I re-read Harriet the Spy, after like 20+ years, and it was at least as all-encompassingly awesome now as it was then. If you haven’t read this, I would go read it right now if at all possible… it will take you all of 3 hours, max, to get through the 240 pages. That’s not to say it’s simplistic or childish, no, it’s just awesome. Plus the illustrations take up space, indeed yes.

Of course, I could detect all sorts of stuff this time around that I missed back when I was a wee lad. The book is packed with all sorts of New York-specific stuff, which now that I consider it very well may be the source of my personal fascination with the city. Plus there was the usual bevy of socioeconomic and social angles that any quote-unquote “children’s literature” is encoded with but is not consciously accessable to you when you’re actually a child… those bits are always a guaranteed hoot during adult revisits, yeah.

Anyway. Now I’m trying to write up a bunch of stuff about how contemporary gallery shows have to necessarily enngage with, and ultimately fuck with, the gallery hosting them to be at all effective. Like this one did… such things provide perspective to the gallery’s fundamentally priveledged viewport, rite? Yeah. I’m not done, or I would have posted it here. If you have any links or leads on that sort of thing, do let me know, cuz I’m sort of blocked at the moment, yes.

Another impediment to such writing, besides my own sloth and ineptitute, is the fact that my new “mac book pro” has either a busted battery or a busted power-management thingy, and as such it turns itself off when unplugged for a few seconds regardless of the charge. Anyone else with such a fucked computer? It’s retarded, indeed, but it definately could be worse, all things considered.

Yes! Now to eat a candy bar, and go home. More when I got it, yeah.

-fish

Blech, I’m sick. People were coughing and hacking all last week up in the studio, so I should have seen that shit coming. Smoking 10 metric tons of cigarettes did not help, but what was I supposed to do? There was no better way to commune with my studiomates new and old. So I don’t regret it. I am cramming claratin and vitamins and yerba mate and lots of other healthy shit down my throat, to compensate, and it’s sort of working.

Taught my first “computer class” today. Not only do I get to be the studio-wide tech support monkey, but I also get to teach undergrads how to use adobe CS and whatnot. I got the “advanced” section, too, which actually means about 33% of them are actuallly “advanced”, 33% sort of know some shit, and the remaining portion are, erm, “not advanced”. or thereabouts. We shall see how that goes… 10am monday mornings, fuck yeah.

It sucked, too, cuz I was having all sorts of fantastic dreams, like where I crashed my helicopter in the Venetian canal and then had to break into an airport and sell my highly advanced techno-umbrella for a secret boarding pass, shit like that. Maybe that was just the benadryl fucking with me but hey.

Anyway. As promised, more shit from the past:

Big poster map remix of Italo Calvino’s A Sign In Space.

BABYMAN 2000.

My bookshelf as of last January.

… OK yeah. Now to make a “mind map” for tomorrow, FUN!! Indeeeeeed.

-fish

When I get done with school, I am going to start a design firm. I am going to get a small business loan and rent out a bunch of space in one of those midtown office buildings, with the shitty hermann miller gray carpet and the drop ceilings. I will then hire a bunch of youthful unknowns from RISD, CalArts, MCAD, Van Eyck Academy, RCA, and whatever the fuck. The deal is going to be as follows: if you work for me, you can use a computer, but it has to be THE MAINFRAME. Cuz, see, I will buy a mainframe and install it, and as for computers, that will be it, in terms of what is allowed in the office. Powerbooks (or rather, excuse me, “mac book pros”) will get checked at the door, much like the bag-check arrangement at The Strand and other such commercial outlets. So if you are a guy, you will invariably look like this:

… and if you’re a girl, you’ll look like this:

… I should mention at this point that these images are not at all intended to suggest gender-normative role designations; sometimes, if you’re a guy, you’ll change the tapes, and sometimes girls will use the light pen to draw shit. The pursuit of such activities will be a product of what needs to get done in the workplace, rather than whether you have a dick or a pussy, essentially. Just so you know. Yes.

Anyway. By enforcing such constraints, I will conjure the eternal spirit of Paul Rand, who will fuse his undead powers with my own mortal body in exchange for avenging his disgrace and slaying the dickfaces responsible for the perversion of the UPS logo. After this, I will be unstoppable, and I will rule the design world with an iron fist, sitting atop my humming mainframe, cackling to myself in the dark.

Anyway that’s one career option. I might go to law school instead. Who knows.

-fish