Sunday, May 25, 2008
BACK ON THE OREGON TRAIL


So after a great visit to NY I am back in the woods of Oregon, gathering fire wood to keep warm as it is still 50 degrees and raining here in Portland.

That's the joke of oregon weather. It is pretty much always rainging and 50 degrees here.

Anyway, when I got back from NY, everything had grown like two feet. The grass, the weeds, and everything bloomed. So it looks really different all of a sudden. I have never really spent a whole year and gone through all the seasons here, not since I was like . . . in high school, so it is really interesting and fun.

I miss NY though. Here are some last pictures and thoughts.



MORE COOL ART


this is more cool art from the Norwegian Light guy, this at the PS1 Museum. (that is a huge mirror on the ceiling, slowly rotating.) Look at all the cool people standing around. I miss PS1 probably more than anything in NY. Never crowded. Always great stuff. And coffees on the steps, out in the wasteland of Long Island City. Ahhhh, that is the life.



NY Neighborhoods


Here's the Queensboro Bridge in NY, the most unknown and underrated east side bridge in my opinion. It was all unwrapped and freshly painted and looking good on this gray day.

I really couldn't get enough of NYC while I was there. Heading back to the place I was staying in the evenings, I would stall until the last possible second, often sitting on the ground in Grand Central Station breathing in the business, the urgency, the excitement. Even METRO NORTH was fun, scrunched in my seat reading the scandalous NEW YORK POST.

I tried to hit every neighborhood, even taking a walk through Harlem when the opportunity presented itself. I lucked out on that day as it was May 19, Malcolm X's birthday. There was a big parade and a demonstration and the local organizers had managed to shut down a Starbucks, for among other things: "Kenny G. and all those others who stole our music." (That is a direct quote.)

It was really moving to see the crowd at the end of the march. Every imaginable kind of person. some people very serious. Other people just hanging out and having a good time.

I haven't been to Harlem very often. It is one of those places whose history and legendary place in our consciousness gives it a gravitas you can feel walking down the street.



Sally and Dawn harrassing people on the subway


Here's my friends Sally and Dawn threatening people on the subway.


Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Mom's Day in New Haven


This is my mom up in New Haven on mother's day. We went to one of those ancient pizza places in New Haven. Some people claim that's where real pizza was invented. I don't know but it was pretty good and a little weird. Like the tomatoes tasted like tomatoes, not like tomato sauce. Stuff that is always really original or really old is always a little weird.


Saturday, May 17, 2008
OLAFUR ELIASSON


Here in New York this week, doing business stuff (see below). And taking the chance to go see some Art. Went to the Whitney Bienniel. Didn't see anything that really stuck with me. Some good movies.

Then we went to the MOMA to see the big show everyone is excited about. Olafur Eliasson, who does lots of light based art (?). Anyway it was cool. This is one of his pieces. I just like the museums to people watch. I especially like the free nights (Fridays usualy) which are full of art students and other scruffy young people. They are my favorite. Being young is the best. Even if you're broke.



THAT 70S RADICAL FEMINIST THING


The WHACK! show at PS 1 might be my favorite thing I've seen art wise since I've been here. It's a show of 70s feminist oriented art. 80s feminism is what I saw growing up and I never really thought about it, but the 70s version was a lot different, you can see how much more of an uphill battle it was then. It feels more revolutionary. More like they are trying to win the most basic battles.

I'm no art critic so I will spare you more analysis but it was really interesting, and also had an interesting fashion component too as after I left and walked through Williamsburg, I saw that all the superhipster type girls had the same haircuts as the artist women in 1973. Funny, there's so much 80s retro-ness going on and yet it's the weird 70s haircuts that stop you in the street. I saw a perfect Dorothy Hamill on the subway and it kind of blew my mind.

I decided then and there to try to take pictures of cool people on the street but after a couple attempts i realized only Vice can do that. I should just keep writing childrens books.


Friday, May 16, 2008
First Day @ Scholastic


So I've been in New York this week, meeting with my new book editor David Levithan and his associates at Scholastic. (For those who don't keep track of such things my publisher has been Viking/Penguin, and now I am moving to Scholastic. It's kind of a big deal, all new people, all new ways of doing things, it's like going to a new school.) (And in case you really don't follow these things, Scholastic is the publisher of Harry Potter.)

Anyway, so the big event of the week for me was to come to the legendary SOHO offices of Scholastic, and meet the new people I would be working with.

Well, the meeting was a smashing success. I babbled about myself and my books and my career, my utter nervousness causing me to say several bizarre things that people thought were funny, so that was good. The Scholastic people were smart and interested and asked me good questions. They were fantastic! I am so thrilled to be there. And my first book with them is called DESTROY ALL CARS and it is absolutley KILLER, so i am very excited about my prospects.



THE HALLS OF SCHOLASTIC


So we went into Scholastic, which is totally sleek and cool, and we're walking along, and we notice we are walking on TEXT. At first I thought: "Oh my god, they have Harry Potter printed on the floor!" But no, it turns out this is the credo of scholastic written many years ago, and now stretching along the halls. David Levithan my new editor told me there was one grammatical error somewhere and there was some joking about how that's how they tested their copy editors, make them find the mistakes on the floor . . .



AFTER THE AFTER PARTY



So after my big meeting I killed a couple hours and then went to TEEN DRINKS NIGHT which I've talked about before here. This was such fun as I have not been to it in nearly a year.

After that I found Sally and Adam Dowis (pictured) and had dinner with a bunch of people. Then we stood around on the sidewalk for like two hours yakking away and watching people. This is me taking a picture of someone. A long fun day . . . .



Mii


I'm staying with my friend Sally in Larchmont and the usual cast of characters who also live there off and on. At Sally's we rearrange the constant flow of thriftstore and ebay acquisitions so that we can play Wii. This is me as a Wii person. That is pretty much what I look like.



Yalies go home, dumpster divers prosper


Also during this visit I took my mom to the Yale British Art museum in New Haven for Mothers Day. It was a show of drawings by James White who went to America in 1585 and drew pictures of everything so the Europeans could see "the new world". That must have been pretty exciting stuff at the time. Not like in our day where we have seen everything and know everything. We manage nature now. We don't explore it.

Anyway, so afterward we were walking around and we saw that the Yalies had just finished their school year and were all packing up and going home. That was an interesting thing to see. All the BMW SUVs full of plastic containers containing the years worth of nice Yale Student belongings. They had a lot of stuff. And of course it was a godsend to local dumpster divers.

I was with my mom of course, or I would have jumped right in there myself!