I’ve been up since 5am. I’m covered head to toe to lungs in powdered animal glue and marble dust (apparently lipophilic, as it managed to bond somehow with any oil in my hair and skin, turning my head the consistency of steel wool and my hands and arms the consistency of latex examining gloves. Sexy, I know). Also! I can’t stop listening to Fergie. And everywhere I look, people seem to be using the damn cardboard banner letters (one, two) that I was so sure were my clever idea (Remind me to tell you about the time my friend Meghan spent an entire semester unwittingly recreating the entire ouvre of Eva Hesse–boy, was she in for a crisis when someone handed her that monograph).

I am some kind of cranky. Best believe.

cheats and swindlers

So, despite not having the money for these things, I went out and bought them anyway. I do hate buying art supplies here in Tampa, as I’m invariably swindled, at some point in the operation. That stupid little bottle of damar? $6.50. That beeswax? Fourteen bucks. It’s criminal. And what’s more, that beeswax included the most unsettling product warning that I’ve come across in years: (not as disturbing as the running should that warned that the manufacturer would not be liable for any injury or death that occurred while using the product) “Yaley’s natural beeswax is so pure, it may contain honey bees and/or parts of honeybees.”

Begging your pardon, M./Mme. Yaley,  but I would, and I feel I’m justified in this matter, consider parts of insects to be an impurity, as what I purchased (or thought I was purchasing) was 100% natural beeswax, not 100% natural wax and bees. The copper plates were a lucky stroke, though. I’ve had a small piece in mind for some time now, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it until these came along. More on that later.

Oh, right. Because maybe committing to it in a semipublic form will actually encourage me to see it through, I think I’m going to take a crack and submit work to this particular call. I don’t think I’m really who they had in mind (not Canadian, not a woman), but maybe this painting would work for their purposes, at least. I’d rather submit one of the birds, but I’m worried that the link might seem too tenuous. I’d need to write an artist statement (something I haven’t done in years and have never done particularly well) and a bio (something I’ve never had to do, period), and I’d probably have to give cam’s address in Winnipeg so it looked like I was actually living in Canada at the time of the deadline. But it might be worth it. I don’t know.

Oh, and lastly, I’ve been pegged to design the August/September cover of this magazine. It’s nice; small print run (3500), but full color, and something legitimate to put on a CV (I’m really hoping that I’ll be able to start taking off the filler material I’ve included on there, to date). I have no idea what I want to do for it, mind you, but it’s still a nice thing. Anyway, I have, like, two months to come up with something, so I should be fine. No sense in fretting.

Freskers indeed

So I did get back to sleep between about 6:00 and 9:00. A bit better, but good grief, I’m tired and cranky.

So much so that minor, minor irritants are really getting to me. I very rudely dispatched a fundraising call from the Fraternal Order of Police (I wouldn’t feel bad about this under any circumstances, but I wouldn’t have been as snappy). And then there’s the Target ad.

There’s a new Target ad out, you see (go to this page and click on the “commercial” link in the multimedia box thing at the top). Some apparently well-known clothing designer, a certain “Patrick Robinson,” is talking about how his new line for Target was inspired by ancient Greece. And fine, whatever, I’ve seen those ugly, flowy white dresses with gold halter-straps that have been cropping up at awards shows. Some people like that sort of thing. Great. But, specifically–and this is where I do take issue–Mr. Robinson claims to have taken his inspiration from “Greek frescoes.”

Or, as he chooses to pronounce the word, “freskers.”

a) “Freskers”? Why? Why would that be acceptable? Nobody says that. They certainly don’t say it on television where anyone might hear them. b) what Greek frescoes? They show two images of these alleged “freskers;” one is a Roman mosaic, and the second image is either not ancient or not Greek. Because when you tell me “Ancient Greek,” I assume you mean either Archaic or Hellenic. And not Minoan, although if that’s what you meant I’d let it slide; however, the second image doesn’t look remotely Minoan, so the point is moot. We have, like, two complete, surviving late Archaic/early Hellenic frescos. Total. And they don’t look anything like the image, either. That thing, while… lovely, I guess, is either Roman or modern. These people, they think they can just lie and lie and lie in order to sell high-waisted short shorts and two-piece swimwear. Disgraceful!

Flawed, sir or madam! Flawed!

I say, drop the pilot indeed

So I’ve been productive today. As a result, I’m pretty wiped. Which is either impressive or pathetic, since I didn’t really leave the desk chair all day. Still, I was in full-on panicky-adrenaline mode for about six hours, trying to navigate my way through telephone customer support for a client, again for myself, and once more when I called the Detroit consulate. That shit’ll wear you out something quick.

I guess I’m pretty low on accomplishments, for all of it, but I did get two phone calls I was really dreading out of the way. Neither ended up being particularly conclusive, but they’re done now. The consulate did very little to clarify my situation, I’m afraid. A lot of what they had to say amounted to “we can’t answer any of your questions now, the border official will decide when you get here.” [!!!] I don’t see how this approach makes any of our lives easier, but so be it.

I did manage to get my website back online with a new (and infinitely better) hosting company. so my portfolio is now up at stevencochrane.org (in the last two weeks someone snapped up stevencochrane.com! I was put off, let’s just say). New design, a little bit of new content. wreckingball.org is, for the time being, just my design portfolio.

The fun thing is, now that I’m at dreamhost, I have oodles and oodles of new space and a handful of nice new features to work wit–plenty of room to start developing fun things. Problem is, I don’t know what fun new projects I should work on. I’m sure I’ll think of something; in the mean time, I’m open to suggestions.

Unrelatedly, I had my iTunes on shuffle, and some killer keyboard intro comes in, and I’m like, “what is this? it’s fantastic!” and, as it happens, it’s Mandy Moore singing a Joan Armatrading song. And why the hell not? I know you want the mp3. Don’t front.

Returning the gays

New York Times piece on the preponderance of “gay art” being made and exhibited, presently. In reference to gay publications like Butt and other “edgy,” “creative” type gay-oriented media outlets:

[...] they, like much of the gay art now being made — and so much art and music and culture of all types — seem to hybridize a generalized fetish for youth culture, for self-exposure, for the small and the intimate and apolitical. They are as solipsistic as a Rufus Wainwright lyric. They are as whimsical as one of the neo-hippie Devendra Banhart’s tunes. They have a proudly do-it-yourself aura, but what, these days, does not?

It is not of little consequence that they would describe this kind of work in terms of the very two musicians whom I most loathe. Earlier they cite Larry Clark, to whom I would likewise be more than happy to deliver a swift punch in the junk.

But I’ll cut this crop of artists a deal: I’ll reconsider my deep-seated and problematic contempt for the majority of other gay men when they have something more than vapid, escapist smut to bring to the table.

Unrelatedly, the new Björk album is really not good. I mean, there are moments, but not many. That makes me so sad.

Points

• I think I used up my weekly allotment of enthusiasm thinking about that George Baker essay.
• As such, I cannot summon the interest to fully consider what possible significance there might be in having two sexy-airport music videos come out within two weeks of one another (One, Two). 70′s revivalism : yearning for pre-AIDS sexual license : : fantasies of airport debauchery : weariness with/incredulity of the “heightened security” of the last 5 years? Not quite. I know there’s decent analogy for what’s beginning to look like the dominant music-video zeitgeist, coming out of the second quarter (the invisible specter of a lustful Kelly Clarkson’s assaults an unfaithful ex-boyfriend in an airport terminal, airport men’s room in her newest clip, which seemed to have got ganked from YouTube), but I’m too tired to really think about it more.
• Freelance work sucks for more reasons than simply because “freelancing” is a polite way of saying “unemployed.” Web design, from a business perspective, is not something I was cut out for.