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I was thinking yesterday about crit. Or as I called it then, silverback gorillas pounding their chest to get heard. In the penultimate crit of my MFA, I presented pStruct, wickedly cool application that I developed to answer the simple question: what if data had life?

I launched into a spirited presentation, as I had no clue how to adequately convey what was essentially 4 years of research and two years of programming. At the end of a display which involved white board diagrams, some singing and a little two-step I think, I was met with blank stares from most. And then the insults started.

I was called a charlatan, a hack, a fake, a “wannabe” punk ethos making a mockery of contemporary art practice. I deflected each with ease, back on the person who gave it. What I found interesting is that these people were so invested in their own concept of self-worth through their own actions that anything that challenged that (pStruct or my job) served as a reflection back on their own issues with their life choices.

So calling me a charlatan wasn’t necessarily reflective of me. It was reflective of the fact that my actions challenged his own inward validity.

Not to get too psychoanalytical, but he had penis problems I imagine.

That was a few months ago. And thinking back on it I am most thankful for that crit, as I think it marked a turning point in terms of my life’s work. I lived in an idealistic state in the last three years in which I sought to close myself off to exterior concerns through focusing on intellectual academic pursuits rather than a capitalistic notion of translating thoght into dollars. I wrote, spoke, researched and read. But I didn’t “do.” I was action through inaction, with ideas rather than realization.

That crit, in which I presented the one thing I realized, and was dismissed as a fraud because of it provided an insight into what was happening with my life.

I was too closed off within a sheltered environment, seeking appreciation from those who didn’t understand, but refusing to venture outside of the inhabited space for fear of likewise rejection of ideas. What I think I missed was that it was only compartmentalized at school, and that outside of that idealized self-perceived utopia, the barriers between art/not-art, science/not-science, etc were of little concern.

Just do, don’t think too much. Execute without over deliberation. First thought best thought.

Certainly self-help enough terms and ideas, but in application it certainly does help.

So thank you Jesse, Nelson, et all. Walking out on me, calling me a fraud and a hack was the best thing you could have done.

It’s early.

Actually, I, like Ethan, require massive amounts of caffeine to get my day going. I think this is actually how Ethan and I became friends…through our mutual need of caffeine before a class we shared a few years ago. I, unlike Ethan however, have no problem finding my sources of caffeine. This is Manhattan and there are actually 5 Starbucks within a 4 block radius of my place of employment…at least 5 coffee stands, and countless holes in the wall, but I digress…

This morning I found myself at one of the 2 Starbucks on Astor Place. . . And I am doing the milk thing, when this Hispanic guy runs up to an Asian couple and grabs the guy on the arm. In a yelled whisper he starts talking about them drawing too much attention to themselves in the subway for laughing about something….and then gets into this rant about how he gave them the best deal on parts and that if they want to keep doing business with him they have to mind their behavior. What could be so secret? My inner gossip was intrigued and so I lingered pondering the sugar selection.

Turns out this trio is making hacked PlayStations. . . I thought it was hilarious that they were meeting up in Starbucks as a place to yell at each other about their “covert” operation.

Leaving Starbucks, I walk to work and what is one of the newest articles in my Wired RSS feed: Counterfit PlayStations in NYC.

News in your face! Oh, that is one reason I love this city.

Its a funny thing, time. You find yourself watching as it passes slowly, then fast, slowly then fast. Today was spent mostly in meetings, and the time was fast until repose in the evening, then slow again. I look at clocks and one by one things move toward a past, and are lost in memory.

Memory too, how do we remember? How do we forget? How do we reconcile that the things that seem so present now will be turned into something so distant that often we wonder if they happened at all. Recollection serves as a reminder not of time passing, but of the very fact that time itself is a mutable construct, subject to slippages and removal from conciousness.

Do you remember being three? I do. But only 15 minutes of time from that year. A year became 15 minutes, but without that year where would I be?

It goes like this as well: I think about when I was 9, going to summer camp and we stayed at my grandpa Jim’s house (Ian and I) before we took the bus to Malibu. I think of Jim and Lisa staying at our house after the earthquake, of fixing computers, visiting in Sherman Oaks. All told it adds up to a collective temporal memory of a few hours. A few hours for 93 years of life. Sometimes it doesn’t seem fair.

I long for the day when we can upload our thoughts into outboard memory, go through them at will and experience things as they should, with duration, with temporal validity.

Instead we’re left with fragments, and we must reconcile those into a picture of the past.

What this amounts to is that I looked through my TextAmerica feed. 760 pictures from three years of me. Three years, reduced to 760 pictures, and I found myself missing things, thinking about things, wondering about things.

And then I think about the pictures, the photographs and videos and memories captured outside of ourselves.

When I’m 93, what will remain? Two collective hours of memory within a great-grandchild? Something more?

How will we be remembered when the light fades and we go to the never?

How will we be in the world when we’ve passed through it?

I can’t say it was an easy week. In fact, it was very difficult.

But it is now over, and a new week is beginning. It is interesting how death makes you reevaluate life. You figure out what you really want, where you want to head, what you want to do. I think: am I doing everything I can now? The years tick by, and things happen that you can’t predict. Standard mortality stuff I guess, but its still interesting.

So in self-examining the way things are, I start thinking about them and the way things were. I like life right now, and I do want more, but I think that hunger for more is something that drives people to actually get out of bed in the morning and do things that make a difference to the world, or at least themselves.

I never want to be satiated.

But then, I do wonder if you do move beyond the “horizon” syndrome, where after acclimation to one situation, you’re always looking toward the next. Does one ever get to the point where they are content with the here and now?

My 93 year old great-grandpa died today. It doesn’t come as a shock really, as I’d been expecting the phone call for a while, in fact every time I picked up the phone and it was a family member calling. Still, it’s very sad. Its odd because I was watching Six Feet Under this morning, but had to shut it off because I have a hard time handling other people grieving. Myself? I can handle death OK, I just can’t handle seeing other people not handle it, if that makes sense.

So what was cool about grandpa Jim? He was an avid golfer, up until he didn’t have the energy to do it anymore. The funny thing is, he still looked the same as he did in his wedding photos. He got older, but still looked in his twenties, just slightly more weathered.

And he was cool, and didn’t take any bullshit from anyone. I admire that in anyone.

So, seeya Grandpa Jim. Say hi to Murray, Rose, Cricky and the rest.

So the news is, I am sick. I actually had to leave the office today because I was feverish and just not doing 100% a-OK like I usually am. The good news about this is… there is none. I’m just sick with a stomach flu.

So the latest: I got a sofa at work, which means that my office is finally setup the way I want. I also got a stereo so it is very loud when I want it to be.

And since I’m not in the blogging mood, I will relate a story. Amy and I went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last night. The movie was absolutely stupendously wonderful. Except for one thing. In the theater was a couple who felt the need to talk through the first hour, until someone talked to them. Then, ten minutes later the woman borrows a cell phone from someone a row ahead, and starts calling people on it. Who does this?

After much shooshing and nasty looks from Amy and I, the woman puts the phone away, and the guy lights up a cigarette! On the way out this exchange took place:

Amy: “I hope you enjoyed the movie”
Bitch: “Oh we did.”
Amy: “Why don’t you just stay home next time?”

The guy she was with was much much bigger than I, and I being not so stupid decided we should leave quickly. So we did.

I mean, who is that stupid? These people should be rounded up and put on an island in the North Sea with Dementors. Fuckers.

So lately we’ve been re-potty training Natasha, by having her go outside in the park a few times a day. The problem is, she gets distracted and forgets that instead of checking random shit out, she needs to just shit so I can go home.

This week is HOT in Los Angeles. I mean, 88 degrees and muggy in the morning hot. This morning was no exception. So here is the picture: I am in my pajamas and flip-flops, with Natasha and a bag of treats, trying to get her to poop. She had already peed.

Then this lady walks up to me. She was maybe 40, hispanic, with a coffee in her hand. She looks at me very earnestly and says:

“Jesus will still love a handicaped child.”

I stare at her.

Did this woman just call my dog handicaped?

Then she says:

“Jesus loves retarded children too. All children with disabilities, and Jesus loves you and dogs take a long time to get potty trained and Jesus loves….”

You get the picture.

Crazy lady lecturing me about something invoolving Jesus, disabled children and potty training, and somewhere in there I think she insulted me and my dog.

We walked away quickly, but that was it for Natasha. After that, a guy shows up with two off leash dogs and our negihbors Cho shows up. Natasha was hot, I was hot and mad and there was no pooping to be had.

We go home, I take a shower and somewhere during that time Natasha decides that NOW she wants to go poop, only I’m not there to take her out, so she goes by the front door.

Fuck.

So to recap: 88 degrees, crazy lady calling Natasha retarded and a dog shitting by the front door.

This morning sucked.