We caught up with artist Chad Liebenguth recently and asked him what had been keeping him busy of late. ‘I’m just really looking forward to having solo shows or participating in group shows, but there’s nothing on the table yet. Music from Stars of the Lid is a constant inspiration, as are John Frusciante interviews, stumbling on Damien Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living in the MET at 2:33pm — completely unexpected — the afternoon sunlight illuminating the fermented bits floating in the top, drawing the wrinkles around her eye, and the Orange County animal shelter at night, specifically the dog enclosures’.

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There’s a fine line between pleasure and pain, as I found out just a few weeks ago when my arse came crashing down from a considerable height onto the cement. Ouch! Though I should point out before DOCS intervene that the following story is a purely fictionalised account. That’s right, full of embellishment and poetic hyperbole. There’s no way I would actually do this. Nope. For I am a decent man. And so I begin … I went roller-blading recently for the first time – dragging a small Japanese kid around the dedicated concrete skate path of a nearby park on behalf of his parents who were long time family friends. A few wobbles aside, all was going well until about ten minutes in when the bugger lost his balance and, in his fear and panic, pulled me down with him. It was an awkward moment, two bodies suspended in mid-air trying valiantly to defy the pavement-tinged reality of gravity. I attempted to maneuver our positions so that I’d land on him and he’d break my fall but I didn’t have time and landed instead on the left side of my buttock and, as result and despite an extended salt water soak, I am in serious pain. Dammit! Oh, and in case you were wondering, the kid bumped his head but he was ok. At least, he wasn’t complaining. Or perhaps he was. His English is poor. [illustration by Chad Liebenguth]