nyc, cornflower blue

One source of frustration in the workplace is the frequent mismatch between what people must do and what people can do. When what they must do exceeds their capabilities, the result is anxiety. When what they must do falls short of their capabilities, the result is boredom. But when the match is just right, the results are glorious.
- Daniel H. Pink

books, although of course you end up becoming yourself

Nice to have your borders redefined by physical contact with another person... I'm not just a set of anxieties and ambitions. I'm a person confined to a limited range, realize your head is only a half-foot-long space, etc.

-David Lipsky (DL) speaking to David Foster Wallace (DFW)

Who do i live for, What do I believe in, What do I want? They're the sorts of questions that are so profound and so deep they sound banal when you say them out loud.

- DFW to DL

there is stuff that really good fiction can do that other forms (of literature) can't do so well. And the big thing, the big thing seems to be, sort of leapin' over that wall of self, and portraying inner experience. And setting up, I think, a kind of intimate conversation between two consciences.

- DFW to DL

(about someone willing to read Infinite Jest) A person who isn't always able to get the sense of intimacy they need in regular day-to-day intercourse

- DFW to DL

(about DFW dealing with IJ's acclaim) He seems a man determined to not enjoy these extras, like a man attending a party with a wife he secretly plans to leave. He is determined not to enjoy the process of being celebritified

- DL to tape-recorder

nyc, princeton company

nyc, robertas

ranch style


empty spaces


xmass lights


wet bench

books, do consider the lobster

I continue on the dfw stint:



In any event, at the Maine Lobster Festival (MLF), standing by the bubbling tanks outside the World's Largest Lobster Cooker, watching the fresh-caught lobsters pile over one another, wave their hobbled claws impotently, huddle in the rear corners, or scrabble frantically back from the glass as you approach, it is difficult not to sense that they're unhappy, or frightened, even if it's some rudimentary version of these feelings... and, again, why does rudimentariness even enter into it? Why is a primitive, inarticulate form of suffering less urgent or uncomfortable for the person who's helping to inflict it by paying for the food that it results in? I'm not trying to give you a PETA-like screed here—at least I don’t think so. I’m trying, rather, to work out and articulate some of the troubling questions that arise amid all the laughter and saltation and community pride of the Maine Lobster Festival. The truth is that if you, the Festival attendee, permit yourself to think that lobsters can suffer and would rather not, the MLF can begin to take on aspects of something like a Roman circus or medieval torture-fest.

Does that comparison seem a bit much? If so, exactly why? Or what about this one: Is it not possible that future generations will regard our own present agribusiness and eating practices in much the same way we now view Nero’s entertainments or Aztec sacrifices? My own immediate reaction is that such a comparison is hysterical, extreme—and yet the reason it seems extreme to me appears to be that I believe animals are less morally important than human beings; and when it comes to defending such a belief, even to myself, I have to acknowledge that (a) I have an obvious selfish interest in this belief, since I like to eat certain kinds of animals and want to be able to keep doing it, and (b) I have not succeeded in working out any sort of personal ethical system in which the belief is truly defensible instead of just selfishly convenient.

-David Foster Wallace

nyc, reiss

tina from reiss

window seat to nyc

Approaching Laguardia from s-w on a sunny day, it is a sight:

st-louis, in and out

our wing - late night take-off from nyc


the arch


home of


and out

nyc, leess

30

nyc, bushwick scenes

token band


groomingdales madame


between studios


intimacy


snoop


biker


ah..


bk

books, Self-Consciousness

We live in the twilight of the old morality: there is just enough to make us feel guilty, but not enough to hold us in.
-Updike

nyc, the red necklace

books, A Little Fable

"Alas," said the mouse, "the world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when at last I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into." "You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up.
-Kafka

nyc, bushwick artists

a walk through open studios:

books, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

A RADICALLY CONDENSED HISTORY OF POSTINDUSTRIAL LIFE

When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. She laughed extremely hard, hoping to be liked. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces.

The man who'd introduced them didn't much like either of them, though he acted as if he did, anxious as he was to preserve relations at all times. One never knew, after all, now did one now did one now did one.
-David Foster Wallace

to new york

exile on main street


joy division


sleigh bells


the national


breather

mtl, mother

20 year old mom (right)