amazing

I've spent at least one hour on each of these sites. maybe a little more, because I've been doing this all night for the last two nights.

http://www.musicfromouterspace.com/

http://www.casperelectronics.com/

http://www.anti-theory.com/soundart/

I've purchased my "learn to solder" kit, and also a simple book by forrest mims. 6 months from now... I will be 80% robotic.

briefly

last weekend I was reading philip roth's _Portnoy's Complaint_. it's a funny rant of a book, if a little one-dimensional. as I read it outside in the beautiful sun of our beautiful yard, a bird crapped on my foot:



then when I was in the house cleaning, I heard the faint buzzing of a fly. only it wasn't the frantic buzz of a fly on the loose. there was something more desperate about this buzz, a slightly higher and faster pitch. I peeled back the curtains and what did I find?



go spiders!

it was quite the weekend, what with all those events.

reading: cormac mccarthy, roth, heraclitus. listening: wilco, eyesores, wolf parade.

here is some recent work:





underglazes! (each work executed in earthenware with underglazes and clear glaze. electric fired to cone 04. taller pot 11 in. shorter pot 9.5 inches)

ta!

bio

here is a cutted and pasted letter that I just emailed to a friend whom I haven't talked to truly since 10th... 11th? grade. we ran into eachother at Chase's. I think it makes a nice blog, even for people I talk to all the time.

so,

a shot in the dark I suppose. I've heard something like every 5 years the cells in the human body completely replace themselves by natural processes. If so, then you and I are completely different people than who we were when we last spoke. Strange thought, feels somewhat correct, but at the same time the past is a fickle friend, no?

Last time we [briefly] saw eachother was at Chase's memorial. Molly and I were talking about Chase last night. I really miss him. something like Chase dying, such a good man as he, would naturally pull us all together. and for one weekend it did. for one weekend I think we all thought how easy the good life would be. stay in touch with your friends, maybe even move into a neighborhood or town with all of your friends. make a modest living. support eachother and appreciate eachother. and yet, here I am not staying in touch with friends, not living near friends, searching for who knows what?

biography then: Molly and I are living in las cruces, new mexico, a town of 100,000 people, 40 minutes from el paso. we moved down here together because I found a cool job as a ceramics teacher at an arts high school (Alma D'Arte Charter High School for the Arts, whew). Molly didn't have anything lined up but did have a little cushion of savings, so we decided to stick it out and come down together. It's been a real blast, especially for me, and my contract is due to expire in July. Molly found work as a tutor in an AmeriCorps program, but has since moved to a more managerial position in the same program. We live in a beautiful house in the middle of the desert and it feels like a completely different culture and country. I guess it's still america.

I had a good day at school today. I lectured both of my classes about artistic production and education. Most days I don't talk much and we just work. Today I was introducing a new project so I was a chatterbox. my first class was very receptive and we had good contributions to the discussion. I think many of those kids will be thinking about that class tonite. my second class was less receptive, perhaps due to their shortened attention spans, but it still went pretty well. being a teacher is strange, but I still try to just be me and it's working out pretty well.

jeez, what to say? things are good. I'm completely lost, but that can be expected. I have ideas about the future, but nothing solid. MOlly and I are solid, so that is good.

we come home from work and cook vegetarian stuff (tonite was meatless-chorizo tostadas and red wine), I blog, molly blogs, we try to plan stuff for the weekend. New Mexico is rife with weekend excursions. It's really something down here. OUr friends are mostly my coworkers right now, but we try to stay in touch with friends back home.

check out these sites if you want more molly and joe minutiae:

my blog: www.j0eb0t.blogspot.com

molly blog: www.mollyetta.blogspot.com

pictures of our life: follow the "pictures" link on molly's blog.

I feel like I haven't said anything, but this thing is getting long. I feel like doogie howser. time to log off and roll the credits.

hope you and mark are well,
joe

ps write back

fritag

don't ever take my complaints about work seriously. the bottom line is that I have a really kush job. many factors go into this. sure, I may wax depressive about poor management and lack of vision--and these things may be true. but the fact of the matter is that as far as my end of things is concerned, I've got it made here. sure it would be nice to have my salary quadrupled, but in time young jedi, in time.

what brought on this bout of appreciation? I walked into the accountant's office and handed her a fantasy stack of purchase requisition forms. these are the forms we have to fill out to get permission to buy things, and my stack in this instance totaled about $1100. I'm talking fantasy--clay supplies, photo light supplies, hardware store supplies, and shit from business products catalog. the only thing I left out was a request for a pugmill (in time...). I sheepishly hand it to her and mumble something about necessity. she pages through them, reading off the suppliers one by one, in a cursory fashion. without once blinking an eye she looks up at me and smiles, "looks good joe. thanks. have a nice weekend."

sweet.

in related news, I made a major development today in my ceramics skill set. prior to this point, I had not been able to convincingly throw anything above 10 in. I could do it, but it wouldn't be light or pretty. through some complex algorithm of water and hand pressure I have broken the 10 in. barrier. I threw a 13 in, lite weight cylinder from 4 lb. of clay. most people go through their "lightest and tallest" throwing phase in high school or early college. I mostly stuck to small objects and skipped that phase all together. now I'm ready to start. It's kind of embarrassing and kind of exciting--like ALL things in life.

lastly, I finished the 3rd book of the Dune series last night. this book did not grab me right off. in fact, I was ready to set it down about half way through. the first two books were page burners the entire time. the first one especially was a thrill ride (see above locution). the third one was turgid with political "intrigue" and philosophical bullshit. but then, about 2/3 thru the story, the main character forms an indestructible living skin made of sand worms and all hell breaks loose. with the worm skin, Leto II is able to leap off 200 meter cliffs, burst through steel doors, and bend the blades of crysknifes. the book turned out to be a total hell storm of action and death. possibly the best book in the series so far, definitely the least balanced.

one last note: last night molly and I could not sleep for whatever reason (speed). however, after having barely just fell asleep at 1:30 am, we were awoken by a fierce wind which brought rain drops onto the windows. this was a noticibly stronger wind than the already strong winds which have been whipping us desert dwellers lately. you might call it a squall. I battened down the hatches and tried to get back to bed. today, strangely, everyone in school was talking about the crazy ass squall that moved through at 1:30 last night. I talked to at least 10 students and teachers who woke up at the same time as us. I think it might have been some type of restless spirit wind, travelling the country side during the day and sweeping into towns at night to wake up people. it was eerie.

tonite we see grindhouse.

ta

america's favorite blog

I hope everyone got a chance to check out the video I posted last week. It's by Deerhoof, a special band. It must be one of the best animated videos since paranoid android.

so I am going to report on san diego and other happenings, but I've waited a little too long. Most of the happenings are photographed faithfully in molly's flickr page, so do check that as well. I guess the most significant thing to report would be... well, it was a very normal vacation. we ate and drank and talked, smiled and surfed this and that. but it's only when you go home that you realize how you miss it, even though it was only days ago. only at home do you see that you don't get along with most people like you do with your best friends. so at the time everything seems "normal" but it takes a few days of "true normal" to see that quality time spent with close friends is quite exceptional--even if nothing exceptional happens. allow me to just bullet-point some of the san diego highlights:

>elation at the airport as everyone finally came togethera: andys hurt and dwyer, tiffany, molly, ari, and myself (miss and frank at home).

>fried eggs and cinnabon-flavored coffee each morning I stayed with the hurts (and grapes and toast and milk and other goodies).

>crystal-clear perfect sunshine, warm beach sand, and MOIST ocean air blowing me down.

>drinking corona in above-mentioned enviro.

>surfing. trying to surf. surfing a little bit. waking up the next morning and sneaking off with hurt to try more surfing, ditching everyone. actually standing on the board and riding on a wave!

>hurt's pottery.

>trying to make franklin laugh. making franklin laugh. passing franklin off to missy when reality takes over. he simultaneously burped and pooped his pants while I held him close, and he didn't even know how cool that was.

>ari's renditions, particularly stuff from pet sounds and hwy. 61.

>speaking easy at mccoy's good time parlor, est. 1921. meeting charlie moore, bartender, and re-meeting mike blackwell, and meeting ari's friend justin who was awesome.

>being hungover as shit after too much speakeasy. ok, this part sucked.

>eating good-ass thai food at a good-ass thai restaurant.

>long boarding off of hurt's drive way

>sunshine

>playing ceiling ball at ari's

>all the other stuff I'm forgetting or I can't publish for reasons of good conduct in journalism.

san diego was sweet. It was good to see my friends healthy and strong and happy for the most part. chase was sorely missed. I think everyone was reflecting on chase for long portions of the trip though it was generally unspoken. we did toast him royally at mccoy's. yeah. I wish jaimie could have made it out, but I don't blame her. I heard she became a driving instructor, which is kind of fucked up but also comforting.

hopefully these highlights give you a flavor sample of what we were up to. sandiego is a nice city, very beautiful and good-smelling. I can't imagine two more different places than where ari lives (ocean beach, san diego) and where the hurts live (camp pendleton, oceanside, CA). Ok, I can imagine two more different places (Kabul and Kansas City, Hong Kong and Vergas), but the contrast was striking. Ari's neighborhood is closely modeled on the festival campground of the winnipeg folk festival, complete with open-air cannabis consumption and a thriving black market, not to mention the "drummers" and the "dread-locked." Ari both fits in perfectly here and totally is above it or just beyond it. Andy's neighborhood is... a marine base. a very large and complex marine hive. viva la diff. viva dwiffany.

ok so this trip report completely fails as a travelougue. I've got no angle, no conflict. I also had no budget. give me 10 grand and an event to cover and I'll give you the article of a lifetime. no grand and no plot equals blog.

in other news, I was accepted to the juried exhibition, "From the Ground Up," opening night May 4th at the las cruces museum of art. the work selected is called "Misc. Domestics," a title the computer came up with for me! so I'm 1/1 on shows. I think I'll quit now.

lastly, I think I didn't report anything on ben and alex coming out. they deserve a report, but I just don't dig wrap-ups. needless to say, we had many zany moments of belly laughing outrageousness. Ben and Alex are not the best of friends going into this trip, but I knew they would mix well. we mixed all very well. albq made me feel young instead of old. hot springs made me feel tingly. hiking good, rock throwing fun, drinking good and eating much. on that visit we all went to bed most nights very tired, very full of food, and half toasted. that's probably a good sign of intense hedonism and camaraderie.

chow! [sic]

not a blog

this has been one of my favorite bands lately, deerhoof:



so wonderful