I’m off to Portland for a few days to see the closing of my show at Night Gallery. Don’t know if I’ll be able to post while traveling, but I’ll be shooting some video and stills. I’ll miss you all.

The snow on the iron fence reminded me of the drawing(s) I did yesterday in the time life book about collecting. In this case, collecting books. The word Youth is from A Matisse illstrated edition of Ulysees.

birds take wing

a long dance party made into a short, shadowy film

Sick with the flu or a cold or something the last few days. Life seen in an on going sleep fever dream. Some man in a coffin trying to become a crocodile… a crowd gathered around a television set predicting the impossible… the man becomes a crocodile only to have the jaws broken back to reveal his human head… and on and on…

Some old footage of Fasnacht and a new drawing.

I took this a few weeks back waiting on the roof on a rumor of fireworks that never came. Now I’m watching Dawn in Basel and there is only one drummer running unseen through the streets, beating a march time… it rips and echoes up the street where the camera isn’t pointing.

morgestraich Basel Fasnacht from Alex Itin on Vimeo.

The video is an experiment using piano notes from various Monk vids I pulled off of Youtube. I was watching Straight No Chaser last night and I’d always felt that certain moments in a Monk performance are like shards of colored glass from stained glass window… they sort of hang out there all alone. I wondered if it might not be fun to try and reassemble them into some new abstract shape. It would be an interesting electronic instrument that allowed you to play notes and video clips of you favorite musicians. It seems somehow related to how I’m using the page layouts of the Time Life book of Collectibles as a back bone for abstract paintings.

I found this scrap of purple on the windshield. Mysterious delight.

Porcelain can opener
open ring
ring out ring in
pabst the road to the city
bought with beads beads