Sunday, January 27, 2002

shy about color in Rosedale

"Criticism is easy, art is difficult."

Phillippe Destouches, Le Glorieux

We don't drag out too early but I immediately get ready for walkies (except for getting the water bottles and carrier and leash because that excites the little dog too much too soon). I call SuRu. She calls back and soon the entire urban adventuring team (includes FFP) is off. We walk through Rosedale, cross Shoal Creek to the trail, emerge in the parking lot of Seton, go back down, emerge again, cross Lamar, weave around a bit and head home. I figure we did about four and a half or five miles again. My legs feel it a little.

I have a bit of leftover lasagna and a couple of bowls of salad and shower up for the matinee.

The matinee was a performance of Slut for Art. Muna Tseng is a dancer. Her brother Tseng Kwong Chi was a photographer, performance artist, self-styled hanger-on and celebrity hound. He died of AIDS. She and Ping Chong did a multimedia piece about him with dance. She also collaborated with him on a small piece about herself which she did first. They lifted a part about her brother from the first piece and it had an odd feel of self-plagiary. The piece used photos the guy took of himself in front of iconic landscapes, monuments and buildings (he always wore a Mao suit and an official-looking clip-on tag which he'd had made that said 'SlutForArt'); voices of friends; pictures of him with other people at a fancy party; pictures he took of Keith Haring subway grafitti (is it grafitti if you put it where posters will soon cover it?); Muna in Kwong Chi's trademark Mao suit dancing; Muna dancing in other costumes, talking about his life and death; other voices and words; and ended with the name Tseng Kwong Chi in the middle of a lot of other names...of artists dead from AIDS. There was a talk after but we needed to get home. As we left someone was bellyaching about the piece trying to raise the guy to iconic status as an artist or something. Which I don't think it did. No, I think it was more about loving life, experiencing others' art, experiencing life as art.

At home I made a travesty of the Zoot logo to emphasize Valentine's,

ate a snack of cheese and tortilla chips and carrots, and played a CD of Christine Albert singing Je ne regrette rien. This guy Kwong Chi liked Edith and that song and I instantly thought "Me, too. And it would make a great funeral song, I think." I am still supposed to pick those out for the files. Forrest had gone outside for a few minutes and I flipped on the outside speakers. He didn't think I should blast my lack of regrets to the neighborhood and came in.

Then I put together a gift for the hostess of a party (a champagne nicely done up in a green cloth wrap with a gold ribbon).

We went to a party at Karen Kuykendall's house. It was in celebration of a piece she is in at the State (The Dinosaur Within) and most people there seemed to have seen it. Karen is an actress and a real estate agent. An Austin institution. She lives now on the Mopac access road AKA Newfield in a wonderfully done up house reflecting her great style. I told her that the gift was a Christmas present when I saw she still had a tree up. I was insanely jealous that she'd bought a votice stand just like in churches. Not religious, am I, but I love lighting those candles, putting the candle donation in the box for the maintenance of the beautiful cathedral or whatever, and thinking positive thoughts about something. I'm a sucker for candles.

Sweetish Hill folks were catering the party. In fact, the owners were there. And it was mighty tasty. She's knows everyone. A lot of them were there. We had some great conversations. People who had seen the play said that it was good. They said it was hard to describe. That it was "multi-layered."

Life is always interesting. If I didn't work, I'd be busy as a bee going to events, writing about stuff, going to parties, taking five mile walks, seeing the scene. As it is this stuff has to fit into a work week. Yep, I need more time for listening to music for ideas about a funeral. In the abstract I'm happy with the birth, life, death cycle. I think I'm OK with it in reality, too. For myself and my loved ones. It seems so silly to rail against it. But, what you do with your time seems like something that you can and should take control of for the maximum return. The return of whatever it is that you are looking for.

JUST TYPING
Seeing a rusted, broken advertising give-away rain gauge.
Is not the same as saying it.
Putting things in words.
Makes them more interesting.