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Art Day

April 8, 2009 in Arty Stuff, Friends by Craig | No comments

I had an art-filled day yesterday, starting in the morning with the wonderful people of Visual AIDS. I’m working on a little project with them, and have immensely enjoyed the hours poring over slides from their archives of art by people with HIV/AIDS. Their office — a beautiful and slightly beat-up room in a giant old building in West Chelsea filled with studios, offices and galleries off labrythine hallways — reminds me of an old New York that feels mostly displaced by Banana Republics and Starbucks American Apparels and Pinkberries.

After an afternoon of editing an essay for the book collection I’ve been working on, I stopped by the NYU Steinhardt MFA thesis show. My favorite piece was the deconstructed front room by Tracey Goodman. The show is up at 80 Washington Square East until April 25th. From there, I continued on over to the New Museum, where my good friend Emily Roysdon had a piece opening in this new triennial thing happening over there. The crowds were a bit staggering, but well worth elbowing through. I especially liked the pieces by Keren Cytter (glass boxes throwing prisms of green light onto the walls), Liz Glynn (a cardboard model replica of Rome, built, and destroyed, in a day), Brendan Fowler (posters describing a back and forth between the artist and a band named AIDS Wolf) and Haris Epaminonda (paper collages), among others. Upstairs, caught in the doorway between the bar and the balconey that encircles the seventh floor, I speculated with friends as to how many other sociologists might be there among the artists, art critics, art buyers, curators, and djs. Educated guess: 4.

Ouchy

April 6, 2009 in Friends, Heroes by Craig | No comments

I spent the past few days shunning my dissertation at the Awesome Farm work weekend. Awesome Farmers KayCee and Owen gathered a group of thirty or so friends and farm allies to work on a bunch of projects — sheep maintenance, field clearance, egg gathering, chicken coop construction, and of course, the much-loved lunch crew. I worked on coop construction, and let me just say, my entire body hurts. I’m wobbling around like a freshly-shorn lamb. You know how people will say something like, “I’m so sore, I hurt in muscles I never  knew I had?”  Well, I don’t even have the muscles I never knew I had, so I’m just in a generalized state of pain. But well worth it.  It was an amazing time, and I greatly enjoyed the intensive hanging out with good friends and the chance to work with new people. I really like being part of a group effort, and I think what I lack in muscle mass I make up for with enthusiasm and cheering-along-ness. Having never been that into the usual objects of team spirit (like sports, or nation-states), I have a lot of stored up rah-rah to spare. If you live in the city, or the Hudson Valley, you can pre-order chicken and lamb from the farm’s website, and as Carla from Top Chef reminds us, nothing taste better than food made with love.

Desert Escape

March 27, 2009 in Friends by Craig | No comments

Not to be out-done by Emily and her recent tourist adventures, I have headed over to Tucson, Arizona, to spend a few days with David, and his father, David the First. David the First lives at the foot of some hills, surrounded by endless, cloudless skies, and fifty-foot tall cacti. Did you know the “arms” of a cactus grow to balance it as it gets taller? And that cacti grow straight up because that way they get the least of the high noon sun? It is pretty incredibly gorgeous here.

Today, we drove north a bit to visit Biosphere 2. I can’t recall having encountered any scholarly articles about this experiment gone awry, but it seems like a science studies dream come true. The outside is pretty amazing, it’s like Caprica City, or something out of Logan’s Run, as you can see here. Inside, it’s a bit of a mess, but the underground tour of the “South Lung”  — a giant steel and rubber structure that somehow allows the Biosphere to “breathe” so it doesn’t explode or implode due to external temperature changes — was pretty frakkin awesome. I also enjoyed the peek into one of the apartments lived in by the original “Biospherians,” as our tour guide referred to them.

After leaving Biosphere 2 for Biosphere 1, David 1 and 2 and I headed a bit out of the center of Tucson for a delicious Mexican lunch. Burritos here are called burros, and I discovered the Michelada, a tangy and delicious beer cocktail. The recipe here seems like a good version of what I had. And don’t skip the black pepper, it seals the deal.

At Home He’s a Tourist, 8: MOMA redux

March 9, 2009 in AHHAT, Friends by Craig | No comments

More or less recovered from the conference and safely ensconced back home, Dean and I joined David for an early spring Sunday stroll through the WV and a delicious brunch. Afterward, David took his leave of us to engage in one of life’s simple pleasures while Dean and I headed uptown to MOMA for a performance of Yvonne Rainer‘s dance piece Trio A. The reinterpretation, performed by one formally trained dancer and two visual artists, took place in a corner of the second floor, against a projection backdrop of Rainer performing the piece in the 1970s (video below). The setting was perfect, and the performance was great. After, we ran into an old friend from Miami, a dancer, who filled us in on the historical significance of the piece: its “de-dramatization” of dance and emphasis instead on the everydayness of moving around. We liked the explanation, and proceeded to engage in our own everyday moving around, winding a bit about the neighborhood until finding a train to shuttle us back downtown.

Kids for Cash

February 27, 2009 in Friends, Politics by Craig | 2 comments

About to head to Western Mass for some time with the chosen fam. I’ve been promised cupcake-baking, Thomas the Train videos, and diaper duty.

In honor of my jury duty stint (which ended unceremoniously yesterday by getting excused early), I bring to those of you who haven’t yet heard of it, the “Kids for Cash” case — PA judges found guilty of accepting bribes from private youth detention centers for sending ‘em kids with minor violations. Amy Goodman did a show on it, obvs, and you can watch the video or read the transcript at Democracy Now.

At Home He’s a Tourist, 7: The Pies Have It

October 17, 2008 in AHHAT, Friends, Music by Craig | No comments

David and I took a pie-baking class at the Brooklyn Kitchen. It was pretty much totally awesome. Today I thought I’d lost my pie on the subway, which would have sucked, but then I found it in my apartment. I tried to get some ice cream to go with it, and had agreed with myself I could spend $5. The first deli I went to charged $6 for a pint of Haagen Daz, so I left for what I thought would be the cheaper deli down the street. Same pint, $7. Make a fool of me once, shame on you. Make a fool of me twice… No ice cream.

Sunday, the band is reuniting upstate for some fall harvest hoe-ing down with all your favorite farmers. If you’re running around upstate this weekend, come join us!

That’s Morning Time, Before We Got There

October 14, 2008 in Friends, Music by Craig | No comments

For people in New York, I have been meaning to say: Make sure you go see my friend Matt Wolf’s documentary about musician Arthur Russell, Wild Combination. It has been held over again at the IFC Center so you still have time. It is a beautiful and moving and sweet and smart look at Russell’s time in NYC making music. You don’t have to be a total music-head to enjoy the film — if you are not familiar with Russell’s music, the film is a lovely introduction to it. It is also an important contribution to a queer archive of the impact of HIV/AIDS on experimental art-making. Go see it.

LAX 2 SFO

September 24, 2008 in Friends by Craig | No comments

Leg one of this trip is done. My time in Los Angeles was basically completely awesome. I got some fantastic research done that I’m really happy about, and met people doing some really great and interesting housing work. I ate maybe the best egg sandwich I’ve ever had, and went swimming every day. I got to hang out with a childhood friend and hear about what he’s been up to since our Cub Scout days (namely, becoming a Reality TV star and learning that a “vignette” is not something you wear at a music video shoot, but something you participate in). Also, today got to hang out with a new friend and talk shop about English vs. Sociology grad programs over delicious salads that had like five million ingredients. Yum, California.

Next stop: San Francheesie!

In the City of Angels

September 22, 2008 in Friends, Music by Craig | 6 comments

Arrived in my old west coast  stomping grounds yesterday afternoon for a few days of research meetings and catching up with peeps before heading to CR10 and Seattle. Hung out poolside with Jackie, a friend from the greater Dade County area who’s out here cutting dialogue with the stars.  We compared Coachella message boards with sociology blogs. She talked to me about about House; I talked to her about housing. Sweet times, and then she whisked me off to see a show. First sight upon entering the venue: a cast member of the new 90210, duh. The crowd was less reserved than an audience in my current hometown — more loosey-goosey, hodge-podgey, hands-in-the-air. I thought it was an LA vs. NYC issue. A natural sociologist, Jackie suggested the danceyness of the crowd was related to a hidden variable I was neglecting, but that turned out to be just a rumor. Regardless, a good time was had by all, and the show exceeded my expectations of what can be delivered by what David calls an “urban outfittters band.”

Other near-sociological observations: The Blackberry is still king in Los Angeles, which seems somewhat immune to the iPhone and its total domination of New York. Also, Angelenos love them a Jawbone Bluetooth. For reals.

Reasons to Leave Your Apartment

July 7, 2008 in Blogging Blogging, Friends by smalinky | 3 comments

I was a bit slow getting out of the apartment today, but it turned out to be perfectly timed, as I ran into two of my favorite blogging friends, WIAFLAW (playing hookie from work) and WISRMBAT (on a summer vacay visit), almost as soon as I stepped onto the street. I was actually thinking about their blogs while walking, and was happy to tell them so. We discussed compared visitor stats (I’m losing, which I quickly blamed on a soc blogosphere summer slowdown timed with an academic calendar their blogs are less subject to; they were kindly willing to concede my point). We also talked about running into students  off campus, and a variety of other Things Which Can’t Be Blogged, so that’s all I have to report.

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