CursiveBuildings

Early in the day, between waking & leaving the bed, I often...

Thu, 24 May 2012 08:33:31 -0700

Early in the day, between waking & leaving the bed, I often lay my head down on Matea’s shoulders as she sleeps & I listen to her heartbeat. Some mornings, my god, that is the heartbeat of all existence.

The Problem of Story

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:55:00 -0700

In recollection, time erodes truth to the benefit of story. This process - like weather on rock - sculpts beautiful mountains that no longer resemble, you forget, the original situation. This must be why I feel so stupid & inarticulate when trying to describe recent life. To approach the truth, I’d have to talk for a year just to cover an afternoon.

So what’s the answer? In fiction, the answer is to lead the story in a way that finally gets back at some original truth recollection itself would be unable to faithfully reproduce. This is, I think, why we’re moved by certain bound collections of little white lies more than we ought to be (at least on the surface).

Variations on Nothingness - — - — - — The pause between conversation. Not naked,...

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 20:41:00 -0700

Variations on Nothingness - — - — - —

The pause between conversation. Not naked, but unclothed. Men made of shapes shook momentarily from the stupor. A pin dropping through the floor. Drowned in the shallows. Typed from notes. Unmoved.

Cafe Culture, ol’ Nob Hill, San Francisco “Money, it means nothing,” said the...

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:42:10 -0700

Cafe Culture, ol’ Nob Hill, San Francisco

“Money, it means nothing,” said the barista, handing an espresso & powdered scone across the display. We had carried on a surprisingly successful exchange of small talk that began with the rain, still wet in my hair, & ended on the meaning of life. She seemed satisfied & returned directly to practical matters. “That will be $4.75, sir.”

Another barista (from Algeria, it turned out) then asked, straight-faced, if I was a fashion designer. I wore a white tshirt & gray cotton pants w/a blue flannel from grocery chain Fred Meyer slung on my shoulders like a jacket. “Fortunately, no,” I said, but silently I decided to move to Algiers as soon as possible.

RIMBAUD’S TRAVELS 1870-1891 ( in Google Maps ) While...

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 13:06:45 -0800

RIMBAUD’S TRAVELS 1870-1891 ( in Google Maps )

While re-reading E.Starkie’s biography of Arthur Rimbaud in 2008, I began mapping the child poet’s first forays into the French countryside in Google Maps. The practice added a visual / spatial element that deepened the reading & sent me off on a hundred internet explorations of how pieces of Europe have changed in the intervening years. When I reached the point where Rimbaud abruptly abandoned poetry as a young man, I set the book aside & abandoned the map.

It wasn’t until recently, upon noticing my raggedy shoes during a hike through Point Reyes, that I remembered the unfinished map of his unfinished life & decided to complete the project.

When he stopped writing, Rimbaud started wandering w/an unmatched fury. The last half of his life was as unlikely as the first - crossing the Alps on foot in a snowstorm, for instance, or deserting the Dutch Colonial Army in Java - & that much more suitable to mapping. I hope this is useful to someone.

[ more on Rimbaud previously ]

"I woke up & started thinking about how Lynchian LA is & I scared myself & can’t go..."

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:32:44 -0800

“I woke up & started thinking about how Lynchian LA is & I scared myself & can’t go back to sleep!”

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3:53 AM TEXT - Matea is in Santa Monica

NYC panelist (me) in SF this morning. NYPL Labs… what a...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:19:03 -0800

NYC panelist (me) in SF this morning. NYPL Labs… what a deeply impressive group of people.

Interlude that sticks to the ribs.Not long after moving across the country, I was walking the...

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 12:09:19 -0800

Interlude that sticks to the ribs.
Not long after moving across the country, I was walking the streets of Portland w/a pretty girl I’d met at the grocery store a few nights before. She’d written the codes of bulk items in permanent marker all over her arms in lieu of memorizing them & I was lonely & found that charming. I remember the air was mist, & w/in a scent of chimney smoke & pine needles. She talked mostly about the city blocks we passed over & the memories they held for her. They were blank slates for me, completely free & being formed as she spoke, but I didn’t tell her. Instead I described my apprehension at turning twenty-three in the coming months. She said not to worry: “Twenty-three is when you figure yourself out.” She was nineteen & I believed her.

I wrote an essay (published here) for The Huffington...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:16:35 -0800

I wrote an essay (published here) for The Huffington Post concerning my long-simmering collaboration w/an experimental group at the New York Public Library that peaked today w/the launch of the Stereogranimator, a website application that lets anyone explore & share 3D mashups of the library’s stereograph collection à la my Reaching for the Out of Reach.

If that isn’t cool enough (then who are you? Cary Grant?), The New York Times did an ArtsBeat piece about the project today. I couldn’t be happier.

My work may have inspired this app but the NYPL Labs team is visionary. & this is all to say… go click, share & get lost in these funny flickering things!

[ GIF made with the NYPL Labs Stereogranimator ]

Our function in the universe is unclear, while our malfunctions are self-evident.

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:08:00 -0800

Why that “happiness thing” is so difficult for all of us human beings, caught somewhere between pure beasts & angels. A theory.

Literally holed up in a beautiful dive in North Beach yesterday evening drinking Irish Coffees &...

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:57:00 -0800

Literally holed up in a beautiful dive in North Beach yesterday evening drinking Irish Coffees & lost in a book when a former poet laureate interrupts me… ‘buy a newspaper,’ he says. (?!)

The New Year came to me on a high roof in San Francisco w/fireworks over the Embarcadero & wine...

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:06:09 -0800

The New Year came to me on a high roof in San Francisco w/fireworks over the Embarcadero & wine euphoria & one of my favorite people suddenly singing ‘it’s the end of the world as we know it’ beside me while the explosions intensified in tempo & color. A real moment.

Earlier there was a feast among friends & blind Cab Sauvignon tastings & maybe just a touch of apprehension over the looming year… & the last, a troubled knot in the history of this stupid & beautiful world. All that was lost by the final hour & I felt hopeful in ways I didn’t wish to admit.

I spent the first daylight hours of 2012 above the Golden Gate on high cliffs w/my wife & our friends. We had a blanket, a baguette & goat cheese, apples, dried papaya & bottled beer. I’d seen dolphins in the water from the same spot in another life (mine, but long ago in another time). By midday we moved on to the Cliff House for three rounds of coffee, an Irish Coffee & two Ramos Fizz. The ‘Giant Camera’ outside on the landing reminded me of the time I attempted to turn my entire apartment into a camera obscura - 2011. The waves beat on. The sun astounded. People everywhere, laughing like sea birds on new years. I forgot everything but happiness before the new winter day was down.

In the land of one season, you can pretend that no time passes.

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 21:41:00 -0800

In the land of one season, you can pretend that no time passes.

Washingtonia Robusta If California could only dye the fronds of its common palm tree yellow, the...

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:52:17 -0800

Washingtonia Robusta

If California could only dye the fronds of its common palm tree yellow, the entire state would resemble an immense field of dandelions.

You are walking on the moon, reader. I am under the waves of the sea. This point seems overdone, but...

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 21:30:00 -0800

You are walking on the moon, reader. I am under the waves of the sea. This point seems overdone, but your life is only obvious because of what it is & who you are in relation to each other. If we had been born somehow among the rings of Saturn, we wouldn’t understand the swirling violence & noise at the surface of the earth on a quiet sunny day in December.

The watercolor above is painted on the cover of a dinner menu...

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 09:30:53 -0800

The watercolor above is painted on the cover of a dinner menu from a cruise ship that sailed between San Francisco & Hawai’i on a warm evening - 70 degrees, according to records - in late October, 1960. I found the menu in an antique shop in the Sierra foothills near Nevada City & brought it home to SF last month. What’s remarkable is that ‘home’ here is the very same neighborhood block depicted in the painting.

If somehow I could be on the boat that night… cafe espresso served in the smoking room from 8 to 10 after dark, Omar Khayyam quotations on the wine list, fresh pastry & a compote of purple plums for dessert. Ah, but we have only one life to live! & I am 31 today.

I feel, at 30, like I thought I would at 20 years… that is, almost ready to be serious. Here...

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:25:00 -0700

I feel, at 30, like I thought I would at 20 years… that is, almost ready to be serious.

Here is unserious:

Could the mild, unspeakable guilt we feel as hosts when entertaining out-of-town visitors during a spell of bad weather be in any way related to the horrible, misplaced guilt a child of divorcing parents feels?

Here is serious:

What if we told each other the truth from the start? What if (instead of a long life of relative comfort & ease) we promised our children mystery? They will get it! They will grow up several steps closer to the source… & still fall in love & still get in trouble & still grow just as old as us.

(… & as I’m typing the 2nd earthquake of the day tossed San Francisco around sharply)

‘Atom bomb or sunset? News at 11.’

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 21:18:15 -0700

‘Atom bomb or sunset? News at 11.’

We’re redefining a ‘good night’ based on the last: an impromptu, beautiful concert...

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 19:34:12 -0700

We’re redefining a ‘good night’ based on the last: an impromptu, beautiful concert of Bulgarian folk songs played on violin in our apartment at midnight. Thank you, Isabel.

THEMED MEMORIES (consumables) Coffee & croissants in the palm tree gardens of the Fairmont on...

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:00:15 -0700

THEMED MEMORIES (consumables)

Coffee & croissants in the palm tree gardens of the Fairmont on weekends.
Argentine empanadas consumed along the oil-slick Embarcadero.
Barbecue afternoons on the rooftops of Telegraph Hill, drinking sunlight.
Secret rooms & expensive cocktails in the speakeasy ghetto.
Games of tag w/the surf at sunset, slowed by Greek food & honeyed custard.