BACK north! i don't know if i mentioned this before but the city i'm living in was planned really poorly and downtown is located right by the paper factory which means that it basically smells like god opened his rectum and spit butt mud all over the skies because not only does it sometimes have this weird diahrrea glow but it also just smells completely rancid everywhere you turn at least once or twice a week.
went and got my lecture on in a city called TURKU... that went really well. i got in front of an audience of around 120 and despite practicing the whole thing about 200,000 times in the middle of the woods out loud so that it would go perfectly, i completely forgot everything i was supposed to say when the lights dimmed and my slides appeared on the screen and no lie, i actually started my presentation with some stuttering. i heard some little asshole chuckle too.
the stuttering lead to me going into my own head, neglecting the audience for a good 20 seconds, and a lot of thinking about "did i just really stutter?" which in turn lead to me freezing even more and after an extended silence that felt like forever and this weird little vibration i felt on the back of my head and neck that i was sure (at the time, at least) was a mini-aneurism or a little baby death rattle.. i started talking off the top of my head about walker evans and the new topographics and found imagery and katy grannan whilst trying not to die on stage in front of everybody due to the aneurism thing (i figured if god could let me pull through and grant me the opportunity to lay down and die alone in a bathroom stall later then i must have done a couple of things right over the last 24 years).
i didn't die in the bathroom stall later but i kind of wished i did when it was the ambassadors turn to speak and she verbally gave her self fellatio in the usual "i'm a politician, i've done all these great things like fly a fighter jet and landed it onto an aircraft carrier though i never joined the military but i did all this great stuff for you" kind of way.
the only people more self congratulatory then artists are politicians. in any case, i hate em both.
when it was time to field questions and someone asked what her priorities as the ambassador had been over her last session she said "terrorism". i laughed and had to cover my mouth from going into hysterics. are you kidding me? yeah thankyou so much for protecting finland from terrorism. its been such a big problem here over the years. did finland really need the republican runner up for arizona governor (who lost by a landslide like 15 years go i might add) to stop terrorism? at the bottom of her priorities list, right after "holding the hand of a child" (direct quote) she said a priority was cleaning up the baltic so i can't completely hate on her but i will anyways.
in all seriousness, i got a lot of compliments on the lecture but i got cut off early because i went over my alotted time frame (which worked out perfectly because then i didn't really have to field any questions) and after a couple minutes of discomfort i worked my way into it. i don't look forward to ever speaking in public again but i could cope if it meant bestowing a bunch of ignorant kids with my extensive knowledge and mastery of the photographic medium
after the whole lecture thing i dropped my friend off at the airport (after having just learned to drive stick shift in a couple hours in a grocery store parking lot), got into the 3 story house and drove my borrowed toyota all over the middle of nowhere listening to paul simon and bill callahan albums, romanticized how great life was back home before i left, and took a lot of pictures of things i normally take pictures of. hungout on a comfortable couch watching the simpsons and BBC WORLD.. feeling pretty happy about the potential for a democrat to take office and also glad to see the entire world except for the republican party agrees with me. got to helsinki and hungout with my homie kaarle... back to this really good photo book store, had some incredible food that almost makes me want to take back all the bad things i said about finnish food (restaurant tori... reindeer meatballs and mashed potatoes, fuckin incredible). met all kinds of people and saw some pretty weak work at the opening for the helsinki biennial (there were a couple of exceptions but they werent so exceptional that they're even worth mentioning).
met the photo editor for KASINO MAG and got the new issue off him, it's really solid. good writing. good photography. CHECK IT http://www.wearekasino.com/
and friends back home,if you got some calls from me and we talked, thankyou
for keeping my brain sane
some pictures from my digital camera of random shit:
nice bike ride
BUMMER
are you there god
this is some of my new work... its kind of conceptual you probably wouldnt get it
eventually the pieces of film in these boxes will be processed and reveal whether or not i have any kind of future in art photo
they were alright
site of my aneurism aka turku university
i dont know
insane mushrooms
but i didnt
michelle have you seen these? someone jacking your style
i couldnt have taken this one without my 2 years of art school
my 3 story getaway
yeah i wouldnt mess with texas or you might find yourself in the middle of a war or a financial crisis
they have boats in helsinki
bad ass photo book store in helsinki
could be good?
keeping my fingers crossed
yeah
not in america they cant
they dont really celebrate halloween here though
and just on an unrelated topic
what the fuck happened to mike skinner and kanye west?
neutered? i keep hearing all these really shitty new songs from kanye west on the internet.
using auto-voice isn't a license to sing like a girl in middle school about breakups.
and mike skinner? i got the new streets album and it sounds like a self-help book (besides the first single which is perfect)
if anybody has suggestions of good new music (besides the new tv on the radio and bonnie prince billy albums which i agree are flawless) then please let me know the well is running dry
BACK TO HELSINKI and then some hang time on the other side of the baltic in STLHLM
also, word to the wise... don't spend a day with wine listening to bon iver or m.ward and watch high fidelity.
maybe you thought it meant a bunch of rest and relaxation when you started but it actually turns into this mind game i like to call "recounting all my mistakes and errors in judgment over the last 5 years" and then you're sending emails that probably don't need to be sent and thinking things that are better off not thought. and honestly, who makes a proposal by e-mail? maybe it's the kind of thing you don't do but write a song about doing in auto-voice instead?
