Back in California. Back in school. Back on the website. Hello. How are you? That dress looks nice on you, but I don’t care for your new hairstyle.

Texas was nice. But short. Celebrated New Years in Austin. Then went camping in Oklahoma with sister and her family. At one point I was walking in a freezing cold river in trunks and nothing else but a large stick; and a branch that had fallen from a tree that I used as a walking helper. So two big sticks, I suppose. I then had the thought, “I want a career walking through cold rivers with a stick and no shoes.” But then I remembered that no one here has heard of the internet or cell phone connections or pricey wallets imported from Italy, and I would never survive here. Side thought: Is it wrong to have a wallet that is worth more money than you could ever possibly carry in it? Good question.

So, back in LA. I went to a “conversation” at L.A.C.E. on Wednesday. It was a presentation by performance artist-turned-architect Vito Acconci and Pritzker Prize winning Architect Thom Mayne. Acconci was introduced by the uncomfortable laughter inducing “[...] blah, blah, blah made a name for himself for his performance art piece “Seedbed” in which he masturbated (all day) inside of a glass box in a museum while expressing his desires about the passersby into a microphone.” What made this even more bizarre was that the man being introduced was now a senior citizen and obviously slightly uncomfortable to be on stage speaking. His architecture is, umm, OK. I wasn’t aware that he did the “island” in Graz, but I used to be quite fond of it. He does a lot of blobs, a lot of mobious strips, and a lot of “continuous skins” AKA a lot of things that people do in the first couple of years of architecture school. I now have a better understanding of what architecture school is about: pursuing ideas that should never be built. But he was interesting.

Thom Mayne was good. His work has always been good, his drawings have always been good. But what most intrigued me was an image he showed of California Governor Arnold Blackenegger as Conan the Barbarian. He then turned very nihlist and said there is no god, there is no anything, there is no reality. This is Conan. This isn’t the Governor of California. I was a bit drunk on free wine at this point but I was amused that he had this same presentation for a super conservative Christian client and that there was contention but now they are “good friends” and the building is being built.

And now I am drunk on more wine that I helped harvest and am beginning my four day weekend. I will update as soon as I feel like it and several apologies for the lack recently.

Cheers.