January 30, 2005
January 29, 2005
Overwhelmed by the start of school.
Today reread Basho's the Narrow Road for class on Tuesday.
Then finished up Joshua Clover's book on The Matrix. Somewhat cutting, somewhat sweet essay. I enjoyed reading it. It felt smart. And I thought it negotiated that line between being a fan and being a critic interestingly.
Over the last week have been reading Nato Thompson's and Gregory Scholette's The Interventionists. Nice survey of various forms of activist art. Had Suzanne Lacy and a bunch of her collaborators visit in my other class so have been thinking a lot about what is to be done. Her work left me very confused. Lots of issues. Not sure how I felt about it all.
Today reread Basho's the Narrow Road for class on Tuesday.
Then finished up Joshua Clover's book on The Matrix. Somewhat cutting, somewhat sweet essay. I enjoyed reading it. It felt smart. And I thought it negotiated that line between being a fan and being a critic interestingly.
Over the last week have been reading Nato Thompson's and Gregory Scholette's The Interventionists. Nice survey of various forms of activist art. Had Suzanne Lacy and a bunch of her collaborators visit in my other class so have been thinking a lot about what is to be done. Her work left me very confused. Lots of issues. Not sure how I felt about it all.
January 20, 2005
Keep saying to myself that I need to get the discipline back in my reading practice. Feel like I've been floating around in books with all the traveling. I also spent the last couple of weeks getting caught up on New Yorkers and Harpers issues while on car trips, at hot springs, while camping, etc. Then came home to about ten books I had ordered after the MLA. So I've got a lot of options to get through.
But several things I finished while on the road...
Peggy Larson and Lane Larson's The Deserts of the Southwest. Basic intro to desert plants and animals, all new to me though.
Then read once I got home, Miwon Kwon's One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity. Reading this for my class and for the Suzanne Lacy visit next week. Kwon's arguments are interesting. She transitions the move in public art from art in public spaces to more community based engagements. The middle of the book discusses the controversies around Richard Serra's Tilted Arc and Richard Ahearn's sculptures at the 44th precinct. Then ends by making this distinction between community based (art that is about a community or where an artist goes into a community and works with them as an art expert to make a piece) and collectivist (where there is a provisional group with no distinction b/t artists and community members).
But several things I finished while on the road...
Peggy Larson and Lane Larson's The Deserts of the Southwest. Basic intro to desert plants and animals, all new to me though.
Then read once I got home, Miwon Kwon's One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity. Reading this for my class and for the Suzanne Lacy visit next week. Kwon's arguments are interesting. She transitions the move in public art from art in public spaces to more community based engagements. The middle of the book discusses the controversies around Richard Serra's Tilted Arc and Richard Ahearn's sculptures at the 44th precinct. Then ends by making this distinction between community based (art that is about a community or where an artist goes into a community and works with them as an art expert to make a piece) and collectivist (where there is a provisional group with no distinction b/t artists and community members).
January 01, 2005
The last weeks have been one big mess of running around and drinking too much. Need to calm down my liver. Read all of submissions for Chain this month and then met for three days with Jena to discuss them. Then xmas. Then the MLA.
On the way to these various places I read a bunch of magazines, a number about remodeling one's kitchen which Jena had in the room where I was staying, and also William Lewis Manly's Death Valley in 49 which I very much enjoyed which surprised me because I usually don't like those pioneering stories. I guess he is just a good writer when it comes down to it. And that saves the book.
Got back to Oakland and spent today reading Sia Morhardt and Emil Morhardt's California Desert Flowers. Lots of great pictures. Weird minutia. Wonderful language, such as this description of the "elaborated sexual parts of Milkweed Family":
The pistil head, shrouded by fused anthers, acts as a landing platform for pollinators who come to suck nectar from filament hoods. The butterfly moves about, its leg slips into a groover between anthers where a saddlebaglike packet of pollen is waiting to attach to the messenger. When the butterfly visits the next flower, the saddlebag is deposited into a receptive stigmatic slit on the side of the pistil head and pollen bursts out of its bags right where it is needed. (p. 24)
On the way to these various places I read a bunch of magazines, a number about remodeling one's kitchen which Jena had in the room where I was staying, and also William Lewis Manly's Death Valley in 49 which I very much enjoyed which surprised me because I usually don't like those pioneering stories. I guess he is just a good writer when it comes down to it. And that saves the book.
Got back to Oakland and spent today reading Sia Morhardt and Emil Morhardt's California Desert Flowers. Lots of great pictures. Weird minutia. Wonderful language, such as this description of the "elaborated sexual parts of Milkweed Family":
The pistil head, shrouded by fused anthers, acts as a landing platform for pollinators who come to suck nectar from filament hoods. The butterfly moves about, its leg slips into a groover between anthers where a saddlebaglike packet of pollen is waiting to attach to the messenger. When the butterfly visits the next flower, the saddlebag is deposited into a receptive stigmatic slit on the side of the pistil head and pollen bursts out of its bags right where it is needed. (p. 24)
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