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Thursday, October 2

Eric Johnson: Maize Artist Talk @ Torrance Art Museum.  Mentioned yesterday, join curator Kristina Newhouse and Eric as they discuss his epic project.  Starts at 3 PM.

Executive Order Karaoke @ MOCA (Sculpture Plaza).  It’s what it sounds like, and presented by the Finishing School.  Hosted by Tammy Tomahawk. Win Prizes!  Part of MOCA’s Engagement Party project.  7-10 PM.

Friday, October 3

Michael Lewis Miller:Psychophysical Prosthetic #1, 1989-Present @ Municipal Art Gallery.  Michael will be playing music while wearing the furniture-like portions of the Psychophysical Prosthetic Wardrobe. Starts at 8 PM.

Ugetsu, Night of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead @ The Silent Movie Theatre.  The mighty Cinefamily is bombarding October with horror films, and in their usual range of taste, from utterly classic to some of the worst things ever projected on screen.  Friday nights this month are devoted to Japanese ghost stories, and they’re kicking off the series with Kenzi Mizoguchi’s classic, Ugetsu.  If you want to make it a long evening for one ticket, their late Friday series is devoted to George Romero, and this friday they’re doubling up on zombie action with Night of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead.  Can’t beat that.  Ugetsu starts at 7:30 and the two Deads start at 10.

The Rising Tide @ Pacific Asia Museum.  Documentary that “investigates China’s meteoric march toward the future through the work of some of its most talented emerging artists.”  Bone up on your “Chinese artists are our new Blue Chip masters” material.  Director Robert Adanto will be introducing the film.  Starts at 8 PM.

Saturday, October 4

THE GOOD BAD: One nite of Photography, Paintings, Tacos @ Above an Ace Hardware in Hermosa Beach (743 4th Street).  Feturing works by Sean Cassidy, Joel Ahrens & Robert Abeyta, Jr.  This may be the first time in a long time that anything curious or interesting has occured in Hermosa Beach.  Reception is 7-10.

Tokyo Nonsense @ Scion Space.  Found out about this through the awesome folks at PoNJA-GenKon.  11 YJA’s including Ichiro Endo, Taro Izumi, Ai Kato (aka ai*madonna), Sachiko Kazama, Iichiro Tanaka, and the six-member artist group, Chim↑Pom.  Curated by Gabriel Ritter. Reception is 7-10.

Lindsay Foster: Show #4 @ Open Gallery.  I met Lindsay during Salty Dog Bites the Hand, an exhibition of Cal Arts MFA candidates in Alan Sekula’s program that we hosted at Angels Gate last year.  She made this amazing, beautiful video diary for Sixtus Petraeus a former ship captain, the father of now well known General David Petraeus, about the Port of Los Angeles.  This is an exhibition of her photographs.  Curated by Claudia Bohn-Spector.  Reception is 7-10.

The Intergalactic Discorse @ MOCA.  Presented by the surely awesome and before now, unknown to me Women’s Science Fiction Book Reading Club of Greater Los Angeles.  Benefit program to promote children’s literacy.  7-10 PM.

20 Years Ago Today @ Japanese American National Museum.  It’s the 20th anniversay of the California Community Foundation’s Fellowships for Visual Artists and this show features works created during their grants by a mountain of recipients.  Opening starts at 7:30.

Cat People (trailer at top) @ The Silent Movie Theatre.  More Cinefamily action.  Early Saturdays in October are devoted to the films of Val Lewton, and this is the classic that you can’t miss.  Watch artist Irene (played by Simone Simon) explore the mysteries of her possible Satanic past and literally catlike sexually murderous side.  Film starts at 7:30. 

LA Derby Dolls: Fight Crew vs Varsity Brawlers @ The Dollhouse.  Banked tracked action is on as the Varsity Brawlers, the newest team of bad gals on spinning urethane, make their debut against the Fight Crew.  Buy your tickets before they sell out!  Bout starts at 8 PM.

Sunday, October 5

MOMENTUM @ various locations in the East Village Art District in Long Beach.  Not too sure about the exact location, but Betsy Lohrer-Hall is installing a lemonade shop in the back of a rental van and has asked artists to do work based with and on paper cups for it.  I’m cooking up a “Gluttony Cup” for it.  More details to come. 10 AM - 8 PM.

Mr. Peanut Haim Steinbach on Mike Kelley @ Overduin and Kite.  Works made by Steinbach based on items from Mike Kelley’s home, offices and studio.  Reception is 5-7 PM.

Technorati Tags: art, contemporary art, film, la art, roller derby

In which Sthephen Cohen Gallery hosts an Artillery roundtable digesting Paul McCarthy’s Chocolate Santa with Butt Plug.

Technorati Tags: Artillery Magazine, art, chocolate, Stephen Cohen Gallery, Chocolate Santa, Butt Plug, Chocolate Santa with Butt Plug, contemporary art, roundtable

Apparently, Matthew Barney throws better parties than I do. Live vicariously through Supertouch’s recap.

Seen over at C-Monster.

Technorati Tags: food, pig, pig roast, Matthew Barney, Black Metal

A single onion costs pennies, but the chopped remains of about one (also available in red!) will run you $1.99 at your local “overpriced organic ego-chow mart.” This was spotted at the Henry’s in San Pedro, an upscale market that always seems light on customers. I have nothing to add other than that I’m no longer shocked by the downward spiral of self-reliance in this society. Oh, and I guess I raise a tiny, tear filled glass to the opportunistic bastards at Gill’s Onions for separating the lazy from their undeserved shekels.

FYI - if you’re the kind of person who buys this stuff, after the apocalypse, you’re first into my over-sized cooking pot, future long pig. Lazy, desk jockeys with health care, don’t work with their hands, organically fed humans are the tender, well marbled Kobe beef of the desolate future.

Photo by generous phonecam wielder and fellow shopper Michele.

Technorati Tags: Henry’s, food, Your Moment of the Apocalypse, Sign of the End Times, onions, Gill’s Onions, sloth

I’m on the road in Missouri, eating as much BBQ as is humanely possible, and a little bit stuffed and sick from it. I also just spent two days marveling at the joys of the Nelson-Atkins Museum, the Kemper Museum, the National WWI Museum and the Toy and Miniature Museum in glorious, smoky scented and fountain kissed Kansas City. What to do if you’re back in LA? Probably go to Comicon in San Diego, actually, if you can bear the crowds, and you’ve managed to get the stains out of your Pokemon fursuit, yet. Or hit Jay Bee’s House of Fine Bar-B-Que and get the best LA has to offer on the BBQ front. Join me in my smoke ringed paradise…

Back to art. I’d like to recommend one exhibition for my friends in LA, Looky See (.pdf press release here), at the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis. A group show featuring lots of excellent folks, featuring Emily de Araújo, Eric Beltz, Barbara Berk, Joe Biel, Sandow Birk, Ann Diener, Roy Dowell, Erin Dunn, Erica Eyres, Iva Gueorguieva, Penelope Gottlieb, Richard Keely and Anna O’Cain, Takehito Koganezawa, Tucker Neel, Claudia Nieto, Aaron Noble, Chris Oatey, Ruby Osorio, Ebony G. Patterson, Ron Santos, Mindy Shapero, Fran Siegel, Coleen Sterritt, Fred Stonehouse, Randal Thurston, Elizabeth Turk and Xawery Wolski. It opens tomorrow, Saturday July 26, and the reception is from 6-8 PM.

At Top: Sneak preview image of Fran Siegel’s installation for Looky See.

Technorati Tags: Emily de Araújo, Eric Beltz, Barbara Berk, Joe Biel, Sandow Birk, Ann Diener, Roy Dowell, Erin Dunn, Erica Eyres, Iva Gueorguieva, Penelope Gottlieb, Richard Keely and Anna O’Cain, Takehito Koganezawa, Tucker Neel, Claudia Nieto, Aaron Noble, Chris Oatey, Ruby Osorio, Ebony G. Patterson, Ron Santos, Mindy Shapero, Fran Siegel, Coleen Sterritt, Fred Stonehouse, Randal Thurston, Elizabeth Turk, Xawery Wolski, Otis, Ben Maltz Gallery, Looky See, LA Art, art, contemporary art

The season is now officially on! Bring forth more tomato action, good, green Earth! This nicely sliced pile of Lemon Boys and Yellow Pears made their way into a delicious breakfast of chilaquiles.

Technorati Tags: tomatoes, Lemon Boy, Yellow Pear, food porn, food, homegrown

I suppose it’s no surprise, that in what must be the center of the street food universe, I discover the Thai version of the danger dog, a quadruple threat of bacon wrapped beauty. All this within minutes walk from my room in the Dr. Sanoh Unakoon Condominium at Burapha University. The school year just started and there are all kinds of festivities going on, including a street fair where I got my skewery love on. And if you can’t tell from the greasy, messed up hair, it’s sweltery as all hell here!

And nothing goes better with a skewer of fat wrapped fat and a sack full of Isaan=style pork sausage than a styrofoam tray of quail eggs. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I like the Thai approach to eggs. You can eat eggs on the street, eggs for breakfast and omelettes over beer at midnight. It’s egg-tastic! Cholesterol FTW!

Technorati Tags: eggs, fried eggs, Thai food, street food, junk food, danger dog, bacon wrapped hot dog, meat, sausage

One of the awesome-ist things I’ve eaten on this trip was the above, fried quail (or quail-looking, anyways) eggs, served in a foam box and eaten with a skewer. They were fried just past over easy, in a big, circular takoyaki pan. Delicious, with a little spice, but nothing other than the pure flavour of the delicious egg to make them magical.

I saw these being sold at the Chonburi Night Market, and I had to have them. It was like love at first sight - pure food magnetism filling my soul. This is what food is all about. My mission on this Earth is to find things like this, eat them and love them.

Technorati Tags: food, food porn, eggs, fried eggs, Chonburi night market, Chonburi, delicious

Cthulhu would be proud. There is nothing like hot, dried, grilled, rolled cuttlefish, right at the beach.

Technorati Tags: cuttlefish, self portrait, Bang Saen, Thailand, Thai food, mouthful, delicious, food, food porn

Pongsak, Ian, Edith and Jessada pick me up at the airport. This is the kind of photo you take when it’s the middle of the night and you don’t know where you are.

I’ve pretty much hit the ground running. Eating, sleeping, installing art, being with Thai friends, seeing everything, jaw-dropping at bikes, shooting photos, shopping, planning, shaking down deadlines and only kind of knowing what’s going on at any given moment.

Above - Welcome to Thailand. I’ve told a bunch of folks about the fact that American Standard makes a squat toilet, but no one seems to have believed me. Ha! I want one of these to culturally disorient visitors in my home.

Above - The first real meal I ate, noodles, pork and soup from a cart vendor idling in pouring rain outside of a 7-11 near our hotel in Bang Saen. Too delicious and too necessary. The noodles were excellent. Note the TP on the table. It’s way more common to see toilet paper on the dining table than in the bathroom here, and I guarantee that the roll on your dinner table is probably the big one. And Lotte Green Tea - This stuff is like Thailand fuel, it’s pretty much what I drink when I’m here. Jessada loves it.

Technorati Tags: Thailand, travel, Bang Saen, squat toilet, American Standard, Jessada Kongsommart, S. Ian Song, Edith Abeyta, Pongsak Pechmang, noodles, pork, food, food porn