August 27th

Squash, patty pans, zucchini, carrots, greens, torpedo onions, purple broccoli, eggplant, tomatoes, basil. Late summer is heavy on the nightshades.

FRIDAYS AT NAVARRE

AUGUST 20th


For the past year and a half I have worked the Friday day shift, when all the deliveries for the weekend come. The most exciting and volatile of these deliveries is from 47th Avenue Farms, our CSA. What we get is always a surprise, and we must figure out what to do with it all Quick. The shipments have been documented on the Navarre website by Giovanna, John and I, but I thoughts I'd share some more photos. I like Friday days because it is a little bit crazy and a mess but also special - come visit me, 11:00 - 4:30, you can always help pluck basil.

Thanks, Eloise.

LOUISE

At the beginning of the summer I was searching for

ways to express my ideas for Hansel and Gretel. I kept returning to images by Louise Bourgeois: the small enclosures, the cells, the rooms surrounded by fence. I began to imagine a small set, sort of like a puppet theater, that the two actors could manipulate themselves and alter as the story unfolded. Sometimes it might be like a house and sometimes it might be like a cage. Maybe there would be arms that extended from it with mirrors, with lights.

Last night I watched the Louise documentary The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine, picked up randomly at Movie Madness when I was returning the Valentino documentary. Although I wouldn’t call it a great film, it was wonderful to see her work and to listen to her discuss it, and there were some great scenes – notably a description of the titular tangerine, shots of the spider sculptures set to Laurie Anderson and Louise in a hot pink fur coat and a sparkly baseball cap.

The Candy House of the witch, perhaps?

I was most struck by how the narrative of her work fit with my intended use of her imagery. I was unfamiliar with her biography. Overarching themes of abandonment, of physical pain, betrayal, destruction of the parental figures, seclusion… I believe it is meant to be.

GENE

This is my favorite stand at the Saturday Farmer's Market. So carefully arranged, each mushroom like a precious gem.
Gene and his son Patrick are farmers in Joseph, Oregon - about six hours away to the east. They drive out every Friday in their van and make deliveries to restaurants, spend the night, Gene works the market on Saturdays and Patrick continues deliveries until they drive back that night. Every single week.
They only grow to sell potatoes, carrots and beets, but they forage for mushrooms and have a secret wild plum supply. Those little plums, like small jewels, are very tart yet make excellent galettes if you add enough sugar. At Navarre we make jam and pies with them. Gene will tell you the best thing for those mushrooms is to catch some trout (like he does) and saute the mushrooms in the pan with the fish. Indeed.

GOOD HERB

Fontanelle Gallery is lucky to host the first solo show of the talented and prolific Jess Hirsch, whose work I am lucky to have a career-spanning collection of in my apartment... full disclosure, we're friends. Her personal fight for physical wellness and resulting explorations into the world of alternative treatment - historical, mythical, homeopathic and otherwise - are documented and mused upon in the thoughtful, whimsical and totally covetable drawings, sculptures and art objects that amass Good Herb, running for the month of October. Coinciding with this show is her launch of the Portland Healing Project with Mariah Maines, a community resource for alternative healthcare information, which will feature a workshop at Fontanelle on October 17th. The show is so good that these are the rejects:


P.S. Bring money for a dimebag...

FUNGI

JTT

Travels in Siberia - II ((empathy))

The swarms afflicted animals, too - descending on young foals in such numbers as to kill them, suffocating reindeer in Yakutia by clogging up their nostrils, tormenting cattle on the Barabinsk Steppe so that the herdsman had to paint them all over with tar. Some of my Siberian notebooks still have squashed mosquitoes between their pages. The Lonely Planet guidebook to Russia that I consulted before I went on my journey states, in the section about Siberia, By August, the air has cleared of mosquitoes. From my experience, this is no longer the case.
- Ian Frazier, The New Yorker (August 10th & 17th, 2009)




If you see this issue around, read this piece. It is long but worth it and we could talk about it. The descriptions of the vast strangeness of this part of the world resonated with my own recent experience. The contraditions in geography, in architecture, in lifestyle are fascinating, born from cultures so different from our own. My friend Leene in Estonia studies semiotics. She believes that language is essential to ones beings: one cannot understand a concept that cannot be described, cannot understand a word that is unreciprical in his own tongue. Nuance and subltety become essential. John had told me before about studying architecture, how the standardization of manufactured materials in a country (specific heights, widths, weights, etc), and the subsequent building codes, broadly limit what can be produced. This is part of why there is so much similarity to how buildings and furniture look. If the essential building blocks are limited, the way the world looks is too.

strange daze

First day back in Portland after 2 1/2 months. Feels bizarre. Many stories to regale with! Blogging is decidedly weird though - my brother was recently called by some LA person regarding the Cheetah Lady video since I mentioned him in my post and that video has "gone mad viral." I was planning on doing Hansel and Gretel this month but felt inhibited in some respect so decided to postpone and today I discover there will be a Hansel and Gretel performance called "The Crumb Trail" at TBA. Was it fate that decided there didn't need to be two?? The NYTimes has become $2 on weekdays and $6 on Sunday since I was gone. The weekly was only $1.25 last summer - that is a large jump. An encased dead butterfly and vintage Pepsi bottle "vase" are missing from my bedroom but the subletter apparently doesn't have a clue what could possibly have happened to them, plus, in attempt to clean, she rubbed all the surfaces with something sticky (albeit well-meaning).

Where shall we go from here?

2007

AIRING IT OUT

Dear Readers,
I apologize for the long and boring absence. The past few months have been logistically full - planning, saving, working - and now you find me in Eastern Europe overwhelmed by Live Art. I have much to write about. An amusing performance piece back in Portland, however, intrigues me most at the moment. Find it at HERE. Like Amelie and her globe-trotting gnomes, I hope to see these garments in unusual locations shortly.
Love, Emma

"Will is Be Erotic??"

Kathleen Keogh (of Woolly Mammoth Comes to Dinner fame) put on a series of Wednesday morning performances this month (with coffee and tea provided!) in her lovely living room. I've always wanted to do living room performances! Very cool. I only became aware of this happening this week, so I made the tail end of the series this morning. Over the course of the hour-long largely (if not all?) improvisational performance today, Kathleen was sometimes joined by Noelle, interacted with the audience/the outside lawn/nearby Halsey street, climbed in May's (unlocked) car with her dress hanging out the door, wore a bandana over her face + aviators + a moustache + a poncho Stevie Nicks style + metallic fuschia stirrup tights + a prom dress. Afterwards, we all did a Pauline Oliveros scored improv together (you proud of me Matt?) and talked about performative intimacy... and Facebook. More on that first topic later, and in regards to the second (a topic I could discuss in great detail) - I recommend anyone interested at all in this topic to read Clive Thompson's article "I'm So Totally, Digitally Close to You"from September 5, 2008's New York Times Sunday Magazine. I did not document Kathleen's performance today, but May did a good job of it last week on her great blog a la claire fontaine:




p.s.

"I'm thinking about Technology / Privacy / Identity / Illusion / Anonymity / Transparency / Authenticity / Image / Intimacy / /"

-Kathleen Keogh

YOU ARE INVITED

LAST DITCH EFFORT FOR ROOMATE

$560/month all utilities included

FOR YAYOI

THE BIRTH OF EMU CHAN

I bought a beautiful blue emu egg at the farmer's egg. Stay tuned for a very large omelette. Also pictured: Jacqueline, and beet/carrot/lemon/ginger juice from Sip - the mobile cart outside People's Coop.

Everything I Would Not Do

SCANDINAVIA

After the Estonian Adventure, I will maybe be going to Copenhagen (definitely), Berlin, Stockholm, Riga or Helsinki. Or. Does anyone have any recommendations or friends or know of neat blogs with places to go in these cities? Tell me everything.

Oregon Coast

I went to the coast two weeks ago with Matt, Bethany and Joseph. I had my first yurting experience and am a little unconvinced, frankly. However, I am convinced of the seafood restaurant in Newport that we went to, although I forget the name of it. I am also convinced of beach treasures and my desire to start drawing sea foam!

Lunch Theater: EVOE

In general, I love an open kitchen - a device that seems to be more and more commonly used in the contemporary restaurant. I like sitting at a bar, watching the action, seeing humble and exotic ingredients alike transformed. My favorite place to go out to eat in Portland is Evoe, where Kevin makes simple yet delicious food for lunch. Unlike other open kitchens, however, his is not much more than a hot plate and butcher block to watch. This tension, making something with virtually nothing, and the unclear relationship between the customer and the staff, indeed the spectator and performer, which is more like walking into someone's house and asking for a sandwich than being in a restaurant, makes Evoe a very special place.

One such meal, a late February lunch with Jacqueline and I welcoming Pete to Portland and trying to woo Virginia back, over a meal of cheese, charcuterie, oyster stew, a warm razor clam salad, braised leeks with local black truffles and a bottle of Granbazan Albarino.

LINDISEASE

LINDISEASE
Saturday, March 28th
8 PM
Gallery Homeland

http://www.approximatel.blogspot.com/

Hansel & Gretel

I have developed a German fantasy of directing a small production of Hansel and Gretel as part of the Endless Summer festival at CoHo Productions this summer. I am thinking maybe with children, as a workshop... It is such an evil story! (Yet has a peculiarly happy ending for a fairy tale.) And imagine, all that forest and candy!

Kate Bush + Cat Scratch Fever = Forever

My brother's first solo-show, "Dedicated to the Oneness," is currently taking place at Scott Projects in Chicago!


Scott Projects' site and show images here.

Sam's website.

Patrice Connelly's review of show on New City.

ENDLESS SUMMER

I have been involved with a small theater in NW PDX called CoHo Productions for the past year and a half. The theater uses a pretty cool co-production model - where anyone in the community can propose a project and the board chooses three of them to produce for the next season. The board works with the teams that proposed the projects in the first place to realize the works artistically. I am excited about the 2009-2010 season, which we selected this past weekend: Fool for Love (Sam Shepard), Hamlet, and This Lime Tree Bower (Conor McPherson). In the more immediate, however, we are planning a potential summer festival that will be more of an in-house project. Theoretically slated for all of July and August as "Endless Summer," we are interested in creating continual programming (as in, every night) that will showcase smaller projects: workshops, staged readings, one-acts, etc. I am jazzed! We are meeting this Sunday to plan this - what should we do? What do people want to see? Who knows of people that want to perform things? What should I propose for myself???

Jacqueline's Alter Ego