I used to be part of the solution...

Now I'm part of the problem.

I was a bike commuter for years. Now I got a job that's far away. Readers of this blog already know that the Volvo has been breaking down. For a car in occasional use, it's fine. Breaking down is an adventure. But the windshield wipers don't work either... the power windows are going, which isn't a big deal except it could be the sign of something bigger... the A/C hasn't worked in years, whatever... the real issue is that even if I fix all that stuff, plus the mysterious electrical problems, it's still a vehicle that will take 4 gallons of gas per day to get to work. Which is unacceptable.

So, really and truly I'm now part of the problem. Yesterday I bought a brand new car. Ugh. Does anyone want a used Volvo 240? It's been driven lightly over the last ten years, taken care of for the most part, but has some serious issues that may delight you or may get you stuck somewhere you don't want to be.

Fed gov't rewards those who make bad decisions... the Volvo gets a whopping 2 mpg over the cutoff for the cash for clunkers $. So if you were stupid enough to buy something that gets less than 18 mpg, you get a lump of cash.

In contrast, the new car will get 38 mpg. Big improvement. But still part of the problem.

This is the best you can do, Los Angeles?

I mean, come on! The cops tell you to stay home and you do???! Where's
the spirit of chaos?
There might be a couple hundred people down here... barricades, toilets, and cops for a million. Most who showed up are media or t-shirts sellers. Super lame. I guess I was expecting Total Insanity, but I maybe craziness is reserved for the Lakers.
But if we're paying for a spectacle, where is it?

Never Neverland

There is no dark side of the moonwalker...

As a matter of fact, it's all dark.Always figured Michael was a secret metalhead...
Mural on Melrose and Heliotrope.

Enter Sandman

Does this work?

Testing out if posting pictures from a remote location via phone
actually works. Here's a pic of me at the mall with the Dukes of
Hazzard car. Classy.

Wacko about Jacko

I got caught up in the Jackwackiness early on, and I'm still trying to shake the hype. I was nearby the UCLA med center when the whole thing went down, so walked over to check out the chaos. Seemed to be more news vehicles and media people around than fans, but it only takes a small bunch of people to look like a big crowd on television. No one seemed upset, didn't see anyone collapsing into tears. But here in LA, if there are a bunch of news vehicles around, you gotta go see what's up. When I was a kidlet, MJ was the biggest star on the planet. Of course I wasn't into that; a copy of Thriller in the collection kills the punk cred completely. But yeah, ok, admittedly, I was thrilled by the hooks, the moves, and later intrigued by the "situation." So there was something super-odd about being on the same square of real estate that held his cold corpse. The proximity was freaky. It's one of those things about living in LA, sharing space with world news.
On the way to dinner, we passed some commotion on Sunset Blvd. A guy with a white glove held high was there, along with a dude holding a bouquet and a whole mess of cop cars. Scene of the crime, or intersection to scene of the crime, or maybe there wasn't any crime involved at all, who knows. I've been following the news, and I'm making a sweater. Originally it was going to be about Farrah too, but I'm not really sure what to say about her. Or him either, but seems like the whole event warrants a sweater. So I'm struggling for ideas. Read a whole mess of jokes, but none were funny.
So, Jackson might be dead, but the cats are battling with their own problems. Little Daisykins has something funky going on with her paws, and both of them needed a rabies shot. It was found that the little darlings also have fleas. This morning they were a bit groggy from all the medications, but at least they aren't IV drug addicts.

Back from Beyond

Anyone wanna buy a house in Illinois? My mother's selling the house I grew up in. It's a nice place to visit, and an even nicer place to live. The view of the woods outside is incredible, since the place is basically made up of windows. The inside is mostly redwood. When I was a kid, I thought it was a shack with a lot of wood and glass that smelled funny when it rained. But now it's called "mid-century modern" and it's sought-after and special. It's especially good for a short family, since the architect was short and put in ceilings that were good for his height. This is the driveway, which I had to back down without hitting any trees before I was allowed to get my drivers license. It's also where I learned to unicycle, which is why I have scars on my knees from the embedded pieces of gravel.
We went through closets and drawers and boxes of things, finding all sorts of treasures and surprises, some of them exciting and some of them not so. I was surprised to find that my high school prom dress still fit just fine, and since my mother's flash hadn't worked so well on the big day, we did a reshoot so there would be a photo of me in the dress. Better late than never. If I could figure out how to make an animation, you'd see me twirling in the driveway, but you'll have to imagine for now. I'm bringing the dress back to LA, so if anyone wants to invite me to prom, or to any other event where the dress code requires guests to dress like a tulip, I'm ready to go. The night before I left, we stopped by Max and Benny's deli to pick up some things for brunch. I couldn't resist bringing Louis back this cookie. Who to eat first?

Things to Love about Los Angeles, number 389

There are five hundred thousand things to love about living in Los Angeles and I don't think I've found them all yet. A stellar weekend leaves me scratching my head wondering why anyone would choose to live elsewhere. Friday night began with a lovely ride to the Hammer for the closing party for the Nine Lives show. I thought I'd try out the spiffy new GPS application I installed on my phone. I headed north. When I got to Beverly Hills, I checked the progress and it hadn't yet found a starting point. So that was a wash. My route was side streets to San Vicente to Little Santa Monica to (I think) Woodley to Wilshire. It's not bad. There is sort of a no man's land between Maison Martin Margiela and Pink Taco on Little SM. Suddenly a bike lane appears, but there's no really good way to get to it without taking one's life in one's hands. The conceptual shift from Margiela to Pink Taco is already confusing enough without factoring in the gauntlet. Anyhow, that's the worst part and it's still not as bad as Wilshire though the country club which is horrific.
The "Hammer Bash" was a lot of fun. Llyn Foulkes is an incredible performer and it was so great to see him with his music machine. A friend with a bike was there, and we rode the shitty part of Santa Monica back together, which always makes things a bit easier. He had a back route in mind so we didn't have to pass through the commercial district of Beverly Hills, which was nice, though I do enjoy looking in the shop windows. Plus he was not an obeyer of stop signs, which made me nervous because I'm always thinking that the cops are out to get cyclists in BH for any possible infraction. But I gave into peer pressure because at heart I'm a follower and a sheep. When I got home, the GPS told me that I had ridden to the ocean, then swam out a bit before coming back. I don't think I was that drunk, but who knows. Can GPS lie?
Saturday bought a whole bunch of chocolate (desperate times call for desperation) before going to Zachary Drucker's performance at Steve Turner Gallery. Stretched out on a stainless steel table, he invited audience members to pluck hairs from his nearly naked body using supplied tweezers. After that, Salvadorean food, followed by a trip to a strip club to see some nearly naked ladies who did not seem to be in need of any plucking. I haven't been to Sam's Hofbrau since 1996 when Daniel and I went there for lunch in order to review it for "The Nearly Naked Issue" of The Casual Observer. Either things have really changed or the lunch crowd is really different than the Saturday night crowd. It was fun to see all the ladies in their skivvies dancing around, especially since my husband is in Paris. Who knows what he's doing there...
This morning, out the door early to the Hollywood Farmer's Market and then to the neighborhood Zen center, where I stopped in to see what's going on in the world of Zen. Sat around there for awhile and then came home and had to take a nap. Just too much excitement in this city with no pity.

The Meow: Saddlesore

From March 6 through May 29th, 2009, "The Meow" appeared on the Hammer website while I was in an exhibition there called "Nine Lives." With the closing of the exhibition, I'm re-posting the entries here.

Friday, May 29

I write an occasional publication called Saddlesore, and the emphasis here is on “occasional,” since I haven’t actually thrown one out into the world in quite some time. Maybe a couple years even. But I ride all the time and the adventures never end and from time to time I think I need to write them down, but with all this blogging and art production and teaching and communing with the cats, who has the time for small publications anymore?

In case anyone’s wondering how to bring freshly baked bread with them on a bike, here’s one solution. A couple days ago I had to return a container to a friend who had too much leftover kale salad. I gladly took the kale off his hands, but protocol requires food containers to be returned with something inside, so I baked some bread. It made a lovely carrying vessel, though I’m afraid the crustiness of the bread may have diminished due to the “greenhouse effect” of condensation forming in the clear container as I rode north.

On the way back I stopped to take some photos of this pieced tree covering on Western. There’s a trend right now among knitters to knit “graffiti” and sew it onto trees as some sort of knitting affirmation, but this guy has been covering trees in my neighborhood for many years. He seems to live in a tent on the sidewalk near these trees, and often he’s sewing when I walk or ride by.

Last night I rode up to Echo Park for a haircut. I don’t know how far that is, not too bad. I had heard a rumor about a newly re-opened version of Amok Books somewhere near Pico-Union, so I thought I’d see if I could figure out where it might be and stop by on the way to the haircut.

I took Hoover north to Alvarado, and where those streets meet, there’s a large church with a back building that has a star of David on it. I’m always on the lookout for the signs that my people have been kicked to the curb in favor of something else. I pulled up to search for a cornerstone, but seemed like a newish concrete foundation so no way to really tell what was up. No one was around. Later I found out that this church was once called The People’s Temple, run by Jim Jones, who later headed to Guyana for giant mass suicide. I remember when we got the Time magazine that detailed the weirdness. My father was shocked. He told me to always remember this day because it was so strange, so odd, that nothing like that had happened in his lifetime and nothing like that would happen again. I’m paraphrasing, perhaps, but yes, it was a crazy thing to have happen on the planet way back when, and odd to learn that my bike route to Echo Park has such resonant spaces along the way.

I almost forgot to mention, too, that the oldest woman in the entire world also lives on my route north, at the corner of Cimarron and Adams, in the Western Convalescent Center. She’s 114 and took the reigns of oldest woman in the world when the previous one died a few months back. I don’t know much about her except that she prays and that she voted for Obama, but I think about her every time I pass by.

I’d done a few google searches before leaving the house and discovered that the bookstore was called Unusual Books and was located on 7th near Lucas. The google street view made the block look abandoned. The answering machine at the shop said the place was open 12-9, but it was 4pm when I called and no one picked up. I took a chance and stopped by anyhow, and there it was, the front window welcoming, the selection of books inside tantalizing. I brought my trusty steed inside, after watching some random guy outside spitting and thinking that the next spit target might be my bike. The proprietor of the shop, Dan, was super friendly, and showed me his gorgeous bicycle, a vintage sky blue Medici that was in pristine shape. I browsed the odd selection of books, picking up a copy of “Portable Darkness, An Aleister Crowley Reader”. I think “Portable Darkness” is pretty much the best title ever. I have a changing bag for when I need to bring darkness with me for loading 4×5 film, but I’ve never thought of it quite in those terms even though that’s literally what it is. Who doesn’t want to bring the darkness with them?

Dan the proprietor gave me the most direct route to Echo Park, which includes a couple small hills, and I made it to see Alice my haircutter only five minutes later than I was supposed to be there. She took off a lot of hair. It’s summer, after all, and good to get rid of that extra weight.

On the way home, after dark, I passed a gazillion storefront churches with people inside singing via rickety PA systems to rows of mostly empty chairs. Has Christianity gone karaoke or is this how it’s always been?

The Meow: Guest Blogger Daisy

From March 6 through May 29th, 2009, "The Meow" appeared on the Hammer website while I was in an exhibition there called "Nine Lives." With the closing of the exhibition, I'm re-posting the entries here.

Monday, May 18

Today’s guest blogger, Daisy, was born in the garden last June. She enjoys stealing things, sitting on the dining room table, and peeing in a clean litter box. Her favorite toys include hair bands and tampons. Although she hasn’t been writing for long, she has a lot to say. Her usual mode of communication is through chirps, meows, and, if you hold her, she’ll make a protesting groan that comes from deep within.

From the paws of Daisy-kins, the little blue-eyed devilgirl-child.

Did you feel that earthquake last night? I was sleeping on the dining room table, which I’m not supposed to do, but I know I can get away with it. Usually, one of those people come over and say ooh, that I’m SO bad for being on the table and then they pick me up and stroke my fur and coo all over me. Mixed messages, totally. Sometimes I even get a treat in addition to all the fussing. So why wouldn’t I sit on the table? It’s ground zero for affection.

Anyhow, I was curled up on a placemat when I felt the shaking. First I thought it was my sister Clydey, playing a trick on me, but then I realized she was over in the living room being a kiss-ass kitten by sleeping on the rocking chair. Does she think she’s in a Norman Rockwell painting or what? The perfect little kitty-girl, the angel to my devil. She’s a purring sweet little shy cat. A scaredy cat, too. She hides behind the stove whenever a heterosexual male stranger walks into the house. Pussy. She’s cool with gay dudes. I’m not sure what’s up with that. We had a butch lesbian come in here once and she didn’t know what to do. She headed for the stove when the lady came in the house, but then she got confused. We’re still young, you know. Not even a year old. We haven’t figured out the subtleties of things yet. We’ve got huge whole long lives ahead of us, and since we were rescued from the street, our life-span has grown exponentially. The people keep telling us this, like a broken record, that ferals have an average of 2.5 years on this mortal coil, while housecats can live for decades. But do we want this life, an existence without chasing birds and climbing trees? Is it worth the trade? My sister and I have had this conversation a lot. She’s pretty sure she wouldn’t have lasted six months on the streets, so she’s content with a houselife. I’ve got more balls than she does, but even I’m apprehensive about the wandering packs of dogs.

We can see our mother outside. She comes here to eat breakfast and dinner, and often just hangs around in the garden sleeping or chasing butterflies. I try to say hello sometimes, but we don’t speak the same language anymore. It’s tough to be a first generation housecat sometimes. I ache for the garden, but I’m happy to have a warm bed, plenty of food, and these freaky fussy people picking me up and torturing me with caresses all day and night.

So anyhow, back to the earthquake. When I looked up to see if Clydey was playing a trick on me by shaking the table, I saw her cowering under the rocking chair in the living room. So what happened? One of the people was outside dealing with the garbage cans. When she came in, the other person started yelling about the house shaking. There was an argument, the usual, one saying there was an earthquake, the other saying that sounded like an exaggeration, that is was probably just a truck rumbling by or something. Then the one who’d been moving garbage cans put me on her lap and got on the internet and got the data. The epi-center wasn’t too far from here and it was a 4.7. I don’t know what all of that means exactly but it got me and Clydey all shook up! It’s scary living here in the earthquake zone. Sometimes I think maybe I should move to New York, but what would I do there?

The Meow: Broke down and flat busted

From March 6 through May 29th, 2009, "The Meow" appeared on the Hammer website while I was in an exhibition there called "Nine Lives." With the closing of the exhibition, I'm re-posting the entries here.

Monday, May 11

But this time I got the kitty litter first!

Jesus must really want my car. The Volvo got raptured again yesterday while I was attempting to drive home from the Hammer on the 10 freeway. There I was, just minding my own business and sweating it out driving in stop-n-go traffic eastbound towards my house. When I drive, I like to pick up the “heavy” stuff I can’t really haul on a bike. So I had 75 pounds of kitty litter with me, plus 3.5 pounds of cat food and 6 pounds of rye flour from the health food store.

I thought everything was going swimmingly with the car. I’d gotten it back from the dude last week and immediately got on an airplane to Detroit. I came home and figured we were back to normal. Did the errands, met some nice folks over at the Hammer and then tried to get home. Called AAA again and they sent out a tow. Got to stand on the side of the freeway and take pictures of the ridiculous scene for a bit.

Not often you get a chance to hang out on the shoulder of the 10. Some sweet-faced CHP officer stopped to see if I was OK. I swear, he looked like he was 14. He told me I should get in my car, but I said I’d die of the heat. You don’t leave pets in parked cars, do you sonny boy? So he said I could just stand far away from the cars. I thought he said he’d stay with me until the tow truck came, but he left in a hurry. A few minutes later, his partner stopped by and asked me if his partner had been there. I said, well, if they’re partners, how come they were in separate cars? He said, “beat partner,” which means, well, I’m not exactly sure. I guess I was still thinking Ponch and Jon.

I got back to the mechanic’s place and they were kind of surprised to see me. They’ll take a few days to attempt to figure out what’s wrong with the car, so I packed up my Hammer shopping bag, got out of my fancy shoes and into a pair of sneakers I kept in the trunk, and hoofed it home. Unfortunately, it was 90 degrees out. I didn’t have socks, so I got blisters from my sneakers.

The bottom fell out of the Hammer bag a few blocks from my house. I didn’t lose anything, but I could tell the neighbors were wondering why I was carrying around a bag of art books and rye flour.

The Meow: The Rapture

From March 6 through May 29th, 2009, "The Meow" appeared on the Hammer website while I was in an exhibition there called "Nine Lives." With the closing of the exhibition, I'm re-posting the entries here.

Tuesday, May 5

The best thing about riding a bike across town is that it’s a pretty sure bet that you’re going to get there. A flat tire takes less than ten minutes to change. Other problems can happen, I suppose, but I don’t have much experience with catastrophic bicycle issues, so not sure what they might be. I guess there could be a medical emergency or something like that, but that can happen just as easily if you’re in a car or taking the bus.

Last Friday, I attempted to cross town using my trusty old 1992 Volvo 240. I’ve had the car since 2000, and I don’t drive much so it’s a bit dusty. But it works OK, or so I thought. I’ve been considering the possibility of adopting a new vehicle, but there doesn’t seem any reason to switch it up. I’d rather be on my bike anyhow, but I have a personal rule against bicycling with a laptop. The last time I rode with it, I fell down and landed on the laptop. The computer was fine, but it hurt to breathe or laugh for a few weeks. Perhaps it would have made more sense just to be a more careful rider. The fall didn’t have anything to do with the laptop and nothing bad happened to it anyhow. The only injury was to myself. Macs are strong. So why on earth I put the ban in place is a mystery.

Anyhow, I was scheduled to give a talk at UCLA at 2pm, so I got in the Volvo with the computer at 1 and left the house. If there’s no traffic, it’s a 15 minute drive. 20 max. So I figured I had enough time to get gas and maybe even stop by the post office.

I filled my tank and took a left on Washington Blvd. Almost immediately, all the power in the car left. The car just stopped. The end. Raptured in the middle of Washington Blvd. I’m generally level-headed about these sorts of things, but it was a bit nerve-wracking. I knew I’d be late to UCLA. I had a bus schedule with me but the bus to UCLA doesn’t run very often and I’d have to get to the correct line from where I was, which would take awhile. I figured probably 2 hours to get to UCLA from where I was via bus. Plus, I was in the center of the road and couldn’t just leave my car there. So I called Triple A and asked for a tow truck. Glad I didn’t get rid of my membership. It does come in handy sometimes even though fundamentally I’m upset about the very idea of paying dues to a “club” that supports automobile driving.

There was some room at the side of the road, so I thought I should get my car over there and out of the traffic lane, even though there’s something undeniably fun about sitting in the middle of the road in your car yakking on the phone. I called the TA to tell her my predicament, and then got out and started pushing. I’m wearing a dress and high heel shoes and I’m pushing a dirty car. Some UHaul van pulls up behind me and starts honking. I get into my usual road rage and yell back that there’s nothing more I can do than what I’m doing. I don’t actually say it in a nice way. Anyhow, I go up to the driver to explain that she should just go around me and it turns out she’s super nice and wants to help. She says she’s been stranded plenty of times herself and she knows what it feels like. So then four people jump out of the van and help me push the car over to the side of the road. I’m tempted to flee the scene right then and there but it’s in a no-parking zone, so I figured I should stay for the tow.

This nice young man picks me and my car up and takes me to some car fixing place nearby. I make it to UCLA 45 minutes late and a bit undone, but it’s fine. I give the talk, and Louis picks me up and brings me back to the car place. Turns out it’s something with “the electrical.” According to the dude, Volvos are notorious for random electrical problems. He can’t really explain why whatever happened happened, and I’m not even sure exactly what went wrong.

Two days later I’m in Detroit and exactly the same thing happens to my phone. Sparks, flashes of light, then it’s taken away to heaven to live with Jesus forever.

Am I next?

The Meow: Does this cat look pregnant?

From March 6 through May 29th, 2009, "The Meow" appeared on the Hammer website while I was in an exhibition there called "Nine Lives." With the closing of the exhibition, I'm re-posting the entries here.

Thursday, April 30

It’s getting close to kitten season, and we don’t want what happened last year to repeat itself, so there’s suspicion surrounding the appearance of a new orange feral in the backyard. It was sleeping under the lemon tree this morning when I went out, and there was no sign of our other feral, our primary feral and mother of our kittens, Abby Tabby. We’ve seen the orange cat chase our precious Abby Tabby away from the food and now we stand watch over her while she eats. She tolerates us, but barely. Get too close and she too will run.

Last year around this time, we started to see Abby Tabby in the backyard and running scared down the driveway, but we didn’t think anything of it. There is a large feral population in Los Angeles, and our neighborhood is full of them. It wasn’t until she left four kittens in our rosemary bush that we paid attention, and it’s our hope that the orange cat is not also looking for a place to drop a litter.

The kittens were amazing, and they grew to be elegant beasts, but we don’t need a repeat. There’s not much time in which to trap and neuter the new cat, and since we’re not feeding it, it might be difficult to get into a cage. So skittish! Hard to tell if it’s male or female, every time it jumps the fence I try to sneak a look under the tail to see if there are any balls there, but so far, no luck. I want to see balls because the alternative is kittens.

In other cat news, Amanda at the Hammer sent over some sweet photos of her new cat, Blueberry. The Meow congratulates both Blueberry, the camera-shy Owl, and Amanda on their new companions.

The Meow: Bike Night at the Hammer!

From March 6 through May 29th, 2009, "The Meow" appeared on the Hammer website while I was in an exhibition there called "Nine Lives." With the closing of the exhibition, I'm re-posting the entries here.

Friday, April 17

Like the universe itself, Bike Night started with a big bang.

I was about five blocks from my house when it happened. I had already gotten a late start, because ten minutes before I was supposed to leave I decided I wanted to write a speech to introduce the film. Then I got all nervous because of the speech and I felt icky and sweaty so I had to jump in the shower for a quick spritzdown. So then I was late and nervous and wearing a spanking new black and white sweater/skirt combo. I leapt on my bike and tore down the road.

Then the road tore me. Right before that hill on Cimarron, the bike felt a little funny and I looked down at the back tire, which was completely flat.

Great.

So my head was spinning as fast as I wished my tire was. Should I walk back to my house and grab a different bike? Or change the flat here? Which takes less time? Are the bikes at home in ridable condition or did I steal lights off them for this bike? Do they have air in the tires? I got this new bike about a month and a half ago and it’s all I’ve been riding since then, so I just wasn’t sure if the others were road-worthy at this very moment.

I decided to change the tire, and I called Jen to see if she was going to get to the meeting place before me. She and I were supposed to lead the ride to the Hammer, but she was sick and couldn’t make it, but amazingly, generously offered to come meet me at Scoops beforehand for ice cream and support. So I called to tell her what was up and I think I was weirdly hysterical, yelling, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO GET MY BACK WHEEL OFF! Which of course, I do know how to do. But at that moment, nervous, flustered, on the phone, people staring at me. I’m the crazy white lady with the white dress, a bike upside down, my hands covered in bike grease, clutching an allen wrench and yelling on a cel phone. Not the norm in my neighborhood, certainly.

Amazingly, it took very little time to change the tire. Since the tire was new, I was worried it would take five hundred levers to get it off and way too much patience to get it back on the rim. A miracle. Only one lever to get it off and no time to coax it back in place.

Got to the meeting place with time to spare, bought a fresh tube, put some air in my front tire and got on the road with a huge crowd of art lovers.

Always tough to photograph these big group rides, so here’s a photo that does the experience no justice, but you can see we’re riding into the sunset and it’s a beautiful evening and everyone is on their bikes. We made it to the Hammer by 6:45, which I thought was pretty quick, and we all Bike Valet-ed with the LA County Bike Coalition.

There was a line-up for the all vegan grillfest which stretched around the courtyard. I cut in line, sorry everyone. Then a couple people I know who had chosen to ride Mulholland instead of Santa Monica Blvd showed up, which was a bit shocking. They’d left the same time we did; how did they get here so fast? So I grabbed some extra burgers for them, which I think annoyed people behind me, so sorry again everyone for being so brazen.

There were tons of people there, and the amazing thing is that I knew barely any of them! So who were all these people who valet parked there bikes, filling up bike valet completely?

Maynard got the chance to show off his B&J onesie that I’ve been hearing about seemingly for decades. That color certainly provides great visibility on the road, and it’s even better for an evening soiree!

At 8:30, Breaking Away screening in the Billy Wilder. Since I had that bright idea to write a speech, I introduced the film, which was sort of fun. Great to see it big and there were scenes in there I’d completely forgotten about, like the ones shot of stonecutting.

My bike came back from Bike Valet with a flat front tire. It was the back tire that had been flat earlier in the evening, but when I was putting air in the back tire at Orange 20, Morgan noticed that the front tire could really use some air too. I’d checked it before I’d left the house, and thought it was OK, but I am a notorious under-filler of tires, so I topped it off and didn’t think much about it. When the second flat happened, I thought there perhaps had been some trauma in Bike Valet, and I started taking off the tire but then someone showed up with a pump and it seemed to hold air so I just decided to take a chance and ride home. Wilshire Blvd sucks. Full of cracks and potholes and I didn’t want to jar the bike too much for fear of the worst, so tried to take it slowly. Started with a pack of people, that turned into about ten people soonafter, which dwindled drastically at an intersection (can’t remember where exactly) and then just two, until I peeled off and went south. The air held, I made it home with no problems. This morning, it was flat again.

The Meow: Landfill

From March 6 through May 29th, 2009, "The Meow" appeared on the Hammer website while I was in an exhibition there called "Nine Lives." With the closing of the exhibition, I'm re-posting the entries here.

Tuesday, April 14

There is a lot to report this week! Things are happening and falling apart, all at the same time.

I decided to make a new sweater to wear to Bike Night, which is coming up very very soon on Thursday April 16. I wanted to make the “sharrow” sweater like the one that’s in the exhibition, but in a different color, so I just burned the pattern cd and fired up the old PC computer that’s attached the knitting machine and… and… nothing. Some green lights blinked momentarily and that’s all that happened. I thought maybe the cord had pulled out, so I checked that but it seemed to be OK. Then I thought maybe the power strip was bad, so I tried another power strip, and finally I figured the wall socket was bad so I hooked up an extension cord and tried another plug. Nothing. So, it’s dead, c’est la vie. I’d bought the thing four years ago off of craigslist. Was $40, came with a sweet 1993 monitor, and was spookily located three blocks from my house.

Yeah, I’m one of those totally annoying “mac people.” It’s gross; I hate being tied to a brand, but it’s all I know, which I am aware of is no excuse. But macs don’t run knitting machines, so I had to step over to the PC side of the world, at least for this one little thing. The computer program that runs the knitting machine is pretty old, so I don’t need anything fancy, which is why I bought the above crappy box. Before that I had another similar one, but it died too. I don’t know if it’s just me or if these kinds of computers are just not built with much longevity.

Anyhow, since it was dead, the search was on for a replacement. Somehow I had this completely deluded idea that people who had PCs would have a pile of old PCs in their closet, waiting to be somehow revived for someone else’s arcane needs. I have a bunch of old macs lying around. It’s like a mac museum over here. Even a Powerbook 100, if anyone out there is interested in some serious laptop history.

Anyhow, I contacted the only two PC users I know. My neighbor, who’s a computer guy (I don’t know what that means, but I think he’s gainfully employed doing something computer-y) had an old beige box in his garage, but he wasn’t sure if it had a Windows operating system and also it needed to be dusted off and he wanted to extract a hard drive before giving it away. Didn’t sound promising. Another friend had two laptops that would maybe work, but turns out the connector port I needed wasn’t on either of them. Then he had a friend who was maybe giving away a computer, but that didn’t work out.

I really didn’t want to buy a new computer. I’ve seen those photos of landfills full of computers and I wanted to be the solution and not the problem. I started getting kind of desperate, and put an ad on Craigslist and combed the classified to find a cheap one. I called Goodwill but they didn’t have any. I called USC Surplus and they had them for thirty bucks, but the computers didn’t have operating systems. Which is weird, right? But I guess that’s the non-mac world. Windows isn’t automatic.

I was completely obsessed. I thought about computers day and night, thinking about how I could find a twenty dollar piece of junk with an OS and the correct rear plug. I even considered buying the cheapest new laptop I could find, along with an adapter. But I didn’t want Vista. The ladies on the knitting machine forum made that sound pretty bunk. Finally, on Friday night, I went to The Public School to teach a class on knitting sweaters and since all I could think about was my computer problems, it was the first thing I told Sean when I got there. And lo and behold, he had the holy grail in his closet, a big beige Dell with a 9 pin port in the back. I swiftly whisked it away to my car, before he had time to think twice about getting rid of his box. He stammered something about confidential files and I told him not to worry, that I was a neophyte about PCs and couldn’t figure out how to open them up anyhow.

I got home and immediately hooked up the computer and this is what I saw. Total funk. Several hours and many google searches later, I’d figured out that the problem was my sweet 1993 SuperCom monitor, which is not supported by Windows. So it was running the wrong display driver which is why it looks like that. It worked in “safe mode” but then the port didn’t work. So eventually I figured out to de-install the driver, and then I could use it, but if I had to restart it, it re-installed that driver again itself and finally Norman the neighbor came over and disabled the driver instead of de-installing it and now it works. Subtle.

But given my track record with beige box PCs, I’m still in the market. Sean was awful kind to loan me his PC, but I don’t want to kill it like the others. I’ve got a couple Linux cheerleaders trying to get me to install Ubuntu on an old mac G4 I’ve got lying around and it still could happen. I’d rather re-purpose something I already have than bring something new and ugly into the house. But, really, do I have time to dive into these deep waters when all I need the computer for is running a very small modest program for the knitting machine? It’s definitely intriguing… seems like a fun challenge… and I have the download ready to pop into the G4, to transform it, give it new life. Another possible resurrection story on an easter weekend….

But in the meantime, I’m up and running again! I’ve knitted all the pieces of this sweater and skirt and now just have to sew them together and wash them before Thursday night. I’m remaking a bunch of sweaters using only black and white. I like the simplicity. That and it’s very chic and will look great with bike grease and blood.

The Meow: Other People's Cats

From March 6 through May 29th, 2009, "The Meow" appeared on the Hammer website while I was in an exhibition there called "Nine Lives." With the closing of the exhibition, I'm re-posting the entries here.

Wednesday, April 8

A cat cafe recently opened in Tokyo: Calico Cat Cafe. It’s a place where you can take your shoes off, have some tea, and pet some cats. The 14 cats in residence are there for the guests to stroke and ogle. It sounds kind of perfect. There are rules. No waking cats up from naps. It should be enough to have the honor to watch them slumber. Do not hold a cat that does not wish to be held. I wish someone would open a branch of the Calico Cat Cafe here in Los Angeles. I have two delightful felines already, but I enjoy the occasional company of others.

So while I wait patiently for cat cafes to catch on in the US, I’ve been making do with visits to various cats around town. Below is Charlie, Susan’s cat. I’ve known Charlie since she was a very small kitten living in South Pas. Charlie was featured in the January, 2000 issue of American Homebody.

She was sweet and spoiled, a petite primadonna, living alone with her human companion for many years until Susan brought Charlie into her marriage, and now the cat is in residence in a bustling household that includes a a teenager, a two year old, and a husband. By the time this gets posted, there might even be another small human in the mix! Charlie has weathered the changes admirably, hanging on to her panache and lust for life. Here she is in the garden, where she spends some of her daylight hours. She is careful not to go too far. There have been “incidents” and she does not want to be a statistic.

Pancake and Bunny live in Cypress Park near the base of Mount Washington. They come and go as they please, and they don’t even have a litter box! Pancake is a sweet tan cat with a slight cross eye and Bunny is a very fluffy gray kitty. Pancake has his own facebook fan page. I’m not sure if he maintains it himself or subcontracts. Jen has lived with Pancake for awhile, but I’m not sure how many years. Last summer, Bunny moved in from the streets. She cannot seem to get enough affection. These are two kitties that love to be petted. Jen’s house is only 12 cats shy of a proper cat quorum for a cat cafe and with her idyllic garden setting and endless supplies of tea, perhaps she might consider transforming her home into an informal cat cafe (not to be confused with a cat house).

We at the Meow love the kitties, but we remind readers to always spay and neuter their companion animals and any other animals that seem to be making their backyard into their home. One cat who will not be getting any employment at the cat cafe is our very own backyard feral cat, Abby Tabby. Miss Tabby will not let humans near her unless she is in a cage on her way to the vet to be spayed. The only time I ever touched her was when she was still under the spell of the anesthetic. Miss Abby Tabby gave us four delightful kittens and raised them in our garden as a single mother. Once they were weaned we took away her fertility, which I know is unfair since making kittens may in fact be her raison d’etre. Now her reason for living seems to be eating. She’s gotten quite pudgy.

The Meow: Starting Things

From March 6 through May 29th, 2009, "The Meow" appeared on the Hammer website while I was in an exhibition there called "Nine Lives." With the closing of the exhibition, I'm re-posting the entries here.

Monday, April 6

I put seeds in dirt back in February and have been keeping them under the grow-lights since then and today I put a few in pots. I’m growing Prudence Purple, San Marzano, Arkansas Traveler and Ceylon tomatoes. Also some hot peppers, basil, and some flowers. I always feel like I’m doing something illegal when I turn on the grow-lights. Sometimes we shop for organic fertilizer or bug killer at the hydroponic supply shop not too far from here. Their displays feature mostly tomatoes, but I don’t think that’s the crop most of their customers are growing. That they have the best selection of natural and organic products makes sense, and I like shopping at an independent retailer. Our very local store down the way has some growers working at the counter too, though not such a fabulous selection of arcane organic stuff. I remember one time going in and being so impressed with the young man who was working behind the counter. He had such a delicate sensibility for gardening and we talked a bit about his greenhouse and his organic fertilizer habits. It wasn’t until he suggested I buy some product that helps your plants form bigger buds that I understood that he was not growing lavender. In times of “economic crisis” I’m curious to see if the cash crops of urban gardeners expand. In the second place I lived after I moved to Los Angeles, back in 1992, my landlord was a farmer. My bathroom looked out over the garden and there were times of the year the reek was so strong it would invade my apartment. Sometimes it wafted out to the street. It was an idyllic place to call home, but eventually they sold the place and moved to New Mexico.

The Meow: Cat Books for Weekend Reading

From March 6 through May 29th, 2009, "The Meow" appeared on the Hammer website while I was in an exhibition there called "Nine Lives." With the closing of the exhibition, I'm re-posting the entries here.

Friday, March 27

Nine Lives is not a show about cats, but who can resist the idea that it might be? We at The Meow firmly believe that the feline is the highest form of animal perfection on this planet. Their sweet little eyes, their beautifully shaped mouths, sweet saggy bellies, precious paws, graceful tails, sandpaper tongues, curving claws, elegant coats…. what could be better? Certainly those needy, drooling, smelly, loud, messy members of that “other” domesticated species (you know, the one that 90% of the pet store caters to) have nothing to recommend itself, except to those perhaps who enjoy the noise and stink and the animal recognition that they, indeed, are special.

A cat doesn’t care, unless there’s food involved. It’s a cliche to admit that they become the kings and queens of the castle when they make themselves at home, but there’s some truth to this. The Silent Miaow is written from the point of view of a delightful cat, who, after her mother is killed by a car, looks towards a cushy suburban house for shelter. She trains the residents to love and care for her, and her account of her relationship to this man and woman is the subject of this book. From a chapter simply titled “Food:” “The easiest humans with whom to cope are the ignorant, and the time to train them and make your wishes known should be at the very beginning, when they are still overcome with the honor you are doing them by remaining in their house.” Peppered with delightful photographs of a white bellied tabby, the book is a joyous celebration of the domination of kitty cats over their humans.

The Literary Cat, edited by JC Suares and Seymour Chwast, is a collection of poems, stories and artwork about our favorite creature. Theodore Roosevelt describes the antics of his cat Tom Quartz in a letter to his son, Lord Redesdale’s story, “The Vampire Cats of Nabshima” is scary, and May Senson’s poem “The Secret of the Cat” tells of taking apart a cat to see what makes it purr. Bewitching and magical cats abound in this book, which is also heavily illustrated with paintings and drawings. Yummy.

Catwise is a collection of black and white photographs of cats paired with pithy quotes about serious matters. Aristotle, Emerson, Virgil, and Martin Luther are represented alongside pictures of cats Dandelion, Frisbee 1, Frisbee 2, Itty Bitty, Bootsie, Bird, Mrs. Skeffington, Faustus, Muff, and Little Crazy.

The Meow: Anger at the Hammer

From March 6 through May 29th, 2009, "The Meow" appeared on the Hammer website while I was in an exhibition there called "Nine Lives." With the closing of the exhibition, I'm re-posting the entries here.

Thursday, March 19

The Satanists were out in full force at the Hammer tonight for the talk and films about Aleister Crowley by filmmaker and man-about-town Kenneth Anger. The courtyard looked like a black mass or something, with all the cauldrons, human sacrifices, sheepsblood, etc. What a mess.

Demons lurked in every corner, jumping into photographs when the subject would least expect it, the beastly version of the light-hearted “bunny ears” sprouting from behind unsuspecting heads. We almost had to call an exorcist, but then the line started moving, and the crowds of doom and gloom swept into the pink seats of the Billy Wilder. Inside the theater, things were just as grim and horrific, with the throngs of black-hearted revelers prowling and growling.

Anger appeared in a natty outfit consisting of a custom hockey jersey and some incredible orange pants. The fabric was chic and had a sheen to it that could see from the seventh row. There were rumors flying around the theater that they were prison pants, but there’s no way. They were too beautiful. He spoke about Crowley, about his former patron, and showed films he’d made of artwork done by Crowley long ago.

Last spring, I had the pleasure of visiting Crowley’s Cefalu home, which Anger spoke briefly about during his presentation. Crowley lived there for a short time in the 1920’s, before being kicked out of Italy for some sort of hogwash. The paintings on the walls of this home are rumored to have been made by Crowley himself. As you can see from these photographs, the place is in quite a bit of disrepair. Visitors must enter through a broken window and not all who visit restrain themselves from adding their own personal touch to the walls. The films Anger showed this evening were ones he’d made of Crowley’s paintings and drawings, which looked very much like the images on these walls.

It is rumored that Anger made a film of these paintings decades ago, presumably while they were in better shape, but the rumor goes on to say that this film has been “lost.” Anger does not do Q&A sessions, but he does accept mailed letters. I had my pen poised, but he did not come forth with his address. I will track him down. I will get the story about these paintings. THE MEOW does not take no for an answer!

The Meow: Pink Seats and Dirty Feet

From March 6 through May 29th, 2009, "The Meow" appeared on the Hammer website while I was in an exhibition there called "Nine Lives." With the closing of the exhibition, I'm re-posting the entries here.

Monday, March 16

Went to the Hammer twice last week and both times went looking at shoes on the way home. On Thursday I went to check out Erin Cosgrove’s video piece. I know I shouldn’t brag about such things, but this was probably the first time that I ever went to a museum and sat down for nearly an hour to watch a projection. I am usually a pacer, an impatient viewer, or I’m hungry or tired, or whatever. Plus it makes my eyes feel weird and sometimes gives me a headache. This time I was prepared, well fed, knew what I was getting into, and in fact made a superspecial trip to the museum to see her piece. And, wow, totally worth it. Beautiful and epic and smart and funny and wild. I probably should have posted this sooner, since now if you read it, you’re in a snooze-you-lose situation. The show’s over. I don’t know Erin’s email address, so I’ll just say it loud and clear on the international network: Erin, you rock!

After the Hammer, I stopped by a little espresso place in Westwood for this very beautiful cappuccino at Espresso Profeta. Cappuccinos are supposedly named after an order of monks, the Capuchin. It’s unclear why exactly, but I’m thinking if this whole art thing doesn’t work out, maybe I should go to divinity school. Anyhow, it’s quite lovely at this place, which I’d seen while walking around Westwood one afternoon taking photos to demonstrate concepts of “depth of field” and overexposure to show my beginning digital photography students. I thought it looked yummy, but it was too late in the afternoon to drink espresso at the time. So I went back and wasn’t disappointed. It’s on Glendon, if you’re wondering.

So brain satiated with images of Yoder and Troyer and blood rushing from caffeine, I boarded the 720 bus east to Beverly Hills, where I went on a full-on shoe mission that ended in disappointment. Without getting into too many specifics, I will say that shopping is not my strong suit. I am easily confused and I do not like wearing what other people want me to wear. This is especially true when it comes to these gladiator style shoes that are so popular these days. They are so low to the ground that they invite debris, while being visually distracting and quite ugly. The alternative at the high-end department stores in Bev Hills is the high heel, which I’m all for, but I have a two hour limit on actually wearing them before I have an attack of the vapors and am forced to retreat to a lounge for the remainder of whatever event I’ve sprouted that extra five inches for.

There is something wonderful about taking the bus, or maybe many wonderful things. Not having to park. No road rage. Hitching a ride with someone already going in your direction, the opportunity to read a book while in motion, etc. But the sucky thing is when you just want to get HOME NOW and you gotta wait and hang out and then stand in the bus while the driver is lurching all over the place and you’re about to fall down. So I walked around Bev Hills a bit and then headed back to Wilshire, where a couple very crowded number 720 buses came by and I guess I wasn’t in that much of a hurry cause I just kept standing there. There was a guy with a dog in a box who was very upset with buses that would stop and then leave right as he was about to board. The dog was really small and tucked into this cardboard box, so not sure if the drivers knew about the dog or if they just thought the guy was nuts. He was screaming expletives at the top of his lungs.

The 920 bus is an express service on Wilshire that is super fast and barely stops anywhere. Not sure when they started this one, but it’s brilliant. I think we only stopped at Fairfax and Western, which is where I switched routes. I usually take the Western bus south to my neighborhood but it’s often super crowded, so I got on the Crenshaw bus instead and there was barely anyone on it and I’d rather walk a mile than have to sit next to some stinky person who’s yelling on their cel phone or slapping their child or just sitting there quietly with the smell of their perfume. Walked home past the usual neighborhood sites, which seemed a little more somber and scary after the murder that happened nearby the previous evening.

Saturday I rode my bike to a picnic in Elysian Park and I brought a sandwich and everyone laughed at me.

On Sunday, Kaari and Charlie and Michael and I had a “conversation” or was it a “discussion” on the stage of the Billy Wilder Theater, which is such a lovely space with those hot pink seats. From the stage when the theater is empty you can see that some seats have worn more than others, some have more of a permanent depression in the upholstery. I was 100% nervous and have forgotten everything I said during the hour or so we were up onstage. I regained consciousness over a plate of shishito peppers and a glass of beer and then went shoe shopping at DSW which is right nearby the museum and has many many many pairs of practical shoes. I met my husband over at Whole Foods and hitched a ride home with him.

Today I fixed the toilet.

If anyone has any questions about taking the bus in Los Angeles, please get in touch. It’s not scary and can be really fun and they take $1.25, exact change only and are in the middle of switching to TAP cards, but I haven’t really dealt with that yet.

The Meow: OPENING NIGHT AT THE HAMMER

From March 6 through May 29th, 2009, "The Meow" appeared on the Hammer website while I was in an exhibition there called "Nine Lives." With the closing of the exhibition, I'm re-posting the entries here.

Saturday, March 7, 2009
Nine Lives opened this weekend and there were tons of people at the opening. Thanks to everyone who schlepped out to Westwood Saturday night. Midway through the evening someone said it was SO crowded that they had to park all the way down on P6! That’s pretty deep. Here are a few pix from the opening. I was eating mini-cupcakes and drinking beer all evening, except when I was in the gallery, where food and drink is banned.

I wore a No on 8/Octomom sweater in black and white with red trim. Chic!

Hundreds of people wove their way through my sweaters and skirts, which were hanging from the ceiling on mannequin torsos built to look like my body. The “Please Do Not Touch” signs were pretty big, but no one seemed to notice them.

Shelley and Walt from the Mannequin Gallery came to the opening to see their handiwork. They made those hanging torsos that no one could keep their hands off of. Walt did the carving of the body the mannequins were cast from. I wanted it to be my body because the sweaters are made to fit me, and there aren’t really any mannequins in my shape available commercially. I went to Pacoima to be measured a few months ago and then I sent over some nearly naked photos of myself for them to work from. Yes, I felt weird about that but first of all, they are professionals, and secondly, I blurred my head so it just looked like something off some random voyeur website anyhow. Whatever. Walt kept trying to make me bustier than I am; thanks but no thanks. We finally got the ladies flat enough and the sweaters look great on them.

And speaking of ladies, what would the International Women’s Day March be without a sighting of Miss Maynard Monrow?

I also found International Women’s Day supporter, my mom, at the march, and I dragged her inside the museum to look at the show.

The only thing that could have made a delightful evening even lovlier was my cats, but, despite the name of the exhibition, kittens, like beer and cupcakes, are not allowed in the galleries. I was absolutely thrilled to see Daisy and Clyde when I returned home, and even more thrilled to get those painful but beautiful shoes off my aching feet.

The Meow: BIKING TO THE HAMMER

From March 6 through May 29th, 2009, "The Meow" appeared on the Hammer website while I was in an exhibition there called "Nine Lives." With the closing of the exhibition, I'm re-posting the entries here.

Friday, March 6th, 2009
I rode over to the Hammer this morning for the press preview of Nine Lives. The concept of having nine lives is never more important than when navigating the mean streets of Los Angeles on a bicycle. I live in Jefferson Park. It’s a bit of a schlep to the museum from home, maybe 10 miles, maybe 12. Who knows. I don’t have an odometer and mileage doesn’t matter so much when you’re on a bike. It’s more about time. I left around a quarter to nine and got to the museum an hour and a bit later. If you just keep going, doesn’t matter how slowly, eventually you’ll get where you’re going.

Rode Pico most of the way, and it was a pretty smooth and uneventful journey. Century City is a bit of a daunting area and riding around it is a bit hairy. Just big wide streets and people driving pretty quickly. There’s not a great East-West route from my place to Westwood, so gotta make do with the streets that exist. Wilshire going West through Beverly Hills is the worst. First of all, I always get the feeling that Beverly Hills drivers don’t like bikes and don’t want to be bothered with sharing the road. Then there’s that section through the country club, which is total death. No shoulder, no sidewalk, and since there aren’t any turn-offs, the drivers just go as fast as possible through there, and since it’s Beverly Hills, they have big ridiculous cars or really fast ones, and they’re on the phone doing some sort of business, so not really paying attention. The last time I tried going though that area, on the way to an opening at the Getty, I was sobbing near Barney’s when I finally called Louis to pick me up. Because I’m an eternal optimist, I thought perhaps the area wasn’t as bad as I’d originally thought, so I’ve ridden through a few other times and it’s horrible each time. So Pico was the choice this time around, and it wasn’t so bad. All the way to Westwood and then north to the museum.

After the preview, I had to meet my grandmother and aunt for lunch, so I took the bus down Wilshire so I wouldn’t have to risk it. From the bus windows I could see a sidewalk on the south side of Wilshire, through that grisly stretch. I’d never noticed it before, but next time I’ll just cross over and ride the sidewalk! Trying to figure out some good routes that people can take over to Bike Night at the Hammer!, which is on April 16. A cross-town commuter friend of mine also suggested Olympic, so maybe I’ll try that too.

Storm clouds came into view after lunch and I had to hurry home. The sweater made to wear to the opening was drying in the backyard and I couldn’t risk it getting soaked. The rain never did materialize and my new No On 8/Octomom sweater was warm and dry and ready to go.

Starting Things

I put seeds in dirt back in February and have been keeping them under the grow-lights since then and today I put a few in pots. I'm growing Prudence Purple, San Marzano, Arkansas Traveler and Ceylon tomatoes. Also some hot peppers, basil, and some flowers. I always feel like I'm doing something illegal when I turn on the grow-lights. Sometimes we shop for organic fertilizer or bug killer at the hydroponic supply shop not too far from here. Their displays feature mostly tomatoes, but I don't think that's the crop most of their customers are growing. That they have the best selection of natural and organic products makes sense, and I like shopping at an independent retailer. Our very local store down the way has some growers working at the counter too, though not such a fabulous selection of arcane organic stuff. I remember one time going in and being so impressed with the young man who was working behind the counter. He had such a delicate sensibility for gardening and we talked a bit about his greenhouse and his organic fertilizer habits. It wasn't until he suggested I buy some product that helps your plants form bigger buds that I understood that he was not growing lavender. In times of "economic crisis" I'm curious to see if the cash crops of urban gardeners expand. In the second place I lived after I moved to Los Angeles, back in 1992, my landlord was a farmer. My bathroom looked out over the garden and there were times of the year the reek was so strong it would invade my apartment. Sometimes it wafted out to the street. It was an idyllic place to call home, but eventually they sold the place and moved to New Mexico.
It was the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq last week, so I thought I should make a new pair of mittens memorializing the number of soldiers killed thus far in the conflict. I'm restricting my number to American soldiers who died from injuries sustained in Iraq, because I've made a few pairs of mittens like this before and that's what I've done. So 4261 does not include the soldiers killed in Afghanistan, nor does it include contractors, journalists and other foreigners killed because of this war. I also do not include the number of Iraqi civilians or soldiers who have perished, because that number is not available, and, if it were, it would be too big for a pair of mittens. I started knitting these a few days ago but I am slow, slow, slow at hand knitting especially in this case where there are two charts involved in two different books. I'm using a palm pattern from a Selbu mitten book and of course the other side I designed myself. I haven't tried this particular pattern before but since I bought the yarn in Norway I thought it would be nice to do a traditional Norwegian mitten design.

APRIL 16 is BIKE NIGHT AT THE HAMMER!!!

Jen and I are meeting up at Heliotrope and Melrose at 5:00 and leaving at 5:30 sharp. Bring your bike and pedal with us to the Hammer for the epic and fun Bike Night! If you haven't seen Breaking Away since 1979 when it first came out, it's time to see it again. If you weren't born in 1979 and you've never heard of it, now's the time to get with the program. It's the film that spawned a hundred thousand bike-people. When I saw it in 1979, my dad was going on and on about the quarries in Bloomington, where he'd gone to college. He was totally into biking back then and used to take his bike apart every year and put it back together again for some reason. I'm not sure why, but I recall that ball bearings sometimes got lost in the yard while he was working on it. Not to digress too much, but if you've seen me on an oldish Dawes Realm Rider former ten speed, now fixed gear bike, that's the one that my dad used to take apart. I got a Raleigh 10 speed on my tenth birthday and we used to ride around to Long Grove or on the Green Bay trail and one year we went to some godforsaken trail in Illinois next to a train track. It was lined with hedges for 36 miles so all you could see was hedges and it wasn't very fun. Biking was great fun for a kid who wasn't good at sports. Seems like many of the people I know these days say they were the last ones picked for team sports during gym class in elementary school. I hung onto that distinction through high school. And I still suck at team sports.
Anyhow, I saw Breaking Away again in a hotel in Utah when I was doing a story for a ski magazine ten years ago or so and I was totally jazzed. I'm pretty sure that seeing that film again, sitting on a yucky hotel bed while outside a storm raged, led somehow to the hanging up of my skis and the embrace of my two wheels. Skiing's great, but you have to go somewhere special and have a lot of gear. Biking's something you can do everywhere and it can change your life and you don't usually end up with frostbite. At least in LA, you don't.
It's rare to find a movie that has an impact on your life. It's a cheesey, romantic, silly, sweet film, Breaking Away is, but it crept into my consciousness right at the right times. I'm hoping that the gang who shows up April 16 to see it projected in the Billy Wilder theater will get something out of it too.