So, earlier this week I went to my local branch of the Queens Public Library System. I was reminded of the joy i feel when entering libraries (Books! Free Books!) I was also reminded that I think the Queens System is a pretty solid one. I decided to pick up some travel books, as I am embarking on a “Life Changing Trip Out West” in two weeks and wanted to plan. Because, that’s what I do. Plan.

I picked up this book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, because really, that’s a promising title.

However, apparently you need to see a bunch of fancy resorts before you die, because that is truly where all the wonders of the world are held. This book was terrible. I say boo! to it.

But, you know what was great? Picking up the first three of Michael Apted’s Seven Up! Series I loved them.

Also, if you’re interested in getting free postcards (free postcards?!!?) from this trip, then you should send me your address. it’ll be great!

Or, realize we get old. Whatever you want to call it. Basically i stayed home because my joints are really doing crazy things that i dont understand.

Here are my 10 realizations (remainders to self) of the week:

1. McDonalds makes you dumb and fat.

2. Scotch is delicious.

3. When you do a Google Image Search for “scotch”, the first photo you get is of some dude ripping his anus open. It’s really not pleasant. Also, you get this photo:

4. Henry Rollins is possibly more endearing than one would think.

5. Watching The Night of the Hunter with a crowd (I’m talking about YOU, Williamsburg) that thinks cynicism is TOPS, is not the best place to watch this masterpiece. Give me a fucking break. You’ve got beautiful stylistic lighting and Robert Mitchum being a scary scary preacher-man. How could you ask for more? Stop laughing at everything that has changed since 1955!!!!!!!

6. I’m going to really really focus on getting a photography portfolio together….starting now.

Too bad I left my $8 lighting set-up on an MTA Bus.

7. I get really freaked out about global warming. Basically, i’m accepting that the world will probably end very very soon and i’m glad that i haven’t birthed any children….because, i’d feel bad for them.

8. Stephen Colbert’s schtick has gotten old.

9. Blah Blah Blah

10. I need a patron. (a patron of the arts)

Also, i need sleep.

Back in January, Sao Paolo enacted a city law that banned all outdoor advertising over a certain size. In the meantime, there have been a lot of signs taken down and nothing has yet gone up to replace them.

It seems so exciting to me that there is now all this space, that instead of being filled with advertising, there could now be public art. or just clean, quiet seeming space.

and a fairly relevant quote from Ways of Seeing by John Berger which I read today on the way to work:

Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy. The choice of what one eats (or wears or drives) takes the place of significant political choice. Publicity helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic within society. And it also masks what is happening in the rest of the world.

While I think the aesthetics of this building are fantastic (clean, using light in an interesting manner, books incorporated, possibly the exterior walls can go up or down depending on your preference), I can’t help but feel worried about the damage that the sunlight is going to do to those books. I mean, if you love your books and want them to be a part of the look of your house, shouldn’t you protect them? (via Coudal)

On a slightly unrelated note, whenever I buy a used book that’s inscribed from one person to another, I always wonder what could have possibly happened to make the book recipient give away the book. It always means so much to me when someone gives me a book, especially if there is a note attached. Here are the theories I feel could only be possible:

1. They died.

2. They went through such a messy heartbreaking divorce from the book-giver that they gave away everything that reminded them of this person…..even books (aghast)

3. Honestly, that’s all I’ve got. I’m stumped.

Several years ago, Damien Pratt gave me birthday presents that were basically life changers. First off, there was Pat Benatar’s Best Shots, her Greatest Hits album. Really…it made me realize the magnificence of Pat Benatar, and that’s important.

Second, was In Color by Cheap Trick. This album contains one of my favorite songs, Southern Girls. I just feel you should give it a listen. That’s all i’m saying.

Oh and here are some links that might tickle your fancy(?):

1. Some of the Better Photographs In the World

2. A Great Poem, “Scheherazade”

3. Zadie Smith speaking about what makes EM Forster worthwhile and awe inspiring

4. The Senator who put a secret hold on an Open Government Bill (say what?!?!?) has been exposed. However, I find if a little worrisome that the New York Times does not carry the story. All they have regarding Senator Kyl and secrecy is this cute article about “Senator’s Secret Offices”.

For a variety of reasons, I’ve been reading out loud a lot recently. Specifically I’ve been reading poetry out loud, in some part because of the brevity of the medium.

In the midst of this reading…out loud, I found this publication. It’s fantastic.

Also, for a couple of months now, I’ve been trying to find the poem that this excerpt is from:

“that each of us lives in other’s minds, as they live in ours
sometimes flaring in images, sometimes feeling each other’s flesh. Each night
before I got o bed I pass myself on the stairs.”

It’s attributed to S. Berg, but I can’t figure out who that is, or what poem it is. Do you know?

The entire book The White Album by Joan Didion has felt more and more relevant to me during this week. What has really been sticking in my head is the first essay, specifically this:

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea. The naked woman on the ledge outside the window on the sixteenth floor is a victim of accidie, or the naked woman is an exhibitionist, and it would be “interesting” to know which. We tell ourselves that it makes some difference whether the naked woman is about to commit a mortal sin or is about to register political protest or is about to be, the Aristophanic view, snatched back to the human condition by the fireman in priest’s clothing just visible in the window behind her, the one smiling at the telephoto lens. We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the “ideas” with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.

Or at least we do for a while. I am talking here about a time when I began to doubt the premises of all the stories I had ever told myself, a common condition but one I found troubling…”

Like Didion, I truly do believe that some string of narrative is necessary for making any sense of the daily events we encounter, but are we pushing it at times? Does the explanation sometimes do a disservice to us, because we’re stretching it a little?

I have to say, I’m more excited than usual about the upcoming Jen Bekman project: 20×200.

Inspired by a belief that good art should be made affordable, and not just to the incredibly wealthy, the concept is very similar to Tiny Showcase, a website that prints affordable, limited edition (100) prints of fine art. I’m always too late to get ahold of the prints that Tiny Showcase offers, but I’m definitely excited about the prospect of 20×200.

20×200 will release one photograph and one fine art print, every week. The concept is that there will be 200 prints of each work, all for $20. How democratic! How fantastic!

We vote yes!

In regards to Mr. Vonnegut’s death; my favorite Vonnegut book was God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. At one point, I had four copies of this book…excessive, I know, but they kept falling apart. I was in High School and considered it to be a guide for life, a reminder that I should consider others with kindness, compassion and innocence, despite all of the horrible things that we tend to do to each other.