Texas United River Rally 2008
9:33 am | 0 | Photo Album | Two Wheels
How much fun did I have this weekend?
I’ll post a full update when I get around to it.
P.S. Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes!
Twenty eight
11:03 am | 0 | Blog | Below The 38th Parallel
My house is empty. The dog is with doggie friends, husband is millions of miles away. It’s hard sometimes to sleep when it’s like this, even harder when I am excited about something.
I will be spending my birthday tonight on the banks of the Guadalupe River, figuring out how to attach my digi-cam to the handlebars of my scooter so I can capture the Texas Hill Country scenery as it passes by during tomorrow’s ride.
Yesterday during a bizarre spring-y rainstorm I looked at the umbrella I bought in Seoul, the one that reminds me of a Magritte painting, and had a very strange feeling.
I looked at this umbrella in my hand, and for a split second I felt a fondness and nostalgia for the monsoon season in Korea, for waking up in the mornings and watching the fog rise over the bay and walking everywhere with a umbrella in my hand, the smell of humidity in the air before the stifling heat of summer.
It’s the first time I’ve felt any kind of longing for Korea since we got home. And as soon as I realized what it was, it was gone.
Baseball fan
4:15 pm | 0 | Photo Album | El Perro
Photo taken by Keefe Borden (a.k.a. VE) at last Sunday’s hash. Click to see more of his work.
Races, wrecks and wheelies
12:11 pm | 2 | Photo Album, Video | Friends, Two Wheels
Friday is my birthday and I am unnaturally excited about making my way down to Gruene and New Braunfels, TX, for the recently resuscitated Texas United River Rally. There will be scooting! And tubing! I have never been to the Guadalupe River. I am entering the last two years of my 20s! I am camping alone in my tent but will be surrounded by friends old and new.
Here is a collection of silly videos from the last rally that had no place to live, so I mashed them into one great movie instead.
Sandblast II from Brittanie on Vimeo.
Shakin’ that stick and drivin’ me crazy
9:53 pm | 3 | Blog | El Perro, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
For those of you who know me and have already heard this rant, yes, I am still seething about this, and no, I will not get over it. For those of you who haven’t, the story that follows is pretty gross, both in terms of bodily functions and general human behavior. There is a picture at the end. Read on if you have the fortitude. (more…)
Art Car sadness
12:14 am | 0 | Photo Album | Houston
Tom Jones, curator at the Houston Art Car Museum, was killed early this morning, just a few hours after the annual Art Car Parade wrapped, after he was hit by a speeding car while sitting on the curb outside the museum.
So sad. The parade is one of the things I love best about Houston. I spent all afternoon taking pictures and had an excellent time, as usual, and part of that is due to the hard work Jones lovingly put into the museum and the parade over the years. Truly a devastating loss for the Houston art community.
Above is Jones riding yesterday in a car called Swamp Mutha. Click the image for more pictures of the parade. To quote Jones: “Keep America’s roads weird — build an Art Car!”
Who Is Singing Me Lullabies?
12:36 am | 0 | Internerd | Family, Listening
A touching NPR story in honor of Mother’s Day.
All James Brown, all the time
9:02 pm | 2 | Video | Watching
Jesus, James Brown’s widow is my new hero.
Best line: My husband would not let anybody see him not made up. I was his hairdresser, trust me. He had to be fly, okay! All the time!
(Via Dlisted)
Black and proud
9:24 pm | 0 | Video | Listening
I know the 40th anniversary of the assassination of MLK was roughly a month ago, but above is an amazing video of James Brown performing in Boston the night after the shooting, and here is the accompanying story of how JB prevented a massive riot from happening that evening. (Via AskMe)
The devil’s darning needles
11:02 pm | 0 | Blog | Watching, Writing
The worst thing about working in the museum is that, when I’m not at work, the last place I want to hang out is the museum. As a result, I have not yet seen the two biggest exhibits.
When Nan Goldin was there I did manage to eat lightening-fast lunches nearly every day so that I could spend my remaining 45 minutes sitting in the velvet-dark, cold gallery, watching her disturbing slide-shows. I first heard of Goldin when she was referenced in a passing comment on MetaFilter, and since then I’ve been borderline obsessed with her work. There doesn’t seem to be anything special about it, and that might be the draw. Each photo alone is a glimpse into her strange and sad life, but look at them as a whole and you get a very vivid and complete picture of who the woman is, who her friends are and what her life has been like. After sitting through one of her slide-shows I leave convinced that I know this person, that we are friends. I get this feeling from other creators too, people who seem to have selflessly invited us into their lives, no matter how superficially, and who address us with the kind of familiarity with which one would address a sibling.
It might not surprise you to learn that two of these people are bloggers. It’s the nature of the medium.
Art and music and movies seem to have synchronistically melded into my life lately. There is a scene in CQ (which we just watched again) where Paul is talking with his French girlfriend about the film he’s trying to make. Frustrated with his own pretenses, he tells her he just wants to make something that is real and honest. Marlene turns right around and says to him, “But what if it’s boring?” Could there be a greater comment on our self-obsessed narcissistic blog-addicted generation?
Later in the movie Paul meets his father at the airport. Dad tells Paul that his grandmother used to believe dragonflies would come in the night and stitch up one’s mouth if one told lies. Dad finishes by saying “Maybe you can use it somehow. You never know when some little overheard story or image can find a place in your work.”
When my Inprint instructor Randi found out that Christopher and I met through some scootering buddies she was fascinated by the story. She said to me, you don’t think there’s anything special about that because it’s your everyday normal life, but to me that sounds like a great beginning for a story.
Which leads me to Barton Fink, another movie we just re-watched. Throughout the movie Barton is surrounded by inspiration and muses and he remains willfully ignorant of them. Thus the beginning of his self-imposed writer’s block.
Not sure where I’m going here, just a few things I’ve been thinking about lately.