[schadenfreude]
There are ironies, and then there are ironies. Sweet, delicious ironies.

Sadly, tragically, regretfully even, some of those ironies shouldn't really be detailed on a personal web site.

worms!

mr. lucky!

it's been a big week for book acquisition (and really, when isn't it a big week for book acquisition here in calamondinland?) - I'd say this is a fairly accurate snapshot of my reading interests: Jean Toomer's Cane, which I've read, which everyone should read, really, but which I'd misplaced. George Eliot's Mill on the Floss (which I will be starting for, oh, the fifth time). A small chapbook, Seamless Antilandscape, by Leslie Scalapino. In a particularly funny (in a bookgeek sort of way) bookstore moment at Forest: Georges Perec's A Void and Matt Beaumont's e (nonbookgeeks: read the description of A Void at Amazon). Ray Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines, Anna Pavord's The Tulip

but really, I want these books.

[thought]
I'm craving difference. That is, picking up and going somewhere new, eating something new, listening to something new, reading something new, talking to new people, trying new things. This is different than craving change - I really like my life right now - good job, good apartment, good friends, good life. But some mornings I'd like to wake up speaking a wholly different language or with new senses or with something as yet wholly unimagined utterly new.

the judges obviously agreed with my assessment (see 3.19 below) of Vanessa Enriquez' work.

watch Ze dance

Lance's smile lights his face.

probably shouldn't mention this, but: bedazzled for palm.

[blind as a bat]
While helping Heather pack (ok, mostly sitting in the chair distracting Heather from packing, if you want to be specific), I perused a wonderful book from 1917, titled something like 'Women, Their Sex and Marriage'. Among the many pearls of wisdom about various subjects was an amusing tidbit which I'll try to paraphrase, "Men and women of myopic conditions should not marry, due to the likelihood of genetic transmission of said condition". Honestly, I can't remember ever being at all romantically interested in anyone who wasn't myopic. It's endearing fumbling for each other's blurry faces, really.

help Andrea annotatespace

odd that I've never looked at this before.

[never]
Deliberately constructed lies are so much easier to track than truths, you know, like when you subscribe to a magazine with a fake middle initial, just to follow along as they sell your name and address to catalogs and credit card companies. It's easy, try it.

Plus, how come the transitive property of friendships (when your friend says Oh, you should really meet this person, you would really get along) always works so well but the same people fixing you up on dates never does?

Someone made Stewart a much better birthday card than I ever could, so I'll just link to it...and considering that for my birthday, Stewart inexplicably gave me a gay porn magazine that seemingly, thirty out of thirty people at the party (of all sorts of sexual persuasions) found neither interesting nor arousing, I'm not sure exactly how to return the favor...ideas?

and, damn fine listening: Bonnie Prince Billy (aka Will Oldham)'s Ease on Down the Road and Scannerfunk (aka Scanner aka Robin Rimbaud)'s Wave of Light by Wave of Light

[breezy]
Every Sunday should be so lovely. Picnics should be had. Oceans should be waded in. Wine should be drunk. Oddly shaped rocks should be picked up off the beach and warmed in the hand and then put in your pocket where they clatter softly against your leg. Long drives should be taken through hills and wildflowers. Windows should be down so you can smell the eucalyptus. Windows should be down so you can smell the fog.

Doing anything April 28th + 29th? Rebuild San Francisco with me.

and exactly one month earlier: the ArtAngels launch party

The best submissions to the 1000 Journals cover project belong to a single designer, Vanessa Enriquez.

who is mission eye spy?

and what is this world coming to?

[oost-indisch kers all over the place]
I keep finding myself wanting to make more quick things. Like copper wire fidgety things. Calder-like wire things, gestural like sketches. Get my hands dirty and scratched with sharp things. I want to think with my fingers. My fingers on something other than a keyboard.

And two unexpected people are coming from faraway places (Nahariya, Israel and Seattle, Washington) to solve the quandary of extra Kronos Quartet tickets.

and to think that I've missed a bookstore in this city! Cory sends me the link to the apparently fabulous Kayo Books. Speaking of Cory, there's now an enormous OpenCola poster on the wall next to my desk - very cool - too bad there's only a Linux client, but you know, you can always download the soda.

I wrote about the Museum of Colored Glass and Light sometime last year. And then today, came across this other reminiscence of the same place.

you will like this. you would like it even more if all of it were online.

also. small press distribution.

[sleepy]
Back from nearly a week in Austin - it's remarkable to realize the sheer number of smart and talented people I'm fortunate enough to interact with on a semi-regular basis. The official Ambassador of Culture Mr. Boyer, who steered us quite well to Momoko and Fonda San Miguel. The talented and brave (and newly-engaged!) Ms. Skott (and her fabulous co-host - and fiance - Mr. Becker). The fez photographer and gourmand, Mr. Johnson, and on, and on, and on. Smart panels and smarter questions from the audiences. Smart cocktail parties. Swanky cocktail parties. Toy stores and Tex Mex. Thunderstorms. Drinking with amazing women. Flirting with delightful men. Warm Texas afternoons. Confetti eggs with more confetti than you ever thought could possibly released from such small containers. Delight.

seems I have some extra tickets for the Kronos Quartet with Terry Riley on Saturday - let me know if you've been wanting some...

And just before I left, I heard the Bang on A Can All Stars perform some selections from their new album, Renegade Heaven - very nice.

[oh]
When I got home last night, I went downstairs to do some laundry. Someone else had the only washing machine, so I left my things in the laundry room and headed back up to my apartment. Fifteen minutes later, I went back down to check on the machine, and ran into my downstairs neighbor, Larry. We'd met once before, but hadn't really ever talked, and we stood in the laundry room for a few minutes talking as he moved his clothing from the washer to the dryer and I began loading my clothes into the washer. So how long have you been here now? he asked. Six months, you? Oh, I've been here for, gosh, ten years now, he answered. It's such a great building, I said, and the landlords are wonderful. Yeah, he said. We were quiet for a minute. It's odd, I said, how so many of these apartments were available at right around the same time last summer - mine, the one across from me, the other downstairs one... He looked at me for a minute and said, You didn't know? And I said Know what? And he said, Well, they all died, the three of them and the other one across from me too. I stood there for a second, waiting for a punchline or something. How awful, I said. Yeah, he said. We were quiet again, then he said Cancer, mostly, all within six months of each other. How awful, I said, again. We went back to dealing with our respective laundry, and then, after a minute or so, Larry left. Nice talking to you, he said. Yeah, you too, I answered.

Bang on A Can tonight at Yerba Buena.

So my brother Adam has started a campaign to promote our brother Jon's catalogue of Arizona crafts, Flagstuff. Jon's birthday is on Sunday, and we're trying to get a bunch of orders together as a birthday gift - there are some gorgeous things in the catalogue, and it's easy to order online. Check it out if you have a minute.

[either/or]
Conflicting desires (an ongoing series):
- make new things/get rid of things
- spend more time with people/spend more time alone
- relax more/exercise more
- spend less money/have laser eye surgery, get a car, purchase options
- spend less time online/write more interesting things online
- spend more time with family/live in San Francisco
- leave work soon/finish writing requirements doc

Shocking that I suggested a restaurant for last night that happened to be half a block from Green Apple...but you know, I have plane trips coming up and all. The new Kristin Hersh album is good - mostly material I saw her perform in September. And the books? Oh, just a few. Alan Lightman's The Diagnosis. Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai. Nicholas Christopher's A Trip to the Stars. A murder mystery set in Glasgow that I can't remember the exact title of, the new McSweeney's, Paula Fox's The Widow's Children (following this article on Paula Fox from the Sunday Times) and one other paperback, used, about which I remember the faint $8.50 pencil mark on the inside cover but not the title. Hmm. (GiveQuick! appears to be down right now, so do excuse those ordinary Amazon links)

[so]
I'm thinking of taking up some sort of strength-building hobby. You know, like rock climbing. Or maybe going back to glassblowing. Something a bit more strenuous than reading novels or updating a web site. We'll see. Ok, maybe not rock climbing. But something.

They're playing Literary Confessions at Metafilter (following this piece on Slate) - I'll confess, I'm horribly deficient in all things French - no Balzac, Zola, Flaubert (except Madame Bovary), Stendhal...hmm. Advice?

playing with fish

[stupid background music]
Paul had beamed me the Palm version of the I Ching, which comes in handy when you're procrastinating and mildly curious about upcoming events. Asking about next week in Austin returned "it is favorable to find friends in the west and south" and "a yellow lower garment brings supreme good fortune". We'll see. I don't think I own any yellow lower garments though. Hmm.

Also, taxes. Paperwork in general. Not my strongest competency. Unless it involves stacking. I'm really good at stacking paperwork. Need some piles of paper? I'm available at a low, low hourly rate. Just don't expect me to um, invoice you in a timely fashion or anything.

from Dana, NOW's Emergency March for Women's Lives

from the oh-so-talented James Tindall (remember the square root of -1?) comes modifyme.

[oh the joy of dsl at home]
I never think to do the loud things like hang the painting till it's already too late at night to drill holes in the wall. I suspect that when I return from Austin in ten days, the painting will still be sitting on the floor of the living room.

The highlight of dinner last night was meyer lemon granite. The night before that, chestnut gnocci. The night before that, five-star hon maguro. In all cases, the spectacular delicacies matched by the sparkling company. Lucky me.

Oh there was art at that big party on Friday? Too many people in the way, guess I'll have to go back.

[hey there]
I promised I'd be back. Of course there were all these brief thoughts about a redesign, but it's really just like going on vacation in any other sense - you come back the same person albeit hopefully rested a bit. So that's that. No whole new thing. And as for the rested part? Well, not really. I was in Denver, then Philadelphia, then I'll head to Austin at the end of next week, so there's that. I had a strange dizzy episode on the way back from Philadelphia, and I felt like I was going to faint, but then I didn't. And then there was the earthquake. I know, it was only a tiny little baby earthquake, nothing like the devastation in India or El Salvador or even Seattle, but still. It was my first. And almost funny in the way it unsettled me. I found myself in complete denial about the whole thing, wondering why I kept myself awake well into the night watching television and rereading books I'd read lots of times. At some point I think it clicked and I realized that some subconscious part of me was staying awake to, I don't know, ward off earthquakes, and I laughed and went to sleep.

Other than that, things have mostly been good. I've made art, revived the whole dinner party thing I'd like to do more often, written letters, caught up with friends, celebrated very delightful news with faraway people, you know, the usual.

Also, I passed some journals around.

And Saturday night, you should go see Scanner at SFMOMA. I'll be there.

And Michael certainly has an eye for celebrity spotting, doesn't he? I don't know how he does it. I mean, I work not ten feet from the man and I never get to see anyone...

[why not?]
Lots of travelling this month and lots of things to do. Old projects to revive and new projects to start. Places to go. People to see. Way too much email to catch up on. All of this to say that I'm taking a small hiatus for this, the shortest month of the year.

Things I've enjoyed recently, in no particular order: KQED's portrait of the Fillmore, Jonathan Rosen's The Talmud and the Internet, the soundtrack to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.