dumplingboy

from ryan & natalie. check it.

Stress Begone!

Ahhhhhh. The recording is finished. CMJ is over. Our shows went well. Claire Danes owns a copy of our EP. I'm all moved into a fabulous new apartment with gorgeous views. My girlfriend still likes me. Life is good...

Finally got to see Au Revoir Simone who were lovely, precious, identical triplets. See picture above.

Rewards are going out to anyone who has a lead on Mahogany's stolen equipment.

Go see Agora at McCarren Pool. Viva Lafrance.

I finally gave in and joined Netflix. First DVDs  in the queue are Arrested Development: Season 1, Discs 2 & 3, and Andy Goldsworthy's: Rivers & Tides.

Feelin' Like A New Man

No More Allergies! No More Colds! I feel like a new man. It's amazing what breathing can do for a person. I resolve to show my winning smile coupled with my hardy infectious laugh more. I vow to take romance to levels previously unknown to humankind. I feel like a million bucks, and I love life! I want to make love to you! Yes YOU!

In other news, J & I went to Jones Beach Tuesday night for the Pixies | Interpol | LCD Soundsystem show. We got there early and spent an hour on the beach watching waves, a hot chick making out, and seagulls. It was delightful. We also crammed our faces with french fries and cheeseburgers. It was all so splendid that God decided to show his approval by delivering a watery dollop of creamy mustard from a seagull's ass right onto our happy held hands.

LCD Soundsystem kicked things off with an energetic set which was actually much tighter than their concert at Bowery a couple months back. I guess that's what some serious touring will do for you. Interpol, on the other hand, didn't sound so hot. I've seen them play 3 or 4 fantastic shows over the past couple years. But, they were just off Tuesday night. Bad sound mix (I suspect sabotage by the Pixies sound crew), and sloppy playing. Paul's vocals were way out in front, everything sounded muffled, and Daniel screwed up quite a bit. It probably had something to do with the ridiculous little Michael Jackson dance step he was busting out. Daniel? No. Please. Just. No. Stop. OK? Carlos had a rather unbecoming blood red shirt on underneath his black vest. And what was up with his sunglasses? It was still light when they came on stage and he probably doesn't go outside during the daytime very often. The best part of their performance was that as soon as they stepped onto stage, all these big crazy bats (not to mention the gigantic prehistoric dragonflies) started flying across the ampitheater. I suspect they belonged to Carlos D.

Once again, The Pixies were amazing.

Saturday we have The Pillowman matinee followed by Before Sunrise & Before Sunset back-to-back at BAM, then Laura's party late night. I can't wait for The Pillowman. I'm looking forward to it all.

Hecuba opens at BAM tomorrow. There's also an interesting online art auction in the main lobby -- the first of its kind at BAM. The whole lobby is filled with work. Some great, some not so great. $50 to the first person to steal one of the pieces. Trust me, it doesn't look so hard. $10 for the first person to accidentally knock one of the pieces down during opening night. It's going to be insane mane!

Andrew & Lauren. Thanks for the BBQ last Friday. The baked beans made me very horny.

Spent

It's only been 22 days since my last posting. Is that too long? I'm so spent. April's been a long month...

THANK YOU to everyone who came out to the Save Darfur benefit I organized at Northsix on Tuesday night for Doctors Without Borders and Human Rights Watch. I have been so happily consumed with the finer details of this project for the better part of the month, I can't believe how well it turned out in the end! With just under 2 weeks to plan and under 1 week to promote it amounted to a big success. In addition to the thousands of people who were made more aware that there is something happening in Sudan through the collective promotion of this benefit, we brought in over 300 people to the show and raised over $2100 for the cause. This little bit of money will go a long way in providing proper medical care & and adequate levels of basic comfort for thousands of refugees and children in the region for months to come.

Thank you to Stars, Kevin Devine & The Goddamn Band, The Jeffrey Lewis Band, and The Fatales for their awesome performances and their committment to the cause. A heartfelt thanks to Kevin Phelan & Stephanie Davies at Doctors Without Borders, Annie Sparrow at Human Rights Watch, and Tali Ruderman, Stephanie Baum, & Evan Schultz for volunteering their time and expertise to help me pull off such a smooth event.

Lastly, a special thanks to J for her inspiration, encouragement, & beautiful sense of humanity that she displays every single day.

TONIGHT, IF you're looking for something interesting, fun, & free, go check out the Hilary Harkness opening at the Mary Boone Gallery (uptown) on 5th Ave. & 57th Street. She'll be showing some new drawings, watercolors, and one oil painting; quite different from her previous all-oil exhibitions. It should be really fantastic. Her work is brilliant.

If art's not your thing, go see Kung Fu Hustle. J & I saw it last night, and it was great. A little darker than Shaolin Soccer, but equally absurd and so much fun to watch. In Stephen Chow, we trust.

After Mary Boone tonight, we're going to see Eros. Wong Kar-Wai, Soderbergh, Antonioni: "Three visionary directors. One erotic journey." Sounds like total crap, but I can't wait.

Phillips Auction - Tsunami Benefit

Phillips is having a silent auction this evening as a benefit for Tsunami relief. There's going to be work from a bunch of fantastic renown & emerging artists including my good friend An Hoang. Hope you can make it out. Check out the details, artists, & their work here:

http://scenic-group.net/tsunamibenefit/

wood, hay, soil, tar, chicken wire, black sand, white powder, silk flowers, wax, dry wall, religious statues, taxidermy, hair, ribbons, bird cages, and other

If you've already seen The Gates, or are just tired of hearing about them, the SculptureCenter in Long Island City has a Petah Coyne exhibition up until April 10. I went with Jeremy H a few weeks back, and it's pretty awesome. Check it out. I highly recommend. In addition, in the basement of the center, there's a "special project series" called In Practice, which features commissioned installation work of several emerging artists.

Justin Lowe's site-specific piece is every child's dream fort. Jeremy and I literally crawled through it on our hands and knees, and did it twice because it was so much fun. There's a really cool room that has a bunch of faux-orange amps and the sweet sound of some old tinny & reverby Velvet Underground-esque guitars. Here's a description of his piece:

Justin Lowe's site-specific installation dramatically transforms a seventy-foot long gallery in SculptureCenter's lower-level and asks viewers to walk through, crawl under, and step over a furniture-fort made of scavenged sofas, chairs, bed-frames, refrigerators, carpeting, and many other objects and materials reflecting domestic space. After passing through dense tunnel-like sections of furniture, viewers emerge into a series of clearings that become quiet hide outs: cabinet-of-curiosity moments within an engulfing junkyard of household objects. Making their way through the artist's installation, passersby appear and disappear, as if swallowed by an overcrowded and cluttered house.

I can't wait to see Tim Hawkinson's exhibition at the Whitney. I hear it's the bomb. And yes, I'm going to keep using the hopelessly outdated phrase "the bomb" for a lot lot longer, so get used to it.

Does anyone have any other recommendations?

Prints and Presses and Preparations, Oh My.

On Saturday, Arlene helped me shop for materials in the fabric district for my Halloween pickle costume. But, first, she brought me to the Center for Book Arts where she's doing a workstudy and had to pick up some prints she made. This place is so great! I had no idea it existed. They have all these gorgeous old printing presses and book presses and a really nice exhibit too. It was a large open loft space with smiley people going about their own business and a small book-making class going on in the front of the space. It was really fascinating and inspiring. I took some photos while I was there. Check 'em out here. I have a bunch of photos of the pickle from Halloween too, but I'm an idiot and marked the wrong side of my burned CD with all the images, so my computer here at work can't read it. I'll make another disc and post them soon. Happy Monday.