Day Fifty-five

Uncanny
Peculiarly unsettling, as if of supernatural origin or nature; eerie.

Lady Macbeth Sleepwalking by Johann Heinrich Füssli, courtesy of the Louvre, Paris

8:18AM
Fell asleep last night sitting on couch with computer on lap and watching a DVD on the television. I was trying to watch Querelle (Fassbinder) and also reading some things online even though I was already dead tired. I swear that the night before last I fell asleep in the same spot, on my couch while working. I was cutting out shapes of paper, and my eyes eventually glazed over and I think I was sleeping but actually still working. Eventually my head would nod forward and I'd wake up but I know that my hands were still working even though my brain had shut off. Once I realized what was happening, I tried to keep it going to see if I could actually continue to be productive while I was sleeping. It reminded me of those stories where people sleepwalk and do insane things while they are asleep. I saw a documentary on this once where they featured cases such as this guy who drove across town and killed someone while asleep and another story where a guy raped this girl who was a friend of his while she was staying over his house one night. In both cases the sleepwalker was acquitted because they were able to prove that there is this medical condition where some people are able to function, or at least their body is able to function, but their brain is asleep....even rape or murder. The sleepwalker wakes up and has no memory of the crime they've committed. I saw this documentary on YouTube, it was a British documentary and it was incredible. I'm going to try to find it and paste it below today's writing. These cases were in the UK where they must be more lenient or open to abstract thinking, because if you tried the "sleepwalking defense" in the US I'm quite sure it wouldn't fly and you'd be sent straight to prison, where we send everyone. I was watching a documentary last night on PBS about the privitization of jails in the United States. Small towns with poor economies welcome a new jail, all the locals end up working there and become dependent on the new jail. More jails create 'better' economies for these small, lifeless towns, and more jails need to be filled with 'criminals'. They featured this guy who was down and out, had a wife and two small children, was traveling in California and stole $30 worth of groceries for his family and was busted. He went to jail for 16 months with no pryor criminal record. Jails need to be filled. It's horribly depressing. This country is getting scarrier and scarrier because it's more and more frightened of the boogey man, frightened of it's own shadow. As I get older the notion of leaving and moving to another country becomes more and more appealing, but I would never do it (never say never).
This was an unfortunate tangent that I'd like to write more about some other time, but back to sleepwalking and such....
What I was reading last night while I fell asleep at the computer was a book written by the artist Mike Kelley, called, The Uncanny. It's a great book he wrote about a show he put together several years ago that has to do with sculptures of bodies, mostly human. The show traveled and consisted of his own work and other artists as well as found imagery and objects he collected, things such as mannequins, wax museum imagery, dummies, bodies, limbs etc etc...things that represented the human body. The writing in the book is just as good as the art in the show. It's impressive how good a writer Mike Kelley is. A great artist and an even better writer. In one of the essays at the beginning of the book he mentioned an artist by the name of, John Duncan who in 1980 did a project where he had sex with a corpse and presented it as an audio piece titled, "Blind Date". I don't want to spend my morning dissecting (no pun intended) this project but it ties into the sleepwalking I mentioned above, and an article I just read this morning in the NYTimes about The Muppets (trust me, it does).
The article is titled, "Retired Muppets Will Move to Atlanta" and it features a staged photo (isn't any photo of a Muppet staged?) of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy. The article is talking about Jim Henson's widow finding a suitable home for Henson's archive of his sketches and notes including puppets, some very old and fragile. About halfway down there is this paragraph:

Built from foam and fabric, each puppet character had multiple copies because of performance wear and tear. The gift covered puppets that could no longer be used to perform; in fact, the Kermit in question was a “photo Kermit” — used for photographs but with no opening for a puppeteer’s hand.

I don't find The Muppets particularly interesting. As a kid I did. I remember watching The Muppet Show every evening, even though I think I was technically a little older than their target demographic. I watched it because I thought it was funny, but I also watched it because I found it incredibly unsettling. The thin veneer of 'puppet' never worked for me and I always imagined what could possibly be going on just off the set, or under the set where the puppeteers were and how they created this mirage of bodies interacting. The puppets always seemed DEAD to me - mostly because they didn't' blink but also the way they stared at each other, these lifeless things with eyes, were always unsettling. And then there was the interaction between the puppets and the human guest on the show; Elton John, Lou Rowles, John Denver - what was it like for them to have to make eye contact and to 'act' with these tiny bodies that had character and personality, but in the end were not real. Course the fact that these puppets actually did have personality and character and feelings was testament to the writing of the show and the artistry behind the puppets - to be able to create empathy between a puppet and a human I imagine is no small feat, but the artists and puppeteers involved certainly were good at this. When the taping of an episode of the show was over, I imagined the lights being shut off and the doors being locked and a big closet with all these dead puppets, staring, lifeless. This kind of imagery or unsettling feeling is kind of what Mike Kelley was writing about in "The Uncanny". Even if you're not an artist, you will find the catalogue for this show interesting. I believe it is out of print but you can find used copies of it on Amazon or Ebay.
So, back to my point from the NYTimes article. This idea of a 'photo kermit' is what interests me. It makes sense that they would have a version of Kermit that has no hole for the puppeteer's hand - that is used only for photo shoots such as the one featured in the NYTimes article and pasted here, but let's just say it's ODD (or, uncanny).
Forget that it's Kermit the Frog, a popular figure in American Culture, but just think, a facsimile is created and used just for photography....a facsimile or doppelganger of a personality with a body is produced and set in front of a camera, a lifeless figure. The picture is taken, the photo is printed and published and what you see is a person (a felt frog) that you know a little something about, but in actuality, it's a dead facsimile. I can't think of another example of this extreme suspension of disbelief....where a caracter that is dead to begin with (a puppet) has a copy made of it (death number two) and there is no difference between the two. I'm thinking that maybe something similar happens when you go to a funeral and there is an open casket and you see the embalmed body, with make up and hair fixed by the undertaker to create a rendition of the person that was living and breathing a few days earlier. That's not exactly the same thing. Oh, I though of another example, I think I read somewhere that in Egyptian tombs they would create alternate, fake, mummies and bury them in different chambers to throw off would-be robbers from stealing the real mummies that were buried with gold and jewels. There must be other analogies but I'm going to move on, if you're reading this and can think of any other examples, email me if you have a moment (carter@carteroffice.com). Oh wait, what am I saying, I forgot that I do this in some of my own work. The sculptures:....a body is created, a portrait, a stand-in, a double. I guess photographs do the same thing. Think of photos of dead loved ones that are kept in wallets or hung in the family den, or sometimes actually printed on gravestones.

Writing about embalming reminds me of yesterday's writing when I mentioned Tammy Faye Baker. In her interview with Larry King she said she was going to be cremated because she, "didn't want bugs crawling on her"...and she was serious. This coming from a woman who's Christian beliefs require her not to be cremated so that when Jesus' second coming takes place, all the dead Christians will rise up from the dead. So if Tammy Faye is cremated, what will happen to her when Jesus comes back? Funny how her fear of, "bugs crawling on her" trumps her die hard Christianity.
I'd like spend the whole day tying together the sleepwalking, the sex with a corpse, the dead puppets, the uncanny and the suspension of disbelief....but maybe another day. It's 10:31AM and I have to get to my studio before the entire day is gone

To read the original NYTimes article, click here.
Here's a good link to Mike Kelley on PBS.

Day Fifty-four

InspiringWoke early this morning and walked to work through Central Park. There is a piece of the park, far north, that has some great paths through some actual woods. Most of the park is so manicured it's boring, unlike a couple other parks in the city that have less money taking care of them but are more beautiful because weeds are allowed to grow and if a branch falls from a storm there aren't an army of people waiting in the wings to clean it up in a New York Minute, like Morningside Park which is close to wear I live. This park is (I think) the second largest park in Manhattan and is more interesting than Central Park because it has less money watching over it. The part of Central Park I like to walk through is nice because it really does feel like woods, even though it's not that big of an area. I got there early enough that the grass was still wet from the night before. It's not far from a fortress that is still there from the war of 1812.

Got to my studio and got some stuff done. A couple paintings are giving me trouble, but maybe tomorrow they will look better, who knows. I have some sculpture that I need to start because they take a long time to make and need lots of time to dry. I'm afraid to sketch them out because in my head, they look fantastic. I never sketch anything out anyway, I just make. I'm looking forward to starting them.

I should write something about the death of Tammy Faye Messner (Baker). I'm sure you saw the interview with her on Larry King, if not, I'll paste it in here. She looks scary, but got bless - still wearing the insane make-up, her signature, costumed face. It's inspiring how positive she is (was) even though she was dying. It's incredibly sad. She always loved the gays, even though she was a big Christian...and for that she will always be something special.

I've got work to do in the studio. It's a mess in here, so I'm going to post a photo of some berries I took this morning in the park and sign off. God Bless that Tammy Faye.

Day Fifty-four

Woke early this morning and walked to work through Central Park. There is a piece of the park, far north, that has some great paths through some actual woods. Most of the park is so manicured it's boring, unlike a couple other parks in the city that have less money taking care of them but are more beautiful because weeds are allowed to grow and if a branch falls from a storm there aren't an army of people waiting in the wings to clean it up in a New York Minute, like Morningside Park which is close to wear I live. This park is (I think) the second largest park in Manhattan and is more interesting than Central Park because it has less money watching over it. This part of Central Park I like to walk through is nice because it really does feel like woods, even though it's not that big of an area. I got there early enough that the grass was still wet from the night before. It's not far from a fortress that is still there from the war of 1812.

Got to my studio and got some stuff done. A couple paintings are giving me trouble, but maybe tomorrow they will look better, who knows. I have some sculpture that I need to start because they take a long time to make and need lots of time to dry. I'm afraid to sketch them out because in my head, they look fantastic. I never sketch anything out anyway, I just make. I'm looking forward to starting them.

I should write something about the death of Tammy Faye Messner (Baker). I'm sure you saw the interview with her on Larry King, if not, I'll paste it in here. She looks scary, but got bless - still wearing the insane make-up, her signature, costumed face. It's inspiring how positive she is (was) even though she was dying. It's incredibly sad. She always loved the gays, even though she was a big Christian...and for that she will always be something special.

I've got work to do in the studio. It's a mess in here, so I'm going to post some of the pictures I took this morning in the park and sign off. God Bless that Tammy Faye.

Day Fifty-three

Guest writer #3, Drake Hawthorne, writing from Germany.

Hi. Carter has given me the honor of being guest writer number three, and now, as i sit in front of the computer, i second guess my approach to my participation in this project. you see, i have been living in southern germany for the last year—stuttgart to be exact, about two hours west of munich—and i figured i could expound upon being a resident in a foreign country, perhaps relating odd and random cultural perks, strange things people do, stereotypes and so on and so on. but the truth of the matter is that nothing, at least here in europe, germany, stuttgart, has truly suprised me. i mean sure, there are times more often than not that i say under my breath germany this and germans that, strange, annoying….. but isn’t it like this everywhere?

stuttgart is a nice place. relatively quiet with a pedestrianized center that is really nothing more than a mile long outdoor mall. as a friend described it to me before i came, stuttgart’s culture is an imported one. this is an apt description, especially in regards to the throngs of teenagers who swarm the main station, drinking big bottles of beer and cheap bottles of fruity prosecco (otherwise know as vino frizzante—carbonated wine) in public. friday and saturday nights can be scary, and the place—the floor of the main train station—is a wreck. broken bottles, cigarette butts, drunken masses of kids chain smoking in a flourescent smoke-filled train station. go figure. the 80’s have never been represented so well, or so inappropiately. i mean these kids are dressed to the hilt, head to toe ala new romantic (think the romantics, duran duran,miami vice and big hair mixed with pat benetar and lots of white slip-ons, white blazers and punk stripes) (i call it culture off the shelf--thank you H+M). everybody looks as though they are in a band, ready for a photo shoot, but they are actually waiting for the last train of the night (12:30am). i avoid the station at this hour.

but stuttgart is also very suburban with so much green space. i read somewhere that it is the greenest city in europe—something like 40% of the city’s footprint is either park, forest or field.

but i didn’t want to write about stuttgart, as this would take many days to be fair. i had a one year contract here, and it is ending in about two weeks, so i am on my way out. find out more about stuttgart on wikipedia if you’re interested.

rather, i would like to shift the attention to my recent trip to greece. my girlfriend nicole, whom i met in new haven ct, comes from athens, and her parents live there now. (she returns to athens every summer for a month or so.) well, after 3.5 years together, the time had come for me to meet her parents. (everybody, and i mean everybody—germans included—ask me once i tell them where i am going and whom i am meeting, ‘…have you seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding?’ no. i have not seen the movie, but i think i have a pretty good idea of what it is about.)

anyhow, after spending two days in athens meeting the parents, who are most generous and kind, climbing the acropolis and wandering the dense and chaotic streets of this amazing place, nicole and i took a 9 hour ferry ride to the island of crete. we stayed on the south side of the island near a town called ierapetra. it was beautiful, hot and windy. the sea was so warm and of shades turquoise green and light blue that dissolved into a deep cool blue, yet so clear. i couldn’t help but think of carter’s time in st. barth with the amazing beaches and water. but crete is no tropical paradise. it is a dry, desert-like climate punctuated with relatively sparse outcroppings of trees. as you drive away from the coast into the mountains, you enter fertile areas that seem to be planted only with olive trees. (while on top of the acropolis, we overheard a tour guide tell her listeners that there are over 8 billion olive trees in greece. there are 6.7 billion people on the planet.)

it’s strange to be in europe, to go somewhere like athens or to an ancient island in the mediterranean. i have this need or longing to sense the age and history in such places, as though i would feel the actuality of past times by simply being at a certain location, amongst the detritus and artifact. unfortunately this never works out. the patina of time is just that—a layering of the now, the new upon the entropy of the past. ruins give a sense of grandeur, of humanity’s assertiveness, but ultimately their true nature is outside my experience of them. of course i still appreciate these places, but i am left with a sense of longing, as if i there is a hidden answer i will never find.

so instead we go to the beach.

the beaches on crete are not of sand, but rather small colorful rocks that look nice when they are wet, and drab when they are dry. they are also scorching hot. we spend entire days under our colorful umbrella collecting and organizing various rock collections and reading, and many hours are spent with mask and snorkel in search of lost gold coins at the bottom of the ocean.

For some reason, and i do not know why, i have a habit of taking two books—the book i am currently reading (which is now yukio mishima’s sea of fertility tetralogy written between 1964-1970) and some random trashy novel, this time borrowed without permission. and inevitably i will start and finish the trashy novel and not read a single page of the great book i am involved in. this was indeed the case on crete. the book this time was the da vinci code written by dan brown. heralded by the new york times as ‘…pure blockbuster material…’ this tome is no foucalt’s pendulum treatise and play on the tale of the knights templar and the holy grail, but it is chock-filled with the facts and symbology surrounding the supposed grand christian deception that christ was immortal, that he was indeed actually married and soon to have child. real cult-like stuff. even the pentagram takes on a friendly tone. da vinci himself was a keeper of the secret, and his paintings the last supper and the mona lisa …. blah blah blah. i guess i just gave away the book, but really, what is there to give away and who doesn’t know it already? nicole (who is now stuck with the book against her will) thinks the genius of it, of the author lies in the presentation of the erudite research in such a way as to make a shitload of money. you’ll have to decide wether you will invest in it in order to make your own judgement, if you haven’t already read it. although i was annoyed the entire time i was reading it, i couldn’t put it down. history, religion and conspiracy theories can be quite profitable i guess.

But enough about this. crete is an amazing place. there are these concrete structures everywhere, ready to be filled in, waiting for something to happen, like some kind of reverse ruins. many were complete and occupied on the ground floor, while the second floor remains in this state of reverse ruin. we assume the owners will be able to afford the completion at a later date, but theses things are everywhere. someone told me about a tax break in the canary islands for people who are living in buildings that are still under construction. hmmmm.

After 7 days in crete, it is hard to remember what exactly we did there. we truly lost sense of time.

Back in stuttgart, i sit at my desk in front of this computer, less than two weeks away from my departure date. it’s difficult to take anything seriously here. there is so much to do and plan as we make our move to san francisco. but first we must stop over in nyc, collect our stored possessions—our own artifacts and detritus—and tie up loose ends. i am looking forward to seeing carter and other friends while there.

After a year in stuttgart i am still an outsider here. my grasp of the language seems to have diminished in the last 6 weeks, and i find myself no longer going out of my way to meet people, or having the patience to carry on conversations. time is winding down and it is difficult to imagine any sense of closure other than getting off the plane at jfk.

Day Forty-eight

Comfort in repetition

The sun setting down 13th street, over the Hudson River,
over New Jersey and into California.

It rained here this morning. Got on the subway and there was mass confusion because the trains were either delayed or not running because of 'signal problems'. Every time it rains in New York, the subways suffer. It's amazing. RAIN stops the trains, never mind terrorism. Rain effecting the subway system is new as of the past few years, because years ago I don't remember there being this problem, every time it rains. I got as far as Lexington Ave on the E train and the train was about to go under the East River to the next stop, which is the stop I get off for my studio, and the conductor said that Lexington was the last stop. I have to be at a meeting on 14th street at 11:30, so rather than risking getting stuck in Long Island City and miss my meeting, I decided to come all the way back home for an hour, change my wet clothes, go down to 14th street and then over to my studio on the 7 train. Hopefully I'll have better luck with the 7.
I'm glad it's raining. The heat has lifted so that makes things easier, and I enjoy working in my studio when it's raining out. I get more done. The sun is a distraction. We have some intermittent thunder rolling through the area right now. It's nice. The sky is dark and flat, almost like the light that is present during an eclipse. Whenever I think of eclipse's I think of the movie with Cathy Bates, "Dolores Claiborne" because an eclipse is featured prominently in that movie. It's one of my favorite films, and in my opinion, widely overlooked. Cathy Bates is stunning in this movie, the story is great, the filming is great, and the location is Maine. I believe it's a nice, solid, two-hour movie too, none of this one and a half hour crap that most movies tend to be these days due to marketing issues. Dolores Claiborne is one of the few movies I've seen multiple times. I place it in the DVD player from time to time just to have it on in the background. Some movies are just comforting to have on in the background; you know the scenes, the lines, the storyline, and the characters become a part of your life, even if they are just replaying the same situations over and over again each time you play the movie. Comfort in repetition. I have a couple other films like that, that I like to play now and then. "Grey Gardens" is one and so is "Jaws". I've probably seen Jaws more times than any other film I can think of, by far. I remember seeing it in the theater when I was a kid. At the Lord Theater in my hometown....or was it the Palace Theater? There were two, small, old theaters in my tiny New England town, before multiplexes and malls took over. It had a large, stained glass window in the lobby. It may even have been a Tiffany glass. I remember seeing the poster for Jaws and I begged my mom to take me. The poster as I remember it, was nothing like the iconic poster that the movie is known for now - of the woman swimming at the surface of the water and the shark rocketing up from the depths to attack. The poster I remember was much more gorey and cartoon-like (which of course made it all the more mysterious and frightening). I remember reading somewhere that at the time of the filming of Jaws, the physiognomy of a Great White shark was still somewhat unknown, for instance, they didn't know that the jaws of a shark are movable and able to 'pop out' of the mouth of the shark so that it can make a wider bite, tear, and chew it's prey. So the original drawings of the shark for the poster is an odd looking creature. Kind of like the drawings of fanciful sea animals from antique manuscripts, with tails and scales, like dragons. I collect copies of Jaws, the book, because until they committed to the final illustration as we know it now, the drawing of the shark and the design of the book went through several changes. One of the original drawings is just a thing with a mouth, it's amazing. (see illustration to the right). I could spend an afternoon just writing about the image on this book cover.
Anyway, Jaws is one of those movies, although horrifying, brings me comfort when watching it because I've seen it so many times over the past 30 years. Plus, I like the setting of summer, along the beach. It reminds me of my childhood growing up on the edge of where the Long Island Sound meets the Atlantic....not too far from where the fictional story of Jaws took place. That's also why I like Grey Gardens...it's the same time frame, 1975, New England/east coast. I'll have to write about Grey Gardens another time because I'll have to devote an entire couple days to that, seeing as though it's my favorite movie.
I'm going to Connecticut tomorrow to see my brother and his family. Theresa, my sister in-law has had her third baby a month or so ago and I haven't seen her yet. I'll stay a couple nights and then come back. I have quite a few nieces and nephews now, and they are always eager to go on walks with me, run around the house and get into mischief. I'm looking forward to seeing them.
That's it for today. I should really write longer on these three important films, but I've got painting to do. So, to sum up, rent the following, even if you've seen them before:
Dolores Claiborne (1995), Jaws (1975) and Grey Gardens (1975).
Oh, and throw in, "Safe"(1995) by Todd Haynes starring Julianne Moore. That is my other, all time favorite film. I'll most definitely talk about Safe on another day.

Day Forty-seven

All that a body carries
Good morning Tuesday. I missed the past couple days of writing, but I'm back today. Hot and humid here. Got lots of work today and I'm looking forward to it. Jonathan has a week off of work at the end of this month and we've finally decided what to do with it, we've committed to going to Chicago. We're taking a train and meeting my friend Nancy (Ford) who lives there. The three of us are driving north along the Lake Michigan into Wisconsin to go camping, or, the other way and driving up along Lake Michigan into Michigan to go camping. Either way it's going to be great. I haven't taken an Amtrak train in a long time, it will take 18 hours from NYC to Chicago. It's basically, for the both of us, the same price as renting a car and driving, but the train will be better so that I don't have to do all that driving. What with the price of gas, maybe in the end the train is cheaper anyway. We'll be renting a car in Chicago for the drive along the lake to camping, but Nancy and I can both do the driving, so that will be nice. I'm glad Nancy can take time off of work, it's going to be a nice time.
The last time I took an Amtrak train was around 2000 or 2001 when I was teaching in Baltimore at the Maryland Institute, College of Art. I would take the train down twice a week to teach. I would get up early and arrive in Baltimore for my 9:00AM class. One afternoon, riding back to NYC on the train from Baltimore I sat in front of this husband and wife who were somewhere in their 70's. The man was sitting by the window behind me, speaking on a cell phone. I surmised from his side of the conversation that he was being interviewed for a magazine or something. He was talking about space (as in SPACE, the space above the Earth) and rockets, Gemini and Sputnik and the space race with Russia. He also referred a lot to a man named Jack......I put all the pieces together and I realized it was John Glenn (the astronaut and Senator) and the "Jack" he was referring to was John Kennedy. Once I figured this out I got up to casually take a glance behind me, and sure enough, it was John Glenn and his wife. It was so great listening to him talk about his experience and talking about John Kennedy in a first-name and personal way.
John Glenn was the first person to orbit the earth. As I listened to him speak I wondered if this supernatural feat-orbiting the earth-would rub off on me some how, sitting so close to him, on a train from Baltimore to New York. Orbiting the earth with your own body, and being the first person to do so, must have some sort of cosmic, spiritual or witchy repercussions, don't you think? And if this elderly man is the first man of all men ever born, to actually orbit the earth, some of that cosmic witchy-ness seems as though it would follow him and his body for the rest of his life, and it also must rub-off on the people he encounters, wouldn't you think?
Anyway, who knows, because in the end he looked like an ordinary, older man, and his wife was wearing one of those ordinary, tight-fitting, pastel colored, skirt and jacket numbers that older woman of wealth wear. You know, woven with some sort of odd and expensive tweed and accented with dangling, over sized, golden buttons. So Even if he did leave the planet into the unknown from the known, he obviously came back and is just a regular elderly-ish man, sitting next to his regular, kind-eyed wife in a colorful outfit. But I still think there must be something witchy and supernatural about him because of his history with space. I'm really glad I got to use the word witchy, because its perfect for what I was trying to describe. It's a real word, I checked.
Speaking of the 60's, Lady Bird Johnson died this past week. I spoke with her on the telephone once. I was working at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture's offices in New York. I had gone to Skowhegan as a student and when I got back I worked in the offices for a summer, doing random things like answering phones, mailings, organizing slides, you know - a young persons' job with a young person's wage; a summer job in Manhattan. Anyway, Ladybird called the office one day because apparently she is or was a big donor to Skowhegan and someone at the office was expecting her call. I didn't know it was her when I spoke to her. Latter in the day the director of the office asked me if I knew who that was on the telephone, I said no, and she told me it was Lady Bird Johnson. It was thrilling, even though it was only a few words. Thrilling in a "one degree of separation" kind of way. Just like it was thrilling on the train that day, sitting next to the body that was the first body to orbit the earth.
I could write more about this but I should get to work. Oh wait, this reminds me of one more thing, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. I remember the day she died. I was doing my laundry at a place on Thompson Street, just a couple blocks south of Washington Square Park, here in Manhattan. I saw the news in the paper (this was before access to online news and computers was so prevalent, seeing as though I read this huge piece of news in an actual newspaper and not online) when I saw the photos and realized she had died I thought, what a drag, because I was hoping to run into her in Central Park or something, just to catch a glimpse, but now I had learned that that was never going to happen. For me, if I had gotten the chance to see Jackie Kennedy in the flesh, as elderly and beaten up and hidden behind huge bug-eyed glasses as she would have been if I spotted her on some morning walk in the park, I would not only have been seeing Jackie Kennedy the woman, but I would also have been gazing upon all that her body has been through and all the history that her body carries around; her husband's assassination, the space race, the civil rights movement, the murder of Martin Luther King, the murder of her brother in-law Robert, the birth of her son John and daughter Carolyn, her cousin Little Eddie, every Warhol painting she was ever the subject of, the Bay of Pigs, everything. It's the same experience as sitting next to John Glenn on a train. It was more than John Glenn that I was sitting next to, it was the entire history that John Glenn embodied. And when I exchanged a few words with Lady Bird Johns, the first lady, that one summer, I was exchanging words with her, and with her husband and president, Johnson. I think the weight of a body holds more than flesh and bone and sickness and emotion, it holds all the history it has meandered through.
I have to get to work. Have a great day and sorry for the lapse in the writing the past couple days.

Day Forty-four

Day Forty-three

A Friday in July

21st and 7th Avenue

It's Friday the 13th, 7:39PM
In the studio. Overcast, slight sun. Been in the studio all day, cutting paper. Things take a long time to do, even cutting shapes from paper. It's a slow news day. Air America (radio) has been talking about Congress arresting Harriet Meyers for contempt of Congress because she refused to show up for questioning. Imagine, just a moment ago she was Bush's candidate to be a Supreme Court Justice and now she's ignoring Congress' request to question her. Can it get any crazier? And what is the deal with her mascara? Does she load up her bottom eye-lid or am I seeing things? It's very strange. She should go all out and layer it on like Siouxsie Sioux. If she did that I would have backed her nomination to the Supreme Court.
I may go to the beach tomorrow with Jonathan and his little nephew, Miguel. Miguel is a lot of fun. We'll probably go to a beach in New Jersey because we'd have to got get Miguel on the train and then train it to the beach. I need to get out of here anyway, even if it is to New Jersey. It's fun bringing Miguel places because everyone knows what it's like being a kid and bored at home, especially in the summer. Sunday it's supposed to rain so tomorrow would be the better day to go.
It feels very disingenuous writing in the blog/novel lately because you can only write about certain things, and other things you have to keep private. It's a real drag. Plus, I continually ask myself why am I even writing this blog/novel anyway. I can see writing just to write, but why do I bother publishing it for people to read, some readers I know, but apparently there are also a lot of strangers reading. I guess it's interesting to some extent.....blather. It still feels narcissistic and fake though, because it's censored to a degree. One of these days I'm going to stop publishing it up on the web, and just keep it to myself. But I'm here today, and babbling, so anyway....hello out there, whoever you are.
Spoke to Monique today. You may know Monique from previous entries to the blog in St. Barth. She came down to visit for a week. She's now in Fresno with her parents, helping them remodel a home from scratch, so she's making many trips to Home Depot and walking around with hammers, nails and measuring tapes. I wish I were in the Central Valley of California right now, can't be any hotter than it is here in NYC.
Let's see, what else. Oh, Jonathan and I read a great article in the paper this morning on the way in on the subway. It was about bottled water and how it's so wasteful, from the production and recycling of the plastic to the cost of purchasing a bottle. The water in New York City is exceptional. It's healthy AND it tastes really good, so people that buy bottled water in the city because they are afraid of the tap water are ignorant and wasteful, and they don't know what they are missing. When I was in St. Barth, I missed being able to drink from the tap. It was necessary to buy water on the island for drinking because there is no fresh water on the island. In New York, we're lucky, the water is good. So if you are reading this in the city, stop buying bottled water. Buy one bottle and save the bottle and keep refilling it from the tap.
That's all for today. I'm want to get some more work done before I leave for the night, especially since I'm not working tomorrow if we go to the beach.
I'm afraid the blog may not be as interesting as it was when I was in St. Barth, but oh well. I'm still doing it, for now. The days here are not filled with adventure and beach, but are filled with smaller adventures, like subway rides and walks to the deli to get lunch, etc etc.
I think I'll write a longer post this weekend that perhaps will be more interesting, but for now, have a good weekend. There are only so many weekends that constitute a summer, so make the most of it.
8:19PM

Day Forty-two

Ghostly and meaty
It's late.
Did a lot of cutting in the studio today, mindless, busy work, but totally necessary and useful. Listened to the radio while working, mostly about Bush's fucked up administration and how dark things are getting. Went to therapy in the afternoon, that was a trip today. If only I could write about everything here in the novel/blog.
Today wasn't as hot as the past few days. I hope it stays this way for a while, sunny, but not too humid. Met with Rachel Tiven, the director of Immigration Equality today for a drink. It was a pleasure meeting with her and talking about immigration. She's going to be on Fox on Tuesday night, being 'interviewed' by Bill O'Reilly. I'm looking forward to seeing that (you're going to do great, Rachel! And wear the pearls!).
Went to Bed Bath and Beyond (which I like to call, Bed Bath and Beyonce - for no reason) and I bought a new hair clipper to replace the one that exploded while I was using it in St. Barth. The elecricity is different there. I was using an adapter but it still exploded, and I mean, exploded, smoke and everything, as I had half finished cutting my hair. Luckily Douglas (Gordon), was cutting his hair at the same time and lent me his clippers to finish my hair. I also wanted to buy a new Sonicare today, because mine met the same fate as the hair clippers in St. Barth, wrong electricity - explosion. It's a real drag because those aren't cheap, and worse, the new model sucks, the head is too small and it has some new movement to them, which I don't need or want. So I didn't buy one tonight at Bed Bath and Beyonce. Maybe I can get a new one online, of the old model that I like.
It's time for bed and a movie just ended that Jonathan and I were just watching, a Fassbinder film, "The Marraige of Maria Braun".







Douglas recommended it. I REALLY like the Fassbinder film that he and I watched together in St. Barth a couple weeks ago, "Fox and His Friends", which I liked more than this film. Maria Braun was in German and it was very German. I'm sure I should watch it again at some point. I was captivated by it though, but not sure why. There were a few scenes that had to do with cigarettes and characters rushing to get them and quickly inhaling. They were funny in their oddly placed desperation (both the scenes and the characters). There's an interview at the end on the DVD of a German film scholar from Harvard. While he's talking, they show a few film clips of Fassbinder talking about the film while he was on the set of Maria Braun (in 1979). Fassbinder at this point has put on weight, is wearing mirrored glasses and a mustache - the fat, skin of his face is ghostly white - thick pancake makeup has been placed on his cheeks, covering sweat and drug use of some kind (cocaine). A ghostly and meaty presence.
Now that I'm listening to this guy describe and talk about certain scenes in the movie, I'm appreciating it even more. Oh, and now he's comparing Maria Braun to Joan Crawford in, "Mildred Pierce" a movie I really love. I'll have to rent that again soon. I think the next Fassbinder film we have to watch is, "Lola".
If you're not interested in or know of Fassbinder, I'm sure today's writing was a bore. I'm going to bed. Good bye.
2:16AM Friday

Day Forty-one

Photos from people

11:11AM
I'm in the studio and it's late already. I left the house late this morning, had to shave and pack a few things to bring with me to the studio, and now the all important morning hours are almost gone, and I have to go to a couple (art) openings tonight, so there goes the evening. Maybe it's just as well because I spent 12 hours yesterday working on this painting that I don't like today and I need to step back and figure out how to 'fix' it, or start something new. My show in November in Vienna feels like it's only five minutes from now because it takes so long to finish the projects I
want to do. There's a video I want to complete, that will either take one week or two months, one of those loose cannon ideas that is hard to gauge how long it will take, or if it will even work. I already have a full calendar of things I need to do this summer, in and out of the studio. I have to manage time better, but I think I already do a good job of that. I really wish I had a twin....or at least my sister to help me. I'm thinking that's my next plan, to get my sister involved to work with me. We're less than a year apart in age, so that's basically the same as twins, and if you're twins, you may as well be the same person, so the dream I have of having two of me to get all the things done I want to get done in this lifetime, may materialize in the form of my sister. We shall see, who knows. Or maybe I'll just make a robot that I can boss around.
Since it's so late in the day already I'm going to keep this brief and get to work in the studio. I've pasted some photographs below that were sent to me while I was away in St. Barth. Thanks for all the great pictures! Before you get to those, here is a picture of my sister from my last show with Salon 94 and The Project, here in New York:
"Self-portrait, Augmented Landscape, Portrait of Liz"

This from Jonathan Meniz in New York on June 22nd:
"Check out this picture I took in the bus today of this old lady, she looks like Yves Saint Laurent..."

This from Nancy Ford on July 10th (her garden in Chicago) :

This from Jessica Watson in Greece on June 22nd:
"a no ice cream and no smoking sign in a Muslim library in Greece"

This from Brody Reiman in Tiburon, California on June 27th:
"i was thinking about a sky/tree/hedge stackish landscape for an 'on location' weather report (for the blog) and then cole ran by..."
This from Drake Hawthorne in Germany from June 21st:
That's it for today. I hope you have a nice Wednesday.