Lee.org

Art
Aesthetic is perception.
Perception is history.
History is stereotype.
Stereotype is a box.

There is a documentary about Ace Junkyard.

This was a seminal art space in San Francisco for many years.

http://aceintheholefilm.com

I’ll be at the Switchboard Music Festival on March 28th.

Join me!

I heard about it from Zoe Keating’s performance calendar (she’ll be there as well!)

The bits of music I heard on the Switchboard website have me very excited.

And gosh darn it, if I strain my neck, I can see the performance location, The Dance Mission Theater out my apartment window just 2 blocks away!

These 360 degree full sphere panoramascape images really capture the energy of Burning Man in fantastic dynamic style! Check it out! (they use Flash). Look up, look down, look all around!

http://www.panomatics.com/nextgen/muc/burningman/

Niladri wrote to the SWARM list a few days ago:

I reflashed the daughter board on Orb 3 and Michael Toren and I roll tested it. The moment I hit the joystick the orb took off and wouldn’t stop even when I let go of the joystick.
…
P.S. 1 – The kill switch is not easy to hit when the orb is running away from you very fast.
P.S. 2- The box shop is out of band aids. I would grab a box but it will be a few weeks before I am back.

…immunizations.

In preparing to go to India to show off SWARM, I had to get stuck with a bunch of needles. Joy.

I got my immunizations at the San Francisco Department of Public Health Adult Immunization & Travel Clinic

They knew which vaccines I needed but I checked up myself with the CDC here and here.

I made an appointment a few days in advance. It took about 1.5 hours with the interview, shots and discussion.

I received

• Typhoid – 4 pills taken every other day for 8 days. Take at least 1 week before travel. Don’t take with antibiotics (my antimalarial is an antibiotic!). Effective for 5 years.
• Doxycycline – Antimalarial.  1 pill a day starting 2 days before travel, ending 28 days after. Most other antimalarials have a very high incidence of side effects like hallucinations and psychosis! Everyone (5 out of 5) (update 12-5-11: 6 out of 6, Michael Sturtz too) I’ve ever spoken to about antimalarials has said their mental state was strongly negatively influenced by other antimalarials like mefloquine!
• Polio – injection. You should get 1 booster in a lifetime. This was it.
• TDAP – Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Pertussis. injection. Effective for 10 years
• Hepatitis A – injection. Effective for 10 years. I need to go back in 6 months for a booster
• Azithromycin 500 mg – 3 oral antibacterial goofballs to take with me in case of illness while travelling (update: I needed it after a meal, good thing I had it!)
• Hep B immunization (Lee already got in 2005. Effective for 10 years.)
• MMR  – Measles Mumps Rubella – 2 shots needed in a lifetime. By 1990 almost all colleges required boosters. Effective for life.
• Ultrathon 34% DEET insect repellent (Followup: I’m VERY glad I got and used this!)

Total bill from San Francisco Department of Health: $307
I have to pick up the Azithromycin  and Doxycycline prescriptions from Costco. (you don’t need a membership to buy from their pharmacy. It was crazy cheap, like $7 for each.)

A day later, both my arms hurt and are stiff from the injections. A few days after that, I felt “under the weather” as if a cold was coming on. Then all was well.

I’ll have to pick up some permethrin for my clothes from REI and I’m ready to go. (Followup: I’m glad I did!)

Whoever said international travel was fun was in the middle of a psychotic episode from the mefloquine.

And it sucks but this post belongs in the “Art” category.

Last week at The Exploratorium After Dark (which was loads of fun), I saw “Animanemone”. Fittingly, it looks quite a bit like an anemone in motion. Alan, one of the creators gave me the whole skinny, starting with “Well, my friend bought 2,000 stepper motors for like $0.23 apiece on eBay. So we needed to find something cool to do with them…”
Ah, here’s more about Animanemone from the artists!

It’s a really nice piece! I’m pretty psyched to say that I took the photo to the right with my iPhone. It came out awesome. Use the power of the Google on “Animanemone” and watch it! They’re from Minnesota.

It’s great to mull on…. it’s like watching grass in the wind. Totally fun to put your hand on it and feel the buzzing of the motors. And it’s just so many fun tiny pieces. It’s zen and not zen. :-)

————————————————–

And Ken Murphy’s awesome “History of the Sky” was there as promised. I zoned on that for a while. Tototolly groovy!

————————————————–

I only got to look at Cubatron from afar :-( … not enough time in a night :-(

Charlotte and I were wandering around the October 17th San Francisco Open Studios. We stopped at several artists’ studios and Charlotte found many orange and bumpy paintings to admire (she has a thing for orange and bumpy, but that’s a story for another time). At Fort Mason we found ourselves in one room, she was totally keen on some paintings by Jeff Grove, including one with a plastic garbage bag on it. That one turned out to be a terrific painting of a woman in rope bondage, covered up to keep the neighboring Kinkade devotee artists from freaking their shit out. While they chatted, I wandered over to some photos on the wall. There were some nicely shot “common”  architectural images… doors, front stoops, cars. Some nice work with light play. And then  I fell in love with the most unusual image.

I got in a conversation with David Booth, the artist. After a while he asked me what I liked about it and I said something like, “It’s just such a curious image. I’m looking at this railing and I see how perfect it is in this boringly common scene and I want to ask ‘why is this railing here?’ Why would it be put there? I mean, nobody needs a railing in just that spot, so what’s it doing there?  ‘Why are you there, railing? Who put you there? What are you doing, being so perfect there? It’s like your  hanging with turkeys when you could be soaring with eagles! You’re just sittin’ there like all in your quiet perfectness. And what are you doing there anyway? I can’t see why you’d be put there, nobody needs a railing there. Nobody would spend all that effort to put a railing there. Come on, tell me what you’re doing there! What are you really doing?’ And then I realize that I’m yelling at a railing in an alley in a photo and I laugh and I laugh and I laugh!”

David was excited. He said he had a similar response to the railing and was glad he could project that in this art. He had walked past it many times, hardly giving it any notice and then it struck him!

You can find the magical railing here, at about  1941 Stockton / 100 Fielding. Here is David Booth describing to me where to find it.

I have a much higher resolution version of this image but I thought it appropriate to only post this low res version. David Booth is an excellent artist and deserves the recognition.

This is an excellent guide for people wanting to make fire effects and fireworks.

FIRE SAFETY
MANUAL FOR FLAME EFFECTS
&
FIRE PERFORMERS THIRD EDITION

TAUGHT BY LES IZZMORE
FIRE SAFETY EXPERT
Portions of this manual have been copied from the World Wide Web and compiled specifically for artists and performers that use fire. This manual is for educational purposes only and is
NOT FOR SALE

Ken Murphy, a supremely cool guy that I bump into a lot is presenting his recent and ongoing art project, A History of the Sky at the Exploratorium January 5-31. There will be a premiere event at Exploratorium After Dark on January 7th, 2010. I will be there. Maybe you will join me?

I don’t understand quite why but this piece fills me with emotion and sometimes tears every time I experience it. I am very much looking forward to seeing this piece in person again.

local version: