There are a pair of enticing events in the neighborhood or near-neighborhood this weekend, which make me sorry I am going to Washington DC tomorrow morning and not Monday.

On Friday evening, Cindy Bennett (an artist whose photographs you may have seen on this site) will be opening her studio in Old Chinatown. She lives and works just off Chung King Road (address 945 N. Hill Street) and will be opening the street-level doors of her studio in coincidence with the opening of some of the established art galleries. A guerrilla act, she's swinging those doors wide open! Recently I heard that the Chinatown galleries now stagger their openings because the crowds were too large. In any case, it seems like only yesterday I went with my friend Steve Kurtz to a discussion event in one of the Chinatown galleries -- it was all about the new and wonderful thing they called blogs. The room was beyond standing room only, with people packed into a doorway and watching from outside the plate glass windows. A few bloggers sat on a panel and described to the avid audience what a blog was. A guy in the audience pulled out a cellphone and showed how he could blog from it. Audio! I remember thinking, cool, now all of our cell phone conversations truly will be staged. Or "candid."

Then, on Sunday, there will be a talk in relation to a fractals exhibit at Machine Project on Alvarado near Sunset. Recently, I saw the door open at Machine Project and wandered into what had turned into a gallery. (The pneumatic tube money-taking apparatus remained, but the floor had been cleared of tables, sewing machines, weird contraptions and whatnot.) The gallery contained displays of fractal cubes of varying sizes, one of them about five feet (square, obviously). Lengthy captions explained what they were and how to make them. Machine Project does seem to be the ultimate do-this-yourself-at-home-kids kind of outfit. Very friendly. And the cubes were cool.

This from Machine:

Dear Friends,

Perhaps more than anyone, we here at Machine Project feel the powerful magnetic pull of the multitude of art events all happening this weekend. And yet, we brashly invite you to join us this Sunday (Sept 10th) at 8pm, as Machine Project and the Institute For Figuring present a lecture by Dr Jeannine Mosely on the mathematical and engineering challenges of turning 66,000 business cards into a fractal object. Audience members will learn how to fold businesscard cubes and during the evening Dr Mosely will assemble a Level 1 Business Card Sponge. It's not inconceivable that it might be crowded (what with those giant fractal cubes taking up space in the gallery) so come a bit early for best seating. Free.