sorry people. bad weather, we had to cancel yesterday's show. we are now in montana and it is icy and snowy. everyone is sleeping but it is time to do a photo update that i've been lagging on. i am curating an art show about 'boredom.' i am having jamie curate a collaboration of sound-artists/musicians in this show too. more info later. we stopped at little big horn today.










i want to go outside a make a polaroid of the snow.

 

i'm sorry i'm blogging too much. where is xiu xiu? they left me.

miranda july is in your extended network. so is george bush, jack kerouac, and that girl who sings in that band that goes they don't love you. how will myspace effect the next presidential elections?

i saw a girl with purple hair in one of those pull off side of the express way gas station mart things. i saw her again at the next one. i then saw her at the chicago show. who was following who?

i bought a book at the walker today from a girl who said she went to otis. i told her tell nikki david says hi. she said she'll write it in a letter and mail it to los angeles. will i get to la before the letter?

for some reason when i see native americans that are homeless i feel a far larger sadness than people of other ethnicities. i saw a lot in minnesota. we drove by sandcreek in the dark a month ago.

thank you for taking us around the walker and telling us about the blood everywhere and how there might be hidden poop by the artist somewhere in the space. my nose was stuffed so i didn't smell anything. was nietsche and noam chomsky a pipe bomb for blowing up hegemony? isn't hegemony already blown up, and now everythigng is just scattered, like shards of glass floating around space but making up a whole. and thank you for the photograph of the person who looked like they got run over by a car on coney island. i wanted to buy a book on conceptual art but it was $75. i need a job. somebody hire me. my fortune cookie said that in my next interview i will get a job.

last night i put on the juke box: joy division, "atmosphere" - the misfits, "teenagers from mars" - bad brains, "banned in DC" - the clash, "lost in the supermarket."

jamie put on cock sparrer, "england belongs to me." where is freddy ruppert? freddy ruppert once told me that he wants to start a reality TV show where you get one million dollars if you can make your dad ejaculate. there are some things that people tell you that you never want to hear mentioned again. and there are times when you are sitting in fargo when you just don't care and you type it because there is nothing else to do. oh freddy, oh freddy.

 

Fargo, ND.

Jamie: "ummm, wow, how about this, try and spell this, ready, ewwwwww woooooh lovvvvvvvvvvv oohhhhge miiii"

 

to utter is to affirm. to blog is to (i don't know).

to read one's blog on one's journey is to know where they are in their head.

if you read our blog you must realize that at this point in the blog's linear history (is it 'linear' and can i call it 'history' if it hasn't happened yet - i am reffering to, or presuming, the blog as a whole, meaning the future aspects of the blog, assuming there is a future beyond right now).

what i am trying to say is:



WE HAVE ALL GONE TOTALLY INSANE.



(we enter chicago and do they have the same mayor that they did in '68 when the mc5's and phil ochs tried to kill the pigs and abbie hoffman and then later the sds fell apart and then there was the weathermen taking their name from subteraneananana homesick blues, bob dylan is in town, my dad once said he drove to '68 chicago in lincoln park and his car brokedown, he said he would have been the chicago #9, or maybe #8 after bobby seale seperated himself from the whites. - up against the wall motherfuckers this is a stick up, there is nothing more beautiful than a brick in a cop's face, wait wait, that was the situationists, and didn't they start post-modernity? wait, you cant start it, they were just at its moment of emergal, it's a cultural thing. i knocked everything off the table in cracker barrel when i saw that there was a thing on francessca woodman in nylon, i don't know what nylon is, but you can buy it at a store, like i said yesterday just a duplicate, and they called joanna newsome a genius, isn't that word archaic are they stupid who uses a word like 'genius' in today's times? fuck them. fuck them to hell)

repeat: WE ARE ALL TOTALLY INSANE

buy renee's cat badges.

bring david horvitz chicago pizza please.

good bye sanity.



RIP: diana oughton

 

writing during songs, read the blog listening to the songs, its a project.

can david write a blog during the entirity of boy soprano at this show in ohio? yes, yes, yes, he can. i once ate honey from a bee that was in a mathew barney movie. that was at krysten's play about gravity that she did in her parking lot in washington. one time i was driving to see good for cows, which has ches in it, and i happened to be exactly in front of krysten's house (i was coming from my grandmother's who happens to live about half a mile from krysten) and a motorcycle sped in front of me and crashed into an oncoming car. i got out to see if the guy was ok, i was sure he was dead b/c he must have flew 100 feet. i found him on the sidewalk with his foot dangling from his leg by a little piece of flesh. boy soprano is over.

writing a blog during the song caralee sings, what is it called? hello from someplace? i don't want to do this anymore.

do coke bands worry about plant death? do you worry about your own death? what about the death of others? is photography really about death? or just mortality? or is mortality and death the same thing? why do you even read this? why do you do anything at all? or, if you don't do anything, why do you not do anything at all? or, why do i write this? do i write this to be read? i don't think you write blogs for the reader, you write them for the writer, it's like a confession, or a venting. do you understand my readers who i don't care about because i only care about me, the writer, and yes, yes, i understand. this is a break in older traditional forms of writing, where you wrote for a reader, or that was the intention. or maybe it's just me, i'm just writing: PUT THAT GUN TO MY TEMPLE PUT THAT GUN TO MY HEART are these xiu xiu lyrics right? xiu xiu fans probably know more than me. AIDS HIV I CANT NOT WAIT TO DIE CANT YOU TELL CANT YOU TELL CANT YOU TELL that is what i think jamie is singing. back to the point, i once bought a book of frances stark writings at ooga booga in chinatown b/c it had a black flag reference and this good essay on bas jan ader (it was good because it wasn't about him, but it was, i hate things that are about something that already exists, you know? why make a duplicate? why not just do something interesting yourself? i think those writings were interesting themselves.) but somewhere there was a quote by someone i don't know about writing to yourself. something about narcissism. did you read all that? you shouldnt have. or maybe you should have. FEEDBACK ENDING. VIBRAPHONES. MORE FEEDBACK. MORE FEEDBACK. what i am doing is so about time right now, its about something happen now and it going a long with it. whoever reads this won't get it because it is already after the fact. it is already dead.

jeaze, i type too much. sorry, D.

p.s. now it's the song off the yellow album (weezer), the one about HAIR.

BLOG UPDATE: THEY ARE FINALLY PLAYING J JO, WHICH THEY HAVE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT ALL TOUR, NOW IT IS HAPPENING.

 

does honey production kill bees like meat production kills cows?
did Poison ever worry about honey production/bee death? does coke production kill plants?

 

the above is nothing. it's only the end. i got the juicy footage on my mini-dv camera, so you're going to have to wait 'til the movie comes out.

i'm in a college in the middle of nowhere beautiful beyond anything rainy yellow leaved trees ohio. it's nice here.

----------------------------------------------

i got an email of someone who saw me dancing with eva with a broom stick, oh oh oh oh, do you long for a past of dancing broomsticks and magical eva?

----------------------------------------------

David,

Thank you!

...

once i saw you dancing around with a broom at a show in Indiana.

-adam-

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

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on the theme of going to art-galleries, go see my friend krysten's show opening this saturday at rental gallery in chinatown (in LOS ANGELES).

RENTAL GALLERY - 936 MEI LING WAY - CHINATOWN, LOS ANGELES, CA 90012

i guess there should be a contest here too. if you find her, take a picture with her, and you will get a special xiu prize at the ECHO show.

--------------------------------------------------------------

we went and got massages today. i am not used to getting massages so i don't know if it was good or not. it felt good, i guess. i told her i had a sore muscle in my lower back, and she found the tense spot with her finger and said, "yep, you have a sore muscle - you should do stretches." i thought she was going to rub it or something, but i guess not. she did something funny with my feet which was weird, so i guess the whole thing was worth it because of that. after, i felt practically the same except i was a little more relaxed and a little oily. i remember i did get a massage a long time ago and the person said, "jeaze, you have no stress at all." maybe that's it. since i don't get stressed, because getting stressed is not worth it and in the end you have total control over whether you get stressed or not, then i can't really feel better - just good at the moment. (but what about my sore lower left back muscle?) but what i really wanted to write was that when she was massaging me i started to think of a story my friend had told me when he went to a certain kind of "massage parlor" to get a certain kind of "massage." he said the lady didn't straight off offer any sexual services because that is illegal, so he had to make the suggestion, but he didn't know, so they just kind of waited and awkwardly looked at each other for a long time trying to figure out what to do. she finally ripped his towel off, and he was feeling really awkward so he wasn't even erect, and she looked down at his penis and said, "pathetic little thing, get out." when i started thinking about this i wanted to start laughing hysterically. i wanted to laugh so hard it was almost impossible to resist. i thought it must be pretty taboo to just start laughing while getting a massage, like laughing at a funeral or when you are having sex. so what i did was i tried to imagine the must depressing situation possible to get me down instead of staying on the verge of laughing. i thought of my dad. i thought of him homeless on skid-row, totally crazy, disheveled, talking to himself or to people not listening, wanting to die (he is not like this, i don't think, though he could very well be). i thought of my friends and the people who i care about, i thought about them dead, or about them on the verge of death - all so i wouldn't start laughing. this was a really absurd moment. i once had this strange realization that all the people you know, all the people you care about, one day it will either be you or them that will look at the other as just a body -- as something lifeless - as something that once looked back at you. this isn't necessarily a negative thought, it's just life i guess. sometimes at the place in-between sleeping and waking consciousness, when you are in the floating state with your mind drifting around the room, i think about death. i think about how it is nothing - not even nothing - just complete absence (nihil?). but not even absence, only absence for others, but for you it is non-existent. i think about how strange it is, and how strange it is to be alive, thoughts that i don't think about in waking life because the world is too busy spinning around with its inconsequentiality's and nonsense. it doesn't make me more happy that i'm alive, it just seems to make things a little more 'magical.' and i guess you can draw on the word 'absurd' here. so it's just, look around, strange. strange. strange. - sigh. what do you want out of life? i want to put my feet in the stars and my head on the top of a tree, i want to be upside down and i want to swallow the ocean, and if you are lost at sea i just ate you. you can be lost inside me and when i spit out the ocean you can be lost outside of me again because you are in the world not in me now. i forgot that girl's name. the one in the hotel room in that book. that book is old and you are not young like you were, you are older, you are still the same but you are more sophisticated - does that mean sadness and joy and a boredom with the world (flaneur?) also becomes sophisticated with you? is your boredom more sophisticated than when you were younger, or are you just more conscious of its presence? when i spit you out are you on a ship or are you sleeping?

we are in the car, we just crossed the river into kentucky. i want to be at the river in paris. the seine.

--------------------------------------------------------------

yesterday i ate a seasoned pumpkind flower taco in kentucky.

--------------------------------------------------------------

romania: http://www.cmc.ro/florean_museum/film.php?y=2006&id=309

 

SPECIAL CONTEST FOR PEOPLE COMING TO: minneapolis, MN

go see Uta Barth's show at: http://www.franklinartworks.org/

take a picture of you standing in front of the photographs holding a sign that says 'xiu xiu.' bring a print of it to the show. win a special xiu xiu prize.

-------------------------------------------------------

Dear Ches Smith, who went crazy last night and destroyed the motel room,

James Tenney.

Sincerely,

David Horvitz

-------------------------------------------------------

we wanted massages but everything is booked up, so we will get them tomorrow before we drive to kentucky. i am in a ice cream parlor/coffee shop in columbus, jamie and carlee just went to the movies, ches is playing vibes in the motel room. i need to do work so i have to stay here. there is so much i should write about, but where do i begin? yesterday i thought it'd be funny to video jamie falling onto the ground in the woods, like a bas jan ader 'falling' film, then he wanted to video me, so i handed him everything except my phone. later i looked for my phone and couldn't find it, so we watched the video and there it was, falling out of my pocket when i got up of the ground. we drove all the way back to the national park where we were and i was convinced i knew exactly where the phone was - that is, convinced if it was broad daylight. we got there in pitch blackness, and all i had was a small 6 inch flashlight. where we did the fall was off the path in the brush, so i was thinking, there is no way in hell i will find my phone in this darkness in the middle of brush. i ended up walking off the path, into the brush, and straight to my phone. impossible! yet possible! i have it all on video. low light setting of the ground illuminated by a small flashlight.

things i miss on my stolen ipod: bob dylan live at the gaslight singing, 'cocaine.'

-------------------------------------------------------

i will think about more to write while i'm sitting here (come and find me), and i will do a mass photo upload too, probably, but for now, here are two polaroids from our illustrious polaroid project, which you may have already seen on pitchfork:





(special note: so everyone thinks i'm getting these bloody noses from doing coke. it's from the arid weather in the south. i seriously thought i had a brain tumor and was going to die b/c i got them everyday for like three or four days, but i am healed)

 

have you ever been me???? no no nono.
HAVE YOU EVER HEARD NONO?!!!!!
charlie looker of dirty projectors and his excellent band Zs have heard that. not like you could tell, he just told me that backstage in DETROIT,


newy m in MO city.




beach vollyball brodown sweetness,
cs cs cs...
! ! !

 

check out polaroids: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/39258/Photos_Scandalous_Xiu_Xiu_Tour_Polaroids

last night i made my shakuhachi debut on the encore during fabulous muscles.



turn on ohio radio now.

 

Sound people vary night to night. We're sorry if you show up to a gig where the sound person hates us. We wish we were a Christian Rock band, too. Its not our fault. I guess the Christian Rock Sound Man has no choice but to Forgive us.
God Bless you!!!

 

holy fuck, we are actually going to post some real update to the minute news info on this blog.

according to caralee, who just informed me on this, the dirty projectors didn't make it across the candian border. WHAT?????

?????????

I think they were trying to sneak George W. in their bass drum and they got busted.


what's going on?


(i am in the basement waiting to find true love)

 

when i'm wasted and busted i say 'i'm a conceptual artist' to get ouf of things. i tried to steal a boat painting from the hotel and got busted but when they walked in i quickly put it on the ground and photographed and said, 'i'm a conceptual artist im making a photograph, i usually do things when people aren't looking so i don't think it matters that i'm moving this painting b/c i'd just put it back right away and no one would know." i wasn't really going to steal it, i just liked the idea of stealing a boat.

i once said 'i'm a conceptual artist' in the jury box and the offense lawyer whatever you call him quickly removed me from the jury. in like 30 seconds. jamie just says he does social work and they never give him jury duty.

cellphone photographs while i'm driving and carlee is sleeping (sorry caralee):

 

yeeeeaaaaahhhhhhahahahaha ah ah ah ah....
none of us getting any.

(probably for the best).

 

from a fortune cookie yesterday: All the world may not love a lover but they will be watchintg him.

what does this mean? i kind of like it.

dear world, my name is david. i am pretty drunk in some hotel near where we are staying across the canadian border.

this is serious:

dear monntreal,

montreal, you are amazing, one time i walked through your streets and went in an art bookstore and saw a herve guibert book of photographs and saw one of the most amazing photographs, one of those rare images where the photographed subject's gaze hits the viewer of the photographer (me), when it's like he's looking at me, not at the camera/photographer, but at me. i know he's gay, and he was probably photographing one of his lovers, but maybe it's that, the 'lover' thing. i don't know.

dear montreal. i know you have beautiful people - you have hot people - gorgeous people. dear montreal, i am in love with you, and just to let you know:

jamie and me (david), we are single, and we want to fall in love with YOU.

okayyyyyyyyy? how is that? i found beautiful people in estonia and in scandanavia, and jewish argentinians and all over the south, and in you, MONTREAL. we are bored being all alone in a world we don't but fully understand at the same time, digusted with ourselves. we just what to feel fulfilled, or excited, or hopefull, or something? you know? that inevitable feeling, what paul bowles calles the 'inevitable sadness' or whatever, i don't know.

please.

come find us.

truly,

david

ps i just drank some shot that the waitress brought over, i forgot what it's called, some mix of things that has 'bear fucker' in it...?

pps. lets drink ricard tomorrow b/c i don't think la salla rosa has pernod. (uta would be pissed that i'm trying to get everyone to drink pernod b/c she gave it to me, but i'm just trying to be friendly???????????????????????) come find me, i'll have lots of drink tickets b/c caralee doesn't drink now.

lalalallalalallalalalalalla.

-d

 

i have a letter in my pocket. to who wrote me the letter, i wonder if you saw brendan at frieze. its rochester and its raining (the show was canceled yesterday and we didn't know until we got to the club). last night we saw little miss sunshine. it was good, except:

1) there is no redondo beach exit on the freeway
2) that was not the redondo beach pier
3) those were not LA freeways
4) i know you like to fictionalize LA, to create your own LA, which i guess is a 'real LA' in your sense of 'reality' - BUT HEY< YOU CANT FICTIONALIZE THE BEACH. come on now. serious. what's going on hollywood? your fiction is not anywhere near a fiction-reality - it's not even simulacrum or whatever - it's just dumb. into the sea, you and me.

the dirty projector's play 'police story.' the south bay is everywhere, and it's all twisted up.

david's haiku of the day:

rain.
hot chocolate.
restlessness.

 

 

i'm waiting.

oops, in the pizza place there was salt in the cheese shaker. i put salt all over my pizza and ate it anyway. now i feel sickly.

 

i think my ipod was stolen when we parked in a parking garage. ugggg. i don't really care except that there were maybe 3000 photos on there as back up. and i had to delete the original ones so now the back up ones are gone so they have disappeared into vastness. oh well! what can you do? shyouganai... so, there is all those photos.... and what else is irreplacable? i had a ton of old folk recordings. oh well. i had a bunch of javanese gamelan that who knows where you can find those again. all these weird japanese things. a few okinawan records (fuckkkk) a bunch of hard to find nels cline improv live stuff. one w/ thurston moore at rhino records. one w/ thurston moore and zeena parkins at the flywheel. fuckkkkkk. a bunch of ambient stuff. FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK. FUCkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.

oh, and a bunch of great minimalist stuff and the xiu xiu discography!!!!! fuck! and shakuhachi and gagaku and more okinawan and music from mali and some ethipiques and william basinski and the dangerhouse collections. OHHHH NOOOOOOOO! aki tsuyuko otomo yoshihide. EXPLORER SERIES FROM zimbabwe!!!!!!!!! mbira!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bring poloaroids and SASE if you don't know. www.davidhorvitz.com/xiuxiu
we've got so many so far. we will try to print some in magazines and maybe make a book? anyone interested email me. want to release a small art publication of xiu xiu tour polaroids?

i put some photo-books at ANYTHING. and i saw the xiu xiu photo book at printed matter today. funny. it's just a photo book in stores day. walla walla walla HEY.

INTO VASTNESS!
or, into the grain of film.
or, into blue sky or under water or DARKNESS (night).
into ourselves.
into words and voices.
into a bottle of pernod and into dreams.



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YOU CAN REPRINT THE FOLLOWING ONLINE OR IN A MAGAZINE OR WHEREVER:


an open letter to Björk Guðmundsdóttir from David Horvitz.

October 12, 2006.

Dear Björk Guðmundsdóttir,

I am writing you this letter because I think you would have an answer to my question. I am writing it now because I am in New York for the next couple of days and I know that you live in New York.

I have a question about Iceland, and that is why I thought I should write to you. I have always thought about traveling there. I believe my temptation for this comes in three parts: in a kind of distance and isolation, and another which I will write about later. I think the isolation has something to do with the solitary, and the feeling of being alone - and that Iceland seems to represent a kind of isolation. I see this by either looking at a map and seeing it so small and surrounded by water, or by envisioning myself there, alone and lost in a place that is unfamiliar. I guess there are many places that can connotate such things, but it is Iceland that I chose. The distance part has to do with my desire to go as far away as possible, to reach some kind of end. I know this is a little problematic - how can you go as faraway as possible - it is futile - but it ends up being more of a romantic kind of gesture, which I kind of like. One time I traveled to the southern end of Japan, a small island in Okinawa called Hateruma Island. I wanted to go all the way to the bottom and I did. Again, this idea of 'distance' can be envisioned anywhere in the world, but I have chosen Iceland. These choices mostly have to do with the following.

The third part of my temptation is that for sometime now I've wanted to go where the night sky glows a luminous green. I know that Iceland is one of the places to see this. Is this true? Did you grow up with the Northern Lights in your winter skies? I wonder what that would be like. I like looking up at the sky because it is so open and empty. In Los Angeles at night the sky is just a pale dark - there aren't even any stars because of all the light pollution. I want to go where the night sky glows, colors float through the air like clouds. Where do you go to see this? My friend U. has a map to secret Icelandic hot springs that Olafur Eliasson had made for her. I have never seen it, but I have always been fascinated by it - mostly by the fact that it is 'secret' and that only one exists in the whole world and that it was made by one person for another. I like the idea of something being secret. Do you have a secret map?

I could easily just research when and where to go in a book or on the internet, but I thought I would write to you, to see if you had someplace you think I should go that no one else could tell me - someplace special. If you tell me of such a place I promise I will not show it to anyone. I can tell you about special places in Los Angeles - places to go at dusk to watch the sea fade away into the night.

I will be in New York for two days. On October 12, I will be at the Mercury Lounge. On the October 13, I will be at the Bowery Ballroom. I know I am writing this a little late, but I thought I would try. I am tour-managing my friends band, Xiu Xiu - I'll be selling their CDs inside the club, that is where you will find me.


Truly,

David Horvitz


p.s. Here is a photograph I took from Hateruma Island, the bottom of Japan:

 

why does david want me to blog so much? whomever can answer this question wins a congs for brums t shirt.
i am booking a short west coast january tour with good for cows (my other band), and mary halvorson/jessica pavone. can anyone recommend any towns to play (small or little-known would be great)? all ages. the music has improvisation in it. you can email me at ches@chessmith.com ... or a message at myspace.com/chessmith ... thanks!!!
okay, enough of this crap, now back to xiu xiu: jamie stewart is the REAL psychedelic sexfunk from heaven.
love,
ches

 

i first had pernod in the chelsea hotel with uta. we came to new york to see brandon's opening at leo koenig. today i had pernod with jamie in brooklyn. pernod is good b/c if the bartender doesn't know how to serve it they give you too much. feels like paris and you are baudelaire. jamie is blogging next to me in the secret closet.

 

HOT BOYZ MAKIN HOT WEBSITEZZZZZ

 

Video Kingpin and general maniac, Corey Smith has put up a portfolio of his work - stuffed to the brim with Xiu Xiu Videos.

Check it out

 

jamies a blog hog.

 

i am playing a new congs for brums set tonight. i am scared. i have no idea why--everyone knows no one would know the difference if i played a completely different set every night.
i am not scared anymore.
the vibe is the jazz house.
oakland.

 

i wish i could wear fake nails. not in an ironic way. i really like them. and i have since i was a little girl . i actually like a lot of "girly" things. i want to wear them and stare at them. i want to be that motel 6 receptionist who can barely type in my name and address into the computer but wow those hands look great. i need them. well i dont . i couldnt play keyboard or guitar. i couldnt make a fist if i had to punch somebody. i couldnt touch my own eyeball if i needed to. i also couldnt comfortably pick my nose which i like to do regularly. maybe when im like 1000000 years old i will get them. i hope i still like them then.

 

Today I asked for fruit with a bagel I ordered. We were in Florida, so all they had to offer was rotting oranges. I said maybe I would have chips instead. The woman yelled back: "Ches wants Chips!" and proceeded to laugh hysterically for two minutes. This is just after she screamed at Brendan for ordering food from her and not the person in the back. All this excitement made Brendan drop a full large cup of scalding hot water all over the floor. He made us leave the premises. We stopped at a Citrus Stand later to successfully purchase and consume the hot water.
Now, that place was really fucked.
You asked.