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, April 29

1:08 AM
I went home this past weekend (4th time out of 5 weeks) for my godmother Jean's wedding, and I can't believe that now she's got a different last name. Her husband Steve is a great guy. She took care of him for months after he was struck by a sudden illness that left him temporarily paralyzed, and he had to go through a lot of physical therapy. They've known each other for a very long time and they couldn't be more right for each other.

The Atzbergers are friends of Jean's from Immaculate Conception, so Joe, Liz and John (who was the server) were at the wedding. I got to hang out with Joe for quite a while, at the reception and at the post-reception party at our house. I think I was a little boring... I didn't know what to say, even though we hadn't really hung out in probably over four years. But now I know he's in Columbus for at least a little while, so I'll probably get to see more of him.

I'm not sure who this journal is really addressed to. I assume that the reader knows some information, but then I include some that seems obvious to me. It's probably very confusing to anyone who doesn't know me.

Thursday, April 25

1:21 PM
Ryan Adams was on Charlie Rose's show last night. It was fairly interesting. He admitted that Gold is more commercial than anything else he's done, and that he's basically imitating earlier styles of music. But it sounds like he's going to go further... hopefully better, even.

My guitar is messed up again. I guess I'll take it in somewhere... I need new strings anyway.

Tuesday, April 23

7:21 AM
The play was amazing. The set was better than any there ever were when I was in plays at Watterson. The lead actors were really solid. I couldn't believe the seniors were four years behind me; I didn't go to school with anybody in the whole production (but I knew some of their elder siblings). The whole time I was home I was overcome with nostalgia, but it wasn't all bad. I got to see Joe Atzberger, my idol, my James Dean as it were, after the show (his brother John, a senior [!], was one of the leads) and I felt so happy. Just knowing that certain people exist comforts me to no end.

Saturday, April 20

4:01 AM
Chicago was a pretty good time. We walked and drove around and looked at dozens of galleries. There was some interesting work, but most of it was rather bland (and hence profitable, I guess). We went to the BFA show at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chris Ware went there for grad school, you know [and hated parts of it, apparently]); a lot of that show was crap as well, unfortunately. I was totally amazed when I ran into a girl who went to SACI with me, whom I'd forgotten went to school there (in Chicago, I mean). That makes her the sixth SACI student I've met again in America (and non-students I could add: Maddy's brother and sister, and a guy I met on a train in Spain whom I came across at a cafe in Columbus).

Our class met with a grad student at The School who had gone to UT. She was about to graduate in photography. Her work was interesting to me, but I don't think anybody else in that class liked it very much. She was commenting on the inherently sexual relationship between the photographer and the subject. In one series, she spontaneously asked her subjects to let her put her face in their lap and take a photo. The photo shoot was simultaneously videotaped, and apparently the video had a completely different, creepy feel than the very sexually charged photographs.

At one of the galleries I saw a couple of paintings by Sam Prekop of the Sea and Cake, only $1200 each. They looked much like the cover of his solo album. I didn't see any Archer Prewitt comics though.

On Friday night I could have seen Zwan if I'd bought a ticket from a scalper. But I didn't! because I'm an idiot! [ARGH! Here's the review of that very show.] That was the major disappointment of the trip; another was that I had to spend time with a 41-year-old student who will not shut up. I don't mind people who talk a lot if they something interesting to say, but this guy hasn't said an original or remotely interesting thing all semester. (Crap. Now I realize I should take my own implied advice.)

Nothing much else has happened since then. I'm panicking about all the work I have to do at the end of the semester. This weekend I'm going to see my sister Kate in The Fiddler on the Roof, which I've never seen.

I'm in a bad mood.

Thursday, April 11

6:34 PM
Tomorrow I'm going to Chicago with a class to look at art galleries. Today I'm holed up writing a paper on Benjamin Franklin.

In the past few weeks I've felt intermittently optimistic, but I'm afraid it has no basis in reality. Sometimes I just get a surge of happiness if I turn a dark thought on its ear, and I get away from it for a minute. Trouble is, it causes me to ignore the problem until it's bigger than it used to be. But I think I've figured out that it's something I have to work on every day, not something that will solve itself instantly. The same is true of most problems, probably.

Tuesday, April 9

6:13 PM
Iain Baxter just gave a lecture at the CVA. What an amazing guy! He whizzed through dozens of slides and some short video clips in an hour and a half, and he said he was barely getting into what he's done. Now I'm compelled to look him up. I wish I knew his work beforehand so I could talk to him about it; he was really generous with his time and open to any kind of question from the audience.

Monday, April 8

10:52 PM
So what's been happening? Shannon came over from deep within the central time zone a couple of weeks ago and stayed here for nearly a week (not nearly long enough!). I hope I didn't bore her endlessly while I went about some of my usual school activities. And there wasn't cool stuff to see here like there was in St. Paul. Still, a good time was had by all.

Then I went home for Easter and ate a lot of candy. There was hardly a Simpsons marathon this year, just one episode from the dvd set; we're all getting older and more prone to naps. The Herbecks were there as usual, bringing excitement and livelier conversation to our house than we're used to. Jean (my godmother) and Steve are getting married in two weeks! My word.

This past weekend I went home again. My sisters and I went to see They Might Be Giants at the Newport. They had never seen them; it was my 8th show, I think. The first time I saw them was 9 or 10 years ago (!) on their Apollo 18 tour, at the very same venue. This was a great show and they did some cool stunts. Their tour manager is also a fire eater and did his thing during "Why Does the Sun Shine?", blowing huge gusts of fire during key moments of the song. They did Spin the Dial, in which they played along with whatever was playing on the local radio; they played the entirety of this song that was vaguely familiar, but everyone else in the audience seemed to have memorized, so that they were able to sing along. TMBG gave away their glockenspiel, which I'd seen them use in previous concerts, in a kind of drawing. This kid won it and got to go onstage and play the only note that the thing was ever used for, during "Shoehorn with Teeth". I recorded the show to minidisc but it was so loud that it's almost unlistenably distorted - I can make out what song they're playing, pretty much. OK Go opened for them, and the first song they played was "Jessie's Girl". It got even better after that. They were entertaining.

Now I'm still freaking out about school, wherein there's always more to do. Yesterday I felt horrible, but today I'm feeling very well. Last week I was in an unfading good mood for three days straight.

Friday, April 5

2:18 PM
Shannon was here! Tell ya 'bout it later.