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I was going through my old tapes last night, figuring out what was worth keeping and what was being trashed.
I found lots of older 4 track mix downs that I thought I lost. I also found a bunch of mix tapes I had made for driving when I was like 17/18. Each one of them reminded me of the long drive from the trailer park to school or to a friend's place, each one made the drive more adventurous.
I still listen to a lot of the same songs, and always will.
I got all nostalgic thinking about the old buick, baby blue and chunky, always full of garbage and the corpses of past mix tapes that had been worn out.

I would like to make individual caskets for the recent mix tapes i trashed, have a funeral in the backyard, pour out a 40 and bury em deep

I don't get it, and I don't know if I want to get it

I watched the Arthur Russell documentary, and I thought it was great. There was one part in the film looking back at when Arthur was the music director at "The Kitchen", where artists would perform and it was a creative time. There was this one clip of a girl doing these odd dance moves and making these baboon howls that were coming from deep down in her gut, it made me feel embarrassed for her. That part of the film talks about John Kage and his experiments with sound and it all sounds very intelligent and wonderful but when I actually hear/listen to these experiements/songs, it does nothing positive for me.
I'm not saying really abstract, noisy stuff is stupid or wrong but fuck, I really just don't get it. When I was younger I'd buy Glen Branca and Experimental Audio Research albums and I always felt a bit ripped off. I'd read these really interesting reviews of the stuff and I'd spend the little money I had on these discs and I still remember the burning dread I'd feel as I skipped through each song, realizing it wasn't getting any better.
I'm not the most intelligent guy in the world, I accept that and I know that some people really do get this stuff and love it, but I just wonder on what level, and if that level is fun and should people strive to get there, or is it a place that is forced, and the only real pleasure is knowing that people like myself just don't get it while they get to say they do?
I went to the AGO last week with my girlfriend and we were wandering around and I was getting really agitated by the video installations I saw. One was shadow puppets shot on video playing out a tale of racism and struggle. It was horrible.
The next one I saw was a bunch of images shot on digital video, a couch was in front of the tv showing these images along with headphones. We put the headphones on and watched zoomed in shots of leaves or dog ears while listening to static. I don't really see the skill, and I'm not trying to be mean, really, where is the art? If people watch that stuff and try to say they see the art in the extreme close up and there is a message lying in the shitty framed dog's ear...I will refuse to buy what they are selling, just like I don't buy it when Benny Hinn floors and heals people with religious magic.
The final kick to my balls was a section of the AGO floor dedicated to rocks with cheesies under them.

Arthur Russell was a genius

in gred ient s

I made a gingerbread house tonight with my sister. It was a gang war between the gum drops and peppermints, a domestic bout between the jelly beans and sweet tarts. When the dust settled, we were left with a house built on dreams and tummy aches. I actually tasted the icing whilst applying it and instantly my stomach was like "hey bud, step off". My discomfort compelled me to read the ingredients on the ginger bread house box, which is pretty much like looking closely at your mom's underwear before throwing it in the dryer. Life changing.

Gingerbread:
Enriched Wheat Flour, Sugar, Vegetable Shortening (hydrogenated soy bean and cottonseed oil) Molasses, Baking Soda, Cinnamon, Ginger, Salt.

Icing:
Icing Sugar, Sugar, Powedered Vegetable Shortening (Partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil), Glucose-Fructose, Modified Corn Starch, Salt, Mono and Diglycerides and sodium sillico aluminate, Dried Egg Albumen, Titanium Dioxide, Gum Arabic, Cream of Tartar, Salt, Ammonium Alum, Artificial Flavour.

Now you'd think with the dried egg albumen and the gum arabic that there would be no need for any artificial flavouring?

festive art

while in school I found myself in a christmas mood. I never had a dog growing up, but I wanted to draw the kind of dog I would have wanted. Then I took out the highlighters and sexed the page as you can see