A Commonplace Book

I’ve been putting my rudimentary CSS and HTML skills to the test by modding my latest Wordpress theme, Grid Focus, and I’ve been pretty happy with the results so far. It is by all accounts still an overwhelmingly depressing mass of gray, however, so I’m testing different color palettes to see what works.

Since it is difficult to test color palettes when even the pictures in the most recent post are grayscale, I am making this useless test post solely for the purpose of including the absurdly super-saturated color picture above.

Despite having a tiny space compared to the number of people standing outside, Swiss Institute pulled off a fairly quiet and unique anti-Armory type show on the 28th of March. Going along with the theme of the evening, I thought it would be unfair to use a flash if the artists themselves weren’t allowed natural or electric light. Turns out I should have allowed for a slightly longer exposure. Whoops.

Also in one of the more poorly-played moments of the evening, I excused myself from a conversation with an artist exhibiting that night to return a missed call from a potential employer. Of course, as soon as I called I was told that I had misread the recent calls screen on my phone; I was the one who had accidentally dialed said potential employer from my pocket in the first place. Between the embarrassing phone call and the conversation unfortunately cut short, I don’t think I’ve failed so hard in recent memory. Double whoops.

The rest of the very few pictures I took at the Dark Fair that night are here.

And some pictures from The Armory Show that afternoon are here.

Every team brings a different ethos to New York’s annual Running of the Idiots, AKA the Idiotarod. Some teams, like Colonel Angus, are there to race. Some teams, like the Golden Shower Girls, are there to cause havoc. And some teams, like Kostume Kult, are there to preen.

After a marathon cow-building and costume-designing session the night before, Kostume Kult’s SaKred Kow cart set off at a leisurely pace this past Saturday and took its time enjoying the ride from Chinatown to Red Hook. Clad in a range of oranges that could be described as an assault on the eyes at best, we forsook the race for first in favor of some more wholesome and less goop-covered activities.

Between protesting the local fast-food restaurants, recruiting a Hare Krishna devotee, and stopping at some bars, we managed to escape the worst of the food throwing and cart sabotaging. We also came in so far to the back of the pack, with a time of 3 hours and 36 minutes, that I’m not sure if we actually beat any other teams.

Although it would have been nice to win a prize beyond “Best Recruitment of New Members Along the Course,” I can’t fault the judges for giving “Best in Show” to Team Danger Zone. My instinct is to lump 80s nostalgia right in there with pirates and ninjas as lame and unoriginal (at least there was no Team Bayside High) but Team Danger Zone took it to another level with their costumes, cart, music, and sketches.

Fakework also deserves every bit of applause they get for the effort that obviously went into their Marie Antoinette cart, although they might simply have exploited my weakness for cake and thigh-highs.

And finally I think some credit should go to the Golden Shower Girls despite their having walked away the overwhelming favorite for this year’s “Most Despised” award. No matter how annoying and dangerous they might have been at the front of the pack, I didn’t have to deal with them in the back and they have my gratitude for spending the morning harassing Team We-Have-Neon-Wigs-And-Drank-Too-Much-This-Morning-And-Could-Not-Be-Any-More-Obnoxious-If-We-Tried.

The full set of photos I took is here and some selected favorites are below.