Look with your eyes, not with your hands.


Such a minute fraction of this life do we live: so much is sleep, tooth-brushing, waiting for mail, for metamorphosis, for those sudden moments of incandescence: unexpected, but once one knows them, one can live life in the light of their past and the hope of their future.



A grad student muses on her life, film, friends, politics, reality televizzle, and music.

 
okay, it's like 3am and I have been sleeping rather uncomfortably in an otherwise comfy chair in bi hall. I really adore this space - and I was so rudely awoken from my slumber by some kid pounding on the door b/c the building is locked and apparently I was his only in. since I am awake now, I figured that I'd come keep Jack company in the homestretch of his screenplay and that I will eventually be of service as his "secretary" in the printing process. I am unusually adept at printers, photocopying, and nice presentation... chaulk it up to one too many summers in the insurance office. I've realized in life that these simple skills (what was probably called the secretarial arts in the 1960s) are greatly appreciated in life - and people actually do notice when something is done well. With my experiences, this has happenned in at least three jobs, I do a quick (but good) copy job, I am recognized as being intellectually capable and I am promoted to loftier tasks... like editing or compling spreadsheets.

I had an interesting day. the John Simon lecture was quite good, and I got to see my old friend, (grunting) Ted Perry and wife Miram. The old silver fox....

Simon's actually devoted part of his site to the talk he gave today. I enjoyed it and it kicked off my weekend of digital art and new media research for my kalb research paper due monday. John Simon makes these topics very enthralling for me and he's help to introduce me to the web-based communities that have sprung up in the past decade and created an alternate market environment and new display space for creative endeavors. He's a pet of the guggenheim and my new email friend, a curator there, named John Ippolito. Simon actually gave me the strongest vote of confidence of working for the guggenheim - an institution I have always viewed as commerical comprimised. Well, John Simon says that the Guggenheim product is the closest to becoming an actual world-wide institution - whereas other places like the Whitney Museum of American Art (limited by American) or even my beloved MoMA (limited by Modern, not necessarily postmodern or contemporary) - but the Guggenheim is a name, a product, and ready to serve audiences around the world because it's name is just a product ready to be schelped around to international bizarres... I think talking about Frank Gehry's Bilbao design in my architecture seminar this week - as breaking all rules and providing challenges to living artists, as well as discussing this building as an outgrowth of the shipbuilding region, the undulating Spanish hillsides, and the radical interior spaces - well, that helped too. maybe the Guggenheim is really different from other museums and it might be sincerely committed to postmodernism; digital art, innovative architecture, and a revolutionary global business plan.

I ran from the lecture to WRMC in time to co-host Jack's last radio show. Then dinner, and then the student film presentations, always a fun night for the film & video kids - or at least their fans. I was slightly dissappointed in the films, past years have had greater depth and variety. Jack narrated a documentary about New Urbanism & Disney's planned community called Celebration, FL. Otherwise, as usual, a love story, two silly 15 min stories with a surprise ending (never a surprise), a comedy (well executed I might add, featuring Michelle and many racial stereotypes like a black drug dealer (played by Yoshi's friend, and sometime NYC drinking buddy, Felipe) eating fried chicken and drinking a 40oz). So that was generally an enjoyable experience. Sadly, at 10 I watched ER and had to watch Mark Greene die. Oh, that show rips my heart out sometimes. I was dissappointed to see that Julianna Margolis and George Clooney didn't come to the funeral. I get angry at celebrities, often. When you agree to sign on to a show like ER, it's like joining a family and more importantly, accepting a personal invitation into my living room on Thursday evenings. That means you should be as loyal to me as I am to you. You owe me. You can't just run off and persue a movie career and abandon me and think that I won't notice or whatever... I stopped watching ER when my favorite character (Sherry Stringfield) left the show when I was a sophomore in high school. My mom and I both stopped, cold turkey when Dr. Susan left to persue a non-existent movie career. But as luck would have it, I lived in NY this summer and my aunt and uncle brought me back, as did an enthusiastic fan community here at Midd. Well, Dr. Greene's death (although it was handled so strangely - what's up Hawaii??) made me shed a tear... and Dr. Susan is back now, so the show is infinitely better than it was.

Then I came to Bi Hall, I've done some reading about digital art, fell asleep in yet another public locale around this **safe** campus (the major benefit of going to school in a secluded rural place, if you are tired, go to sleep). And well, Jack informs me that he's done - pretty good considering it's only 3am, so my copy duties are required. One of these days I might need a job... keep this in mind.
posted by lmjasinski at 2:10 AM