some logs for the fire

Heart

2005-10-04T02:04:00.000-04:00

Though its maximum rate slows, the healthy heart compensates for aging in subtle ways that keep its output the same as when it was younger. The heart walls thicken, for instance, putting more muscle in to pushing the blood through stiffenting artieries. The older heart cannot squeeze as hard as it once could. Yet when the body moves--even just to stand up--blood still must get to the active muscles to make this happen, the walls of the ventricles stretch, allowing more blood to move through the heart per beat.

-(taken from caption of national geographic article on aging)

synchronicity

2005-08-28T23:27:00.000-04:00

Whatever you think you can do
or believe you can do, begin
it. Action has magic, grace,
and power in it.

Goethe

two things

2005-08-20T00:43:00.000-04:00

Language and communication.

lately I find myself totally amazed that the words I speak are heard by another and "understood." certainly something that i don't take for granted. Its also strange that we chatter at eachother, stories stories gossip explanations whats the point? But other times words transmited and deposited inside my brain become this crazy electric window letting in the crispest freshest air, or become this helicopter at my door step ready to take me up and around for a much needed antipodes perspective.

The birds sing when I'm painting, they live inside the barn. (one flew so close to me yesterday I was startled) sometimes they really seem so excited and bustling- are they just enjoying their ability to make noise? to say Woh! I'm alive! listen to that!

Passage from "passing strange & wonderful"

2005-08-08T14:56:00.000-04:00

"We are all cultural beings, makers of culture, artisan-artists. To make anything at all calls for attention, imagination, and skill. These qualities cannot be had without discipline, the effort to overcome self-indulgence of body and mind to add something tangible to the external world. In the case of a large project--a sculpture in stone, for instance--physical effort, sweat and strain, is required, and we can imagine the artist putting his own health at risk to accomplish a cultural end. Less visible is the mental effort, which demands moment by moment choice. Such choices almost always have a moral component, as Malcom Cowley indicates from the viewpoint of a writer. There is a sense, he says, in which not only fiction, "but all kinds of writing, are moral. Almost every work set on paper involves a choice. The writing of one page might involve hundreds of moral decisions. 'Shall I use this word, which easily comes to hand, or shall I stop and search my mind for a slightly better word?' " These aesthetic decisions take on a moral spect if only because the call for "Choosing the hard over the easy."

gift

2005-07-27T10:45:00.000-04:00

Free Will astrology:

Link

Last June in Ethiopia, seven men kidnapped a
12-year-old girl and held her in a remote wilderness for seven days.
Then a miracle occurred. Three lions sprang out of nowhere and chased the
abductors away. They protected the girl until a search team arrived,
then slipped away. "The lions stood guard until we found her and then they
just left her like a gift and went back into the forest," said one of
the rescuers.

Change of Taste

2005-07-23T16:52:00.000-04:00

My father is currently participating in a study for a new drug to curb heavy drinking. It’s actually not a new drug, but a new and milder application of a drug long used for epilepsy patients. A little background, my dad drinks quite a bit, a least a few cocktails a night, usually "opens the bar" at 4:00 p.m.

SO, it’s a four month study, he's two months into it. The other day, my mom had come back from the grocery store, and said, oh, honey I got you some root beer, and he said oh, great, and here are some limes for your tonic water. I kind of laugh and say, what, wait do you really drink root beer, and they look over at me and Mom says,
Dad doesn't want to drink anymore.
What? Really?
It just doesn't appeal to me.

So weird. I asked him in what way doesn't it appeal to you, and he said, it doesn't taste good. Now he is one of the most stubborn people with things not tasting good and not ever having them even to try, so I wonder if he'll go back when he's off the drug.

Is it like you've lost your acquired taste?
Yeah, it’s like I'm a kid, and I'm drinking alcohol and it’s like iiyuclk why would anyone want this.

What is acquired taste then? Is it memory of what the drinking will lead to, that clicks into place as soon as you smell the drink, and delivers a sense of satisfaction the way that smell evokes nostalgia?

And then, what is this drug doing? Possibly:
A. altering memory
B. altering sense organs
C. secreting some substance that makes the alcohol taste different and worse then he remembers.
D. creating a new memory/biological reaction, that the alcohol is poison
E. he is actually on the placebo and he is objectively evaluating his habits and tasting for the first time, as a new person.

Not likely that he's on the placebo, he says he doesn't feel like himself right now, he has had a headache, and is quite lethargic, and other things. He also is disappointed that he doesn't want to drink because he likes drinking so much.

conjurs up the subjectivity of individual taste, but also shatters it with a drug that controls it. I tried to get from him what he thinks it is, but he says, its just taste, it could be any number of sources(what is the drug actually affecting), but it comes down to, that doesn't appeal to me, when he thinks of it, he doesn't want to have it, it tastes different and it smells gross.

However, he still misses the effects of the alcohol, and the ritual of drinking.

fodder

2005-07-22T14:03:00.000-04:00

showing parents some of my work, any of my work. its kind of uncomfortable because they don't know how to respond but they listen, and then respond with a grunt or an okay as though i'm an alien. or hmmm, that sounds like some deep thinking. or now, they don't even have time to listen, its just uh-huh, why are you making that, it's not practical, it has no practical use, practical means customers. if its not framed, and behind glass, its not art product, its in the way.

what are you going to DO with that.
what is she going to DO with an art degree.
nothing that relates to the world WE live in...

no doubt I've been generously supported by them, but to their eyes i know my "studio time" seems worthless, as though I'm doing nothing. Its a big challenge to hold on to my focus, any inkling that what I'm doing DOES matter. and that it could be part of their world. I struggle with the relative remoteness and isolatedness of the art world- But i think that that planet is an interesting one, and that I would like to participate in building it, and finding bridges to the "real" world.

breakfast

2005-07-20T09:15:00.000-04:00

grapefruit half
green tea
soft boiled egg

check to see if kettle has water and turn it on to boil, open fridge get egg and grapefruit, drop egg in pot with water, boil pot and egg, get out tea cup and tea bag, cut grapefruit in half, wrap the other half with thin plastic for tommorow. Find grapefruit spoon, or lance grapefruit with knife along the egde. pour boiling steamy water over tea bag. set place at table, take out tea bag before tea becomes bitter. Thumb through newspaper, scoop out grapefruit sections one after the other , letting the acidic bitter sweet juice break through the dull mental morning haze and flood the mouth leaking through the brain cleaning out the crusty junk. sip the hot chalky seaweedy salty tea soothe and wake up. get up grap the boiling pot, drain the water, take out the egg, carefully crush the shell and lift underneath the thin rubbery skin with a spoon. eat the warm thick egg, finish with the grapefruit, sip the tea. read the stars.

Looking at a primary source to understand HOW people listen(ed) at a particular time and place

2005-07-18T19:34:00.000-04:00

I've been accused of listening too strangely. "Not many people listen the way you do, Julie." Does this make my experience irrelevant? It probably arrouses curiousity as to my origins. Maybe i am a freak. but here's a look at how someone else is listening, as portrayed in a novel.

Ralph Ellison published his epic novel Invisible Man in 1945. This complex work of fiction explores the experience of a black man from his boy hood in the south to his adult life in Harlem. The narrator’s grandparents were slaves freed at the end of the Civil War, and he is deeply affected by his grandfather’s legacy. His grandfather seems to encourage the uncomfortably agreeable and silent approach to their position in relation to the whites. (It is reminiscent of the silence Mark Smith talks about in his Listening to 19th Century America, the too-quiet slaves that made slave masters suspicious and uneasy.) As a boy, the narrator does well in school, speaks at the graduation, and is awarded a scholarship to a southern black college. Whites try to encourage but suppress his skills as an orator. Eventually, he makes it up to New York City and encounters the complexities of the modern urban industrial society. Through this time he perceives the reality of his identity as a black man virtually invisible in this world.

The novel begins with a prologue told by the grown-up narrator, who lives and hibernates in a secret hole underneath a building rented only to whites that lies on the border of Harlem. The narrator introduces the prologue by focusing on the way he is (not) perceived by society: he is invisible and inaudible. He isn’t “complaining… [or] protesting,” but analyzing the situation, and how it affects him. Exploring the phenomenon of his invisibility, he explains that the rest of society filters the reality of his existence in their “inner eyes.” The filtered perception of the “inner eye” occurs where sensory information coincides with the mind’s idealism of what should exist. It seems to be a description of the way individuals in an urban setting tends to ignore those identities which they do not conceive of as members of their society. Mere visual misperception gains power when it is coupled with aural misperception.

People walk into him and then don’t respond to him as a human. This leads him to doubt his existence, resent society, and violently attempt to be seen and heard. These are acts to be “part of all the sound and anguish.” (4) He accidentally bumps into a man who then insults him, and the narrator claims that this was an unusual instance where he was actually seen, as indicated by the insult he hears. This disrespectful recognition provokes him to grab the other man, and “[demand] that he apologize.” The other man does not respond to this demand, but just curses him again. His desire to hear the other man apologize elevates to the point where the invisible man forcibly attempts to penetrate the other man’s reality in anyway he can, and holds a knife to the other man’s throat. Then he remembers that he is invisible and that his actions mean nothing to this man; the whole event is probably being processed and understood as a nightmare. At first he tries to prove that he does exist, but then, because he receives no response, he believes that the man may hear something, but doesn’t listen to it as a request from a real person, dismissing him as an unpleasant figment of his imagination. Once he remembers that he can’t change his invisibleness, he stops and runs away.

He’s not usually so violent, and recognizes various advantages to being imperceptible. He tends to reside in his inaudible dimension by remembering to “walk softly so as to not awaken the sleeping ones.” Here, it points out that noise can be an instrument to wake people up, but more likely, it will just disrupt their sleep walk. Knowing that he will never really be perceived, he finally decides to remain unseen and unheard inside a protective space when he hibernates underground.

The narrator describes his home environment and his living habits. He lives alone in a hidden hole that he has escaped to with his phonograph and a ceiling he lined with 1,369 lights and illegally electrifies. The stolen electricity from the “Light & Power” is his way of taking advantage of his supposed non-existence and secretly gaining back power. They may be suspicious that someone is steeling their power, but if he just keeps quiet and doesn’t wake them up, they won’t be able to use it against him. Filling his home with this absurd amount of light is an act of obsession to prove to himself that his physical body can be seen. He equates light to truth. Similarly, then, he is empowered by controlling his personal soundscape, and playing the “invisible music” he wants in this unheard silent space. He says: “Now I have one radio-phonograph; I plan to have five. There is a certain acoustical deadness in my hole, and when I have music I want to feel its vibration, not only with my ear but with my whole body.” The way the acoustics may die quickly, he wants it to at least come out forcibly when it does sound. Here the power of sound is listened to as a physical sensation. “I’d like to hear five recordings of Louis Armstrong playing and singing What Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue—all at the same time,” he imagines, and this desire to hear multiple recordings at once, perhaps a mass production conception, maybe understanding quantity as power. (7-8) He dreams of listening to a controlled (recording), unified (five at once), harmonious musical soundscape that is his alone to enjoy.

(The quintupling of the recording is an artificial way to boost its power, something that would not be possible naturally, since there is only one Louis Armstrong. The connections between invisibility and silence and his use of electrical power to fight against that are quite interesting, arent’ they? in some ways, it’s not only about him but about the state of human beings in the twentieth century, aesthetizing themselves with gadgets, to use DeNora’s phrasing. Dan Cavicchi)

He also describes his own little ritual for music listening: He puts on Louis Armstrong, an invisible musician with whom he identifies, and pours gin over ice cream and watches it “glisten” as he listens to Louis beam out “lyrical sound.” These habits are his own creations that allow him to fully relax and take in the music. Somehow the quality of this sweet eating experience enhances his appreciation and attention to the poetry of the music, allowing him to more deeply and fully connect to listening experience, and to be able to repeat it more powerfully as well.

Then the narrator begins to tell the story of a specific listening to the same song while under the influence of “the reefer.” Stories that involve marijuana use, and any drug use, are both easy to discredit, and full of potentially rich phenomenological information. Who is going to believe the listening experience of a man under the reefer? On the other hand, the surreal complexity of his perceptions becomes believable as a crazy experience that could only happen under the influence. Moreover, the depth of the listening in this experience points out an important aspect of the act of listening. Listening is not a function of the ear; the ear is merely a sound collecting instrument.

The actual listening is a process that occurs in the mind where the sounds transform and become meaning. Time and “the beat” are translated into space that he begins to inhabit. Normally time is perceived as a flat surface, just as the pattern of a maze from above might become an even, overall surface. But this time, he inhabits the spaces of the beat. It is as though he descends upon the maze, whose walls are built of the beat, and his mind can move around in the empty spaces of the breaks. He accredits his attention to the points of non-beat/non-action to his awareness of the invisible, and maintains that this attention of his gives him the power to punctuate the dominant flow when he is ready.

(Charles Keil describes these non-action spaces with his theory of participatory discrepancies—those spaces are what gives music its power. D.C.)

He listens to discover the moment of rest and silence when he will have the opportunity to make his own noise. This is exactly the practice of a Jazz musician. They must listen carefully to each other to know how to improvise wisely, and clearly express something together. He notices that the melody exists but waits “patiently for the other voices to speak.” (9) He falls into a stream of consciousness, delving through the layers of the music, the different rhythms, instruments and harmonies are explored as a sort of labyrinthine cavern.

He descends through the various layers of tempos and envisions different characters inhabiting each layer. First he sees an old woman singing a spiritual, and, then sees beautiful white (maybe black actually) girl before a group of slave owners bidding for her naked body, pleading in a voice that he compares to his mother’s voice. This comparison points to the idea that this listening is happening deep in his mind and these characters are related to his personal memories. On the deepest level, he encounters the sounds of a shouting preacher and congregation. They are discussing blackness and creation, and then a voice faces outward toward the listener, and screams at him.

He then travels back up through the layers of the music, past the “old singer of spirituals” who he hears her moaning, and he stops to talk to her. He prompts her to tell a complex story of love and hate and freedom. This confusing situation is just too much for him to grasp. He wants to linger and get her to clarify, but the loud noise from a higher layer forces him to bring his attention there. He decides to revisit that lower layer and listen to what the woman has to say about freedom once more. She tries to answer him, but her response is just her realizing expressing her deep and painful confusion.

He resurfaces to that louder layer, which is apparently upset with him for disturbing the woman.

The man on this layer grips him, almost suffocates him; completely and utterly filling the space around him, taking complete control over him as the listener. His ears are exhausted and full to the brim of noise, pounding from these aggressive encounters. He has heard enough, he struggles to get to some peace and silence. He is paranoid of sounds chasing him, attacking him. He hears footsteps following him, as he gets away from the sound. It is as though the phonograph needle is beating through the grooves of a spinning record path, and is regularly thumping.

In the underworld, each layer calls him to act, the lowest screams “Git out of here, you fool! Is you ready to commit treason?” and the old woman says, “Go curse your God, boy, and die” and the last man says “Get outa here and stay, and next time you got questions like that, ask yourself.”

Then, he’s finally out of this “underworld of sound”, and to hear Louis Armstrong innocently asking “What did I do to be so black and blue?” (11-12)

After this horrifying and completely arduous listening experience, he claims that he knows “that few really listen to this music” (12).

He also says that “it was a strangely satisfying experience for an invisible man to hear the silence of sound” and that it helps him understand his deep desires (13). Furthermore, he recognizes that the act of listening is a receptive and maybe even passive act, and chooses to stay away from the reefer mainly because it amplified unheard sound in such a way that he felt it inhibited his abilities for future action.

In hearing the sounds of silence, the empty space is now seen as full, leaving no space for thoughts and actions. He defines “seeing” the invisible music, so that vision becomes the translated perception that happens inside the mind; that processing that goes beyond hearing. The ears are open, constantly collecting sound, so hearing is inevitable. But listening is something that takes effort, especially to this kind of complex music. Then this narrator defines himself as an orator, and anticipates the response of his audience, first saying that “you’ll hardly believe that I exist.” (13) As a storyteller, the listener is investing their time in him, and he seems to not be taking responsibility. However, he claims that actually, irresponsibility is a part of his invisibility, and that responsibility comes from recognition.

In this prologue he addresses the reader who must listen closely in order to follow the story he has to offer. He asks the listener to actively recognize him and through this act of respect, he may reveal himself to the listener as actually quite responsible. He has spent much time contemplating his role and place in society, and presents an incredible account of his experiences in listening to prepare his listeners for the depth of the story he is about to tell.

He talks about listening to music that with which he connects personally, and therefore prepares the reader for the layered context and confused history of the story to follow the prologue. He is speaking from a time when blacks still weren’t respected as any sort of voice, not that that has even changed yet today. Is his voice still invisible? Perhaps it becomes more visible and audible to his audience as it is translated from his black lips to the basic written language that connects Americans.

afterword: Dan Cavicchi comments, Consider historical contexts:
The narrator’s understanding of music and use of the phonograph could only have been written in the mid-twentieth century; how the phonograph and listening affirms identity and connects people, alone, with each other. The listening he’s doing is also quite focused and dissecting, something that comes out of concert culture of the late 19th century, even though his recognition of spaces between the notes is very African American. And so on.

Additional reading:
Johnathan Sterne's "Machines to Hear for Them" pgs 31-85
William Kenney "Two Circles of Resonance: Audience Uses of Recorded Music" pgs 3-22)

sound/ ears/ listening/music

2005-07-18T00:29:00.000-04:00

went to hartford jazzfest in bushnell park with friends, ahmad jamal pianist headlined. Thinking againg about narrative music. The piano trio is abstract and less narrative in the sense that for the most most part all of the sounds are identifiably piano drums, whatever. bass.

not acurate electronic imitations of a particular noise, which is where this all changes. an actual wave or bird noise. more specific creaks, extracted from actual creaky stairs and doors, thus allowing for a more literal sort of narrative. but there are still ambiguities? then it is just like any other music.

and then classical music, striving for its strange ideals of perfect acoustical sound, creating vast structures building space, playing with set forms, timbres, intervals, puctuation, drone.

however with any listening, you can really experience sever stages of scale shift in perspective and proximity. Far away music is a force a wall a surface a texture and entity outside of you you take it in through your labrinthine ear passages. sometimes it helps to move your body, to size the music and its movements to your bodies movements. that is one step of listening, a little closer, and then when the music is bigger than you, you step inside of it, a world of space streching, rhythms repeating bass lines creating planes, regular patterns, etc.

Yi-Fu tuan talks about sound; here she discusses music as spirtual worship; the gregorian chants were not performed as entertainment, but created as aesthtically funtional material to aid in the religious experience of the parishioners, their communion with God.

smells and hairs, scents and furs

2005-06-25T15:19:00.000-04:00

"eating is a mode of touch."
when you are touching something, it is touching you back.

smell is often considered a lesser sense in creating our perceptual experience.

however, as a more subordinant sense, its information tends to be rich with intuitive significance. Often the source of smells are ambiguous, causing an often humorous detective series of deduction, and their complexity, and material powderyness (it can rub off onto things, seep into, as a cloud) makes them mysterious. However, the way our brain organizes these specific "smells" is extremely defined; we can pin smells immediatly to a past time and place, often providing very powerful nostalgia experiences.

"smell affects our emotions at a ...deeply buried level " (56)
yi-fu tuan Passing Strange and Wonderful

the subjectivity of this topic begs your comment. please

Time doesn't pass

2005-03-11T15:04:00.000-05:00

I went to see physicist and string theorist Brian Greene, the author of the elegant universe, speak last night. He began introducing string theory's position in the dialog of physics. He spoke about space dimensions that are imperceptible to our senses; beyond the 3 dimensions that we interact in, there are at least 7 more, plus the dimension of time.

After the lecture someone asked, with your increased dimensions of space, does time itself multiply in its dimensions? He responded that he doesn't think time is completely illusory, but he believes that time doesn't flow as we think it does, that past and future are artificial constructions... That someone else's past is another person's present...

presence creates gravitational pull.

anonymous

2005-03-06T18:16:00.000-05:00

you will remain anonymous until you learn how to weild the technology to express and distinguish. my blog right now is hidden from any brain unless one takes the care to decode these letters as they have happened upon my url. and the recent post list on this site, reshuffling like that game where you stack your hands down in a group and then scramble to restack on the top.

Intention

2005-02-28T00:13:00.000-05:00

from past participle of intendere, to direct attention

in medicine: The process by which or the manner in which a wound heals

where might intention live--can I make something and make it look like I didn't make it; as though it just formed itself, or the environment around it formed it? is this an indirect way of closing off the opportunity to express my intention? I mean, I did make it, what do I want to say, surely not that I don't exist? but maybe that I want to exist as the consiousness and nomadic physical force of an environment, sensitively inhabiting the various elements of a place, and communicating through them with subtle alterations of textures and colors and materials.

what is the debate of intentionality? if anyone can answer this, I came across it in something I was reading about art. I think it may help here.

The lashes of your eyes

2004-11-05T02:09:00.000-05:00

"Love the earth and the sun and animals, despise riches, give alms to
everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and the crazy, devote your
income and labors to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God,
have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to
nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men, go freely
with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and mothers of
families, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in
any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh
shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency, not only in its words but
in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your
eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."

--Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

An early moment of lucidity occurred when I came out of the bath and squinted at the morning light flooding through my window: I was delighted by the little rainbows that I discovered sprouting on my wet eyelashes! Rainbows are miraculous: the chance concoction of water droplets and the bright sun that together dissect white light into the spectrum of pure colors. They are fleeting events that invite us to stop and wonder while they are there. It is the dancing relationship of the light and the water, revealing each others beauty: the light shining constantly, not hiding behind clouds to be captured by the water, the water taking analyzing and cutting up the light and collaging it, presenting it in a moment's slide show. My eye lashes: curled fronds of cilia spiking out from each lid to protect the vision collection gates to my mind.

Blind to See

2004-11-03T10:04:00.000-05:00

Everything's foreseeable. Everything has already been foreseen. What has been fated cannot be avoided. Even this boiled potato, This Fork. This chunk of dark bread. This thought too....

My grandmother sweeping the sidewalk knows that. She says there's no god, only and eye here and there that sees clearly. The neighbors are too busy watching TV to burn her as a witch.

(Charles Simic, the world doesn't end)

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

(Helen Keller)

by acting dogmatically as though you matter, maybe you will. I don't want any more excuses, and you will not be excused by me... excuse yourself when you're throwing up, I'll come over and hold your hand.

The Dreaded Blog...

2004-11-02T23:36:00.000-05:00

Honestly, the thing is annoying sometimes.
Why did I bring it into being?
I wonder.

NONE the less.
I'm not going to let it die, let it be burried by the flurries that pile on it--no it shall continue to poke through the surface of bustling blogging life.

You may not have words for it, but there are only certain things that belong here.
That I will define for myself when I'm losing sleep over what I've written that doesn't feel right. But sometimes things feel wrong because they are right and they are wrong right wrong write, flurry flurry flurry. carve away at my dramatic heart.

Lucidity and Memory and Juggling

2004-10-23T21:48:00.000-04:00

I've been working on describing memories.
noticing that my vividness comes from lucidity.
And Lucidity comes from presence.

May living lucidly improve memory?

what can be de-focused so that the present experience can come into focus. Do we always have to stay lucid? I think there is a larger potential a comprehensive perspective when there is a range of focusing. We must become professional jugglers. Can you juggle all modes with in the span of one experience?

do memories always fade?? Or is it only from the moment they are picked from the drawers in our heads and translated into written story or recalled regularly to be maintained? And strange distort over the history of telling, like the staining, washing and exposure of our clothes to light.

Winning, Losing, Waiting, Wanting

2004-10-19T23:15:00.000-04:00

I. Beauty Pagents
A) when they are asking a girl final question, the Sound-Proof Room inside of which they put the other girl. That new technology just so we know she's not getting an unfair head start on hearing how the first girl answered. Also, so that she has the pleasure of an erased experieced, so that she can answer the question as an individual, and not as one competeing with the other girl. They are being judged, not competeing?

B) the moment when the announce the runner up, the winner's face crumples ugly crying, resisting the famous face she has just won. And the pressure of winning, weighs. Having to deal with those she beat, and the fact that she has been judged by the judges (who are...) to be the most beautiful in the land, and represent the land as the model lady.

II. Lost sweaters.
A) in ninth grade, I had a navy blue fleece zip up hoodie. I wore it almost every day. I left it under my desk in some classroom, and never saw it again. okay, nows the embarrasing part poke as much fun as you want, but its how I felt and I think its potentially compeling: I didn't know what to do, it was such a key part of my wardrobe, I was devestated. It took a while for me to get over this.

B) I ate at kabob and curry freshman year. Its dark in there. I wore my treasured treasured green isle pattern sweater, with zipper, pockets, hood, green the color of my eyes, and the elbows wore out, so my mom and I had hand sewn green fabric patches on the elbows. I got up to leave, and the sweater was no where. I was beside myself for a while. again embarrasing, but you know.

III. Entering the bathroom.

A) waiting in line, in a group, sometimes people speak up- I really have to go!!! and then, people compare themselves to eachother, and say, this girl needs it more than I, and they let her ahead. Other times its just like---Everyone is going to die, and... they just invent new bathrooms.

B)the public bathroom is a place where sound isn't quite bocked once you're inside and you have view of everyone's feet. therefore, shoes become identity. Many people can't pee unless there is some noise, because they don't want their pee to break the silence. also, the other form of identity communication as well as overall communication finds a silent expression on the walls of the stall.

Mold

2004-10-18T13:55:00.000-04:00

1. A hollow form or matrix for shaping a fluid or plastic substance.
2. A frame or model around or on which something is formed or shaped.
3. Something that is made in or shaped on a mold.
4. The shape or pattern of a mold.
5. General shape or form: the oval mold of her face.
6. Distinctive character or type: a leader in the mold of her predecessors.
7. A fixed or restrictive pattern or form: a method of scientific investigation that broke the mold and led to a new discovery
8. A superficial often woolly growth produced especially on damp or decaying organic matter or on living organisms
9. Any of various fungi that often cause disintegration of organic matter.
10. The growth of such fungi.

[definitions taken from dictionary.com]

mold on the mold; moldy mold
mold growing over a surface,
becoming its own surface.
Surfaces as walls, skins,
surfaces transform
to become lanscapes.

Starving

2004-10-18T04:10:00.000-04:00

"hunger hurts, but starving works."

and how?
to kill expectation,
to deconstruct the routine
and force the creation of a new source?

as long as it doesn't lead to blinding
hallucination/nostalgia it should be okay.

Will it even be tasted
the next time? [not assuming that nexttime even exists]
or will your senses become numbed and flattened
by the vacuuming of want

permanently residing in the rooms of my memory mansion

2004-10-18T03:09:00.000-04:00

Once you have related to someone, they become
an infused entity to your being. And if their spirit stains
seep deep, their voices will resound constantly
to only dissipate with the suds of routine and slow change

My deeply vivid memory is a vast presence.
I sit in my brain and hear it making noise next door.
The solution lies not in building sound-proof walls, but to
go over and confront loud memories, noting that they are not
reality or an escape from reality,

but of
what was
powerful and still resounding; still teaching me.
maybe incongruent with
the current reality outside these mind vinettes,
but so deep and ever present to
require serious attention and consideration.

if only to say, wow, I really let that person inside of me.
Their voices internalized, speaking as I work and daydream and read.
I was open to be influenced by them: Why was that, how did they get there?

and in this way, I am related to these people,
until it wears off, dies down, dilutes...
blood of shared experience pumping mixing circulating.

and in this way, the extremes of emotion felt toward them
cancel each other out: I hate you, I love you.
to leave me with the (temporary?) permanence of relation
an abstracted family
rendered in aural and visual mind marks.
a script of lines to be practiced.

They become presences, but disembodied, they can seem incomplete, haunting, unsatisfying, deceiving, distracting. Where is the source? Would the source say something different now? Is the source dead to you, or is it still alive; is there more to be shared?
Nonetheless, it is up to you to hear out the ghosts locked in your memory.
to confront yourself.

bell

2004-10-18T02:26:00.000-04:00

growing up
we'd go exploring in
the swampy woods behind our house
the air cold and sweet and burning
our cheeks and ear edges stinging red.
Hidden back there behind
space and thick walls of gray trees
and tall bushes, the world was our own
and secret.
We piled up the leaves and then got on the
tire swing and whisked through them
making a storm of rustling.
Pussy willows and skunk cabbage
and scrolled papers winding off birches
captured my imagination
Until the reverie was rattled
by the distant ring,
of my mother's dinner bell,
trusting that we were in earshot
calling us back home to eat together

room

2004-10-13T20:36:00.000-04:00

staying in room,
to avoid confronting social situation outside of room.
boy out there, flirting with roomate.

this leads to interesting work in room, reduction of excuses to leave room.
also turns me into a hermit.

I stay in here and don't go out even though I really want to get some food from the kitchen, and brush my teeth, and get some water, and wash the paint off of my hands.

I stay, because now, in these walls, I don't exist to their reality. and they don't exist to me. They don't have to worry about what I'm doing, and why I'm not with them.

situations, specific to rooms, create walls of presense. dense space.

2004-10-12T02:13:00.000-04:00

the strangest thing is
you never know where you're headed.
all that you can know,
you--living--heart beat sounding--
you are headed somewhere.

door closed

2004-10-10T13:27:00.000-04:00

closed my door, didn't lock it.
sat on bed, reading,
I hear knocking: "come in"
she tried, couldn't
Its not locked.
it won't open.
the metal is stuck and
the knob so loose that
twisting does nothing.
I find my tools,
unscrew the knob,
get to the inside,
slide the metal
out of the door frame

now: knobless.

Questions:
can I know what is real. I don't think so.
what is real.

where do people go when they go "back to reality"
that's probably just a cliche.

Song repetition interpretation:
just cause you feel it doesn't mean its there
just cause you feel it doesn't mean its there.

two meanings:
hallucination,
illusion.

the nurse this morning, I asked her what the date was
she didn't reply and then did,
and then said, I'm here, It may not seem that way, but I am.
and I said, you don't have to be, I guess.
in someways, that comment could have been demeaning--
and she says she is still on the weekend.
hallucinating the past...
because her mind isn't engaged in her body, her body has become a robot.
sign here, please, your next appointment is here, please.

and so her mind is forced to hallucinate to stimulate itself.
mental masturbation?

2004-10-03T22:59:00.000-04:00

If man had only eyes, hands, and the senses of taste and smell, he would have no religion, for all these senses are organs of crituque and skepticism. The only sense which, losing itself in the labyrinth of the ear, strays into the spirit or spook realm of the past and future, the only fearful, mystical and pious sense, is that of hearing.

--Ludwig Feuerbach.

I don't know if its fair to isolate the senses, if the dissection is real, or means anything in relation to reality.

And yes, we don't have ear-lids, but we have head phones, chambers, walls, miles leading to non ear-shot range.

The greatest illusion of today is that of cell phones. lock your voice in my voice mail.

clairaudience

2004-09-26T18:09:00.000-04:00

the mocking bird
sings the
car alarm sounds.

doing his job, precisely.

and the bands we flock before,
send us walls of sound, louder than
we'd ever hear
dressing us in permanent and temporary
blankets

some threaten universal-deafness and recommend that we clean out our ears.
maybe we should take the cue of the mocking bird and sing along

listened

2004-09-22T19:53:00.000-04:00

to Anselm Berrigan read his poetry last night.
Robert Creeley gave an intro, gray bearded man.

It was perfect to just sit and hear someone steadily read the words they so carefully choose and ordered,

but I had this strange urge the a few times to smash my beer bottles on the street and smash all of the glass windows and do back hand-springs. danger...

and they have these rooms in Japan that you can pay for, room equipped with plates and vases and whatever else to get these urges out? or why?

and he talked about being alone and walking on the street, angry, and the only way he could be not angry was to speak, so he'd walk around muttering and talking to himself. everyone thought he was crazy.

I like to whistle and scat and sing on the street. I think it helps cope with anger, isolation, allowing releasing and I don't mind their judgements. At least i'm not forcing people to listen to a gossipy halved phone conversation, or unaware of whats around me, locked under head phones. more a contributer to the present soundscape dimension instead of the bubble w/o boundaries wirelessphoneconversation dimension

"There is no solution; seek it lovingly"

2004-09-21T11:06:00.001-04:00

from the journal of frances "fanny" seely racine, frances munro's mother

on yellow paper, sticky note, lined

in wallet of professor for whom I'm t.a.ing, given to me

taken from the icebox; his wife left it on the icebox,
and he thought it pertained.

are you good at researching
yes I like to look things up
see what you can find

and later, addressing the class, he says, we will not use the "a" word here.
art. and there will be no judging, we'll leave that up to god.
and she is very mysterious. and do you know who is god.
I am. (laughter smiles)
but you just said she!
We each have both the male and female in us, people!

recording

2004-09-19T23:53:00.000-04:00

every recording is an act of giving; and a recording left for all to access or stumble upon, becomes the readers. it is these white logs that build the log cabins of our internet village societies.

personal monolith

2004-09-14T01:25:00.000-04:00

I have no idea what my hand actally looks like under the bandaging.
the doctor wrote "YES" on my middle finger before they put me under.

I drew windows on the tape of the bandage, so I can start to see inside, and to let some light and air into the arm.

personal monolith

2004-09-13T17:07:00.000-04:00

i've got my own, personal, monolith,
something to behold, to worship, to attend to.
my arm, transformed into

a large thick tower of ace
bandage and tape and splint to
be held above my heart for 3 days.

it must have its own bed,
three pillows high, at night.
honored, protected, upright.

a humorous monument I hold before
me, above my heart, turning my walking
into a parade, turning conversation with

still listening into a confused student pose,
requiring extreme lounging and creative proping
to appear natural, camoflage.

familiar <=> unfamiliar

2004-09-12T23:50:00.000-04:00

and then riding my bike the other day, just tumbling off; shoulder
scrape, palm bruise, finger shock, bruised knees, get up,
scoop up bike, ride home.
taking it in stride, not letting the pain get to you
cause you've had it before, and you know the body will heal itself
and that you don't need the people getting out of their car to help you.
that maybe somethings you don't need to be open about.
that boundaries are really important.

crying, out of context of physical pain, that wordless communication.
expressing intense emotion.
why are you crying?
because this ____ is important to me.
staying open, curious,
even when its scary, unfamiliar, dangerous:
opening yourself up to people, to places, the worlds
that I have never seen, that I can't even imagine.
to want to settle down when the time has come,
when your body needs rest,
when you are ready to look closely
and ride the repetition.

If you get burned, how do you make sure the actual
burning doesn't become a pattern?

I need boundaries in somehing that I want to work on.
the limits that creativity can thrive on,
the structure that is built upon and improvized from.

what does julie want in life?

a family
and a relationship that works

dissecting the abstract

2004-09-10T13:19:00.000-04:00

to understand function, interior constuction, walls, layering, paths, protection, boundaries, strength, structure, outer apperance, solutions, and relations.

Single-handedly, she

2004-09-07T15:28:00.000-04:00

Will do everything,
she,

surgery to reconnect the radial (facing the thumb) nerve to the long finger.
stiching the nerve ends back together, potentially with artificial joinery.
the doctor drew a diagram on his fingers of the nerves with a ball point pen to explain things.

Do you need feeling in your finger.
Yes, my hands are very important to me.
Well, its a matter of not having your hand for a month,
v.s. never having feeling in your finger again.
And you'll miss not being able to feel your finger.
Will I.
What will missing be like?
The strange thing is that I can only get it fixed now
or let it be numb forever, so I can't find out
I miss it and then do the surgery.

I know its not too long, and pretty straightforward, but
its going to be a challenge starting the year off without my left hand.

They will knock me out, cut open my cut, and make more cuts, rejoin the nerve, stich it up and an make a splint, binding my pinky and ring finger to my middle, and then further keeping my wrist straight, so I don't bend and break the stiching.
I'll be walking out with a bigger handicap than I went in with, a huge white bandaging that must be kept clean, and dry. A cocoon. The quiet space to recover, to not be disturbed, to regain strength and power.

I imagine "defiant severance of communication" to be an analogous rule in certain psychological recovery, a sort of , closing of to all of those idea viruses!!!!
they'll get you any way, they're Air-born, invisible particles, they'll float in seep in if you're not strict...

Gambling

2004-09-06T02:07:00.000-04:00

So the other night back in CT, like a week ago, my dad
comes home late, and Joe and I have some friends over
and he pulls out his craps set, and starts dealing for
the game and teaching the rules.
the dice start rolling,

I'm in the other room with a few others,
and one, excited about John Kerry on the daily show, as a Bush supporter,
and this one, says he never gambles, I think because he lost a ton once,
and he starts explaining, the laws of
probability, to me, the more you play, the more likely you'll lose.

but the others, and gamblers
playing with money system
taking chance,
giving out what you have, putting it out to the universe, to the
arbitrary gravity of the dice rocking and settling
putting it out to nothing, at the same time, completely out of your control.
No expectation.

And this process addicting to some;
zealous hope; relentless living; okay, mad look in the eyes, lets try it again.
and enticing.

I come into the game at the end of the night, take Brad's place,
I'm the next roller, I roll
put all of my money on the come line in a huge tower,
jiggle the dice in an outrageous motion,
and couldn't have done better,
I double my money twice.
my dad says that he never goes to a table where people aren't smiling,
funny, his casual interest in gambling,
his joy in seeing what will happen.
seems related to him
as Dad.

can you be lucky if you don't know how to love?
is luckiness attainable?

http://mbhs.bergtraum.k12.ny.us/cybereng/shorts/rockwinr.html
came across D.H. Lawrence's "Rocking Horse Winner" while cleaning--

The keeping of a house, of a room

2004-09-05T04:02:00.000-04:00

"we are told...
heaven is a place with no moths or rust to corrupt."

I don't know about this theory, but I have come to understand its origin, in the fear of bugs that constantly threat to feed off our constant dying, our dust skin cells, discarded hair, stagnated materials, books.

been cleaning out my room the past days,
rearranging
organizing markers tools books paints colors yarns wires papers, folding fabrics, moving, opening, sweeping, vacuuming, wiping the thick clouds of dust in the dark edges of the room, finding clumps of settled hair and dust suspended, sneezing like hell, taking everything out, throwing lots out, finding little moth larvae squirming among the dust, adrenaline rush to throw out, to clean clean, researching what to do, rubbing cedar oil on the baseboards, placing cedar soaked cotton balls strategically among the right places, understanding, that through basic "good house keeping" this can be controlled and avoided. Now, more light, more window more door, breeze, lofty.
movement, not stagnant not isolated.

to keep a house: to keep the air moving; to bathe the space in light;
to dust the dust; to dust the nebulous life of death; to know every corner, and under every crevice so that inhabitation will be familiar, so that the dark will be just weak vision experience.

acts of caring for space: domestic prayer; stored eregy so good things will happen here; dancing with the furniture; exploring and classifying place to feel safe and comfortable, to imagine and consider the best forms to serve the overlapping activities that will come with existing in the space, and using what's there to make this happen.

2004-09-04T04:49:00.000-04:00

there is the time when thing slide through your hands
and, now, the time when you can almost be okay with things,
sliding, these moments
but coming to taste that bitterness of eros,
a bitterness an aftertaste and for what has not yet been tasted,
a warning, for preparation time, for space distant.

laceration

2004-09-03T01:35:00.000-04:00

sliced my finger tonight cooking
left hand palming avacado-half
knife sawed straight past the
buttery green flesh and dark Skin to
my pinkish flesh blood spurting focus
think quick, what do i need toilet paper scooped
and pulled and clumped and wrapped
arm up high phone call who mom 911 lillie
lillie drives over i find keys wallet phone shoes turn off burners music door.
find hospital follow h signs. arrive clean it cut gapping slice hand wrapped in large gauze to turn my hand into a proportionate q-tip. joking with registration people, waiting, hand held high,
waiting on bed, people walk by, too busy, they move me somewhere else,
then calm doctor slowly prepares everything, hand left to soak in iodine water, determine sliced nerve, through hand tests, lots of novicaine, sewed it up
black wirey string and small curved metal needle, eight running stiches, instructions to see hand surgeon. taped it up signed my name.
back to house eat food half cooked as it was left, clean up blood drips.
one-handed for a while.

2004-08-31T18:24:00.000-04:00

back in providence!!! whoo-hoo!
about to go on a bikeride on my new bike(!)
putting away materials, clothing,
grocery store shopping
cooking, listening to music.
sunshine leave shawdows
dance through the pantry window.

velvet underground interlude

2004-08-27T18:28:00.000-04:00

"Some kinds of love,"
Marguerita told Tom,
"Between thought and
expression,
lies a lifetime.
Situations arrive
because of the weather.
and no kinds of love
are better than others."

"Some kinds of love,"
Marguerita told Tom,
"like a dirty French novel
the absurd courts the vulgar,
and some kinds of love
the possibilites are endless,
and for me to miss one
would seem to be groundless."

"I heard what you said,"
Marguerita heard Tom,
"And of course you're not charmless.
For a bore is a straight line,
that finds a wealth in division.
And some kinds of love
are mistaken for vision."

"Put jelly on your shoulder,
Let us do what you fear most.
That from wich you recoil
but which still makes your eyes moist.

Put jelly on your shoulder,
lie down on the carpet,
between thought and expression,
let us now kiss the culprit.

I don't know
just what
it's all
about
Put on your red
pajamas
and find out"

repetition

2004-08-27T01:05:00.000-04:00

further meditation on repetition, especially with my job, with the routine of a job, but also with the painting of numbers, the steps repeated for each object, the numbers repeated for a set of objects. the base coat, acryloid b-67, like clear nail polish, thinned with acetone; number, on dark object, using the white paint, forming a point with my brush bristels by twisting and twirling the handle, pressing the bristle and the metal base of the brush against a wet paper towel, and then into the glob of titanium white then modifying the application of the glob on the brush by whiping and sculpting the paint into an even point on the tip of the brush. breath, hand;steady position, breathing out into the stroke, forming the numbers, with several strokes and re-strokes per number, and the L-W-L, in a square. (light object: micron pigma archival pen.) then, the top coat, "synvar" a synthetic varnish.

the china sets can have over 100 pieces, each with the same number. I lay out every plate, upsidedown and systematically write the numbers, attention to breath, to balance.

being present in each repeated act
repetition,
not by machine,
but by human hand
and steadied mind.
presence, breath with
each mark, each movement.
in effort to move richly
embedding self into what is left
making memory
preserving and honoring the spirit.

REPETITION

n 1: an event that repeats; "the events today were a repeat of yesterday's" [syn: repeat]
2: the act of doing or performing again [syn: repeating] 3: the repeated use of the same word or word pattern as a rhetorical device

repetition

\Rep`e*ti"tion\ (r[e^]p`[-e]-t[i^]sh"[u^]n), n. [L. repetitio: cf. F. r['e]p['e]tition. See Repeat.]
1. The act of repeating; a doing or saying again; iteration.

I need not be barren of accusations; he hath faults, with surplus to tire in repetition. --Shak.

2. Recital from memory; rehearsal.

3. (Mus.) The act of repeating, singing, or playing, the same piece or part a second time; reiteration of a note.

4. (Rhet.) Reiteration, or repeating the same word, or the same sense in different words, for the purpose of making a deeper impression on the audience.

5. (Astron. & Surv.) The measurement of an angle by successive observations with a repeating instrument.

"remember me"

2004-08-26T22:34:00.000-04:00

"mid 19th century English Bone China mug.
White ground, polychrome floral decoration, and a gilt "Remember Me" A colbalt and gilt band, togehter with a saucer witha coblart and gilt band; good condition with loss of gilt decoration on both the cup and saucer"

i numbered a cup the other day that had the above description,
these "remember me" cups, worth a lot of money, found a few through out the house.

the message is so generic that it is possible to interpret it reflexively; is the cup trying to make itself remembered?
and that i must guess that the giver and the gifted must know the abstract winking referencing the memory of the giver in the gifted's mind through the presense of the cup. that the giver will be conjured up as the cup reminds the gifted to "remember me"

And this house, so well-endowed, to last forever. preserved.
"preservation: preserving the past for the future"

today, painting numbers on all of the paintings in the long hall, several of Alexander Pope, one a small oval portrait done with pastels, another, a huge larger than life portrait of him, dressed in a fancy brown suit with frills and buttons, leaning his elbow on a book. another of his house, which faced the water. a mansion.

and that the wealthy can afford to ensure the preservation of memory, of past. a day to day task of maintenance, recording the state and keeping it so, constantly reparing, glueing sewing, keeping things from the aging sun, the stress of the warmth and moisture changes. A cleaning crew, every week, vacuuming a dying house. a stagnant set of rooms.

a sewing table, whose containing area is made of fabric, the fabric green, fadded, and flaking. so old, it flakes off and turns to powder between the fingers. fabric turned to dust with time.

and the piles upon piles; closets packed and stacked; cabinet housing endless sets. china plates, mugs, tea sets, egg cups, saucers, dessert plates, dinner plates, serving dishes, coffee cups, vegetable bowls, pastry dishes, soup tureens, creamers, etc, etc, etc, all piled with gilt and flowers and pattering, and scenery, wrapped in paper, in tissue, in boxes, sitting, still, unused, each with its own number, if it was worth enough, uncracked, complete with 12 matching cups

the roof

2004-08-26T22:05:00.000-04:00

reading today,
book,
pryed and
held open with pinching
thumb
pages parted
in half
angled away
from face
in the form
of a roof.

books as roofs.

They tell me: I want what you're on....

2004-08-23T01:26:00.000-04:00

At mofro with my bros tonight, dancing as usual... And the same inquiry/exclamation, from other dancers observers: "I want what you're on" and my reply, "nothing!" (and laughing with my bros about this afterwards, john saying did you tell them, airily i'm on life...!) but god, I could really sell some drugs like this! Take this sugar pill! It does wonders! Maybe I could market an uninhibiting sugar-pill placebo that would let people open up and realize what dancers they are.

the drug would come with prescribed instructions:
take the drug on an empty stomach, before a show. be sure to have water on hand.
It requires an activation ritual, in the presence of live music.
start with moving your feet to the beat, and try wiggling your body to the melody, throw your body to the turns of the music.
do not be discouraged by those watching or trying to laugh at you, this might reverse the effects of the drug. you must move faster to not see them, or at least be confident that they will eventually "want what you're on"
Best results will occur if you can:
Be sensitive to the volume of the music, and the intensity: save all out stamping and hurling for the fff jamming and the emphatic moments, practice tiny quiet and little movements, down low, when this makes sense. Move in response to the music. Take part, be an active audience. The joy of live music, of intimate shows, is that your presence contributes to the energy of the experience, possibly influencing the quality of the music, of the night. You ideally will affirm the importance of the live muscians and the gathering of people to listen to them.

there is a nietzsche quote that goes something along the lines of "every day in which you have not danced is a day wasted."

lately i've been working on my daily ritual. my getting up in the morning ritual. preparing a lovely breakfast of strawberries, blueberries, melon, banana...peach maybe, and a dish of yogurt and granola with cranberries, and a glass of orange grapefruit juice. sitting in the sun, if its there, and then, doing all of my computer activities, and then playing at least one song and dancing alone to it in a room. this lifts my spirits hugely, invigorates my body, and generates celebration of julie and of the present day....

what does ritual do for us? routine seems to help the body balance, to handle the day to day challenges. ritual acts require a presence of mind, and may function in making memories.

rit·u·al
n.

a.A detailed act or series of acts carried out by an individual to relieve anxiety or to forestall the development of anxiety.

b.The prescribed order of a religious ceremony.

c.The body of ceremonies or rites used in a place of worship.

d.The prescribed form of conducting a formal secular ceremony

e.A state or condition characterized by the presence of established procedure or routine A detailed method of procedure faithfully or regularly followed

f.stereotyped behavior

(definitions found on dictionary.com)

church every sunday growing up. taught me about discipline, routine, spirtual attention and upkeep. some gems sparkeled along the way, and i keep those with me. the rest, i leave behind, which is most of it. but the structure i know so well helps me make my own.

"Let us build the city of god
may your tears be turned into dancing!
for the lord the light and your love
have turned the night into day"

miracles; seeing in the dark

2004-08-18T12:50:00.000-04:00

"to keep the miracle alive, to live always in
the miracle, to make the miracle more and more miraculous, to swear
allegiance to nothing, but live only miraculously, think only
miraculously."

henry miller, quoted in my rob breszney's freewill astrology virgo horoscope today
with the intention of pointing to the above task as one that i will be drawn to carry out...!

"A dog with a soul, you've got that? You apes
with heads of Socrates, false priests' altar boys
retired proffesors of evil! I imagine cities so I can
get lost in them. I meet other dogs with souls when
I'm not lighting firecrackers in heads that are about
to doze off.
Blood-and-guts firecrackers. In the dark to see,
you ass-scratchers! In the dark to see."

(mr simic. the world doesn't end.)

last night my car just died on me flat out the lights just dimmed to their death as all sorts of warning lights coming on, timidly and winking out with the car. In the street kind of pulled over, my foot flooring the break, and i fumble for my phone, take in the stars above, the crikets and their jagged zig-zag surround sound orchestra, breathe, sliding my thumb over the face of my unlit phone keys, placing the two elliptical and angled larger soft depressions, keys, then the row of three horizontal soft ovals and to my memory files, okay, calling home, i need to press 2 which would be the middle key of this first row here, and then send, the left most larger slanted key, hold the phone to my ear, whoops, I made a mistake its jenison, pressing the rightmost slanted key, end, breathe, start again, okay, 2, the middle key, send, the left key. listen, rings, mom, the car died on me i'm on farms village road, where the emotts used to live, foot off the break while i'm talking, get out of the car, car starts rolling backwards, are you in the street, shit mom, the cars rolling backwards, i'm on an incline, but the break on, oh yeah the break, get in the car, fumble for the gear shifter, squeeze it in, push it forward, park. turn off the dying headlights, to preserve them for when a car comes to flash them. dad comes, we jump the car, we go home. that car has died on me so many times i swear to god.

and last night sitting in my room, lights out, yes, seeing in the dark indeed. dark property sees in the dark. you can see better in the dark, i think, just as i insist that my seeing skills evolved from my poor eyesight. you have to get in there and define spatial relationships, with a jumbled hand arm, measure things against your self. listen, pay attention to the air flow, the texture of things, the temperature of things.

"...the grace of a woman not the grief of a child..."
(on sara's fridge last night)

"Change your heart, look around you
Change your heart, it will astound you
I need your loving like the sunshine
And everybody's gotta learn sometime"

Resting

2004-08-16T23:53:00.000-04:00

Things really need a resting time, all things. friendster, blogger, books, parents, projects...they need the daydream they need time to figure themselves out, they need space, air, they want to air out, they want to be locked in a closet. they want their battery to die...
watched pots do boil, i mean, i've seen it happen, it was amazing, all of these little bubbles grew and clung to the bottom of the pot. when they grew big enough and close together, they would melt into eachother, and eventually float in a surge up to the top of the pot. The water boiled though, not under any angry hungry "come-on-when's-it-going-to-boil" which is the proverbial and problematic watching and waiting. It boiled as I actively and excitedly watched the molecules heat up and vaporize.

"Once I knew, then I forgot. It was as if I had
fallen asleep in a field only to discover at waking
that a grove of tress had grown up around me.

"Doubt nothing, believe everything," was my
friend's idea of metaphysics, although his brother
ran away with his wife. He still bought her a rose
every day, sat in the empty house for the next
twenty years talking to her about the weather.

I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming
that the rustling trees were my many selves explain-
ing themselves all at the same time so that I could
not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful
mystery on the verge of understanding, always on
the verge! Think of it!

My friend's empty house with every one
of its windows lit. The dark trees multiplying all
around it."

from the world doesn't end Charles Simic

shastras on memory

2004-08-16T16:49:00.000-04:00

In a 2002 class where we focused on Indian Shastras, the how-to manuals of life, with the famous Ann Shafer, we were assigned spontaneous one-page papers. One such paper was a reflection on the assignment "be Gaudi for a day," Gaudi the spanish archectect, whose work Ann called "Desire without a focus;" pure passion. Another paper was about making a memory for the future. I just came across my essay, had forgotten what i had written, and was surprized to read what it said:

"Memory is constantly being reformed to justify our present. It is a fluid narrative, always changing.
Making memories. Recording the present: taking photographs, video-tape, being aware, breathing and concentrating, telling the story as it occurs, writing down observations, seeing the present in a significant light, connecting events mentally, assigning meaning to whatever is happening. Going out and doing something different than normal. Repeating yourself in an incessant manner.
I have used smells and played sounds at specific periods in my life with the intention of creating a sensory memory. To make a nostalgic memory for the future, pick a strong smelling and distinct shower gel to use for a few months, and then put it away for a few years. Listen to a certain song over and over again one night, when you are doing something specific. I have found this repetition to create a sort of intuitive memory for the future.

Detailed journals. A clear and observant mind. Drawing, recording in any way.
There are memories we make to tell others, there are those we make for our selves, and there are memories selected by our subconscious to haunt and clutter our minds. To make memories for the future is to have an image of ourselves and to pursue the experiences which we can imagine will bring us to a future narrative creating the identity that we want. To do this memory making is to live life with awareness of our journeys and paths of choice and to live life with existential responsibility."

i mean, i have questions here of my own on this writing.

In Chelsea on Tuesday, (the day of the uno night)

2004-08-15T21:04:00.000-04:00

I went to visit some galleries in Chelsea on Tuesday, (the day of the uno night) which involved mapping out a section of blocks, taken from address points of listed galleries,

and riding west on the L train and what else? Walking down streets, in through heavy glass doors up through stair wells, mazes and mazes of these white rooms, titled with someone's name, or something more abstracted. And each room with its own gallery girl to answer the phone: the connection point; the network; the artery and veins.

And some rooms, lacked cohesion, others uncomfortably controlled content. And then your random famous person. I was excited to see polly apfelbaum's work! She makes large installations that are really joyous and wonderful surfaces arranged and grown from stains and drips on fabric, the mark, the repeated element is cut pieces of a drip with a little border of its surrounding fabric. She takes roles of fabric and drips dye on them and then unrolls it and there is a pattern to work with.
But one show, in a gallery that had all sorts of free publications, had a show with a silly name (the itsy bitsy spider), but the work and the collection of work: amazing, all about repetitive processes, a diverse collection. A standing sculpture of pipe cleaners netted, a fence made of paper linked on itself and covered in graphite. A geodesic form made of folded blue construction paper, clear tape, and paper towels. Three paintings made with about an inch of translucent milky yellow resin layers on wood, encasing layers of white dotted paths and little tiny 1 cm, 3 mm illustrations printed on acetate, sometimes flat in the resin, other times curved in and standing up.

the nature of this space (and other certain spaces)

2004-08-15T01:21:00.000-04:00

So, talking on the phone tonight, what, today, explaining to my mom the frustrating nature of the cell phone with the way its wavering a weak connection little floatings that materialize with enough noise to become communication. That silence does not translate in the age of non-wire and un-spun string. Nothing's connected. And I wonder if it could come to render our connections, our networks, our webs, over the repetition of translation into non-wire, as such. But on the other hand, all connections are really miraculous. We're talking about pigs flying here. And as a Virgo, I may not be satisfied with a short pig flight, but hold up! Can you believe it? Wonderer, take note! A pig flew?!!!

wait this isn't pigs, its connections. But the surprise of the connection, the energy sparks, that kind of vibration flutter, that's the stuff that'll make a pig fly.

but its not just the cell phone that's challenging connections, rendering them impossibly. Its the dis-stance. What time is it where you are? Where the fuzz are you and what are you doing? What is in front of you now? Were you about to do anything? Of course they were. So maybe it does make sense to have it in a set place facing a wall, to position yourself this way to not be struggling with the tension of giving the precious audio particles full attention to imagine the missing visuals, instead of the disjunction of moving visuals, walking down a street, as a guy on a bike as high as a horse, a homeless guy calling to his African queens over yonder, music bulging out of a club and silverware and chatter spilling out clashing with horns and the bubbling of the air conditioners dripping occasionally like god was teary and the guys trying to ask you if you saw american beauty and was that christina riche in the movie and if you're registered to vote.

and oh, so that the other person wasn't about to do something, that oh, they were just waiting to talk to you, but that might be boring? I don't know. Its nice when a real phone conversation is given the place. I can get into that. But I guess that happens when the audio is rich enough that the people really begin to enter into a dimension with one another: the phone conversation dimension. The phone situation relies on flowing streaming audio response. When response isn't supposed to be so improvised and immediate, the phone conversation may fall into the scripted dialogue so as to assure the immediate response.

Although cell phones have their frustrations, the atmosphere of their dimension is mysterious, cellular behavior, phone calls "failing" is the advanced technology gaining a free-will? No longer dependable, determined connection?

so this blog space, though, the topic of my post.... This white room, this page, carved out from the infinite internet, blankness marked on with the depressing of the keys, carving into this page that grows as a write on it. It is public, but oddly anonymous, like a gallery. A white room that I'm talking into. Someone might come in and look, listen, if I'm lucky, they'll want to talk back. I have this fantasy about not directly telling anyone about it but hiding little traces of its existence in their blogs, so that they might come upon it some day when they're like totally procrastinating and looking through all of their old posts and comments.... Then maybe they will have the surprise and spontaneous excitement that someone else is there.

mmmm. I'm going to eat a tomato.

Uno

2004-08-12T05:29:00.000-04:00

So I was playing "uno" last night at tasugi's in brooklyn. with her roommates bhag and khoi and our friends patrick and brendan. There were some complaints about the new graphic design for the cards, some questions for the company and its current state. The purple airbrush gradation used in the design was despised , as was the angling, perhaps a formulaic "futuristic" improvement: "dynamic" and "sleek" design jumpboard inspiration words => redesigned uno cards, en motion.
I was in a strange mood that night, kind of rowdy, instigating.

uno, though, a game whose object is to get rid of all of your cards. And then you are free to not play the game anymore. Which isn't such a prize when you want to play. But if you're focused on winning, are you playing?

why do we play games? To exercise our selves, minds, bodies, instincts. To achieve sensitivity through discipline repetition practice. What else? To position/orient ourselves socially through a specific structure of set rules, to act out characters, personalities, psychological dramas. To have fun, to pass the time.

And uno, I remember playing it a few years ago, and being completely disenchanted with it. If people aren't into playing, it is no fun at all. But it gains life when you play through the given structures.

To exercise strategic and social abilities, including fading of self from group; wearing invisibility suit, slipping into and zipping up an invisibility suit just before death. The tension of the group and the individual. Some were making moves to "help each other out"
and the alert, "uno" the last opportunity for everyone else to keep the person in the game, to make them pick up and keep more cards, to put down a card to skip them,
The noisiness of those with a lot of a cards. Complaining,blaming god for cursing the deck,blaming the person before them in the order of the circle for putting down the wrong card, a color and number that they cannot continue the thread. And it seemed best to go with the color trend kind of indiscreetly while you could. And positioned in a circle, with the direction of flow constantly changing with the discarding of reversal cards, made it so that you were closely related to two people, and you could make allies or enemies with them, as their decisions directly influence your fate. But your situation is hardly determined. i mean there is an element of determined factors , but you choose to operate through them, you choose to participate. And its important to consider this philosophy in general.

some logs for the fire

Heart

synchronicity

two things

Passage from "passing strange & wonderful"

gift

Change of Taste

fodder

breakfast

Looking at a primary source to understand HOW people listen(ed) at a particular time and place

suggested reading

sound/ ears/ listening/music

smells and hairs, scents and furs

Time doesn't pass

anonymous

Intention

The lashes of your eyes

Blind to See

The Dreaded Blog...

Lucidity and Memory and Juggling

Winning, Losing, Waiting, Wanting

Mold

Starving

permanently residing in the rooms of my memory mansion

bell

room

door closed

clairaudience

listened

"There is no solution; seek it lovingly"

recording

personal monolith

personal monolith

familiar <=> unfamiliar

dissecting the abstract

Single-handedly, she

Gambling

The keeping of a house, of a room

laceration

velvet underground interlude

repetition

"remember me"

the roof

They tell me: I want what you're on....

miracles; seeing in the dark

Resting

shastras on memory

In Chelsea on Tuesday, (the day of the uno night)

the nature of this space (and other certain spaces)

Uno