Walk Into The Light
Yeah.
It’s kinda like that.
With all burners going,
that vibrating buzz all over again.
” ” of the Week:
“Writing is writing is writing,
there’s just no separating it, period.”
[Something I blurted out, rather unconsciously, but with fervor, at Matthew Stadler's "Using Global Media" seminar.]
THE LONG WALK INTO A FRAGRANT DAY
Things started rather blurry as I didn’t get much sleep last night. Dreams about curating, promotion, all of the creative bells and whistles were going off.
SOY LOVERS UNITE!
Things started to become clearer upon my next stop at City Coffee (aka Seattle’s Best, 932 SW 4th Ave). It may be the only cafe in Portland that doesn’t charge extra for soy! And their cookies are pretty damn good old fashioned perfection. Next, my daily walk over the Morrison Bridge. A whole cluster of blooming trees on the west side base are exploding pink, like fluffy cotton candy. Of course, the pollen is equally out there, but the crisp air makes for a pleasant walk - especially with the bouffant-like eye candy guiding my path.
Over to the studio I spent some time configuring, the confuddling conundrum of several works on paper strewn over the walls, I think there are thirteen in all. I’m dealing with two different patterns, silhouettes of an eagle/egg and the city skyline. The repetition of line, tracing, erasing, waxing/waning….it’s so good to be working out issues with a platform that is reworkable and treatable. I then futzed with the overhead lights, returning some bulbs to Winks Hardware, and replacing them with new ones which turned out worse. I guess it’s back to Fred Meyer where I found better bulbs, halogen seem to work best. This was in prep to see Brenda Mallory for a studio visit. We had a wonderful time looking at the current w.i.p. She ‘got’ the connection between the multimedia of my approach, and encouragingly responded to the cityscapes after I discussed the roots of my sense of displacement with rigorous gentrification, losing the spirit of a place, the essence of its organics. After lunch at The Side Door, my comfy local, we parted. She’s up to more good work - don’t miss her window project at PDX this month!
I had just enough time to pick up some photographs at a local frame shop before I met up with Craig Payne who came by the studio to retrieve his four large-scale photographs that were on view with mine recently in Boise. We also had a nice visit, mostly talking shop. Time to head home….
TALK ABOUT VISITORS!
…once home I discovered a fairly good sized racoon who has nested up in a tree which is basically in the skylight above my bed. Maybe Paul and I have been watching too many Godzilla movies lately? That was an off-putting surprise while I removed my studio shoes, even though I find them quite amusing to watch - I’m just not sure I want him watching me from above!
March 14th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
I got a response from someone named: “Notmelia Donovan” though it came from AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), and I do not trust that it could possibly be spam. So, here is the comment/response:
COMMENT:
TJ, Can you give the context for this quote? I was going to ask on the UGM site, but I can’t post to it .
RESPONSE:
If you are ‘not’ Melia, then who could you possibly be? This was simply blurted in response to someone else’s comment during class, it may have been in reference to Frank Miller, but can’t really remember.
March 14th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Hi TJ,
That was me. I wanted to try posting pseudonymously while retaining honesty. It was meant to be funny, but I realize now that it might have been funnier around February 12. My apologies for bad timing.
Does anyone recall the context of TJ’s quote? You don’t know how hard it is for former attendees to follow along with the current seminar. Before sitting down to read about the wonderful meals and melees at UGM, I generally wash down something along the lines of a Totino’s frozen pizza with a can of Diet Coke. Lately, I cut the pizza into squares and call it Chess Pizza. Tonight, the family discussed “America’s Taste” while watching the results of American Idol. My daughter proclaimed “America always get’s it wrong!” which received curiously little disagreement from others in attendance. We all agreed that the boys this season are pretty stinky, and that if they combined the girls and boys from the beginning, the boys would have all been gone by now.
I would have brought this up at the UGM site, but I can’t post there. At first I thought I didn’t meet the criteria for the Urban Honking audience (therefore helping to define them?), but now I think the problem is my antiquated operating system. I find myself in the ironic position of having to purchase a new computer in order to read PDF files of Raymond Williams’ essay about how “critical theory” is a pragmatic tool for people of all classes and backgrounds. What bourgeois version of Acrobat is Stadler using to make these files anyway? I shouldn’t complain, because I really do need a new computer (along with a faster connection). Lately, I go to peoples sites and look at the YouTube box and imagine how amazing the video is.
But seriously, I really do want to know how the quote came up. I think your group came up with a lot more objects than we did.
March 15th, 2007 at 8:01 am
MATTHEW STADLER!!!!
I’m gonna force you to drive a hummer one of these days.
March 15th, 2007 at 8:25 am
i don’t think stephan cleary exists. and if he does someone should tell him that matthew stadler is posting as him.
March 15th, 2007 at 9:16 am
unless stephan cleary, being real, is writing matthew stadler’s personal weblog.
March 15th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Stephanie Snyder noted tht the actual quote was slightly different as follows: “Writing is writing is writing, there’s just no separating it, period.”
March 15th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
What a tangled web. I didn’t make any of these posts, honestly. I always post under my own name, except for my one foolish transgression when I posted as “Melia Donovan” in order to get a discussion going on my personal weblog. I promise you all that I will never post under any name except “Matthew Stadler.”
Now, that said, I agree that the voice of “Possibly Stephen Cleary” sounds rather more bureaucratic and humorless than the voice of the real Stephen Cleary (who posts under many names). But I like to think Stephen cares enough to have posted the above post. Regardless of who you are, I am grateful for your interest.
The context of TJ’s utterance was a discussion in which we speculated that blog-based writing might generate different formal norms than print-to-paper-based writing. TJ disagreed and expressed himself eloquently with that rather Gertrude Stein-ish quote you see above.
As far as the Acrobat Reader, I use 6.0 (it’s free!).
March 15th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
i don’t believe you and i’m still going to steal your bus pass.
March 15th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Bureaucratic and humorless…hah! And I do not post under “many names” (anymore). I only post under assumed names on Matthew’s personal weblog and on this site once…and only because I thought it was funny that Matthew used Melia’s name on his blog. From now on, I promise that I will only use pseudonyms on Matthew’s blog (because it is obviously an outsourced production). Oh, I almost forgot that I have to use pseudonyms on another project, but only because it’s a work of fiction (more like a novel really) and is therefore exempt from the rules of journalism that (excepting the aforementioned exceptions) I follow to a tee. Transparency is key, and I will make sure everyone knows when and where I am me.
Do you really create the PDF’s with Acrobat 6? I can’t open any of them.
Sincerely,
Stehen Cleary
March 15th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
That should read:
Sincerely,
Stephen Cleary
March 15th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
this morning i deliberately posted the craziness above under my name with capital letters so that later i could claim that i didn’t do it (i always sign in in lower case) with the high ideals of sparking a debate about anonymity and pseudonimity on blogs and online personas. after a day of painting 3 enormous bookcases indoors with enamel paint-essentialy huffing paint all day- i have lost the fight and am now hallucinating.
i’m too tired and dazed to make any sense. matthew-i won’t steal your bus pass and force you to drive around in a hummer. stephan cleary-if you are real-maybe someday you’ll materialize-oh wait! there you are….
March 16th, 2007 at 8:45 am
[...] Plan: UPDATE: Unfortunately, though on the menu of City Coffee (as mentioned here) there is no mention of extra charge for soy, I was charged $.25 for it yesterday in my iced mocha. [...]
March 16th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
I believe you, Stephen Cleary. And I’m sure melia donovan will believe me, eventually. Meanwhile (perhaps I’m trailing away from TJ’s post), I want to see this “novel” of yours, Stephen. Please make it visible!
March 18th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Thanks for clearing this up (and for being such good sports). I thought that the quote came up when you were presenting “objects”, and assumed it was a reference to the text objects that were brought in.
Hasn’t blog writing already generated different formal norms of writing? Or maybe blog writing is reminiscent of a more raucus era, and there is an ongoing reassessment of the rules (or the rediscovery of why there are rules)? The political blogs remind me of early American politics (i.e. Lincoln’s anonymous letters to the Sangamo Journal or yellow journalism).
And what do you think of the Clement Greenberg defense? He has been used to defend partisan writing, and one of the artists in Graves’ Kangas piece said that Kangas told them that “all the artists in New York give art to the critics”. Why is one form of exploitation (writer/reader) permissible and the other (writer/artist) not? Is it only because the “gift” provides proof of the exploitation? And is the “gift” even proof? If the piece is given after the review is published (and couldn’t possibly have influenced the review~) why doesn’t if fall under some “nuance” clause?
The ongoing discussion is reminds me of walking down the hallway of Kelley’s “Pay For Your Pleasure”.
Matthew:
I’m sure someone will stumble across the “novel” soon (maybe in a way similar to Sarah Boss’ scrap paper discovery).
Thanks for the space TJ…I enjoy stopping by.