pre-fizz

i went to the library today to read artforum. i sat across from a small mexican man reading a book called hombres amor y sexo. i went for a short run when i returned home, encountering a small dog without a collar on 20th. he seemed sweet and playful. he was smaller than my cat. i didn't take him home because a couple walked up behind me and they seemed interested in him.

this is a list of people and books that interested me while reading artforum and that i want to research more:
-dan graham, theatre
-and back again www.deitch.com
-matt green, pictures of women
-ataxia ii, michael gormley
-matthew barney, ancient evenings: a libretto
-martin kippenberger
-hollis frampton / stan brakhage / kenneth anger
-sergey dvortsevoy's tulpan
-dereck jarman
-rhys chatham / christina wolff / arthur russell
-harold pinter, art, truth and politics
-marcel l'herbier, l'argent
-barkley hendricks
-arthur zmijewski
-zhang huan
-santiago sierra

tonight i'm going to a sloe-gin fizz party a few blocks away. tristan sent me this video of lorreta lynn and jack black singing about portland, or and sloe-gin fizz.

remodeling health care

certain members of the democratic caucus within congress have taken up obama's mission to provide health care for all americans. as senators and congress people debate and brain storm how best to transform our health care system, a writer for the New York Times points out that, "[t]he industry went a step futher (after promising to accept all applicants regardless of illness) last week, offering to end the practice of charging higher premiums to sick people int eh individual insurance market." yet even this measure does not guarantee that health insurance would be afforable to all americans. "The government cannot require people to have insurance if they cannot afford it, so lawmakers must decide: who would get subsidies? How much? And if the government subsizes insurance, should it also prescribe the items and services that must be covered - the specific benefits or their overall value?" apparently, offering subsidies may be unnecessarily complex and ineffective. it would seem that government provided universal or 'socialist' coverage seems to be the only option then. therefore hillary's plan for government provided health insurance seems necessary. however, as the article later poitns out, the cost for putting together a remodeled health care system could cost by conservative estimates up to one trillion dollars over the next ten years. in light of this fact, a health care insurance system does already exist in america and it might make more pragmatic, that is culturally and historically american sense to utilize this pre-existing structure. the existing health insurance industry might cost less to restructure and could produce greater revenue, greater economic stimulation. however, a more socialist approach could be more efficient and has historical precedents for realization in several western nations. i don't know what i think now, except that a socialized system may not require as much trial.

question: am i actually doubting socialism?

your hair looks like a rainbow

long weekend. have i ever mentioned to you how much i like gin? yes. well, i've been trying to drink less beer, and i've committed myself to tanqueray and tonics. two problems with this: a. i tend to drink a lot and gin costs a bit more than $2 pbr, and b. i find that i down gin and tonics like i'm drinking apple juice.

so thursday night, tristan invited me to go see a play with him and his friends. we met at the aalto lounge. "tanqueray and tonic." i met tristan's girlfriend, rachel, a beautiful girl with the best sense of humor. i think she's probably my new favorite person here in portland. a writer, she actually reminds me of another writer friend of mine, paige poe. she looks a little like paige poe, but really, her voice and especially her laugh reminds me so much of paige. paige poe, why are you in new york and are you still writing? do you know i read your poetry from your years at asfa all the time?

the play, tragedy: a tragedy wasn't terrible. i didn't cringe the whole time. the acting wasn't bad. there were some nicely worded little monologues. and the concept wasn't uninteresting. but it kind of seemed like the writer had just taken a course on existentialism and wrote a play on how alone we all are. oh, woes me. but there wasn't any resolution. at least heidegger and levinas tried to make us feel better about it all in the end. eh?

friday night, more gin. this time at the blue diamond where i met a neighbor, courtney, who frequents the blue diamond at times as well. after a while, i met a friend downtown at the red cap for drinks and dancing. i have to have had a lot to drink to dance. at least i didn't get so out of control i was making out with strangers in a strange bar! it's happened before.

i woke up yesterday hung over and not so well rested, which is fine. but i did not drink at all. i stayed in, read, watched movies. i met jared last night at reed college. the band he joined was supposed to play in the dorms with some other bands, but had backed out at the last moment. we still dropped by to check out the other bands. we left while a band played, a group that sort of sounded like truman capote sings the blues. so booth and i hung out with jared at his place for a while. jared is another of my new favorite people here in portland.

portland!

i passed out last night on the couch watching anamorph. hm...

sketchbook

#1
if you've seen me lately, you know how obsessed i've become with facebook. i love watching everyone update, knowing what everyone is doing, how they're feeling, what they want to share, whatever they're vomiting up. i love the exchanges, the jokes, the flirtations. i don't really even quite understand really why i'm so fascinated. and now that facebook goes everywhere with me on my ipod, i really can't get enough. i love updating from where ever i am during my errands and when i go out to drink and when i'm at home, naked, writing on my blog (that's right, booth: i'm naked on the couch, typing away at my computer while you're not home.) that space can collapse and overlap through facebook amazes me. i want to isolate this phenomenon.

so, for my next magic trick, what i'd really love to do is throw a party. projections or video screens would display the pictures of statuses of like six or so "agents" on walls through the gallery, hopefully large enough that each visitor could see each agent's status from wherever he or she was standing or dancing or floating or whatever. these agents would mingle in with everybody in the gallery, talk to everyone, talk to each other, just enjoy the party like everyone else. but the agents would update their status constantly as they partied. "this guy really sucks." "i feel nauseated." "i want a cigarette." "dry martini for me." "i think i'm in love." and so everyone at the party could talk and party and watch the statuses and try to find the agents and there would be all these microcosmic layers of reality and information piled up and active.

#2
my other idea also includes a party. or rather, this is my idea. it's antonio's. we were talking about performance art once, and he suggested it would be interesting if he were to stand on a stage and make mixed tapes for hours and that would be the performance art. titled "making mixed tapes," right? i think this sounds amazing. but i think we could do it coast to coast. get a few people involved from various cities all over the nation, and during the night, each person involved has to make a mixed tape for every other person involved. and each even would happen on the same night in different cities in america, birmingham to portland. and then we could mail the tapes to each other and at the end of the month have another party and play all the tapes that were sent to each other.

you know i love parties.

at least it's not raining... yet...

at least my sister saw a few sunny days here in portland. the city of portland is so beautiful in the sun. it might have been a bit chilly, but it was still good weather to walk around in, though evian wasn't really prepared for the amount of walking we do. i have an inverse laziness as i am adverse to paying the two bucks to ride the bus, thus, i walk everywhere. so we walked to belmont yesterday for cupcakes from st. cupcake, we bought coffee at the stumptown annex, then after a little rest we walked down to noble rot reopened on burnside, then up for cheap sushi from the conveyor belt at sushiland. a very full day i think, capped by watching a movie called savage grace with julianne moore, a film so weird we had to turn it off when the mother started fucking her son. whatever.

today, the clouds have blanketed our want to go outside much. we're going to walk to the laurelhurst theatre to see synecdoche, new york (we love phillip seymour hoffman!), then some dinner, and later i've invited some friends over to hang out. oh, saturday in portland.

partisan?

in an article about providing benefits to the homosexual partners of government employees, the writer of the article writes, "If he supports the judges and challenges the marriage act, he risks alienating Republicans with whom he is seeking to work on economic, health care and numerous other matters." alienating republicans?! is this really a worry? let's talk about bi-partisanship. the republicans are not always going to agree with every measure the democrats want to pass and vice versa. that's why we have two political parties in this country, providing a slow political negotiation and tug-of-war on these issues over the decades. the republicans did not vote for obama's stimulus package at all, and there will continue to be issues that republicans will not vote for. just because republicans object to a measure does not mean that one is being overly partisan or alienating. the parties have different objectives for a reason. when a president or congress person acts in an un-partisan manner, this really means he or she is accommodating to the other side of the aisle, that in certain situations agreements can be made jointly, that compromises and negotiations can be made for the benefit of the country. but certain ideals and political goals should not be dismissed just because the republicans won't go for them. i'm tired of this talk. obama is extremely diplomatic and as un-partisan as possible, but this does not mean that the republicans should always agree with what he's doing.

in other news, my sister evian is in portland this weekend. blow it up.

little christopher goes to lightbar

booth and i headed up further into northeast portland last night to check out lightbar, a weird portland phenomenon my coworker shannon introduced me to. some guy sets up this huge white tent in his backyard during the month of february and hosts strange happenings and parties on the weekend.



we missed the risque readings and film featured last night. however we did witness a sort of party, some people dancing, others standing around talking, some dressed in costume. there were cayote heads, and bear hoods, and a unicorn disguise.



this very upbeat guy named mark (i still have no idea how that name stuck in my head when i can never remember the name of anyone else) introduced himself to us. his wife is completing her phd in some bio-science; he is an out of work contractor. they're living on the savings accumulated during better economic times. he plays a lot of scrabble apparently.





after a while, the lightbar closed and everyone was encouraged to take a midnight mystery bike ride around the city. a huge mass of people would follow one person on a random path. oh, lightbar. you're so weird. another weekend perhaps?