I’ll be in Hawaii next week! The plan is to do as much hiking and swimming as possible.
Hoping to make a few KmikeyM announcements (romance project, auction, and VTac) in the coming weeks. Have been working on various projects and they are creeping ever closer to completion. Will surely update via the Mailing List, so make sure you’re signed up there.
In the meantime you can follow along with my adventures in paradise on Instagram.
Appendix Project Space is showing I’m not going anywhere until I die, a new body of sculptural work by David Knowles. Jamie interviewed David about the show via chat. The show opens April 28th at Appendix.
Jamie Edwards: Ok, first of all, I love the title of your show.
David Knowles: Aw thanks.
JE: Is it obtuse if I ask where it comes from?
DK: Not at all, it’s totally relevant. It came from a conversation I had with Amy Bernstein, who is the writer in residence at Appendix right now. It relates to one of the pieces in the show– a performance with four people who are engaged in an effort to determine the circumstances of their co-presence. A looping play. Anyway, I was telling Amy that it’s those kinds of questions that are always playing on loop in my head.
JE: Which questions?
DK: Questions about the circumstances and conditions of our presence among each other– Why are we here? What am I saying? Etc.
JE: Gotcha.
DK: I was telling her that it’s this kind of human constant, and no matter where you go or what you do these questions persist. So even if you move somewhere else, or try to become a different person, you’re not actually going anywhere.
JE: “Wherever you go, there you are.”
DK: Right! And then of course death is the absurd end of that logic. But it’s not a depressing condition or anything.
JE: Not at all.
DK: Anyway, that’s the title.
JE: Do you think you are equally interested in the “death is the absurd end” part? Or I guess a more direct (and again obtuse) way to ask that is– do you think this show is directly dealing with death?
DK: No I don’t think so, at least not in a personal sense. I am concerned with the limits of what a person is and one of those limits–the biological one–is death. But there are also other “ends” of people.
JE: And in terms of our “co-mingling” we have at least that in common. But I hope that’s not where the overlap stops! haha
DK: This is true. Actually that’s interesting that you say that about us having that in common. One of the other pieces in the show deals with this idea of commonality. It’s a poster. There are 500 copies of it, and it sits on this pedestal.
JE: Who do I have to know to get one? :)
DK: Well that’s the thing. It’s a big stack, but there’s a really thick piece of plexi on top of the stack so you can’t actually take them. But the phrase on the poster is another thought that is always floating around in my head. It says: we are all now. Like in the old rallying cry of nationalistic solidarity, but with the object replaced by a lapse. Or a pause. It means that the only thing we ever are together is nothing. Because a totalizing togetherness is impossible. At the same time, the phrase has a temporal focus. We are all now. Here. In time. At this instant. All of us.
[long silent pause]
JE: Sorry, I’m still here– I’m having to take a moment to accept that a totalizing togetherness is impossible. A sort of, “Fuck. David is probably right.” haha
DK: HA! I mean, this idea is the foundation of our entire political order, or rather I think this is the self-identified foundation. Because people who really know power know that not everyone belongs.
JE: Geez. True enough.
DK: Anyway, the actors have done a really great job with the performance, and there’s a third piece that’s a sound installation…a dub plate playing on a loop.
JE: How did you find your actors? What sort of prep did they have to do for this?
DK: I found them through friends– mostly through my friend, Noah, who is an actor in town. They had three weeks or so to prepare, though I actually had to find a replacement for one of the actors so one of them has only been at it for a few days. She’s a pro though.
JE: Will the performance piece be one night only?
DK: Yeah. The whole show is only one night. I think it starts at 7, and goes until late.
JE: So basically, if people REALLY want to try and determine the circumstances of their co-presence with you, it’s this Saturday or not at all.
DK: Ha! What do you mean? We’re co-present right now, aren’t we?
JE: I just mean… people should show up! But you’re right. We are.
DK: Yeah…it’s gonna be fun.
Boy meets girl, boy is less productive. It’s a tale as old as time.
Under normal circumstances, no one is going to complain when someone is buying flowers or going out to dinner and a movie. But as a publicly traded person with a responsibility of productivity to the shareholders, we live under special circumstances.
It’s been about 10 months since our romantic break-up with Shareholder No. 7 and it seems prudent to set up the conditions under which we might enter future romantic relationships. It is spring after all, and as Tennyson says, “In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”
A relationship is likely to affect both the productivity and the output of KmikeyM. The quantity and quality of movies, articles, music, and other media we consume will be affected, as will the nature of our personal time. Given the invisible power in a romantic relationship, the shareholders should have some control over the selection or approval of any possible romantic partner(s).
There are many ways this could work, but this proposal is only asking if the shareholders want the responsibility of who we should date. A Yes vote will result in further shareholder communication about how they will influence, control, or advise us on potential romances. A No vote will result in no shareholder control of our romantic life.
Zigzag might not make you think of the unincorporated community in Clackamas County, but it is the third search result (for me*) after the “premium quality roll-your-own cigarette products” and the Wikipedia page for “a pattern made up of small corners at variable angles”. For no reason at all I joined five other fine gentlemen for a weekend in Zigzag.
We spent the weekend soaking in a hot tub, making raw ranch from a Hot Knives recipe, chopping wood, and drinking whiskey (there was a short break to go on a hike, and some of the boys went snowboarding).
The cabin was an authentic Steiner log cabin, which was built in the 1930′s by Henry Steiner, a German-born wood craftsman who built about 30 rustic cabin on the 140-acre property of Suzette Franzetti. But let’s be honest, the best part of going to a cabin was buying some new clothes from Brooks Brothers, including a flannel that is quickly becoming my favorite shirt.
Want to know more about renting great cabins in Oregon? I know you do.
*Now that Google knows everything about you and me and incorporates that into our searches it means we don’t get the same results.
Beacon Rock is a 850 foot rock sitting on the Washington side of the Columbia River. In 1805 Lewis & Clark named it Beaten Rock, then Beacon Rock and later Castle Rock. In 1915 Henry Biddle purchased the rock for a dollar from Charles Ladd, who purchased the rock from men who intended to blow it up and use the rock to build the Columbia River jetty. Biddle pushed for the name to be changed back to Beacon Rock in 1916 and funded the construction of the 3/4 mile path to the top which was completed in 1918. Biddle’s family tried to make it a state park and Washington initially refused the gift, but later accepted after Oregon offered to accept.
The trail to the top is 4,500 feet long and about four feet wide. There are 52 switchbacks and it’s made of 100 concrete slabs and 22 wooden bridges (most of which have been replaced with steel). On some of the switchbacks the original iron work is still in place. When we made it to the top we had a beer.
Beacon Rock is not a long hike, so on the recommendation of a friend we went out to Wind Mountain.
“The function of this place remains a mystery, at least a portion was probably used for spirit questing and for training of young persons.”
The first sign we saw near the trail heading up Wind Mountain alerted us that it was impassable in many places. You can’t really have a trail that has multiple impassable points, I noted, as you’d have to pass the first impassable point to find the others. Based on that logic, we continued on.
It’s about a two mile trail with an elevation gain of about 1000 feet. On the forums of PortlandHikers.org a user by the name of windmtnpete said:
“Wind Mountain trail has been completely destroyed by the series of storms that have hit the northwest over the last couple weeks. As of this writing, there are no alternative routes to hike up the mountain.”
Windmtnpete wasn’t kidding. It was as much a climb as a hike as we navigated over, under, and around the massive trees blown down all over the trail. We traveled about one mile an hour.
The top of the mountain has “archaeological components” which are rounded walls built with the large but loose rock found on the top of the mountain. We split the last two beers I’d put in my backpack and enjoyed the spectacular view before fighting our way back down.
