I wrote in one of my little notebooks that I should take a picture of what was in front of me, every hour, on the hour, for a complete day. So Saturday I did just that. I missed midnight - I must have been on the road, driving to Thorton.
I realized, even though this idea is completely self evident, that ANY story that you write or tell or read is just sort of a selection of the events that may have unfolded. It's quite surreal to see a movie that takes about an hour and a half of viewing time, that encapsulates perhaps twenty years of time!
Using just time, you can skew events in any way that you want; you could take complete events out, extend certain events in comparrison, it's very flexibly in that one dimension - it's a subtractive process... like carving marble. And this is what every story is basically. If it weren't for this distillation, you'd have what would be analogous to a map that was as large as the area it was mapping out.
I read recently that we're about ten to fifteen years away from having the technology to store enough information to document one's life completely. What happens to the Story then?
Below shots are sort of a forced perspective of events that unfolded on Saturday - it's none more true or false than if I told you a straight out story of what happened to me that night; it's just simply different - I've given up much of what I want to tell you about the events; I will only tell you about what's in the shot.
11:00 am - I got up and went back to sleep until about 11:30 am, where I was awakened by the vinyl tile kitchen guys.
12:00 pm - I stayed in the bedroom as all the appliances were moved from the kitchen, into the living area
1:00 pm - I took my car to the Jiffy Lube on Leetsdale to top off the fluids and had breakfeast at a Starbucks next door. Prince was on the cover of the Arts/Culture newspaper insert.
2:00 pm - I worked the Andenken Gallery; not many people come into Art Galleries in the summer; I mostly do my own work; checking email, answering questions, bs'ing with the people who rent out studios. In the background is a giant white painting by Jerimiah, and a sculpture to the left from alex Beard.
3:00 pm - Calan is moving out of the studios soon; I may rent out his studio, but I'm a little wary living/working at Andenken. He's very frustrated and seemed to want to hang out with me, talk and continue to punch me in the shoulder. I don't much mind.
4:00 pm - Calan still hanging out, talking to me and punching me in the shoulder.
5:00 pm - Calan left, but I have no drive do much of anything.
6:00 pm - Taking a walk to Illegal Pete's to get some dinner, around the 16th street Bus Station
7:00 pm - Walking back from Illegal Pete's to the gallery, full.
8:00 pm - Wasting time, no drive to do any work, meeting Jack soon to go see Slim Sessna
9:00 pm - Mandy and I on my studio's balcony; waiting for Jack who is late, so we can all go see Slim Cessna's CD release party. Mandy is Calan's fiancŽ; she's frustrated too and I try to get advice from her about relationships.
10:00 pm - The opening act for Slim Cessna was a TV talk show Thing, featuring Mr. Pink as the host; Get Your Going just sang along to songs about Ford Cars and is getting interviewed at the moment. It was sort of a boring act.
11:00 pm - Slim Cessna's playing, although I'm more intrigued by the fact that Jello Biafra (of all people) is in the crowd, wearing the magenta Cowboy outfit. His face is being blocked by Jack. " This is how we do things in the Country", says Slim.
1:00 am - Went to Rollermania! after the show; 1:00 am saw me taking a quick piss.
2:00 am - The back of Harry C. Walter's head. Apparently, the "inventor" of Electroclash is the last DJ to play Rollermania, but Jack, Harry and myself leave, as do most everyone else.
3:00 am - back at my studio, looking down at where my computer just was.
4:00 am - brushing my teeth. Good night!
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