Do we look alike?

Silk City Diner at 4th and Spring Garden is closing as of tomorrow. The Weed clan went to pay our respects last night, on the occasion of my 23rd year of life.


HD thesis stills:

Left: main channel (abstracted carnage)
Right: side channel (stop-motion drawings)

Postcard invitations will be going out soon.

...

I'm pretty much tongue-tied.

Lemoyne

The sound for the thesis installation is finished. Sample it here (7:22, 8.8mb). This is a stereo mp3 clip of the audio, but the actual mix is a 22-minute loop mixed in 5.1-channel surround.

So the show tonight kinda sucked. To the people who were there, I'm very sorry that we weren't up to par. We'll be better next time.

Other than that, today was phenomenal.

Context is everything

Nothing is ever just what it is. It's really unnerving to see retrospectively in one's own constructions the unintended expression of the subconscious. If that's in fact what it is. Who knows? Blah.

The shaft

Yes, well, here's a shout out to your P-ness:

"The INFP may turn to inferior extraverted Thinking for help in focusing on externals and for closure. INFPs can even masquerade in their ESTJ business suit, but not without expending considerable energy."

-Typelogic

Thesis junk

Catalog page for the VS thesis exhibition

I've settled on a title, Killing Fields. Thanks to the people who gave thoughtful suggestions.

Japan/US relations just improved significantly

This was probably the best weekend of my senior year. Despite the hassles of traveling with a 13-man entourage, doing the whole multi-national metal circus thing was truly a sublime experience. Nitromegaprayer is incredible live, and is also made up of amazingly kind and generous people.

According to my new Japanese friends, I am apparently "very dangerous."

Sunday in Syracuse with Engineer was also a great time, though a little sad, since Balboa and Nitromegaprayer had to go to Rhode Island.

Getting home was not so much fun, since the Great Lakes decided to dump two inches of snow on Syracuse WHILE we were playing (pictures soon). Who pays the price for this? My mid-review, along with Dave's final exam this morning. We made it home in one piece, though.

Outrageous

Nitromegaprayer was awesome tonight. They came all the way from Japan just to do a week of touring. Just in case you didn't know, Japanese is just a synonym for cool. We're playing with them again tomorrow in Connecticut (+ Balboa & Sea of Bones). If you missed all the outrageous cross-cultural love, I'm terribly sorry.

Also-
THESIS SHOW DATES:
April 14th-17th, 5pm-9pm daily
@ Penn Cinema (formerly Cinemagic)
3925 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Opening is Friday, April 14th @ 5pm sharp
I will be on-site during all open hours for all four days, so please come and look
This show is as yet untitled

Video documentation will run in the FRES gallery in the Left Bank from April 29th - May 15th.

Surface

T minus

Most likely, thesis work will be done within ten days.

Suggestions for a title?

I can't seem to shake the feeling that I'm missing something huge and I'm going to fail all my classes.

Boiling blood

Finished Rosetta tour poster

It is now the last day of spring break and it seems I am no closer to completing my thesis than I was seven days ago.

Part of this may be due to a certain metaphysical drunkenness and sensate fantasy that arises with the coming of Spring. The earth melts and the air changes. The window is open and some bundle of neurons begins to fire uncontrollably at the smell of the thaw. Nostalgia (the irresistable escapist fantasy of the INTP) becomes the lens for the present moment, and as distinctions between past and present inevitably blur, the sensory now begins to feel dream-like, simulacral. The experience is not that of this spring, or any other spring, but every spring as far back as memory reaches, all at once, amplified. Like déjà vu in reverse and on speed.

It's time for mating and killing. Generally speaking, if we can't do the former, we do the latter.

Relationships

5/11

Oh man... Mogwai is playing a huge show at the Starlight Ballroom on May 11th, and I will be at Lake Champion that entire week.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH

On a more nostalgic note, I was digging through photo archives and found these from last summer's tour with Balboa, taken by Dave P. (for the INTP, the grass was always greener last year).




{
Stars of the Lid - Per Aspera Ad Astra
The Lotus Eaters - Mind Control for Infants
House of Low Culture - Edward's Lament

Train / Isis / Uncle

Last night on the 6:48 R5 train out of 30th Street Station:

I sat down with my bike on one of the bench seats in the back of the train with another bench facing it. The gentleman across from me, middle-aged, well-dressed, and slightly middle-eastern in appearance, pointed to the patch on my bag and said, "My nephew plays in that band."

I had an Isis patch on my bag, so I immediately asked, "What's his name?"

"Cliff, although in our family he's called Bryant." [OMFG THIS GUY IS THE UNCLE OF CLIFF MEYER THE LEGENDARY NOMADIC KEYBOARD PLAYER]

I flipped out. We ended up talking for half an hour; he was one of the nicest people I've ever talked to in a setting like that. He was so excited that he said he was going to "go home and tell my wife that I've met someone who likes Isis!" This dude was genuinely excited that SOMEONE out there liked his nephew's band. I told him that I play in a band with a similar sound, and that early Isis records were instrumental in building my desire to pursue music.

See? Once in a never, there is a well-dressed middle-aged dude on the train, and whether you want to acknowledge it or not, he knows a thing or two about doom metal.


Also:
Tonight @ the First Unitarian Church
22nd & Chestnut Streets, Phila. PA 19103
Racebannon / Gospel / Rosetta
7:30pm / $8 / All Ages

This will be pretty outrageous I think.

{
Akimbo - Elephantine
Sleep - Dopesmoker
Meshuggah - Catch 33
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Vol. II

Onomatopoeic teetotaling doom metal ventriloquists say:

I may not drink, but I love the RUMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Friday starts spring break, i.e. thesis slave week

1. Fast broken with communion and berry/nut pancakes

2. Going to EAT SUSHI

3. Wondering if it's going to shrivel up and fall off / why didn't I realize Ash Wednesday was THIS week?


Also, Rosetta is playing the First Unitarian Church on Wednesday night (3/8) with Gospel and Racebannon, which will be a goood (with three o's) time. You should come.

Hit by a car

Terraform #1 // Subject: Tim F. // 11x14" c-print

Tonight while riding my bike back from my Color II class, I was broadsided by an oncoming car as it turned left at 42nd and Spruce streets. I was thrown against the windshield and then rolled up onto the roof, where I remained for a few seconds as the car continued moving through the intersection. The bike flew all the way across the street. After I regained my presence of mind (I was badly stunned) I jumped off the car roof and immediately started looking for my bike. By the time I grabbed it out of the street the car had disappeared. Five people saw this happen, but no one got the license plate of the hit-and-run driver. Someone asked if I wanted them to call 911, but I said no. Then they said I was "really badass."

I have no injuries to speak of, and nothing I was carrying was damaged. The bike, however, got maimed, and despite being able to repair most of the damage, I will probably need a new front fork and possibly a new wheel. Luckily, this will only require magically conjuring some money out of mid-air.