Sunday, April 04, 2004
Well, Eliot Garbauskas has gone and created the perfect character for notebook doodling. It's easy to make him look correct when all you have at hand is a pen and lots of boredom, and you can make him saying inane things or interacting with random characters, and it's perfectly true to the comic.
If you look through his stuff the guy is clearly a master of pen and ink landscapes, which endears him to me (being an obsessive proponent of the mighty pen and ink myself). And he went to UMass, so it may not be Tom Brady or Arthur Miller, but now all you UMass kids from back home can have something to be proud of.
In other news.
This weekend was fantastical. Up until Sunday, anyways. But Friday and Saturday were quite good, so they make up for the Insane Sleeping and Workfest that has been today.
Friday night was the Huge End of the Year Art Show Opening, at the WORK, Slusser, Robbins, and Hallway galleries. Ah, was it ever a good time. Heather and I went to dinner at the Chinese restaurant over by Bubble Tea. Afterwards we noticed this bizarre concept of a store across the street... a combination liquor store and laundromat. Utterly bemused by this idea, we naturally had to go in and see what it was about.
It turned out to be small, eclectic (liquor, ping pong balls, porn, marshmallows, and indeed a laundromat in the back), and run by an extremely creepy guy. We bought some candy, just for form's sake, and as we were paying he grinned at us (favoring us with a shake of his lank and greasy hair) and asked, "So. What are you ladies up to tonight?"
After a noncommittal reply of "Who knows?" and a hasty retreat we burst into hysterical laughter, which lasted all the way around the corner and down South U., until we got to the diag and managed to calm ourselves. It is a wonderful world in which such establishments can exist.
the infamous little store
After that we made our way down to the WORK gallery on State Street. There were a few really good pieces there, including one painting I really liked, and a couple of fabric pieces that were well done. The best bit, of course, was Chip's art van out in front of the gallery. I can't really describe the whole concept behind it, but suffice it to say that it was cool. I got a few Green Van Stickers from him too, which was good.
We then headed up North, that being where the rest of the galleries are. It was an excellently bizarre crowd. Very few art students showed up... it was mostly professors, graduate students, people who were probably alumni, the art school prerequisite At Least One Guy Who Shows Up in a Dress, and a large number of the Ann Arbor Artsy. I love these people. They are in no way, shape or form affiliated with the art school, but they show up in droves for all the gallery openings, solemnly decked out in their severe black finery. They wander around slowly, eating the free hors d'oeuvres and gravely regarding the bad student art. They are, in short, fucking hilarious.
This was especially wonderful during Ken Butler's performance... he's a New York artist who's currently a professor at the art school, and his whole schtick revolves around making musical instruments out of found objects. So he was standing on his little platform, noodling away on a toothbrush with a microphone attached to it, and these Ann Arbor Artsy people were standing around idly brushing their sweaters and nodding soberly to one another. Come on! He's making screechy noises with a toothbrush! It's funny!
There was a piece by a grad student in the upstairs Robbins gallery which consisted of a large well-shaped pile of green bricks. There was a video playing which showed the well in various public places (on a street corner, in a supermarket), and peoples amusing reactions to it. The artist was present and was encouraging people to take a brick home with them, which Heather and I obviously did. So I now have a green brick sitting in my room. I love it lots.
We saw a gentleman at the opening who looked almost exactly like Jonny Depp. It was amazing. He was very well dressed and had an intricate camera, so we think he may have been some sort of reporter, but we were desperately hoping that he was affiliated with the art school, so we'd see him around again. He was, to put it mildly, wicked attractive.
Err, lots more stuff occurred, like running into Danny and Abbas a lot later that night on Central Campus and making them jealous of our green bricks, but I just noticed the time and I still have a little work to do before bed. Pictures of the show can be seen here, and I suggest you have a look, as they are quite marvelous.
So Saturday was the Hash Bash, which essentially means that the campus (especially the diag and State Street) was overrun with hippies and other marijuana-loving folk. The place was mobbed, since it was such a nice day out. People were wearing necklaces of pot leaves and sitting on blankets in the grass with drums. I saw, inexplicably, at least 5 digeridoos. Everyone was just out having a mellow good time, and although it was crazy to see that many nonuniversity people in the university bit of Ann Arbor, it did lend the campus a sort of pleasant carnival feel for a day.
I would say more but verily, I must trot.
Vork (fellow b3tan) draws good pictures, a la exploding dog. They can be found here and are well worth a look, although I'm not sure how many will make sense if you aren't a b3tan. But they're funny by all accounts.
8:08 PM
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