Mmmm...nothing says summer like neon pink.

Don't laugh...I kind of want this shirt.

This month's book club selection was Alan's War. Above, the artist's amazing technique.

I'm very pleased that I was able to see the Louise Bourgeois exhibit that has been at the Hirshhorn (and of course elsewhere - it's quite the retrospective). Yesterday was its last day.

This was my favorite sculpture:







"Femme Volage (Fickle Woman)"
1951
Painted wood, 72 x 17 1/2 x 13 inches
Guggenheim Museum, New York

So I was reading Pitchfork just now and they have an interview with a DJ called A-Trak. I've heard of him because he's a big fan of Baltimore club.

Going from that, I was totally blown away when he name-dropped Proust in the interview:

Last Great Book I Read

Marcel Proust: "Un Amour de Swann" [Pt. 3 of Du côté de chez Swann, or Swann's Way]

My brother is obsessed with Proust, and he gave me-- I guess the work of Proust, you can buy it split up into smaller books, if you don't want to carry around a huge brick [laughs]. So this particular section that I read, "Un Amour de Swann", I was just reading and thinking, wow, this guy has figured out all of humanity, he's figured out what really goes on inside my head, and he's saying stuff that I'm probably even too scared to admit to myself, but he's saying it and I read it and I'm like, holy shit we all really think like this. And then he pushes it even further, and brings out all these strange comparisons that you wouldn't really think of, that are so well-argued, but at the same time, kind of clumsy, because his sentences are really long and really... I guess just the opposite of what, traditionally, writers try to achieve-- a sentence that lasts a whole page, and it should be clumsy and long, but it's just so good and so dead on, you're like, "Jesus, how does he do this stuff?"

Chicago bound

Chicago at night (cue up the Spoon song)


My first trip to the windy city is happening this fall. I'm quite excited.

Places I am most definitely going:

• Art Institute
• MCA
  
• The Violet Hour

Places I am tempted to go to, based on the name alone:

• The Hungry Brain

• The Green Eye Lounge

hippocampus

Love this Low show poster.

april 2009

Books:

The Substance of Style, Virginia Postrel
Alan's War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope, by Emmanuel Guibert (graphic novel about WWII, book club selection for May)
Seven Days in the Art World, Sarah Thornton
The Connoisseur, Evan S. Connell
Alex & Me, Irene Peppenburg
Asleep, Banana Yoshimoto
So Long, See You Tomorrow, William Maxwell


Movies:

Caro Diario
Out of Africa
Ginger and Cinnamon
My Architect
A Woman is a Woman
The Triplets of Belleville
L'Avventura