acreage. magick. cloggage.

my arteries have been and are clogged, forced up, blockaged, closed with fear, double consciousness, a self-image that I spend so much energy trying to fix into place, instead of letting it flap loose in the wind, anchored at a single point, like a pirate flag

self-image flapping like a pirate flag. at what point do I just let it go? and would that mean to let my real self blossom? or would that mean to lose a kind of myself?

is this a place to be completely, brutally honest with myself?

I need a self log. for a long time this place was a self log. but I think I need a self log that is absolutely and completely mine.

--

but. what if I was just completely brutally honest here? i have students and friends and old lovers and sisters and parents and family members occasionally reading. there are tactical and strategic decisions. will these moments distort the frame of reference that I am normally in? I usually write on provolot:words at particularly contemplative moments, when there's some mysterious energy in my body that can only leave every few days, or few weeks, or few months, and I feel the need to vent, vent, exhort, here. sometimes I look at the frequency of these sharings and wonder what they mean in my life. what was going on when I was just writing, nearly every month? how do life forms shape you into different kinds of beings you grow up? have I become a person that hardly reads for pure pleasure, who doesn't write here?

who my core self is, that's blocked: the read a lot, be romantic, walk a lot, take photos, feel a lot, tremble in the warm wind. the swept away by nostalgia for the present, wondering who I am, thinking about deep dark nights, feeling the tempo of the street. it's like emotion leaking from all of my pores creating a mist around me because a central way in which it could leave was blocked. romantic boy, thoughtful and intelligent, moving through the world with a calm fierceness, a soft but unyielding determination, curious and friendly, always wanting to help.

--

courage to feel the things I feel
confidence to really realize the things I do not want, and to put my full weight behind a conviction, nimbly and fully.
calm and solid disagreement with the things I feel should not be done by others in the world, that stealing, lying, being dishonest, hurtful, negligent, dismissive, are the ways my experience of racism has manifested in the united states of america by my white friends

--

so much to talk about. how to talk about race. how to deal with cardboard people. how to watch them crumple under the weight of their emotions. how much gender and race collide under the racial hierarchy and a power hierarchy, intertwined. it's like there's actually an axis and a logic of shittiness in a multidimensional space. race is one projection of this axis, one component, but it's a Primary Component, perhaps The Primary Component, right next to gender, The Other Primary Component

--

holding myself. what kind of self do I wish to be, to recuperate, to discover?
what would it mean to be competely myself, totally naked?

--

presence and groundedness in the ways that I wish to be.

to fold one's self is to pull one's self out, out like a narrow long strip, and then to put the front-facing side against the front-facing side, so now you have a strip of your two faces, facing each other, for a brief moment, before a crease is created. your backsides out, your faces facing towards.

and then you press down with your thumb, and your front sides confront each other. what does this mean? to actually take a look at myself from myself?

but then, you pull one's self out again even more, and fold that which was folded, and fold that which was folded again.

to look at myself over and over again, tangled and stacked through. necessarily tangled. what does this mean? what do I learn? what do I actually learn by looking at myself? to examine myself in third-person? to take apart my being and see the crevices, dust bunnies, cracks, hidden gems?

I know what it feels like, though. it feels scary. because all this time one's self thought it knew one's self (after all it was in itself), but to look at myself is really to get expected for unexpected discoveries you cannot undiscover. like traveling to a new country or city irrevocably. here you are! here, this is more of you. now you are more and you could never be less.

-

so. who are we? I'm curious to encounter this process now. it feels qualitatively different than walking across a field in a breeze when I was 15, walking barefoot in a field thinking about the fact that I'm thinking about the fact that I'm thinking, for the first time.

this feels... hard. curious. it's not just to live through the self, to coast and slide on sled and feel a direct joy. it's to take one's glasses off (did you know you were wearing glasses all this time?) and to take a look at the glasses, maybe go ahh on them and wipe them a bit, and to put them back on. what do these glasses look like? to look at one's self. to imagine myself in 3d, filmed by a friend.

I am excited and scared and apprehensive and curious about this. let's go forth. this feels different. not to look, nor to look at the looking, but to take a shower, rub my eyes, go to bed.

and here we are.

1. a nonprofit incubator collective. 2. live/work studio space. 3. scraping/mapping visualizations of censorship. 4. cnc router (3d printer). 5. hurricane-proof greenhouse. 6. incubator space? 7. course proposals. 8. project presentation sessions.

I mention this all because it feels like I am overflowing with abundance, like I've encountered some kind of verdant greenery scene, like I'm falling to my knees and plunging my head into a nearby stream to drink and drink. like I am running. and there's just enough work. too much work? keeping it at just enough. somehow it works out. I think I can make it work out. or do I? or do I.

I need to see my friends more often. I need to break patterns more often. I need to not work, a little more often, because right now the texture of my being is filled with working, but on joyous things but working, working, working. I am doing things. It is enjoyable but - but - to some extent, without people, I realize the extent to which one can stagnate.

there is nothing so rich as the layered history of another person that brings with them an infinite amount of biases; if they are a kind of runner, also, or at least a jogger, or a deliberate walker, or at least have fixed convictions and move with deliberateness and desire, then all is well. all is well.

new revelations are less of a sudden dawning truth, more arise out of the congealing realization that happens when one says it out loud, hears it again, and realizes that it is so true, say, in the back of a mexican deli, permanently affixed temporary decorations stringing from dim light to dim light, and amidst the low-level hum of conversation and the thick muted loudness of futbol announcers turned down, then realizing that what you had said out loud was the answer to the question you had been asking, and then yet another answer to another question. well.

but the most exciting part, or the most interesting part, is I feel myself changing. the way in which I work, or operate, or act, is different. this is interesting. it is fascinating. I am excited. onwards and onwards.

the lemon of pink

--

what kind of day is it? sometimes I ask myself, these days I ask myself, and I look at the sky as if for an answer, but the sky is mute, unresponsive, calm, quiet.

I think of justified justifieds, and I think of a protest and its sense of unity, and loss, and belonging, and sadness, and hope, and it all whirls together into this mix of I-do-not-know-what, and I am lying here in a barren room in harlem looking up to an indifferent calm sky who looks at me with a greater perspective, taking deeper, calmer, breaths than I will ever take. it looks at me, it looks at me. I am asking it questions, and it looks at me.

--

walking around is like an internal minefield. I watch the terrain-of-myself jump in and out, and I moderate it, press it down. breathe. flatten. smoothen. let things flow, body, self, being, let things flow.

--

I think things like: "how will I live in ten years?" or "what do I want?" or "how do I decide what to pursue?" or "why pursue?" or "what does it mean to want"

and most importantly, I wonder things like: "will things work out?"

--

earlier today after a dinner with my friend B, I decided to go down to wall st to drop by zuccotti park again. more than anything I was hoping to siphon some energy, because on a night like this there is nothing more lonely than being in a city where ______________________. there is just me, and me, and then these gridded buildings that slam down into the ground, hundreds of feet of steel structure and curtain-wall cladding zooming down, curating this modernist experience. and in the midst of this, here I am, and here is some sense of community, and for a moment I try to imagine the feeling that it will all be okay, that if all else fails then this warmth will feed me, clothe me, heal me, or at least try to do so. and suddenly it flickers into place and I have let things go: things like the breath I didn't even realize I had been holding.

1am empty street blowtorch bonfire chocolate band recording neon haze daze delirium work work studio jacques tati work arguments iterative processes body dance thoughts pina bausch bam gaggle people cigarettes night autumn air brief encounter spatial discovery vertiginous nostalgic

exploding anticipatory inevitable

I'm nodding, nodding. with every blink subway stops pass and go.

I get out of the stop into the misting rain, above ground, flatbush and 6th ave, where the twin street grids of park slope and prospect heights fold over. there's nobody around, really, save for a woman in her 50s, waiting at the other crosswalk, who swivels her head slightly to glance at me briefly. a simple reflex movement. I do the same thing. the streets are slick and glow with elliptical shapes shining green, red, yellow.

I walk to my bike that I've locked up since this morning. it's dripping with rainwater and ice-cold to the touch. I feel suddenly and intensely apologetic, and I find myself saying, I'm sorry, out loud, in the cold night air. suddenly-autumn air.

I bike home slowly, on the sidewalk, lights flashing. on the way it occurs to me that if there is a timbre of my life lately, if I could hit it with a thin metal rod and listen to it reverberate, that it would be the quality of subway stations late at night. something of the shared experience of tiredness. ten people in a subway car, I'm trying to read about the eighteenth-century picturesque in architecture but my mind's drifting, vacant. the books are on: free translator, thirty incoming. I'm falling asleep; so is everybody else. within this space there is a sense of quiet, calm, a sense of understanding, and I don't feel lonely, or impatient, just here, and I remind myself that it is good to see this city, good to see it through and through, broadway's golden rivulets, brooklyn's large skies.

there's this spot on the way home from the brooklyn museum 2 stop that passes washington ave, and every time I cross the street I turn my head left and look over, and the streets align just enough that I can see all the way to the chrysler building, shining in midtown where-I-just-was, and it's nice. it's precious, this space is precious, this lofted bed is precious, and I fall asleep with this.

th(is/ese) guy(s), perfect for this space. neon sculpture at my back and an americano with condensed milk at my side. work to do. places to run towards.

things are well. I am well. I got into an accident yesterday, a van poking its nose on a left turn into my bike lane on my greenlight and I saw it coming and yelled but he didn't hear me until he saw me. car-to-bike kiss. I tumbled, like a human shove while I was standing up. apologetic driver with kids in the back got out, was more apologetic. immediately wrote down the license plate, called 911 for a police report, and after an hour waved 'happy holidays' and was on my way with some colder banh mi and nothing more than gauze-wrapped scratches on the arm and post-adrenaline-rush tensed muscles.

the funny thing about this whole affair was that it didn't have any, what do they call it, negative energy, it was full of apologies on his part and a "yeah well neither of us wanted this to happen". he's replacing my bicycle wheel. I bought a 120 db bike horn online. it was like an oversqueezed handshake, or teenage playfighting (slap-fights!) in dorms, a little bit of interaction that ended amiably and appropriately, give, take, give, take. after this dance we all go home.

things are moving well. events dropping into laps. ideas approaching. people appearing. went to lunch today with robert and enrique, came out to a pouring sky and marveled at the breadth of the sky that is so wide here, so much more expansive, slower. well-paced. things have solidified into a goodness. I am aiming towards brennschluss, or preparing myself to attempt to achieve brennschluss, engine cutoffs, the "giving it all I've gots", the excitement at having the world be my diorama gliding by on the bicycle.

dance is the right word, step step move step step move. lately I've been cooking without a set destination in mind, just a series of ideas that might make sense later on. garlic and olive oil. onion, green peppers afterwards, with maybe some white corn later. oh? I've got some sausage, let's brown and cut it up in the cast iron pan like chorizo slipped from its casing. maybe some bananas, sliced and sauteed and hopefully caramelized. a daub of pesto, ground pepper, salt. yes. if everything works like this I will be happy, happy, and grateful. step step move.

Perhaps somewhat futilely, I'd like to argue that 'art' and 'artistic' are two entirely different things; art seemingly holds the value of being artistic; being artistic is the myth of art. Contained within this myth of 'artistic-ness' are Romantic and Classical notions of the artist as genius and masterpiece-maker, tapping into near-spiritual and transcendental notions of beauty. Unable to cope with a rift concerning the acceptability -- literally ability-to-accept -- of this notion of 'artistic' connecting with the art-world driven definition of art, now foundation-less in terms of a criterion of merit, art then mythifies itself to the status of being artistic, as artistic art, continues to try to attain nearly religious levels of respect. Foundationlessness is not a reason to disregard the status of art at all; rather, it's liberating to some extent. And the absence of the myth of artistic-ness in art does not, or at least should not 'hollow' out the impact or workings of art -- but art, frightened of its own arbitrarity, continues to maintain the struggle for its own survival by elevating itself to the position of an agent of spirituality, rarity, emancipation, transcendence. Perhaps this is because those who buy art (and therefore finance the discourse) do so for such reasons.

yes yes yes. and then what? do we sink to our knees and say, that is all, we're clashing on a completely egalitarian basis -- that is of non-importance, opinion, arbitrary standards? my axiom is better than yours because, because, because. your axiom sucks because, because because.

distilled to the core of things does it just become argument, opposition, unreason?

am I being 'unreasonable' by trying to utilize reason at this micro-level, right when the basis of reason breaks down? what is my reason for using reason? what is my core justification for utilizing mathematical systems of logic in my arguments, grammar with my words, coherence in my structure..? I need to read more.

CultureFest NYC 2007
Saturday and Sunday
Oct 13, 14, 11am to 5:30pm
State Street and Battery Place
"Don't miss NYC & Company's seventh annual CultureFest, a free celebration of the City's magnificent and diverse cultural offerings, on Saturday and Sunday, October 13 and 14.
More than 125 cultural organizations come together at Battery Park to share the magic of the upcoming season with you. This spectacular festival of music, art, dance, hands-on activities, entertainment and food is your once-a-year opportunity to discover all of New York City culture—and a chance to plan your personal arts calendar for the months ahead.

Hotel Cassiopeia
Oct 9 - 13, Tues - Sat, 7:30pm, $20 - $60
BAM
"Charles L. Mee's collage of a play Hotel Cassiopeia delves into artist Joseph Cornell's fantastical universe with plenty of theatrical bravado, poetry, dance, and video projection. -SP, flavorpill

Tech Talk II: Performative Architecture
Friday, Oct 12, 2007, 12:30 pm-2:00 pm
Room 114, Avery Hall, Columbia University
Speaker: Branko Kolarevic, Haworth Chair in Integrated Design, University of Calgary, Canada
Performative Architecture is a new kind of architecture, in which building performance is a guiding design principle, adopting new performance-based priorities for the design of cities, buildings, landscape and infrastructures. This emerging architecture places broadly defined performance above form making; it utilizes digital technologies of quantitative and qualitative performance-based simulation to offer a comprehensive approach to the design of the build environment. The emphasis on building performance is now redefining expectations of the building design, its process and practice. -from his book

Matthew Burtner and Friends: Featuring InHale, Brian Osborne, Luke DuBois
Saturday, Oct 13, 2007, 7:30pm
Sound artist, Matthew Burtner comes to the Tank for two sets featuring music made from feedback, flutes, wind, interactive acoustics, percussion, saxophones, computer AIs, and rhythmic machines. Burtner plays instruments of his own invention such as the Metasax, SXueAk toy, Polyrhythmicon and nWinds.
Featuring special guests Luke DuBois, the InHale flute duo and percussionist/drummer Brian Osborne, the performance will include composed works by Burtner, DuBois, and Jane Rigler, along with free electroacoustic improvisation on themes of wind, glitch and squeak.

Keith Tyson: Large Field Array
Until October 20, 2007
PaceWildenstein, 545 W 22nd St, 212.421.3292
"The sign outside PaceWildenstein's hangar-sized space on 22nd Street says "admission is limited"; if that doesn't strike you as odd, watch the bemused expressions of exiting visitors. British artist Keith Tyson has filled the cavernous gallery and its walls with Field Array, a grid of more than 230 sculptures, each measuring two square feet but entirely different from its neighbors. The sheer quantity of bizarre and hilarious objects — a contorted figure in a glass cube, a gigantic telephone, a huge house of cards — is overwhelming. Named for the Very Large Array, a field of gigantic radio telescopes in New Mexico, Tyson's installation doesn't probe deep space, but it does create a larger impression of our universe. (HGM)" -flavorpill

Mike Nelson, A Psychic Vacuum
Until Oct 28, Friday-Sunday, 12-6pm,
The Old Essex Street Market, 117 Delancey, Essex Street
" 'A Psychic Vacuum,' is a labyrinthine construction within a long-derelict wing of the Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side. Viewers will find their way through it (or not, if they become lost), passing by spaces that evoke the tattoo parlors and storefront psychics of the neighborhood, places Mr. Nelson sees partly as emblems of a search for belonging and belief in America."
"... constructed spaces are meticulously made to feel as if they have not been constructed, or at least not as artworks. They seem to have sprung up fully formed, like something out of the fevered minds of the authors Mr. Nelson favors: Edgar Allan Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, William S. Burroughs, H. P. Lovecraft." -Randy Kennedy, New York times