Thursday, July 06, 2006

I spoke with my sisters the other day. They think I'm crazy.

Feelings are Facts: a Life, Yvonne Rainer. I saw this book at MOCA and wanted it, along with the catalogues for the Rauchenberg and the Lorna Simpson exhibits, and every Sophie Calle book they had in stock.

It was fabulous to see Rauchenberg's combines, especially since I've been reading about him in the Copeland book on Cunningham. They did actually have one sculpture/stage piece that was used in a dance. I wasn't expecting the earlier combines to be so bright--some of them looked almost like medieval shrines, or devotional altars.

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On Sunday, July 2, the San Diego Union Tribune wrote about the interstate highway system (it turned 50 at the end of June). Something about how we have the freedom to drive across the country or commute downdown. I can't find the article online and we've now thrown the paper out. The SD Union Tribune is maddening, especially the opinion section. But we can't just subscribe the the NYT, because we need all the local news, and because it helps us understand where we live.

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Tom, Mark and I had yummie food and good conversation with Sara and Joe Safdie over the weekend. Sara was encouraging me to read H.D. I have, but not with any attention. I've resisted. It's not that I don't think she's great and that her work is worthy of attention, it's just that I resist reading her because she is my foremother. There's all this pressure! But given my recent obsession with women, mythology and feminism, and all the stuff I've been reading about women in modern dance, I think I'm perhaps ready for all that. We'll see.

Some conversation also about Flarf.

And I was thinking about how a lot of the stuff I read in LA was loosely procedural--most of the stuff I write is--or it moves in and out of collage work, found text, and my own brain.

Joseph Mosconi blogs about Stephanie Young's Bay Poetics and being a writer in LA. It seems fitting that I've moved from one strong but marginal poetry city to another. Well, technically, I live outside of a city (SD) that is outside of the marginal poetry city (LA). Obviously, neither DC nor LA are marginal cities--there's money, power, and art in both--but they're not NY and SF. People don't go to DC and LA to become writers, even though they may become very good writers in them. Yes, yes, there are exceptions. And I'm ignoring the screenwriting industry, I know.

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I had my first experience, recently, with someone interacting with me as "the wife." In this case, being the wife means I am expected to take charge of making social arrangements, while at the same time I'm not really expected to be interested in any conversation that might occur about art, etc.

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Saw a sign: "Motel Bear Fence Co."

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Egg throwing seems to have temporarily abated.

3 comments:

Jessica Smith said...

i always get to be "the wife" at department parties. it's awful, so so so awful, or was, when me and martin were both in buffalo. at department parties the boys would go talk philosophy (politics! war! cigars!) in one room while the wives, female profs, and female students were lodged in the other room with the babies. it didn't help that most of the male profs had married their female students, so that the borders were very transgressed. it makes me nauseus to think about it. i hate being the wife. i never ever ever ever want to be someone's wife.

Jessica Smith said...

I tried going into the Boys Room once, and got asked about Martin.

Then I did something completely unallowed, I talked to the oldest most wise male prof (RG) about his childhood. he seemed to enjoy it. but the other males were scandalized. childhood talk should be in the childhood room with the women and babies! fuck....

tmorange said...

klg, i wrote a letter to the union-trib editor like i said i would...

t.