On the first day of Hallowe'en....

Once again, I feasted on flesh. J. Cannibal hosted his eleventh Feast of Flesh at the Coolidge this weekend, and I went with a troop of Scottish dancing folk to nibble on a horrific goodie bag and watch creepy burlesque, death metal, a zombie costume contest, and Dario Argento's ridiculously over-the-top Demons. (I'd been confusing it with Night of the Demons; Demons was much better, for some values of the word.) The winning zombies were a nicely realized zombie bride and a crowd-pleasing Dry Bones from Super Mario Bros. The rumor was that this was to be the last FoF, as J. Cannibal is moving out of state, but he says he's decided to return for XII and XIII. Hooray!

Other autumnal adventures

On Sunday, I biked to the MFA to check out their "new" contemporary art wing. (It's really just rebuilt and repurposed.) The space is airy and light, creating a sort of neutral-uplifting backdrop for the art, but they took a wrong turn by silkscreening explanatory blocks of text in each gallery ("Look around you! In this gallery, you'll see common objects used in uncommon ways!"). It creates a distancing Contemporary Art for Dummies feeling, and doesn't permit visitors to approach the art on their own terms. They also wrote out the guidelines for visitors in white neon, making a winceish "Is it art?" sort of installation that diminishes the rest of the collection. Getting past that, though, the collection itself is quite nice, charming and witty and powerful and inspiring by turns. I like the joke inherent in spelling out "INTENT" in incandescent bulbs, then letting them burn out until the message is illegible. A fellow struck up a conversation with me about the gorgeous, glossy, almost mechanical black mirrors of Fred Wilson's Iago's Mirror, and a young journalism student asked to photograph me contemplating a plaster cast of a morning shave. I most enjoyed the soft black closeness of their video installation gallery, where I sat watching a meditative underwater shot of a woman standing on a melon in the Dead Sea for about fifteen minutes.

It's good to immerse myself in contemporary art from time to time. I'm highly dependent on artistic self-confidence to carry me through this period of my writing career; seeing the many many ways people have managed to create art in the last half-century helps me tattoo THERE'S NO RIGHT WAY TO DO IT on the inside of my forehead. It's a message I needed to hear. Then I rode to Harvard Square to catch the tail end of the Honk! festival, and had it colored in with glitter and feathers and fried plantains.

Also: Neal Stephenson read from Reamde at the Coolidge, and while he has a typical geek's public speaking skills I was well entertained. A couple of weeks prior, I saw Betsi Feathers Burlesque at the Coolidge, and was impressed by their level of professionalism. Lots of choreography, very nice costumery. The dancers themselves were less alt-chick than I am accustomed to seeing; they looked like they'd stepped out of a glossy magazine, for the most part, which is not really my thing. But I had a good time.

Coming up: there's a Dali exhibit at DTR Gallery on Newbury Street (through 10/21), which I need to get to. I also want to get to the ICA after 10/7 to see the Dance/Draw and Swoon installations. The MoS is apparently hosting a huge travelling Pompeii exhibit, which adfamiliares and I are interested in; I'm also keen to see the fractals show in the planetarium. This weekend, J. Cannibal and the folks who bring us the Slutcracker are mocking the Tea Party at the Somerville with Beaver. The HMNH has a new "Life in the Extreme Deep" exhibit, with a talk-n-reception on the evening of 10/12.

Finally, my tires have been behaving themselves for weeks now, ever since the Ace guy found the tiny sliver and I put on a new Bontrager LT-3 tire. I think I'm going to bike out to Assabet Wildlife Refuge in Stow this weekend...and I'm laying track in my mind for a bike ride to Montréal and back next spring. Eep.