Jason Wallace Triefenbach writes from L.A.

This is St. Louis artist Jason Wallace Triefenbach and his beautiful paramour Julie on Venice Beach. They live in Los Angeles now, where they seem not to have burned to the ground yet and are grinding their teeth that their fellow Californians don't think gay couples should be allowed to marry like Jason and Julie did.

Jason writes:

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It's quite unfortunate to move to a state where progressive values are supposedly the norm, only to be shown weeks later that there are just as many nosey rednecks here as anywhere else.

But such is the world we live in. Such are the times we... uhhh...

Still, I stand a pretty good chance of being eligible for a medical marijuana card soon, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much.

Flights around christmas time are through the fruggin roof, so we'll probably have to wait until Jan or Feb to visit y'all. And that's assuming we can befriend a dog sitter by then. Hopefully we'll make it back home in time to drink a year's worth of Schlafly Barleywine. Don't take it for granted, my brethren.

I've had to cut back quite a bit on my bar time, seeing as how PBR is about 4 dollars on average in these parts. Who gives a golden shit if FEAR used to drink at this table? Not I, for one.

Here's a link to an artist I'm going to check out this Saturday.

Tonight J and I will split a 12 pack of something cheap and then head to the Silverlake Lounge for their bi-monthly "performance art-ish nite". We're doing our thing there in January and want to see what the space is like.

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A previous letter had a bit more content. Never posted it. Posting now. More Jason:

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The L.A. Central Library is a huge affair - maybe vaguely art deco-ish? - I get my design eras flubbergated oftimes. It's six floors of books and books and books. Three floors are underground - connected by a huge open space, running down from the topmost level. Giant columns, "air and light and space". Very epic.

Yesterday I was perusing the georges bataille and ended up bringing home three books. One is a theoretical philosophy sorta text called The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge. One is a compendium of three erotic novellas (the one I'm reading now is called "My Mother"). The third book is Collected Poems. Here's an excerpt:

LAUGHING

To laugh and laugh
at the sun
at the nettles
at the pebbles
at the ducks

at the rain
at the pope's pee
at mommy
and a coffin full of shit.

I've also recently checked out the Kippenberger retrospective that's at MOCA til December I think? It takes up both of the museum's buildings and includes nearly 300 of K's works including the coffee table he made out of a Gerhard Richter painting, tons of his drawings (his most acute and psychologically charged work, in my opinion), books, posters (one of which I used as inspiration for the dyptich "animal sounds/ mk ultrasound" donated for auction to the ContemporarySTL in 2006), objects covered in oatmeal (including the car and the orgone chamber), many many paintings (my least favorite), some squirmy light posts and giant wooden pills and his opus "The Happy End To Franz Kafka's 'Amerika'".

I was going to go see some of Wolfgang Tillmans' fashionable photos at Regen Projects but at the last minute I decided to stay home with Bataille instead. Then me and the missuz watched the Leonard Cohen biopic "I'm Your Man," which we saw at the Tivoli a couple years ago and wanted to reboot into the ol Protein Softdrives.

Also I just bought yet another Boredoms album. Seems like all their work since Super Roots 6 or so is basically one huge drum freakout that they keep jammin on. Which is great, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't mind if they'd throw in a few morsels of their earlier crunchyfunk throat spasm blips for the spazz in me and you.

I also got Crystal Rainbow Pyramid Under the Stars by Acid Mother's Temple and the Melting Paraiso UFO. The sticker said it's their slickest release to date, but I wouldn't know as this is my first album of theirs. The last of the three tracks, "Electric Psilocybin Flashback," is 40 minutes of buttery nuttery. Cross the burning bridge!

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Finally, as a reminder of what we are missing when we lose a guy like Jason to a place like Los Angeles that doesn't need him (or any of us, for that matter), this is one of his last public art acts before he left town. Yet more Jason, from yet another email:

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Hello friends and enemies, etc.

I have just installed an information kiosk in front of the building which was formerly a McDonalds, near the intersection of Grand and Chippewa. The piece is four-sided, and reads, respectively,

"THE COLLAPSE OF THE ST. LOUIS SCHOOL SYSTEM"

"A MICROCOSM OF THE FAILURE OF AMERICA"

third side is a map of St. Louis

and on the fourth side, in restroom graffiti style:

"CHAIN YOUR MAYOR TO A PIPE IN YOUR BASEMENT"

"BEAT HIM TIL HE SINGS"

"IT'S YOUR FAULT TOO"

As this is an uncommissioned gift to the city of St. Louis, I doubt it will be there for very long. If you wish to view it, please feel free to pass by. I would guess that someone will damage and/or remove it within the next day or two.

THANKS,

Jason Wallace Triefenbach

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Please note: these references to the mayor were made by Jason in an email about a work of protest art. They should not be taken as incitements to violence, and Confluence City does not encourage or endorse violence against the mayor or anyone else. Cookie Thornton makes me want to say such things loud and clear.