One's Document

PW on paper!

2010-09-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

My chapbook, Lovejoy, has just been published by James Yeary and his new project c_L press! It has a snazzy letterpress cover and nifty endpages that suggest the work in progress. It is on the shelves at Powell's and Reading Frenzy.

Lovejoy is about one of my favorite bits of Portland history - the Lovejoy columns. In which the columns supporting a viaduct to the Broadway Bridge were painted with fanciful illustrations in the 40s by a railroad watchman who was also an artist. In which the columns hang around without much damage for about half a century. In which the old railyards make way for snazzy new artsy shopping district, and the viaduct and columns go down. I posted about it once.

Lovejoy the chapbook is part research project, part poetry, part text collage.

Daniel Thomas-Glass wrote a 30-word review of it!

from PALINODE/ by Lisa Robertson (in R's Boat)

2010-06-15T16:14:00.000-07:00

/
Nor an orchard nor a single soul nor
A dog nor a leather purse nor subjection

Nor trivialization nor worthlessness
Nor apples nor stars when the festival

Of war unfurls from garden suburbs and
Decks the patios in grand coloured

Swags flipping upwards in the breeze bringing
The shampoo scent of blossoms

It would be nice
To interfere with the accuracy of the world.

My summer workout

2010-06-15T16:05:00.000-07:00

I'm home for part of this summer with my new baby Jasper, and despite or perhaps because of sleep deprivation, mommy brain, and general fuzziness, I've agreed to participate in my friend Sarah Green's project Your Best Beach Body, which involves me writing a poem (or "poem") every day for the next month. I think it will be a good workout.

Foursquare!

2010-03-05T20:36:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to be included in issue 3.5 of Foursquare, published by Jessica Smith! I have been a fan of this project for a while. Each issue contains 4 poems, which are laid out in a 2 x 2 sort of grid square. They interact across the middle of the folded page. And the whole little thing is contained in a beautifully stitched cotton envelope in an exciting print, which always reminds me of a piece meant for a quilt square. All poets and cover artists are women. I think it's funny that the cover of issue 3.5 looks just a little bit like me.

2009-12-08T17:52:00.001-08:00

Un Lun Dun by China Miéville

Urban Alice in Wonderland; emphasis on obsolescence.

View all my reviews >>

Peaches and Bats

2009-07-14T22:17:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to be included in the latest issue of Sam Lohmann's (maga)zine Peaches and Bats!

word count

2009-07-08T15:48:00.000-07:00

This is a paragraph I like very much, from Roberto Bolano's novel 2666:

"The first conversation began awkwardly, although Espinoza has been expecting Pelletier's call, as if both men found it difficult to say what sooner or later they would have to say. The first twenty minutes were tragic in tone, with the word fate used ten times and the word friendship twenty-four times. Liz Norton's name was spoken fifty times, nine of them in vain. The word Paris was said seven times, Madrid, eight. The word love was spoken twice, once by each man. The word horror was spoken six times and the word happiness once (by Espinoza). The word solution was said twelve times. The word solipsism seven times. The word euphemism ten times. The word category, in the singular and the plural, nine times. The word structuralism once (Pelletier). The term American literature three times. The words dinner or eating or breakfast or sandwich nineteen times. The words eyes or hands or hair fourteen times. Then the conversation proceeded more smooothly. Pelletier told Espinoza a joke in German and Espinoza laughed. In fact, they both laughed, wrapped up in the waves or whatever it was that linked their voices and ears across the dark fields and the wind and the snow of the Pyrenees and the rivers and the lonely roads and the separate and interminable suburbs surrounding Paris and Madrid."

Another amusing thing(s) I found

2009-04-01T21:25:00.001-07:00

This website features literary and other text-based tattoos. Some categories include lyrics, poetry, plays, and (ouch) misspellings. Fascinated at extreme popularity of e.e. cummings' poem "i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)" and The Giving Tree.

Oh, and speaking of organizational systems! One of those all-staff sorts of emails alerted me to the New England School of Law's index of books by spine color! Beautiful.

ACRL Highlights

2009-03-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

A bad tooth kept me from the first half of ACRL, and painkillers and pain fatigue may have kept me from sharp appreciation of the half I was able to attend. That said, I enjoyed the opportunity to peek in on the various topics of interest among academic librarians. On Saturday, the first day I was there, I must say I didn't find myself at any panel or presentation that leaped out at me as useful, inspiring, or thought-provoking. That kind of freaked me out, but it was probably my lack of experience and poor planning. I was also freaked out by witnessing and hearing some "us vs. them"-themed commments, as in librarians versus students, and focusing on an exclusive we that sounded static and unlikely to change, which is pretty much exactly the opposite of what attracts me to the profession. Anyway, gripe gripe gripe, that was the unfortunate part of the conference for me. I did, however, pick up a free dictionary (thanks Oxford) and reconnect with some lovely people.

On Sunday, however, everything seemed to come together much more nicely. I attended a session about the future of subject librarianship (you know, 2.0), and it was a fast-paced, optimistic look toward skills, roles, and themes that will be necessary. I find myself pretty interested in librarian roles in scholarly communication, institutional repositories, and other authorship/publication issues.

And THEN! I got to see Ira Glass give the concluding address, which was pretty much a talk about how he does This American Life - how he structures the program, how and why it seems to work so well, and so forth. He was all set up on the stage with two cd players, a mixer, and a microphone, which is, I guess, more or less a simplified version of how he does the show. He talked about the form of the show, which turns out to be the same as the form of a sermon, and narrative form, using the Arabian Nights as an example of how good narrative allows listeners to practice empathy until the world makes better sense and the listener can recover from insanity. It made me want to read Arabian Nights, which I've never actually read. It also noticeably contributed to my confusion about my role in the information cycle - whether I am a producer or distributor of creative product. I think I'll be going through this for a while. I still think it's possible to do both, but it's a challenge. After the program, among the throngs threading our way down the escalators in the conference center, I peeked over my shoulder to see Mr. Glass right behind me. After a few long seconds of blushing and panic, I managed to awkwardly thank him for being so cool.

I am usually a late bloomer

2009-02-05T20:48:00.000-08:00

Just discovered the PoemTalk podcast series. Actually, I'm still trying to discover podcasts in a way that works for me. But the most recent discussion of Wallace Stevens' poem "Not Ideas About the Thing, But the Thing Itself" is really good.

iz learning

2009-01-18T17:00:00.000-08:00

There is a lot to say about the fact that this statue is Mark Twain, and he's reading Huckleberry Finn.

best arctic blast coast range driving playlist ever

2009-01-04T20:50:00.000-08:00

On the way back from the beach through wintry weather, we happened to catch a really great show on Astoria's Coast Community Radio - Country Swing, hosted this week by Bobette Baze. It was a great mix of comforting familiar hits and new-to-me stuff in the classic country/honky-tonk realm. I'm going to try to remember to listen to this show online - Sundays from 3 to 5, via the station website linked above. It will probably never top today's show, with its winter fairyland context, but I think it's definitely worth a try at home.

dept. of haha

2008-12-09T19:51:00.000-08:00

save the pacific northwest tree octopus

New favorite form

2008-12-07T10:37:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things spawned by the internet is the 5-minute sitcom.

proofreading

2008-11-23T10:12:00.000-08:00

I've been holding back on sharing this observation for a little while, out of respect for my elders and professional superiors. But a letter from the president of the American Library Association to the U.S. president-elect just pushed it too far. It was addressed to "The Honorable Barak Obama." FROM THE ALA. Terrible!

I don't know why information professionals don't copyedit anything. Just about every (theoretically) peer-reviewed article I've read in JDOC, ASIS&T, IR, etc. has several errors, ranging from little bitty typos (if/of) to big nasty homophones (compliment instead of complement! tenant instead of tenet!). I try to say it's not a big deal. And it's not really a big deal, you know, the way the end of capitalism-as-we-know-it is a big deal. But for some reason I can't shake the idea that precision with language is really really fundamental in LIS. I know we're interested in systems more than content, but in order to help people be able to find the information they need or want, we have to encourage - and exemplify! - accuracy and specificity with words. I know there are a lot of copyeditors out there looking for work. I'll bet there are even a couple of student/volunteer/interns. I'll proofread your article! I'm not naming names, but these authors are really smart, thoughtful, well-meaning, and in other ways, thorough. I admire them very much, which is why I wish they would take an extra step in being careful with precision in the text they produce.

lady crash part 2

2008-11-22T16:25:00.000-08:00

...so I'm really impressed by Laetitia Sonami, and I'm also quite impressed with Beyoncé (ever since I saw her accepting some award on tv, and realized that she's one of the most princesslike graceful people ever). But who knew I'd ever relate these two generally different kinds of impressed. Who knew Beyoncé had a robotic superhero/villain lady's glove?

Adventures in LIS and Halloween (-post)

2008-11-07T19:07:00.001-08:00

Actually, this has been going on for a while now, since well before Halloween. I'm reading about Carol Kuhlthau and her model of the information search process (ISP), and every time I read her name, I pronounce it, in my head, "Cthulhu."

Summer recuerdo I found:

2008-10-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

[Yesterday I found this menu that had been lost in the fray since midsummer - the local-grub-focused midsummer feast, masterminded and master-chefed by the Stone and Crawford families, was a major highlight of the year thus far.]

Monkey house, Portland, OR
Midsummer's Day, 2008
Dinner al fresco

The pressed juice of ripe cherries with chilled Gordon's gin.

Black Californian olives macerated in olive oil,

Panfried abalone from John & Dawn Gilson's Marine Farms, Netarts Bay, Oregon, served with lemon, steamed samphire with Nam Pla sauce and fiddlehead fern tops vinaigrette

Pacific salmon hot-smoked to a traditional Irish recipe by Michael Jacobs of Portland served on slices of baguette from the St. Honore bakery

Jerked elk meat cured by Alan Rousseau of the Pine Mountain Ranch, Oregon, served with tomatoes, white onions and fresh basil

Broiled breast of chicken with garlic, Spanish saffron, fresh Oregon morels and cream

Chopped fresh chicken livers, sauteed in garlic and onion with Madeira and savoury, served with one helluva crown of French bread

Absurdly infantile mange tout artichokes with hollandaise

Potato and scallion salad with fresh marjoram

Leaves of romaine lettuce

Sliced roasted loin of lamb with peppered strawberries, raw sugarsnap peas and ginger/rhubarb conserve

Baby gooseberry crumble with soured cream from Jacobs' Creamery

Fresh Oregon purple figs and cherries with three cheeses: Parma Reggiano; five-month-matured sheep milk cheese from the Ancient Heritage Dairy, Oregon; two-year matured Grafton, Vermont cheddar

2008-10-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

Watching debate in a bar.

My world got a bit smaller

2008-09-30T16:49:00.000-07:00

in a good way, when I discovered Geoff Nunberg's website, and realized that he teaches at the Information School at UC Berkeley. He's been one of my radio heroes for a while, but I've never investigated his work at all. Now it turns out the intersection in the linguistics/information science Venn diagram is populated with all sorts of folks I already like. I'm sure there are some good poets in there, too.

a stand for a plus

2008-09-28T12:08:00.000-07:00

Dan Thomas-Glass is including a few of my poems in the second issue of his journal, With + Stand, which should be out soon. The journal's reason-to-be is based on this etymology:

[1619, 'the whole creation, the universe,' from L.L. systema 'an arrangement, system,' from Gk. systema 'organized whole, body,' from syn- 'together', (sun- 'with') + root of histanai 'cause to stand']

About the particular system shaping W+S2: "The order of the poets in this issue was based on the following market operation: each poet was assigned a stock symbol loosely based on their initials, and two weeks later, the change in stock price became the number of places the poet moved forward or back from an alphabetical starting point."

I'm enjoying the timeliness of learning about With + Stand in the light of shifting my approach to thinking about systems - starting from syntax, I suppose, and going more meta- all the while, into information science!

(The preposition is still my absolute favorite part of grammar.)

Victory Gardens

2008-09-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

I keep getting into discussions about Victory Gardens lately. Yesterday, as we put together some frames for our garden beds, I was thinking about how embedded we are in our moment, and how far from last century already. During World War Two, family and neighborhood self-reliance was considered patriotic - citizens were encouraged and supported in growing their own food. The government gave away free seeds and guides to help people learn to grow food in their own backyards, lawns, apartment roofs, and vacant lots. Now, of course, it is patriotic to shop. People who grow their own food are often considered anarchists, hippies, or simply leisured dabblers in the agricultural dream. It's pretty hard to imagine being encouraged by the federal government NOT to buy stuff.

Another thing I'm saving for the apocalypse

2008-09-20T08:43:00.001-07:00

I found a lump of coal underneath the back porch. I'm going to save it in case we need it for fuel.

The sentence that made me leave

2008-09-17T21:48:00.000-07:00

was when the poet read the line, "I am moved to speak / even when I have nothing to say."

Why, then?! Why!?!?

Wikipedia sequence of the day / new favorite words

2008-09-11T09:44:00.000-07:00

Today I learned about realia, faceted classification, and folksonomy.

yay code pink!

2008-09-05T14:01:00.000-07:00

hooray for this new project:

www.thegroundnoiseandthestatic.com

TBA begins; what was scary

2008-09-05T13:06:00.000-07:00

I compiled all the white clothes I could find in my dresser to prepare myself for participation in Anna Halprin's Blank Placard Happening, which was a fun stroll across the Broadway bridge. We carried blank protest-style signs. We wondered if it would be a more impressive performance in daylight or night.

The endpoint of the march was The Works, where we strolled around some of the exhibitions. Most noteworthy for me was Lizzie Fitch's site-specific installation Big Skin, a collection of skewed furniture and creepy liquid-latex (I think) skins and body parts, textiles, and things. In some cases, the skewing, juxtaposition, and angles made me think of the remains of some sort of disaster, as if the installation had been laid down by a tornado or hurricane. But it was also very much arranged, and I found myself noting the beauty of the arrangements, the pleasure in color-coordinated piles of stuff. Some parts connoted children, men, women - through the direct routes such as baby shoes or latex genitals, or via other suggestions. Some items had tags on them, as if they were some sort of pseudo-merchandise - and I realized, as I felt some sort of covetousness among the pretty and creepy things, that the whole scene was reminiscent of the installations on display in boutiques and higher-end fashion chains such as Anthropologie. At the entrance to the installation was a rack that made this pretty explicit - some purses with tags, some jeans with stitched-on "chaps" complete with penis and man-legs, a ziplock baggie of hair and those plastic flosser things... maybe some other garments and latex parts. One wonders what is for sale, what beauty is extracted from personal chaos and crisis through artful arrangement and organization. One wonders again about the difference between a gallery and a boutique.

Transcript

2008-09-05T12:51:00.000-07:00

P & P discussing Volume opening at Worksound, 8/30:

PM: You say scale, I yell PERSPECTIVE! I say perspective, you yell SCALE!

PW: And this is how we get to volume.

Breakfast-table silliness aside - I didn't understand how the volume pun extended past the promotional postcard, as none of the work had much to do with sound, and it all had a lot to do with space/scale/perspective. Luckily, I hadn't seen the postcard, and didn't know the title of the show until I'd seen all the pieces. Otherwise I might've lingered on the volume pun, and it would've been distracting.

But I enjoyed the show very much! I had a lot of fun playing with the TNT exploder that, when pushed down, lit the little white room and bench on the other side of the one-way mirror. One could sit on the bench and surprise people figuring out the exhibit. I am sorry to say I don't know the name of the artist.

Referred

2008-08-28T20:37:00.000-07:00

I didn't listen to all the DNC speeches, but I'm pretty sure that each and every one I did hear contained reference to Langston Hughes' "dream deferred." It's pretty impressive, I think, that a little alliterative phrase written by a poet in 1951 manages to serve as a significant touchstone for politics - something everybody has to say - in a major party event just before a presidential election. The lines drawn to history and race and civil rights and the idea of the American Dream are clear, I think, but in light of the ubiquity of the term I'd like to note a few of the other things that "a dream deferred" might make us think of.

We know the phrase mostly from the oft-anthologized poem called "Harlem" (sometimes "Harlem: A Dream Deferred"). However, the phrase comes also from the title of the book, Montage of a Dream Deferred. The book begins with the same phrase in another poem, "Dream Boogie": "Good morning, daddy! / Ain't you heard / The boogie-woogie rumble / of a dream deferred?" During this period, Hughes was strongly influenced by jazz and blues, and African-American culture, language, and rhythms. The book is a collection of related poems about Harlem, and contains many of Hughes' most famous poems. I'm not sure whether the book's title refers to a filmic image montage or a sound collage, but both ideas of form seem relevant, both to Hughes' poem and to the use of the phrase in political speech.

The language and pacing of Montage of a Dream Deferred certainly refers more to pop music than sound collage, but it's worth noting that montage as a music form was also blossoming in America in the early 1950s, with the development of magnetic tape and the possibility of cutting, splicing, and looping recorded sound. In 1951, Pierre Schaeffer established the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète, and in the same year, John Cage composed his work based on chance operations and the I Ching - not exactly montage, but dependent on a similar sense of disjunction and rearrangement. This work is called Music of Changes.

But of course we must also look back to Soviet montage theory, which has a lot to do with change. Sergei Eisenstein wrote that "montage is conflict," in that new ideas arise from the collisions of juxtaposed images and scenes, and he argued that this conflict would be the catalyst for real social and revolutionary change. Langston Hughes was probably familiar with this argument, being a smart guy and a radical lefty, and having lived in the Soviet union for at least a year.

There's a tendency to understand jazz and montage, and their associated qualities (something like improvisation/voice, and editing/form, respectively) as deeply different. I'd say that we've been struggling over this binary in poetry since, well, forever. There's a small cadre of poets who've made the effort to address both, and I think many of them have a lot to do with Langston Hughes.

It's interesting to note that Hughes was of black, white, and Native American ancestry, which complicated his racial identity, and that he spent much of his childhood in Kansas.

Hughes' book title makes sense, of course, because our sleep-dreams generally take the form of montage. Our social/political dreams, on the other hand, are usually firmly in the realm of cause-and-effect narrative. These days, political speeches don't refer to montage, and most of the video bits we call montage use the logic of cause-and-effect narrative rather than jarring juxtaposition or dreamlike surrealism. The DNC speeches I heard were pretty standard. But it's interesting what a casual "deferred dream" can lead to, when dropped repeatedly in a political convention.

Disclaimer: I certainly don't presume to know much more than the very most basic things about jazz, montage, or Langston Hughes. Or politics, for that matter. I haven't read all of Montage of a Dream Deferred, just the excerpts. I'm sort of pretending that, when it comes to the title, I don't understand that Montage is the collection of related poems, and Dream Deferred is the subject of these poems. I just think it's interesting to trace the lineage of the phrase I heard in a million speeches this week. Either I'm just riffing, or I'm tossing together a bunch of thoughts to see if a new idea pops out. Or both.

Hmm.

2008-08-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

One knows we are deep in wartime by one's insensitivity to superhero flick after superhero flick. Nearer to the beginning of the war, I was very much bothered by vengeance-glory, nationalism, faith-speak, and us-v.-them ideas I perceived in both Signs and Spiderman. I suppose it's not just my sensitivity and perception, though - both The Dark Knight and Iron Man take the other superhero-lit route: who is evil and who is good?, how do we know?, is the binary even really possible?, etc. Of course, at the end of the movie, it always is possible, and good does fight against and triumph over evil, but that's a convention that we're willing to accept in order to enjoy the pleasures of the genre. Which, of course, have to do with satisfied expectations.

I cannot help but enter my guilty (because I hear that the comic books is far superior than the film) favorite superhero/supervillain movie into the mix, because V treads a little further from the binary. And because the explosions are so, so good.

Hollywood Librarian hits Central

2008-08-17T16:47:00.003-07:00

This afternoon I went to see a screening of Hollywood Librarian at Portland's Central Library downtown. I liked the balance between the humor in the clips of librarians in film (which are mostly funny, either due to the actual comedy of the film or the ridiculousness of the stereotype) and the political drama of the Salinas Public Library's closure due to lack of funding. But the structure, or lack thereof, of the film left me wanting - which is ironic, as one might think that a film written and directed by an information professional would be structured. I suppose the art/information margin is a crumbly one, which is where the film sits. I did enjoy the profiles of real librarians in very different careers, and the rallying cry about libraries as the cornerstone of democracy. Yay libraries! Then I went upstairs to the 020s and picked up a few books about the profession and the history of libraries. Yes, I'm excited to begin the online MLIS program at UW's iSchool next month.

My favorite profile was Marian Hepburn, who's been a librarian for something like 50 years... after a few pictures of her as a glamorous young lady intercut with clips from Desk Set, and as she tells some funny stories, the fact that she's Katharine's sister begins to emerge.

Discovery

2008-08-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

Found under the floorboards, around one of the heat registers in the dining room. It was torn into bits and stuffed in there to make the register level with the floor... the more we disassemble, the more we realize that this is the general style of workmanship in the house. I do like putting together puzzles. If anybody knows (or guesses) the era of this Tide box, I'd love to know.

Excuse/Description

2008-08-11T10:18:00.000-07:00

I have been absent from this document for a good while now: first it was due to true logistical obstacles - not being able to find an hour, an internet signal, my photos, my brain. But more recently it's been due to the overwhelming urge to update, and to be thorough, neither of which is possible at this point. On so many occasions I've wanted to post things, and haven't, and then they build up horribly and I can't manage to post anything at all. I wish I could find the scanner, or most of all the scanned version of the card I made with the drawing of roses under our roofline and stamped with "NEW SHELTER" from the standard Wayne family stamp box, and written underneath in my best handwriting, which still looks like it belongs to a fourth-grader, is "Peter Musselman and Phoebe Wayne have moved to 2616 SE 16th Ave., Portland, Ore. 97202."

That's all. Now I can proceed.

Watching it go down

2008-05-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

On my walks from the bus stop to work in the mornings, I've been enjoying watching the demolition of the block just west of Nordstrom's, on SW Park & Morrison. It's the home of the old Zell Bros Jewelers sign, which I watched getting munched. I was impressed by the lone light globe I saw hanging intact, swinging around in an exposed room.

Here comes

2008-05-19T20:04:00.000-07:00

Confluence

2008-05-12T21:31:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I had never heard of Kelley Point, but was glad to discover it. At the very northwesternmost tip of north Portland (past St. John's, past the long and loose run of seemingly less-used industrial areas, docks and shipping lots), at the very end of Marine Drive, this big, wild park was a surprise. Where the Willamette flows into the Columbia, snarls of willows and a little rocky beach mark the spot where New Englander Hall Jackson Kelley hoped to establish a city in 1834. Kelley, who published many pamphlets encouraging settlement in Oregon in the first half of the nineteenth
century, was plagued by madness in his later years, and bitterly (and unsuccessfully) tried to gain notice and compensation for having sparked interest in the region. What he got in his name was a lovely park that still feels like somewhat of a ruin. Board bones sketch the shape of a former building. There's a huge anchor in a clearing in the willows - is it a real artifact or a park prop? Shipping docks are visible just down the narrow beach. In the interior of the park, huge old trees shade lawns and well-contained thick underbrush. It's very quiet - when I visited (a sunny, warm weekday afternoon) there were only a few people there. But apparently Kelley Point has a reputation for being something akin to Portland's own Fire Island. So far, I haven't found anything to back this up.

Barack sighting!

2008-05-09T09:18:00.001-07:00

Barack!

Taken outside the Governor Hotel when he was going to his bus. He came over to the crowd of us and shook a bunch of hands. He looked right at me! Star struck.

Nooks and crannies

2008-04-23T09:32:00.000-07:00

I'm deeply obsessed with the house-hunt, which is consuming all my thoughts right now. If only my powers of attention could be this strong in all the other areas of my life! My attraction to certain architectural details is becoming clear: nooks, cupboards, crawlspaces, laundry chutes, dormers, window seats, and the like win me over immediately. If I could find The Poetics of Space in the chaos of my stuff spread across two states, I would review what Gaston Bachelard says about hidey-holes.

welcome to the relocation

2008-04-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

I'm back from Caldera, and now it's time to start the larger move, one I've long been ready for: back to my dear hometown, Portland, Oregon. I've been in California for about three and a half years - a little longer than originally planned, but time well spent. Peter will be done with his MFA program in mid-May - so I'm headed north a bit early to find a job and perhaps a place for us to live. Starting Friday, I'm considering myself back in town! But I'll be back and forth between Portland and the Bay over the next month. I will miss my beloved friends in Berkeley and San Francisco and Oakland and Emeryville - but I'll be in touch.

Gather

2008-03-31T18:08:00.000-07:00

Walking into Carolyn Hopkins’ studio is like walking into the brightly lit cabin of a mad trapper. All around, beasts lounge on newspaper, hang from drying lines. Antlers pile in one corner. A big brown deer is collapsed in the middle of the room. There are piles of white eggs and black eggs. All the beasts are found here in central Oregon, where we are surrounded by wilderness: otters, minks, coyotes, chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels, little birds, and of course the deer. Some of them make tricky shadows on the walls, shadows that look prone to darting away into the forest. But the beasts themselves aren’t going anywhere.They’re paper pelts, made from Carolyn’s paper trash blended and reformed over taxidermist’s molds. Some of them are one-sided, an obvious shell, and others are more complete, carefully pieced together, looking whole but delicate and tentative. They have holes for eyes, which makes them look skeletal. Light shines through the pelts on the drying lines. The eggs are made of ash swept from the bottom of the woodstove, another waste product of our presence here.

Carolyn’s earlier work is based on similar shapes, the taxidermist’s forms, but those pelts are foraged from furniture scavenged from city streets, and the animals themselves sit on the cut-up furniture their skins are made from. The body of work is appropriate to a cityscape, and refers to the adaptability of wild animals to the spread of development and human presence. These animals are solid and look quite alive, or at least like a strange version of a museum diorama. Carolyn’s Caldera work, the paper pelts, turns slightly toward ephemerality. The materials are basically natural, but waste prodcuts human excess nonetheless. The world she creates is fragile, muted, almost lacy. Even though this collection looks like the result of a hunt (which was the name of a previous show of Carolyn’s), it’s called, appropriately, Gather.

This is Carolyn Hopkins' website.

drawing that makes itself (& friends)

2008-03-31T17:57:00.000-07:00

The large center of the body of work that emerged from Kerri Rosenstein’s residency here at Caldera is the series of five wall drawings entitled drawing that makes itself. To refer to emergence is appropriate here - each of the drawings comes out of the existing studio wall itself, and specifically, from the large number of pinholes that a few years’ worth of artists and students have left in its relatively vast expanse. The wall is about twenty-eight feet long, and Kerri paints up to a height of about nine feet. The materials used, for four of the five drawings, are basic, almost ubiquitous: white wall paint and pencil. The materials and their resulting marks reveal texture, the jump of graphite across the bumpiness of the wall. It’s hard to make a continuous line. The first drawing is of the stars, each pinhole transformed into the center of one star - and these vary slightly in size, shape, and complexity, so a little depth bears into the wall. Standing across the room, you can’t see the drawing; the wall looks completely white. Walking closer, the stars come out, as they do at night when one walks away from ambient lights of town. They were there all along. They make themselves. The second drawing is a sky of birds, and the third a sea of waves. Between each drawing, Kerri painted the wall white again. The fourth drawing makes connections between the pinholes, so they look like a web or a field of crystalline structure. The final drawing departs slightly from the pattern, allowing departure from the wall and the space of the studio itself. Each pinhole is filled with gold. In this case, there’s no perspective illusion; it’s a flat wall. It’s the smallest drawing; you have to get quite close to see the richness in the wall. But being up that close is an intimate experience; one is surrounded by wonder and points of gold. I admire the collaborative aspect of this work (with previous occupants of the space!), the modesty of its marks and materials, and its site-specific nature.

Related to these wall drawings is Kerri’s study of walls and architecture, the bearing drawings. Each of these records the artist getting her bearings, noting the shapes that make up the interior spaces she occupies here at Caldera: the studio, the A-frame cabin, and the Hearth Center. Each wall or architectural part is isolated from the rest; they’re both abstracted and familiar. I’m also really drawn to some of the work that spans Kerri’s transition into her time here, especially the solids made from condensed matter: roses, ashes, paper, some of which are partially covered with gold, making a compact deposit of richness and emotion, curved so you you can hold it in your hand, flat so you can look at it.

More of Kerri Rosenstein's work can be seen here.

Actually leaving

2008-03-27T17:03:00.000-07:00

When we woke up it was clear and sunny and gorgeous, tons of powdery snow (over a foot?), another winter wonderland, but more so than it had been all month. Santiam pass was still requiring chains, so I had to take the Biggs Junction route – meaning Kerri and I could caravan! We dug out the cars while Jim/Scout heroically plowed our route to the Caldera gate. He said, “they call this a bluebird day, when the sky’s this blue over fresh snow.” We drove off with big caps of snow on our cars, miles of snow on each side of the road. Suttle Lake is all melted now. The highway was indeed covered with packed snow – it was good to be going downhill toward the desert, I thought, as I watched truckers chaining up on the side of the road. Sisters was sunny, with just a little slush in the downtown streets. We had a hearty breakfast at Angeline’s before setting forth east to Redmond, north to Madras, and then north some more to Biggs and the Columbia River. On the way we drove through sun-and-snow, hail, and under lots of blue sky and pretty clouds. We passed cool towns like Shaniko (I remembered being 15 and the lightning and dancing by the side of highway 218 and range fires), a huge field of windmills making electricity, and through narrow valleys alongside the Deschutes to where it meets the Columbia. In Biggs Junction we stopped and had a little snack, then I got on I-84 west to Portland, and Kerri got on 1-84 east, heading ultimately for Missoula. I remembered the big rock on the Washington side of the Columbia that marks where western and eastern Oregon meet dramatically – deep forests on one side, desert and sage on the other. I passed through some small rainstorms, drove by the waterfalls and gorgeous moss, and into the sunny city.

Mopping my way out

2008-03-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

Big blizzard day. It snowed most of the night, and we woke up to several inches of new snow. I dug out the car, packed it up, and mopped my way out the door of the cabin, only to find that chains were required on Santiam pass. Of course I didn’t have chains, thinking Sexy Sadie the Subaru would make it in the mild March weather. It started snowing again around noon, hard and constantly. Kerri said I could crash on her futon couch, since I was all cleaned out of my cabin, and she’d already been given the ok to stay an extra night. So we hunkered down and waited as it snowed harder and harder, more and more, building up on the deck railing and spilling off the sides, whiting out the whole valley and flattening down the trees. Everything was blue-violet just before it got dark. Then late at night, after eleven or so, we noticed that the stars were out, and shooting around. I wrote in my cabin 5 guestbook something like, “Caldera didn’t want us to leave, so it threw us a blizzard.”

Supposedly last full Caldera day

2008-03-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

What in the world happened. Some packing, some writing and editing, printing, beading and finishing-up. And then a little saucer sledding. And then the puppets came out…

Caldera March 2008 Artists!

2008-03-24T16:50:00.000-07:00

From left to right: Kerri Rosenstein, Phoebe Wayne,
Jill Beauchesne, Carolyn Hopkins, Erin Ergenbright.

And this is what the porch looks like when we're all in the same cabin:

Pieces of March

2008-03-24T16:48:00.000-07:00

We need a team photo. I just ate my easter bunny. I’m surrounded by pieces of the Titanic (puzzle). But it’s coming together. Just excavated a splinter from my hardened palm. Went to town, visited some shops, ate fries at the Sno-Cap. I took pictures of the artists’ studios, and did some writing about these lovely women and their work. To be posted soon! Tomorrow is packing and cleaning day. I’m starting today, somewhat. I put some things in bags. It’s sad and I hardly know how to experience it. I’m tempted to stay up all night writing, but I’ll need my sleep.

bunny love

2008-03-23T16:44:00.000-07:00

The Easter Bunny came! A Cadbury caramel egg with my breakfast while finishing reading Into The Wild. Egg on toast (chicken egg, that is). Reading obsessively all morning in front of the fire; cold raining outside. I had to finish the book; it was haunting me. Even though I didn’t feel that I was learning anything from it, I still had to read it.

Lake report

2008-03-22T17:40:00.000-07:00

Walked to Scout Lake, which is tiny and still completely iced over, except at the edge. It was really warm today. Suttle Lake is at least halfway melted. Blue Lake is melting too, but it’s so much deeper, it’s going to take a while. Finally I walked all the way around it (not very far, really – about an hour’s walk? Halfway with snowshoes, halfway without them) with Erin and Jill the other day. I was impressed by the twisty blowy patterns on the ice visible from way up high on the ridge. Oh, and we found fresh coyote tracks and scat right along the trail! It followed the trail for a while.

Tonight we had a potluck dinner in my cabin (lentil soup, quinoa, salad, mint Newman-Os, yum) and played yet another game of Carcassonne, this time with Erin’s new Dragon, Princess, and Fairy extension set. I really like that game. I started some dangerous distractions today – the Titanic puzzle and Into the Wild. But I also got a lot done on the Lovejoy chapbook.

Another dictionary highlight

2008-03-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

I keep staying up later and later, and I’ve turned into a big morning snoozer. I keep remembering scenarios and not remembering if I dreamed them or they happened. About conversations, looking into personal journals filled with decorations, color, beautiful doodling. Last night I dreamed of twisters, bunkers, buses, an end of the world. I woke up knowing this was a dream, though. I’ve been making lots of lists of things to do.

Dictionary highlight! Capuchin can refer to either a monk or a monkey.

Fun with newspaper destined for the woodstove

2008-03-20T17:36:00.000-07:00

More new snow.

Rearrangement of the subtitle of article titled “Limits offer ‘no poetry’ for I-5 bridge,” from a February issue of The Oregonian:

Flat constraints for a simple, mean new design could span a Vertical Columbia.

Could Columbia mean a new Vertical?
Constraints span a design flat for simple.

A new Vertical Columbia could mean constraints span for simple, design a flat.

Columbia flat constraints could span a simple, new design for a Vertical mean.

Mean Columbia constraints design a simple could span for a flat new Vertical.

A Vertical span could mean simple, Columbia flat for design constraints a new.

A simple, flat span could mean constraints for a new Vertical design Columbia.

I think the original subtitle was “Vertical constraints could mean a simple, flat design for a new Columbia span.”

Steady snow all day, intermittently sticking, but now really accumulating, making a blizzard of our walkways, windows and breaths. It creeps up the outside panes. Think kind of wind you have to squint. Ceiling creaks from snowmass. Inches and inches without sliding.

Let me bore you with detailed weather reports

2008-03-19T17:34:00.000-07:00

After a long night of rain, and rain pretty much all day, yesterday, and the night before, it’s snowing again. Not sticking, not melting entirely either. Making a slush layer on the deck. I love watching the slight delicate lacy accumulation. Getting a little whiter. It must’ve gotten a fraction colder since I woke up. Is it Wednesday? Just a week left here. I’m going to miss it. Maybe I could consider this snow sticking – there’s a little white accumulation on the bare branches but not on the firs. I’ll accept it as an intermediary precipitation. OK, now it’s dusted. I’m scheming a playlist. We’re getting a new neighbor here today: Jill, poet from Montana. Yay!

What happened to the day. Research. Formatting. Reading. Imagining. Stretching. Made mac&cheese. Wrote some postcards. Hacked at the snow berm blocking the walkway between cabins. Our last (official) dinner party is tonight. Sky and light are clear and blue.

I think the Lovejoy essay is separate from the chapbook project. I feel the need to do more and more research until I’ve read everything and talked to everyone. Feel like Arthur Rimbaud would have something to say on the matter.

Little fishes

2008-03-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

The school visit was lots of fun – we had the kids pair up (Kerri did a cool series of partner-finding activities), and they took turns being blindfolded and describing a mystery object to their partner, who would be the scribe for their descriptions. Later they did blind contour drawings of the objects, and eventually we had them try to figure out which contour drawing went with which description. Some of the objects, besides mine previously mentioned, were: a metal elephant, a sort of kewpie doll, a rubber frog, a ceramic turtle, a ribbon, a camping mug, a star-shaped clay candle-holder, a special fork, a sweet potato, a jeweled collar, and a plastic fish. We asked the kids to describe what the voice of their object would sound like, and one girl who was writing about the ribbon said it would sound like a violin. Pretty good, I think. Sisters Middle School is a nice place.

Then we made a stop by the Habitat for Humanity thrift store for half-off day! Found some treasures. Met a really neat kittycat. Browsed some beautiful books I couldn’t afford at the antiquarian bookshop (where they also sell a lovely array of buttons – an unexpected and charming combination). And then, shirking our duties but getting some much-needed exercise, we went to the mouth of the Metolius River (one of the mouths, I guess – the other is Blue Lake itself), and to visit the Wizard Falls Hatchery, and then on a little walk down the Metolius. I found the most perfect campsite ever, but I’m not telling where it is. The mysterious chartreuse substance below is an extreme close-up of some beautiful lichen.

Pile of objects

2008-03-17T11:53:00.000-07:00

It snowed a little more last night, just a dusting, but I think there might be more coming. There’s a falling frozen mist, or something. Or is that rain, a thaw. Who knows; I’ll stay in here. Now it’s snow again, big fat and swirly. The weather’s changing second by second. Snow and lots of it. Changes its textures constantly. Last night we did a puzzle of a fire truck in a firehouse. Expanses of curved brick, windows with blinds. The hum of the heaters is up big-time; I’m sleepy and sore. A high wind changes tones.

As for the world: what is this about Tibetan monks in their robes smashing windows in Beijing, breaking pattern and ideology? What is this about monasteries being closed down and people rioting in the streets of Lhasa? The ideal of nonviolence and the need for actual struggle meet again.

I’m still so sleepy. But I slept like a rock last night. Had a dream about adventuring, clinging to a carpet landscape, a steep slope over a sparkly ocean. And at some point, an outcast carrying a garbage can of burning matter – and at some point, a pool, and another woman in it – was she the real outcast? Discussions about her career, a fake-out of some sort. Access to a building in the process of being finished.

Tomorrow is our school visit. I have a pile of objects from around the cabin to complement Erin’s bag of far cooler objects she uses as props for writing classes. My pile: a meyer lemon, a loaf pan, a giant green paperclip, earplugs, a shiny aluminum cup, chicken Top ramen.

I worked hard on an essay about the Lovejoy columns today, pretty much all day. I started getting really excited about it, the possibilities, the extent of the project. My mind runs around like mad. I want to buy books. I need a haircut. At least I managed not to start the Titanic puzzle that’s been tempting me, nor did I watch The Graduate.

Don't job search

2008-03-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

I made the mistake of searching Craigslist for apartments and jobs this morning, which was a big mistake – I got all wrapped up in doing that, then all anxious and discouraged about my future prospects. Can’t I stay here forever and be a snowshoeing poet? It’s a gorgeous blue breezy day.

I wonder if Lisa Robertson would mind much if I asked to borrow her superior brain for like five minutes just to see what feeling to aspire to. I’d like to read everything she’s read. I just keep going back to Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture like other people go back to Jane Austen novels. Carolyn goes back to Into the Wild. Jennie goes back to David Sedaris. Some friends of mine go back to Star Wars. I used to return to The BFG and the Ramona Quimby books; now it’s this funny little beat-up miniature from the seemingly over (but once fantastic) Clear Cut Press, full of brilliant essays and a series of pretty amazing prose poems. I get more out of it each time I read it (ok, I understand it better each time – it’s dense prose), and I love it more and more.

[Update: Clear Cut Press is not over. They're putting together their second series, and I'm very excited about it!]

I charged up the hill on the snowshoes, this time to the edge of the Caldera property, also the edge of the burn. Some big trees in the wind up there, some hard wind and blown snow. Some beautiful patterns and shapes blown into the snow, but I didn’t bring my camera. It’s melty enough that it’s getting hard to snowshoe – they sink a couple of inches.

Salon day

2008-03-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

I did a fair amount of revising, layout, fussing, and the like – I’m ready (as ready as I can be) for the reading today. It’s a total winter wonderland – beautiful tons of snow.

Mom and Jennie came, along with a cozy but decent-sized group, to the salon. Erin and I did our readings in the mouth of the Hearth Center’s big fireplace. We toured through Carolyn and Kerri’s studios. We ate cookies and drank coffee and chatted and peered at gold rocks and paper chipmunks and a wall of stars and things made of ash. Mom and Jennie and I walked over to Blue Lake and poked around in the deep melty snow, then came back to my cabin to hang out. After they left, Kerri, Erin, Carolyn and I went out to dinner with Carolyn’s dad, stepmom, and a family friend at Bronco Billy’s in Sisters. Later we picked up a video – Margot at the Wedding – and watched it. I really enjoyed the dialogue and weirdness, even thought I might want to see it again.

More pictures of pretty snow

2008-03-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

Snow! Lots of it. Six inches? Still coming steadily, windlessly. The covered branches of firs look like paws. Big slides from the roof. Tall delicate piles on all the leafless trees. Our fairyland enclosure. Sky extends down to the ground. Every time I look up, my eyes are so excited. Big collapses from the roof. When the sun comes out, big explosions of snow from the trees.

Or

2008-03-13T11:30:00.000-07:00

Today I’ll choose (for my daily list of nouns), if I haven’t before, the noun weather. It sifts around: snow, rain, wind, sun. All of it fast, and hard (as opposed to hard-and-fast).

I’ve been searching around trying to relocate a critical-theory idea about or, as in the French word for gold, and the English word, and the word or as just itself, two letters… and not remembering where it came from was difficult. You can’t perform a good internet search for or, whether it’s Google or JSTOR. At least not in English. But I finally found it (Peter found it by skimming pages in books all the way back in S.R.; props!) – Derrida wrote about or’s reccurrence in Mallarme, and how it can function as noun, adjective, and conjunction. So far I haven’t read much of the original texts, being out here (I checked the Sisters public library, no Mallarme). That can happen later. But I was glad to finally figure it out. Or. So interesting.

I learned that my printer only has black and blue ink in it, so when asked to print out a photo or anything in color, it only prints lots of blue and black. It’s actually quite beautiful… I’ve been printing things.

On this day I did not watch a movie

2008-03-12T12:11:00.000-07:00

After taking a bit of a break from focused work on the mass of poems, and then looking at them in the current order, I actually felt a little bit satisfied with it as a whole. I felt that I liked the poems, where they wander and take tangents, where they repeat and obsess over the same thing over and over. I felt that I liked the order, and that it all seemed pretty much ok, just a few revisions necessary. Am I kidding myself? Just being lazy? Who knows. Going sledding.

With my new saucer sled, I postholed my way up to the top of the hill, which had lost a lot of snow, and softened, in the past few days. I got some good slides in, though. The snow went rosy under the coming storm.

I switched gears, and spent a long time in the afternoon playing with format, font, layout, and order in the Lovejoy project. It’s fun and tricky. And really good to have a different focus.

Our Wednesday special dinner was small, as Erin was back in Portland for a little while, and we had just two guests, Kit Stafford and Glen Corbett. The table was just a short line, almost in the mouth of the huge fireplace. We talked about some possibilities for projects with the middle schoolers, and about colors. I learned that evening’s glowy beauty, or our response to it, has a lot to do with how the cones in our eyes start responding to the growing darkness – switching from yellow to blue. Those colors again! And learned that green is very good for concentration. I finished reading First Figure, and thought about possible collaborations.

Interferometer

2008-03-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

I dreamed of a spectacular explosion, which was then replayable on YouTube. It was windy-stormy all night – the rain turned into snow, and everything was dusted with it. I keep worrying about trees smashing through the roof – I’m so close to it when I sleep, it makes me feel vulnerable. I thought about coming down to sleep on the couch, but then I would be so close to the glass… but also the exit. In any case, I managed to rest my worries long enough to get some sleep. The movie was good for thinking about pattern, subjectivity, and the power inherent in mental work. I also worked at knitting that lovely pink hat, and made lots of headway – it’s a long movie! And I’m only halfway through it – there’s a whole other DVD. Now it’s dangerous – I could just knit and watch, knit and watch.

A good word: interferometer – an instrument that uses interference phenomena between waves to make measurements, as of wavelengths or very small distances.

Went to town, purchased lots of random stuff, including groceries, earrings, postcards, and a saucer sled. A donut, a slice of honey walnut bread… a purple coat from the Habitat thrift store… it was a fun trip, with Kerri and Carolyn. It was good to get a change of scenery. After coming back, we watched Into the Wild. And then back in my cabin, I listened to Peter singing the “Search and Rescue Mission” song. It was hard to sleep after the intensity of the movie.

In town I got two different kinds of natural moisturizing oils – almond and coconut. Unable to wait, I put some of both of them on my arms, and I smell like a cake.

Movies

2008-03-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

Last night, after a visit to Kerri’s studio, and after some antsy, chocolate-fueled revision work (all done standing and pacing), Kerri and Carolyn came over and we watched a documentary about Agnes Martin, a self-described abstract expressionist (who showed work with the minimalists). She painted grids and horizontal lines pretty much her whole long career, lived alone, and developed this whole world of thought – much like Buddhist ideas, but not exactly. She was really into happiness and innocence. She thought of the grid as the best expression of innocence. Rectangles instead of squares, because squares are aggressive and over-confident; rectangles are softer and more easy-going.

This morning I’m operating slowly, picking at the popcorn leftovers. The birds are making a big enthusiastic racket. I started knitting a pink hat last night while watching the movie, and if I had no self-control I could knit all day. It sits there, skeletal, the thing I desire and must defer.

I set up camp in a corner of the Hearth Center and did some writing there. It’s such an impressive, new, and empty space, it seems to want to be used.

Then I stayed up late watching What the Bleep do We Know: Into the Rabbit Hole – basically, clips of interviews with quantum physicists (including Amit Goswami, Nona’s friend!) intercut with a little narrative (that takes place in Portland!) – it was interesting. And interesting to track my responses of thrill, excitement, suspicion, and criticism. Here’s the only criticism I’ll articulate thus far: the movie all pretty much begins with a criticism of Descartes and the binary system – and yet the entire rest of the logic is based on binary (experiments, etc.). Most annoying is when it verges into ethics, speakers start talking in terms of positive and negative, good and bad. I understand the idea they’re working with, but it’s got some weak horizons. Besides, I have a hard time believing in purity, singularity. The unpredictability and multiples at once (was that called superposition?) makes more sense to me. Just like they say, you can feel things coming. And I can feel it coming when they begin talking about purity, a one totalizing fabric of the universe that takes place with a slight change in tone, an eye flicker – and my suspicion lights go on.

Come see

2008-03-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

Details about the salon!

The final installment of the
2008 Winter Artist Salon Series at Caldera
March 15
1:00 – 3:00 pm
take a peek at, and a listen to, works in progress by
visual artists Kerri Rosenstein and Carolyn Hopkins
writer Erin Ergenbright and poet Phoebe Wayne
31500 Blue Lake Drive, Sisters, Oregon
map

(Possible) resolution of elephant pillowcase puzzle

2008-03-09T17:10:00.000-07:00

Last night’s dreams were strange and chaotic, but not saddening – so I must’ve found the proper side of the pillow. My back feels better, at least somewhat, so I will have to be careful with it today. It’s Daylight Savings Day – I set the clock forward.

Black dashes – squirrels running across the snow in the (my) imaginary graveyard (stumps at angles looking like headstones) – what I’d really like to see is a bobcat or lynx. Or a coyote, but so far it’s just squirrels, birds, and an otter – I’m sure the other beasts are out there – I see shifts and dashes through the trees, and at night. Some vigorous screechy bluejays interacting on the porch this morning, though – they’re pretty gorgeous.

I’m just sitting here dreaming about fame and fortune, and thinking about Frank O’Hara. Listening to some modern music – Takemitsu – From me flows what you call time, I think it’s called. Music about time is like… writing about language, I guess. The page is blue from the sky it’s under.

What looked like a dog turned out to be just a log, but what looked like a slanted gravestone was actually a short concrete pillar. I really get a kick out of watching those shiny ouzels rustle and dive.

The ice is melting fast; it’s really warm today. I walked over to Blue Lake, and out onto the dock, where I could hear the melting – small cracklings and bubbles making their way through the ice, and, occasionally, a big loud crack. It was so warm out there that I was in my T-shirt. I took off my boots and socks, and put my feet on the ice. It’s still thick, though, and, I realized, made up of layers: ice sheets, snow, and now water, in between and sometimes on top. Blue Lake, by the way, is the second-deepest lake in Oregon, after Crater Lake. It was formed by two volcanic eruptions 3,500 years ago (hence the name Caldera, aka volcanic crater). It’s very deep, very cold, and, in the summer, very blue. Where it melts into Link Creek it’s starting to look blue, when the sky is blue – the water’s so clear.

Notes from the A

2008-03-08T17:08:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned the miracle of cellular phone reception just barely and inconsistently available here in my cabin? On the table, in particular. It’s better for text messages than calls.

Right now the wind is racing. The rain shrunk the snow.

Within the A, it’s warmest up top. I have to crumple a little near the walls/ceiling. There is, of course, a circulation of air, and a definite crossbeam. But it’s never as easy as that, the walls being slanted as they are: direct shot of heat from the stove to ceiling, slide of it from the baseboard heaters up the slant. And invisible, subtle drift down. The base is sturdy, grounded, yet up from the water a little, on legs. It’s a big window, open but safe, held in a little but with a vista. Good shapes.

Why must my back hurt? From the bed or from sitting on that hard bench in the Hearth Center? Should I lie down on it? Stretch? What I’d really like is to watch a movie.

I’m boiling beans, boiling rice. Cut-up broccoli is ready to cook. I spend a lot of time in the idea of the book, despite backache and a heavy head. All else I did, besides a few sad communication efforts with the outside world, was visit Carolyn’s studio where’s she’s making paper molds of animals. I’ve started a bag of paper for her.

I’m really enjoying reading the Boston Review cover to cover.

Tomorrow I’ll return to using the Rolling Writer, thanks to Kerri’s kind donation. Tomorrow I’ll return to Daylight Savings Time. It’s time to put the mass of poems away for the night, to return tomorrow. I counted: I’m a third of the way through the residency. On Wednesday it’ll be the halfway mark. Meaning I’ll have to consider the rest of my life again…. work, moving, library school, etc.

Tonight I’ll try the side of the pillow where the elephants are not touching – I debated last night, and thought I’d sleep on the side that has elephants with crossed trunks – I couldn’t tell if it was a loving or warlike gesture. The other side had a grumpy-looking elephant, which seemed like a bad idea. But it didn’t turn out very well – my dreams were very bad and sad – so the elephants with crossed trunks must be battling.

Long and narrow things

2008-03-07T17:06:00.001-08:00

Another gray morning and release from series of bizarre dreams. Last night’s was quite an adventure, and full of visual fun: in particular, an amazingly beautiful kitchen full of color, interesting shapes and surprises, and some pink shell hair ornaments that lit up and sparkled! And a downtown building interior almost entirely made up of smooth tropical plants.

I made bacon and eggs for lunch, and my cabin has been smelling like bacon ever since. I even lit an illegal scented candle to try to change ambient fragrance. I think it’s been helping, but so far it’s blending with the bacon aroma. I haven’t done much work today, but I cleaned the cabin, which was really good to do.

I walked around Suttle Lake with Kerri and Erin. On one side of the lake, the snow is mostly melted, and on the other side, it’s still snowy, but packed enough so snowshoes aren’t necessary. It’s a long, narrow lake, and we’re on one end. At the other end is the Suttle Lake Lodge – a nice rustic/cushy hotel, and cabins of all sizes that one can rent. We scoped out the Lodge and its restaurant.

It’s hard to feel productive when I’m not making new work – I just keep wanting to produce pages. Which is the appeal of a new, longer prose project. But I extended my table to its fullest length, spread papers all over it, printed some pages, and worked hard at layout and organization until bedtime.

Procedural matters

2008-03-07T11:54:00.005-08:00

Even though I'm not posting these writings every day, I've decided to monkey with the Blogger post options so that it looks like I am posting daily. It's easier to read that way - going with the accepted blog chronology layout. I have done this before; I'm not sure why I feel that I need to disclose it now. Anyway, after my first post from Caldera, subsequent posts will be divided by date, regardless of when I actually post them. The date-stamp from this post, however, is true. Lunchtime.

My speedway

2008-03-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

The dinner last night was great fun. Some people from the Caldera office in Portland were here, and Jim and Patty put on a great dinner party. There was a fire in the big fireplace, and a big U-shaped table all beautifully set with tablecloths and wine and glass pitchers of water and plates handpainted by Caldera kids. We didn’t have to do anything, just be pampered guests. We ate chicken enchiladas and salad, with lime tarts for dessert. Kerri, Carolyn, Erin and I sat along one side of the U, and chatted on topics from ideas of audience to the Portland food scene to Britney Spears. We had a lot to talk about. Then! After dinner we went to Carolyn’s cabin to play Carcassonne, a really fun game in which you make these little walled cities and roads and cloisters with ponds and bridges. I made a figure eight road – a little speedway.

And stayed up late; I built such a riproaring fire in my woodstove that it kept me up thinking it was going to burst forth into the cabin.

This morning I kept feeling a little cold, so I made another fire. My first daytime fire here. It did the trick. I saw a crazy ouzel diving in the creek. We’ve got a big white sky. The deck is looking rather melty. I painted another picture. I called Peter, who climbed down from a ladder to talk. I climbed up a hill to talk.

It was a slow day; it went by. I finished Occupational Treatment, and made the A-frame really hot from the woodstove. I’m thinking about Peter’s performance tonight at Signal Flow. Coyotes! They’re whooping it up, or having a crisis. A mix of howls and yips, so many voices. The moon is new.

I sketched out some goals and timeframes for the work I’d like to get done here – finishing projects and starting in on new ones. It’s really hard to think of Into Scale as a real manuscript, but I have to close it and move, have to enclose it and make it a unit. Often I say to myself, poems?! are you kidding?!

Pen crisis

2008-03-05T11:21:00.000-08:00

March 5, 2008

Pen crisis. The Rolling Writer is dead. Apparently I only brought ink cartridges for the fountain pen I didn’t bring, the one that’s long dead at home (probably in the trash). The one I brought is also out of ink. I have one good working pen, the kind Peter treasures – I smuggled it away. I have some other pens. But I was getting really attached to the Rolling Writer – when I get around to going into Sisters, I’ll have to get myself another few of them, if I can.

Last night when I ground the lovely Stumptown coffee that Jeff sent, I think the coffee dust gave me a small hit of caffeine directly to the brain – I had a hard time getting to sleep, and therefore slept in a bit, again. But this coffee is really at least a couple of cuts above the Trader Joe’s Mellow Blend (“I feel so relaxed” / “And yet so alert”) – I thought I liked that TJ blend, but not so much. It’ll do, but I’ll drink the Stumptown first.

Maybe if I write Jeff a thank-you email for the pen, he’ll take pity on me and send me a new one. The pen crisis, however discouraging, should help in my goal to transition into doing more real hard writing work on the computer. Tonight’s our dinner, and I’d like to have a really productive day, so I can relax later. It’s sunny and still. I may have to snowshoe into the burned forest again.

Taylor Brady’s book turns out to be doubly (triply, quadruply) exciting, ‘cause it begins to address being multiple, in multiple places at once, and more specifically, the problem of writing about something one missed, something one didn’t witness. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’m pleased to work through his treatment of these ideas.

I’m fluttering around in here like a little moth, thanks to a nice mug of yerba mate. After the coffee!

I’ve been distracted a lot today, but I feel like it’s been productive nonetheless – some interesting poems coming up. Not sure I understand them entirely. In the morning, in the dictionary again, I went through and found all the immediately adjacent illustrations – I swear these dictionary editors are a bunch of jokers. Dibble and Dickinson, Emily? Longhorn and Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth? Ibis and Ibsen, Henrik? There are political as well as literary pairs. Hurdy-gurdy and Hussein, King of Jordan, for example. There is a particularly funny pairing of gorilla and Gorbachev, Mikhail in strikingly similar postures – actually, that and a couple of other pairings including communist leaders started me wondering if there was some sort of Cold War sentiment expression going on – but I decided not to pursue that theory too deeply. I will have to make some sort of collection of these, though, and share them – I hope that someone besides me thinks they’re as funny as I do. Oh, and the flamenco / flamingo illustrations are quite good.

More snow days

2008-03-04T17:09:00.000-08:00

March 4, 2008

A little social time was good. We watched Born Into Brothels. The four of us (Kerri, Erin, Carolyn, and I) walked back on a sheet of ice, against stiff wind, under Mars.

We got a new layer of snow last night – half an inch? three-quarters? It’s sunny and windy. I slept in a bit. Had a dream that Peter and I, and Jane and Geri, went to Paris to visit Andrew and Doreen in their apartment in a building that was difficult to navigate – you had to take the right elevator – or you could go other ways, but did they involve going through people’s rooms? It was a big, classy, old, chaotic building. Lots of people running around in the lobby.

I’m eating my oatmeal. Don’t drink from the mug of paint water.

Sometimes I cannot help reading the dictionary. This one I have on hand, being paperback and easily portable, is The American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd Edition. Already its lack of the words I’m looking for annoys me. But I’ve dog-eared a particularly good page: OK(2) to olicook. It begins in the midst of the definition of OK, as in okay, and proceeds through OK (Oklahoma), Oka (a river in Russia), Okavango (a river in Africa), Okayama (a Japanese city), Okeechobee Lake (in Florida), O’Keeffe, Georgia, Okefenokee Swamp (Florida again), Ohhotsk, Sea of (the arm of the northern Pacific Ocean that reaches west of the Kamchatka Peninsula), Okinawa (Japan again), Oklahoma, okra, -ol (the suffix for alcohols and phenols), Olaf II (patron saint of Norway), old, olden, and Old English. This is just the first column, which is the best. Oh yes, and best of all, there are two pictures absolutely side by side: a photo of Georgia O’Keeffe and a line drawing of okra. PS: olicook is an old Dutch term for doughnut (or donut), apparently still used in the Hudson Valley. !

As I left the cabin and came to the intersection of Caldera paths, I was met by Jim’s old wheezy dog Lucky (“he’s a stiff old farting dog,” Jim said last night), who joined me on a walk all the way out to the mailboxes on the road, coughing once in a while, eating a little snow, peeing, and back to the bottom of his driveway, where we parted.

After some reasonably productive work time, I visited Kerri and Carolyn’s studios, and chatted with them in a sunny place outside the Hearth Center. Then I set out on the snowshoes – climbed up to the ridge over Blue Lake, again, and this time followed the Rim Trail (or where it would be, most likely, under the snow) around the lake toward its west end – then I cut down the slop into the burned forest. It’s a really exciting landscape for me right now – black pole-like trunks sticking up from the wells they form in the deep snow – almost a grid – vertical trunks, some high, horizontal branches, and thanks to late winter afternoon, long blue shadows, horizontal across the snow. High-contrast, almost a black and white landscape, but because of the limited palette and simplified, abstracted forms, all the little variations in color and shape stand out sharply. The sky is bright blue. Some fallen bark and twisted branches look bright rusty red. Some trunks are white and dry, others black, burned. Some still have reddish brown bark. And there are these weird dark curly branches sticking out of the snow, looking like enormous mythical insects. I wish I were a painter; I’d paint it. I took a million pictures. Actually, it’s sort of the same idea I was working with the last time I tried painting: the forest as a vertical landscape of trunks, and being surrounded by them.

Caldera chronicle

2008-03-02T15:08:00.001-08:00

As it turns out, I can get a wireless signal from at least one convenient place here at Caldera - the bench by the front door of the beautiful, new-smelling Hearth Center! So the blog is on. What follows are some snippets from my first three days here. A mixed bag. Bear with a lot of weather, window-staring and description - I am settling in.

Leap Day – February 29, 2008

3ish pm. I’m here.
Caldera. I was lucky with the very best driving weather. Highlights of the drive included a nasty U-Haul wreck – it blew off the road face-first into a heavy stand of trees – Mt. Jefferson dressed completely in white, Blowout Road, the Swiss Village Diner (again!), and especially walls of red-dirt-encrusted snow on either side of the road, making the highway into a narrow maroon canyon.

I’m in my cabin. It’s wonderful and windy in these fall stiff yellow-green firs, but toasty warm in here. A storm is expected to blow in tonight, perhaps including some snow. There’s a thick crusty layer of it on the forest floor, but it’s been melting and the trees are free of it. I can’t believe it – I heard my cell phone chirp, so I must get some semblance of a signal here.

6:05 pm
Hello, woodstove. Hello, cold rain, driven by wind, hello scary silence. Hello A-shaped house, hello brain. Hello dry mountain air. Hello snowmelt. Hello creek I expect to flood this month. Hello, cold glass shapes. Hello, new pen. Hello, electric-burner-under-kettle sounds. Hello, electric burner smell. Hello, English language, American 21st century variant. Hello, a little heat from woodstove, from nice dry wood cut just the right size. Hello, bowl of apples and oranges from Portland (and California and Washington). Hello, funny gold journal I’d like to try out. Hello, cozy tea. Hello, guest book I read. Hello, fierce wind gusts. Hello round rug. Hello black trees. Hello white walls. Hello a little hunger in my belly. Hello cupboard of food…

8ish pm
Let the residency begin. It’s raining. I’m going to stay analog tonight. Guess I’m sleepy… even before sleepytime tea. Rain pouring down!

“Our modernity is the way the bonfire has of throwing into sharp relief what’s soon to be archaic.” – Taylor Brady, Occupational Treatment.

March 1, 2008

Rabbit rabbit rabbit. Did I see one dart between trunks? Or was it a squirrel? I’m already feeling fond and familiar with this particular stand of trees. They’re snow-frosted this morning – it snowed an inch or maybe an inch and a half last night. I think it was freezing rain for a while, too – the cables around the deck are all encased in ice. I see a few new icicles starting from the railing. Last night I kept dreaming that there were cats running around in here. The cloud layer looks thin – blue shows sometimes – I wouldn’t be surprised if we had some sunshine today. Maybe I will try out the snowshoes.

Is that the wind or the sound of mass melting?

Lots of snow, for real now. Another inch already? Once my hair dries I’ll go out walking in it. The trees are closing their louvers, lowering their blinds.

The weather (snow)’s forming plaids across my fields of sight.
I shoveled the path outside my door this morning. I brought in firewood. I walked through new snow to the Hearth Center, put on snowshoes, and climbed a snowdrift to walk on top of the deep snow through the forest floor to the dock of the frozen lake.

That’s a good sun, dropping snow from surfaces and making water droplets like nobody’s business in its direct hit.

I’m pretty sure my window faces mostly north. Little baseboard heater rhythms. Big wind exploding snow from trees, into Link Creek. Big collapses from the roof, the drifters getting busy in my eyes, perhaps from looking at so much dark-light contrast. Or from the blue underneath the white, the implicit water color. What I keep hearing is snow sliding down the roof in big slabs. Dumping is what it’s doing. The sound from here much larger than the sight of it. It’s warm, effective sun. I’m getting to know the silence today, or variations on small noises, not talking, solitude.

Found the edge of Suttle Lake by postholing my way across a campground. Orange algae under its melting edge. A clear patch of forest floor in the sun. A nervous, silent dog monitoring my walk from the perimeter of his electric fence. Nosed all corners of the Hearth Center, finding puppets, books, laundry, a practice room with a guitar in it, someone’s watercolor studio space, and the backside of the vast fireplace. Glowing orange wood everywhere, amplifying the stomp and squeak of every bootstep.

I panned this room, already don’t want to leave it. I’m starting to hear the heater’s overtones. White-noise A in a white, A-shaped enclosure. The walls are the ceiling.

Fast dusty precipitation.
At last one dark bird.
Rogue sunbeams.
I admire this tree for its wolfish silhouette.

Thick, building snow again. I’m all for it, chunks or dust, while it lasts. Sometimes gravity eddies.

March 2, 2008

Oatmeal, coffee, watching the icicles grow in the sun. The whole palette is yellow and blue – mostly blue (sky!) but those sturdy, sunny firs are yellow at heart. Should I say golden? Clearly I’m already deep in anthropomorphizing my surroundings, in the absence of human contact. Where are the animals? And how is it possible that I still feel sleepy? I’ve been sleeping nine-hour nights, and lounging most of the day. Maybe it’s my immune system getting used to the cold and dry. Maybe it’s my brain getting used to being able to write and think all day.

I’m guessing this will be a big melting day.

First of all, my boots were frozen to the porch.

Chronicle: I wake up, write while eating and staring, take my time bathing, and write while my hair dries. Then I take a walk, come back and write, have a snack. I have never had a writing routine before. This morning on my way to collect the snowshoes for a walk around Blue Lake, I ran into Erin and Kerri, who had the same idea and were a few minutes ahead, just heading out on the snowshoes. So I tested the snow on the south side of the driveway, which was crusty and just fine for walking its surface in boots. I trudged up somebody’s hill – named for the man who used to own this land, and is buried up there. I found his white marble gravestone firmly glazed with blown ice, so I couldn’t read his name. The whole slope, and most of this basin, in fact, is burned. The matchstick trees across the way make funny patterns of lines across the hillsides. I found a short snag that must’ve had a tree disease – its top looked like a star or an explosion. A craggy mountaintop – Mt. Washington, most likely – stabs up from behind a nearer butte. I ate almonds and a dried peach. I took a different route down. I picked my teeth with a pine needle. I dropped a glove and had to retrace. I took off my gloves and hat and sweater and vest on the way up, and put them back on on the way down. Back in my cabin, writing, I started in on the Pirate’s Veggie Booty that Jeff (Gierer, of Caldera’s Portland office) gave us – a dangerous discovery. After two bowlsful, it’s time to heat up some mac+cheese+tuna and the rest of the broccoli. I know cooking for one is difficult, but I’m amazed how many leftovers I have already. Lots. My mini-fridge has frozen everything. The soy milk was a slushee this morning.

This is where I am: the Hearth Center is near the bottom of the picture, below the roadcut. It's the big, funny-shaped building with a roof covered with snow. More soon!

Into snowland

2008-02-28T13:35:00.000-08:00

I'm writing from beautiful sunny Portland, where February fake-out spring is granting mild weather that encourages me to wear dresses. Tomorrow morning, at last, I'll be driving southeast in Sexy Sadie the newly-tuned-up Subaru - to Caldera Arts Center on the shores of Blue Lake. I will probably not be doing much blogging from there, as I'll be removed from the luxury of instantaneous communication - instead I will have quiet and a woodstove and bird and chipmunk friends to talk with. I will be doing lots of writing, though, so I'll report back to blogland at some point - with pictures documenting my adventures. If anyone would like to send me a postcard, I'll be receiving mail at:

Phoebe Wayne
c/o Caldera
31500 Blue Lake Drive
Sisters, OR 97759

And! There will be a salon on March 15th, at Caldera's Hearth Center. I imagine it will include readings of poetry and fiction, and exhibitions of sculpture and paintings and/or drawings. If I can, I'll post details as the date approaches.

xoxox

IMO

2008-02-24T21:21:00.000-08:00

Yes: Marion Cotillard, also yes for the makeup artists for La Vie En Rose. Also yes on Marion Cotillard's amazing dress. I think it might have been my favorite of the night, and of course, the only reason I wanted to watch the Oscars was for the dresses.
Yes: Le Mozart Des Pickpockets.
No no no: Persepolis, not Ratatouille!
I didn't see all that many of the movies nominated for Oscars. Certainly not all the big ones.
Another dress I was surprised to like so much: Diablo Cody's leopard-print chiffon. Ok, and Penelope Cruz looked pretty cool in that interesting and wacky feather-spiky-trimmed dress, but Penelope Cruz always looks pretty cool.

And There Is

2008-02-21T13:50:00.000-08:00

I saw There Will Be Blood at the El Cerrito Speakeasy/Theater yesterday. I was pleased to find a place in the Bay Area where one can eat dinner while watching a movie (why aren't these ubiquitous?). And I liked the movie a lot: I liked the soundtrack, and how it and some other elements reminded me of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. I liked how there was a little Citizen Kane reference in the mix, too. I thought the slow process of getting to know Daniel's character was surprising, in a good way - why don't movie characters hide themselves well into a story, the way people in real life do? Anyway, of course D. D-L. was a stud, and Paul Dano is freaky and rad.

In related news, I also got the chance to see some Oscar-Nominated live-action shorts at the Rafael Theater recently, and I can't decide - my vote would go to either Il Supplente or Le Mozart Des Pickpockets. Not just because of my recent stint in substitute teaching! I guess I was in the mood to laugh rather than die of sadness with Om Natten. Which was good, just too sad. But didn't that girl look just like Julie Andrews? Or Julie Andrews + Laura Palmer?

My kind of gal

2008-02-17T12:58:00.000-08:00

Today I learned about Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village. This assemblage/environment in Simi Valley, California, was built in the 1950s and 60s by Tressa Prisbrey. It's made up of bottles, headlights, broken dishes, scissors, pencils, and all manner of stuff she found at the dump and collected - built into buildings, altars, wishing wells, and other sculptures. This little old lady - she was about 60 when she started work on Bottle Village - had some skill with cement. And an eye for the strange and beautiful, for sure.
File alongside Simon Rodia's Watts Towers, and, I like to think, (but somehow slantwise) Tom Stefopoulos' Lovejoy Columns. I might have to make a trip to Southern California someday.

Bringing home the bread

2008-02-17T10:35:00.000-08:00

I'm remembering how Beverly Cleary described her writing routine: she would put her typewriter on the kitchen table, and write while the bread was rising, and while the bread was baking. The rhythm of the writing work was timed with the rhythm of the baking work; how romantic it sounds from here.

Shhh

2008-02-14T10:05:00.001-08:00

Made an important personal revelation this week:
Why I don't want to be a teacher:
I don't like having to raise my voice.

Just In

2008-02-06T12:31:00.000-08:00

Speaking of horns honking, car culture etc., this guy is cool. Watch the Shared Propulsion Car video.

Are you in a film or in reality?

2008-02-06T11:09:00.000-08:00

I've been spending quite a bit of time in Godard's world this week: watched Weekend and Alphaville. How is it that I didn't know about Weekend in high school? It would have been just the thing.I'm still emerging from the grasp of the movie, and fighting my sad disbelief about the fact of my late introduction to it. It's huge. The grammatical era ends, cinema ends. There are many things to love, but I'd like to make special note of the use of tedium, especially in such an "action" film. Many scenes stretch on and on and on: monologues, such as the orgy narrative, and political diatribes, such as the trash collectors' pronouncements of each other's views, and of course the famous traffic jam long shot.

There's definitely a certain power in being bored. I suppose that in being bored, which is, of course, the opposite of entertained, we can't be lulled into passivity - we can't help but get frustrated and mad... at, you know, the bourgeoisie, in the case of Weekend. There is something tremendous about boredom, some great agitated possibility that opens when tedium creeps in.

Regression

2008-01-29T16:46:00.001-08:00

If I were a natural disaster I would be a (flood)(tidal wave).

But, as we are entering an Earth year, perhaps I should say mudslide.

(Reason for title of this post)

Not Much News

2008-01-29T11:03:00.000-08:00

1. I went to the Small Press Traffic poet's theater performance on Friday, which made me want to write a play.
2. I used up all the glue stick I had this weekend.

Saying so

2008-01-23T11:18:00.001-08:00

Ayako Kataoka's I Love You was one of my favorite pieces in the CCA Interface class show on December 14. It's a 3D acrylic resin map of the sentence, using the frequency, intensity, and duration of the sound as axes. It's just a square foot in size, two inches high at its peaks, and glows a peachy, glossy acrylic yellow.

This is what Ayako wrote about it in the exhibition catalogue: "This project was inspired by my explorations to capture sound in solid form. I Love You was make from FFT (Fast Fourier transform) analysis data of a girl saying 'I love you.' The data was analyzed, rendered, and modeled using the software programs Max /MSP Jitter and form-Z. Following this, it was materialized unto a 3D object via a rapid prototype machine."

I admire the urge to capture sound as a solid, and speech in particular. Speech is expression, but it's also data - the scientific-archival presentation acts like a "proof" that everything between the beginning of a sentence and its end can be recorded, solidified, permanent. I experience the piece as a sculpture of the hopefulness and doomed finality of an occurrence of speech - once it's said, it's over. It looks like a mountain range made of pale, colorful crystals.

Hall of mirrors, lakes

2008-01-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

Emerging from Michael Palmer's Notes for Echo Lake again.

"And I paint the view from my left eye, from the balcony of the eye overlooking a body of water, and inland sea possibly, possibly a man-made lake."

Speaking of lakes: I'll be spending the month of March on the shores of Blue Lake, Oregon, as an artist/writer-in-residence at Caldera!This is what it winter looks like there on Caldera's website. Later on this spring I'll report back with my own photos.

Rumor and snacks

2008-01-11T08:28:00.000-08:00

About Hap Tivey's light sculpture at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery, reception January 2, 2008: when I read "light sculpture" on the exhibit postcard, I imagined three dimensions, or more of the depth dimension. I imagined interactivity, light-across (or -over?) rather than light-through, from behind, something more like a projection.

I came with my expectations, which were, of course, unwarranted. I heard a rumor that Mr. Tivey had a connection to 60s psychedelia, "happenings," Ken Kesey - maybe what I remember of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was creeping back into mind and making me decide to expect interactivity and projection. And then when I arrived, my dad told me that he had heard that the pieces changed over time - that it was hard to know if it was your eye or the pieces changing. So much rumor! I kept my eye on the pieces, looking over my shoulder to see if they were changing.

The pieces, also (I read later) called light paintings, are made up of colorful LED lights in boxes, glowing gently through a translucent plastic (?) face. One of my favorite pieces has two faces, each different, but using the same bluish and peachy colors. You can look at it from either side; each side is related but unmatching the other. Perhaps the mismatch is a little disorienting in the way I like? Perhaps I liked the suggestion of two points of view.

The food was great. The artist explained and gestured to a group of gallery visitors. A tipsy-seeming woman in a scarf cornered my friend Paul, holding forth on the excellence of the food an the unreasonably high prices of the art. "Who do these people think they are?" she kept saying.

Another thing I could not help but notice: the extreme care with which each white-framed light box was plugged into the white wall with a white, and white-covered, cord. No pixel of another color met my eye outside the glowing spaces behind and within these white frames. These spaces were what made the pieces (sculptures) most interesting to me - the only firm spatial definition, the only hard line, is the frame. While the viewer can see how far the frame sticks into the room from the wall (four inches or so), the image itself is difficult to plumb. The areas of color are indistinct, by their nature blending and creating blurry fields. Perhaps this blur was the reason for the rumor that the pieces change over time - perhaps the viewer's eye softens in response. I saw no evidence of change in them, but I did feel that I learned a bit more over time about how to look at them.

The flatness/depth tension, I suppose, is the reason for calling the work light sculpture. Another one of my favorites seemed especially fraught with this tension. It is also, arguably, the most representative (as in "that's a picture of...") work. Red in all grounds, two arches cross the expanse, with supporting pillars dropping down. Architecture, it seemed to me. Just that bit of content, the necessary structure/weight/substance/depth of a viaduct (!) drew my attention from the softness of my eye and the lights. I liked it.

Also, I loved the title of the piece called "The Wavelength of Speech." Although on the topic of the wavelengths of speech, I loved Ayako Kataoka's piece at the CCA Fall Semester Show more. More on this to come.

The back room of the gallery contained pieces by Gregg Renfrow in pigments brushed or dipped onto an acrylic, plexiglass-like slab - usually one or two or three (often related, like blue and purple) pigments per piece. The variations in pigment thickness were done according to a grid, or at least a regular series of lines, and with increasing thickness of pigment toward the edges. The resulting image recalls both some sort of medical graph (I want to say cardiogram - my beating heart - but this isn't the best graphical likeness) and a sunset, with the sun and its white/lightness spreading over both surfaces of the horizon - sea and sky. That is to say, the coverage pattern creates a horizontal ellipse of lighter color in the middle of the horizontally rectangular painting. I liked these a lot.
The blurring of vision continued as we wandered next door (Paul and everyone having had enough of the lady in the scarf) to PDX Contemporary Art, where slowblivion, the current show by Joe Macca, featured blurry bulls-eyes in soft, surprising ranges and combinations of color. The food was avant-garde, or at least pretty bizarre - interesting but not very satisfying. There were some snacks based on hazelnutty shortbread-like biscuits topped with a series of surprising combinations to go with Macca's lovely colors. Avocado and tangerine on one version, something sweet and creamy and a balsamic reduction on the other. Weird! And there were meringues shaped like sea anemones filled with quince paste. I suppose the food was so exciting it distracted me from the art, but maybe I was just getting hungry. The lady with the scarf, it turned out, followed us here, so we were unable to spend more time getting to know the fuzzy bulls-eyes. Once we extricated ourselves from her again, we scooted off down 9th Street in the direction of Burnside, Rocco's Pizza, and the distinct form of dinner.

After a small hiatus

2008-01-06T09:26:00.000-08:00

we return. As usual, I have big plans for the new year. Some blog-related of these include reviews of public and private art, entertainment, and performance, living, and general enthusiasms. Keep an eye out; I will try to keep up some momentum. I am considering big writing schemes, again, as usual. In small-but-big news for me: I have a poem in the new issue of Vanitas, a magazine I like very much. I imagine it will be available through SPD sometime soon. xoxox

Lady crash

2007-11-28T20:43:00.000-08:00

For some time I've been meaning to post some mention of Laetitia Sonami's concert at Mills the other week (November 17). Since 1991, she's been working on an instrument that she built out of a glove - a Lady's Glove, to be specific. I won't try to describe how it's done - I only barely understand. It has to do with motion sensors and magnets. Sounds and video/lighting effects occur based on her movements. I used my tired, sensitive, and transducer-innocent audience-brain to experience her performance. The overall effect is seriously bad ass - she enacts something like a superhero or god. That is to say that she controls/destroys/creates the world with her hands and arms. Every single gesture is an act of extremely accurate creation: gulls squawk at the beach, and she cuts to silence as she turns over her hand. Huge grinding sounds result as she crushes cities between her palms. Lightbulbs flash around the stage; she dances with static in front of abstract video projections that seem vast and dire. She points her finger. And yet, her strong slouch suggests something unintentional or sad about the power - as if she didn't really mean to be in the position of universe-making. That's the classic superhero position, isn't it? Don't hate me because I'm a god. But I love this superhero. She moves slowly. And she is a lady.
Here is the link to some videos.

2007-11-24T11:32:00.001-08:00

2007-11-24T11:31:00.001-08:00

Beautiful

Lovejoy

2007-11-09T11:01:00.001-08:00

Imagine my delight when I discovered the preserved Lovejoy columns, which had been stored in my brain's mythology file. From my childhood I remember the overpasses but not the paintings - I discovered them a few years ago as images seeping with the fact of being lost. Now I'm learning more about them.

In a nutshell: in the late 1940s and early 50s, Tom Stefopoulos was working as a watchman in the railroad yards in the area of Northwest that used to be industrial and is now the Pearl District. During slow times at work, he drew fanciful images in chalk on the pillars of the overpass.

The story of their creation and preservation is pretty fascinating. It's that thing again about the layers of history, art and culture in cities - how we reflect and modify and archive.

More on this perhaps to come.

Still

2007-11-08T11:52:00.000-08:00

And this is a still from the "30 Days Beginning with X" video collaboration with Peter.

The Horror!

2007-11-08T11:46:00.001-08:00

Oh and recently, as part of a Halloweek assignment, I wrote the beginning of a Horror Story.
We shall see if I ever finish it.

PW Reads

2007-11-07T10:33:00.000-08:00

My reading with Francisco at the Sacramento Poetry Center on 10/22 was well-documented by Max - he took videos, which are now up in four parts on YouTube.
This is part two:

2007-10-31T23:59:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I fed the dogs.

On Thursday I was the acting team parent.

On Friday I helped begin construction of the tunnel of goats.

On Saturday I was an 80s Prom Zombie.

On Sunday I watched Bad Taste and carved pumpkins.

On Monday I took a break.

On Tuesday I took a TB test and hung art at Rummage.

On Wednesday I wore a sequined spider mask.

2007-10-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I drove around.

On Thursday I went into the city to hear David Bromige and Rae Armantrout read.

On Friday I spilled coffee all over the Sheriff's office, and then went to Oakland to pick up Mom at the airport, taking a scenic route through town and seeing parts of it I've never seen.

On Saturday I went to Open Studios at the Blue Studios studios studios.

On Sunday I brunched.

On Monday I read at the Sacramento Poetry Center!

On Tuesday I drove to Portland.

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On Monday I took a bus ride.

On Tuesday I made an effort.

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On Thursday it was Little Friday and I cut my hair.

On Friday I listened to the Imogen Heap song a million times over and over.

On Saturday "moving up in the world" meant a party in a warehouse apartment! and me reading a poem! with musicians! forks in the wall! red lightbulbs! a mosaic on the kitchen floor! stalls and rows of sinks and a clawfoot tub clustered in the bathroom! a rocketship by the front door! motorcycle parts strung down the walls! and I cannot tell you how excited.

On Sunday Dim Sum.

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On Tuesday this video about the subconscious art of graffiti removal became my New Favorite Thing, and might remain on the list for a while. I like the way in which it goes "out there" and then back to the textbook (and isn't it fun to recognize some of the columns from another movie?).

On Wednesday Sandy the Subaru got her terminal diagnosis (is that what it is called?) and while Peter was paying the mechanic I lay on her trunk and read a short story about crying while the clouds blew over so it was hot and cold hot and cold.

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On Monday I skinny-dipped.

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on Sunday I went to Golden Gate Park to see bluegrass and fighter jets.

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On Thursday I might have said, had someone asked how it was going, "it's going."

On Friday I said goodbye to the funky handmade yellow/green/brown marble-painted silk dress I've had since high school as it self-shredded while I wore it over leggings and moon boots on an excursion to San Anselmo.

On Saturday I made a mental list of hospitals to call.

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On Wednesday (also) I got my ears on New Moon, the new release of Elliott Smith's outtakes and early versions from the old days (1994-1997, I think). It has 24 tracks! They all sound like his self-titled album and Either/Or!

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On Monday I was driving around in rush hour traffic when someone yelled without words at me from his car window.

On Tuesday I went to Ron Silliman's reading at Mills, where we learned that universe is a verb. Everybody got out their notebooks.

On Wednesday I finished reading Lucy Corin's book, The Entire Predicament. This is the sentence that made me get the magical readerly feeling when the formerly inarticulable is articulated:

"...I know that if I continue to speak, some recognition of difficulty will materialize, as if difficulty is produced from the interaction of my voice with the air it encounters" (from "Simpler Components).