Esther Press

Jean Genet, from Querelle, translated by Anselm Hollo:

"Imitating the twitter of sparrows on all sides of Mario's rigid and massive head, from eye to mouth, from neck to nostrils, he moved his small mouth, now shaped like a chicken's ass, whistling now like a blackbird, now like an oriole."

Off and on during the day, have been un/settled by thinking flattery is the sincerest form of manipulation.

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There is a co-worker from New York--large, paunchy guy with a new haircut and beginning mustache. He is slowly looking more and more like the assistant car salesman one door down from our store. It's like he's moving into his same appearance. But for what reason?

Yesterday, I saw them talking to one another, and it was nearly impossible to tell them apart. Same height, same haircut, same paunch size, same general body shape, even the same general clothing (it's a very laid-back car lot). The car salesman had some scraggly chin hair, with also the beginning mustache. As I turned past them, I noticed my co-worker had also begun growing chin hair.

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The lighting company I'm most interested in, at the moment.

Reading Genet's Querelle. Taking odd comfort in the fact that Genet didn't write for five years after several of his books were published. Genet's writing is, as ever, just top-notch. Passionate, intelligent, entertaining, perverse (if there is such a thing), etc.

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Watched Everest, the short, IMAXed documentary. While the visuals were mostly beautiful, if not always interesting, the storyline of the documentary was awfully purple in parts. L. suggested perhaps muting it, which might have been the better route.

Gabcast! Esther Press #4




Steve Timm reads one of his Letters to the Editor. I love this entire manuscript.

Gabcast! Esther Press #0

5/6 frame from "Orphics: Sonatine", Digital Video, 5'00", 1994

Edward Zajec, or Ed, was my neighbor in Syracuse. He and his wife Annamarie are fantastic people. Ed's work will be shown in Ljubljana this winter. More of Ed's work is here.

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Just now being struck by the fact that two of my neighbors were Ed Zajec and Mary Karr.



Mary Karr by David Levine

Jean Nouvel's 100 Eleventh Avenue plan

OKAY IN PLACES

Kent Johnson wa wants un un
signed writings
endeavor ing tragedy or self anonymous

shoals. The crack in space is the urgency
of self in essays for one self
to stop to stop it.

If the first self stops or borrows balloons
to loosen usages of memorized identity
tick ticks,

why would self of essayer
urge the existence of the primary be ghostly,
many?

Essayer is author, askance, and so
the two be one one, no? If followed,
faa followed through?

I haven't had the desire to read the The Grand Piano series, mostly because the "autobiographical" form, for me, is usually so laden with the b.s. of all that goes into creating the projection of a self, and almost always, for purposes of the health of one's ego, presents one in the best light again and again. "The best light" manifests itself in many ways, but one of my personal favorites is the adult writer making his/her own youth seem much more precocious than it probably was, which is often actualized in comments like "when I was nine years old and through with Shakespeare, once and for all, etc." One's life story should be written by ex-girlfriends, store clerks, pedophilic priests (early years), operating room attendants, and the souls of all of one's dead pets. One's mother should be given the last chapter.

Watched/Was attacked by Inland Empire. Warp of reality/dream/identity continuities. Polish melodrama curses, drugged hookers, a situation comedy involving rabbits, where the laughtrack starts atypically (one of the best parts of the film), and Laura Dern's character/s--Nikki Grace/Susan Blue--wandering around unsure of who she is (who she are?) and where she's going. Lynch has been mining the areas of identity formation for several films now, with some characters really playing character traits, enlarged. One saw this earlier in the Twin Peaks's Bob character, for instance. People merge into other people, who have difficulty remembering events, or memories of events that may have been invented and not lived. The endless "incomplete" responses of characters in the film further the sense of things floating in space. Nothing is solid, all is adrift--from the identities, to the conversations, to the seques in the films. The cuts to new information end up in a structure very much like a dream, with no critical remarks occurring. In dreams, it makes perfect sense that in one moment a confused woman is walking from a terror within a dream (or a dream within a dream) to open a side door in a barely lit hallway, only to find this to be also the main door to the home of the rabbit family's television show. The door opens slowly, the rabbits turn to see who's coming, a pause occurs, no one speaks, and then the door closes once more.

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Disc two contains a short documentary of Lynch making dinner for himself. Quinoa and broccoli. Very nice. With wine and a story he tells about travelling in the mid 1960s from Greece to Yugoslavia, and then buying Coca-Colas in Venice for a woman who had never had one.

Summitted Lassen Peak on Labor Day. Earlier than I thought I would. 10,457 ft. The air got a bit thin, but one adjusts. Also purchased a climbing guide for Mt. Shasta from this website. Not sure if I'll be able to do it this season. It'll probably have to wait.

I made the summit of Brokeoff Mountain this morning. Unbelievable views. 9,235 feet up. I'll be climbing Lassen Peak next (shown in picture). It's summit is at 10,457. More irritating blue sky for you, Paul. In all directions.