Oh man, that would be great to be there for that show!

Well goll,

now this is just gettign plain sentimental.

But that's good. How often do we actually say these thigns which we should be saying every day to our friends, right?

Anyway, I suggest you come to SF on March 25th because my museum, The Museum of Viral Memory, is having our second show, a retrospective of my mother's work (the first show was a retrospective of my work). She'll be in attendance. I have a large space on the CCA campus. There will be 9 large drawings (3 foot by 6 foot), 5 or 6 quilts, china she painted, paintings from high school, reprints of MOM zine, and hundreds of postcards and drawings and ephemera, as well.

thanks, I guess it just points up the difference between one's inner emotional experience and one's persona. They're both real but they can seem pretty different. I think of them as two expressions of the same ultimate self, although I don't know if that is provably true. In astrological terms, it is the difference between moon sign (your subjective emotional experience of life) and ascendant/rising sign (the you that people see.) Both in turn are expressed within the general parameters of the Sun sign.
You've always been inspiring to me too, among other things for your ability to follow the muse very purely, doggedly, and productively. You are my model for the artist unswayed by anything other than what there is to do.

Well, I'm glad to hear it. i hate to think of you being glum. Moodiness may be your nature, but I've never ever thought of yo uas a glum fellow. Quite the opposite, your faith and optimism have always been inspiring to me.

Well, one thing to know about me is I have moods. That posting was a reflection of a mood. My moon sign is Pisces. Moooody. But prone just as well to intense infusions of joy and optimism.
I actually agree almost 100 percent with your reply. I'm not just saying that. I think from the geologic perspective quite often and it makes me happy, and my friends make me happy, and the Simpsons, well, I havn't owned a TV in two years now, but I'll probably buy an iPod next time my budget allows. Of course the "world" will not "end." But what we think of as our way of life (and more or less what I mean by "civilization",) that will end as it has many times for many societies.

Goll Dan,

Portland sure sounds gloomy. Is everything really that bleak? Is NOW really so terribly different from every other age? Don't you feel a little like the billions of others throughout recorded human history who wailed abouth the end times? My whole family, for instance, on the Mormon side has spent generation after generation believing that these truly are the last days. But, as long as Mormons have been around, they've been wrong about that.
It's one of the tenets of Christianity, as I understand it, that Christ's return and the judgement day are always just around the next bend.
I don't know, it almost seems to be a fixed aspect of human thinking to believe that everything is always getting worse, or that the world is always nearing its final hour. Certainly, many people are wired that way, though many are not. I for one find that sort of thinking unfathomable. I simply can not comprehend how any educated person could believe it. But, I know they do because many people I admire and respect immensely, yourself included, do feel that way. Personally, I'm just not wired like that.
Anyway, I disagree strongly with you. There have always been different types of people. There will always be an unwashed masses. Matter of fact, I'll probably always be one of them, or at least dodging about happily in their shadows. I don't have an ipod, but I do have an iriver 40GB player, a zen creative 30 gb player and a hi-md recorder. And over 500GB of mp3s to play on them.
Can you think of a time in your life when society wasn't declining?
If not, then what are you comparing these times against? Word of mouth, and please don't tell me you believe history is anything other than word-of-mouth, just so many opinions by folks who found a way to control information flow.
But that's never been any different.
Yeah, I hate Bush and I think the Iraq War was a reckless act carried out by arrogant, hateful, black hearted people.
But I think I would have hated Nixon and the Vietnam war.
And I hope I would have been opposed to the Korean war and McCarthyism. And perhaps the wars of conquest by Rome or Egypt.
Or maybe not.
My point being that humans have a tendency to fixate on the gloom. And to miss the geologic picture.
Personally, I reckon we're monkeys having a run on the planet. One which may be longer or shorter than the dinosaurs, who knows? Who cares? What's the big deal whether the species carries on or not? Does it really matter? Maybe if you believe in eternal life, but since I don't I just don't see how it could be all that important whether we're here in a million years or fifty years. Or next year. We're animals. Animals which really overrate our own worth and intelligence.
Earth doesn't need us. Earth will most likely recover from anything we do to her, just as she has recovered from numerous other global scale catastrophes. Life will most likely persist, even if it's not our particular monkey style life.
Life as we live it day to day is really incredible. Honestly, all I have to do is think about the incredible, magnificent complexity of life and the planet and the universe and the wondrousness of emotions, feeling, my God, think about feeling, feeling love and passion and lust and anger and hatred and jealousy, that's really incredible, though we take it for granted. Think about how long a time 70 years can be and how little time it really is.
And then I just don't know how you could not feel optimistic and upbeat. We're not the end all and be all. We're barely blips, but we can do so much with our time, create so much, be so kind, be so loving, do everything in our own limited power to be good people and live a life of example and even if we reach only one other person, my god, what an incredible connection we can make.
I don't care about civilization. I don't understand why you do. I care about my family and friends. And they bring me the most profound pleasure every day.
And fwiw, civilization as we know it is a pretty incredible hanger to hang that coat on. Y'know? My god, I love all the music and computers and my bike and telephones and IM and email and blogs and the simpsons and movie fests and being able to compose compositions that last several days and galleries where gloomy guses and optomistic annies can share their art and pictures of naked people. I love naked people and all the things they can do, mmmmmm.
I'm really glad that we have an idea of how to handle plagues when they hit now, as opposed to several hundred years ago. I think it's cool that despite HIV I can slip on a condom and have group sex.
And that I can take antibiotics when I get a viral infection from a spider's bite.
Yeah, these things are terrible and not everyone gets the benefits, so yeah my viewpoint is western and spoiled, but I don't know I'm not going to feel bad because I came into existence at a particular place in a particular time. That's just super weird self-hatred going on in my book. Again, if I believed i nan afterlife and had cut a deal with God in the pre-born days to get a cushy spot in America at its peak (or not) so that I could be an artsy oppressor, well then yeah, guilt would be appropriate. But, to the best of my knowledge I didn't cut any deals. My mas fucked my dad and the fluids mixed and I was born in Manhattan and moved around and so on and so forth. Really not an intentional decision to be an oppressor on my part at all.
And I htink by choosing the life I have I fairly address issues of oppression as best I can.
Anyway, miss you, come visit happy, shiny San Francisco where all the rain is this year.