Pretty much Best Christmas Ever...

I had a nice, drama free christmas this year and it was great. Ive been skating at bryant park 3 mornings a week since thanksgiving which means I've heard a lot of christmas music, 3 hours a week. It's been really nice to enjoy this season and the music around it with no expectations…From my total immersion into seasonal music I've determined that my favorite holiday songs are …1) Let it Snow by Dean Martin,  2) what are you doing New Year's Eve -  Ella Fitzgerald,3) Holly Jolly Christmas- Burl Ives..4)  Christmas Time is Here - Chipmunks 5) Christmas Is Coming - Vince Guaraldi Trio 6) Step Into Christmas - Elton John 7) Feliz Navidad - Jose Feliciano 8) Winter Wonderland - Eurythmics 9) Stephen Colbert - Another Christmas Song 10) Little Saint Nick - Beach Boys…my favorite christmas album is by the ventures and I also love barbra streisand's christmas album….whew, now that Ive gotten all that outta the way….Happy New Years

Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China @ The met

This may be the best exhibition of contemporary chinese art I have ever seen, I really liked the curatorial premise , …... China’s ancient pattern of seeking cultural renewal through the reinterpretation of past models remains a viable creative path. The exhibition includes work in many different mediums, I really liked Ai  Wei Wei's small scale ceramic pieces so much more than the big overproduced pieces that dominated the hirschorn last winter. there were some pieces of a massive scale but they felt very personal and addressed the reconciliation of the past with the present in very personal ways. Highly recommended.

10 Books That Taught Me How To Live My life

I was raised by wolves, I learned nothing by example…thank god for books

1) Harold and the Purple Crayon - Crockett Johnson

 This  book taught me that we invent the life we want to live..

2) Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller

 This book showed me a man who invented his life, from scratch. Scrapping the old easy way of living that he fell into and following his dreams

3) Camera Lucida - Roland Barthes

This book showed me that we see what we want to see…and that we take away from a situation what works for us and leave the rest behind…we don't have to understand our enormity every second of our lives

4 ) The Boy who Followed Ripley - Patricia Highsmith

This showed me people following their instincts and the amazing adventures that resulted from being true to oneself

5)  Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin

This book showed me a regular old gay gay, who had the same feelings and motivations as anyone else….a revelation..that yeah, I was different , but I was also just like everyone else

6)  Christine - Stephen King

I love seeing what happens when things have feelings

7)  Shakespeare's complete sonnets

Pure verbal art, brilliant like a David Bowie lyric

8,9, 10 )  Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso - Dante

For me college was all about ideas…. and reading Dante, in Italian, under the direction of the brilliant renaissance scholar Joseoh Mazzeo was life changing. It was subversive in that it turned conventions on their head…it fleshed out the rules of christianity in such as a way as to highlight their role as allegory and fable, as ideas on how to live one 's life and not rules to follow slavishly….easily some of the best art I have ever encountered

Christopher Wool @ The Guggenheim

I loved this show! Way more than I thought I was going to. I thought that because I knew the early word paintings I knew his career. This show did exactly what the best curating does, it educated me and allowed me to see what a great painter he is and not just an executor of one smart ass concept…and I really love that the museum let me and my friends take as many pictures there as we wanted…!

Margiela x Converse x Hanson

I really liked the Margiela x converse Jack Purcells but my new attitude toward $ made me very reluctant to drop $200 on them so while visiting Urban outfitters for their half off sale price event I came across some camo purcells for $22.00. I knew I had some benjamin moore white semi gloss around my studio and…..voila. These look great and I get a very satisfying feeling wearing them….