dead pigeon studios

i enjoy missing you when you are not around.

grandmother

i watched my dim reflection in the glass on the front of the cabinet last night as the needles reminded me how to feel. i look very thin. my cheekbones are ever more prominent and my eyes look hollow. my arms are wiry and muscular and my joints look over-large. i do not have the same face i did a year ago.
my history is dying around me and i am looking like someone new.

exhausted.

i am stuck. i cannot work because i cannot settle and i cannot settle because i cannot move in to my permanent room until monday. if i were truly nomadic then i would be fine but i am not moving, either, i am just stagnating, waiting. on pause. i have been on pause for months now and i am tired. it's not the kind of tired that goes away with a good night's sleep or a day off, it's the kind of tired that settles in and won't leave because there is no way to eliminate its source.
so very tired.

permanent

i do not know how more permanence will treat me.
transience suits me so well...

pretendtwin

rauschenberg to your johns.
keep coming back to the truth of that.
it's more and more everyday.

perche voi?

They all die with their eyes open. Sometimes they shudder as their breathing ceases. Their muscles tense and then go slack, and quickly they are no more. Terminus.

a list of things to make:

- silk shirtdress
- linen sundress
- linen flounce skirt
- redbean cookies
- topographic map bags
- lung cancer cake

ache

i want to read all of your letters.
i want to read everything you've ever sent to me, every word.
i can't.
you say that light feels like things radiating from the chest, and dark like things crushing it in. everything radiates from my chest. great auroras bursting forth.
i don't know where to begin.

crepuscular

last night i saw bats.

this is going to be a wonderful summer.

kinski cat

bicycle

my body is a patchwork of bruises and scrapes in various stages of healing, and i am thrilled to be made of meat.

maybe not

the most important thing is that you do no harm.

new

pretend you don't know me

tonight i picked dandelions and blew them at the stars like kisses. i can measure happiness in tons and i can find my own way home.

spre

drove home. rain misting slightly. legs ache, feet ache, mind aches. i smell like sweat, not all mine. i stubbed my toe and i probably bled a bit on my sheets.
i've sloughed off skin like some reptile.
healthier than i have ever been.

roadkill

1 raccoon, curled by the side of the road with chin resting on paws, looking peacefully asleep

1 robin, accompanied by its still-living and perplexed offspring

2 fat prairie dogs

1 crow, upside down with wings splayed and feet curled

1 coyote, nose to the sky

2 deer, a buck and a doe, bisected by the double lines

winding

i drive home on what used to be a farm road. desolation borders fresh tilled fields. the suburbs rub shoulders with fallow soil and horse pasture.
there is a barn that tilts to the right at a 45 degree angle next to a gutted house on the back of a flatbed. horses fly through mud in high spirits and cold mornings and the light makes even the mcmansions look like home.

things i am doing

- modding a milliken hi-speed 16mm camera so that it will not freak out when i use single perf film in it.
- making monsters out of felt.
- missing SIJ
- wishing on dust motes

...

i forget now why i opened the window to type something in the first place. i am reading about magic and worrying ever so slightly about my dear friend who will soon be on a trans-atlantic flight to italy from whence he had best send me a postcard. my thumb hurts where i stabbed it yesterday and i seem to have forgotten what i was thinking.

a shadow of an echo remains of what was once a tidal wave
and i am struggling to maintain a sense of decorum
my right arm is connected directly to my heart
and the heat of my mind is cooking itself for lunch

twins

we sleep curled around one another like two cats in sunlight, our breath mingling and our bodies as indistinguishable as our minds. i don't remember what it took to get here but there is no going back. he told me earlier that our relationship is the most obscure and confusing thing he has ever been a part of. not confusing to him, of course, confusing to everyone else. how can you explain it, really? it's like being lit from the same spark.

things i like today

1. felt. specifically, the way that felt feels when i pull it apart. it's unpleasant in the most delightful way.
2. bats. i always like bats, but it's getting towards the time to see them again and they've been popping up an awful lot lately, in unexpected places.
3. strawberry jelly on tortillas.
4. parasites.

passive

the lines cross and cross again and slowly the pattern of my days becomes the weft and the warp and time passes. tapestries made of time and thought.

imaginings

somewhere and somehow i thought i was more than the sum of my parts. more than bone plus meat plus blood plus electricity plus a few assorted oddments and bits. more than energy in equals energy out. somewhere in that equation i thought there was a soul. 21 grams that mysteriously disappears between lifespark and dead ember. i was mistaken. the sum of the parts is the soul and the self. the electrical current that flows through this meat, the meat itself, the blood and the bile and the bone, that is the soul. the lifespark is not separate from the body or the mind. the three are inseparable and turning off one turns off the others as well. it is a simple switch to flip off, but it requires a key to turn back on.

the shiny golden men

i think i have to.

the oscars:

best picture - no country for old men: okay. totally okay with this. it was a dead heat between there will be blood and this, so i am totally okay with this.

best actor - daniel day lewis: uh, duh. i mean, really. there was no question here. at all. no one else had a chance.

best actress - marion cotillard: okay, i guess. i mean, i wish laura linney would have won, but that was based more on finding 'la vie en rose' boring than really on the performances, so totally acceptable.

best supporting actor - javier bardem: i suppose. i would've chosen tom wilkinson, as far as an actually masterful performance rather than a cleverly creepy one. but bardem haunts my dreams, in terrifyingly erotic ways, so whatever.

best supporting actress - tilda swinton: it was her or ruby dee. and she was very, very, very good.

best director - joelethan coen: i see why. i would've chosen julien schnabel, but that's okay. 'the diving bell and the butterfly' nearly made me vomit, i can't see the academy being able to stomach it.

adapted screenplay - joelethan coen: yeah. definitely. no question on this one.

original screenplay - diablo cody: ugh. i despise diablo cody. juno was cute and clever. i would've preferred ratatouille if they wanted cute and clever, though.

original song - glen hansard (once): thank god. the rest of the options were horrible.

original score - dario marianelli/atonement: okay, it was the best of the options given. there is no reason that they shouldn't have nominated 'there will be blood'.

cinematography - robert elswit (there will be blood): yes. totally okay with this. would've preferred 'the diving bell and the butterfly', as it was actually creative cinematographically, but 'blood' was unquestionably the most conventionally exceptional of the bunch. 'the assassination of jesse james' was also exceptional, creatively. but unusual doesn't get rewarded, unfortunately.

editing - christopher rouse (bourne ultimatum): seriously? no, really... 'diving bell' should've won here. or at least 'blood'. blech.

costume design - elizabeth: the golden age: you know, i really don't care that much. hooray for neck ruffs? i think this is awarded based on the amount of fabric used.

art direction - sweeney todd: okay, i totally accept this one. it was a cohesive fantasy world, and the most evident use of art direction.

animated feature - ratatouille: give ratatouille best original screenplay so that persepolis could win this. good lord, pixar shouldn't just AUTOMATICALLY get the oscar. persepolis was better, overall. and they used an old animation stand. whatever.

animated short - peter and the wolf: sure. they pick the boring one. tutli-putli should have won. or moya lyubov. both were more accomplished.

live action short - the mozart of pickpockets: yep. no question here. at all.

documentary feature - taxi to the dark side: i'm just glad fucking sicko didn't win.

documentary short - freeheld: you know, i really don't like documentaries. documentary shorts are even less interesting.

foreign language film - the counterfeiters: eh, mongol was more interesting. this is such a throwaway category, anyhow.

visual effects - the golden compass: well, i suppose they were choosing between evils?

makeup - la vie en rose: they can't exactly give it to norbit, now, can they.

sound editing - the bourne ultimatum: again, totally unacceptable. it seems like they were forced to choose between 'no country' and 'blood' and didn't want to, so they chose something else. which is ridiculous. 'blood' should've won here.

sound mixing - the bourne ultimatum: yeah, 'no country' should've won here.

ah, yet another catalogue of why i hate the academy.
i feel sick.
brakhage, anyone?

imaginary creatures

i made a list of imaginary creatures, but i can't show it to you because they are imaginary.
i made a collection of rose petals but they dried and crumbled away.
i made a jar of honey but i didn't, actually, the bees did.
i made a fireworks display and it exploded in your heart.

vernal longings

i saw my first meadowlark of the year this morning, as i made my tired way home from work. his proud yellow chest gleamed in the early morning sun. soon enough the early mornings will be filled with birdsong, the hard frozen matutinal hours less lonely for their bright presence.
i heard a meadowlark last week, but somehow it doesn't count until i see one. the robins, of course, have been puttering about since the new year - i'm not fully convinced that they ever leave - and the starlings and pigeons have been occupying my walls as usual.
i picked up a habit for bird-watching at some point in my life. i'm not sure when it was, but i believe that it has its root in my longing for wings. i do it from the car, even. i can spot birds from the car, while driving, that most people wouldn't notice until they disappeared in a flurry of you're-too-close wings. i see kestrels, frequently, and red-tailed hawks, and hover-dancing prairie falcons. less frequently i spot the bald eagles or the big, proud goldens. the ravens and the crows and the turkey vultures are ever-present, and the swallows dance like fireflies in the summer sunset. one evening i spotted a great-horned owl as i walked to my car. it swooped low overhead and, though it couldn't have been more than five feet from my head, i could only hear the barest whisper of feathers through the air.
the seasons are filled with the comings and goings of fauna and flora, things that i recognize only on an intuitive, unconscious level - until i blurt something out that i didn't know i knew. the elk only show up in late winter, when the food higher up has run out; the baldies prefer to cruise above the prairie dog town until something gets hit, and take the roadkill rather than waste effort on a hunt; the kestrels like the edges of fields because that is where the mice are easiest to catch; red-tails prefer snakes over anything else; prairie falcons whistle when they are happy.
i know other things, too, i'm sure. i just can't think about them, or they slide away.

mein lieber freund

we read minds, you and i. i yours and you mine. softly we slip in and out of one another's consciousness, unnoticed or unlooked for. you know when i cannot sleep for you are wakeful also, restless in your pile of bedding.

sleep

i am up at five in the morning watching cartoons on nickelodeon because i am not able to force myself into slumber. the dog is snoring, the house is quiet, the sun won't be up for two hours.
i'm very much alone.

bohunk

i am a northern european mutt. part irish, part scottish, part welsh, part german, part norwegian, part swedish, part polish, part austrian, part bohemian. so, really, gaelic, celtic, nordic, slavic, and saxon- which about covers the northern european tribal units. this mutt-ness comes in handy, when i am in europe, because i don't look american. i lack the open face and the wide set eyes and the bland nose that generations of homogenization have created in certain parts of america- the 'California' look. it's interesting, because my father looks very american- very much like the boy scout he is. but my mother looks like she's related to brigid, so i suppose i get it from her. anyhow, the point of telling you all of this is that i find it amusing that i can legitimately call myself a bohemian. and even the bohemians, now the czech, would agree.
just don't call me moravian.

two of the reasons i've been neglecting this

are the following:





(i apologize for the shitty quality on these, YouTube doesn't allow for high quality videos, sadly.)

i've actually finished something. two things. they're done. they have sound. they're completely finished. hurrah.

the shiny golden men

i've seen all of the best picture oscar nominees now. i can honestly say that for the first time, i actually like them all. i cannot comprehend, however, the placement of juno and atonement in such august company. both are sweet and have their charms. but next to the other three, there will be blood and no country for old men and michael clayton, they are soft and forgettable. michael clayton, however, is the worst and most pleasurable case of cinematic blue balls i've ever experienced. the tension builds and builds and then does not release. it pretends to release, but the buildup simply continues. anyhow, it's quite good.

happy birthday to me

i got four cacti.

sinking

i am submerged and cannot surface. i do not want to leave the world which was created for me. it was created for me and none other.

lower

i have a peculiar bit of body dysmorphia lately that makes me think i am much larger than i am. i can't seem to recognize that clothes don't fit me, at least not without a concerted effort to see it. i bought new jeans last week that seemed to fit me fine in the store, but now that i have them home i realize they are at least a size too large. they're comfortable, and it's not as though they are so large they will fall off, but they are clearly not my fit. the pants that i wear for work, i think, fit me fine. but i know that they, also, are at least two sizes too large. i can take them off easily without unbuttoning them. i have, without any particular effort, lost 25 lbs. in the last two years. at one point i had lost more than that, but i was far too thin and have worked to put a bit of weight back on. and yet i am still wearing the same size pants. delusional. i pulled on my ski pants, which i had not worn in two years, and they were so large i could tuck my heavy winter coat into them. everything fits better, and everything is easier to do. i can run for more than a block, which in the past would've killed me. i walk miles at a time. i can pull off yoga poses that i never would've managed before. i know, on some level, that i am in much better shape than i have ever been. and yet intuitively i am still a considerably less healthy me.

frontal lobotomy

movies like Meet the Spartans (and the rest from that duo, whose names i can't remember) are designed to make film students with any kind of self-respect feel like ass. outwardly, they talk about how horrible the movies are and how they can't believe such travesties get made. inwardly, they curse themselves and wish for just the right amount of brain damage that would allow them to stoop low enough to make that much money on something so blatantly horrid.
i'm one of them. it'll pass, but in the meantime, anyone have an icepick?
sometimes i have to think that the filmmakers in question realize just how bad their movies are and are laughing all the way to the bank. which makes me despise them, because that's just vile. i hope they can't enjoy a cent of what they make. it would be much better if they were that genuinely stupid. i hate to think about things being made out of anything other than genuine-ness. which makes me a silly, fluff-headed idealist. oh well.

the shiny golden men

the last short, Peter and the Wolf. unfortunately, it's only a trailer - the full length was pulled.

rings and fingers

the distance from my house to the place where D was living when i first met him is roughly 575 miles. i left after work on friday, march 9, at approximately 6 pm mountain standard time, and arrived at his door at roughly 3 am central time on saturday march 10.
i don't know how to explain that meeting, really, beyond it being incredibly revelatory in many ways.
at that time, i wore two rings. neither had left their appointed finger for at least four years. one was a tiger-striped agate set in hammered silver that i wore, and still wear, on my right ring finger. the other was a silver sun face, worn on my left thumb.
when i left, i gave david the sun ring. he put it on his right ring finger, and he doesn't take it off.
when i am missing him, my thumb itches where the ring used to sit.

the shiny golden men

today i give you Moya Lyubov, by Aleksandr Petrov and Ivan Shmelyov

part one


and part two


sorry, no subtitles. watch it anyhow, it's worth it.

mis-taken

i collect old photographs, of various sorts. i have a few tintypes, and a single precious daguerreotype. i have early paper prints, i have copper negative plates for newspapers, i have stereoscopic prints. i have reproductions of old photographs and photographs of dead babies. but as much as i love the very old photographs, i have a special fondness for prints from the 40s and 50s - the era of the increasing popularity of the personal camera. there is a very specific reason for this fondness - namely, i like it when i can find photographs that are taken by obvious amateurs. there is a special something in camera mistakes: over-exposures, under-exposures, overly slow shutter speeds. they make me smile, and they feel so very human. the early photographs are all taken by obvious professionals, and the limitations of the early cameras prevented the spontaneity of their later personal use.
anyhow, before i continue to ramble, i present to you my most recent photographic purchases - all found for fifty cents apiece in a junk shop in Pueblo, Colorado.

painting

i am painting for the first time in many years. painting seriously, anyhow. there was something else i was going to say, but i don't remember what. my fingers are crusted in orange and white acrylic and i am smiling like a fool. painting away my nightmares. something about painting serves as an exorcism. in film i can live my dreams, but i cannot escape them. in painting, i make them dead, flat and false.



i am distressed at my poor memory, i don't remember anything that i ought. and i remember things that i oughtn't. i have felt happier lately, though. like my shell of self is not a shell anymore.

the shiny golden men

oops, so i promised a video yesterday and forgot. today you get two.

the trailer for I Met The Walrus by Josh Raskin


and

the trailer for Madame Tutli-Putli by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski


more tomorrow, i promise.

(i ought to move to canada. they like film there.)

the shiny golden men

the oscars give me reason to look at my favorite thing, short-form animation.
so you get to look, too.
the first nominee for short form animation: Même les pigeons vont au paradis, by Samuel Torneaux and Vanesse Simon. and here it is, in all its YouTube glory...



i'll post another one tomorrow.

concrete settles

i had a moment of panic in which i thought perhaps everything i'd ever done was lost and i would have to start anew.

it felt good, actually, when i got hold of the reins.

panic is a reifying agent of towering proportions.

and i am more real for it.

everywhere

i wonder where in this world there is a place for someone like me, or someone like you. where do we belong, we who know and see?
the nostalgia is strong for a time which i never knew and which no longer exists.
the past is an echo and the future is a void.
and now there is nothing.
and beauty is everywhere.

imaginary beings

my best friend is scared of spiders. i don't know if that is relevant or not. he doesn't shriek anymore, but he definitely doesn't care to be close to them.
when we were 17, i went to his house one afternoon to visit him - i was home from college for a week, he was still in high school. i always wore the same outfit when i visited him, at least when it was chilly - a black lace skirt with a skin-colored liner, knee high black socks, and a red and tan striped shirt. i still wear the skirt sometimes, it fits me better now than it did then. i don't remember the exact content of the visit, i'm not sure what we talked about. i'm not even sure of the date, but i think it was the middle of october. i do, however, remember the climax, and the sudden panic when we realized his mother had walked in upstairs. i remember that much.
it is hard to define the relationship he and i have, because it is so old.
it is hard to remember where i end and he begins, at times.
it is hard to imagine me without him.

I cannot hold back the walls when they close in but I think I can slow
them
down enough to see you go
from fire to smoke and rise.

marienbad

every so often i am reminded that i live in the wrong place to do one of my favorite things - that is, go to the movies. this time it was by the re-release of Last Year at Marienbad, in new york city. i've seen the film, a number of times - i've seen it projected several times, in fact. but to see it in a real theater, rather than a classroom - to see it with people who have never seen it before, who have probably never seen anything like it before, would be something else. seeing anything in a theater is a different experience. film is fresher, feels crisper, has a way of seeping in where before it was blocked out. to see it when i can feel the tension of those around me - their boredom, even - and to see it in a brand new, 35 mm print.

but, alas, i live in the middle of nowhere.

as i am

a true and devoted fan of Lawrence Weschler, and especially of his Convergences column on the McSweeney's Internet Tendency website, i feel it is only honest to pass on the most fabulous thing he has posted recently.
Aaron Koblin's time-lapse graphic of the flights entering and leaving U.S. airspace over a 24-hour period.

dear jj abrams,

shaky handheld digital footage and someone screaming 'oh my god!' for two hours does not a movie make.

especially if you show me the monsters.

you better not show me the fucking monsters.

thanks.

projects

as if i don't have enough things in the works, i've decided to work on a series of black and white male nudes.

the beginnings of the project can be found in this set on flickr.

dreaming

i dream of terrible things and wake up feeling as though i'll never sleep again, and i read for hours and then finally get out of bed because there is nothing else to do and all of the dogs follow me downstairs and they abandon him in the bed, alone and cold because he has no fat, just skin and the barest hint of lean muscle.
he sweats in his sleep and then he shivers and aches from the cold, and it's as though his body is trying its damndest to defeat him. his jaw works slowly, grinding his teeth against each other until i press lightly next to his ears and his face relaxes again, for a while. usually i am asleep before he is but when i am not his sleeping keeps me awake, fearful that someday he won't make it through the night.

there will be blood

it is worn and tired and beautiful and it is squeezing its way into my soul through my pores and i cannot help but wonder at its efficacy. soon i, too, will be seeping oil and burning, burning alive. like any good horror film the terrors come unbidden and without warning, a flash of death in the night. the landscape itself becomes a terrifying thing filled with black blood that will burst forth and drive men mad.

if you're curious

this is what i'm working on.

all attempts at realism are strongly discouraged

okay, really i just can't draw.

beautiful things

plump jade leaves in early morning light
the sharp smell of fresh-brewed green tea
magnifying glasses
the list continues

examine

my head is filled with holes and everything enters and nothing can leave.

scraps

i keep every bit of communication that transpires between myself and certain persons. i cannot bear to delete it. it's useless, generally. sometimes it is merely a terse question requesting information. it still stays.