Quokka is a small macropod

i am the rat

2011-05-23T16:46:00.001-07:00

the finger

2010-05-13T17:06:00.000-07:00

agamben's deft juggling of concepts like bare life and spoiled sovereignty elucidate a clearing in my brain- a meadow of defined shapes. maybe like murakami's crystalline descriptions of food. and yet i find my mind wandering away from the reading, again and again. my eyes unfocus and a barely perceptible feeling flies by, causing my thoughts to float into a neighboring place of quotidian things.

last night, we had an onativia street dinner with the usual host of characters seated at a long table at carl's place next door. i wore my house booties because we literally walk through the secret hallway adjoining the two units and arrive in carl's place without having to step outside. hanabi, carl's 6yr old daughter, gave rachel's little sister hannah the finger in her face for a long time as the table gradually fell silent in amused awkwardness. eventually someone asked hanabi if she knew what that meant. she said it means i'm mad. so we all tried to talk to her about curse words and whether or not she knew the worst one. she wouldn't say, but she was clearly lying. finally we all started to say fuck. and she whirled around toward emily and said, you say that word all the time! why do you say it all the time? and why do you always call cooper fuck? it was hilarious and also frightening how socially manipulative a 6yr old girl could be. rachel asked me how i would explain what fuck meant to micah, and i recounted the day that micah got in trouble all day in preschool for saying fuck to everyone, including the principal. when asked where he had learned it he said, from the L word! i don't know if the christian faculty would have been more offended by the f word or by the fact that he was watching a sexually explicit tv show about lesbians.

the great thing about micah is that he is open. that may change of course, but already it is a distinguishing attribute about him. he shoplifted one time with me at the local market in north park, san diego, and as soon as we left the store he couldn't help but proclaim to me that he had taken a packet of bubbalicious. the shady line is how much his ability to be hopelessly honest and his sensitivity to things that upset people will overlap and gradually create the morally ambiguous place of lying to protect. if only that place weren't so universally needed. if only it were less difficult to get through a day without hurting beloved ones or yourself. kj said, you are brave. oh, i hope.

film blog

2010-04-03T11:15:00.000-07:00

kj and i have started a film blog at programmingcommittee.blogspot.com if you want to read about films we're seeing and thinking about...

new home

2010-03-10T12:04:00.000-08:00

did you know that tabitha is secretly a perfect cat figurine?

and a provocateur?

and also a strange small owl?

highlights of the cross country road trip

2010-03-10T10:41:00.000-08:00

colorado

wyoming! the sky is bigger and more beautiful.

eileen and ken in chicago

stacy! at daley's under the train tracks

leaving chicago...

on our way to sterling heights, detroit suburb, michigan

i got my fix of boys (i miss micah so much)
this here are the augustin boys- isaiah, ethan, owen

and this is matthew chan

road tripping through chicago

2010-02-21T15:42:00.000-08:00

ken reminded us of the magic of the stars through his amazing tour of the Adler planetarium (the building on the right). i miss sunny winter days in chicago.

my ancestral village

2009-12-12T15:48:00.000-08:00

these are photographs from my ancestral village Shaoxing, China. my great grandfather's house is still there, but partially in ruins from a fire last year. lacy mushrooms dot a burnt tree that grows out of one room up into the sky.

according to google voice...

2009-11-25T13:43:00.000-08:00

this is the voicemail that i left for eileen the other day:

You have a new voicemail from
Jenn
6:30 PM
And I actually can pop now. I just had my we did a one year. Come on rationing of my 9 eyes. Beth after a graveyard and I decided to go to the dinner because i'm and we could talk to you later. Be watching. Everybody image. I need to do not be able to be so I have a couple of hours now. Renewable or video screening at 7 if you can walk so call me back again. Okay bye.

Google Voice

(photo taken in Pingyao, China)

trim

2009-11-12T12:27:00.000-08:00

2009-10-05T14:22:00.001-07:00

otik- a young thing

one of the oldest living things in the world- bristlecone pine
photograph by Rachel Sussman

fever of stingrays

2009-10-02T16:32:00.000-07:00

"... there in the notch of river swirled a thrown handful of birds- swallows presumably- fusing into flock then fissioning back into individuals, like thoughts in a disordered mind."
will self "great apes"

the planet of bionicles and their pets

2009-06-30T21:25:00.000-07:00

salix and hercules should be prescribable for depression

2009-05-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

the garden blooms

2009-04-20T22:40:00.001-07:00

2009-03-30T20:21:00.000-07:00

i want it that way

2009-03-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

Israeli Defense Force's Theory

2009-01-19T22:38:00.000-08:00

"When the military talks theory to itself, it seems to be about changing its organizational structure and hierarchies. When it invokes theory in communications with the public – in lectures, broadcasts and publications – it seems to be about projecting an image of a civilized and sophisticated military. And when the military 'talks' (as every military does) to the enemy, theory could be understood as a particularly intimidating weapon of 'shock and awe', the message being: 'You will never even understand that which kills you.'"

excerpt from excellent piece by Eyal Weizman
"The Art of War: Deleuze, Guattari, Debord and the Israeli Defense Force"

bird pets cat

2009-01-09T20:23:00.000-08:00

Cat and parrot

benazir bhutto's daughter's hip hop song

2009-01-09T09:51:00.000-08:00

the Gaza syndrome

2009-01-06T15:30:00.000-08:00

An Experiment in Provocation

Stealing Gaza

By BRIAN ENO
It's a tragedy that the Israelis - a people who must understand better than almost anybody the horrors of oppression - are now acting as oppressors. As the great Jewish writer Primo Levi once remarked "Everybody has their Jews, and for the Israelis it's the Palestinians". By creating a middle Eastern version of the Warsaw ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they've forgotten it. And by trying to paint an equivalence between the Palestinians - with their homemade rockets and stone-throwing teenagers - and themselves - with one of the most sophisticated military machines in the world - they sacrifice all credibility.

The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every chance to allow that to happen. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that this conflict serves the political and economic purposes of Israel so well that they have every interest in maintaining it. While there is fighting they can continue to build illegal settlements. While there is fighting they continue to receive huge quantities of military aid from the United States. And while there is fighting they can avoid looking candidly at themselves and the ruthlessness into which they are descending.

Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly...and, surprise, surprise - they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?
Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation.
And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.

Brian Eno is a musician and music producer.
link to article

According to one recent study, more than 60 per cent of Gaza's 1.5 million people suffer from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder – the result of economic distress, social breakdown, and frequent Israeli military strikes aimed at Palestinian militants and their infrastructure, strikes that often claim civilian lives.

Tawahina has a term for the resulting condition. He calls it the Gaza syndrome, and it so far seems to be an incurable state. But the current Israeli offensive, which has claimed more than 370 lives, is worse than anything he has known.

"Parents are sitting totally powerless, facing their fate," Tawahina said. "The people in Gaza are like experimental animals. Put them in a cage. Expose them to electrical shocks from all sides. Then they will stay in the middle of the cage, helpless and doing nothing.

"This is the situation of the people in Gaza.

The Silent Dredge

2008-12-08T15:06:00.000-08:00

i've been watching the Blue Planet series
it's the L word times 10
the best fantasy story ever
but it is fantasy
by omission it fails to illustrate
the depths of our injury to this teeming world
of creatures we think we create in our imaginings
but they exist in secret choreographs
breathing water with oxygen inverted
nothing new
living fossils in the air we can't breathe
under pressure we can't bear

artwork by Tiffany Bozic

Nai Nai passed away

2008-11-22T12:01:00.000-08:00

my beautiful feisty Nai Nai passed away at 95 years of age
on November 19, 2008
at home, surrounded by family

so classy!

Look at that stance. Maybe one day I'll inherit that.

well, shit.

2008-11-15T19:38:00.001-08:00

framing disclosure

2008-11-11T21:01:00.000-08:00

leaf cups

2008-11-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

terrible piece of news
israel bombed palestine
on the night the world watched
a black man become
the president of the
united states of america

terror of the question
death plots

"i lost weight. i bought weight."
i lost weight
i bought more weight
don't lose it again

the way you were before the way you were

pretty boy wants to be a girl
dressed up as a man
i'm sorry i wasn't a son

fibre of sensuality
of glass
*crush*
fiberglass

photo by Susan Araab

first we were scared

2008-11-04T20:31:00.000-08:00

first we were scared

then we couldnt believe it!

what does it mean??
will the world be a better place?

streaks in the sky

2008-11-03T16:50:00.000-08:00

there are streaks in the sky
vapor and clouds
polling time on the ground
i'm scared
but if the wrong guy wins
we'll move abroad, for real
sister said

battle in water
battle on land
secret fights in bedrooms
stretching of the heart

hallowed night

2008-11-02T12:25:00.000-08:00

stage 1 of Micah's Lucha Libre costume

cute cat

twin... uh.. i don't know

Victoria the Zombie Nurse
(and some kinkiness)

http://bassemah.blogspot.com/2008/11/happy-halloween.html

bath time

2008-10-31T12:09:00.000-07:00

rock desert with ben

2008-10-30T18:31:00.001-07:00

san felipe, mexico

2008-10-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

sea of cortez

getting-by

2008-10-15T15:36:00.000-07:00

Third Wave, collage on digital print, 2006
Brian Bress

it takes a lot of guts to create
it's so much easier to get by
what does it take to make [getting-by] generate creations

i want to be brave enough
a mass catalogue
hyperlink a geography of ideas referencing
ideas that reference ideas

my own dewey decimal system:
triggers for hallucinogenic epiphanies
systems of cute aesthetics
ways we tell nature to 'use the green'
domestication of savagery
alternate forms of parenting
childhood abuse and its relationship to empathy formation
imaginative implications of extraterrestrial exploration
feminist polyamory
etc etc etc
Why Why Why

i am from there

2008-10-14T19:25:00.000-07:00

I AM FROM THERE

I come from there and I remember,
Born as mortals are, I have a mother
And a house with many windows

I have brothers, friends
And a prison cell with a cold window.
Mine is the wave, snatched by seagulls
I have my own view
And an extra blade of grass

Mine is the moon at the far edge of words
And the bounty of birds
And the immortal olive tree.
I walked this land before swords turned bodies into banquets.
I come from there

I render the sky unto her mother, when the sky weeps for her mother
And I weep for a returning cloud to know me
I learned the words worthy of the court of blood so that I could break the rule
I learned and dismantled all the words to construct a single one:

Home

Mahmoud Darwish

photo by Rosanna Salonia

the frame shattered

2008-10-09T16:26:00.000-07:00

the frame i put up last night came tumbling down of its own accord, from unfelt tremors and forces in the seemingly unmoving wall, and shattered into tiny pieces all over the tile floor.

otik is the best

2008-10-06T20:05:00.000-07:00

detoxing sick in bed... but the dots always help.

kj as tv stand

2008-10-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

Untitled from Jennifer Hsu on Vimeo.

palin gets the witchcraft spirit cast out of her

2008-09-28T17:21:00.000-07:00

jump to 6:58 if you don't have time to watch the whole thing.
this is nuts.

palin- jesus christ

2008-09-26T08:52:00.000-07:00

this makes me speechless

i wish you way more than luck

2008-09-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
...

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

-David Foster Wallace's commencement speech, Keyton 2005
full speech

art by Kelly McCallum

how long is now

2008-09-23T10:01:00.001-07:00

if i throw up the bad will come out of me

if i throw out the good will come up

if i throw down the mess will spray out

next time i'll put my seed in you

next time now will be then
posting to your blog

thrusting to your post
your pics tell our secret

a secret everyone knows
the illusion of beauty

even if i sanction a lasting joy
it leaves

warehousing

2008-09-18T04:59:00.000-07:00

From Palestine Chronicle by Jeff Halper:

"If Israel can package and export its layered Matrix of Control, a system of permanent repression that combines Kafkaesque administration, law and planning with overtly coercive forms of control over a defined population hemmed in by hostile gated communities (settlements in this case), walls and obstacles of various kinds to movement, then, as Klein writes starkly, every country will look like Israel/Palestine: "One part looks like Israel; the other part looks like Gaza." In other words, a Global Palestine."

full article

second self

2008-09-17T19:07:00.000-07:00

i lay my heart before you
second self
white yellow black black
leaning bending in
what did you say?
how does it sound?
abstract math is irrelevant
oliver tumbles
tabitha wonders

berlin photos 1

2008-09-17T17:31:00.000-07:00

i'm home

2008-09-13T15:39:00.000-07:00

hipsterdom

2008-09-10T14:12:00.000-07:00

read this article:
Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization

berlin diaries episode 1

2008-08-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

Berlin Diaries Episode 1 from Jennifer Hsu on Vimeo.

Please email us questions about berlin or about anything else you're curious about for our next show... probably tonight.

mascot marmot

2008-08-22T05:51:00.000-07:00

genealogy of the electric guitar
call to art
chinese paper cut outs

camera obscura
there is no first

(and foxes root around in the trash)

unknown bleeding
i'm hurt on the inside?

trod trod trod
up the hill down the hill
sudden rain
SUN
thunder

glacial run off that make rapids
white water
lakes and sheep shit

points of charge radiate out
every direction
like dry charge in the car door
avert the shock use your butt
slam

don't look they're looking
don't look at me

one day i'll be able to talk in class
one day i'll show my stuff
one day i'll be free

if only ukuleles and islander joy
were alpine supine
and here

(can't love you anymore if you're pregnant again)

the thing is how there's an edge
to exaltation and pain
don't fucking judge me
pretentious prick

let's get pizza beer weed (hash?)
do standing tree pose
don't kick him

i love you

thermonasty

2008-08-18T08:51:00.001-07:00

Plant movement responses to temperature (thermonasty) and daily rhythms of
light and dark (nyctinasty)

leveling

2008-08-15T05:19:00.000-07:00

worlds of knowledge are being leveled, almost daily here.

already what i have deconstructed in my religion of tripping is being stripped of the wavering foundation it has to reveal a little bit of fleshy nub.

i am being taught by a man of the most brilliant relationship to language and i come into focus and blur at speeds.

and the men.

the boys the transgressing naughty dark monsters that come out at mid night.

fixation fetishization obsession transfixion

i was pushed to the tip levity above the abyss

but walked trembingly backwards

i'm ok now

my hold on words is tenuous this is exactly what i needed
the edge is frightening and i'm drinking to attenuate
anxiety
spray wipe away the muck
love lingers in shadows

head surrounded by sides of beef

2008-08-15T04:56:00.000-07:00

in this distance, i feel deeply unsettled, an extension of the conflict with my father that faded into a background of sadnesses and trespass:

silence.

my childhood is a place of unrequited need of an unconsummated desire to peace.

i'm sorry to be self absorbed i'm sorry to be consumed i'm collapsing in a self shame i wish i could be better more good stronger.

will micah forget me? has he already? will he forgive me for my absence? (perhaps equally as importantly, will tabitha?)

this is actually the view from my room!

2008-08-03T14:18:00.001-07:00

airports, trains

2008-08-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

packing for graduate school in saas-fee, switzerland

2008-08-03T13:16:00.000-07:00

the books... can't bring all of them... can't read all of them in time!

hard decisions had to be made about which clothes to bring...

there ensued serious disarray in my room...

b and jmz were the travel fashion consultants

little tiny piles of clothes

the Packing Consultant had to try on some of the clothes, of course, to make sure I'd be warm enough.

one last ukulele session with la maestra of beautiful islander music daisy

grilling at the park

2008-08-01T13:47:00.000-07:00

stolen from jaymee's moblog

leaving... on a jet plane

2008-08-01T13:20:00.000-07:00

"hijab flying" photography by Rania Matar

photograph by Rosanna Solania

bruised Young Pioneer

2008-08-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

"One Day in 2004 No. 6" by Cui Xiuwen

window

2008-07-25T23:28:00.000-07:00

la cubanita

2008-07-12T22:16:00.001-07:00

they're all in bedrooms...

dancing cornstarch goo

2008-07-12T22:15:00.001-07:00

Thousand Polaroids

2008-07-11T12:52:00.000-07:00

Here is a video of Philip-Lorca Dicorcia's really interesting project A THOUSAND POLAROIDS

watch this animation

2008-07-11T12:39:00.000-07:00

Game Over

eileen, this one's for you.

(it's worth watching PES's other videos too)

little lights

2008-07-10T21:46:00.000-07:00

not to belabor the metaphor, but there really are all these little lights everywhere in life... possible glares, headlamps, explosions.

hookah bonfire

2008-07-06T12:13:00.000-07:00

Midsummer fires, however, are older and of more obscure origin. The important description by the 16th-century chronicler John Stow is detailed under midsummer. An earlier description, by the 14th-century monk John Mirk, proves to be quoting from continental sources, but his derivation of ‘bonfire’ from ‘bone-fire’ is accepted by the OED, while others, including John Stow, have presumed the first syllable to be from French bon for ‘good’, or from ‘boon’, revealing the idea of fire as doing good in itself or as a symbol for good neighbourhood.
complete etymology of bonfire

lollipop for bassemah

2008-07-04T16:00:00.000-07:00

happy birthday dearest bassemah from Jennifer Hsu on Vimeo.

free fall drop get that rush again

2008-07-03T22:56:00.000-07:00

photo booth

2008-07-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

Lucha VaVoom

2008-06-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

clay

2008-06-26T02:37:00.000-07:00

oliver is bored. oliver yearns for adventure.

2008-06-24T16:48:00.000-07:00

instructional queefing video

2008-06-20T23:43:00.001-07:00

um, this floating hedgehog video makes me rethink EVERYTHING

2008-06-20T22:49:00.000-07:00

"I think he likes how the water looks from underneath." That is exactly the kind of thing I would say. The constant commentary of southern-accented baby talk from these ladies just makes all my sensibilities go in a tizzy.

Other highlights:

"that's what happens to people who fall asleep in the water, they get sunburned. Do you want to get sunburned by the bathroom light?"

"be careful not to get water in your ears"

finally publically sanctioned

2008-06-17T13:42:00.000-07:00

despite the many aspects of san diego that are less than ideal, its geographic participation in the state of california's new gay marriage law makes me happy to be here.

let's go

2008-06-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

gringo chilaquiles and baguette french toast

2008-06-13T14:35:00.000-07:00

perfect blend of sweet and savory!

fractured wrist gets a lot of attention

2008-06-13T11:06:00.000-07:00

hiring a hooker to date rape her

2008-06-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

link

water balls

2008-06-12T22:38:00.000-07:00

Department of Water and Power workers are emptying out bales of plastic balls in the Ivanhoe reservoir in Los Angeles on Monday, June 9, 2008. Department of Water and Power released about 400,000 black plastic 4-inch balls as the first installment of approximately 3 million to form a floating cover over 7 acres of the reservoir to protect the water from sunlight. When sunlight mixes with the bromide and chlorine in Ivanhoe's water, the carcinogen bromate can form. (Irfan Khan/AP)
link

Micah's pots and pans

2008-06-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

micah made this picture today during an arts and crafts session with me.

this is his kitchen; i'm inspired to cook!

Steep, wing-burning falls

2008-06-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

I've been "studying" popular culture with a new drive and vengeance. It's been a gargantuan task to metacognitively distill WHAT exactly makes me feel like i come from another planet. Not only am I appallingly ignorant on the specific who's and what's of this celebrity plasma we breath in, but I am, even more confusedly, completely baffled by the underlying STRUCTURES of tabloids and gossip. It may seem ingenuous to confess to such a basic level of outsider-ness, but in this proclamation i am most earnest. Reading US magazine on the toilet has proven to be one of THE most trippy things I do.

I've been reading Salman Rushdie's FURY, and ran across this gem of a paragraph. It is a perfect synthesis of the larger mechanism that has taken grip of our world in the last few decades, and that I have been oh-so-late to hitch a ride on.

This was the period in which the two great industries of the future were being born. The industry of culture would in the coming decades replace that of ideology, becoming "primary" in the way that economics used to be, and spawn a whole new nomenklatura of cultural commissars, a new breed of apparatchiks engaged in great ministries of definition, exclusion, revision, and persecution, and a dialectic based on the new dualism of defense and offense. And if culture was the world's new secularism, then its new religion was fame, and the industry- or, better, the church- of celebrity would give meaningful work to a new ecclesia, a proselytizing mission designed to conquer this new frontier, building this glitzy celluloid vehicles and its cathode-ray rockets, developing new fuels out of gossip, flying the Chosen Ones to the stars. And to fulfill the darker requirements of the new faith, there were occasional human sacrifices, and steep, wing-burning falls.
-Salman Rushdie, Fury

the other parent

2008-06-08T14:47:00.000-07:00

i went to micah's father's day ice cream special at his preschool as The Other Parent, one of the only women in a roomful of men. all the preschoolers sang a song about how they love daddy, and i cringed for micah's sake. i don't want to add negative charge to this whole paradigm problem in his life, but no matter how much i hide my chagrin, i'm sure he somehow perceives it. he was utterly distracted through the whole peformance, so i'm not even going to post the video of it. for once i was actually really grateful for his inability to focus, i hoped his disengagement would protect him from his feeling of alienation. he ran up to me in the audience right afterwards and was beaming to see me. he hugged me, i took pictures. at one point he said rather seriously, "i have a dad too. he's far away. he was mean to me and mommy when i was little. he's learning to be nice." i nodded placidly as i am wont to do when freaking out inside. i added, "i'm your parent too, you know that right?" I thought he wasn't listening, but then he surprised me by saying, "i have known my whole life that you are my other parent!" and looked at me impatiently, like duh.
which seems to me like a confirmation that a missing dad is so far, still just a label, not an actual emotional hole.

holy shit

2008-06-06T13:51:00.001-07:00

it's all relative

2008-06-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

From Jezebel:

Photoshop of Horrors

A retoucher for Maxim Mexico went a little loco on this model's waist. The thing about it is that it's not just offensive for like obvious objectification reasons (because really, only objects like action figures or Barbies could ever be proportioned like that), but it's also just a completely piss poor job with the "liquify" tool. I took it upon myself to "fix" her waist, using the same liquify filter in Photoshop.

http://jezebel.com/5013922/photoshop-of-horrors

what? what are you looking at?

2008-06-06T11:31:00.000-07:00

how to take care of anteater pets

2008-06-05T11:23:00.000-07:00

"You should take your anteater for a walk once a day. You must put them on a leash even though they are tame, they might get interested under cars and then you might not be able to get them out again or they might climb trees without permishion. Put trainer on them . Not whenever you take them out. It seems to be comfortable for them. Again if it is cold put a t-shirt on them just in case. ; ) Take them to meadows bird sancutaries, parks but becareful people might panic. It's alot quieter and calmer when you take them to a quiet place. You'll enjoy it more and so will your pet. There will be tons of people looking at you or talking to you, bothering you.

Food, food, food that's the tricky part with pets. Well I go out in the yard and look for ants (sometimes) or you can let them find ants themselves. It's better to let them do it, that way they don't get too lazy. I make soup for them (special soup: fruits , vegtables , ants , cheese. ) Usually I make some soup for them . They just adore advocadoes and blue cheese."

full article

empathetic astronomy

2008-06-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

Astronomers Suggest Looking for Aliens That Have Already Found Us

hike

2008-06-02T21:26:00.000-07:00

patrols things that grow

2008-06-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

"A border patrol boat is an unusual boat that bumps other boats and makes them fly in the sky.

It patrols things that grow high up to the sky, they grow plants.

Border patrol boats have an unusual thing that they have jewelry to make necklaces and bracelets

and then they make glasses out of jewelry, and they make food and sweaters out of hay

then they make some heaters out of silver glasses"

-Micah's quote of the day

Oh, if only border patrol boats were guards of nature instead...

it's been a shitty sickly week

2008-05-29T20:41:00.000-07:00

but this helps

micah is FOUR! and LOVED

2008-05-29T17:32:00.000-07:00

Aunt Victoria gave Micah some royal treatment.

He asked for a duck piñata, and so he got a parrot-duck...

There were rules and turns... and a lot of hitting.

Finally Micah was given the honor of really killing it without the blindfold on.

Then, it died.

And the way all consumed objects go...

Mommy made stupendous lego cakes!

and the aunties got some love...

There was a trick bike that I rode my mom on, this picture really captures the hilarity.

the lovelies were loving it up on the grass.

meet alberto

2008-05-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

i love chico's in highland park

2008-05-25T22:11:00.000-07:00

chilaquiles
cafe de olla

in time for dinner in los angeles

2008-05-25T21:57:00.000-07:00

it hurts

2008-05-20T20:39:00.000-07:00

there is so much beauty here in this city of hurt. there are all the old violations of childhood of adolescence and finally, now in grown up hood.

it's so heavy

i trod along the sandy shore
i've always walked along the shore, hoping that my tears won't be sighted by passersby
desperately wishing that the infinity in the waves beyond the horizon are a sure promise of
more joy
less pain

Micah at home

2008-05-16T15:14:00.000-07:00

Micah at home from Jennifer Hsu on Vimeo.

lovely weekend with KJ

2008-05-16T15:03:00.000-07:00

chinese cigarettes as art project

2008-05-05T22:18:00.001-07:00

Whenever I've been in China, I have always smoked more and tried as many different kinds as I could, no matter how cheap and brackish, due to the sheer plethora of brands to choose from and their wonderful packaging. Artist Markuz has made an art project of them.

http://www.markuz.com/interest/index.html
(double click on the cigarette pack for the gallery)

Seal tries to have sex with a king penguin

2008-05-05T15:37:00.000-07:00

...this is thought to be the first recorded example of a mammal trying to have sex with a member of another class of vertebrate, such as a bird, fish, reptile, or amphibian.

highland park

2008-05-04T21:51:00.001-07:00

I found a perfectly fitting pippi longstocking shirt for raquel last week in a thrift store... pippi is her childhood heroine, and i was happy that she put it on right away and didn't take it off, even to sleep!

raquel now lives in highland park, los angeles. she's just starting to explore her neighborhood and get settled- it's so intense to do that. i think she's doing a good job, but she's also more stressed than i've ever seen her.... (she has her education reform work charts taped up on her kitchen walls!)

majnuneh and me

2008-05-04T21:45:00.001-07:00

we thought that we might go out and experience music in our heightened state, but that was a silly idea after all. instead we danced, laughed and periodically realized how GOOD stretching felt so we did that alot too.

dj micah

2008-04-24T20:04:00.001-07:00