On the right wall are Yoshitomo Nara's feral children sculptures. Nara is quickly attaining rock-star status in Japan, and if you pay attention you'll start seeing his influence in tons of areas--and not just those associated with Giant Robot. Next to Nara's stuff there are tons of photos of Japanese kids by HIROMIX. My favorite is the kid with the bowl cut and the guitar with the "Folk You" sticker. Across from the photos leaned like a drunk on a doorframe is a full-scale Zero Fighter airplane renedered from 3,000 4"x6" photographs of a 1/32 scale model. The structure is built by Katsuhige Nakahashi, who built five more like it and before reducing them all into piles of ashes. Nakahashi is a history professor who's obsessed with the events surrounding World War II, the mode of thinking of its participants, and what it means to be a nationalist. Nakahashiąs work is probably the most powerful and spiritual, but I am distracted by the trail of Mr.--his trademark anime girls with short skirts (or none at all), drawn on 200 store receipts and pinned on the walls. What kind of mind comes up with putting these sorts of things on pre-printed, semi-free slips of pulp and offers them up for everyone to see and judge? Genius--a level of attainment to which I aspire to leave these foolish reins of mere self-conciousness and offer all my faults, vices, demons, skeletons, and pure, unadulterated perversion up for judgemnt and laugh from afar... A side note: There are also some weird paintings juxtaposing human and insect sexuality, as well as someone having sex with a teddy bear, some cool Tron-ish helmets, and some hyper-sexual cum-spewing figures.

On the prowl for Mr. at the smoky afterparty... slipping between two old guys trying to hit on a couple of GR interns, I make my way inside the huge tent, disco-lit with bubble-gum audio supplied by Fantastic Plastic Machine. Near the entrance stands a table with expensive T-shirts as well as a bunch of other merch from several of the artists at the show. It's poorly guarded and I walk away with shirt after shirt before put each back in its rightful spot. There is something about stealing from the senseless--it just doesn't compute. I don't move too far from the merch because there are reports that Mr. has been sighted around here. While waiting for him, I have to talk my way out of being accidently cast as an actor (the character of which, turns out to be, sadly, exactly like me--sad because me on paper really doesnąt sound as romantic or as cool as I had hoped). I walk off the initial disappointment of being a character failingly simplistic as the wedge or lever for a dumb plot and disappear among the shadowy faces.

A flash of lavender glasses. A quick turnabout of a dirt-stache. There he is, conversing in a language I donąt understand with two important-looking strangers! What choice do I have? This might be my only chance to butt in and get a picture and complete the night. I step in, feign the biggest smile possible, and Mr. flips off Eric's camera. Night gone.

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