initials

Constructed Graffiti

I snapped photos of graffiti in downtown today. I've tried on several occasions to mimic and draw the spatial illusions that these artists achieve with spraypaint, ladders and rebelliousness. My attempts have been, well, very dorky. As well as I can draw, there's a rhythm to graffiti that I just can't capture. After several more failed attempts, I took a planned detour down to E's workshop and like the big dork I am, went through her trash pulling out wood scraps. Here's my resulting form of graffiti - constructed out of wood, translated into flat space and completely virtual.

goldfinch, conflagrating cloud

I was dreaming hard last night. I dreamt I was out at my parents, on the deck, looking out at the St. Croix. This time there were no terrible hurricanes. We were standing on the deck together and one little cloud floated into view, it was small but not because it was far away, it was literally only 4 feet or so high and just a few yards away from us. Then it started to silently conflagrate, from the top down and not in defined flames but in the way a sparkler burns. We were astounded. Later, I was feeding the birds on the deck, throwing little pieces of cheese out to them. Mostly Robins and Grouse were eating the cheese but there was one little Goldfinch, smaller than the others, waiting patiently. I knelt down with a little bit of cheese cupped in my hand and the Finch bobbed up to me and ate out of my palm. That was the most lucid feeling of the dream; awake now, i can still feel the delicateness and the sensation of the Finch tickling my palm as she nibbles.

The Benefactor

The truth is something that is told, not something that is known.

The ideas which interest me are asymmterical: one enters through one side and exits through a side which is shaped quite differently. Such ideas rouse my appetite.

These are quotes from Susan Sontag's novel The Benefactor. I wanted to read it after watching a PBS doc about Annie Liebovitz. This is how it came about: Liebovitz was assigned to photograph Sontag and as preparation and research of her subject Liebovitz read Sontag's novel, the Benefactor, and was impressed and affected by it, thus setting the stage for an irreversible friendship and subsequent romantic relationship. Curious, I changed my after-work routine one night and coasted down Park Blvd on my red bike to the downtown library where the only copy of The Benefactor in the San Diego Library system lives. The Librarian immediately tuned into my on-a-mission-expression and she very seriously went about the task of retrieving my selection from the archives. I like Sontag's quote above about assymetrical ideas because I think social connectivity works itself out in an assymetrical fashion too. Whether it's in the contexts of business relations, culture-making or dynamics in overlapping circles of friends, there is consistent assymetry in how we shape our connections. Sometimes a singular encounter, in a certain place and in a certain frame of mind is all it takes to begin the outline. You may never be that close to it again but the asymmetrical shape has been started and its exit point and final shape becomes yours to define.
It's easy to glaze over with symmetry, such as the 9-to-5, or circulating amongst the same people year after year, or going to the same places agian and again, because symmetry is easy and easily understood and an aesthetic free pass. I think my appetite agrees very much with Susan's.

look again...

after staring at the photos a 2nd time i guess i did catch venus

wet hair