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.

 

at the san jose museum of art about 7 years ago was an exhibit of the ted's cabin. 4 huge photos of it from all four sides.
there was one tiny window.
the photos were in the foyer of the rest room which was strange and funny now that i think about it. was there some pressure from the goverenment not to portray this work too prominently? it was before 9/11 so they could not have been watching too closely. i wonder why there have not been more mail bombers? have they not been reported to avoid copycats? or since 9?11 does hte post office have its act more together in terms of bomb detection.
i am really scared that someone will now send me a mail bomb. please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please don't. thanks in advance.

ben from home recording project has the most fucked up tattoo of genius that exhists on man or beast. you should ask him to see it.

just some advice from your friendly neighborhodd spider ball POP!

WHOA FREAK SHOW HAIKU IS BACK MUTHAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ dig the fresh fuckkkkkkkkzkzkzkzkzkzkkzkzkzkzkkzz of GILGAMESH~~~~~~~~~~~~~ inbred

by jamie the slut who never has sex! 2006

halloween is here
polar bears will haunt our dreams
eat me thou white bear

 

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?

 

i have to drink honey before every show to heal my exploded throat. ( not vegan i hate it but it is the only thing that works. rationalize the death of bees away )
today i opened some and the seal was broken and it smelled wierd and made my tounge burn a little when i tasted it. now i am poisoned?
is it like tylenol in the 1970s?
is it like mydol in the 1980s?
is it like panadol in the 1990s?
is it like percaset it the 2000s?
is it like sun screen in 2010s?

a friend of mine who has a shaved head emailed me and said "you know you have shaved your head?"
i hope he grows to like it.
vu vu is the name of caralee's seal puppet. it is quebecois. (sp? quebequois)

 

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-

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

 

is this bragging?
last night i heard through the pipes in the bathroom next to the bar i was trying to pee in, someone singing karaoke in the next room
they sang.......

Punctured bicycle
On a hillside desolate
Will xiu xiu make a man out of me yet ?

GOOD BYE!!!!!!!!!

 

the gulag










jelly roll song of the day

zip my flesh into a butt bag
OHHHH dig it it it down the boulevard and send it to your dead mommy
send the butt bag to a welfare pimp named andy the weatherman
zip zip zip zip i want to kiss that dead mommy and her butt bag

take me to the park and kill me
woowo woooowoo wooo wooo the park is a coffin
see me float up the river in a fog like a ghost cow
tee hee tee hee i will haunt your butt bag baby

 

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



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...
! ! !

 

last night ches put 2 six packs of labats blue and molson on the hood of his car and this dude in the car next to him upon seeing this cranked the rush he was playing on his car stereo and gave a wide wide thumbs up.

david, falling for fall onto a gentle, wet leaf covered slope in a state park dropped his phone and we drove away.
i happened to video tape this and he watched the video and saw his phone fall out. we drove back and trapsed through the ptich black woods several hours later. flashlight in hand david walked right to his phone. it took 2 minutes total to find his balck phone is complete darkeness in the forest. he said once he walked right to jack kerouacs grave.

read haunted hillybilly if you can. saltpeter will never feel the same.

ohio makes me sad for some reason. last year when we were here it was the day that the levees in new orleans broke and we watched on the news not believing what we were seeing. the sound woman started to cry.

ches just told me while he was peeing in a parking lot he got cruised and tounge waged for lke 5 minutes. he sounds annoyed cuz he talking on the phone at the same time.

caralee is looking at jane magazine and apears as if she cant stand anything. she wants to play gameboy instead of talk to the interview person. BEEP BEEPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPUH.

 

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):

 

i heard we were not on at that show
sorry
we try the best we can at every show and feel crappy when we do not hit it
next time we will burn your town down
again
sorry if we blew it and thank you for coming

 

rocky moutain bear fuker
i toatlly hate that some people look really good when you are loaded. i hate being too drunk. i love being exactly drunk enough. i have had one too many drinks and the waiter/ess who is the spitting image of dana schully from x-files so far from my XX chromosome type it is laughable somehow has morphed into being intensly fuckable. this makes me want to die and then laugh at my corpse. she loves david. all women love david. all cats love me. christian death the goth band makes me wish phreddy was here to make me work out and not be hung over.
ches and i had an adult conversation about money. david stole a boat painting from the lobby of the hotel bar where we are.
why am i ever ever ever ever ever evereverecerever in a hotel bar watching hockey; watching sacuhatchi.
satomi, holdy paws is so good. we listned to it today crossing the border into canada. thank you.
thank you rob (aka ron)
montreal is where i want to becoome a new person an' not think about the person typing this ever again.

 

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

 

last night the security guard at the movie yelled and david and me to get off that cart!!!!! and of course we are too deaf to listen to him.
then he said it really loud, GET OFF THAT CART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
then david pointed at me and said to the guard, "he is a little bit stupid. but remember we are not better than him."

jelly roll morton had a diamond a in his tooth. his grandmother kicked him out of the family for being a piano player. then he used his diamond tooth like a drill bit to dig her out of her grave/new orleans mausoleum and used her remains like a crazy costume and cha cha cha shaker.

all the children sing=

dink a do dink do rattle grandma rattle yer bones.
take us to the pool yard rattle dinka do
sell your cavity ridden skull, i need too scuttle down the street to storyville
grandma bones do do do dinka do ya ya yo yo ya ya yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee go go

no more haiku if the day. maybe like the black album

last haiku of the day by flag flag ma goooooooooo 2016 a.d. suckaz

no more haiku man
i cannot count anymore
grieve ye not biatch

 

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.

 

 

there was a flim of tropical giant ants carrying thousands of sequins down a dark hole into their nest
swarms of warring mandibles fighting to carry fabulousness to the queen

 

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.

 

i am so provincal. i get so excited being in NYC. i have been her to play maybe 13
times and for fun once, but still it is like being in beruit/paris.
caralee is at a brooklyn hot dance party
ches is at ultra art music show
david and i are my brother's apartment listening to the smiths and justin timberlake and looking at photographs.
tommorow i will try to be cool but tonight i feel like life is interesting.
NATASIA IS oN A SKATE BOARD AND LOADED
TONY LI IS DESTROYING THE NINTENDO
GOLD CHAINS IS FROM SAN FRanCISCO aka THE OTHER GOOD CITY
KID 606 is in berlin and oakland AKA the same city except for one was WWII and the other is the war on drugs

 

"no one gives a fuck about design. just give me what i want right now."

joe stewart

 

HOT BOYZ MAKIN HOT WEBSITEZZZZZ

 

i wrote a blog in traffic but it is on my laptop and it never got posted.

new york city. actually, brooklyn.

tomorrow is brendan's last show. then he goes to frieze. i want to go to frieze. xiu xiu was asked to play frieze but it didn't work. art world. london. that sounds nice. in florida when everyone was sleeping and i was driving i put on london calling. yesterday as we approached philadelphia completely randomly my ipod was on shuffle and out of ten gabillion millionozion songs the song about mumia abu jamal by rage against the machine came on. philly. i started to get crazy. then sigur ros came on and i imagined i was in iceland. then a 30 minute lecture on nietzsche came on and i skipped it even though it was against the shuffle rules (you can only skip it if xiu xiu comes on). yesterday some girl said a book of photographs i made reminded her of chris marker.

it's nice when the trees change colors.

i am going to write a letter to bjork on this blog b/c she lives in new york. i have to ask her a question about iceland.

rain.

 

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

 

tonight someone at a show we played in virginia gave me a huge box a yellow glow sticks and said that there enough in the box to light up once a day for 6 months or to go crazy with all at once.
the club was right by a train track that went off into sleepy hollow darkness and nothing. so we threw the 180 glow sticks lit up into the darkness and they made a huge pile and about a trillion bugs swarmed all over them. from a distance the bugs back lit by the intnese sick yellow light made it appear as if the entire pile were moving toward us.
it was the most beautiful thing i have ever seen. buy david was gone so there was no one to photograph it and therefore make it real.

haiku of the day by jamie the slippery 2006

click click is your sound
please send me more doom doom doom
it can make you hear

 

you can add virginia to the list of where you will find pretty girls.

gloria is in korea, this is what she said in her email: 2:50pm. i also slept through a nuclear test.


this video is so stupid







the bottom picture is my all time favorite photo in the whole world. she put her camera down on a self timer and then ran inside the photo. (sorry i didn't email you back i accidenteley deleted your message)




it's sad when you are seventeen and they won't let you into the show in south carolina and then you rip up the drawing you made but then i make you give it to me through the slit of a door and i take a picture of it ripped up because i think it looks nice because it represents something more than just a picture or what the picture is supposed to be, something more, like a feeling or an action based on a feeling or something, but something for sure.



i once told jamie that he always has the same look in every photograph of him. he told me that he didn't know what to think about when people are taking his picture so he always ends up having the same look on is face. so i photocopied him that part in roland barthe's 'camera lucida' that talks about getting your picture taken and these four stages of 'disguise' and he said now he thinks about that and he's even more confused.



oh shit, we are in virginia right now and we might have to fight somebody. i am skinny and weak, but i may have to fight. Brendan's got my back. "Is he always so full of himself?" what am i supposed to say to you mr. soundman?

 

saxon = flagon of mead
deerhoof = E. and caffine
GG allen = PCP and broken glass
tom petty = doob
mentors = PCP and broken glass
black flag = meth and PBR
suicide = bleach and methadone
william bassinsky = anything
boss skaggs = miller lite
parenthetical girls = candy corn
bauhaus = guano
E-40 = a 40
coco rosie = wine spritzer
niel hamburger = paxil
GBH = gbh
scarnella = mushrooms and salt water
nora jones = croutons
king diamond = testosterone
morton feldman = acid
mary's danish = herion
social distortion = cigarettes and ice house
nedelle = pain killers and 2 buck chuck
mike watt = pirate's rum and ear smokes
yellow swans = eva's drugs
system of a down = dead science cocaine crazy
avril leveigne = dad's weed
wilco = sam adams with lemon
weezer = root beer
vincent gallo = red wine and jizz
phillip gelb = sake and tatami bong
good for cows = red stripe
willie nelson = wicked herb and no wine
this song is a mess but so am i = communion wine
cock wallet = birth control pills
slap shot =
minor threat =
chen santa maria =
skankin pickle = speed but not mike
cam' ron = ecinachia and purple haze
screwdriver = sudafed, cough syrup, mouthwash

 

jamies a blog hog.

 

im in love with the carolinas and a little bit of georgia. i want to marry you in south carolina in a field of wildflowers that stretches as far as the eye can see. in the morning when the sun rises and the sky is pink the colors of the flowers in the east will make the distinction between land and sky imperceptible. who are you talking about or to? no one. or maybe anyone. or no one in particular. or maybe somebody. who knows? how many people are here, right here, in these words, in this text, and where is the world going to, or just what is it that is happening? what is your indifference or your boredom or your sadness or your happiness and what does it have to do with anything? and is it anything at all? and who are you? or are you talking about yourself? i don't know. i don't know doesn't mean that you don't know that is just something you say. its a gesture. its like a hand-shake or like kissing someones hand. or a sigh.

 

what the fuck did i do to you?
BYE!

 

 

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 have an installation tonight at eyedrum in atlanta. i also have a kink in my net. what does it mean to have something? what if i have the sun in my eyes? what if i have a feeling? what if i have you on my mind? what if i have a thousand dollars or a bag of things? what if i have nothing?

 

 

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.

 

hi



normally i would not wrtie about this sort of thing but this is too um, i have not idea, to not share.
so we go to guitar center to the drum department and the clerk there as we buying a drum head asks if we are on tour and we say yes and he asks what band we are in and he is a huge metal guy who i am sure has never heard of us so i mutter "xiu xiu , some little art rock band." and he goes
"XIU XIU!?!?! fuck you no way you are in xiu xiu?"
i thought he was just teasing me and then says
"my friend is totally homosexual for your band and i totaly like it too."
then he screams "THIS IS THE WORST VACTATION EVER I AM GOING TO CUT OPEN YOUR FORHEAD WITH A ROOFING SHINGLE!!!!!! DUDE ! this guy at my school got in a fight with his friend and fucked his buddy's girlfriend to get back at him and he went fucking nuts and yelled at him 'you are the worst friend ever i am gonna cut your throat with a roofing shingle!! then he came to school the next day and totally did it. he fucking cut his throat with a roofing shingle"
"oh fuck did he die?!"
"no no he just laid on the ground bleeding and we were all laughing at him. but he didn't tell. he wasn't a pussy about it."
so for one second i wondered if we were in anyway responsible for this then caralee said no cuz he did not cut his forehead.
then he told us about his band cattle decapitation.

haiku if the day by david the tea totaller 2006

metal blade discos
florida is complex no?
marylin manson...

collective tour reading list

brendan's magazine
jelly roll morton biography
pig earth
g
gulag archipelago
querelle (thanks zach!)
amercian aparthed
us weekly

 

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.

 

this preview icon sucks. i don't know how to change them. can you? i made this really fast at the merch table at NEW COLLEGE in Florida. -d.

 

I'm getting bloody noses everyday in my right nostril. Hi, how are you? I feel a little tired, a little down, a little bored. I need some excitement. Maybe I'll have to wait 'til New York or Atlanta or Montreal. I just heard that only people from New College of Florida are allowed in this show tonight. I also heard there is some art school in town. Maybe you want to go? maybe some other people want to go? if you find me meandering outside you can be my guest. i can probably have a million guests so come and find me. (bring hot chocolate)

:-)