Friday October 28 and Saturday October 29 10:30 pm at Prop Thtr. Transgression Instinct evening of performance curated by Jenny Magnus as part of the Rhino Theater Festival. Both nights I performed Bouncy (the latest trampoline piece), and Pumpkin Cake (a Halloween-themed perversion.) Sunday October 30 Girlie-Q Variety Hour's Halloween SPOOK-tacular 8:00pm at HotHouse. I performed Pumpkin Cake.

I advertised this weekend's performances as Three Perverted Shows. By the end of the weekend I realized that I felt like I was cheating on the heat wave. But the more I thought about it, and thought about making these sexy/ disturbing neo-burlesque pieces for the first time this year, I think that there's actually a way in which making work that deals directly with sex has a relationship to the heat wave and other natural disasters (death count Pakistan: 73,000). Maybe love and sex remind us that we are fiercely alive. And then I remembered this passage from Janet Frame's Daughter Buffalo. Two young doctors have just witnessed the death of a six year old child. The narrator says,

Lenore and I faced together the hostile grief of the parents and our own ignorance of death, and that night we sat in the common room drinking numerous cups of tea and telling each other the story of our lives. The following night, for the first time, we made love: after death there seemed to be no other place to go except to love, as a way of hiding from death and, as it happened, of hiding from ourselves.

Tuesday October 25 1:00 pm, Michigan and Congress. Collaboration with Red, Indi, and the city of Chicago.

Red's 11:30 am text message read: If u can go c the lake 2day. Amazing.

So I walked down Congress toward Buckingham fountain and the lake. Can I get a show of hands of anyone who has ever been walking downtown Chicago and found a beet on the sidewalk? A fully intact beet, with its greens? Anyone?

It's good to carry a beet around on a stroll through downtown. You and your beet can rest on the benches near Buckingham fountain, take photographs against the skyline, find a dry fountain in which to install it between the claws of a massive bronze bird who looks like she might snap it up and eat it. Indi was on the phone from Seattle. She suggested carving some text on the beet--something short and sweet.

Sunday October 23 Las Manos Gallery, 2:00. All the Women You Want. The weekend included three shows worth of comedy, monologues and burlesque with an all-female lineup. Participants included Vicki Quade ("Late Nite Catechism"), cartoonist Nicole Hollander ("Sylvia"), and Miss Exotic World 2005.
 
Today's show was "Confessions: An Afternoon of Confronting the Truth" and I performed Supersize Diva.

Friday October 21 Day #2, collaboration with Jim Withington. I read my 739 word story to friends at Barra ñ. The restaurant was loud so my original plan was to read it after we got out onto the street. But Nora, one of the collaborators on September 8, wanted to hear it immediately. Nora suggested I read it aloud and fight the noise. So I did.

This story is maybe many stories, and it contains text stolen without permission from Eric Klinenberg, Annie Dillard, Ariella Lake, and Indi McCasey, whose words have been represented as my own. Why waste any of my 739 words with a citation?

Monday October 17 The Ghost of 739.

I printed the poem and installed it attached to a "God Bless America" T-shirt in a used clothing store on Belmont avenue. (Photo taken from the street).

Saturday October 15 Performance at 100th anniversary celebration of United Church of Rogers Park, Ashland & Morse, 12noon. I sang 3 Russian songs and performed Stitched and Stapled, about adventures with Neudachin in Moscow.

I think this was the first time I ever performed at an event for which a popcorn maker had been rented. Why don't we do this more often?

Friday October 14 Late night Chicago, still early for someone whose body is on west coast time.

Tonight I found out Anita Alcantara is in the hospital. She was the secretary / director of community ministry at the United Church of Rogers Park forever, then retired and has since been volunteering for Insight Arts--holding down the fort and reading Freire. From my own religious upbringing I know Methodists don't generally go in for prayers on 7-day candles, but it felt like the right thing to do.

Wednesday October 12 Sonia, Zyon, and Ezra took me with them to Fruitvale Village, where they were participating in a community art project called 100 Families Oakland. Ezra is four and an accomplished abstract artist. He and I collaborated on this piece, which is called "No Putdowns."

For my part, I lent my skin for his canvas, rolled up my sleeve, and wore it all the way home.

Tuesday October 11 double booked in San Francisco. First stop: Youth Speaks intergenerational curated open mike at Cafe Royale hosted by my buddy Kahlil (left) formerly of Chicago. I read Prove your Poverty.

Second stop: Oaklands's John F. Kennedy University's Dept. of Arts and Consciousness. I visited a performance class that was working on Ritual and performance. I poured some hone and salt into each of their hands while I talked to them about the heat wave of 1995 and my project this year. Then I invited them to lick their hands (pictured). Thanks to instructor Seth Eisen of Circo Zero.

Friday October 7 Ken Krafcheck is a visual artist. He also facilitates community art projects. He does this through the Maryland Institute, College of Art. He and I were on a panel together today at the STPA Conference in Eugene, OR.

Ken told us over dinner that he never performs and doubted anyone could ever make him into a performer. Could there be an easier invitation to collaborate? I said I would make him a performer, RIGHT NOW, and instructed him to tell me a story about summers where he grew up. In this way Ken and I collaborated on a continuation of performance work started in March in Providence, RI.

Wednesday October 5 Look, this really is a sanctuary. I keep adding things to it and nothing is ever disturbed. Friends and neighbors, this is my call out to you: it is time for you to add to this installation. I want to walk by it and see someone else's handiwork. Get off the Morse el, walk west to the Morse Fruit and Meat Market, walk through the parking lot to the fence at the back.

Tonight's addition is recycled from someone else's work of art. A young person got on the red line with his guitar case covered in these identical bottle caps. It was really quite something. Right before he alighted at Loyola, I heard one pop off and land on the floor. I picked it up and installed it in the sanctuary of honey and salt.