Thing-a-day.com

i had no idea this was still going - someone explain?

now that i am still young
i frustrate over my decisions-investments in time, etc.
but what if
this is the only time in life when i will get to feel freedom?
if later, decisions having already been made
later, life is living with past decisions. stuck even.
so the not knowing
the wanting to know
could be a luxury of youth, and freedom of democracy and globalization.
not knowing if you made the right decisions
could be the delectable crux of drama
movie, odyssey like dramas
glorifiable, aesthetically pleasing.
the only time i will get to be single
to break up with people
to date the wrong men
to date many men who are right in too many different ways
to be lonely, because i hear moms never get a moment to themselves!
to have infinite possibilities still all open and in front of me
to not know
to be surprised (and disappointed)
and to be in this lifestage
to have these matrices of possibilities
to have elan to pursue many different far reaching crazy unreasonable possibilities
to try it all
to have left no stone uncovered
to be outrageous, audacious, loud
to fully disclosed without recourse or real responsibilities to a public persona
to shine
to not care
to have an audience
to be young!

the wavy edge of hand made paper is called the “deckle edge”. i made it at dieu donne papermill on broome street in soho when i was a teenager and shopped with my friends for cool vintage clothes when broadway still had them. this has to be at least 10 years ago
i asked my uncle if there were any cutters to create the lacy edges of old photographs. he searched all over shanghai and finally found one through an old photographer. the cutter has a green faux marble print base, is about 6 inches by 4 inches and three quarters inch high. i cut white decorative edges for my digital prints. i am a lucky only child
the meniscus edge between someone’s finger and a piece of paper, when you notice the texture, shape and sweatiness of their finger for the first time. (i know meniscus usually refers to liquids)
the edge of the covers of books you love reading, fingering the hardcover edges without the paper book jacket, because you already know the title so well. placing the edges carefully in drawers, or replacing the edges carefully in their right places on bookshelves, books that reveal different insights with each reread
the edge between his heart and yours, which would form a line shaped like the most comfortable fit between two organs, between which there is no space
also, the place where his shoulders ended and the air started
the edges of glass v cake crumble v sponges. the way different materials cleave
dovetail edges. no nails needed
drop off steep edges, chasms in the style of hudson river valley religious paintings, or the landscape photography genre, especially of the grand canyon or that pass where everyone died
edges are for people who notice them

clanging of pots

from restaurant below in winter

reminds me of summer’s

air conditioning buzz sounds,

associated with heat,

pulling me

out

of the stuffy apartment.

into the balmly night,

that held

you closer than a lover,

(because it was able to get into the crevice between your neck and ear)

that pulled you onto the dance floor

that pulled you into the conversation of glasses clanging sparkling sitting at the outdoor patios

till 11, midnight, one, all the same, all still up and ready with conversation

unending

limitless

bold colors, pretty

always more

sweaty balmy nights to come

this is a drawing that i am making as a belated present. please comment:

which canvas shape do you like better and why? i like the ascending steps shape of the top canvas because it is interesting, but also dislike it because it lacks unity.

i like the unity of the second canvas shape, but dislike it because it is boring and conventional. also, looking for comments on how i can highlight the fact that i patched the bottom to the top.

the photograph stays in. i like it as a reference point and for adding a different color/resolution to the ink and colored pencils

“trying to look good limits my life”
- Stefan Sagmeister, Deitch Projects 2008
sagmeister photographed coils laid in the shape of the word “limits” onto water in a pool. each of the other words were spelled out in different canvas using other scenes. for example, “trying” was a photograph of electrical tape on a barbed wire fence. but the “limits” swimming pool was my favorite. it had an organic shape and a minimalist cut out in the concrete for plants, which made it look like it could have been in one of the photographer, larry sultan’s, porn house settings.

LEGIBILITY, GESTURES. “diverse artistic strategies that complicate the LEGIBILITY of lack and difference…a series of sculptural and post-sculptural GESTURES.”
-Jeffrey Uslip, Nina In Position, Artists Space 2008
LEGIBILITY is something that we commonly associate with the effort that goes into reading bad handwriting. it’s an interesting way to look at expression and understanding
GESTURES are not made in stone, they are ephemeral. they also point to other things

seeing the intellectual’s task as one of ‘resistance’, even to ‘consensus’, which ‘has become an outmoded and suspect value’. Postmodernists responded to this view, partly for the good reason that by doing so they could side with those who didn’t ‘fit’ into the larger stories — the subordinated and the marginalized — against those with the power to disseminate the master narratives.”
-Christopher Butler, Oxford
was the role of the intellectual different before this?
do all of today’s intellectuals think they are rebels?
what is the value, ego value, and identity value of resistance?

presumptuous, neglectful, manipulative fool
but you are also built, sweet, one of my people
you should have been more righteous, redemptive, godly in the house of love
but instead you were that for yourself.

cultural theorist bell hooks says “to heal the gender war rooted in struggles for power, women and men choose to make mutuality the basis of their bond, ensuring that each person’s growth matters and is nurtured.”
i am one of your people, you would call a such man “brother” and such a women “sister”. being your sister, if i also happen to be your lover, i should have been more like a goddess. Not
someone who is expected to make time and drop things for you. Not
someone who is expected to approach time only your way. Not
someone who will follow you and your tenure track position.

i feel like a fool to have ignored the signs
but i liked you so much - it was worth the risk
but you have a long way to go before you are ready to represent our struggles and lift me out with you, let alone all of us
and i am not going to expend my youth teaching you

instead i want to dive into the concave valley that light fills up like a bowl
and as anis mojgani says “rock it like you’ve got an empty appointment book and a full tank of gas” (Anis Mojgani at The Seattle Grand Slam 2006)
of art, meeting people and getting a place setting at someone’s heart
and have what i want even though it don’t come from handsome you

sunday brunch, potluck number 4:
we pulled the white table into the middle of the room. hilary started before me. i wore all black and my green-snails-kissing-skirt over that, and my dancing hat on top. hilary homemade biscuits, homemade orange-cran-sparkling wine. ambika homemade cake, aaron pizza. ratha homemade salad. i homemade eggs to everyone’s liking, homemade grilled veggies. jo & alec, navah & brian, sandra. homemade bacon - baked!, kish, cheese (in that order). it was all so yummy. i used the oven to warm things. cooking over a hot stove all day i got so hot under my hat. the light in the morning was beautiously full & bright. it lit up the whole white table, the trees in front of the window. the sunlight was like flowers flowering through into the rooms. themselves. then where was a blizzard of snow z z zzz zz _ — __ — ___. navah was great to do some dishes. brian organized celeb. ambika thought up tanya harding for me for my collage project. david and i had a huge fight on the phone in the beginning. everyone congratulated me. we snapped a pic. the girls, ratha & ambika, lolled on the couch awhile while i did the dishes. ambika sank into the back left side of the couch where the couch cushion slipped out - ratha blogged that it was the saint bernard in heat, over the summer at potluck number 3. all the wine glasses now clean and sparkling, like at a restaurant’s table. hilary put chill electronica in the CD changer. mommy and daddy called. what a laz & frenetic both hostessing experience, the snail squeals in satisfaction…

anywhere in nyc
would take anywhere versus starting the craigslist thing
through like-minded peps
2 bedroom apt or 2 rooms

Thing A Day - The MET

Coming onto it from Central Park’s west traverses
onto the glass pyramid that houses the Temple of Dendur
that is my favorite way.
Cut across the skateboard boys
-on the interior of the fountain,
up the sides of the trapezoidal staircase
PALATIAL ESPLANADE

1.Cnce immigrants, my parents used to talk
(and though America’s being paved with gold is a foolhearty dream)
about the infrastructure, standard of living of
public spaces and commons like the MET.
Beautiful country where water fountains everywhere potable.

Coming onto Fifth Avenue, those apartments the big clean marble, the grand hallway.
At PS 79 they took us on field trips to the MET.
If you sit in the back of the bus you will end up standing in the back of the group
with Natasha and Li Swan who are your friends.
But Bridget is so popular and pretty and in the front of the bus.
Our docent wore easternwear
“When you are in high school you can come back
to take a class every week on
seeing.”
1A.Sarcophagi, one foot thick, so heavy!
Their glass cases create rooms and hallways.
The best part is going behind the cases that encase them
to the cases of kings & queens hidden from light
left alone.
PROVINENCE & STOLEN TREASURES.
You can get papyrus at the museum store.
1B. The temple of Dendur
is inside the glass pyramid you saw from the outside.
The natural light always creates a different color here than in the rest of the galleries.
The carved hieroglyphics are language. It is
godly and keep of scribes: magical, torches, scarabs.
Then throw a penny in the wishing well moat
one for daddy’s bone spur, one for mommy’s loneliness at work

2. I vetted boyfriends here in high school
how much they liked seeing art
how much they knew about Asian Art at Astor Court
(The lattice work and tiled roofs and contorted rocks would be just like the ones I would later see in Su Zhou)
according to how ignorant and hurtful their attempts to relate to Chinese culture were.
How much they leaned in to kiss me afterwards.
In college I came back and sat in painting rooms
cataloging the loves that had bygone.

3. Back in NYC after college and a whole other life alltogether

took couch surfing friends there
took mommy there because she actually likes mimesis, all those rounded shoulders
and
myself
today
going down the steps of this place that holds these memories
diagonally to celebrate a new job woooo!

moving to nyc has made me introduce patterns and ring designs into the idea of celebration which used to be just about  going to the beach and taking a  hike - beware (though  i will be OK as long as i don’t take the materialism seriously)