I like your work: art and etiquette Edited By Paper Monument

I got a few of these little mini-books by Paper Monument in an impulsive package deal purchase they offered by email even though I don't read barely any more and one of them was this one. I thought it would be cool since I was in art school and it would be interesting to see what my friends who are actually making art and then trying to sell it are going through: the galleries, gallerists (I did know that was a thing already), how big a deal studio visits are (I wish people would visit my studio, in fact I did a project that was just that for undergrad and I turned an empty workspace into a museum of my stuff and played a docent who walked everyone through it and eventually was revealed to be racist), openings (I know that I've hated them since I got ignored by my instructor who I thought was pretty cool at the time, that might have been a turning point now that I think about it) and all that bullshit made up etiquette that actually turns out is really important (kiss, kiss kiss, kiss kiss kiss, or maybe just the middle finger? It's all situational apparently). There is a lot of pretending, a lot of fake it till you make it, then shake it, and everyone has to uphold this stuff, even if you're mad, cause the worst person isn't the one who pees on your rug at the opening, it's the ones who don't participate cause they make everyone look bad. Some of the people in the little book seem like non-participants but most of them talk like they are deeply entrenched, complaining and at the same time relishing the fact that they know enough about the art world that they can throw these suggestions and advisements around, happy someone cared enough to ask. I know N+1 and Paper Monument is in New York - 24 of the 30 people who "responded" to the survey questions (Richard Ryan's three word answers confirm that he must be a dick, at least in the art world and most likely out of it as well) were working in Nyack I mean New York, and ten of those were in Brooklyn - but as someone from California and now in Los Angeles, I think it would be interesting if in the future they could do another book about art people in the other three time zones and see how they compare.

Sell Your Boobs by Lisa Hanawalt

It seems appropriate that the only book from the full yellow backpack I managed to get through this winter break (Christmas, New year's, my birthday) spent up in the bay area was Sell Your Boobs by Lisa Hanawalt. I feel a lot better reading a book called "Sell Your Boobs" written by a woman, I hope this isn't a cruel trick like Ashley Wood pulled on me with Tank Girl...still recovering from that one. What I liked about this little book was the boobs and the pooping. Girls talking about pooping is always great. Hm, did I mention it's a small book? Apparently it's so small that now that I'm back home, I can't seem to find it anywhere. This will make it hard for me to draw strong conclusions about what I learned but I think I learned that girls can be just as fucked up with their inner monologues as boys. I also learned the fables about how different animal's assholes got to be their precise colors and how the new spring fashion line will fit up your ass. All in all, I think my book reports are off to a strong start, don't you?

Book Reports

There will be a series of reports I'm going to do on the books I read as part of a desperate attempt to not only begin reading again but to retain something from what I read. Hopefully it will help.

Well That's Where They're Gonna Be

The shitty office building. It was set back from a street, probably classified as an "arterial highway" by the DOT but right now it was mostly quiet. Each car that passed had it's own twenty seconds to make him feel like it was special. But none of them were special, he knew that. Because the one car that was was parked like an asshole, halfway in the handicapped space right in front. He knew it was special because Steve had told him it was. It was the only one there. He leaned against the trash enclosure in the parking lot of a shitty medical plaza next door, the blacktop flowing all the way around it and across the property line, probably poured continuously after the two neighbors came to some agreement about how it made sense to just do it all at once and split the bill. They probably split the bill for striping the parking spots too. He realized he was daydreaming of this reasonable relationship between two strangers because of the how unreasonable the current situation was. He stood up straight, shook out his legs like he was getting ready for a race, traveling some distance. But it couldn't have been more than sixty feet to the front door, and he knew it was only another seventy-five to the rusted "security screen" door at the back that masked a category D security door.  It was just a habit from when he was younger that he had carried over. He wondered why none of the other stuff had made it. A rooftop A/C compressor unit he didn't notice had been on suddenly turned off and it was crystal stillness. He shifted, maybe to remove the daydream that despite the heat he was stuck in ice alone halfway to the bottom of a lake surrounded by plastic bags and shipping pallets. But he didn't go inside. He walked and put the medical plaza between him and the office building. He wasn't hiding, exactly. He was stepping out for a bit, out of the line of travel, he didn't want to say fate but he could say the flow that was carrying him to that fucking office, four rooms, a hallway and a kitchenette. Every step he took around the far side of the lot made him feel like he was pissing off some teacher, some boss, some fucking bully and it made him a little giddy. He suddenly had an affinity for the medical plaza, like it was a friend holding back something awful, keeping it at bay while he caught his breath.

A Black Eye Helps

I Passed My Written Exams Bitches!

eey day I'm hustlin hustlin hustlin
eeyone is hustlin hustlin hustlin

Hip Hip Hooray

A good-condition El Camino license plate "GYVER" with a cafe-racer motorcycle strapped down in the bed, parked on a quiet Echo Park street in front of a Psych-Ward Outpatient Facility.

vs

A Sunday night having just put in a good three hours on a personal furniture project, now gmail chatting while listening to an LA-based Eastern European women's folksinging group on myspace and eating precut mangos and precooked beef on english muffins covered with cilantro salad dressing.