This morning sometime between 9 and 10, on Northwest Highway somewhere between Preston and North Central Expressway, all of the traffic lights were out.

Instead of the bedlam that one would assume would ensue, I was blown away by how courteously and responsibly drivers behaved. It was amazing. Everyone stopped at the lights regardless. Checked the other traffic. And then took turns, safely proceeding through the intersections.

Even at North Park All of the truly ravenous shoppers must have been up at Ikea. And all the teenagers on their cell phones were back in school. This will probably never happen again, but I thought it was worth congratulations to ourselves.

ART PROSTITUTE & THE DSVC PROUDLY PRESENT
Paper Bag Lunch: AUGUST 20 – SEPTEMBER 20, 2005
FEATURING THE WORK OF: *OKSANA BADRAK, EVAH FAN, *CAROLINE HWANG & *SAELEE OH
http://www.badrak.com
http://www.potatohavetoes.com
http://www.carolinehwang.net
http://www.saeleeoh.com

ARTIST’S RECEPTION SAT. AUGUST 20 (7-11 PM) *Artists will be in attendance.
ART PROSTITUTE GALLERY
210 E. HICKORY
DENTON, TX 76201
940.381.1526
http://www.artprostitute.com
Regular Hours: Mon-Sat 12-8 (or by appointment)

Drawings are still available for purchase from both Tiffany Bozic and Jeremy fish. If you would like images for purchase consideration from Paper Bag Lunch or Salad Days, simply respond to this email with the request and a pdf will be sent to you promptly.

SPONSORED BY:
The Dallas Society of Visual Communications
http://www.dsvc.org

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BIOGRAPHY OF OKSANA BADRAK:
Oksana Badrak was born in 1978, in Moscow, Russia. In 1993, the Badrak family moved from Moscow to California. She accepted to ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, CA in 1998. There, with the help of her amazing teachers, Rob Jason Holley, Tony Zepeda and friends, Oksana began to develop her own distinctive style in illustration. While at she became a recipient of several prestigious scholarships and graduated with distinction. After graduation her career quickly took off and her professional work was recognized by Society of Illustrators and American Illustration in their publications. Oksana Badrak has had several group and solo exhibitions, and her work has been published in major publications including Entertainment Weekly, Nickelodeon, Playboy and eDesign to name a few. Presently, Oksana downtown Los Angeles with her boyfriend Scott and their Russian dwarf hamster Pigdini the Great Escapist.
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BIOGRAPHY OF EVAH FAN:
Evah Fan (born 1980) received her BFA from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn with an emphasis on Illustration/Communication design in 2004. She has shown her gouache on paper pieces in cities such as Chicago (IL), Los Angeles (CA), San Francisco (CA) Portland (OR), Hamtramck (MI), Boston (MA), Brooklyn (NY), and Bristol (United Kingdom). Her work has been featured in publications such as American Illustration, Art Prostitute (upcoming featurette), Bust Magazine, Drama Magazine, Flaunt, Selected Magazine, and Tokion. She currently lives and works in Berkeley, California. She likes tumbleweeds, chimney sweepers, socks on trees, Braces, Freckles, Accidental Art, Eskimos, Iceland, Finland, John Cage, Dada, Doodling, Jellyfish, Sting Ray, Cactus, David Lynch, Royal Art Lodge, art by: Neo Raunch, David Shrigley, Neil Farber, Marcel Dzama, Marcel Duchamp, Taylor McKimens, found goods, urban culture, music, books, papa

There is something that has been bothering me for a long time. I don’t know if it is a mistake by the marketing department of the company itself or that fault lies with the website people because I am not finding what I am looking for.

Why does K-mart advertise in the Dallas area? According to their website, there are no stores left out here, or any where within a 100 mile radius. Am I going to purchase the latest sale items online? The same things that I can go down the street to the local Target or Walmart and get? No. Am I going to buy their clothes online (I used go there to buy thongs but that was it… they just had some that I really liked and no matter what the fabric pattern was I would buy them if they were my size)? No. About the only thing I could see myself buying at the online K-mart site would be some of the new Martha Stewart furnitre, but even then, last time I looked, they did not have the bed on there that was in their commercial.

So am I missing something? Are there any K-mart stores left in the DFW area? Is there a reason they are torturing me with pretty images of things on tv that I won’t be able to have unless they are ordered online, charging me shipping on top of tax? Or is this someone’s idea a cruel joke – pulling all the stores from the area, but continuing to advertise to let us see all that we are missing?

UPDATE: The bed is on there now. Queen size – $300.

On the channel 11 report about Dallas City Plan Commissioner D

I heard that there is some sort of legislation brewing to stop people from buying a house in an old neighborhood then destroying that house to build a McMansion. I’m sick to death of people knocking down a charming little home then building the Plain-o style, zero-lot-line monstrosity.

I don’t know anything about the legislation. If it will really stop the destruction of every house with personality, I’m all for it.

I am so sad today. I need to get a roll of slide film processed and the only place here in Denton to get that done within a day was The Photo Place. Now I’m feeling the mourning that hits after you fully realize what was, but now is no more. I’m probably going to have to seek out a death counselor for this one. The Photo Place was my lifeline for 120 and slide film development…and also the highest quality color-adjusted prints you could get in town…and within a day! Damnit, I was so spoiled.

It closed a few weeks ago due to a death of the owner. His widow did not want to keep it open, so it was closed, and the sadness ensued.

Now what?

Well, I must move on. With my undeveloped roll of slide curled up in the fetal position right here next to me on my desktop, I started calling around to find out where to turn. So far, most places I called outsourced their E-6 processing, which takes a week plus to turn-around. I did get a referral to BWC in Dallas, so I called them up. They can develop the film, BUT they told me that it would cost about eight dollars. I re-stated that I just needed the roll processed, not cut up and put into the slide frames, and they responded that if that was the case then it would come to about seven dollars. Unfortunately I am only used to paying only about three dollars for straight processing, so I was sadder still after finding a possible replacement. I’m not sure how just the processing is only one dollar less that the whole slide framing treatment.

So now my quest will continue. I need my slide film processed, and it’s looking like I’ll have to have it sent out with fingers crossed that it will not return all folded up and smashed on its way back to me. I’ll be sure to post more on my search through Dallas, preferably closer to Denton, for a reliable photo place. Please add comments if you happen to have any leads I can follow.

R.I.P. Photo Place – I’m missing you sorely.

Curious to see if there was a place in Texas that was named, by this uber-realtor, one of the “Sexiest Suburbs” I clicked the link – only to find out I live in one of them.I have to wonder if she has actually been to Addison, or was this based on compiled information fron other sources… sources that live the Addison Circle lifestyle. I know Addison is not the most family oriented little town, but one of the sexiest? I don’t think so.

I went out to a happy hour a few weeks ago, with someone else from Addison. It was at Trinity Hall and she had never heard of the place. It was like she never went any where outside of Addison, and I found that to be really strange… and creepy.

UNT has had a little snafu in the computer security department. To anyone’s knowledge they have no idea who did it but in talking to someone last night I found out that a portion of the information was accessed via a web browser. Now that is comforting. A search engine bot was able to go out, scan information that they had stored off, and for the right set of keystrokes, it could be tapped into by anyone in the world.

Let’s clarify – a hacker hacked one of their servers and got in. This is hacking. Someone accessed information through a web browser. Not hacking – just a big f*** up by UNT. Out of all this, the online access is what I find the most disturbing.

In my ethics class it was discussed one day how anyone could call up to the university and access the information of another person. I always found things in that area to be very lax. So lax that when my sister ran into an ex that I would much rather believe was captured by aliens, never to be seen or heard from again, and then told him that I was going to school there, I was a little disturbed. I am not saying that the registrars office is totally falling down on the job, but if there was one person that could call up there and get information out of someone it would be him. Luckily, nothing materialized. Hopefully he caught a ride back to the mothership that night.

As of this morning, the FBI has not been contacted. I would attribute this to the UNT officials wanting to keep the whole investigation on the down-low. What if it were one of those demonic TAMS students? I think we all know what happens when one of those little turds does something wrong – nothing. I had physics with them. That was when I learned just how evil they really are. When everyone else was slaving away in the homework lab, spending more time on physics than any other class, they had their little spreadsheet handing them the answers and jacking with the homework averages. They also cheated on the tests – bringing in scratch paper with notes already on it, programming their calculators with formulas, one person dropping a test and another picking it up, etc. After three tests had come and gone it was reported. The instructor said that if they came forward and confessed they would take a zero on the last test and they would not be reported to the university. One or two did, but the number of people that cheated was closer to thirty. If you have cheated on, and as a result of said cheating, you have gotten good grades on all the tests, and you have all A’s on the homework because you have been using the spreadsheet, even if you did turn yourself in, it wouldn’t make a huge difference since this was one regular test. But then again, why bother if the difference will be minimal and God-forbid anything soil the Harvard application?

I guess I should be more concerned but I am not (I looked up my stuff and I am not affected… maybe that’s why). I am more disappointed that this has happened at the school that I attended. Someone dropped the ball and left the door wide open. The whole thing with the internet portion has me wondering what you had to search for the get the information that was accessed through a web browser. I would be willing to bet that even if UNT has removed the file in question the information will still be cached out on the internet. When it comes to information access at UNT maybe someone needs to be hired to come in and clean house and get rid of the folks that let this occur.

New blogger here, with a bit of an outsider perspective on life in Dallas. I’m waaaaaaaay up here in Denton…ok so it’s only 30 minutes away, but to dallas-ites, that’s like driving to the ends of the continent…but then again…what’s not 30 minutes away in this city, thanks to traffic and the lack of real public transportation (yet another topic to discuss later).

For my debut post, I thought I’d list a few things that might be worth a short drive to Denton (since I’ll be soon posting what events I’d find worth the drive to Dallas).

Art Prostitute: Yeah Denton has an art gallery that’s not Texas-style, arts-n-crafts, watercolor, grandma landscapes…not that we don’t love our grandma’s landscapes, but Art Prostitute showcases work from contemporary artists that are making waves in the NY and CA art scenes…similar to what the Forbidden Gallery across from Fair Park used to show.

Rubber Gloves Rehersal Studios: Great music venue and bar and also a rehersal space. I saw Captured by Robots there not too long ago…the venue that can book bands like that gets my butt in the door every time.

Hailey’s: Another great venue for bands, but also helluva a bar for ‘lil ‘ol Denton. Boasts a great atmosphere and big dance floor, which is usually packed to the gills on no-cover, Thursday 80’s-nights…espically when school is in session.

The Jupiter House: After hitting the bars, this 24 hour little coffee shop makes for a good hangover helper. Located right on Denton’s “downtown” square.

Dan’s Silverleaf: Another great bar and music venue, offering quite the range of music offerings.

Recycled Books Records CDs: Known to the locals simply as “Recycled Books” this is an amazing used book/cd/dvd treasure trove that is definately worth “the drive.”

My time is up at the moment…more to be added soon…

I have a secret. Something I’ve been carrying with me…holding it in for fear of becoming an outcast amongst not only my friends, but every other person in the metroplex.

But I can’t hold it in anymore. I have to say it.

So here goes.

….I don’t care about Ikea.

*sigh*