“Every place she goes she is picking up the abandoned remnants of other people’s lives.
‘We are dust’ is Monica Canilao’s first New York solo exhibition featuring found antique portraits,
enshrined in the collections she has amassed through time. Everything built is made up of things
abandoned, in a phase of decay. In the manipulation of these orphaned portraits,
gender and identity is blurred, redefined and made fluid. Monica’s compositions
seamlessly meld the old and new: stained paper, withered fabric, and bones
combine with her hands to take part in breathing new life.“ – from Fecal Face

(This photo and the one below both from Fecal Face)
Achtung all me New Yorkian lovelies! There’s only a few more days to catch Monica Canilao’s
gorgeous solo show We Are Dust, at Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn. I am so filled with distaste
for the typical sterile white box gallery, and seeing what Monica has done with the free reign
to transform a space so completely is really inspiring. I love the warmth and intimacy, and the
sense of wandering around inside the artist’s brain. The entire gallery is an installation, rather
than a soulless room created to house individual pieces. I hope to see more shows like this in
the future, and more galleries that are willing to step out of the glorified white cubicles we’ve
become so accustomed to. I feel that art is most effective and affecting when the environment
it’s presented in is created to compliment it, harmonize with it, or as a cohesive part of the whole
experience. I so wish I could be there to see this show, so if you are able, please do go in my stead!

The show is only up until May 30th, so go see it now now now!

This is Monica! (Photo by Faythe Levine)
Also, check out photos of Monica’s Oakland studio –
THROW MORE FACES ON THE FIRE from one of my favorite photographers, Tod Seelie
✸ La Veuve – Paris Gawks Again at the Guillotine
“The artful mayhem — images of severed heads, amputated body parts,
pale blue corpses and damsels with blood on their hands and daggers —
is drawing up to 4,000 people a day, nearly double the usual traffic for special exhibitions. ”
✸ What Every Girl Should Know – About Birth Control
Hop to it, y’all.
✸ Go Ask Ogre, by Jolene Siana (via Lesley Arfin)
I need this book! Jolene Siana wrote letters to Nivek Ogre of Skinny Puppy for nine years, and he read and kept
every single one (doesn’t that just make your inner 14 year old goth girl just MELT?) and one day he mailed them
all back to her in a big box! Holy cats! So she published them all, and I can’t wait to read it and re-live all my own
angsty, black-hearted teenage moments. Did you ever write fan letters to anyone and actually send them?
Did you get a response? I wrote to Francesca Lia Block when I was 17 and lonesome and pregnant in Los Angeles,
and she wrote me back! She’s a life-saver, that lady. I don’t think I ever wrote to anyone else, unless I just scrawled
a little note of thanks and handed it to them. Actually, come to think of it, I handed Francesca my letter at a reading.
I almost feel like people hardly even have mailing addresses anymore. It’s a pity, because tangible letters are so
magical. What will the biographers of the future do? Archive our emails? Lordy, how ridiculous. What a silly world.

Okay, so I know Paris is Burning is sacred, and totally perfect on its own (I hear you, Tara-baby!)
but I am really loving this Crystal Castles appropriation of PiB’s singular magic. This film changed
my life, literally. My dad raised me, and these queens taught me how to be the kind of woman I
wanted to become. I’m completely serious. This is why I often look like a drag queen. Toning it
down to the level I’m at now has taken me YEARS! I still view feminine trappings as drag (and they are!)
✸ Austin Fights! My friend Miguel Angel (uLOVEi) has a new blog of his candid photos
taken during random downtown throwdowns . It’s totally hilarious Weegee-esque shots of
drunken mayhem and bloodthirsty zombie hipsters rolling in the road! It’s the funniest part
of going downtown, viewable from the safety and comfort of your own home. Miguel dodges
the PBR cans and swinging fists so you don’t have to! I can’t help it – I’m always amused by
a street brawl, unless it’s a bashing or super uneven battle. Here’s hoping he gets a catfight soon!
✸ I’m adoring Sighs and Whispers very, very much lately –
how could I not, when she shows me things like Twiggy on the Mermaid Trail
and Daria: Glitter Girl? Utter swoon.
✸ Thirteen words not found in the English language: from Rima at the Hermitage
Some of my favorites:
1. Waldeinsamkeit (German): the feeling of being alone in the woods
5. Esprit de l’escalier (French): a witty remark that occurs to you too late,
literally on the way down the stairs…
6. Meraki (Greek): doing something with soul, creativity, or love
10. Pochemuchka (Russian): a person who asks a lot of questions
11. Tingo (Pascuense language of Easter Island): to borrow objects
one by one from a neighbour’s house until there is nothing left
✸ Strangely Familiar:
Acrobats, Athletes, and Other Traveling Troupes photographs by Michal Chelbin
“Michal Chelbin chooses subjects straight out of our myths and fairytales:
acrobats, ballet dancers, dwarves and athletes. But the people who appear
in this beautiful photobook are far from the enchanted, sequin-spangled stars
of our imagination – these are hard-working performers from small towns,
little-known troupes, and marginalized communities. They’re vulnerable –
we glimpse smears of blood, sweat, bandages, bare feet and scratched chests.
The look in the eyes of even the tiniest (so small she can stand in the palm of a hand)
is world-weary, knowing, and oddly wise.”
– from Lensculture – Photography and Shared Territories
✸ Chinese Boy Has 31 Fingers And Toes
I find his digits very beautiful, and I’m quite jealous. I’ve always wished I had a few extra.
✸ Jonathan Harris photographs Eyjafjallajökull
“That suicide water.
That gurgling ash.
That crazy light.
That neon moss.”
✸ Miss Amy Earles was featured in the LA Weekly’s Art Blog!
Cute Freaky Nurses: Paper Dolls by Amy Earles Go girl!
✸ Mr. Clayton Cubitt raped my tender brainpan with this:
Jaron Albertin – My Dark Horse (and to think it was my reward
for being the only un-tattooed person in Austin. Time to get some ink!)
✸ Patti Smith is People Too! This is best thing ever.
Why can’t it still be the 70’s? This could never, ever happen nowadays.

✸ Stars above, y’all – the new Cocorosie is so mind-bogglingly fantastic!
I’ve been listening to it non-stop while I’ve composed this, and know already
that I’ll be listening to little else for the rest of these warm, insomniac nights.
I become completely nocturnal once the weather gets hot – fruitbats ahoy!
It would be perfect if I wasn’t supposed to be somewhere in the morning,
alas. Anyhow, go get Grey Oceans right his minute and stay up late with me.
✸ By the way, it’s been one month today that the BP Oil Disaster has been
spewing millions upon millions of gallons into the ocean. In case you
weren’t sure about what that means: WE ARE FUCKED. All of us –
not just the poor fisherman, not just the oily birds and the fishes,
not just the coast, but every single one of us. The repercussions
from this are going to ripple out and clobber us in ways we can
barely fathom right now, I feel it. I’m sorry to belabor a point,
but I can’t stop thinking about it, and my heart has been bearing
a deep sorrow every day since this happened. It’s been a rough
couple of weeks in general, really. I think I’d like to spend the
summer hiding in caves behind waterfalls. Care to join me?
Alright, darlings – that’s what I’ve got for you tonight. Anything divine I ought to be looking at, listening to,
reading, watching, drooling over or thinking about? Do tell, I need the cheering! Here’s hoping your weekend
is filled with long, aimless walks, sincere conversations, silvery pegasus-zebra hybrids and heaps of blue hydrangeas!