i’ve been a creepy, creeping insomniac these days. i read a lot, drink a lot of tea, listen to bach on repeat like a crazy person. i make paper; pressing the pulp reminds me of pressing buttercups and queen anne’s lace as a child.

what else? well i have been thinking about really, really ridding my works of any remaining sense of perspective. i used to make more rendered works (for my schooling), but this sort of classical and very western concept is dishonest for my intentions. and if you don’t paint dimensions with real conviction, it just looks sloppy. this week i have a date to see luo ping exhibit, so that will hopefully inspire me.
i also saw a ballet this week. it was odd, it seemed to me the dancers were being cathedrals — steepling arms over their heads, lifting and buttressing one body against another, even stretching on the tips of their toes to achieve height. high, lean, strong, bodies in motion. for me the dancers’ expressions of pain evoked no pathos. their simulation of pain seemed the luxury of some young and beautiful caste.
i thought about a dance of a shaman i once saw. she was about sixty years old. her dance began with her crouching, huddling with her shrouded head and covered hands splayed against the dark floor.
so if i were to dance, i’d clutch the earth with my movements. i’d bend low, be strange and low, slow and turgid, a snake or a toad. let the stones inscribe themselves on my knees. let the crows circle and count the thorns in my back. “hey there, blackbirds, i’ll wear your orbiting shadows as a coronet.” i’d make my ugliness worthy of memory. and the uglier i became, the higher, leaner, stronger, would my opposite number seem. i’d give meaning to her beauty. because i love her, i would dig deeper into the dirt. “i’ll be here for a while, waiting for my bones to become stones, please remember me.”

i often poke fun at brooklyn’s rundown filthiness, but i only poke fun because i have a tough time admitting to love.「harder on the ones you love」, and all that. and i really do love my neighborhood’s nasty, brokedown, beatdown street market full of crappy wares, dirty crates marked “$2″ (and that’s $2 for a bag of bruised and browned veggies), knock-off disney merchandise, disturbingly ugly carpets, and best of all: LUCHADOR MASKS. i bought markers at a 99cent store, a sketchpad at rite-aid, sat down in dunkin’ donuts, and drew my own luchadores practicing battle strategy via colorful chessboard — wow, so much wording for a shitty picture — carry on –

here is another picture from that sketchpad. i’ll tell you the story.
one day, it is within the borders of a forest, therefore, inside it. bounded on all sides by forest, a luchador, he see many kinds of baby animal, very small, very soft with the furs, very chubby and nice. “WHY YOU SO NICE??” he say, madly, “I NEVER SEE SUCH A CUTE!!! HOW YOU BE?” the luchador, he want answer big time. animal give none, being nonverbal, can only squeak some. luchador, he next commence to punch animal for not reply. he go round forest, punching animals. following violent exploit against nature described previously, u.s. fish and wildlife service send armed agents and dog the bounty hunter to apprehend luchador, he jailed for animal cruelty.
