Sunny Sanny D

 Haven't yet shared San Diego. I was all Swine fluey so it got a bit jumbled. I enjoyed myself. I did. And I know I had things to share but some of it feels a little like a dreamed it because of the foggy swineness.

NB: I did not actually have Swine Flu. Chillax Mum.

Soooooo I spent lots of time hanging about on my cousins veranda and lots of time sleeping but I also went to many of Sanny D's Museums. Luckily for lazy folk like me, most of them are in the one park. And a lovely park it is too:

Balboa Park

I remember being impressed with the Museum of the Living Artist. Largely due to being "so over" (that's So Cal speak) seeing art work by dead guys. I like that this museum is dedicated to showing contemporary pieces by contemporary people. I did go to the MCASD but it was showing works from the MCA's (Sydney) collection and it was all video art. Have I mentioned how I feel about video art? No? Well that's a rant for another time. Remind me after I've had a few and I'll tell you aaaaall about it. Amazingly they did not have any Tracy Moffat on show though.

The same day I went to the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center and saw an IMAX film about the Great Barrier Reef. Then, I come back to LA and the hostel is full of Aussies. The sneaky bastards are following me. Finally the awesomeness that is me has filtered back to mainstream Australia. I'll be signing autographs soon.

Back on point, the Reuben H. was rad. It was so hands on. There was edutainment bouncing off the walls! I didn't get to see it all though because spent a way-too-long on this:

Marvel of Modern Engineering

It works though! Roll a marble down it. Go on, it totally works. I'm that good.

Also, finally! Finally! I saw the body worlds exhibition by every one's favourite Creepy German, Gunther Von Hagen. 

Now, I'll be the first to admit that our mate Gunther has revolutionised anatomical display and education. The dude invented plastination Which is basically the process of replacing the fluid in organs with  plastic or rubber polymers so they are preserved and can hold their own structure. Incredible, however there is something ethically icky about this guy not to mention he makes some odd artistic choices and gets way to excited about things he shouldn't.

I'm always wary of where he finds his subjects. Supposedly, people donate their bodies to him, which may well be true and I admire anyone that donates their posthumous bits to science or medicine. But where did he find bits and bodies before he was world renowned Gunther, the Creepy German?

Let me go on record as saying I would like to donate my organs for people who need those organs to survive. BUT, if my bits end up in the hands of that man I will come back from the afterlife to wreak my bloody revenge on whoever made that happen. Hmmm, horror film anyone? So going to write that.

Hey Gunther, we know what you're Junk looks like.

Back to San D. Emmanuelle , my cus who lives in the barrio, took me to see a local Sanny D band. The B Side Players were superb and the lead singer had the most incredulous hair I've ever seen!  

Also oodles of noodles of Murals. Love a good mural. Have been inspired to do some muraling of my own. Watch this space...

Tennessee is not a bad place to be.

Thursday night I watched the sun go down over the fields of Virginia and woke Friday to watch it rise over the train tracks of Knoxville. I'm in Sunny Tennessee. And boy, is Knoxville pulling out all the stops to impress me. I've seen art, I've seen sun,I've seen tiny puppies make friends with other tiny puppies, I've seen Cheesecake on a stick AND I've seen Julia Nunes. You incorrigible little flirt Knoxville, wooing me this way. Julia Nunes is someone that was already on my US Mission list but I had know idea that she would be HERE and NOW and for FREE or that Knoxville was having their annual Dogwood arts festival. 

Julia Nunes: World's Most Infectious Smile.

Before we continue with Tennessee though, I feel I should back up and wrap up DC.

So i went to Big Dog Obama's House. On the way there I saw an awesome white building and taking photos of it I thought to myself "They must make a lot of the buildings white around here, like its the fashionable thing to do". No Sascha, that isn't a white house, it's THE White House. No sighting of BD Obama or his new dog Bo. There was a protest starting in the park across the street though. Something to do with Tax according to Mr security guard. He didn't seem to know or care much about it. Dude seen it all before. There wasn't much protesting happening when I went and had a look see, just rotations of the Forrest Gump soundtrack playing while people milled about (seriously guys get some new protest songs already). I then realised I was wearing my newly acquired Bloomsburg Hoodie and figured they might not appreciate being represented at a protest so I left to do a lap of Barrack's place.

By the time my circuit brings me back, the protest has grown. It seems every redneck with an agenda has come out to play. I still don't hear anything about taxes but I see this: 

And hear a lot of pledging of allegiance and star spangled bannering. I start to get a little scared and figure its time to run away just as this arrives:

I scampered away to the safety of the nearest art gallery.

This whole day was wet and miserable and couple that with the endless amount of Neo-Greek Monuments I got a little over it. It's no wonder the Vietnam War Memorial was so controversial. It's the polar opposite to all the white stone pillars. Speaking of the Vietnam War Memorial, The chick that designed it, Maya Lin, had an exhibition on at the Corcoran Gallery while I was there. She's no 90 year old french woman but definitely does some nice work. 

The following day the sun came out so I went in search of Japanese Cherry blossoms. Alas they had flowered the week before.

Tomorrow I move on to Nashville and after that I've been convinced to go to Memphis as well. We shall see. Unfortunately all this slothing about in the sun has given me the sniffles so I'll see where the mood takes me.

The best things in life are free.

...and by that I mean the Smithsonian Museums. They may be in desperate need of funding but they're keeping it free if it kills them. Hopefully with the current economic climate they will have a chance to catch up. Is that how these things work? Money confuses me.

My day started by being befriend by the most pretenious man I ever hope to meet. He's doing a PHD in Shakespeare and is from Toronto. If the rest of Toronto's population is like him, I'm crossing it off my list. He decided to sit with me at breakfast and tell me that I had an attractive neck. Apparently it's unusually long. I think the toss-pot wanted an invitation to go sight seeing with me.  Also today I was given a flower by a homeless man. He wanted to tell me it was a pansy. It was beautiful  and fresh picked and I would have prefered to have had breakfast with him.

Later in the day I feel in love with a 90 year old french woman. Her name is Louise Bourgeois. I saw her exhibition at the Hirshhorn gallery and her sculptures were A-Mazing. 

DC is very pretty. It was built to be photogenic. The only problem I see with it is all the Americans. I don't mean the native DCians, I mean all the others. Americans don't travel much except, it seems, to their nations capital to soak up the patriotism and democracy. They didn't get in the way too much. I saw this: 

And for those of you that forget why this is important to America, let me remind you.

Funny thing is, I'd already formulated that comment when I heard a women say to her child "Forest Gump". Sometimes I wish I wasn't always right.

Stuffed and Mounted

My number one feeling today is felt. 

Actually that was yesterday. My number one feeling today is Holy Goddess it was snowing in SoHo. They've told me its supposed to be Spring. I'm beginning to think, however, that the blossoms in Central Park were put there by the National Parks and Wildlife to make us believe its spring. Mother nature, that wily c-bomb, ain't fooled though.

Back to felt, oh mysterious and wonderous stuff that it is.

I went to the Cooper-Hewitt museum of design and the only floor that wasn't closed for installation was the felt floor. It was A-mazing!! They had chairs made from felt!! I was so moved by the awesome powers of felt I bought this:

It's an egg cosy. Of course I don't actually have any eggs to make cosy and so, have no idea what to do with it. But look at it. Just look. Did I mention it's made from felt.

I then continued on my merry museum way to the natural history museum. what is wrong with the American education system when the poor kiddies don't even know what taxidermy is. Yes children, these are real birds. They were once alive. They are now stuffed. Not fake, stuffed. Speaking of taxidermy (and if I haven't told you already, let me just say it is one of my favourite crafts. Second now, only to felt.) check out this very fine example from the halls of mammals:

It has drool (sorry its actually a little dark). How do you even taxiderm that? Genius.