Libido of Benjamino

From Wikipedia:

Ivan Maximov (Russian: Иван Максимов) is an artist, professional animator and director.

Ivan Maximov was born on 19 November 1958 in Moscow.[1] He studied photography at the Biophysical Institute in Moscow till 1976. From 1976 - 1982 Maximov studied at the Physical-Technical Institute in Moscow. He worked as an illustrator for various magazines and from 1982 to 1986 he was an engineer at the Russian Space Research Institute. Between 1986 and 1989 Maximov took advanced studies in Film Directing and Script writing.

Starting 1995 he worked as "virtual studio IVAN MAXIMOV" where he set up his studio at home to work on film, video and computer animation. He worked as a caricaturist for VREMYA mn and in 2000 and 2001 he worked as a caricaturist for VREMYA NOVOSTEY.

In 2003, Maximov created the computer game Full Pipe[2] at PIPE-STUDIO.

In 2003 Maximov began teaching film directing and script writing at school-studio SHAR and VGIK.

In 2007, Mr. Maximov completed his latest work Rain Down from Above.

$2.75 at the Berkeley Flea Market

This one is deserving of a closer look

One month in.

Moving to Oakland accomplished, a proper studio remains out of reach for financial reasons. Frustrating, especially as it is completely impossible for Eric and I to keep a surface clean enough to work on. So all my supplies are boxes, paintings are bundled in plastic and put under the bed, and only a few sketch pads and pencils remain. Hopefully something will come of that.

For any interested parties, here's what I wrote in a (promptly deleted) diary sort of blog about moving.

Woke up crabby with a hint of bull in a china shop. Promptly stubbed my toe on everything we own, cursed it out, had some tea in a cup that turned out to be dirty, cursed at that too, knocked some more things over, then ran down the street to Peet's in the hopes that coffee will even me out. My cappuccino is 90% foam and I remain irritable.

California has been good to me so far, even through this morning's grumpiness. I continue to apply for jobs that are more in line with what I came here for (art, grad school, fame, fortune and fig trees) but am piecing together working as transcriptionist for art museums and jack-of-all-trades for a succulent nursery in Berkeley. This isn't a job I would feel comfortable committing to long-term, but I do enjoy the novelty of working in the California sunshine while picking dead leaves off of cacti with tweezers. It feels...California. I still don't quite know what that means. I think in my mind SF was LA but with hemp instead of botox, but it's really probably more like Seattle. Which I've never been to.

I'm enthralled by the hills on my side of the Bay. I can't believe how long I lived in the flat grayness of Chicago, how long I allowed myself to live without beauty like this. I truly love Chicago. I love it's square blocks and easy bike-rides, the bacchanalia of summer before the draconian winters. I suspect that I will tire of fig and olive trees, of organic food and awareness-of-all-causes. But that certainly hasn't happened this month.

Our studio apartment (especially in it's half-moved-into state) is crowded, but I do love it. When I wake in the morning, I see the whole world shrouded in fog. Two hours later the temperature has risen 30 degrees and as the sun clears the clouds I can see tiny ships in the Berkeley marina and the hills of Marin county. When the leaves die on the oak tree on the sidewalk, I'll be able to see all the buildings of San Francisco, which we only see now as twinkles between leaves at night. As the sun goes down, everything burns orange, and I watch the Ethiopian and Korean restaurants filter the street crowd. The library across the street has an open and closed sign so big I can read it from my kitchen table, and I go there to type and check e-mails. The lights are never on until nightfall, and all the windows are open. Sometimes there are bees resting on the covers of the Alice Waters book I want and I have to wait for them to get bored and fly away before I can learn about vinaigrette.

From the nursery I have been given many baby plants, most still attached to a fallen leaf of their mother plant. They line the windows and get so cold at night that I wonder they don't die. I've lost my cigarettes, but at night with the windows open the smoke blows back in, mingling with the smell of the daal Eric is preparing.

I get crabby. I can be mean. I yell at objects, even though it's me who put them in my way. But I'm happy.