Red-Light/Vorortromantik/Architecture/Death

I'm exhibiting new work in a four-man show which opens soon, at One Eye Gallery in Paekakariki. I'd like to extend a warm invitation to y'all to attend the opening on Saturday afternoon from 3 'til 5 pm.

Participating in the show are Jo Russ, Sandra Schmidt, Matt Couper and myself. It promises to be a great show.

If you can't make the opening, please feel free to pop up to Paekak of a sunny afternoon and check out the show for some spiritual and intellectual edification. You can, of course, spend the rest of the day in the fine second-hand bookstore, on the beach or in the pub.

The show runs from Saturday 20 November until Sunday 19 December. Gallery hours are Wednesday - Sunday 11 am 'til 5 pm. You can contact the gallery on 04 292 7044, or check out their site.

Now pray for Yassir Arafat

Yassir "The Moderator" Arafat, probably at the prospect of having to deal with - on top of Ariel Sharon - four more years of the Bush govt's policies of lunacy in the Middle East, has gone into a coma.

Hunter S. Thompson on Arafat:

Yassir has never been well-liked or popular in the Arab League nations. He is ugly and loud, and spittle flies off his lips when he talks. His beard is unclean and his eyes are like bags of dirty water. The starch in his uniforms gets rancid after two or three days of soaking up fatty acids, and even good friends avoid him in private. -13 October 1986 [Generation of Swine, p170]

"There were times when I could Have strangled him
There were times when I could Have murdered him
(But you know, I would hate Anything to happen to him)..."

[or something]

Don't get me wrong, I am not anti-Semitic or even anti-Zionist by any stretch of the imagination. However, as probably the only thing standing in the way of full-on jihad against Israel - and by [almost-]logical extension, nuclear conflict in the Middle-East, Arafat has his uses, so to speak. I hope he pulls through.

EDIT: In the interests of clarity I have slightly reworded some of this post.

Well... piss up a rope... again

Anyone who's ever lived here - Wellington, New Zealand - will know what I mean when I say that yesterday, Wednesday November the 3rd 2004, was a sublime Wellington day. The wind died away mid-morning and we basked in sun from heaven all the rest of the live-long day. God was clearly softening us up for the blow.

Looks like the Top Gun shit did the trick, goddammit.

So the Dorking Labs crew and miscellaneous hangers-on assembled at a pub and - drinking fast and hard - watched the live CNN broadcast of the unfolding results in the US elections a bit like it was a rugby-match. And like most rugby-matches, I lost interest when it became clear at around the 55-minute mark that the result was a given. Then it all got a bit silly for a while - our taunting of the CNN presenters' unwillingness to 'call' this state or that state [obviously wanting to avoid scandalous premature announcements a la 2000] turned surreal as we loudly suggested that they cross live to (the recently deceased) Hunter S. Thompson, a random blogger, the Symbionese Liberation Front, Mumia Abu-Jamal, the exhumed corpse of Jefferey Dahmer, the Una-Bomber and so on, anyone, anyone, and get them to call the result in Delaware or some shit. We also started revising the American electoral system, mooting for example that only Hollywood stars ever be allowed to become the Governor of a state, and that anyone who's ever released a good album be allowed 20 votes - in perpituity - rather than the standard one. Then No Offense, But... bit my hand for reasons that are still a bit unclear - possibly trying to express the collective mood in some sort of regressive act of savagery - if I had a digital camera I'd post a little snap of his teeth-marks some 12 hours later - and after a little while we drifted away into the night.

Today the weather did the only decent thing again, and packed it in.

Everything Is Wrong With Me-guy writes - as per usual - some really funny shit about god, George Bush, and his America.

Elsewhere on this site Blog-In-Mouth presents the unexpurgated version of his 'mourning'-after cartoon. You also gotta check this one, if you haven't seen it yet.

A chocolate fish for the first person that can find me a link to a good blogger who is celebrating the result. Fuck it, I might as well stake a blowjob, it's not gonna happen.