Harriet The Spy or The Phantom Notebook

SO, I lost a Moleskin like the one pictured above. It had about 3 weeks worth of notes, journal entries, doodles, random contacts. Most info was mentioned at least in passing on this blog, all contacts (that I can think of) were contacted.

Notetaking as a tool is valuable. But I am finding that I am able to reconstruct most of what was important to jot down. The act of writing imprints the event to some extent. Also, I am using the Moleskin Shuffle, with 64 pages each, that is not like having to reconstruct a 200 page journal, is it?

Still, I fucked up. Where is the damn thing anyway? Is someone reading it somewhere in this city, cracking up? Or I did write something as inflammatory as "What kind of person doesn't like tomato sandwiches?" that will lead to my downfall??? Is there some vital information that the Russians weren't supposed to get?

The Phantom Notebook is having an interesting half-life as a lesson in impermanence and memory. Making me retrace the events and thoughts in a way that is different from the way they show up on this blog.

Still, if anyone finds this damn thing, would you email me already? Cash reward, no questions asked.

iPhone = Combat Rock or Born To Run?

Looking around at who has the first iPhones in Manhattan, I see duchebags of all stripes. Inevitably they have wrapped their new purchase in some lame "protector" instead of just letting cool industrial design be.

Pink leatherette cases? Ugh.

This is the moment when the band you love comes out with a record that the jocks like too. A friend said "Combat Rock" in answer to this formulation.
Exactly!

Of course this is better than being a "beleagured computer maker". And even after The Clash and Bruce Springsteen started playing arenas, they were still (insanely) great.

Reasons to Be Cheerful 2/14/07

Time to clear the decks with a "shopping list" post in no particular order. The nature of this blog is that I might not develop all ideas or lists but part of the experiment is the simple act of posting.

Lots of quotes rambling around my head today...

-The Search by John Battalle - (book) Think of an act we have always been engaged in, now refined to the point where it is a new context for hunting and gathering. The Tesla connection, aka "The lessons of Tesla":

"I wanted to invent things, but I also wanted to change the world. I wanted to get them out there, get them into people's hands so they can use them, because that's what really matters." Larry Page p.66

This is another interation of "Real artists ship" (Steve Jobs).

Bill Gross' IdeaLab story is also worth reading.

"...he was fascinated with the way Spielberg ran movie sets. 'He walks around all day long using his brainpower to creatively enhance things around him...

'I'd always thought you had to take the good with the bad. How audacious to think your job could be perfect all day long.' " Bill Gross p. 99

-Bruce Nauman at the Berklee Art Center-What would I be doing today if I had seen this stuff instead of the Giacometti in Dec. 1979?Manipulating the T-Bar, Get Out of My Mind, Abstracting the Shoe, Legal Size all very, very good.

-Guston, Lichtenstein and modern posters at SF MOMA. Guston Red Sea, The Swell, Blue Light. Paintings hung together like comics panels. Man, this is it.

The Lichtensteins look hard and brittle, but just right. Mirror, 1970 hits me now in a way that the Rothko and Giacometti there don't. I feel far away from those masters right now.

Too Much to Take: Cornuto! or How it all feels a little too Fassbinder in here. (If there were a link to Elvis Costello's version of The Specials' "What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend" I would definitely list it here.)

-Shadows and Fog quote, "Like our illusions? No, they NEED our illusions!"

-Steven Shaw Turning The Tables (book). Great critiques and expertise-oriented understanding of the food business. Shaw got turned onto fine dining while being wined and dined by law firms in NYC. (Will cite page when I get my copy back.) Right on critique of the "cult of authenticity". Even though I appreciate Saveur/Slow Food for their contributions, this is a handy bit of sharp thinking from the FatGuy aka eGullet.com guy.

-Tickle Me Almo (dovar):Here is a Pete Townsend quote I would throw at the reverential NYRB reviewer who likes "Cinema master" Almodovar more than "speed freak" Almo. Just substitute "Pedro" for "Pop" in the quote below.

"Pop has become solemn, irrelevant, and boring. What it needs now ismore noise, more size, more sex, more violence, more gimmickry, more vulgarity. Above all it desperately needs a new messiah who will take things right back to the glamour, power, and insanity of the Elvis Presley age."

-Shit testsOK, it is ridiculous to rationalize all clumsy conversational moves as intentional. But hey, being ridiculous is not so bad. I can keep it up for awhile longer.

"Hey baby/I'm out of favor/Can't always be/The right flavor" Graham Parker Nobody Hurts You (Harder Than Yourself)

OTOH, as a waiter I can talk to people, why is it that as ME I cannot? There are a few rules, I am selling something, it is a work interaction. Imagine giving someone free cookies if they don't like your flip comment about feminism, the war, your swearing habit, your love, your hate, your indifference... Maybe I need to carry a few "comps" in my backpack and just treat everyone, everywhere as if they were my "customers".

-Marvelmania, or just mania as an aesthetic. Or an anaesthetic? I notice that many posts are about creating a state of mania. Art that triggers this is GOOD. Everything else is just OK.

Anyhow, I liked that Brice Marden show, didn't I? But even then I was drugging myself on Sweet and ignoring museum guards who were in my face...

My comment to Grey's Anatomy creator

(Alas, I got hooked on a TV show while hanging out with my Mom. Worse, I actually posted on the blog of this nighttime soap opera. Well, one mission of this blog and of mine is the SHAME ATTACKING EXERCISE, and this is one. I am publically admitting that I am a fan of "Grey's Anatomy", and not just the Spaulding Grey one!)

I will not be happy until you have Burke french kiss a man to make up for his bonehead offensive remarks. I agree that bouncing Isiah Washington and replacing him with another African American actor would be racist. But Mc "Gay, I love Gay" needs to kiss a man on TV.

He has done your wonderful show and the great character you & he have created a great disservice with his homophobia.

You can say "trust the art, not the artist" but this is more than someone having offensive politics, it is someone giving voice to hate and then playing a subtle theatrical role. Everytime Washington's character shows up, I expect him to say "f**g*t", he just destroyed Burke with his unprofessional behavior.

The bottom line, as someone said, is that if T.R. Knight had dropped the "N" word he would be off the show. This is no different.

I wouldn't write if I weren't a fan. Let Burke get a nice wet one, linger on the shot and all will be well.

iPhone Gadget Lust Letter

Here is a comment I submitted to Scoble that is pretty much a love letter to Apple and its cool new phone design.

(Btw check out Fake Steve Jobs' site -- 1/17/07 Edit: also, check out Tog's article)

Some notes on my own enthusiasm for the iPhone:

If I don't wind up buying an Apple product, I surely will be buying something that the iPhone makes possible because of its critical redesign of the whole smartphone/pda concept.

The iPhone is going to make voicemail usable. Indexed vm is a great idea.

It will be the successor to ALP/Palm as those guys insist on committing a long, public suicide. Palm OS 4 is as black-belt a productivity/communications tool on a small phone as I could currently wish for.

I want Notes, Contacts, Calendar, To Dos and email in my pocket. I want them to sync reliably with my Mac. Am using a great flip phone, Samsung i500, that had no successor in this country. (Mexico and China got the i550).

The iPhone means that by the time I am ready to change phones I will have a well designed tool. Yes, I am looking for a more "Nano" solution than a bulky brick. No Treo in my jeans pocket, maaan! But probably no iPhone v.1 either.

Escape Artist or Chickenshit Coward?

Here is a character-building shame attacking confession. I was scheduled for a brain scan MRI today since the cancer is in my family history.

I showed up on time. Checked in, filled out every form they gave me. My biggest concern was having all my cards demagnetized at that point.

"Take the elevator behind you & see Donovan" I was told. Of course I expected to see the pop folk singer, dressed like Dylan's younger brother circa 1966, an acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder saying something like "The continent of Atlantis was an island which lay before the great flood ...".

Instead it was a Marvin Hagler -on-a-good-day-look-alike who gave me instructions on putting all my stuff away and then how to lie down in the tunnel like contraption.

He gave me earplugs and the machine began to whir. I was immobile, going into a tunnel. The tunnel contained me like a coffin. I couldn't breathe. I hadn't prepared in any way for this.

The fucking thing was too claustrophobic for words. I freaked out & bailed!

I told Donovan I needed a minute to collect myself. Did he smirk or was he understanding? A sphinx.

Well, I could have talked myself into the project, but I was unstrapped as quickly as I had been readied. The technicians seemed used to this everyday aborted mission. Another brain scan pussy.

I am more disturbed by my own unmanly cowardice than I am by the prospect of a tumor for which they don't have any decent treatment anyway. I called the doctor's office & left a message...well, a confession. They will probably play it around the office for laughs. Hopefully at the office holiday party if it makes the Top Ten. Oh well.

I'd never make it a day at Guantanamo.

For an excellent Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby in CBR format click here. (The whole series archive site is here.) His vision of infernal machinery is great.