Some people taste soap, right? I may be one of the “soap tasters.”

I mean, I eat cilantro. And when I eat it, I say to myself, “umm, this is good, what with all the cilantro in it.” But something tells me I’m not tasting what other people are tasting when they ooh and ahh over their guacamole. I’m terrified to think that I could very well be deluding myself. I may hate the stuff.

My girlfriend describes the taste as very “fresh’ and “green.” I find it almost metallic, like eating the bottom of a cast-iron skillet.

So I could be like one of those wretched colorblind people trying to look at paintings; I just don’t have the equipment, perhaps.

I finally got around to seeing the DADA exhibit at MoMA Yesterday.

This is the only picture I was allowed to take.

The guard said, “No pictures on the 6th floor.”
I said, “even if I don’t use a flash?”
He said, “Yeah, they don’t like people taking pictures of new exhibitions.”
I said, “OK.”

When you think of Dada you probably think of smart dudes in bowler hats making bad-assed art jokes.

Or maybe you think of paintings with a mannered hysteria about them—pictures of meaty-looking dudes with their legs blown off, maybe with some collaged bits of gears thrown in.

It was WWI, after all, and people were dying horrible deaths all around so I guess I can forgive Otto Dix for painting the way he did, but still they look pretty bad.

Duchamp’s art looks good: all these strange deadpan objects—like a freaky looking wine bottle holder—sending off their bad vibes throughout the gallery space. Yikes, readymades are creepy!

I like how little work Duchamp made in his lifetime—it makes me feel OK that I’m not producing a lot of work at the moment. Although I can’t play chess and Duchamp was a very good chess-player.

But still, Duchamp is pretty ice-cold and after a while you think, “I don’t care about this coat rack.”

Though, what you forget about with Dada is how lovely some of it is. How esthetic.

Man, I was really blown away by Jean Arp. Why hadn’t I thought about Arp? I think about Tuttle all the time and Jean Arp was doing Tuttle long before Tuttle. Some people called him “Hans.”

Look at this thing:

He would do some automatic drawings of shapes and then send those off to a carpenter to be cut out in wood and then he’d screw them together and paint them. Pretty good plan, I’d say. There are a few of these in the show. I love how gentle and unassuming they are. But also kind of tough and sloppy. He also made some great paintings and collages.

Kurt Schwitters is great too. I’ll take Kurt Schwitters over Rauschenberg. Yeah, I said it. I mean, wasn’t that Combine show at the Met disappointing? Didn’t you think, “Eh, these are kind of pompous. Who needs ‘em?”

Anyway, the biggest revelation of the Dada show was finding the work of Sophie Taeuber. Who the hell is Sophie Taeuber? I guess she was married to Jean “Hans” Arp. She made some really great needlepoint “paintings”:

I don’t remember if this one was in the show. Taeuber also did a series of small wood sculptures that are fantastic. Here is one of them:

I think she might have made these cool marionettes in the show too.

So Sophie Taeuber is great.

Here’s her picture:

Here’s a very cool picture of Jean Arp:

I was in Providence last week.

The people of Rhode Island pride themselves on their strange and miserable food—milk with coffee-flavored syrup, stuffed clams, lemon slush, vaguely clam-flavored fried dough. These are Rhode Island specialties, each with its own peculiar local name.

Another specialty item is the New York Hot Weiner or the New York System:

This particular style of hot dog has only a tangential relation to New York City, being brought over to Rhode Island in the 1920s by a pair of Greek immigrants living in Brooklyn.

The New York System is: a hot dog, a bun, a “meat sauce,” mustard, chopped onions, celery salt. I’m actually really eager to try one. If this type of hot dog ever existed in New York, it has long since vanished, replaced by the “papaya”-style frankfurter. And of course, Chicago is truly the place to go if you have any interest in hot dogs.

But ultimately, you really should be eating less meat, for a host of reasons.

So I was in Providence visiting Kaveri. Hopefully, I’m going to move my art studio there for a couple of weeks. While I was there, Kaveri and I fought terribly. We are both stressed out. And living apart while she’s off at graduate school has been tough. So, tough, in fact, that I appear to have developed a cold sore.

Here is a picture of Kaveri in Providence:

Hello Netflix.

A couple of days ago, I made mayonnaise.

That’s not a euphemism—I literally made mayonnaise. I was bored and I thought, “what can I do today” and “make mayonnaise” was the first thing that sprung to mind. This is what happens when you don’t have a full-time job.

It’s a strange thing to make—mayonnaise. Firstly, because no one does it—you can buy it in a jar for cheap and it’s perfectly delicious. And secondly because of the strange alchemy at work in mayonnaise production—turning a series of wet ingredients into a solid. You think, “holy crap, it’s mayonnaise” when you see it start to form. Basically, it involves whipping a thin stream of oil into a little egg and egg yolk. There is also salt, lemon juice and mustard. It’s easy if you own a food processor. I own a food processor.

Here is what my mayonnaise looked like:

How did it taste?

Like Hellmann’s Mayonnaise. Maybe a bit fresher-tasting. A bit creamier, I suppose. Maybe I could have thrown in a touch of sugar to give it that extra something. But, ultimately, it was very tasty. And remember—as the Buddhists will tell you—it’s the journey that’s important, not the destination. I had fun making my mayonnaise—living in the “now” and making my mayonnaise.

And then I made a very delicious potato salad from the mayo.

It looked like this:

Actually, it still looks like this because it’s sitting in my fridge right now. I used the recipe from The Joy of Cooking and added halved cherry tomatoes. I also added fresh dill because, for some reason the Joy of Cooking recipe didn’t included fresh dill which makes me think that the Joy of Cooking editors are psychopaths.

It seems as though I’m constantly shaving.

I may grow another beard when Summer ends.

Look for pictures.

That’s what I’ve been thinking for the past two days. I’ve also been concentrating on a pain in my left ear that hasn’t gone away, even after a doctor removed a big ball of wax.

The lyrics to the Sea Breeze jingle were, “beautiful skin can be a breeze with Sea Breeze.” If you stripped away the cheesy 80s production the melody is pure Bosa Nova. In fact, if you eliminate the last note (which resolves the melody in a overly-cutesy way), the “Sea Breeze” jingle begins to sound a lot like an Antonio Carlos Jobim composition (with its sophisticated chromatic run on the “be a breeze with” part).

So, good going, to whoever wrote that jingle.

I don’t know what I’m going to do for the next Sexual intercourse: American Style. The story has to revolve around the character of Tom, played by the talented Matthieu Cornillon. Any ideas?

About a month ago, I stopped into a used bookshop and bought a bunch of early editions of P.G. Wodehouse novels.

P.G. Wodehouse is a lot of fun to read. Essentially, they’re 1930s Hollywood screwball comedies in book form. I’ve only read three of his books, but I’m hooked. The best so far has been Leave it to Psmith; if I get around to writing a screenplay, it will be a contemporary adaptation of that book.

Jesus Christ, look at these early penguin covers!

I know I’m biased towards simple, crisp designs, but you have to admit it looks pretty cool—just three big, graphic stripes: orange, white, orange. And the lettering, set in Gill Sans, is wonderfully bracing and no-nonsense-y. The penguin is cute too.

Compare that edition to one printed nine years later in 1963.

Pretty crappy. A stupid cartoony illustration that undermines that crackling wit of the novels. Just a Drag, really. Set in Helvetica,

So it just goes to show you that simple design does not always mean great design—I mean, both these covers are simple, but only one rocks the house.

Maybe “rocks the house” is too strong here.

Have you ever been into a bookstore in France? The book covers look as though they haven’t changed since the 1910s. If I’m remembering right, most of the books in France—even the popular novels—have simple red lettering stamped onto a white or grey cover. And they look sort of dumpy.

The artist On Kawara used to send out telegrams to friends each day that read, “I am still alive.”

I wish that that is what this blog could be—just a daily reminder of my existence. It would make things a whole lot easier. Instead, I actually have to think stuff up to write about.

Any ideas?

For instance, I recently bought a navy-blue shirt from American Apparel and then proceeded to bleach part of it. Could I write about that?

I posted an obnoxious post on the Channel 102 forum that I now regret. What about that? Could that be a post?

I had a hamburger made from grass-fed organic beef and it was strange tasting. Do you want to hear more about that?

Anyone?

Last night Kaveri and I went to see our friend Matthieu “Doc” Cornillon perform in an off-Broadway play called, “Susan an God” at the Mint Theater.

I am happy to report that it was very good—great in fact. This is the most professional production that Doc has ever been involved in and it shows. In previous shows, there were always one or two actors that you wanted to take aside after the performance and tell them that perhaps they should look for another line of work. But all the actors in “Susan and God” were quite good and the play itself was very engaging—a fun 30s farce peppered with some darker moments involving alcoholism and redemption and such.

Doc is fantastic and fantastically tall. He plays Tom in my 102 show and when we were filming last weekend, we had to have the other actors stand on crates at times.