Smoke Machines

A collage of street art, near to my place of residence:

What caught my eye was, Zilda's wheatpaste of an old etching. I obviously have made it clear I really like etchings, but what's interesting about Zilda here in Paris (I'm assuming they're from here), is its completely transparency here. There's drawings, paintings, sculptures, anything - everything of robed figures everywhere in Paris. Why does Zilda appropriate these images, and have them write "Zilda". You know, I don't know.

The other pieces, I will just list:

• A penis without a body, pointing down, towards spread legs.
• A message that reads, "Mickey Mouse is Dead" (In English). If you look closely, there's a picture of Mickey Mouse, dead in a coffin, underneath the text.
• Various Tags
• And leaving the frame, a big face with what looks like cartoon scars.

It's just... everywhere.

This floor had me more captivated

It's a similar pattern to a skateboard company I was infatuated with. I used to draw it in all my notebooks in high school. I had t-shirts with it. Many. T-shirts.

It's also similar to something you'd see in Victor Vasarely's work.

It's always very queer to see someone take a similar shot, in the same city, in a similar date - and having just saw that person, but not really knowing who that person is (just as an audience member of a performance). The same tiles by Momus,

Some photos of said Momus from the BBMix Festival

I've known Momus for a while, but really never actually listened to his music. I think someone introduced me to him many, many years ago and his name was surrounded by bizarre wonderment, mystery and excitement. She would say,

"He's MISSING an EYE!"

"He's homeless in New York City!"

"He wears crazy suits!"

Only one of the above, I think, is true.

A nice performance, at a very strange venue. The space was a theatre, so the stage was set up for very... theatrical things: lots of fancy lights and smoke machine! A SMOKE MACHINE! Going on, full tilt, un-ironically. Words fail.

The set was good though. The song writing was great. The experience Momus has of playing live is very obviously felt, especially the music-show-as-performance-art aspect to it. And I don't mean that in a bad light.

It seems many current adventures of mine involve smoke machines.

A incomplete part of his, A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy (Parts 17-24)

Could you imagine watching Momus open up for Belle and Sebastian?

Mural on Oberkampf, Paris

I had walked around here the night before and a different mural was up. That sort of thing makes me excited.

Pictures from last night. Tops of buildings. So many people living so close together. Lights on. Lights off.

Looking down, instead of up, more street art:

I don't really know what it says - something like,

I don't let myself sleep in my dormitory.

But, the conjugation of, "Laisser" is.. wrong. Or, "Laise" is something, completely different.

People standing in bars. Flirting. Footwear is very important, here

Art Opening in Tours for Terrence Netter, surprisingly, these photos are basically straight from the camera

Got willfully taken to a discotheque, deep in the French countryside, afterward. The spectacle was incredible. Smoke Machines, again.

The bartender was giving away free shirts. Somehow, I received one. it said, "World Famous".

They sold liquor by the bottle. Not like, Bottle of Beer, like: bottle of Vodka. Dangerous.

I think we made it back to the quiet, country home not far from the discotheque by 5:00 am.

Mr. Netter, a man of 80, made a comment about how he thought the discotheque was a little, "Provincial". I mean, it was.

Took a walk and saw a rainbow:

Street artist on one of the bridges. He was pulling a fake turtle. I was excited for the Dandyism reference, although I don't know if that's what he had in mind.

I stayed for the performance.

If you were wondering, this street performer is running with Dura Ace components,

I took a small clip of this street performer, doing his circus bike act, and in the middle of the performance, walks in a pair of kids of fixed gears. Very pretty kids. The contrast of the circus performer with a similar type of bike - fixed geared, was sort of delicious. Doing fancy tricks on modified track bikes - similar to what the street performer is doing on a bike specifically made to do fancy tricks is sort of a, how would you say, big thing to do right now.

The carefully put together sloppiness of the performer and the carefully put together togetherness of the kids . All of them, color-coordinated in their own way. The extremely dramatic gestures of the street performer. The extremely nonchalant look of the teenagers. Acting. Spectacle. Smoke Machine.