The internet is wonderful!

It's not quite the same as going to a good library and picking up random books to look through. You don't get the smell or the different textures of covers and pages in your hands. The physicality of discovery is absent, however, your eyes can still be in for a treat. The pro of surfing the web is that you can quickly jump from link to link and discover something new and exciting.

Alex Kanevsky

Currently looking at...

George Platt Lynes
So many wonderful images, yet there are very few on the internet. So, this is the best image I could find without going through the trouble of scanning and uploading.

Shadow Puppets

We danced along your side
Lying where you walked
Sleeping where you ran

Waiting for the moment
You became the silhouettes
While we flickered and pulsated
To the rhythm of your hearts

Now the light is gone
And we lie as one
Until the lightning separates us.

Passages passing the ages

Three lovely exerpts from Plato's Symposium.

"There is dishonor in yielding to the base, or in a base manner; but there is honor in yielding to the good, or in an honorable manner. Base is that vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing that is in itself unstable..."

"The sexes were three in number, not, as they are now, two, male and female; there was also a third the union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double nature, which had once a real existence, but is now lost, and the word 'androgynous' is preserved only as a term of reproach."

"He [Love] is of flexile form; for if he were hard and without flexure he could not enfold all things, or wind his way undiscovered into and out of every soul of man."

Before I forget

Likely to be an impossible project:

Get people to take a snapshot of an object/view of concentration or unconscious stare directly before and after a gender reassignment (or related) surgery. I would then translate those photographs into small (11x14) drawings or paintings. The final pieces would be diptychs, or possibly triptychs including the patient's self-portrait.

(This was a very quick thought. Still working on it, even though it probably will never be executed.)

Resolution?

So I'm all about resolving issues of gender dysphoria, but this is just creepy. No offense. It's mainly the masks that I can't handle. It's almost like you'd be having sex with a mass murderer!
http://www.transgendered.net/
(Just in case, this site is adult-oriented)

Words more beautiful than a Hellenistic pediment

Now I'm a literary novice, but this is by far one of the most beautiful things I've ever read! Where is the beauty in art lately? Everyone and everything seems to avoid it.

I remember awkward pauses the most and cold tea I couldn't drink while hot.

It was the information age
but, instead of being informed
I put holes in walls
then plastered them.

I read history books like newspapers and whispered current events in your ear.
My yesterday's are closer than your today's-
(nothing's happening.)

I'll sleep with the television on
and listen to the footsteps above us
or the fountains that sound like rain.

I'll dream in black and white.

-Amanda Domenech

Antony, you are beautiful!

Waiting

Dear Miranda July,

A mutual friend told me that you had been working on a new movie and book last year. I keep visiting your website to see if there are any updates about it, but haven't seen anything yet. I suppose Eleven Heavy Things provided me with enough pleasure for the time being.

Thank You,
David

Whoa there Kelis!

This was just too good to pass up.

The Burial Series #6

...ready to start #7!

A new addiction

I thought that I was addicted to coffee... I can already tell this blog is going to be much more addicting. This will be my very neat electronic version of a desk full of clipped articles and pictures, half-torn pieces of paper with my ideas scribbled on them, folded up receipts with names of artists I need to look into, and individuals, books, communities, etc that people suggest I look up. It will definitely be much less stressful for me than having to live with a mass of unorganized paper. Hopefully it will be good for my artwork- a one-stop shop for sources and ideas.

And now, on to Charlie White. While looking up faculty at grad schools that I'm applying to, I came across this artist whose work is very intriguing. His Teen and Transgender Comparative Study photographs are quite amazing, so here they are:

Pass This On

All the excitement over Tomorrow, In a Year has made me rewatch some older videos by The Knife. This one is still SO GOOD!

The melting point of bodies

When you found out the sonogram was wrong

You rushed home to change the color of the room

To better suit me

Before the paint could dry

The water broke

I was painted the color of the walls

By the time I took my first breath

You greeted me

Treated me like

The prince I never was

You taught me how to make things with my hands

How to break the extra ridges off the moon

When I cried

Because it looked

More like the sun

I found myself back in the room

Where the paint never fully dried

And with my fingertip

Wrote the name

You left me

Being stubborn can only get you so far

I've been anti-blogs for quite some time now, but I came across this and decided it was time to make one of my own. "The Times They Are A-Changin'"
Amanda Simpson, First Transgender Presidential Appointee, Begins Work at Commerce Department - ABC News