06/01/2001 - 07/01/2001 07/01/2001 - 08/01/2001 08/01/2001 - 09/01/2001 09/01/2001 - 10/01/2001 10/01/2001 - 11/01/2001 11/01/2001 - 12/01/2001 12/01/2001 - 01/01/2002 01/01/2002 - 02/01/2002 02/01/2002 - 03/01/2002 03/01/2002 - 04/01/2002 04/01/2002 - 05/01/2002 05/01/2002 - 06/01/2002 06/01/2002 - 07/01/2002 07/01/2002 - 08/01/2002 08/01/2002 - 09/01/2002 09/01/2002 - 10/01/2002 10/01/2002 - 11/01/2002 11/01/2002 - 12/01/2002 12/01/2002 - 01/01/2003 01/01/2003 - 02/01/2003 02/01/2003 - 03/01/2003 03/01/2003 - 04/01/2003 04/01/2003 - 05/01/2003 05/01/2003 - 06/01/2003 06/01/2003 - 07/01/2003 07/01/2003 - 08/01/2003 08/01/2003 - 09/01/2003 09/01/2003 - 10/01/2003 10/01/2003 - 11/01/2003 11/01/2003 - 12/01/2003 12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004 01/01/2004 - 02/01/2004 02/01/2004 - 03/01/2004 03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004 04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005 a firenze

Monday, September 24

1:28 AM
I was getting kind of tired of freespeech.org, too. They've returned with ads, and it appears that they've altered the html code on my latest upload. One more justification: I need to get off the internet.

Sunday, September 23

1:35 AM
Whoa. It looks like freespeech.org is getting rid of free accounts, so this website will be gone in a matter of weeks. I'll back the site up, of course, but it might be a while before it shows up on the web again. Probably a good idea, anyway.

Wednesday, September 19

2:03 AM
Actually watched some tv tonight, and it's awful. They're giving it the same sappy melodramatic approach that they always have to any event. On ABC (and on a couple of other channels) they interviewed the wives of the guys who called from the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, and intercut the interview with dramatization of being on an airplane - the camera swerving as it goes down the aisle, toward the cockpit. That makes me sick. We don't need to see that. The graphic of the airplane's trajectory and its crash site are enough.

One of my professors told our class that the footage shown on CNN, Sept. 11, of Palestinians cheering over the attacks, was in fact shot in 1991 by Brazilian journalists. They were celebrating the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq.

1:55 AM
Tried to post this last night:


10:10 PM 9/17/01

Went home Friday, then Saturday my dad, my sisters, and I went hiking in Hocking Hills (southern Ohio) to test our preparedness for hiking the Grand Canyon in three weeks. Well, Joy and Kate aren't going on that trip, but they seem in fine shape nonetheless. What I think is my extensor digitorum longus (extensors for the four small toes) is really sore, so it sort of hurts to even wiggle my toes. Everything else is ok, though. I'm going to do rigorous toe-wiggling before hiking the canyon.

I, like everyone else, have been thinking about how the terrorist attacks have affected and will further affect our country and the world. But, like most people, my experience of it has been mediated by so many sources of information. My knowledge of all the events since the attack comes from the radio, the internet, and just a couple of first-hand accounts — witnessing the actual attack, which is not even what I'm thinking about. Who's behind this? I suspect bin Laden too, but maybe just because that's the only viable suspect that's been presented by the media. I know next to nothing about Afghanistan and the Taliban, less about the other nearby Arab countries, and the politics and policies of our government that has led terrorist extremists to make us targets of horrible violence. So right now I'm trying to educate myself about the whole situation as best I can, but I'm afraid by the time I get a clearer picture, we'll be at war. By then, I guess I'll know whether it's justified or not.

Another thing I was thinking about in terms of mediation. Are people still going to like violent disaster movies after this? I say most people definitely will. We've been watching violent movies for too long to think about them as something distasteful; instead, they're thrilling. People will always find a way to escape. I think people are going to want to mourn this tragedy, then go back to their normal lives — I mean people who haven't lost anyone in the WTC or the Pentagon, people whom this doesn't affect personally. During the Vietnam War people saw right at home the horrors happening. But they managed to put it out of their minds pretty quickly. It's only human to do so. Is this something that needs to be overcome? Can we sustain our outrage? Can we keep our heads?

Thursday, September 13

9:36 PM
Yes.

3:51 AM
People I know are safe, but I haven't heard from everyone.

Tuesday, September 11

7:19 PM
What can I say? I've never seen anything like it.

12:44 AM
Today I had my first official printmaking class, my independent study, with the new prof, Arturo. He sure does things differently than Mr. Elloian. He's a lot more concerned about health and safety, which no one who's been in prints for a while cares about because we're all used to Elloian's liberal use of mineral spirits and alcohol when cleaning plates. Now we only have limited use of it, and we clean plates with vegetable oil. We have to buy our own tools and paper now, too. Paper is quite expensive. Some good things: Arturo's encouraging us to use colored inks, which he provides. He's starting off everybody doing monotype, which we didn't do with Mr. Elloian. And, he's bringing in silkscreening, but not till spring. He's moved the equipment around a lot, so it seems like everything's squeezed in, but I was able to move around all right today. So it's gonna take some time to get used to the changes, and I'll always miss Mr. Elloian, but I think I can handle it.

Over the weekend I read Jimmy Corrigan and was thoroughly depressed. I don't recommend reading it all in one sitting and not leaving the house very much afterwards.

Friday, September 7

11:28 PM
Last night I went to a lecture in Bowling Green (20 miles south of Toledo) by artist Carrie Mae Weems. I went with some professors (Shannon: "You dork!" - it's true) including Mysoon, who teaches the Jasper Johns class I'm in. I went to a ton of lectures last fall with these professors, and usually a man named Mr. Kiebwasa (sp?) from Congo - that's how he always introduced himself: "Mr. Kiebwasa from Congo" - came along. He was great to listen to, because he's been all over the world and peppers his conversation with French phrases that I only understood with Mysoon's explanation.

Weems was a great speaker, very engaging. She's a photographer. I won't give an analysis of her work or anything. Apparently she knew Mysoon because she ran up and hugged her after her talk. Anyway, the most interesting part of the evening was when the professors and I (ha) went to a restaurant after the lecture to get something to eat. Peter asked Mysoon, "So what did you think of that latest series of work?", obviously, not having a great opinion of it. She refused to answer, and the ensuing conversation took an hour and a half where she explained about how she evaluates art and artists, as an art historian. To put it in a dumb way, it seems like she's never met an artwork that she didn't like. But it's more complicated than that. I think she finds merit in any artwork; it's just a matter of how much she has studied about it. The other professors (both studio teachers and practicing artists) were incredulous. I had never seen Mysoon so animated as when she was defending her point of view. I stayed out of that conversation.

Tonight I went to one and a half lectures (they overlapped). The first was by a woman named Kathy Marmor, who has two installations in the gallery at the art building. The second was by James Cuno on Jasper Johns, focusing on Flag (1955-6), Untitled (1972), and The Four Seasons (1985-6) as sort of an overview of major phases in his work. There's a show of prints in the museum that Johns made in collaboration with Samuel Beckett called Foirades / Fizzles in the late 70s. The images are almost all based on the aforementioned Untitled.

Ya had to be there.

Got the rest of my library books today, so I have plenty to read. Got my car back from the shop, too. I am going to SLEEP.

Wednesday, September 5

10:22 PM
Today I got from Ohiolink:


David Boring Daniel Clowes (read it entirely already, a quick read)
Understanding Comics Scott McCloud (I read it about seven years ago, which means I've just about completely forgotten it)
A Contract with God Will Eisner (also read today, very good)


and yesterday:

Me Talk Pretty One Day David Sedaris [ this title always makes me laugh when I hear it - the story is a pretty good one too]
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again David Foster Wallace [yes.]


in transit:

Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth Chris Ware
Comics & Sequential Art Will Eisner
To the Heart of the Storm Will Eisner
Reinventing Comics Scott McCloud
Little Lit, Folklore & Fairy Tale Funnies


Research.

1:16 AM
Had some car trouble today and had to get it jumped on two separate occasions. Bleh. I'm gonna have it looked at tomorrow.

School is ok. Already I haven't been working as hard as I should be, but I somehow can't find time to do everything. I like sleeping too much.

Got an e-mail from Chiara, my Italian TA, one of the few Italians I had more than one conversation with. The first one since I left Italy. It was just a forward. But at least it was in English.

music as of late:
remedial Elvis Costello
Black Box Recorder
Elf Power
Elvis Presley Such a Night
Emmylou Harris "Red Dirt Girl"
Tom Waits Mule Variations
TMBG@emusic