Turn Your Back on Rick Warren

Imagine -
On Inaugural day, everyone in Washington turns their back on him.
Perfect.

Last day for Art

On Nov. 15 we went to LACMA to see Machine Project's Field Guide to LACMA and it was a fun way to spend the day. Part of the reason was that the activities - scattered around the LACMA campus allowed you to see some art and galleries that you normally just avoided because let's face it, not only is LACMA blessed with the most hideous buildings for housing art (don't get me started on that - including the new Broad) but the collection isn't first rate, so you have a lot of second tier work from first tier artists or you have work from really justifiably obscure adherents to historical art movements. Though I do like the Georges de la Tour Magdalene a great deal - but it's sandwiched between such terrible work that I forget to go visit it. But to be in a room of rather okay religious works from the 1500 - 1700s and to hear Lewis Keller's Thornton Room Rumble Modification was great. The live re-mix of the ambient air conditioning system of the Ahmanson building lent a direness and urgency - a sense of dread to these paintings. The Musical Elevator was funny. And the Gothic Arch Speed Metal - one minute of speed metal from the roof of a building - complete with Gothic Arch and smoke machine was totally hilarious. My favorite piece was the Peeping Netsuke by Jason Torchinsky - Netsukes being these little hand carved ivory talismans from Japan. In the Japanese pavilion you went into the Netsuke exhibit room which has hundreds of these little carved figurines in little boxes and suddenly you see a photo of a large one popping up outside the window. Walking to the photo you look outside and discover the apparatus - a hand made machine - powering a slowly turning bicycle wheel that has the Netsuke photo attached. It causes the photo to appear and then disappear - all with a sly wink to Marcel Duchamp. Great fun.
In another element that would bring joy to the Dadaists - the throngs of people walking around behaving in a most un-museum goer like ways had some of the more uptight guards in a tizzy. As people snapped photos of performers and talked on cell phones they would be chastised by the ignored guards desperately trying to enforce rules.

We also saw the Martin Kippenberger and Louise Bourgeois shows at LACMA. Kippenberger reminded me of RW FAssbinder - prolific, intense, obsessed and lost. Seeing all the Bourgeois pieces together, the limp structures with the hard materials was all together creepy and made you wonder about her childhood, which the accompanying materials hinted at was dark without elucidating with specifics.

Finally we popped off last week to the Hammer to see the woodcuts and the Oranges and Sardines exhibits. Oranges and Sardines takes abstract work as it's starting points and asks several abstract painters to select two pieces of their own and then several ones that influenced them. This is an interesting idea that resulted in a completely uninteresting show. Which is I guess why curators have jobs. However Gouge the woodcut show was an excellent example of why we need curators. There was an idea for the show, excellent examples that displayed that idea and crisp language inviting the viewer to understand and wonder. My particular favorite was a print that was just a sinuous black line wandering down the page. This line depicts the map's border between India and Pakistan with the rest of the picture being gouged out into nothingness - the empty space, the negative space on either side of the border. Killer. Best thing I've seen in years.

I can't Imagine A Better President to Throw Your Shoe At

And while we're at it, I want to send the moving van to the white house to pack the Bushies up and get them out of Washington today. Wouldn't it be great if a Mayflower moving van just arrived today and 20 workers got out and just packed them up and shipped them off? Let's get them out of there before the 20th! And let's throw shoes at them the entire way. Maybe Imelda Marcos can loan us some shoes. And did you notice? He didn't even seem to realize that this was an insult? I mean I didn't know that shoes and the soles of shoes was an insult in Iraq until after we invaded the country and killed all those civilians, but after we did I found out that it's an insult. You'd think that something about the culture of the country he invaded for no reason other than a neo-con's say so would have sunk in. What a fucking embarrassment.

Anise Seed Wafers

I came across a recipe for Tortas de Aciete y Anis in the cookbook "Food of Spain". I am always looking for recipes where the fat in the cookie or biscuit or bread or wafer is olive oil and there seems to be some tradition of this in Spain because Mark Bittman has a great orange cookie recipe that he says is an ancient Sevillan recipe. So I tried this recipe and it is quite good - I of course added the part about whole wheat flour and I like a little less sugar. The totally weird thing about this was that the liquids are all alcoholic - beer and anissette - except for the olive oil. Easy to make and fun, they remind me of my friend T., an epicurean dandy who used to mix hash and tobacco into roll your own anise papers. Ahhh, the days of youth.

Speaking of which, I have started to notice that some people in LA have an abundance of statuary. This house has many many many replicas of David.

Tortas de Aciete y Anis
3 cups all purpose flour (or half and half all purpose and whole wheat pastry)
1/2 Cup Olive Oil
1/2 cup beer
1/4 Cup Spanis Anis Liqueur

1/2 cup Sugar
1/4 cup Sesame Seeds
2 Tabls. Aniseeds

Preheat oven to 400 - line baking sheet with parchment.

Mix flour, 1 teas. salt in a bowl and make a well. Pour in beer, olive oil and anissette. Mix into a dough. Knead for about 4 minutes. Make into a ball. Divide dough in half. Divide each half into 8 portions.

Combine sugar sesame seeds and aniseeds.

Make a pile of seed mixture on your work surface, put a piece of dough on it, roll out on top of the seeds, embedding the seeds into the top. You want a six inch round. Put the rounds on baking sheet, seed side up and bake for about 5 or 6 minutes, until bases are crisp. Then broil until the sugar carmelizes about 60 secs in my case in my oven.

Drink with coffee and a little anisette.

We have been stressing out about the election and so ....

We garden.

Here you can see the central part of the driveway, which we dug up, removed the bricks and then planted with dymondia - a non-native plant that is drought resistant. The sides were dug up as well and California Fescue, which is native was planted. You can see the arch of the lemon tree that the beloved C. has been shaping.

The Rev. Auntie L got us started on this kick by giving us a garden center gift certificate. So off we went to purchase plants and to labour in the yard. The side garden here is coming along, soon we will plant bamboo mumbly and purple manzanita and then we will espalier meyer lemon and kaffir lime against the fence.

Here is the front of the house, with about a five foot square of evil grass dug up and planted with dymondia, and the front planter under the kitchen window having the weeds replaced with Allodia and some weird round ball stuff we had lying around in a pot with a distressed cactus. So we planted them in the planter as well and then took the stones that we had used on the back patio that we dug and really wasn't working because Beso was digging them out and eating the stones.

And here is a top - down view of the planter

Here's a close up of the Allodia.

And here is a photo of Beso looking like the flying nun.

Things I wonder about

The New York Times reported that in Georgia, the Georgians count in Base 20 and have
consonant clusters like “gvprtskvni”. And that maybe the closest language is Basque.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/weekinreview/24barry.html?ref=weekinreview

What does this mean? How can you have a base 20 counting system in 2008? Do the children have to go to school barefoot so they can use their fingers and toes to do math?

In the markets do people say “gvprtskvni” while waving their fingers and toes about meaning I'll have DA20 cows and you can pay in .D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6 payments? I mean the Brits got rid of their base 12 monetary system years and years ago leaving us mystified readers when we have to read Dickens or Austen what's a shilling and why on earth do you need a ha'penny?

Further, isn't it interesting that Georgia has break away Republics like Ossetia, with the Ossetians speaking a Farsi like language, while the Basques are trying to break away from Spain?

I know we're all supposed to be appalled that Georgia is being invaded by Russia, and it's a democracy - but can you really be a democracy when you count in base 20? I don't think so.

This begs the question, why can't we all get along. As long as you do things my way, in Base 10.
Really. Counting is only useful when you can use just your fingers.

It's not like I am obsessed with garbage cans

I am really not possessive and think that many things are little things that one shouldn't get gray hairs over. But imagine my surprise when - on a completely clear street, some tubby blonde from Lodi parked her Ford on MY TRASHCANS. Seriously these huge trucks are a hazard when knocking over three garbage cans and PARKING on top of one isn't noticed. And we know the tubby blonde didn't notice, because if she had she would have backed up and parked on the other side of the street so that it didn't look like the person who actually wrecked the garbage cans was around, right? People do hit and runs all the time, leaving people on the street bloody and dismembered, so why wouldn't the tubby blonde have giggled and driven on, leaving the wreckage of my garbage strewn on the streets for me to pick up? She certainly didn't pick up after herself when she left. Do we have statistics on how many children and chihuahas have been flattened by these trucks since cars have become so inflated? I bet the number of fling chihuahuas has increased by 450% in the past ten years.

The New York Times Freakonomics blog asked the question, Can we Shame Drivers into better behaviour and used the web site, PlateWire as an example. So I signed up and put the tubby blonde's plate in the database. You can see it here --> http://www.platewire.com/viewrate.aspx?rid=34558

Anyway, all I'm saying, is if you are a tubby blonde stupid enough to live in Lodi you need intervention because the crystal meth you are getting is a hazard - and it isn't making you any thinner and it's ruining your teeth. So just stop driving and hope that you haven't run anything over that matters.

An old friend of mine, Dorit Naaman, did an email blast yesterday about being targeted by a right wing Israeli group that monitors Israeli academics and defames them. An idiot who knows nothing about Dorit's work named Lee Kaplan from isracampus.org is incensed that Dorit is an Israeli who supports Palestinian independence as a way to peace in the Mid East. So he called her a pornographer and now when you google her name his hate-filled rant shows up. However, if you would like to help out, click on the links below and those real articles that Dorit ACTUALLY wrote and what she ACTUALLY stands for (hmm, academic articles about cinema - heavens!) will sort higher than this scurrilous attack.

Oh, and the photos, figs are in season again. They look nice on the new counter top.

http://www.publicjournal.ca/submissions.htm

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2342/is_1_36/ai_89985880?tag=artBody;col1

http://www.jff.org.il/?CategoryID=547&ArticleID=553

http://www.wbez.org/audio_library/od_ramar03.asp

http://www.yorku.ca/crs/Refuge/refuge_-_volume_22,_issue_no__1.htm

http://www.unescocenter.gr/programm.htm

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/512624?prevSearch=Dorit+Naaman

http://www.digipopo.org/content/

http://www.film.queensu.ca/Dorit.html

http://www.ir-amim.org.il/Eng/?CategoryID=274&ArticleID=309

http://www.rabble.ca/in_her_own_words.shtml?x=58505

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/cinema_journal/v040/40.4naaman.html

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/nwsa_journal/v018/18.3naaman.html

http://inscribe.iupress.org/doi/abs/10.2979/HYP.2008.23.2.17

Yee Ha - It's a Sign!

So I was up in Central No Cal hanging out with a bunch of sound engineers and I found this fabulous sign out near the edge of the slough. It was a beautiful day and I had just had a fabulous breakfast at the local greasy spoon which opened at 5:00 am for the fisherman crowd.

I don't know, but is it just me - I keep on hearing these pop culture references to "80's music" - the last time was in the promo for the sisterhood of the pants, or whatever the hell that movie is and all these pretty girls are preparing for a wild (tame) time of sisterhood and they're going through a checklist of what they need and "80's music" is on it. And last year there was that movie where Hugh Grant plays a washed up 80's pop star. Huh? Is the Clash safe now? What happened? Where am I? What happened to retro ironic bowling and poodle skirts? What decade am I in? How co-opted can co-option get? Is there nothing sacred?
Of course I LOVED when they played Wreckless Eric's Whole Wide World in Stranger than Fiction last year, but I just thought that the music editor had good taste.

Squirrely!

Here are the hounds, exhibiting hound behavior, treeing a squirrel in the fig tree. Here is the squirrel, eating a fig.

Sex Organs - the flowers and the bees - Oh! My!

So we planted some Zucchini and I promised myself that I would never, ever let the zucchini get overly large and watery. Too small and they are bitter, too large and they are ridiculous.

But really look at this flower - don't you just want to crawl right down it and never come back up? Check out the bee in the photo as well. Wow - it's drunk on orange pollen. This is some orgy of a flower. It is as promiscuous as the fruit of the plant. It wakes up golden in the morning and says "Honey!!!!!! Let's Make LOVE! And bring your FRIENDS!"

Dear me, I was practically fainting every time I walked out. And if the Zucchini sex extravaganza out back wasn't enough look at what I have out front. Yes the fried egg plant. Who knew?

These Matijila poppies are a big bush of white flowers and orange organ centers - dripping pollen all over. It's amazing that people ever paved anything with all this riot of flowering sex all over. And yes, Georgia O'Keefe was painting flowers and sex. Notice it, you know?

Today I made Zucchini bread, because I let some get too large. Sometimes it is just too much to keep the flora in control.

We went to see the Kara Walker show, which was pretty incredible and filled with small children who didn't know what to do with the much more complex and sexual views of slavery that were on display. But my word what a great show.
I saw the Murakami show and that did nothing for me.
We went to the new Broad museum and the collection is wonderful, even if the building is not. The new BCAM building fits in with the other buildings a LACMA - boring limestone box (except the Japanese Pavillion which is round limestone) - it is a total disappointment. But inside there is quite a lot of great art. The show made me rethink Jeff Koons, who came across as a witty mastermind of pop art, and confirmed my opinion of Damien Hirsch as someone who picks the wings of butterflies. Yuck! Downstairs are some really great, massive sculptures by Richard Serra that are a gorgeous delirious experience.

Speaking of delirium, I made my first batch of cheese this weekend. You know, as a lark. Served it to guests just waiting to say Oh it's Fromage de Scott. But no one asked so I had to say "Hey I made the cheese!" And of course, everyone thought I was joking.

And at work of course, everyone thinks I am a joke - cheesehead!

Completion: A good Feeling

When looking at the kitchen from the dining room you can use the portholes to see in as well as the doorway.


To the left we see the windows, range and the upholstered chair.

You can see the skye vodka tile here - 50% post consumer waste went into this floor. Too bad we had to do it twice, that makes it 25% post consumer waste or 50% my waste.

So far, I love my range. Though the convection oven automatically reduces your oven temp by 25 degrees which means that your banana bread isn't fully cooked in the middle.

Leche looks lovely in the kitchen as she comes towards me away from the custom shelves that we painted orange.

More Kitchen Photos

The sink.

You can see the portholes in the kitchen door here.

A close up of the built in shelves with the legs for support.

Signs: Safari Inn - More evidence that Laura Bush is an idiot.

So tens of thousands are dead and hundreds of thousands are displaced and homeless and Laura Bush says let US Aide in to the leaders of Myanmar's junta. Then she scolds them. Ummm. Like if you want to get something done, like US foreign aid, tone down the stupid scolding. Yes, yes we know they are not nice guys. Help the people who are devastated and then scold the dictators.

Also, isn't it the pot calling the kettle black when Laura says that the military junta didn't do anything before the storm? Has Laura forgotten her hubby's performance during Katrina when over 1800 people died in the flooding and people are STILL homeless?

Dear lord, she is such a )(**&^%^%#%@#$%# moron. People cut her slack and give her husband the benefit of the doubt because she's a LIBRARIAN. Well even LIBRARIANS can be right wing asshole stupid.

The Bleading Edge

Who knew there was a bleading edge of tile? Not me! While I routinely caution my clients about changing to new IT products on the first release I didn't make the translation to tile products. I mean - what is new in tile? Humans have been tiling things for millenniums.

Well so we designed our whole kitchen around this new tile product. Made of 50% post consumer waste (Skye Vodka bottles, thank you!) the salesperson told me that it was a new product and that we had to use their sub contractor to install it because he was TRAINED to install the new product. So the Mark comes over to do the estimate and he's the head of the floor installation company and that's the last I ever see of him.

So they send two guys who have never seen the product before, without the tools they need, who can't read the instructions, with the wrong glue, on a day that is too cold. 10 minutes after they leave the tiles are popping up like toast. So I call the sales rep and say I don't think the floor should be popping up like toast.

Well it turns out they didn't roll the tile with the 150 pound roller, because they didn't have a roller. So I say, get them back here to roll. And they can come the next day to roll. But after 10:00 am because they have to get the roller. Meanwhile the Adhesive is DRYING and it needs to be rolled before the adhesive is DRY. There is 24 hours. Tick Tick Tick.

So Jose and Jose arrive and they have the 150 pound roller. They look at the floor, they try a little rolling, then they pull up two of the worst tiles and say - wow these two tiles have popped up - we can't do anything - We'll come tomorrow - Bye.

Well tomorrow means the adhesive will be dry. I've been assured by the sales rep, the manufacturer and that the best we can do is roll it soon. So I try and get hold of Mark but he's not answering his phone. So I basically tell the guys that they can't go and they have to roll the floor for 15 minutes in a diagonal pattern before they leave. And, while I don't believe in slavery, I basically lock them in the kitchen to roll while I stay outside slavering into my cell phone and pacing. This makes me feel even worse.

So the rolling doesn't do anything and I talk to many people and plan B is warming the tile up and rolling on Wed. At this point I start saying that I actually want people who know what they are doing, I don't want the B team anymore, I want the A team. I am assured that Miguel the supervisor will appear miraculously tomorrow.

The next day (and remember I am working from home for this fiasco because my boss is a sweetie pie, but I'm also not working a lot so I'm losing money) I get one Jose and a guy I assume is Miguel the supervisor so I ask, "Hi are you Miguel?" "No, I am the BROTHER OF MIGUEL." There's a whole lot of "Whose on First" that happens at this point. But basically as this escalates I start to lose it and my basic position is that I am not letting anyone in my kitchen with a blow torch who is not management and certainly not Jose and Brother of Miguel. Actual Miguel is in Ventura and after screaming into two phones - Miguel on one and the president of the flooring company on the other and pacing up and down the street Miguel agrees to actually come to the site. So does the president of the company. Who has been told by Jose and Jose that there is a problem with two tiles and not the ENTIRE FLOOR. The president of the floor company and the sales person both inspect the floor and agree that it was done wrong and that I will wait for Miguel and we will get Miguel's opinion.

Miguel arrives and burns my floor with the blowtorch.

Remodeling!



Beso pops out of the cabinet before the counter is installed, and the wonderful Luis looks around at the kitchen before the tile fiasco.

Oh yeah?

Dogs dogs Dogs dogs DOGS.

There I've mentioned something other than the KITCHEN REMODEL!!!!

More kitchen obsession: Signs

So we now spend all of our time going out to Burbank to go to big box remodeling stores - like this one out by the airport. The mall itself is huge and has tons of big box stores and nice little airplane signs. Of course it is a mile away from another huge mall that has tons of big box stores, including Ikea. Have I mentioned that I hate Ikea? Let me count the ways starting with the fact that they are supposed to be here right now and installing the cabinets. And they are not.



Here I am in the kitchen on the last night before demo - we were of course hosting lovely guests. You can barely see the walls scrawled with sharpie where the counters, appliances and such are supposed to go. We did that in a manic phase with the designer we hired right before she disappeared. Drew on the walls with sharpie. Not the best move. Because we spent a month with sharpie on the walls, feeling like losers. Because I've never remodeled a thing in my life - and I don't know how to do it. (Really thank goddess I am a PMP - it does help!)



Here are the lovely vintage 1974 appliances we are getting rid of. Yes, Virginia, that IS a portable dishwasher.



Here are some demo shots. You can see where we are making the washer dryer cabinet. A sink will go here somewhere. Oh and a non-portable dishwasher. Which will be a drag you know if I was to wash some dishes in the backyard or something - maybe I should upgrade.

360 Days till the Bush Travesty is Over!!!!!!!!

Not that I'm counting!



On the other side of travesty, we are doing a kitchen re-model. So don't say I'm not doing my part for the economy.

Here is a photo of going into the little tiny square opening into the kitchen.

And check out this lovely vintage plastic floor!



Here we look West into the silly unused and unusable nook space. I didn't take a photo of the appliances, they are too sad. My oven can't heat up to any temperature, and the 1974 fridge sucks enough energy off the grid to power a small village in other parts of the world. I got a pamphlet from the electric commpany about how much money you could save if you upgraded the fridge and they had a little chart with the years of your fridge and how much money it takes to run - and it stopped in the 80's. The seventies wasn't even on the chart!

The only good thing about the kitchen is that everything is so old all the VOCs have evaporated. So we shall see what we can do to improve the entire gestalt of the kitchen.