i made a stuffed animal today but i kind of gave it away already. you’ll just have to take my word on it that i made it, because i did. and my word, well, i hope it’s good enough. it’s true, in the past, i’ve told some tall tales. one time me and jenine were driving by a frozen and snow-covered lake and i told her it was “cursed earth”, perfectly flat land that no vegetation would grow in nor animals walk on. one time arriving home with tim houston we told assembled parties on the lawn that we were at the store and the guy at the store had special advance trial packs of tangerine sour patch kids and he gave them to us and boy were they good (but actually we just bought soda and nothing particularly out of the ordinary happened). i frequently underreport the number of copies i make at the convenience store xerox machine. in sixth grade yearbook signing situations i told people i had no intention of keeping in touch with that we would “keep in in touch”. but this does not make of me a liar, gentle reader, nor does it indicate the valuelessness of my bond. dear friend and holiest of ghosts, i deeply feel that you and i have a relationship predicated on a certain trust and perhaps when i say “i made a stuffed animal today”, you may consider yourself internally justified in labeling that statement (for whatever it’s worth) “true”.

kelley parsons has been visiting a couple days and she’s really into capri sun, the juice box that’s actually a bag, and you know what? i’m into it too. capri sun is good package design that cuts down on waste (within the set “individual disposable juice containers”, which is still pretty bad), and because the juice is never poured into a glass and hence never seen with the naked eye, it does not have artificial coloring. additionally the packages all feature strong women in sporty beach scenes wearing appropriate beachwear- wetsuits or baggy shorts or what-have-you.

today’s stuffed animal is the only one with a name, and the only one based on an actual person. a person who was shot, poisoned, beaten, stabbed, and drowned. yes, ben schecter, it’s rasputin. seen posed in a b-boy stance.

hey, in worcester tomorrow (monday) is the cycle circus of impending doom! it’s at the WAG, on harlow st, at 7pm. please come, it’s going to rule. it’s 15 people touring by bike doing puppet shows and songs and crazy stuff. don’t sleep.

note the false face on the butt, just like a caterpillar.

last’s night’s show was just wonderful. we made a campfire out back and even a small stage made of pallets and cold kicked it. the rabbits (which is jason anderson’s band) played great songs exclusively about holidays and regular days (secretary’s day, lent, saturday, sunday). tigersaw played beautiful music accompanied by crackling fire to nice effect. thanksgiving played quiet songs with long cagean moments of silence and at one point played along perfectly in pitch and practically in rhythm with some sort of chirping nighttime animal far away. jason anderson’s solo set ended the night with an explosion of postive energy and you-are-here-nowness. bands often talk about tearing down the boundaries between artist and spectator but i must say, performing in the round, jason totally succeeded. singalong parts were so enthusiastic that he made everyone a part of his new band, “falcon”, and inbetween songs, we would yell in unison “this is falcon” and at the end of the set “thank you worcester, good night!”. it was knowingly dorky and beyond fun. he tours everywhere, seriously go see him, it’s like a nerdier andrew wk. totally worth it.

well, the ideas come fast, the creations bulbous. today a five-sided triangular slug, though its pitch gives it a certain forward momentum otherwise unseen in the species. show at my house tonight at 8- jason anderson (aka wolf colonel), rabbits, tigersaw, thanksgiving. fire in the backyard sure why not.

my one-a-day stuffed animal addiction continues with this fine little baleen quadruped. also today i played live on the radio in antwerp if you can believe it. polina and bigfoot paul are traveling around europe with a big satchel of stuff their friends make, trading it for stuff their new europe friends make. i’m not privvy to the particulars but today apparently found them at a radio station in belgium handing over my cds with relish and being the pure playas with clout they are they assumed they could just call me on the phone and i’d play ukulele for them me on the phone and they were right. it was fun but i had the radio jitters and the phone jitters and having my antsy performance broadcast only across an ocean sure put a weird edge on. i also worked on some cool comics to send in to paper rodeo finally, a mixture of my fast spaghetti-armed style and the mad magazine clutter-on-clutter aesthetic i clearly adore, and i ate at the pickle barrel, and i took a nap in the shade at unicorn glen, and i’m trying to make myself feel better for not really starting my day proper until quarter of four, and it’s working.

ok, here’s my one-a-day stuffed animal from yesterday. it’s an elephant skull!
you can only just barely see the top row of brass teeth underneath (there’s no jaw). i think if i made this really large it would be a good tv floor cushion.

wednesday morning allegra came over and we sewed until 5. it was good, i made two more stuffed animals and worked on a weird shirt. allegra made slippers. my sewing mania, having briefly morphed into a carpentry mania two weeks ago, has returned, and is in as full a swing as ever. whereas before the mania was primarily a matter of affixing flat surfaces to other (regionaly) flat surfaces, its brief stint in construction has bolstered its confidence and pointed us both down some strange new topographic avenues.

here’s them, one is really heavy by virtue of having a not-small rock inside it. the second is a witch and note the cool DC eyes:

the terribles and i played our last show (of three) with movies with live soundtracks on sunday, the hometown show (for them) in providence. it went smashingly, especially for me– having played my movie soundtrack three times now, i’ve almost got it down. as it so often must be, the worst part of the night was, in fact, leaving. xander (who we love) had bought ice cream, and vegan ice cream, and root beer, and guiness, all for the after-session, and we had to leave so matt carroll could get up early to drive to connecticut to wait in line for 24 hours to get into a steven king booksigning (one of his last books, says matt carroll, and his only booksigning) on the following day. it should be noted that this self-assured fanboyism is one of the many reasons we like matt carroll. still, it was unfortunate.

xander has a good and unexpected stick-and-poke tattoo and the sort of voice-dress-handwriting unity that i really appreciate, plus her movies are really great, but you know what’s weird? she says that dinosaur attacks cards are “just OK”, when in actual fact they rule. providence– what’s up?

today’s start on the street event went really good. i sold a lot of the “paris of the eighties” t-shirts and other funny junk, and met some goofy folks, and saw some faces. incidentally, if you’re here because i wrote this address down for you, and you want a paris of the eighties or turtle boy shirt (which you couldn’t get at the event for some reason), please send size and color and style information along with payment of $12 to: fujichia / suite 854 / 1102 pleasant st / worcester ma 01602. turtle boy shirts are in yellow only, paris of the eighties are in red or grey. small red is sold out, sorry.

oh yeah, and as is the custom, i had the cheapest merch there and i think i made the most money. there was a poster i would’ve bought for $10, but it was an unwavering $50. what’s up? other stuff i liked – large paper mache bat, lots of pet portraiture, adam hotcakes’ peace punk table.

kelley parsons gave me a bunch of those girl socks i like, brightly colored ankle socks with cats and zebra stripes and stuff on them. mike was saying i should start wearing girl underwear and t-shirts too, so that i dressed like an old man on the outside and a teenage girl underneath. i told him this would be uncomfortable but a good summation of my character.

yesterday we did the movies with live soundtracks thing again, this time in boston, at the beautiful coolidge corner theatre. the show started at midnight, and i went last, after lots of people had left, and i didn’t get home to worcester until 5:30, and right before i went on i had really really bad stomach pains as a result of being tired and slouching in a chair for a long time, but all in all it was a great experience. lots of people showed up, kevin driscoll even bought one of my new t-shirts (pictures forthcoming). tonight it’s at the RISD museum parking lot, in providence, at 8:30. BYO blankets and chairs. if it rains it’ll be at the tap room on benefit street, whatever that means.

DON’T FORGET!