dragonslayer*

*All from Sunset Rubdown's Dragonslayer - all directly from their website. I want my thesis to read like these... but I don't think DM would be cool with that... also, I don't think I could manage it

Idiot Heart. Stay away from open windows, and put the telephone down. Can you run as fast as this house will fall when the alarm bell sounds? No, I was never much of a dancer, but I know enough to know you've got to move your idiot body around, and that you can't settle down until the idiot in your blood settles down. So move around... If I found you in this city called Paradise, I'd say, "I love you, but I hate this city, and I'm no prize." You want to walk around like you own the joint, the way that Icarus thought he might own the sky. I say, "You can't settle down until the Icarus in your blood, in your blood, drowns... And if I was a horse, I would throw up the reins if I was you."

But look at you go (into the fire-star). Look at you go (you are a meteor). Look at you go...

And you know your heart, and you know your heart... but it's an idiot heart. And you know your heart, and you know your heart... but you can't settle down. No, you can't settle down. So just move around...

I hope that you died in a decent pair of shoes, you've hot a lot of long walking to do, where you're going to...



Black Swan. There was a black swan outside the palace - it was appointed by the king. People took it as a sign that he needed more time, but you said, "I ain't afraid of no blackbird." There was a rumor of a ghost in the bedroom - hanging in and around the bed - but by the time the moon rose, you has taken off your clothes and had the pillow under your head. There was the face you saw above you in the fever of a hot black dream, but it was made out of paper and glue, and you were hoping for something a little more realistic. You were hoping for the head of the queen.

My heart is a kingdom where the king is a heart, and my heart is king... My heart is a kingdom where the king is a heart, and my heart is king, the king of hearts.

There was the matador who said he would have you, if you could only give it up and walk away. He has carved out an avenue for you, from the palace to the palisades. But now it's half destroyed, and you are half destroyed. I see you running down a washed out road. I see you running between the dream and the void.

There was a rumor of a ghost in the bedroom - hanging in and around the bed - but by the time the moon rose, you has taken off your clothes and had the pillow under your head. You got mascara all of the bed sheets!* You got mascara all over your clothes! You got mascara making broken-hearted shapes on your face, and you have yet to see the ghost.



You go on Ahead (Trumpet, trumpet II). You go on ahead for a while. I would like to follow you a while.... I would like to just follow you a while. I'd like to watch the white flash of your heels as they take turns breaking the desert heat, to beckon me in languages I've never learned. I'd like to have you navigate to hills where no musicians live, and on the way decide what 'bendings' of your will you're willing to forgive. And I'd like to think the actors never banded. I'd like to throw this trumpet down and go on empty handed. I'd like to think I am not one of them, but I know I am, so I'd like to just follow you a while.

When me and the boys were out we killed a thousand butterflies, so I put their wings into my mouth and said a prayer for our safe arrival. Then a big black car crossed our path, and I wondered whether or not that shit was empty.

See the sirens and the lizards flick their tongues behind the stage. See the actor keep a ritual to keep them all at bay. He would like to come home naked without war paint on his face, and appear before you virgin white if virgins are still chaste. So wait, you've got to wait... you've got to wait for me. I'll appear before you virgin white if virgins are still chaste, then I'd like to just follow you a while.

And if there are two eyes in my head, there are four seasons in a year, and reflections on the water of a burning yellow sphere. And the days add up to weeks, add up to months, and add up, and add up... to years. And if reflections on the water sometimes look like burning tears, we can watch them changing shape without pushing off the pier.

Dragon's Lair. I'm sorry that I'm late. I went blind. I got confetti in my eyes. I was held up at yesterday's parties. I was needed on the Congo line. But my dear, oh, my dear, I'd like to fight the good fight for another couple of years. Because to say the war is over is to say you are a widow. And you're not a widow yet...

So this one's for the critics and their disappointed mothers, and for the cupid and the hunter shooting arrows at each other: Ain't no such thing as a saint, ain't no such thing as a sinner. But there's a swan among the pigeons of Barcelona's floor. There's a Samson with Delilahs lining up outside the door. If you are sharpening your scissors, I am sharpening my scissors, and I am sharpening my sword. So you can take me to the dragon's lair, or you can take me to Rapunzel's windowsill. Either way it is time for a bigger kind of kill.

I see your face when I close my eyes. I see the muscles in your legs from the way you always rise to the occasion of catching things that fall, like the statuettes on pedestals I tend to build to tall. But I have navigated Iceland, I laid my claim on Portugal, and I have seen into the wasteland of the future of us all. And I kicked up a whole country of dead, dead leaves last fall...

Seen from the back of a train I rode away from your station, they drifted in the air like memoirs of old conversations, sprung from a leather case you opened in the wind, to watch the papers chase each other into oblivion.

You're such a champion. I hide behind your sun. You are the champion... So you can take me to the dragon's lair, or you can take me to Rapunzel's windowsill. Either way it is time for a bigger kind of kill...

(boxes)

Trying to decide on box stuff.


There will be 12 of these (maybe only 6). The size and form will most likely change, but basically there will be boxes with noses (sniff holes, smell holes). I was thinking of finding old drawers and retrofitting them with noses (but the logistics of that are beyond what I can deal with right now). So for now there are some Ikea boxes I think might work (though they seem a bit small). I think I'm going with natural wood finish and lined with grey felt on the inside (which may or may not be the scent source). I also have to work out the lighting. The room will be dark. Each box will have a light (either inside it or right in front of its open side).




They will be set on stools (or suspended from ceiling somehow).



And this is how I think I want to arrange them (will probably decide at last minute once they're in room).

ghosty

it's cold

Chelsey Hames' Wild Things fort for www.booooooom.com

there are cooler ones but this is how i feel today.

then Peter said

Acts 2:38-

Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

happy twenty-ten!

lookee here: http://www.stringgardens.com/index.php

this is all a game

“Horses Running Endlessly” (1995), Gabriel Orozco

"Gestures tend to lose some of their energy when they’re repeated. The shoebox is in the MoMA survey, it’s the first thing you see in the galleries. The dirty ball is there too. So are the yogurt lids, nailed to partition walls. But they feel archival.

The shock and delight of puzzlement, of seeing nothing turn into something before your eyes, are gone.

No one’s to blame; this is the way certain art operates in time."

-Holland Cotter, for the NYT, here

I want this book

click on image to see more

what I mean

(thanks to Gabriel)

mirror cabinet vs. boxes of light

click to enlarge

Some early sketches, which led to

this messy sheet, which breaks down to

basically, the bed option;

the corner option;

and the alley option.

In these I'm pretty obsessed with certain things, as you can probably see. Having some sort of mass of light in the darkness. The objects floating within. The visitor alone in a sea of reflections and scent.

how they look reflected on clear glass. worth it?

But then I came to - this precipitated by a trip to Home Depot - and now I'm trying to come up with something equally (or more) satisfying but less expensive, time-consuming, structurally unsound, wacked out. What I've come up with is... more boxes - this time solid and opaque.

So if anyone has any comments or suggestions, I'd really appreciate it. I'm up for decisive votes for or against anything... tell me what you think will work, physically, conceptually, aesthetically, whatever. I'm open for business.





P.S. The idea that seemed most promising in my head yesterday was the low-lying bench-like thing with cut-out niches for the objects to sit in, perhaps lined with angled mirrors or glass and lit from within.

deep blue sea

via Natori:
(thanks to Amy)

The Unsinkable Scent

At the Titanic exhibit in Times Square NYC, artifacts left from the tragic event are on display. Among them are pieces of leather luggage, ivory hair brushes, gold jewelry and even cuff links inscribed with the “Tiffany & Co.” logo. But most captivating was a collection of 62 perfume vials—the property of first-class passenger Adolphe Saalfeld, a perfumier from England who boarded the Titanic in 1912. Saalfed headed to New York with ambitions of introducing his perfume to the major department stores. And while he survived the sinking of the Titanic, his signature scents went down with the ship and he never created another perfume.

The vials were recovered on a dive in 2000, protected in the leather case Saalfeld had kept them in. But the astonishment of finding these vials amongst the debris was nothing compared to the fragrance they released, still preserved after nearly a century resting on the ocean floor.

Fragrance can elicit the feeling of being transported to another time and place. That is especially true in this case, as these perfumes just arrived from another time and place- one that continues to intrigue and mesmerize since the night it sank- the Titanic.

It seems like it's always the same old song.

on my mind

Hejduk. Vladivostok, 1989


Turrell. Afrum-Proto, 1996


Eliasson. Mirror door (visitor), 2008