There's no easy way to get back to my apartment in the East Bay from the city after dark on public transportation, so if I want to go play on a school night I always bus back home to get my car. Thursday night, however, I went straight from work to a viewing of Berni Searle's work at Peres Projects, a brand new gallery a block away from where I used to work at Addicted to Noise in the Potrero. The first thing I noticed when I walked into the space was the pungent smell of spices; piles of ground cloves, paprika, and turmeric lay on the floor below floor-to-ceiling digital prints of Searle lying covered in said spices. In front of these were more prints, this time with just the outline of her missing body traced in the spice, which reminded me very strongly of Ana Mendieta's work. Another series of photographs on a facing wall detailed the palm of Searle's stained hand, while upstairs in a small chapel of a room there hung a small suite of images depicting Searle kneeling naked on the floor, covered in flour, making bread. Searle's images are deceptively simple, yet they have a power that lingers. After the gallery I headed over to Panchita's No. 3 for some delectable Salvadoran food: fried plantains and glazed pork loins, yum! It took me two hours on a combo of BART and AC Transit to get home, but it was worth it.

I've been loving the Yoko Ono exhibit at SFMOMA since it opened in late June, and Saturday I attended a lecture by curator Clara Kim about the more performative aspects of Ono's art. The thing I so appreciate about Yoko Ono is her light touch, how she keeps you smiling at the same time that she creates deeply meaningful work. Kim showed slides from a performance of Ono's Audience Piece, where at the end of an evening of art and music Ono and her fellow performers came out on stage and stood in a line. Each picked a member of the audience to stare at until that person looked away, and then they would move on to another victim. The piece continued until almost the entire audience was gone, the artists were lying on the stage they were so tired, and the house manager kicked everyone out at 1am. Kim also screened a video of a recent performance of Ono's Sky Piece for Jesus Christ by the Del Sol Quartet that had been done in conjunction with the current exhibition. As the Quartet bravely played Vivaldi they were slowly wrapped in medical gauze until they were completely immobile. Very funny, but also quite poignant.

Later that evening I went to ODC Theater for a performance of Killing My Lobster's Tango Dell'Amore, a hysterical group of sketches about love in San Francisco and elsewhere. I read craigslist personals every day for easy laughs, but the posts were even better on stage being interpreted as bad beat poetry. Other highlights included talking (and pooping) goldfish, a lifeboat used as metaphor for the SF bar scene, and a closing song-and-dance number that the Backstreet Boys themselves could not have rivalled. The following survey was handed out at the door:

Who wrote the book on love? And if you were the editor what would you change?
I think e.e. cummings pretty much had it nailed when he wrote:
if i believe
in death be sure
of this
it is

because you have loved me...
If I were the editor I would make him use caps and proper punctuation.

What two famous people do you think should get together, share a bottle of wine and fall in love?
I have these inappropriate Cate Blanchett/Tilda Swinton fantasies...

Can you scientifically explain why windows fog up when two lovers go at it in a car?
It's just God's way of making the lens go all blurry.

What are the five worst love songs ever written?
"Cherry Pie" by Poison
"O mio bambino caro" by Puccini
anything by Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, or Mariah Carey
"Baby Baby" by Amy Grant
that song the urchin sings in Les Mis

Approximately what percentage of the time is the phrase "I'll call you" used honestly?
a) 100%
b) 50%
c) 0%
d) whatever, you know email is a lot less awkward

When a 7th grade girl says "I like him," does she mean to say that she loves him? Or that she wants to be intimate with him without the constraints and baggage which routinely shackle lovers who claim to be in love? Ok, discuss.
Really it just means she wants their braces to get stuck together.

Name the Hair Metal Band responsible for each Love Ballad.
Feel Like Makin' Love - Bad Company
Still Loving You - Scorpions
I Want To Know What Love Is - Foreigner
Alone Again - Dokken
Can't Fight This Feeling - REO Speedwagon
Amanda - Boston
Is This Love - Whitesnake
Save Your Love - Great White
The Flame - Cheap Trick
Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone) - Cinderella
Love Song - Tesla
I Remember You - Skid Row

What's love got to do with it?
a) a lot
b) not much
c) to really explain this requires a sophisticated understanding of the Tao Te Ching, the history of climate change and an intense affection for Cheez-its.
d) Love is nothing but a second-hand emotion

In the space below draw a picture of your favorite flower and the person you would give it to. Awwww.....

The Bourne Identity
Peres Projects
Killing My Lobster