For those of you in the Southern area, check out ASK Apparel's Connect with a Cause event coming up soon. ASK-- hand-crafting naturally-dyed apparel-- is run by my incredible cousins, the Bellos sisters.

For those of you in the New York area, I will be around Long Island / NYC December 17th through 30th, feel free to contact me to make plans.

and here we have an email I have been sending to a lot of people today!

Hello all,

We, Jackie Todd and Sid Branca, your new editors over at Vita Excolatur, the University of Chicago sex magazine, need your help. We are hard at work, planning to bring Vita back to life, as it were, after its tragic fall into chaos and disarray. We are looking for writers, photographers, editors, and models, as well as those interested in layout, advertising, public relations, and financial management. We are looking for you, even if you have no idea what you can do to help.

For example!:

For the upcoming O-ISSUE, we are assembling a very private map. We need your anonymous stories of unusual and titillating locations for sexy times in Hyde Park. Feel free to provide the full anecdote or amusing advice, or simply "the ledge on the University side of Pick Hall".

Additionally, to mark the Dawning of a New Era currently underway at Vita Excolatur, we propose a change in nomenclature. We have changed staff, policy, quality and attitude so thoroughly that it is only appropriate for us to HAVE A NEW NAME. And you, dear readers, are hereby called to offer up your suggestions!

Please do send any and all ideas and questions to the Vita staff email, vita.excolatur@gmail.com, or to myself or Jackie Todd. We'd love to hear from you.

[This is where the accompanying awful photographs would go, if my phone were not on the fritz.]

The other day I went up to the Loop to finally really look at Magdalena Abakanowicz's installation Agora. I really enjoy her work, it seems so ready for performance, or to be performance. Things like this really make me want to train and make art happen.

When I got near the south end, a little blond boy was unexpectedly behind one of the huge figures, clutching a ball. He had gigantic blue eyes and would sometimes bounce the ball a little bit, but seemed wary of losing it. After a little while he was joined by a little blonde girl with matching blue eyes and a jumprope she dragged after her.

I left them to their toys and headed to the bridge crossing over the rail lines. In this particular stretch of urbanity, you can see a large and bright stretch of green between swathes of trains and bridges and buildings. Three young punks crossed the bridge the other way, with their skateboards and their haircuts and their awkward sexual tension. On the grass, far off, was a woman with dark skin and a long, flowing white skirt. She was throwing a stick to three brown-red dogs. She would run with them, they would run around her, she threw the stick really far.

No pretty picture for this post, as I'm transitioning to a new computer and shit is crazy.

A couple of things: this weekend I went to ThreeWalls gallery to check out a piece by Material Exchange, which is chock full of UChicago alumni. Perhaps I will write about it some time! I also went to see the Cirque du Soleil show Kooza and the contortionists totally blew my mind. Perhaps I will also write about that some time! Also I listened to a sweet mashup of an even sweeter Heaven Seventies song! So many exciting things that I am running out of exclamation points, just as I am running out of the ability to function like a sane person without going to sleep. But! I am packing! Because in a few hours I am leaving for Double Edge Theatre, to return July 22nd. Awesome.

The other night I went to see some friends who are moving out of their apartment. We ashed on the floor, and then I found some string and made use of the opportunity.