Ok, well...
valentines day...
uh,
I'm participating in this show at squeeky wheel.

Guten morgen peeps,
I went to St. Vincents charity shop on main st. this morning(late last night in my time) and I have to say they have tons of steel coffee mugs with lids for only 50 cents, yes that is correct, 50 cents in a variety of shapes and styles.
here is a run down of what I got.

"because it's Bitter and Because it's my Heart" a Joyce Carol Oats book
one family snap shot
one new crotchet bright green scarf.
one pair or red plaid pants
one coffee mug

This came to a grand total of 2.99

As great as they are there is something sad about thrift stores. I was looking at the PJ's because I may need some for the love and sex show. It was disturbing me because I had to wonder if any old ladies died in those gowns and robes, you know? and then the family snapshot I found in a frame. I'll scan it. It's the reason I got the joyce carol oats. book, I needed to smuggle the photo out because I didn't want the frame. I have to wonder why a person would donate their family snapshot to a store. I like the photo because of the man on the steps behind the women. I think I'm going to send it to Germany as a post card.

excerpt on american civil war

"By the end of The War, Union prisoners were segregated by rank into different prisons. It was thought that by separating officers and enlisted men escapes would be reduced. Prior to 1864, there were 3 major camps:
1) Camp Sumter, Andersonville, Georgia for non-commissioned officers ( * )
2) Camp Oglethorpe, Macon, Georgia for company grade officers (mostly Captains and Lieutenants)
3) Libby Prison, Richmond, Virginia, for Majors, Colonels, and Generals.
and there was some mixing of prisoners, but this is the general structure of the Confederate Military Prison system."

excerpt on WWII
"The German system separated officers from enlisted men and sent them out to the various camps, which were know as Stalag Lufts. These airmen's camps were administered by the German Luftwaffe and the Abwehr. Once inside the wire, the new Kriegesgefangenen or "Kriegie" was once more among his own. At Stalag Lufts I and III and VIIA, the Senior American Officer (SAO) was in charge. At Lufts VI, IV and Stalag 17b, enlisted airmen elected the Man of Confidence (MOC) as their top man."

now I'm wondering about the USA's current prisoner camps. I guess they are not POW camps because the people they have incarcerated are not necessarily associated with any nationalistic military. Here is an interesting wiki thread called"Talk:Concentration camp"


ah, here . why is this happening? is it really happening. if you can't see it or hear it, smell it or taste it, could you at least feel it?



ever wonder how you got to be sittin in that chair? maybe I am imprisoned by my jobs, obligations, responsibilities, capital dependency upon material goods and so on but at least I can walk away if I feel it's right for me or at least I have the power to kill myself if things are to unbearable.


Ok, back to my original knowledge quest. I've never understood why old men are so obsessed with war, like my dad and his Time Life collections. I just want to know how the history is relevant to today. How exactly do they divide the current prisoners? What is their strategy for that?

Ok, here are a few links inspired by Jessika. She has me wondering about the origins of the Pink. One of these web sites has some nice photos from all around buffalo. I couldn't find anything about tunnels though. Maybe some of you long time buffalonians can tell me about the history of the pink's structure.




on the pink









Underground Video
CEPA, 617 Main Street
Basement Gallery and Window
Opening Saturday, Feb. 4, 7:00 - 10:00

After party at Arzu Ozkal Telhan's
114 Elmwood Ave. between Allen and North
Featuring special guest *Orkan Telhan*

Opening in the Underground Gallery and the Window on Main Street will
be an exhibition entitled Underground Video. Underground Video
presents recent video and installation work by five emerging artists
based in Buffalo, NY. The show offers alternative views of the
everyday, public space, work, play, memory, and family, revealing new
possibilities for disruption and meditation. The exhibition includes
work by Robin, Soyeon Jung, Elizabeth Knipe, Arzu Ozkal
Telhan, Julie Perini. Examples of their work can be found at the
following links.

Liz Knipe
Julie Perini
Robin Diane
Arzu Ozkal Telhan
Soyeon Jung

Personally I feel that criticism is necessary to validify any concept or theory. I see nothing wrong with a satirical cartoon of Islam. However I know nothing much about that religion. I do know what Baptist think, thanks to my mother who dragged me along with her to church the first 12 years of my life.
Here is what I remember about that. Baptists are simple people. They have very little ornamentation in the church, maybe stain glass windows at the end of their little wooden benches but that's about it. The churches are also simple wooden buildings. There is God's rule, "Do not worship false idols" something like that. That is why Baptists think Catholics are especially crazy with their relics and everything. It is interesting that it is ok to portray Jesus in Christianity but not Muhammad in Islam. I wonder do muslems portray anything? It is very rare for a Christian artist to actually try to portray god, he is supposed to be to brilliant for human eyes.
In my little church they believed that everyone is a sinner and getting baptized washes your sins away. Dancing wasn't allowed but it was ok to use birth control. Gospel music was important and was not uncommon to see an old man slap his thigh in rhythm to the music. Sometimes people would speak out with a personal story and ask you to pray for them. I remember when my teenage cousin cried up in front of everyone because one of her non-Christian friends died and she was afraid they would burn in hell. That was a big threat that preachers loved to talk about, hell fire and damnation. It was ok for preachers to have families. There were other important men in the church called deacons.
When I was a child I remember sitting in a church meeting with my Mama one night. Some man stood up. He was new to the church. He said, "I think my wife here has as many important things to say as I do, I think we should have a vote so that women can speak during these meetings" so they had a vote so that women could speak in meetings. When I got older and more critical I asked my Mama "didn't that piss you off, that you couldn't speak"? She told me that a woman's husband should speak for her. The ironic thing about that is my Daddy never went to church. He always said, "I don't like Baptist." My Dad was raised Methodist. He's told me before that his personal philosophy is "always agree with you mother (aka his wife)" This may be valuable advice for someone who studied anthropology and married a creationist.
Maybe religion is some kind of dated thing that protects family so that the human race doesn't die out. In the industrial and service economies of the world it seems that this is no longer as important as it used to be. I guess that's why the enlightenment started.
The last time I went to church I was an older teenager and I hadn't been in years. I remember the preacher was preaching on tidings and how you should not me a miser and hoard your money away because you can't take it into the afterlife with you. I started joking with my Mama, "you heard what the preacher said, you'd better give me some money"

bored bored
please write more

I was just typing a huge post when firefox crashed! ah fuck it. I'll try to remember what I was talking about...
First It was about "Robbie McCauley" I was looking her up because I watched a documentary tonight that included part of her play "Sally's Rape" . I looked up McCauley on wiki but no info. Then I became distracted by one of wiki's features on Dixie, the song and it's history . This article lead me to Foghorn Leghorn and that lead me to a search for "southern dialect cartoon characters." I was also looking up VHS tapes on amazon that I could use for some audio appropriation.
This search lead me to a banned tape called "cartoon scandals" but that was kind of a dead end as that tape is to expensive for me to purchase for audio clippings.
Then I found this article and that lead me to looking up "Song of the South" they say the movie is banned but I remember seeing it in the theater. It was my second movie. Little Shop of Horrors with Rick Moranis
was my first but enough of that scarring. A few months later I must have seen Song of the South. I remember when the little boy gets hurt by the bull because Uncle Remus was leaving him just like his daddy did. Shit. It was heart wrenching. I think this movie was special for my parents and that is why they took me to the theater. It came out when they were children. It's controversial because it paints a happy picture of race relations in the south right around the time when share- cropping had started. As a child I was happily oblivious to the social connotations and completely immersed in the drama of the poor little rich white boys life.
Although this movie hasn't has a legal release (in the USA) since 1986 I read in it's wiki article that it will resurface in a special DVD edition for it's 60th anniversary in November.
My little niece, Kiah is 5 this year, the same age I was when I saw this movie. I would love to video tape her watching this movie and then ask her opinion on the social political situation of the reunited union.



and one last thing,
the folk tales uncle Remus (fictinal character by the way) tells in this movie are a significant part of southern heritage. The question for me is who do they belong to? Jim Crow laws really fucked the progress of the south but at the same time maybe a certain time for autonomy was good to help with the shifting from slave economy to industrial economy. I say that not for the white people though, the whites were the villains and the blacks the victims of that situation. How does one go from being an oppressor to being a friend and how does one go from being the oppressed to being a friend, and just hanging out, you know? Exactly what happened and why is still puzzling 150 years later. I wonder if time helps or does it make things more confusing? If it helps then why is there still these statistical economic inequalities among races? Why is their still a concept of race?
... but what i think about the tales is they belong to anyone who has an interest and just like the mythologies of the bible or the koran are worthwhile so are these moral oral tales. The whole oral tradition thing is slowly going down the toilet since literacy came along. I like telling stories but it's difficult to get a listener and also difficult to learn how to tell a good story. I wonder if my life would be more or less difficult it I were illiterate? I imagine I would have to be more physically active. I'd be even more poor but probably less in debt.
back to Uncle Remus, these tales were recorded in a hard dialect. I can't read them unless I speak them aloud in my head. Here is a link where you can find some info on this archiver that used the Remus character

calling all peeps!
I'm in a cepa show. Cool. Come come come. Pleaseeeee.
I wanna show y'all some things, things you may like or not like but how will you know if you don't come?

Ok,
I found one of my old high school friends on My Space. I sent him a pic of him and his girlfriend/ now wife and he sent me this picture or my and my old friend shannon. I have no idea when this was taken. Maybe i was 15 or 16.

HEAD OVER TO SQUEAKY WHEEL FOR THE RESOLUTIONS AFTER PARTY (712 Main St.)
Featuring a performance by HEADLESS BABY + 3 and installations by Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock; Gregg Biermann; Brandon Blommaert; Jax DeLuca; Stephanie Maxwell in collaboration with Peter Byrne and Allan Schindler; Mike Olenick; Julie Perini; and Rozi Peters.