happy accident

So I just finished a series of pieces based on the Marcel Duchamp painting "The Chocolate Grinder."

Or, I should say, based on what I remember, based on the framed print I have of it, which is stashed somewhere on my back porch along with heaps of books, boxes of audio tubes and files full of job evaluations and insurance paperwork from 1993.

I didn't look at the print first.

It is not brown and gray. Perfect!

my tattoo is in a book.

My sewing machine tattoo is in a book.

I have now held a copy in my hands, and it's true, there it is: my forearm for all the world to see. Of course they didn't tell me it was "A fascinating catalog of visual imagery and personal folly" - ha ha. It turns out I'm proud of my folly. It may be the only thing I can truly call my own.

"Those who realize their folly are not true fools." - Zhuangzi

serious trouble will bypass you.

my window sill would never tell you a lie.

space is the place

I have a great Sun Ra quote somewhere, a good long rambling paragraph about how in these times you need to listen to the people who don't know what they're talking about. But I can't find it. So trust me.

Space is the place. There is a mortgage crisis, the stock market, which has never seemed real to me anyway, is bouncing all over. So what do I do? I sign a lease on a gigantic gorgeous artist studio. Good opportunities never seem to come at rational times.

I'm moving in this weekend and on Monday morning it will be my job. The more uncertain the world is, the more I prefer to have my fate in my own hands. And my own hands can't wait to set things up there and start creating great things.

the accidental parade is more entertaining than the real one.

Okay, that was fun. I'm sore, groggy, and my face hurts from smiling so much. The Westcott St. Cultural Fair, with it's bizarre little peace-puppet parade, its aging co-op members, African dancers, slender vegans and high ratio of scruffy-teens has come and gone.

Dang! I met some sweet people, had lots of people seek me out from last year, saw lots of old store customers, chatted with new and old friends, and enjoyed the day long other parade, the informal one, the neverending stream of people I've seen around forever but never met, who all seem to be getting older too. There's that guy we used to call Bohemian Man, he's traded in his lizard boots for sneakers. Is that woman one of the belly dancers or is that her real outfit? Oh, that guy's rasta hat is even bigger. Humans and time, they make a great parade.