grghhh, saturday night

di and i decided to go down to symphony center to see tortoise play live accompaniment to 'nosferatu' the silent film. we thought "it would be easy to take the train, let's take the EL and be responsible and have fun and not drive, etc."

we left the house at 5:45 or so. stopped at a new deli near the purple line noyes stop. got sandwiches. very good.

got onto the el platform at 6:35pm. there were already a lot of people, meaning the train hadn't come for a while. mat called to see if we were going. he and sue were just getting onto a metra train in hyde park, and we agreed to meet at the theater. the train came about ten minutes later. we rode down to howard street where we had to transfer trains to the red line. we waited quite a while after getting on the red line train. eventually we started moving, and then found that the route was changed onto the brown line tracks. mat called to say they had seats in the back row of the floor of the theater. we were still near lawrence ave.

we got off the train down by the art institute, and arrived at the theater at 8pm, about 45 minutes later than expected. there was a huge crowd outside, and they weren't letting anyone else into the theater.

di and i gave up, and walked north along michigan avenue (from 200 south) to chicago ave, where we turned west and walked to the brown line stop at chicago and franklin. again, very crowded platform, but the train came soon enough. thankfully, it was our red line train, which confused a number of the folks on the brown line platform.

long slow ride back north, transfer at howard, get off at noyes at 9:40pm. try to get gelato at the linz & vail by the train, but they have closed at 9:30. we jumped into the car and drove to the linz & vail by our house, which was still open until 10pm, thank fucking baby jesus, they were open, and finally something went right tonight. of course, they didn't have regular cones. ha.

we sat and ate our gelati in the cool fall dark.

back on our street, the cops were out and a large number of teens were in the street, milling, shouting, running. apparently there was a party, until the cops figured out which house it was.

i sat on my front step and watched the neighborhod for an hour, pictuing how we'll go about tearing out the floor of the 1st floor bathroom.

drinking orange juice, going to bed.

more editioning

ran to turin, dropped prints, unfortunately noticed that they have a bianchi pista concept size 61 on sale for 30% off, but i'm not good enough on the track to justify that. jamba juice and bought some dog food, including some "herring and sweet potato" flavored food, just to see if seth likes it (which, it turns out, he does). now signing the rest of the cyclocross prints, and moving on to nada surf. i got an email from chris funk from the decemberists asking for copies of the latest print i did for one of their german shows.

saturday am.

got up and sat in the not-quite-hot-enough bath for a while, then walked to boocoo (new coffee shop) with di and seth. second try, and the coffe was, again, not quite right. not the size ordered, and i'm pretty sure from the smell i'm making that they didn't use soy milk. not a big deal, they'll figure it out.

back in our yard, di and i walked around, patting ourselves on the back for having reached this year's goals in the yard: the front is more or less planted, a raised tomato garden was built (though i got the tomato plants in the ground a bit too late to harvest anything more than small green tomatoes at this time of the year, but the squirrels love them), and the pine tree (oculus draconis) we put in front has flourished. we started talking about next year's goals, and the wambly patio, and the big dirt patch in the shade of the trees.

inside, we turned on 'sound opinions' on public radio. pledge drive time. weird to hear them talking about me and the poster i made for them. a couple factual errors, but generally very nice.

now curating and editioning the cyclocross prints, so i can deliver them to turin bikes this afternoon.

all day friday

grrrrgghhhh.

okay. woke up, couldn't move. usually, i'm an early riser, and get up easily. for some reason this week has been staggeringly difficult to physically get out of bed. body doesn't work. not sleeping right. something. anyway...

i eventually got myself out of bed around 7:30, and soon was on the way to TBM, mocha and new keplate films in hand. measured a couple pieces of existing plumbing to reference on the drawings i hope to turn in monday. picked up some blue ink, dropped off the editioned minot prints.

got a postcard in the mail from peter kursel, a professor of mine (and diana's) from university of illinois. haven't spoken with him since 1994. he was the single most influential teacher (painting) of my college experience, with ken carls (design history) and roger kotoske (foundation color theory) coming in a close second and third.

peter has a painting show in milwaukee on friday oct 19th. oddly, i will also be in milwaukee on friday october 19th, playing a dianogah show with bottomless pit. i doubt i can make it to peter's show, as i'll be flying in to town from minot right about the time we should be soundchecking, but maybe i can make it there saturday morning or something.

arrived at screwball at 10am. sue arrived soon after, and mat arrived at 11. we got to burning screens, cutting films, and printing. mat and sue generally ran the press, and i tried to keep two steps ahead of them by cutting films and getting screens burned. we had food from spoon thai for lunch, with steve w and kirsten, the screwball press intern.

i got a call from a friend and regular client of mine, who asked me to design a cover over the weekend for an EP he has coming out in europe. if it were anyone else, i'd say no, but....

anyway, steve had (on thursday) printed the fourth color (white) on the nada surfs, so mat and sue ran the 'black' (dark grey) key plate, and i got ready to print the cyclocross posters. when mat and sue were printing, i got started on signing and numbering the nada surf prints. sue left at 4pm, and by 7pm, mat had finished the third screen. he took off, and i ran the key plate by myself, listening to the ipod.

cleaned up, loaded the nada surfs and cyclocross prints into my car. i dropped schuba's share off at the club, and headed home. diana, seth, fire, bowl of cereal, blog post, emails, sleep.

thursday eve

trying to give my isometric drawings the look and feel of genuine commercial planning.

when i 'finished' these, i started on the drawing i'll use for the print demo i'm doing in noth dakot this week.

then re-drew the text for the cyclocross posters, as the customer had changed his mind about abbreviating cyclocross to 'cross.

the bed. me. oof.

thursday early afternoon.

it's beautiful, cool and clear out. we have a fire going, diana is taking a break from drawing a book cover to cook an apple pie. i am editioning the remainder of the minot posters, listening to the new radiohead, and getting ready to draw the revised plumbing plans. perfect.

late wednesday

paul came by, i gave him the lowdown on the drywall and trim work he and greg will be doing next week.

i went to get jason, and we headed over to the beat kitchen to see 'head of skulls' play. they were great! super loud, upbeat.

saw a bunch of folks, and took off soon after, because i am a lame.

dropped jason off, came home, visited with di & seth in front of the fire, and am now off to bed a little after midnight.

okaybye.

wednesday evening

well, we have officially ushered in fall here at eichhornchenhaus. the fire is going. today chicago's weather came to it's senses and realized it's mistake, and it has been in the 50's all day.

diana went to the museum to do her bird thing. if you haven't seen it, please check her blog of watercolors of the types of birds she has worked on. the tiny aviary

i started the day by downloading the new radiohead album. the box set is on it's way. i liked the record on the first couple listens. i had a phone interview with an illustration student in florida, and then gathered the architectural plans for TBM for a meeting later with the plumber. i curated and editioned the minot state prints, and packed up some to fedex to the university.

seth and i went to the post office to pick up the shipment of posters from the show at first amendment gallery in minneapolis last month, which had work by mat, diana, and i. i hit fedex, then went down to the new 'uncommon ground' restaurant on devon, where check the electrician and pete the plumber are both currently working. mike of uncommon ground has a beautiful new space. it looks like it'll be open in a month or so, i'm guessing. i got a couple more pieces to my plumbing puzzle.

quick stop at metropolis coffee for a mocha granita, and a couple dirty jokes from tony.

from there, we drove to microcenter to pick up a hard drive, then down to soma studios in wicker park to get the large files of the new dianogah record, which we will be messing with at mark greenberg's mayfair studio in the coming weeks.

at soma, seth was delighted to see all the people. tortoise were in, practicing (erm... rehearsing) for their show this weekend at symphony center, where they will be performing musical accompaniment to a screening of 'nosferatu'.

from there, seth and i ran up to mark greenberg's to drop off the loaded hard drive. got a very brief visit in, and am anxious to spend some time in the studio. much less like a "pro studio", much more like a high quality garage sale.

met my dad and his poor old station wagon at albany park auto, where i know wally will put things right. left the wagon there, and drove my dad back home. quick visit with mom, who is careening towards her bachelor's degree, then home. diana met us in the yard, we selected some firewood from the pile in the garage, and i set to lighting the woodstove while di made me a spinach salad and an egg on bread.

paul brinkmann is coming by to get the details on some work he'll be doing on our house next week.

tuesday night

today started a lot like yesterday. got up and cut some films, then headed to TBM for some more ink, and down to screwball (with iced mocha in hand). printed two colors on the minot state print, finishing them.



printed one color on the nada surf, leaving white (4th) and black (5th) for tomorrow. i think steve may print those while i'm out doing other stuff.



left screwball around 10pm, and it's wonderfully cold. i can't wait to go to sleep in this weather.

monday night.

as i sit here typing at 11:15 at night, there are two weird sounds from outside:

1) it sounds like someone is trying to saw a car door in half with a dull handsaw.
2) it sounds like a small troupe of tiny monkeys are parachuting into a squirrels nest in the tree in front of our house.

woke and got out the door as fast as possible today. left seth at home with di. i drove to TBM to get screens, emulsion, squeegees, ink, and paper, then headed (with large iced mocha) down to screwball press. i hadn't yet been to screwball's new space where steve has worked since february. great industrial building near irving park and california.

washed and coated my screens, and alternated printing my stuff (with steve taking the prints off the press), and helping steve print his work.

brought my lunch: caprese sandwich (spinach, mozerella, tomato), yogurt, pear, apple. sadly, steve got me a large mountain dew when he went out for lunch. it was so good.

talked to pete the plumber, he doesn't know the answers to the questions i have. i'll meet with him wednesday. he's mad that the inspector won't allow PVC waste lines in skokie, and that the inspector wants isometric drawings.

i ran two colors on the nada surf prints, and one on the minot state print. finished up around 9pm.

drove home, and di had a great spinach salad and an egg sandwich waiting for me. we talked a bit, and she went to bed. i managed to make this laptop freeze up somehow, and noticed the sounds (mentioned above) while trying to restart. i just re-confirmed my paper order with my sales rep from french paper, and added the order for the print demo i'm doing in north dakota. nothing quite like the optimism of $2000 worth of colored paper.

the noises outside have stopped. i'm off to bed.

sunday night.

when i finished the drawing, i stopped at kinko's to make a keyplate film. from there, went out to my parents' house in the (real) suburbs for a visit, and brought seth, my axe and my new log-splitting wedge (see yesterday's post). my dad and i dismantled some more felled oak, some of which went into my car.

seth and casey, my parent's sweet but very very wound-up golden retriever, seem to have come to an understanding where they are both comfortable and happy.

grocery shopping, then back home, eating a caramel apple while driving. listening to pj harvey's 'stories from the city, stories from the sea'.

stacked the new oak, followd by another round of door and rain barrel painting, then di arrived home around four and told me about her weekend of camping. i directed her to this blog to see how i spent my weekend.

at 5, i took off for jason's house, so we could load our gear out of his basement (where we left it after the shows we played with andrew bird two weeks ago). surprisingly, i arrived early, and got to eat a little dinner with arthur and clive and hilary and jason. twin three-and-a-half year olds are, i think, pretty much the funniest thing in the world. for example, on their way to get haircuts yesterday, clive asked jason, "how will they cut my hair? will they use a strong rope?" the boys want to sniff everything. they seem to be experiencing the world via smells right now. i am trying hard to time it so i can do the old "pull my finger" trick, and blow their minds. my position as 'dirty uncle jay' will then be secure.

kip arrived, we loaded out of jason's house, into cars, drove down to our space at crosshair (screenprinting), and loaded our gear UP four flights of stairs. we always consider breaking up the band when it comes time to load up those stairs.

ran through the batch of songs we'll be playing next week in wisconsin with bottomless pit. i drove jason home, then headed north to my house, blasting hum's 'you'd prefer an astronaut'.

now sitting at my desk notifying ebay about copyright infringements of my work, and hoping to cut films for this beaver thing i'm going to try to print tomorrow at screwball.

sunday morning.

walked seth to try out 'boocoo', a new cafe south of us near the high school. i am optimistic about liking this place, but i cannot recommend the 'peanut butter cup' mocha.

at home, i gave those rain barrels a first coat of grey-brown, and gave the side door of the house a second coat. picked some cans out of the alley, and started drawing.