15 February 2001

Really fun show at Artists Space. Includes Antenna Design's interactive piece, The Emperor's New Clothes.

Uh-oh. Better try xdrive... I really, really don't understand the glee surrounding business failures. I don't understand the vitriol and the bile and I can't read the message boards. I want blood when I see them attacking bewildered innocents like the sweet kid who works the front desk to put herself through school at night... What the hell is going on?

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14 February 2001

Hey, he's real clever and takes the time to glue lots of nice pitchures to his website... It was a close call though. Let me suggest a few more guidelines for getting your email read, as opposed to deleted:

A paper and resources on the integration of a pun generator with a natural langauge robot. Lovely.

All the pate and sweet wine is just a secret excuse to consume the gherkins languishing in the back of the fridge.

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13 February 2001

Yesterday, a swipe of brilliant blue that left a shower of specks on my cheek when I blinked. Some mornings it's nothing but chapstick. On Friday, a heavy black pencil that smudged when I rubbed my eyes. This morning, greasy daubs of purple. It's a pleasure. It's a disguise... It's a Tuesday.

I keep telling everyone to read Interview With a Twenty-First Century Author About Subjects Related to Twenty-First Century Literature... Also: Failed Palindromes.

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12 February 2001

Thinking about how I calculate my position in time in relation to a shared scale (where am I relative to 03.28 pm? early? late?). However, I more often measure my position in space relative to my own set of landmarks than to the shared scale of latitude and longitude. Those landmarks have a lot to do with my daily routine (time).

Because I have a cast-iron laptop, I am a big proponent of driveway.com.

I admire people who can remain articulate in the face of absurdity. I'm usually rendered speechless.

Mitsu considers fame. It's something I've thought about often since a friend asked me if I ever wanted to be famous. Is it helpful to be famous? Would people take my ideas more seriously? I hate the idea of being recognizable. I hate the idea of people I don't know using my name. It makes me nervous. Name tags make me frightened. I used to (rather naively) think that fame might be financially advantageous. But I don't think that's the case. What's the difference between being famous and being approved of by a certain group of critics? Because the former is terrifying, but the latter is seductive to me. I must want to be taken seriously. What does that mean? I'm pretty sure it means that I want to be in the position to be handed a good problem along with the means to support myself while I solve it (Is that all? Is the need for approval no trace part of it?). Someone asked me a version of the question: Would you still do it if you knew you'd never get credit for it? It's no dilemma at all when you can't help yourself.

Once when we were sixteen Cathy and I had to go to a week-long seminar put together by an organization headed by an unspeakable man called David Noebel. At the end of the seminar each student had to make a presentation. To my poor mother's dismay, my presentation consisted of the following verses from Ecclesiastics:

I used to spend a lot of time listening earnestly to The Smiths in those days, but there's no denying Ecclesiastics is beautiful... I love being a grown-up.

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09 February 2001

A list written on the back of a receipt early last week while reading and riding the subway. Recovered this morning.

Don't recall what pinball means. I love to play pinball, but I'm not very good. I end up spending a lot of money. There really aren't arcades in NYC. One in Chinatown. I think an outing is indicated... Queneau is someone I meant to look up. He said some interesting things about roofs and 'little paws in the air' and now I need to know who he is and if he said anything else... So he did. Mott Haven-- latitude... No clue. I think I was going to count the number of people wearing glasses on the 6 train and compare it to the express trains. I remember [ a book ], but don't want to explain. Spatial is cryptic, but pretentious and intellectual sounding. Which is pretty funny since I just learned how to spell the word last Spring. A very nice English woman taught me. She asked V if he'd noticed that I'd been spelling it s-p-a-c-i-a-l, and he replied that he always thought I meant special. I read an oblique mention of the OuLiPo and wanted to know more. The house where Washington Irving lived houses a sushi restaurant where I was supposed to eat dinner. haircut-- darling whatshername. I think that refers to Maureen O'Sullivan's haircut which I really like and will get a picture of to bring to a haircutting person... Kierkegaard's grave is in Copenhagen inside a cemetery bounded along the street by a very long yellow wall. I once took a nap in that cemetery. Not sure where that ought to have gone. Nifty socks is easy. I still need some fancy-nifty socks. That must have been the day I saw a woman wearing purple lace socks on the train. I felt that I'd been missing all sorts of artistic opportunities by confining myself to a bourgeois black (actually many of my "black" socks are more exciting than they sound because the laundry person has an endearing habit of bleaching them).