entente cordiale

"There are other aspirants who vie to deface shrines and desecrate sacred cows, but surely it is the highway commissioner and engineer who most passionately embrace insensitivity and philistinism as a way of life and profession." Ian McHarg Design with Nature






The cat was on some kind of bug high, crunching a crane fly; buzzing around the room, agitated.


If you would like to save some lives- go here- some members of our government would like to undo some small attempted good set forth 30 years ago (see Endangered Species Act)- haven't our lives been defiled enough?




I really need to work on capturing some of these free-floating memories.
One of the things that bother me in life, is the realization that he never really cared about what I was feeling. Then again, perhaps its not in his temperment, he might not be able to. I would not want that life.

Photo Profile- Oakland

I think once a week I'm going to try to post a photo of Oakland. I'm trying to get a grasp of this city where I have lived since 1997. I don't understand it, but it mesmerizes me nonetheless.

Here is a picture taken in front of Children's Hospital- MLK Way and 52nd St.

Picture by Jason W. Pickens

What happens when you leave a car alone in Oakland-

Truna!!!

Truna is a strange fellow in Valencia who performs his self-made intruments. I was lucky to see his sound-installation, which allowed one to try to play his weird-wired instruments. His "music" hovered some extra-terrestial orb of its own; a cross of buzzy-bleepy, but now my memory is fuzzy, so I can't explain it accurately. But I took a few pictures--

montmarte

Rainy Rue des Martyrs



Tall buildings i.e. skyscrapers, impressed the European visitor, in European cities, the most impressive urban monument were public structures.. "Commercial towers were symbols of the entrepreneurial American city. The tall office building not only made money for its corporate owner but also celebrated and symbolized the making of money." City Life Witold Rybczynski
…
Pretty much demarks the differences between Americans and Europeans- as mentioned in a previous post.


Last night I went to a bookreading about this book: Walks Through Lost Paris: A Journey Into the Heart of Historic Paris by Leonard Pitt. Paris, city of layers and palimpsests. Yet another mysterious glimpse into this city.

FILL IN ALARMIST AND ARMAGEDDONIST FACTOID HERE

Maybe because there is no good metaphor.

This is a picture illustrated by the German biologist, Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919)


"The ecological view requires that we look upon the world, listen and learn. The place, the creatures, and [men] people were, have been, and now, are in the process of becoming. We and they are here now, co-tenants of the phenomenal world, united in its origins and destiny." Ian McHarg, Design with Nature

More interesting Satie facts, from Perloff's article on Cage and Postmoderism- (down with both, up with Satie)

Le Piège de Méduse (Medusa’s Trap) (1913), was revived as part of a Satie Festival organized by Cage at Black Mountain College in 1948. The production, which marked the American premiere, featured Buckminster Fuller as the Baron Medusa, Merce Cunningham as the mechanical monkey, sets by Elaine de Kooning, dances performed by Cunningham, and piano accompaniment by Cage. While fully notated and scripted (far from a chance piece), Piège de Méduse experiments with absurdist word-play, outrageous disjunctions between dialogue and stage action, and mixed media (dance, theater, music).

furniture music

Today's blog is brought to you by Erik Satie- why? why not?

I did stand outside his former home which is now the Musée-Placard d'Erik Satie-but I did not take a picture. Instead I took a picture of Paris from a few blocks away.






Something Satie said: from this website

"Everyone will tell you I am not a musician. That is correct.From the very beginning of my career I class myself a phonometrographer. My work is completely phonometrical. Take my Fils des Étoiles, or my Morceaux en forme de Poire, my En habit de Cheval or my Sarabandes - it is evident that musical ideas played no part whatsoever in their composition. Science is the dominating factor. Besides, I enjoy measuring a sound much more than hearing it. With my phonometer in my hand, I work happily and with confidence.What haven't I weighed or measured? I've done all Beethoven, all Verdi, etc. It's fascinating.The first time I used a phonoscope, I examined a B flat of medium size. I can assure you that I have never seen anything so revolting. I called in my man to show it to him.On my phono-scales a common or garden F sharp registered 93 kilos. It came out of a fat tenor whom I also weighed. Do you know how to clean sounds? It's a filthy business. Stretching them out is cleaner; indexing them is a meticulous task and needs good eyesight. Here, we are in the realm of pyrophony.To write my Pièces Froides, I used a caleidophone recorder. It took seven minutes. I called in my man to let him hear them.I think I can say that phonology is superior to music. There's more variety in it. The financial return is greater, too. I owe my fortune to it.At all events, with a motodynamophone, even a rather inexperienced phonometrologist can easily note down more sounds that the most skilled musician in the same time, using the same amount of effort. This is how I have been able to write so much.And so the future lies with philophony."

another trauma victim in the war of love

or so-called love...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10384337

pleocytosis

** a little break from Europe now**

Why the world (specifically the United States) drives me crazy- stories like this- (you need a subscription to read the whole story-but you can get the point). URBAN PLANNING!! Such a little important thing, and yet something Americans don't quite grasp!!!

Maybe I'm just obsessing on that because I'm spending my global warming summer focused on that subject. And on that note- from the Italian visionary/architect-
Paolo Soleri-

"Perhaps we are wasting our best energies in trying to get in touch with our creator. The sad thing is that, as far as I know, the creator is not there. We are self-creating." Paolo Soleri The Urban Ideal

And if global warming issues haven't aggravated and disturbed you enough- here's another reason- itchier poison oak!


I spent this weekend: practicing piano, reading, walking around, and writing a sestina. Maybe if it gets posted- I'll send you the link!

And even more Valencia Spain pictures

Go here for more, I couldn't make blogger work for me.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/90508392@N00/sets/

Here's a nice story about Ian McHarg- landscape architect & visionary. I'm currently reading his Design with Nature.

He learned that Harvard University, in distant New England, had a good program, so he wrote that august institution a letter informing them of his intention to study there. He did not apply, mind you, or complete any pre requisite undergraduate courses. He just told Harvard when he was coming, appeared on schedule, and began taking classes, never considering any possibility but his admittance to a course of study. Unsure as to how to handle the upstart designer, the academic authorities opened their classrooms and granted him his degree, or, in his words, "After the war I spend four years at Harvard where I received assurances that I was a professional landscape architect and city planner."

more Valencia street scenes

While wandering on Sunday--

More Valencia stories

"Brief, somewhat fruitless conversation about the corpse in pre-Shakespearian theatre." - Walter Benjamin Moscow Diaries

Sentence written on Fri. 5/19/06 4:20pm while waiting at the Walnut Creek BART station:

We all move in unison, as if choreographed, into position with the oncoming train; while a chorus of sparrows, sound out around us.

More Valencia stories- as I am waiting for my past to catch up to my present.

Sat. night- we had a very nice dinner in the old part of Valencia. My understanding is that Valencia- being an old city established in the Medieval times, has had its modern counterpart built around it. It creates an interesting dichotomy. Afterwards the West Coast Americans decided to go out "on the town." We stopped at a very crowded bar, with gothy-girl like art on the wall. Then we wandered around little more- to finally go home.

Sunday-Mic and I finally went sight-seeing. First, we went to the Museo de Bellas Artes I wanted to see the El Greco painting, there was only one. We walked around some more, etc.
We returned to the Science Museum for the final performances of the festival. After a keystone cops moment, all the performers were gathered for a final "Italian" dinner (because it was the only place left open to eat at the late hour of 11:30). Monday, what was left of the performers went with Rubén (the organizer) to eat paella on the beach. Pretty good! We hung out on the beach for a while, then back into the city's center and finished the day with my favourite meal in Spain- Pinchos with Txakoli!! (I.e. Basque finger food and Basque white sparkly wine). Tues consisted of a quick trip to Valencia's Aquarium (it purported to be the largest one in Europe. And a flight back to Paris.

Valencia pictures

Sleepy diners: Mic, Laurence & Veronika (can someone say jet lag?)

Jason, mystery guy (will have to look up his name later), and Randy's profile.

Taking to the streets- Scott, Mic, Daniel, Randy and other random Valencian boys

mazurka

"Nothing ever happens as planned or expected- this banal formulation of life's complications is borne out so implacably and so intensely in every single instance here that you quickly come to grasp the fatalism of the Russians." Walter Benjamin Moscow Diaries


In Valencia- 5/6
Sat. was spent on recording and performances: Laurence English, Randy Yau & Michael Gendreau. Then a really nice dinner afterwards- with the performers and promoters of the show. No sightseeing yet~


Mic gathering data for Sat. performance



















Me- listening

Randy Yau!!

Scott got in just in time to catch the.....applause and to get a drink w/ Mic.

Chastushka

Thoughts on traveling- or in particular, on this journey.

Although I took a near 500 pictures, there were at least 250 more that I wished I had taken- My desire to document a moment maybe considered a form of madness?

I did not take notes as I promised myself I would before I left. In fact, I hardly wrote anything at all and to reconstruct this whole trip will be have to be based on memory. It's a good thing that my memory is fairly accurate.

Spending every waking hour with someone for more than a few days, in this case ten days, is difficult for me. But its good practice.

I really like Europe. It felt a lot less anxious and less stressful than the US. It appears that Europeans are more relaxed and that people are more interested in living their lives than becoming a product. In the States, it seems like many people are about their "project", what they are "doing" with themselves. In Europe, it felt that people were more interested in life and the interaction with each other. Yes, the people I met have their projects too, but simply enjoying life, eating, conversing, etc. is valued as well. Maybe the grass just looks greener on the other side?

There are a few things I appreciate about the Bay Area though: the air quality is better, there is less invasive cigarette smoke, and recycling is compulsive.

I'm not a big fan of French food, but I like Spanish food, especially Pinchos with Txakoli (ok it's really Spanish Basque- but still in Spain). Muy yum!

pictures:
1. in front of the museum (Burt and Ernie go to Valencia?)

2. A DNA sculpture in the museum

bagatelle

"I read Proust in my room while eating marzipan." - Walter Benjamin Moscow Diaries

I'm back. Its quite unreal to be at work after the ten days that I lived through. The highlights include meeting some pretty curious people and wandering around Paris' streets.

I read a whole book on mosses on the plane ride overseas. I lost Thursday to traveling. After stopping in Charles deGaulle International Airport, and having a peccadillo with some airline transfering; flying in a hot, crowded plane with a screaming kid, we finally arrived in Valencia at the expected time. We were exhausted in in need of a shower. Friday evening was spent watching the performances of Jason Kahn and Daniel Menche. Afterwards, the four of us had dinner at a little local diner around the corner of our hotel. Then Daniel, Mic and I wandered around the area of our hotel to stumble upon an artichoke field, listening to bats.

Museum of Science where the performances
held. Architect: Santiago Calatrava

Artichoke field a few blocks from our hotel-

Gyrovague

In nomine Domini incipit omne malum.


... "It is very rare to meet a free spirit. And if there are some, it is not in the books. When one writes, one mysteriously carries chains. But it happens that someone liberates himself during an intimate conversation, where he takes a distance from his usual convictions. One is only free together with his doubts and his weaknesses - and heretic compared to oneself."... - E. M. Cioran from Notebooks



I'll never promise you a(n) imp rose.


I'm going to Spain to see this: http://www.observatori.com/

Will be back with lots of pictures and notes!

side real

"He writes only because he reads, and he reads only because there are these authors to read time and again. He 'owes' them something or, perhaps, everything, if only because he could not write without them: their writing exists as the precondition of his own…" Judith Butler on Jacques Derrida (London Review of Books)

This is something I read and took note of while spending time in a small town I had never been to and am unlikely to return.
My ongoing dilemma- how to balance the reading life- which is one of removal: silence & solitude, with life which based on immersion? Do I participate in the action, or am I a witness?




But in the meantime, while I excogitate upon that- here are some delightful scenes of a garden tour I took yesterday (Sunday)-

4-22

How I spent my birthday: (4-22)

Slept in, then had a very late brunch at my favourite brunch place- La Note in Berkeley.
Usually I have an egg dish, this time I opted for the Nicoise Salad. Mic had a Toasted Brioche soaked in lavender and honey. Incredibly tasty.

Since it was Cal Day, that is open house for UC Berkeley- we checked out some Museums which as are not usually open to the public- I especially enjoyed the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. I saw live reptiles and little mammals.


Later, we headed into San Francisco and had dinner, wandered around a bit then caught a Japanese film playing in the International Film Festival- The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai. Talk about a wacked out film- it straddles the genres of cutting political criticism (on American's Foreign Policy) and J soft-porn. Quite frankly, I'm squeamish about sex scenes (no good reason except I'm shy or something) so I was overloaded with all the sex scenes, which I knew about, but for some reason it didn't stick in my head when I chose to see the film. I guess I was more taken in by the crazy plot line and the political content. I don't regret seeing it, but I did claim afterwards, " I don't think I'll have sex again", which my boyfriend concurred and the man sitting next to him (which shared our contraband bottle of vodka) exclaimed: "I'm staying gay!"

Anyway- read the reviews- I can never explain this crazy film.
http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/005457.html
http://fest06.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=35

Meconopsis

Passion paradoxically parallels detachment.

amphigory

"Even though almost everything that happens in this world provokes our anger and disgust, we are nevertheless more and more able to find it amusing. Life around us is arranged so as to be moved by absurd forces and tends unconsciously to satisfy its true needs." from Potlatch #20, 30 May 1955

A vernal sentence:

In spring, trees leaf into action.



In life, I would like to remember to take more exact notes. I would like to focus on a technique I call photonotes, that is, writing down accurately all the impressions and associations of a particular moment. I will utilize this practice when traveling.

anabiosis

I have been here, at work, since 8 AM this Saturday morning. But soon I will return to my daily posts of delightful reading extractions, carefully manuf(r)actured sentences, weird word welds, and other ephemera.



In the meantime, read this blog and get mad about our (or lack of) foreign policy
Or, read this article and this article about more depressing global warming issues
Or read about a cool country I've been to
or look at this photo I took in this country






or read this little slip stream poem-



from reading Blanchot:

"obliberate the reader"
O liberate the reader
O literate reader
Illiterate reader
I lit the right leader...

Rehoboam

"I sought, this time, to approach him. I mean I tried to make him understand that, although I was there, still I couldn't go any further, and that I, in turn, had exhausted my resources. The truth was that for a long time now I had felt I was at the end of my strength."
-Maurice Blanchot The One Who was Standing Apart from Me



Slip stream poems-

(poems which one takes a phrase, usually found during reading, consisting of three to seven words, and alters it word by word until possibilities are exhausted or that the "poet" gets bored.)

Here's the first experiment- from several years ago (from ca. 1996)


"alone in the womb"

You tear us
You tell us
I tell us
I say us
I say late ~r.


Another one tomorrow-

4/04/04

The story of 4/04/04, no memorable event happened that day- nothing I did was unusual. It was all about feeling, but it's hard to express that without sounding like some sort of nutjob, but I'll try…..

taken from an entry written that day:


"Today I am walking from CC's warehouse to the 16th St./Mission BART station, I had an amazing realization that everything is as it should be, that is everything is right at this moment. And this is the point for which I've been waiting to arrive. I felt an in credible happiness. Strange conversions have happened and have been revealed to me which have proven that this is true for this moment.

When I came home after feeling this awareness, feeling completely present to this moment's perfection, I had a message from Matthew ( a friend of K's and my former roommates, who he was trying to get a hold of) I called him back on the number he left, and had to leave another message. Then I called J- my ex-boyfriend and now friend, to tell him how happy I felt on this particular day. And to let him now how much I had appreciated the relationship we had, and that I would always love him, no matter where our lives went. During this conversation, Matthew had called me back; unaware I had left him a message. So I returned his call.

Matthew and I had a great conversation; we were of the same mindset on this day. We marveled at our concurrence, for he too had called his ex-girlfriend and had a similar conversation. (The only other time I had met Matthew was at a party, the night of the BIG TERRIBLE breakup with Aa- another story another time) We agreed that in the future, we should go smell flowers together. (I never spoke to Matthew since. I believe that sometimes people are markers- or bookends in one's life. Their arrival in your life is a beginning of something and their departure is a closing. There have been a few people that have played this role in my life- more on this later.)

So on this day I came to the extensive appreciation of all the events that preceded this day and contributed to what was this moment now. I felt an acceptance of my relationship with CC and acceptance of him. I decided to feel happy to just be with him and to let go of expectations from him and everyone else."


*** Funny after note- the next weekend I wrote: weekend of 4/11-
"As for this weekend with CC- he was irritable and moody. I cried a little- he tried to be nicer. I realized that as much as I feel for him, it will never be an easy relationship. He showed me some moments of tenderness, but in so many ways I an uncertain of how he feels about me. I guess it doesn't matter.


So now, 2 years later, how do I feel on 4/05/06?

I will always carry that day's joy within me. You can't make someone love you, but if they do, it’s the most amazing gift anyone can give you; nurture it and help it grow. Now, apart from work being too hectic, this will only last a few more weeks anyway; there are a number of things I look forward to doing and to feeling.

Thank you for your gift…..

eustasy

"One who says atheology also says vacancy of the self – of the self whose vacancy is experienced in a consciousness that, since it is not in any way this self, is in itself its vacancy. " -Pierre Klossowski Of the Simulacrum in Georges Bataille's Communication



The above quote makes me laugh. If you start reading an essay, and that is the second line- watch out!!




another duodecimal poem:

use buildings
to magnify
horizontal space




If you really want to get depressed, as if thinking about global warming wasn't enough- visit my friend, David's site: http://www.well.com/~davidu/extinction.html


4/04/04- I remember very clearly; and I remember being very happy- one of those amazingly joyous days-

more later......

stereospondyl

"Putting to death of the king by the nation is then only the final phase of the process whose first phase is the putting to death of God by the revolt of the libertine great lord. The execution of the king thus becomes the simulacrum of the putting to death of God."- Pierre Klossowski Sade my Neighbor


How I spend some of my Sundays- photo courtesy of Mic Gendreau

Anyway......
When work gets you down, you just need a stiff cock-tail
Here are some cocktail articles I've enjoyed the past few months-bottoms up!


So you want a fancy drink in the East Bay?
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/Issues/2006-03-22/dining/food.html


What happens when you mix whiskey and chartreuse? Don't know, I'll tell you on Monday.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/16/WIG1PHO6EO1.DTL&hw=chartreuse&sn=001&sc=1000

Fancy special cocktails.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/02/WIG7LHEFNL1.DTL&hw=cocktails&sn=003&sc=983


Really expensive fancy special cocktails.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/18/WIGDEE8P9R1.DTL&hw=armagnac&sn=005&sc=153


And Mojitos
http://www.sfbg.com/39/10/x_bottle_rockets.html


Nothing says Sunday like a bloody mary-
http://www.sfbg.com/40/11/bc-bloodytriangle.html

And good old Vodka-
http://www.sfbg.com/39/26/cover_super_vodkas.html

more clouds ahead

my life this past week:

sleep- 29%
work-48%
listen to my friend analyze his break-up-10%
talk to my boyfriend-4%

and then a few little things one must do to slog through this life (like eating, bathing, negotiating with roommates, etc etc -9%

But I have been thinking of a few things that have been on my mind; and I would like to delve into them once I reclaim my life from work-

1. Global warming- when its on the cover of Time magazine- then you know you can't ignore it any longer.

2. Tango - I like having a music obsession

3. Clouds- they have been spectacular in this horrid weather- its the most amazing abstract painting you'll ever have the luxury of viewing.

4. Turn of the century Vienna- (in general, that time era in Europe- the people, the ideas....)
I'm reading a fairly academic book- Fin de Siecle Vienna- I wish I had been there....

precipitation

a picture is worth a thousand words, they say, perhaps a picture of clouds is worth 1500?
Someday I will present those 1500 words- but for now, a some picture of clouds:

the 1st from Duxbury Reef in Pt Reyes
the 2nd from Tel Aviv photo by. Mic Gendreau

eidetic

"The most mediodre libertine has dreamt of sultanas; every notary bears within him the debris of a poet." "...and his heart, like the people who can only stand a certain amount of music, became drowsy through indifference to the vibrations of a love whose subtleties he could no longer distinguish." Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert



Finished reading Madame Bovary the other night, it enervated me, it extinguish any hope of feeling a fulfillment in romantic love. But after finishing the book, I felt relief; after all, as I said before, it is a vivisection of limerance. And if one has experienced both limerance and love, the difference between the two, although at first indifferentialy similar, once crossing the threshold of depth - the contradistinction is shiningly apparent.

So therefore I have hope again…..



Another duodecimal poem- stolen from Debord:

contain
certain conspiratorial
allures.


And a link to a place I would like to visit in CA:

contradistinction

"It is a question here of 'acquired necessities'.Modern man is smothered in these necessities- the television, the fridge, etc.-which render him incapable of living his real life." - On the Current Value of the Functionalist Idea -- A. Jorn




Weekend:

Fri. night I wanted to attend the Pacific Coast Entomology Society meeting, but after 10.5 hrs of work, I could not bear the thought of having to sit through a lecture. So I went home, had wine and read about Alma Mahler instead. Mahler was a tyrant, he discouraged Alma's music aspirations-and saw her as a potential competitor- therefore stifling her talents. But he redeemed himself in the last year of his life, and realized his repression of her.

Sat. I went to the Anarchist Book Fair and later to the SF Garden & Flower show. I wandered around both of these events, watching people and observing two very different spheres of human desires.

And I read.

2046

"Reference in language is a strategy of promise and postponement; it’s the thing that language never is, never can be, but to which language is always moving." -Steve McCaffrey




Duodecimal poems-

(poems in 12 syllables- lines stolen from texts read (Zweig))

penultimate phrase
suffused in a silver sheen

how the tides march by

This month's aspiration: to maintain intellectual refinement in the midst of brutal mundanity, i.e. try to stay smart while having to work at my paper-pushing job, which has been absorbing a lot of time, for the next month.

Example: for breakfast today I ate a half-eaten cinnamon roll, purchase and nibbled on yesterdy, heated for 15 sec. in the microwave , then slathered with organic peanut butter- in order to have a little healthy content. And a cup of coffee. This is not how one should conduct a life.

At least I have been spending some spare moments thinking about Language poetry, can't say if I've made any insightful progress--



Then there are the emotional things--

I think about all the things between us, left unsaid-and no way to say it.

What can I say? Hi, that must be a new coat, I have not seen it before, it looks good. In fact, you like you're doing well. Sorry I ran off, its very hard for me to have small talk with you, that was something we really never did, and quite frankly, whatever is or was between you and I, does not fit into small talk. And yet, I am unsure if you are willing to actually have a real conversation with me.

What could I say to you? I've been very intensely admiring and watching clouds; paying strict attention to their details and forms. I would like to look up at the sky and know what is each cloud, how high it is, what atmospheric conditions gave rise to it.
Or how I've been thinking about colors. How do colors get their names? I've even been conducting experiments to see how colors relate to each other.
I would tell you my life has been going quite well, except for work, which is busy. But that my friends seem to have been afflicted with emotionally trying times. Sometimes I'm lonely for you and I miss you; I wish we could understand each other, but I realize that people make their own choices of how to conduct their life and how to come to terms with their past. I cannot hope to really understand how you feel or what I ever meant to you, perhaps nothing, and that is why things are the way they are.
The thing about us never having a real interaction since that time,is that we crystallize ourselves into that moment. We will never know each other outside of that moment. That is too bad. I would liked to have known you, and have seen the changes that you were to become. As we all go through these transfomations in our altered internal landscapes. I guess this is something we will never know about each other. I would have my appreciation for what you brought to my life…..but well?

personality disorders-

This morning I took a personality disorder test, inspired by this blog's entry

here are my results- I guess it means I'm kind of boring???

Disorder Rating
Paranoid:Low
Schizoid: Moderate
Schizotypal: Moderate
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Low
Narcissistic: Low
Avoidant: Low
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: Low


URL of the test: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personality_disorder_test.mvURL for more info: http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/index.html

Gegenschein

"... and ennui, the silent spider, was weaving its web in the darkness in every corner of her heart." -Flaubert


This weekend held some overwhelming emotional brutality: thinking about these birds gave me some respite-

on Wrentits (Chamaea fasciata) "... unusual among songbirds, they mate for life and are virtually inseperable. They often sleep together on a branch, blending into a single ball of feathers."
-Verna R. Johnston California Forests and Woodlands: A Natural History




Stolen Poem- lines lifted from texts read:

The murk
has no shape
or pattern
except when carved by light.

where murk,
between,
metaphoric
space-defining
fires form
clarity
this order,
this intricate life

Art Murmur #3- and weekend

My weekend:

Is it absurd to write about your weekend when it's already Wed.? touché

Fri. I finally some home from brutal work. I meet with G.- we head out to Bootling gallery, its another Oakland Art Murmur, and since all the galleries are within a mile of my house, I should go...…

Bootling was crowded with people and art. Painting & drawings crammed on the wall- edge to edge, only marked by a number. There was a list that informed you of the art piece and its creator. I was surprised to see that I knew at least 3 people on that list (I always think I know no one and am surprised if I know anyone). But it was too people-filled and since it was hard to view art, we left, plus we had to meet A at the usual spot, the Dork Club- (I mean Stork). A was there, in her beauty, as always- she was in a sexy-casual look this evening, with eyeglass frames and Converse shoes, which finished the whole ensemble. A had tequila, G had a martini, I had vodka (I learned from last time).
Then we hit Mama Buzz- gelatinous prints of landscapes? I remember saying something controversial to a guy- then having to explain myself to his girlfriend, taking her by the arm and trying to understand a work with a character embodying informe (fr), having a discussion with a couple of other guys about the body which transgresses it's boundaries, running into a couple of more people I knew- surprise!!
G wanted a t-shirt but the shirts were too big. So we left.

Next stop- Ego Park- we took off our shoes for this one. A spotted a pair of pumps which drove her ecstatic- she tried them on and posed while G took some pictures-the pumps' owner came back, a bit surprised, not quite sure what to say to this red-haired woman who was wearing her shoes. However, she was a good sport and retrieved her shoes. A chatted with a boy and a girl with a little shivery dog- which I pet- then the girl handed over the dog, and I walked around looking at art with the little shaking dog.
Then off to the next gallery- 21 Grand...…

After a drink and watching slightly eery videos projected on the back wall- the vibe here was pretty mellow- A & G chatted up a few fellows- I think I just wandered around and looked at art. After going outside, I feel into conversation with 3 older women about boobs- and confessing that I did not wear a bra- they were stunned....and jealous.
A, G & I left with one of the women (a curator, I think) and headed out to 33 Grand, A & I skipping, hand in hand, while G conversed with the woman.

Large scale muted drawing of overview perspectives on landscapes. A ran into a older friend she knew, who seemed enthusiatic in joining us to the next gallery, but I think his boyfriend wasn't down with that. So we left.

A took us to Auto gallery- the one I wanted to go to all evening. But she left us and went to continue her evening elsewhere. Great photos at Auto, and as always, Tracy was a gracious host, it was nice to see her again. All the wine had been drunk; and stragglers were trying to find their last party, or finish their last conversation. In other words, the gallery was open enough to see the art, with little to no competition. We did head back to Bootling, but it was still quite packed- then after we ate at Koryo-(Lanesplitters was too much of a packed, wait for an hour, scene) we finally had a moment to see the art, before the proprietors closed down the gallery and turned off the light.

Then Sat. was spent waking up at 7Am- to go to U.C. Berkeley class on Natural Historians, Botanists and other adventurers for both Sat. & Sun. This was held at the Jepson Herbaruim. This place is amazing- even its acoustics. more details to come.....

clerisy heresy

Thoughts spurred by reading Madame Bovary- especially the idea of "le mot juste"- which has been very influential in my own attempts at writing. The effect and importance of the word …..I found that M. Bovary is an amazing crystallization of language's intrusion into our literary-crude world, but also it is literature's best vivisection of limerance.


This weekend I had been trying to think of what I thought my response would be to the idea of a spectral poetics- presented on this blog-


This is what he writes:
I think poetry (in general) is the house, the thing that gets occupied or haunted. And form or style is the vehicle, or the spectre, depending on your perspective and the age in which you live. To put it differently: poetry is an institution that we as a culture construct over time. We decide things like, “yes, this poem moves us,” or, “this poem is totally forgettable.” The establishment (academics, publishers, etc) decide a lot of that for us, but we have a say in what goes into the walls of that house too.
But over the centuries, things changed in the English-speaking world - we had a couple of nasty wars that broke our romantic ideals, or at least permanently altered them. Those romantic ideals - true love, an ordered universe, “civilized” behavior - were closely associated with things like the sonnet, the villanelle, the vocative O (”O Titus!”). We rebelled against those things - forms and styles - and gave birth to free verse. Once upon a time, the sonnet was the vehicle … now it’s the ghost. But the ghost and vehicle occupy the same house, right along with us.
I could be wrong about all of this, you know.



And this is what I thought: please forgive my hasty thoughts, however, as I am not trained in this process, I have also not been thinking about this idea for awhile. Mostly these thought are an intuitive response.

Vehicle, house- these are both metaphors which work as long as the construct of the metaphor is consistent. We are haunted by the debris of language's past meanings and uses* as language moves through time, it is a very flexible tool that can adapt to the changing demands of the user.

And many things have changed; not only socio-political/ economic, but philosophical, psychological understandings have (not totally usurped) at least challenged the romantic ideals of the individual as well as changes in technology and science. A cultural product (a poem in this case) is only as relevant to an audience as long as it speaks and addresses the concerns, desires and needs of that audience. The landscape of language has been altered so dramatically that poetry forms, like the sonnet, no longer correspond to the contemporary reader. These forms have been replaced more effectively with other types of cultural production- film, pop music, etc.

So perhaps the question is where does poetry fit in the contemporary world? I guess this is what some theses are about. I personally don't know.


* some idea of language through time- written by Mic Gendreau-
Some ideas from this morning, which will hopefully point to better ideas:

Parataxis, dynamic synchronism MLG 22 Dec 2004

Jakobson split from Saussure regarding the concepts of static synchrony and diachrony. He basically disagrees that language (or, its constituents, phonology, grammar, typology) can be examined as a present and static concept. He combines the concepts into a “dynamic synchrony.” That is, the various elements of a time-variant language exist simultaneously. (Similarly, spatial variants coexist.) Thus, we have a common form of English, but which coexists with various still comprehensible archaisms.

When the split occurred, it may have seemed more radical that it does today. We have the benefit of similar researches in other sciences, especially fuzzy set theory, the uncertainty principle, and the like, which consider the feature selection necessary to partition and examine a single aspect of a gestalt to be essentially an interference with the subject to some degree. This is akin to solving and equation by linearizing it, neglecting the messier components that one hopes will have less significance in the results.

What is interesting about this is, that if you go back far (or wide) enough, an individual, depending on their knowledge, might encounter a form of English that is no longer comprehensible. I am thinking of the variances in Old English and the versions that preceded it, in my own case.

Now, we consider this with respect to a language or form of communication that is paratactic, containing preverbal or extra-verbal elements. Paratactic communication is remarkably (and perhaps by definition) difficult to analyze or even “know” in a regular way. Perhaps an element of this is the extreme diachronic density of the information. For example, whatever the informational limits an individual might have of the syntactic language she or he uses, the limits are likely to extend much farther back in time and scope for a preverbal language. For example, a 1,500 year old poem heard in Latin (by me) might contain very little meaningful semantic information, but if read correctly, contain a significant amount or paratactic (or at least preverbal, or at least “sonic”) information. I can presumably process and “understand” or in some way “know” preverbal information extending back to the dawn of communication and beyond, but the ancient diachronous elements of English or French that I am able to use are much more recent and thus, more meager.

Chytridiomycota

[Cioran on England] "The country has not produced, to my knowledge, a single anarchist."

Here's a little excerpt abut Cioran written by Duncan Fallowell:

"As the high priest of cynicism, Cioran raises negativity to the most positive of virtues. He writes like a Nietzsche streamlined by Cocteau in the 1930s and given a flick knife by Camus in the 1950s. Cioran is the only modern philosopher who is also a great writer, turning extreme anguish into supreme elegance."


On another note, last night I started reading Flaubert's Madame Bovary for the third time.
The first time was when I was in high school; the second, while I was in college, now after reading inexcusable amounts (any amount would be inexcusable) of lit-crit, and after reading the wonderfully cogent Llosa book, The Perpetual Orgy that focused on Llosa's own obsession of M. Bovary and how Flaubert's novel changed the literary landscape; I decided to embark on this particular textual voyage once again.

The most striking element I noticed is the cadence of the writing. Granted, I am reading a translation, and I am aware of how much I will lose, but this translation (as mentioned in the intro) maintains much of the cadence. I am drawn into the sentence's rhythm; it alters the measure of my own thoughts. I will have to capture some paragraphs and present them at a later entry……

This weekend: art, Western Naturalists and possibly noise……..

As time goes by

I wonder if a love so complete exists that all other desires evaporate?

That you can find someone who can sit quietly with you, who will hold your hand, even if you don't want to say anything.

Someone with whom to wrap up in a blanket and listen to music, or to read books.

Someone to walk with in the night, along way; and listen to the darkness and watch scenes pass you by.

Someone with whom to pass an evening conversing feels like the best way to spend your time.

Someone who cares what thoughts you have brewed in your alone time.

Someone with whom sleeping next to feels like comfort.

Someone who you can trust to share everything.

Is it possible?

Pikas and Wittgenstein

Sat. I woke up and this poem popped into my head:


Another lagomorph poem:

a pika peeked
above high mountain peaks
and piped a squeak



Pika’s are pretty cute, and yes, I had pika on the brain because I read a sad article of how global warming could drive the pika to extinction. Here’s an article.

and an image




I spent most of Sunday reading Norman Malcolm’s Memoir on Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein and Xenakis are two men I would have loved to have met, they fascinate me with their unique minds, however, I think they would have been very difficult and moody.

Here are some excerpts:

“When a dish that looked especially appetizing was brought to the table, I sometimes exclaimed “Hot Ziggety”- a slang phrase that I learned as boy in Kansas. Wittgenstein picked up this expression from me. It was inconceivably droll to hear him exclaim “Hot Ziggety” when my wife put the bread and cheese before him.”

“Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life! By ‘them’; he undoubtedly meant his close friends. When I think of his profound pessimism, the intensity of his mental and moral suffering, the relentless way in which he drove his intellect, his need for love together with the harshness that repelled love, I am inclined to believe that his life was fiercely unhappy. Yet at the end he himself exclaimed that it had been wonderful! To me this seems a mysterious and strangely moving utterance.”

places to go...things to see

This quote was in my word of the day email, another attempt to wrap our bony fingers around art’s neck:
"Much art today has abandoned the ambition to please the viewer
aesthetically. Instead, it seeks to shock, discommode, repulse,
proselytize, or startle."
Roger Kimball; Art Without Beauty; The Public Interest (Washington, DC);
Apr 15, 1997.

Last night (wed), I attended one of Shaping San Francisco’s Spring Talks: Nature in the City. For all purposes it promised to cover a topic which combines a couple of issues I’ve been thinking much about as of late: urban design and ecology. Unfortunately the speaker was inexperienced and verged on the extremely dull. He hammered on about the alienation of the urban with nature a little to often- plus that point of view is old hat- I expected something a little more scientific. I also thought he would go into more detail about places within the city to go and "experience" nature, which he did in a small way. I do applaud the speaker’s enthusiasm in bringing this issue to the public, and he did have the foundations in creating a compelling talk- perhaps after a few months with the Toastmasters, he will gain the needed public speaking skills. The woman who followed him, Ruth Gravanis, was a far superior speaker, however after nearly an hour of the first guy, and she wasn’t informing me of what I already did not know, so I left.

Anyway, I did learn some cools facts about Douglas-Fir beetles and Spotted owls in my readings- here’s it is below- and also about amazing forest here in CA that I would like to visit soon…and I have been reading a lot of Bruce Chatwin's essays- the one I found particularly interesting was about nomads- more at a later date.

Douglas Fir Beetle-
the Douglas-fir beetle employs a half-dozen distinct acoustic signals. The males employ distinct chirps, indicating: (a) approach to the egg gallery entrance containing a female, (b) imminent copulation during courtship, (c) rivalry with other males, and (d) situations of stress. The female generates a distinct chirp when constructing and guarding her egg gallery (Ryker 1984). Toward Synthesizing Artificial Neural Networks that Exhibit Cooperative Intelligent Behavior: Some Open Issues in Artificial Life by Michael G. Dyer http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~dyer/Papers/Alife94Position.html

Northern Spotted Owl: “the right ear larger than the left to help triangulate sound”

Northern California Coast Range Preserve (NCCRP)

Located in the San Francisco Bay area, this biosphere reserve includes a highly diverse complex of evergreen sclerophyllous woodland, coastal, estuary and marine ecosystems. San Francisco is a focal point for coastal industry and trade. Tourism, some agriculture and fisheries, transportation, manufacturing, military installations, and research and educational institutions are also important to the regional economy. The primary aim of the biosphere reserve is to develop a commitment to ecosystem management among the various management agencies. Given the intense human pressure of the area, the conservation of biodiversity is very challenging. Of particular concern is to raise environmental awareness among the diverse urban communities.

Major ecosystem type :temperate rainforest

Major habitats & land cover types: At Angelo Reserve)Mixed forests (including mixed evergreen, California bay, tan oak, madrone, upland redwood, upland Douglas-fir, Pacific yew, and knobcone pine); woodlands (including Oregon oak, black oak, interior live oak, and mixed north-slope cismontane); mixed chaparral (including chamise, montane manzanita, whitethorn, tobacco brush, buck brush, interior live oak, and north-slope chaparral); bald hills prairie; grassland; freshwater seep; coastal winter steelhead trout stream; coastal salmon stream

(At Big Creek Reserve)Coastal strand; coastal bluff scrub; coastal scrub; ceanothus shrub; sage scrub; rocky scrubland; chamise chaparral; coast range and streambank woodland; stream-mouth woodland; sycamore-(draw woodland; coast live oak forest; mixed hardwood-coast live oak forest; mixed hardwood-canyon live oak forest; Ponderosa pine-Hoover's manzanita woodland; Ponderosa pine-mixed hardwood-coast live oak forest; Ponderosa pine-mixed hardwood-canyon live oak forest; Ponderosa pine-coast live oak forest; coulter pine forest;Santa Lucia-fir woodland; redwood streamside forest; redwood-mixed hardwood forest; pure redwood forest; aquatic (both freshwater and marine) habitats

UNESCO biosphere sites-

http://www.unesco.org/mab/BRs.shtml


Bruce Chatwin
http://www.prospector-utah.com/chatwin.htm

silly fixations- Furby's & Mt. beavers

Reading this week has been a bust, sad to say. Instead I can share some absurd little obsessions that I’ve had this week. One was on Furby's, I read earlier that the NSA banned them from their offices, so I searched a little to see what Furby’s were about. Here’s some very strange tidbits I discovered about Furby’s:


Equipped with a computer chip, sensors and a vocabulary of 200 words of a nonsense language called "Furbish," the slightly sinister-looking animatronic pet responds to touch, sound and movement. Furbys can communicate with each other through infrared signals and can be taught to speak English. Spooky. From idg.net November 24, 1998

Furby resembles an owl, with tufts of hair between its huge pink ears.

"We are prohibited from introducing these items [Furby] into NSA spaces. Those who have should contact their Staff Security Office for guidance," a memo said. CNN
January 13, 1999

Furby autospsy http://www.phobe.com/furby/auto1.html

They are still popular with many hackers as they can be dissected and made to do interesting things, as well as teenage pyromaniacs, who would often burn the devices while listening to them continue to speak their normal language. From Wikipdeia

This site I go to every day, an result of my color obsession. You can create your own little color cell then try to give it more life by choosing it each day- you can also choose other color cells to help give them more life and move up in ranking. Your color cell can even combine with another color cell and have a child. – Color evolution…?

http://colorcell.uneven.org/index2.php


I read a little about Mountain Beavers (Aplodontia rufa) in one of my readings- they are not beavers, nor do they live in the mountain- but here’s some very interesting facts about this strange rodent.


The mountain beaver is not really a true beaver. It's a little-known but fascinating rodent which occupies a unique taxonomic and ecological niche. It lives underground in burrows and is seldom seen above ground. Most people don't even know it exists. Little is known of its ecology.
http://www.infowright.com/mtbeaver/

Biography Aplodontia rufa is the only species and genus in its family with no known living relatives. The species, "is considered the most primitive living rodent, with an ancestry that goes back into the first half of the Tertiary Period (approximately 66 to 3 million years ago), when modern mammals first evolved" (Wilson and Ruff 1999).
http://bss.sfsu.edu/holzman/courses/Fall%2003%20project/mtnbeaver.htm

more
http://www.thewebsiteofeverything.com/animals/mammals/Rodentia/Aplodontidae/Aplodontia/Aplodontia-rufa.html

murmuring about art

I’m still at work, so I thought I would share my 2nd art murmur adventure which took place on Feb. 3. It’s Oakland’s newest hipster thing to do. I was re-reading it in my notebook last night, on BART, while all around me hopeful infautants were traveling to their destinations. Charmed…

Scene snapshot:

I’m early. I call A (who will be accompanying me) to see what she wants to drink. We meet at the Stork Club. Personally, I think it’s a kitsch-filled dive, but it has its fans, I’m not one of them. A’s a tequila drinker, and she’s apt to announce it, as she done each time we have gone drinking. I order, for myself, a vodka martini. The bartender has no touch this evening, and makes it too dirty and it tastes flat. A shows up with wild flaming red hair and red lipstick. It’s the kind of look that attracts men to a shiny object. We drink our drinks, we chat about possible connections we’ve had in the past. Then we hit the galleries.

The first gallery oozes the kind of art that I do not have an affinity. I look out of consideration, A talks. She mentions many names that I will forget. She has many men vying for her attention and many more coming down the pipeline. I see it as a potential bigtime operation. I listen well, but I don’t take notes, so I can’t really give any details.

Then another gallery. A flirts with men along the way, muttering under her breath to me after each encounter, how she hates men. I merely observe how easily they fall. I’m glad I don’t have their weak brains. I also feel above the need to interact in the romance hunt. Maybe I’m arrogant, but I feel relieved of ever having to participate in that again. Its more amusing and entertaining for me to watch everyone else do it. This gallery shows photos and paintings, mostly portrait work. The proprietress strikes a formidable presence, but I find that I like her. She gives me a large amount of vodka, more than what I should be allowed to drink- after some random chatting and looking, we are off to the next one.

This gallery shows the most interesting work, but its a hit and run. I have to catch BART to SF. A walks me to the station and leaves red lipstick on my check, then she heads back to her adventures. I go underground.

Red

Lately, I have dreamt of colors, mostly purples.

Some amazing things I read in the last few weeks- captures my fluctuating state of emotions: there, I find you hidden among the things I read.


“Nietzsche’s solitude was as wide as the world; it spread over the whole of his life until the very end…He wandered like a wraith in the shadow of great towns, in dusty trains, in various sickrooms, while all around the vanity fair of the arts and sciences was in full swing.” Stefan Zweig Master Builders

“We need art in the arrangement of cities as well as other realms of life, to help explain life to us, to show us meanings, to illuminate the relationship between the life that each of us embodies and the life outside us. We need art most, perhaps, to reassure us of our own humanity. However, although art and life are interwoven, they are not the same thing.”
- Jane Jacobs Death and Life of Great American Cities

“I shall never see an episode like it again if I live to be a hundred, nor do I think that one man in a million has ever seen it, because man is an intruder into such silences. The light must be right, and the observer must remain unseen. No man sets up such an experiment. What he sees, he sees by chance.” Loren Eiseley “The Judgment of Birds”

shades of purple

Shades of Purple-

Due to increased work commitments- posts will be a little less for some time.

For the past week, though, I’ve been obsessed with shades of purple-
Maybe because Valentine’s Day is coming up, and although I’ve never had any associations with the holiday, since last year, it has become a very sad reminder.
And purple- not pink or red, but rather like the color of a bruised heart.
Apart from that, purples and violets are lovely colors. So here are the ones I found, presented here for you, from the top row, left to right: mauve, puce, lilac, and orchid.




And the bottom row, left to right: amethyst, heliotrope, wisteria, and violet.




For the last month, and hopefully continuing for the next several months, (even years?), I have formulated an intensive reading plan. Books to be read, on the following subjects-simultaneously.

Books to be read n the following subjects:
1. science, natural history or math
2. Biography, autobiography, or personal essays
3. Urban studies, urban design or landscape architecture
4. theory, philosophy, literary criticism, or poetics
5. history- (political, cultural, etc.)
6. a work of fiction every 6 weeks.

I guess this covers almost everything of worthy interest?

ha!

Something I wrote in my journal (the analogue one, which I keep up to date and filled with “thoughts”)
I realize that in this life, mine, two opposite actions tears it apart. A life of contemplation and reading, is set against the other, a life of diverse activity. I go to lectures, art openings, performances, shows and other events; I meet and converse with people. This flurry of activity, walking, talking- are all very transparent. I am unable to contain it to words. On the other side is my reading life, with so many books read, yet I need to take better notes. How to walk down this life pathway so incredibly external and internal and how does one overcome the difficulty in documenting both?

“Extremism is usually an empty attitude.”

Gamboge

No real amazing quote today- just a funny little line I read in the newspaper a few days ago about plants-

"These days, I have a new attitude toward my plants: Perform or perish. Life offers enough irritations without playing nursemaid to a petulant shrub."

Tisa Watts SF Chronicle 1/25/2006

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/25/HOGSMGQ5ST1.DTL



Just weird stuff today- a little foray into my mind.
I get through the day by having little strange obssessions- so today I'm listening to animal recordings off this site- I'm sure any co-worker who might wander by, might be curious to hear frogs coming from my computer- I especially like the Lynx sample:
http://www.fonozoo.com/eng/sonidos.php



Gamboge is a rather transparent dark mustard yellow pigment. Throughout history gamboge has been known by many names. The most common in the western world are "rattan yellow" and "wisteria yellow". These are literal translations of the pigment's japanese and Chinese names. The English word "gamboge" appears to be derived form the same origin as Cambodia, which was earlier Camboja. Other names like Gummi Gutta, Gummi Gambogia, Gamma Gitta, and Gom Guttae are derived form the method by which the pigment is extracted from trees.

Gamboge: RBG (255,155,15) and my sample--






bye!

Cobalt

“It has been long said that the desert is monotheistic. Is it illogical or devoid of interest to observe that the district in Paris between place de la Contrescarpe and Rue de l’Arbalète conduces rather to atheism, to oblivion and to the disorientation of habitual reflexes” Guy DeBord Introduction to a critique of urban geography


Cobalt: RBG (0,71,171)


A little history on cobalt from this site: Although smalt, a pigment made from cobalt blue glass has been known at least since the Middle Ages, the cobalt blue established in the nineteenth century was a greatly improved one.The isolation of the blue color of smalt was discovered in the first half of the eighteenth century by the Swedish chemist Brandt. In 1777, Gahn and Wenzel found cobalt aluminate during research on cobalt compounds. Their discovery was made during experimentation with a soldering blowpipe. The color was not manufactured commercially until late in 1803 or 1804.The Minister of the French government, Chaptal, appointed Louis Jaques Thénard and Mérimée to look into the improvement of artists' colors. Thenard developed this new cobalt blue by his observations at the Sevres porcelain factory. He experimented with roasting cobalt arsenate and cobalt phosphate with alumina in a furnace. He published his results in late 1803-4 in the Journal des mines, "Sur les couleurs, suives d'un procédé pour préparer une couleur bleue aussi belle que l'outremer."

And also, my cobalt from our weak MS program:



some half-sentences:

Suffer serious seductions.....

chartreuse

"All cities are geological; you cannot take three steps without encountering ghosts bearing all the prestige of their legends. We move within a closed landscape whose landmarks constantly draw us toward the past. Certain shifting angles, certain receding perspectives, allow us to glimpse original conceptions of space, but this vision remains fragmentary. It must be sought in the magical locales of fairy tales and surrealist writings: castles, endless walls, little forgotten bars, mammoth caverns, casino mirrors.” – Giles Ivain Formulary for a new Urbanism

If you want to make chartreuse: RGB (127,255,0) or pantone 15-0751

my sentence, which is totally automatic today:


The chartreuse chanteuse was charged with puce abuse.

Puce

"All beautiful expressions are susceptible of more than one meaning. When a beautiful expression presents a meaning more beautiful than the author's own, it should be adopted." - J. Joubert Oeuvres from Walter Benjamin's The Arcades Project



Today I am fixated on the color puce, I found this from a website of Regency colors-

One of the more obscure colors used in Regency novels is puce. It's a color nearly always treated with disdain but what color was it, really? It might help to know that the word puce comes, as so many others, from the French. Puce is the French word for flea! Yes, the color is a brownish-purple or a purplish-pink, the color of the blood-sucking flea; coagulated blood in other words. It may seem astonishing to the modern reader that one of the most popular colors in 1805e. was puce.


So- if you want to make puce: RGB (204,136,153) or Pantone 19-1518 TC

Here's my puce from a cheesy MS- program

haptometer

"Each poet should then be represented by a diagram which would indicate the meaning and the symmetry of his metaphoric coordinations, exactly as the diagram of a flower fixes the meaning and the symmetries of its floral actions." Gaston Bachelard Poetics of Space


Sunday:
I wandered around Alameda, I ate sushi, I read Loren Eiseley, I wrote. I notice when I enter restaurants with my aloneness, my books and my notebooks; the wait staff treat me with a sort of deference; as though my solitude carried with it vulnerability. They never rush me, and are hovering on the edges, available. Or maybe they think I’m some sort of food critic, with all my scribbling in my notebook, after thoughtful bites of food. I would like to believe it’s the former.

The cold hearts of this world plunges me into an inescapable sadness. Sometimes I get the feeling that my only friends are: you, books, sleep and alcohol, in that order. I wish my tears could turn into musical notes then I would feel that my crying would be something more than wasted water. Back to submerging myself in books.

pair a more

"The door to the past is a strange door. It swings open and things pass through it, but they pass in one direction only. No man can return through, he can look down still and see the green light waver in the water weeds."Loren Eiseley The Immense Journey



The past week my dreams have been made of broken parts. I am slowly realising that spending time in other's company only leaves me feeling your absence more intensely. So my desire is to immerse myself deeply in books, not in conversation. I will have to spend my days, wandering the streets, stopping in cafes to read, and then wandering again.


My sentence, inspired by a Butoh performance.


Mere minute gestures express internal mental exposure; expend, contract then eventual release.

voyeur

Katherine Anne Porter on Hart Crane: Hart would "weep and shout, shaking his fist. 'I am Baudelaire, I am Whitman, I am Christopher Marlowe, I am Christ.' But never once did I hear him say that he was Hart Crane."


This excerpt is from a book I picked up in Powell's back a few weeks ago- Chance Meeting, by Rachel Cohen- there's an excellent essay written by the author about the inception of the book.
The second part of the title sums up the book quite succinctly; Intertwined Lives of American Writers and Artists, 1854-1967. I enjoy reading it greatly, since I am a life voyeur, that is, I derive unspeakable pleasure reading and looking into lives of others. Especially the lives of the quite strange, partially unhinged, and extremely intellectual, as this book is filled with these sorts of characters.

As for my own life.... in your absence, I have fully indulged my religion of reading, and have been spending too much time in solitude, as my preference for now.

Monday night- I had Chinese at my "neighborhood" restaurant on Piedmont Ave. Staring out the window, watching curious faces pass below me; I ate alone and read some more of Death and Life of Great American Cities, which I am slogging through very deliberately. I was the only lone diner, I thought of you, dining alone, an ocean away. Then I walked home the long way, passing by the Fishtank, to peer into its dark windows.

Tuesday night, I returned books to the Berkeley Public Library, and I bought an umbrella because it started to rain heavily and the umbrella I had was like a broken bird. I had dinner at Cancun, and finished reading Brokeback Mountain (a book I would not usually read, but my co-workers were sharing it, and it was an easy read.) Then I walked home in the pouring rain, becoming quite soaked by the time I arrived home.


I may be alone, but I do not feel empty.

zooxanthellae

"There is a night world that few men have entered and from whose greatest depths none have returned alive-the abyssal depths of the sea." - Loren Eiseley from The Immense Journey






I have spent immeasurable hours, beneath the odorous shadows of other writers, whose words reside within my mind.

January activities

Of course, January began in Portland, but there have been many activities to date:

On Jan. 6 at the Hemlock in SF- Bitcrush and Run_Return-

Bit crush is Mike Cadoo - who was in the evolved "industrial" band, Gridlock, back in the day. Bitcrush's sounds builds on the dark atmospheres of industrial ambience and the broken and jagged beats of the darker days of drum 'n bass.
Run_return, a local, Oakland band, has a undefinable sound. Shall I say, very groovy- a good live show.

Jan. 7- at Lobot gallery in West Oakland- art reception- "There is Nothing to See" - a collection of sound installations- the press release says it best-

"LoBot Gallery presents There is Nothing to See- a sound-based group show that explores the outer limits of sonic experience.

Running the gamut from the unsettling (Joe Colley's sculpted mouths that emit animal distress calls) to the sublime (Peter Regli's broken glass symphony), There Is Nothing To See is an aural train wreck of colliding techniques and processes.Angel Sanchez-Borges resurrects Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix for a virtual jam session. Sarah Filley translates EEG readouts of a brain in the throes of a seizure for her composition, Cerebral Score. Jorge Boehringer's record (fashioned from a felled redwood tree stump) grinds endlessly through the locked grooves of the tree's growth rings. Tom Grimley's exquisitely handcrafted instruments play themselves, as do Albert Ortega's Wal Wart(s). For a more intimate experience, stick your head inside Sandy De Lissovoy's audio cone or crawl inside Jacqueline Gordon's sound-gathering geodesic dome. Betty Jo Costanzo's tin can phones provide the lo-fi/no-tech counterpoint to the entire (dis)array."

My favourite was T. Grimley's constructions, I guess I like watching the little gears shift around accompanied by unpredictable noise expulsions.

Jan. 11 - Lecture/reading/signing- Jared Diamond on his new book Collapse
Following his pioneering book, Guns, Germs and Steel, Diamond spoke about how civilations fall into ruin. He tried to positive and and hopeful, but as eluded to in my last post- I know, we're doomed.

The weekend of 1/13 & 1/14 was a double header at the 21 Grand Gallery in Oakland.

Jan. 13-Jiffy Scuttler Presents: Greg Davis/Sebastien Roux, Birdshow, Gregg Kowalsky

Overall- pretty good show, ranged from the extra-European noisey- Greg Davis/Sebastien Roux; to the more sweetly melodic and improvised- Birdshow.

Jan. 14- Jiffy Scuttler presents: Semiconductor (UK) + Antimatter/ Tim Perkis/ Wobbly

The Antimatter/ Tim Perkis/ Wobbly part was droney and improvised.

I have been waiting to see Semiconductor all week. A duo based in the UK, they're doing a residency at UC Berkeley's Livermore Space lab- they combine computer graphic films with sound. The Inaudible Cities piece was my favourite- check out their blog here. This was their last show before they head back to the UK, I was very glad I was able to see them.

proprioceptive

“Who can say whether the dead pass their time-or Time- in remembering, retrogressing into organic dissolution back to their primordial soul of stone; and whether it is not highly disagreeable for them to be awoken (nocturnal oblivion being above all yet another memory) when the day of Eternity dawns.” - Alfred Jarry Days and Nights



Sad news about frogs and other amphibians-depressing, going home now.

Portland 2006

I started 2006 in Portland. I went to Powell's Books the three days that I was there, and I managed to only walk away with four books, pretty miraculous for me! Powell's is far the largest bookstore I have ever been in. On Jan. 1, we wandered around the Pearl District, since we were staying in the downtown area.

On Jan. 2- we visited the Japanese Garden, in Washington Park, which is large and lovely. We strolled in the gardens then visited Hoyt Arboreteum, also in Washington Park.
The next day I visited the Chinese Classical Garden in Portland's Chinatown. It rained the whole day, and the garden was particularily nice to visit, then I had tea in the tea house while I watched the rain. Anyway, pictures are posted below.

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Chinese Teahouse in Portland's Chinese Classical Garden

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Originally uploaded by veti_vert.

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Portland's Chinese Classical Garden with city buildings behind.

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Originally uploaded by veti_vert.

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Portland 20060101 005
Originally uploaded by veti_vert.

Japanese Dry Garden in Portland on Jan. 2, 2006

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Portland 20060101 004
Originally uploaded by veti_vert.

Small tree close-up, Japanese Garden
w/ lichen & moss

cosmopolite

"And I reason at will, in the same way I dream, for reasoning is another kind of dreaming." - Fernando Pessoa from The Book of Disquiet


I've read many strange things- but this excerpt, by far, is one of the strangest, from today's Wall Street Journal, an article from the front page:

"His mission is to clean up India's livestock economy by ridding cities of garbage-eating cows and the polluted milk they produce."

insurgent

"...a song of eternal love, beautiful in form, with melodious sentences and glittering images to intoxicate the heart of a sensualist, or anyone in love with art, which amounts to the same thing." - Isabelle Eberhardt from Isabelle: The Life of Isabelle Eberhardt by Annette Koback




Petrichor perfume penetrates the pluvious.

albugineous

"If I ever do take an active part in the world, it will be as a thinker and demoralizer." -Gustave Flaubert


- the quote that I feel aligns with the meaning of my life, to which I can aspire.

anyway, a weird poem I wrote a while back, I remembered it because of a book I recently purchased: Life on the Edge: Amazing Creatures Thriving in Extreme Environments by Michael Gross- fun stuff!!


Extremophiles
with their
succulent concupiscence
sprouted through broken windows,
reaching
reciprocal illumination,
mutilating,
copies of himself.-
Irritations of the retina
delude the eyes.

Overture

"The space is devoid of ornamentation. The sand passes in fine, hard waves over the beaten surfaces." Across the Acheron by Monique Wittig



The scoundrel spandrel spans the great domes, ostensively.

End of 2005 list

lists, lists, everyone is doing it.

I can't list the best music of 2005- because- I have no idea- I don't even remember what CD's I bought! I listened to some great music for sure, saw great things- but this is what I kept track of: the books I've read-

so for 2005- all the books I read, cover to cover:

The Charmes Circle: Gertrude Stein and Company by James R. Mellow

Panegyric by Guy Debord

The Giver by Lois Lowry (recommended by a friend)

Selected Writings by Gerard Nerval

Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness by Dr. David Weeks & Jamie James

The Passionate Nomad: The Diary of Isabelle Eberhardt

The Great Shadow and other Stories by Mario de Sa-Carneiro

Wittgenstein's Ladder by Marjorie Perloff

Seductresses by Betsy Prioleau

Bruges-la-Morte by Goerges Rodenbach

Illuminations by Walter Benjamin

Mallarme by Wallace Fowlie

Psychoanalysis of Fire by Gaston Bachelard (the 2nd time)

Days and Nights: A Novel of a Deserter by Alfred Jarry

Red Diaper Baby by Josh Kornbluth (recommended by a friend)

Chants de Maldoror by Lautreamont

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Invention of Clouds by Richard Hamblyn

Scanner Darkly by Philip K.Dick

You are alone real to me: Remembering Rilke by Lou Andreas-Salome

Hollow City by Rebecca Solnit

Interaction of Color by Josef Albers

Angels of Perversity by Remy de Gourmont

Love and Limerance by Dorothy Tennov

Mina Loy- An American Modernist Poet by Virgian Kouidis

The Story of a Nobody by Anton Chekov

Mauve: How one man invented a color that changed the world by Simon Garfield

Memoirs of a Madman by Gustave Flaubert

Life of a Good-for-Nothing by Joseph von Eichendorff

The Perpetual Orgy by Mario Vargas Llosa