cc would say so, too, i think

it's a curse.

earlier, i felt electric.
now, i feel wiped out and cursed.

no strings, but not random
in a few days i will be seeing one boy i used to have that with.
we were into mindfucking, mostly, as he lived in montreal,
and i in michigan.

i'll be traveling to see him in two days with our third,
the link to our sordid love triangle.
my love for third was requited, but never timely.
montreal was my compromise; i was living out third's fantasies for him.
we took dirty pictures of ourselves to send to third.
he was not amused. (secretly, he was amused)

montreal helped me to remember my sexuality. i need montreal again.

so we're all married now,
but i am the only one that isn't happy.

Tillman: We think about nature, place it in relation to our human lives. It has significance for us because we make it, or don't make it, significant.

Stockholder: But I also think that it does exist esparately from us, as distinct from Jameson's lecture, which doesn't. Jameson's lecture exists only in so far as he made it. He manufactured his lecture, which can exist next to a tree or inside a university building. In my work I manufacture something like that, like his lecture, that's very abstract and ordered, by me, and by the culture that houses me. But all that I make is meshed with, and sits on top of, stuff that is incontrovertibly there. I understand that we could talk - and philosophers do talk, ad infinitum, about whether in fact it's there if you don't see it. But I - and I imagine most people - have an experience of some things as really there, and other things as not quite there. I'm interested in how those two experiences mesh.


******
I think about taste a lot. House Beautiful the magazine reinforces and puffs up the notion of good taste, as if there's a right way to do it. My work opens that up to question and proposes that there is no right way to do it, that there's a lot of meaning apparent in the decisions that people make.

—Jessica Stockholder, 1995

"One of her commentators puts it that 'her meditation on how we build and perpetuate visual order can lead us at least to the fringes of meaning' - which we are now in a position to translate into the urban periphery - 'where anxieties about the orders we implicitly condone enter the field of vision'. —Bankowsky, Artforum

my heart doesn't recognize the state.

toot toot

exposed to the turquoise sky,
we fell asleep under the horse's head.
(me, and the couple glued together by insecurity.)
i ignored them best i could,
as i do,
and tried not to close my eyes.
but comfortable with my ultimate failure.

new, tighter budgets and
too much rest and
not enough substance
have always threatened the lives of my loved ones.

"...as literary theorist Morse Peckham once suggested, the function of art is to familiarize those perceptual orientations that prepare individuals to receive information relevant to survival..." —Lumpkin, Deep Design

"If God is dead, said Ivan Karamazov, everything is permitted. The modern age, unchecked by the fear or love of God, has indeed permitted everything, has been a time of atrocities. In view of such moral chaos, Wheelis formulates a credo for modern man: 'The mood of this work is that some things are not permitted, that there are immanent standards, of man's making but not of man's design, that they are, therefore, to be discovered by not created, that though not absolute they change but slowly, that to live by them is what is meant by being human...Something draws us as by an invisible hand — not God, but the advancing edge of our being which goes before awareness.' ...a confident yet illusionless look at the progress of man's awaremenss of others — a progress that is now humanity's only hope." — Wheelis, The Moralist, 1973

barney + hart at slows!
one free (?) glass of wine didn't offer enough courage.

i would do anything you asked me to.
but what i really want is you to allow me to do anything that i want to you.


it is probably time for bed.

are you do you

left handed
the middle or oldest child
have at least one brother
have the darkest brown eyes
(dark brown hair a plus)
interested in death metal
skateboard
into stevie wonder
drink
eat vegetarian food
love animals
read philosophy
live in detroit

yes?

"I have learning difficulties. You know, I can't read or write, but I had to find a way of expressing myself. The teachers at school made me feel small. So they made me feel like nothing. I'm trying to prove to the world that 'nothing' doesn't exist." —Willard Wigan

So keep ya love locked down, ya love locked down

I'm not lovin you, way I wanted to
What I had to do, had to run from you
I'm in love with you, but the vibe is wrong
And that haunted me, all the way home

I'm not lovin you, way I wanted to
See I wanna move, but can't escape from you
So I keep it low, keep a secret code
So everybody else don't have to know

I'm not lovin you, the way I wanted to
I can't keep my cool, so I keep it true
I got somethin' to lose, so I gotta move
I can't keep myself, and still keep you too

I'm not lovin you, way I wanted to
See I had to go, see I had to move
No more wastin' time, you can't wait for life
We're just racin' time, where's the finish line

I'm not lovin you, the way I wanted to
I met no one new, I got no one new
I know I said I'm through, but got love for you
But I'm not lovin you, the way I wanted to

I bathed for the wild bull,
I bathed for the shepherd Dumuzi,
I perfumed my sides with ointment,
I coated my mouth with sweet-smelling amber,
I painted my eyes with kohl.

He shaped my loins with his fair hands.

eudaimonea

not just subjective contentment.
happiness happens by chance.
and is temporary.

could suffering be a part of happiness?
yes. it is necessary.
you can't be truly happy unless you are wise.
and you can't be wise unless you have suffered.

'The good' is like the sun. You can't stare at the sun without going blind, you can't see at the sun directly, but its only by the sun's light that you see everything else. So you can't know the 'absolute good' as you can know finite definable things like justice, but it's only by that light that you can know whatever you know. The sun is not a lit object but the origin of light. And the 'absolute good' is not intelligible, not humanly knowable or definable, but it is the origin of all intelligibility, all order both physical and spiritual.

its safe here

Give yourself a break. Give yourself permission to feel and to function at a less than optimal level for a period of time. You may not be able to be quite as productive on the job or care for others in exactly the way you’re accustomed to for a little while. No one is superman or superwoman; take time to heal, regroup and re-energize.

Well, so long as the Mental Health America web site says its ok...
I have no idea what I am doing. Its just me and Amos.
Parker and Percy don't seem to understand.
But Amos, he knows. He'd spent some cold nights alone, getting skinny.
Its nice that all he wants to do is sleep, too.

in weeks, months

i bought a bottle of demi sec tonight
just because the label features platelet,
the font.
i am drinking it right now from a mug,
and although it smells terrible (the mug),
the alcohol is doing the trick.

my husband is moving out of our house as i type this.
last night i saw Dream of Life.
today i saw an artist talk.
right now i am in my studio.
i'm going to miami in two weeks.
in two weeks i have lost 5 lbs.
i started taking my eye/skin vitamins again.
all i think about is skin, lately.
will grading homework be easier or harder in this state,
do you think?

dear god

i'm going to be listening to a lot of s. wonder.
save me, stevie.

i awoke this morning saying "vaginicide" in my head.
seems like a decent way to go.

a sun that never sets burns on.
new light is this river's dawn.
when to speak of a word so old
is to relearn what is known.

a time to think back and move on.
rebuild the loves of lives long gone.

the blood that flows through me is not my own.
the blood is from the past, not my own.
the blood that leads my life is not my own.
the blood is strength, I'm not alone.

i still might explode.

I never claimed I was any good at it.

In a comprehensive study, you must reveal both the positive and negative truths about your subject. When the subject is yourself, it is not always easy to balance adequate levels of modesty with appropriate levels of vulnerability. People will either see you as uninhibited or garish. Either description may be hurtful, but your consolation is that you were never acting. An inability to hide faults can be seen either way.


I am currently reeling from a specific fault. A pain, just below the ribs and above my hip bones. Each side. It is almost unbearable. Gut tries to resist the urge to bother you every day.

Like I mentioned below, regarding the team sports—have I decided to leave my team? I tried to let my dreams tell me more about it, but I didn't like their analysis at all.

sparked a light

Something has happened to Achilles while he was brooding in his tent. He has been evaluating the rationale of war in general and this war in particular. Why have they been fighting here for ten years? To rescue Helen? But that is an inane cause to fight and die for. Why should hundreds of wives be widowed so that the king's brother can recover his wife? The sheer stupidity of the war and the egregious arrogance of Agamemnon in marshalling so many noble warriors to fight such a war magnifies the insult that Achilles has sustained. Does Agamemnon really think that he can compensate for all this with his paltry gifts?

pick my new band: Future Time or Future Fact
(I like FT)

appeals

appeals

i had never looked it up before

I just always accepted my dad's account. His account is different from the one in the book, though, as reported by the Flint Journal. My dad's story vilified the man, whom he called a pimp. The Journal's story vilifies the women.




I found this by searching their names, and the results came up in a book entitled "Headless Man in Topless Bar".

think about this phrase: "follow suit"

Makes me think of my racist grandpa (RIP) and his perfectly manicured hands.

I wrote this today:

I spent my first few years as a conscious being in a two bedroom apartment just east of Flint, MI with my baby brother, teenage sister, and single mom. My memories of the cramped apartment are varied, but the most positive all involve music. Our most valuable possession was a modern stereo; a record player, dual cassette tape deck, and radio. Next to it sat my mother's record collection and tape case. Music was one of the few things my mother would allow herself. It was not unusual to fall asleep to music at my house and even less unusual to wake up to it. The sounds that I heard must have thoroughly saturated my subconscious, for much of what my mother and sister were playing is responsible for my interests today.

In 1968 Black Sabbath created a sound so unlike previous rock 'n' roll that an entirely new description had to be coined, and thus heavy metal was born. Their lead was taken up by countless other bands throughout the world and the genre was quickly subdivided. We were listening to it all. My mom stayed true to the grandfathers of the sound, while my sister and her friends were buying the latest speed and thrash metal. The next female in line, I followed suit.

At the age of six, I began developing my musical taste, filtered through the matriarchs of the house. But quickly discovered what I preferred and what I didn’t — metal wasn’t the only music on rotation at our house, but it is what I most gravitate toward. It created my first awareness of culture and later helped shape my political views. My involvement with the sub-culture never waned and I became increasingly interested in the local scenes that were influenced by the music I grew up with. I became a consumer and scholar, which lead me to discover the tremendous influence that Swedish musicians have had on metal. D-beat, which was pioneered and popularized in part by Swedish bands, influenced my sister’s favorite bands. Those bands influenced other acts stateside, particularly in my home state. One of the earliest death metal bands was created in Flint, and they in-turn influenced death metal in Scandinavia. This exchange of ideas and styles continues today.

While studying art history and graphic design at the University of Michigan, I focused any self-guided studies on this sub-culture and found myself pursuing its histories as much as art’s histories. In graduate school at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, my practice has expanded to include assemblage from found materials, which utilize environmentally-sound underpinnings without overt mention. The goal is to change the questions in order to create alternate solutions. In this way, my practice mimics what countless musicians have done, specifically within this genre. We use what is at our disposal, what we are attracted to, and repurpose it for our needs, creating another category of work.

I believe there is a unique perspective within this section of society that is often overlooked. We tend to be loyal consumers, of both traditional and contemporary forms, avid collectors of media and message. There are few passive fans in our midst; most are engaged in the quality of the musicianship, are curious in the history as a means for new discovery, or are active in the recording of provenance. We tend to be very well networked. Maybe most importantly, we tend to question authority, therefore stimulating a true democracy. I see this as fertile territory which deserves more academic recording. I see the path to that scholarly awareness through visual art.

did you know?

Are there tuition fees at Swedish universities and university colleges?

With rare exceptions, all tuition fees in higher education in Sweden are subsidized by the government. This applies to foreign as well as Swedish students. Higher education is fully financed by the state, a system common to many European countries. You will still have to cover living expenses and pay student union fees, though.

I could learn a lot there.

you brought some joy inside my tears

The history of the teaching of human female inferiority in Darwinism

Summary

The Christian teaching of the equality of the sexes before God (Gal. 3:28), and the lack of support for the female biological inferiority position, is in considerable contrast to the conclusions derived by evolutionary biology in the middle and late 1800s. In my judgment, the history of these teachings is a clear illustration of the negative impact of social Darwinism.

Well Well WEllWELL wWELL well well well wellwellwellwellwellwellwell

you know when you've examined a word for too long and it becomes a very abstract piece? i did that with "saddles" today, too.

a few other quotes,

"Are you aware that you are, perhaps, the most discussed animal in the universe?"

"Making a fortune and bearing thirteen children—no human being could stand it."

"...that five hundred a year stands for the power to contemplate, that lock on the door means the power to think for oneself."

"Life for both sexes—and I looked at them, shouldering their way along the pavement—is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself."

thinking with type

I just started and finished Ellen Lupton's Thinking with Type (2004). After an afternoon wasted on waiting for the ups man (we pronounced this "ups" like the opposite of "downs" at my house) to deliver my Goldenburg's *ahem* "Chew-ets" peanut chews,
I decided to do something more productive with my evening.

First, we come to understand that the title was influenced by James Craig's Designing with Type, a publication I am fondly familiar with. It was in my spring term at U of M that I was actually taught something at the SoAD, and that text was the main source.

Lupton's book came to me much later in life, last summer for my wedding shower. [My friends understand that this is the type (no pun intented!) of shit I would really appreciate, rather than nighties and lotions]. Tonight, I finally decided to read and think critically about it, than just thumb through. If one can get over the frequent mention of Abbott, all things Baltimore, and MICA, and focus instead on the other useful examples, it proves to be a pretty good skim of topics that I am finally more interested in dealing with.

Aside from the brief mentions of Barthes and Derrida, there isn't too much focus on theory, more on practical applications, which is fine for a beginner. I'm not claiming to be an expert, so brushing up was helpful. And made for a quick read.

There is certainly an agenda being pushed, one of acceptance of a Tschicholdian "programmatic thinking" which is being "revived...as designers today confront large-scale information projects. The need is greater than ever for flexible 'programs' accommodating dynamic bodies of content."

She elaborates further:

Universal design systems can no longer be dismissed as the irrelevant musings of a small, localized design community [Switzerland]. A second modernism has emerged, reinvigorating the utopian search for universal forms that marked the birth of design as a discourse and a discipline nearly a century earlier. Against the opacity and singularity of unique visual expressions—grounded in regional preferences and private obsessions—ideas of commonality, transparency, and openness are being reborn as information seeks to shed its physical body.

This quote come directly after probably the most interesting part of the book, a discussion of the web as a grid in infinite space, "defying edges and dominated by mind rather than body—is a powerful instrument within modernist theory, where it is a form both rational and sublime."

This discussion which seems to be pushing past post-modernism into vast, lush territory, is cut short, and the reader is left hanging out in this expanse of grided subliminality. (No, those aren't real words.) So I am still kind of floating out there. In 2004.

What I got personally from this book are the following:
+ polyglot, esp. with regards to language for the blind and language for the forgotten.
+ Dave Eggers has his hand in just about everything.
+ Richard Eckersley - I couldn't remember his name!
+ "That a speech supposedly alive can lend itself to spacing in its own writing is what relates it to its own death" - JD, 1976

oh yeah, and here is a link to her poster up now at the Wolfsonian

a very short introduction: post structuralizm

izm. yet another one of those plays on words that only i think is clever!
even the very short first few pages have me thinking about redefining some of my vocabulary. if no one else gets it, well, that is ok. no one really studies anyone else anyway.
(maybe that should have been a vow.)

Aristotle believed that being human was something you had to get good at through constant practice.
– Eagleton, After Theory

My guess it is a team sport, where the teams are rarely defined.
Where competition exists and accurate coaching is sporadic.
And hardly heeded.

**********
I dreamt last night that E-40 and posse, including several young professionally dressed interns, were outside my window. I hollered down, some sort of excited squeal. The entire entourage proceeded to come up to my place. I was a bit nervous because a stray kitten I had picked up had just unexpectedly given birth and I needed to leave to get some cleaning supplies. E-40 was very kind about my predicament. He sounded exactly the same, but this time was played by a Hispanic man, without glasses.


These should be obvious:
currently reading: After Theory, AVSI: Post Structuralism, The Horse in Blackfoot Indian Culture
currently hearing: E-40

shake it up. oo. oo.

ny solitude creates an imbalance.

terribly lonely/completely overstimulated
confident and proud/shameful ignorance of social graces
perfect working order/too undefined to begin
exhaustively wanted/negligently needed

synchronicity or, my shit is more john blaze than that

living in new york is humbling.
i'm not referring to looks or intelligence,
because i feel confident enough in those areas in my life.

but being away from those that seem to forgive all of my faults,
seems to present those faults in new ways each day.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
its one thing to have already recognized that you are a minority in your neighborhood, but to have someone several inches taller and several pounds stronger than you spit "cracker" in your face on the street is not only terrifying,
but quite humbling, too.

especially if you are carrying a large box of cracker-ass books back from the post office, books like the 2009-2010 Fulbright handbook, and Lyotard's "Postmodern Fables", or great reference/non-fiction books like "The Philosopher's Toolkit", "Dreamweaver in 24 hours" and "Guns, Germs and Steel". And perhaps the worst offender, something that might make David Duke hang his head in shame: a graduate art school sketchbook, nearly full of notes. not even sketches.

to be honest, it is only humbling the second day,
because the first day it is only terrifying.
maybe tomorrow it will be hilarious.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

the irony is (well, aside from the topics of the books) is that while i was being called a cracker, a devil, being wished dead and then accurately "MINORITY", i had set my computer to illegally download Biggie's "Life After Death".

since moving here, its all i've been playing in my head.
i've gotten over feeling stupid for even thinking that it would be ok for me to like it.

///////////////////////////
i've been reading quite a bit lately. Well on my way to finishing Michael Kimmelman's "The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa", i am finding several counterpoints in a few other books i've been reading concurrently: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, re-reading Bringhurst's "The Elements of Typographic Style" and perusing the typography section of the Mid-Manhattan library.
///////////////////////////

i'll probably cite these coincidences later, right now i need to finish downloading a bunch of black metal, enjoy Biggie's "I Got a Story to Tell", a love song, and get the courage to walk to the grocery store.

but would she be you?

do steven heller and elliott earls have more in common than we might think?

design patois

and inspired by the ever-living DIY book

the DIY debate

something I am working on

Main Entry:
re·pur·pose
Pronunciation:
\(ˌ)rē-ˈpər-pəs\
Function:
transitive verb
Date:
1984

: to give a new purpose or use to

The silver lining of the depression
The future for graphic designers will be more focused on incorporating a cradle-to-cradle mentality, one that designs not for waste, but to allow for a repurposing of the objects we make. This, of course, is not a new idea and the public are becoming slightly immune to the ecological jargon: sustainability, environmentalism, alternative (energy), green (design), etc. even though some measures are enjoying a resurgence (ie: reusable shopping bags and ReadyMade Magazine).

It is up to the arts community to reinterpret these ideas, to keep them exciting and thus keep the momentum of this good idea going.

Pushing ahead are the industrial designers, making contemporary and formally beautiful objects from recycled materials. [Chandeliers from unwanted eyeglasses and chairs from burned cdrs. (Google image search "repurpose".)] And a number of artists repurposing material as sculptural assemblage were featured in the grand opening exhibition at the New Museum, entitled "UNMONUMENTAL". These artists are making logical appropriation of the items at their disposal, without any overt mention of sustainability. In this way, their repurposing becomes interesting and logical, not a mandate or martyr-like. My own work with design/assemblage explores these ideas.

Michigan's most recent legislation is pro sustainable technology and is offering enticing incentives to businesses committed to advancing the field here in the state. AIGA has the right idea with programs such as the Urban Forest Project, now featured in Ann Arbor. It would make sense for the larger design community to showcase its commitment to the cause as well.



More helpful than a poster merely advertising the 3 Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle), would be a poster whose function didn't end as a poster. By proposing the fourth R, Repurpose, the poster becomes multi-functional. Once its original function is accomplished (advertising for the AIGA) it becomes other useful paper products: stationery, envelope, note card, wrapping paper. It encourages creativity first, while using sustainable underpinnings.

Why not do as our depression-era relatives did and get the most out of what we have by using our thinking caps?


http://www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm
http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/3
http://www.michigan.gov/gov/0,1607,7-168--189394--,00.html
http://www.urbanforestproject.org/

to remember

83 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

Smart book about the nature of beauty and desire, September 22, 1997

By	fluxk@mindspring.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

and the role of parental organizations in contemporary society.

Hickey's basic premise is that beauty is the agency of visual pleasure. This notion puts Hickey in opposition with a lot of art criticism which is largely concerned with how art is "good for you." Most theorists and scholars are primarily interested in what the art is "saying" -- i.e., interested in art's virtue and ethics but not with its efficacy.
Hickey, however, argues that it doesn't matter _what_ the movie is saying unless you like it first. That is, we don't analyze a movie unless we like it. I still don't know if Pulp Fiction, The Silence, or His Girl Friday are good for me, but because I like them, I constantly think about them and their social virtues (if any). Hickey argues that why a work is efficacious in the first place is as important (if not more so) than whether or not its good for you.
That's sort of the premise of the book. Hickey explores the reasons why "good for you" replaced "do I like it" and deals with the modern roles of institutions (with nods to Foucault and J. Jacobs) in relation to regulating desire.
Hickey's a wonderful writer. The prose is fast, vivid and jocose. Worthwhile for anyone interested in art or beauty.

sometimes you just have to look

and I just heard a smattering of gunshots.