I miss the ocean. Why is it the whenever I am, I go somewhere else in my mind? I am unfamiliar to myself and at the same time closer than I have ever been. My heart beats as I write and question everything: the nature of reality, how much sleep I got, where I’m supposed to today and why and how. If you could only see the way I’m seeing, if you could only be here in my eyes. Jeff showed us around his garden last night. I tucked an asparagus behind my hear like a cigarette and then ate it raw later. It was delicious and it didn't make my pee smell like anything.
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Love Letter
Here’s what I’d write you if I knew you, if I knew I loved you, if I knew you loved me:
Read MoreUno Lady
The angel of illness arrives during the Lady Uno Concert. Her melodies come from whale songs. She says she casts spells and as I grow more nauseous I think she meant that literally. I excuse myself and go throw up. Food poisoning? Criticism should not acknowledge the limits of the critics body, I tell myself. But my body has a different idea. Uno Lady has a small podium with purple lights which she sits behind. The faint outline of a projector outlines the wall behind her.
Read MoreOn Whiteness
White fries, white chicken, whitbeer.
White bedspread. White walls. White wardrobe.
White Joni Mitchell identifies with a black man.
Read MoreInterview
I met Steve Smith, the artist who made the assemblage that watches me sleep. I went to his house which is filled with artifacts, sparkling assemblages, decapitated mannequin torsos and plastic wrap to presumably keep the heat out of the cool in. I guess this is what happens in Cleveland—you stare at a painting long enough and say something about it to the right person and next thing you know you find yourself in that person’s living room with their wife, drinking warm seltzer while watching them light up a joint in a barcalounger.
Read MoreSleeping with Art
The “cottage” or “bathhouse” I’m staying in is on what’s known as the “compound” or “complex” (or “commune” if you’re woo woo) in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood.
Read MoreIntimacy
When I tell people I’m here to write about intimacy and art people ask me: What kind of intimacy? And I don’t have an answer or, I don’t have one answer. But people generally agree that we’re having a crisis around it. They allude to “the phones.” They say, “ti’s changed. It means something different.” I don’t know that we, as a culture, have a working definition of intimacy.
Read MoreTransit
Cleveland starts at JFK in New York City with the Baywatch posters in the hallways which I think will be the same as the ones in Cleveland. They're here for people coming from Cleveland, for people going to Cleveland, for people who want to be somewhere other than where they are.. The Baywatch posters are here for me.
Read MoreCountdown
I read Morgan Meiss’s article on art in Cleveland. He’s older than me but he’s heard the same Randy Newman song, “burn on great river.” I’m going to Northeast Ohio in a profoundly different contest from Meiss who was there in 2015.
Read MoreAssociations
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
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