sometime - actually, alot lately - i find myself asking myself when i ceased to be capable of intelligent, non-work related thought. it's in large part why i haven't written much here lately. that and a kind of mental exhaustion that we all knew would follow the intensity of this summer's social scene. i miss it though - the summer and the constant influx of experience and information. now i feel like a neuron in the midst of a refractory phase that does not end. incoming firings abound, but i just don't respond.
i heard part of a panel discussion tuesday at housing works. it was part of some series associated with Jane Jacobs (will link to later). They were discussing the future role/nature of media, and they had two editors of electronic journals and two editors/journalists affiliated with print journals. I was most intrigued by the elder of the print journalists who came in his three-piece suit and was amusingly staunch in his perspective on the merits of what he considered to be 'real' journalism compared with what is today passing as journalism. Beyond that, though, I was disappointed. The opening comments dangled the possibility of an insightful and stimulating conversation on the current state, the limitations of, and the unique qualities of distributed versus singular (one journalist/story) reporting and print versus electronic versus blended access - but these topics were hardly touched upon and only referred to, really. the Blog-o-sphere panelist was too soundly ensconced in the fervor and culture of being a part of that community to speak about it from a comparative perspective. i tired of her comments when she it became apparent that throwing around the term 'dead-tree business' somehow endowed the discussion with greater insight. same kind of tired one experiences listening to the followers of fringe political perspectives that have so wholly accepted the truth of their chosen theory that it ceases to be the product of critical analysis or thought. as if the fact there there exists some particular social condition itself validates reducing the entirety of human interaction to an outcome of that social condition. [see, i'm not expressing things well? ug. what i mean is the tautological trend you find in people's perspectives sometimes.] anyway, i was disappointed they didn't even speak meaningfully about the continued [possible/future/current/anything] influence of jane jacob's work. i went downstairs to sort books.
weds reuven helped me out with some music practice, which was both enormously helpful and soundly enjoyable - i've been missing music in my life - and then we met up with deme and some friend of his who were(/are?) in town from california. i was so tired, deme told me i was and went home after a single drink. but the cast of players was pretty interesting. carolina smacked my leg early on and exclaimed "it's so great that girls have curves out here; in LA i'm considered curvy." i was amused. hopefully i'll see them again before they head out.
and yesterday, i got soaked by the rain on an ill-advised, but ultimately worthwhile, excursion to finish up the pieces from my pottery class. the reward for this mock-dedication was a chill and contemplative conversation with my pottery instructor about life-choices and balancing interests, as well as a free demonstration on how to create a particular kind of texturing that i'm quite a fan of, actually. also, i realized when i got there, the beneath the impatience to get back my pieces to which i had attributed my willingness to troupe over there through yesterday's downpour was a longing to be back in that space. these realization are always an odd experience for me: a mixture of quiet revelation and the recognition that it should have been (and in someways was) obvious. afterall, most of my experiencing of life is about spaces, encounters and venues coming together as a kind of fleetingly occupied space. i went there because i already miss the studio time, being there, pushing clay.
that's pretty much the week. i saw my family over the weekend - my grandparents, my aunt and uncle and cousins. it was good, but like when kara visited, it was the kind of complete and whole goodness that needs no comment. a returning to what can be accepted without question and simply enjoyed.
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