"Friends", Benjamin Smoke

Background picture taken from Pictureplane's MySpace profile.

Untitled (DK), Nina Pohl, 2008

An Incomplete List of Must-Haves For Future Home

1. A very large drying rack above an even larger sink.
2. An old upright piano.
3. Sewing machine.
4. A garage full of found and adopted wood situations.
5. Nails.
6. A sleeping bag closet. That is, a closet that is predominantly filled with sleeping bags.
7. A pickup truck with a diesel engine.
8. Basil.
9. Seasons. Real seasons, not simulated seasons by fog.
10. A shotgun, in case of an apocolypse.
11. Storage for dried goods.
12. A garden. This may also contain basil.
13. Lots of space for guests.
14. A small printing press.
15. Glue guns.
16. William.
17. Tin roof lean-to.
18. Screen doors.
19. Treehouse(s).
20. Stolen electricity wired underground from a nearby building.
21. Shetland pony out back.
22. With three legs. So he can lean, too.
23. Good insulation and plans for keeping warm in winter. Woodstove.
24. Hooks on walls for hanging bikes.
25. A six burner range, or a combo gas-wood range. Preferrably of the color olive.

Je me vide de moi-même (nain), Jan Fabre, 2007.
Installation. Louvre.
Photo by Jan Postma.

sadness, as a type of mourning. something that once seemed to be a belonging, or a part of one's belonging, has been taken away. we are sad when a friend departs. we are sad when a lover closes us out, neglects us. we are sad when it is revealed that we are no longer young. one must be besides oneself to understand endings like these, at which point it becomes something else.

loneliness, as the absence of belonging. it is not a separation anxiety because the sense of belonging has already faded. with nobody of interest around, unities become shrink wrapped, the known world condenses. everything becomes still. time slows to reveal an emptiness, and the mind, knowing something isn't right, pushes time along with fantasies of missed opportunity.

"better to have loved and lost", as loneliness reaching its hand backwards towards sadness.

"Make noise // clap."

A letter to a friend:

I made it to San Francisco, I have broken that tortuous binding to a former love, I'm beginning a new life. What astounds me is that I have nothing palpable to show for its significance, its human significance, and I have no desire for proof. It's over. It was entirely a private affair, I want no witnesses. The only thing is this new stream I'm in, I don't care where it's headed, it's just some chain reaction of land, spaces, bars, venues, people moving about; the end point doesn't interest me.

I went to see a band on Friday and turned to my friend, who is older and been to more shows than me, and told him, "you know, I think I go to these things because I'm looking for the perfect way to say fuck you."

Negation. October 16, 2006

Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz
Traveler 174 at Night, 2006

From a photo gallery of Bradford Cox

"Who Nose", 2008

Photo by Michael Hughes

"For Hegel ... without some form of substantital --- that is to say, cultural, historical connection --- to other people, the subjective consequence of freedom is utter nihilism."

Elizabeth Goodstein