conversational drift, informatic license, exquisite enclaves_by jouke kleerebezem
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28 February-12 March 2001
attention buys voice
Again yesterday (meaning Feb 27) I was reminded of Geuzen anchor Renée Turner's remark (in some forgotten context, but well placed): capital buys voice. This claim pops up in my mind ever once in a while. It's true. It was true. It will be true. In the light of the preparation of my Personal Publishing Pandemonium seminar at the Jan van Eyck Academy yet there's a lot to be said about it. What kind of capital are we talking about? What else but capital buys voice?
First it seems to me we should imagine 'voice', in a desperate system of unsigned opinions, or in one or another network economy of half-products. If voice means influence, power, we are facing interesting redistributions of it in online publishing. Or are we? MyOpia rules OK. Focus on attention. Out loud.
(unfinished, shut up and shelved)
27 February 2001
personal publishing pandemonium(from THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY -- PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer. When disturbed by his voice the ancient echoes clamor appropriate responses most gratifying to his pride of distinction)
drop snow
After cold, snow comes to the Moulin. Just when schlepping 15 cubic meter of fire wood from Gilles' shed to my basement.
hunger lag
...up since 4am, waiting for dessert...
ever impressive search
haha! the joke's on me...
26 February 2001
hi, you don't know me
People don't ask me anymore how I'm doing since they know. Complete strangers talk to me in the elevator, because they know. First thing in any mail I send is: read my blog. Hi, you don't know me. You know of me? I'm all love couldn't you tell? I'm under different skies than you are. My dinner's on a different plate. There's a hidden order only for me toguessconstruct. See you. Looking forward.
24-25 February 2001
whatever life
At Sunday morning's meeting of the 11 (9 men, 2 women) to-be-elected St. Germain des Bois (including Cervenon and Thurigny hamlets) council members including a new mayor, at my immediate right sat a retired man, a big man, short grey brush cut hair, who'd been a bûcheron (forestry worker) for all of his working life. His left ear deaf from chainsaw roar, he repeatedly sighed, proud and soft spoken he was, sighing over contemporary life, without resistance or anger, in peaceful irony, gently doubting why everything comes shrink wrapped, trayed, boxed, and packed, leaving us separating garbage forever. Before, they threw a paper 'round all merchandise—food or tool. Before, bottles and other glass containers had a deposit on them. Before, the water didn't taste like Eau de Javel (chloric). Before, we hadn't accumulated all the dirt and wasted so much resources. No anger. He's on a strict diet for cholesterol and whatever. Collected some dirt himself. He takes the salute 'here's to the crew for the next six years' drink, but refuses the sponge fingers that come with it. Got too much sugar on them. St. Germain des Bois has a yearly budget of FF400k ($50+k) to spend. The church needs restoration. The chapel in Cervenon needs demoussage, (getting off the moss of its roof, estimated at FF 7.500) after which it will be available for some cultural purpose, other than prayer. There's potholes in the road. We'll have to fence off the illegal garbage dump, force people to bring their waste to Tannay. All 11 will make a list of to do's. Our new mayor only has the use of his left hand. Gilles, president of the comité des fêtes, takes home 60 ballots and 60 envelopes, to be put in Thurigny mail boxes later this week.
give quick
Your mileage may vary. The good life is wine and dine and boogie an attention economy. 'Doing good and doing it well', doing the everyday, is yet another story.
morning view south from the alp side apt balcony
Alpe des Chaux
Splendid short week at 1750m altitude, with the piste just under 2000. Apart from the ultimate joy of spending 4 days exclusively picking up on my technique (I hadn't skied for almost 15 years... but it was like yesterday once on that slope, like my body remembered not only skiing, but even that particular terrain) and having R+r introduced to it, crashing at night and up early to get to the telecabine (not my favorite part, to be honest)—apart from the pleasures of übermüsli and other Swiss delights, the beauty of this mountain environment is stunning under every weather condition. All of which makes me swear to come back at least once a year, or best: trade the Amsterdam apartment for a small dark black wooden 200 year old chalet to spend the winter nights at a blazing fire sandwiched in sheep skin rugs loaded with vin chaud and Tête de Moine.
links
Tête de Moine ref 1
architecture and color
Along the north side of Geneva Lake, on our way back, we saw the splendor of colored architecture—bright orange and yellow and pink and ochre stuccoed villas—which supported my strong desire for a colored Moulin: lemoulindumerle.com meets ffcc66.com.
avant gardeMigros as a genre, new business
I'm very surprised to find an old acquaintance (Rein Wolfs) as the curator of the Migros Museum in Zürich. What happened? Searching for Floralp butter I visited the site of producing Migros (Swiss grocery chain), to be distracted by their profile as Kulturproduzent. Butter anyone? Migros appears to be a big Swiss player, financing schools, a museum and programs in contemporary culture. Rein can expect my mail.
links
Swear to god I was only shopping with them because of their price difference. Complicity... long time since I used that word.
complicities
Shopping with Migros, entering the French elections as a municipal candidate, having found a new cat at the occasion of the millennium photo, taken Saturday morning of the St. Germain des Bois (Cervenon and Thurigny) populace. Leaves one where on the scale of complicity? Mea Culpa re:visited.
engagement
Ah!, just remembered that other sympathetic long lost word for complicity: engagement. Thinking about 'a good life' or 'the good life' or 'my whatever life' Paul sends me a mail exactly about 'good life' and links to our friend Des Esseintes (Alamut, 23 Feb). My personal Huysmans pilgrimage leads to the Bièvre river, which' decline and loss JK describes in La Bièvre, 1890, published in Dutch by Reflex in 1983, and refered to in NQP about a year ago.
Off to the Sunday Morning meet and greet and toast of the yet to be elected council meeting.
23 February 2001
Alpe des Chaux (was: Villars)
was terrific. Me:morable. Over the next days I have to see what I re:collect. One trick my body didn't forget though: going down a slope on two waxed planks. R+r were a downhill riot. If some things do come natural, fear certainly doesn't. Later.
17 February 2001
s/helf help
a personal publishing pandemonium
re: key: read: write: re:cursive: re:concile
the documented life ( journal; diary; work; leisure; density of communication )
life extension: the graphy as bio ( real time publicity as privacy )
P2P peer-to-peer agency ( studio reality, the reality studio )
talking back to capital (media) industries ( post-napster )
media abundance, media mobility ( compulsory reading )
channel customization ( exteriorized memory )
future selves ( s/helved s/he lived )
search in a bottle ( washing up from the sea of possibilities )
data mining ( post-dejanews )
artificial intelligence ( pattern recognition )
a document / half-document: half-products, half-truths, half-selves
plenty posteriorities: oeuvre, will, clone ( a self job )
a propos publishing post scriptum
design is an intervention in any mediating process, in which data are turned into information to establish communication.
the means/competences of design (intervention) are those which define all acts of communication: (data) selection, retrieval, processing, ordering, articulation, visualization, editing, distribution, monitoring, recycling etc.
cheap scenario
This morning I dreamt that I got killed by a cross-shaped flying knife that hit me in the neck, fired at me from a gun, by one of the sect members. I was part of some unarmed task force searching a building for prisoners. We ourselves kept one hostage, who was going to show us where their prisoners were locked away. This guy was a very thin and whimsy man. At some point my colleagues took him away and I waited for their return in a room with two bored dopey (sect, right?) Asian girls, watching television. Then I heard a bell like sound, at which the girls left like in trance, joining a whole stream of people to have dinner, as I imagined. They sleep walked off in what looked like a shower of glitter, streaming with light. The next moment I found a badge that I suspected to control these people. I hesitated to wear it, decided not to take the risk. I sneaked out the main door to wait outside for my friends to return and finish our job. One girl joined me, I still don't know whose side she was on. Unexpectedly a lot of interesting gear was rolled out, a pit was opened at 50ft. from us. A guy with two cylinders strapped on descended it. I realized they were going to blow up the place, while in the distance at the other end I saw our troops entering. When I ran off to warn them the knife hit me.
Immediately after I was in a gun shop comparing my skills on a regular rifle and a knife throwing weapon. These knifes were small disks. The gun I fired hit just above mark, not bad for a first try. When about to try the knife thrower I was afraid I would send it into the shop's glass vitrines.
16 February 2001
self job
take note
chocolate god balancing act surprise performance
eeeek! i've seen the face of god, and it's chocolate muffin. i've seen horse in the prairie, and it's coco. i've seen the red tin bus, and it was david thomas. i've seen all form, and it's all content. i've seen irremediable narrative, all reconciliation. i've seen darkness, all was light. i've seen air, all water. i've bent over in front of the mirror and seen all of me all of the time upside down. i've seen evil, but all's god. i've seen synchronicity in love. i've seen all in one and one in all. then i've seen you before, déja nous. go figure. all's ends dressed up as beginnings.
extra
moon boot trip loot deck done / earth kick tour prize brood over
s/helf
My dedicated selves haven't re:covered from seriously divided attention. Good thing both snow and green florid Alp weiden are awaiting us in Villars CH. Strange weather indeed. This blurb is primarily intended to be over 5O characters, to test my visibility at weblogs.com, in order to end up again with the 'favorites' of Generosity. Expect no serious updates here before that's settled. We only deliver when all windows open onto us. I took the opportunity to remove the dots from the Acronym. And here's a local URL to wet your appetite for the slow life.
now playing
The Music of John Philip Sousa, '18 Great American Marches', and 'A Natural Wonder, Pond Life', a pool of tranquility.
15 February 2001
hallelujah! this crap is alright
JTLYN I've returned to paradise last night. 8-14 February having been as exhaustive as rewarding. Been there, seen some. Not having had my attention being divided since a long time, I have to see how to piece opportunities together and perform here at the same time. Ce n'est pas evident.
make things up, re:concile
...get a self job, re:verse priorities, write a life before its biographiesanalyzeparalyze you, rule being over meaning, andfuckduck public opinion. Avoid grid blog.
7 February 2001
Mitsu, related
When I cried out for cross-link detection recently, Mitsu sent me the Google 'related site' search option which I had been unaware of (if only because northernlight.com is my favorite search engine). So as a service of private/public relations here are.
<related to nqpaofu>
<related to lemoulindumerle>
<related to idie>
find the seven differences
Remember, when reminded: 'In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the <number of returns> already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included', don't hesitate to so do. Can't refuse. And try this on your own URL to see if it makes any sense. Any, always. See how that makes sense? (David Thomas, Pere Ubu):
"I am like... A Red Tin Bus,
made in Taiwan,
people's faces
are painted upon"
one more Mitsu for the road, then back to <syntheticzero, related>
Got his mail this morning: 'It was very refreshing and somehow very _real_ to visit your house and family at the end of my journey.' It was our pleasure. Have a safe flight home, man. See you in Portland one day.
6 February 2001
pitch 'n check
We're singing two songs for one cent, as they say in NL. Feel like doing that half of my time, when dealing with the other commission. Time spent on explaining, planning, organizing, discussing—repeating: time lost. Just get together in a garage and do the damn thing that is to be done. 'Man gotta do what he gotta do', as Mel Chin kept reminding us. Seems like any interaction to be productive, a thrill, a riot, a work, needs to take place in that one environment of erratic immediacy which is where the artist works. I mean Works. The environment that Works for the artist. All other places being board rooms and brothels.
Mitsu, noon
just called from some hotel near Troyes, where he had checked in this morning around 2. He'll be here in another two hours.
check, 10pm
Man... that Mitsu man. One minute he's here, the next he's off to catch a plane in Paris. Actually he couldn't change his flight, which leaves 10.30am tomorrow, meaning you'd have to leave here like 4-ish to be sure to be able to return that car at GdL, and connect to the CdG airport. So he stays with a friend in Paris tonight. But it was a pleasure to meet chest-to-chest, and share some thoughts and ideas. Just quick interaction. Good thing we read each other's weblogs.
5 February 2001
muddy at the moulin
we are awaiting the arrival of Mitsu, who is on his way from London in a rented vehicle, but delayed by tube strikes and download speed. Talvin Singh and Amar have alternately been filling the soundscape all week-end. That's all for the moment. Oh, and I love shining shoes. Black. Brown. Orange ochre.
4 February 2001
Thurigny
Comme chaque année,
le comité des fêtes de Saint Germain des Bois
sera heureux de vous acceuillir
à l'occasion de son repas hivernal,
le 4 février à 12 h 00
à la salle des fêtes de Thurigny.
Au Menu
Kir
Paella
Fromage
Fondant au chocolat et sa crème anglaise
Café
Boissons
Demos de Clamecy's paella couldn't have been better. But it took a while before we got to eat it. The kids soon were bored and sat hungry and silently at their table in the middle of the room. I was hungry too and waiting for some action, but I know things have to gather momentum. Then, if there's one good and one not so good (but what is it that's not so good about it...) bottle of homemade cassis, the Kir gets delayed to start with. The entire comité cramps in the tiny salle des fêtes pantry to compare tastes and mixes. Hmm. Could it be the container, the casket it was stocked in, is there not enough sugar, or too much in the other one, try adding more wine, did you get a taste of this glass, look at that color, ah, there's Nico, would you taste this Kir please? What do you make of it? A comité which's only agenda is to decide about four village meals yearly, spending at least eight meetings of at least 4 hours each on the subject, is a serious panel when it comes to Kir testing, let me tell you. So finally the drinks went out to the tables in their optimal mix, the kids had their Rik et Rok beverages and we were ready to party.
Gil, président du comité, had only just managed to cram the bulky oven into his sedan this morning at Demos. Inside were the plates and two oversized containers. Wine and dine was served at the tables by the comité, who ate between courses and incidentally joined the table. I bumped into my Gil several times. The comité members took turns at entertaining the kids when they were getting adventurous and ran outside. After desert and coffee all kids were back at their table drawing. We played cards and cheated. When we left after cleaning up, Gil-the-president asked me when I would be available for a first meeting of the council-to-be. Of course there's election in March, but there are as many candidates as there are vacancies—so for your next public project in St. Germain des Bois send me your business proposals.
meeting gaze: Rolf photographed Mathilde at the repas hivernal
2 February 2001
easy come, easy go, easyEmpire
Unlike yesterday this afternoon the Boulevard de Sébastopol easyEmpire wasn't that hospitable to me. First, the queue is always in the street. If there's like over 15 people waiting to donate, the line continues outside, exposed to whatever the weather of the moment is. Paris was rain this afternoon. Then I found my account 'blocked', whatever that means. On my way out over to the Centre Beaubourg, one block east, I noticed a window sign stating that under 16 year olds are only admitted under parental supervision... Well, here's to the liberal French.
Before I had successfully shopped for Talvin Singh ('OK') and Amar ('Outside') at FNAC. In their book department I bought La dynamique du capitalisme by Fernand Braudel (who is generously referred to in Manuel Delanda's 1000 years etc.), and an interesting title by another historian, Alain Corbin (Paris-I-Panthéon-Sorbonne): Les cloches de la terre; Paysage sonore et culture sensible dans les campagnes au XIX siècle. On the French auditory landscape in the 19th century, what the village bells meant and when they sounded and why they were shut up.
- Les sonneries rurales du XIXe siècle, devenues bruit d'un autre temps, étaient écoutées, appréciées selon un système d'affects aujourd'hui disparu. Elles témoignaient d'un autre rapport au monde et au sacré, d'une autre manière de s'inscrire dans le temps et dans l'espace, et aussi de les éprouver. La lecture de l'environnement sonore entrait alors dans des procédures de construction des identités, individuelles et communautaires.
paper trail
The most striking news in the many 1 and 2 February newspapers that I read (Volkskrant, Le Monde, De Standaard, Financial Times, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung—FT being the most interesting read) on my trip back and forth to Maastricht (GOGI in 36.5 hours, for a 4 hour meeting...) was the fact that Sony is likely (they applied for a license) to start an online bank in Japan ('Sony Bank Corporation') to 'hook customers in a seamless loop of products and services, ranging through electronics, Internet connections, insurance and finance'. This fits in with a story I heard almost three years ago, on closing the loops at Sony. Do I hear 'play money'? Secondly, the Netherlands social housing corporation Sint-Servatius (from Maastricht) starts building in Belgium (in nearby Liège). Since last January 1, Dutch who buy in Belgium can tax deduct their mortgage interest with Dutch income taxes. Now Sony provides the mortgages. One more FYI item: the hamlet of Modalen, in one of Norway's 'rugged' fjord valleys, is 'one of the world's first fully broadband communities', http://www.modalen.com.
Beaubourg boogie to the .beat
ROI for my acquisition beating the horizon? 2.5 more years to go before Rolf's 10th birthday. The Beaubourg ceiling suspends above clock.
31 January 2001
tiling
(I'm playing around with aha! nested tables and background patterns. It's still très Nest (website not up to par with print publication), I admit. But that mag's the only aesthetic challenge in today's interior decoration, definitely. I just received the missing back issues, all 4 of them, including the unbuttonable #3 and the Scratch and Sniff issue. Ever since I'm seeing these patterns: wallpapers everywhere, tiles on walls and floors, wallpaper on the ceiling of the bureau, symmetries, repetition. So the recovered Mavica is working its miracles for the Moulin's site, like it did for NQPAOFU 38).
30 January 2001
nous in the know
Today marks Judith Zissman's birthday. Judith's personal notes are published over at calamondin.com, as you well know. She's a keen observer who doesn't hesitate to freely mix and match the private and the professional and the political, while being aware like any of us, of the grand risk of being bored with that limited format of daily stutterance, which makes out the 'weblog'. Unless you live around the corner of her San Francisco apartment however (like fraternettes Caterina and Heather), daily calamondin.com is as much Judith as one is likely to get in a lifetime, with homeopathic doses of additional e/snail mail in certain cases, at certain intervals. Your mixed bag of networking acts simply exists in narrow, narrower and narrowest casts, and their clever temporary arrangement, distribution and linkage. That's the idea.
Yesterday she refers to my congratulatory mail of last year, which hailed odd number b'days, like 29 (which even is a prime, CTTOI). Now thirty is 2 times 3 times 5, which allows for many possible explanations of how one gets to count that number of years. This year I wish her abundant joy in numbering up unlimited. All of life being lentes and summers to come and count.
28 January 2001
viewfinder
Just staring at your computer developing the same gaze you have in front of an unfinished canvas, a piece of paper with some or no doodles on it, looking through the viewfinder pointing your camera around, unfocused, you anticipate. Glad to be back where anticipation lives.
26 January 2001
mourning
While in Maastricht at the Jan van Eyck Akademie, last Tuesday when I called home in the early morning I got Rolf crying on the phone, breaking the news that they had found Pootjes dead on the road that morning. He'd been run over in front of the house, after having lived with us for just one year, since we got him as a kitten before Christmas 1999. He crossed that road every night several times. There's only a few cars a day passing. His soul now lives inside Rolf—as he said to Gil, after they had burried him. He was so sad and I'm so frustrated to be away from home when this happens. Damn.
19 January 2001
no litter
This morning when returning from taking R+r to school (missed the bus) I realized our 1.78 hectares Moulin du Merle patch of land never litters. Ever. We ourselves pick up everything we drop. The grounds are surrounded by walls, hedges, the river. Outside its borders there's little litter and whatever there is doesn't move in. Can you imagine I'm never to find a candy wrapper or softdrink can or paper cup across my path.
18 January 2001
pile order top (smallest) down (largest)
AD 8, Decembre 2000-Janvier 2001
The World of Interiors December 2000
The World of Interiors August 2000
The World of Interiors November 2000
Nest 11, Winter 2000-2001
Gardens Illustrated 40, March 1999
Gardens Illustrated 55, September 2000
Gardens Illustrated 48, December 1999 January 2000
Gardens Illustrated 44, July 1999
Gardens Illustrated 43, June 1999
Gardens Illustrated 39, February 1999
wallpaper 34, December 2000
wallpaper 32, October 2000
domus 821, December 1999
nqpaofu.com 2001 jouke kleerebezem
