Author: Chris Barrus

Saturday night Mars

mars2003Saturday night I headed up to Mt. Pinos and met up with folks from the LA Astronomical Society to catch some views of Mars while it was still rather close. Best view of Mars I’ve ever had, period. Admittedly, not too surprising since there were a couple of 24″ reflectors/artillery pieces there.

Tried to sketch the view and this is more or less how it looked. Both polar caps were visible along with quite a bit of surface detail. I *thought* I saw some detail in the south polar cap, but that was straining the limits of my poor vision.

The most amusing part of the night? The displaced ravers who were interloping in trying to find their rave somewhere out in the Los Padres. You could hear the rave – just couldn’t find it.

It might be 4 Nicole, but this one is really for all of us

Just pointing out the last couple of reviews on Dave Q’s blog which are sheer genius. The ZZ Top reviews are the best music writing I’ve read in a couple of eons.

ZZ Top – Tejas – ****1/2
MOODS: Ominous, nocturnal, cynical, druggy, conspiratorial
SIMILAR/RELATED – Jim Thompson, Tobe Hooper, Malcolm Lowry, Paul Bowles
Making their evolution into a new-wave band appear in retrospect the logical next step by foregrounding the country rhythms. The Top turn off the Interstate for a tense night drive through the hinterlands, where lonely oil rigs loom over the landscape like all-seeing pteranodons and it isnÂ’t safe to pull over until you reach the Darien gap. “Arrested for Driving While Blind” is the last exit to civilisation – after that, the law is the least of your problems. To quote ‘The Sheltering SkyÂ’, “nothing is ever lost in the desert”, and that applies to ‘lost weekends’ too. Abandon hope. Fill ‘er up.

Saturday art – Sixspace and LACMA

Couple of cool art happenings going around town right now. Went to both today and they’re worth checking out…

Kenn Sakurai and Dave O’Regan at Sixspace downtown. Both these guys gobble up pop culture icons/ephemera and reconstitute as culture-jam postcards and prints for the Adbusters set. Most of it is kinda spotty, but there are a few dead on ones.

esm-h-e65b

After Sixspace, I headed over to LACMA to catch the Modigliani/Montparnasse show. Mmmm… Boho Paris proto-surrealists!

modigliani-youngwoman

Rather nice show, because it’s all there. Everything. Paintings, sketches, sculpture, etc.

How to have the Burning Man experience from the comfort of your own home:

Combining this post on Slashdot and this page into one…

How to have the Burning Man experience from the comfort of your own home:

  • Pay an escort of your affectional preference subset to not bathe for five days, cover themselves in glitter, dust, and sunscreen, wear a skanky neon wig, dance close naked, then say they have a lover back home at the end of the night.
  • Tear down your house. Put it in a truck. Drive 10 hours in any direction. Put the house back together. Invite everyone you meet to come over and party. When everyone leaves, follow them back to their homes, drink all their booze, and break things.
  • Buy a new set of expensive camping gear. Break it.
  • Stack all your fans in one corner of your living room. Put on your most fabulous outfit. Turn the fans on full blast. Dump a vacuum cleaner bag in front of them.
  • Pitch your tent next to the wall of speakers in a crowded, noisy club. Go to sleep. Wake up 2 hours later in a 110+ degree tent.
  • Only use the toilet in a house that is at least 3 blocks away. Drain all the water from the toilet. Only flush it every 4 days. Hide all the toilet paper.
  • Visit a restaurant and pay them to let you alternate lying in the walk-in freezer and sitting in the oven.
  • Don’t sleep for 5 days. Take a wide variety of hallucinogenic/emotion altering drugs. Pick a fight with your boyfriend/girlfriend.
  • Cut, burn, electrocute, bruise, and sunburn various parts of your body. Forget how you did it. Don’t go to a doctor.
  • Buy a new pair of favorite shoes. Throw one shoe away.
  • Spend a whole year rummaging through thrift stores for the perfect, most outrageous costume. Forget to pack it.
  • Listen to music you hate for 168 hours straight, or until you think you are going to scream. Scream. Realize you’ll love the music for the rest of your life.
  • Get so drunk you can’t recognize your own house. Walk slowly around the block for 5 hours.
  • Sprinkle dirty sand in all your food.
  • Mail $200 to the Reno casino of your choice.
  • Go to a museum. Find one of Salvador Dali’s more disturbing but beautiful paintings. Climb inside it.
  • Spend thousands of dollars on a deeply personal art work. Hide it in a funhouse on the edge of the city. Blow it up.
  • Set up a DJ system downwind of a three alarm fire. Play a short loop of drum’n’bass until the embers are cold.
  • Reread Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany. Reread The City Not Long After by Pat Murphy. Cut off the bindings, throw all the pages up in the air, and shuffle them back together. Reread The City After Dhalgren by Samuel Murphy. Burn it. Reread the ashes.
  • Throw a sprawling, drunken, week long party. Spend the next five weeks meticulously cleaning every square inch of your house.
  • Bust your ass for a “community.” See all the attention get focused on the drama queen crybaby.
  • Have a 3 a.m. soul baring conversation with a drag nun in platforms, a crocodile, and Bugs Bunny. Be unable to tell if you’re hallucinating.