Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 05:13 PM EST
Please redirect yourself here: manor on tumblr!
Monday, November 17, 2008 -
"a big sleep / goodbye loo / keep on dreaming
"
as today goes on my capacity for happiness is going up and up!
i awoke from a sleep of sixteen hours. the weekend was stressful city intermingled with fun moments. (my tarot cards for fri, sat and sun were death, the tower, and death, respectively.) both saturday and sunday i was awoken by my new alarm clock (courtesy of cinta) on the early side of things - saturday to be a portfolio reviewer (a job i felt highly unqualified for, did well, and fell apart after), and sunday to go to tina's bridal shower brunch! which was really fun actually, but i spent a good part of it feeling queasy. i threw up about three times before leaving the house, and then made the mistake of ordering a soup containing heavy cream. needless to say i could not eat more than a couple of bites of the delicious brunch. sad! but in good company - i got to hang out with ann, julie, eveline, lisa, nan, and sharky. all of tina's bandmates and ex-bandmates! we should jam at the wedding in a supergroup.
i got home at four or five, made sandwiches for me and crystal and angela (who were finishing up packing! thank goodness i did not miss them). kissed them on the cheeks as they headed out the door at six.
and fell asleep.
i woke up this morning at eleven! and headed out the door. went to union square and took the compost of two weeks. they are setting up the holiday fair over there.
and now i'm wading through emails. at grumpy, in greenpoint. i got a fancy drink.
people have been posting on abstractextract.com/dreams.
just like the old days!
it makes me really happy.
a couple of people told me they had posted, but i did not expect to see a whole page of new posts. i sent an email to all the old timers. and the old timers just keep on dreaming.
in other news, poor darwin is in the hospital. cinta and i are going to visit him if he is still there later. he got bad food poisoning on saturday night. i knew he was sick, but it turns out it wasn't from drinking. he's in rm 410 over at wyckoff heights. we're probably going around 7:30. unless he gets released before that.
back to email sea.
love
Yk.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008 -
"torn / lady bright tomorrow / khichari
"
I'm completely torn. November 1st will be a day of reckoning. On one hand, I have the opportunity to be the best halloween costume ever at Deenah's party. Ever. On the other hand, I may be invited to spend All Saints Day a state away at a casino with Julie and Sam of the Leader, complete with two-day road trip.
I suppose time will decide for me. I'm not sure if the trip is on or not. Guess I'll make the costume and at least wear it on real Halloween.
Lady Bright are playing tomorrow night at Goodbye Blue Monday. That's where I play drums. We have new songs. We have costume ideas. Please come out and rejoice with us!
Going to eat very healthily today. I had a dream that involved a punctured arm on a loose drumstick in someone's bed. Lots of blood. Have to take care of myself today. Going to eat khichari with my friend Jenn in BedStuy. I had fun last night with Angela, Darwin, Andrew and Greg, up in Danbury, CT. Tonight, practice and dinner.
love
Yoko
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 - "the wedding photographer"
in addition to my new forays into video making (creaky boards), web collaboration (with dibs! much improved new cake shop site now up!), door girl-ism (cake shop late shift cmj fill-in), and art student portfolio reviewing (next month at pratt), two weekends ago I took up the task of being a wedding photographer, up in beautiful autumnal Weston, MA.
here is what transpired:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yokokikuchi/sets/72157608279735891/ (reception)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yokokikuchi/sets/72157608253101651/ (ceremony & portraits)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yokokikuchi/sets/72157608225817466/ (gettin ready)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yokokikuchi/sets/72157608224484526/ (bachelorette party & day before)
so i guess that is a job that i can do if asked.
future spousal venturers, you know where you can find me!
Thursday, October 16, 2008 - "relief / tumbling"
thank goodness mercury in retrograde is done with.
that was a tough one.
we have our angela back!
sweet girl. we missed her so.
tonight at daoud's i discovered (he directed me to) the blogger site called "tumblr". it is a miracle. they let you post sound files and a variety of other media with amazing ease, and of course customize however you would like. i am soon going to move yerka manor there, i think. i am sick of rebuilding. self-built blogs are a thing of the past now... damn you, tumblr... flickr... and this place too. i knew the day would arrive when personal website design would be eradicated. rejoice, code-illiterate! (that basically means me - i gawked hardcore at the wordpress shit that daoud was trying to fathom, AND the cake shop site that dibs and i are reconfiguring. yipes!)
by the way, add my other myspace as your friend please if you are not already!
http://www.myspace.com/yokokikuchi
i am trying to make the switchover.
pumped for tomorrow- first lady bright practice since our last show, AND a great northeast kingdom show at night. and maybe, just maybe, i'll get to see the leader for the first time since the germans left, what, three weeks ago?! i swear i only know those two still live here because of their facebook pages.
goodnight.
Thursday, October 9, 2008 - 07:06 AM EDT
Yep, it's 7:06 on 10/09/08. Which makes it 10-9-8-7-6.
I went to bed at midnight and my cousin came home at 5, and I've been up ever since.
I've been doing a lot of thinking about October, and Halloween in particular. When I think about my life in terms of birthdays, or holidays, or summer vacations, it seems like every year is sort of melded together by these all-of-a-kind points, and that hardly any time passes in the space of a year. But when I think about years in terms of Halloweens, each year seems like an evenly-spaced eternity. The last few Halloweens have been upsetting, but cheesily (hee hee): each one has been teeming with lessons - I do something really stupid and/or reckless, and learn from it. I think that this year I may just stay home and watch a movie.!
Tomorrow I'm going to Boston for a few days. Gonna see some old friends tie the knot, eat some wedding cake, AND I get to be chief documentarian!
Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 02:18 PM EDT
Today I am at Wyckoff Starr trying out the (old)(new) Yoko-with-glasses look. So far the guy at the counter asked me if I was reading anything good AND then he assumed I was a student. It's working!!! Unfortunately I had nothing good to report.
All I've been doing is trying to read that new-ish Sonic Youth biography, putting off reading the last Harry Potter (which I have in UK hardcover form in my bedroom) until the right moment, and watching Curb Your Enthusiasm episode after episode. After I told Andy I had rented Season 1, he showed up yesterday with 2 and 3. Turns out Angela loves the show as much as I do. Looks like we have some fun times ahead of us.
Menahan Camp is officially October 4th. It's also our one-year-as-roommates anniversary party. Here's a peek at the invite:
MENAHAN CAMP!!!
Saturday, October 4th, 2008 - 8PM
Get ready for a rip-roaring good time as the
Menahan Tree Girls celebrate ONE YEAR of living here.
Optional: BRING PAJAMAS! And a sleeping bag if you want to sleep over.
We'll be making a giant brunch the following day.
Activities planned may include:
€Acoustic performances in the living room with piles of blankets and pillows
€A barbecue on the roof
€Truth or dare
€7-month homebrew (what will it taste like?!)
€Bobbing for apples
€Knife juggling
€Live snake show
€Air shaft rope swinging/jumping contest (live alligators at the bottom!!!)
€AND MORE!
Last year's performers (at what was then called LoriMAR camp) included Art Sorority for Girls, Casey Holford, Sway (MA), Yoko K. & Voles, and Masheen Gun Kelly.
Full lineup for this year TBA.
If you are interested in performing, please let us know!
love
KIKUCHI, CARLUCCI & MACK
Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 04:56 PM EDT
Something kind of cool just happened.
I was at Sam & Julie's, staining shingles in the backyard, then rehearsing drums for my show tonight. I was there maybe three hours. When I got outside there was an envelope in in my bike basket labeled "fille sur le velo". Inside was a really nice letter from a stranger. It was typewritten, so I couldn't guess if it was from a guy or girl (I guessed a guy), and it said some very flattering things. Thanks, whoever you are!
I'm at home listening to Optional Rally Funpack, which to me is so late summer 2004. That's because that's when Angela and I became friends and she gave me a copy of it! Wow!
Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - 11:31 AM EDT
A dream I had this morning at like 4 am:
I dreamed that Betsy and I biked down to the old Domino sugar factory on Kent ave, only once we were there she slowly morphed into Liv! We were looking down at the vast ruins of the thing from a high place (a high place we had somehow biked to). I started out not scared of the height, but at some point my fear kicked in. Somehow I had ended up facedown on a narrow metal factory scoop that was scarcely wider than my body, looking down on an expanse of golden-toned metal what seemed like a thousand feet below (that must have once been filled with thousands of tons of white sugar), scared to move and holding on to some handles that were at my sides, with my eyes closed. I asked Liv to help me get out and she talked me through it step-by-step, inching my body slowly backward without letting go or opening my eyes.
Once I felt safe, we started to climb down the factory structure (ok our bikes were definitely not anywhere nearby) and it was like climbing down a crazy rusty steel building infused with a tree made of winding roots and vines, like nature had reclaimed the factory in the four years it's been closed..which sort of reminded me of the swiss family robinson treehouse (not the fake disney one, the real one!!!)
When we got to the part where we'd have to re-enter the building to come down, Dibs was there, and he asked Liv about "the rabbits and the hamsters." She said "here, take them" and handed him something which was clearly a hibernating bunny rabbit. What it looked like was an egg-shaped ball of fur wrapped in giant furry rabbit ears. he started unwrapping it to check on them, and it was soon clear that inside the hibernating bunny rabbit package was a small packet of hibernating hamsters. I started giggling uncontrollably and I told Liv that had she informed me she was carrying a hibernating sleeping bunny egg wrapped around sleeping hamsters, I would have fallen off that scoop and died.
Monday, September 8, 2008 - 11:27 AM EDT
To-do today:
1. Acquire coffee.
2. Take compost to Union Square.
3. Go to Engine Room and chew them a new one.
4. Stop by Mom's house and see what she wants.
5. Start thinking about that wedding (no, not mine - the one I am to photograph in October).
6. Play tambourine.
I'm hoping I can get this all done by bike. I am poorer than ever! How'd this happen? Spent too much on healthy food last month, maybe.
Thursday is my drummer's debut at Sidewalk at 10. Watch out, Janet Weiss!
Friday, September 5, 2008 - 10:58 AM EDT
Wow! is all I have to say.
Today feels really good.
Yesterday I endured a sleep-deprived adrenaline-fueled day, which serves me right for staying up all night reading a book that ended up upsetting me. Harry Potter #6! I hate you!!!
Here's a bulletin for a show tomorrow night, which is a long-awaited cd release party...
"Hi. Please come out to this! I swore I would release the 2-disc solo album I've been working on for 4 years by (around) the time I turned 27. Wow, that's a lot of numbers. In case you would rather remember just one number it's SIX-- and that's SATURDAY-SEPTEMBER-SIX(TH). It's also a birthday celebration and celebration of all things fall, new, optimistic, and collaborative. Featuring members of The Baby Skins, Schwervon!, Lady Bright, Huggabroomstik, Kansas State Flower and Ching Chong Song!"
It's at Sidewalk starting at 7:30. My band (with Angela, Christy, and Liv) goes on at 11.
Even Facebook thinks I've been working hard. But check out that triple-sunshine! And it's sunny today, too. Who could ask for anything more?
Friday, August 8, 2008 - 01:51 PM EDT
WOW! 08.08.08! I really couldn't wish for a prettier, more optimistic day. The skies are from a Loretta Lux photograph. I just drank a delicious latte. I don't think there's a better latte around than the one here at Grumpy.
Something funny happened the day after I got back: I went to rehearse with the band that I'm joining, Lady Bright. We got to Sweatshop (I had talked to the guy there earlier on the phone to confirm our time) and who was working? Not my old roommate Tom, but DOM, the drummer from Renminbi! Who I had gone hiking with 3000 miles west, two days before. It turns out Tom and Dom have both worked there a long time, and they're friends. Geez.
Coincidences abound: the Friday following that, I went to the Renminbi / Art of Shooting show at Rockstar Bar, and not only is the former Renminbi drummer Jim now in Art of Shooting, but so is Joe, my ex-co-worker from Integral Yoga. He plays guitar. They are an awesome band, I hadn't seen 'em since before the aforementioned two people joined.
Speaking of Loretta Lux (and thanks to Emily for giving me her name based on a loose description of her work), I think the dream artwork #2 from the posted dream a few entries ago is based on one of her works. Now that I re-read it.
Tonight: fireworks at Coney with Angela, Jacinta and Betsy! Yes. Yes!
Monday, July 28, 2008 - 11:35 PM PDT
I'm coming home to the east coast tomorrow, after sixteen days away. And a month away from my beautiful room and lovely roommates. I will be glad to be back, I think. Time to start up the old life machine and do some productive stuff. I have some projects lined up that I'm pretty excited about.
Today, by total weird coincidence of timing, I woke up and texted Lisa from Renminbi, who I knew were in the Bay Area too. Turns out they were a few streets over in a car, on their way up to Muir Woods, a beautiful forest of California Redwoods! So I got to go hiking with Sue, Lisa and Dom, their drummer. Apparently they were in Portland and Oly just like I was, but all in the last week. We also went to Fisherman's Wharf, and I got soup in a sourdough bread bowl. Yum.
Pictures are all located here.
Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 04:15 PM PDT
So maybe I'll tell you about the dream I had this morning.
I dreamed that I was the emaciated dying wife of a guy in a movie. We planned to to jump off a balcony together, but instead I went alone, and I flipped myself off the balcony easily (doing a somersault first), because I was all dried-out bones and weathered skin. I felt how it felt to fall, and I felt how it felt to almost be landing, but not yet. And then there was no pain, and I felt myself rise. There were two options presented to me, in the form of beings - my old self beckoning me back to life, and God reaching out his arm for a promise of a beautiful eternity. My character chose life. She (no longer me) woke up, recovered from anorexia (I realized that the way she looked before had been an intentional comic exaggeration of her condition) and she either got remarried or had the same husband, who at this point was making TERRIBLE ARTWORK, which was framed on the wall for all to see.
One of the frames, which were both horizonal and at least 18"x24", contained a photo-collage of a large woman's butt clad in gray stretchpants, then the rest of her body, all from a bird's-eye view and cut up in strips of photographs and pieced back together. The caption read "40% OF BUTTS ARE TOO BIG."
The other contained a photograph of a sullen little boy around age 10, with longish curly blond hair and freckles, staring straight into the camera on an empty beach on an overcast day. The caption read "72% OF MEN MARRY A BITCH."
If that's not messed up I don't know what is.
Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 12:55 PM PDT
So clearly I never finished launching that shit. If I have to do it I'll do it simply and without stupid frills. I'm reclaiming this part of myself,
RIGHT NOW.
For your reference -
Saturday, March 22, 2008 - 6:30 PM EDT
One week later!
Not many people know this is here yet. I'm going to make sure it's perfectly functional before I really launch it and tell people about it. For instance, the link to Version 7.0 comes out all fucked up, and I don't know why.
I'm finally on the road to becoming a serious musician again. Last night I played guitar at Nan & The One Night Stands rehearsal, and will play on one song at the show tonight over at Brooklyn Tea Party, for the Major Matt/Dave End cd release. I've been into buying new music again. I got the new Evangelista record on vinyl today, as well as some used cds (some Barbara Manning random thing, and the Architecture in Helsinki cd I haven't heard). I'm importing all kinds of stuff into iTunes today. Nathan Moomaw's 26 record, the new Yummy Cakes record (thanks John!), Nate's unreleased recordings (to be released! he has a new myspace music page here. And to be sure, I'm gonna get the new Major Matt and Dave End records.
Happy spring! The weather's getting nice enough that it doesn't matter that it was so pretty in Austin last week, because it's on its way to being just as beautiful out here in New York. The best city in the world!
Saturday, March 15, 2008 - 3:36 AM CDT
Report from Austin:
Here in SxSW land we never go to sleep before 4 AM. Bands play at all hours of the night, parties rage on until the day, stages range from traditional to unconventional (yet legal): clubs, backyard tents, pedestrian bridges at 2 AM...
Highlight of shows: The Breeders headlined the day-long free show in Waterloo Park today. No difficulty getting in, no lines, not overly packed, and an hour after we showed up, the Deal sisters did too. I kept thinking that if this show had happened in New York, forget about it. They played my favorites from every album, the hits, and even a couple of Amps songs. Of course I loved the ones from Pod the best. They closed their encore set with Fortunately Gone, fer chrissake. And played Happiness Is A Warm Gun. I keep thinking that, like how everyone has a spirit animal, the Breeders are my spirit band. Other bands I've seen that I think are rad (and somehow, they all live in Brooklyn): Vivian Girls, These Are Powers.
Highlight of coincidences: Walking on Guadalupe north of 26th St on Thursday, ran into Sibsi and his dad! Just watching some random band play on the side of the road. That was fun. I might be staying in their hotel room tomorrow and/or the next night.
Highlight of sleeping-places: Lucy Kreutz's backyard, with six strangers, on air mattresses inside a giant camping tent.
Highlight of coffee places: Clementine's, so far.
Highlight of quality time: Today, Samantha and Ben, and Ben's sister Lilly, came up from Houston to hang out with me! I hadn't seen them in at least four years. We walked from downtown (after seeing Renminbi at Spiro's) all the way up to the campus area. Got motherfucking goddamndelicious pizza at Melted Mushroom or whatever the hell it is, and then caught the bus back downtown to make it to the Breeders show. F yeah! It was great to see Sam, and great to hang with Ben and meet Lilly. I might see them again in June!
More report another time. Love you.
Monday, March 10, 2008 - 4:37 PM EDT
Nothing could be lovelier than sitting in Julie and Sam's sunny kitchen, listening to them rehearse their cover of "Wave of Mutilation" in the basement.
Today is the 10-year anniversary of the birth of this journal, Yerka Manor, back before the word "blog" was coined, perhaps. Those were the days when Ann and Josh and I would rehearse in Josh's attic, before the first Black Molly show even happened. One afternoon Josh and I tape-recorded a cover of "I Bleed", ourselves. Sam and Julie are playing that one right now! Josh! Does this recording exist?
Tomorrow night at Cake Shop will be Boog City's Classic Albums Live - Surfer Rosa AND Doolittle. We're playing as Dream Bitches. I'm also singing with Outlines (Casey's band). The Leader and Chris Maher are also performing, as well as a slew of other Boog City types.
Manor, I missed you.