Shows I Missed

It’s no secret that I gobble up collage. Stereotypical television ransom notes, school project visual aids, Ezra Jack Keats’ illustrations in his long-revered children’s book The Snowy Day, it’s all pie for my eye. Can’t get enough of that delicious cut & paste. I love the hand-hewn imperfections, the way the different layers of paper anoint a form with subtle depth. It seems honest and devoid of pretension, almost like I could do it myself if I tried. Deep down, I know that’s not true. I’m so incredibly horrible at visual art, people have paid me to not make it. If my lack of artistic talent is a Montague, the discipline of collage is my aesthetic Juliet. Or something. Whatever, Shakespeare was drunk too.

I don’t care how retina-crushing the poster is, I’m not going to a show that’s headlined by my high school sweetheart’s favorite band. There’s a good chance I would’ve found her there, lurking by the merch table, her fingernails filed into mini scythes she’d use to shred my testes into tiny ribbons, materials for a skin collage she’d make and then sell on Etsy before Old Time Relijun even took the stage.

I stayed at home and watched Hard Candy.

[via Holocene]

Why is it that every show seems to have special guests, and they never list who those guests are? If they were really that special, don’t you think they’d want to include their names, for marketing purposes? 

This was one of those book-by-the-cover shows where the poster made me want to go, despite my ignorance regarding these pianists and their unique company. Intriguing poster art aside, the distance between myself and the event was too great. Plus, the admission was twelve clams, too much if I was going to be Amtrakking there and back. If I were of stronger character, I might have made the trip just to pocket the poster.

Instead I spent the Sunday reading Roses, Origami & Math by Toshikazu Kawasaki, and not understanding a damn word.
[via some page on The Stranger]

I’ve never been to Amsterdam, but I imagine it’s a lot like any other beautiful architectural-wonder-laden European city, except with more frat boys and hippies. You show me a single college student who visits Amsterdam to explore the museums, and I’ll show you this unicorn I taught to shoot free throws. The way he represents the sport is magical.

At some point in the mid ’80s, Europe’s walls became fertile soil for street art, birthing a thriving community of graff writers in cities all over, including Amsterdam. I have a feeling this show would have been enjoyable, but I’ll never know. I was too busy doing whatever it was that people did way back in 2004. I lived in America, so it must have involved some form of empty consumption and probably a gun or two. Also, overcrowded jails. Go team. 
[via yet another amazing artist]

My girlfriend is not only a vegan, she’s also an alcoholic. Beer and cheese pairings aren’t really on the radar. Stayed at her place and ate at the Y.

[via Thomas Bradley]

I grew up avoiding shows at The Conservatory, which was (and probably still is) one of the best venues in Oklahoma. It rests in Oklahoma City, twenty miles north of Norman, where I grew up. Most of the music acts of the white or angry variety cut their Marlboro-stained teeth on The Conservatory’s perpetually sticky stage, a fact that intimidated me when I was younger. Every person there had chasm-sized chips on their shoulders. Out of all the local bands, the Flaming Lips seemed to play there more than most, and the few times I went to that sweat box was to see them. 

The reason I didn’t make it to this particular show is that I was all the way across the country, in Oregon, smoking much better buddha than the brown bricked strains available in the piss-sour men’s room at The Conservatory. But I would have loved to be there, listening to a roster of bands cooler than myself, getting stared down by some Hot-Topic punk twice my height and half my age.

[via Dan Danger]

Here’s what you should be teaching your children: 

The best way to prevent herpes is to avoid dawdling about on Sandy Boulevard. Its topography is accented with used syringes, swinging genitalia, and most other things that drip death. 

No way was I going to risk my sexual health on a show for bands I’ve never even heard of. I bought three Snickers bars from the corner store and finished two and a half before my teeth began to wiggle. Spent the rest of the night reading poorly-translated manga. Kids, wrap your meat. [via him]

Aaron told me about this show because it was both at his work and involving rap, which means free for me and not the same ol’ same ol’ for Portland. I had every reason to go, but instead I steam cleaned my girlfriend’s carpet. Cough.

[via this over here]

Ordered an anchovy pizza, sat at my desk, and read Fun Home. Didn’t even know that this show was going on. Suppose it might’ve also helped to care. [via this guy]  

I was on my way out the door to see the show when my friend DoCo called. I’ve known the guy since the 1st grade. Within days of originally meeting him, DoCo tried to convince me that his father was the true-life inspiration for James Bond and that McDonald’s purloined an advertising concept from a dream he had some time before the commercial first aired. “They sucked it from my skull.” he had said from atop the monkey bars. There was never a boring moment with him, from then on. So when the phone rang I sat back down. DoCo told me dead babies jokes for three hours, right through the show. I thought I’d at least get to the Roseland around the last half of the Shins set, but by the time I was discovering what the dead baby whispered to the cosmonaut, it was long past stage time. I hate the Shins anyway. Bro’s before shows. [via them] 

Florida’s heat intimidates me. I grew up in hot and humid southern states, but my inexperience with Florida (I’ve never been) allows my imagination to erupt with brightly colored BET-fueled fantasies of palm trees, molar-vibrating booty bass, and geriatrics drowning in the Hades-thick humidity. And that humidity is a deal breaker. I don’t have any hair and I barely have eyebrows, so when I sweat, it all pours into my eyes and stings like a thousand frightened hornets. Because of this, there are a million places I’d go before I’d go to Florida, including Edmond, Oklahoma. So fuck that. Nice poster, though.