MPK

Our local feudal lord, Larry Ellison, is doing well for himself.

2011-08-28T18:33:00.001-07:00

You Could Sell That

2011-02-26T20:03:00.000-08:00

"There is a chance here for you," Paul said, "to become extremely wealthy." He continued to gaze stoically ahead. "The idea strikes me as bizarre," Childan said. "Making good luck charms out of such art objects; I can't imagine it."---Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

Part one:

I make things.

Some of them come out very nice. Some are fit for everyday use, and I use them. Others are meant to be decorative and I use them for this if I have room in my environment.

I make shopping bags crocheted out of plastic bags, I crochet little items to hold personal items. I make teapots, tea cups, small books and cards.

No matter where I am, using something like a shopping bag, people will remark on them, ask me how I make them, how long it takes, admire the handicraft and design. Then they will get a glow on their faces and set out to award me with the capper: "You could sell that!"

This is considered the highest compliment you can be paid.

It always makes me shrivel inside. I usually backpedal and try to take this in the spirit it is offered in. I say that I make these things because I like them and like to use them and I would be unwilling to part with them for money. You can see the interest drain on the other person's face. You aren't willing to take it to the next level--the Olympics of the marketplace, where consumers can decide if you're really worthy of the gold medal.

One lady was nice enough to end the conversation with: "Oh well, at least they make a nice conversation piece."

Part two:

I crocheted 20 years ago as a weapon to combat heartbreak. I had learned how when I was ten, but picked it up again with a vengeance to keep away some pain. Every stitch a bulwark against reality or some shit like that. Who knows. It distracted my brain and I began to pile up little yarn bags.

One day, an old friend of the family visited my mom and I. He and his wife had been the richest people we had ever known. In their heyday, they owned a beautiful house in Piedmont, a Julia Morgan Tudor mansion that I adored visiting as a kid, frankly envious of their son who had all of the rooms the gardens and the Tudor gazebo to play in for hours. They were like royalty to me. Of course, they were not, and when they had run through all of the money in an effort to pretend that they were, things went south in a hurry. Their downfall from fortune was a combination of brazenness and squalidness that was sad to watch.

Our friend, the husband, visited us in the middle of this process. In the course of the visit, my mother told me to go get my yarn bags to show Mr. X. I brought them down from my room in a pile to show off. I had about 20 by then, different colors and patterns.

He looked through them all one by one. He looked into my eyes. He pulled something out of his pocket. It was a plastic rectangle. Looking closer I saw that it had the US constitution on it in very small letters. He said, "Look at this. This man had an idea. If he had kept that idea to himself, he would be the only man with a copy of the Constitution in his pocket. But this man had vision. He put his idea up for sale, he got a patent. There are thousands and thousands of these, millions even, for sale. Any man can have one now. I have one here, I am showing it to you. This thing you are doing. It is very nice. But it will never mean anything. You have to take this idea, the part of it people will like, and sell it so everyone can buy it. You will make money. You will have a nice little life. Then if you want, you can make these little things if you want. You will have the time. But one by one like this? It is a waste of your time."

He beamed and sat back. He had delivered the message.

He left and I didn't crochet again for four years.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

Part three

I'd been groped by the invisible hand of the marketplace.

The Invisible Hand is the god of bourgeois society. The Hand giveth and the Hand taketh away. If you are found worthy, the Hand bestows riches and fame. If the Hand finds you foul and unworthy, you are reduced to ashes and your name erased from the records of history. Most of us fall into the latter camp, to differing degrees. Our family friend was a priest of the Hand, a desperate acolyte.

In his fall from favor he was at his most anxious to believe. In his effort to be kind, he ended up doing a lot of damage. I never really looked at life the same way after that. It was in its small way a watershed event. He had ripped away the veil of sentiment and revealed his class interest: naked cash payment. I can see that now, but at the time I felt soiled.

In all instances in our society, we are ruled by capitalism. A brief flirtation with the art world disabused me of the notion that there was anything different going on there. There is no world of special people who do not commodify labor and the products of labor. It is the only way to exist. Many of my friends have been involved in various reform efforts to break this relationship (although they may not have realized what they were doing)---any "alternative movement" is an attempt to break through this system and hopefully train capitalism to be better, cooler, funner, more satisfying, hipper, greener, sustainable, etc. People struggle with the end result, which is that eventually all of these efforts also turn to shit.

The capitalists need to seek ever-expanding markets to make a profit. A profit is not just having 5 bucks in your pocket from the sale of your cool thing, it is a bottom line that needs to expand every quarter to be considered successful. Why did a cool magazine like ReadyMade turn to shit? Capitalists discovered the market for alt-sustainable/DIY crafty people and bought it up and expanded the definition to reach a wider and less picky audience. It will get shittier and shittier as it loses even the slightest relationship to its original audience. That's just one example of a phenomenon that has happened over and over since the first capitalist to "discover" cool handicrafts mass-marketed them and alienated the original creators and flooded the marketplace with shit. Martha Stewart didn't invent that idea, it has been going on in different forms for centuries.

Every generation of artists and artisans has a section that attempts to recapture some "authentic movement", to fight this system and reclaim some patch of ground. Others, the "realists", skip that step of emotional agonies over authenticity and jump straight into the commercial market. The first group takes a little longer to get in there, but eventually they do. They conceal their relationship to the market with the branding of their finer intentions, which makes them actually more deceptive than the second group, who are reviled as mere tradesmen by the "authenticity" fetishists.

The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.

Part four

All of that to say, that buying and selling your talents is considered the pinnacle of success in capitalist society. The more you sell, the better you are than everyone else. If you fail to do so, you have lost. You are a loser. Though many of the little people of my social realm like to think we are outside of all of that, truly, we are proles. The faster we realize this, the more we will have to unite us with the revolutionary segment of society. The more we try to resist and reform, to preserve some "alt-capitalism" for ourselves, the longer we perpetuate this sorry state of affairs. There is only one kind of capitalism, there is no good kind or bad kind.

I don't really talk about this with my friends or colleagues. Thinking this way has been a secret in my life. Maybe others feel this way too. I don't know. I try to imagine the responses of people that I know. I think most people I know realize that the system is a problem and have different individual responses for dealing with it. Individual responses are not going to change anything though.

The Buddhist view is "Make positive effort for the good" as if your individual actions and thoughts will emit waves through existence and slowly chip away at the rockface of "bad".

This will take too long. In fact, it will not work. It may even do the opposite.

iPodliness is next to Godliness

2008-07-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

It only took me 24 hours...but now I have Pandora on my iPod touch.

I had to download iPod touch software 2.0. I accidentally downloaded it twice in my excitement so the next time I see you Ffaelan, I have software for you. So I paid twice...tres stupide. But no matter. I forged on. I hooked up my device for syncing. Then the computer (laptop) tells me that since it has less than a gig of memory left on it, it cannot back up my iPod stuff so it's just going to go ahead and delete all that m'kay? Uh, hells no!!

The last genious time I did that it took me four bleeding hours to get everything back the way I wanted it. So it was time to make room on the computer. I have several movies and tv shows on here that I've always meant to burn to dvd, so I thought I would go ahead and do that and delete them off the hard drive.

Problem. The only DVD burner I have on here evidently is iTunes. Which will not import the video files into it's own format. Why? Not enough memory on the computer. Ack.

So I figure I will just take photo files off the beast to make just enough room for the iPod to do its thing. We have 1 gig stick drive. I hook that bad boy up. I open it up. I open up the photo file. They crash and freeze the computer. This happens for 3 hours. The virus software is running and refuses to halt despite all my foaming at the mouth. Alex tries. It works for him, and then crashes on me. We are watching Beowulf and I'm beginning to really sympathize with Grendel as he rends beefy thanes limb to limb.

Finally AVG hands back control of the hard drive but I'm too exhausted to make more than a token effort. I go to bed. On awakening manage to get AVG to quit (why it needs to scan the hard drive for 12 hours a day is a real mystery to me). I move a gig of pictures and video files over to the stick drive. Success!

An hour of futzing around and I get 2.0 installed on the iPod. I download the Pandora app. It won't work.

By now I am calm. After four fruitless tries, I uninstall and reinstall. Success!

Yes, Pandora is worth all that.

That is all.

MPK

I promise I'm not going to turn this into a video blog...

2008-07-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

Jon Stewart Interview

Blogger's hating the embed code so follow the link to hear how David Sedaris quit smoking.

I saw this broadcast on The Daily Show during "Week 2" of my quit. I'd heard of David Sedaris but naturally like everything else, I am the last one getting around to him. This broadcast was the only thing to put a smile on my face that week. I just bought Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and finished it pretty fast. I bought myself some books to celebrate Month 3. I also got Steampunk (edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer) and Collapse by Jared Diamond.

MPK

Our Town

2008-06-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

The Oakland Police Department has a neat little widget that allows you to create an interactive map of anywhere in Oakland, by crime and location. Here is MPK ground zero for the last three months. It's like a TV crime drama writ in JPEG.

Yay!

2008-06-20T01:13:00.000-07:00

Two months today of not smoking! I am so proud of myself! I had a really horrendous crave episode on Monday night, but I had some Habitrol which really helped. Someone was smoking outside and the smoke just wafted in everywhere.

I was gasping for a cigarette and I was afraid I was never going to get past this stage. The whyquit website resets people's counters back to day one when they break down and smoke "just one" or take a replacement. But this is my website so I'm going to celebrate! I hate being addicted to it. I've missed so much in life because of smoking. Being so anxious over at visits to friends that I couldn't enjoy myself because my whole day was timed around the "first one".

Not going to places because I couldn't smoke there. Being foggy and ill with constant sinus problems. Not being able to be fully creative in my studio because of the background concern of lowering nicotine levels in my brain taking up unconscious and then conscious mental space. The fact that I don't have health insurance and smoking is like russian roulette for someone with my genetic background. (My poor grandma was so sick with cancer, her cancer had cancer, practically :( )

Now I'm back to my childhood addiction. Eating pretzels in a ritualistic manner that involves carefully nibbling off the round parts and then eating the remaining triangle.

Anyway.

Thanks for letting me share.

MPK

W00t!!

2008-06-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

A great day for human rights! Link

Just woke up

2008-06-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

A dream about my last day of class this year. Of course, odd changes...class is outside on picnic tables and I have a super talented kid who is a mutant that only has hands.

For some reason this year I had considerable anxiety about the end of the year. I had a lot of seniors and I felt like I hadn't done enough for all of them before they went off to graduation. I'm frustrated that my class sizes are so large that I can't spend more time with each student. I'm afraid my shyness will make it impossible for me to ever be able to speak before a large room full of people.

I guess this is why I dream about it, to try to get it right in my mind.

It was a fantastic year actually. I think I just didn't want it to end, even though I was very tired and was tottering around like a little old lady. I was also functioning under the thinnest veneer of humanity since I had just quit smoking.

I'm rambling. Maybe I'll post a link to some pictures from this year later today.

They're Made Out of Meat

2008-06-09T19:23:00.000-07:00

A good lunchbreak read

2008-06-09T16:44:00.000-07:00

Here's an article that looks great just from the first few paragraphs. It's from The Agony Booth, which is a sort of MST3K/Rifftracks inspired website, only with longer (humorous) analysis. This one is about the Incredible Hulk Movie of 2003. I've only seen bits of that one and that was enough to keep me clicking through the channels.

The Agony Booth is one of my favorite distractions. I don't always agree with their choice of "bad movies" but the writing is clever. It's actually inspired me to seek out some of the "worst" offenders and a couple I've actually enjoyed. But maybe that just means I'm one of the few people who can count themselves a member of the "Zardoz" target audience.

Anything to distract me these days.

I quit smoking. There, I said it.

I've been trying to compose some deep, meaningful insights into this process. I even considered blogging the whole quit from beginning to...hopefully, never smoking again. I don't think I'm there yet. I've isolated myself because my personality is still in free fall and I'm snapping out at things like a psychotic 8 year old. The physical side effects have been an affront to dignity. The mental ones were expected but still dismaying.

There's a scene in Iron Man where Tony Stark is fighting to get that part out of the glass box in his workshop, sweating and emoting and grabbing blindly at stuff to get stuff going so he can keep breathing...that's pretty much where I was a month ago.

Now I'm just living on cough drops and 4 hours of sleep a "night" hoping to get to some version of normal soon. I know I should be getting busy, getting in touch with friends, and exercizing. I'm not ready for all that yet. I pretty much had to quit drinking coffee as part of this thing. Not a happy camper.

Anyway. The new Hulk looks pretty cool.

Oops forgot this one

2008-05-12T17:48:00.000-07:00

My brother and I used to don blankies and act this out in the living room.

80's cartoons

2008-05-12T17:04:00.000-07:00

I had some students today raving about "Speed Racer". I thought I would post a movie or two of other cartoons we enjoyed from that era.

MPK

otaez in alameda

2008-02-10T12:43:00.001-08:00

buffet $10
wireless $0
blogging over a mimosa with one finger on an itouch: priceless
--
Michelle P. Kern
http://mpkartist.blogspot.com/

high land, hard rain

2008-01-25T18:23:00.000-08:00

My awesome parents gave me an "after Christmas gift" this year. I got all I wanted for Christmas so I was mystified when they told me I had a surprise waiting back in San Mateo. It was a USB vinyl converter to MP3. I've wanted one of these since I heard they existed, but felt a little guilty about spending shiny gold rocks on one. I love my vinyl records. All 50 of them.

Maybe not quite 50.

Still and all, I was thrilled and finally fired it up today. Right now as I sit here typing I am ripping a copy of "high land, hard rain" by aztec camera into digital format. I am in full nostalgia mode. Not just from the music and the rain storm outside but remembering how it was I used to make mix tapes around 1982-87. I had an old record player of my mom's that got a lot of use. It was "portable" inasmuch as it had a handle and hinged speakers that folded up like cabinet doors and could be hooked together. It weighed about 50 pounds and I crushed my instep a time or two from moving it around my room. It finally took up residence next to my desk on the floor.

It played vinyl. That was all. No output jacks for taping. My dad was an early adopter of the Sony Walkman, so I had one of those. (The size of a brick, would drag your pants down about 4 inches when hooked to your belt. Battery lasted for three tapes.) So I needed to make tapes of my records.

I got a hold of a tape recorder and a mike. I wish I had taken a picture of this setup back in the day, but it seemed perfectly normal to me. I would tape a note on my door: "No noise, do not disturb." Then I would carefully set the microphone down on the floor by the turntable. I put my fingers on play and record on the tape recorder. I then carefully turned the lever on the turntable that would start the needle going in. Push play and record on the tape recorder. And then take a deep breath. And hold it. Backing. Away. Very. Quietly.

This was my sound rig for at least 5 years. I even taped mix tapes this way. I don't think I bought a real stereo until 1987. I remember how revolutionary that seemed. Not only taping my records while going about the room making noise but taping tape to tape. Then I could use my recordings off the radio to augment my tapes (the Quake, fm 99 "Rock of the '80's".)

I switched to buying cassettes and then finally CDs only adding a record or so every year. In a fit of embarrassment I got rid of all my Duran Duran records (including 12 inch rarities that it kills me to think about throwing away now) and the Smiths records. I'm not sure why the Smiths got the boot, except at one point I got into a heavy Mojo Nixon/Dead Milkmen/Dickies rotation, and for some reason I guess I thought rock musicians could read my mind.

I was hoping to craft a post that came to more than "Wow, technology really makes things easier now!" but I'm not seeing the angle at the moment. I guess I could just say that this record pleases me just as much as it did back in 1985 when I finally bought it and it's just as fun even knowing that just an hour of work on my computer will bring it to my ipod Touch. I could have bought it on iTunes, but this is better. I even get a little burst of adrenaline watching the needle on the record so I can click "next track" in time.

Speaking of Mojo Nixon, here's my special edition colored vinyl picture disc of "Get Out of My Way!" Burn Down the Malls coming up next boys and girls...

MPK

Damn

2007-12-07T17:06:00.000-08:00

I just found out that a school friend of mine is dead. Kristin Gudjonsdottir .

She was the best sculptor. So thoughtful and perceptive. I'm in tears. The alumni magazine that cca sends out just came today and said she died in April. Christ.

MPK

Car Blog...

2007-08-24T15:27:00.000-07:00

I'm typing from my dad's car...technology: gotta love it. The wireless access was a little thin in San Mateo but now that we are in Burlingame, it's quite brisk.

Anyway.

We are heading up the El Camino to Millbrae Bart, since my panic disorder about freeways prevents me commuting by way of the 880 and San Mateo Bridge. My parents are big enough as human beings to indulge me in my nonsense and take me back and forth to Bart during different points in the week, so I can teach on the Peninsula.

Somedays I can park my truck at Millbrae Bart and drive myself down.

Sorry this post is kind of boring and pointless. I think my next post will be about Hawaii, before I totally forget about my trip. I was delayed by a fun little bout of cellulitis in my left foot. I was going to take a picture of it and post it for you all, but spared you at the last minute. So, you're welcome.

We're almost at the turn for Millbrae Bart and I will say adieu.

MPK

OK Not Tomorrow

2007-08-23T16:44:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

More from the front lines of public edu-macation.

Today was our first "block day". It's an extended pair of days for longer class times for students. Wednesday is for odd periods and Thursday is for even days. I teach even days so I had Weds. off and taught all day today.

I was stressed out about the new schedule. My 2nd period starts at 8:35 on block day, so getting across the Bay is kind of scary. I had a bad experience in the spring last year, where Bart was REALLY late and I was five minutes late to class despite giving myself an hour cushion. Usually I am in my classroom a 1/2 before class starts. My paranoia about being where I'm supposed to be on time extends to my professional life.

It's funny. When I was a student, I used to have dreams about coming into a class and finding that I was supposed to be there all year to graduate and the final was in session and I knew nothing about it. Now that I'm a teacher, I'm having teacher anxiety dreams. I dream that I open my door and find that there is a group of students there that I've never seen before. They clamor around me and say "We've been coming here all year and you are never here to teach us! We need to pass this final to graduate!! Where have you been?"

MPK

First Friday

2007-08-17T16:37:00.000-07:00

Today was the finish of the first week. Boy, the learning curve of last year is really paying off. I feel so much more on top of things. There are some changes. This year our program (CSM credit for the class) is accepting freshman. At first I had misgivings, as it has been awhile since I taught the younglings that young. But it's turning out to be great so far. Today was our first rally (that should read RAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYY!!!!! they are loud!) and I remembered how terrified I was in my first week as a high school nOOb. Like barf-feelings. I remembered to ask if my 9th graders knew where the rally was and led them successfully to the big gym and to where they were going to be sitting.

It's a small thing, and they probably won't remember it, but I feel good knowing I did it. After the rally, a student called to me across the great court who couldn't get his locker open. I opened it and he was on time to class.

I was so neurotic as a kid, I HAD to know where all my rooms were located before school. I HAD to be on time. Any little hitch sent me into a meltdown. I think that's the best part of my job: locating possible meltdown situations for my students and easing them past the danger.

Of course, you can't foresee everything, and that's hard. It's scary knowing that you are trusted and that you can fail.

More tomorrow.

MPK (aka Ms. Kern)

Teacher Girl

2007-08-15T18:42:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's my first week back at school. Today is day two. First, I salute the students. I remember when 2 1/2 months seemed like a long break. And the 9 months in school seemed like FOREVER. Trust me, it goes by really fast, all of it.

Anyway.

As usual, I'm finding my way in slowly. My role at "adult leader". I see my new students flinch when I walk by and feel bad. I want to tell them my philosophy of life has evolved to this: there are children and there are adults. It does not matter how old you are. I've taught 8 year olds who had a lot on the ball. Very wise and a pleasure to know. I've also taught folk in their 60's who never got it. Who make a room full of 8 year olds look like a walk in the park. Just doesn't matter.

I'm tired today. More later.

Michelle Kern

Meteors & Staplers: Michael Deleon and Michelle Kern

2007-06-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

Opening 6-9 pm, Saturday, June 16th 2007

Cricket Engine Gallery
499 Embarcadero Ave, Bldg. 3
Oakland, CA 94606

Info: 510.835.1920

Gallery hours:

1-9 pm, Saturday, June 16

1-4 pm, Sunday, June 17

1-4 pm, Saturday, June 23

1-4 pm, Sunday, June 24

For further information and directions:

http://www.cricketengine.org/contact.htm

Hope to see you there!
--
Michelle P. Kern
http://mpkartist.blogspot.com/

The Knights of the Black Hood

2007-05-07T16:57:00.000-07:00

My first year on the front lines of our public school system has been instructive...to me, especially. There are moments of extreme consternation, but also moments that I really treasure.

In all our ceramics classes we have tables instead of desks. About 6-8 students to a table. I noticed as weeks went on that each table developed it's own culture and rituals, and I came to think of them as "pods" (like schools of whales). One of my favorite tables is a group of gamers I call the "Knights of the Black Hood" (KoTBH) after the day they all came in wearing black hoodies with the hoods up. It's kind of a visual. Maybe I'll draw it sometime.

They're a loud but genial crew, often discussing WoW, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and of course, today, Spiderman 3. I haven't seen it yet, so I was kind of avoiding their area, because I could hear them talking about it. Eventually one of them came up to where I was to get help on the next stage of his project. (Lest you think me heartless and neglectful, it was for mortaring tile and had to be done at my workstation anyway...).

I asked the student how he had liked Spiderman 3, and he said he hadn't seen it yet either. I said "Oh no, I hear J. over there talking about it, too!" A. says, "Yeah, he keeps saying 'spoiler alert' and telling details anyway." I said "Well, I'm avoiding him today! I don't want to ruin the details." We joshed for a bit while making with the tile adhesive. After he was done, I put away the tile supplies while he put away his piece to set up. I was walking to the sink to wash up, which is behind the KoTBH table. A. was on his way back and saw me and said, urgently:

"Ms. Kern!! Perimeter alert! Perimeter alert! Do not approach J.!"

Awesome.

Pandora

2007-04-29T10:32:00.001-07:00

My buddy Stephanie showed me and some buddies at lunch this neat website Pandora, which I signed up for this morning and have now been on for three freakin' hours tuning up. You create your own radio stations by naming a song or artist as the "seed". Then the software uses these to look for other songs and artists that you might like based on the unique "genes" of the sounds, moods, beats, etc. and you get playlists that you can customize by rating the selections with a thumbs up or thumbs down. I've added the link to my playlists on the blog here. I'm still finetuning them. Just what I needed. A new time wasting hobby.

MPK

16 years

2006-11-21T17:19:00.000-08:00

...is how long I've been waiting to see the work of Anslem Kiefer. 16 years ago a friend of mine took the picture of me seen here in front of the painting Isis and Osirus (back when you could get away with crazy shit like that).

When I was 20 years old, going to museums was like going to church. Especially the old SFMOMA. The beaux art building had beautiful light and delicate crown molding. The permanent collection took on a dignity it has never re-acheived at the new building (which, as you may have guessed, I hate). Back then, I saw the work of Anselm Kiefer for the first time in a publication that listed it as a new aquisition for the Museum. Even though it had nothing to do with what I was interested in at the time (painting fruit and trying to be the new Winslow Homer) I was struck by the reproduction and went to see the painting at the first opportunity. I was taking art classes at community college and got around to museums and galleries fairly often even though I didn't drive. I took my buddy Janet who then took this picture. I don't remember anything else about that day.

That painting changed me.

Many years of art school, art jobs, art friends, gallery this and that have stripped me of the illusions I had about being an artist 16 years ago. I'm no longer ravished by wonderment every time I step into a gallery or museum. Frankly, I'm usually depressed by what comes out these days, which made me start to lose hope. Art sustained my hope growing up in suburban hell. It got me out (if only across the Bay Bridge). I had dreams of a secret brilliant fraternity. Reality proved to be more down to earth, as it usually does.

The best legacy of these years has been making awesome talented friends, who have really sustained my hope. But I have been wondering why I'm still making art. I don't show, I don't sell. But I'm still making stuff. It sustains me. But I've been ready for a message in a bottle, some sign. Something to strive for.

Who knew I'd see it on BART last week?

Yep. A poster for Kiefer's show at the SFMOMA. My jaw actually dropped, in the first time I can ever remember.

Today I got to see the show. The only thing that would have made it more perfect was seeing it at the old MOMA.

Anyway. I'm definitely going again. Anyone with me?

Is it really procrastination if I'm an artist?

2006-10-01T12:59:00.000-07:00

Hello to all 5 of you who read this. Sorry it's been awhile since I updated. I've been lazy on my days off since starting my new job.

And then just as I was feeling some balance in my life, Alex and I got into a car wreck last Thursday. We were leaving the driveway of the parking lot on San Leandro St. when a little Honda came out of nowhere (we had almost 100% no visibility on our left due to all the cars parked on San Leandro) and smashed into the front end of the truck, lifting us off the ground and spinning us 90 degrees to the right, where we narrowly missed hitting a parked car. The seatbelt grabbed me (thank Great Hera) and kept me from bouncing into the windshield. But I was thrown so violently in the crash that the seatbelt severely pounded me in the sternum. It's been really hard to move my torso very much this week. I tried to run errands yesterday, but I still hurt too much and had to cut it short. Today I'm much better.

The truck is a total loss. The guts on the left are jammed into the guts on the right. And the kicker is that we were at-fault. That's right, the driver entering the roadway is 100% responsible for making sure it's safe to enter. So even if you are a little Honda flying down a 35 mph zone at 45 mph (at least) and accelerating while paying no attention to what's in front of you because you are chatting with your boy-passenger and you hit a 2 ton truck so violently you don't even have time to brake and you lift it off the road and then carroom into another car and destroy its rear driver side tire...you walk away with no-fault.

Fortunately, there is some justice. She had no car insurance. Not a smidge. So she got a fat ticket and her car impounded. She somehow got Al's phone number and called him, upset because she couldn't get her car from the tow yard, and now can't get to work, to pay the fine or the tow fees and storage. Alex wrote the book on that (literally, yes. See, Undertow at www.smartasspress.com) so told her to contact his insurance agent. She's injured too, she tells him. Contact the insurance company sweetheart, he tells her. That's why they're there. Maybe you've learned that now.

Sorry to be so callous. I'm glad no one was seriously injured. But you'd be amazed how many things you use your torso for that you take for granted until you can't do them. Like getting out of bed.

Today I'm supposed to put together a new lesson plan for my classes, and perhaps a CD of images of my work to show the students. Naturally I've been goofing off on the internet for hours. I found this link that some might like:

Epitonic

I'm usually the last person to find anything cool, so if you've already heard of this, ignore me.

Classes are going pretty well. Most of my students are pretty great. I have a few meatheads, but the school's been really supportive about that. Pretty amazing since this is the San Mateo High School district and they've been in the middle of a devastating budget emergency all month. Positions got slashed all over the district, and Hillsdale is losing a few teachers, too. It's bad. I find out tomorrow who is getting the axe. My job is through the College of San Mateo, so I've been on the sidelines of this drama. The teachers and the students at Hillsdale have been tense but everyone's been trying to stay focused on education. It's really amazing. But now, who knows. I'm afraid this is going to be pretty demoralizing for the teachers and the students and staff.

The blame for this is getting lumped on the district, but it's really due to the corporations in the area who demanded to have their taxes reassessed (sued, actually, I heard). Not just the little guys, no. The big dot-coms who patted themselves on the back for finding San Mateo when it was cheap and small.

Nice going guys. Have fun recruiting from the pool of talent whose education you failed to fund.

Anyways.

MPK

Coming Soon...

2006-08-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

Place Setter

2006-08-13T15:16:00.000-07:00

This blog is due a long posting on my recent trip to Maui this month. But of course I got a sinus infection when I got home and moped around on the couch for a week with an ice pack.

I am starting a new job tomorrow and I'm both excited and nervous. I'm teaching high school ceramics...at my old high school Hillsdale. Coming back after 18 years is a total trip. The school has changed a lot. They are part of a program run through Stanford University called Smaller Learning Communities. The academic buildings have been totally redesigned into 3 smaller school that are largely autonomous in terms of administration and budgeting, etc. Everyone I've met at the school is really happy and positive about being there. The arts dept. hasn't really been enfolded into the program, but they're trying to find ways to integrate the curriculum. I'm all about that, so it seems like a good time to get on board.

I'm curious about my students and I hope they'll like me. I'm praying for at least one emo kid who cares what happened in the 80's. My boyfriend's son Aldrin talks about bands he likes and stuff he's into and I can barely keep up. At least I've heard about anime and hyphy.

I'm hoping to widen their horizons a little. I grew up a bored teenager in San Mateo with big dreams of getting out. I made it as far as Oakland anyway! I took Alex with me on Friday and dropped him off at the mall for two hours while I had a meeting at the school. He couldn't believe that this was the only thing to do in the entire area for young folk. Back in my day there was actually a cool bookstore by Central Park in downtown San Mateo that my friends and I would hang out at, but they tore that down in my early 20's and replaced it with a Noah's/Starbucks combo.

Anyway. New Deadwood on tonight. Tomorrow I take my first real commute. I hate the San Mateo bridge with a passion, so I am doing something weird. We drove my car up to Millbrae Bart and left it parked in the nieghbourhood. So hopefully it will be there tomorrow when I take Bart to Millbrae and drive to Hillsdale. It's around a 90 minute commute, but an hour will be on Bart. I'll be leaving around 7 am here, which is a big adjustment to my lifestyle, but I'm done by noon or so for 4 days a week, so. Wish me luck.

Out of State, Out of Mind Episode 4

2006-07-17T16:51:00.000-07:00

After a long drive on Saturday, we arrived at our next port of call, Salt Lake City. While we were enroute to Montana, I had the bright idea of going to visit the Spiral Jetty in Utah. Because it's there, and I seem to hit Utah only once every 20 or so years. However, by the time we got within sniffing distance of the long route to it, we'd been in the car for 5 or so hours. I waved at the exit and called it done. Because of the rats, we couldn't really stop for long breaks...Joey got heatsick in the car after a half an hour break in Missoula and had to be nursed back to health with a cold compress in Butte. It was a close call.

So we had one break in Idaho Falls in the parking lot of a Quizno's with our AC running in the truck. By the time I got to Salt Lake I was in sad shape. But Alex desperately wanted to catch the owner at Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore. After a fruitless search for a restroom at the huge honking mall city mere blocks away from the temple, we gave up and headed to Sam Weller's. I was so strung out and distracted I didn't get a picture of the facade, which I'm sorry about. (But they had a bathroom.) It's a great big store, with lots of quality used books mixed in with the new, which I like. I browsed the books while Alex made his pitch to the owner. In the kids section I found a copy of a book printed in 1974 about a little girl who goes to the hospital to get her tonsils out. I read this same book in 1975 when I got my tonsils out, and I'm surprised by how accurate my recollections of the photos were!

After that we crawled down to an EconoLodge near the I 15 I had spotted on the web the day before. We noted some interesting nightspots, but by the time we checked in, I was checked out. We ordered in pizza.

The next day we were up pretty early. I wanted to check out the Temple square area and take pictures. We knew it was going to be beastly hot, so I was eager to get out the door and back to check out at 12. We got a good parking spot on the shady side near the main complex and hit it on foot. I've been there before, in 1981. I took all the tours at that time, so I'm pretty well up on the history of the buildings, etc. I was kind of tempted to retake the visitors center tour with Alex, but I was afraid he'd start muttering aloud. We have a copy of the Book of Mormon, and we've both dipped into it and some other readings, so no need to see the movie.

We walked past the Beehive House and the Lion House, both residences of Brigham Young. It was Sunday morning so Mormons of all ages were streaming past us, to get to the Temple for service. There were perky young Mormon women greeting guests at the gates...they were also diverting guests who were coming to the Tabernacle to hear the choir. The Tabernacle is being retrofitted and the choir now sings across the street in a convention center. They paused to give us literature and asked if we'd been here before. I demurred answering, as I estimate my last visit was before these gals were born.

I took pictures for about an hour before the heat got crazy...I grabbed a free paper and used it as a parasol on the way back to the truck. We packed up and hit the road by 11:30 am, planning to stay the night in Winnemucca, NV.

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Out of State, Out of Mind Episode 3.2

2006-07-09T16:11:00.000-07:00

For those of you following the story on The Daily Show about the Berkeley Pit...well, here it is. The biggest Superfund site in the nation. It also contributes to Butte's motto "One Mile High, One Mile Deep." The next few pictures hardly do it justice...but it is very huge. There is a water treatment plant on the opposite side. If you kinda squint in the 3rd picture of the pit itself, you will see a small vertical white streak leading down to the pool in the pit. It's right of center. That's a huge waterfall of the treated water from the pit.

The pictures of the graves are from Holy Names Cemetery. I think I some relatives in this older part of the cemetery, but it was the weekend and the office was closed.

2006-07-09T09:27:00.001-07:00

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2006-07-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

Not a relative of mine, but I liked his picture. I can't believe it's survived all these years in the sun.

2006-07-09T09:19:00.000-07:00

Spookiest. Cemetery. Ever.

2006-07-09T09:18:00.000-07:00

Out of State, Out of Mind, Episode 3.1

2006-07-08T05:59:00.000-07:00

So far we've been in Butte for about 12 hours. We forgot about mountain time and the time change so we are totally thrown off. My circadian is so out of whack I woke up at 4 am my time and can't get back to sleep, so I am taking advantage of free wireless at the Comfort Inn to catch up. So far we have dropped off books, eaten pork chop sandwiches at Pork Chop John's and walked (!!!) to mom's old neighborhood on W. Gold St. from Pork Chop John's on Mercury St. Now I am starving and trying to rouse Alex to sally forth to continental breakfast. Today we hit the cemetery to see some ancestors. More later.

2006-07-08T05:58:00.000-07:00

Alex at Books & Books. These ladies were very nice.

2006-07-08T05:57:00.000-07:00

Our Lady of the Rockies.

2006-07-08T05:53:00.000-07:00

The pork chop sandwich, Butte's culinary triumph. These things are tasty.

2006-07-08T05:52:00.000-07:00

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2006-07-08T05:49:00.000-07:00

The house of Mom's family, the Lowneys. 7 People lived here.

2006-07-08T05:46:00.000-07:00

My Sullivan great-grandparents' house.

Out of State, Out of Mind, Episode 2

2006-07-08T05:37:00.000-07:00

I am so excited about where I am now, I can't concentrate on Seattle much at all. It went much more smoothly than Portland. Stores were glad to take the book. We stayed for 5 days to give ourselves a break (thanks RJ!) and even snuck in a trip to the Tacoma Museum of Glass. Thursday we left for Spokane. All I can say about Eastern Washington is that it is very flat and windy. Auntie's Books in Spokane took a couple of books. Then we headed for Butte, Montana, where all my Lowney relatives are from (Mom's side, natch). I haven't been here since 1981, so I am really stoked. Onto the next blog.

2006-07-08T05:31:00.000-07:00

Alex and RJ plotting our course through Seattle.

2006-07-08T05:30:00.000-07:00

Alex setting forth.

2006-07-08T05:29:00.000-07:00

Santoro's Books.

2006-07-08T05:28:00.000-07:00

No trip to Seattle is complete without a trip here. I restrained myself to objects I could pack flat.

2006-07-08T05:24:00.000-07:00

Washinton has some funny road signs, like "Don't Litter or it will hurt". This one really puzzles me though. Who ever measures their BAL? By the time you're drunk enough for this sign to matter, road signs are kind of irrelevent.

2006-07-08T05:23:00.001-07:00

Magnolia's Bookstore.

2006-07-08T05:23:00.000-07:00

Cool sign across the street from Elliott Bay.

2006-07-08T05:21:00.000-07:00

The Elliott Bay Book Store is my new favorite.

2006-07-08T05:20:00.000-07:00

The cone over the glass shop at the museum.

2006-07-08T05:18:00.000-07:00

A typical afternoon at the Tacoma Museum of Glass.

2006-07-08T05:14:00.000-07:00

RJ's new baby, a 63 Dodge Dart. People often stopped RJ to talk about the car. One guy looked like he was going to cry, he was so jealous.

2006-07-08T05:13:00.001-07:00

Vegas the demented.

2006-07-08T05:13:00.000-07:00

Kaia, RJ, Tina, and the Great Author

2006-07-08T05:12:00.000-07:00

Auntie's Bookstore

2006-07-08T05:10:00.000-07:00

the last of Spokane

Out of State, Out of Mind: Episode One

2006-07-04T12:38:00.000-07:00

Some of you who know me may remember that Alex and I have been talking for a few years about a road trip to put his books into stores outside California. Without distribution an author has to work the consignment angle, which is time-consuming enough when you're doing it by mail. However, Alex has found more success working it face to face so we hit the road this week on a multi-state tour. This trip will cost us more than the books we sell will ever make, but that's not the point. The purpose of doing this is to simply generate some interest in the work. If the books sell out here, then hopefully the stores will order more and we can ship from home by mail.

Also, we needed a trip out of town.

We hit the web to find independent bookstores that looked like they might like Alex's work and generated an encouraging list. So, we loaded up on maps from AAA (worth the price of a years membership alone!) and boxed up books and caged the rats. This is the hardest part to juggle because rats get heatstroke like crazy easy and you need to be totally vigilant. We figured we'd be going to the nice cool hills of the Pacific Northwest, though. I was worried it would be too cold, in fact and considered bringing long johns.

Wrong. We hit Ashland at about 6 pm and it was brutal.

Vegas hot. Well, not that hot, but...

We covered the boys' cage with a pillowcase and carefully cracked the windows but we were against the clock. We were in luck in that all of the addresses we had were on the same block. Two of the stores were no longer. One was obviously New Age. Alex's work sometimes envices what I call "punitive Shintoism" but it's not New Age. More like "Dark Age". Another scratched off the list.

We found another was closed. Even though it looked like a cool store it looked really disorganized. We've found that store owners who have messy stores also hate consignment paperwork. No, really, it's true. So we weren't too sad about that. One other (More Fun) was strictly a comic and zine store. We've tried to crack the zine distro system, but we're not quite a zine. Not at 280 pages.

So one store was left on our list, Bloomsbury Books. They took consignment, but we had to talk to the owner who wasn't in until the next morning. We rushed back to the truck and hightailed it to Medford. We found a hotel and jacked up the airconditioning. Whew. They had a pool...but thinking I was going to the Snowy Northern Wastes I had of course neglected to pack a bathing suit.

The next morning we headed back to Bloomsbury Books and they took some books. Score! This was going to work after all!

Our next stop was Salem. It's very pretty and I'm sure there's lots of cool stuff to see. However, it was 88 degrees with not a cloud in the sky. The air was dead still. We got to Jackson's books and they were willing to take books. But they wanted more of one of them, so Al had to hike back to the truck, poor lamb. I browsed Beth Lisick's book, which I will probably end up buying somewhere, but I'm trying to adhere to a rule on this trip that I don't spend as much on books in stores as we place.

We took off to Portland. Man, is that a hairy drive. It's like the grapevine on steroids. We checked into the Days Inn (swimming pool >:( ) and the rats even had their own bed. Al wanted to get started right away on his list but I convinced him that my terminal case of bitchiness could only be cured with beer. We strolled south in the direction of one of his stores, found it, and then found Paddy's Bar and Grill, just the ticket.

After dinner, Al called stores on his list. There he hit a snag. Regionalism. "Locals only" "Sorry, only for locals" "Err, Oakland isn't local" Ok, we got it. A couple of stores were closed (it was around 9 pm) but we had seen their websites and we thought we were a good fit, regardless. And of course there was Powell's which was Mecca. We called them. The clerk transferred Al to a recording which told that they require a 3 week review process, and if they aren't going to carry your book, you can infer it from their silence. And they keep your book. "Independent" does not always translate into "warm and friendly".

In the morning we walked down to Looking Glass books. The owner was very nice, but she only did consignment for locals. Her son was at CCAC though, so we chatted for awhile. (I was struck by how nice everyone was, starting in Medford. Strangers saying hi on the streets. Strangers striking up conversations. People who are far from California have this idea that California is hearts and flowers hippy dippy and it's really not true. It is corporations and agriculture and strangers.)

We got the truck and headed over the Harrison Bridge to Wallace books. Portland is a lovely town. I could really see living there. The neighborhoods have preserved so much of their heritage, but everything looks fresh and interesting. The Willamette Week had a article on the condo problem, but it's not as pervasive as the East Bay. Plus, no sales tax.

Stiv at Wallace books took three books, one of each and bought them straight out. We browsed his store. I found a collection of Meatcake by Dame Darcy that I wanted to get for RJ's daughter, but it was $22.95 which was just about what we'd gotten for Al's books and definitely violated my rule. Instead we got a vintage printing of Whisky Galore by Compton MacKenzie.

We went up the street to a gallery that had caught my eye. It was in the ballroom of a Masonic temple, very cool. We talked to the owner for a bit, who was intrigued with our quest and asked if we'd approached Powell's. Next we ate lunch at a great little restaurant called "Stickers" which was Asian fusion but funky and unpretentious. The walls were painted a dusky indigo with glossy red on the trim and details which is still sticking in my brain. On the way back to city center I snapped a picture of the Aladdin theater, which looks to have been converted to a live show space. It made me happy. So many Oakland movie palaces have been converted to abandoned buildings. I hope the Fox conversion reverses the trend.

We had some time to kill before talking to the people at Reading Frenzy and Counter Media, so we went uptown to check out a Chinese garden.

Then we headed over to park near Powell's. I abandoned Alex to his quest while I sunk my teeth into Powell's. Fact is I can just pure shop longer than Alex and he tends to breathe down my neck when he's done with looking. I only get to Powell's once a decade. I picked up a copy of Rats and Training Your Pet Rat and a book on sale about the Voynich Manuscript by a descendent of Mrs. Voynich.

I ran into Alex in Science Fiction. It turned out Reading Frenzy only took local authors. We were bummed, as we'd had high high hopes. But Counter Media took Metro, which was cool. They don't have a website, we just found their address on Google Maps and it was a total long shot. But they're only a door down from Reading Frenzy, so it was worth checking out!

After all the hard work we headed back to the hotel to freshen up and then walked to Paddy's again. I had been reading Rats while we rested up in the room and Sullivan had discovered that his alley rats really prefered chicken pot pie from the Irish restaurant that bordered their home. I ordered the chicken pot pie from Paddy's to experiment with our fellows. They turned up their noses at my leftovers when we got back.

The next morning we bid a sad farewell to Portland and headed over the border to Vancouver and So Many Books. The nice owner there took a few books. This was a great store with a cat and a sign that said "Do more stupid things faster with coffee." inside. We got breakfast at Dulin's Village Cafe that has a menu that heavily features potatos. Not that I'm complaining.

Next on to Olympia, which I was curious to see, since Lynda Barry and Matt Groening went to Evergreen. Orca books didn't really give us a straight answer and wanted Alex to leave a free sample to review. He hates this so he was a little pissy on the way to Tacoma. Tacoma was also a bust. We went to King's Books which was awesome and talked to the owner. At first the owner seemed totally into it, and then he went into his office to "check on something first". It must have been a really pessimistic magic 8 ball because he came right back out and said "Sorry, I'm going to have to pass this time. We really only work with locals. Bye." We were a little stunned. Even the majesty of Mt. Rainier in a heartbreakingly beautiful view failed to console. Hopefully we're going back tomorrow to the Tacoma Glass Museum and I can take a picture of the mountain then.

Only the thought that our last stop that day was RJ's house in Seattle kept our spirits up. RJ's house and beer.

Next up: Seattle

2006-07-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

Sammy was not prepared for the trip. He didn't stir when his cushion was lifted and he was twitching like mad in deep REM sleep.

2006-07-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

Our first sighting of Mt. Hood.

2006-07-04T11:03:00.000-07:00

I'm getting better at photography at 85 miles per hour.

2006-07-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

This place looked cool, but it wasn't open after 5.

2006-07-04T10:54:00.000-07:00

Our first success in Ashland, Oregon.

2006-07-04T10:50:00.000-07:00

Former bookstore.

2006-07-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

One look and we decided this was not a good fit for Al's body of work.

2006-07-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

Former bookstore.

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2006-07-04T10:40:00.000-07:00

Ashland's The Larks Hotel. It's a far cry from the Medford Inn.

2006-07-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

Downtown Medford was so clean and nice, it was scary. I love this building.

2006-07-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

Downtown Historical Medford.

2006-07-04T10:31:00.000-07:00

The Salem Statesman Journal. The bookstore lady recommended we drop off a book for a possible review. We've been down that road before...with no real luck. But Metro is pretty appealing so we'll see.

2006-07-04T10:28:00.000-07:00

Salem was so hot I refused to get back out of the truck to take a picture of the store.

2006-07-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

Portland.

2006-07-04T10:23:00.000-07:00

A Mason temple with a gallery downstairs.

2006-07-04T10:21:00.000-07:00

Wallace Books manned by Stiv.

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Lotus at the Chinese garden.

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