Saturday I met with Russ and Christy at Tito's. We had lunch and talked about the dance / film project Christy plans for late spring or early summer. She's not expecting the full funding she had hoped for — a common stumbling block when it comes to grant monies — so we're looking at a more scaled down approach. Instead of commissioning a sculpture to function as the centerpiece of an installation, she's leaning toward an exterior location. One prop that will be needed is an old fashioned claw-foot bathtub. We need to borrow one for a day, but it can't be hooked up, because we need to transport it to the location.
While we were hanging out at Tito's, talking about film, martial arts, and Christy's aversion to raisins, I noticed that Nicole, one of the waitresses at Tito's, as well as a local artist, was very clearly pregnant. I realized it must have been some time since I'd last seen her. And then I saw Deborah enter the restaurant. I waved her over and introduced her to Christy. Deborah explained that she was here for Nicole's baby shower. Nichol was one of the model's in Deborah's Tara series. Before she headed back to the side room for the shower, I thanked her for wrangling a screening of our Locos documentary at the San Antonio Museum of Art. I'll get some money out of it. Deborah's always watching my back.
Christy then told us some more about where she is with her up-coming Dada Dinner Party, on the 12th of May.
She's looking for audience members as well as 6 diners (including a director and a server). If anyone is interested in knowing more about this performance / happening, shoot me an email.
When I first heard of this, I immediately thought of “The Futurist Cookbook,” by Marinetti (the brilliant artist with questionable political leanings). I looked around, but I can't find my copy. It must be boxed up with many of my books in my mother's garage in Dallas. It's not so much a cookbook, as it is a playful and poetic conceptual oddity, originally written in 1932. I found a few passages on the internet. Here's a nice one.
AUTUMN MUSICAL DINNER
In a hunter’s cabin secluded in a green-blue-gilded forest, two couples sit down at a rough table made from trunks of oak. The brief blood-red twilight lies in agony beneath the enormous bellies of darkness as if under rain-soaked and seemingly liquid whales. As they wait for the peasant woman to cook, the only food that passes along the still empty table is the whistle that the wind makes through the door lock, to the left of the diners. Dueling with that whistle is the long, sharp wail of a violin note escaping from the room on the right belonging to the peasant woman’s convalescent son. Then, silence for a moment. Then, two minutes of chick peas in oil and vinegar. Then, seven capers. Then twenty-five liqueur cherries. Then twelve fried potato chips. Then a silence of a quarter of an hour during which the mouths continue to chew the vacuum. Then, a sip of Barolo wine held in the mouth for one minute. Then a roast quail for each of the guests to look at and inhale deeply the smell of, without eating. Then four long handshakes of the peasant woman cook and off they all go into the darkness-wind-rain of the forest.
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My friend Rose, who's in Morocco with the Peace Corps, sent me an email. She met a beekeeper who wants to make a documentary, and of course she invited me to come on over. As much as I'd love to travel to Morocco, I can barely chase off the creditors, let alone travel to northern Africa. And even if I could scrap together the funds, I'd find myself wrestling with whether I should update my video equipment. But when else will I have an invite to Morocco? Perhaps it's time to sell that kidney.