i misunderstand 87 percent of 100 percent of what i hear.

that's no joke. i am also notorious for bending the edges of the english language. so on to cubism.

it's commonly defined as the practice of thinking outside of the cube. i know plenty of people who do it. here is one:



that's mom. she is a singer. on any given performance, she is likely to do any of the following:
- not wear underwear;
- wear a mask;
- make out with a dead animal;
- booty grind someone in the audience;
- make you a little nervous that she might cross that line you really don't want her to cross.

that's what i call thinking outside the cube. what? it's not? there is no such a thing? well, now there is.

talking about mom, though, i heard she broke up with herself. i hope i am also wrong about that.

and one last thing: my habitual medium is polaroid. that one was taken last summer.

cubism -- saint oh fool

I know what cubism is, and this isn't it
but these are cubes.

every day I've been doing one of these quadcam shots.
first thing.

it reminds me of a story that i heard; Chuck Close once told a reporter that he likes to start the day off "with a shot". The reporter asked what brand Close drinks, to which he hield up his camera and said "Kodak"!
silly.

Here's another one;
It's my great grandmother's 95th birthday (we're Mexican, and live longer than you) and as she's going around greeting all of the family, my Grandmother (her daughter) said, "Mom, before all of this keeps going, and you tire out too much, we have to get you a shot" to which I (taking the same bait Close's reporter took) said "oh no, is she sick? what does she need" -- my grandmother laughed and said "Tequila!"

Prometheus -- St.Ofle

“Do you like the story about Prometheus?” she asked.
(calmly)
It came from nowhere.
I asked her if that was the one about the man with the wax wings, and she laughed and said "of course not".
(I pretended to be kidding)


(if you know me, you know how much I love a blurry photo)

myth

Snuff films are not real. No one has ever found any evidence of snuff films being made for entertainment, distribution, or profit. However, in the early 90's a woman named Karla Homolka and her husband Paul Bernardo murdered four women and videotaped it. One women was a minor whose identity was never disclosed and another was Karl's younger sister. Karla struck a deal with the prosecutors and testified against her husband, claiming he forced her to do it. He got life in prison and she received 12 years in prison for manslaughter. Shortly after the sentencing, some 8mm tapes were recovered that showed all four women being tortured and raped. They also showed that Karla was a very active participant and killed two of the women.

"Look, Listen, and Learn"

Myths of My People

I don't know if it's all parents but the myths and stories that come out of the Latino culture are either really clever in stopping kids from going with strangers and doing bad things, or they show that parents will say anything to get their kids to behave.

I clearly remember walking to a pay phone with my mom when I was about 5 and a lady stopped to talk to her. I didn't hear what it was about but later my mom told me that the lady had offered to buy me if I was being a difficult little girl. I later came to realize that the women in my family did this a lot. They'd threaten your bad behavior with the possibility of selling you to a stranger. 

Even us kids started some myths of our own. Whenever I was angry with my brother I would tell him that the local bag lady was his real mother and that our parents found him in the trash. I've heard other kids tell their siblings this too. My brother would even tell it to me sometimes.

There are, of course, the classics. Which I'm realizing more and more were about getting kids to do their chores and yes, maybe keeping them safe. In El Salvador there is this evil entity named El Cipitillo. He wears a big hat so you can't see his face and his feet are backwards. So if you were to see him and you think he's facing away from you because his feet are turned the other way, he's actually staring right at you. The kicker is that he only comes and kidnaps little girls and is lured to your house by any ash left in the kitchen or stove. My mother told me that when she was young she always feared him since cleaning the kitchen was her job. 

There are also myths to keep men honest. There's a certain boogie woman named La Siguanaba. She tricks and attacks men who are single or living out of wedlock or who are unfaithful to their wives. She'll go after them at night on dark country roads. I guess that's El Salvador's idea of feminism.

myth

This is going to sound like gibberish to you (and I understand), but to this day, I have never seen any compelling evidence for the cosmic evolution (the big bang theory) or even the macro evolution. I think it's a myth.

Now, I love science, I love biology and especially planetary astronomy. I have studied this subject diligently and I have spoken to a number of my professors about this and came to a conclusion that most respected scientists and educators in this field simply assume the theory to be true because these things have been proven and accepted long ago so there is no longer the need for the proof. Many studies and extensive researches have been done and published on this topic.

And yet, I have never seen any compelling evidence that this world came to existence on it's own, without any outside intervention.

Please don't think that I am ignorant. Maybe you know something that I don't. If so, please share!

24hr Pola (exercise)

imagine a world in which you could take your Polaroid to the gym.
this is what it would look like.

now imagine that the flash went off as I took this, and I was asked to leave.
imagine it.


love,
Richard

exercise

My grandmother had this Schwinn exercise bike, hers was yellow. Rob's grandmother had the same one in off-white. I said that perhaps my grandmother's bike was originally off-white, but became yellow because she smoked indoors. Rob's grandmother used to smoke indoors too.

EXERCISE

your mind
read Ayn Rand
read the Bible
sleep
stop caring so much about love(it's not real anymore)
listen to Andrew Bird
sleep
die

Get fucking physical!

montage

I have been saving this paper for a special occasion.

Bouncey Bounce

Musical Montage Magic.

MONTAGE

hollow courtship runon pointless faint dream creeping endless timeless wasted fuckin jaded destroy demand ended craving seething teething war war hands waving hands bleeding cities countries children hunting worn wearin down down hear speak breath need crave pour drink eat wake never fully ever shiver shake la mer haunted sexuality curves angles charcoal to paper memory history capsize explain express stomach take it out out out how can you live with yourself?

-c. wolfe

Montage (mossffiti) -- St.Ofle

I read about how to make graffiti with moss.
pretty badass.
so I made some.
my great pal Elisha sent some hand-picked moss from the coast.
Here's how it looks.

(recipe = dry-ish moss, 1/2 gallon of buttermilk, blender.
paint on a wall with a paintbrush
hint; wait until summer is over)

Montage

I made this for my mommy for Mommy's Day:

Besties/Worsties

I have a strong and abiding love for oddities. A picture of a rose is unarguably a thing of beauty. A picture of a chimpanzee dancing with a rose in its mouth is genius. At least that's how I see it.

That said, there are some things I find too odd. Here are two examples of things that are odd. One is something I love so much and the other is so abhorent I actually had a nightmare after seeing it for the first time. You be the judge.

Best/Worst - graciela

My best and worst are both food related. I am a vegetarian, an environmentalist, and I am a nut about health advocacy.

The best part of my week has been seeing my plants develop and start to set flowers that will go on to create fruit. Right now I have a pimento pepper that is growing bigger by the day and I have the smallest little butternut squash that (hopefully) will become a full blown squash if the flower is pollinated. As a lifelong city dweller I've really kept myself in the dark about food production and the work, the techniques, and the amazing natural developments that go into planting a seed and producing food. It's something we all take for granted and a lot of us don't even know what the botanical plant of various fruits and veggies look like (I had no idea what artichoke looked like as a plant). We, as a society and culture, have pushed agriculture to certain spaces and areas of the country and we don't look within our own environment and community to do the dirty work. I look at all the manicured lawns in southern California, a climate that cannot sustain lush green grass without major consequences, and I think about the waste of space and water that could go into maintaining plants that will produce something useful. On my street alone, actually let's downscale, on the strip of grassy courtyard in my complex, we could feed all 16 units if we got rid of the grass and planted food. There is such a culture of waste that we've grown accustomed to and lawns in the middle of a drought are just another hit of collateral damage. Why should we grow food in our own yards when we can just go to the supermarket?

Meanwhile...

This morning, part of that question was answered. On a special segment of NPR they talked to people in central California, aptly dubbed, "America's food basket", and they discussed the climbing obesity and poverty rates in the region. A lot of it came down to economics, politics, the lack of infrastructure, and limited access to fresh fruits and veggies. Yes, the same region that feeds America and grows some of the best fruits, vegetables, and nuts can't even feed itself. Coronary terrorists like McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Carl's Jr have set up shop at all of these little towns. One of the residents of Kettleman City named off all of the opportunistic fast food joints that people eat at regularly and I knew exactly what she was talking about. While I lived in Northern California, I made the drive on the 5 between Sacramento and Los Angeles. I know all those stops like the back of my hand. There is nothing but junk food all along the way. These rural communities don't have enough grocery stores so one must travel far to get their 5-a day. Why not just go to their backyards? Up until last year, Fresno had a city ordinance that barred local Farmer's Markets from setting up shop. We have them all over the country and vendors still have to make a trip to get to various locales but the actual places where the food grows can't just sell it to their own community? Ridiculous, right?! I'd imagine that was a political and business interested ordinance that lacked any concern for the public. The central valley's problems go beyond just food and leak into problems of gangs, wild packs of dogs, severe poverty, drug use, and anything else you could think of that would limit a person to eat well and exercise regularly. Even these far flung communities are being affected by the problems that modernity brings and the consequences of a fat and unhealthy America.

With so much of the central valley's own food going out of the community to feed everyone else, I can only expect the situation to become worst as our climate continues to change, populations keep booming, suburbs and development encroaches on land, and we as citizens become more and more ignorant about what it REALLY means to eat. So any land or space available in the city to grow vegetables and fruit in the ground or in containers should be treated as the luxurious commodity that it is. One of these days, we'll be forced to feed ourselves and when that day comes, we'll be too full of Facebook and microchips to know what humans have known how to do for thousands of years before the middle of the 20th century. Growing food is not a mystery and the information is out there. I'll be harvesting peppers, you know where to find me, when you want to do it too.

best/worst

this is quite possibly the best thing to happen to me this week or ever.

plus i kicked out 6 new pieces.

heres a sample:

boy will some websites really make art work look shitty?!?!?!

St.Ofle -- Best/Worst

This is an easy one.
The best thing that happened all week was the Paperrad show at Fun Castle.
Actually -- the coolest show I've seen in a long time, and if Michael Jackson hadn't died earlier in the month, I'd call this the coolest event of July.
(it wasn't and won't be, but top 10)


all kidding aside;
only once in a while does something this beautiful, heartfelt and strange come around.

here are some photos I took in the dark.

also;
watch this (unless you're crazy)