October 11, 2003 -- West 69th Street -- near Central Park

My friend Ian Vollmer and I had just left the screening of Gus van Zant's 'Elephant' at the NYFF and met Gus afterwards and thought we'd take some photos in Central Park. Ian just sent me a couple of the photos. Here's one:

a bit tired tonight

I think the mania is definitely moving toward cessation. I know I was pretty amped last night at the sushi restaurant after the Peter Straub / Stewart O'Nan reading, but that's 'cause I was surrounded by coolish people who knew stuff.

That was actually quite a great meal, with the conversations occurring and the entire last week has been my usual flow. Last Friday hit the Beth Gibbons & Rustin' Man show at St. Ann's Warehouse in DUMBO, and that was just superb. She's so cool. For someone who's not a big spotlight person, she was just on for everyone, and jumped down off the stage after encore for autographs and pictures. Too kind.

Walking around that area is just too wonderful. The view is just tremendous. I've always always loved bridges, and the thing I remember most about Portland, Oregon are the beautiful bridges. This base in Brooklyn though... ah... too wonderful. Looking forward to next summer with my new map of New York. I've isolated myself in this city for far too long. Although I hated that sick craziness at work fucking my shit up, it really got me moving around and about.

I've spent more time in Central Park this summer than I had in the previous 10 years I've been here. Really great stuff. My brain knew it needed to cool off, and I'm glad that although the pressures of August and September were just awful, those very pressures kept me out of my little box of work and home, and I've found so much more; the proverbial rose that you must stop and smell.

Saturday was very nice, catching Gus van Zant's 'Elephant' at the New York Film Festival with my friend Ian, meeting Gus afterwards, then trekking into the Park with Ian, him snapping photos with his rangefinder and a couple with his converted pinhole. Too much fun and very nice light that day to write on the emulsion with.

In the evening had another lovely meal at Zen Palate (first uptown visit) and walked up to Miller Theater at Columbia for a fine concert of Penderecki's music. I still lightly imagined some of the horrors of the work experience, but the strains of bows against strings kept pulling me back to where I righteously belong.

Tuesday I left Polish class and got slightly lost in Central Park on my way home and upon exiting back to the east side, a few blocks up from where I entered, Mr. Dennis Paoli was just entering. I had received an email from a man interested in contacting Dennis for an anthology project and I completely forgot to check in at the Writing Center at Hunter, where Dennis holds his academic court, so that was a nice surprise. As usual, Dennis was busy busy busy, but great to say hello.

And of course up to Weds. and a lovely evening hosted by Ellen Datlow with two great readers in Peter Straub and Stewart O'Nan, and a lovely mid-read surprise when I caught Peter mentioning an 'LD Bechtel' in his first few pages of 'lost boy lost girl,' a name I of course realized was a nod to Funeral Party 2's designer, LD Beghtol, who befriended Peter through their mutual friendship with Stephin Merritt, Mr. Magnetic Fields.

I love my HWA friends, several of which were there for the evening. Every time I spend any time at all with the lovely Linda Addison and Gerard Houarner my heart always finds its home. If there was every any reason for the protozoan to eventually find legs and crawl from the sea, this grand couple is the encyclopedic pictorial example of why that evolutionary event had to occur.

I was happy to find Mr. Straub as avant-interested as I had been gathering from recent interviews and his editorship of Conjunctions #39. I love impossibly cool people. I guess that's a given.

It's amazing I haven't had a day job for almost two weeks. I'm as busy as ever, even without being somewhere 40 hours a week, or 39 hours and 42 minutes as little miss evil 2003 so claimed. Yuck. Thinking about that place makes me sick. Think I'll grab my 10-minute-steeped Bengal Spice tea and concentrate on that instead. And what I learned in moj klase jezyk polski dzisiaj. And inputting the changes to the Copenhagen chapter of the Denmark book.

This Nervine Tonic stuff the health food lady turned me on to sure does work.

Eastern State Penitentiary

August 9, 2003