An Israeli acquaintance of mine, Sharon Paz, has joined Eric Fischl in the ranks of artists whose 9/11-related works have been removed from public spaces. The work, entitled "Falling" was removed from the windows of The Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning in Queens, New York, after they received complaints. Though in my opinion far, far better than Fischl's weirdly unanatomical, eroticised nude woman, I still think it's a bit too soon for such a work to be displayed in a public place where it might be encountered by those who don't want to view it. In a private gallery? Fine. But this was on full view of the public, in a publicly-funded institution, and they had every right to remove it. And its removal will do far more positive for Sharon than if it had stayed up unnoticed. So we all win.

What happens when you combat the offenses of a ravenous, angry week with an Entenmann's cake, half a gallon of milk, and an 18 hour sleep session? Guilt, a toothache, a bloated, queasy tummy and extreme lethargy. Misplaced over-indulgence is just not good for body or soul. Add to that mix the fact that today is the 9th day since I've had a cigarette, and you end up with a thoroughly miserable Saturday. And it's cloudy. And I'm broke.

Blarrgh.

Brighter horizons tomorrow.

Wait a minute... tomorrow's Sunday!

Now I'm really depressed.

I've spent the last two days in terrible agony, as a result of what was probably food poisoning. Piece of advice: No matter how tempted you are to eat at the new Kentucky Fried Chicken on Marcy Avenue in Brooklyn, don't.

Another piece of advice: If you are ailing, do not, under any circumstances, look on the web for medical advice. I did a few searches and found some good information from official sites like the CDC and other governmental agencies, but I was amazed at the tidal waves of crap that surged through Google as a result of such innocent search phrases as "kidney pain". One stupid site that I had the misfortune of visiting is the misleadingly titled "Curezone", whose blurry masthead photographs of smiling nymphettes should be enough to make the sensible websurfer turn tail and click for the AMA website in about 2 seconds. And if the pictures don't make you queasy, then the quote from the world's most misquoted curmudgeon, Arthur Schopenhauer, should do the trick:

All truth goes through three stages:
First it is ridiculed.
Then it is violently opposed.
Finally it is accepted as self evident.

So this is supposed to tell us what? That everything that is ridiculed and violently opposed is actually self-evident truth? Um, nice bit of logical fallacy there: if it's ridiculed, it's not because it's hair-brained and, well, ridiculous, it's because it's the TRUTH! OK, better take that logic class down at the community college (and, from the looks of the site, the English 101, computer science, and design classes as well) and get back to us.

My favorite part of the site is a silly page called "FOODS THAT KILL!!!" Anything with three exclamation points should be automatically discounted, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Here's the list of foods that KILL!!! My annotations are in brackets:

• Margarine and other hydrogenated fats [I Can't Believe It's Not The Angel Of Death! I mean, I really can't!]
  
• refined salt, Table salt [We like our salt rough and gritty and rocky, none of that there pansyfied 'refined' salt for us. And none of that iodized salt, neither. We just loves the look of our goiters!]
  
• Chlorinated Water [It saps our precious bodily fluids]
  
• Antibiotics [Gee, I know I have this foaming streptococcus infection, but I think I'll pass on the pills and just have a glass of echinacea lemonade]
  
• ASPARTAME [This ones in ALL CAPS so it must be EXTRA BAD!]
  
• MSG - Mono Sodium Glutamate [4 billion Chinese can't all be wrong- MSG derived from the seaweed Laminaria Japonica has been used a flavor enhancer in Asia for a thousand years]
  
• Pesticides [Pesticides are only a FOOD THAT KILLS if you're a pest]
  
• CARCINOGENS [Like... DUH!]
  
• Hormones - MILK
  
• Food additives [What food additives? Paprika? Krazy Mixed-Up Salt? Arsenic? Please specifiy]
  
• Sugar , honey , chocolate and other concentrated sweeteners [Since when is chocolate a concentrated sweetener?]
  
• refined oils [Again with the "refined is bad" schtick! We likes our oil to be lumpy and sludgy and mucilaginous.]
  
• baking powder [OK, you're starting to lose me here...]
  
• hard and dry bovine milk cheese [OK, you're starting to sap my will to live]
  
• Junk foods  (hamburgers, pizza, hotdog, nachos, …) [Care to slice any MORE joy from my life, Lillian?]
  
• fried, smoked, grilled foods [We don't care if it's organic eggplant kebabs, if its grilled it's DEATH ON A STICK!]
  
• Soft drinks - Coca Cola, Pepsi, Soda pop [How dare you!]
  
• Alcohol drinks [Oh, the HUMANITY!]
  
• fruits and nuts that are not growing in the same climatic area as the one you are living in now [OK, you're completely fucking nuts. That is, climactically-homogenous fucking nuts]
  
• Coffee [OK, that's the last straw, you bitches...]

Looking at Agnes and Lillian's site for a few minutes makes me want to strap myself to a gurney, stick some antibiotic IV drips in my veins, and order a cheeseburger. Wanting to be healthy is one thing. Wanting to be Carol White is quite another.

Though I would have agreed with anything Lillian and Agnes said if they had added KFC to the list of "FOODS THAT KILL!!!".

The September 11th, 2002 entry is here. If this page is displaying strangely, please clear your browser cache and reload. I changed the style sheet for yesterday's entry and your browser may still be using a cached version of it.

I arrived a bit early in New Haven on Thursday, having some administrative business to attend to before class. I can't say I was nervous, as I usually am not when I have to speak to groups. This lack of nervousness always strikes me as strange, since I am usually reticent to engage in social situations and I hate crowds and hate being stared at, but I suppose when the situation is less like day-to-day interaction and more like a performance, it gives me a sense of control. I think that uncertainty is a better word for describing my feelings on Thursday, but it is a deliberate uncertainty, since I almost never prepare specific notes for speeches or classes. I set myself up for uncertainty, and rely on the firing power of my neurons to carry me through from moment to moment. It seems less a less artificial method of making presentations, and allows for changes, substitutions, and general stream of consciousness, which I think is more appropriate for an art class. Art always (or should always) involve moments of absolute chance, chance tempered by he weight of skill and years of practice and reflection. When an artist puts their hands onto a lump of clay, or a piece of Styrofoam, or puts pigment-damp sable to canvas, there is a moment of chance, an element of chaos; you cannot completely control what will happen, even if your conception of the work is very deliberate. This is thrilling, this struggle between the will and the sheer unpredictability of the physical world; it's like a dance where both partners try to lead. If the artist part of the pair is good, the dance will appear effortless and graceful, even though the immutable, unknowable physical world, the other partner, is always painfully stepping on your toes. You make his impertinence work for you.

Hammond Hall, Yale University, 1999

I arrived at the sculpture building a bit early. It's very strange to be back there. I spent two years of my life there, practically living in my studio. I got to know every squeaky part of the floor and every bump and gouge on the walls (and lo, there were many), every smell of damp concrete and bit of peeling paint. This old building, which began its life in the dawn of the twentieth century as a mechanical engineering lab which housed huge, beastly machines, was the stage where so many dramas of my life played out- both in my work and in my personal life. It was here I made the bulk of the artwork for my first solo exhibition in New York. It was here I got to speak to some of my artistic heroes- Robert Gober, for instance, and met many new friends. It was here, in Hammond Hall, that I met the lad I have pined for so many times in these pages. When I first met him, he was an undergraduate sitting in on one of our graduate seminars, and I thought he was a heterosexual and a hipster upstart (I was half right) and I trounced him publicly on several occasions. Of course, as I got to know him, I fell head over heels for him and he let me play the part of admiring, scorned elder wooer. It was in this building that we had our first bit of friendly intimacy, where he let an astounded me jerk him off in the computer lab in broad daylight. You've got to admire the kid's spunk! (Pun definitely intended).

Rear of Hammond Hall, 1999

This building, where I spent one New Years Eve and countless sleepless nights, this building that had witnessed so many joyous conversations, jealous rivalries, petty insults, disingenuous quasi-intellectual meanderings, flaccid, drunken bacchanals, tepid, soggy pizzas, legions of European cigarettes, this building that had served as the landscape of two strange years of my life, now made me feel like a stranger. I have so many memories of it, about it, around it, but it seemed to retain no memory of me. I was just one of many who had coursed like blood through its aging vessels. It like a whale, and I like a minnow, flowing through and providing a temporary nourishment, but quickly forgotten. I suppose it is like this with all homes that are left behind, but I was not prepared for its cold shoulder.

I wandered through the halls and noted that many repairs have been done since my time there. Floors stripped and waxed, walls patched and painted, lighting fixtures replaces, new walls and new doors everywhere. I guess it's nice that Hammond Hall is finally receiving attention after all these years of neglect, but it all seems too ordered now; the chaos, the free-form barely-functional disaster, the anarchic castle on the edge of Yale has lost its sparkle and its magic. It's all business now. I suppose I am romanticizing all the qualities of the place that used to infuriate me, but that is what we artists are wont to do.

Roof cornice detail, Hammond Hall

I walked into the classroom, where quite a few students stood talking and fidgeting around. I could already tell that many of them were freshmen- nervous and uncertain on the first week of classes at big, scary Yale. Hell, for an instant I was nervous too, if only because I hadn't yet decided how to begin the class. I was wearing a new shirt that was still slightly stiff, and I had shaved that morning, something I loathe doing when I know that I'm going to be in a stressful situation, since I sweat buckets and it burns like a rain of fire and brimstone on my soft cheeks, and usually makes me red and blotchy.

Everyone got quiet. Here I was at the head of the table. I was clearly the instructor. No more was I vessel to be filled with other people's knowledge; now I was a vessel to be drunk from. It's quite an exhilarating feeling, if you've never felt it, and the exhilaration blasted away the nervousness and uncertainty. I introduced myself, and then clamored for a second: How to begin? This is introductory sculpture, and I am charged with introducing these students to mankind's oldest recorded activity (the earliest know product of human hands is the Venus of Willendorf, a small figure that was produced about 25,000 years ago, older by far than any cave painting or tool that is known to exist). The task is not to teach the students how to sculpt, but bring out the knowledge of the world of form that most of them already possess, and give them a language to talk about it and impart skills with which to express it.

I decanted myself a cup of Kona coffee from my thermos, and took a sip before continuing. As I brought the cup to my lips, I noticed that my hand was shaking slightly. I wondered if anyone noticed this. I began speaking. My words were certainly not worth recording for posterity, but they served well enough. The uncertainty was gone and I was in control and having fun. I took another sip of coffee and noticed that my hand was no longer shaking. The journey had begun, and the future looked bright. Class resumes on Tuesday.

May I live up to the challenge.

Ahh, I enjoyed my vacation from the site, but I'm glad to be back.

As I was taking a gander at my referrer logs for this site, I noticed an enormous amount of hits from a site called "kstatefans.com". I was curious to find out why in the world a sports message board would be linking to me, so I investigated. It turns out one of the users on the board had "hotlinked" one of my images (an explanation of hotlinking and bandwidth theft here). The image in question was a very large (150 K) image of an 18th century illustration of a monkey (a smaller version of the original image here), and their hotlink was really draining my bandwidth. As I perused the messages on the board, I became disgusted, not only at the dim-witted theft of a huge image and tons of my precious bandwidth, but at the stupidity, inanity and homophobia of most of the messages on the board. I had originally planned to just remove the image from my server, but now I wanted revenge.

So I simply created another image called "18thcenturymonkeybig.jpg" and uploaded it to the same directory as the original one. Voila! Instant retribution. You can take a gander at the new, enhanced page here [Warning! Page contains irritating MIDI and generally incomprehensible stupidity]. In case they ever change the image link, I've taken a snapshot of the switcheroo and preserved it for posterity here.

Other people have also been participating in the sport of foiling hotlinkers. Check out the work of Deuce of Clubs, Rob Cockerham, and "Queen of the Known Universe" Heather Champ. Someone should start a "hotlink switcheroo" weblog to document this amusing game.

Coincidently, there was a thread on MetaFilter (not always a ranting leftist charnel house!) today about a really clever switcheroo on an eBay auction.

Later this weekend, news about the first day of my class...