Apostrophic Chunder

So many clichés to abuse, and so little time in which to abuse them. Today I've learned of the magnificent printmaker Giovanni Battista Piranesi who was initially trained as an architect. I've read a few paragraphs of Burke's "Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime." Hold the phone, how can a busy person have time for such frivolities? How indeed. And what's more, how's that Art History homework coming? Just breezed through the Rococo style like it was a bad cartoon, and made it to sweet Neoclassicism.

If you are subject to the rules of logic and rationally organized thoughts in the form of sentences and paragraphs arranged to entertain and enlighten the careless television and internet soaked passerby, I must deplore you to move along. Today more than ever, there is nothing to read here, nothing to see here. Otherwise, stay but don't try to move a sleeping cat just so you can put your slovenly ass on my furniture. I guess I won't tell you the good news. I've been juggling papers, tests, books, and artwork. I've been fighting the ugliest website ever created (my fault). Today I didn't eat a scrap of food, but only drank liquids. I'm not being held at a juice bar against my will. It's a self imposed "cleansing." No, the liquids were not in fact distilled spirits or fermented hops of any kind. I do appreciate your concern in the same way that I'm glad when I don't get pulled over and the state trooper roars by on his way to some more important scene. You can find my email address tattooed behind your ear if you want to let me know that none of this makes sense. Okay, fine. The good news... This is a bit convoluted, but the good news is that in the subconscious world of dreams, droves of average looking women are still fighting to take a bath with me while fully clothed. It's done a world of good for my self confidence. Some are even willing to have a go at fisticuffs for the honor, especially the one that matters. Anyway, I'm off to read a lot more Faulkner. Oh, the other good news is that Bill Faulkner turned out to be a great writer after all. He had to die, and I had to get old to appreciate him. But anyway, I'll look into Hemingway at length some other time. I mentioned this somewhere before, but shooting yourself does weaken your credibility to a certain extent. I liked Hunter Thompson a lot more before he went and did that, too.

Now what's keeping me up at night? Lethal doses of caffeine, you say? Perhaps. Because I am in denial about the negative repercussions of coffee abuse, I'll say it has something to do with this book that i got for my birthday (thanks Ma/KP.) It's Building: 3,000 Years of Design, Engineering and Construction. I'm back in Rome. I just did a short stint there in Art History, but that was all statues and frescoes. We only spent a few measly pages on the greatest part: infrastructure and architecture! So I'm reading about guys like Marcus Vitruvius, whose ten books on architecture are the only remaining written record of methodology and collected learning on building from this era. The engineers of the ancient world were not specialists immersed in a specific area of construction or architecture. They built war machines and defenses, and during times of peace they got around to doing a few paltry civic projects. For example, This little old Flavian thing. The other contributor to my restlessness is my latest 3d assignment: "Defying Gravity." I have to build something that is cantilevered, suspended, balanced or with a hidden skeleton that appears to cheat the rules of the universe. It has to be a cohesive-seamless-elegant design. I hope to eliminate any drips and runs of glue or visible fasteners. I might paint it black. The only major problem is that I have NO FREAKIN' IDEA what it's going to be. So far the only ideas I have are for a reclining computer workstation and a floating paper city. It might have some magnets built in, and there might be some computer hardware that gets destroyed during the manufacturing process. Also on the stove, test preparation for the Renaissance in Art History and the Lost Generation of American Literature. The sickest part is that I love all of it. Ciao for now.

Hey kid, you look awful. Listen I'll do you a solid and cut your hair at a discount. For you, today and today only, I will give you the best haircut you'll ever get for just one pack of victory gold cigarettes or 5 lunch trays. If you put a shiv in my competitor Eduardo "Mr. Lova Lova" Gutierrez, I will give you a haircut a week for a whole month. Seriously you look like some kind of retarded onion-headed mope. Anyway, you think about it and you get back to me. I'll come around your cell and check again tomorrow, and the next day. If you would not like a haircut, perhaps we can make some other kind of arrangement. I go way back with your celly (tarantula), and you may have noticed how suave and well-groomed he is. Maybe you can get a ticket to solitary somehow, but you can't stay in there forever. Don't go around looking like the missing link. Stop by and get a trim!

Labels: The Barber of County Lockup

This is something that a classmate did on a piece of tar paper while trying out some pastels in class, then threw away. I liked it and I wanted to remember it. I wanted to see it again, and be inspired by it. It's just a ball of light. Unfortunately even the photo of the work is impermanent. The tar paper doesn't hold pastel or colored pencil, and you can't spray fixative on it without losing most of your drawing. My point is that everything is temporary.