barney

I went to see Drawing Restraint 9 yesterday. I thought it was really good. Took quite a bit of focus , and I didn't exactly grasp all the whale metaphors, but if it's anything like cremaster, I'm sure Matthew Barney has spelled it out on paper somewhere. I read that the drawing restraint project is about using the metaphor of hypertrophy(muscle strength through exposure to resistance) and applying it to art. I think the film was really effective in that respect. A lot of the "restraint" involved serious discipline with respect to time. There was a lot more going on, and I'm sure I didn't grasp half of it. I'll write more when I have more time - perhaps a discussion somewhere else?

I went out for 4 nights last week(one with students, one with friends, another with school staff, and another with friends) and I'm trying to save my money(and body) until next weekend. On friday, vicente, tanya(his gf), some of tanya's friends and I went to a club called the chelsea hotel for "new wave night". New wave night included seminal new wave works such as smells like teen spirit and pretty fly for a white guy. shitty music and a whole shitload of australian rednecks aside, the club had a really nice interior. it doubles as a space for bands to play. cool. cave in is coming(not there, but I guess talking about bands playing made me think of that. i'm down.

on saturday, I went out for the machida school director's farewell party, which was me, the staff, and the 40 year old spanish teacher. it was actually pretty fun. I learned the "naughtiest" thing you can say in japanese, which apparently just amounts to "your mom is fat". the staff always want to be called english names, which I think is absurd. I told them to come up with a japanese name for me if I had to call them "lucy" and "chris": gonzaimon.


I'm doing one of my last moving trips to the new house. Internet is still not set up there, so my apologies if I don't post for a while. I'm not looking forward to no email access. I hate moving by train, and I feel really bad b/c I take up so much space with all my bags. bleh.

i bought a japanese guitar. it's awesome. i'll post pics.