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-- Robert Doisneau
(via beyond magazine)
Wall-to-wall unregenerate dweebs here at Flickr. We spend some of yesterday afternoon attempting a recording of the Flickr Jingle, but only after we did a series of Flapface photography.
And now...there is a Remixed Version of the Flickr Jingle by James Holloway.
-- From the Preamble to Very Little, Almost Nothing: Death, Philosophy, Literature by Simon Critchley.
It's stickyhot in Vancouver.
Dos Pesos has become a bad traveller. He now whinges unless his travelhouse is sitting on my lap. He also whinges when the plane ascends and descends, proabably because of the pressure changing in his ears. Time to retrain.
I left the Delgados CD Eekaroo gave me in the rental car. Stewart left the Bluetooth thingy at my sister's house. I am very annoyed since that means I am going to have more holes in my calendar. You know how I hate that.
It was a relief, when we first arrived in Vancouver, to live in a city where the first topic of conversation was not real estate, but that didn't last for long. We have been driving around Silicon Valley a lot these days, and boy, if it isn't ready for some serious urban infill. There really isn't anywhere a dedicated pedestrian can live down there. So it goes.
The wedding was lovely, lovely, lovely, and many happy returns to the happy couple. Things busy here but good! Happy days. It's mostly been business meetings this week since the wedding. I saw Ben and Corey really late for about a half an hour up at Ben's Nebtastic pad on the Embarcadero. Tonight I go to see Shana for dinner.
William Burroughs used to practice invisibility. He thought that if you saw everyone before they saw you, you would become, in effect, invisible. So it says at Take me to Coney Island.
I may be back from Amsterdam, but my stay here in Vancouver is only a day long. I'm now off to San Francisco for a week. Egads.
So I get to the KLM counter at Schiphol, and they tell me that my ticket isn't in the computer. This happened on the way out of Vancouver too! The woman called around and they discovered that the computer had automatically deleted my ticket because it said FAKE, CATERINA. Their computer apparently deletes all tickets with the word FAKE on them. Ridiculous!
The flight was full and overbooked, but they managed to squeeze me into first class. Hooray! I hope it happens again next time too.
The party was great fun! Good food and much delightful conversation. And I got to meet even more Amsterdamsels and heren. Jouke and Gilberthe were in town too, how lovely!
Rein gave me a marvellous book, Checked Baggage, a book that had pictures of 3642 items that had been confiscated by security at airports, then bought by the artist, for 800 euros. One of the items, a switchblade, was shrinkwrapped to the book. Mine is number #614. The book was in this great bag from his architecture firm, and is the address of their offices, consisting of just a few number and letters, but if you drop a letter in the post office anywhere in the world with this address and their name, it will get to them.
Today I went to Sauna Deco, which is very beautiful, and was the perfect thing to do on my last day in Amsterdam. I leave tomorrow very early in the morning for my flight back to Vancouver, where I will stay for only 1 day, then I will be going to San Francisco for Heather and Derek's wedding, complete with chihuahua cortege, and hopefully not too much jetlag.
The Japanese believe that beauty can reside in things that are rustic, withered, faded, simple, imperfect or incomplete. This aesthetic concept applies to people, as well as things, and stems from the words wabi and sabi. The spirit of wabi tends to be inward and subjective and often refers to a path or way of life, while sabi generally pertains to material objects, art literature, and external events. A monk living in self-imposed isolation in the woods, for example, embodies wabi because he coexists with nature in a state that is physically impoverished but rich in spirit. The restaurant with its dusty models had a sabi quality because, by being housed in a crumbling wooden building next to a modern business, it evoked the corroded elegance of another era, like an antique kimono in a closet of designer wear.
-- from "Untangling My Chopsticks" by Victoria Abbott Riccardi
Thanks cior!
Tomorrow I am having a dinner party to say goodbye to my friends here in Amsterdam. This past week has been great for my productivity; seeing my departure approaching put a fire under me and I was able to get a lot written. I'm leaving with about 130 new pages.
I thought about extensively, and then abandoned, my drawing and watercolor project. It turned out to be a really stupid idea.
One of the best things from this weekend was having dinner at Lee and Yuki's house on Saturday night. Yuki is about to have a baby, and her mother is visiting from Japan. We had a lovely wabi-sabi dinner of Japanese comfort food -- cheese wrapped in fish cakes, yummy seaweed in a sauce, elaborate sushi rolls and small crunchy things that I don't know how to name or describe. It wasn't the kind of Japanese food you'd ever have in a restaurant, which is what made it so special. From Lee's invitation:What is wabi-sabi? Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is the beauty of things modest and humble. It is the beauty of things unconventional. All things are impermanent. All things are imperfect. All things are incomplete
Another interview I managed to miss a couple weeks ago by the always fascinating J.G. Ballard, Fearsome Millenial Prophet.
There's a logic today that places a greater value on celebrity the less it is accompanied by actual achievement. I don't think it's possible to touch people's imagination today by aesthetic means. Emin's bed, Hirst's sheep, the Chapmans' defaced Goyas are psychological provocations, mental tests where the aesthetic elements are no more than a framing device....
Artists (though sadly not writers) tend to move to where the battle is joined most fiercely. Everything in today's world is stylised and packaged, and Emin and Hirst are trying to say, this is a bed, this is death, this is a body. They are trying to redefine the basic elements of reality, to recapture them from the ad men who have hijacked our world.
It's all interesting of course:
JGB: Nothing is ever terminal, thank God. As we hesitate, the road unrolls itself, dividing and turning. But there is something deeply suffocating about life today in the prosperous west. Bourgeoisification, the suburbanisation of the soul, proceeds at an unnerving pace. Tyranny becomes docile and subservient, and a soft totalitarianism prevails, as obsequious as a wine waiter. Nothing is allowed to distress and unsettle us. The politics of the playgroup rules us all.
I got many responses via email to my post about why Amsterdam windows are so big and so open, seemingly, to looking into. According to various people, it is because:
1. It is an ethical thing. We are not doing anything we wouldn't want our neighbors to see.
2. It is a meterological thing. We want as much sunlight as possible to come into the house, as our winters have such short days.
3. It is a friendly thing. Friends drop by all the time and we want them to know that we are home.
This photograph of a man and a woman dancing reminded me of one night in New York when passing by a window in the West Village I saw a man and a woman dancing alone in their apartment. They had the same concentrated and completely absorbed looks like the two in this picture have.
There is something different about looking into New York windows and looking into Amsterdam windows. So much more is out in the open here in both the literal and figuative sense, and it is a paradise of looking.
Looking in North America is a more idealized affair. You get the sense that there is a whole lot more presentation, calculation and machination behind each thing you are permitted to see. And therefore so much more shock and scandal associated with seeing what has been occluded or hidden -- which is why we have so many puritans and simultaneously so much pornography, and there is outrage over Monica Lewinsky, and her blue dress is trotted out for the salacious to cluck over.
-- Bohumil Hrabal, as quoted by James Wood in The London Review of Books
Enthusiasts for the Lyke Wake walk, an ancient coffin-bearing trek across the wild North York Moors, will elect their first Cheerless Chaplain, Melancholy Macebearer and similar officials after a long virtually moribund period.
The group will also revive the club's traditional practice of issuing coffin-shaped badges and the title of "dirger" to anyone who manages the 42-mile hike across the moors from Osmotherly to Ravenscar Point within 24 hours. The walk takes its name from the local medieval wyke, or watch, kept on a lyke, or corpse, before it was carried for burial at Whitby or Robin Hood's Bay.
(Thank you Nick)
Ouch. This reminds me of the time I was in a remote pueblo in Mexico and went into a cantina where a bunch of very old men were singing along with the jukebox "I don't want anybody else. When I think about you I touch myself..."
There haven't been that many instances of awkward Nethlish that I've found since being here in Amsterdam, just some Gouda that said "Cheese with Historical Ripening" and the amusing tortilla rebranding.
Aeromancy is divination by atmospheric phenomena.
Alectromancy is divination by a rooster pecking grain.
Amniomancy is divination by using the caul.
Anthroposcopy is divination by observing facial features.
Arithmancy is divination by numbers (also Numerology).
Astrology is divination by planets and stars.
Augury is divination from the behaviour of birds.
Austromancy is divination by the winds.
Axinomancy is divination by a balanced axe or by a stone
on a red hot axe head.
Belomancy is divination by arrows.
Bibliomancy is divination by random passages in books. See Stichomancy.
Biorhythm
Bletonism is divination by currents of water.
Botanomancy is divination by herbs.
Capnomancy is divination by smoke.
Cartomancy is divination by using playing cards.
Catoptromancy is divination by using a mirror.
Ceromancy is divination by molten wax dropped into water.
Cheiromancy is divination by the hands.
Clacking is divination by 'clacking' two stones together.
Clairaudience is divination by hearing things inaudible normally.
Clairvoyance is divination by "second sight".
Cledonomancy is divination by chance remarks or events.
Coscinomancy is divination by sieve and shears.
Crystallomancy is divination by a crystal.
Dactyliomancy is divination by using a finger ring. (Or Pendulum)
Dowsing is divination by using a forked stick or wires. AKA water-witching.
Geloscopy is divination by a person's way of laughing.
Genethlialogy is divination by the stars placement at one's birth.
Geomancy is divination by examining dots on paper, dirt particles or marks on the earth.
Gyromancy is divination by whirling around until dizzy and falling.
Halomancy is divination by salt.
Haruspicy is divination by examining the entrails of animals.
Hepatoscopy is divination by examining the liver of an animal.
Hieromancy is divination by observing sacrificed things.
Horoscopy is divination by means of a horoscope.
Hydromancy is divination by water.
Ichthyomancy is divination by fish.
Lampadomancy is divination by observing the flame of a candle.
Leconomancy is divination by observing the shape that oil poured on water makes.
Lithomancy is divination by stones.
Margaritomancy is divination by pearls.
Moleosophy is divination by moles on the body.
Myomancy is divination by observing the movements of mice.
Necromancy is divination by communication with the dead.
Numerology is divination by numbers and names.
Oenomancy is divination by the appearance of wine poured in libation.
Ogham Sticks
Oneiromancy is divination by dreams.
Onomancy is divination by the letters of a name.
Onychomancy is divination by the fingernails.
Ophiomancy is divination by observing the behaviour of snakes.
Ornithomancy is divination by the flight of birds.
Palmistry is divination by reading the lines and aspects of the hand.
Pegomancy is divination by fountains.
Pessomancy is divination by pebbles.
Phrenology is divination by the bumps on the head.
Physiognomy is divination by the face.
Psychometry is divination by handling an object.
Pyromancy is divination by looking into a fire.
Rhabdomancy is divination by a wand or divining rod.
Runes
Scapulomancy is divination by the shoulder blades of animals.
Scatoscopy is divination by the examination of excrement.
Sciomancy is divination by shadows or ghosts.
Scrying is divination by looking into a crystal ball.
Sideromancy is divination by observing the movement of straws placed on a red hot iron.
Sortilege is divination by drawing lots.
Spodomancy is divination by looking at ashes.
Stichomancy is divination by random passages in books, see Bibliomancy.
Tephromancy is divination by looking at ashes from sacrifices.
Theomancy is divination by oracles.
Uromancy is divination by urine.
Xylomancy is divination by dry sticks.
Zoomancy is divination by observing the behaviour of animals
Rogério and I went to the museum in Den Haag to see the Klimt, Schiele, Klee exhibit on Saturday. There wasn't a lot of Klimt or Klee, and there was a lot of filler from other lesser known artists, but it was worth the trip just to see the Schieles, which I'd never seen in person. Ah! As I write that, I remember that I saw them once before in a gallery in New York.
We continued on to Rotterdam, where we met up with Janet Abrams at a gallery there, where she introduced us to Dre Wapenaar, who does some really remarkable sculptural work, of tents. You have to click through that link to see his stuff, it is phenomenal.
The three of us carried on to the Hotel New York, where I ate some wolffish (I love saying "wolffish") and where I was, as you can see by the previous post, indoctrinated into DEVONthink.
Last night Robert and Laura and I went to the Tuschinski to see both the Tuschinski and Ladykillers, the latest Coen Brothers movie, which was amusing, if not their best.
A terrible thing has happened. I downloaded a copy and have been trying out DEVONthink since yesterday, on the recommendation of Paul. He told me about it the last time I saw him, which was about a year ago, and then again on Saturday. It is because of this program that he has more or less stopped publishing Alamut. It is dangerously addictive, and is, in fact, the thing I have always wanted. It is an open database system and can store files and documents of all varieties -- .pdf, .html, .doc, .rtf, .jpg etc. -- and has really strong and thorough search capabilities. The only time I ever wrote myself a program was in college when I tried to write something like this in HyperCard. It was called the Encyclopedia Flexicon, and lives in a 3.5" floppy disk somewhere in my many boxes of defunct media. I've spent a frightening number of hours organizing all the documents I've had stored on my laptop into DEVONthink, and I am happy as can be with the result. With this my research is so easy to find. And it is Mac only. (How many things can you say that about?) 'Tis a privilege to be a Mac user.
Now, it would be interesting if people were to publish their DEVONthink databases online. I know I would be willing to pay for access to Paul's DEVONthink, and that of half a dozen other people on the internet. And as the years go by the database becomes more valuable, as it grows. The OED costs $295/yr for a subscription, Questia costs $120/hr...there is a precedent for such things. In any event, I will have to make a point of posting here and not becoming absorbed in my new encyclopedia.
Michael was telling me about a talk he attended at Supernova by Tara Lemmey about what would happen in the event of a bioterrorist attack in the U.S., based on a study of the food distribution services that are currently in place. It's pretty frightening. The vulnerabilities of our food supply system are largely attributable by its very efficiency. There is, for example, no more than two days' supply of food in Manhattan. Should Manhattan be cut off from the rest of the country -- it is, after all, only accessible by bridge and tunnel -- the food situation would rapidly become dire. Michael said that the other place you would not want to live during a bioterrorist attack is the Midwest. This surprised me, because it is, after all, the center of American agriculture. But the variety of food that is produced there is not enough to sustain the region. Corn, soy beans, wheat is not enough. Everyone would get scurvy.
The Bay Area is actually a pretty good place to live in the event of a bioterrorist attack. The variety is good, San Francisco isn't an island, California's agriculture is more varied, and it isn't as hard to get to as the middle of the country. Because of Earthquake preparedness, a lot of people have several days supply of food and water in their basements. Probably even some left over from the Y2K paranoia.
All those earnest folks that have been encouraging you to buy locally? You should heed their warnings. Make sure your apples come from as near to you as possible, and aren't flown in, then trucked overland, from Chile.
And that little thing over there on the right side of the page above my photos? That's the nifty new Flickr Daily Zeitgeist. You'd think with all the stuff we've been putting up lately, the flow would stop a little. No such luck. And just you wait and see! There is no stopping this team. There will be more more more!
We have put up Flickr Blog, an off-site blog, which will have news, offsite status (for scheduled maintenance, etc.), and selections of great photos from the Flickr community. Check out the new stuff we added this week: Creative Commons licenses, a beta of the Mac Uploader, and Calendars. What a great company!
I am sad because Stewart won't be coming as planned. He was going to fly in and we were going to take a train down to France to visit a friend in Lyon, but work commitments have gotten in the way and he can't come. Sad transatlantic besotment.
I met up with Robert and Laura, old friends from San Francisco, today for lunch, and it was lovely to see them, and catch up after, gosh, 5 years or so. Though I did see Robert briefly at Serena and Rob's wedding last year. Robert is a writer and Laura a musician, and we had a great conversation about American politics from the view of expats, the demands of a writing career and our respective adoptive countries. And it was a lovely, sunny day. Happy Canada day!