for the to do list

wishing i could have written this as a mission statement for my thesis...

"We experience life through encounters, images of varied, mostly irrelevant, short experiences: new images, new flavors, new sounds, new touches, & new smells. Yet in their irrelevance they shape the way we think and how we see the world...Actually we are all tourists. We are all part of a new ritual or religion, which is to believe only in what is known and this is what we are told is true. We don't know who we are, and we need to be told where to go and what to see. Museums show the familiar because people seem no longer to be attracted by curiosity or mystery, the unknown or the underground. I remember when I was a kid we used to wander & wonder if we were stepping into a spot in the woods where noone had ever walked. We had this craving to discover the untouched, the unknown. I think we all still have this craving but we cannot satisy it for fear of stepping off the given path of making a mistake. I intend for this exhibition to allow the viewer to enter into a known world to find the unknown, or maybe the other way around, to enter into and unknown world to find the familiar, the known. This dialogue between what is familiar and what is unknown opens & enriches our lives. This show is about experiencing visions and offers the opportunity to reflect and understand the meaning of these visions, but not before your gut has told you something about your experience, which only you can know. A mediated world with mirages, tricks, and look-alike miracles is a difficult world in which to find unique experiences and places. Through media, we are able to be in the same place looking at the same sights, all at the same time everywhere. ..however, (it) aims to be like the woods where we wish to find a spot where no one else has ever been. This discovery is of course an illusion; it is a fiction; and yet this illusion and this fiction can make out lives worthwhile...what is familiar becomes universal. Maybe through this metamorphosis of the familiar into the universal we discover the core of our contemporary existence."

excerpt taken from (p.15-20) an introduction to

"universal experience: art, life & the tourists' eye"

exhibition curated by: Francesco Bonami, Julie Rodrigues Widholm, Tricia Van Eck

published by: museum of contemporary art (chicago, illinois) & d.a.p. (new york, ny) 2005

teatime.

i am so tired today. maybe i slept too much. or perhaps it is the thoughts of reading all night with no one but my yellow book at hand. the next work of tackle: jonathan crary's "techniques of the observer". i have been wanting to read this book for such a long time, but now that the time has finally come and i am pressured to finish, it seems like such a task.

something must have been wrong and at odds in the universe the other night. so many people had worried, or angry, frustrated voices coming to me thru the phone. all i could do was listen and try to be sympathetic. there are so many times when there is nothing to be done but just look into the eyes of the other and be.

i am thinking of tea...the warm, soothing calmness of it, the destroyer of my laptop (which by the way, i still haven't gotten back yet, argh!)...i will soon venture out from the library (maybe my third home away from home after laika)...eesh...the autumn air seems like it will welcome me tonight, a breath of freshness that is very much needed. ok, off into the wind and falling leaves i go.

i've found it...the teapot that i want and desire. at long last. simple, elegant, pure...now to figure out how to get it from new york. for now i have too many books to buy...maybe this can be a little christmas gift hint...hehe.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

notes to self for thesis:
November 22, 2005 thru December 10, 2005

One - Guerrilla Tea features a new series of photographs by the performance artist and photographer Pierre Sernet. These photographs feature randomly selected guests, from various cultures, sharing a bowl of tea with the kimono-dressed Sernet. For each ceremony, a conventional teahouse has been replaced with a portable cube to create a "conceptual space" that bridges cultures and environments. (Photographs: Pierre Sernet copyright 2005)

@ Felissimo Design House 10 West 56 Street New York, NY 10019 800-565-6785

at laika again...

another morning of sleeping in late...waking up to a cold air of morning and wondering for a moment where i was for a brief while. not realizing that i have been living in a dream...a dream filled with moments and sips of coffee, of little treats of painted graffiti on the walls of back alleys, of mustard yellow walls that are made of squares, of nights of street wandering made reflective after the rain in puddles...i miss the comfort of my own couch and table and the familiar sites of my beloved candles...there is my blue bike which i have not gone on 3am adventures with...i wonder how will be the reuniting with such objects. if the meeting will be sweet or sour...bittersweet perhaps as a are most partings and meetings....the only things which remain from such moments are the smell of a sweet perfume, the glimmer of a smile, the special gaunt of a walk.

borges as my midnite friend

i woke from a nap at 9 in order to prepare for my lengthy encounter with borges tonight...tomorrow i will moderate a seminar discussion. long nights lie ahead of me.