Just shut up and drive.
This is what we do at our dinner parties. Also Jonny made tilapia
I took an art day yesterday and went to Chelsea and wandered around. I kept thinking about how it must be so tough to be a visual artist. I mean all of these artists finally got a show in Chelsea, which is probably one of the few places that gives you major bragging rights in the world. A show in Chelsea means you've made it to a certain extent, right? And yet, if you're not in one of those galleries that are on the street level, chances are your work is only going to be seen by a handful of people a day.
I was no exception. I had looked up a few reviews in the NYT before I left and I had my New Yorker with me so I was slightly informed, but not by much. So in the end I just ended up going to the galleries that were on the street. There were just so many of them and I only had so much time.
Which all sort of reminds me about how people only look at books that are sitting in big stacks at the front of the bookstore rather than wandering the shelves to find something new and different.
I guess the internet can act as somewhat of a leveler for the arts. We can create our own storefronts. But there's even more noise online than there is on 24th Street and 10th Ave.
I finished a new draft two days ago. That's draft #4 for those of you keeping track at home. As soon as I was done with it I was like, OH, now I have to go back and fix a bunch of stuff. Also I have decided this book is just effing crazy, I swear. Like there is just so much weird shit in it.
But then yesterday I peeked in at the Tom Sanford show at Leo Koenig (it opens today so the gallery wasn't open, but part of it was up in the front and it looked amazing. Tila Tequila never looked so rodenty, is all I can say about it.) and then I saw this awesome David Altmejd show at the Andrea Rosen Gallery and both of their shows were so over the top that I just stood there with my jaw open the entire time, filled with glee.
So I am hoping my book can inspire a little glee in my readership. (Once I do another revision. And sell it. And then edit it. And then edit again. And then wait another year for publication.) There have definitely been some fun moments in writing it, I have to say. A big experiment and a lesson in who I am as a writer, and who I want to become.
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Yes, we are still looking for someone to take over our apartment immediately. Please spread the word.
(05/09/08)