what my life is:
So, the school I go to, and the city I live in, are ridiculous places.
At my school, I can have any item I want bronzed. I can reproduce objects with A 3-D PRINTER (wrap your mind around that, guys). I can put laser images inside plexiglass cubes, just for shits. As of today I have complete access to the Sound department, which has whisper-rooms and theramins and moogs and reel-to-reels and giant sound boards and synthesizers galore.
I can make cartoons and radio plays. I can request my own studio space. I can check out taxidermied animals from the library and take them home to study. On friday we are taking a field trip to the zoo for one of my classes.
I work in a library collection that has a deep-fried book, a trucker hat that says "The Future Is Stupid," and a jar of urine with a picture of George W. Bush on it. One of my bosses bio-engineered a living rabbit that glows in the dark, as well as a human-plant hybrid.
In the city I live in, there are enormous sculptures of an eyeball and a gigantic metallic bean. On monday, Bryan and I saw the largest fountain I have ever seen, and I have seen many fountains in my day. There are used bookstores, comic book stores, vintage stores, and record stores everywhere. I thought that zines were pretty much a dead medium until I came here and realized that they didn't die, THEY JUST ALL MIGRATED TO CHICAGO.
Every day there are readings and art shows I could go to, if only I had time. There are craft fairs that actually have shit worth buying. There are plays and improv shows and concerts every weekend and in between.
Two weeks ago I saw an original Henry Darger.
I HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN INSIDE THE MUSEUM OF THE ART INSTITUTE YET.
Oh, and a few blocks from campus there is a Thai place where I can gorge myself on half-priced sushi every day from 2pm-7pm. I mean, if I wanted to eat for five whole hours. Today I get my first paycheck, my loans FINALLY kick in, and I am going to apply for food stamps so I will be able to eat regularly.
One of my roommates is a ridiculous chef who makes everything from scratch, even margarita syrup. I know a girl in the writing program who used to write movies for Bollywood, and a girl from Wisconsin whose dad makes giant tourist-trap statues so she grew up inside a giant cement badger (yes. the badger was her house. She grew up inside a badger.)
The other day I was listening to Wilco on my iPod, and I looked to my left and saw the two buildings that are on the cover of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
Rahm Emmanuel is totes gonna be my mayor.
Every day I walk through this city and through my campus, and it's like I'm in some magical, make-believe city that I just dreamed. All of the architecture is monumental and dramatic and surreal in its scope and personality. I regularly stumble across statues, or bridges, or gardens, or ornamental molding, or inexplicable bohemian marching bands, OR GIANT EYEBALLS, and just stare, baffled, and think about what a weird place this must be to grow up in when you are little. I LIVE IN GOTHAM YOU GUYS.
So. You should all come visit, because this place is nuts. I am really busy all the time now; filing and re-filing artists' books, reading Beckett, workshopping other people's stuff, revising my story about the fifty pianos, and writing my revisionist-psuedo-historical novel about animation since 1981. I am almost at the conclusion that I need to devise a way to stay in grad school forever, because who knows when I am going to need to randomly bronze some object in the future? I imagine such equipment is expensive to privately procure.
The only things I am missing are my boyfriend, my cat, and a bedroom that is bigger than my parents' closet-- all things that will happen in good time.
I also miss my family and friends, in both Texas and the east coast, and I can't help but dwell on how cosmically unjust it is that such a concept as "distance" exists. I wish I had time to talk to all of you on the phone every day and send you shit through the mail (especially because the library where I work also houses an inspiring mail-art collection that is just the tits); unfortunately, miring myself in debt does take a chunk out of my time, so for the next two years you are all going to have to settle for drunken facebook posts.
Affectionately,
-LesDix
At my school, I can have any item I want bronzed. I can reproduce objects with A 3-D PRINTER (wrap your mind around that, guys). I can put laser images inside plexiglass cubes, just for shits. As of today I have complete access to the Sound department, which has whisper-rooms and theramins and moogs and reel-to-reels and giant sound boards and synthesizers galore.
I can make cartoons and radio plays. I can request my own studio space. I can check out taxidermied animals from the library and take them home to study. On friday we are taking a field trip to the zoo for one of my classes.
I work in a library collection that has a deep-fried book, a trucker hat that says "The Future Is Stupid," and a jar of urine with a picture of George W. Bush on it. One of my bosses bio-engineered a living rabbit that glows in the dark, as well as a human-plant hybrid.
In the city I live in, there are enormous sculptures of an eyeball and a gigantic metallic bean. On monday, Bryan and I saw the largest fountain I have ever seen, and I have seen many fountains in my day. There are used bookstores, comic book stores, vintage stores, and record stores everywhere. I thought that zines were pretty much a dead medium until I came here and realized that they didn't die, THEY JUST ALL MIGRATED TO CHICAGO.
Every day there are readings and art shows I could go to, if only I had time. There are craft fairs that actually have shit worth buying. There are plays and improv shows and concerts every weekend and in between.
Two weeks ago I saw an original Henry Darger.
I HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN INSIDE THE MUSEUM OF THE ART INSTITUTE YET.
Oh, and a few blocks from campus there is a Thai place where I can gorge myself on half-priced sushi every day from 2pm-7pm. I mean, if I wanted to eat for five whole hours. Today I get my first paycheck, my loans FINALLY kick in, and I am going to apply for food stamps so I will be able to eat regularly.
One of my roommates is a ridiculous chef who makes everything from scratch, even margarita syrup. I know a girl in the writing program who used to write movies for Bollywood, and a girl from Wisconsin whose dad makes giant tourist-trap statues so she grew up inside a giant cement badger (yes. the badger was her house. She grew up inside a badger.)
The other day I was listening to Wilco on my iPod, and I looked to my left and saw the two buildings that are on the cover of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
Rahm Emmanuel is totes gonna be my mayor.
Every day I walk through this city and through my campus, and it's like I'm in some magical, make-believe city that I just dreamed. All of the architecture is monumental and dramatic and surreal in its scope and personality. I regularly stumble across statues, or bridges, or gardens, or ornamental molding, or inexplicable bohemian marching bands, OR GIANT EYEBALLS, and just stare, baffled, and think about what a weird place this must be to grow up in when you are little. I LIVE IN GOTHAM YOU GUYS.
So. You should all come visit, because this place is nuts. I am really busy all the time now; filing and re-filing artists' books, reading Beckett, workshopping other people's stuff, revising my story about the fifty pianos, and writing my revisionist-psuedo-historical novel about animation since 1981. I am almost at the conclusion that I need to devise a way to stay in grad school forever, because who knows when I am going to need to randomly bronze some object in the future? I imagine such equipment is expensive to privately procure.
The only things I am missing are my boyfriend, my cat, and a bedroom that is bigger than my parents' closet-- all things that will happen in good time.
I also miss my family and friends, in both Texas and the east coast, and I can't help but dwell on how cosmically unjust it is that such a concept as "distance" exists. I wish I had time to talk to all of you on the phone every day and send you shit through the mail (especially because the library where I work also houses an inspiring mail-art collection that is just the tits); unfortunately, miring myself in debt does take a chunk out of my time, so for the next two years you are all going to have to settle for drunken facebook posts.
Affectionately,
-LesDix