Thursday, October 23, 2008

69 percent fun!

Besides being beaten up by a student, today was good.

I take it back. Today was not good. This evening was fantastic, though. ToDAY, I lost a lot of blood because I got in the middle of a fight; someone set the basement of the school on fire and the firetrucks had to come; and one of our students is wanted for murder. All in a day's work.

This evening, though, I went to the Ogden Museum After Hours (thanks, Andrew), and it was all I could have hoped for and more. The new exhibits were asphyxiating, particularly the work by Douglas Bourgeois (I wrote in my notebook, so as not to forget what stuck out to me: "women; birds; people in varying stages of despair, displacement, contemplation, isolated bliss. Brand names and '50s sensibility. Race, religion, modernity, pop culture.") My favorite was a piece called "Sanctuary" which featured a black man surrounded by Lucky Strikes, electrical outlets, and gorgeously intricate birds. The pieces were intimate and haunting; they are painstakingly crafted and cathartic to look at. I was standing in front of a portrait of a queenlike woman surrounded by birds' heads, moved almost to tears, when I realized that the other man standing in the gallery was THE ARTIST HIMSELF. So of course I talked to him for some time, recommending him all the Daniel Clowes books I could think of...

I colored at the kids' table and drank Abita Amber on an empty stomach. Then I think I hit on the security guard accidentally.

I know it's been said by everyone who's anyone, but TV on the Radio's new album is perfect, and I've also lately been wrapped up in M83's new one. Listening to these as loud as possible on the streetcar I closed my eyes and thought about the scene from the smoking roof at the Ogden: birds spilling out like paper confetti to a fan across a sky colored like a cocktail and an aging silo labeled "Cotton Mill."

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