Mrrranda

Both late swaps are finally on their ways. If you've received an empty or damaged envelope, let me know and I will resend. Thank you for your continued patience.

I'm pretty much taking an indefinite break from swap-bot right now... just not enough "free" time. I might pop back onto the Wishlist thread, and could swing a private swap or two, but that's about it. I'll be back.

This summer I moved to SE Portland, Oregon with my boyfriend. If you live in the area, we would love your advice on getting around, frugal living, arts organizations, galleries open to submissions, etc. Making new friends would be swell, too. Is it true that there are no fireflies in Portland? That's sad. Its giant slugs are inadequate consolation.

If you're in town on Sept. 4, please come by the Art for Change opening reception at the Art Institute of Portland from 7 to 10 pm - I have 25 pieces in this show, a benefit for local non-profit Pocket Change. 23 of these are BRAND NEW, and 21 are specially priced at just $25 each. Any work that's unsold at the show's close will go back to its full price (up to $75), so take advantage of this opportunity if you can! The show runs through Sept. I also have work in two delightfully massive group shows at Launch Pad Gallery - details will be posted to my web site as they come in.

Generally speaking: non-monetary commerce, scrap/recycled materials art, temporary autonomous zones, alexithymia, cabinets of curiosities, botched taxidermy, stop-motion animation, making monsters, making messes, unauthorized installations, unsafe toys, unrequited love, unintentional surrealism, the uncanny valley, koyaanisqatsi, beautiful trees, scary trees, sleeping in trees, seed pods, skeleton leaves, bugs that look like plants, psychopomps, milagros, hearts, hands, eyes, tiny organic ephemera, kittens, foxes, bats, birds of prey, little creepy-crawlies, deep sea creatures, lovely March hares, Golden Nature Guides, cicada recipes, horror manga, Drinky Crow, Angela Carter, Joseph Cornell, Ernst Haeckel, Tim Hawkinson, Hans Bellmer, Kiki Smith.

I am the founder of the Bazaar_o trading community on LiveJournal (I would love it if you'd revive it with a post!), and have participated in various nervousness.org projects since 2003.

Most overtly religious stuff makes me uncomfortable; I do appreciate Inuit, Buddhist, Bön, Shinto, and Hindu art on an aesthetic level. Don't wear perfume or much make-up - no need for bath stuff right now either. Not interested in most girly-pastel or cutesy-wootsey stuff, but I get a kick out of kawaii things that veer into insanity (Beer-Chan, Nyan Nyan Nyanko). Love indie and experimental animation, and I like some Disney/Hanna-Barbera/Warner Bros., but I can do without all the Happy Meal toys and stickers and related debris (esp. the stuff w/Bugs and co. dressed like "gangstas"... urrrrgh).

If you're getting a journal or story or even a list from me, it won't be a Tourette's-like stream of profanity, but yeah, there might be some cursing and weird slang - unless I'm on the job, I tend to write how I talk.

I have a seven-year-old longhair tuxedo cat named Mr. Friendly, which he is. Whiskers grow out of his neck. He looks like a sea urchin.

For food swaps: much love for coffee, green tea, marzipan, dark chocolate, peanut butter, ginger, durian, pumpkin, sweet potato, chocolate w/lavender and rose hips, candied flowers, hazelnut, maple, Meiji Apollo strawberry chocolates, foreign Kit-Kats, Kinder Hippos, boozy cordials. Most big-brand American chocolates don't do much for me, but I like Reese's peanut butter cups and Krackle bars. Sour stuff and spice drops are hit 'n' miss, though I do like that old-school clove gum. Please, no licorice or suuuuuper-sugary stuff (Pixie Stix, rock candy).

For tea swaps: my favorites are lapsang souchong, green (esp. genmai cha), and "sweet" flavored black teas, like vanilla, hazelnut, maple, etc. In fall and winter, I enjoy orange- and apple-spice teas. That being said, pretty much anything except licorice/anise tea would be cool. I also drink a lot of coffee.

Cooking is a lot of fun to me. I like dinner parties, both throwing them and attending them. I love kneading dough, mixing by hand, and food that's meant to be set on fire. Sometimes I set a dishcloth or potholder on fire too, you know, just for yuks. I tend to like Asian - especially Japanese and Thai, Indian, and starchy, buttery "comfort" foods like mac 'n' cheese. I am an omnivorous opportunist who appreciates food from many sources, though I'm trying to be more conscious of locally-grown and free-range choices. I have eaten cicadas (they taste nice... nutty) and mealworms (they taste... not as nice, sort of like bad peanuts... like one of those slightly "off" ones you get sometimes when you get unshelled peanuts from the bulk bin). And I love durian - yeah, REALLY. I don't like green peppers, olives, or most fish. I have a small but treasured collection of 1950's cookbook-pamphlets, most published by the Culinary Arts Institute and featuring many once-edible objects embedded in aspic.

Yes: Mrrranda, or Miranda. That's with no i and three r's, or one i, one r. Please.

No: Mirranda, Mrranda, Mranda, Maranda, Mirrranda, Mirinda, Marana, Amanda, Melinda, etc., though my favorite, a mass mailing addressed to "Maranda el Taro," did stay taped to the office door for some time.

Foetus/J.G. Thirlwell, Firewater, Calexico, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Colleen, Yma Sumac, Susumu Yokota, Amon Tobin, P. Miles Bryson, The Bonzo (Doo Dah) Dog Band, Martin Denny, Contagious Orgasm, Steve Reich, The Residents, The Misfits, Mandible Chatter, Matmos, Man Man, Gogol Bordello, Gang Gang Dance, The Fiery Furnaces, Big Black, 1920-40s jazz, most bands on the Leaf label, most bands on the NorthSide label, the bottle return at Meijer Thrifty Acres, and every single slightly-malfunctioning gaudy automaton at House on the Rock. I have little soft spots for accordions and singing saws, much like fontanelles. Right now my CD player holds Volvox Turbo by Manorexia, Foley Room by Amon Tobin, Inches by Les Savy Fav, the self-titled debut of The Lower Animals, and The Golden Hour by Firewater.

I would love a mix of good Portland bands, so I know what shows to attend. So far I really like Bright Red Paper and Menomena, and Red Fang is growing on me like a wholesome, old-growth forest moss. I am also seeking CDs or MP3s of the following bands:

• Abstrackt Keal Agram
• Bright Red Paper
• Charming Hostess
• Crystal Castles
• Der Blutharsch
• Dubmood
• Efterklang
• The Fleet Foxes
• Icy Demons
• Khonnor
• Kraken (the darkwave solo artist, not the metal band)
• Messer Chups/Messer fur Frau Muller (anything but Triangle, Dot, & Devil)
• Nerv.Sys.
• Secret Chiefs 3 (anything but Book of Horizons)
• Slonovski Bal
• stars.
• The Kaizer Orchestra
• This Is Your Captain Speaking
• Twink (the toy piano guy, not the gay stoner rocker)
• any unusual field recordings, like the amazing collections of bats, deer, and frogs on the Sittelle label, or walk-throughs of amusement parks or Bangkok markets

And I would lovelovelove these albums:

• any Arcade Ambience CDRs ('81, '83, '86)
• Barry Adamson & Pan Sonic - The Hymn Of The Seventh Illusion
• Calexico - Aerocalexico
• Deutsch Nepal - A Silent Siege
• Dion McGregor - The Further Somniloquies Of...
• Earth - the bee made honey in the lion's skull
• Ferrante and Teicher - Soundproof/Soundblast: The Sound of Tomorrow Today!
• The Fiery Furnaces - Remember
• ISZOLOSCOPE - Au Seuil de Neant
• Lucas & Friends - Discover A World Of Sounds
• Matmos - Supreme Balloon
• Mechanical Museum/Musee Mechanique - The Zelinsky Collection Vols. 1 - 3
• Motherhead Bug - Songs for Savage Tongues
• nethers. - What The Wind Will Never Tell
• Pigs on Corn/Carlos Grasso - Depression Sessions
• Plaid - Tekkon Kinkreet OST
• The Residents - Diskomo (really just those four fucked-up nursery rhymes, mp3s of those would be sweeeeeeeeeeet)
• David Shea - An Eastern Western
• Shinjuku Thief - Bloody Tourist
• Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - Of Natural History
• The Unquiet Void - The Shadow Haunted-Outside
• Trust/Obey - 1984
• Various - Balkan Beats vol. 2

Am very intrigued by K-Space, but would appreciate a description/review from anyone who owns this before "wanting" the album.

In 1998, I bribed my way into a sold-out Sixteen Horsepower show at The Gold Dollar by presenting the band with a fresh-baked strawberry-rhubarb pie.

This is kind of harsh, but 90% of what's considered mainstream music - be it pop, rap, "young country" or whatever - doesn't do anything for me. I honestly can't even tell you what, exactly, most artists mentioned in Billboard charts or tabloid pages (or people's profiles!) sound like, or name any of their songs - because whenever I do just flick around the radio dial, I am often irritated and seldom impressed, so I turn it right back off.

The Holy Mountain, My Neighbor Totoro, Cat Soup, Tamala 2010, The Mascot, Street of Crocodiles, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Akira, Alice, Conspirators of Pleasure, Black Lizard, Blue Velvet, Guy Maddin, Ray Harryhausen, Godzilla and his kin. Not favorites, but most recently impressed by Black Night and Werckmeister Harmonies.

As much as I love horror movies, modern ones like Hostel, Saw, etc. are so mean-spirited and focused on realistic suffering that they really put me off. Months after viewing, David Alcalde's 14-min. film "Happy Birthday 2 You" continues to haunt my dreams.

Perhaps incongruously, I dig some artsy giallo and ludicrous Grand Guignol stuff... and that first prison yard fight scene in Riki-O cracks me up every time.

I also don't like movies that expect me to be REALLY @#!% EXCITED by cars.

The Singing Detective, The Venture Brothers, Cowboy Bebop, Kemonozume, The Prisoner, (the original) Iron Chef, Doctor Who, Stairway to Stardom, Twin Peaks. I just got my first TV in about 8 years, when I moved in with my boyfriend. Oh my God! There's so much you can watch! Mostly crap!

Favorite Books/Authors:

The Stain (Rikki DuCornet), Nights at the Circus and The Bloody Chamber (Angela Carter), The Mouse And His Child (Russell Hoban), Thirst for Love (Mishima - very underrated early work), A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil (Max Ernst), The Gas (Charles Platt), Fantazius Mallare (Ben Hecht and Wallace Smith), Image of the Beast (Philip Jose Farmer), Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Leonora Carrington, the poet Ai. I love much of Junji Ito, Kazuo Umezu, and Hideshi Hino's manga, and thanks to the excellent Same Hat! blog my interest in Shintaro Kago has spiked exponentially. Been reading Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker before bedtime and it's giving me a vaguely precognitive hinx.

Cookbooks, books on sustainable living and DIY, surrealist and decadent lit are always welcome. As you've probably guessed, romance, mainstream mystery/thrillers, Chicken Soup, and novels about 30-something-onwards women coming to terms with... things are not.

Mixed media, shadowboxes/assemblage, collage, handbuilt ceramics, strange materials, ATCs, dodgy wee beasties, surrealist party games, trepanning, paper mache. I do not crochet, knit, or quilt, and I've put my stuffie-stitching on hold.

I have a pretty extensive list of stuff for trade and sale on LiveJournal - XS to XL clothes (men's too), CDs, books and comics, trinkets, toiletries, even a few naughty/adult items:

http://yay-affluenza.livejournal.com/

I'm also up for custom purchases. The Portland area has a couple excellent, large Asian supermarkets with a focus on Japanese items, and a few others that have mostly Chinese and SE Asian groceries. What I've found in these is reasonably priced, sometimes cheaper than in NYC. I can get several kinds of Pocky and Pretz, many varieties of White Rabbit (including red bean and corn), durian jam, durian crackers, pandan cake mix and sweet rolls, pandan jam, MANY kinds of furikake... ask and I will look. If you want mainly Japanese stuff, it might take me a little longer to get as the best place is in Beaverton.

There's a well-stocked Eastern European grocery not far from my apt., with Kinder Eggs and Hippos, MANY varieties of Milka bars, Haribo gummies, tinned herring and other fish, pickled vegetables, etc. - I like this place a lot but they tend to be expensive (box of Kinder Hippos is almost $6).

I've found a couple places here that sell UK candy like Coffee Crisps and Aero Bars, as well as items like Branston Pickle, clotted cream, etc., also reasonably priced.

I'm also very near Tao of Tea!

I don't have time to make much right now, but can potentially do mixed media pieces, collages, ATCs/ACEOs, and stuffies... hoping to have access to a kiln soon.