Let’s go back to 1958. In the little mill town of Bynum, NC there lived 4 teenage boys, Hobo, Kilroy, Skipper, and Pete. These boys’s had a custom for mischief night. They would go out to farmer Green’s house and tip over his outhouse. A few days before Halloween these boys ran into farmer Green at the local store, Grady’s. Framer Green said “I’m ready for you boys this year” the boys laughed and said “yeah right.”
A few days later it was mischief night. The boys piled into Hobo’s old junker and drove out to farmer Green’s house. They parked, hopped out of the car and started running across the pasture toward the distant silhouette of the outhouse. Now, Kilroy was the fastest of all the boys and they could see him way up ahead, running and running, when all of the sudden he disappeared.
The other boys slowed down a bit and started calling out for Kilroy. They found him down in the shit hole yelling, “Get me outta here.” Farmer green had moved the outhouse back a few yards. The boys pulled Kilroy out. He stripped and jumped in the cold river. Then he rode back to town buck necked.

vivi and lisa convinced me i look better with short hair and so after months of pain staking growing, i cut it all off again.



PS
my old teacher danny walsh told me that it was Robert Mapplethorpe who did those huge kkk portraits.

It's 9:50 am here. For some reason my schudule is flipped around so I'll go to bed in a few hours. Being left here in Weimar while the rest of my class is a week in Belgium, is kind of a bummer. Plus the 4 roommates thing is starting to get to me a little. It's strange. On the one hand I miss total privacy and on the other hand I'm terribly lonesome.
My neck is hurting from bending my head over the computer. I have two little knots from it. I ordered books for my students next semester. I haven't read them yet so it's risky. I did order them for myself though so I'll formulate some kind of learning plan.
I kind of like the learning system here, how they switch things up every week. Last week was pretty bad. It was a two day workshop from 9-6 with some stern woman named Suzi. She was the kind of teacher who ignores students when they raise their hands, unless they're the ass kissing students who repeat what she says but rephrase it slightly. I only made it to a few hours of that workshop, thank god! I did do the readings and they were fairly interesting. Suzi is a little to obsessed with Derrida. If a person just follows the theories of one person how are they ever going to create any original way of thinking?
This class I'm sitting in on is called art and commemoration. The other students are going to Leuven to make anti-nazi art but I'm supposed to make a project here in Weimar with an advanced undergradute student named, Anki. I should give here a call, see what she's thinking. I think I'm the wrong person to be making art about the holocaust but I can tell you the things I was thinking of this earlier evening/morning whatever.
First I looked up Buchenwald. It means Beerch wood. It was a concentration camp that starved and worked all these people to death . Its nearby here. When the American military came in 1945 they rounded up a thousand or so citizens of Weimar and made them tour Buchenwald while there were all these dead people laying around.
I guess one of the big concerns of this class is dealing with cultural memory. How are people going to remember the Holocaust once no one is around who actually witnessed it somehow? I've already formed some links in my mind that could connect southerners and germans. Here are two things they had in common.
1. some people were being tortured and murdered based on ethnicity
2. were defeated in war
Ok the situations were totally different but the time difference is what I'm interested in. The american civil war was in 1865. WWII was in 1945. Today it is 2005. No one in my family remembers the days of slavery. The only civil war story that has been passed through my family has absolutely no mention of slavery. [inlink]robin,314[/inlink] and I didn't learn about the history of lynching until I was in college in atlanta. Actually I learned about it from an art show at the contemporary. In the main room they had huge wall sized photographs of KKK member's heads in their masks. It was disturbing because you could see the details of these kkk guy's very human eyes, very clearly. Then I walked into the other room and it had all of these old lynching photographs. One of them was taken in the county I grew up in. I learned from this web site that it was a custom to take photos for postcards. This is the only hanging story i ever heard growing up [inlink]robin,60[/inlink]
Ok, So I just spent an hour or two searching for this show art show from atlanta that introduced me to the south's drawn out bloody history but I can't find jack shit. It's making me wonder if I'm crazy but no I've decided everyone else is. And so.......
My thoughts about this Weimar, Holocaust stuff at the moment are centering around this woman, "The Witch of Buchenwald" as she compares to this woman, "The White Witch of Rose Hall". Now this has got me thinking about the different representations of human torture and malice. If anyone reads this and has time to look at the links about these two woman maybe you could hit me up with some comments and tell me how you think they compare. If it were up to Suzi, the Derrida loving teacher, the White Witch wouldn't even exist because she isn't authenticated.

Robin: There is a definite distrust of the Federal Government today in
the US. But you need to remember that there was also a distrust of the
founding fathers during and after the revolution. When you really
think
about it, it is not a distrust of the government, but distrust between
the different social classes that comprise any society. In short, this
distrust is a problem that first started when man came down out of the
trees and will continue until man no longer inhabits this earth.
Culture dictates how man acts, not politics.

-my dad

and so...


founded on distrust?

this is something adam sent out. It's a good idea for a non traditional costume

I so want to be leigh brasington,
he even has audio recordings.

GOOGLE-IT!

. . . . .


RECIPE FOR A GOOGLE™ PARTY
Adam Overton, April 2005
originally presented on ZBZZ.com by Aaron Spafford

A Google™ Party is a costume party where the attendees dress up like people that they've located while "Googling™" their own name.

. . .

Go to google.com (or any other reliable online search engine) and search for instances of your full name, using quotation marks to keep the correct order: "John Doe". You're looking for webpages that mention or talk about a different person who has the same (or a similar) name as you.

If searching for the full name doesn't work, try using variations like "Jon Doe", "Johnny Doe", "Jonathan Doe"

If you still can't find a match, don't complain or give up - start getting creative:

Try reversing the names: "Doe John"
Include or substitute your middle name: "John Kenny Doe", "Kenny Doe", "John Kenny"
Try other genders: "Jane Doe"
Try out nicknames you had or wished you'd had: "Cooter Doe"
Add, subtract, scramble or reverse letters: "Jhon Doh", "Don Joe"
Try single names: "John" or "Doe"
Try using initials: "J. Doe", "J.D."
Etc.

There is no excuse for coming up empty handed.

. . .

After searching for a bit, choose the alter-ego that seems most interesting and try to figure out how this person might dress. Always check first to see if you can find any pictures of the person -- perhaps you can emulate some facial or bodily features. If no pictures are to be found, then use the content on the site to figure out what type of person you're dealing with -- businessman, athlete, porn star, frat boy, cheerleader, church elder, etc. Especially keep your eyes peeled for clues that might indicate a time period or location, especially if your source is a news article, historical document or obituary.

Finally, dress to impress at your next Google™ Party and live it up as your alter-ego.

. . .

VARIATION 1
Instead of the party, go about some or all of your day as your googled alter-ego.

VARIATION 2
Instead of the party, do a performance as your googled alter-ego.