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Monday 28 May

Mom - you might not enjoy parts of this post.

Pictures and Swimming Hole coverage updated.

I emerge from Copenhagen as though from a haze. I was carried to Scandinavia on speaker's wings, paid and accompanied as a performer. So until my speech I stayed straight, no caffeine, no alcohol, regular sleep. I was first in the day though, so by 10.30am Wednesday I was already beginning to slide.

Wednesday

The summer here does strange things for you. The night of Reboot was a large loud party. Standing there single amidst so many svelte youths, wearing still the jacket of a speaker, or perhaps just appearing to be a foreigner with a myopic eye for fashion, I felt some currency.

I couldn't work hard to make any thighs part; the first woman I chatted with had a boyfriend. We were getting along well but our discussion seemed mostly to spin around propriety of intimate relationships outside primary relationships. This is getting to be an old pattern; I excused myself rather than talk my way into her unbuttoned slacks. As fun as that might have been, skuld sucks.

Walking away, elsewhere, a woman grabbed my arm - "Do you have any babies?" Arrested by the question and the immediate intensity of pleasant eyes staring out of lightly plump mid-thirties, I felt a wave of feminine fertility wash over me and tighten my pants. "Not that I know of. Why do you ask?" She spoke that I might appropriately channel my energy into child-making and child-rearing. The sober discussion was doing nothing to discharge the erotic quality of her immediate address. I asked the obvious, "Do you want to make babies with me?" No, she already has one. It was only later over email that she rejoined this discussion, much to my excitement.

I sighted a tall blonde beautiful shy smart reporter who had interviewed me earlier and we'd pledged a dance. Dancing with her was dancing also with Mads, a swaggering fooling economist investment banker bloke with skinny glasses and a leather sport coat. He was balancing a tray of our drinks on his hand. AnneL noticed a woman whose boobs were nearly falling out of her one-strap dress; Mads grabbed her and danced with her in a sort of headlock while not spilling a drop.

I joined them for a Copenhagen night, sharing bicycles. We were headed for a bar for dirty beer, served by a naked woman with her vagina. Unfortunately closed by our 3.30am arrival, and the cops saw fit to pull Mads over, driving weaving with me on the back luggage rack of his Raleigh bike. He was our ringleader, making me tame with his boisterous address and brave hunger.

We retired to bar Hocken Busch where Mads ordered Spanish champagne and AnneL seemed spend much of her time with her hand attached to her forehead, gesturing some small shock at Mads' affairs as he slammed his fist into the table upsetting some nearby drinks of other patrons. She later claimed it was I who had upended the drinks in this way. But it was not I who flung cigarettes at disinterested Copenhageners after that sunrise.

Thursday

Boys Sauna Boys Sauna The next day I rose to join the Internet Men from American and our hosts Thomas, Michael and Nana for a chilly outdoor brunch and a rezendezvous at the greatest swimming hole man hath wraught. Getting into swim trunks in the company of lively minds can be a great shift from the usual podium and performative talking; instead we threw pool toys at each other and sat in a sauna sweating in occasional silence.

circular swimming pool

We ended the day at Christania, walking amidst forest, freak art, hash cookies and "lifestyle" pleasures. Someone in the group seemed to be a fledgling member or curious evangelist for this swingers club and the mind virus of widespread sex between consenting adults took my marijuana-addled mind into untoward dimensions. I can't handle imagining that much pleasure - it begs too many deep moral questions and I am left feeling as though I have sinned without even touching another man's wife's milk-filled tits.

At dinner I corralled Dave Winer for stories and debate over optimal content management for the web. He was pushing Radio and Manila as ways I could update this site from a web browser, and generate custom content bits. I poked at him about Blogger; he alternated between saying I love you Justin and you're a huge prick stop talking to me.

I ended the night with an hour or more in Rushkoff's room, feeling like I was listening to a smart person who had been asking questions I have, but for longer, and on the east coast.

Friday

I was to rise early for a TV appearance. I dragged my four hours of sleep carcass to a suburban studio in a giant media bunker. A mostly clueful but distracted young man, also named Mads, conducted himself with some televisual grace in a pink silk suit. I drank Jagermeister on camera for this television show's tradition. I performed affection on an Aibo robot dog, wrangled by a young woman who had a very slight Norma Jean quality to her. I commented on web sites in high-tech easy chairs. The best part of this affair happened afterwards, when Mads consented to tour me the giant basement beneath Danish broadcasting, where piles of old equipment line hallways near saunas, sun tanning parlors and shooting galleries.

I returned to my room and emailed the mother of my children to request a meeting within the next three hours, told her to call me, and went to bed. She called only to put it off again, as she had a living to make, and I was a degenerate with visions of sex mothers to sleep through.

Only sleep now has been three hour discreet chunks throughout Copenhagen. During the Reboot conference, the awards ceremony in Danish was a chance for me to put my head down in my arms and sleep another hour.

I woke for a late lunch with Douglas, and too-far postponed an afternoon appointment with an old Space Invader to visit his gaming studio. This is the price of distracted living, I notice - where are my priorities?

AnnaL and I have arranged dinner. If e'er I thought I could stir a thick soup with this nice lady, she expanded our broth with Mads stock. I decided I like this guy in daylight - in "NewHawn" between them I learned much about Denmark, Northern European Socialism, Jutland, bicycles, the model from the video for "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak, and life as a young investment banker/financial reporter. We walked Denmark by night, dining on pizza, asses parked on an embankement above sailboats. Sat for some time at an outdoor club in the biting cold, drinking warm beverages and hunting blankets. Ended the night falling asleep slowly in a cafe where drunk people thought I was Finnish. All the fury and illegality of our previous night faded as we hung as foreigner friends; they were a couple I would care to third wheel again.

The next morning I woke to board a 5.20am train to Sweden. Paid $80 for four days of local toll charges for dial-up connectivity.

Saturday 26 May

A kind Danish internet conference paid me to come jiggle and spew on stage. Now you can see just the toroso of this performance, in halting pixellated generalize-o-vision. Reboot: Play Power talk video. After a very slow start, I warm up about one-third or one-half through and share some feelings about accountability in video games. (Looks like Windows Media .asx format. Hmmm)

Whew - watching myself is hard. My fastest moments often come at the expense of accuracy and fairness. I often choose the easy theory or metaphor as opposed to the more nuanched and true statement. I guess if you want to paint big word pictures you have to sacrifice something. I watch this clip now and see myself holding down beauty and truth on the altar of witty improv, leaving fear and loathing standing with me in their place.

Then I watched another speaker; much of the magic I felt during their time up on stage was lacking in this itchy little video window. Speaking is an ego-driven activity containing some considered compassion within much posturing. I would call it mostly indulgent, and perhaps it is; tho people in the audience seem to enjoy it and some even seem to emerge with some inspiration. That's an honour, and often a miracle.

Two weeks ago, Ben shared his political website with me, "Spinsanity," exploring American media coverage of politics. I looked at it, and decided it was too narrow a focus, mentioning all sorts of politicians and writers that I hadn't heard of. So I spoke on a panel and CNN since then, mentioning Spinsanity as an example of deep narrow-casting, reaching only a knowledgeable audience with specific language.

Today I checked it again, and they're providing progressive analysis of the coverage of Senator Jim Jefford's party switch from Republican to Democrat. So here's an example of a tight knowledge organ coming to serve a larger population when their subject matter achieves greater saturation. And an example of how a good example can get old quick.

Wednesday 23 May

Notes on Reboot posted. I'm going to revise the essay that precluded my speech and post that some day.

Tuesday 22 May

Copenhagen to a T:

index.html Tabloid
This is the latest tabloid scandal in Denmark - the Queen's right hand man was caught shoplifting.
index.html TeeVee
This lady is a face of Copenhagen news. Quite sharply lit too - Americans favour more soft diffuse "vaseline" style I believe. Her name is Lisbeth Cedray, she works for TV2.
{arabolic Toilets
I was able to take some pictures to supplement ongoing worldwide plumbing coverage.
Trailer Park
On the way back from the airport, our host Kim drove us past a vacant lot packed with small mobile homes. Whatever I'd experienced in Scandinavia, I'd never seen a trailor park. Cute and curvacious - they're still designed!

index.html index.html index.html
Saturday 19 May

horns Friday 5.50am I wake sweaty
finish this piece for Salon since they won it at auction.

E3 all morning and afternoon
wireless gaming research for another story

sneak into a private trailer in the Promised Lot
write the first 600 words

god lot homies with friends, ask a passing gent to take a digital picture
he drops my ten day old camera

the leaning lens is like pisa
cracked case

no se funcionado
but circuit city sells me another for $150 more than I paid last time

twice as many reasons to consider a Links.net donation today!

Tupac sings, "my fake homey made a baby with my own girl"
thanks radio, I don't feel quite so unluckered

but I feel taxed, tired, tuckered
I sprint down sunset until my socks fall down

sushi bar dinner with many GOd Gamers
calvalcade of cowboy hats, colored shirts and cockiness

one GOD gamer took my playful belligerance as a kind of man-on-top threat
feeling slightly estranged i wander away admist the multihued thin bellied thick armed young los angeles

three hours later
alone where are my keys?

dejected contemplating this mounting recalibration
i return to my rented car with all my road posessions

white keys hang from a green door lock
three hours on the sunset strip untouched

i drive to a party in the hollywood hills
mike has locked his keys in his new vintage SUV

a coathanger and a flashlight
I have city skills to crack open the car

arguing with a comic book professional about the gaming industry
near to a defunct hottub and attractive people

Mix a lot back to ellen and krusty's house
unannounced 2am entrance is like breaking and entering

besides they have a large dog fond of his teeth on my wrists
i sleep in hertz car in their driveway

dreams of warren spector, piles of spinach with toppings
beautiful black power women afternoons in oakland

in the morning, i can reach on their wireless lan from here
can i borrow their bathtub?

Thursday 17 May

Bid on my Article: E 3 Way to claim it for your web site. Highest bidder at midnight, Pacific time, gets the article and an exclusive photo for their site or magazine!

Wednesday 16 May

Los Angeles gets the better of me, like New York is compressed, LA is a sloppy joe - meat bits spread out all over the place; I find myself driving from one side of the city to another because I don't understand how to coordinate socializing and geographic sensibility.

Fortunately I carry my craft with me and I find myself online from three different networks a day - modem, ethernet, wireless. Amazing!

I've been dreaming about non-device driven computer interfaces, like doing away with buttons and interfacing more directly. Fortunately it looks like our American tax dollars are funding some solid developments in this direction. Soon it will be time to twitch our data!

I'm in Los Angeles for a games conference. That means I'm supposed to travel from one side of Los Angeles to another, standing around in airplane hangers and small bars, waiting to find the beating heart of the soul of the future - the glimmering screenshot that will show me what entertainment in two weeks will look like, so I can rush back to my hotel room to export that gem in understandable hype for print publications.

Instead I have been staying with friends and taking my time attending to far-flung frivolous appointments. I've been seeking my stories from conversation with good brains. I've been writing and moving around more than I have had patience to sit and absorb PowerPoint.

Tomorrow I've prepared myself for a day of maddening conference pounding. I'm charging all of my information appliances, I'm unloading my thoughts to my web site, finishing up my writing homework for The Feature.

index.html The parties here - oh gosh, they're wonderful like you've never seen. At least that's what I would gather because they're remaining only projections and conjecture for me. Van, she invites me to some Sony gala that was wildly oversubscribed. Ryan and I showed up, and we each pretended to be a guy with a Polish last name who was supposed to be on some list. Either he wasn't on the list or we weren't convincing or they were in a bad mood or something but none of our booty-wiggling wisecracking smiling and charming did nothing to get us in. All we got was nearly run over by some Crispin actor in his fancy british-right-side-driving antique Rolls as we stood in the parking lot near dark haired ladies clad entirely in denim holding clipboards of power. I then backed up into a metal post of a horsehead in a small sidestreet with my rented Camry. We retired early and I was happy to compute and converse.

The next night, Van had heard from a friend that there was a mixer at a bar called "The Firm" that is not listed in the Yellow Pages or Information, but it's at Sunset and Crescent Heights but no one in that area has heard of it except some half drunk amiable frat guy in a gas station who says it's actually on some strip of Wilshire that turns out to be populated entirely by quick service restaurants that have closed just 10 minutes earlier.

It's amazing you're sent on social errands across America's broadest urban environment based solely on fragmented static-laden rumour perpetuated by a distant associate who is driving at high speeds and shouting into a expensive imperfect tin can with a long string. Somehow these mobile phones perpetuate relentlessly temporary social arrangements. When should we meet? I'll call you when I get there. Where are we going? Follow my car and call me if you get lost. Are you inside the party yet? I'm in here, but I can't hear you.

Not that I don't mind hunting stimulation in the company of good friends, but nightly loops around silly dark rooms with corportate beverages, perhaps silly but still unattainable it seems very old when I mull even momentarily the exquisite pleasures of virtual communications over Duke Ellington and a glass of water.

Still I will find a group of game geeks to keep me awake one of these nights or I may come to feel as though I have come only as an elder panelist, content to share his opinions during the daytime and not have them tested against the half-deaf and mostly drunk at night.

index.html Dinner in the company of good minds and good friends is always a good pleasure of some home absence. In this case, Eric Z, me, Van B, Tracy, Saman F, and Marc L at Toi Thai - rock and roll and party thai food.I took the ordering initiative and ended up saturating the table with salads and appetizers. Could do worse - variety and spice. Love that chili-peanut-lime-cilantro dressing. Mmm.

index.html
Now my eyelids are drooping - drop now and I will five hours sleep before I wake, take my basic haircut in to see Sony Microsoft and Nintendo make a shared keynote.

Sunday 13 May

If you're going to be in Los Angeles this week, and you want to see the spectacle of future culture, stop by E3.

What's there to see this year?
XBox might be playable so we can finally form some educated premature judgements about Microsoft's expensive new toy. In case we start to fear a common gaming platform, the next machine to emerge after XBox, the GameCube will be previewed by Nintendo. Between all of them, small and large offerings from the largely adolescent-minded males who make the distractions for the rest of us. And some strange foreign games, and some truly beautiful glimpses at the future potential of this underserved media form.

I'm moderating a panel discussion, "Gaming: A Cultural Legacy" with Henry Lowood, who ran a class on computer games at Stanford, Van Burnham, who put together a visual history of the early videogame era, and Greg Costikyan who writes essays like I have no words and I must design.

Work continues on the TV show - this weekend Ryan taped me talking to people on the streets of Berkeley and Oakland, at the Ashby flea market, and at the Thai Buddhist Temple in Berkeley. All this and some high octane leaning around in my living room for the introduction and "wrap-around" sequences.

Ryan goes hmmm Leaning In

Apocalypse Now was my favourite movie in high school. But I always thought it a little unbalanced that there was not a single speaking women's role (except perhaps for the screaming grenade tosser in the helicopter landing scene). Now it looks as though they've restored a scene we've seen hinted at in Hearts of Darkness - the dirty tripping American crew visits a French plantation and Captain Willard comes into conversation with a woman. So now the movie is 53 minutes longer, the Playboy bunnies might even have lines, and Marlon Brando is seen reading Time magazine. Glory halelujah - expect this on continuous replay until I memorize these lines. (Information gleaned from Apocalypse Then and Now in the NYTimes, thanks Ma).

Friday 11 May

New York Can Be Yours:

New York, Web.  Web, New York. New York, Web.  Web, New York. New York, Web.  Web, New York. New York, Web.  Web, New York.
New York, Web.  Web, New York. New York, Web.  Web, New York. New York, Web.  Web, New York. New York, Web.  Web, New York.

Celebrate the Moments of your Life:

Monopoly, The .com Edition
As you travel the board, you'll buy and sell today's hottest Websites to build your personal empire of virtual real estate. You're after the top Net companies- those portals, search engines, news, information, entertainment, shopping, business, ISP and connectivity providers that are now household names.

Stock options, toilet paper - a million household uses.

Women in Trouble over Time: East Coast and West Coast

Thursday 10 May

eyes Somehow over the years I've come to know John Brockman - probably through Howard. He seemed to be someone who engaged select minds on deep topics; when I was coming to New York, I asked if I might meet with him.

I was invited to visit him on his farm in Conneticut. There, with his wife and partner Katinka Matson, he rises early and reads book proposals as horses nearby graze and deer chew on their plants. It's nice and rustic. Most people with money choose houses that are deftly crafted from modern materials to yield the greatest creature comforts. In this case, Brockmans have chosen an aged sprawling place - where most of the rooms have ill-fitting boards and around each corner is a place to sit comfortably and smell the burned wood of old America. Outside fields run long, and bugs pound lightly against the window.

After a local pub dinner, some tech messing with the airport and their early retirement, I took a 2am walk. The sort of thing one might do for a challenge - striding forward in the dark. There's nothing to fear but all your mind can manufacture out of shadows. The wonder of the stars and the forms so benign in daylight amplified to terrifying proportions here. I reached the center of a copse of trees twice spitting distance from the house - it was a good place to stand and listen to distant drops fall. This was some serious silence, and I had just hours earlier been walking through Grand Central station.

flower The morning after, Katinka and I applied Coyote Urine near the flower beds that were being chewed up by deer. I got some on my fingers; it smelled musky like bacon (though maybe that was breakfast I was smelling - bacon, butter and jam on an english muffin). In spite of our participation in small country ritual and appreciation for silence, we remained visiting city-dwellers assuming a farm for the weekend, amidst shiny laptops and small email devices pulsing with connectivity in every room. Here the deep country serves as a backdrop for sustained content development and media reflection; John and Katinka have photographs of themselves up around the house, and each of the bedrooms is wired for both ethernet or modem dialup. In addition to working over book proposals, Katinka scans drying and decayed flowers.

While I was there we talked about Brockman's many experiences with large personalities, and some about my current interests and career path. There is clearly a need for a sort of Pauline Kael or Lester Bangs to whip game players into a frenzy of self-reflection and drive the industry further into the mainstream, but I don't want to spend my days entirely bent over digital diversion devices.

Brockman was unequivocal - ditch the games, he says. It doesn't represent substantial study. I've heard much the same thing from Amy, I think. These days, video games represent for me a vibrant part of the digital culture whole, and knowing video games gives me a good handle on media and young folks. There's some good lessons about fun and the future to be pulled out of the game world, but over the last few months I have come to feel it sustaining me less as a cultural form. There are some great folks in the gaming world I've met in the Bay Area. The best gameplay is multiplayer, most of the rest is good comic books and ultimately shallow concept.

"I suppose it would have been too hard to program a game of that complexity, offering the player rich choices. So instead what we have is a beautiful linear game, that will probably blow your mind, evidencing the capacity of this medium."
Shenmue Review
Brockman first mentioned Pong, and Pilgrim in the Microworld when I brought up games. Pong may have been cool, but a lot has happened in the gaming world since then. I brought Shenmue with me on the Dreamcast, and Katinka seemed to be impressed that there are games where you actually converse with characters, let alone old people. Brockman seemed suspect of the little girl in the short dress showing off her pussy cat.

Brockman point out "You should work in a field where you actually talk to real people." I briefly mentioned Everquest, and the real people on the other end of the gameplay, but his point lodged firmly admist the general disinterest I've met from very many fascinating people who have just about no interest in talking about this stuff. And me, now that I actually have to hustle for work and spring has hit my libido, I haven't really played a game in weeks. Well, besides Bohnanza. I've resisted installed anything except M.U.L.E. and Igowin on my delicious black road machine.

At his house, Brockman had a guestbook for folks to sign in to commemorate their weekend. There were many recognizable names in there - mostly east coast non-fiction writers I believe. I noticed Naomi Wolf. I read the Beauty Myth when I was 15, and my Mom and I went to see her speak about it in Chicago. Her media and gender analysis impressed me and changed the way I participate in culture. John Brockman arranged a meeting after I mentioned my Mother's school - Naomi has been working to excite young female leaders for years now.

Naomi Naomi agreed to have lunch - she proposed Justin's, a restaurant named for Puff Daddy's son, on 21st Street. The decor was classy, and the restaurant mostly empty. It was hard to tell during this quite Friday lunch, but at night this place is a hub for black entertainment folks in New York to network and dine on well-wraught southern cuisine. Naomi digs the food and the experience outside of the usual. I ordered a soulful seafood sampler with scallops and salmon and catfish - it was excellent. Probably my favourite part of the meal was the collard greens - best I think I've ever had, certainly better than Dillards. She had a catfish salad.

She's a very attractive lady - a winsome smile, bright eyes. She has a lively mind and a curious, generous nature. I don't know what Brockman told her about me, but she was curious about my work online. She hadn't had good experiences with Internet searches - she found many of the resulting resources flawed and poorly researched. I suggested that if she found poor data, she should put better work out there. I encouraged her to develop her own web presence, sharing her writing. She could be doing some young folks some good by putting something like the Beauty Myth on the web.

She spoke about the need for young folks to bring new ideas into the existing political system. She is working with the Woodhull Institude, leadership and non-denominational ethics training for college-aged women (and men starting this year). Small groups of young folks from varied backgrounds gather on some wooded acres and talk through the kinds of ethical dilemmas that might confront political and business leaders. Also they teach financial skills - something I'm still trying to muster. It's a more focused political version of the work being done at Mom's school.

We sat and chatted for some time, it was a good free-flowing conversation that left me feeling quite uplifted afterwards. I gave her a press kit about Mom's school and she became extremely fired up about it, reading through the materials. Thinking about the school is moving to me, visiting it is a near religious experience; quite inspiring. It's good to see that feeling is infectious.

Saturday 5 May

Spank spank Tristan Taormino is the most turned on woman in the capital of the world. Tristan writes sex books, edits lesbian erotica collections, generates a weekly column about sex in the Village Voice, and she just started working on a sex TV series for MTV. This was her thirtieth birthday party.


Thursday 3 May

It may be dead, but its just a car!

read end

Thursday 3 May

Either way, I'm still glad that the night before I was able to entertain when my burden was lighter. I cooked a number of my mother's best dishes, and I took pictures with my new camera. Food porn for your pleasure! Thanks for the donations.

index.html Roasted Red Peppers, arranged worshipping in a circle around a stone henge made of feta cheese.

index.html Seared tuna slices over edamame, shredded carrot and designer lettuce. Served with Carrot Ginger dressing. Amy's good suggestion on a way to lengthen expensive fish.
index.html Cuban Sweet Potatoes
It was an eccentric gathering - it reminded me of some of my parties in college - strange sexual imbalances, people talking about talking, some name-dropping, intelligent folks trying to get along for a few hours with slight chemical assistance.

index.html
Marshall, Justin, Eric, Vanessa, John

Eric joshed me about my age; Vanessa was pressed for stories about having two simultaineous therapists, Brockman couldn't stay long but he did seems surprised to be eating something palatable.

Blue Label Marshall was quite the raconteur, explaining the role of an American "Semiotician" with stories. He discovered that my brother had a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label, which he said was some rare expensive whiskey. He asked for a taste, and had soon facilitated a group emptying of the bottle.

Later Gina showed up; she seemed ready to match Marshall blow for blow in driven conversation. But he was due home for a scotch and some web surfing. Gina was alternating between amplified conversation and loud sighing -

Colin" My brother Colin had said he was due in Houston late, so he was missing all these weird folks in his apartment. Instead he showed up near midnight, just before the best outbreak of conversational self-reflexivity - Eric began to tell a story and Gina let out a sort of loud extended whinny, as if to say she was bored beyond reproach, and so in the moment as to express it non-verbally. Of course she protested extensively but we were by then having belly laughs over this.

Eventually Eric and Vanessa retreated, Colin went to bed, and Gina and I shouted at each other until we became tired and talked quieter and finally parted ways. I like to argue.

Tuesday 1 May

New York is a plethora of potential conversations. I'm trying to balance my scheduling, talking and processing time. My legs are seeing more work than ever - being on the road is good fitness. I'm drinking and staying up late - being social is bad clarity.

Being awake in New York is being accelerated beyond the point of relaxation. It's everything you want if only you can slow down and grab it. But this much stimulation will never let you gain poise enough. Moments you feel you're riding the cusp of the teeming scheming human masses swirling around you are pure urban power - the concrete and steel surrounding you serve you and your art culture career. Goddamn right. I've taken up singing while I'm walking in the subway - it keeps my mind off the sweat forming underneath my coat and tie.

*   *   *

Three weeks ago in Chicago, I told my brother Colin I was coming to New York; he whipped out his mobile phone and immediately ordered tickets to an Outkast show while I was here.

What is Stankonia?

The Outkast concert was marvellous. Clearly these are talented young dudes with wise minds and adept storytelling powers. Still there's nothing so hard as merging lights sounds dancing and crowd dynamics to make a convincing moment. In this case - the Hammerstein ballroom front floor was filled with writhing bodies, but behind the fans were solid spectators who didn't move quite so much. Ethan had declined to attend because the venue was too big - at first I didn't understand him but after I had been up front shouting, I felt a large vacuum behind me. That empty space absorbed much of the power these young dudes had to unfurl, and they hung perched on the edge of the stage, ready to offer more if only we would encourage them. I was screaming and dancing and jiggling and so happy and feeling very very high on the entire experience, but ultimately it was not contagious enough to encourage the masses of mostly white folk there to get into the groove and lift their arms to the sky and call for an encore. Outkastin' That's the perfect isolated moment to study - when they retired from the stage and left the mood lights on and the people milled about, happy/satisfied for the last ninty minutes, and expecting another treat. A few begin to stream out. A few applaud, fewer still call out for more lovin'. Eventually the passive milling about develops into a full-fledged exodus and the hungry fans are left feeling sacred music transcendance unattained.

It's only so because they came on stage with all the potential of P-Funk or Jane's Addiction - combination of theatre and mindblowing sentiments and pan-global funk love. Outkast Goddamn they're a fun band - see them if you have the chance. And if you have the chance, you must open up your chest and let out your voice along with the crowd - it's only fun when you can submit your ego to the group adoration of such handsome performers.

I offered their album Aquemini to Howard; he complains that he can't understand the lyrics. It takes repeat listening, all the while enjoying the beats, and some reading, for example.


Photos of Wilson and I from last night, after the Outkast Concert:

Determined In Motion

Wilson's a fiery fast intelligence. We have fun making mischief and media together. We also offend each other in group situations. Volitility.

Pictures from the new camera - Nikon 880. What fun! I didn't bring it to the concert, too risky for my first night. Also, the ticket said, "No Cameras Allowed." And while I respect some rule-breaking for media production, I'm trying to be more conscious and respectful of rules in general. That way, when you break them, it's more significant.

Thanks for the donations!

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