Brian and I were checking the results for the South Carolina primary and saw that a man named Mike Gravel got something like 240 votes. Naturally, we wanted to know: who is Mike Gravel? We went to the first place we could think of to get reliable political information– You Tube. This is what we found:

I am pretty positive it’s a riff off of John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance,” hence another example of a Lennon tune being appropriated for the purposes of a campaign, albeit a much better one than Huckabee’s minstrels’ version of “Help” (see below).  I’m sort of into this guy.I watched this video earlier with Nicholas and Derya and You Tube offered us “related videos.”  We ended up watching a slideshow of McCain photos over the backdrop of a wave in which the crest is entirely made up of unicorns.  We also watched a video of George Bush being interviewed by Matt Lauer on the subject of torture, leading us all to feel like it really doesn’t matter who the next president is.  Things can only get better for us.  You know when you’re watching a TV show and the bad guy is just so incredibly bad and you’re watching him week after week do all this terrible shit and every week you just can’t take it anymore because you really can’t wait to see the bad guy get his? Well, that’s how I feel about this president.  I just can’t wait.  And it infuriates me that he may never really get it the way he deserves it.  He makes me feel positively merciless, vengeful, irate…I just want to egg his house and key his car and put sugar in his gas tank and put ex-lax in his coffee and put a flaming bag of poop on his doorstep all before 7 am…and…and…and…a ton of other things that I don’t dare say online because I don’t want to be secretly tapped by the powers that be due to the grossness of the Patriot Act and sent to a “secret site” where they can torture me regardless of any international laws.   AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

In other news, we’re eating homemade Indian food over here. Hooray.

It was one for the books. Too much to talk about, so I’ll just relate the essentials and give you all some links to the “sights and sounds.”

My friends from art school (and life) Irina, Anya, and Charles, drove down from New York to visit and attend a show in Athens that featured one of Irina’s videos. Their visit coincided with Derya’s birthday (which I think is still going on…) and so we all went to Athens. Yipee! I love world collisions!

Part I: Huckabee

My friends left New York at midnight and drove through the night. Charles called me at 1 pm and asked if there were any political events going on in Spartanburg, considering the proximity to the primary. I checked it out and found that Mike Huckabee was going to be at Wofford at 3 pm. They did 90 the whole way down from Virginia so they could “hucka-see.”

It was pretty surreal for me and I slept the night, so I can’t imagine how strange it must’ve been for them, having driven a good 16 or so hours and ending up at a Huckabee rally. We were late, so most of the huckabitches and huckabros had already arrived. We sat on the floor of the auditorium. We heard him speak. I have to say, I was pretty huckabored. But some of the highlights included:

-a 10 minute opening joke about mule eggs, completely unrelated to fucking anything (Charles made a good point as well that this particular joke, which was about two idiot brothers from New York, was probably originally an old-school racist joke about black people)

-a speech about the failure of our government to keep track of illegal immigrants who are here on expired visas. This is incredulous to Huckabee because “when we order a book on Amazon, we can track its progress from the warehouse to our house.” No, he was not joking with this little analogy. If we live in a country where we can track boxes, there is no reason why we cannot track people. Nevermind the fact that people, even people without green cards who speak Spanish, have key things that boxes don’t have, like legs and, believe it or not, brains. He went on to say that maybe we should give the whole immigrant-tracking business to FedEx or UPS. You know what, Huck? Why don’t we just put the immigrants in boxes when they cross the border? Better yet, let’s tattoo barcodes on their bodies! Or I know, why don’t we just implant little GPS microchips into their immigrant wrists so we can really know what they’re up to? Good fucking idea.

-These dudes came on after Huck. Irina took video, but I bet that these You Tube ones have clearer audio and I would hate for you out there to miss these awesome harmonies. If only The Beatles knew the fate of this song– they might not have written it. I can’t speak for Deep Blue Something, though. They might be Huckabee fans.

Part II: Old Gregg
When we got home, Irina showed me these videos, clips from a show on the BBC called The Mighty Boosh. We recycled lines from them them the rest of the weekend. I think they are the best thing ever.


Part III: Athica
We went to this show called Ingest at the Athens Institute of Contemporary Art, where Irina had a video. Her video rules.
Part IV: Dark Meat
We saw this band at the Georgia Theatre in Athens. They rocked our faces off. We danced. Hooray! Check out their MySpace for some tunes. There were like 15 people on stage at all times…whoa.Thank you to Brian Hits who let us stay with him. For those that don’t know, he was one of the artists-in-residence last year and he is currently making some awesome work at UGA, including a painting of the view from what was his window and is now mine.He took us around the studios there. I love that atmosphere. I felt nostalgic for that community, for that part of art school, hanging out together in studios, and that was appropriate because three of my fellow art-school-mates were there too. Thanks to them for coming. We had a fun weekend.

Sorry if this post kind of sucks…As Rachel said on her blog, I think it’s time to focus on actual work, the show a mere two months away. Oh my god, is that all? Hopefully, I can get Irina to write a guest blog…

After living vicariously through some intense and beautiful weather in Kurasawa’s Throne of Blood at Ginna’s last night, we looked outside to find that we were experiencing some real life intense and beautiful weather. Yep– it was snowing in Spartanburg. To give you some perspective on what a big deal this is, most of the snow had melted by this morning, but still all the schools were closed and so were many businesses. No one came into work here at Hub-Bub (except us, but we have a notably easier commute).

I’ve never really liked snow. I never lived with it until I lived in New York, and city snow gets nasty quick. But it was nice last night. The trees looked crystalline. Everything was covered in white, quiet and undisturbed.

In light of my last post, I couldn’t resist this picture:

I took these pictures while Derya tried to play in the snow. I think she gave up when she realized that a) there wasn’t that much snow on the ground b) I don’t even know how to play with her, having limited snow experience and c) it’s not that much fun when you’re alone and over 12. She did throw a gigantic snowball against the building, and made a snow angel, which is the last of these pictures.

Despite my last name, my snow angel was much less successful, as evidenced by its tiny head, sickly wings, thin bottom half (due to my very limited leg flexibility), and the fact that I stepped all over its abdomen.

I’ve been enjoying the snow day, though I can’t say it’s much different than most other days. My life in Spartanburg is sometimes one long snow day.

I was recently rejected from a small works show at Middle Tennessee State University, juried by art critic Dave Hickey. I was supposed to hear from them in November, but as my rejection letter states, Mr. Hickey was “delayed in completing the jurying because of other, unexpected and professional obligations.”

Mr. Hickey was kind enough to send a short note with his rejections. It was substantial enough that I thought I’d share it with you:

“To select this exhibition I looked at every work submitted at least three times. My preference as a critic is for art that is quick, confident, accomplished, and clear in its intentions. My preference as a viewer is for objects over abstractions, abstractions over images, and images over narratives. I prefer color to the lack thereof and joy over pain, which I am always hesitant to empower. This is just my taste, and I have been quick to override it for work I recognize as worthy. I am also forgiving of visual influence from other art and artists since this is preferable to visual ignorance. The works submitted for this exhibition seem positively representative of art practice in the American heartland at this moment. The works I have selected were positively selected. Nothing was rejected. My critical taste, my personal taste and my sense of the exhibition as a thing-in-itself all played a part in this selection of objects I thought you might like to see hanging together. I hope you enjoy it.”

Though it was one of the few things that happened too early to be officially recorded on my blog, some of you may remember that on my first day as a Spartanburg resident, I hit a parked car in a Salvation Army parking lot, took out my right taillight (while causing no harm to the other car, which was practically a tank), and then got caught by a “good samaritan” when I tried to drive away (there’s no sense waiting around for the police when the other guy’s alright, right? wrong, apparently). If you don’t remember this story, you can refer to the first article the Spartanburg Herald-Journal ever wrote about us AIRs as this was the focal point of their portrait of me, characteristically ignoring anything of depth and substance in favor of snappy fluff…but that’s another story…Anyway, it was a horrible mess– the woman who’s car I hit was totally unbalanced– she was practically complaining of whiplash though she wasn’t even in the parked car when I hit it (did I mention there was no damage?). I cried and tried to tell her that it was my first day in Spartanburg, and my first time really hitting the road in five years. She was less than compassionate. Her mother, however, took me aside and assured me that her daughter was a “good Christian” and wasn’t going to take advantage of this. (Welcome to Spartanburg, Arielle! Even the assholes are saved!) I drove around without a taillight for weeks until my good friends down the street at Maaco helped get me back in shape.

Well, it took half a year, but I’ve done it again. And to think that just last night, I was laughing to the other AIRs about how my car has somehow become the “family car,” despite the fact that I am easily the scariest driver in the bunch.

Rachel is giving a reading in Michigan this week. This morning, on our way to beginning the agonizing drive to the Charlotte Airport (which I HATE, it gets longer every time), I somehow managed to back straight into A MACK TRUCK stopped in the parking lot dropping off food at the restaurant (which I DOUBLY HATE, for reasons too numerous to list here, but that I’m sure I’ll get to in the future). On the bright side, it’s impossible for my pathetic toy car to damage the MACK TRUCK, so I don’t have to worry about anything in that department. In fact, the truck driver was pretty apologetic, for reasons I don’t understand.

Now, I don’t mean to sound so angry at everybody else– I’ve got nobody to blame but myself, and it’s no secret that I can’t drive– but HOW THE HELL AM I GOING TO PAY FOR THIS THIS TIME??????!!!!!

On the way back from Charlotte, Derya and I pulled over at a gas station for some refreshments. This is what we saw (but in daylight, of course):

We had no idea how long we had been driving like that. We called Brian to ask him what to do and tried our best to describe the scene. “Does it look kind of like a gory eyeball popped out of its socket?” Derya and I agreed that that was exactly what it looked like. He told us to disconnect it as best we could and keep on driving…Oh dear…

To continue on with the theme of redundancies, I took this picture the other night:

I know you’re probably sick and tired of pictures of my parking lot at this point, but I guess my point is that, well, I’m not. In this town of nothin’-much-doin’, it’s been kind of nice watching the seasons change, and marking photographically the affect that it has had on my most favorite, always-present backyard scene. I absolutely love it when it’s foggy…

Brian, who was looking for paper clips in my desk drawers the other day, informed me that there was a wallet in one of them that still had money in it. How I managed to tuck something like that away and almost permanently forget about it in the span of 8 months is beyond me, but I checked it out and it was legit. My old wallet, with money in it.

I happen to be in the middle of an artistic crisis. It seems that everything I’ve done so far is completely boring and I hate it. It’s making it hard to continue with anything. I actually want to destroy everything I’ve made so far, then kill myself.

But instead of doing that, I’m going to blog about the contents of my old wallet!

1. Cash Money! $28.31, mostly in dollar bills

2. Not one, but three Tasti D-lite punch cards, doubtless from three different Tasti D’s in areas frequently visited (we see here 9th Avenue/44th street and Waverly Place/University Place represented).

3. My health insurance card and the many wonderful things we did together. Those were the days! Acupuncture (which didn’t cure the depression or the ghosts but certainly helped with the constipation), holographic repatterning (which helped with the depression and the ghosts but could not eradicate the fear of the apocalypse), and gynecology (which didn’t help with the apocalypse, but reassured me that it wasn’t happening in my vagina).

4. This. I have no idea what this is, but someone (in Canada) thought that 5 cents was an appropriate amount to print coupons for. And someone else thought that I could use it.

5. Transportation. A New York Metro Card and a D.C. Metro Card. The D.C. card still has $7.65 on it. The New York Metro Card’s worth is undisclosed.

6. Friends’ business cards. I believe Ms. Uresse has changed positions. It’s too bad, because “Button Stylist to the Stars” is a pretty rad job title.

7. My beat-up ticket to “Bodies,” which I visited two years ago at the South Street Seaport in New York. It was the best thing I have ever seen. I saw real fetuses. I saw a thumb with elephantitis. I saw an internal tumor that was growing hair and teeth. And I also know what every single thing inside my body looks like. For days, we would just look at one another and all we could say was “BODIES.”

8. A giveaway card that I had made for an open studio at NYU my senior year. At the time, I was obsessed with the way that mangled umbrellas lined the streets after a storm. It seemed so violent, and for some reason, I loved to picture the moment where each individual umbrella gave out on its owner, and they were forced to join the elements once again.

9. This is one of my favorites; an old one, passed down from wallet to wallet. In middle school and high school, me and my very best friend Elinor used to play this game. Elinor never really liked to write (even though she always managed to crank out a few letters when I went to camp for the summer), so instead of writing notes to one another between classes as most bestest friends do, we used to draw each other pictures. And what were the pictures of? We drew pictures of each other. Sweet, right? Except that we drew pictures of each other dying horribly violent deaths. So I would draw her falling off an absurdly high cliff into the jaws of a hungry alligator. And she would draw me impaled on 4 foot spikes, and so on. I actually think it was pretty advanced humor, considering we were so young.

Here is one such drawing.

The outside:

The way it gets folded up, and because of the reversible nature of the letter H, it almost looks like it might say “HI!” with happy little lines, but no: “DEATH” with some flair. Also, notice the naked woman in the top left corner on the outside page. I have a feeling Elinor didn’t draw that. It’s just not her style.

The inside:

Notice the people laughing at my scared, pathetic, nearly dead ass in the background.

10. Mementos from the road trip. A few days in Vegas that were so crazy, I couldn’t part with our hotel card, and a vintage store in Vancouver that showed a little compassion (in discount form) when all of our clothes were stolen by meth addicts.

11. A reminder of darker times. I ate at this salad place every day when I worked at The Matisse Foundation in midtown. I was miserable. I stood in a line out the door (in the cold) with dozens and dozens of people in suits talking about finance and real estate to get my lunch. I ate alone. Even if I go back there, I won’t let them stamp that remaining happy little lettuce head– it represents my release, right in the nick of time. Or, on second thought, it is a free salad.

12. Art supplies!

13. My student ID, which must have been taken during a bagel eating marathon, or else the lens was distorted. My face is lookin’ round. But I do have a nice tan. I remember I went to take the picture with Cliff, and he had to take it a thousand times because he kept making funny faces and they wouldn’t allow it. He’d make a normal face and then change it to something silly as soon as the flash went off. They tried to be upset with him but the faces were so funny. In the end they compromised: he didn’t do much with his face. He just made his eyes so large and buggy that he looked like zombie.

14. And last, but certainly not least, a monument to the compromising of all of my ideals just to make Zach happy. I love bagels, this is common knowledge. So ever since freshman year of college, Zach has insisted that I one day try bagels and lox. I am a devout vegetarian, 15 years strong. I always declined. At a going away party for yours truly (I was getting ready for an 8 month odyssey, beginning in Spain and ending in Kenya), I got too drunk and yelled, “I’ll do it! I’ll eat lox!” And they held me to it. The next morning, we got bagels from Bob’s (my fav) and lox from the undisputed best lox place in the city, Russ and Daughters on Houston Street. I didn’t buy the lox. I wouldn’t. I ate it and it was a big to-do. (There are several pictures of the first few bites.) It was fucking awesome. Two years later, in honor of my leaving again, to Spartanburg this time, I succumbed to peer pressure and decided to participate in yet another lox extravaganza. It didn’t feel right this time. Once is forgivable, but twice? Why not have a sausage link, or roast a pig on a spit? Why not skin a mink myself and wear it around my neck? But Zach really wanted to do it. This time, because of logistics, I had to pick up the lox. I watched them slice the meat right off the fish. It made me nauseous. I ate the damn bagel, but I didn’t enjoy it and felt ill for two days. Never again.

So that’s it. My wallet. Yippee. Now can someone provide me with a reason to live?

I’ve been putting off blogging. Mostly because I’m not quite sure what I have to say. Perhaps it would have been easier if I had just taken some pictures, and then I could give a dry report of “What I Did On My New York Winter Vacation,” but as many of you know at this point in my blogging career, that’s not really my style. I didn’t take a single picture in New York.

I think I’ll try something new. Perhaps all of the pictures in this blog entry will be furnished by the internet. Yea, that’s it! New York life has always been the most ubiquitous thing; people who have never been there know exactly what it looks like, feels like, etc. So it shouldn’t be too hard to fabricate my trip, compliments of Google Image search.

Let’s start at the beginning…

I flew into LaGuardia Airport in Queens. I was not going to Manhattan this time– all but one of my friends have fled that borough. To my cab driver’s dismay, I was on my way to Bushwick, Brooklyn. I know nothing of Queens– if I was blindfolded and dropped there I might not recognize it. But soon we were driving over the BQE and I saw this:

…and I cried.

And then we were in Brooklyn, and I was with my friends. Just like that. Back to my life.

I don’t know how to describe how I felt, wandering through all-too-familiar neighborhoods and streets in the next few days, except to say that I was feeling so many things at once that I was downright emotional. I suppose it was love foremost, and comfort, the feeling that I was returning to myself somehow, holding close that squirmy, elusive idea of “home” that I have been trying so hard to pin down since I left New York 9 months ago. It was nostalgia next (oh, I am just too sentimental!), and I walked around feeling everything that had happened to us (because there was an us then, a large group of “us”) in specific places– feeling almost that there should be a landmark there– it was that beautiful. I walked with my eyes opened to the changing storefronts, frowning a little (and often) at the new things, disturbing my memory of the order of businesses on a certain avenue.

But there was fear, too, persistent and competitive with all of the other fuzzier feelings. I visited Howie in her apartment on 23rd Street in Manhattan– bedrooms that only fit beds, where you squeeze between “rooms” through barely opened doors, the space behind them now essential for storage. I won’t tell you what that apartment costs. I’ll just say that even my friends in Bushwick will pay up to $800 a month. They have more space, but they pay for it in peace of mind. There is a strong police presence there with intentions of easing the tension between the black and Hispanic communities and the young, gentrifying white population, but it seems they do little to stop the muggings and instead serve as a conspicuous reminder of the tension itself.

This is Broadway in Bushwick, where I lived on my visit:

…forever in the gloomy shadow of the above-ground J train.

I spent too much money while I was there: dinners that weren’t supposed to be as expensive as they were, transportation (the subway mostly, but some expensive drunken late-night cab rides), entertainment (museums, movies, music, drinks, drinks, and drinks), and other things that I cannot pinpoint. It seemed that at the end of even the most idle days, days where I could not recall a single activity, I had somehow spent $100 or more. I cannot say that this is a foreign feeling– I remember it well. That city sucks your money. Tiny things add up. Suddenly, you’re broke.

Hence, the fear. New York is home. This is certain. I feel it and know it everywhere- mind, body, and whatever else is left. But will I ever be able to go home again? After living in Spartanburg, in a luxury apartment (washer! dryer! full kitchen! appliances that work! heat and ac!) and painting sometimes 10 hours daily, can I really go back there? New York chewed me up and spit me out to Spartanburg. If it hadn’t, I would have been swallowed. I do not know that I can survive that again.

And so even though I told my friends with absurd confidence that I would return, had to return, I must admit now that I am just not sure. As we learn from countless stories, sometimes even the strongest love is not enough. Since I was a small child, visiting my grandparents in New York, it has felt like home, but I may have to live the rest of my life in exile…

In any event, the trip was wonderful. I saw all of my friends and we had lots of fun. New Years we were all together at a potluck turned dance party at Rachel’s house in Bushwick (thanks Rach!). At midnight, we hugged and kissed and celebrated, yelled with true New York cynicism, “It’s 2008! Everything is different now!” and that was nice.

I took deep pleasure in indulging a few of my favorite things: a wax with Ula at Gemini Salon in the West Village, followed by a walk east to Bagel Bob’s, a bagel to eat in Washington Square Park.

(this last camera phone picture of the park is actually my own, the only one I took on the aforementioned outing)

Ula was so happy to see me, she was getting sentimental, reminded me that she was, in many ways, my first friend in New York, as she met me my first month there, in September of 2002. “You were so cold,” she said, “and you were getting so fat eating bagels.”

I ate borscht at my favorite vegetarian hole in the wall, B and H, with Cliff and Howie:

…and then we went to the New Museum on the Bowery to check out their opening show, “Unmonumental.” I spent the rest of my trip taking sides in arguments with people I went to art school with about whether or not it sucked (it did. Art needs to move towards some level of accessibility. Art objects need standalone power. It’s fucking boring already. That’s all I have to say about that. )

By the time Sunday came, I was ready to get back to the Spiz and get some work done. I was exhausted and financially destitute. Derya thinks that New York is best for visiting…

…and I have to go back, even if it kills me.

Stay posted for yet another installment of “Notes on Home.”

I was sitting out on the balcony this morning, enjoying some raisin toast, listening to the ocean, feeling the sun on my face, and reading The New York Times, when I came across an article entitled “Snowstorm Sweeps Across the Midwest, Killing 19.”  The picture above the article was of weary passengers at a powerless airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan (Rachel’s hometown, for those that don’t know).  The article went on to detail the horrendous weather in Wisconsin and Michigan specifically.   

It made me feel just a little bit guilty about having sent the other AIRs this picture message via cell phone just a few days earlier:

The accompanying text read “my stupid life right now.”  I received no reply.  I now believe I understand why.  Old people, chlorine and palm trees is way better than general freeze, icy roads and, most likely, being shut in with your parents (no matter how wonderful they may be).  So I apologize and promise to be more grateful.  And besides, I said it was stupid, I never said it was rough.

Incidentally, it’s Christmas.  I did my Jewish duty and ate some form of Asian food, and my mother saw a movie to complete the stereotype (apparently, you all must see “The Rape of Europa.” It’s just fabulous).  Merry you-know-what to all of you out there who care, and an extra special shoutout to people trying desperately right now not to murder their entire families. (Hang in there.)

New York here I come. 

So, Miami sucks. For real. Apparently the only week it’s worth being around here ever is Art Basel, the first week of December, and of course, I’m stuck here the week before and the week after. I’ve decided that I am going to pretend I never left Spartanburg and just paint all the time. I’ve set up a pathetic little studio in one of the many “guest rooms” in my mother’s house (she could’ve just told us that they were “our” rooms and we’d be none the wiser, and we probably wouldn’t resent her so much, but no, they’re “guest rooms”) with a giant tarp laid over everything. My mother is still awake nights worrying about the carpet. Trying to paint in this house is like…what’s the phrase…letting out a bull in an antique shop?

It is warm, I will say that for it.

Anyway, one of the many plusses in this monstrosity of a home-that’s-not-mine is that it does not get wireless internet, so my mother’s computer is the only one that is hooked up in the entire, humongous, useless apartment. This means I spend a lot of time in her office. The office is full of pictures, and I thought I would share some with you.

So apparently, I’m related to these people. I guess we are all Jewish.

It’s too bad you can’t see the pictures too well, but the frame is really the kicker when it comes to this one. Me (dressed as a cat as a young child) and Mushy the Cat in conjoined hearts. Yep, we’re regular twins, best buddies. Let me tell you a little bit about Mushy. She was given to my mother as a gift before I was born. My relationship with Mushy is one of fear and hatred. She was like my anti-social, often violent older sister. As she got older, she hid most of the time, when she came out, my brother and I regarded her as a monster, and tried our hardest to steer entirely clear of any room she was last sighted in. Oh boy, was she evil. But look at us– hearts.

This is my brother at Hebrew Day School. Believe it or not, this is the closest he has come to an actual smile in any picture we have of him. My father and step-mother used to complain that he ruined all their wedding pictures with his train-wreck of a happy face. I suppose the whole family is better at sad faces, angry faces, and faces of general malaise and discontent. Except my mother. She’s fabulous.

This is my sister when she was little. She was the cutest.

She soon became this person. My mother thinks this is the funniest picture ever. It’s kind of a popular thing for people to make picture videos of their child’s life thus far for their Bar or Bat-Mitzvahs and play them on a big screen for all the guests. Well, my mother liked this picture so much that it was included in the big screen slide show at my sister’s Bat-Mitzvah, right before the one of her giving the middle finger to the camera. How do you like that one, rabbi? “Oh, come on, it’s funny. Anyone who doesn’t think so is uptight,” said my mother.

(This picture has been removed at the request of my mother.  She is very upset about the “invasion of her privacy.”)

This is my mother. Look at those shoes. I don’t even want to know the circumstances in which this picture was taken.

And then there are the following pictures of me. I am posting these mostly for Derya’s enjoyment (but feel free to enjoy them if you are everyone else):

Uh-huh, Glamour Shots. That hair is glamorous. And so is the material of that jacket, just glamorous.