April 2008
226 posts
March 2008
140 posts
Your daily curmudgeon
If you are like me and one of your pet interests is talking about the city (NYC being said city) and what it’s become and what it was and what it will be and so on and so on blah blah blah, then you probably already have your standard “those were the days” blogroll, but if not, here is mine. That said, I don’t think nostalgia for its own sake does any of us any good. But if...
“i think ‘balance’ is a euphemism that guidance counselors and...”
– Chris, my good heart.
I’m totally aware that at this point it has been done to death (and when T reports on it, that may be the final knell), but me oh my if I haven’t considered moving to Berlin just a little bit. My cousin makes a living there as a Xerox artist. Consider that for a moment.
“The effect can scarcely be described, so weird, and so beautiful it is. The era...”
– -NYTimes, on the lighting of the first 3000 electric incandescent lamps on Pearl Street, New York, September 4, 1882.
[A writer can spin on about his adventures after thirty, after forty, after fifty, but the criteria by which these adventures are weighed and valued are irrevocably settled at the age of twenty-five.] - F. Scott F., “Ring,” October 1933. Up late with my books again. Sometimes I wish I had a better go-to than FSF, but really, he’s kind of inevitable reading material at the end of...
“Ok everyone, let’s all remember that Anne Frank and Lisa Frank are two...”
– Adam, before a game of Apples to Apples at a dinner party tonight. Apparently this mix-up has happened before.
“I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be…It is a...”
– —Joan Didion, “On Keeping a Notebook” Today will be spent finding a new notebook, preferably leather bound, as I have started to write again in earnest and filled my old one down to the back binding. This is a good development.
“Surreal beautiful shit tends to fly in your direction.”
– Chris gave me one of the best compliments of my life
Magnet Fairy
I woke up today with a brand new compass under my pillow, the rose lacquered and the needle strong. I can’t wait to go orienteering with this thing.
“My sculpture can last for days or a few seconds — what is important to me is the...”
– Andy Goldsworthy, 2001, on the power of ephemeral art. My favorite work of his, Rain Shadow, is below.
Bobby Womack - Across 110th Street I came back to...
“What might help, though, is a return to some semblance of the city we lived in...”
– Why the Recession May Restore the City We Moved Here For — New York Magazine (via fred-wilson) This article occupied my mind for an entire week.
Semi-announcement
If you are a photographer in NYC (as in, that is how you would describe your creative output, even if it doesn’t pay your bills), let me know. I have a new exhibition project and I might be able to use your help.
“Oh my god we just built the rubik’s cube arch and it is...”
– My friend Cristina on her upcoming futurist prom fete. I like people that can throw a party all the way.
Black White + Gray →
i need to find the dvd of this.
what annie and i talk about when we should be...
me: but that's what new york is
annie: you get to keep what you like and discard what you don't like, people included.
me: you have to let yourself be stamped like a passport. let them float in and out and hopefully effect some change.
annie: "and try to love the things you took"
me: exactly
annie: in a way to be open to that is why people move here.
me: tired, poor and huddled.
Portishead-Roads Listening to Beth and co. is like...
red paint
i’m all dressed up today with somewhere to go. the city seems like a completely new place when you are wearing a new shift and patent leather shoes. smoke turns to mist and raindrops bring out the gene kelly sidesteps. thank the lord for thursday nights.
Arcade Fire - Haiti (live in NYC, 2007) 500 words...
Tenure:The Movie →
Not a joke. Sign that American culture is growing up (and/or has run out of ideas): the team that brought you Old School is making a rip-roaring slapstick comedy about the competetive and backstabbing world of academia. Watch as loveable bespectacled schlubs battle it out for back issues of Lingua Franca, office hours, and a spot at the dissertation brunch. Again, not a joke.
btdubs
the book club is totally springing back into action this week. expect a new book to dive into by friday. and it’s never too late to join.
lowell is best when you are thinking about...
Epilogue by Robert Lowell Those blessèd structures, plot and rhyme-- why are they no help to me now I want to make something imagined, not recalled? I hear the noise of my own voice: The painter's vision is not a lens, it trembles to caress the light. But sometimes everything I write with the threadbare art of my eye seems a snapshot, lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,...
“Isn’t everything autobiographical?”
– Before Sunset
WatchThis video for Aesop Rock’s hidden track, “Pigs” off of None Shall Pass is incredibly rad. Featuring graphic artist Dan Wolfe, who draws his ass off here. More music videos should just show artists working to the sounds of other artists. It’s synergistic if nothing else.
excerpted
[Even her discarded stockings, still carrying from yesterday the shape of her solid limbs, appeared outlined in light, luminous. Her hands and her hair, a grayed cloud, had carried up from the kitchen the smell of coffee, and the vents at her ankles pushed a warm wind around the floor. In spite of Bootie, in spite, in spite, in this moment at least, she felt happy: she was not too old to love even...
