It is all very different here. The air makes sound. We smell the . We are not very far from the city, but the loudest sounds right now are the cicadas or similar insects outside of our window in the trees. They were not there in Massachusetts last week and they are always here in Port Washington, Long Island. Even during the day. Insect and bird sounds. It is such a good sign.
There were some screaming kids out there before too, but the beer must have run out and so the noises are winding down. I am going to sleep now too. I wonder how far the sounds will follow me now. I will try to take them with me. Good night.
August 2002 Archives
it is finally time for me to move to a different host. There might be some issues with this site in the next few days. Hope you are not even surfing the web (it is a holiday weekend, you know) so maybe you will not even notice? ;)
I am moving from thebook.com, who have probably the nicest service there is, to aletia who have one of the most affordable service offers around. In these tough times... hmm... what can I tell you.
The trash bags have been picked up. The sidewalk still looks as if somebody tried to fry a dinosaur egg on it. The little dispensers for Village voice and other free publications have huddled together closer to the entrance to the 1 and 9 train. The women from the Budweiser-advertising hold their bottles and laugh at the pigeons who are now there by the dozens collecting what was too small for the truck to pick up. Soon somebody will come out and wash the sidewalk as if it were the skin of a circus elephant.
The Iconfactory and Panic (the Audion guys) has just this new piece of sweet software which allows users of osX (read 10) to customize the look and feel of their trusty electronic friends even more. Way to go Iconfactory and Panic. The software is called: CandyBar! Sweet.
Just helped carry some Lattes from Starbucks (Ok, maybe one of them was for me) and what I also brought with me is one of these new little table markers for High-speed internet access at Starbucks. It turns out that for a mere $30 a month, (A $200 deactivation fee might apply) I could be surfing and blogging at one of these locations. Hmm... tempting, isn’t it? It will be, once it gets a little cheaper. Until then... let’s try out the free 24 hour code provided. If you have an airport card in your powerbook, log in at any of the Starbucks and use the following code: STDAYPASS0802. Hey, it is a $1 value for you, just for reading this blog. I will now need to close my eyes and refocus, so I can go back into a world as beautiful as here.
Marshal McLuhan’s "Mechanical bride" contains one of these now unbelievable looking ads from the 50’s which praise the use of Lysol for very intimate hygiene. (Several times a day.) Women seem to be the ones who like to use hardcore chemicals on themselves for some sad reason.
I really wonder how we are going to look at the following site BOTOX® Cosmetic about 30 years from now. (not meant as another microsoft joke) I have the feeling that there will be no trace of a smile on our young and beautiful looking faces. But maybe we will just cry somewhere deep inside of our bypassed hearts? And we will rub some of that FDA approved Anthrax-creme on our last wrinkle?
God, please let me and my friends age gracefully.
Taking the subway in the morning can really be an adventure. We are talking tiny adventures, nothing too wild, adventures of the mind, triggered by observations. Somebody screams sometimes, somebody smells nice or strange, or both, there is an unusual conversation sometimes or a moment of intimacy across subway cars, or some other wild shapes and forms of human interaction.
Each ride has its own second of fame.
Today’s special split second happened as I was leaving the Subway station on 50th street. The stairs there are very old and steep. Everybody seems to be in a rush. Even more so if there is one person is not as fast as the others. The person in front of me was a bit slower. I first saw the big backpack. Then I saw the low-cut jeans, very, very low cut. Then I saw the hairy behind of this person, there was the kind of hair chimpanzees tend to have on the backs of their hands. And then, to top it all, there was the g-string. A pulled up, blackish, older, skimpy piece of underwear on this 20 something guy with a backpack and a very hairy butt. I just turned around. I was not alone. Next to me were at least two other New Yorkers staring at this guy’s butt. It was just a split second. We all started laughing at the same time. And there was the end of the stairs, there we went, each one of us in their own direction after this tiny urban jungle moment.
A friend who knows me for almost a decade now, recently send me the following picture from a childrensbook by Richard Scarry. The illustration reminded her of me. She thought that the little rabbit was just like me.
I somehow turned into a little scared rabbit in the interpretation of the picture. Did she want to tell me that I had no focus?, did she want to tell me that any idea I ever touch will turn to dust?, did she want to tell me that I will never reach any one of the beautiful goals I hoped to reach?
We had a serious conversation. I was really worried and the picture just emphasized my feeling of insecurity at that moment. I was lucky that she was there when I called. It turns out there were more positive sides to the picture.
I am, of course, more of a very naive, courious explorer.
As a boy at the age of 5 or so, I actually promised to myself once to never lose the sense of couriosity and exploration which often dies out with age. So here I am, excited about things I will and probably never even should reach. The beauty of the world is beyond anything I could wish for at times. And New York is also the pretty perfect place for me to play catch with butterflies.
Thank you for this incredibly flattering illustration.
It is comforting to find out that some of the classics of the web are still around. As I was cleaning out my old mailbox, I came across The Nofrontierians and if you know these little animals by nofrontiere, then you will be happy to see them again. (If you do not know them yet, you are going to love them.)
one of the pictures secretely taken in a Miami supermarket. Pepsi upside down reads ISd3d. The manager did not like me. He had a talk with me and nearly kicked me out. He thought i was a spy for another supermarket chain. Oh well.
Two old apple trees grow across from each other by the path that leads to the Shaker village in Hancock, MA. Under each tree is a red wooden bench. The benches face each other and the path. I am almost certain that men and women used both benches, just not at the same time. Shaker brothers and Shaker sisters were allowed to look at each other, but not to share the same bench. The branches of the apple trees now both carry fruit. Both trees share a single crown. Their branches are intertwined. Both trees seem identical. Both benches seem identical. They seem like two benches under the same united tree.
This weekend was quite excellent. I am too tired to write more now, but we managed to visit Mass MoCA (hmm), and the Hancock Shaker Village. I realized how little I knew about the Shakers and how much they influenced our esthetic perception of things.
Next on the agenda. Sleep.
It might be the craziest little thing, but the new Apple Mail
client does multilingual spellchecking, which means, that I can just switch the language somewhere in the middle of a sentence, and it just reminds me of better spelling in this particular language, hmm... as long as it is not Polish, strange. (Wirklich, wenn ich einfach mittendrin ins Deutsche umschalte, dann hält die liebe Software mit.) I like this little helper quite a lot. Still looking for that Jaguar pocket protector.
Jetzt habe ich also den Himmel über Berlin gesehen. Die Momente der Filmzeit waren leicht voraussehbar, die Momente der Echtzeit waren oft recht langatmig. Aber vielleicht ist es ja gut so. Vielleicht sind es ja die Echtzeitmomente, die bessere Erinnerungen schaffen. Nicht besser wegen der Erinnerungen selbst, sondern vielleicht einwenig fester. Der Himmel über Berlin ist der gleiche wie über New York. Der Himmel in uns ist der gleiche wo auch immer wir sind.
Vor mir im Kino saß eine Frau, der ich gerne gesagt hätte, dass sie schön war. Sie war sehr schön, und es gab offenbar niemanden, der es ihr zu sagen wagte, schon seit Tagen nicht. Hmm. Jetzt wird sie es von mir auch nicht gehört haben. Heute nicht. Vermutlich nie.
tonight will be the night of the Jaguar in places around the county. I got my copy (officially, in the mail) today and am very happy about it.
All is smooth and happy now. I am stroking the little kitten. Happy moments with a system software. Next purchase for me, a pocket protector and some white masking tape for my glasses.
An incredible link before I go to sleep after a longlong day. Art & Artificial Life International Competition. Amazing. Thank you for the link, K.
It must have been Muid Latif from Digital Malaya Project who linked to this blog. Thank you for doing that. I hope that some of the users who come from Malaysia will also leave their mark on the map.
Oh, just watch this one >>moveyourfeet.mov it is beautiful. (and 5.1MB in size, but sooooo worth it.)
Jason DeFillippo built Blogrolling - the link manager weblogs and if you are reading this and have a blog and have not tried blogrolling yet, then definitely check it out. It is fantastic. Oh, and while you’re at it. Feel free to Blogroll Me!
The colors outside have been replaced by a whitish grayish soup. Some little specs have survived and glow tiny down in the street. A trash truck just drove by and made ship sounds. The rain is heavy this morning. The street is a shaky blackish mirror. The cars move on their own reflections. There, a flash and a thunder and more of the Rauschen, which somehow says it better than gray noise. This will be a very busy morning, a very busy day, a very busy rest of the week.
Every morning, more clearly on clear days like today, our building casts a shadow onto the building across Broadway. And because there is a flag mounted on the corner of our building since last year, the shadow of the flag wanders slowly across the façade and into the windows of the building across the street. The flag walks a different walk every day, as the position of our planet relatively to the sun changing the relationship of sun, flag, building. A black, blurry shadow, animated by the wind into various shapes. As I am writing this the shadow of the flag is entering the last window of the top floor in the building across the street. And soon it will move beyond, be cast onto trees, the river. It will become just one of many, fainter even than the shadows of the leafs or the ripples on the water.
And then it will return tomorrow.
5.5 are a the time it takes to fly across the atlantic, or to watch three movies in a row. beautiful cinema. and now sleep.
Today seems like a day of the three. We spent the day going to three museums and just came back and will soon go to see a triple feature.
Three Photography exhibitions. The Moving Pictures at the Guggenheim felt a bit like a super-sized hall of mirrors on yeast. (The conditions in the large interior just do not seem to be ideal for large photographs behind reflective glass. Some of the pieces were only somehow visible from very strange angles.) The New York, New York Show at the Metropolitan felt like a very perfect little intimate lunch with old, knowledgeable friends. (There are actually two shows there and they seem connected like siamese twins. The selection is quite superb though. Absolutely worth a visit.) The American Perspective show at the Whitney felt a bit less overwhelming at a second visit, but the feeling of a well curated Salon show came up. Or, to stay with the food analogies, a very eclectic buffet, with great American specialties. The Whitney show will get another visit as a Catalogue and with friends who will soon come here from Germany. The Guggenheim will get another visit with the same friends. And I have the feeling that I will go to visit the Met show during the week. And maybe on various days. It is a nicely dense little gem. (I guess Gems get better the denser they are sometimes). Opinion, opinion, opinion. See the shows and places for yourself and tell me more.
Not quite sure how i came to this particular site, but it is filled with people from Hyper Island (in Sweden) These are future rockstars. Give them a hand. (Or at least shake theirs.) crew7. yeah
Krzysztof Kieslowski’s trilogy Red, White and Blue will be shown as a triple Feature at the symphonyspace tomorrow. It will be for the first time that the three movies will be shown as a triple feature in New York and they will only be shown tomorrow. Tickets seem to be still available. Check symphonyspace.org. (Tickets for almost 6 hours of this Award Winning Cinema are $10, $5 for members.)
Jan Swankmajer’s animations are part of the program at the symphonyspace tonight. I am not sure I am going to see them. But let me know if you want to go.
There are mornings when not a single email arrives, when there is no phone call, no newspaper in front of the door. And then things seem quiet, but in a strangely uncomfortable way. How can I find out if you are still out there? Can you tell me? Are you there?
A lunch break is often enough time to visit a wonderful place. This time is was the Met and it was the Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen on the Roof exhibition. It might be a bit difficult to find the roof at first. One has to go through the Medieval exhibitions and through the magically fragrant sculpture court, and then take the elevator. An elevator operator might tell a little story and the journey ends on the 5th floor of the Museum, the roof garden, one of the most spectacular museum spaces in New York. The roof offers views of the park and of midtown and is a pretty serene place for a lunch break. The Oldenburg and van Bruggen sculptures add a happy and humorous factor to the space. There are four sculptures on view, the Architect’s Handkerchief, 1999 (Fiber-reinforced plastic painted with polyester gelcoat, edition 1/3; 12 ft. 5 in. x 12 ft. 3 in. x 7 ft. 5 in. (378.5 x 373.4 x 226.1 cm)), a large safety-pin, called Corridor Pin, Blue, 1999 (Stainless steel and aluminum painted with polyurethane enamel, edition 3/3; 21 ft. 3 in. x 21 ft. 2 in. x 1 ft. 4 in. (647.7 x 645.2 x 40.6 cm)), Two smaller Shuttlecock/Blueberry Pies I and II, 1999f Cast aluminum painted with acrylic urethane; Each 48 x 24 x 24 in. (121.9 x 61 x 61 cm) and the very impressive Plantoir, 2001 Stainless steel, aluminum, fiber-reinforced plastic, painted with polyurethane enamel, edition 3/3; 23 ft. 11 in. x 4 ft. 5 in. x 4 ft. 9 in. (723.9 x 134.6 x 144.8 cm), placed in its own piece of portable lawn.
The trip was a very short one, the impressions brief and happy. It took just minutes to get there and minutes to get back. I have the feeling I will return to the place several times, before it closes later in the fall.
I must have seen Liz Barry and Bill Wetzel before. They have been doing this since May? They are 24 and 22 years old and they survive in New York on $7 a day and on conversations they have with complete strangers, well, New Yorkers. That’s it. They have two backpacks, they have two signs (so they do not have to be together at all times.) And the signs just read “Talk to me”. And you should. If you run into them, then you should definitely talk to them. They just walk around the city and talk to people. There was an article by Tina Kelley in the New York Times, two days ago, entitled: Talking the Talk, Even With Strangers. The article pretty much describes the “project” of Liz and Bill.
Chris and I happened to run into the two this evening, on the Upper Westside.
They were on the corner of 72nd Street and , leaning against the wall of a Chase Manhattan bank. They looked clean and they were very friendly. Chris asked them a few good questions about the daily hygiene and the possibility to survive on $7 a day. They shower and they have clean clothes on. They use bathrooms. (They will stay in the street through September, at least.)
I was silly enough to ask if they had a blog. They do not have a blog. But I think they should have one. I think Chris and I might just sponsor some hosting and setup a blog for Liz and Bill, so we can all be a bit closer to their daily adventures in New York. I was thinking of a very simple site where they can share some of their experiences and where they can answer some questions from you and me. Until we find a good URL for them, I will direct them towards this post and Bill will should be able to answer your questions posted in the comments of this post.
I have other plans I do not want to give away just yet, until I talk to Bill again, so be ready for a surprise or two.
Maybe Liz and Bill can keep their project alive over the winter time, by keeping a blog? Maybe we can all help them get a digital camera, so they can document their adventure for us? These are really future steps.
For now:
Please post your questions to Liz Barry and Bill Wetzel here in the comments section of this post. I will email Bill the link and he will be able to reply to all of your questions, for all of us to read. Cheers.
When I entered the subway station on 50th street, going uptown the platform was packed. There were people waiting outside of the turnstiles, listening to the voice over the speakers. “There........s.....o.....ervic...on....loca... The....1....express...tra...from...34...second...street....” There was obviously a problem with the uptown train service. There were no local trains on the 1 and 2 lines, so there was no way for me to get to Lincoln Center on time. I had to get out of there and get a cab. Easier thought than done. Getting out of the station was not a problem. I just squeezed my way back onto Broadway. Finding a cab during rush hour in the heat, which equals heavy rain when it comes to convenience, seemed almost impossible. I had to return to 8th avenue, scare away some people who were trying to squeeze in front of me on the corner. (I do not get physical, my penetrating “go away!” look seemed enough today.)
There were no cabs. None. At least no free ones. Finally one just appeared out of nowhere. “Where do you wanna go?”, the driver leaned out of his window. “Just Lincoln Center, just a few blocks.” The driver was obviously finishing his shift, so I wanted to make this ride as convenient for him as possible. “OK, get in.” we were in business. “Hello, we are the Radio City Rockettes and we get a kick out of safety, so buckle up!” (Yeah right, they were just all fired, and certainly get a kick out of safety.)
The car I found myself in was almost the same as the Crown Victoria I took just yesterday. The plastic was off, but otherwise, this was a mint fresh new car. “Wow, how old is this car?” I asked.
“It is about 10-20 days. Not very old.”
“How much is such a car?”, I asked looking at the medallion number which indicated that it was a privately owned car.
“$120,- a shift. That is $120,- for a twelve hour shift and the gas, of course.”
He obviously wasn’t the owner, but the other shift for the car.
“Wow, twelve hour shift?, You drive 12 hour shifts?”
“Yeah. I drive from 5PM up to 5AM. And then the other guy takes over. The car runs for at least 20 hours a day.”
“Wow.” I knew that somehow, but 12 hours on New York city streets still seem like a bit of a crazy thing to do.
“Yeah, the car has...”, he pauses... “32,000 miles. Haha, that is 32thousand miles in less than 20 days.”...
“This is incredible.”...“Yes, this is my corner, thank you so much, can I have a receipt? Thank you. Drive safely. Have a good shift.”
“Thank you.”
It was incredible. Not only was it incredible that he was about to drive for another 11 hours. It was also incredible that he made me believe that his shift was just ending. As he drove away, I heard the Rockettes kick some thing out of safety, remainding me to take all of my belongings when leaving the cab. I was out and back in the dirty smelly and sticky street. I was on my way to Lincoln Center. And I was back on time.
As mentioned before, the Vik Muniz movie was nothing short of spectacular. I hope there will be more screenings somewhere soon, because the piece is truly worth seeing more than once. If you clicked on any of the links in the last post, you might have noticed that they landed on a site of which i never heard before, but which looks quite beautiful and which also has a really good mission. The site is called mixed greens and as far as I understand it, it seems to be a site any young artist secretly dreams of. It seems to be a site that truly supports the arts and wants to help both the new artists as much as the new collectors. Truly mixed greens. Tell me more about the project. Is there a hidden hook somewhere?, or is it truly as great as it seems to be?
There are good evenings and then there are great evenings. Today’s evening was spectacular. We managed to be on time for the one and only screening of the Anne-Marie Russell movie “Worst Possible Illusion: The Curiosity Cabinet of Vik Muniz” at the Reade Theater in Lincoln Center. It was Anne-Marie Russell’s birthday today (She is the incredibly incredible director and producer of this documentary) and she could not have given herself and us a better birthday present than this spectacular movie about Vik, the incredible Sculptor, Draftsman, Magician, and I guess also photographer. The movie was a real tour de fun. Not only did we have an opportunity to listen to the direct real story of Vik Muniz (read mun-EEZ), as told by him, it was just such a well put together little piece of work that it really managed to extend the feeling for the work without ever being too intimidating or theoretical. As approachable as Vik’s work can be, as approachable did he seem in the movie and as approachable was the entire movie. There was just such incredible ness to the piece, which was put together from various material sources. The editing was spectacular, as it managed to turn the entire collection of media into one linear piece of art itself. Truly great work by the director, the team and by Vik. We enjoyed the work very, very much. And Happy Birthday!
We shook hands. An older lady spoke to the director and we noticed that she stole some of the sandwiches from the buffet. The buffet? Well, there was a buffet after the screening. There were great (blurry) photographs by Coke Wisdom O’Neal (really his name), and the only person missing was probably Vik Muniz himself. He is currently on his Honeymoon (congratulations) in Turkey. Blessings to him. A great, great, great story. And a great, great, great movie, about a truly great contemporary artist. I really hope somebody will pick up this movie for their distribution or TV station and I hope that we soon will all be able to see it (again).
Until then, take a look at the movie’s site, as well as a look at the story behind the scenes. This little movie was just wonderful. Thank You Anne-Marie Russell, Thank you Vik Muniz.
Harvest time at futurefarmers. Their new book with a collection of work from 1995 through 2002 (first half of it) is now available for $40 directly from the farm, or for $31.50 from the big river market.
There was white plastic on the door handles of the crown victoria taxi today. There was this fresh car smell in it. And the AC was on and humming.
“How old is your car, sir?”
“Oh it is five days old”.
“I see that your medallion number has the letter B in it. So this is your car?, I mean this is not a fleet car, but your own?”
“Yeah it is. And it is an expensive one”
“How much do you pay for the medallion alone?”
“It is about $155,000.-, the fleet medallions are more expensive.”
“So you gotta to keep that car moving”
“Day and night. I drive during the day, my partner at night.”
“Thank you very much, drive safely.”
It is a bit my own fault. I spent the last few years looking at the opinion of my Europe centric friends and have missed a whole flurry of movements that were going on in Photography here in the United States. Now I am in for an education. While the Guggenheim Show currently on display felt a bit like the living room, or maybe the bedroom, the two photographic exhibitions I saw at the Whitney today felt a bit like the nicely decorated gallery of the better educated kid from the house across the street. There is plenty of quite excellent photography to be looked at in the Whitney Galleries and if I had to make the decision whether to spend my $12 on the FLW experience or the Marcel Breuer trip, I would probably opt for the Tornado building with the Rectangular coordinates. The one that is the Museum of American Art, yet was built by a German Architect. Maybe it is the excitement that came from the large collection of relatively small photographs on 1.5 Floors that made today’s visit so special. Maybe it was the feeling that the photographs I was looking at were not really photographs, but something of a bigger idea. They were illustrations of concepts, entry points into magical worlds or horror cabinets, they were documents and copies, they were series and “Unikate”. And they seemed quite well curated.
So I suggest that you see Visions from America: Photographs from the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1940-2001, which is on view now through September 22, 2002. and (if you can find the gallery) take a look at What's New: Recent Acquisitions in Photography (scroll all the way down). (same dates)
And since you are there, you might as well take a look at the Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen drawings, which are a great introduction to sculptures which you might then visit on the Roof of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. But that’s tomorrow’s story.
All in all, my impression is that the Whitney has just embraced the opportunity that the MoMA shipped its collection to Berlin and the rest to Queens and is now really worth a visit. But hey, it all stays in the Lauder family. Sort of. I am turning cryptic here. Go, visit the Whitney.
Or buy the catalogue, as it is available at the river book mart, (for $31.50).
memorymapping is a project of Megan Hurst and Michael Mittelman. The project allows users to contribute maps of places connected to experiences and early childhood memories. Maps are drawn from memory and can then be viewed by visitors to the site. Hmm. It looks like a very interesting project, doesn’t it? (As he is trying to remember the places and situations.) I will contribute. Maybe today. How about you?
The traffic s are down in large parts of the Westside of Manhattan this morning. As I am looking out the window, the intersection of 96th street and Broadway is hopelessly clogged with cars. The Number three train (the red express line) is out of service this morning. This will be some fun commute today. And the temperatures will reach somewhere right below 100 degrees.
August 14th. Code Red.
From Flavorpill (And I will be there. Believe me.):
FILM
The Worst Possible Illusion: The Curiosity Cabinet of Vik Muniz
when: Thur 8.15 (6:30pm)
where: Walter Reade Theater (70 Lincoln Center Plaza, 212.875.5600)
price: $9.50
Things really aren't what they seem, as artist Vik Muniz continually reminds us in tonight's documentary about his life and work, The Worst Possible Illusion. Charming, handsome, clever, and witty, Vik Muniz mesmerizes as he demonstrates how to dissect common systems of representation. He examines the properties of thread and how it can create the look of charcoal and how photographs of wire sculptures look like pencil drawings. Viewed in both photography and art circles as one of the most original and talented artists to emerge from the '90s, Muniz recently had a one-man show at the Whitney. A Q&A and reception with director Anne-Marie Russell follow the screening of this deful and thought-provoking portrait. (MB)
It is very dangerous to read any medical literature. No matter what I read about I just think I have it. I feel very weak now and not very smart after discovering a tiny red book on my bookshelf. Those who know me also know that it is quite possible for me to discover books on my bookshelves of which existence I had no clue. This little red book however makes me quite nervous because it is a wicked little medical book and it deals with “Mental Hygiene”. The title of this little psycho-bomb is “Psychiatric Word Book” and it is a tiny little thing, the full title is “A Lexicon of terms employed in Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis designed for students of medicine and nursing and psychiatric social workers”. The author is Richard H. Hutchkins. M.D., D. Sc. I have the Seventh Edition, which was published 1943, in Utica N.Y. Wild stuff.
I happened to begin my reading with the APPENDIX B, which describes Mental Make-Up
----- snipp -------
If abnormality of of the makeup exists, distinguish in the first place between an intellectual defect (mental deficiency or feeblemindedness) and temperamental abnormally.
An idiot is a mentally-defective person usually having a mental age of less than 3 years, or if a child, an intelligence quotient of less than 20.
An imbecile is a mentally-defective person usually having a mental age of 3 to 7 years inclusive, or, if a child, an intelligence quotient of 20 to 49 inclusive.
A moron is a mentally-defective person usually having a mental age of 8 years or upwards, or if a child, an intelligence quotient of 50 or more. As a rule of the upper limit for diagnosis of mental deficiency should be an intelligence quotient of 69, but this limit should not be adhered to in cases where medical, social and other factors clearly indicate that the patient is mentally defective. The term “moron” includes all mental defectives above the grade of imbecile.
...
Statistical analyses of temperamental abnormalities cannot be made if too great a variety of descriptive terms is used or if a great many terms are used having only s shades of difference in meaning. Experience has shown that the following temperamental traits are of psychiatric importance and should be specified in the sense here indicated. There may of course be combinations of two or more of the traits given may be associated in the same person; when this occurs two or more of the descriptive terms mentioned may appropriately be used.
1. Seclusive: includes persons described as abnormally quiet, reserved, timid, shy, bashful, retiring, secretive, self-absorbed, preoccupied, unsociable, averse to meeting people.
2. Overactive: Includes persons described as abnormally overactive, unusually mentally and physically aggressive, talkative, unduly optimistic, tending to exaltation.
3. Depressive: Includes persons who are worrisome, gloomy, easily discouraged, inhibited, restrained, unable to make decisions.
4. Unstable: Includes persons subject to marked emotional oscillations, either up or down in mood, easily elated or discouraged, unsteady, changeable.
5. Suspicious: Includes persons abnormally mistrustful, sensitive, prone to se sinister meanings in indifferent occurrences, inclined to misinterpretations, feeling discriminated against.
6. Egotistical: Includes persons abnormally self-centered, Conceited, with feelings of superiority and exaggerated self-importance
7. Irritable: Includes persons described as high-tempered, easily annoyed and angered, subject to irascible, explosive reactions; on s provocation abusive and cruel
8. Sexually abnormal: Includes persons with sexual perversions and inversions and also those inclined to prostitution, if not merely symptomatic of a psychosis.
9. Criminalistic: Includes persons with antisocial traits; history of various major and minor offences, if not merely symptomatic of a psychosis.
10. All other temperamental peculiarities or psychopathic traits to be specified by appropriate descriptive terms.
-----snap-----
OK, maybe it is not so bad, now that I have written this down, I do not feel so bad. I feel that I am probably not a Seclusive, Depressive, Suspicious, Sexually abnormal, Criminalistic Idiot. I might use the term Moron more ly from now on. And I think that I will read more of fortune cookies and less of those tiny Medical publications I happen to find on my bookshelves.
Oh, I am a Sagittarius, and an Iron Rooster. Hmm... Should I even post this one? Maybe just as a reminder.
The animations at Harold's Planet make me very happy. Especially the Firefly lullaby, which is the last one of the little icons. Watch them with sound and just smile. Have a wonderful afternoon. Thank you for this fantastic link Shu.
When George Orwell died, all that was left of his possessions fit comfortably into a shoe box. He was obviously a minimalist. A rare breed almost completely extinguished by the last industrial revolution. So many of us have a vast collection of virtual and not so virtual items, turning us the curators of our lives and our houses into museums of our existence. There are many sites that are the public display of their owner’s possessions. There are reading lists, and catalogues, little private museums. Matthew McClintock now went the extra mile and is documenting EVERY item in his home and turning it into an online museum’s catalogue. He is currently working on it and you can watch his collection grow at mc.clintock.com. A handsome site with plenty to look at and to explore. A tour de force. Enjoy.
And don’t forget to visit his shop there are some very nice mouse pads there.
P.S. Of course did George Orwell leave more than a shoe box full of stuff. The good man left so much to us, it can not be described in box sizes. Hmm. Quite a marvelous thing. Isn’t it?
It happens sometimes that I just click on the Wanderlust button so hard, that a whole mother lode of windows pops up and then I go through them and take a look at other people’s blogs. And there is usually one or two good ones, for one reason or the other. You’ve been out there, you know what it looks like out there. Today’s nice site is very simple and it works and I like it. It is the site of Angie mc Kaig. Yes, there are these legs on every page and they are very nice to look at, but what is quite interesting are the other elements on the page. The different sections of the site have breadcrumbs, there is a logic to the layout, the writing is solid and relevant. Hey this is a site I want to return to. In fact, I will do so right now. Oh, did you notice how she uses color on the site? Very wisely. Very reduced color action. Very smart.
She is a user experience designer and Internet strategist with six years of experience in building highly interactive, large content and e-commerce sites. That says it all. Almost all. She also used to be the sole owner and administrator of the largest vampire web portal online. Which makes me want to talk to her online, during the day, and only after I had some garlic.
It is a good thing that the city is built out of stone. It would otherwise probably just melt in the heat out there. The street of New York are currently not the most pleasant place to visit. It is supposed to be this way for the entire week. Oh, let’s see how this will go.
leaving now for a birthday of a two year old son of a friend. There will be a cowboy theme to the party and there will be ice cream cake in a pizzeria. Fun stuff. The place is about an hour away from here. Somewhere in Brooklyn. Looks like I will have been in three boroughs this weekend. Bronx yesterday, Brooklyn today, and i am in Manhattan right now.
Just got this little link in the mail. If you have a mac and it ever showed you an error message which happened to be only a number, try the following link:Black & Bleu. I know, I know, Macs never crash, but still, just in case... ; )
This page used to have a counter. I can not show you which one it was, because it stopped loading yesterday or the day before yesterday, slowing this page down to a crawl and really making me a bit sad. It actually made me sad before too. Just looking at the statistics for this particular page made me a little sad. The numbers were quite OK, that was not the problem, I also could see whenever one of my friends would hit the page. The counter also gave me a rough idea about where from and how people accessed this blog. What the counter gave me as well though, were these statistics. They were bar charts that showed me some sort of performance that I could increase by posting certain things on this page. And this is where it got really evil. When the little visitor bar got too short, I was assuming that it must be me and then I posted in order to post (more than once), not really in order to say anything. Oh, and certain things were better on certain days, and Fridays were usually pretty dead. Tuesdays were the best days for the blog. Looks like most of you came here on Tuesday around lunch.
I am so glad this thing just disappeared. I do not need some chart to tell me what to do. I feel more relaxed again. And I have no idea who you are, or where you come from, or when you come to visit. We still have the map, where you can leave a link of a picture to yourself. (All of you who have already... Wow... Thank you!) and there are still my regular stats (link removed) that come with the hosting and that tell me clearly that people who come here are often just interested in some really strange stuff. But that is OK. This is much more abstract than this other counter. This counter was a big deal, can you tell?
So now expect some more relaxed posts. Come here if you like. Come as often as you like. I will just keep writing here. Until I can not, for some reason. And things will be good.
Oh, feel free to comment at any time. Your email address is protected. (As long as you leave a URL too (any URL). (Movable type then does not make your email the link and it becomes visible only to me and not to some bots.)
So, no counter anymore. Now I count on you. (It does sound strange, doesn’t it?)
Since I arrived in New York in 1996, the Yankees have won the world series four times? I have never been to the Yankee Stadium. This has changed today, as we were invited to see a game in the Bronx.
“So are you a Yankees fan, or an anti Mets man?”, I asked a guy in the group. “Well, if you are one, then you are automatically the other.”, ha said. Hmm, so we were in the White and blue land. “Are you a Yankees fan?”, he asked me back. “I have a hat”, I answered. “I am from Europe, you know, I just managed to somehow figure out the rules of this game, I am not sure if it is time for me to take sides.” “My family is from Brooklyn, we have been Yankees fans for generations.” “So what about the Dodgers?” (I wanted to somehow hint that I have some clue about this city’s Baseball History.) “Yeah, they used to be the Brooklyn Dodgers, but now they are in California. It was very tragic for my family when they moved. We were big fans.” OK, I knew who would be the one to tell me the answers to all the Trivia questions.
My first Yankees game. Blue foldable chairs in a steep arena. We were somewhere up there, luckily in the shade. Things looked good. We were given binoculars which was quite helpful, and coupons for free stuff. Beer, Ice cream, Hot Dogs, Soda. The prices are usually around $6.50 for the beer and $3.75 for these thinly Hot Dogs in those viciously sticky little buns. I ate several of everything and so I am not quite well tonight. I am also not looking forward to the dreams I will be having.
The game was against Oakland. “The Yankees do not have to win the game.”, a knowledgeable fan remarked. But did they have to lose this horribly? 0:8 it was bad. It was not pretty. Good thing no ball landed in the memorial park with all the retired numbers. (Looked a bit like graves.)
On Page 26 of this week’s New York Times Magazine is one in the series of “What were they thinking” photographs. It is a picture shot by Sage Sohier, and it shows Dr. Joe Upton, from Brookline Mass. On April 27th 2002, as he inspects one of the casts he made of children’s hands before an operation. He is a surgeon, has been for 25 years now, and he makes these casts of the hands of his patients, apparently pre and post operation. So there he is looking very focused into the palm of a plaster hand. A hand that looks more like a sculpture, a piece of art than a hand. Behind him on shelves are more little sculptures and in front of him on the table, probably some that were chosen as especially interesting. The constellations of fingers and the proportions of the hands are quite incredible. They are variations of a theme so familiar, sculpted in such incredible ways. There is a hand that is just one finger, there are some with four, there is a hand with seven little fingers. The arrangements vary as much as do the numbers of digits.
Each one of the plaster hands is a memory of a real body part, the memory of a real organ, of a real person, who really knew this hand as their own, until taught otherwise. It is very tempting to see these hands with curiosity and a sense of discovery. The otherness of their shapes is what intrigues. They look a bit like the hands we have, but then they are different. Dr. Upton has “taken care of easily 15,000 children’s hands”.
One Doctor, 25 years, 15,000 hands. Almost 2 hands a day. Do they still feel different? Do they still feel the same way they might feel for the first time observer of the photograph in the New York Times Magazine?
Several years ago I had the opportunity to work with children, of whom some had limbs that might have qualified them for Dr. Upton’s cabinet. I remember this one girl who happened to have two elbows on her right hand. The second elbow was closer to the hand and she did not have quite the control over the fingers in that hand. She might have been the funniest and happiest of the bunch. She was the one that brought the wildest mix tapes for the Friday disco. She was the one who knew the wildest jokes. And, well, she beat me every time at Foosball. (Table Soccer.) Really, not kidding.
What the picture on page 26 in the New York Times Magazine reminds me of is the way we learned to look at things. We have developed so far beyond what we were meant to understand, that we have begun to divide issues into tiny manageable portions. We describe them, we zero on them, we fix, we cure them. There is a cure for this, there is a cure for that. There is a doctor for the eyes, for nose and ears and hands. And there is a person who takes pictures and there is a person who writes the article (in this case, Amy Barrett), there is a person who is responsible for this, one that is responsible for that. We get rid of this and we get rid of that. And it all works. It works until something large happens that maybe reminds us for a split second or maybe for a minute, maybe for a day that we should be sometimes looking at the entire picture, not just the tiny place where our nose happens to be.
We can see the hands in the picture as the hands of others, or we can see them as human hands. We can see them as human hands, or se can see them as expressions of evolution which we praise so dearly otherwise. We can see them as part of evolution, a process we use to describe things, or we can see them as part of the vastness of the universe we are all a part of. We are all one large idea, it seems. Or can you really imagine yourself as just yourself with nothing and nobody else in any way, just you, yourself and yes, you? Everything is part of everything else. Really.
Were you expecting an opinion? Some funny commentary? I have none this time.
There was a fire at the Columbia House on 96th and Broadway, last night. It was not a big fire and it was not in the building. Some wood planks on top of scaffolding that is there for the workers who repair the façade of the house caught fire. There were two medium sized flames and four fire-trucks and the jeep of a fire chief and an ambulance, which is there quite often. And there were hundreds of spectators. I was on the phone with my . He was telling me about New York. He always tells me about New York when he hears the sirens of the fire-trucks. Two nights ago he called me back to let me hear the roosters that woke up the neighborhood where my parents live. In Hanau, in Germany. It is sometimes not very easy to listen to all the stories and all the things that happen in Hanau, all the time. There is this new car they got. It is an instant hit with the entire neighborhood. It is not quite easy sometimes, but then, when I think about it. He never had the chance to speak to his dad. They never met. My ’s was these two photographs we had of him. So maybe it is all not so bad. It is better this way. I let him tell me all about it. I actually think I will call my parents right after I post this.
Oh, the fire? It was out in a minute or so. No big deal. There are some burned boards on the spot where the big event happened yesterday. And the workers are back at work, cleaning the façade, and the traffic is normal and steady. And when I look out of the window there are about 30 people I can see at one time now. Each one of them with their own parents. Some closer, some , in time, space and life.
There is this strange swelling on my left eyelid. It just appeared out of nowhere and it is there now. Am I entering a new phase in my life?, is it the food I have recently eaten? What is going on? I will just take it easy and observe. Maybe it is something that survived on the head of the Camera Lucida all these years and now took me as the new host? My vision is not obstructed yet. I can feel a big eye though. Did I have to blog this?
And I spread my arms and without much hesitation take off for a swim in the air above the city. The sky is the bluest of blues and the streets look like channels dug into a large piece of stone. There is always the park, of course. Now a patch of scratch and sniff. Higher and higher I go. Not a cloud in the sky. Cool and quiet now. Lees and less of everything. Silence. Just the sound of my own blood pumping through my temples. The city looks like frosty moss spreading onto the continent. The bays, the rivers, the ocean. I close my eyes, turn around and dive. Louder and louder the city becomes. Louder and louder the colors. Louder and louder the voices, the cars, the machines. I land on the roof deck and take the stairs home. Just a brief shift of perspective. Now back to work.
1. Do you have a car?
Hmm, no. I use public transportation. Really. Cabs, from time to time. Rarely. Subways are fast and a really good way to get around New York City.
2. Do you drive very often?
Sometimes. When really needed we can borrow a car quite easily. I actually love to drive. It is one of the more relaxing things for me.
3. What's your dream car? If somebody would like to give me a Mercedes SL Pagode, I would not refuse it. I tend to rent Mercedes cars when I go to visit my parents in Germany. (It is cheap to rent them there.)
I used to have a Mercedes 200/8 (a 1971 model... Actually had 5 of them.) It was such a beautiful car. Horizon blue, a white steering wheel, a bit like this one, only with matching wheel cups and without this hood on the roof. A boat of sorts. (Majestic) More links: 200/8, /8
4. Have you ever received a ticket?
Oh, plenty. Plenty. A police officer who lived in my building in Germany would just give me one as often as he possibly could. It was very annoying.
5. Have you ever been in an accident?
Yes, just minor scratches here and there. I actually wrecked the side of this really sweet girl on a foggy morning in Hanau, Germany, 1988? It is a long story... We were together for two years after that.
The sunset was most spectacular. It was Blue at first , with yellow and then purple and gray and green and orange and pink and quite unconventional in the choice of colors. Nobody expected the water to turn into a self illuminated liquid crystal, but it did, it changed into this giant glowing entity that just continued from here all the way to the George Washington Bridge, which in itself was illuminated. And the buildings on the Westside almost looked like the stonewalls I remember from Arizona, they were these glowing stone walls that were now pierced and began to turn into patches of little rectangles in various shades of yellow and white.
And the only thing missing in this spectacle might have been the fire flies, which could have danced over the grassy hills between the trees. Instead there were bicyclists and people on roller blades, flying by, one by one, seemingly faster than the planes and helicopters overhead.
Home.
THe saleswoman next to me is going at about 120Miles per hour. “This and that is important for us, graphic designers... let’s put solid colors for the background.” (Now repeat after me at about 120 Miles per hour.... and switch... : ))
(There is a really dumb discussion going on over walkie talkies. Somebody assumes that there is no tax on items shipped from the apple store. “Why are you taking money away from my registers?”)... Oh boy.
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On the Airport situation in the Apple store. There is a network (2, one open) in the store. Outside of the store, there is no connection. Not from the dressing rooms at J. Crew and not even on the dumpsters behind the Apple Store.
(which is a good thing, because they were smelly and i looked weird there anyway.)
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I just realized that there is a veeery weird space underneath the stairs here at the apple store... Very strange space. Accessible for little critters only. Who were the architects here? (I am not complaining... really...)
Andrea Rosen Gallery is one of the serious ones. The exhibition space is cleverly divided. There are sometimes three shows on at the same time. I was there to see the new and different Wolfgang Tillmans piece. It is Called “s (Body)” and was two years in the making. A video piece, a first for Tillmans. Even though he admits flirting with the idea of making a video piece for much longer. “This is my first video piece, even though I have been seriously thinking about video since 1993.” So the piece was actually 9 years in the making. Fascinating.
The piece is a video projection. The soundtrack is “Hacker Remix” of “Don’t be ” by Air, which actually feels quite highly conceptual now when I think about it, because the piece is very much about a remix of and darkness and Air. And the piece feels a bit hacked too.
Tillmans says: “It is totally abstract and yet it is totally about all the bodies dancing underneath the s. I Filmed whilst the club was full action on Saturday nights. You wouldn’t necessarily know, except that in one of the s you see flakes of floating dust. Since dust is 90% human skin there is some presence of the body there. Certainly it doesn’t have a clinical atmosphere, even if you can’t see any people.”
What is the dust in an air conditioned clinically clean gallery made of? How do I feel being alone with the piece for 15 minutes, seeing the piece for about 4 times? Maybe more? The only time I experienced it as abstract was when I walked up to the screen so closely that I could see the pixels of the projection as glimmering square centimeters surrounding my strangely looking shadow.
This was also the only time when I did not have the feeling that I am looking at the introduction to an industrial video about club ing. The piece had this feeling that reminded me of instructions I heard when working in an editing studio 12 years ago. The stuff was supposed to look sharp. You want to see the technology. Make sure all is clear at all times. We used to make industrial movies for Siemens.
I am looking forward to more things from Tillmans, who is certainly still one of the best the German photography universe has currently to offer. I am not sure how much I am looking forward to seeing any more of his projects he plans to release on “film” (which in this case was video). I am not very likely to going to spend another 15 minutes with “s (Body)” (2000-2002), though my opinion might change, of course. Would you mind giving me some of your impressions about the piece?
The Coffee is here, the milk is here too. Breakfast is here. I am in the far corner of the Broadway Restaurant diner and it is a beautiful day. The ladies in the booth next to me talk about their severance pay. I think it was not really big from what they sound like. The friend in Orange glasses over a white baseball cap will have a BLT. The other one will have the eggs scrambled, really well, but not with the potatoes scrambled inside, but on the side. Small apple juices. I am away from the next Airport station, so I will not be able to post this for a little while. PowerBook is back, I have 5:30 hours of battery life ahead of me. Let’s see how the day goes. It is 10:15.
Shall I stay here?, or head for the next Star-Bucks?
A woman with very red (very red) nail polish just sat down in a booth not far from here. She keeps gazing out the window (just tiny glimpses at me, from time to time, just to check if I am still there, maybe?). She seems very melancholic. Except for her left foot. It plays with the flip flop, her toenails the same blood red as her fingernails. I usually do not care for nail polish, but because she is only dressed in a red thin hair band holding together her ponytail, a black t-shirt and these very unusual striped silk shorts, the nail-polish feels a bit like a leftover from a very different kind of wardrobe. So I think that she usually looks different? She has several blue marks on the right thigh, but otherwise no makeup, no earrings. She drinks tea. Milk on the side.
She now froze in a stare. Her head resting on her folded hands. She might be in her early 20’s. There is the foot again. Dancing, as if it were not a part of her. 10:30
Oh, she just got a refill. It is coffee after all that she is drinking.
She now began clapping her hands in slow motion, very slow, very motion. She stopped, she smelled the back of her right hand. Her hands and legs are now folded as she continues to stare.
A western Omelet. Ray toast, dry, she will have ketchup with that, some trouble with the bottle at first. Basically exactly what I was just having.
Not anymore, as she spreads the butter on the toast that turns out to be not rye at all.
It is almost 11... Time for me to leave...
We are back in “business”. Apple did a great job fixing my little friend. They cleaned the screen and all. Attched four new rubber feet. (They will fall off in a week, for sure.) The fixing was around $400, but things feel smooth again now. I will be able to post more again, as it is so much easier for me to write on this little powerbook than it is on any other computer. I would have posted this happy report from Tekserve, but their connection to the internet was interrupted, so blogging was not possible.
But now I am back, after a walk through Chelsea and a look at the new Wolfgang Tillmanns piece and other interesting things... I will report...
But now there are some dying lilies next to me on the table and I think I will need to draw them now. : )
The was beautifully golden this morning. There is a soft breeze over the city. There might be (even) fewer posts today, because I will just take the camera and go. But wait... There was a call from Tekserve. And yes, the PowerBook is back from California. And this means that I will now take the train and travel to 23rd street. How could I resist?.
Here I go... (Oh, and the repair was not cheaper than expected. Why would it be?)
And here is another great Link site. Enter STYLEBOOST™ Link Indexing System. I hope that after this link you will still come back here for more of the other, more private snippets? Maybe? Now, gogogo. Thank you for the link, Shu.
Today, let’s listen to some Music by the Christian ventriloquist doll, Little Marcy. Enter the Marcy Zone to experience such gems like “Devil Devil Go Away” or “God Is At Work Within You”. I can imagine “Happy Am I” being performed in a smoky little church on Saturday Night. There is a huge smile on my face. What a grand selection, provided by SHARPEWORLD. Thank you for the link, Tom.
If all goes well, some of you in San Francisco will soon be able to buy some of the work you can see on the site. (Or similar things, since most of the thngs you see here is not really for sale). And actually, you will just be allowed to steal it, if you want. Seriously. I hope I will be able to be one of the participating artists at the following event: Wild Posting. The event will take place from August 25th through September 1st. I ill probably add a little more information to this post here later on, but if you just follow the link, the whole process is explained. (There is also a call for entries. Hope you listened to Joseph Beuys )
Thank you for this link too, Em!ly. (And also, thank you Steven.)
Hmm, i’ve just received a link to this picture of a Couch made out of old Macintosh IIfx machines. (the picture is hosted on Cory Doctorow's site, which is definitely worth a visit.) According to my calculations, the couch is now worth about $2000 which is still a serious amount of money for this object with no cushions. Had the designer bought the new mac fx (code names: F-16, F-19, Stealth, Blackbird, Zone 5) machines in March 1990 at $9,900.-, their original issue price... the cost of the object, before assembly would have been... $247,500.00
This is the nerdiest post this blog will ever see. Please come back soon for more relaxed programming, while I go and change my pocket protector. Thank you for the link, Em!ly.
Instead of working on my friend’s website, which I should be doing right now, or even going to Jørgen’s party, which I would like to do now, or certain other things, which I would love to do now, I am taking digital pictures of lilies.
The pictures above were taken without a “camera”. There was no lens involved. They are direct scans made with a low end flatbed scanner. The photographs created this way have a nice roughness and fragility to them.
They also have a certain flatness that can not be seen with the naked eye. Our eyes are more like cameras, a bit less like scanners. (We scan things ballistically, not in a linear way.)
Pictures of flowers have been taken this way probably since there have been photocopiers. (Scanner unit with attached printer unit.) It might be difficult to point a photocopier onto something though.
I used this method for a cover for LatinXPress (1997) (The one and only Kai Pham did the design on this one.) and Harold Feinstein took some exceptional images of One Hundred Flowers and later Foliage, using exactly the same method. (Though it is not mentioned in the book I have here.) The method can be used to create extraordinary images when used in the right way, and Feinstein’s books show us quite spectacular results. One Hundred Flowers might be one of the best coffee table books out there.
On the other end of the spectrum of possibilities there is always Cat-Scan.Com. And where people scan cats, they also scan other things and of course parts of themselves...(and yes, there is a special site for that too, with instructions and all, but I am not linking to it, go, find it by yourself if you need to.)
But this is not what this is about, of course. Unless we realize that flowers and body-parts and cats have quite a lot in common. We are all made of stardust after all. (Also nothing new, really.)
Now back to work.
ONe more little (13MB) switch commercial. THis time by a guy who shot himself. Guss is a gamer. Take a look. : ) (They might take this one down soon, so hurry.)
They are OK. They are not bad. Not quite bad, he said. You just tend to take the pictures designers take. The problem is, that you know how to see. And so your photography is following your ability to see. But it needs to develop on its own. You have to do it all over again.
Try not to take the pictures a designer would take. For a start.
It is just a technique. It is no content really, you know. She smoked one last cigarette before we entered the building. It is just a way of achieving a look. It is not really worth much this way. There is nothing there, somehow.
Your curiosity does not show through, when you shoot these bushes. Who cares about bushes? Nobody gets it. This is just an exercise. You are not really saying something by doing this. You have the eye, and you are curious, but it just does not show.
You are making that face again. Trying to look smart or something. This is not working. This looks like... Oooh ohh you are doing it again. Why are you doing this? This does not look like you at all
She claimed that I broke her cable. I saw her for the second time in my life. She was very to the point, very exact. Quiet and to the point. She was nice. Quiet. I felt comfortable enough to just go and visit her. I was supposed to connect her VCR. And there went the programming. She was very much into MSNBC. She watched it all day long. She was smart. Quiet and smart. I fixed her bathroom door too. Now it closed.
The television was out. Gray snow. She got furious. All of a sudden. She was mad. The place turned from cool to cold. A split second. I knew this treatment. Now I knew where it originated.
I was responsible for NOMSNBC. It was me. I was it. I haddunneit. I was the one. Until maybe 15 minutes later, when she realized that she had not paid the bill. Incredible timing. What a timing.
She called them. MSNBC came back. Easy. Easy. Easy. Do not hurt me. I do not really want to be here.
He would not stop talking. From the moment they met to the moment he left. He would not stop talking. He knew it all. He had no questions. The air was filled with unrequested answers. Many, many answers. She wanted to hear them. She was used to them. I was not. When we drove through a landscape made out of grassy soft hills, soft and mossy. She requested answers. Answers I did not have. I was not ready, not prepared. She really wanted to hear them though. She wanted to know it all. Right there, right this minute. How was I supposed to know about this particular landscape? It was as new to me as it was to her.
He never stopped giving answers. He was a find-engine. No search needed. I met this man for about three hours. I was stunned.
He told her that I loved her. “Obviously”. That comforted her. It was one of the answers he gave her when I left the room.
It was a room in which the wallpaper matched everything, or maybe everything matched the wallpaper. It was not wallpaper really, it was more a fabric that made the walls soft to the touch. Hopefully it also made their screams somehow bearable for the other in hotel Stanislaus. They were loud again. It was the continuation of the argument they have had in the car. They would continue to fight for at least another twenty hours or so. Until one of them would see bright spots on the left hand side. Little stress dots. The brain created them to remind him to just give up, give up completely, to just sleep, to make this one a last battle, to walk away. They were so completely different in this. It was supposed to be Paris, but they never made it. They only made it to Nancy, screaming. She could just pull the plug on reality, who could refrigerate any room at any point in any conversation, make everything freeze, instantly. That was it. It was over. It would not continue. White dots on the left hand side. Three maybe, maybe five. Painful, sleepless, useless.
The deep end.
She smiled now. They had a great dinner, she went for the cheese platter. She spoke French, the French that sounds like a real language. She knew so much about the things he really wanted to find out about. She was a smart cookie. She just had no idea how much she slashed his guts every single time, and more and more and more, until it all just was not worth it anymore, until his nose bled. The real deal. Until he could not breathe. Complete refrigeration. Pain.
And all this was when they were the good couple. All this was before they broke it off. Before the real hell started. Beyond expectations. New ground. Bad. Bad. Bad.
A book on the shelf of the organic supermarket on 98th street was entitled “Rational Fasting” and featured the portrait of a sly wild looking German scientist, Arnold Ehret. The book was originally written in German, and so the original title was noted inside. It was a simple title, no rational, no fasting, just: “Kranke Menschen” (Sick People). Hmm... Sick People. Very straight forward. Nothing pretty. Sick People. I did not get the book. (yet) Sick people... I will need to remember this one. Sick people...
1. What is your lineage? Where are your ancestors from?
Hmmm, my last name seems to point toward Germany. My grand was German. My never met his though. So on my ’s side we are German and Silesian, now Polish, on my mother’s side, probably mainly Silesian, Polish.
2. Of those countries, which would you most like to visit?
Poland is a really beautiful place. I think Kraków is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I have family there still. Poland is is a country that has been divided and fought over so many times, it is really a fascinating place. My parents are in Germany, many of my friends are in Germany. Hmm. Both, Poland and Germany are worth a visit. :)
3. Which would you least like to visit? Why?
Hmm, I do not have an answer for this one.
4. Do you do anything during the year to celebrate your heritage?
It was the 21st anniversary of my parents and I escaping Poland on the 21st of June. I mainly celebrate January 3rd, the day when I moved to New York.
5. Who were the first ancestors to move to your present country?
I was the first one of my family to move to New York. I was the first one in my family to cross the Atlantic. I am a real immigrant. You want to hear a story about a guy who arrived here with two suitcases? I have pictures of that.
Some of my work investigates subtle changes in seemingly unchanged environments, observations of one subject over time, long exposures in photography and drawings.
The diptych below is a combination of three photographs, taken over a period of three minutes. Each one of the three photographs was taken with different camera settings. The Apertures were 4.7/8/11 and the times were 1/50sec, 1/10sec, 1/5sec. The three images are in no way identical. I originally intended to combine two of the images to a diptych, a twin image. I usually adjust and crop the source images in a way that gives them one very common image area. This creates a subconscious familiarity with the images when presented together. As I was adjusting the images for this process, I realized that I could keep all three exposures and create a diptych using the identical image information.
Both images in the diptych below start with the same amount of information, as they are assembled from the same set of three photographs. The effect of difference is created by aligning the images to the left or to the right eye of the image subject.
Tekserve, the guys and gals who know mac have a new home. And here I am, on 23rd street, using a tiny iBook. I am #75. 73 is being served. They are calling 48. Oh, but that is just pick up. The smell here is not quite as fresh as at the Apple Store in SoHo, but I will try them first, before giving my Power(less)Book to the “Genius-Bar”. Still 73. I am ready.
(Oh, on the screen behind me runs one of the chain reaction movies by Fischli und Weiss. I guess I am going to stare at it for a little while... or maybe take some pictures of the two fish in the huge tank.)
Go Tekserve. : )
(It does feel a bit like in the waitingroom of a veterinarian. A sweaty man with no hair somehow wrapped his G4 in brownish pleather. A lady just perked up because it was her turn to pick up...)... Service is #74... time for me to go...
I am so glad that I can now participate in the Listening to the City discussion online. I was sick in bed when the physical event took place at the JJC. I will need to catch up with the discussions, but overall this feels like the absolutely right way of discussing such issues.Is this a glimpse into what Democracy will be like in the future? I love New York.
