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Monday, October 28

1:41 AM
Some pretty amazing things have happened lately. Thursday before last, there was a lecture given by sculptor Jeffrey Adams, whose work was showing in the lil CVA gallery. As with most lectures, I appreciated his work more after I heard him. He was freaking hilarious, and made fun of his own work. On the other hand, he took some of it seriously and knew what he was talking about. I also liked him because he was from Kentucky (a granfalloon, according to Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, as I discussed with Mysoon afterwards, because my parents are from Kentucky). Most of his current work is done in collaboration with his fiancee. The most immediately striking work was a figure in a burka made of stars and stripes. Still, his most interesting work was probably in his slides. There was one photograph he had from graduate school of himself and a friend in chairs that were mounted to a wall about 50 feet off the floor, with a lamp between them. They were sitting in the chairs, reading. He kept mentioning a lot of literature throughout his lecture that I wanted to look into (e.g., Geek Love which Connie recently told me I should read).

Last Thursday I went home to see Mark Eitzel. It was at a small bar, and I saw Mark right away, hanging out with friends. I sat at a table awhile and had a beer as the place filled up. A cute girl asked if she could sit next to me, which surprised me for half a second until I realized there wasn't anywhere else to sit. She was nice. She didn't know who Mark was but said she came after just getting off work because she read about him in the paper. I told her a little about him, and how I was building up the nerve to ask him for an autograph. She said I should just go ask him because he was going to start soon, so I did. He was very nice about it; I handed him a folded piece of paper which had my map to the bar on it, and he goes "What's this?" and I told him, and then he drew a picture of himself on the map and signed his name. I was all happy about that as I went back to my table, and then a little while later he started playing in the other room.

I can't really describe how it feels to hear him sing and play, but there are some interesting things he does. He usually has his eyes closed, and he swings his body and guitar around. The time I saw him before, he jumped up and down sometimes, but this was a much more subdued atmosphere, so he was more grounded. He was engaging with the crowd, and it seemed to me that all the old AMC fans felt that they sort of possessed him. At least, they revered him in a way. And he makes fun of himself as if he's not worth anything.

I hung around later to buy a couple of cds from him, and listened in on a conversation he was having with a kid who asked for advice on a music career. The only advice, apparently, is to get out and tour all the time, and make albums so beautiful that people will be talking about them ten years from now. The cds I bought come in plain white sleeves, so he drew another unflattering picture of himself on one, and a heart on the other. He draws pictures of himself on every one he sells, I guess. So I talked to him for a couple minutes while he was drawing. Both of the cds are amazing.

setlist
01. Freedom
02. I've Been a Mess
03. Jesus' Hands
04. Sleep
05. To the Sea
06. Gratitude Walks
07. Mission Rock Resort
08. (?)
09. Patriot's Heart (?)
10. (?)
11. (?)
12. Theme Song for Any Show on the Discovery Channel
13. Jenny

Mom and Dad left for Paducah on Friday afternoon. Kate and I took the Mercury to get new tires, but stupidly we only brought that car, so we had to walk in the rain to go anywhere else. We ate at this sandwich place I used to go to sometimes in high school. Then we walked around in the rain for a little while and went back to the tire place. The salesman said, "You know what you two should do? Go see My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I think you'd like that." We sort of looked at each other and I said "OK." Instead, we watched Contact at home, which we'd both already seen, but it was still good.

Saturday I took my electric guitar to finally get repaired, and went shopping for some shirts. Kate was busy most of the day doing other things, but she played some cool songs on her keyboard for me. We ordered pizza online, which I like to do just for fun. In the evening, I went to see Punch-Drunk Love and I enjoyed it immensely. It was very emotional for me - halfway through it, I was all paranoid and upset, and then awhile later there was this really great payoff, and by the end I was elated.

Tuesday, October 22

4:36 PM
I had a dream last night wherein I was an emergency last-minute replacement for a diver in a competition, despite having no expertise in diving whatsoever. I worriedly asked for advice on how to even dive adequately without hurting myself, nevermind trying to be exceptional. I had to put on a black wetsuit with a big vertical stripe in the middle. There were hundreds of people in the competetion, all wearing wetsuits. I never did the dive, but for some reason, later, all the divers were in a big cafeteria eating lunch. That's all I remember.

Thursday, October 17

1:03 AM
Tonight in my business class I was inspired about my printmaking project. I drew some thumbnails for most of the other eight prints, and found a way to make them all conform to my theme. Tomorrow I'm going to do a silkscreen version of the print I've been working on for weeks, which hasn't been going well. This should work much better, and it will probably appear on this site within a week and a half or so. I finally feel fully confident that I can finish this and make it good.

Drawings are all right too.

Friday, October 11

10:50 PM
Juan Sanchez, a New York painter and printmaker of Puerto Rican descent, gave a lecture at the museum tonight. It was good. Tomorrow he'll do a workshop in the printmaking studio and I get to be there.

Monday, October 7

5:32 PM
Oh yeah, definitely going to see Mark Eitzel for $5.

Saturday, October 5

6:41 PM
David Lehman was just on A Prairie Home Companion. He read some of his poems, including some from the book I have, The Daily Mirror.

According to this show, and Shannon, it's cold in St. Paul.