Another quote about problems by one of America's profoundest thinkers.

Derrida said that Hegel enjoyed an enhanced status amongst many Westerners because his name sounds like "Eagle" in most Western languages. I wonder if the fact that "Warhol" sounds a bit like "asshole" has mitigated his status at all.

I wonder also if it is possible for me to find more important things to wonder about. But it is the weekend, culturally sanctioned 'unimportant' time.
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• Pinder sends me the URL the City of Vancouver's construction schedule.
• Here is a nice graphical representation of Dante's Inferno. I think they're keeping a locker with my name on it down near "Sowers of Discord".
• And the new Canadian five. Unfortunately you won't be able to pencil in Mr. Spock on this version anymore. Pencil who? Mr. Spock. I was astonished, upon moving to this country, that Canadians didn't know how to deface their own currency. You start out with this:

  

  And you pencil your way to this:

  

  A remarkable resemblance, don't you think? I remember demonstrating this for the coffee guy at the local cafe, and he said, completely shocked, "But isn't that illegal?!" Well I would hope so! Otherwise defacing currency wouldn't be any fun at all.

• Breaking news: both Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner are Canadian. And also Jewish.
• These three links are completely unrelated, except if you've been woken up by jackhammers at 7 a.m., in which case you know what hell is all about, and, further, believe that Money is the Root of all Evil. In which case they're like tongue and groove, baby, tongue and groove.

My brain is made of cotton wadding. Sometimes I think it has to do with how clean or dirty my hair is. Dirty hair = muddled thoughts.
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From Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan:

I hadn't realized Richard Brautigan committed suicide in Bolinas, CA when he was 49 -- around 1984-85. According to the bio in the back of this book he was 'driven to drink and despair' after the fading of his fame. Trout Fishing in America had sold 2 million copies in the 60s and 70s.

Last night we were talking about how everyone was talking about how terrible Gwyneth Paltrow looked at the Oscars, and it's always seemed like that is part of the sport of celebrity: awed by the power and omnipotence of the ascending stars, gloating over the spectacle of the falling ones. It's funny how the snickering and cattiness have become so institutionalized -- but no entertainment expert myself, it may be that this has always been the case. Or did this start with Kenneth Anger and Hollywood Babylon? I missed the Oscars altogether -- I was in Berkeley at a Readymade reading by Neal Pollock, and then to Shana's house.
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Cocopuffs for breakfast! Shana and I both get that cavity-ache in our teeth when we bite into sugary things.

I've been reading Seek: Reports from the Edges of America and Beyond by Denis Johnson, which starts out with an astonishing story about the civil wars in Liberia, endless gory Grand Guignol slaughter, murderous presidents, starving people tearing open and eating packages of rat poison because they are famished and can't read. Then came Hippies, a piece on The Rainbow Gathering, and next a tale about flying in a single prop plane with a pilot with a deathwishon their way to dredge for gold in Alaska.
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This is the web version of invisible ink.
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Corey and Brian threw me a great brunch yesterday; Brian made some tremendous crab cakes and Corey sliced up the sushi with her Ginsu knife. I got to see everyone too, and all at once. It was wonderful.

Then Judith took me to my favorite San Francisco book store, Green Apple, where I bought three Kenzaburo Oe books and The Good Men by Charmaine Craig. Then back home and we were off again to the Masonic Auditorium on Nob Hill to see Cassandra Wilson at her first appearance on her tour. She has an astonishing voice like melted chocolate low like Nina Simone's but phrased like Joni Mitchell. She sang a marvellous version of one of my and Rog's favorite songs, Aguas de Marco Her guitarist (from Canada! -- and I was teased on the way home about for pointing this out) her guitarist Kevin Breit was just GREAT -- playing six different guitars including this one tiny one like an electic ukelele, but with two strings higher, and turning the tuning pegs while playing for some really novel effects. He's got a new album out called Supergenerous which I have to look for. After we got home Judith popped onto IM (we're so predictable) and sent me this article about her (possible) declining interest in jazz.

If you're in San Francisco today look up at the sky arching horizon to horizon with sunshine.Glory glory glory.
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I've arrived safely in San Francisco and am at my sister's house in Bernal Heights. On the way to Japantown, I admired the colored glass facade of the new gay/lesbian/bi/trans community center on Market Street, and once in Japantown, the beauty of the food.
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The sea was red and the sky was grey
Wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today
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What can I do? He keeps putting up the tommiest links:

You know that space on your health insurance form where you agree to donate your body to science? The Body Worlds Exhibition.
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I have to say that I totally agree with Mike that this is the best thing on the internet today. Bar none. Golfer is my favorite.

Larry Van Pelt, the artist, is from Niceville, Florida.
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It never occurred to me before that I wanted Samuel Pepys complete diaries, but then when I followed a link from The Bellona Times and saw that they were on sale for $49.98, marked down from $219.45, suddenly I had a burning desire to acquire them. Ex nihilo this desire came -- The Diaries of Samuel Pepys is probably not even in the top 200 books I want to read. I remember my father saying once that the Diaries were "not bad". And Stewart told me that when he was having breakfast at Clare College he used to choose his Froot Loops from out of the Pepys family Bible Box. These are the only reasons I might have for desiring the complete set. That and I take a certain amount of pride in the fact that I know how to pronounce Pepys. It's "peeps".

Pausing to write this weblog entry, my interest in The Diaries of Samuel Pepys sputtered out. An analysis of desires, while illuminating, tends to have an anaphrodisiac effect. It's only when I don't know why I want something that I can wholly want it, you see.
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Happy Birthday, Stewart!
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Waking to a jackhammerless day, I walked the dog, mailed off a manuscript, and sat down to have some tea and read the new journal I discovered yesterday at the bookstore: BRICK: A Literary Journal. I'd never seen it before, though the copy I have is its 68th semiannual issue, which would make it approximately 34 years old. In it was a lovely essay by the poet Jane Hirshfield about hiddenness which starts with a quote from Thoreau's Walden:

She goes on to explore hiddenness in language, the relationship between riddles and metaphors; she talks about the Hoxne Hoard, a collection of fifth-century Roman treasure dug up in a Suffolk field in 1992 by a man who was looking for his friend's lost hammer, and gives us this poem by Jack Gilbert, in its entirety:

Hirshfield continues with a discussion of the Talmud, Edgar Allan Poe, Zen koans, Frank Lloyd Wright, Eros and Psyche and their relationship to hiddenness. It was a very rich essay, and I'd type the whole thing here just so you could read it, but it's better to read it in print. So go to the website and order number 68.

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Why is it that I wish I didn't have to sleep every night before I go to bed, and then in the morning I wish I didn't have to wake up? Right now I could stay up FOREVER, except I'm tired. But I don't want to be! I have so many things I want to do. But I am.

There were some ominous-looking dotted lines carved into the pavement outside of my house where they were doing the jackhammering at 7AM yesterday. I'm keeping the ear plugs handy.
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Nothing is more certain to arouse homicidal rages in me than jackhammering outside my window at 7 AM. Half asleep, I dreamt of machine guns, grenades, bombs, atomic weaponry, anything that would stop the horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible noise.
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Snow all day today. Ridiculous! I might as well be in Buffalo.
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Alamut writes:

My grandmother, addressing me, would sometimes say, "Kara, Elena, Jennifer, Allison, Andrea, Karen, Lita..." going through every name of granddaughter and daughter and daughter-in-law before eventually getting to my name. Later on she added the men's names, "Allison, Peter, Corey, Lita...." I've done this myself. I know, of course, who I'm talking to -- as did my grandmother -- I just couldn't remember their name. And while we're talking about parts of speech, a bit from Anne Carson's much beloved (at least by me) Autobiography of Red which I reread the other day:

''The knowledge of reality is a secret knowledge; it is a kind of death.'' -- Yeats

an·to·no·ma·sia n.
1. The substitution of a title or epithet for a proper name, as in calling a sovereign “Your Majesty.”
2. The substitution of a personal name for a common noun to designate a member of a group or class, as in calling a traitor a “Benedict Arnold.”
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• I sent Jacques in Belgium, and Michelle in New Jersey some postcards, after getting their names on postcardx. [via fluffybattlekitten]
• On peacecorpswriters I find this story about Jose Saramago:
  As a child, he spent vacations with his grandparents in a village called Azinhaga. When his grandfather suffered a stroke and was to be taken to Lisbon for treatment, Saramago recalls, "He went into the yard of his house, where there were a few trees, fig trees, olive trees. And he went one by one, embracing the trees and crying, saying good-bye to them because he knew he would not return. To see this, to live this, if that doesn’t mark you for the rest of your life," Saramago says, "you have no feeling."

  [via higgy]

• Have a look through Eric's notebooks.

[via Hoopla]
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Tweet tweet go my avian pals, and the black and white world outside my window grades slowly into color. Guess what! I'm not recently awake, I'm still awake. I've tried and failed, tried and failed to sleep. Morpheus, take me away!
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I was waiting around for Stewart at the airport, and there didn't seem to be anyone else available to be embarrassed on behalf of the guy who came through customs wearing sunglasses, a loud Hawaiian shirt, shorts, an enormous straw hat, a sunburn and a neckload of plastic leis, so the burden fell upon me.
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Hi Mom! Did you see me on the evening news? So getting off the Helijet today, and I get the feeling that there is someone looking at me. I look up and am surprised to see three camera operators from various news channels with their lenses aimed straight at me. I stop a moment, confused, and then notice that the camera assistants are all scowling at me. Next I notice that there is a guy directly to my right, who I'm completely blocking, and he sneaks by into the terminal under cover of Caterina.
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• My freezer was full of shrunken ice cubes. Against my better judgement, I used a few. They tasted terrible and made my root beer taste terrible too.
• Even though it's been years since I lived in New York, I have a great many black clothes. Problem is, they're turning grey, and I want to re-dye them black, because faded black clothing misses the point. It has to be black. You know what I mean. Problem is: I'm worried that if I use black Rit dye in my washing machine, it'll ruin my washing machine, i.e. turn all the white rubber parts black, and make the next dozen washes slightly grey.
• The other night we were skiing, and I was completely present, you know, totally there, experiencing it as if I were a little kid or an alien or someone who'd never done it before. And I said, isn't it weird how we drove 20 miles in a car and put on skis and are now sitting in this chairlift going up the mountain just so that we can ski down the mountain overlooking the twinkling city and have an incredible amount of fun? It's wondrous and strange when you think about it. Like, think of Louis the Fourteenth type people who wore powdered wigs and brocade and danced Minuets what they'd think of recreational resort skiing. Wow! Life is grand. It's almost like it's set up for fun. Like bicycles! Bicycles are fun. Books, balloons. If you start thinking this way, it appears the whole world is dedicated to fun. Baths! Boats! Beer! Boys! Butterscotch! Bikinis! Bingo!
• Butterfield!
• I've been spending a lot of time with Dos Pesos during the past two days. Animals are the unfallen. Like children without language. Helen said the other day that she looks into her dog's eyes and she sees God. Unconditional, uncomplicated love.

I want to give Knut Hamsun a big kick in the ass, from here to Norway, from here to 1890, from here to there (wherever *there* is, since I encountered him between the covers of a book) and regardless of the fact that Hamsun is dead, because I stayed up all night reading his book Hunger expecting something great, because I am such a rabid fan of The Growth of the Soil and Hunger has been much touted, but I was disappointed, and ultimately more impressed with Henry Miller's starvation, and George Orwell's, and even Lars Eighner's. It's quite possible they got their inspiration for their own romance-of-starvation stories from Hamsun; even so, he's been improved upon.

My personal bias against this book is that I when I was eighteen, I decided that I wanted to be a writer in New York, and not "work" -- that is, work only on my writing. After three or four months of living on cigarettes and diet soda (I find it amusing now that I was drinking diet soda) and pocketing the saltines they gave away in cafeterias to season your soup with, I decided it might be a while before the world recognized my genius and so I got a job. Which this idiot Hamsun refuses to do, preferring to spend his time working up justifications and excuses and watching his hair fall to the ground. Exasperating.

There's this odd northern/eastern European tendency towards unreality that I've noticed in Gombrowicz, and Schulz, and recently Kis, and now in this book by Hamsun. I'm still trying to figure out what it is. It's sort of intransigent flightiness, willful feyness and childishness. And it really bugs me. So much so I'm feeling a completely irrational desire to kick Hamsun's ass.
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Via Calamondin, a link to the Norcal Waste Systems, Inc. Artist in Residence Program, wherein an artist is given some studio space, a stipend and full access to the 44-acre Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center, which may or may not sound like a great thing to you, but it sure sounds like a great thing to me. Awesome!
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The Beginning of Canadian History by Stewart Butterfield. "Canada is a better country", a Canadian ex-pat living in the deep American southwest once said to me, "but the U.S. is a greater country."
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I've always had this idea that hobbies were dangerous, a distraction from my real work, and I've often thought of quitting this weblog, because it was a hobby that sort of got out of control and became its own thing, that of course took up too much time, and time away from the writing of the "important stuff" -- the novel and the short stories and the making of sculptures. So it was with a pang of guilt and remorse that I read this thing in the Victor Munoz piece linked to below:

But just now I was reading this in an interview with Rodney Graham in the local music zine Discorder, which rescues the idea of the hobby from being a fruitless timesuck:

Pre Ten Shuss! My god, what an awful pretentious movie this damned latest Godard movie is! Beautifully shot, of course. And I love Godard too -- Alphaville, Vivre sa vie and that one where Jean-Pierre Leaud is hitting on that girl. But boy. This one is like a really bad movie made by someone who's watched too much Godard.
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There is something unearthly about this painting of The Cholmondeley Ladies at the Tate. They look like insects wrapped in a strange white carapace, and the babies look not-quite-alive in their red cocoons. It took me a while to realize that they were supposed to be lying in bed, and since the two women's positions are identical and decidedly unrelaxed, they seem even more mechanical. And they are not relating to the babies or to each other, but are looking at us expressionlessly. Quite weird.
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Have you ever noticed how people's eyes don't age? The rest of their face ages, but their eyes stay the same? In little children they change, but I'm talking about from adulthood on. Some people have really piercing gazes and other people have a sort of soft focus and it doesn't seem to change.
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Found via Alamut: Victor Munoz's Impossible Text, an essay about journal writing. I liked this about journal writing and its closer relationship to time than novels which are deliberately outside of it:

I looked at the rest of the site which from a cursory glance, seems to have several Interesting Things. Also this word, pridian \Prid"i*an\, a. [L. pridianus.] Of or pertaining to the day before, or yesterday.
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Shana was saying yesterday how she'd been thinking a lot about the terrible things that happened to people in their lives, and I said I'd been thinking about that too. I've known people who have gotten shot, and whose brothers turned out to be serial killers. I've known people whose parents died at a tragically young age. I knew one family in particular in which the parents had an outstandingly acrimonious divorce, and soon thereafter the mother went bankrupt and the father died of AIDS and one of the kids was in a terrible car accident and ended up brain-damaged and there were two other kids. One of the kids grew up and turned into a very successful film director, got married, had kids, and lived what she considered to be a happy life, while her brother went from job to job and girlfriend to girlfriend, always unhappy, always failing, always living under the burden of the tragedies that had befallen their family and eventually committed suicide. What was the thing that made the difference between the daughter and the son?

Here Fernando Flores explains how he changed his thinking about his years in prison:

What he did was ideate the tragedy of his imprisonment as something positive.

Now there is a whole "positive thinking" industry, from Dale Carnegie to the manufacturers of Angel Affirmation cards, which has always seemed at best like a harmless and useless amusement and at worst like using Band-Aids to heal profound psychic trauma. And yet I know what Flores says to be true: what you tell yourself your life is, your life is. What I don't understand is what it takes to believe yourself. For example: you know what your problems are, you understand where they come from, you even understand that the premises on which your problems are based are in the past and not the present (The trouble you are having now with your girlfriend at age 29 is exactly the same trouble you had with your first girlfriend in eighth grade) -- but knowing all of this does nothing to set you free. What is the difference between knowing something and believing it? How do you tell yourself stories that you believe, and therefore can live?

I'm making my way through the Flores book. Hopefully this will become more clear.
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I have got this Blogger business back on track again! Woohoo! and thus the comment system is back again. I'm still not finished posting all the February posts, but hey.

We managed to *not* see the latest Godard movie Eloge de l'amour three days running. We had actual plans to see it Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with concomitant plans to eat at this new local Indian restaurant, Indica, none of which transpired. We're looking to do it Wednesday now. Stymied plans notwithstanding, Stewart, Marni, Martha and I ate at the Liliget Feast House on Friday, and the same unstoppable Eating Team, minus Martha who was sick, ate at Vij's tonight. That is, after the same triumvirate brunched at Benny's Bagel Hostelry this very morning. Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor gloom of night shall stay these 3 eaters from their 3 meals a day.

Working on the black and white site I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. Reading the Fernando Flores book Disclosing New Worlds. And learning new words, as always, such as these:

• ort: a morsel left at a meal : SCRAP
• relict: 1. an organism or species of an earlier era surviving in an environment that has changed considerably 2. a widow.
• midden: a dunghill or refuse heap esp. of a primitive habitation.