September’s Dispatch
Clarifications and additional information, intended for the recipients of the mailed September DispatchWithin the body of the letter, after writing, sending, and thinking on it, having restless dreams about it, I have these clarifications, notations, and edits:
- “the garbage show” / the use of the term “garbage” is a shout out to my friend and collaborator Spence, who uses that word fluently
- “between the bars” / this is the title of an Elliot Smith song that Christian and I listened to a lot back in 2010
- use of the word “lost” / meaning, the relationship ended (not due to death); hope that wasn’t misleading
- “But, I believe it...” / I’d like to edit this to read instead: “But, I believe it, I’ve seen my parents enact it.” (I love you Mom and Pop)
- “no posts to drape duration on” / a quote from “East of Eden” by J. Steinbeck, one of the few books I’ve read (orginally back in the fall of 2004, after being gifted the book from Rand). The next line is, “from nothing to nothing is no time at all.” Mary used that as the title back in March for an exhibit that included as a small portion of the exhibit a commentary on my life
- “Insecure with gaps and unknowns” / reference to the title of Lauren’s exhibit I saw just last week at the U of Idaho
- “I’m now more orbital” / more on this idea within this recent interview
- “I built...an avant guarde organization” / this should clarify to say “I built with the help of many of you an avant guarde organization” (I sincerely don’t mean to not recognize all the value of your support and work)
- regular appearance of “three” / coincidental, mostly, but also the best of the early prime numbers; also references triangles, the best and most sturdy shape
- shout outs to Rabbit Island and Common Field / looking back, I would not have named these organizations, as it sounds too “look at me, look who I know”; I instead would have just said “for an exhibit” and “at a conference”
- “creating diptychs” / a gave a recent presentation at Outpost Winona consisting solely of ditypchs and triptychs, one an image from the internet and a second (or third) from my life that closely relates to the internet (anonymous) image
- “megaphone” / Mary is always talking about wanting a $300 megaphone
- “is this thing working?” / a double reference to the “new administration” line earlier in the letter and to former President Obama’s first tweet post-presidency
- use of “periphery” / I don’t need to explain this, right? I guess there’s some new readers. I used to use the salutation, on every past letter, “from this frontier.” This edit recognizes my new positioning of myself and my work, namely away from Epicenter. Armando and I used to talk regularly, in a joking but also serious way, of starting a complementary organization down the street in Green River and calling it The Periphery.