What is art? A video essay in two parts.

"Do *you* have any crystals?"

Whilst subbing today I got into a conversation with a rather heavy-set and socially awkward boy. The conversation began with the boy complimenting my ring. What kind of stone is it? he asks. I told him that it was sea glass, and he began to describe to me all of the crystals that he owns. He held his hand about shoulder height. "And one this big..."

I asked him if he just liked collecting them, knowing that this wasn't the case. He told me that crystals have a spiritual significance to him.

I asked him if he had ever heard of Devendra Banhart. He said he thought so. I told him about the crystal budget.

Not surprisingly, this boy is big into fantasy, 'dragons and all that.' He told me that he is currently in the process of writing ten books. He told me that his mother got him into all of it, that she is also a writer, but she likes fantasy that includes vampires. This apparently is too much for him. When asked about Twilight (which I have not seen the end of), he made a disgusted face, told me that he had seen it, and that his mother watches it "forty times a day."

Totally possible.

This boy tells me that he bakes bread, crochets, works on cars....he goes on and on about all of the things I could wish a person would do.

I should mention that he asked me what I do for a pastime, and I told him I like to make things.

This whole exchange was starting to have the awkward-first-date vibe, you know, the date I would totally go on with an unattractive socially awkward boy 7 years my junior. Then came the clincher.
He started telling me about all of the things he has learned from his mother, skills mostly. Then, he started mentioning the activities he does with his father, skills he learns from his father. It was starting to seem that he had great respect for the man. He started rattling off the hats that his father wears: "...yea, he's a plumber, a mechanic, an all around handyman, an adulterer..."

I beg your pardon?


In other news, I accidentally shot a roll of slide film. This isn't really a big deal, but it freaked out the CVS photolab attendant after the film was processed. Until this point, neither he nor I realized that the film wasn't standard C-41. Woops.

While I was waiting for this to happen, I sat in a chair near the doorway reading a book. I believe these chairs are for people waiting for their prescriptions. A man in his late fifties with a hard face, no eyebrows, and a winter (hobo?) hat came in, hit me on the knee and said (in a thick accent): "I hope you no read dirty books!"
I beg your pardon?
"I hope you no read dirty books, I say"

I screwed my face up into the best disgusted look I could muster. He started stammering about being "only kidding."

So I did what any self respecting person would do. I scolded him as though he were a middle school student who honestly didn't know any better.

...."That's really inappropriate. You don't even know me. You should not joke with strangers that way."

Kids always love to say that they are kidding when they get in trouble for something that they do. You can't be retroactively kidding. It doesn't work that way.

Also not possible: to be kidding about a physical action.


Don't you wish you had an extra $150 dollars lying around? I know I do.

Nina Katchadourian

Nina Katchadourian spoke at the College of St. Rose last night. Be sorry that you missed it.

Katchadourian is an interdisciplinary artist dealing mostly with conceptual and many times humorous subject matter. Her work involves collaborations with nature, exploitations of misunderstandings, organization and appreciation of the disarray that comes from perceived failures in her work. Katchadourian was articulate and personable, slightly resembling Rachel Griffiths, both in looks and mannerisms, and I overheard the terms "cute" and "adorable" more than several times from the people around me.

Some of my favorite pieces of hers included her Mended Spiderwebs, Renovated Mushroom, Artificial Insemination, Animal Crossdressing, and CARPARK, where she organized cars at a college campus by color.

If you live where I live, you may have seen some of her work recently at Mass MoCA (Falls Colors) or a few years ago at the Tang at Skidmore, such as Accent Elimination and Talking Popcorn.

In Talking Popcorn, Katchadourian translated Popcorn popping noises using Morse Code and a computer program. A carnival style popcorn machine with a microphone inside is hard to miss in a gallery. She even had bronzed a few kernels "Talking Popcorn's First Words". You may be saddened to know that Katchadourian received a phone call from a gallery curator, letter her know that Talking Popcorn had, in effect, committed suicide. Luckily (perhaps in a silver lining sense) for Katchadourian, the computer housed within the base of the popcorn machine was not badly damaged by the flame, and she was able to have Talking Popcorn's Last Words.