not much sleeping

i dont really know for sure what to write about, school is ending in four weeks and that is a real strange thing seeing as how i remember the first week of college like it happened a month ago. and now its over and i have to get a job that doesnt suck. a peer of mine got a job already and when i heard that instead of being happy for them i felt relieved that it wasnt me. i think a regular design job may be a terrible thing. but i dont know i suppose.

my new website is up at www.ianvens.com.



I found this photo the other day that Mike Perry took. Its the only evidence that I was actually there over the summer. Priceless! Im sittng on the floor, Jim Stoten is in the chair and Katy Levy is in the far space. Swell.

Tomorrow I model clothes for judging day of the fashion show followed by a preparty at club element. Hopefully i dont collapse or explode. fingers crossed.

I had a mug with rabbits on it until an hour ago when Franklin the cat jumped on the cabinet and smashed it on the ground.

V

how long has it been, really.

The semester came and now is halfway done. I feel like time is moving fast and excruciatingly slow right now. The days and minutes alternate which one is the tortoise and which is the hare. My african american literature class is by far my favorite and philosophy 201 is the most pathetically slow-moving class ive had in a very long time.

Im trying to figure out where to go after school and right now Minneapolis isnt sounding as good as it once did. Im thinking more and more about New York, I mean I have friends there and some contacts I suppose. The field I used to lie on at night during the summer is now a giant hole with a box building starting to poke out. Cranes, steel, and garbage, ugh.

V

my toes have my favorite feet

today i finished the book V by Thomas Pynchon which i bought in Berlin and started reading soon after. it was a thick complex book but should not have taken three and a half months to read.

i returned yesterday from Barcelona where i had tickets to a 3 am show of a french singer named Yelle. Catalan is the language of that city but i really didnt know what was being said ever with french lyrics, spanish banter, and occasional english commands to clap your hands.

the castle of the fairy king in the picture above is the Sagrada Familia, a church designed by Antoni Gaudi that is still under construction more than 80 years after his death. The photo was taken from the roof of La Pedrera, a Gaudi apartment complex-turned-museum, consequently the next photo up. In the temporary exhibitions they had the work of Rodchenko who is an enormous name in graphic design, he was a pioneer in russian constructivism and slides of his work complete any respectable account of the history of design. Also, the motif of the woman calling in the photo has been ripped off so many times its not even funny (look at the album cover of franz ferdinands second cd).

The font magica sprayed colorful against a backdrop of classical music as we drank don simon sangria from a plastic bottle.

the zoo was closed so i stuck my feet in the sea. we ate ok tapas and took a nap. at the concert i was forced into remembering high school spanish as security guard was trying to move me while my friend was checking her coat. Esperando para mi amiga. The club was called Razzmatazz and had three dance floors i believe. picture two warehouses put together, then everyone inside standing in line for the coat check. bingo.

an english guy named oliver smoked a pipe and djed at a club called milan where we went with a mutt gang of australians, english, americans, spanish, and one canadian. Someone who lived above a bar thought we were being too loud in the street so proceeded to shower us in water.

I think i have to go, Jackie O is being a complete pain in the ass. School is over on tuesday i think. I have no idea. i missed the last day of class but it sounds like i was in the majority. what a joke. six days and then...nevermind.

V

nothing, really.

The Tiber river flooded and the docked boat that i pass every day on the way to school was destroyed by debris. It floats diagonally in the toxic water.

there is a whole generation of girls growing up with nylon magazine and the train wreck celebrities of youth and are learning their tricks. drink heavily and smoke cigarettes because it makes a good photo, not for any pleasure you might get out of it. the more out of control you appear, the better you are.

ive discussed it with dylan and our iowa state instruction in graphic design has dissolved into absolute nothingness. it is more detrimental to my learning to be in class next to a professor who only gossips and youtubes and breaks concentration. everything i learn, i learn from designers and artists who are thousands of miles away from me.

a man at the girona airport informed me that i cant do online checkin if i am an american citizen. he told me i had to pay twenty euros before i could get my boarding pass. I said the fee should have only been ten euros like on the website. Everything is more expensive at the airport he said. He gave me the bill to pay at a seperate window and i threw it away. I went to the clerk four desks down from him and told him i needed to check in. he told me i had to pay ten euros before i could get my boarding pass. i did so and flew home.


V

photo dump

I am a terrible blogger. I am too easily distracted and Im sorry for this if anyone regularly checks on my poor attempt at keeping things current.

I have still not put anything up from Berlin which was two months ago and im sorry. I went to Stockholm and have not put anything up and im sorry. I just returned from Switzerland and Milan and i dont have anything to put up right now because im shooting on a 35 mm camera because i dont like point and shoots and i need to get my film developed and im sorry. Here are some photos to try to clue in on whats been going on in my post expatriate life. well this first picture is from new york. but i love puzzles.





pompeii. it started pouring so i took off my shoes and rolled up my jeans. slick footing slipping around on two thousand year old cobblestones.



















bike riding in holysloot, holland. this is where the magic ferry with the swiss, the dutch, and the italian took us back across the river.













cliff jumping in capri. we had about twenty minutes before our ferry left and a school of jelly fish and stung us away.









yelling at people with a fake british accent outside an roman irish pub, prepunch.











modeling contraposto stance, made famous by the greek sculptor Polykleitos and used throughout all realisitc art from then on.





















all i wanted were some home made swedish waffles but this peacock came and distracted me. hes dressed flashier than i am and resembles a dinosaur so i lost.








colloseum lookin.





















a. bedsheet ghost halloween with my pal candycorn.















b. togas for no real reason






















pressuring stray dogs into smoking is a passtime of mine.


















and touching dirty animals makes me happy.





















i sketched out the midwest for a friend in berlin so she would know where iowas from. i just cracked myself up.

















trying to read before the bus to assisi. i was not hung over, i was in the minority because i am a good child.












a. project modeling the process for the creation of ideas in my brain.






















b. blissful in Stockholm with real autumn leaves and gorgeous non-roman architecture.





















c. hard at work in the Williamsburg street under the New York sun and its asphalt heat.




















d. human sacrifice to Vesuvius in the market area of pompeii.






















Head of a Madman by Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose life work on display in Rome until february. Gives me hope for myself.




















sketch for halloween costume.


















hanging out with Jackie O, the stray kitten who needs a home.














Jack with mine and haileys carved gourds. the pumpkins were few and far between so we made due. speaking of which, i think my roommates threw mine away. ugh.












this was supposed to be quick but somehow ate up a good part of my sunday. enjoy your day!

ian

Ian

floored floored floored floored floored floored floored

i took a slow train to florence by myself a week ago and it was a pretty good decision. i left termini at three and pulled into santa maria nuvona at seven. en route i had my first attempt at a conversation with someone who couldnt bail me out if i didnt know the word in italian.


i drew a picture of a cat for the girl sitting across from me with the note per la regazza con scarpe porpora. if i didnt mess it up it should have said for the girl with purple shoes.





we talked about her major and where she was from and what i was doing in rome and all the tiny things i could manage to fumble with in barely remembered phrasing.

i met willy and ryan in florence where they are studying and we ate dinner and talked about school and things like that and ate the first of three tortellini dinners that made a delicious weekend.



at one of their classmates apartments i heard an elaborate account of squatting in rotterdam and eating out of dumpsters that was interesting for about two minutes. after that i was biting my tongue pretty hard. we all walked towards a club but ended without any company. one was too drunk so they all skipped home. we had to pay to get out of a club where they used punch cards to keep track of your drinks. blah blah blah nightlife is extremely dull.




we read on the arno river and i shattered a clam shell. i wrote letters to willys girl roommates telling them i was in love with them and me and ryan sat inside a park talking people. we all went to the market on sunday and i wandered half-blind through the stands with infected eyes and i had just sat on my sunglasses. a man sliced up some meat for a sandwich that turned out to be all fat, i bought a pack of twenty vintage photos of hamburg.






and there was the secret bakery that everyone knew about. the pastry was so-so. willy yelled at me in the middle of the night for eating cookies, i guess it kept him up. i traveled back across the country with the shade pulled on the window of the train.

V

lagging behind

Sorry im such a terrible keeper upper. ive got a bunch of photos and a couple stories to tell. since we last spoke i have been to naples, pompeii, capri, sorrento, and i just returned from florence today. In capri i learned that italian comedians are awful representations of people in general and certain hostel hostesses are up for cannonization. And one should not follow feral cats, lest one stray from the group. i got lost and did not ever find my people.

i wrote down some things so i didnt have to remember at the computer so here goes.

-10.3.08

me eyes are killing me, contacts every day is starting to hurt something awful and the vision place still hasnt faxed me the prescription. anyways, sorrento convent breakfast was bread and coffee served by tiny women of the cloth.


sea and cliffs are becoming standard. dead city of pompeii, barefooted and soaked i tried not to lose my balance on the smooth rocks that bridged sidewalks over the muddy river streets.

ferry to capri and the sea air filling my blood vessels. Dyland relayed Einsteins quote -i believe in God, i spell it N-A-T-U-R-E.-

wind-blown, we stood on the deck watching the sun hide from us behind three-dimensional clouds as the rocky cliffs approached.

humming Shankill Butchers by the decemberists, i was seperated froom the rest of the group while chasing a black and white mottled cat through the twisting alleys behind the vias of anacapri.

bleach white houses stack up a hill and you can see it out the window of an orange bus flying up the wriggling mountain path.-





I need to finish a project. i will fill in photos and words for cities i have yet to fill everyone in on but until then, ciao, tschuss.