HFCS: effika’s blog

Let’s see… in two weeks I’ve been remarkably busy and yet haven’t really done anything at all. I watched The Producers at Harkins, rented many other movies (note: Kung Fu Hustle contains a lot of kung fu but very little hustle), settled on a dinner-and-movie routine that always involved Arby’s, went to a welcome back party for a girl I first met at her going away party, ect. Anything that didn’t require actual work was fair game for the past week and a half that I’ve been well enough to leave the house.

There was also the Momentum Art Show last weekend in OKC (no link, Google it. I’m tired of pretentious art people). OUI was present, although I think if we’d had more details before the show we would have declined. The area they gave us wasn’t exactly stellar. It was in the far corner of the unfinished basement, near electrical equipment held up on concrete blocks. We were directly underneath a very loud rock band. The floor was concrete, and had the appearance of recently being partially demolished– concrete dust got into everything and on everyone. It was also in the least-trafficked area of the building. They could not have found a worse place to put us.

The art crowd was interesting to perform for. They would laugh at the oddest things, although it seemed a constant that they all found death funny. Their suggestions were almost contradictory– half the time it’d be something about the bible (shouted with too-real-to-be-fake accent), and the other half of the time they’d shout about sex. That night was not the night for complex or subtle humor. (Although I must admit that the fact that the room was so accoustically ineffectual was part of this as well.)

The patrons we performed for were better. The majority of them had hit the bar by the time they found the basement, and found whatever we did hilarious. Also, they didn’t constantly shout out stuff about masturbation.

Then there was the art itself. While there were some good works of art at the show, the vast majority of it seemed to be done primarily for shock value. I think Mary put it best when she said she felt sad for the artists spending so much time on pieces that were meant to shock. I was mostly shocked at the prices. Jay and I had found some positively gorgeous glasswork, but our favorite piece (a vase) was well over a thousand dollars. I’d see a painting and think that it was going to run about 70-80 dollars, only to look at the price tag and find it was priced ten times that. The lowest price I saw at the show was $100. I think perhaps they had some sort of price fixing in effect.

There was also a guy dressed up in full military gear dodging in and out of the crowd. I’m pretty sure I missed what his actual message was supposed to be, but I enjoyed seeing him sneak around from room to room. His method of navigating the crowd was very similar to mine. I am short, certainly below most’s eye-level, and often have to dodge towering inattentive people. I smiled to think that somebody who looked quite tall was doing it on purpose.

I also ran into Billy at the very start of the show. At least, I’m assuming it was him. If somebody is reading this journal and feeling hurt because I no longer recognize them, comment and I’ll take you for some icecream in order to get to know you again. :-)

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