Mekas/Whitehead/Prometheus

Yesterday I mastered a 50-minute performance by Jonas Mekas and friends which I recorded last week (on the night of the new moon equinox). If I can figure out how to post sound on a blog I will post a nice excerpt here.

"We are with you, with all of you
who preceded us
we are not going to betray you
with all the poets and saints and scientists
we are with you tonight
and bad things are happening all around us
but we are somewhere else
no no no we are not going to betray you."

Today I found out that two radio artists (Gregory Whitehead and Pete Tridish) I suggested to the New School will appear on a panel I can't make, in November. I am so happy that they are coming together, and that Tianna and others from ASC will go. Here is a community that has ambivalence about success: in failure is anonymity, which is important for low-power on the down-low.

yesterday, failure

Failed to post yesterday -- like everyone else, I was writing a NYFA grant. Which again made me think of failure and ambition and living as an artist (sounds like some kind of terminal condition), the need to continually convince yourself that what you do is worthwhile. The weird, demoralizing obstacle course that comprises a career (as it were -- always makes me think of a 4-in-hand coach out of control. Or something.)

(((failure, ambition)))

Which led me to feel amused and irritated, again, by all the art-world people who have refused to let the word "failure" enter into any press or PR about Aporia

when failure was exactly what Aporia was about.

But when and how does failing to fail become succeeding?

Or succeeding to fail become... whichever?

1953 kidnapping/Trenton Makes

From my August interview with Aunt Betty:

"So, as the time went on, Dartha remembered that she had a Spanish dancer in her church that was a Christian Scientist. And she wanted to go – she said to Dartha that she wished she could go to Santa Fe to see her family but she didn’t feel that she could spend the money. And so Dartha told Peter that, and Peter went to see her, and said he would fly her down there, and she could stay a couple of weeks, but she had to go and sit near the adobe where the children were, and she had to – well, we found out she had to disguise herself as an artist."

difficulty, laziness, happiness

It has already happened: I already let a day go by without posting. It would be funny if it were not so disappointing.

I have found one tiny possible loophole though: even though I didn't post it yesterday, I did take this photo yesterday.

We had a potluck on a sunday that was supposed to be rainy. The sun nevertheless shone, and we used the welding mask that they guy who fixed the stairs left here to look at the clouds and the sun. The sun looked green.

Amy brought a chocolate fountain and everyone ate lots of fruit and chocolate. Julia came with beautiful earrings in the shape of cicadas. Andrew and Carl made blackberry pancakes. Kimi made pear mimosas. Ken brought lilies. Raul brought aphrodisial poblanos. I insisted on listening to James Brown "Reality" and made funky ova: eggs, chives, and romano. Yuliy made Bloody Mashas and told us about the Russian chess championships.

Annabel and Sarah sat on the roof near the morning glories.