One of my favorite outsider films, Multiple SIDosis by the great Sid Lavernts, is now online (alternate link). As noted on the WFMU blog, Sid is still around and will sell you music and video tapes via mail. You can email to get a list of available tapes here: sidchar@CTS.com (the list is always changing because Sid is always coming up with new stuff). If you are a camera person note that all the scenes with multiple frames were done IN CAMERA by filming a projected performance, rewinding the film and recording again! One can only image the number of takes. It's too bad this digitized version is such a poor copy, Jenn and I were lucky enough to see a first generation print at the American Cinematheque in LA a year or two ago.

You can find a good Sidography on Jack Austen's site. More good Sid commentary can be found on Cake and Polka, low culture & The LA Weekly,.

(Note many browsers are not set up to properly view mp4 movies, in this case you will see text when you click on the above link. If this happens, download the link to disk, make sure it ends in ".mp4" and open it in quicktime.)

Update: Multiple Sidosis is now on youtube!

Merry Christmas everyone. The city is celebrating and you should be too, so put down your computer and get out there.

The scene: Jenn lying on the floor staring at the ceiling and talking, Raul Andres crawling around the room bottomless.

Jenn: "I know it's not rational, but there's something very satisfying about having a boy."

Me: "Some deep seated Korean thing?"

Jenn: "No, it's like- 'I made the other sex'. It doesn't seem that hard to duplicate yourself, but to make a man, that's something. I mean had a penis in my belly.

Me: That's weird.

Jenn: Yeah.

We attended dress rehearsal for opera Wozzeck today at the Met. Wozzeck is a study in atonality, relentlessly depressing and usually staged with spare almost empty sets. Opera buffs love the complex expressionist music. My friends who love opera often cite this one as a favorite. I am not a sophisticate. I'll admit to sleeping through the second act. Hard for me to appreciate... After the performance I couldn't wait to leave, but I was in the minority. I overheard a delighted fan, a large man with a thick German-tinged English accent, "So dark. So tragic. The gloom, palpable. The production was a triumph.[Deep satisfied sigh] But... perhaps, wrong for the season, Wozzeck should only be performed in February."

As a work-at-home guy, someone with a car, and someone who walks the bridge regularly the transit strike shouldn't have affected me that much... but it has been annoying. Driving in the city has become a nightmare, not because traffic is that bad, but because the police have blocked off both 5th Avenue and Madison making getting around anywhere above 14th street a real pain.

Yesterday we at lunch in Koreatown and then Jenn drove off with the baby & my brother in tow leaving me to fend for myself. Walking down an empty 5th Avenue a few days before Christmas was eerie. The whole city was dead feeling like a summer holiday when everyone decamps... but it wasn't summer, it was the first day of winter with December's blue light blinding everyone who was walking south. The only part of the city that seemed totally normal was Chinatown. Once I got to Canal Street a sense of normality returned with people hawking umbrellas and christmas lights and cheap radios. Past Canal Broadway became clogged with walkers heading for the Brooklyn Bridge.

At the base of the bridge an encampment of transit workers glumly shouted slogans and the masses trudged by ignoring them for the most part, but cursing the group under their breaths. In the words of one policeman, "Why does that fatso think he deserves more money than me for sitting in a tollbooth when I'm out on the streets breaking my neck." The bridge crowd was shoulder to shoulder. Bicyclers had to walk it. People were chatty. I heard several say this was the first time they had walked the bridge since September 11th. Wall Street guys fell neatly into their stereotypes with their Gordon Gekko hair, big cigars, and obnoxious talk (re the union leader's personal fine of $1000: "I wipe my ass with a G.")

I'm a fast walker, but most in the crowd were moving faster than me, perhaps because the wind was blowing making it very cold up there. Many stopped to admire the views and I heard several say "We should do this more often." In the middle of the bridge a girl in her 20s stood with a big "talk to me" sign. Nobody was talking to her and she looked sad. I said, "Hello there skinny." to make her smile and she did. News reporters kept pulling people out of the crowd trying to get someone to say something interesting... but this blog post notwithstanding what to say really? On the far side of the bridge several Brooklyn politicians welcomed people home with bullhorns and a girl in a skimpy Mrs. Santa suit doled out Christmas tea. She was really really cold.

I'll be glad when I can hop on the subway again. I'll be glad when I can drive from 34th and Lex to 35 and 7th without taking a detour to 8th Avenue and I'll be glad when I have the bridge to myself again.

I swallow a gigantic hamburger bigger than my head. The hamburger inches slowly down my esophagus like a rat through a boa constrictor. Try though I might, I can't squish it flat. I wake up in a cold sweat when it gets past my stomach.

I'm sitting in my 4th grade class when I hear Bill Little, a kid who always hated me (and who I once secretly beaned with a good sized rock), giggling in the back of class. I hear him muttering my name. He's making fun of me. My face is hot. Then I taste something bitter. I know what's going on. Bill Little has poisoned my bologna sandwich with glass and lye. My stomach starts turning violently.

A nickle drops through a hole in my pocket into a puddle. I reach after it and find the puddle deeper than I thought and very cold. Something in the water pulls me in. Suddenly I am under water and I can feel it crystallizing around me. Popsiclization is inevitable unless I can shiver myself out.

I am on fire. My hair, my clothes, even my toes. The only way to stop it from hurting other people is to eat it, so I force myself to eat the fire pushing my face onto it. I eat it all but inside it still burns leaving me smoky from my seams. I cough soot.

I wake up on an empty beach. The sky is blue, the water clear. I think, "This is pleasant. Ahhh. I must be better." S t r e t c h. I watch the waves lapping at my feet. And then I notice that the sand has been washing over me leaving me partially buried. I am immobile. "Still not too bad," I think. Then tide recedes and small black ants come marching in from the tall grass. They climb my belly and disappear into my bellybutton. I know then that this isn't over.

Back in August I wrote about revisiting a small village in Tibet after many years. I had brought photographs of my previous visit and the villagers told me that a teacher I had met there who had befriended me and helped guide me around had died.

Well today I got this message "hello, Raul!
it is nice to see that you went to back Amchok this year and it is good to see that you wrote things about your visit to Eastern Tibet. Though it was sad to see that you mentioned I was died! I am alive and live in Austria. I am the one who guided you Amchok some 11 years ago.

regards

Amchok Choetar"

The BBC recently did a 4 part documentary on the building of modern Beijing. Some of the stats thrown out are incredible. Right now the city is consuming half the world's production of steel and a third of its concrete. Take a listen here: The City Ate The World..

Our entire clan has been struck down by a stomach bug our child picked up at the pediatrician's office (this is my theory, Jenn thinks it could have been picked up anywhere). Last night was a non-stop vomit-fest with the three of us abandoning the soiled bed and parking on a futon which was easier to clean up. I haven't felt so bad since had dysentery in India. Jenn was writhing around with cramps and our son would sit up with a scared look on his face and projectile vomit all over us. We didn't sleep much. Despite his suffering at 6:30 as usual the baby was in a remarkably good and ready to play. Jenn and I were less well. These were the respective comments of our parents when we called in for reinforcements.

Call #1:
Me: Dad, Jenn and I can barely make it out of bed we need your help.
My Dad: How are you going to have a second child if you can't take care of one?
etc...

Call #2
Jenn: Omma
Jenn's Mom: Hallelujah!
Jenn: Omma all three of us are sick with a stomach bug. We were all throwing up all night. Can you come up?
Jenn's Mom: But I don't want to get sick. You'll be ok, just pray to Jesus.

It is 4 in the morning. Outside it is bitterly cold. Rain is blowing in sheets and there is thunder. The weatherman predicts sleet by morning. In the street below a young woman without an umbrella has just passed by for the 3rd time in as many hours calling for her dog Samson who has apparently run off. This my friends is love.

My friend Gabe got me all jazzed about seeing the new Edward Burtynsk show at the Brooklyn Museum. I've been a Burtynsky fan ever since I saw his shipbreakers show a few years ago. My plan is to make it out there this week. Do any of my photo geek friends care to join?

I've always claimed Santa is more than a little scary... a big chubby guy in a red felt suit with an unkempt beard and rubber boots. Chills.

Witness my son (who seems to love everyone and is generally all smiles when he meets new people) encountering old St. Nick for the first time:

1. Wind is your enemy.
2. 4 Dozen balloons generate a huge amount of static electricity.
3. Static shocks hurt.
4. Low lying trees pop balloons.
5. Concertina wire pops balloons.
6. People will say "Happy Birthday!" to which you might answer, "It's not my birthday" to which people might say "go to hell."
7. Young kids might ask you "Can I have a balloon mister?" to which you might answer "I'm sorry these aren't my balloons." to which a child might reply, "Then what do you care, give me one."
8. The ribbon on the balloons can get wrapped around your neck.
9. When 4 dozen ribbons are wrapped around your neck and the balloons are blowing around, you might get strangled.
10. If you call out for "a little help" nobody will help you.