 31 - John Cage at Crown Point Press

Through June 17 - State of Mind: New California Art circa 1970 at the Berkeley Art Museum

Terry Zwigoff at SFAI

Through July 8 - Question Bridge: Black Males at the Oakland Museum, created by Chris Johnson and Hank Willis Thomas in collaboration with Bayeté Ross Smith and Kamal Sinclair

Moyra Davey and Catherine Lord at Cal

Through March 11 - Spaces of Life: The Art of Sonya Rapoport at the Mills College Art Museum

Through March 17 - Anna Sew Hoy: Tissues and Trench Coats at Romer Young Gallery

Through March 17 - Selected Shipwrecks by Jimbo Blachly and Lytle Shaw, Behind the High Grass by Soft Turns, Condensation Range by Aaron Maietta, all at Southern Exposure

I've been busy!  Normally scheduled programming will resume here soon, but first I need to take a quick jaunt to Seattle.

goo-goo

Pavel Kuznetzov, sheet music cover for Melodies of the Nations, USSR, 1925