belated Christmas Wishes

christmasblessingfront, originally uploaded by jholbo.

a recipe

For post-apocalyptic and scalding dystopian dreams:

1. watch Pixar's WALL.E (about the last robot on a 700 year old garbage dump of earth) 2. read Blood Meridian right before falling asleep (Cormac Mcarthy's mind-blowing old testament western novel)
3. have the stomach flu.

I swear it's pretty much foolproof.

All night dreams of rusted metal and heaps of burning scrap on a horizonless plain. My body was composed of sore junk and the parts of 1000 castoff metal pieces. The wind blew burning sand and everything glowed harsh. Each time I roused or woke slightly and moved they would squeal and scratch and clank together, yet soundlessly, in the way of dreams. I could just feel the dissonant sound vibrations in my muscles and the white heat of the desert sun on metal.

I started Blood Meridian at around 6 last night, read for two hours, picked it up again at 11 am and then finished it at 5:30 pm. It's old Kai-style reading, now which only happens when I am sick and CAN'T do anything else.

Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra

The Director/Musical Director of Black Cat, White Cat. See my recommendation post below. And enjoy the video!

Uncorrected Proof

I'm pretty sure my favorite writer is William Gibson.

I'm reading "Virtual Light" now, and I love it so much I have been doing that thing I was always getting busted for when I was a kid: staying up late reading past my bedtime.
This never happens to me.

I was in a book slump that lasted for many years, until 2003 (i think). I would read books, listlessly, and have a horrible time finishing them, uninterested in them, blah blah blah. I still read, all the time in fact, but I was sort of going through the motions. I got so that I would read the first chapter, carefully gauge my reaction, and usually ditch it. Then I read Gibson's "Pattern Recognition". It kicked my ass so hard that I remembered why I loved books. It's a bold statement, but true. I remembered why I loved LIFE! At the time, I was working in a bookstore (it was my 3rd year in the book biz, I think, to be followed by about 3 more), which may or may not have contributed to the book-slump.

Mykle just finished re-reading "Pattern Recognition", I just finished "Mona Lisa Overdrive", I'm on to "Virtual Light", even though it was written 15 years ago it feels like it's the future that has just come to pass. I often can't tell if something he writes about actually exists or if he made it up. Anyhow.

I was reading Gibson's blog tonight (cheers to Cooper for telling me that Gibson had a blog. When I voiced my disbelief, he said, "OF COURSE William Gibson has a blog!!!"). I was in the archives of 2003, right before "Pattern Recognition" was released. He says:

Please remember that those are uncorrected proofs you’re reading, and that that is not just a matter of typographical errors. The text of the ARC is the text of the manuscript I turned in last year, in the first week of April. It has since been quite substantially revised, top to bottom, twice; Material has been added, material has been subtracted, and much busy tweaking undertaken generally.
The text of the ARC should not be regarded as the text of the novel. Ever. Some of the current discussions hinge on details that have since been removed, or altered.

ARC means "Advanced Reader's Copy". Being that I worked at a bookstore when it came out, and that I was REALLY poor, I went and looked at my tattered edition of "PR". Right on the front it says:
Uncorrected Proof for Limited Distribution

It's an ARC.

I'm totally going to go buy the actual published version of it tomorrow.

Reccomending......

Excellent Movie:

Yugoslavian romantic screwball comedy, Black Cat White Cat.
a great review with a lot of info on the music is here

Good for fans of fairytale, diaspora, Roma culture and music, Gilliam, Guy Ritchie, steampunk (yes I said it!), rascally old men, true love, and nonstop weirdness.

Totally great.


Excellent Record:

I'm halfway through the new TV on the Radio album, Dear Science, and already have to write a review of it. Awesome, weird, complex and affecting. It's almost impossible to write about, since they really defy description. Singer Tunde Adebimpe's voice is stretchy and resonant and impassioned. Sometimes he reminds me of Joan Armatrading.


here is a video from their first album, that got me hooked on them. I include it because the video is very worth watching. The singer is made up of the visual representation of his own voice, which changes and refracts as he sings. Cool.
It also shows how Adebimpe moves when he preforms in concert (I have seen them twice I think. Thanks to Jordan, who got me into them when they only had an ep out and no one knew about them.)

For the WIN

I just have to say.

I am proud to be alive right now.

I am a part of history because I am here and got to participate in this.
I'm proud of America. I'm proud to be American at this moment in time.
It's an unfamiliar feeling, sadly. But so sweet!




And now my blog goes back to being non-political.

Addendum:
this is cool cartographer's take on the election
be sure to scroll down and read the whole thing. It's where the map at the top comes from.

rain and rant

night rain at omiya, originally uploaded by seventeenstars.

Rain!
It's absolutely alright to be up late late late when it's RAINING!

I am a night owl (not a day owl) and I thrive in the wee hours. I like the warm-lit lamps and the rugs laying all rumpled on the wooden floors of the house, and the sound of the trains going past out there in the rainy wet fields. Every few moments I hear tottering high heels out in the leafy-strewn sidewalk and hear drunk conversations, long-legged bedraggled girls winding home from a Halloween party.

what I haven't done (and now it's two):
Make a Halloween costume
(this is inexcusable. Halloween is my FAVORITE holiday)

What I have done:
Written two long emails and watched a 20/20 special on transgendered children, piece by piece on Youtube.

Tonight I tattooed someone who was very much still a teen. I had sort of forgotten what it's like to be around them, and now I think I am different in their eyes, as in: OLD.
Being that I was a person of authority, a business person in this girl's eyes, I suddenly realized that she saw me as an adult and therefore, the enemy, even though she was the one paying for me to do this torture*/art to her. She had hired me, but she was being weird and sullen, like I was her mother forcing her to wear some shirt she did not like or something. She mumbled and had sudden bratty outbursts (that no other tattoo artist in the entire universe would have put up with) that were rude, immediately made our interaction into a overbearing parent/petulant child model, and showed quite clearly that I was someone to be rebelled against. Also, she was a squirmer.

It literally fills me with terror and dread when I have the gorgeous pearlescent virgin skin of a 1990's baby (18 yr old) stretched out before me, and I have a feeling that there is no way in hell that this tattoo is gonna go on easy, what with the twisting and random jerking and the sudden inexplicable hair-fixing that some people feel is important to do right in the middle of getting a perfect circle tattooed in the middle of your spine. As much as I love tattoos, I feel like I am desecrating something holy sometimes, especially if their MOM is there, watching you mark their moaning child and wincing. Which hers was.


I was quite close to crying and felt like I was goimg insane because I get connected to these people! I care about every client and I want every person to look in the mirror after the tattoo was finished and be overjoyed and dancing around and heady with satisfaction! When someone gives their tattoo a cursory glance and then says, "what now?" I feel dread and I can't help it. I have never had anyone tell me they didn't like something and I hope they WOULD.

My client tonight, after writhing and trembling in pain (she was a tiny elfin slip of a thing too, and looked about 14, so that didn't help. My motherly feelings were in high gear.) for 3 + hours, looked in the mirror afterwards, her face breaking into an amazing overjoyed smile and said "THANK YOU SO MUCH!!" My job is so bizarre.


(Siderant: I know this is horribly taboo put I don't think the world of body art would suffer if the tattoo age was raised to 21. The asthetic choices people make as teenagers seem have a shelf-life of about 2 years. Most people undergo an enormous shift in their early 20's, and stop thinking certain things are really important, namely astrology.
I got one tattoo before I was 21, and it was the kanji for "love". While now I would critique getting a langauge tattooed that I have no cultural ties to and can't speak (ahem), I feel like I lucked out. I see teen tattoos come in that have to do with BMX racing, or a metal band that wears clown masks, or their highschool trashy girlfriends name on their forearm, and I.....I.....I don't think it would make anyone suffer. The melodramatic kids with still get their tattoo from Mr. Sketchy in a garage or back alley. And then when they're a bit older they can come to me and I'll fix it! Ha ha.)

More rain.
I still haven't made my costume.

For Halloween: a Corpse Flower!