There’s an evil taste - I’ve strained my coffee through my moustache – Was it something in the coffee or in the cup or in my moustache – The dog had licked my face – who’s butt had he last sniffed. I put it down as a bit of water-soluble crayon that I had just applied to a drawing. I was observed wetting my finger with my own saliva and smearing some of the colors of a drawing and it was remarked, that I put myself into my work. I had to agree that this is indeed true. The camera has the potential to starve off our existential terror
There are lots of big girls who come my here to Coffee Girls – on their way to work, later than is usual, having arranged to have time to get hubby off to work and the kids to school. Big girls have more productive careers; they have more earning power, more promotion potential, access to a wider choice of careers. Big girls make more money. It’s more viable for little women to work in the home (that what being a “little woman” means – yeah, the little lady is at home raising the kids). They can become lifelong students and they can join book clubs. They can even take up crafts. Some even become nurses. Sexy women are sent out to woo the customers nowadays, now that the bosses not longer have exclusive dominion over them (their rights of droit du seigneur no longer exist – they are no longer cocks of the roost – some of them have even been replaced by women). Or then maybe it is that women only come in two sizes these days – big ones and small ones. Maybe it’s like with clothing sizes – men’s inseams and waists, it seems, only come in even sizes and there’s a gab between the sizes of men’s feet and boy’s feet – that’s what they mean when they tell a boy that he not a man until he is big enough to fill a man’s shoes. Everything comes in its assigned size in this best of all worlds.
We became less likely to object to something because it is immoral and more likely to object to something because it is unhealthy or unsafe – David Brooks – New York Times (March 12, 2005)
Fly high and drop lots of chaff. Run with the crowd
Matter times energy
Equals humanity
Space-Time whipped
Into shape
For our sake
Money equates to energy
That is what matters
Osamba Ben Laddin is at fault
And in the long run it is only
Money that is scarce
And how do we bet more
We can hold concerts
To save the rain forests
All matter is equally substitutable
In this best of all possible worlds
All along the fault line
Its [an object’s] usefulness, we discover, was merely an illusion, only its optical extension is real – its humanity begins where its function leaves off – Roland Barthes
Michael says “you’re looking just too relaxed” as I start to moon walk across our shared office. And then its off to SFMOMA for a lecture on Roman Bearden. SFMOMA will be having Sunday Jazz brunches at which Jules will be playing in April, his wife, Carol tells me. April 11 to be exact, she says. “Brunches are beyond the price that I am willing to pay” I tell her. “I don’t mind sharing my wealth with artists, but I object to giving it to entrepreneurs”. “I hear you there” she replies.
The individual is denuded of everything but appetites, desires and tastes – Jeremy Seabrook – What Went Wrong?, 1978
Then New Negro Rennaniance (that was its original name - it was not localized as implied by its later name, the Harlem Rennainance). Bearden should take his rightful place among American figurative artists - Motherwell, Jaspar Johns, Rachenbach, etc, I am told. Then I go to the Thirsty Bear for a small Winter Bock. The stout on cask was tempting, but one has to make a choice. It’s sunny and warm for a change. I must play and make hay while the weather is this nice. But now I need to get on back to the office in order to check out - the more I delay, the more likely it is that I will be waylaid by a request and be forced to
The media takes special notice when language drives events and narrative becomes the creator of reality – Robin Tomach Lakoff – The Language wars, 2002
It’s 2:45 and I’m sitting in the sun on the pier behind the Ferry Building. The last of the Tuesday Farmers’ Market stalls are being taken down. A ferry had just left as I began my walk out to the end of the pier. Then Mendocino is pulling in. It only a light load, only twenty or thirty passengers. They offload. I go back to reading Deleuze. There are sand colored oil storage tanks lined up on a distant Richmond hillside across the bay . The Amtrak train makes a turn after the Caqueneus bridge and passed below them - Insatiable refineries – hungry automobiles – folks who must get someplace – Oakland next stop. Oakland last stop folks. Don’t forget any of your belongings in the overhead racks. Another hill a little further away is crowned with white tanks – more hungry refineries – more yapping vehicles – more people on the move. The Mendocino is still boarding. Her engine hums idly. Then with a roar water spews out of her rear jets. It sounds like reservoir spillway after a big rain. Last call for Larkspur. And with a whine she is gone.
‘Just the place for a Snark!’. I have said it thrice: what I tell you three times is true - Lewis Carroll “The Hunting of the Snark”
How many future people’s lives are you willing to sacrifice for your current happiness? – Don’t laugh, this is a serious economic enquiry – How far into the future, how far away geographically, how genetically unrelated need they be? In the jargon of economics, this is called discounting.
He, like most people who find themselves suddenly rich, had developed an excessive concern for the virtue of his children – John Barlow – Eating Mammals, 2004 p133
Read the Pitch? –Way not - I did and there was nothing there – None of its calendar events was worth red lettering –There were no new movies coming out this week worth seeing – I never read any of the articles in this rag - I put my pursued copy of the Pitch back in the news stand and I went back to reading my book – My coffee is getting cold – sip, sip – Yes, those are flakes of snow – It is snowing right now – An ambulance with its siren blearing and its horn honking passes by in the street out front – The obnoxious women goes out side for a smoke – You have to do that nowadays if you want to smoke – Ugly women laugh loudly – Yes I know it’s a generalization and there are ugly women who don’t – She has the cell phone next to her ear as she laughs – Is there anyone there?
All attributes have outliers and once the norm has been established all the fun resides in the abnormal
Now, it is certainly true that liberals have an unattractive tendency to casually impugn their foes as bigots…[and] Conservatives resent such attacks upon their motives. And justifiably so… Conservatives fling deranged accusations at ‘all’ Democratic presidents, without regard for race, gender, or creed – Jonathan Chiat – The New Republic (Nov 18, 2009) p4
Now the ambulance is going scramming in the opposite direction - The snowflakes have stopped falling - It was only a short flurry - The ugly woman had finished her cigarette quite a while back and had come back inside – she is sitting there fiddling with her mobile device – But at least for now she is absorbed in what she is doing and not making any noise – No, there is no more uproarious laughter at this moment – Good looking women snicker – Ugly women snort – There you go making generalizations again – Why do you do that? – The chickadee and the sow.
Twitter: a connection with very low expectation. It lets you answer the question (which no one seem to be asking me) “What are you doing right now?” in 140 characters or less
Spirituality, which once referred to another dimension of things, is now brought down to this earth and given form in another individual human being [the beloved]. Salvation itself is no longer referred to as an abstraction like God, but can be sought ‘in the beatification of the other’ – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p160
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