today is sadie's second birthday. she got some percussion instruments and a little sailboat for the bath and a doctor kit.

today is iris' ninth birthday. she's getting a new microscope.

dreamed i was in an old-growth forest, it was bitterly cold and damp, i was hacksawing the bark off a huge oak without much success. the hacksaw teeth were ineffectual on the hard, gray bark. rain was falling steadily in a grassy clearing nearby but it wasn't where i was, feet wedged amidst thick tumbled roots for leverage. i thought the bark was like elephant skin and i knew elephants would laugh at my futility and i could see in my mind a laughing elephant's eye. and i thought -- fucking elephants. my species is better than yours.

the tiny saw teeth made a sound like running your thumbnail along a comb's teeth but hardly left a mark. then i had an ice cream scoop, the kind with the spring-action tab that ejects the ball of ice cream from the bowl of the scoop. this i could get through the bark with the same kind of effort as with a slightly defrosted box of ice cream you let sit on the counter for five minutes before scooping. the tree inside under the skin scooped like cream but was a dry and solid mass like pulped, compressed photocopier paper or coconut. it was jet white. i scooped out scoopfuls and ejected them onto the roots below.

after a while i was having to reach well inside the scooped-out cavity i'd made in the tree and that hand and arm were frozen almost too stiff to use but still muscle twingey inside. then it changed and i was buried up to my shoulders amidst the root system and scooped pulp balls, in a dune of them against the tree's base. the back of my head leaned against the tree and my shoulders were protruding from the pulp dune but my arms were immobilized and the hands at the ends of them kind of disappeared into the soil beneath nearby trees. i was gigantic. my head was the size of a three-story house. people i knew were dressed in mountain climber jackets and goggles, ascending the pulp on ropes.

their climb was difficult. a crosswind stung them with frozen rain and they were in teams and shouted across encouragement to each other against the raw conditions, calling each other "blue team" and "red team." blue team got to my head first. they had pulled up a bundle of stiff metal cables like those used to secure a tall post or tower to points on the ground, the taut cable that goes down diagonally. blue team clambered inside my open mouth. then they drove two large metal spikes about six feet into my tongue. the spikes must have been alloy because the climbers could manipulate them easily, the heads of the spikes had a needle's eye and they threaded the cable ends through them. by this time red team had reached my mouth. they stood in there drinking broth out of thermoses, catching their breath, smoking. where the spikes went in hurt dully like through dental anesthetic.

the teams wriggled out of their packs and stacked them against the backs of the teeth. they took pictures and measurements and set up a rudimentary base, then some climbers started pulling the cables down into my throat. red team rappelled down into there with head lamps, echoing. blue team meanwhile took some cables and dug upwards through the soft tissue in back of the roof of my mouth. they worked their way up inside my head, there were tight corridors in there. i lost track of red team because blue team's noise was in my head.

the feeling of the dragging cables inside my skull was maddening. they were after the inner ears and behind the eyes, to fasten cable ends to them. where the optic nerve went into the back of the eyeball looked like how a sunflower stem goes into the head of the flower, with that node or knot capping the tendrils of the nerve. with tools they bent the cable around the node and wrapped it tight to itself like you do picture-hanging wire so it bit into the softness. then they started slathering some kind of hot caulky compound over the cable's loop with rubberized spreaders. they heated the compound in a stone crucible that one climber gingerly attended because it was white hot, it was precariously balanced in a tripod over a gas flame. the compound was going to help the optic nerve grow in a way to absorb the cable without it being a wound.

i guess the same thing was going on at my cochleae, and with red team down below somewhere. they were blasé about it all like this was their job. talking about what they would do later.

also i was salivating a lot because of the spikes oxidizing or something. like a 9volt battery.

that's all.

happy birthday marcel duchamp
would that we could work the martingale side by side

if you could be any number of painted lady butterflies, how many of them would you be?

and don't lie.

here are all your feelings:
adamant
admire
afraid
aggressive
agonize
agonizing
agonizingly
alarmed
alone
angry
annoy
anticipation
anxious
apathetic
apprehension
apprehensive
arrogant
aspire
astonish
awe
awful
bad
beleaguered
bewildered
bliss
blissful
boast
bored
brave
brutal
bully
care
careful
cautious
cherish
chortle
chuckle
clever
comfort
comfortable
compassion
compliment
compose
compromise
confident
conflict
confuse
confused
content
courage
crazy
cringe
criticism
cry
delight
delighted
depressed
deserve
despair
desperate
devotion
disappoint
disappointed
disappointment
discouraged
discuss
disdain
disgust
disgusting
dismay
display
dither
doubt
dreadful
dream
ecstatic
embarrass
embarrassed
emotion
empathy
enraged
enraptured
entranced
exasperated
excited
exciting
exhausted
express
expression
fair
fantastic
fear
feelings
fine
flabbergasted
flattered
friendly
frightened
frustrated
frustration
fun
furious
fuss
gasp
gently
glad
glorious
glum
good
great
grief
grimace
grumpy
guilty
happy
harm
hate
heart
helpless
honest
hope
hostile
humiliated
hungry
hurt
ignore
impatient
incorrigible
incredulous
indifferent
indignantly
intense
intimidate
irascible
jealous
jealousy
jittery
jolly
joy
joyful
kind
kiss
laugh
like
lonely
love
lovesick
mad
marvel
mature
mean
merriment
mischievous
miserable
mood
morose
mortification
mourn
nasty
nervous
nice
oblivious
obnoxious
obsessed
optimistic
ordinary
panic
passion
perplexed
pessimistic
petrified
phenomenal
phobia
pleasant
puzzled
rambunctious
regret
rejection
relieved
reluctant
resentment
resigned
respect
responsibility
revenge
revulsion
sad
satisfied
scary
seething
sensible
sentimental
serious
sheepish
shocked
sick
silly
smile
smitten
smug
sob
solemn
sorry
standoffishly
startle
sternly
strange
stress
stubborn
stupefied
sullen
surprised
suspicious
temper
tense
tension
terrible
thirsty
thrilled
timid
tired
tolerance
tremble
triumphantly
trust
unkind
upset
wince
woe
wonderful
worry
yearn

canned chance; an escape from taste

David Need is in New York and visited MOMA yesterday. He sent a note to a listserv we're on that he came upon Marcel Duchamp's Three Standard Stoppages. There are two artifacts by that title in MOMA -- a boxed set of three wooden templates and glass panels, and then a painting that uses the template shapes.

Duchamp took three meter-long strings and dropped them from a meter's height above treated canvas. Then he fixed them just how they landed, producing three wavering curves that he called stoppages and mounted on glass panels. Then he cut a wooden template along each of these three stoppages.

The whole lot fits in a repurposed croquet box, which gives it a sanctioned feel. Keep in mind that at this time (around the onset of WWI) the definition of the meter was the distance between two lines on a standard bar of 90% platinum and 10% iridium at 0° Celsius. Of course that distance was based on an erroneous geographical measurement...

The official box and the painstakingly traced and cut out templates are all an ironic expression of the impossibility and futility of an absolute measurement, of a means of understanding the world becoming a fetishized end in itself almost by dint of its being fixed within a physical medium. And of course we've taken it to a higher level of absurdity with the definition of the meter now -- it no longer has to do with the atomically indeterminate medium of matter; it's based on the speed of light in a vacuum, a quantum constant so far as we know.

Duchamp described the set as "canned chance," which he explained in an interview with Pierre Cabanne:

The idea of "chance," which many people were thinking about at the time, struck me... The intention consisted above all in forgetting the hand, since, fundamentally, even your hand is chance.
Pure chance interested me as a way of going against logical reality: to put something on a canvas, on a bit of paper, to associate the idea of a perpendicular thread a meter long falling from the height of one meter onto a horizontal plane, making its own deformation. This amused me. It's always the idea of "amusement" which causes me to do things, and repeated three times...
For me the number three is important, but simply from the numerical, not the esoteric, point of view: one is unity, two is double, duality, and three is the rest. When you've come to the word three, you have three million -- it's the same thing as three. I had decided that the things would be done three times to get what I wanted.

The crucial Duchampian concern of putting art at the service of the mind rather than the eye is expressed here, in two different ways. "Forgetting the hand" has to do with his rejection of taste and craft, using some kind of standardized measurement rather than a brushstroke or drawn line. And his numerical concern shows that the resultant artifact is a compilation or transcription of ideas instead of a mere image to look at on the gallery wall and judge against contemporary tastes.

He made the painting with the stoppages as an example of how to use them, kind of a placeholder painting, and maybe his penultimate one (Tu m' was his last, and intentionally so). Note that he uses three sets of the three stoppages.

This is all a key time for Duchamp, as he's rapidly transitioning from being a painter into a conceptual artist. A year before, he's exhausting the possibilities of Futurist and Cubist representation with the Nude Descending a Staircase #2 scandal at the Armory Show; the same year as the stoppages he's attaching a bicycle wheel to a stool in his Paris studio; the word "readymade" is coined the next year as he moves to New York and begins the Large Glass.

The whole stoppages project was really part of the metaphysical work that goes into the Large Glass (the bottom half of which is shown below), connecting the 9 "malic molds" on the left to the cones or "pistons." Again, 3 threes.

Duchamp described the Large Glass as "a delay in glass," which echoes the idea of a stoppage or some thing canned. He stopped working on it in the 20s, leaving it "definitively unfinished, and then it was famously shattered in transport in 1926. After that, the bulk of Duchamp's work becomes writing puns, conducting optical experiments, seeding Dadaism and Surrealism even while remaining ambivalent and peripheral to them, making boxed sets of miniatures of his preceding work, etc. All conceptual, not retinal. All the resultant artifacts were more or less discards to him.

Here's another interview chunk that I think David will appreciate:

Cabanne: When you were young, didn't you ever experience the desire to be artistically cultured?
Duchamp: Maybe, but it was a very mediocre desire. I would have wanted to work, but deep down I'm enormously lazy. I like living, breathing, better than working. I don't think that the work I've done can have any social importance in the future. Therefore, if you wish, my art would be that of living: each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral. It's a sort of constant euphoria.
Cabanne: That's what Roche said. Your best work has been the use of your time.
Duchamp: That's right. I really think that's right.

one two three four five six seven egiht nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen noienteen twenty twentyone twentytwo twentythree twentyfour twentyfive twentysix twentyseven twentyeight twentynine thirty thirtyone thirytwo thirtythree thirtyfour thirtyfive thirtysix thirtyseven thirtyeight thirtynone foorty fortyonefortytwo fortthree forthfour fourtyfive fortysix fortysevenfortyeight fortynine fifty fiftyone fiftytwo fiftythree fiftyfour fiftyfive fiftysix fiftyseven fiftyeight fifty noine sixty sixtyone sixtytwo sixtythree sixtyfour sixty five sixtysix sixtyseven sixtyeight sixtynine seventy seventyone seventytwo seventythree seventyfour seventyfive seventysix seventyseven seventyeight seventynine eighty eightyone eightytwo eightythree eighteyfour eightyfive eightysix eightyseven eightyeight eghtynine ninety nineytone ninetytwo ninetythree ninetyfour ninetyfive ninetysix ninetyseven ninetyeight ninetynien hundred hundredone hundredtwohundrenthree hundredfour hundredfive hundredsix hundredseven hundredeight hundred nine hundredten hundredeeven hundredtwelve hundredthirteen hundredfourteen hundredfifteen hundredsixteen hundredseventeen hundredeighteen hundrednineteen hundredtwenty hundredtwentyone hunderdtwentytwo hundredtwentythree thundredtwentyfour hundredtwentyfive hundredtwentysix hundredtwentyseven hundredtwentyeight hundredtwentynine hundredthirty hundredthirtyone hundredthirttwo hundredthirtythree hundredthirtyfour hundredthirtyfive hundredthirtyfive hundredthirtysix hundredthirtyseven hundredthirtyeight hundredthirtynine hundredtforty hundrefotryone hundredfortytwo hundredfortythtree hundredfortyfour hundredfortyfive hundredfortysix hundredfortyseven hundredfortyeight hundredfortynine hundredfifty and one two three four five sixseven 8 nine hundred sixty and one two three fourfivesix seven eight nine hundredseventy seventyone 70two 70three seventyfour hundred seventyfive hundred seventyseix hundredseventyseven hundredseventyeight hundredseventynine hundredeighty and onetwothreefourfive sixfseven eight ninehundredninety and hundern ninetyone hundredninetytwo hundredninetythree hundredninetyfour hundrendninetyfive hundredinnetysic hundrendninetyseven hundredninetyeight hundredninetyniene twohundred twohundredone twohundredtwo twohundredthree thwohundredfour twohundredfive twohundredsix twohundredseven twohundredeight twohundred nine twohundredten twohundredeleven twohundredtwelve twohundredthireteen twohundredfourteen twohundredfifteen twohundresxteen twohundreseventeentwohundredeighteen two hundrednineteen twohundredtwenty twohundredtwentyone twohundredtwentytw o222 twohundredtwentythree twohundredtwentyfour twohundredtwentyficve twohundredtwentysix twohundredtwentyseven twohundredtwentyeight twohundredtwentynine twonundredthirty twohundredthirtyone twohundredthirtytwo twohundrethirtythree twohundredthirtyfourtw ohundrethirtyfive twohundrethirtysix twohundredthirtyseven twohundrethirtyeight twohundredthirtnine twohundredforty twohundredfortyone twohundredfortyone twohundredfortytwo two hundredfortythree twohundrefortyfour 12squaredbitches twohundredfortyfive twohundredfortysix twohundredfortyseven twohunderdforyteight twohundredforytnine twohundrefifty towhundredfiftyone twohunderd fiftytwotwohundredfirftythree ohundern fifteyfour twohunrenfiftyfive ftowhundred fifty six twohunderdfiftyseven twohunderdfiftyeight twohundernfiftynien this is true

99% is closer to 0% than to 100%

Graphemes never mean

A living thing is not necessarily aware that it is in a medium

Inhale until your lungs are uncomfortably full

Native Spanish-speakers struggle with English because the graphemes and phonemes don’t correspond one-to-one like they do in Spanish

Things never touch

Don't let anyone else read this

Explain why the ending of “canoe” sounds just like that of “zoo” but different from that of “toe”

The concept of alphabetization is absent in Chinese; characters are grouped by their primary brushstroke and ordered within that group by number of brushstrokes

We put larger spaces between words than between letters to differentiate which sets of letters comprise each word and to discretely identify each word from the others in a text

This is not what you see

As in the example of the anglerfish, many animals have been given names that relate their behavior or characteristics to those of humans, often inaccurately so

If one decided subsequently to spell “differentiate” with a starting s instead of a starting d, people would be thrown briefly but then assume an error had been made and they’d disregard it

You are surveilling this

Comprehend these four words

In order to record a complete taxonomy of the animal kingdom, every unique individual must be identified as such

Every sixth word can be removed from a text and the meaning is not substantially interfered with

The faces of born-blind people look different from those of the sighted

Written language is an agent of isolation

Remove all the vowels from this

The chickadee is named after an approximate conversion of the sound of its call into English, although birds routinely add two or more dees to their calls and drop the middle a entirely

99% is 0%

You can't even touch yourself

i don't have time to read all about these things for the next few days but don't want to lose track of them:
Knuth's up-arrow notation
Graham's number
Skewes' number
Steinhaus-Moser notation

graphemes don't inherently mean anything. the occasional phoneme might though. do animals that live their entire lives in the aphotic sea have an essentially different conceptualization of movement or motion from me? or on second thought, of 3-dimensional direction? or, for that matter, sensation? native spanish-speaking grade-school kids struggle with english because the graphemes and phonemes don't correspond one-to-one like they do in spanish. explain why the ending of "canoe" sounds just like "zoo" but different from "toe." none of this is a problem, of course. the aphotic sea creature might not be aware that it is in a medium. but then how aware of air are people? it must be the same. wind and current, particulate matter and scent. there's no concept of alphabetization in chinese. chinese characters are grouped by their primary stroke and ordered within that group by number of brushstrokes. abyssal plains are incredibly level and monochromatic, although there's a lot of garbage down there, bottles and plastic objects. we put larger spaces between words than between letters so that you can differentiate which groups of letters comprise words and differentiate each word discretely from the others in a text. if the letters all touched then wouldn't that make all english words graphemes? how long would it take for people to forget the idea of letters? it's infuriating that the anglerfish is called that, that so many of the animals were given names that relate their behavior or characteristics to those of humans, and so many of these names simply are inaccurate. if from now on i spelled "differentiate" with a starting s instead of a starting d, people would probably be thrown for maybe a second or two but then just assume i had made an error and disregard it. but how many of this class of intentional errors could communication endure? supposedly every sixth word can be removed from a text and the meaning remains as gettable as if the text was intact. if you really wanted a complete taxonomy of the animal kingdom, every individual creature would be identified as such. but we're comfortable enough with species for now. why do the faces of born-blind people look so different from those of us who are sighted? what am i contributing to evolution? why did paul celan wait? what did my looking so closely at the evening thunderstorm clouds contribute to evolution? why have written language at all, doesn't it just isolate us from each other? the chickadee is named after an approximate conversion of the sound of its call into english, although birds routinely add two or more "dee"s to their calls and i've heard individual birds drop the middle a entirely. but the birds are undaunted.

it's interesting that creatures of the land and air realms are so consistent in their appearance and body shapes and orientations. but when you go underground or into the deep ocean -- places well below the planet's surface and out of the reach of sunlight -- the animals appear so strange and physically exaggerated.
truly i'm a creature of the surface, so the creatures on my surface make sense to me and are familiar as such. but i just navigate upon basically a plane, and orient myself primarily with sight.
you get down in lightless regions of a spatial realm like the deep ocean, it must be the same as existing in outer space. there's no front or back to many of the creatures. if they have colors or markings, it doesn't matter, and many anyways are translucent. it sounds like such a relief.