New Day #272

To me, one of the hallmarks of effective art is that it infects your system. Like a virus, it can remain inside you for the rest of your life.

So, even though it's been a couple of weeks since the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art's TBA (Time Based Art) Festival, I've been infected with Tiago Guedes, a Portuguese performance artist who explored unforseen possibilities with paper shopping bags, including wearing them.

It never occurred to me that you could wear a paper shopping bag. Let me amend that; as someone who was once 70 pounds heavier, it never occurred to me that I could wear a paper shopping bag.

Or bags, as the case may be. Presenting the New Seasons look for the new season.

My godson said I look like a caveman.

New Day #260

Tonight I'm a performance artist! I won't be smearing myself with dung or reciting the phone book in Farsi, but I will be taking part in the Portland Institute for Contemporary Arts TBA Festival in an event called "Our Hit Parade" in which local artists reinterpret Billboard Top Ten Songs.

I'll be singing--and deconstructing--"Disturbia" by Rihanna. Because she and I are so much alike.

Hopefully I'll have video for you tomorrow, but in the meantime here's that other singer who performs it.

New Day #258

Today I got loopy. As part of Portland Institute for Contemporary Arts TBA Festival, I took a workshop with the brilliant Reggie Watts, who taught a group of Very White People how to sample and loop using only a guitar pedal.

I was totally not good at it, but I think Reggie and I make quite the pair, even if I no longer have the same haircut.

Watch what this man can do. Every sound you hear is him recording and playing it back as he goes:

New Day #252

First off, thanks to those of you who offered suggestions--though I'm not quite sure what it means that more than one of you suggested some version of that lemon/salt water/cleansing diet.

Today's New Thing comes courtesy of my infinitely inventive friend Tim, who suggested I picnic on the roof of the parking garage at the airport. It just so happened that my father arrived from New Jersey and that the sun actually came out here in Oregon, so I had the perfect opportunity.

My dad's name is Chase and he's aptly named--the man is always on the go and is, therefore, up for anything. As such, he enjoyed a picnic surrounded by a wire fence and what appeared to be a prison tower. "I feel right at home," he said.

Chase is in town for his annual pilgrimage to enjoy ten days of avant-garde performance art at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art's Time Based Art Festival or TBA. We kicked off the event by taking part in a Protest Over Nothing, in which hundreds of us marched a mile carrying blank signs.


The seeming pointlessness of it reminded me of Groucho Marx singing "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It." Come to think of it, spending time with my father always reminds me of Groucho Marx.