Terra Incognita

quote of the weekend
It came during the MU football game against Colorado when Mizzou was robbed of a TD because Coffey was called for offensive pass interference (a load of crap, really):

ABC announcer: "There's a flag on the play. Well, [in all seriousness] it's either against the defense or the offense."

Slick. My take: the flag should have been against the referee for all the bad calls during the game.

just like cruising the east campus parties but with art on the walls instead of belushi posters
Erin and her roommate Jen came up from Tucson for First Friday this weekend. The city of Phoenix hosts a city-wide self-guided tour of small art gallery openings on the first Friday of every month (hence the name, First Fridays). Amature artists invite a city of strangers into their warehouses and homes where they've tacked up their photographs, paintings, sculptures and multi-media works. Most of it is tacky or crappy, but sometimes you find a gem. For example, the studio photography that was in the same gallery of porcelain sculptures of spoons-and-bowls-turned-into-testes-with-teeth. Most of the "galleries" were really houses, cleared of their occupants' furniture and adorned with pictures on the bright orange or turquoise walls. One house had photographs that were almost exclusively of people on the London Underground. You can find all sorts making the rounds. The night begins with the "cultured" crowd, sipping their wine and talking about trips to the Sedona Jazz Festival the weekend before. Parents come with their 7-year-olds in tow. Middle schoolers, happy to be out on their own on a Friday night in the city act like the brats they are, stopping traffic and giving each other wedgies. Later, the counter-culture comes out, bringing with them their brown-bagged 40s and nose piercings. There is a lot of political activity, especially by the Green Party, and street performers share their poetry/turntable skills/one-man-band acts while the crowds mill amongst them, blocking the streets. It is a fabulous way to spend a Friday night.

Pictures are here.

"i've got some extra beds at the homeless shelter..."
We hit up Mill Avenue in our jeans and flip flops after the gallery tour was winding down. I'd forgotten how gussied-up girls tend to get before going out to the bars; Erin, Jen and I were deffinitely under-dressed for the crowd we were in. We still managed to get hit on a couple of times (because we are just that hot). One (not the only, mind you) of our "prospects" was a homeless man we got to talking to. Doug asked us our names and then confided that "You can learn a lot from a person by their name." "Really?" I asked, interested to hear what his take on names would be. "Yes. For example, Doug, backwards is god, with a u." Fantastic, buddy.