This is “Art” by Canadian poet/singer/songwriter Tanya Davis. The gorgeous video is by Canadian artist/filmmaker Andrea Dorfman.
Attack of the NYC subway mariachis
When my blog finally got a new look over the weekend, it was like one of those scenes in What Not To Wear, in which a 36-year-old woman finally cuts the godawful hair she’s been growing out since she was 15.
She’s all weepy and you know the two bitchy co-hosts are biting their tongues, trying not to say, “Do you realize this is the first time since George H.W. Bush was in office that you haven’t looked like shit?”
The path to a new blog design was not without its potholes. I had this vision that one person nodded at, but never produced. And then the same vision that another person nodded at, never mentioned again, and it was all about to be forgotten. Until I realized, “I could be married to this guy before I get him to design this blog layout.”
And I’m not the marriage-minded type.
I heart I LEGO NY
Back in February 2009, I got the first glimpse of I LEGO N.Y. by designer/illustrator Christoph Niemann in a New York Times article.
The book has been out for a few months now. I checked it out at a bookstore, but I want to share a few pages with you. Some of the brilliance of the LEGO version of NYC is lost on people who don’t live here. If you’ve only visited, you don’t have the “Aha!” moment of seeing this “sidewalk,” and recalling the dirty, urban exemplar.
Miranda July’s “Eleven Heavy Things”
Miranda July is a creative force, dabbling in various media. She directed, wrote, and starred in Me and You and Everyone We Know, winning the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005. It was her first film.
Then July’s unforgettably unique short story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award in 2007. It was her first short story collection.
It’s always exciting to see what Miranda July will come up with next. Without a doubt, it’ll be moving. But it’ll also be something most art isn’t: accessible. July’s work celebrates human connections anyone can relate to. It’s not about proving anything. It’s not about being pretentious. It’s not about making people worry whether or not they get it.
In 2009, July created “Eleven Heavy Things” for the 53rd International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale. The heavy things - yep, 11 of them - are interactive fiberglass sculptures.
How do you interact with one of these sculptures? They’re not museum pieces, so go ahead and touch them. Put your extremities into the cut-out holes and pose. Climb on top of them. Interpret the words on the sculpture and be the art. (Bonus points if you scream, “I AM the art!” while doing so).
“Eleven Heavy Things” will be on display in New York City’s Union Square Park until October 3. I checked out the exhibit in June.
Per the inscriptions, I hugged a stranger,
Newspaper blackout poetry
Austin Kleon spent countless commutes to and from work staring at local newspapers. And then something changed. Words started swimming on the page, certain ones standing out like lily pads on a pond. Eventually, he grabbed a permanent marker.
The remarkable words were strung together into lines, stanzas, and ideas different from whatever they originally expressed. The rest of them were blacked out.
Get your Kleon on: Writing newspaper blackout poetry
Here are some tips for getting started on newspaper blackout poetry, plus samples of my work. (You’ll notice I whipped out my best Carmen Miranda look for the occasion).
Newspaper Blackout Poetry from Amanda Green on Vimeo.
Yahoo! ads give me the sadz
Yeah, so I don’t know if I even need to comment.
But if anyone was ever typecast as the slightly off guy someone will settle for who represents the webmail provider someone will settle for, I guess this is the shining example.
I’m a blogger lover, you’re a blogger lover
We should love each other’s bloggers? Each other’s blogs?
I recently read the Tonic post, “Five Ways to Help Your Favorite Bloggers,” and it’s right on.
Here’s the gist: Blogging is hard sometimes.
It’s solitary. It involves looking at a computer screen. It may or may not be hot, because your favorite blogger is too cheap to turn on the shoddy air conditioner in her NYC home office.
“Tiny Desks, Big Hearts”
I’ve been reading some poetry again, and this morning I woke up needing to write some. It was as natural as the need to empty my bladder or eat food before I got dressed.
I tried to explain a dream I keep having in this poem called “Tiny Desks, Big Hearts.”
Walk me to the subway
B. and I dated in March, and our relationship went in like a lamb, out like a lion. Overall, it was gentle. There were lots of movies, plates of seafood, strolls downtown arm-in-arm.
But something was off. And when I found out what it was - after waiting for B. to be ready to tell me what I’d started to figure out - I ended things. He’s the sweetest guy. Smart. Adorable. But he was emotionally distant and unable to trust me, and I can’t be with a person who can’t trust me.
When I told B. I couldn’t see him anymore, I was shocked at how upset he was. Tears. Bargaining. Then resignation.
