Soundtracking these notes: Urban Bushmen by The Art Ensemble of Chicago. One track starts with a four-minute drum solo. Whaddaya got to say about that, eh? Also, there's a seven-minute track entitled 'Ancestral Meditation' which, unless I'm missing something, appears to be just silence. This is a live album, however, so presumably the band were just sitting on stage meditating for seven minutes. Arf! The crazy fuckers. 
So I don't know if all you yanks actually understand anything about football (sorry, soccer), but last night England were knocked out of the European Cup by host country Portugal after going 1-1 at the end of full-time, then 2-2 after extra time, then 5-6 in the penalty shoot-out. football doesn't get much more exciting than this. HD and I watched in our favourite old man's pub (which, strangely enough, appears to be turning into a lesbian bar
) and, under the circumstances, I will not begrudge myself the four pints of Guinness and one Marlboro Light I consumed during the match...
So, feeling slightly dazed today, but nothing compared to the doozy this time last week...
Did a bit of work, sent a bunch of e-mails... I have finally heard back from the letting agency in Paris I have been dealing with. It seems they can no longer get me the apartment in the heart of the gay village that I was all excited about but they are now proposing a place on rue des Dames in the 17th arrondissement. This could work out pretty well since this road is situated in a pretty interesting triangle that reaches out to the ultra-bourgeois Parc Monceau, where posh parisiennes walk their pampered poodles, the busy, grimy, commercial area around St-Lazare station, and Place de Clichy, where there are lots of cinemas and which is just around the corner from the prostitution-and-pornshop, Moulin-Rouge sleazebag alley that is Pigalle. I should have some stories to tell come late summer/autumn...
And for some reason, I think I've heard of rue des Dames somewhere... maybe it's in Zola...
*********
In the swimming pool today, there was a man with no legs.
So I don't know if all you yanks actually understand anything about football (sorry, soccer), but last night England were knocked out of the European Cup by host country Portugal after going 1-1 at the end of full-time, then 2-2 after extra time, then 5-6 in the penalty shoot-out. football doesn't get much more exciting than this. HD and I watched in our favourite old man's pub (which, strangely enough, appears to be turning into a lesbian bar
) and, under the circumstances, I will not begrudge myself the four pints of Guinness and one Marlboro Light I consumed during the match...
So, feeling slightly dazed today, but nothing compared to the doozy this time last week...
Did a bit of work, sent a bunch of e-mails... I have finally heard back from the letting agency in Paris I have been dealing with. It seems they can no longer get me the apartment in the heart of the gay village that I was all excited about but they are now proposing a place on rue des Dames in the 17th arrondissement. This could work out pretty well since this road is situated in a pretty interesting triangle that reaches out to the ultra-bourgeois Parc Monceau, where posh parisiennes walk their pampered poodles, the busy, grimy, commercial area around St-Lazare station, and Place de Clichy, where there are lots of cinemas and which is just around the corner from the prostitution-and-pornshop, Moulin-Rouge sleazebag alley that is Pigalle. I should have some stories to tell come late summer/autumn...
And for some reason, I think I've heard of rue des Dames somewhere... maybe it's in Zola...
*********
In the swimming pool today, there was a man with no legs.
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
What the hell do I know-- Ah'm frum TEXAS! Yee-ha! I didn't think the pitch monkeys would be actual religious pagans, but that the percieved rowdy aspects of it would appeal greatly to them. Or something...
Actually, I totally believe you about the fort-- and I'm insanely jealous. You should be thankful you live somewhere that has so many remnants of worlds long past... I firmly believe that the near total lack of true historical structures in America is a significant factor in shaping our increasingly short-sighted, shallow, throwaway perception of life. The postwar suburban housing boom never stopped, and now the majority of kids here have never seen a building more than fifty years old, if that. And it shows, poor bastards.
So, grasshopper, you have accepted the challenge. Good. Get a pencil, the darker the better, a book of drawing paper, and a kneaded eraser (It may have another name there, but it's usually just a little grey rubber square, you tear it apart and smush it back together to clean it. It's the best drawing eraser because it's good and it's also malleable.) Whenever you draw, sit alone in a comfortable, quiet place (calm music is ok) with a solid surface for you to work on (lap desk ok-- table better). Now: two or three times (at least 30 min. per) over the next few days, I want you to just draw. Doodle around. Really get in touch with the materials (I sound like a goddamn hippie). The only physical skill in art, the extent of all practical application of technique, concerns the behavior of the materials themselves. And all of our materials have a very short learning curve for basic material proficiency.
Okay, once you're warmed up, I want you to start a Doodling Autobiography. That is, I want you to go back to your childhood and remember all the things you used to draw, little characters in the margins of your history notes multiplication tables. Don't worry about how they look, just get them down. The other thing is to draw a kind of collection of archetypes-- man, woman, dog, house, car, tree, bird, boat, plane, sun, moon, cloud, mountain, ocean, etc. Do all the basic ones (use your own judgement), but pay particular interest to whatever kinds of things you want to focus on portraying. The goal is partly to develop a basic repetoire of images, but mainly for you to own the materials. To hold a pencil naturally (by the way, feel free to hold it in whatever way makes it most effective-- I like pencil style and knife style, but my Iron Monkey style shall defeat you!), to draw a line with absolute certainty and conviction. Think about Lascaux, about all the marks in all the caves in the world. Imagine that man, torch blazing in the darkness, discovering the mystical power of the rendered image. I would imagine the moment to be overwhelming, maybe something like Rbt. Oppenheimer watching as his "baby" is born? I'm sure the caveman had no idea how profoundly he had altered the couse of human evolution, but I'm sure the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He MAY have gotten very, very scared. I say all this only because I believe that art is sacred. It doesn't really matter what or how you draw, just the mind you come to it with.
So iPod stuff... I purchased a 20 Gig which is the slightly higher than middle of the road model. Highest is 40G, smallest is the Mini @ 4G. Overall I have nearly 40G of music on my computer but, I wasn't interested in that much storage. A lot of what I have on my hard drive is randomness...the odd albums ripped from library loans, stuff re-mastered from vinyl for the sake of experimentation, etc. The essential stuff in my day to day listening fancy is more like 10G w/ an extra 10 thrown in for extra room or "left field" choices. One of the uses I may start playing with is books on CD... Apple really got behind audio books on its music store & the idea makes sense. My local libraries & video stores have tons of unabridged books on disc. Expanding my collection of digital media can take on this avenue, as well.