"...I'm reminded of the diving suit in which Salvador Dali delivered a lecture some years ago in London. The workman sent along to supervise the suit asked how deep Dali proposed to descend, and with a flourish the maestro exclaimed: 'To the Unconscious!' to which the workman replied sagely: 'I'm afraid we don't go down that deep.' Five minutes later, sure enough, Dali nearly suffocated inside the helmet."

--J.G. Ballard, A User's Guide to the Millennium

bathysphere in an octopus's garden

Hi all,

As of now (actually, many weeks ago) I am shutting this site down. I'm leaving everything as it is, but won't do any posting. Currently there is too much to do in the non-electronic world...

i might see you early next year, with a new name and better face.

cheers

Update 2007 23 March:

I may be bringing this site back from the dead in some form...check back next month.

dünya dinlemiyor / the world won't listen

Those of you who live in SF or the Bay Area should definetly go to SFMOMA to see the video installation dünya dinlemiyor in which locals from Istanbul sing karoake to their favorite Smiths songs...also, they currently have an excellent Tina Modotti & Edward Weston show.

-----

British artist Phil Collins has made work in conflicted geopolitical sites around the world, including Baghdad, Belfast, Bogotá, and Ramallah, creating nuanced representations of people and places. In a departure from much documentary and site-specific practice, Collins engages politics and pop culture in tandem, often soliciting the participation of the communities in which he works. His video installation dünya dinlemiyor (Turkish for "the world won’t listen") features young people in Istanbul performing karaoke versions of songs by the 1980s band The Smiths. Within the politically fraught context of Istanbul, The Smiths' melancholic pop takes on new poignancy, asking us to listen to what the rest of the world won't. Collins is a nominee for the 2006 Turner Prize.

link from SFMOMA

Los muros del sueno...

Los muros del sueno
se recuestan a veces en el pecho
y subitamete uno comprende
que el sueno es un amor extraviado,
una forma de amor que quedo suelta.
Y no vale tratar de recogerla,
ni aun amando dormidos,
pues el amor, cuando pasa,
se independiza de nosotros,
como el viento del arbol
o la noche del gesto casi absorto de sus horas.
Se independiza y se rodea de muros.

-----

Sometimes the walls of sleep
lie down in the breast
and suddenly one sees
that sleep is a love that has lost its way,
a form of love that has remained unattached.
And it's no use trying to gather it in,
even by loving in sleep,
because love, when it passes,
becomes free of us
as the wind becomes free of the tree
or the night from the nearly abortive
gesture of its hours.
It becomes free of us and surrounds itself with walls.

Roberto Juarroz
translation by W.S. Merwin

'Obscure Robert Frost poem discovered'

NEW YORK - An unpublished Robert Frost poem, a tribute to a friend killed during World War I, has been rediscovered and will appear next week in the fall issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review, the University of Virginia announced Wednesday.

link from Yahoo! News

Shibuya Human Vending Machine

There is now a Human Vending Machine in Shibuya...actually, what I think I like about the ubiquitous Japanese vending machines is their utter dependability and lack of human frailities. They are like friendly, rectangular robots always lit up and ready to dispense...whatever you could possibly want and some things you could never think of wanting. Somehow, with a human involved, it just doesn't seem quite seem the same...

A novel new type of vending machine has been unveiled in Shibuya today; one in which you are served by a real person. You still make your purchase in the same manner, by inserting your money and selecting what you want. However, instead of that pack of pockys being dropped from a height into a tray where you have to bend to pick them up, you are greeted by a smiling face saying “dozo” (please) and the person handing your chocolate to you.

link and exerpt from Plastic Bamboo

"Songs...some of them are little paramedics. Or maybe some will be killers. Some of them will die on the windshield. And some of them will never leave home."

-Tom Waits