The "Corn dogs, Corncobs, and Cornhole" Edition

Rusty’s Electric Dreams :: Issue #019 :: The “Corn dogs, Corncobs, and Cornhole” Edition :: 02:04:2015

Rusty’s Electric Dreams, an inbox zine by pop culture activist Rusty Blazenhoff
Issue #019 :: The “Corn dogs, Corncobs, and Cornhole” Edition :: 02:04:2015

Corn dogs, Corncobs, and Cornhole

Holy Toledo! 2015 sure has been action packed. I’ve traveled to Reno, taken on a new client, slept in an artist’s yurt in the woods, lost the new client, seen the Penn & Teller show in Vegas, played the Super! Bowl!, experienced Fallen Cosmos, and lots more.

It was super great to see so many of you at Saturday’s Fallen Cosmos show, both onstage and in the audience. Your costumes, especially the hats, seriously blew me away.

If you missed out on it, not to worry, the folks at SF Institute of Possibility are offering you a second chance to experience it. There are encore performances on both February 6th and 7th. Get tickets for Friday here (that link is not for sharing on Facebook or the like. But do tell your friends.)

A new month means a new Artist-in-Residence. Please welcome Los Angeles-based artist Joe Holliday. It’s great to have him onboard.

tl;dr warning: This issue is a BIG LONG one.

A NOTE FOR BLOGGERS AND OTHER PEOPLE WHO SHARE STUFF ONLINE: If you like something that I’ve shared in this inbox zine and want to share it yourself, I have made it easy to give me attribution (which helps me a lot!).

Head on over to the Archives page and you’ll find every issue there.

I prefer to be credited as “Rusty’s Electric Dreams” but “Rusty Blazenhoff” works too.

Thank you in advance!

— Rusty Blazenhoff

p.s. If you use gmail, I guarantee this email will get cut off <shakes fist>. Just hit “View entire message” at the bottom left hand corner to see the whole thing. If you don’t, you’ll miss out on happyfungoodtimes. If anyone knows how to fix this, please email me.

photo by Scott Beale

This space
intentionally left
corny

As seen on the Internets

:: Sex, Drugs, & Silicon Valley, a new series on CNN
:: http://money.cnn.com/technology/sex-drugs-silicon-valley/

:: TIL: You can stand in San Francisco and Alameda at the SAME TIME

:: http://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/san-francisco/things

:: Gareth Branwyn has started a podcast called Cafe Gaga (yay!)
:: http://blog.garethbranwyn.com/?p=803 #arrangedmarriage2020

:: Saeborg’s Kinky Rubber Farm
:: http://hifructose.com/2015/02/01/on-view-saeborgs-kinky-rubber-farm/

:: Dittoform, 3D Body Scan Dressforms
:: http://www.bitsofthread.com/classes/dittoforms-our-3d-body-scan-dressforms/

:: This is my new favorite thing
:: http://www.alexameade.com/

:: 3D printed Left Shark
:: https://www.shapeways.com/product/PHEKBV6E2/left-shark

:: Field trip alert: Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood is now on display in Pittsburgh, PA
:: http://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/exhibits/mister-rogers-neighborhood

:: “Three Rules To Live By” by actor Jason Segel
:: http://youtu.be/xaTJkbbzTg0

:: Cool dad has his son’s drawing tattooed on his arms
:: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/31/dad-drawings

:: Literal back pack
:: http://www.incrediblethings.com/style-and-gear/literal-back-pack/

:: The Story of Disneyland, an exhibition and sale
:: http://www.vegalleries.com/storyofdisneyland.html

:: Tents with LED lights built into the frame
:: http://www.rei.com/s/big-agnes-mtnglo-tents

:: This unusual establishment in LA looks *amazing* Thx, Silke!
:: http://goodtimesatdaveywaynes.com/

Real things you can actually buy: nay!

Artist-in-residence: February 2015

Los Angeles installation artist and fabricator, Joe Holliday, is February’s Artist-in-Residence for Rusty’s Electric Dreams. Yay!

For his first week, he’s shared some of his collages with us, stating:

My collage work functions as a series of diagrams for a forgotten machine. Each image is spills out with definitions, shapes and opaque textures that pull the viewer through its planes and back out again. The circulatory system of a crab becomes the edge of a forest, a map becomes solid, and a mathematical formula becomes a curse.

These images serve as analogs and are made manually using photocopies and solvent transfers. I prefer to use the especially toxic solvents because they make the final object potentially unsafe to touch and lend a sharper quality to the images. The purpose of these images is not to serve as a self contained statement but to be a visual aid in processing the machinery that binds us.

See the rest of the collages HERE.

Real things you can actually buy: yay!

This is the Angry Corn Dog, a spicy offering (that was once) available at The Skillet Diner in Seattle, Washington. It’s a hand-dipped corn dog topped with Sriracha, orange zest, basil and chilis. Boo-yah.

photo by Rusty Blazenhoff

It’s always a good day when you meet a cool new person. While celebrating the birth of my sister-friend Heathervescent, I met culture hacker Jean Russell. She was eager to share her wonderful “Tie Series” with me, which I *adore*.“I had to start showing up at an office with other people. So I decided to be a bit subversive about it. What is the last thing you would see on professionals in the SF Bay? A tie.

The following series is my performance art while at work, exploring the intersection of gender by combining elements of masculine and feminine together. This is not an act of the feminine representing as masculine“ a woman in shoulder pads with a tie. It is an act of presenting both the feminine and the masculine: a tie with a pencil skirt. And to be sure that this feminine is not a simple receptacle of the gaze, I often add 20 hole doc martins, a long time symbol of subversion and punk…”

See more of the series HERE.

Remember in Big, that Tom Hanks movie from the 1980s, when his younger self makes a wish to be “big” to the Zoltar machine? Well, I was just in Las Vegas and made a beeline to a similar machine that is sitting in front of Houdini’s Magic Shop at the New York New York casino. Look at my fortune. How apropos!Can’t make it to Vegas? Get your own “Premium Zoltar Fortune Teller Machine” for your home or office. Breathing animation extra. Or, alternately, you could make your own Zoltar costume. I’ll give you a $1 if you do.

photos by Rusty Blazenhoff

I’ve learned over the years that if someone suggests a book to read, I should stop, buy the book, and read it. Over dinner this weekend, my friend Dusty recommended a book of Coyote stories to me, saying that some of them made her laugh so hard that she cried. <sold> It’s called, Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with His Daughter: Coyote Builds North America.Meta: I’ve started a page of things that have been recommended to me.

Teerex Corn Cob Holders by Lana Filippone

Events of note

Akhob, a “Ganzfeld effect” experience by James Turrell at Louis Vuitton in Las Vegas

photo by Florian Holzherr

Alameda
[2/13] Paper Cuts, a group exhibition of extraordinary collage work assembled curated by Michael Tunk

Austin
[2/10] Lloyd Cole at Cactus Cafe

[3/15] The first SXSW panel I’ve ever been on happens on this day. It’s called “The Greatest Geek Moment in History” and I’m honored to share the stage with Chris Taylor of Mashable and Daniel Terdiman of VentureBeat. 5 PM

Denver
[Until 4/12] Mark Mothersbaugh: Myopia at Museum of Contemporary Art Denver

Las Vegas
[Ongoing] Akhob, an immersive “Ganzfeld effect” experience by artist James Turrell at Louis Vuitton [by appt only: 702-730-3150] HIGHLY recommended!

Los Angeles

[2/13] Friday the 13th Cabinet of Curiosities Art Show[2/14] Bawdy Storytelling’s 2 Year Anniversary event in LA [Details to come]

[2/15] L.A. Zine Fest 2015

[2/23] Largo and Literary Death Match present Patton Oswalt – Silver Screen Fiend [Tickets]

[2/28] The Murray Affair: A Bill Murray Art Show at the Syrup Loft [Tickets]

[3/21] Escape from the Walled City by Real Escape Game [Tickets]

Menlo Park
[1/28] Armistead Maupin, celebrate the end of Tales of the City series [Tickets]

New York City

[2/5] NYU Game Center Lecture Series presents Anita Sarkeesian [Until 2/8] Mrs. Mayfield’s Fifth Grade Class of ’93 20 Year Reunion, an immersive theater show in a NY apartment

[Until 2/14] NYC NeoFuturists present The Human Symphony, an audience-performed play

Oakland

[2/5-2/18] The 17th San Francisco Independent Film Festival[2/6] Big Dick’s House of Boobs, a DIY strip club in a secret location in Oakland [Tickets]

[2/28] The New Pornographers at the Fox Theater

[3/7-3/8] Oakland Museum’s White Elephant Sale [Free]

Palm Springs
[2/14] Charles Phoenix: Carousels of Kodachrome

Paris
[10/10] Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton

San Francisco
[Until 2/14] Shit & Champagne, An exploitation comedy with dance [Tickets]

[Until 2/8] SF Sketchfest: The SF Comedy Festival. This year’s lineup is fantastic. [Tickets]

[Until 3/1] Cognitive Technology: Tools to Understand and Extend the Human Mind; Exploratorium

[2/5-2/18] The 17th San Francisco Independent Film Festival

[2/7] ArtPoint’s Annual Gala: Art is for Everybody at deYoung Museum

[2/8] Cultivated Witâ€™s Comedy Hack Day Finals, 7 PM at Marines Memorial Theatre

[2/10] Because We Can (design-build studio, architect/designers of The Interval) salon talk on the future of building at The Interval [Info]

[2/10] Odd Salon: PHENOMENON: “Exploring stories of the unexplained and fantastic, from marvels of nature to quirks of the mind, and why we want to believe in the impossible.” [Tickets]

[2/10] An exhibit of surrealist collages by Bruce Barton at Chez Poulet

[2/13] Bawdy Storytelling’s 8 Year Anniversary Show (7:30 PM) (late show details to come)

[2/15] Bay Area Punk Rock Flea Market, Swap Meet & Record Fair

[2/18] City of Women opens for The Love Me Nots (Phoenix, AZ) and Capsula (Spain) at the Elbo Room [Tickets]

[2/19] Suzanne Vega in concert at JCCSF [Tickets]

[2/20-3/1] Noise Pop Festival 2015 [Info]

[2/24] Jason Scott (Internet Archive) salon talk: “The Web In an Eye Blink” at The Interval [Info]

[3/4] Kim Gordon in conversation with Carrie Brownstein at JCCSF

[3/5-3/29] Cracked Actor: David Bowie on Screen, nine Bowie films playing at YBCA

[4/9] Frank Lloyd Wright on the West Coast: An evening with author Mark Anthony Wilson

[4/26] How Weird Street Faire

San Pablo, California
[2/10] “Shades of Brown” album release, a collaboration of Los Cenzontles, Andre Thierry, and Dave Hidalgo of Los Lobos

Sun Valley, Idaho
[3/22-3/25] DENT conference, “explores the magic and science of visionary leadership and groundbreaking success”

Vancouver, BC
[Until 2/14] Pinata, an art show featuring Meaghan Kennedy and Ali Bruce at Hot Wet Art City

Heads up!

~~ Tickets ($140) are now available for Camp Tipsy 2015
~~ Burning Man pre-sale tickets are available.
~~ Lightning in a Bottle tickets are available now
~~ Save the date: Yes and Yes Yes happens June 12-15, 2015 in Palm Springs
~~ Save the date: This year’s Tiki Oasis happens August 13-16, 2015 in San Diego[February] There is now a tips form. Go there to suggest an event to be included in the zine.

What I need from YOU!

[$$] As you know, Rusty’s Electric Dreams is free. What you might not know is that I spend a kazillion hours a week (give or take) putting each issue together. Yes, yes, it’s a labor of love, no doubt about that. But, there are also hard expenses involved and it is funded by me. I should stop but I have much bigger, more magical plans to help our community of Others and it starts with this zine. I urge you –if you value what I do, who I am, and how I am helping our community– to please support me monthly with a recurring donation.[__] If you are unable to offer financial support, would you ask your friends to subscribe? I don’t have a budget to “growth hack” anything. It’s just me, my reputation, my computer, and you. Imagine this: in the future, YOU have an awesome project that you want a lot of people to know about. Wouldn’t it be great if there was SOME WAY, like this inbox zine, to get the word out effortlessly? Tell the Others.

[!!!!] Know about something cool, like an event, that would be a good fit for this zine? Share it with me.

[###] Also, you guys, I need work. Nower than sooner. Part-time contract works best, other offers srsly considered. Ping me and I’ll send you my resume.

[It’s really, really hard for me to ask for help and I just did it FOUR times.]

xo! —Rusty Blazenhoff

Rusty’s Electric Dreams is a weekly inbox zine by Rusty Blazenhoff. These personally curated missives are beacons to signal and celebrate the global tribe of weird, wonderful, and “different” people (“the Others“).
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