Thursday, April 13, 2006

Travel Stories-Heather has Good Friends

At an art gallery party that was serving opium tea, we watched a video from Ryan Trecartin, some young art punk who formed a commune in New Orleans after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design. Well, the commune he made was destroyed in the flooding/hurricane, so now the Getty Foundation in Los Angeles is putting him up while he makes colorful, over-stimulating, dress-up videos with his friends.

In conversation with Heather's marvelous friends, I learned about a tribe in Africa, the Wai-Wai warriors. When the young men fight, they dress up as sexy young girls- make-up, mini skirts, wigs, and jewelry. They want to invoke the thing that they are most afraid of. I'm sure you've heard of people dressing up like scary animals, imaginary beasts, painting themselves blue, etc...in order to intimidate their opponents.

I tried googling them to find a picture. It might be spelled "Wei-Wei". I hope it's not made up.

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