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.

look closely for the obscure hands, though i don’t know if they can be seen in this resolution.

there were many beautiful sights i wanted to write about, but i forgot… the most special were a dance directed by sardono kusumo and an exhibition of barron storey’s journals. i’ve loved his illustrations since i was a child poring over his spread for national geographic. you can imagine how thrilled i was to actually thumb through his diaries, to literally press my thumb against his graphite smudges. but they made me feel lonely, too. diaries in general do.

the past week i kept waking up in a strange mood at exactly 3 a.m. in this pause between sleeping, i practiced at letters. i began an elegant, passionate, honest communication. each night i edited and deliberated over its deliverance. each morning, i secured my work in my secret safe. but my letters would fade during the day. day by day, they decayed. periods and dots over i’s became pinpricks as tiny, parasitic mouths worried my words. here was a passage clinging to meaning by perilously fragile threads; within a week, the persistence of moths had frayed it into lace.

i have a sense that i’ve been remiss about the imperative of some certain missive. but i’ve lost the urgency to say anything at all. now, i can sleep well again.

…or not so well. T^T i’ve been having nightmares about zombies infected with piggy influenza and back alley decapitations (i have mexico-in-the-news to thank for these nightly delights). also, i have a reoccurring skyscraper opening its many mouths to expel exclamations in broken glass.

i have one more picture ready and uploaded to show, and it is such a good one. it is a special delivery from me to you, with friendly intentions to your well-being and happinesses!

(this picture is so enjoyable because the rabbits are bobbing earnestly yet going nowhere.)

in this handsome and tricky picture, two rabbits happen at once because i wanted to double the pleasure of the rabbit’s good looks; in the reality of his fiction, he is a single rabbit who is only one himself at a time. the rabbit’s name is monica b. lopez. the b stands for buffmallow. for breakfast he loves to eat small, dewy cabbages. for lunch, he nibbles fresh clovers and vegan hams. for dinner, he suckles at the teats of unsuspecting sheep.

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many sheep have wept.

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……..i named this ‘conejito malo’ after monica bellucci! because he has sensual lips and a soft, full body like hers.