Laughing Meme

We tromped up to our roof with friends and neighbors to watch the fireworks in the rain.

IMG_3450, originally uploaded by curlyjazz.

A family ritual, originally uploaded by curlyjazz.

We go for coffee at Gayles every Saturday morning I’m in Santa Cruz.

George just announced about the coolest thing ever: the Commons. The Library of Congress has started sharing a fraction of their photo archive on Flickr under a special “no known restrictions” license.

You can tag, comment on, fave, and share these historical photos just like any other photo on Flickr.

And the collective wisdom will hopefully bubble up some great photos and metadata.

Jasmine and I headed to Los Angeles for the new year. And we had an amazing time. This is hard for me. As a native of Northern California I was raised to despise Los Angeles. (and really I’m more a Central/Southern California, but culturally we identified as NorCal.) Studies on environmentalism and conservation just reinforced the point.

Part of the deal for us going to LA was that I’d do a chunk of the driving as Jasmine’s wrist is sprained. This was problematic as I don’t drive, and didn’t have a license. So on Dec. 24th we spent some time driving, and on Dec. 26th I proved that CA will give a driver’s license to just about anyone. And Dec. 28th we drove the 350 miles to LA. And so ends a 15 year boycott of car culture.

The weather was great, we saw amazing art, we ate great food, we caught a good show, and saw good friends. We took a bunch of photos, I’ve got a small sampling of them, and Jasmine has a more complete set.

We drove down to Watts Tower.

The Smart House, Venice, CA

Shepard Fairey might be over saturated, but he is also at the top of his game. The execution on his new work, Imperfect Union, is flawless, and gorgeous. Also sold out. Literally. Every piece was sold. We tried to beg/borrow/steal anything with War by the Numbers on it. Without success.

The Murakami show was overwhelming. On paper doesn’t it look that large, but the live experience is different. Interesting to see his work all together, you realize how weak the painting is, and how amazing his sculpture is. The security presence was so intense, I almost felt like I was in a performance piece, the © in the show’s name being acted out as authoritarian dystopic future. Which is to say, we were only able to sneak a handful of photos. Or a plot to make you buy the catalog. (which we did)

We met up with Jasmine’s people from NYC at the Varla NYE party. The Dickies were the headliners, but the Airliner is a great funky dive bar, with 3 stages, which they kept busy that night, including our favorite act of the night, Vegas based “Objex”, the only one we got photos of.

More then any other year I can remember “Happy New Year!” congratulations seemed to roll in every hour on the hour all day long. This diversified geography thing is starting to look unscalable.

I’ve measured my life out in flickr uploads, originally uploaded by Laughing Squid.

An uncountable number of years and design revisions ago the masthead of this blog read, “I’ve measure out my life in coffee cups“. Maybe I should bring that back.

Though I was always tempted to replace it with, “Fuck this spoon business, I’m measing my life in cups thank you very much.”

Or rather they’ve been up for weeks, but I’ve given up on the idea that I’ll upload them, and am just pointing at Jasmine’s version. 429 photos in the set. (also as a slideshow)