one evening i was walking along hollywood boulevard, nothing much to do. i stopped and looked in the window of a stationery shop.
a mechanized pen was suspended in space in such a way that, as a mechanized roll of paper passed by it, the pen went through the motions of the same penmanship exercises i had learned as a child in the third grade.
centrally placed in the window was an advertisement explaining the mechanical reasons for the perfection of the operation of the suspended mechanical pen.
i was fascinated, for everything was going wrong. the pen was tearing the paper to shreds and splattering ink all over the window and on the advertisement, which, nevertheless, remained legible.
--john cage, from his "lecture on nothing" included in his book silence and recorded with david tudor for the album indeterminacy on smithsonian folkways.
an antiquated school desk chair fitted with a machine
that cranks out the signature of the artist.
signature chair by tim hawkinson
"the writer" -pierre jaquet-droz's automaton built between 1768 and 1774.
AUTOMATON WRITING
LE MAGNIFIQUE
apropos of nothing: jean-paul belmondo stars as a hack novelist in love with jacqueline bisset. here he imagines a world full of his readers. very silly movie, though a very nice thought. a writer's fantasy, no?
MY FAVORITE IMPRESSION
i do a pretty good john currin painting.
ha ha ho ho! but how life is delightful.
ARCHITECTURE TOUR I
835 north kings road
west hollywood, ca 90069
unassuming, quiet. it induces awe and envy.
TREASURE HUNTERS
henri langlois, cinémathèque française 
iris barry, museum of modern art, new york
jerry harvey, z channel
hadrian belove, cinefamily
what does it take to be a great film programmer? if langlois and harvey are any indication, it takes an obsession that borders on madness. langlois started out storing films in his bathtub; he died surrounded by thousands of prints, penniless, hunched over from exhaustion. the end of jerry harvey's story is grislier, though his life was spent in much the same way: he devoted every waking hour to the pursuit of good movies. iris barry was a champion of cinema and the first curator of the film program at the museum of modern art. and hadrian belove is at it as we speak, bringing los angeles fascinating and hard-to-find movies every night of the week at cinefamily.
maybe if i took five, ten years to educate myself...
how does one get this fabulous job?
EXPECTATIONS (MONEY)
william hogarth, heads of six of hogarth's servants (circa 1750-5)
democracy, by definition, tore down every barrier to expectation. all members of a democratic society perceived themselves as being theoretically equal, even where the means was lacking to achieve material equality. "in america," wrote tocqueville, "i never met a citizen too poor to cast a glance of hope and envy towards the pleasures of the rich." the poor citizens observed rich ones at close quarters and trusted that they too would one day follow in their footsteps. they were not always wrong. a number of fortunes were made by people from humble beginnings. exceptions did not, however, make a rule. america still had an underclass. it was just that, unlike the poor of aristocratic societies, poor americans could no longer see their condition as anything other than a betrayal of their expectations.
(from status anxiety by alain de botton)
EXPECTATIONS (LOVE)
peggy lee performing "is that all there is?" in 1970
then i fell in love, head over heels in love,
with the most wonderful boy in the world.
we would take long walks by the river
or just sit for hours gazing into each other's eyes,
we were so very much in love.
but then one day, he went away
and i thought i'd die, but i didn't--
and when i didn't, i said to myself,
"is that all there is to love?"
FORTUNATE
i woke up at seven this morning. made myself a bowl of coffee. read from a book a little while. stared out the window and felt a sense of low washing over me like a morning fog.
juliet woke up and walked around in this weather for a bit and realized, fast, that it was coming from me and not the outside. she tried to dance away the fog but it was real thick, so i left for work, hopefully taking the clouds with me.
at work, as soon as the other guys arrived- around 11:30, i told them that i was going home. i could not be there today. i wanted to see juliet, desperately. i needed to hear her voice. when i got home, she spoke in perfect quotes- little post it notes, saying exactly what i needed to hear.
one of the quotes, she told me in a smart and confident voice-
"love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction." –antoine de saint-exupéry, from wind, sand, and stars
i can feel the fog lifting.
CHAIR-LESS
...a chair must be really important as an object because my mother taught me always to offer a lady my chair if there weren't enough around, and it can’t be just a question of ovaries or other delicate organs of the female anatomy, which they say go to pot if a lady remains standing.
it happens that even if a room is packed with empty chairs, a gentleman is supposed to stand up if a lady enters, i mean to honor her, the lady. what i mean is that to honor a lady a man must detach himself from his chair. he must abandon the chair, show that he is chair-stripped, unseated, chair-less, defenseless - otherwise things aren’t on an even footing.
sottsass on the metaphors of the chair from ettore sottsass - design metaphors
photo by j. emilio flores from ny times
PRINCIPAL DAYTIME FANTASIES
FANTASIES OF BEING IMPRESSIVE:
-off-the-cuff insight
-formidable piano/public speaking skills
-mesmerizing physique
FANTASIES OF BEING DEVASTATED:
-all loved ones dying together in a van accident (on the way to my birthday party)
-shot or stabbed in public
-family shot or stabbed in public
SUPERNATURAL RELIEF FANTASIES:
-new nose cleansing technology uncovers superior sense of smell
-same as above, but with earwax and hearing
-full-body chemical peel uncovers skin like baby's
ZONES
screencaps of some quotes from the zones of jean pierre gorin's
thoughts on chris marker and his film la jetée released on criterion
MORNING IN THE CITY
morning in a city, 1944
edward hopper (1882-1967)
image from the williams college museum of art
ON DROPPING THE BALL
like this, but more: tomorrow, 8.8.08, at 8:08pm, the boredoms bring 88BOADRUM to the la brea tarpits. tickets are all sold out.
how did we miss this??
the upside is that we live about five blocks away.
will we hear the distant drumming?
ON POSTURE
the approach may be different, but the result is the same: what a hopelessly shy person and a hopelessly sarcastic person share in common is a compromised ability to behave honestly. this, above all things, makes overcoming shyness and sarcasm the good fight to fight. enthusiasm is a valuable resource.
BUDGET SCHMUDGET
october 3rd, 2008: david byrne stops in los angeles to sing some new songs.
we already got our tickets.
GEE, IT'S TEMPTING, I'LL THINK ABOUT IT
guy de cointet, 1983 (the year i was born)
the man was ambidextrous and could write backwards fluently, like da vinci. he was an LA artist by way of france. he was fascinated with language and code. 
untitled, 1983
in a giant article devoted to him in artforum last summer, artist matthew brannon described his initial reaction to de cointet's work: "the work was visually hard to define, yet somehow very familiar; it looked pretentious but also casual; it was intimidating but full of humor; and it never seemed a discrete end unto itself. in other words, everything looked like a prop. i loved it before i understood it."
i think i have the same feeling.
i had forgotten his name completely until i found it again on vvork.
thank god; it was driving me nuts.
FILM BY SAMUEL BECKETT
this is a still from film by samuel beckett (1965), a mostly silent movie about a man (object) who throughout tries to avoid contact with the all perceiving -camera- eye (the eye). it is directed by alan schneider with help from the watchful but detached eyes of samuel beckett himself. it stars buster keaton.
click the image or click here to watch
be sure to read alan schnieder’s fascinating notes on directing film by samuel beckett: here.
buster keaton was beckett's offhanded, cool suggestion for the lead role after jackie macgowran, a veteran stage actor and their first choice, had to back out due to a scheduling conflict.
a related note:
it has been suggested that the inspiration for waiting for godot might have come from a buster keaton film called the lovable cheat in which keaton plays a man who waits endlessly for the return of his partner - whose name, interestingly enough, is godot.
beckett, it seems, was a huge fan of keaton’s and even offered him a role in an early production of “godot.” buster turned that one down.
thanks to ubuweb
still is from only the cinema who originally posted about this last year
THE TIGER IS IN THE LIBRARY
a letter to borges from where the stress falls by susan sontag
edo period (18th century) tiger painting by jakuchu
MONDO FREAKS (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BECKER)
larry gives ted danson "mondo freaks" for his birthday.
a curb your enthusiasm classic.
