Today I was working on a painting based on a photo of me in Jellyfish Lake in Micronesia, but I'm thinking of it as my character Bela Kis meeting the Big Jellyfish which is G*D in otherworldly La Hampa. I’m using acrylics, which I'm still getting the hang of, I'm more in the habit of using oils. You can't smear the colors around which is bad, but you can layer on colors pretty fast one after the other, which is good. The picture is called “Bela and the Jellyfish.” It's not quite done yet, but just now I photographed it. It's annoying when you're painting that there's no Ctrl-Z to undo a goof, no PhotoShop History dialog where you can roll back to an earlier state. Like life itself. The final version of the painting is in my next post.

I met up with Phil Curtis in Santa Cruz and we talked about merging his music with my reading. He had a lot of nice sounds on his Mac laptop, and some mixing ware to blend them and play them.

I did my ELSA reading with Phil’s music; he had a bunch of controllers to play with the mix, also an electric guitar. He’s in a band called SoNu. My story “Aint Paint” seemed more sinister with the sounds. It's about some Zhabotinsky-patterned paint that comes alive. I ran some CA demos of Zhabo scrolls off my laptop; actually in this picture I pasted some different pictures in, the chapter-header borders I'm trying to get Thunder's Mouth to use for the Lifebox book. Our performance went well.

One striking thing about the Next Door performance space is that the bathroom has a low-mounted convex mirror so you can study yourself while seated. On the wall is a framed photo of a naked pregnant woman, a fertility goddess, as it were. Ah, Cruz. Always fun to be there.

I’ll be performing with Phil Curtis at a small-scale event called ELSA, that is, ELectron SAlon #11, on Friday, June 3rd, in Santa Cruz, doors at 7:30, Phil and I start at 8 PM. Further info is in an earlier blog entry of mine. I'll read a story, Phil will make music, and for video accompaniment, we'll be running these nine CAPOW rules live. The story's rather short, so if I finish too soon, maybe I'll read an alternate cut-up version as well.

Frek was picked as a “perfect ten” book by VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocate), a magazine for librarians.

“Frek’s mythic adolescent odyssey to explore his roots and find his self is told with enchanting ingenuity and brilliantly conceived new creatures and characters—some elfin, some gross, and others just funny.”

We saw the Pixies in San Jose last night. It was so great. I’ve always thought Kim Deal was one of the coolest women in the world. I love her voice. I lifted this picture of her from a fan site. There is no “official” Pixies site. Kim looked so happy. Like a goofy friend you have who’s always grinning. Musicians are such different people. And where to begin talking about Black Francis?

Somehow he reminded me of a Francis Bacon painting ( image source). So oddly-shaped, and his joints swiveling in strange higher-dimensional ways, his head sliding onto his stomach as he leans back. What a voice.

They did “Wave of Mutilation” twice. I assume they’re referring to cattle mutilation — though with Black Francis, you never know. The first time he sang it alone, and the second time Kim sang along. How beautiful his voice is.

The final encore was “Debaser.” Kim crooning singing the word “Debaser” just a bit off the beat. The crowd cheering and pumping fists on the “Chien Andalou” chorus. That’s an old Dada movie by Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel, you wave. What a combo. Great, strange art.