Neato coolo shockwave app, the lineto cubrik maker which can make rubik's cube like letters.
LINK | 3:33 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Oscar Wilde died 100 years ago today.

"I see a far more intimate and immediate connection between the true life of Christ and the true life of the artist.... [Christ] realized in the entire sphere of human relations that imaginative sympathy which in the sphere of Art is the sole secret of creation. He understood the leprosy of the leper, the darkness of the blind, the fierce misery of those who live for pleasure, the strange poverty of the rich."
LINK | 2:55 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sometimes you go out for excellent food, other times you go out for excellent conversation, and dinner with Jim always comprises excellent conversation. He is developing a theory called "Dynamic equilibrium" which, unfortunately, we never got around to discussing. Must remember next time.
LINK | 12:46 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Caterina does the hungover rock star bit.
LINK | 12:40 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Today, not much to tell. Today, ouch. First day of bad ache since I started the freelancing thing. Lay around most of the day. Wrote. Went to the gym. Wrote emails to Stewart, Corey, Jack and a bunch of other people who don't have weblogs. Still aching. And now headed out for dinner with Jim from Mexico City. In Cole Valley. As if you needed to know. *sigh*. I sure do feel crappy.
LINK | 6:47 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Goodbye day, hello night.
LINK | 3:16 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

My great great great grandfather, the priest. My father continues his geneological investigations, this time on my mother's side: The latest is that my mother's great great grandfather was one Guillermo Masnou, O.S.A., a priest! Apparently Guillermo was born in 1827 in Valladolid, Spain, and his mistress in the Philippines was Patricia Mercado, with whom he had three children. He made up the name of one Nicholas Gomez, who was supposed to be the father, but apparently it was a ruse to give respectability to the situation. My other great great grandfather, Apollonio Ramos (1840-1892), was apparently some kind of unsavory character, complicit with the Spanish. The geneology was looking a little too, well, nice what with all those saints on my father's side. Bring on the thieves and brigands! Pirates and montebanks! Seducers and tainted ladies! Amorous men of the cloth!
LINK | 5:44 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Some Day. Proust regained by Daniel Mark Epstein. "So we bide our time, hoping for the leisure to read Proust, all of his mysterious novel, and find out things for ourselves. And, if life is generous, the time comes while one still has the eyesight and concentration to appreciate the peaks and caverns of this rangy masterpiece."
LINK | 4:09 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I couldn't sleep last night and so I stayed up and did a lot of writing and made some guacamole and did part of a java tutorial. Finally went to sleep around 4:30. I didn't wake up until almost noon this morning, afflicted by the fear and trembling that comes when you realize everyone else has been doing things all morning, and you're falling grievously behind.

I like this java applet on David Chess's web site. Hit reload a few times to see different varieties.
LINK | 1:59 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Art is made by the alone for the alone. -- Luis Barragán

Tension is the great integrity. -- R Buckminster Fuller
LINK | 8:03 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Wondering what to get me -- or some of your more peculiar or geeky friends -- for Christmas? How about a Klein Bottle, the Mobius strip of glassware, or a Moon Walker II Robot?
LINK | 3:36 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

New Yorker, Aug 21, The Gender Game: The fad for bicycling in the late eighteen-hundrededs was discouraged by commentators who disapproved of women developing the set, aggressive look of "bicycle face".

Immediately brought to mind the grim determination on the face of Miss Gulch in Wizard of Oz as she drives away with Toto.
LINK | 1:59 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Random Scraps of Paper with things written on them:
Channel
Hinterlands
brownjohn
"I want to direct." Increasing ability to orchestrate and produce one's own life: choreograph, cater, soundtrack (ecast) to make life more movielike: sunsets, for example. sunsets are more accessible than ever before. Are there people who would film your whole life (that nightmare that Hollis Frampton had).

Squeamishness caused by certain types of language: the language of self-help, religion. (is it just anything too personal or naked, less squeamishness than embarrassment?) Boring self-help terminology.

Book: For One Sweet Grape. Kenneth Paul Rogers. Rape from the viewpoint of a Rapist.

Writing styles: Badly emulative, instantly recognizable. Distinctive. An uncommonly frequent use of, say, gerunds, or epizeuxis.

Endearing characteristics, per Evan: a) tendency to repeat things other people have already said. b) tendency to repeat things that I have already said, but in different words. c) what if? scenarios. What if I were to die? What if I became a quadriplegic? What if I were to have a baby and then leave? Would you take care of them if he/she wasn't yours?

On the back of a business card: "Discovered in '92: Flame Knee Tarantula, female eats the male."
LINK | 11:57 AM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Widdershins.
LINK | 11:34 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Latest music: Suzuki by Tosca, sent to me by Zach Hoon the inimitable DJ of Squid Radio and keeper of interesting blog. Also the Kronos Quartet's Caravan, which I ordered by accident, but quite like.
LINK | 7:42 PM |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

No nostalgia for dialup I got home and my DSL connection was down. I am now on dialup. Oy. I have fallen very far behind on my email, and some of it got lost when I left Yellowball, and so if you haven't heard from me in a few days, give it another try -- I may not have gotten your message.

Nice people live in Iowa.

• Arthouse videos are very cheap at the local Blockbuster.
• Who stripped the Goodwill of all the paint-by-numbers? I found tons in Arkansas.
• There were a lot of shopping centers in Des Moines, with even bigger parking lots. The monoculture in Iowa seemed to be robust, healthy, growing hair. TV seemed more or less the same, with the exception of a 10 minute local news report of how someone got ripped off 40 cents at the Kum & Go. Even the locals were incredulous.
• Had conversations about football with the Nebraskan men there, bathed in the dim rays of the moving shadows in the box of light. I directed outrage and exasperation at the screen when they uttered cryptic phrases such as, "Aw! Would you look at that? Either they threw a fake or bobbled the pass!" (this was once translated for me by Jake) I exulted when field goals were successful.
• No one in Iowa voted for Gore, from my random sampling. How did he get Iowa? I announced in the middle of a particularly vicious Gore-bashing session that I had voted for Gore. A silence briefly fell, and then the Gore-bashing continued apace.
• What else? The place was crawling with cute babies! Babbled with Carmen. Boy it's fun to make babies smile; I could do it all day, all night.
• Didn't break out in a rash. Phew. Not allergic to the cat.
• Read Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson. Am now going to track down the sequel to the former, Parable of the Talents. Jesus' Son was phenomenal: electric, hallucinatory stories about a drug-addled loser with access to the divine.
  
  LINK | 4:49 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  { Tuesday, November 21, 2000 }  

  I hope I get to mash the mashed potatoes. That was always my job.
  LINK | 12:10 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Monday, November 20, 2000 }  

  Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) Deutero-learning. Also referred to as meta-learning, it refers to learning to learn, that is, learning about the context of learning as well as the content of learning. In learning to chase a stick, a dog not only learns to go after the stick and bring it back but also that such a thing as chasing sticks exists and is likely to happen when particular conditions are fulfilled. Such contexts are increasingly expected with increased learning. This suggests that information is carried over from learning experiences in similar environments resulting in an increasingly faster learning rate. This concept also refered to as double description (see term in this glossary). Deutero-learning is contrasted with proto-learning, which involved an individual fact or action.
  LINK | 11:53 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  Look into playwright Harry Kondoleon
  LINK | 12:26 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Sunday, November 19, 2000 }  

  Great article in the New York Times Sunday magazine:A Hatred Smoldering In the Hills about a lawless, tattooed, barefoot wife-beating drug dealer and a rigorous, daunting, righteous lawyer and what happened when their paths crossed.
  LINK | 8:52 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  End of another weekend, already?! Last night to Berkeley to spend the night with Shana in her mother's new (empty) Maybeck house in the Berkeley Hills; beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. We watched The Passion of Jeanne d'Arc and Mifune. Jeanne d'Arc (1928, silent, France) was a kind of glaring and suffocating medieval courtroom drama, culminating in Jeanne being burned at the stake. It had the same closeup shot of possessed, distant, weeping, and strangely vacant Jeanne over and over and over and over; from what I could see, there were only three variant shots of her from afar. It formed a kind of closed and claustrophobic sense of Jeanne's singleminded devotion to God. Peculiar. Fascinating gargoyle-like faces of the inquisitors. Learned recently (New Yorker article on Godard?): film and psychoanalysis were born the same year.

  Spent most of today with Thilde at Brain Wash and her apartment, catching up on the past 10 years. Talked about our lives, families, romances. Thilde read my tarot and predicted work! sunshine! happiness! change! travel! Discussed the virtues and drawbacks of brown, butterscotch and indigo for the walls of her new apartment. One of our classmates from Choate, Tessa Blake, made a movie called Five Wives, Three Secretaries and Me, about her father, a Texas millionaire named Tommy Blake. Thilde has all her Ant and Bee books from childhood. I'm related to Duncan and she to MacDuff, both of characters in Macbeth. It got dark. Night fell. And now I am at home, writing. I left my diary somewhere, probably Shana's house, or the car. Must find.
  LINK | 7:36 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Saturday, November 18, 2000 }  

  Southern Exposure "Fuzzy Logic" show last night, at which Tim was showing a piece of his night photography, taillights receding. The usual San Francisco art scenesters were in evidence. Judith took home the prize painting at the show: a lovely painting of a bed, by a certain Eric Kerr (?), consisting mostly of glossy white negative space outlining a painting, a pillow and the stripes of the blanket . I fell in love with a lovely, quirky piece of video sculpture by Angela Lau, "TV Cozy"; it was a miniature TV housed inside a soft, fuzzy crocheted brain, complete with spinal cord. Little doors opened up to reveal the television and dials.

  There were some tiny hands I admired, molded out of sculpey, graphite and iron filings which fanned out in a beautiful magnet pattern. Some photographs of a woman with grass in her mouth and a mushroom between her legs. There was a doodle painting upstairs, codified marginalia; some photographs of streaming lights behind a rear view mirror taken from a car; and something that Sasha described as "a very subtle piece" which consisted of a piece of paper glued to the top of a light box.

  When I got home I spent an hour on the phone catching up with my old friend from boarding school, Mathilde Weems, who I was delighted to discover lives here in San Francisco, and has for the past six years. She is working as a psychiatrist with a private practice South of San Francisco, and even lives in the same building as my friend James.
  LINK | 9:58 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Friday, November 17, 2000 }  

  More Sarah Sze, via Michael: Museum of Contemporary Art - The MCA Collection
  LINK | 11:59 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  Main Entry: con·ur·ba·tion
  Pronunciation: "kä-(")n&r-'bA-sh&n
  Function: noun
  Etymology: com- + Latin urb-, urbs city
  Date: 1915
  : an aggregation or continuous network of urban communities
  LINK | 11:38 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  More Stichomancy: This passage is from a short story by Avner Mandelman, Pity

  Now, normally shipping him would have been an Aleph-Aleph problem, because after Switzerland, which is a complete police state, where the SSHD always knows when every foreigner farts, France is the worst place in Europe. In Switzerland they are at least polite to you.

  This is interesting because in December I am going to France, and I *love* France!
  LINK | 11:32 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Wednesday, November 15, 2000 }  

  Emily was telling me about the work of Sarah Sze. Who has a show in New York right now. Her work seems fragile and ethereal from these pictures. But here's another one that looks very arranged. Emily says there are lots of small jokes if you look closely.
  LINK | 8:31 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  My cousin Andrea sums us up pretty well: "...I think you, like me, like a little mess and hate to clean, prefer if someone cooks for us, hate cats, and probably are not great at keeping schedules."
  LINK | 1:42 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  Wonderful words have been introduced to the nation: "hanging chads" and "swinging chads" and "dimpled chads". And a lovely patience has settled over the land.
  LINK | 11:03 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Tuesday, November 14, 2000 }  

  Unholy racket. Sheer pandemonium all day here at Caterina.net headquarters. I was awakened at eight after about three hours sleep by the sound of a circular saw just outside my window. Then the sound of an industrial sander sanding the decks for the next eight hours. It stopped about an hour ago. Ear plugs give you this feeling that you're living inside a marshmallow.
  LINK | 7:28 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  
  You must change your life fourteen times.
  Change your way of living like writing.
  You must change your method and your mind. You
  Have to transform life fourteen times. Change life.
  It has become necessary to change your life.
  And now you'd better change it: you, yourself.
  It's up to you to exchange your life. Change, change!
  Alter your life, patch and re-shape your life.
  "A change came o'er the spirit of your change."
  You might shuffle the cards spin wheels change wheels.
  You must convert resolve revolutionize your dissolves.
  You might change life itself. And you might change.
  You must change. You must not outlive your life.

  Archaic Torsos by David Shapiro (via Jessamyn) Which is based on the Rilke masterpiece Archaic Torso of Apollo: (Translated by C. F. MacIntyre)

  Never will we know his fabulous head
  where the eyes' apples slowly ripened. Yet
  his torso glows: a candelabrum set
  before his gaze which is pushed back and hid,

  restrained and shining. Else the curving breast
  could not thus blind you, nor through the soft turn
  of the loins could this smile easily have passed
  into the bright groins where the genitals burned.

  Else stood this stone a fragment and defaced,
  with lucent body from the shoulders falling,
  too short, not gleaming like a lion's fell;

  nor would this star have shaken the shackles off,
  bursting with light, until there is no place
  that does not see you. You must change your life.

  An amazing poem. If I were to try to analyze it, I'd venture this: great works of art are alive, and the truly great ones irradiate you, knowing you completely. Are a door of perception, an annhilation of the ego, so that when you see it, you cannot but change your life. That art is divine and can fill the god-shaped hole.
  LINK | 11:29 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  Netscape 6 is here! (downloading goes really fast when you do it at 4 a.m. Pacific Time!) So far it looks pretty nifty. Reputed to be the most standards-compliant browser ever built. IM is integrated into it, which seems nice. And the interface is neutral and attractive. So far so good.
  LINK | 4:24 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  Needed: advice and information on buying real estate in France. Let me know! Thanks.
  LINK | 12:33 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Monday, November 13, 2000 }  

  Here is a "found poem" constructed by Rick Moody that I like very much: The Sport Which Calls for Sorrows. Also an interview with him as well, and if you dig around the xconnect web site, you can find dates for live webcasts of writers and thinkers.
  LINK | 9:44 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  40 years young

  - Young people living in apartments alone, single young professionals, unmarried, no children, lots of disposable income. Further isolation? Indefinitely extended youth. Deferred responsibility.

  - Identity often comprised of brands. What brands you associate yourself with, or team, or band, etc. e.g. Harley Davidson, selling more merchandise than motorcycles. I drink expensive Golden Moon Tea. Thusly branded. A Macintosh user. O.K. Ideologies used to function the ways brands do now. Existentialism, also a fashion. Perhaps converted to a fashion later? Devolution of ideology. Blue jeans once a political position --> Gloria Vanderbilt. Mods -- fashion/ footwear/ ska/ politics. Way of life. Cf. Dick Hebidge "Subculture".

  - “Teenification” of adulthood: used to be that these trappings were most important to teens, who, not having formed an identity looked outside themselves for bellwethers. Now brands being used to market to insecure adults. The exploitation of universal insecurity.

  - What does this do to people? Only affluence can maintain perpetual change for the sake of fashion alone. Amazing the restaurants in Beirut, (Modca) frozen in the late 60s, early 70s. Hopelessly, unbelievably wallpaper* chic.

  - Wish I had Delillo's Mao II around here somewhere. Vaguely remember the passage asking, How does something new come into the world?
  LINK | 5:36 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  Poetry is important to me. Spoke this morning with Sasha about Matthea Harvey's new book of poetry and of Sasha's encounter with Jorie Graham, who carries everywhere a book that Sasha made, a small, leathern amulet of a book.

  Oh! Judith found that Matthea is the featured poet today on Poems.com
  LINK | 11:58 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Sunday, November 12, 2000 }  
  • Last night before bed, brushing up my French by reading an interview of Kevin Spacey in French Vogue. I like this method of learning French much better than reading Zola stories. More colloquial and au courant. Words not in my dictionary: ripou, galipettes. Learned a roundabout way of saying "masturbate" in a description of Spacey's first nude scene in the shower at the beginning of American Beauty: "...il doit aussi, sous l'oeil de la camera, se donner du plaisir en solitaire." How to say "the seven deadly sins": les sept péchés capitaux. And "on tiptoe": sur la pointe des pieds.

  • Yesterday's SF Cinematheque party in Hunter's Point evolved into a tour of The Church of Industrial Decay, which is what the Hunter's Point shipyard has become. During the Golden Hour. Fascinating bits of rotting metal and broken glass all around. Judith took a lot of photos of the derelict building, hanging winches, faded signage. As the sky pinked and purpled, she had to run off to catch a flight to Italy, where she is, I believe, planning on studying Florentine paper marbling. She also mumbled something about a certain "Gianfranco" she was meeting; she wouldn't dish, so I don't know the details.

  • Movies seen the past three weeks: Best in Show, Hideous Kinky, The Spanish Prisoner, 2001: A Space Odyssey, City of Lost Children, The Contender, Croupier, Saturday Night Fever, White.

  • Brunch with the A-list. Discussed: Tivo, not talking about the elections, Craig Newmark:eligible bachelor, Monterey Aquarium, Alcatraz, how not to throw a 30th birthday party, two Star Trek episodes, relative apartment sizes, last week's New Yorker, who the hell likes wind chimes?, Kozmo, Webvan, Hunter's Point, cranes.

  • My roses are finally dropping their petals. I'm thinking of drying the petals since I've become so obsessed with having rose in my tea. Never used to like perfumey tea like Earl Grey and what not; but there's something very smoky and mysterious about it. Eastern. Tantalizing.

  • My mother used to dry flowers, hang them upside down in our basement. Make dried flower arrangements. I haven't seen one of those for years. One of those things that was big in the 70s, the Era of Crafts, like macrame and batik. Which my mother also did. And canning garden vegetables in mason jars. Pickles and stewed tomatoes mostly.
  
  LINK | 9:26 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   

  "Physicists have noted the ubiquity of pi in nature. Pi is obvious in the disks of the moon and the sun. The double helix of DNA revolves around pi. Pi hides in the rainbow, and sits in the pupil of the eye, and when a raindrop falls into water pi emerges in the spreading rings. Pi can be found in waves and ripples and spectra of all kinds, and therefore pi occurs in colours and music. Pi has lately turned up in superstrings.

  "Pi occurs naturally in tables of death, in what is known as a Gaussian distribution of deaths in a population; that is, when a person dies, the event 'feels' pi. It is one of the great mysteries why nature seems to know mathematics."

  --"The Mountains of Pi" by Richard Preston, The New Yorker, March 2, 1992
  LINK | 7:26 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Saturday, November 11, 2000 }  

  Um. Somebody set up Caterina's Home Page on AOL.
  LINK | 6:12 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Friday, November 10, 2000 }  

  I love the NYTimes review of Michel Houellebecq's The Elementary Particles "Unsparing Case Studies of Humanity's Vileness." "A deeply repugnant read," says Michiko Kakutani.
  LINK | 9:39 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  Headphones: Tosca, Opera. The nice thing about receiving music as a gift is you think of the person who gave it to you whenever you listen to it.

  More deathless wisdom: Shake it, don't break it.
  LINK | 9:06 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  Scott writes a lovely, heartfelt and Buddhist reponse to the New Yorker article on fibromyalgia, quoted by permission:

  I thought the article was decent - presenting two sides of the argument from doctors' perspectives, which you critique pretty well, though it's always dangerous to generalize, since a lot of those people choose their career because they genuinely want to help humanity. Many doctors are materialists and that point of view tends to dismiss the psychological - both in terms of reporting an illness or curing it. If you feel bad physically, you are genuinely sick! If your positive attitude makes you feel better, you are genuinely cured! In my opinion and experience there is no division between the mind and the body. If you want a materialist explaination, there's a ton of western research on the "placebo effect" which is consistently about 30% - this should be described more accurately the power of the mind, since it is one of the most documented cures to all illnesses across the board.

  Of course nothing comes from its own side - causality is not unidirectional. A sick body can make you feel bad and feedback on itself. Lots of happy people get sick or die regardless of their attitude, though their attitude once sick can help contribute to the progress of the disease.

  Generally, don't you think the most important thing for any of these parties is motivation? If the doctor genuinely want to help you, he or she will listen and probe the patient and do all he or she can, applying creativity and a careful attention to each individual. Similarly, if the patient genuinely wants to improve, he or she will work with both body and mind, not just passively relying on pills or other purely materialist cures. I think you might remember the older NYer article which describe a woman who administered placebo tests who was incredibly kind and friendly. Her results were skewing too far above the norm for the placebo effect - many more people were getting better because she was so nice to them. The pharmaceutical companies told her to become more dispassionate in her delivery.

  Buddhists have a unique approach to illness and suffering. First of all, they believe that suffering is a natural and unavoidable aspect of existence. All people want to avoid suffering. But when we suffer ourselves, it gives us the opportunity to appreciate other people who are suffering - both less and more - and the ability to be more compassionate. By seeing ones suffering in this way, it helps to bring a positive result out of a painful experience and make life happier for both ourselves and those around us. It's not so easy to do, of course! This is why buddhists sometimes say they are most greatful for their enemies - they provide them with the opportunity to practice patience and suffering. Your friends are warm and kind.
  LINK | 8:47 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Thursday, November 09, 2000 }  

  In preparation for a work-at-home lifestyle, I have been stocking up on tea. Favorites include the Rose and Pu-erh tea from Golden Moon, who have impressed me by shipping my tea less than 18 hours after I placed the order. Also, I've found a place that sells the remarkable Mariage Freres tea from Paris, and I've decided to try them all one by one.
  LINK | 2:26 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  Rented Hideous Kinky last night, a story about a British hippie in 1972, who brings her two daughters with her on a spiritual quest in Morocco. I was quite taken by it: the children were tremendous, the issues raised, profound. Based on a novel by Esther Freud, daughter of Lucian Freud, great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud. Here are some reviews of the book, and a bit about her older sister, Bella Freud, a fashion designer, who the inspiration for the character Bea.
  LINK | 12:20 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  The 2000 Election: ..an official at the Gore headquarters in Nashville proclaimed breathlessly last night, "We have just reached the twilight zone of American politics."
  LINK | 12:08 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  I've gotten a bunch of mail: thanks to all of you who've sent your get well soon wishes, and thanks to all of you who've written about your own experiences with derisive doctors. Several men and women have written about how, when their illness is not something that doctors have the means to medicate or excise, the doctors will rarely admit that they don't know what is causing the problem. Instead, they typically put the onus of the disease on the patient and call it "psychological". Male friends who have taken care of their sisters have noticed this. And it has been the experience of countless friends of mine.

  Paula writes:

  When it comes to pain, or pain-related illnesses, doctors aren't very sympathetic or knowledgeable. I think it has to do with the fact that they can't see any concrete evidence that something is causing the pain.

  I have IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), and have had the same types of experiences with doctors. IBS is a non-organic illness. In other words, they're not sure what causes it. It could be a motility problem, stress, food reactions, or a combination of both. It also manifests in very different ways with each person. Some people have severe cases, other people are just mildly bothered. Because it isn't the type of illness where they can go in and cut something out of you, or take an x-ray or CAT Scan and VISUALLY asses the problem, it makes them unsure and irritable. Also, the suggestion that it may be psychological, or brought on by stress, makes them quickly discount your experience. They figure that you can just "get over it."

  They also seem to have a level where, although they've read about the problem and know it exists, part of them doesn't really believe you because they can't see, feel, or touch it. It makes no sense to them, they end up feeling helpless and inadequate for not being able to offer you a concrete solution. They also become angry with themselves and the situation and end up taking it out the patient.

  So, hang in there. The key is to take matters into your own hands. Don't let anyone talk you out of what you know and feel to be true about yourself and your illness. Stay open-minded and look for a doctor who's had experience with your problem and who's attitude is in line with what you would expect.

  It took a LONG time, but ... I have both found doctors who are good and supportive, and who have the attitude that although they may not know everything, they're willing to participate ... in finding solutions. They're open to looking at and reviewing any reserach we may unearth, and trying out different methods.

  The important thing is that you stay informed and involved in your care.(quoted by permission)
  LINK | 10:49 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Wednesday, November 08, 2000 }  

  Yay! walltext has launched their new site! Go check it out! And subscribe!
  LINK | 11:05 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  The fibromyalgia article in this week's New Yorker is one of the "does this disease exist" variety. I was disappointed that Jerome Groopman, who usually writes a kind of medical/philosophical article, didn't attempt to penetrate into the deep prejudices within the medical establishment he half unearthed here. It's quite unlike him to bring forth arguments that question the pain of suffering people.

  What I find quite amazing the parallel experiences women with this disease undergo, the dismissive doctors, the assigning of blame to the women themselves. Fibromyalgia is a disease whose sufferers are 90% women. Doctors, most often men, are quick to dismiss women's pain as psychosomatic, and that really saddens and appalls me. Women's threshold for pain is much greater than men's, from an evolutionary biological standpoint, yet women are dismissed as hysterical ninnies when they are feeling pain that has not gotten the imprimatur of the medical establishment's instruments. In the article, a group of traditional western doctors passed judgement on whether or not patients were suffering for real or if they were somehow bringing it upon themselves. Aside from a few quotes, the people with the disease were not consulted, and the article took place largely outside the reality of the disease, as a discussion between doctors of its validity. Anyone who has suffered from this illness will attest: it is real. Why would anyone think, when someone said she was in pain, that she was conjuring it up? Exercise helps patients with fibromyalgia, but it also helps people with hypertension, or diabetes, or conditions and diseases and injuries of all stripes. Exercise is good for a body. It certainly helps with fibromyalgia, in my experience, but it is not the cure. The medication that I am taking, Amitriptyline, 20 mg a day, has made an incredible difference, reducing my pain by about 75-80%. When I wake up after not taking it, I find it difficult to walk. And sleeping helps a lot. Sleeping deeply, sleeping well, sleeping enough: that helps more than anything.

  *Sigh.* These are my comments after a cursory read. As soon as my own copy arrives in my mailbox, I'll give it another more thorough readthrough and add any comments.
  LINK | 10:01 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Tuesday, November 07, 2000 }  

  Well damn. I feel better now; I voted. It's an exciting race. Go Gore!
  LINK | 2:41 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  The new book I'm reading: Tristram Shandy.
  LINK | 12:13 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Monday, November 06, 2000 }  

  It's official! I will be leaving Yellowball at the end of the month to better take care of myself and my fibromyalgia. It is very bittersweet; I love everyone at the company and working with them every day. I am sad. I wish my heath were better. But it will be a relief to be able to sleep properly and exercise and gather my strength. Reorganize my priorities. I am looking forward to that.

  And finishing my novel.
  LINK | 2:28 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Sunday, November 05, 2000 }  

  Can George W. Bush read? posted on Metaphorage. Egads. My hair is standing on end in stark irreducible fear.
  LINK | 10:25 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  I've never understood the Electoral College, but here it is clearly explained on voter.com. Fascinating and timely stuff.
  LINK | 10:05 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  Weekend Wrapup Friday: Dinner at Slow Club with a bunch of web folks; Evan's Ahi Tuna was AMAZING. God's Donkey, a play by the Travelling Jewish Theatre. Drinks at The Rite Spot (Adam, Aaron who was Moses in the play, Julia from Ecuador, Jennifer and Todd and Judith.) Yesterday: Stanford. Went to bed early after finishing up The Crying of Lot 49 Today: Woke up and wrote down my dream in my diary. Met Evan for brunch at Miss Millie's (best cinnamon roll I've ever had!) mimosas, tea, and then went to see Best in Show. Very funny. Day ended early. Wait! That's it? What happened to the weekend? Want to hit rewind. Tonight I'm in the mood for a David Lynch movie. Peculiar. But more likely, work, and then a new book. Hrmmmrm...
  LINK | 7:00 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  My sister is a sphere among circles, a bird among bats, a symphony among pop ditties. Heart as big as all the outdoors. Strong as a Sherman tank. Lamb-gentle. Perspicacious. Vessel of understanding and forgiveness, a magnanimous philanthrope and friend of the friendless. She gives you surprise presents when you least deserve them. Keeps things real.

  Did I mention that I love my sister? I love my sister.
  LINK | 11:58 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  Spent most of yesterday at the Attraction/Distraction symposium at Stanford. Takeaways?

  • Name tags. What purpose do they serve? Whenever I noticed someone reading my name tag I felt I was being subjected to a mild form of judgement and predation. Had they heard of me? Was I worth talking to? Where did I work? Was I available for dating? I was too shy to read anyone's name tag.
  • Suggestion Box In the early presentations there was more show than tell. I wished the artists and designers who showed their work had spoken some more about what their thinking was behind each piece, why they made the decisions they did, what they were trying to say and whether or not their efforts suceeded or failed.
  • The screensavers exhibit is on the Refresh Artmuseum.net site. Check out the Content Provider screensaver aka Rebecca Bollinger, Anthony Discenza and Adrian Van Allen and Scott Snibbe's Emptiness is Form. (OK, so this is a little bit of logrolling, but I haven't had a chance to check out everyone else's).
  • "Are you Eggplant?" the friendly box lunch distributor asked.
  • There was a very interesting presentation by Pamela Lee in which she traced a history from the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk and his work in opera as the "total art work" through the Exploding Plastic Inevitable show in New York in the 60s and related it to current installation work and interactive environments. I found this presentation quite intriguing, and not nearly long enough.
  • Kristin Oppenheim, an artist from New York, showed some of her sound pieces (with accompanying video). Very atmospheric and haunted.
  • They showed the Osmose video again; I've seen this many times since 1995 when it was made. People were speaking in hushed and reverent tones and thanking Char Davies, the artist. for showing it.
  • When people start speaking in hushed and reverent tones you should always listen closely, because you will generally hear the gentle lowing of a sacred cow.
  • I haven't had the good fortune of directly experiencing any of Char Davies' work. To participate in the immersive environment you don a vest that senses your breathing and motion, and wear a VR helmet/screen. Your breathing regulates your upward and downward motions and by leaning from side to side you can navigate laterally. Davies said that she intended for the movement to be subtle, and eliminated the instrumentality of buttons and joysticks and the sense of domination and control, which I quite liked. The video of the experience and Davies' descriptions of people emerging from the VR experience and saying they "were no longer afraid of death" and "they felt reborn" etc. sounded suspiciously like people coming down from LSD trips or emerging from sensory deprivation tanks, taking shortcuts to enlightenment.
  • Bill Viola was genuine and thoughtful and wise, especially when contrasted with the arch intellectualism of the younger conference participants. He talked about the future of technology as the future of desire. He described an interactive piece of his of a tree at the end of a long corridor whose growth and decay was controlled by the person walking down the corridor. The microscope, for instance, gave us entry into another world so that we now believe completely in "bugs" and "viruses" without looking through the microscope at all. He asked the question, when we put down these new technologies of ours, what will we then see?
  • David Ross, as always a very articulate speaker, spoke of his "Attraction/Distraction" disorder, and how museums can provide the cure. He mentioned Gregory Bateson's idea of "Deutero Learning" (must look into this more) and quoted Bateson as saying, "The Balinese have no word for art. They do everything as well as they can". He spoke of the death of the artist and the relinquishing of control; quoted a friend as saying that "paintings talk about us when we leave the room" and our desire to leave traces of ourselves, wanting to have an effect on what we see and experience.
  • Judith provided the perfect parting salvo after a particularly long-winded post-structuralist Q and A monologue by an audience member: "'Foucault' rhymes with 'time to go'".
  
  LINK | 6:57 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  { Saturday, November 04, 2000 }  

  The Stereotype Trap A fascinating series of studies done on the effect of stereotypes on those that are being stereotyped.

  "The power of stereotypes, scientists had long figured, lay in their ability to change the behavior of the person holding the stereotype. If you think women are ninnies ruled by hormonal swings, you don’t name them CEO; if you think gays are pedophiles, you don’t tap them to lead your Boy Scout troop. But five years ago Stanford University psychologist Claude Steele showed something else: it is the targets of a stereotype whose behavior is most powerfully affected by it. A stereotype that pervades the culture the way “ditzy blondes” and “forgetful seniors” do makes people painfully aware of how society views them—so painfully aware, in fact, that knowledge of the stereotype can affect how well they do on intellectual and other tasks."

  Another interesting thing is that you don't even have to believe the stereotype for it to affect you; you just have to care about it. That is its most potent and destructive force: demoralization. (via rebecca blood)
  LINK | 9:44 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Friday, November 03, 2000 }  

  Shudder: "Bush mentioned something about Yale University, from which he graduated in 1968. Novick graduated from Yale in 1983, so she brought it up, thinking it would be "like a bonding thing." "When did you graduate?" Bush asked her, as she recalls. She told him. That's when Bush told her that Yale "went downhill since they admitted women." (via fuzzy belly. Read the manifesto!)
  LINK | 12:15 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  Phew. Yesterday was a bad day, a real humdinger. It's funny how the sun comes up, and the air smells sweet, and the next day begins and it's almost like that yesterday never even happened, washed away with the dew.
  LINK | 10:56 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Thursday, November 02, 2000 }  

  Saw Croupier last night out at the dinky little Four Star Theatre in the avenues. It was really good; all mood and undertone and with a terrifically sexy and aloof leading man, Clive Owen, who Daniella sees as a new Sean Connery.

  Still reading The Crying of Lot 49. Almost done. I really like this one; I might have to give Gravity's Rainbow another chance.
  LINK | 9:43 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  { Wednesday, November 01, 2000 }  

  Here's something on Salon about"Author Unknown" by Don Foster, the literary sleuth and Shakespeare scholar mentioned previously.
  LINK | 11:01 PM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  Before election day every year, my lawyer friend Jennifer Granick sends out the Granick Slate Card to her friends and interested parties. I always look forward to it because she is very opinionated, has researched and thought out the issues, and is very involved in local politics. She offers recommendations for all the San Francisco offices, and if you'd like me to forward you the rest of her slate send me an email. I excerpt her passage on Gore here:

  PRESIDENT: (gulp) AL GORE!

  You may have noticed that in my salutation, I used Nader-ites where "Republicans" usually goes. That's because in this election, there is no difference. A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.

  I like Nader, but, to quote Pam Boskin, just because the man stands for everything you believe in is no reason to vote for him. You may not like the sentiment, but its true. So, if you want to vote in Fantasyland and wake up in Texas, vote Nader. Otherwise, Gore's your man. Some myths about voting for Nader:

  Myth No. 1 ***Gore's got California in a lock box, so I can vote my heart. ***

  Really? Then why is W's campaigning here this week, predicting a surprising upset and forcing Gore to spend valuable time here as well, when he should be kissing babies in Florida. Check the polls. California does not belong to Gore.

  Myth No. 2 ***There's no difference between Gore and Bush***

  Bullshit. Bush thinks compliance with Clean Air laws should be voluntary. Let Firestone tell you how good companies are with voluntary compliance. But the Supreme difference is the Supreme Court. Bush is pro life and will look for pro life conservative justices to satisfy both himself and his party. Many abortion and other civil rights decisions are decided at the Supreme Court with a 5-4 vote. Several of the justices will certainly retire in the next four years, and perhaps as many as five in the next eight years. Just one changed vote means your 15 year old daughter will be flying to France when the condom breaks. Some Nader people say, well, Republicans have appointed some of the better justices. Yes but those were _accidents_! More frequently and more recently, Republicans have also given us Thomas, Scalia, Bork and most of the current Federal judiciary.
  LINK | 11:21 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

   

  I am posting this to the past.
  LINK | 4:23 AM |
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .