So,
I should preface this post by first of all thanking everyone in the UK who has shown me so much hospitality and generosity over the last few weeks, Carrie, Hugh, Tiff, Len, Jane, lawrence, brian, butley mills, Clementine, Matt sigmon, thanks for all you have done for us and I hope that someday i can repay you....
but the show must go on... so....
long time no posty. Been busy for the last few months, and the dust is finnally settling here in london england. I dont think that the UK is really for me. It might be nice for you, but not for me.
Ways to tell if a trip to the uk would make an ideal vacation for you.
* it should be mentioned that i will be using this symbol # to represent the GBP as I dont have the proper L sign on my keyboard.
-You like things to cost twice as much and your money to be worth half its face value.
(ie one roll of [crappy] duct tape 6.00# = $12.00.)
-Do not often plan "Outside Activities"
-Belief that all food should taste exactly the same, reguardless of color or ingredients
-you have done something terrible and believe you should be punished for a predetermined length of time
-are willing to turn a blind eye to your own countries involvement in international affairs so that you have a reason for your distaste for american mannerisms.
-have 16 dollars per day to spend on the commute (full disclosure- A brittish couple today gave elizabeth and i their day passes at the train station)
-you are not worried about whether or not your brittish friends come to see you.
-confusion over the words "free" and "for a small fee" (this one must be one of those things where I say "tomato", you say "that will be three pound sixty")
-you are incapable of attending a soccer (football) match without a riot, yet throw a mild temper tantrum if someone speaks during wimbeldon.
-you have time to kill in customs.
-inability to choose between standard and metric
-all the flat beer you can drink, by the pint or by the liter.
*It should also be noted that both my brittish excursions happen to fall around a four day stint in amsterdam, land of bicycles, canals, the dutch masters and relaxed laws pertaining most vices.
back to finland in a few days, to set up my last show in eastern europe for a while. I have had two other shows since my last post. one in Paldeski estonia, and one in pirkkala finland. pictures in a little while
also, i was the program director for the 2007 pirkkala sculpture symposium, which went extremely well. Pictures soon.
arriving in the US sometime on july 17, i think around 2 pm. party over there!
You and your beer and how great you are
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
untitled
What has been going on with me, i ll tell you what. the cold is ending, the darkness is over. its warming up and light out side untill like 8 pm. All winter i have been thinking that i would be able to climb out of this depression when the weather got better. But to no avail i guess. It seems to be harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning, and the nighttime hours seem to slip away.
In other news, i was on the televison here, in an commercial for A.leCoq beer. Funny story, i will tell it someday
working on totally different things, and living in my studio in the woods. i think if you live in tallinn it is imperative to your well being to live in the center of town. I havent really spoken to anyone in person in like 3 days. hoping to get into the city tomorrow, have to buy speaker wire for what i am working on now.
In other other news, i am very excited about my return to the US for a few days to attend the Southern Conference on Cast Iron Art If you are there, we will have to hang out, if not then snot.
No other news, I guess, haha! other than i have been given a web cam and a skype address. hit me up and i will send you the address if you want to see my shining face, and hear a voice so smooth you cant believe its not butter!
once again no spell check.
In other news, i was on the televison here, in an commercial for A.leCoq beer. Funny story, i will tell it someday
working on totally different things, and living in my studio in the woods. i think if you live in tallinn it is imperative to your well being to live in the center of town. I havent really spoken to anyone in person in like 3 days. hoping to get into the city tomorrow, have to buy speaker wire for what i am working on now.
In other other news, i am very excited about my return to the US for a few days to attend the Southern Conference on Cast Iron Art If you are there, we will have to hang out, if not then snot.
No other news, I guess, haha! other than i have been given a web cam and a skype address. hit me up and i will send you the address if you want to see my shining face, and hear a voice so smooth you cant believe its not butter!
once again no spell check.
Monday, February 12, 2007
sweedish fish
So how was Stockholm you might ask? It wasn't much fun, just cold and boring. Sweden differs from the rest of Europe by being very socialist, and taxing the hell out of everything. so that's a drag. It is similar to the US in the fact that they have Sunday beers. (Sunday beer is 3.5% beer that can be bought on Sunday in some states where blue law prohibits the purchase of alcohol on Sundays) The problem is that they have Sunday beer all day everyday, in order to get normal beer you have to go to the alcohol shop, which has fewer hours than most American banks. So that was a drag. Working for Villu was a success, although we did have trouble with the motion detectors.
My only real trouble was after i went out to dinner the last night, I didn't know whether or not to tip. Seriously, do you tip socialists? I settled on 7 percent, and left as quickly as possible.
Also the so called party boat failed to live up to its hype, it was was more along the lines of those old folks buses that travel around the us, but with expensive food and bar tabs. I think i spent alot of money this past week, but cannot be sure until tomorrow because I never quite got the hang of the Swedish Crown.
There was an exhibition that i gatecrashed for Pipilotti Rist, where the work was great, but the folks at the opening were fairly annoying.
Back in Tallinn, things are happening, I have a Phone finally. email me and I will send the number to you. Also I was forced to shave, in order to fit a respirator on my face, to work with everybody's favorite thing, bondo, and as a result i have been very cold in the neck area, so i bought a scarf. I noticed like two days ago that almost everything i own is either black or brown or navy blue, and it seems rather drab, so i chose a bright red one to offset this. Hooray. It got colder since my last post, now, there is ice on the inside of the door handle from condensation. it is wild.
Lastly, I was just thinking of how I am a little more self conscious about my weight over here. (trying not to emphasize any generalizations about Americans, and decided maybe its time to ride the snake.
My only real trouble was after i went out to dinner the last night, I didn't know whether or not to tip. Seriously, do you tip socialists? I settled on 7 percent, and left as quickly as possible.
Also the so called party boat failed to live up to its hype, it was was more along the lines of those old folks buses that travel around the us, but with expensive food and bar tabs. I think i spent alot of money this past week, but cannot be sure until tomorrow because I never quite got the hang of the Swedish Crown.
There was an exhibition that i gatecrashed for Pipilotti Rist, where the work was great, but the folks at the opening were fairly annoying.
Back in Tallinn, things are happening, I have a Phone finally. email me and I will send the number to you. Also I was forced to shave, in order to fit a respirator on my face, to work with everybody's favorite thing, bondo, and as a result i have been very cold in the neck area, so i bought a scarf. I noticed like two days ago that almost everything i own is either black or brown or navy blue, and it seems rather drab, so i chose a bright red one to offset this. Hooray. It got colder since my last post, now, there is ice on the inside of the door handle from condensation. it is wild.
Lastly, I was just thinking of how I am a little more self conscious about my weight over here. (trying not to emphasize any generalizations about Americans, and decided maybe its time to ride the snake.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
what its like in other places.
So, Estonia, its cold here. very cold. I am glad that i brought my lined pants. I have been wearing almost everything that i brought with me when i go outside. Over the weekend, we went to winter days, a celebration of the winter solstice, out in the woods, where we drank and hung out in sauna, there were bands and games and it was great. This is what the school here does to start out the semester. Pretty cool. Also the band that played, told me that fugazi was their favorite group, very cool. the real highlight of the evening for me was that i was assigned a bunk with a choir, they sang songs in Estonian as I fell asleep. It may have been the most relaxing thing I have ever experienced. It was a beautiful mix of feminine voices, good food, and the right amount of liquor. I felt like i was being dipped in chocolate
Here is a list of things that Estonians are doing better than we are.
The bathroom floors are heated. I cannot begin to tell you how great this is. the floor is warm all the time, also by the way, so are the towel racks, so when you get out of the shower you have a warm, dry towel.
Beer. first it comes in huge half liter bottles, second, it is cheap, and third, even crappy beer is better than Budweiser in the US.
Water. so you cannot drink the tap water in some places, that sucks. But the bottled water is usually carbonated (which makes it taste surprisingly like a light beer) and sometimes flavored. This makes the transition from sleep to hangover to recovery much more rapid and smooth.
Trains, and buses, everywhere. I can ride transport everywhere.
Meat and bread. That is how it has been described to me, but there is way more to it than that. its a loaf of bread with all kinds of stuff baked into it. you buy these at groceries, for like 75 cents.
Its not all peaches and cream though. The language is nuts. I don't understand very much, my favorite word is still Piim. (milk) its pronounce peam or peem, just say it with a long iiii sound its great. Not speaking the language makes me a lot quieter, i could talk but why bother? Now no one cares what i say ( not that they do in the US) and they may or may not understand me.
Right now I am living with another sculptor named Edith. Edith was supposed to come to the United States, but she couldn't get her visa together. what a drag. hopefully she will arrive this fall and i can return the hospitality she has shown me.
soap commercials are the same everywhere. I think that even though i don't speak Estonian, i can imagine what the commercial for "pure cashmere" body wash is about.
In closing, I am watching Kassid, a show that I believe to be an Estonian sitcom, the basic plot is that there is a man named artur, who lives with a image obsessed lady permanently in a mud mask, her goth daughter and a 40 something year old man who is dressed like a cross between pippi longstocking, Raggedy anne and Heidi flies. The main plot seems to be the tranny causes Artur trouble while the goth and mud mask cause trouble for each other.
the Pippi manstockings just cut up arturs jacket and then smashed his car remote keys, while artur stood by and cried Eii ! eii ! (noo! noo!) I say put some pants on there artur and feed that weirdo a shiner maker. remember dude, pimpin ain't easy, and tranny pimpin is downright difficult.
PS, not that he reads it, but a big shoutout to my cousin Ian, over at Try everything once. He has provided me with weekly entertainment, both through his comic and his scouring youtube for things like like Holy Diver and Adventure Time.
to that i say Pi
Here is a list of things that Estonians are doing better than we are.
The bathroom floors are heated. I cannot begin to tell you how great this is. the floor is warm all the time, also by the way, so are the towel racks, so when you get out of the shower you have a warm, dry towel.
Beer. first it comes in huge half liter bottles, second, it is cheap, and third, even crappy beer is better than Budweiser in the US.
Water. so you cannot drink the tap water in some places, that sucks. But the bottled water is usually carbonated (which makes it taste surprisingly like a light beer) and sometimes flavored. This makes the transition from sleep to hangover to recovery much more rapid and smooth.
Trains, and buses, everywhere. I can ride transport everywhere.
Meat and bread. That is how it has been described to me, but there is way more to it than that. its a loaf of bread with all kinds of stuff baked into it. you buy these at groceries, for like 75 cents.
Its not all peaches and cream though. The language is nuts. I don't understand very much, my favorite word is still Piim. (milk) its pronounce peam or peem, just say it with a long iiii sound its great. Not speaking the language makes me a lot quieter, i could talk but why bother? Now no one cares what i say ( not that they do in the US) and they may or may not understand me.
Right now I am living with another sculptor named Edith. Edith was supposed to come to the United States, but she couldn't get her visa together. what a drag. hopefully she will arrive this fall and i can return the hospitality she has shown me.
soap commercials are the same everywhere. I think that even though i don't speak Estonian, i can imagine what the commercial for "pure cashmere" body wash is about.
In closing, I am watching Kassid, a show that I believe to be an Estonian sitcom, the basic plot is that there is a man named artur, who lives with a image obsessed lady permanently in a mud mask, her goth daughter and a 40 something year old man who is dressed like a cross between pippi longstocking, Raggedy anne and Heidi flies. The main plot seems to be the tranny causes Artur trouble while the goth and mud mask cause trouble for each other.
the Pippi manstockings just cut up arturs jacket and then smashed his car remote keys, while artur stood by and cried Eii ! eii ! (noo! noo!) I say put some pants on there artur and feed that weirdo a shiner maker. remember dude, pimpin ain't easy, and tranny pimpin is downright difficult.
PS, not that he reads it, but a big shoutout to my cousin Ian, over at Try everything once. He has provided me with weekly entertainment, both through his comic and his scouring youtube for things like like Holy Diver and Adventure Time.
to that i say Pi
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