Top 5 TV Shows I'm Definitely Not Looking Forward To

1. The X Factor- I am so sick of singing shows and celebrity judges and all of that nonsense. And I actually think last year this was the show that broke the camel's back. No amount of teen queen is going to win me over to this, or the one with the chairs, or the one that used to have J Lo. Please someone start the new trend, because this one is tired.
2. The New Normal- People keep talking about this one, because it is the next brain child of Ryan Murphy, but I am not sure there could be a bigger turnoff for me. Because I am pretty sure Murphy's creative MO is starting with a cool conceit loaded with some sort of potential, and then making it increasingly bizarre/stupid/sincere and ugly at the same time. I really did like Glee in like the second half of the first season. That Madonna Episode is damn good. But at some point, some big chunk of somebodies at Glee ran out of good ideas and humor. Also, is a coming out story really the only way to give a high schooler pathos? And I am happy there are some good gay story lines out there, but if you are still making your curvy girl sing songs about eating tater tots, I am pretty sure we aren't talking about acceptance. It's bizarre, because it wants to be making fun of High School Musical style moral patronizing, but it just espouses a different set of rules. That isn't satire, that isn't clever, and I don't see his new show as being any different. I think that actually American Horror Story is the perfect creative vehicle for Murphy, because he can just switch set ups as he goes.
3. Revolution- I am sorry, but I have not forgiven any of the guys from Lost yet. They are freaking assholes that wasted way too much of my life. I am not watching another show, because now I know they never know what the hell they are doing. Plus their "tough girls" are always kind of wusses who need men's help. Plus, I hate them. I will never watch this show.
4. SNL- I have already written at length about how much I hate SNL now. Especially Seth Myer's SNL. I'll pass, thanks.
5.  Whitney- You know those girls who say they hate all other girls because they are actually the only cool girl and all other girls are stupid? Worst group ever. And this show is not funny.

Read more

3 Things I Love Today- Succulent Jelly Fish, 911 Day Organization, and Petey!!!

1. The wedding gift we got today- What will my life be like when we stop getting super cool wedding gifts!? These are not just jellyfish, they are jellyfish made of succulents- these are apparently very difficult to kill so double win! So beautiful!
2. The 911 Day Organization- A smart and positive way to hopefully channel people's memorial attitudes. I've noticed this year it is more a part of a conservative political rhetoric, as if somehow conservatives want ownership of the tragedy, and I feel this organization is a much more productive way to try to make this world a better place. At the very least, it is better than the patriotic Steelers logo that was floating around facebook today.

According to them:
"/11 Day is the international non-profit movement to observe September 11 every year as a day of charitable service and doing good deeds. We created this observance soon after 9/11 to provide a positive way to forever remember and pay tribute to the 9/11 victims, honor those that rose in service in response to the attacks, and remind people of the importance of working more closely together in peace to improve our world. Today millions participate annually by taking time out on 9/11 to help others in need, in their own way."
 

3. This child- Today is his 5th birthday, and he is the most hilarious, loving, sweetie of a child in child history. I cannot believe he is 5!

Read more

Wedding Wednesday- Vendor Love- Jeremy Ganss

 

Ok, now it is time to sing the praises of another one of the vendors that helped for our wedding. This one matters a lot, I think, because it's not like we will have the chance to hire Jeremy too many times in our life (I mean, I am not sure if he dj's 2 person dance parties), so the best way we can show him support is to highly recommend him, which we definitely do. He is based out of Clarion, and works a lot of Pittsburgh weddings, but if you are planning a wedding in Western PA, you can't do better. He was our big splurge for the wedding, and it was totally worth it. 

 

Jeremy keeps up a blog of his own that you can find here-  http://jeremyganss.blogspot.com/ To be honest, this blog was what won me over in the first place. I never saw a dj who was that serious and enthusiastic about his weddings that he kept track of song choices and took pictures himself. He clearly cares. Then, when I called him to chat (actually the first time we talked I was just getting his opinion on Wanango, but we talked for practically an hour), he was generous, funny, and a well of information. He knew about all the sites, all my regular wedding complaints, and how to best strategize his weddings. He was genuinely a pleasure to deal with every step of the way.

 

These are all pictures from his blog- for real, check it out! Jeremy knows his stuff, but he has a very humble, open, and generous Western PA personality. He is not hungry for the spotlight. I have been to those weddings too.  The whole night the dance floor was full, and everyone told us that they had a good time. We didn't have to worry about the schedule, because Jeremy was on top of all of it.

 

I could go on about Jeremy a long time, but The Boy wrote Jeremy a note that I think sums up his awesomeness pretty well:

 Jeremy,

Where to begin? You were absolutely phenomenal in every way, from the moment Barbara contacted you out of the blue to ask, not about DJ’ing, but for your opinions on Wenango (having seen your online review for it, not knowing you were a local DJ), it was immediately clear that you were passionate about your job and fully committed to delivering well executed, extraordinarily fun weddings. You always went above and beyond reasonable expectations to offer exceptional service, and it really showed.


You were always proactive, patient, and flexible to our schedule, not an easy thing to do when Barbara and I both were thousands of miles away for all but a handful of whirlwind visits back to Pennsylvania through the year+ of planning. You actively sought our opinions and took the time to meet us to get to know us, our tastes, and our goals for the wedding. You did more than pick a bunch of songs (though you did do that too, and your website made that easy to do in our own time!); you helped us to create the overall schedule of the night.


Once the reception began, you kept us on task and on schedule without ever being pushy or controlling or trying to take center stage; you gently guided us and our guests from dinner, to toasts, to cake, etc. without any jarring transitions. Once the dancing began, the floor was never empty—not even close—for more than four hours!  You transformed our eclectic requests (modern pop, Motown, obscure big band music, etc.) into the non-stop dance party we asked for.


You kept everyone, from the youngest cousins to our grandparents, excited, pumped, and moving the whole time. Unlike most of the DJ’s I’ve seen at weddings, you take your craft very seriously: your equipment is modern and your library and tastes are trend-leading rather than trend-following (Norah Jones: out; acoustic covers of the Bieb: yes, please). Most importantly, you actually know how to DJ: you did more than put together a giant playlist, press the ‘play’ button, and then walk away to eat cookies, take MySpace pictures of themselves, or fiddle on their phones for the majority of the night (yes, we’ve seen these before).

The level of service Jeremy provided was unparalleled, and he was key in making our night the most fun I’ve ever had at a wedding. Thank you for making our wedding kick ass!

Read more

Never Gets Old

Read more

The Center for Sex and Culture's "Doing Your Dirty Work" Show

 

In August, the Center for Sex and Culture Gallery in San Francisco opened their first juried show "Doing your Dirty Work: a Sampler of Contemporary Art about Sex." My good friend, who happens to also be a spectacular artist, Dorian Katz and her partner Marlene Hoebler have done a lot of work both in the archive and curating the exhibition space in CSC's relatively new building. They used this exhibition to highlight  the shared mission of the CSC Gallery as a whole - to create a space for work that addresses sexuality and sexual identity but is "every bit as varied, complex, compelling, beautiful, ugly, and sophisticated as art ever is."

The space in the gallery is pretty limited; the CSC is highly multi-functional (they have shows, classes, readings, and all other sorts of amazingness), so all of the work has to safely fit on one wall. The curators  used this constraint to their advantage by tightly arranging the photographs, paintings, and film stills. The intimate grouping of these thirty works invites comparisons to old salon spaces and allows for formal and conceptual combinations. It reminded me of walls in my Grandma's house, just packed with a lifetime's worth of memories and art and photographs, except that the material was all sex stuff. This kind of humor wouldn't be lost on the curators; the cover piece of the show was a small needlepoint in a heart shape frame. It said, ever so sweetly, "Teabagging for Jesus."

The show not only succeeds in demonstrating the variety and seriousness possible in work about sex, it also adeptly highlights a correlation between the formal aspects of the work and their subject matter and a collective respect toward their subjects. It's this respect (and often genuine kindness) that I found most striking in both of my visits to the exhibition- where mainstream work often treats the power dynamic between artist and subject as a foregone conclusion, but many of these photographs, paintings, and sketches treat their subjects with much more mindful care.

 

Brittany Neimuth Visceral

George Dinhaupt- c-print, 30 x 40

The curators juxtaposed George Dinhaupt’s tender photograph of a robust kneeling man cleaning off his partner with Brittany Neimuth’s more forceful molding of her own flesh in “Visceral.” Dinhaupt defines his work as reexamining masculinity within a broader cultural dynamic, but he does so in this case with a mix of sexualized and desexualized signifiers (the mans straps and his simple grey socks) in an intimate space.In Neimuth’s closely-cropped photograph, she uses her hands to push her body into ambiguous abstractions, which confronts the viewer with their own fear of excess and the body. These two beautiful gestures trouble traditional definitions of certain sexual bodies and desires by recognizing the aesthetic potential in their subjects.  

 

Sydney Hardin- L'Origin du Inflatable Love Doll- latex enamel on  canvas

 Sydney Hardin’s “L’Origin du Inflatable Love Doll” also manipulates traditional notions of desire, specifically women’s roles as vessels for cultural fantasies. The plastic, acrylic surface of the paint and sharp, abstracted edges further stress Hardin’s use of the synthetic stepping in for the organic, showing the artificiality of the fantasy female. This painting is so striking because it is simultaneously sexy in its positioning and very artificial. It acknowledges the viewers' desires, and then reveals the artificiality of this desire.

 

Emmett Ramstad's collection of Pubic Hair archives treats a sexualized, yet debated topic with pseudo-scientific logic and seriousness. Karen Thomas's Madonna and Child (as Blue Poodle)stands at the very end of the exhibition wall. This fabulous and somewhat campy sketch has tremendous presence and humor. These bookends to the exhibition show the tremendous range available in this work. Ramstad's work especially is delivered with a slight wink, but it has deep art historical roots, back to the work of Hannah Wilke or even back to Dada products.

If you had never gone to a show of this nature, you might be surprised by the variety of issues this work addresses: body image, sex toys, humor, technology (or at least vibrators), race, gender roles, the archive, power, art history, religion, women’s cultural positioning, pleasure, and violence are just a few running tropes through the exhibition. This show is already closed, because the CSC gallery opens their new show usually the second Friday of each month, but this means that, if you are in the San Francisco area, there is always something smart and fresh going up in this gallery. This month, "Tough Love: A Half-Century of Masculine Homoerotic Imagery from the San Francisco Bay Area," is opening at the gallery. Go check it out!

Read more

3 Things I Love Today- Frankenstein Cakes, Disposable Cameras, and Matt Paxton

from www.randomtuesdays.com/frankensteins-monster-cake/‎

1. This cake- I will figure out how to make this cake if we go home for Halloween. I love it!!! Bonus points to them for the bolts on the side. That is thorough.

 2. Our disposable camera pictures- Ok, I am willing to estimate about 50% of the pictures look like grey blobs. Thank goodness for digital cameras, because they really helped us all. Still, the ones that are left are just hilarious and it really made us feel like people had fun at our wedding! Thank goodness! Plus, its like every few days since the wedding, we have had another influx of pictures. It will be so sad when it is over!
 3. Matt Paxton, Extreme Cleaning Specialist- That guy takes no nonsense. He is always with the blonde lady with the scary eyes, but he is pretty damn awesome at his job.

Read more

Picture of the Week- Back to Normal Life

Read more