I haven't written a book report in 35 years or so. The truth is, I want to write about last week and my six nights of culture overload, but I've been struggling with that piece for, well, for over a week now. I've had some thoughts (some even coherent). I wrote down some scribbles on a napkin while having dinner at City Girl the other night. But still - nothing real to write here.
So today is a cold, rainy Saturday. I should be finishing my taxes and helping my son with his taxes. But instead I am sitting in Jam N' Java in Arlington Center, finishing yet another Vonnegut. I read most of his stuff when I was in high school and college, sandwiched between Herman Hesse and Carlos Castaneda and Harlan Ellison. Just before Kurt died, coincidentally, I began reading his later works. I like reading his recent stuff because I like to listen to him as a cranky old man - depressed about the state of the world, anticipating his oncoming death, but still unable to suppress his love of beauty and people and of love itself that I always found coming through his words, no matter how depressing his stories. I though Cat's Cradle (which describes the end of the world) was a funny love story!
Vonnegut has always repeated and quoted himself over and over in his books and stories, and it seems that he did that with even more frequency in the last books he wrote. But I don't mind. Just like I don't mind listening to my old friends tell stories that I have heard them tell many times before - especially those that I lived through in their original telling. Even if the facts and details of the stories change a bit with each retelling - sometimes a good story is better than the truth. Just ask George Washington!
Now I am barely a dozen pages from the end of Timequake. I'm not anxious for it to end. There is no suspenseful plot line whose conclusion I am dieing to learn. But neither am I reluctant to finish this book, like I was two weeks ago as I was finishing a different book. Then, I had nothing in the queue to read next and I went into a near panic: Quick! To Brookline Booksmith! At Once!
This time I am slow to finish because I would rather laze away a rainy afternoon, then go to the extreme effort of reaching into my bag for the next book in my pile. Which should it be? Should I finally finish Leo Buscaglia's "Love", an old, used, worn and heavily underlined and annotated copy which was given to me by a pretty girl at Darwin's one evening - the first time something like that had ever happened to me, so I am sure I will never finish _that_ book - just so I can relive the pleasure of receiving such a wonderful present every time I look in my book bag. Or should I finish "Faithless" by Joyce Carol Oates - which sits on my nightstand, adjacent to my bed? Or should my next book be Lorrie Moore's "Birds of America" - an author I've never read but who was recommended to me by a woman I once dated.
Anyway, none of that is my book report of Timequake - which after all, was the pretense of this journal entry to begin with! So not even close to a book report, here are some of my favorite lines from Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut
"a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit"
"My uncle Alex Vonnegut... taught me something very important. He said that when things were really going well we should be sure to notice it. ... Uncle Alex urged me to say this out loud during such epiphanies: 'If this isn't nice, [I don't know] what is.' "
"I am eternally grateful to [my Uncle Alex] ... for my knack of finding in great books... reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else may be going on."
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different."
"I have taught creative writing during my seventy-three years... I told my students that when they were writing they should be good dates on blind dates, should show strangers good times."
"I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about... You are not alone."
And finally, here is my favorite line from Vonnegut's "A Man Without A Country" which is also quoted somewhere in Timequake as well:
"When you get to my age, if you get to my age, and if you have reproduced, you will find yourself asking your own children, who are themselves middle-aged: 'What is life all about?’ ... I put my big question about life to my son the pediatrician. Dr Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: "Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.' "
yeah.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Friday, April 03, 2009
First Friday at SOWA
I just got back from my first First Friday event at the galleries in the South End, specifically the SOWA galleries (South of Washington Ave, nee SOMA in SF). Had a fun time - went there specifically to see the performance artists TRIIIBE do "Profile" at the Samson Projects. TRIIBE is comprised of the identical triplets Sara, Alicia and Kelly (Sara has short hair, Alicia's bangs and long hair form the letter "A", and Kelly is the rock climber, aka the other one - that's the only way I can tell them apart - I always want to simply call them SKA as a communal name).
The piece that TRIIBE performed was meant to be a reflection and commentary on social networking web sites. They each stood in front of a blank wall with identical masks, identical wigs and identical orange smocks, with a blank cartoon word bubble on the wall behind them. They would occasionally erase and write something new in the word bubble. The rest of the gallery had a half dozen other places for audience members to write their own word bubble caption and hold up a triplet mask - perhaps with a mustache or goatee, or bright red lips. The collaborative photographers that assist TRIIIBE had still and motion cameras set up to record the interaction and photos of audience members participating in this performance piece. People came and looked and wondered, and it took very little prodding to get folks to write their own captions, grab a mask and pose for a quick picture. I was thrilled that the triplets greeted me by changing a bubble to say "Thanks for coming Harry" - yeah baby, even I can become art! I posed for two pictures: one next to the welcoming caption they wrote for me and one with a cartoon in the cartoon bubble that my sisters taught me to draw when I was very little, with the caption "my avatar has a mask to hide behind" - at least that's what I meant to write.
I hung out in the triplets gallery for bit and then wandered around to the other galleries in the SOWA complex. I found some interesting art, some very cool stuff that moved me, some boring stuff, and some pretty good red wine (sweet!) - so I did a few loops stopping in to check out TRIIIBE and their crowd, swinging back to the place with good wine (and boring pictures) and checking out the more interesting stuff and talking with a few of the artists. Here is some scribbles from my pocket notebook that I wrote down as I wandered, looked, mingled and drank my way through a very pleasant Friday evening!
Triiibe - do the masks make us anonymous? or do they make us uniform? part of the same body? we can all be identical triplets when we connect. We can share thoughts and emotions, we can finish each others sentences, we can interrupt each other and do each other's hair. I wish I was a triplet!
Photos taken inside giant cathedrals, mega-churches: all staging and hollywood production and mixing boards and technology and props. God was nowhere to be found.
Still motion photos that prove the existence of motion. two picture sequences. a man holding a dark cloak - then the cloak flying high in the air revealing a child's tricycle. a nude woman holding a bridal gown in front of her body, and then just the gown floating in the air after being tossed high above.
Old photos of a little brother. cracked glass in tarnished frames. faded and blurry photos never revealed the memories from when they were taken. my brother making a fist, showing his strength and muscles. my father saying grace before a sunday meal, looking down. me, getting ready to jump off the porch railing,ready for adventure and flying.
Unseen and Seen: shadowy figures standing in shallow water. lost, confused, stuck in purgatory. only one woman has joy, looking back to see the ripple she caused with a splash of her hand.
Photographs of natural textures and patterns in sand along the shore - juxtaposed against giant colorful purses collapsed into crumples of random colors. the colored crumples disconcerting, the patterns in the sand peaceful and calming. ripples in the sand formed by the receding tide. reflections of bare trees in a tidal pool. the white foam at the edge of the water, well past the breaking wave. The artist stopped to chat "what are you writing?" I told her "so I can remember what I see". She told me that she took these pictures over a a period of years while living near the Santa Barbara beach. Taking these pictures was a meditative, therapeutic practice that she needed to get over some horrible trauma in her life. She would go to the shore several times a day, day after day, month after month. She learned to stop being a photographer, and to become one with the moment, she became the sand, and that it when these images appeared to her. Her name is Nahid Khaki and I love her sand.
Ancient city-scapes painted by number. numbers are the texture. numbers are the stones of the wall and the pave of the sidewalk. numbers are the water rippling in the canal. numbers fade into the pale blue of the sky. numbers are the branches and the twigs of the trees. numbers are the reflection of the number footbridge, in the number water, under the number sky. His name is Tobias Rava.
Cellphone Pictures: reflections of a cloud in water. shadows from a tree overlaying water lilies. shadows across a shuttered door. tibetian prayer flags blow in the breeze. I take a picture of the pictures and the artist asks what I will do with my notes and picture of her pictures. I tell her I will remember what I saw. I tell her that it is the reflections that capture my attention - everything else fades into the background because it is the reflections that show me the truth of what we cannot see. I love her pictures - her name is Mary Lang.
I stop in the "Mars made" showroom to play a game of 8-ball on their beautiful tables, machined from solid blocks of aluminum and steel, with cups made of carbon fiber, with felt that is not regular felt, but is made from worsted wool. The table is smooth and hard and straight. A perfect fast table with no imperfections and unforgiving pockets.
I go back once more to the Triiibe performance space as the First Friday comes to a close. I greet the triplets and thank them for inviting me. I meet Mattie (for a second time I think), wish everyone a good night and go home to write this...
The piece that TRIIBE performed was meant to be a reflection and commentary on social networking web sites. They each stood in front of a blank wall with identical masks, identical wigs and identical orange smocks, with a blank cartoon word bubble on the wall behind them. They would occasionally erase and write something new in the word bubble. The rest of the gallery had a half dozen other places for audience members to write their own word bubble caption and hold up a triplet mask - perhaps with a mustache or goatee, or bright red lips. The collaborative photographers that assist TRIIIBE had still and motion cameras set up to record the interaction and photos of audience members participating in this performance piece. People came and looked and wondered, and it took very little prodding to get folks to write their own captions, grab a mask and pose for a quick picture. I was thrilled that the triplets greeted me by changing a bubble to say "Thanks for coming Harry" - yeah baby, even I can become art! I posed for two pictures: one next to the welcoming caption they wrote for me and one with a cartoon in the cartoon bubble that my sisters taught me to draw when I was very little, with the caption "my avatar has a mask to hide behind" - at least that's what I meant to write.
I hung out in the triplets gallery for bit and then wandered around to the other galleries in the SOWA complex. I found some interesting art, some very cool stuff that moved me, some boring stuff, and some pretty good red wine (sweet!) - so I did a few loops stopping in to check out TRIIIBE and their crowd, swinging back to the place with good wine (and boring pictures) and checking out the more interesting stuff and talking with a few of the artists. Here is some scribbles from my pocket notebook that I wrote down as I wandered, looked, mingled and drank my way through a very pleasant Friday evening!
Triiibe - do the masks make us anonymous? or do they make us uniform? part of the same body? we can all be identical triplets when we connect. We can share thoughts and emotions, we can finish each others sentences, we can interrupt each other and do each other's hair. I wish I was a triplet!
Photos taken inside giant cathedrals, mega-churches: all staging and hollywood production and mixing boards and technology and props. God was nowhere to be found.
Still motion photos that prove the existence of motion. two picture sequences. a man holding a dark cloak - then the cloak flying high in the air revealing a child's tricycle. a nude woman holding a bridal gown in front of her body, and then just the gown floating in the air after being tossed high above.
Old photos of a little brother. cracked glass in tarnished frames. faded and blurry photos never revealed the memories from when they were taken. my brother making a fist, showing his strength and muscles. my father saying grace before a sunday meal, looking down. me, getting ready to jump off the porch railing,ready for adventure and flying.
Unseen and Seen: shadowy figures standing in shallow water. lost, confused, stuck in purgatory. only one woman has joy, looking back to see the ripple she caused with a splash of her hand.
Photographs of natural textures and patterns in sand along the shore - juxtaposed against giant colorful purses collapsed into crumples of random colors. the colored crumples disconcerting, the patterns in the sand peaceful and calming. ripples in the sand formed by the receding tide. reflections of bare trees in a tidal pool. the white foam at the edge of the water, well past the breaking wave. The artist stopped to chat "what are you writing?" I told her "so I can remember what I see". She told me that she took these pictures over a a period of years while living near the Santa Barbara beach. Taking these pictures was a meditative, therapeutic practice that she needed to get over some horrible trauma in her life. She would go to the shore several times a day, day after day, month after month. She learned to stop being a photographer, and to become one with the moment, she became the sand, and that it when these images appeared to her. Her name is Nahid Khaki and I love her sand.
Ancient city-scapes painted by number. numbers are the texture. numbers are the stones of the wall and the pave of the sidewalk. numbers are the water rippling in the canal. numbers fade into the pale blue of the sky. numbers are the branches and the twigs of the trees. numbers are the reflection of the number footbridge, in the number water, under the number sky. His name is Tobias Rava.
Cellphone Pictures: reflections of a cloud in water. shadows from a tree overlaying water lilies. shadows across a shuttered door. tibetian prayer flags blow in the breeze. I take a picture of the pictures and the artist asks what I will do with my notes and picture of her pictures. I tell her I will remember what I saw. I tell her that it is the reflections that capture my attention - everything else fades into the background because it is the reflections that show me the truth of what we cannot see. I love her pictures - her name is Mary Lang.
I stop in the "Mars made" showroom to play a game of 8-ball on their beautiful tables, machined from solid blocks of aluminum and steel, with cups made of carbon fiber, with felt that is not regular felt, but is made from worsted wool. The table is smooth and hard and straight. A perfect fast table with no imperfections and unforgiving pockets.
I go back once more to the Triiibe performance space as the First Friday comes to a close. I greet the triplets and thank them for inviting me. I meet Mattie (for a second time I think), wish everyone a good night and go home to write this...
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