THE HEAD AS ANTENNA

On yesterday's Fresh Air, an epidemiologist made a disturbingly convincing case for the brain-cancerous potential of cellphones. I tend to be skeptical/dismissive of such claims but when she offered the eerie explanation that "the cell phone uses the head as an antenna," and described how the microwaves of the cellphone actually warm your brain an inch deep into your skull, and how it is illegal to sell cellphones to anyone under 16 in India and restricted in England due to child-brain-development concerns, and that the main research asserting their brain-harmlessness was based on a study of non-business users from 1987 to 1995, I started tallying in my head (many minutes I use per month) x (six years since I got it) = invest in quality headset immediately. Als0: texting for health reasons, bring on the hypertrophied thumbs.

I want my head to be my antenna alone.

Last night Holmes and I hit some First Thursday, PDX's monthly galleries-open-late night. A certain five-year-old I know once casually (and aptly) referred to First Thursday as "Butt Zone." We chose our targets carefully though and saw amazing stuff.

Chuck Close prints at Augen Gallery.

An installation at Portland Art Center:

Also: tributes to lost loved ones at Reading Frenzy, Shayla DJ'ing at Upper Playground in her spectacular new spectacles, and Leslie's great bunny and chipmunk astral-projection comic at Floating World.

Then a Madonna tribute night at Holocene, highlights being the Gay Deceivers' synchronized dance moves and hand-painted T-shirts, and Mirah + TJO as I had never seen them before, the former in corset and garters and bondage hood and the latter in mustache and pomaded hair, doing a most otherworldly and amazing cover of "Erotic" while sexy girls swiveled and fondled around and upon them.