From the NYTimes
"With a crush of cameras whirring in the hearing room, and one lawmaker snapping pictures with his cellphone, the 33-year-old Ms. Goodling took her seat in the witness chair for five hours of testimony that brought Congress little closer to understanding the administration’s motives for the dismissals."
Weird.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Kings of Sleep
I enter a dark room. The ceiling is high enough above me that I cannot see it and so can only imagine the size of the hall. To my left and right are marble columns, short. I feel that the room is rectangular and in the distance I can make out the shape of a stairway, short and broad, reflecting what dim light there is. There are statutes and they are alabaster, glowing in their eerie way. I enter the room. There is a girl with me, familiar but unknown. Together we make no sound and there is no sound in the hall. This place belongs in some way to the Marquis de Sade.
Shortly I see something suspended from the blackness above. A small object on a silver wire. The things in this place are all reflective; not like mirrors, but as if they’ve absorbed what miniscule ambient light there is and over the centuries have stored enough of it to glow continuously. The wire is nearly invisible and at the end of it is a finger, human and thin. It hangs just above my eyes and I can see that it is real and was cut from a hand. We are unsettled. My companion is frightened but I am fascinated and feel urged to press on. We come upon other suspended parts, limbs, and I see that they hang everywhere. What I had thought were sculptures were these hanging things. But they are not real. I was mistaken and they are made of ivory and alabaster. They are absolutely still and there is no wind in this place.
We reach the stairs and they are huge, slabs of green marble veined in white that stretch twenty feet in either direction. The staircase becomes narrower toward the top and when we reach the floor above is only ten feet wide. To my left is a glass room. At the corners are columns like those I saw at the entrance to the hall. The darkness here is green and luminous. The floor is black and glossy, like the green marble but dark and somehow absorbent. I can see that the glass room is filled with artifacts and I know I am in a museum and these are relics of the Divine Marquis.
The door of the room is glass and rimmed in copper, slightly greened with age so that it matches the hue of the marble and of the darkness. It is thick, perhaps four inches, and as I see it edge on I notice something suspended there which was invisible from outside. I pass through the doorway and close the door, and in it I see bones, old and yellow-tinged. I still see the space outside, and the railing made of the same stone as the stairs. Beyond is black. All around me, inside the room, the glass is full of bones. There are cases of objects and from each side they hold something different. There are hundreds of rooms in this one space. In the glass I can see the fantasies of de Sade, but dead, inanimate.
Each case is two feet square and reaches from the floor to the ceiling, which is nine feet above me. From the floor, the same green-black marble, to my waist, the cases are solid. They are green marble, veined with white. Above that is glass until the ceiling. There are glass shelves in the cases and on those rest the artifacts. There is no way to open the cases. There are four rows and the corridors between cases are two feet wide. Along the perimeter of the room are low cases, like those in a jeweler’s, and in them are silver things on black velvet.
As I walk among the cases I am unsure where the door is. There are thousands of cases, millions of artifacts. The place is endless and while all the cases are transparent I know that from the other side their contents will be different. Like the door, there are things suspended in the cases only visible from certain sides. I cannot see myself reflected in the glass and when I realize this I reach into one of the cases. There is no glass and I take an artifact, slipping it into my pocket. I take several more things and then we leave, as a curator has come to the door. Somehow I know this woman and I am known to her. She says that the museum is closing for the day and that she has something to show us.
On the way out I realize that I will have to pass through anti-theft devices. My palms sweat and I am nervous, but I am an expert thief. At the last moment the woman leads us around the security, which now looks like an airport. There are people trying to enter the museum – they are all being searched by guards, who wave their howling wands over each person and I know they will never move, they will never be allowed access and they will never be turned away. We leave the building and it is raining hard, the drops like steel falling to earth. Before us is a small plane and beyond that is a forest. We are in the middle of a forest and there are no roads.
There is sand beneath me. It is too difficult to walk, so I decide to crawl. I try to swim through the sand, passed on the right by people walking in the other direction. I wonder why they aren’t having the same trouble I am. There are trees lining the road and I know I’m somewhere near Amherst College. I think I’m on a road that runs around the perimeter of the campus, but all the trees are too short and too strange. The air is dry and golden – maybe it’s full of dust, but it doesn’t seem to bother me. I don’t even notice my breathing.
Eventually I get to my feet. The sand here is easier to walk on. There are buildings to my right now, as I climb a shallow grade. Far to the left are hills, and before that a valley. What green there is is dull. Mostly I see the yellow of dust, without desert. I don’t have the sense that I’m on a natural hill. More like the remnants of some huge destruction – a big pile of finely crushed rubble. I see the tracks left in the sand by earth movers. The road is wide now, not lined with trees. On my right the buildings are dark against the landscape, which is lit harshly by the sun. They cast short shadows; it is high noon.
I’m not sure what alerts me, maybe a sixth sense, but there is someone behind me. He is 25 feet away. The sand, while harder now, is still causing me to lope in a strange way. The figure behind me seems somehow deformed or crippled as I look again. He is closer this time and I turn look where I’m going. I sense that the figure is very near and so I turn quickly to grapple him; I strike him once, get him around the neck and I’m surprised at how weak he is, how formless and how thin. He is deformed, but I’m unsure how. I know immediately that he is crazy and I decide to bring him to the asylum at Amherst, to be treated.
He says nothing as I walk, and he does not struggle. He is light. The sand does not give under my feet now and my stride is normal, strong. I feel aggressive and righteous. I reach the asylum door, which is imbedded in the base of a hill. It looks like a hatch and is open when I arrive. I know my way here, in the concrete tunnels. I have the general sense that there is a spiral pattern to the structure. I ascend multiple short flights of stairs and have forgotten my burden. I meet a nurse and I tell her that I’ve brought someone in need of treatment.
The nurse is sweet, and kind. She is wearing a white lab coat and carries a metal clipboard. The light is yellow, like dust. I continue up the stairs, without the figure, but without seeing him go. The nurse has told me to go to the office. There are steel railings now, in some places, where there is only one wall. The other side of the stairway is open to some sort of atrium that I can’t see. I take many turns and ascend many stairs and finally I come into a open space, a large foyer. I believe I see the mother of a girl I know. But this woman is dark in complexion, and her hair is a rich brown, when I know that the girl’s mother is fair and blonde. I approach the desk of the hospital and tell the receptionist what has happened.
She directs me to the place where he is to be kept. She says that I should go up the stairs at the end of the foyer, in the direction from whence I came. There is a sign saying that this route will lead me to the swimming pool. I climb another short stairway, curved to the left, yellow walls and a red railing, onto a platform 15 feet above the floor. I am deep under ground.
I reach another hatch. The door is made of steel and is ochre-blue, like the sea stretched thin over a beach. On the door are red letters, and they say:
SWIMMING POOL
SCHUYLER’S ROOM WITH A VIEW
I am confused and I look to the left. There is a window and when I approach the railing I can see down into the pool. There are two men there on the deck, and they look up at me, wet, draped in white towels. The water is green. I return to the door and I step through, pushing the door easily and it makes no sound. I am on a catwalk overlooking the pool. I’m in the same room as the pool now and I can hear the lapping of the water and the footsteps of the men. To my left is a narrow stairway, darker than the others and I climb it. I find myself in a room, not large, not small. The floor is yellow, like the sand and the concrete, but somehow I can see through it into the rest of the asylum. It’s as if I’m at the very top of a cone and the asylum fills the rest of the space, which is huge. There are people moving here and there in the tunnels and on the stairs. There are no other rooms like mine. There are no other prisoners.
Shortly I see something suspended from the blackness above. A small object on a silver wire. The things in this place are all reflective; not like mirrors, but as if they’ve absorbed what miniscule ambient light there is and over the centuries have stored enough of it to glow continuously. The wire is nearly invisible and at the end of it is a finger, human and thin. It hangs just above my eyes and I can see that it is real and was cut from a hand. We are unsettled. My companion is frightened but I am fascinated and feel urged to press on. We come upon other suspended parts, limbs, and I see that they hang everywhere. What I had thought were sculptures were these hanging things. But they are not real. I was mistaken and they are made of ivory and alabaster. They are absolutely still and there is no wind in this place.
We reach the stairs and they are huge, slabs of green marble veined in white that stretch twenty feet in either direction. The staircase becomes narrower toward the top and when we reach the floor above is only ten feet wide. To my left is a glass room. At the corners are columns like those I saw at the entrance to the hall. The darkness here is green and luminous. The floor is black and glossy, like the green marble but dark and somehow absorbent. I can see that the glass room is filled with artifacts and I know I am in a museum and these are relics of the Divine Marquis.
The door of the room is glass and rimmed in copper, slightly greened with age so that it matches the hue of the marble and of the darkness. It is thick, perhaps four inches, and as I see it edge on I notice something suspended there which was invisible from outside. I pass through the doorway and close the door, and in it I see bones, old and yellow-tinged. I still see the space outside, and the railing made of the same stone as the stairs. Beyond is black. All around me, inside the room, the glass is full of bones. There are cases of objects and from each side they hold something different. There are hundreds of rooms in this one space. In the glass I can see the fantasies of de Sade, but dead, inanimate.
Each case is two feet square and reaches from the floor to the ceiling, which is nine feet above me. From the floor, the same green-black marble, to my waist, the cases are solid. They are green marble, veined with white. Above that is glass until the ceiling. There are glass shelves in the cases and on those rest the artifacts. There is no way to open the cases. There are four rows and the corridors between cases are two feet wide. Along the perimeter of the room are low cases, like those in a jeweler’s, and in them are silver things on black velvet.
As I walk among the cases I am unsure where the door is. There are thousands of cases, millions of artifacts. The place is endless and while all the cases are transparent I know that from the other side their contents will be different. Like the door, there are things suspended in the cases only visible from certain sides. I cannot see myself reflected in the glass and when I realize this I reach into one of the cases. There is no glass and I take an artifact, slipping it into my pocket. I take several more things and then we leave, as a curator has come to the door. Somehow I know this woman and I am known to her. She says that the museum is closing for the day and that she has something to show us.
On the way out I realize that I will have to pass through anti-theft devices. My palms sweat and I am nervous, but I am an expert thief. At the last moment the woman leads us around the security, which now looks like an airport. There are people trying to enter the museum – they are all being searched by guards, who wave their howling wands over each person and I know they will never move, they will never be allowed access and they will never be turned away. We leave the building and it is raining hard, the drops like steel falling to earth. Before us is a small plane and beyond that is a forest. We are in the middle of a forest and there are no roads.
There is sand beneath me. It is too difficult to walk, so I decide to crawl. I try to swim through the sand, passed on the right by people walking in the other direction. I wonder why they aren’t having the same trouble I am. There are trees lining the road and I know I’m somewhere near Amherst College. I think I’m on a road that runs around the perimeter of the campus, but all the trees are too short and too strange. The air is dry and golden – maybe it’s full of dust, but it doesn’t seem to bother me. I don’t even notice my breathing.
Eventually I get to my feet. The sand here is easier to walk on. There are buildings to my right now, as I climb a shallow grade. Far to the left are hills, and before that a valley. What green there is is dull. Mostly I see the yellow of dust, without desert. I don’t have the sense that I’m on a natural hill. More like the remnants of some huge destruction – a big pile of finely crushed rubble. I see the tracks left in the sand by earth movers. The road is wide now, not lined with trees. On my right the buildings are dark against the landscape, which is lit harshly by the sun. They cast short shadows; it is high noon.
I’m not sure what alerts me, maybe a sixth sense, but there is someone behind me. He is 25 feet away. The sand, while harder now, is still causing me to lope in a strange way. The figure behind me seems somehow deformed or crippled as I look again. He is closer this time and I turn look where I’m going. I sense that the figure is very near and so I turn quickly to grapple him; I strike him once, get him around the neck and I’m surprised at how weak he is, how formless and how thin. He is deformed, but I’m unsure how. I know immediately that he is crazy and I decide to bring him to the asylum at Amherst, to be treated.
He says nothing as I walk, and he does not struggle. He is light. The sand does not give under my feet now and my stride is normal, strong. I feel aggressive and righteous. I reach the asylum door, which is imbedded in the base of a hill. It looks like a hatch and is open when I arrive. I know my way here, in the concrete tunnels. I have the general sense that there is a spiral pattern to the structure. I ascend multiple short flights of stairs and have forgotten my burden. I meet a nurse and I tell her that I’ve brought someone in need of treatment.
The nurse is sweet, and kind. She is wearing a white lab coat and carries a metal clipboard. The light is yellow, like dust. I continue up the stairs, without the figure, but without seeing him go. The nurse has told me to go to the office. There are steel railings now, in some places, where there is only one wall. The other side of the stairway is open to some sort of atrium that I can’t see. I take many turns and ascend many stairs and finally I come into a open space, a large foyer. I believe I see the mother of a girl I know. But this woman is dark in complexion, and her hair is a rich brown, when I know that the girl’s mother is fair and blonde. I approach the desk of the hospital and tell the receptionist what has happened.
She directs me to the place where he is to be kept. She says that I should go up the stairs at the end of the foyer, in the direction from whence I came. There is a sign saying that this route will lead me to the swimming pool. I climb another short stairway, curved to the left, yellow walls and a red railing, onto a platform 15 feet above the floor. I am deep under ground.
I reach another hatch. The door is made of steel and is ochre-blue, like the sea stretched thin over a beach. On the door are red letters, and they say:
SWIMMING POOL
SCHUYLER’S ROOM WITH A VIEW
I am confused and I look to the left. There is a window and when I approach the railing I can see down into the pool. There are two men there on the deck, and they look up at me, wet, draped in white towels. The water is green. I return to the door and I step through, pushing the door easily and it makes no sound. I am on a catwalk overlooking the pool. I’m in the same room as the pool now and I can hear the lapping of the water and the footsteps of the men. To my left is a narrow stairway, darker than the others and I climb it. I find myself in a room, not large, not small. The floor is yellow, like the sand and the concrete, but somehow I can see through it into the rest of the asylum. It’s as if I’m at the very top of a cone and the asylum fills the rest of the space, which is huge. There are people moving here and there in the tunnels and on the stairs. There are no other rooms like mine. There are no other prisoners.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Baseball
Today I hit baseballs for the first time in years. I can't remember how long it's been since I went out to a field and smashed pop-fly after pop-fly for my friends to catch.
It took me a while to remember how to do it. The impact though - the sound of a ball hitting an aluminum bat - and then the pause and the quick footsteps and finally the leather/skin smack of the ball in a glove - all under the sun creeping shade with bugs buzzing around my eyes... it felt good.
I have big open blisters on my hand now, covered in super-glue for protection. My form was wrong and now my back hurts; my hands are sore and I can't lean over... I suppose it comes with age.
A great day.
It took me a while to remember how to do it. The impact though - the sound of a ball hitting an aluminum bat - and then the pause and the quick footsteps and finally the leather/skin smack of the ball in a glove - all under the sun creeping shade with bugs buzzing around my eyes... it felt good.
I have big open blisters on my hand now, covered in super-glue for protection. My form was wrong and now my back hurts; my hands are sore and I can't lean over... I suppose it comes with age.
A great day.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
omfg
Hilton's lawyer, Howard Weitzman, said he would appeal, saying: "I'm shocked, I'm surprised and disheartened in the system that I've worked in for close to 40 years."
He said the sentence was "uncalled for, inappropriate and bordered on the ludicrous", adding: "I think she's singled out because of who she is."
Really!?! No! The judge coudln't POSSIBLY be slicing the role out of the model!
He said the sentence was "uncalled for, inappropriate and bordered on the ludicrous", adding: "I think she's singled out because of who she is."
Really!?! No! The judge coudln't POSSIBLY be slicing the role out of the model!
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
"Don't shoot me. I’m a dick."
"I think people kind of gobble up the photograph. They become what the photograph is. For me, people just aren't that important; it's about this panoptic process, it's about this kind of eavesdropping, it's about this ability to look into every aspect of our lives. And I think if you put people into these pictures, I don't know – it would draw viewers away. It would draw viewers into the story of the people. It's not about, you know, Bob who runs the radar dome; it's about this thing that looks inside your email program, and listens to this phone call, and listens to every phone call in the world in every language, and washes it through computer programs. And if you say plutonium nerve gas bomb to me over the telephone, in an instant this computer is looking at what web pages you've been to recently, it's looking at my credit card bills, it's looking at your health records, it's looking at the books I check out of the library. That's what frightens me – it's not about: here's Dave, he works on the computer systems for Raytheon...
So I've always tried to pull people out of the pictures – and, if they're in my pictures, it's usually because they represent an idea, really. I think if you're going to talk about Dave, or Bob, or Wendy, you have to do it properly. You either do it properly or you don't do it at all."
What an oddly reflexive moment.
This is an excerpt of an interview on BLDGBLOG. The full interview can be found h e r e.
The photograph: Simon Norfolk. "The supercomputer at the Wellcome Trust's Sangar Institute, Cambridge, UK."]
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