In Dubrovnik

I've had a great trip so far -- London, Oxford, Zagreb -- and Laura
and I arrived in Dubrovnik, Croatia this afternoon.

I'll do the obligatory showing-you-my-vacation-slides thing when I get
back, but for the moment, I wanted to add another social coincidence
to my running log.

Laura's been in Croatia for a while now, and has become friends with a
few folks in the city, including a family from the US who are living
here for a time. We went over to their place last night to cook
dinner (delicious!). In the course of conversation, we discovered
that they know my old roommate Zachary's sister, and have met Zach
briefly.

Funny to come all the way to Croatia and still run into people with
mutual acquaintances. But of course, it's not like some Croatian guy
I struck up a coversation with at the market happened to go to
kindergarten with my brother...now that would be weird.

Airport

A couple notes while sitting in the airport:

- I had to resist saying "Thanks, cupcake" to the woman who checked my
suitcase -- because her nametag said "Cupcake."

- When I got to security, I was reminded that I still had a pair of
wire strippers in my bag. Bad move.

Sound Bites

Here's the piece I did for the DC Listening Lounge's show, "Sound Scene 2009: The Human Body." At the show, it could be heard from headphones coming out of a mannequin's mouth.

It's called "Sound Bites," and I'll just leave you with the caption that was displayed with it: DC Community Potluck attendees put food into words.



I'm heading out of town this afternoon on a trip for work to El Paso and New Mexico, and right after I get back, I'm heading to to London, Oxford and Croatia to visit Jesse and Sophie, Karen, and Laura, respectively. So for the next few weeks, my blogging will likely be limited to short blips sent from my phone.

Doll chandelier

The DC Listening Lounge Sound Scene last Friday was a big success, with great turnout and lots of cool stuff to be heard. Some of the work may go up on the website later; if so, I'll link to it. Also, I made a short piece for the show that I'll try to put up tomorrow night.

But for now, I took some pictures of the creepy baby chandelier I made for the occasion with dolls from the dollar store. (The theme of the show was "the human body.")

The rest are at at Flickr. People seemed to like it, but I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with it now. It's probably a little too weird to have just hanging up in the house...

Dollar

Regular dollar stores are kinda depressing, because there's just so much crap that has been made with such obvious lack of care. But I had occasion to browse some of the small, independent dollar stores on Mount Pleasant Ave this week, and though they're a bit depressing, they're mostly just strange. They cater to a primarily Latino audience, I think, and the merchandise often seems to have appeared out of some time warp -- like an entire garage sale of items still in their original packaging. It was hard to imagine anyone actually buying much of it, and I was the only customer in the three store I went into. I half wondered if they're a front for something, but I really wanted to ask where they got their inscrutable mishmash of useless household items.

It may be that much of the stuff was originally made to be sold in Latin America or other developing countries. I think that's probably the case with this doll:

Note that her ill-fitting outfit is baring the holes in her midriff (where the Fever Concert sounds come from, presumably) . Dear, your speaker is showing.

Anyway, the purpose of my visit was actually to look for dolls. I tried to buy Ms. Fever Concert, but $18.99 is pretty steep, and I only bargained the owner down a dollar, so I had to pass. I eventually found some less pricey ones, and used them to make a prop for the DC Listening Lounge show, "Sound Scene: The Human Body." It's this Friday night (5/8) -- check it out if you're in DC. More info is at the website.

NYC

I had a good long weekend in NYC hanging out with Alex, Nina, and Shane. I went to the Whitney with Alex to see the Jenny Holzer show, Protect Protect. We both thought it ended up being a bit underwhelming, but there were a couple very cool pieces in a different temporary exhibition, so it was okay. At MoMA, there were a couple excellent photo exhibitions.

I had never really been to the financial district before, so I also wandered around there for a while. At the iconic bull sculpture, people can choose two different, er, angles to approach the issue:

It might be amusing to see if there's a correlation between the numbers of photos taken at each end of the bull and the gyrations of the market. (I had always assumed there was also a bear, and it just never gets on camera. But I didn't see one.)

Alex identified a concert (The Dears and Great Northern) at a cool venue, and it was a great show. We were right up against the stage -- I haven't stood that close for a while.

And of course, I went to Doughnut Plant -- strawberry glazed (raised), tres leches (cake), and strawberry jelly with vanilla glaze (raised).

A few more pictures are up at Flickr.