Musings from the God of Cities

i've been meaning to post pictures from my recent trip to see p.s.1's greater new york show, but life has gotten in the way.

in the meanwhile, please make due with the best. title of a book. ever.

a couple nights ago, cobracamanda, her mother monallah and i descended on 34th street to see the ringling brothers elephants and horses march through the queens midtown tunnel up to madison square garden, where they will entertain children, enrage p.e.t.a and generally stink up the place. more so. while cobracamanda had seen the elephants walk up to msg, i never had. because of this, i didn't realize how fast those fuckers buzz by, which meant that i was only able to get a few pictures, and fairly crappy ones at that. ah well:

ever since dw linked to my site, i’ve been getting a glut of hits. i found this kinda amusing when i got to thinking about how many of those folks were actually interested in seeing my pictures from the art shows, and how many were curious to see “dw’s bf” (though for the record, i prefer the term “manpanion”). given the influx of new readers, i feel like this is as good a crisatunity as any to discuss some plans i have for this space. i think i want to focus more on art, specifically art in new york, and more specifically still, public art in new york. before you ask, this isn’t because of the gates. i’ve always had a love for art in general, and public art specifically. there’s so much great art in new york that it seems criminal to not share it with people who don’t live here. thanks to dw, i’ve gotten hits from sweden, new zealand, china, and even baghdad! so, welcome, foreigners, locals, and everyone in between. that said, the site won’t be all about art. i’ll still keep posting stupid out-of-context excerpts from articles, fart jokes, and pictures i’ve sneakily taken of an unsuspecting populace. i welcome comments both in the little comment dealies after every post, as well as through email: loser [at] istolethe [dot] tv

BG, a v.good friend and arbiter of good taste, proudly displays the latest addition to his liberry:



here's a closer look at the book's cover:



and a hi-lar-ious excerpt, found by opening the book at random. please note the absence of paragraphs, and the bizarro spelling. ("Mellon shaped ass"?)



p.s. for everyone who stumbled to this page by doing a google search for actual homo thugs, i apologize.

"It would be interesting to know why President Johnson commuted Brown’s death sentence but, whatever the reason, the fact that Johnson remains the only President of the United States to have saved a vampire from hanging has done nothing to add lustre to his legacy..."

"'I have been handling wood all my life but I have never seen anything like it before.'"

(totally safe for work, and actually kinda sweet.)

"...when Gruber showed his wife his double penis, she went home, packed her bags and left.

From his hospital bed he said: 'I've got two penises but no wife, but I am hoping when I get rid of one of the penises I will get her back.'"

i'd been trying to see workers take down the gates, but didn't find any. the closest i'd gotten was a week or so ago when i saw a gates whose cloth had been taken down:




it was kinda sad, but not as sad as it this weekend, seeing the gates completely down, with only a few marker left where they were:






while in the park this weekend i also ran into palemale.com's set up for taping the now infamous raptor:




after strolling through the park, i wandered by a school, p.s. 183, that (i'm assuming) had its kids decorate its outside flower cases and sign with mosaics, which reminded me of what i saw at peace place park:






that evening, dw and i went to see the armory show, which i was pretty pscyhed about...


these are some of my favorite things from the show:

mummified barbies:


mushroom landscape:


colorful cars:


a cityscape made of microchips and stuff:


kkk/bondage crochet (or something):


dancing lightshow lady:




this sculpture that looks like it was made of cake frosting:


colorful people:




felt submarine:


doughy creatures who look like oogie boogie from 'nightmare before christmas':


creepy tree sculpture:


this amalgam creature:




which was tied for "best in show" in my head with this piece:


which is explained here:


the "messages" were then printed out and preserved along with the popcorn that had created them:


today (sunday) cobracamanda and i went to check out the scope art exhibit where we saw this piece:


as well as this balloony structure:


that people were encouraged to walk into to see this:



the exhibit cost more money than our broke/cheap asses were willing to pay, so we headed to rockerfeller center where i'd heard there was a free outdoor art show. turns out i'd heard right, as the art rock show was going on there. my two favorite pieces there were

three lit-up rooms:





and this diorama-y house


with windows cut out where you could see (among other things)

a reclining man


swarming ants


a large fly


and an injured man and a cactus on an air conditioner


all told, i had a wonderfully art-filled weekend.

Description: Let the Dark Side defend your lawn from the ravages of summer heat or cool you off on a hot day with this Darth Vader sprinkler! Standing 10" tall, this new and improved Vader sprinkler spins around with water spraying action, wielding his lightsaber in a furious battle to save your lawn! Let Darth Vader be the center of your backyard universe today with this very cool garden accessory.

"As he recounts in his seminal paper, The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard anas platyrhynchos, he was in his office in the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam, when he was alerted by a bang to the fact a bird had crashed into the glass facade of the building. ‘I went downstairs immediately to see if the window was damaged, and saw a drake mallard (anas platyrhynchos) lying motionless on its belly in the sand, two metres outside the facade. The unfortunate duck apparently had hit the building in full flight at a height of about three metres from the ground. Next to the obviously dead duck, another male mallard (in full adult plumage without any visible traces of moult) was present. He forcibly picked into the back, the base of the bill and mostly into the back of the head of the dead mallard for about two minutes, then mounted the corpse and started to copulate, with great force, almost continuously picking the side of the head.
‘Rather startled, I watched this scene from close quarters behind the window until 19.10 hours during which time (75 minutes) I made some photographs and the mallard almost continuously copulated his dead congener. He dismounted only twice, stayed near the dead duck and picked the neck and the side of the head before mounting again. The first break (at 18.29 hours) lasted three minutes and the second break (at 18.45 hours) lasted less than a minute. At 19.12 hours, I disturbed this cruel scene. The necrophilic mallard only reluctantly left his 'mate': when I had approached him to about five metres, he did not fly away but simply walked off a few metres, weakly uttering a series of two-note 'raeb-raeb' calls (the 'conversation-call' of Lorentz 1953). I secured the dead duck and left the museum at 19.25 hours. The mallard was still present at the site, calling 'raeb-raeb' and apparently looking for his victim (who, by then, was in the freezer).’"

identifying features: enjoys musical theatre, throws like a girl.

"In one of the most controversial scientific projects ever conceived, a group of university researchers in California's Silicon Valley is preparing to create a mouse whose brain will be composed entirely of human cells.

(...) Supporters of stem cell research at Stanford University include the actor Michael J Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's disease. Fox provided the voice for Stuart Little, Hollywood's version of the "human mouse'', who talks, has human parents and lives in a New York apartment.

Opponents of Prof Weissman's work accept that his mice are unlikely to show such obvious human traits, but voice concerns that the brain cells would begin to organise themselves in a way that was more human than mouse. There is growing unease over whether human stem cells could migrate to other parts of the animals, creating human sperm or eggs in their reproductive systems.

Should two such "chimera mice" mate, it could lead to the nightmarish scenario of a human embryo trapped in a mouse's womb."

US man's face torn off by chimps during birthday visit to simian pal

"The project is seeking couples who want to donate their bone cells - a couple having their wisdom teeth removed would be ideal. Their cells will be prepared and seeded onto a bioactive scaffold. This pioneering material encourages the cells to divide and grow rapidly in a laboratory environment, so that the scaffold disappears and is replaced by living bone tissue.

The couple’s cells will be grown at Guy’s Hospital and finished bone tissue will be taken to a studio at the Royal College of Art to be used in the design of a pair of rings. Following consultation with the couple, the bone will be combined with traditional precious metals so that each has a ring made with the tissue of their partner."

i wonder if they were in any way inspired by john donne's poem the relic wherein the narrator is buried with a band of his beloved's hair. he does this so that on the day of judgement when all the good (e.g. christian) souls are picking up the bits and pieces of their long-dead bodies, he will be reunited with his long-lost love for at least an instant before they are taken to heaven.