thursday, october 31
"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

for hope would be hope for the wrong thing;

wait without love

For love would be love of the wrong thing;

there is yet faith

But the faith and the hope and the love are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing."

T.S. Eliot - "Four Quartets"
1:57 PM

wednesday, october 30
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
August 30, 1797 - February 1, 1851

"Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (3 volumes, London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, 1818; revised edition, 1 volume, London: Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, 1831; 2 volumes, Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1833).

Recollecting her years with Percy, Mary wrote in her journal on 19 December 1822: "France--Poverty--a few days of solitude & some uneasiness--A tranquil residence in a beautiful spot--Switzerland--Bath--Marlow--Milan--The Baths of Lucca--Este--Venice--Rome--Naples--Rome & misery--Leghorn--Florence Pisa--Solitude The Williams--The Baths--Pisa--These are the heads of chapters--each containing a tale, romantic beyond romance." The eight years Mary and Percy Shelley spent together were indeed characterized by romance and melodrama. During this period Mary and Percy, both extremely idealistic, lived on love--because of extended negotiations over the disposition of the estate of Percy's grandfather--without money, constantly moving from one placed to another. Mary gave birth to four children, only one of whom survived to adulthood. The first, a girl, was born prematurely and died eleven days later in 1815; William, born in 1816, died of malaria in 1819; Clara Everina, born in 1817, perished from dysentery the next year; Percy Florence, born in 1819, died in 1889. In 1822 Mary miscarried during her fifth pregnancy and nearly lost her life. With the suicides of Fanny Godwin and Harriet Shelley in 1816, death was much on her mind. Numerous critics--among them Ellen Moers, Sandra Gilbert, and Susan Gubar--have pointed out the link between the themes of creation, birth, and death in Frankenstein and Mary Shelley 's real-life preoccupation with pregnancy, labor, maternity, and death."
10:25 PM

tuesday, october 29
in some of the subway compartments there are beautifully designed white, lavender (soothing blue) and black ads with the graphic element of 9/11 ----- there is a Tagline which says: "Honor the Past. Embrace Your Future." i find them offensive. it's good to give people a help line to call, even one year later. but to give a tragedy a tagline?! that is fuc_ed up. the mental image of the brainstorming meeting... then the first creative review. i believe i would have refused to work on it. you don't brand / copyrite a disaster.
11:18 AM

monday, october 28
also, what is the difference between "art" and "illustration"? the watercolors i've been working on look like art to me but i am afraid they may be mere illustrations. other thought: maybe i'll start a children's book collection myself. i wish i had tried for the 5th year scholarship program at cmu. i didn't feel like writing more essays. this is what prevented me from even trying. i had been thinking of doing some study on how kids perceive art, reality, knowledge. something brainy and fascinating. i could have been there one extra year for free. another year to play and seek. the word i'm thinking of starts with an "L". doing things as a 31 year old is very different than doing them as a 21 year old.
5:33 PM

"my opinion is... i don't know" - while catching up with adam on the phone
1:54 PM

sunday, october 27
yesterday i finished two small-medium watercolors. maybe i can finish another one today. working from Hawaii photos makes me feel i'm there. there is so much to do. so much. followed this link today: Adbusters. people Could make a difference if they agreed on some simple ideas and then used their buying power to effect change.
11:29 AM

thursday, october 24
i hope you landed safely and are having a relaxing yet great time stevenm. it would be nice to teleport into the British Museum...
4:50 PM

wednesday, october 23
joy. i'm having about 4 moles removed today. it will hurt...
2:23 PM

monday, october 21
this weekend: TRANSPORTER - the Best car chase scenes and fighting scenes. the worst script. luc besson is a cheeseball with fantastic ideas for action. main actor is a Babe. also THE RING - i want to rent the original Japanese movie but know that i can't take it. i get scared easily. this one was still fantastic. i did not watch the "bad" parts. mom told me later. wonderful film. go see it. you can talk about it afterwards for a long time.
9:55 PM

saturday, october 19
happy birthday kay!
10:29 PM

friday, october 18
when i was in LA tobyGirl took me to the Norton Simon Museum. the collections are amazing. it felt as if each painting was chosen because it is a Good painting, not because someone famous signed it. i want to go back. the website is awesome too. go to Collections. then click and keep zooming in. there are so many drawings, paintings, projects i want to start. something, something must Begin.
2:23 PM

wednesday, october 16
i have almost finished reading one of the best books Ever: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. read it. read it read it read it!
10:45 PM

friday, october 11
a year and a half, stevenm (:

off to CA for toby and tom's wedding.

sleep - justice - i need both.
3:17 PM

thursday, october 10
with these past couple of years i am starting to believe that humans are born bad. ok. the majority of people are bad. ok. rather, they are not inherently "good". and perhaps my dad shielded us from the darkness - actually i know he did. if i think back to my problems before 1999, they are so dumb. and only now that things are much worse do i appreciate the past. what good is that? no good. i don't want anymore lessons. i don't want more wisdom. no more. i've had enough.
8:01 PM

tuesday, october 8
charlie from Party of Five is on a new series: Haunted. it looks good. it may be good! what a surprise. i have low expectations for new TV programming. it's so nice to be home after a day away. i do like this space. mom and tobyDog make sure i don't get lonely. eeeeep. i just remembered i do have to go away on a yoga retreat. sometime... somewhere. and below it all lie thoughts for one other melania.
9:08 PM

Frank Loyd Wright combined all these creative qualitiesóhis exploration of new technologies, his invention of new styles, his striving for maximum expressive effect, his search for grammatical consistency in all his buildingsówith a remarkable playfulness. There was something childlike about the man even in his late eightiesóa powerful sense of romance and an unabashed enthusiasm for his own creations. In one sense, he never ceased being the flirtatious male of Audenís poem, lounging in the sunlight and performing for mother with seemingly effortless grace. But for all his self-centeredness, he also had a remarkable ability to sweep others up in his vision. Long before the ground for a new building had even been broken, Wright had conjured for his audience a beguiling fantasy of the ideal form that building would represent. No one has described this seductive power of Wrightís better than his son John. His fatherís talent, he said, was to build ìa romance about you, who will live in itóand you get the House of Houses, in which everyone lives a better life because of it. It may have a crack, a leak, or both, but you wouldnít trade it for one that didnít.î This would be true, John said, even if Wright were building you a chicken coop. ìHe weaves a romance around the gullibility of the chicken and the chicanery of the human beingóand you get the Coup of Coops in which every chicken lives a better life on its own plot of ground. You may crack your head or bump your shins on some projecting romanticism, but life will seem richer, the air clearer, the sunshine brighter. The shadows a lighter violet. You will gather the eggs with a dance in your feet and a song in your heart, for your coop will be a work of art, not the cold logical form chasing the cold logical function.î

ìThe principles that build the tree,î declared Wright, ìwill build the man.î If such language today seems alien to us, if architectural critics now sometimes dismiss Wrightís high-blown romantic words as unreliable guides to his architectural practice, this may be because we have forgotten the ideals that were ultimately more important to him even than buildings. The secret of Wrightís architecture, he would surely have reminded us, will not be found on its surface but in its heart. If we wish to find it for ourselves, we must make our own way to the unity he managed to discover in so many corners of his universe: in the romantic words of a Concord preacher, in the geometric lessons of a kindergarten toy, in the gentle prospects of a Wisconsin landscape, in the evanescent beauty of a Japanese temple that was also a playful folly in the midst of a dream cityóperhaps even in the persistent leaks of Wrightís own roofs.
11:55 AM

monday, october 7
"At times walls manifest a power that borders on the violent. They have the power to divide space, transfigure place, and create new domains. Walls are the most basic elements of architecture, but they can also be the most enriching." Tadao Ando
2:10 PM

sunday, october 6
Banana Coffee Cake - delicious afternoon activity sponsored by www.epicurious.com

1 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process)
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup sour cream
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 extra-large eggs or 3 large eggs
3 tablespoons concentrated coffee
2 teaspoon vanilla, 2 teaspoons rum
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup slivered almonds + chopped pecan mix

Preheat oven to 350ƒF. and grease and flour a 10-inch (3-quart) bundt pan, knocking out excess flour.

Into a large bowl sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In a small bowl stir together bananas and sour cream. In another large bowl with an electric mixer beat together butter and sugars until light and fluffy and add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in coffee extract (or espresso) and vanilla. Beat in flour mixture in batches alternately with banana mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture, until batter is just combined. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts.

Spoon batter into pan and bake in middle of oven 50 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean and cake pulls away from side of pan. Cool cake in pan 10 minutes and invert onto a rack to cool completely. Let cake stand, wrapped tightly, at room temperature overnight.
7:17 PM

friday, october 4
Cloned Food Products Near Reality . . . this is horrible. it is cruel, dangerous, and not necessary. it makes me like humanity less. i bet Michael Jackson has already cloned himself. maybe he is a clone. just don't feed me a clone sandwich. sigh.

"Research indicates that cloning alters some genetic patterns, at least slightly, and there's a small scientific possibility that this could affect the resulting meat or milk. Preliminary comparisons have suggested there's little cause for worry, but the FDA is awaiting more definitive data. Scientists said offspring present no risk because they are the product of natural sexual crosses. "The offspring of clones we're not concerned about at all," said Hallerman, the expert from Virginia Tech. "That's just a normal animal." Wiles said he needs to establish pregnancies soon in the clones themselves. That will not only let them build milk-production records, it will also help them keep producing embryos at a high level in their mature years. The clones and their female offspring, if they are anything like Zita herself, should be fantastic milk producers, Wiles said. "We are probably getting a little ahead of the FDA," Wiles said. "I have always stood behind the fact that we knew we weren't genetically altering anything with the cloning process. There was a lot of newness when the clones were born, but they've really become just like any other cow on the farm." Even breeders who have not yet embraced cloning are preparing for the day it becomes routine, paying several hundred dollars to freeze cells from elite animals that could eventually be used to make clones. Some have learned the technology can salvage the genes of some animals that have already died."
4:31 PM

thursday, october 3
so i've been working freelance for a week. the pay is not great but it is more than unemployment insurance. i am closer to finding the kind of work in the kind of environment that makes me comfortable and thus creative. maybe it's about getting older. maybe it's about being an "outsider" (freelance vs. employee). ----- last night i did not know PBS was airing an American Masters 1.5 hours on Willie Nelson! i caught the last 30 minutes by chance. it's on again this sunday at 12.30 pm. (i love him) anyway, i watched the Dawson's Creek 2 hour season premiere instead. it had been a couple of years. joey and dawson had sex for the first time with each other. (not their individual first time). they were blissfully happy for about 3/4 of the show and then the torment - turmoil - tears started. i was hoping they would enjoy each other for a while. but NO! the drama had to come back. i already know who her love interests will be. lame. oh, well. there's always Willie!
1:31 PM