Moonlit Nothings

Uncorrected Proof

2008-11-12T01:56:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure my favorite writer is William Gibson.

I'm reading "Virtual Light" now, and I love it so much I have been doing that thing I was always getting busted for when I was a kid: staying up late reading past my bedtime.
This never happens to me.

I was in a book slump that lasted for many years, until 2003 (i think). I would read books, listlessly, and have a horrible time finishing them, uninterested in them, blah blah blah. I still read, all the time in fact, but I was sort of going through the motions. I got so that I would read the first chapter, carefully gauge my reaction, and usually ditch it. Then I read Gibson's "Pattern Recognition". It kicked my ass so hard that I remembered why I loved books. It's a bold statement, but true. I remembered why I loved LIFE! At the time, I was working in a bookstore (it was my 3rd year in the book biz, I think, to be followed by about 3 more), which may or may not have contributed to the book-slump.

Mykle just finished re-reading "Pattern Recognition", I just finished "Mona Lisa Overdrive", I'm on to "Virtual Light", even though it was written 15 years ago it feels like it's the future that has just come to pass. I often can't tell if something he writes about actually exists or if he made it up. Anyhow.

I was reading Gibson's blog tonight (cheers to Cooper for telling me that Gibson had a blog. When I voiced my disbelief, he said, "OF COURSE William Gibson has a blog!!!"). I was in the archives of 2003, right before "Pattern Recognition" was released. He says:

Please remember that those are uncorrected proofs you’re reading, and that that is not just a matter of typographical errors. The text of the ARC is the text of the manuscript I turned in last year, in the first week of April. It has since been quite substantially revised, top to bottom, twice; Material has been added, material has been subtracted, and much busy tweaking undertaken generally.
The text of the ARC should not be regarded as the text of the novel. Ever. Some of the current discussions hinge on details that have since been removed, or altered.

ARC means "Advanced Reader's Copy". Being that I worked at a bookstore when it came out, and that I was REALLY poor, I went and looked at my tattered edition of "PR". Right on the front it says:
Uncorrected Proof for Limited Distribution

It's an ARC.

I'm totally going to go buy the actual published version of it tomorrow.

Reccomending......

2008-11-05T14:15:00.000-08:00

Excellent Movie:

Yugoslavian romantic screwball comedy, Black Cat White Cat.
a great review with a lot of info on the music is here

Good for fans of fairytale, diaspora, Roma culture and music, Gilliam, Guy Ritchie, steampunk (yes I said it!), rascally old men, true love, and nonstop weirdness.

Totally great.

Excellent Record:

I'm halfway through the new TV on the Radio album, Dear Science, and already have to write a review of it. Awesome, weird, complex and affecting. It's almost impossible to write about, since they really defy description. Singer Tunde Adebimpe's voice is stretchy and resonant and impassioned. Sometimes he reminds me of Joan Armatrading.

here is a video from their first album, that got me hooked on them. I include it because the video is very worth watching. The singer is made up of the visual representation of his own voice, which changes and refracts as he sings. Cool.
It also shows how Adebimpe moves when he preforms in concert (I have seen them twice I think. Thanks to Jordan, who got me into them when they only had an ep out and no one knew about them.)

For the WIN

2008-11-04T21:26:00.000-08:00

I just have to say.

I am proud to be alive right now.

I am a part of history because I am here and got to participate in this.
I'm proud of America. I'm proud to be American at this moment in time.
It's an unfamiliar feeling, sadly. But so sweet!

And now my blog goes back to being non-political.

Addendum:
this is cool cartographer's take on the election
be sure to scroll down and read the whole thing. It's where the map at the top comes from.

rain and rant

2008-10-31T03:15:00.001-07:00

night rain at omiya, originally uploaded by seventeenstars.

Rain!
It's absolutely alright to be up late late late when it's RAINING!

I am a night owl (not a day owl) and I thrive in the wee hours. I like the warm-lit lamps and the rugs laying all rumpled on the wooden floors of the house, and the sound of the trains going past out there in the rainy wet fields. Every few moments I hear tottering high heels out in the leafy-strewn sidewalk and hear drunk conversations, long-legged bedraggled girls winding home from a Halloween party.

what I haven't done (and now it's two):
Make a Halloween costume
(this is inexcusable. Halloween is my FAVORITE holiday)

What I have done:
Written two long emails and watched a 20/20 special on transgendered children, piece by piece on Youtube.

Tonight I tattooed someone who was very much still a teen. I had sort of forgotten what it's like to be around them, and now I think I am different in their eyes, as in: OLD.
Being that I was a person of authority, a business person in this girl's eyes, I suddenly realized that she saw me as an adult and therefore, the enemy, even though she was the one paying for me to do this torture*/art to her. She had hired me, but she was being weird and sullen, like I was her mother forcing her to wear some shirt she did not like or something. She mumbled and had sudden bratty outbursts (that no other tattoo artist in the entire universe would have put up with) that were rude, immediately made our interaction into a overbearing parent/petulant child model, and showed quite clearly that I was someone to be rebelled against. Also, she was a squirmer.

It literally fills me with terror and dread when I have the gorgeous pearlescent virgin skin of a 1990's baby (18 yr old) stretched out before me, and I have a feeling that there is no way in hell that this tattoo is gonna go on easy, what with the twisting and random jerking and the sudden inexplicable hair-fixing that some people feel is important to do right in the middle of getting a perfect circle tattooed in the middle of your spine. As much as I love tattoos, I feel like I am desecrating something holy sometimes, especially if their MOM is there, watching you mark their moaning child and wincing. Which hers was.

I was quite close to crying and felt like I was goimg insane because I get connected to these people! I care about every client and I want every person to look in the mirror after the tattoo was finished and be overjoyed and dancing around and heady with satisfaction! When someone gives their tattoo a cursory glance and then says, "what now?" I feel dread and I can't help it. I have never had anyone tell me they didn't like something and I hope they WOULD.

My client tonight, after writhing and trembling in pain (she was a tiny elfin slip of a thing too, and looked about 14, so that didn't help. My motherly feelings were in high gear.) for 3 + hours, looked in the mirror afterwards, her face breaking into an amazing overjoyed smile and said "THANK YOU SO MUCH!!" My job is so bizarre.

(Siderant: I know this is horribly taboo put I don't think the world of body art would suffer if the tattoo age was raised to 21. The asthetic choices people make as teenagers seem have a shelf-life of about 2 years. Most people undergo an enormous shift in their early 20's, and stop thinking certain things are really important, namely astrology.
I got one tattoo before I was 21, and it was the kanji for "love". While now I would critique getting a langauge tattooed that I have no cultural ties to and can't speak (ahem), I feel like I lucked out. I see teen tattoos come in that have to do with BMX racing, or a metal band that wears clown masks, or their highschool trashy girlfriends name on their forearm, and I.....I.....I don't think it would make anyone suffer. The melodramatic kids with still get their tattoo from Mr. Sketchy in a garage or back alley. And then when they're a bit older they can come to me and I'll fix it! Ha ha.)

More rain.
I still haven't made my costume.

For Halloween: a Corpse Flower!

Is Greater Than

2008-10-27T16:43:00.000-07:00

I have somewhat re-edited my post from a while back entitled "Why I am Tattooed" and Paul Davis published it in his excellent online magazine "Is Greater Than".Is Greater Than: I am a Tattooed Lady

I am consistently sort of baffled that I sometimes write stuff online that I do not publish myself (like I do in this blog)and that other people that I don't know will read it. I got the statistics from Is Greater Than for the months from April (when my story came out) to July, and they told me that there were 288 unique page views of my personal essay on The Magnetic Fields ( The Magnetic Fields/Santa Cruz article is here) and that the average time people spent with my essay was 12 minutes!!!!! In internet time that is an eternity, especially considering the ADD most people (including myself) instantly develop when they go online! Perhaps a couple people were reading my essay and fell asleep at their keyboards because they were so bored?? Ha ha Seriously, both these stats are heartening to say the least.

I used to write a lot, but haven't written except in personal journals for years. I don't harbor any illusions that complete strangers are going to be interested in my life (which is why I started this blog for my mom, and which ever friends wanted to keep up with me), but I have a very interesting and exotic job, which is why I started writing for Paul and Is Greater Than. There are not many people in the tattoo industry that write about it. Tattoo culture has been studied by academics (I am reading an excellent book of academic essays right now put out by Princeton University Press called "Written on the Body"* which I highly recommend) and anthropologists, but when looking for anything written by people inside the profession they are few and far between. I get so overcome with inspiration every day that this is amazing to me. I can't really shut up about it, so I decided to start writing about it. Which I should do more. Now, if I can only find the time between tattoos!

*Someday I'll be writing like this:
"The tattoo has long hovered in a space between the cosmetic and the punitive. Throughout its history, the status of the tattoo has been complicated by its dual association with slavery and penal practices on the one hand and exotic or forbidden sexuality on the other. The tattoo appears often as an involuntary stigma, sometimes as a self-imposed marker of identity, and occasionally as a beautiful corporal decoration.

Octopi and Peacocks

2008-10-23T00:55:00.000-07:00

-I am incredibly lucky as far as the tattoo designs I get to draw. Spoiled, I'd say;)
I got another request for another art nouveau peacock (online, from Chicago) today, as well as a walk-in appointment for a single peacock feather. I finished up my large drawing for the octopus with mendhi-style paisley swirling 'round beneath it, and am about to start a Artemis piece (she's a Greek goddess with a bow- look her up) and an ankle tattoo of woodcut Mandarin ducks. So exciting!

-On a whim I just Google image-searched "art nouveau peacock tattoo". Do it and check out the FIRST image that comes up!!! I am so silly to appreciate stuff like that, but I do. Hopefully Michelle doesn't have a million clones walking around with peacock sleeves. I know it would bother her! Luckily, it is pretty impossible to replicate, since the detail is small and pictures don't really do it justice. You can't see the whole design all at once.

Sometimes I think I could do pretty good predictions as to the new "it" animal in popular design and fashion. I could call it the "spirit animal of the collective subconscious". Hah. For instance we recently went through a big owl and deer phase. Owl and deer were on everything; t-shirts and album covers and wallpaper and TATTOOS. Now octopi and peacocks are super super popular, and tattoo culture is reflecting this. Both are extremely beautiful animals, some of the most interesting especially in terms of pattern. Both seem to me as having an exotic aura, rather than the deer and owls- whom were cool in a sort of folksy, graceful, quiet 70's era redux kind of way. (Watch while I relate this to people right now wanting something new and flashy and beautiful and intelligent, something WAY off the norm, and therefore predicting the election of OBAMA. HAHAHAHAHA!)I could see both hedgehogs and coral coming into style, maybe just cause they are instyle with ME, but seriously I did do a hedgehog tattoo last week..........

Also rising in popularity (not animal): cherry branch and feather rib tattoos for girls. I have recently given SO MANY first tattoos on the ribs. I always tell the brave girl that "any tattoo you get from now on will be a piece of cake!"

*That painting of the bird woman is a work by Fernand Khopff (1858-1921). It is called "Sleeping Medusa". So beautiful, right? I was either going to get it or the Aurthur Rackham Tempest piece (that I go) on my left upper arm.

kai and ob hill

2008-10-09T02:41:00.001-07:00

kai and ob hill, originally uploaded by sandwichgirl.

every once in a while , Antarctica comes back to haunt my thoughts......

between

2008-09-27T18:50:00.001-07:00

plum blossom, originally uploaded by kai smart.

I work between the epidermis and the fat. I can't see this layer, I will never know it. It is as thin as a slip of cardboard.
I can feel it and I am learning when the machine is there, how it sounds, the way it moves.

I can't face vibration anymore other than at work. Holding on to the coffee grinder makes my wrists buzz with exquisite pain.

I am edging towards the darker side of things. Maybe this is a sign of Fall, my favorite season. The Season where everything always changes.

On the radio

2008-09-18T13:04:00.001-07:00

ashland, or, originally uploaded by dirtpath.

I was lucky enough to be the guest DJ on my brother Jordan Mitchell's radio show yesterday. He's got a 2 and one half hour slot on KDVS, Davis, CA on Wednesdays. His show is called Music for a Porch Life, and is consistently excellent.
If you missed it (ha ha) you can download the stream here, and have it on your computer FOREVER, to listen to at your whim!

MUSIC FOR A PORCH LIFE

I've never been on the radio in a musical capacity before. I won a poetry contest (actually, a couple) at the end of highschool, and had to read my winning poem on the radio (my poem contained the word "cocksuckers" so I had to change it, so I replaced the offensive word with the less offensive and completely ridiculous "carrotsuckers") but since then I haven't really had any experince.

I approached the show like I was making a giant mix tape, and then it became second nature for me. First Nature. I made a list of all the songs that I love that I thought fit into the constraints of my brother's show; "Dark bars, dusty roads, murder ballads and songs about trains".
Then we prepped the show in a listening station the night before, fitting the songs together by tempo and subject matter and feel. Just like making a mix tape back in the old days, where you actually had to LISTEN TO THE WHOLE SONG before you put the next on on. (Not like making CD mix where you don't have to listen to any music while throwing it together).
My take on Music for a Porch Life is more feminine, and has more echo and buzz than twang. Mazzy Star, Concrete Blonde, Jason Molina.....and more of the most melancholy bittersweet beautiful songs ever.

" A love song is never simply happy.
It must first embrace the potential for pain.
Those songs that speak of love without having within their lines an ache or sigh are not love songs at all but rather they are hate songs disguised as love songs and they are not to be trusted."

-Nick Cave
"the Secret Life of the Love Song"
Please enjoy!

You do not have to be good

2008-09-15T17:58:00.001-07:00

Mykle and I were talking about his rather extraordinary view of evil, which is; that Evil does not exist.
Maybe the view is not so extraordinary as it is unordinary, anyhow-
It's always interesting to be with such a strong and different personality such as he.
Our conversation reminded me of one of my favorite poems, which hung above our bed for years:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-Mary Oliver
"Wild Geese"

I have been sitting on the floor framing pictures from one of my enduring obsessions, "The Garden of Earthy Delights" by Hieronymous Bosch. I want to someday go to Madrid to see it in the Prado. One of my favorite parts of it is the painting on the outside doors of it (for it is a sectional triptych that opens), which I first saw on the inside of an album ("Clouds") by Joni Mitchell (my first musical love).
I think obsessions choose you. They keep appearing and you cant ignore them after a while.
I once crashed a party where there was a big wood-sectioned reproduction of The Garden of Earthy Delights on the mantle, triptych with hinges and all. I have never wanted to steal anything so bad. (Except maybe the "Life- sized" carved wooden unicorn skull at 5 & Diamond in San Francisco!) The triptych was cleverly guarded by a candelabra with actual candles though, and I left empty handed. It would have been pretty ironic to steal it anyway.

I love the internet sometimes. A search for that unicorn skull led to this. Go to Ben Shaffer's website to look at his other stuff, which is psychadelic talismanic shrapnel.

His website Ben Shaffer

My website also pops on the first page of the image search for "wood unicorn skull". And this is BEFORE this post is published. Ha ha.

Literature, Women, and Tattoos

2008-08-25T01:05:00.000-07:00

My favorite magazine is The Believer, a quirky and smart grab-bag publication that I finally just subscribed to. I had been buying each issue at the newsstand for a while, which is fine, but I love the excitement of getting something in the mail, so I upped my chances by buying something that will show up each month! Ha ha.

Perusing the excellent Believer website (you can read it online too, if you are into that sort of thing) I found an excellent and interesting article and would like to recommend it:

A BLANK HUMAN CANVAS
THE LITERARY TATTOO LEAPS FROM THE PAGE TO LIVING PARCHMENT

It's exactly the kind of thing that I enjoy reading: tattoos and book reviews. I marked a couple titles mentioned for my reading list, and even skipped a couple paragraphs of the article to preserve plot twists and secrets!It talks a lot about text tattoos, and if you like that sort of thing (I got one this week! It says "Art." Sort of.) you will like this flickr group:

Body Type (a Flickr pool)

This evening Mykle and I had a conversation about which san-serif fonts we like, since we are both serif people (I like Impact, he likes Ariel Black). I'm sure there could be psychological profiles made comparing these two very different groups of people; the serifs and sans-serifs. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Flowers in December

2008-08-12T23:37:00.000-07:00

Do you like Dracula?
Mist?
1970's witchcraft?
hotels with Lynchian red corridors?
carriage rides at night?
the amazing beauty of Hope Sandoval?
The music of Mazzy Star?

if so, this video is for you:

Why I am tattooed

2008-07-30T00:58:00.000-07:00

The natural journey into self-discovery that comes with age and experience has, for me, been a journey into redefining myself into my perfect vision of my inner self. I am a tattooed lady.

I first got a tattoo at age 18, told no one, and continued to be tattooed throughout my late teens and early 20s. I want to investigate how this happened to me, and in my work I often get into telling the story of my first tattoo and it's reasons, sharing with my client, in order to bond (though not consciously). Being tattooed was always a pretty personal experience for me.

I brought no friends along, I told no one, I asked no one's opinion of what I should get, it was exemplary of what I experience now as a tattoo artist. Often people bring friends with them, and often MANY friends. I have been surrounded by crowds of 5, of 8, of 10 even, and though most tattoo artists would not tolerate this kind of atmosphere, I do, since my power of concentration is strong.
In all my tattooing though, I would go to the shop solo, be ignored by the guys working behind the counter, and peruse the portfolios with an unforgiving eye.
I looked for a steady line, an artistic talent that extended beyond tattoo flash, basically someone who would not alter my ideas in any way. I misused amazing artists, looking back. Both Doug Love and Holly Ellis were forced by me to do an other artist's work, pure outline and sculpted line, however beautiful, I disregarded their own natural talent. I could not help it though. My artistic heroes had died fifty to one hundred years before, and I wanted to be emblazoned with the work of these dead men who had made me into an artist at the youngest age that I could remember.

With each tattoo I have felt more myself. For some, tattooing is a work of metamorphosis, of forgetting your old self and forging a new life, of commemoration of the self as a parent, of rebirth in some way. I have always felt that I was an illustrated person on the inside, and the more intricate and colorful I became the more I felt comfortable in my skin. My tattoos are not governed by fads, and in this way I am outside a large part of the tattooed culture in America. I don't say this as a way to feel superior, it's just a fact. I have always had my own gentle, ornate vision of beautiful tattoos, and have felt driven to decorate myself and others in this style. I do not look down on the time-tested trends and uniquely American styles of tattooing. I simply have my own vision. This is why I wanted to become a tattoo artist.

I saw many many tattoos in the magazines that my (much much older and un-tattooed) friend Douglas would give me at the new-age spa I went to in high school. The issues were mostly "Skin & Ink", or "Tattoo". I hated just about everything in them, then, but I scoured every issue. When I finally was old enough to get a tattoo, I went for something small that would soon become trendy- the kanji for "love". I have now met many other people with this tattoo, and have even given it to a few people myself. At the time, it was a reminder for me, to believe in love ( my boyfriend had just cheated on me with my best friend and I was feeling the kind of all-consuming hate that only teenagers can feel). I don't regret this tattoo, and even though I have been tempted to cover it sometimes, I still like it. All my tattoos are about love, which is the force that drives my life and my every decision. I have been obsessed with the icon of the heart, and have proceeded to get tattoos with heart-forms in them. I group my first tattoo with these others.

I also attribute my affection for tattoos to the fact that I have always looked very "girl-next-door" and sweet. Non-threatening. My old housemate used to say that I reminded him of the book "Sarah: Plain and Tall". I think the tattoos have been for me a way to challenge people's knee-jerk definition of me. I do not get them to make people think that I am "tough", if fact, I will be the first to say that I am not. I can handle pain, but I do not think I am special in this aspect. Rather, I am the safe white girl that no one would glance at twice. I challenge this notion with my tattoos. Not with my persona, or the way I act, rather- my tattoos uphold my belief that we must fight against taking people at face value, and judging them on their appearance. No matter how normal a person looks, they have a story and they have had pain and darkness in their life. Adversely, no matter how gnarly and frightening a person looks, they have a gentle and childlike side to them. This I truly believe. I want to redefine people's perception of the tattooed person as beinga criminal or deviant. Some tattoo artists and people in the community value this label, but I do not. Human beings have always been decorated animals.

(Bosnian girl with orthodox Christian hand tattoos)

I am a decorator, in the purest and least banal sense of the word. I decorate everything in my life, and often think of my possessions as articles encrusted with layers of self like layers of coral. This now also goes for my skin. My enduring inspirations will be writ upon it. I don't think I will ever be the tattoo collector that truly seeks out an artist and commissions a piece of artwork. I still have the vision of myself as the complete tattooed lady, and this still involves those long- dead people of the past. I will be complete only in a way that only I can fathom. I will never be a full-coverage girl (as many of my friends tell me I will be). I am too astheticaly exacting to haphazardly cover every inch of me with pictures. I truly believe in the fone and flattering placement of tattoos, and I hope I can stick to it, to be a better billboard for my own work.

No, I never get sick of them. You get accustomed to your own skin when it is a depiction of your soul in some sense. Or, if it's not perfect, you ignore it, as people do with scars or freckles or whatever they hate every day do. I encounter this every day.

Tattoos for tomorrow (no, I'm serious):

A cat portrait
A cupcake with the word "Mom" written in frosting
A princess "crown" with a halo

To each their own......................

New house meditations

2008-07-14T22:26:00.000-07:00

"Touch me with your naked hand,
or touch me with your glove,
Dance me to the end of love...."

I wish to settle. The world is still open before us. We are not in the place we will stay. Nevertheless we have a new house, with light and flowers and white walls and dirt and windows and spiders. White curtains that the night wind blows through in every corner of the house. We painted our bedroom walls a deep periwinkle-lapis (a flower, a stone) blue so that in the late afternoon sunlight it feels as though you were at the bottom of a deep freshwater spring.

I have never had my own house. I feel as though I am playing house, and will get found out someday in my hollow redwood stump with the cast off rag rug on the mulch below me, serving mudcakes on a mossy table adorned with flowers (vetch and lupin, mostly) in a scavenged beer can.
In my treehouse as a girl I had a lot of salvaged carpet scraps, a ladder made of rope and sectioned broom handles, and an old mailbox fixed to a bough with bailing wire. Today I scavenge from the parents of we for rugs, couches, even a split-leaf philodendron.

I have many silly and grandiose dreams. I wish to have a library someday. All books and a green glass shaded lamp, and perhaps some leather chairs and dusty persian rugs (ha!) and a bunch of sleepy cats.

Thank goodness for the eccentric rich!

Look at this no really:

The Imaginary Mansion of The Duquettes

Amazement Never Ceases

2008-07-06T01:47:00.000-07:00

Hello, we are praying manti that live in orchids. Therefore, we resemble petals. Today, pictures of us totally blew Kai's mind.
Love,
the Orchid Mantises

This next one is thinking deep thoughts:

Dances Dances Dances!

2008-07-04T01:02:00.000-07:00

Cab Calloway, old animation (so weird!), and St. James Infirmary!I had to go and leave this on Coopers Myspace profile when I found it, there was really no other choice!

This clip is from a silent film with the FABULOUS Josephine Baker in it. I watched it with no sound and prefer this one with a modern remix of "Jauna La Cubana". She is so long-limbed but so fast and energetic! She gives gangly tall me hope for coordination!

This was used as the opening clip for the movie "GhostWorld". It is so wacky and rad and somewhat eerie (what is with the masks?) I love it. I have adopted a couple dance moves from this!

The undisputed queens of tribal bellydance drink Jameson and dance/mug to Man Man!! AWESOME. They are the light-hearted, technically-proficient and very inspired The Indigo. Their mugging and crazy faces remind me of Josephine Baker.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

most AMAZING group dance sequence ever! All the men are so awesome, and the girl.....BE STILL MY HEART! Bollywood with some Footloose flavor, all on top of a moving train. I want to get a group of friends together and watch the whole movie (called "Dilse") at my house and then have a dance party. On top of a moving trains. Davis has a train station. It would be NO PROBLEM!

I hope you all enjoyed these videos. May we all live in a dancing and singing world!

Out in the world

2008-07-03T22:10:00.000-07:00

Things to do in your lifetime (A List)

Learn another language
Build your own home
Hold a baby chimpanzee
See the Northern lights
Go to a Tom Waits concert

Wait(s)! Scratch that last one OFF! I have seen the man and been illuminated by his sparkly bowler hat!

Mykle and I went to Texas for the sole purpose of seeing Tom Waits but also got to hang out with our good friends and meet other good friends. We got to meet one of our close friends' baby, and bike around humid artistic Austin, eating good food and keeping ourselves submerged up to our eyeballs in cool spring water.Thank you Chris and Brenda, and baby Sasha, and Annie and Holly, and all of their lovely friends whom we are the better for having met....

My report on Tom Waits.
by Kai Smart
His voice is of a much lower gravel than on his albums when he preforms, and he dances like the crazy drunk old men on the corner in the natty suits, brown-bagging it, and singing together in the afternoon. It's less of a dance and more of a jerky incantation. Waits stomps his big boots and puffs of white powder rise up like he is dancing in hell. he doesn't seem to favor any one album except Real Gone, off of which he plays "Hoist that Rag" "Dead and Lovely" "Trampled Rose" "Make it rain" and I forget...time for me to harness the poswer of the internet;
set list
Lucinda
Down in the Hole
Falling Down
November
Dead and Lovely
Lie to Me
Day After Tomorrow (everyone clapped during this, it's an anti-war song)
Hoist that Rag (his young son came out to play bongos)
Get Behind the Mule
Cemetary Polka
Trampled Rose
Jesus Gonna Be Here (My band covered this in Antarctica, badly yet soulfully)
Lucky Day (Tom on piano)
Tom Traubert’s Blues (Tom on piano)
House Where Nobody Lives (Tom on piano)
Innocent when you dream (Tom on piano) (I cried, Everyone cried...I cried some more)
Make it Rain
Murder in the Red Barn (done jazz style with a flamenco guitar opening)
Come on up to the House
Eyeball Kid
Dirt in the Ground (what a good way to end it)

I'm not sure if it is just my extensive knowledge of Tom's entire catalogue or what, but at the start of every song I was like, "Oh yay, he's gonna play THIS!!"
There was something on the little stage he was standing on that was written in arabic. Let's see if the internet knows what it is...

nope, oh well.

Anyhow, it was a great show, and when Tom took off his regular black derby and put on one encrusted with mirrors, TURNING HIS HEAD INTO A DISCO BALL, it was worth the commute. Ha ha.

old home

2008-06-05T00:04:00.001-07:00

, originally uploaded by fjordscape.

The new guy at work, Nathan, and I were talking about our favorite smells because I was eating Pad J and it's full of Thai Basil and extremely aromatic. We each knew our top three, for me it is:

Basil
Amber
Bergamont

but I forgot a very important one that for me is like the intoxicating breath of childhood/mystery/ancient times:

The Sea.

bone lady

2008-06-01T15:27:00.001-07:00

bonelady, originally uploaded by hbobisuthi.

By some stroke of luck or fancy I often get requests to draw things that "look like a woodcut". There are many different kinds of woodcut looks, from incredibly detailed and precise (wood engraving) to chunky and crude (linoleum block prints). It's interesting to do art with one material and try to make it look like another.
For years, inspired by Dave McKean, I would paint and try to build up layers and layers to make it look like his computer/xerox manipulated images. Of course I was using papers and colored pencils and acrylic paint and gold leaf and so the effect was totally different. Which made my paintings more original, I think.
I have to do 2 illustrations for bands that "look like a woodcut". I want them to have the effect of the above picture, which is a photo by Holly of a wheatpasting on a wall in the Mission. I look at stuff like this though and think- 'maybe the best way to make it look like a woodcut is to make a woodcut'. It's just an incredible look that is so hard to mirror. I may invest in some knives and tree pieces.

feeling unreservedly sweet

2008-05-30T03:40:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to You

2008-05-06T23:10:00.001-07:00

My buddy Rico, originally uploaded by kai smart.

This weekend, My buddy Rico turns 40. I am only assuming he doesn't care about his age being broadcast across the internet. However, you can tell by the above picture that this coming milestone (millstone?) effects none of his charm or sophistication. Rico has The Cool, and always has had it.

Rico wears Raybans and khakis like it's 1986, and I think that probably hipsters across America will be biting this style very soon. Also, his name is Rico, for Christ's sake, and he travels all over the world. He is also the Number One Best Person To Be Stuck At A Boring Party With.

When we were first friends I dragged him to all these weird parties with my peers (he's 12 years older than I) and he didn't complain and ended up being the most entertaining person there and everyone knew it. Mainly because he can tell a story that will kick your ass up and down the block. He cares nothing for age difference, and has friends from every generation. His voice is so mesmerizing that a friend of mine tracked him down and asked him out just because she had heard his voice on the radio.

Sometimes, Rico's hair looks like Beethoven's hair. We hardly ever agree on movies, but went to the movies together weekly for many years. He's a highly motivated writer who has written many books and stories. Once, he wrote a book in which there is a character based on me and my life. It is an honor almost impossible to describe.

This weekend, I shall see Rico, and I will get to celebrate this important date with him. I am so happy.

"Rico brings the Darkness, and I follow his shredding rule"

-inside joke from another birthday party

Living in a dream

2008-05-06T22:53:00.001-07:00

Boardwalk runoff, originally uploaded by kai smart.

I didn't realize it, but I have another peice of writing up on "Ids Greater Than" the excellent online magazine that Paul Davis puts together. This story is not about tattooing, it's about how a certain band embodies my damned hometown, and it also about nostalgia and teenagerhood and I just realized that I didn't change anyone's name. Whoops. Sorry, aimee. Oh well, Aimee doesn't get into the internet so oh well.

Getting Confused in Santa Cruz, Living in a Dream

You should read the totally sweet comment I got on the story! Yay! Actually, you're gonna have to read it, cause I am including it here:

"That is a beautifully-written remembrance. Every music lover has stories like that, and when they’re this well-crafted, they’re a joy to read. I connect. Great stuff."

Thanks Robby, for making my day!

I used to write a lot, and felt like I had a handle on it. Now I don't , and am only getting back into it because Paul asked so nice. I think it's probably good for me. I have the boatload of journals that I've kept forever, but slacked off on the journal writing because of ....THIS BLOG!!

RANDOMIZE

2008-04-26T00:37:00.000-07:00

thought: leaving comments on Youtube = Screaming into a void

Inspiration: Surrealist photo collage a la Max Ernst:

Claudia Drake, collage extraordinaire (who has her pictures protected so you can not show them here)(trust me click the link)

Amazing Alexis McKenzie

thought: how much control should I take of a person's tattoo design? By drawing it I take artistic control- should I also take design control if there is something really bad/messy about their idea? Re: the man who wants seven different tattoos all crammed into one. A calla lily, automotive instruments, a crest and a straw boater (that's a hat). Done traditional style, but with chrome effect. Hmmph.

Watched a documentary on "Freak Folk":

Youtube it here:The ETERNAL CHILDREN

Why are my most aesthetically favorite youth subcultures the ones MOST DISSED by my boyfriends and social circle? I defend, but I am one little voice, usually unheard and dissmissed. Don't cry for me, I am USED TO IT.

A LIST:

Kai loves the aesthetics of:

1. Goth (the old standby)
2. Steampunk
3. Gypsy Mission hipsters
4. "freak Folk"
5. Circus punk

All I talk about is tattoo tattoo tattoo. All I think about is getting better FAST and stressing that I am not proceeding fast enough (but I am) and I'm almost thirty and I got a late start oh no.....

Ready to get your ass kicked by inspiring and masterful tattoo ?:

I want to get tattooed by
ADAM BARTON
Look at how amazing this skull is! The shadow is a solid lilac color! The turquoise in the eyes! Wow.

Also a masterful color artist is the smoothest tattooer ever:

LU

He's in Berlin, so I'm not sure if that will ever happen. God he is SO GOOD. Look at his pics on his Myspace profile. Each one is jaw dropping. Look at this sparrow he did:

And to finish we have a picture of me and the Coug, proudly displaying our Baroness T-Shirts by the AMAZING artist John Dyer Baizley:

When I found his art is was one of those moments where I was almost sick- his art is so much the style of what I want to do...it's recognition and jealousy all wrapped in one.

A tattoo I started recently. I think it looks lovely already:

Nasturtiums

2008-04-13T21:34:00.001-07:00

kai hat, originally uploaded by noxious nick.

In other news, my tattooing has reached my neck......

A kiss and a prayer for job security!

Photo by Mykle, on his new camera phone

head trip

2008-04-13T21:20:00.000-07:00

This week I tattooed my first client born in the 90's. The 1990's. It was bound to happen soon, but it's still a shock.

It's 2008, folks, and those born in 1990 will be turning 18 all year long.

Wow.