November 16ths (Going To Graceland)

11/16/1960

(Eva Hesse Diary)

"I must be totally engrossed in my own work, it is the only thing that is permanent, matures and is lasting."

11/16/2001

The internet changed the world in invisible ways, and 9/11 changed the internet so that it could change the world even more.

Idea: Set up orientation on your web page from the top left, orient it from the center of a very large open space ("universe").You can place your page anywhere in the universe (sort of like a big paste-up board). This gives you the ability to navigate through lots of information by clicking on links (nodes) rather than scrolling)

[11/16/2024: Inflection points change everything. The “universe” I was describing is essentially the Metaverse. Scrolling and other HCI will evolve as well.]

11/16/2002, Saturday

Photoshoot at Graceland Cemetery. Lots of interesting shots: Louis Sullivan grave, Ruth Page, great shot of statue covered in vines and looked like fur or hair. 

Re-watched Brazil. Seemed apropos in the context of current terrorist woes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11/16/2004

Went to Cultural Center. There was a guy playing delta blues on a dobro. (God I love that sound—I want a dobro. I wandered through the galleries. Interesting: Installation based on a journal, with newspaper clippings, diary entries, video.

The AI-generated track

11/16/2007

Listened to interview with Umberto Eco. Interesting: The holocaust would have not been possible if the internet had existed then. Not only does the medium make certain things possible (the medium is the message), it also makes things impossible.

[11/16/2024: We now know full well that the internet is not about transparency, but rather selective obfuscation and the malleability of “facts”. We like to believe that things are beyond belief, but it’s no longer true. Eco was one of the most intellectual people that ever lived. Here’s his personal library].

Back in the 20s when vaudeville was killed by burlesque, gimmicks were a way of dumping the old ways, a way to have fun and be progressive. We realized how puritanism is so drop-dead boring. We want gimmicks because we fear boredom, which has ultimately led us to a place where we constantly dream up ways to be fun and progressive, at any cost.

[This is where postmodernism went off the rails. It’s now in government as a wacky dictatorship conceived as if it were a screenplay. But you can’t get De Niro to star in it.]

11/16/2009

Watched YouTube videos of Bowie's Outside album: 

[11/16/2024: One of the best postmodernist fin-de-siecle works ever created in my view. It inspired me to do edgy postmodern things. Eno’s comment still rings true, but classical music is now being churned by AI].