months' worth of camera-phone pics<img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(01).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(02).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(03).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(04).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(05).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(09).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(10).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(11).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(13).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(16).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(20).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(23).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(29).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(30).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(32).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(33).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(43).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(48).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(50).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(53).jpg" alt="" /> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/Image(59).jpg" alt="" />30131411ImaginingDaniel2004-07-30T01:13:46stageNo more creepy 3:30AM door-banging please, Amen.I'm sitting here, leaning up against a wall, a beautiful woman sleeping peacefully by my side. Thunder claps outside, I can only imagine that rain falls in sheets outside the windows I cannot see from my vantage point, in the back, behind two dividing walls. I have a beautiful quilt hanging on the largest wall of the loft. It is a healing quilt. It is a piece of art, truly. Tens of these should hang on walls of art galleries and sell for thousands. But that would be ripping them out of their natural ecosystem, which is one of gift. One of purpose. Ps 40, it says on the back. Last night at 3:40am, someone banged on the front door for minutes. It was true banging, not subtle knocking, and it was on OUR door. The blinds were completely open, and so I hestitated before passing through the door into the front. I racked my brain for good reasons someone I should see about would be violently banging on my door in the middle of the night. I could find none. So I waited, fearfully, behind that wall, for the banging to stop. And it did. Tonight I prayed fervently for that NEVER to happen again, EVER. Lord, hear our prayer. I also bought a baseball bat. I am still curious who the fuck it might have been, probably a confused stranger, but the banging was SO violent. I feared even being seen behind the window, that that would spur them on and there would have been no end to it until the cops came or some worse violence had been committed. Tonight, only thunder. I can handle thunder. I hope the rain keeps the creeps from being out. So I sit, thinking about the work I am to show on the 20th and 21st of next month, and the software I also must finish well before that date, ASAFHP in fact. The work will be words and pictures, and will start something like this:<blockquote style="font-family: courier, serif;"> Danny, Enclosed you will find a little something someone told me to send you. He handed it to me practically in hysterics, hands shaking and so clamy that they made the cloth it was wrapped in wet. I've taken the liberty to repackage it. This is what he told me to tell you in regards to it:<blockquote>Take good care of it, it is yours for the journey. If you find yourself with no more use for it, then do pass it on, but do so with fear and trembling, that they may see your consternation. Yours, Will.</blockquote></blockquote>29005240MinutiaDaniel2004-07-29T12:51:41stageJulia's boyfriend was a rock starJulia's boyfriend was a rock star. He always played his own records when he made love to her, coming just as he sang along to himself in the climax of a seven-minute speed metal anthem to the dark underbelly of middle class youth. Needless to say, this prevented Julia's orgasms. In fact it made her want to vomit. But she loved waking up in the morning to their view of central park, sipping a double espresso pulled from his $1500 automatic Saeco machine. She ignored the feeling inside her that reminded her of violation, hugged herself through her terrycloth robe, and soaked in the sunrise. She would work in the second bathroom she'd converted into a darkroom and leave by noon. He awoke at one. She would walk the 20 blocks home in a different arrangement every day, stretching it to 30, 40 blocks of wandering beauty that she would capture to the best of her ability. At her own home she was afforded the mess of Polaroid transfers and collages and clothes-making and dripping candles and the Smiths. At seven p.m. she would swear never to see him again, remembering nothing beyond the coffee as a decent reason to. By eleven she was in the VIP room, he with his arm casually draped around her shoulder for a split second until something more important beckoned from across the room or some very important point about the music of 1989 had to be explained with large arm gestures. And then it was three a.m. for metallic, operatic come, and six for amazing coffee and sunrise, and twelve noon for walking, and seven p.m. for forgetting. And then it was two a.m. again and she realized, gluing a candy necklace onto an underexposed piece of fiber paper, that she was going to have to go down to the corner for coffee in the morning. And someone softly sang in the background and things scattered about and life...was good. 26100030FictionDaniel2004-07-26T09:58:21stageYAJMF<img src="http://www.danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/closed.jpg" alt="" heigh="221" /> A few days ago I tried to explain to my parents how I was able to forgive so easily. I tried to explain that I understand that we all build these stories to disable the dissonance our decisions cause. Truth and lies aren't so much about right and wrong as about the state of our fragile psychologies. The forgiveness of Christ, as I have come to understand it, gives us the freedom to accept that fragility, the horrors that are our actions, the dead bodies on the floor, the knives in our hands. The gospels aren't so much about miracles as they are about dismantling the prefab story-houses people had built around themselves, from the <a href="http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=MATT+9:9-11&language=english&version=NASB&showxref=off">tax collector</a> to the <a href="http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NIV&passage=john+8%3A3-11">adulterous woman</a> to <a href="http://blogs.salon.com/0001772/stories/2004/07/08/evenTheRichWoman.html">Judas</a>. Those resistant to "<a href="http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=JOHN+14:6&language=english&version=NIV">the Truth</a>" became hard, yelling "<a href="http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NIV&passage=matthew+22%3A15">Shut up</a>!" <a href="http://cdn.moveon.org/data/ShutUp_Final_BbandHi.mov">like so many O'Reilly Factors</a>. We all yell "Shut up!" in our own unique ways. Sanctification isn't about becoming perfect, it's about coming to terms with the fact that we are the scum of the earth. "<a href="http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=MATT+19:30&language=english&version=NIV">The last will be first</a>." "<a href="http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=MATT+25:40&language=english&version=NIV">The least of these</a>." Yet another Jesus mind-fuck. "I say, stop being <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0805076476/ref=sib_vae_pg_46/102-9126044-0387335?%5Fencoding=UTF8&keywords=perfect&p=S01B&twc=10&checkSum=L%2BIKzmOfToLT6TakZhuiTcNgEFxynq699XY1tKH5KHM%3D#reader-link">perfect</a>." [para] ...I wrote this in an email a few days ago, in regard to a completely different topic. I'm writing this post backwards... "Bad morals are certainly not new to humanity, and yet we've done some beautiful things. I think there is an element to living honestly, as humanity, with our total contradictions of awfulness and beauty {the word 'awful' itself contains this contradiction, although I use it here in its meaning as 'extremely bad or unpleasant'}. Even if our motivations for being 'good' come only from our implicit social contracts, there are some things that reside so deeply within those contracts {fine print, or invisible ink, if you will} as to point to something other within humanity that somehow transcends our best efforts at good and bad. This is a thread that I've noticed in everyone from Jesus to Thoreau to Jung. My interest in art and creativity is primarily because of its frequent touch of, or bridge to, that 'other.'" ...Today's <a href="http://www.thislife.org/">This American Life</a>, "<a href="http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/02/218.html">Act V</a>", was incredible, and left me nearly in tears on multiple occasions. I sat in my car for a half hour after arriving at my destination to listen to the entire program. Well worth an hour of your day. <a href="http://prisonartsstl.org/">Prison Performing Arts, St. Louis, Missouri</a>25142045CommentDaniel2004-07-25T02:20:18stageShawnteese is the most white-trash girl to never hang out with white peopleShawnteese is the most white-trash girl to never hang out with white people. She can't even remember the last conversation she had with a white person. She sees them on occasion, like the rest of the folk in her part of town. They always look lost, and those that see them driving their car down Grande, wrong way from the Stadium, the highway north is the other way....those that see them driving are walking down the sidewalk, walking to the store, or to the bus stop, or, like Shawnteese, just walking to the corner. But she is one to talk. She talks a lot with her clients after she's been picked up and they are driving to The Predetermined Location. She can't help herself. She just starts talking and keeps talking, and they never know what to make of it, but with the types that pick her up, they find her entertaining, funny even. She'll sit in the backseat, the fourth passenger, menage a quatre, and talk about grandma, or about the weather, or about how the Quick-E Mart ripped her off 75 cents the other day, her hick turns-of-phrase eliciting chuckles or belly laughs from her braided companions blowing herb smoke in big plumes out the window of their weighed-down '95 Cutlus Supreme, muffler scraping the asphalt on the bumps along Haskell. The talking continues until the moment of transaction, when her dialect, the gaps between her yellow teeth, her aged and sagging skin...they all disappear, and for a moment she gains control. Emotions are a tiring mix of power and powerlessness, desire and disgust, the warm flame of intimacy and the cold stone of rejection all at once. But for that moment, Shawnteese is in control, and she thinks to herself, "No matter what, I can always get by doing this." But what she really looks forward to is the ride home, when she'll be allowed one long toke, and will tell the story about that one time, in that one place, the story of innocence. And if the car ride back to her corner isn't long enough for the telling, she'll sit in that backseat and finish that story, engine running, sun beating down on pedestrians walking by the dirty window on their way to the bus stop.20025716FictionDaniel2004-07-20T02:56:12stageLittle bitsInternet is still flaky at the new place, having to hang at the <a href="http://www.rearviewwindow.com/blog/">Rudds</a> to get stuff done online. A few more tasks and then I'm sequestering myself for a couple weeks anyway. August is going to be a crazy cool month around here, though, so stay tuned. <a href="http://goforthethroat.blogspot.com/">Emily</a> is back from Bosnia, bringing precious Auras with her, and I think I recognized every single place she photodocumented. Very jealous. Wish Mr. Henderson was going to be there longer, I'll be up for a trip next summer. The permalink is dead, long live the permalink. I'm <a href="http://akma.disseminary.org/archives/001422.html">referenced in this AKMA post</a>, but he links only to the root of <a href="http://www.the-next-wave.org/">the-next-wave.org</a>, not <a href="http://www.the-next-wave.org/stories/storyReader$328">the actual article I wrote</a>. So now a Google of my name will turn up next-wave. Bah. <a href="http://www.jimmy-k.com/amanita/">Amanita Design</a> is a solo Czech guy in Brno. He did <a href="http://questfortherest.com/">the Polyphonic Spree flash game</a> that's on their site and the new CD/DVD (which you should go purchase ASAHP). He also did something similar called <a href="http://nlp.fi.muni.cz/~xsvobod4/amanita/samorost/intro.html">Samorost</a>. <a href="http://jameswagner.com/mt_archives/004196.html">unhappy meal</a>. <a href="http://www.pbs.org/art21/series/seasonone/consumption.html#">PBS Art21: Consumption</a>. via that <a href="http://www.cremaster.net/">the cremaster cycle</a>. <a href="http://www.statesman.com/sports/content/custom/blogs/tourdiary/">It IS about the bike: a blog by Lance Armstrong's bike</a>.19194434ElsewhereDaniel2004-07-19T07:30:51stageWe're backAlmost settled into the new place, still unpacking a bit, but have a very important piece of the equation up and running: Wifi, from our neighbors Bill Hood and <a href="http://galleryeklektikos.com/">Gallery Eklektikos</a>. Do be a good patron and visit the site, and the gallery, next chance you get (permanent props will go on the IR Gallery site when it is up)...they are having a show next weekend--from the press release:<blockquote>Please join us for the opening reception of our most current exhibit - The Works of Stefan Georg Gallery Eklektikos 832 Exposition Avenue, Dallas, TX 75226-1742 Saturday, July 24, 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The informal vocabulary of Stefan's art moves with the exhuberance born of his background as a composer-musician. In some works, we enter a realm of deep spirituality. Throughout, there is a harmonious dance of color that celebrates both the world around us and the world within us. Stefan Georg's career in art began in the mid-70's in Dallas, Texas where he studied under the tutelage of the widely respected artist and teacher Leona McGill at the Dallas Art Institute. Lomas Nettleton Financial Corporation and Dallas' cutting edge restaurant Deep Ellum Cafe, were among the first to recognize Georg's unique visionary style. The former purchased eleven pieces for their corporate offices and the latter has made Georg's "The Headwaiter" the prominent focal point of their dining area. In the late eighties, Mr. Georg moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and resided there for ten years during its heyday as one of the most exciting and vital markets in the world. While in Santa Fe, Mr. Georg completed a masters program with renowned abstract-expressionist Helen Frankenthaler and his work matured and evolved steadily in this rich artistic environment. His work continues to be sought after by corporate and private collectors from coast to coast. Come join us for an exciting evening of art. You can view Stefan's work at <a href="http://www.stefangeorg.com">stefangeorg.com</a>.... Please RSVP at <a href="http://www.evite.com/pages/gt/events/viewPub.jsp?eventID=NKGPDRFMSWQLVIGFGTCZ">evite</a></blockquote>17144404MinutiaDaniel2004-07-17T02:37:15stageThank God for true seekers in a world full of cynical, dishonest stone-throwers<a href="http://blogs.salon.com/0001772/2004/07/16.html#a363">There's Something About the Way You Use the Bible</a><blockquote>There's something about the way you use the bible, something about the way you use it as a tool, as a weapon, as a fulcrum, as a means, as an end, as a trump card. There's something about the way you see the bible as a thing to be used at all. There's something about your intensity and your urgency and the way you have your eyes locked on some distant prize. There's something about the energy you are putting into this. It's making you frantic and in a hurry. You will not be present in a sacred moment. You will not wait. You will not keep silence. You will not admit that you are weak. You will not let things unfold. You cannot abide, so you will not abide. You will not abide the journey... ...the bible is not a self-help book full of easy answers, but a book of stories and wisdom that is meant to lead us into relationship and worship. There are hard and fast truths in it, yes, but they are surrounded by soft truths, and slippery truths, and sometimes truths, and truths that once were true but are no longer true, and truths that are only true if you are in the right state of mind, and truths that are only true if you are not hurting someone, and truths that are true in the moment but not if you are talking about the moment, and truths that can only be lived and should never be spoken, and truths that we cannot hear, and truths that are more than we can bear. The truths of the bible are utterly beyond anyone who seeks to own truth and who seeks truth above the Spirit of God. The bible is not a book for those who need a weapon. It is not a book for those who know where they are going and what questions they will ask. It is not a book for those who are in a hurry and looking for the shortest route. The bible is a book for pilgrims and wanderers. It is a book for children and for those who wish to become children again. It is a book for seekers and searchers and dreamers. </blockquote> <a href="http://fray.com/criminal/angel/">Wrestling with an Angel</a> <blockquote> I sat in Rabbi Kaplan's office and unleashed a torrent of bile I'd saved up for years. I told him I didn't think I believed in God at all. That I thought religion was used to control people. That I don't believe anything in those books we read really happened. He could have taken the opportunity to teach me something about Judaism I didn't know. And, fortunately, that's exactly what he did. He said: "Cool." The he told me about Marx, Freud, and all the other famous, smart, Jewish atheists. They didn't believe in God, either. But they were still Jews. He told me that there's a long-standing tradition of questioning God in Judaism. He told me a story from the Torah where Jacob wrestles with an angel. And he said the old Rabbis read that story as a metaphor for him wrestling with his own faith. The idea that it was okay to be unsure was new to me. That I could still be Jewish and question. That, in fact, the act of questioning was part of having faith. That the questioning made me more Jewish, not less. I was wrestling with my faith, like Jacob. And that was okay.</blockquote>16215051ElsewhereDaniel2004-07-16T09:45:04stagePolyphonic Spree Record Release Partaysome images click, some don't... <a href="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/DSCN2800.jpg"><img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/DSCN2800_crop.jpg" alt="good records. click." /></a> Went to the <a href="http://www.thepolyphonicspree.com/main.html">The Polyphonic Spree</a> record release at <a href="http://goodrecords.com/">Good Records</a>. Bits: <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/DSCN2810.jpg" alt="family hughes" /> Family Hughes getting the very first signings, <a href="http://www.theyblinked.com/blog/2004_07_11_theyblinked_archive.html#108969581122826672">literally</a>. <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/DSCN2812.jpg" alt="family hughes and tim delaughter" /> Good mexican food and free beer! And free Monster to keep you up all night. <a href="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/DSCN2811.jpg"><img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/DSCN2811_crop.jpg" alt="very long singing table. clicky." /></a> <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/DSCN2813.jpg" alt="signing table with people" /> I had this short conversation with the drummer [paraphrased]: "Listen to the record," he instructs me. "Actually, I have been," I inform him. "Oh," he surprises. "A friend hooked me up with it a few weeks ago." Look of irritation and subtle confusion: "Where'd he get it?" "I don't know, from a friend who always has everything. The original source is unknown." More irritation, possible pissy-ness [me realizing maybe I shouldn't have said anything], something like, "Yeah you never know with these things." "But I came and got the actual artifact!" holding up signed CD leaf dramatically. "That's a good thing!" somewhat condescendingly. "But you're what? A 23-member band now? At 15 bucks, even if you got all the money from it, that's less than a buck a person. That's harsh!" "Yeah..." trailing out and looking dejected. "I felt like I should have just come here, gone down the line and given everybody a couple bucks." Look of astonishment. Me realizing I shouldn't go into the whole rethinking-distribution tirade of <a href="http://integrationresearch.org">Integration Research</a>. Move on to next person.14084938ImaginingDaniel2004-07-13T08:48:53stageAl Franken on beliefnet.com<a href="http://www.beliefnet.com/story/132/story_13244_1.html">Al Franken on beliefnet.com</a> (links added by me): <blockquote>There'd been this article about Bush & God in Newsweek. It describes this Bible group that Don Evans [Bush's Commerce Secretary and longtime friend] got Bush into when he stopped drinking. [Newsweek writer Howard] Fineman describes it as scriptural boot camp. Ten guys and each week they'd study a chapter of a book over two years and analyze them line by line. Over two years, they read Luke and Acts. So I was at the White House Correspondents dinner and found myself seated at the table next to Don Evans. I was all set to ask about the tax cut. And I said, "So you know what Acts is about?" And I saw sort of this blank thing go over his eyes and then sort of a quick look of panic and he said, "No." And I was absolutely shocked. And I said, "Well your tax cut so heavily favors the rich, and <a href="http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NIV&passage=ACTS+2%3A44-45&x=0&y=0">Acts</a> <a href="http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NIV&passage=acts+4%3A32-37&x=0&y=0">is so</a> <a href="http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NIV&passage=acts+5%3A1-11&x=0&y=0">socialist</a> almost." And he said, "But, ah! Acts contains the Parable of the Talents." Now just as it so happens, I knew that actually wasn't true. I knew <a href="http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NIV&passage=matt+25%3A14-30&x=0&y=0">the parable of talents was from Matthew</a>. And he said, "Are you sure?" And I said, "Yeah." ...But I realized that these guys didn't read these books line by line for two years and discuss them for two years--they couldn't have! I know these guys aren't the smartest guys in the world but they're not that dumb... I just have to believe that what he told Fineman was a lie. That was the only conclusion I could come to. Then I talked to Fineman and he remembered talking to Bush during the primaries in New Hampshire. Howard asked him what selection of the Bible he'd read that day because the campaign was saying that Governor Bush read the Bible every day. And we tracked down the transcript and Bush was totally defensive and it seemed to me from the transcript that he really didn't read the Bible every day. He just said he did--which is, like, a very weird thing to lie about.</blockquote>via <a href="http://www.powazek.com/2004/07/000420.html">powazek</a> Ray Charles, from his autobiography:<blockquote>A school for the blind ain't the easiest place to jack off.</blockquote>via the <a href="http://tofuhut.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_tofuhut_archive.html#108926280521636284">tofu hut</a> for some reason, i thought these quotes fit together...11174548ElsewhereDaniel2004-07-11T05:45:28stageBefore Sunset<img src="http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/07/02/arts/02SUNS.184.jpg" alt="" align="right" />My one sentence review: "A romantic movie where they spend most of the time talking about how romance is bullshit," to which <a href="http://theyblinked.com">Dan</a> pointed out that there were too many serious complications, left thoroughly intact and undealt with, for it to be horribly romantic. But it is, and the romance and the tension are both what make the film so great and at the same time a terribly-timed piece of emotional familiarity for me, too real to be ignored, a so-subtly-idealized picture of human life. {This is the part where you take Jesse's words "Time is a lie" to heart, and imagine most of a day passing between these sentences, as well as quite a bit of the depression that fueled the former, a short bout brought on by many things I shant bore you with here.} I liked the questions the movie brought up; I hated the answers it only implied. Q&A's about love, a subject with which I had so much experience with this year prior, I feel like maybe I won't be able to again for some time. From the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/02/movies/02SUNS.html?ex=1120276800&en=e002ba9c55185296&ei=5083&partner=Rotten%20Tomatoes">New York Times</a>' review:<blockquote>...though it is sometimes maddening, the movie's prodigious verbiage is also enthralling, precisely because of its casual disregard for the usual imperatives of screenwriting. ...Can't they just say what they mean? Can you? Language, after all, is not just about points and meanings. It is a medium of communication, yes, but also of avoidance, misdirection, self-protection and plain confusion, all of which are among the themes of this movie, which captures a deep truth seldom acknowledged on screen or in books: people often talk because they have nothing to say. ...I found myself cringing from time to time ...when Celine scrunched up her face and cooed at her pet cat. But these two were never meant to be perfectly likable; that is part of what makes them perfect for each other. ...it is their indifference to the audience that makes them so fascinating. They have no interest in us, which is why we...are so interested in them.</blockquote><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/BeforeSunset-1133662/">rotten tomatoes page for the film</a> <a href="http://www.beforesunset.com/">official site for the film</a>10211738CommentDaniel2004-07-10T09:17:19stageSpiritual Conflict In The Everyday: power relationships, suburbia, art, and death...a beginning We rail against suburbia, but it is not the enemy: it is only our version of the enemy. And "enemy" is not even the right word for it, this unseen power we feel over and around us, pushing us from behind into the crowd, or a dark pit, the fall and the feel of the bottom we know and dread. Selfishness has gone global. Europeans import our political and financial clouting, covering their moves with their historical sly grin and sideways step. We import their philandering, covering it up with a sheen of Biblical adjectives and calls to war. The West consumes and pollutes more only because we can. The Third World aspires to our gluttony, dreams of our geo-politico-historical good fortune. We look on with a tear not quite falling from our eye and say, "God has blessed us, let us beacon freedom and democracy." Every day we die a little more, but never enough to change. Our daily destruction takes place in the malls, on the freeways, in the megaplexes and megachurches where we are reminded that we are not rich enough, not fast enough, not beautiful enough, and not morally perfected enough to call ourselves a Generation, to fight our Great War, to hold our High Office, to have our sway, our turn at bat. So we attack the cul de sac, the SUV, the Sunday-school teacher, the overweight woman ordering a number five, super-sized. But it is not this accumulation of small deaths. It is how the small deaths prevent any real death at all. They are in fact small taxes paid to the god of ourselves, so that we may never have to face a God of us all. They are sidesteps, diversions, truths we tell ourselves, careers, gourmet dinners, anonymous sexual encounters. And the more we rail, and the more we divert, and the more we wield our wild power over others, the more we begin to enter this game first cheering, then standing, then fighting with the other side--the side of the dead but never dying, the undead. <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/DSCN0635.jpg" alt="don't dump aborted kids in toilet thnx management" />08024834CommentDaniel2004-07-08T02:25:54stageuntitledThere we were, shoveling coal in western Montana, the fact of its rurality self-evident. She, striking in boots, jeans, orange vest and matching hard hat, her long, straight black hair running superlatively past her shoulders and resting mostly on the tips of her scapulas, some across her perfectly shaped breasts. Lift a shovel, drop it in the barrow, a sentence forms in the gray matter, moves across synapses, under the lungs, through the vocal chords, around the tongue, out of the mouth and into the air. One pile of black dirt dropped, one phrase passed across. Big Feet Come First, as you could guess by her name, is a miraculous creature even in that she survived her grand entrance into the world to begin with. And from henceforth, every man who has laid their eyes across her features has prayed a silent prayer of thanks to the Creator for seeing fit that she lived for him to see her. She was born on the Crow reservation to the southeast, of a full-blooded father and a distantly half-french mother. Her eyes sparkled as she spade her pile of coal with ease, sweat never dripping from her skin but providing a constant sheen never so authentically produced on a photography set. She has never been mocked for her name. No man would think to. No woman would dare to. "Feet" became the standard, as natural as Mary or Jane. Her shovel rotated above the dirty tureen and said, "So you don't have plans for after this?" I considered her clarifying question for a second, hefting a load through the air, "No. Haven't thought much beyond tomorrow, truth be told." A silent rotation, the shush-shush of falling dirt the only conversation of our unspoken thoughts. "Well, I'm going to beauty school." "Oh yeah?" my mouth spoke, and my mind continued, "Jesus-h-christ-right you are, you're practically on the cover of the textbooks. You're next to the dictionary entry for the word. People become beautiful just standing next to you. You are a walking beauty school." My out-loud voice picked it up again, "Where's that at?" "California," her gloved hand said, swallowing her perfect arm in its wide mouth, "this school called Stanford. Just opened." "Oh yeah?" my subconscious cursed my conscience for having no more intelligent things to say. "That's cool." "Yeah. I can't wait." And I imagined Feet taking over the world, from Montana to California and then back again, except zooming right on past here, going all the way around, leaving creation in her wake. 07104429FictionDaniel2004-07-07T10:44:12stagejust call me a gallery owner (although there is no ownership whatsoever) :)This is going to be the craziest month evAr. So Thursday I was walking to <a href="http://thegibsonco.com/">the gibson co</a> office to drop my rent check, and I noticed a storefront/residential space available on <a href="http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?location=l2Wd8efay%2fuL1f6HEbX0AWOQh366wfVZFE%2fIb%2fjt5rh%2fo6Kle0ih7C6DP8oPpxi17Ag%2bcVrIrfDdOTR6vxsxlvVls6eBMKfaty0D8cSuQbdH8pXsQaxUtr%2bO%2b2jgCsuawuVizdWLZSU%3d&address=Exposition%20Street%20&city=Dallas&state=TX&country=US">exposition</a>. Flashback w/in a flashback: last Friday <a href="http://soft_anonymous.blogspot.com/">KM</a> and I made a quick walk over to a gallery show in <a href="http://galleryeklektikos.com/">the space</a> next-door to the space in question, and in-between admiring the amazing art on display there I repeated, "This is exactly the kind of space I originally imagined for IR!" I did not notice the empty space next-door last Friday, but immediately put it together Thursday--it was almost identical. So while dropping the rent I made an inquiry--it is managed by the same company--and went to take a look. <img src="http://danielsjourney.com/blog/files/2004/07/DSCN2778.jpg" alt="" align="right" />Long story short: it was a lot less than I thought, and I negotiated a bit more out of the deal as well, and recruited <a href="http://www.sarahjanesemrad.com/">a partner who will be curating and working out of the gallery and office spaces</a>, and closed the whole deal...all in 24 hours. ...just in time for 600lbs of my crap from Bosnia to be delivered to the new place, leaving me with not-that-much stuff to move from my current location one street over. I'm planning on moving over the course of the next week. ...so here I am, stretched to the core in every way already, and entering into another high-risk venture...and I couldn't be more excited and positive...(and the <a href="http://www.tdfblog.com/">Tour de France</a> started today!) It's going to be an interesting few months here.03141848MinutiaDaniel2004-07-03T02:18:28stagefreakin' rock stars<img src="http://www.citylinkmagazine.com/images/063004musica3.jpg" align="right" /><a href="http://www.citylinkmagazine.com/musica.html">Check out the Freakin' Hott cover article</a> in this week's <a href="http://www.citylinkmagazine.com/">City Link</a>.<blockquote>If you just laugh, the joke's on you.</blockquote><blockquote>These disparate influences come together to build a dark vision of a world where sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll violently combine. In "Old Weird America," the title of which is taken from Greil Marcus' book about Bob Dylan, Gentry writes, "The people on the ground/Won't react to a sound/Until it's right above them/It's easy to fool the dead/It's easy to give them head/And not really love them."</blockquote>I've got the whole thing saved and will probably archive it here once it's off the City Link site.01115729MusicDaniel2004-07-01T11:48:03stage