Salem Collo-Julin

Today, I will Stream of Consciousness post all day for my fiend Russell’s benefit & thought that others may like to see one side of our conversation in progress …

———-

JR, I can’t believe they allowed you to bring your computron with you. Is this some sort of spa experience that you were ashamed to be honest about? & what does it say about our friendship that you feel you would make more cool points with me by being at the Unlearning A Lifetime of Fun Program rather than by being at Canyon Hills Resting Spa Quarry for Lovely Ladies & Gentlemen? I mean, you are correct, but that is beside the point. Let’s make the most of it…S

———–

“This brief introductory letter may come to you as a big surprise, but I believe it is only a day that people meet and become great friends and business partners.” – spam

—

I mean really explicit. (you should also check out Beer Can Hill’s interview series to give you insight on your new tattoo community!)

——–

“She also mentions a British Vogue feature on ‘new ways’ to carry your handbag (in your mouth? Up your butt?).“

——————

Cherry [my pet tortoise] is very much like my daughter; I’m very close with her. I’ve had her eight years. She’s not the brightest, but she knows me and we cuddle.  – Ron Jeremy

———-

Don’t even tell me we’re not going to rock! just help me build a playlist for a SLUDGE NIGHT. (ps we get to see these lovely ladies next week here in chgo, you should be jealous, mmhmm):

THE PACK A.D. (chgo readers contact me directly if you would like to go with, show is next monday night july 27 at that weird place across from tuman’s)

xox!

also I just loaded a crapload of photos onto my flickr page. but really, go read the gosh darned newsletter first. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hollohulo/

tupac!

Holy crap, you wouldn’t believe the arduous journey it took to bring you this newsletter. Please do me a favor and at least go read it, even if you can’t afford to buy anything right now. Jesus H, indeed.

KH has advice that we should all follow, but from my outpost here in the outback I feel it’s better to wait and still be shy. To my 12-year-old self, I tousle the hair and mutter, “sorry, man, it never gets easier.” To my 80-year-old self, I stretch a little and say, “don’t worry, I’ll still make room for making memories and falling on my ass. just not this week.”

to the earth full of lovelies (including you)

from the salem who loves you back

(with guide-dance from 100 days of disco)

i say this with help from Julee

go here

& this (heard first in a tough but good movie I saw the other night, Samson & Delilah) with help from Charley Pride:

yesterday we took a “break” and went to Gould’s Book Arcade, which actually has around 20,000 books but probably more. It looks just like the drawing on their homepage, and made me mourn the loss of several overwhelming, owned-by-grumpies, beautifully crazy used bookstores in Chicago. I bought way too many books but most of them are gifts for some of you people reading this so you’ll just have to wait and see!

Two days ago we went to a zine fair at the Museum of Contemporary Art here in Sydney. Most of the booths were pretty good – picked up some disgusting horror comics (“These were banned by the Australian Post Office!” the woman behind the table smilingly said as though she was offering me cheese & crackers at the grocery store). Picked up a few things there too, more gifts.

Also got my hair cut by a lady who told me the following:

• “You are American. I can tell by your STRONG accent.” (sidebar — she had some sort of transylvania 6-500 thing going with her voice)
• “Why are you in Newtown (this was the neighborhood the shop was in — it’s one of those used to be but not so much now kind of ‘hoods)? There’s nothing but LESBIANS here.” (To which I replied, “Oh yeah, where?” and then she, without missing a beat, said, “They are EVERYWHERE.” and then looked quickly at the corner as though some sort of lesbian rat was going to scurry from the shadows.
• So then this guy comes in to get his hair cut and my haircutting lady and the other employee get all excited. Apparently, he is an actor on some local Sydney tv show. It’s as though he’s Linda Kohlmeyer or something, they are going nuts. and the haircutting lady says to me “Do you see a lot of CELEBRITIES in the states?” and I tell her my Oprah walking her dog story which is lame, because it’s basically, I was going into work late when I worked near Harpo and I say Oprah and a dog get into a limo and that’s that. And then my haircut got a little shorter than I expected because the TV guy started flirting with his hair cutting guy, and now, I have a boy haircut.

It’s actually not that short, I’m just going to have to Shane it up or something.

I feel that I need to annotate this to ’splain some pop culture refs -

KOHLMEYER:

There are some birds here that make this sound like baawh, aaah, bwahh, and sound like children. I wonder what they would say to Chicago crows? I think they would try to get them to say “Australia” in their accent over and over again.

Staying at a Space of the self-run creatives variety has great advantages. One of the gentlemen who lives here is a part of the Engage Media organization, and we watched some great videos from Indonesia the other night. Go here if you’d like to learn about some punk/not-punk/art or not/musicians or not Indonesian collectives. Inspiring and familiar all at once.

Last night, we enjoyed (mostly) an evening of bands…man, there were a lot of people here at one point and all I could think was “There! Where you’re sitting and holding your ears! There is where I got dressed this morning and attempted to fart quietly!” Hollo Hulo – keeping it classy ’round the globe!

Here is some of the stuff we saw. Oh – also thanks again and again to MF for lending me her little Flip camera. It’s a really nice thing to have for this kind of trip.

Jasmina Maschina

Golden Diskó Ship

The Garbage and The Flowers

There were 2 other singer/etc.’s as well, 1 who provided his own applause on his mixing board which was funny and another who played accompanied by 16 mm projection of old movies which I liked. The usual incredibly cool crowd (I’m of course, being an ass — everyone I’ve met has been really great).

Forgot to say that after a day of walking around the central area & seeing the Sydney Chinatown (it’s just like the Chinatown in your town except there were stands in the market selling little wooden hopping kangaroos), I made Bloom stop in the first Sports Bar with a capital S that I could find.

It was a strange combination of the bar from Star Wars and the bar from The Accused and Bloom said it was like a kennel with all the barking dogs trying to scramble over each other to get a bone.

Actually it was pretty empty — and strangely set up. Aussie rugby on the screens in the front, with traveling salesmen rugby fans yelling at each other, then an Off-Track betting area in the middle, followed by “Tony’s Italian Bistro” where couples and families seemed to be scarfing down potato wedges cooked by a funny Indian guy who yelled at people when they didn’t come pick up their orders quickly and Tony who seemed to have a Russian accent. Then there was a doorway to the “Casino Room” in the back. I’ll of course return to take proper photos. One of the casino dudes looked like a cross between John Waters and Nick Cave, or maybe I’m just lonely.

Sydney is great thus far and somehow this has been helping with any homesickness I may have otherwise endured. Also today we stopped by a crafty hip craft fair (you know what I’m talking about) at the space where the exhibition is going to be and let me tell you — that memo about being skinny, kind of aloof & nervous, wearing pegged pants & a messenger bag while pushing your baby’s skull & hearts-festooned carriage through a crowd trying to look at the small- and medium-size only silkscreened t-shirts — that mission statement was heard, hard, ’round the world. Dudes being dudes — it’s here, decidedly not queer (but not worried about it), and it’s going to make you take care of its children.

Enough of the rant, people here are actually awfully nice, of course. What am I doing here? Haha. This. Oh, and this is where I’m staying & the people are much more than awesome. There’s some bands hittin’ it tonight & rock the house.

I’ll be in the Sydney/Redfern area working on this starting on Monday. I’m outback until June. Please send your lists of old Scientists records or Koala swag that you would like me to procure through the usual e-mail channels.
I’ll most likely Flickr, blog, Tweet, or find some other communication device to keep annoying y’all with, so it’s like I’m not even going anywhere. The Internet – allowing for stalker-esque information gathering without the messy personal interaction!

Any suggestions from the peanut gallery? I’ll be sure to bring all my medications.

Hey, in my role as Temporary Services shouter-outer, I invite readers of my blog to come meet me & watch this:

Please join me & the others in Temporary Services for a free screening of “Pretty Dyana” in our studio at Northwestern University. Preceded by a potluck dinner and followed by a lively discussion!

Wednesday, May 6, 2009, 6:30 PM

Free Screening and Potluck Dinner

in the Artist in Residence Studio,
1st floor, Kresge Centennial Hall
Northwestern University
1880 Campus Drive, Evanston

Bring food and/or non-alcoholic drinks to share for a Potluck dinner

followed by a screening of Pretty Dyana (directed by Boris Mitić, 2005, 45 minutes).

Pretty Dyana is described on the film’s website as “…an intimate look at Gypsy refugees in a Belgrade suburb who make a living by transforming Citroën’s classic 2cv and Dyana cars into Mad Max-like recycling vehicles, with which they collect cardboard, bottles and scrap metal. These modern horses are much more efficient than the cart-pushing competition, but even more important — they also mean freedom, hope and style for their crafty owners. Even the car batteries are used as power generators in order to get some light, watch TV and recharge mobiles! Almost an alchemist’s dream come true! But the police doesn’t always find these strange vehicles funny…”

This event is presented as part of a residency that Temporary Services has been participating in during the Winter and Spring Quarters of 2009 at Northwestern University. Our residency is supported by The James B. Pick and Rosalyn M. Laudati Fund for Arts Computing, and is organized through the Department of Art Theory and Practice, the Department of Art History, and The Humanities Institute of Northwestern University.

Kresge Centennial Hall is on the south end of Northwestern’s campus.

For a campus map, go here.

Please feel free to forward this to others. See you Wednesday night!

Temporary Services
Brett Bloom, Marc Fischer, Salem Collo-Julin
www.temporaryservices.org
www.halfletterpress.com

oh, these are the scars he will bear for life.