Peripherus Max: Another Blogspot of Overcaffeinated Ennui

Baby, it's cold outside.

2009-12-20T21:05:15Z

Mama, You've Been On My Mind.

2009-12-12T23:14:17Z

Once, I wanted to place 100 music boxes in a large circle in a darkened room... wind them all up, place a tea light in front of each box, and light each one in succession. I wanted to open each box, piecemeal, in a careful journey round the circle. And I wanted to invite Alton to dance a slow dance with me inside this flickering space until the harsh cacophony dwindled to a solitary song.

Once, in a parking lot in Nashville, I looked into the sky and saw two bright white haloes around the moon, one within the other, one brighter than the other... both destined for disappearance behind approaching clouds. The spectacle was so large, whispy and perfect, like an animator's cursive flourish in an old Disney film, that I laughed, involuntarily, out loud.

Once, I watched a sick cat die in my parents' garage. I'd loved it for all of its life. I watched its belly rise and fall, its fevered head slant to the floor and its poor eyes, in tight loops of vertigo, surrender and shut over the course of an afternoon. I understood, in an instant, that this is death for all things. Before the plug was pulled, my grandfather's chest rose and fell in exactly the same way in the two weeks following his stroke. It was like watching someone sleep, desperately.

Once is enough for anybody. Body heat, mumbled nightmares, lullabies, and bones that hollow out and break like promises.

Today, I wished that I had a child. Children are for people who want an audience for their autobiography but lack the patience to write the book.

Self-Portrait As A Desperate Homosexual.

2009-11-19T00:24:44Z

Cheating With Friends.

2009-11-16T23:34:17Z

Friday!

2009-10-20T13:29:48Z

You must stay alive to keep the world magic.

2009-08-26T01:12:41Z

Starr Space, a Brooklyn-based performance art venue founded by artist Jules de Balincourt, is pleased to announce a kick-ass evening of live performances that will take place this Saturday night, August 29, 2009!

Organized by curator Joseph Whitt, this event will feature full live sets by EXCEPTER, OMEGA JARDEN, FIGURE STUDY and FOLLOWER, as well as accompanying video projections by artists JOANNA BOVAY and JON WILLIAMS.

Doors open at 9:00 P.M. Show starts at 10:00 P.M. Cost is $7.00 at the door.

Excepter is a NYC-based electronic improvisational performance group devoted to “the exposure of cosmic consciousness through micro-movement, abstract razzle-dazzle, and living-in-the-moment.” They have released nearly 20 LP’s and EP’s since first forming in 2003, and will be offering a new limited edition 12” vinyl single at this show – Shots Ring (Carter Tutti Remix) / Stretch (J.G. Thirwell Remix)- as part of a series called FRKWYS, produced by Brooklyn-based record label Rvng.

Omega Jarden is a six-person performance art collective from Brooklyn. Founded in 2005 by Zoie Omega and Ava Jarden, the group specializes in a marriage of psychedelic visuals, call-and-response vocals, feverish dancing, and orgiastic rhythms. This is their second performance at Starr Space, after their first in April alongside acts such as Fischerspooner, Gavin Russom, Sweet Thunder, and others.

Figure Study is Nathan Antolik and April Chalpara - a newly formed New York minimal electronik duo performing pulsating, saturnine songs with analog synthesizers and drum machines. Earlier this month, the duo staged their debut performance at the WIERD Records weekly showcase at Home Sweet Home (below Envoy Enterprises), NYC.

Follower is an emerging Brooklyn-based band who describes themselves as “WANDERIN, RAMBLIN, ROAMIN, RUNNIN, Deep in Dawn-Rough cut-N-Infamous. The Aftermath of cinema, shoot shade, The menace of society.”

So, come on out! Cheap liquor and the avant-garde... solid!

Directions: Take the L train to Jefferson St. Exit at front of the train, then walk 2 blocks to 110 Starr St.

Outbreak.

2009-08-07T21:16:31Z

There is a kind of amnesia that grips my mind during protracted illness. Gargling with warm salt water, I find that I’ve forgotten the sensation of speaking without coughs bookending phrases. Losing my sense of smell, I strangely empathize with gravel underfoot - the sound of it, the need to compare pain with Nature, to find acid-trip kinship in inanimate objects. Ambling through neighborhoods of displaced Central American immigrants, I think FOX News thoughts of infectious H1N1 particulates entering a mouth forced open by nasal congestion.

The subway is a mutant incubator, and my barking cough gives way to voicelessness, to pink rawness primed and ready to sponge away stray splatters from a melting pot set to boil.

An icy Jager shot. If only…

Sweet Home Alabama (Reprise)

2009-07-29T02:31:06Z

I've always deemed tanning beds (along with full leg tats and recreational antidepressants) as the Everest of skank. Now, an international consortium of scientists backs me up.

The Summer Way.

2009-07-20T06:44:23Z

Growing Pains.

2009-06-06T01:08:49Z

The cruelty of strangers, however motivated, always comes as a surprise and rarely draws an appropriate response. Give yourself a break when dealing with these people. Sidestep and forget; and save one lesson learned from half-lives half-lived: never close your heart. No matter how cruel the world may be, it is more important to find love in life than to die safe, recoiled, like a shade sick plant grown into itself.

Is this what Christ meant? I hope so. Goodnight New York.

All My Crowns Are Made Of Paper.

2009-05-14T00:30:25Z

Starr Space, a Brooklyn-based performance art venue founded by artist Jules de Balincourt, is pleased to announce the opening of ALL MY CROWNS ARE MADE OF PAPER, an evening of spoken word, music and theatrics that will take place on Sunday, May 24, 2009. Organized by curator Joseph Whitt, this event will feature performances by MOMUS, AKI SASAMOTO, LORD WHIMSY and RUSTY SANTOS. Doors open at 8:00 P.M. Show starts at 9:00 P.M. Cost is $8.00 at the door, until filled to capacity.

The night promises to be a highly improvisational affair. As of this writing, Momus plans to conduct extended readings from two of his forthcoming books, "The Book of Jokes" and "The Book of Scotlands," while accompanied onstage by performance artist and dancer Aki Sasamoto. Rusty Santos will debut an intimate set of largely unreleased solo material. And, Lord Whimsy will guide the audience through a menagerie of artifacts both inanimate and living. Be forewarned, special guests may also appear.

Born Nick Currie, Momus began recording under his current artist name in 1986 and has since released nearly 20 albums. He has been performing and producing work for art institutions since 2000 and has been in exhibitions and performance installations at Blow de la Barra and the Southbank Centre in London; the Baltic Mill in Gateshead, England; the Secession in Vienna; the MOCA in Los Angeles; and Zach Feuer Gallery, the Whitney Museum and Swiss Institute in New York.

Aki Sasamoto is a New York based, Japanese artist who works in performance, sculpture, dance and installation. Sasamoto completed her MFA at Columbia and has recently exhibited at the Yokohama Triennale 2008, Japan; Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin; Zach Feuer Gallery, Exit Art Gallery and Chocolate Factory Theater, New York. She is co-director of Culture Push Inc.

Lord Whimsy is the author of "The Affected Provincial's Companion Volume One," which was published by Bloomsbury and has recently been optioned for film by Johnny Depp. The Companion is a collection of humorous essays, lyrical anecdotes, and satirical diagrams written during the twelve years he spent living in an old army barracks out in the Pine Barrens of rural Southern New Jersey. He maintains an online journal, The Affected Provincial's Almanack, which concerns itself with "microluxury, aesthetic ecologies, and other pretentious twaddle,” and writes about style, historical curiosities, and natural history for numerous publications, such as Vice Magazine.

Rusty Santos is a musician and producer based out of New York City. He has released four solo albums and is currently a member of a band called The Present. As a producer and mix engineer he has worked with the group Animal Collective, recording their "Sung Tongs" album, and has mixed many recordings on the group’s Paw Tracks imprint. Santos is also cofounder of the boutique label Uunited Acoustic Recordings, and has worked collaboratively with a number of artists, including Momus, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffitti, Jane, Terrestrial Tones, Holy Shit (Matt Fishbeck & Ariel Pink), and Panda Bear.

Starr Space is located at 108-110 Starr Street, between Wilson and Knickerbocker. L-train to Jefferson.

For more information, please visit www.starrspace.net.

ممنوع التدخين

2009-04-04T16:06:57Z

Neverland.

2009-03-26T16:39:14Z

I want to build a full-size house within a giant room inside the top of a skyscraper. I want to be able to control the daylight and the moon and stars on the walls and ceiling through carefully hidden LCD projectors. I want a small garden behind the house, a doorbell, a tube television made of varnished cheery that sits on the carpet of the living room floor, walls made of artist’s books, original art, 12" singles, and the mixtapes of friends. I want to buy the two floors beneath me so that I can dance hard and press the "Bass Boost" button on my stereo at 3 A.M. I want a job outside the service industry in a magical office peopled by genteel, well-traveled Southern women who reminisce about free love and the late 1960's. I want to manage a vast trust ensuring that all of the dreams of my friends will come true. I want to throw an intimate party in a different international city every Sunday night. I want to send surprise Saturday night airline tickets to a circle of intimates, perfume them with coffee and handwritten reminders that life is short. I want to open my heart, be invisible, have a family again, know more children, read the Bible, dig a hole in my hometown and speak a sermon into the Earth. I want a ring cast from the first metal that I excavate placed on Alton’s finger and inscribed on the inside with a phrase that only he will ever see. I want our marriage ceremony conducted without an audience and behind a waterfall. And, I want to leave behind a good story, something worthy of fairy whispers.

Ride Niagara!

2009-03-24T00:49:51Z

Starr Space, a Brooklyn-based performance art venue founded by artist Jules de Balincourt, is pleased to announce the opening of SWEET THUNDER TALENT EXPO 2009, a four-hour event that will take place on Saturday, April 11, 2009.

Organized by curator Joseph Whitt, the presentation will feature solo performances by:

- Fischerspooner

- Andrew W.K.

- Gavin Russom

- Lizzy Yoder

- Phiiliip w/ Omega Jarden

- International Fiction (Ford Wright and Nick Demopoulos)

- Alex Eiserloh’s "Kinda Like Monkeys"

- Angela Di Carlo

- Smelling Salts Amusements (Heather Romney and Peter Redgrave)

- The Jewish (Jeff Jensen)

Performance artist Adam Dugas will serve as Master of Ceremonies, and a finale featuring the reunion of once-upon-a-time darlings of the Williamsburg underground, Sweet Thunder, will conclude the night!

Doors open at 7:00 P.M. sharp. Show starts at 7:30 P.M. Please arrive early! Cost is $5.00 at the door, until filled to capacity.

Sweet Thunder was a band formed in 1997 in NYC with Alex Eiserloh, Lizzy Yoder, Casey Spooner, Kelly Kuvo, Gavin Russom, Heather Romney, Peter Redgrave, and Jodie Mechanic. The group formed to sing songs exclusively about Niagara Falls. Sweet Thunder lasted two years, debuting in February 1998 at a Chelsea venue called The Cooler, and later offering its swansong at Starbucks, Astor Place (NYC) in August 1999. In the summer of '98, the band recorded thirteen songs with producer Bobby Conn at Rubulad, an art space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. None of these songs have ever been officially released, and little documentation of the band’s actions exist. Many members of Sweet Thunder have gone on to enjoy great success as solo artists, and the SWEET THUNDER TALENT EXPO 2009 brings the original group together for the first time in ten years!

A limited-edition Sweet Thunder 7" 45 RPM record has been pressed especially for the occasion, and will be offered for sale at the show! It features 'The Museum,' an original Sweet Thunder track, written and mixed by Gavin Russom, and a Sweet Thunder Megamix by Phiiliip.

Starr Space is located at 108-110 Starr Street, between Wilson and Knickerbocker. L-train to Jefferson.

For more information, please visit www.starrspace.net.

... dot dot dot.

2009-03-13T16:02:21Z

Once, during a hangover, I saw God, and He was angry.

Harmonium.

2009-02-23T00:23:56Z

So Pigxote’s up for one more week! If you weren’t there, last month’s opening was a sardine packer. Check out this video shot by Kentucky-based artist Robert Spees that best captures the chronology of the evening. (p.s. Watch for the nun. A real nun showed up! Seriously. Everyone thought that she was part of the exhibition because of the skydiving scene from Mister Lonely. Turns out, she's a Watkins art student!) "Devils and Babies" is the working title of Harmony’s new zine (the one that I mentioned earlier), and we ended up partnering with Nieves to publish it. 11 pages, single run of 150. It contains new drawings paired with previously unseen texts salvaged from one of Harmony’s house fires.

Preggers and keggers.

2009-02-12T22:27:47Z

It's Better To Travel.

2009-01-24T18:16:41Z

Two beanbags surrounded by packing peanuts are unpacked and placed on waterbeds inside a furniture store. During a mid-winter blackout, the waters in the mattresses freeze. Unwarned, the owner's two young sons leap from a high railing onto the beds and break several bones on the ice. Their heads are cushioned by the beanbags; their paralysis later assuaged by sensory deprivation tanks.

Death, you spoiled brat...

2008-12-31T23:16:23Z

... God's favorite. You always win, you never lose. And you get everything in the end.

Battle of the Network Stars!

2008-11-23T00:20:29Z

Just got word that Phiiliip’s flying in to DJ the Pigxote opening, R. Stevie Moore name-dropped my sis in this month’s Vice, Grant’s new Polaroids are in a show at Fold Gallery (London) this weekend, AA Bronson says that I can partner with Printed Matter to produce a new zine for Harmony in ‘09, and my pitch to reunite Sweet Thunder in Brooklyn is a-go! Kelly’s coming to Nashville next month to silkscreen artwork for 100 copies of a 7” record that we’re pressing to sell at the gig. Gavin Russom is mixing “The Museum” for the A-side, and Phiiliip will be remixing “Sweet Thunder Medley” on the B. For the last two weeks, I’ve been brainstorming a series of solo performances leading up to the big reunion finale, a la 1998’s famous Astor Place Starbucks gig. Here’s the scoop… Andrew W.K. wants to reprise his famous instrumental keyboard solo, Gavin wants to debut a gorgeous existential ballad called “Lady Lazarus,” Casey wants to perform a track from his unreleased solo record (possibly “Faye Dunaway,” my vote - a total rocker), Ford Wright is onboard with International Fiction, Lizzy Yoder, Angela DeCarlo, Alex Eiserloh, Peter Redgrave, Heather Romney, EVERYONE from ’98-‘99 is down, maybe even Monotrona if she doesn’t move to Poland! The date’s April 11, 2009, pending an alignment of schedules.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, listen to Fakeways: Manhattan Folk, a pre-podcast documentary of fin-de-siècle underground New York by Momus. It’s a Rosetta Stone of sorts, describing a folk village-style utopia that existed in Williamsburg just prior to influx of million-dollar condos and hedge funds. Speaking of Nick, I just picked up the new Joemus today at Grimey’s! Get it. Joe Howe is a genius. I don’t know what methods were employed, but I vote for a new triptych of collaborative albums between Momus and Mr. Howe to match the “Stories of O” series with John Talaga.

FYI: Jules’s retrospective is up for two more weeks… the Gallery’s closed for Thanksgiving break, but ring my cell. I’m in the dungeon downstairs and can let you in.

With the birds I’ll share this lonely view…

2008-11-02T19:00:28Z

When I lived in Athens, I used to know a woman who’d take smoke breaks outside of a strip mall fitness center, in between sets, with her sister. Once, I overheard her singing “Scar Tissue” by RHCP, earnestly, with conviction. She's a couple of years younger than me, I think. Ten years ago, I used to work with her at my father’s restaurant. She’d relay orders from two takeout windows, help me pound up meat, wrap sandwiches and sack. One of these windows faced a trailer park where I grew up. One evening just before closing, she stared down a carload of skinheads who'd screeched to a stop outside. They lived in a double-wide in the back of the court and had been racing past our walk-up, raising rebel flag hell all day. They decided to shoot her a bird after some quick taunting. And without missing a beat, her response bird flew out the window. Simultaneously, in one gesture with her other hand, she lifted her blouse and bra, flashed them full titty and mouthed “fuck you,” snapping her head forward three times to emphasize the end of each word and an exclamation point. We never saw them again after that. Those were good, bright days. She used to brag about how she ran away from home when she was 12 but didn’t have to sell her body, and that her toddler was “hung like a mule.”

I don’t know if she knows it, but she’ll always be a hero of mine. Whatever happens.

Names Names.

2008-10-05T21:01:39Z

The essay for Jules’s show is done. And, pending the safe shipment of around 14 paintings and 2 sculptures from New York and Rome (insured out the wazoo), I will again be able to re-enter life, hopefully without peptic ulcer. The roundtable that Klaus B. organized at MOMA last month was amazing. Met Joan Jonas, Sue De Beer, Charles Atlas, some cool curators whose names got lost in Drambue. Paul Chan spoke about his staging of “Waiting For Godot” in post-Katrina 9^th Ward NOLA, and left me speechless. He reminded me of my friend Eddie from grad school – a ‘speaks in parsed paragraphs’ type, charily cool. (I don’t know if Paul would be up for going out in drag and crashing a night of Korean karaoke with me though. That's another story.) Got to hang with Marina Abramovic in a studio off Avenue B as she laid down some spooky Slavic spoken word for Casey’s solo record. The track’s called “Spirit Cooking,” and I video’d a ton of footage with a cell phone cam that’s going to be upped to the FS site at some point. I still can't believe it but I managed to work out a book deal with Nieves for Harmony’s Pigxote show in January. It’s going to be a limited edition artist’s book sold through the gallery and various specialty shoppes worldwide (i.e. Printed Matter, Colette, Spoonbill, etc.). On Thursday, Harmony called and tried to convince me that he was Paul McCarthy and that he wanted to do an “underground” exhibition in our basement. I didn't fall for it, although he’s punk’d me three times before. Earlier this year, he called and totally sold me that he was Leonardo DiCaprio: "Joseph?" "Yeah." "Yeah, Joe! Leo DiCaprio. Harm and Rach invited me down for a few days, Listen, I heard about the show you’re organizing man, can I get a brief tour or something? We’re driving down West End right now I think.” Sounded exactly like him. At the Polaroid opening, Harmony pokerfaced that a homeless man was taking a shit in our stairwell. I bought it. (Actually, it isn’t so implausible.) Third strike was when he invited me over to his house through his assistant. I get there, I’m standing on the porch, no one’s answering the doorbell or knocks, so I call him. “Hey what’s up?” “Hey, it’s me. I’m on your porch.” “You’re at my house?” “Yeah.” “Oh man, fuck! Scott was supposed to tell you next Friday.” “Oh no. Really?” “Yeah. (sigh.) Damn it, I’m really sorry. I'm not even in town.” “Oh well… okay. I…” “(interrupting) Hey! Don’t move. Can I put you on hold for a minute? I have another call.” “O-okay.” Five seconds later, door opens, there’s Harmony, pointing finger and laughing. One day I’m going to write about the motherload of contemporary art that he’s acquired/acquiring though art trades. Pettibon drawings from the late 70’s, works by Cameron Jamie, Martin Kippenberger, Christopher Wool, Leigh Ledare, Mark Gonzales, Rita Ackerman, collabs w/ Rita Ackerman that have never been seen, an unreleased suite of Larry Clark photographs depicting native American teens tweaking out on speed in the Midwest, seriously poignant and tragic… so much! The whole inside of his house is this constantly unfolding readymade museum survey of taboo and transgression. I really, really want to curate a show with it.

Per Chance.

2008-09-21T21:23:34Z

The last time that I was in Chelsea, I ran into artist-provocateur Mark Kostabi on the street. I’d remembered seeing him on 60 Minutes and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous as a teenager, and we struck up a conversation about the heady East Village art boom that led to him inviting me up for a whirlwind tour of Kostabi World. It was brilliant! He's asked me to come back to be on a future episode of Title This, a game show where art critics and celebrities compete to title his paintings for cash awards. And as you’ll see here, he showed me how to properly drop my name amongst his army of assistants. We talked for about an hour, as I eavesdropped on goings-on. Before I left, he generously offered to play me his interpretation of Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman, which was delicate and well-placed in the middle of one of the most hectic business days of my life. Behold, the highlight reel.

The Uglier I Get, The More Comfortable I Am Being Naked...

2008-09-04T03:23:52Z

"...your old dreams for new, your new dreams for old..."

2008-08-19T01:14:03Z

Bon nuit, oui?