Winter Doldrums

A week of icy eventage. A combination of mild warmth and ice rain makes every surface here glazed in a swath of silvery white, resembling either marshmallow fluff or a Cocteau Twins album cover. It's beautiful when you're not falling on it.

On Sunday I went to the Swiss Institute where Chris Kraus read with Jeremy Sigler in celebration of her new book "Where Art Belongs." She read the last piece which had some startling connections to D - in the piece she weaves a fantasy narrative around a boy jerking off in a photograph. His name is Derek, she decides, and she's reading the same William Gibson novel that D read last summer - while we were in similarly sunnied climes. Just one of those momentary things. There were lots of people there and I FINALLY got a chance to talk to Chris face to face, afterwards. We've been emailing one another for years now. She was shocked that I had the original edition of I Love Dick, the one with her hilarious glamor shot on the back cover. We got a brief coffee and kibitzed about hating London and changes in the LA art scene.

A coffee followed the next day with curator Joseph Whitt (whom I adore) and we decided to collaborate with me writing a chapbook for his new micropress, T.M.I. Love it. Later that night, I went over to the Half King to listen to poetry and lust over issues of Bomb, now that we've let our subscription lapse. Justin Taylor, Dorothea Lasky, Ben Mirov and Luke Degnan read, and I was particularly taken with Lasky's work. She looked out to the crowd, for some reason isolating me when she asked "I hope you like Sylvia Plath." I do, but didn't respond to such a generally issued question. She took this as a no and delivered some stand-up comic retort. Then we scuttled over to the Annie O Music series at the Cooper Square hotel for an evening hosted by the gallery that I am curating Dirty Looks for, Participant Inc. Death Vessel played - a decidedly more country outfit than the name might suggest. Eileen Myles, Matthew Higgs, Gary Indiana were there and I chatted up Conrad Ventur about - what else - Warhol cinema and had a brief chat with Photi Giovanis, who runs Callicoon gallery in Callicoon New York. Participant director Lia Gangitano looked great - not wearing her fur vest and leather jacket uniform, but a strappy dress. The view up in the main sweet of the Cooper was really amazing.

It's ice raining here, so I didn't leave the house on Tuesday. I was meant to have plans but they fell through and I got a take-out burrito and watched Joan Crawford and Clark Gable roam the jungles in Strange Cargo which was kind of not that great. The next night I got sushi with a friend and set up shop at the Boiler Room, running into friends and strangers.

Last night I headed over to NP Contemporary Art Center to meet up with a crew of curators - Joseph and Herbert Mendoza - to check out Thomas Dozol's show. See, he's Michael Stipe's boyfriend and there was Michael, in attendance, and wearing some rather scraggly facial hair. John Giorno was also present WITH KIM CATRALL. Sadly, like that time I ate a burrito for an entire meal sitting next to Paul Rudd at El Conquistador in LA and never noticed, I totally missed Kim. But thems the ropes. We hung around long enough to find out from gallery director Wesley Stokes that my new thrift store shoes are made by Pharrell. Though here in the photo, D models them. Then we headed over to P.P.O.W. to see their new space in the Yancey Richardson/Electronic Arts Intermix building. We were promptly given the tour by director Jamie Sterns who was SO in her element, whisking us about abruptly with an energy level that was never short of amazing.

Jamie and Joseph

Grabbing a slice at the new Artichoke pizza, we cabbed it over to Julius for a new party Stache Bash where we were given surrogate staches which I modeled for the remainder of the evening. We parted ways with Herbert, since we were on a mission - see, Joseph had never been to Nowhere or Phoenix, New York gay bars that I suppose are "alternative" (whatever that means) but have always been a part of my NY landscape even on visits. So we probably drank too much and courted a visitation from a drunken mary at every bar, to the tune that I joked with Joseph this morning that our night was something like A Christmas Carrol. Jewelry designer Blue Bayer was by far the most endearing - or maybe I was just so far gone at that point. I can recall his calm loving demeanor this morning, so I guess that says something.

D, Herbert and Joseph