One of the most memorable conversations I remember having with my mother involved the topic of friendship. I had just completed my first year of undergraduate study and was home on winter break, having dinner with her at her favorite North Shore restaurant and dishing the goss. I was bemoaning the fact that I found it difficult to make friends. “Meeting” people, i.e., acquaintances, was one thing, because I was good at it (and anyway who can’t do that?), but making friends? That was proving to be difficult for me.

She set her cutlery down across her plate in the proper manner, and gazed out of the window that was beside her favorite table, watching the people passing on the sidewalk outside, and thinking. She then emitted one of her hilarious barks of laugh (which I believe I inherited from her), reached for her rare dry martini with three olives, took a sip, and said, “Darling. As you grow older, and if you are truly lucky, you will realize that you can count your real, true, close friends, the ones to whom you can entrust your life, on the fingers of one hand.”

She set her martini glass down on the table with a definitive tap and a triumphant, kind gaze at me.

As usual, I argued with her. Something along the lines of, “Oh, come on! Are you seriously telling me that when I’m 35 I’ll have no more than five friends of the type you describe? No way.”

She laughed again. “You may scoff now, Darling,” she said, smiling her trademarked wry smile and picking up her silverware, “but you’ll see. And it won’t matter that they are so few. Because they will be the friends who truly matter. And when you are asked by someone, unexpectedly, to name them off of the top of your head, without thinking, you’ll find, I’m sure, that they number five or less.”

This was a woman who did many, many things, in the society circles and the art circles and the academic circles. So I asked her, in my cagey way, “Fine, then. Name yours.”

And she did. Without thinking. Ticking them off using only the fingers of one hand.

At the time, I believe she was nearing 60.

[Those five women she named, by the way? They were all at her bedside while she was dying.]

I was reminded of this conversation during a far different one this evening, with my straight male BFF from our Scary Larry College Days. We discussed a host of topics, as usual, with us, from rocket launcher designers to François Ozon films to Sodom and Gomorrah to mothers to memorial services. During one course of our varied conversation I mentioned my best friends in another context that prompted him to ask, “Right, because who are they? Me, duh, and Remington, and Anaiis, and The Painter, and…?”

And…actually? Unexpectedly, off of the top of my head, without thinking? That was it.

Because, when it comes down to it? The people who know me best? With whom I would entrust my life? And who know that I want half of my ashes inurned in my family’s mausoleum on Lake Michigan and the other half scattered into the Pacific at The Place Where All Souls Leave The Earth? While Blondie (I’m thinking “Die Young, Stay Pretty,” just to be sarcastic, and to provoke laughter) is playing in the background? Those are them.

I smoked a cigarette in the oddly still early island morning after our conversation had ended, and thought of how right, yet again, my mother had been.

And of how blessed I feel to have these people in my life.

And of how oddly unsurprised I am that they can all be counted on the fingers of one hand.

What I love best about coming from a rich tradition of amazing comparative literature theory and philosophy instructors at Sarah Lawrence College is my profound appreciation for my sources.

The first lesson I learned came in the form of a course evaluation from Arnold Krupat, in which he advised something along the lines of, “Do not allow the voices of your critics to overtake your own interpretation of the text. Do not be afraid to quibble with the words of those other writers before you.” This, I am learning only recently, has come to vastly inform how I interact with other people (writers, “writers”, or not) online: Form your opinion, and stick to it, and do not allow others to influence what you write about the topic (unless, of course, they provide a very good argument). It is not easy to stick with your own opinions while reading others’ online and not being attempted to run with them, just because of their eloquent articulations, name or stature in the online “community,” or marketing gambits. But it is, I have learned, in the years since that evaluation, supremely wonderful advice: Never be afraid to quibble with your critics. And never parrot their own opinions, or allow their voices to become your own.

The second lesson I learned came much more harshly, in an individual conference discussion I had with Bella Brodzki, on French symbolist poetry. “Where did you read that observation?” she asked me, archly, from across her desk, exhaling smoke from a Gauloises cigarette. “I…” I stammered. She interrupted me. “I want the title of the work and I want the name of the author and I want your take on it,” she said. I looked down at the scribbled notebook in my lap, and began to cry tears that I did not allow her to see. “Atherton. Never, ever cite something ambiguously. Be prepared to give everything along with your own interpretation. Cite and know who wrote it, what it was about, where it came from, and be able to cut it to shreds, if you need to do so.”

I choked back the tears as I lit my own Gauloises (do you think I would ask her for one of her own, after that?!).

Only far later that semester did I adopt a new obsession: the end notes of all of my papers. I paid specific attention to their creation and my writing of them, consulted the MLA to learn how I should cite them, and always, always, even if it was my own interpretation of an idea within my own text, if the idea came from someone else (even if I did, thank you, Arnold, quibble with it), I cited it.

I suppose it is because of this training that I try very hard to cite people on the Internet. It may not be their original content, but if I am posting it, “reblogging” it, or in any way referencing it because I learned about it from someone else, I via it. (Or, at least, I really do try to do so. I am quite sure infractions may be discovered in my online work, as they were back in Brodzki’s corner Bates office, in Bronxville, New York, on a fall day.)

I think that is only compulsory, don’t you?

A screen capture of an old end note of mine from those days follows. Because it took more work for me to research and type all of that then, than it takes for us to make one simple copy, paste, and “via” link, now.

[Also please don't crit my writing in that? It was like 199FIVE.]

Inspired by,

and (hello!) [VIA] Blakeley

Sometimes, at the moment you precisely require it the most, words, images, memories, and adorations are sent to you.

Without even a moment of hesitation.

These are, truly, the moments that make life worth living.

+ + +

+ + +

Atherton,

It’s been so long since I’ve told you “I love you”. I read your post today, tears in my eyes. You are such a beautiful boy. Still a boy, yes. To me.

You’re the boy I met soooo long ago now. Warm and sad and soft and gentle and delicate. When I think of you, I think of those things. I know. There’s more, there’s your strength and your assuredness, your pride and your conviction. There’s your ability to vamp with the best of them. -smiling- But. I feel like I’ve always been able to look at you and see the fragileness of you. The tiny breaks in the safe smile. I always wish there was more of myself, my life, I could share with you. There have been times, today for example, when I wish we were no more than a door or two away. So I could barge in and flop onto your sofa, weary hand over my face, press into the flesh of your stomach and just shut my eyes. Your hand, light and warm on my back. Just so I could listen to you tell me stories. Your stories. Like the one you told today.

I want to share it with everyone. I have often wanted everyone I know to know a piece of you. Maybe not all the pieces I know - and I’ve always wished for more - but enough to see how beautiful you are. So I can say, “See him, there? There’s nothing he could ever do in this world that would make me love him any less, and I’m always finding reasons to love him more.”

And that’s from all the way over here.

Remember that for me, beautiful boy.

+ + +

Here is to remembering.

The boys and women we are. The work we’ve done. And the work we’ve yet to do.

And to 35 no longer being scary.

Because of people like you.

“I should not design any websites with stark white backgrounds,” I said, mouth full of two madeleines.

“Why not?” he inquired, his own mouth full of sticky toffee pudding.

“Because they remind me how drastically I need to clean my laptop’s screen?”

He laughed.

I could hear him spitting a mouthful of the confection out onto a plate or something.

“What’s up, Buttercup?” he recovered, borrowing a phrase once used by both me and my friend Johanna.

“I’m just…depressed,” I admitted. “And blocked. And behind on deadlines. And really angry. I was a snarky bitch all day long on Twitter, did not write anything otherwise productive, and turned to re-designing my Twitter and Tumblr pages because I couldn’t write.”

“Hmmm.”

“What?”

“I like your Twitter background.”

“That’s because your screen isn’t filthy.”

He laughed.

“I need inspiration.”

“Write about how sex feels.”

“Huh. No other parameters?”

“No. Go.”

+ + +

The pain shot through my plexus like lightning.

[Did I tell you I once won an Illinois state spelling bee by correctly spelling "lightning"? The other girl spelled it "lightening."]

I could not focus on anything but the crystal blue of your eyes. Maybe also the tremors you were making inside of me. And your tears that were falling onto my cheeks. And the feeling of your slick, wet vertebrae under my fingers, and your skin.

“I love you,” you gasped, breath heavy with Colgate.

[The words of a woman as blonde as me, from far in the future, sprang into my thoughts at just that moment: "You'll find the shame is like the pain. You only feel it once."]

“I love you…too,” I managed, clamping down on your own muscles with all of mine.

Although I hurt everywhere. Trembled with pain. Could feel my bed quaking with it, so intense was this “love” that you professed for me.

[But G-d, how good it felt, too.]

I raised my legs above both of our heads in an attempt to lessen the pain, intending to hook my feet onto my bed’s headboard, but suddenly the bed was no longer there. Nor were the green velvet curtains surrounding my bed. Nor were the mahogany walls, nor the cherry floorboards. Just sand in my hair and moonlight in my eyes and your musculature wrapped around me, quivering.

Silence.

But for the waves.

[I wanted to rage at you, yell, scream, "Say anything! But not nothing! Say, 'I want you,' say, 'I need you,' say, 'I just want to feel myself inside of you,' but please, please say something!" I wanted to run off along the beach and hurl pointedly-phrased epithets into the wind and up to the moon about your perfect body and your perfect dick and your fucked-up brain and stupidity and just...why...why the silence?]

“I feel that it is important that that bit remains parenthetical,” I said, lowering myself between his legs and allowing my tongue to protract lewdly between my lips, as if begging for feeding time.

“Wasn’t Derrida fond of the parentheses, though?” he sighed, as my mouth enveloped his flesh.

[I had to stop, though, for correction. "Margins."]

“Ah, yes,” he sighed again. “I love that you know your Derrida and your Hegel and your tumescent vocabulary and your Bézier curves and your Gaussian blurs. I love your mouth. I love your heat. I love you.”

[Much like the shame, and the pain, though, apparently, with me, "love" only comes around once.]

“Hello?”

I emptied my mouth.

“I heard you.”

“No reply?”

“Not at this moment, no.”

[He said it, though, eventually, years in the future, following a quick jaunt in the gentleman's room during a de Kooning exhibit at The Tate. The art and the flashes of the photographer's cameras had turned him on. He felt the muscles, the moistness, the heat of the man beneath him in the stall, and said...]

“I love you.”

He looked up at him and queried, “Why do you say that just now?”

“One of de Kooning’s pieces made me think only of your eyes.”

They laughed. Cleaned up. Kissed.

And left the gentleman’s room holding hands.

Still cannot get over today’s news regarding photographer / filmmaker Sergio Goes. I am always at a loss for words when an artist who brought so much beauty into our world is suddenly taken from us.

(Or, Wherein I Rather Cryptically And Derivatively Pontificate On Moving From “Early Thirties” To “Mid Thirties,” And, My “Scary Age” Of Thirty-Five.)

Cancer Horoscope For Week Of 10 July 2008: “Mazel tov” is a Hebrew phrase meaning “good luck,” but its literal translation is “may the stars be good to you.” It suggests that stellar energies influence our fate. In his book Jewish Magic and Superstition, Joshua Trachtenberg riffs on Judaism’s ancient debate about the subject: “The stars determine human actions, but they too are creatures of G-d, established by Him to perform this special function, and therefore the influence they exert is subject to His Will. Repentance, prayer, piety, charity, good deeds … are the instruments by means of which man can induce G-d to alter His decrees and consequently to modify the fate that is written in the stars for him.” I offer this, Cancerian, as evidence that the title of my column, “Free Will Astrology,” is not an oxymoron. You have more power to shape your destiny than you imagine — and now is a perfect time to prove it. — Free Will Astrology

+ + +

The Day of Atonement: The Tenth Day Of The Seventh Month: [From The Book Of Leviticus] And this shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you: For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute for ever. And the priest, whom he shall anoint, and whom he shall consecrate to minister in the priest’s office in his father’s stead, shall make the atonement, and shall put on the linen clothes, even the holy garments: And he shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation. And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year. And he did as the Lord commanded Moses. — Topical Bible Studies

+ + +

Notables, from Wiki:

Notable Births

• 1419 - Emperor Go-Hanazono of Japan
• 1509 - John Calvin, French religious reformer
• 1856 - Nikola Tesla, Serb-American inventor
• 1871 - Marcel Proust, French writer
• 1895 - Carl Orff, German composer
• 1920 - David Brinkley, American television reporter
• 1931 - Alice Munro, Canadian writer
• 1954 - Neil Tennant, British musician
• 1965 - Princess Alexia of Greece and Denmark
• 1973 - Atherton Spencer Bartelby
• 1980 - Jessica Simpson, American singer [Author's Note: No Comment.]

Notable Events

• 48 BC - Battle of Dyrrhachium, Caesar barely avoids a catastrophic defeat to Pompey in Macedonia.
• 1212 - The most severe of several early fires of London burns most of the city to the ground.
• 1778 - American Revolution: Louis XVI of France declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.
• 1796 - Carl Friedrich Gauss discovered that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers.
• 1913 - Death Valley, California hits 134 °F (~56.7 °C), which is the highest temperature recorded in the United States.
• 1925 - The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS), the official news agency of the Soviet Union , is established.
• 1941 - Jedwabne Pogrom was a massacre of Jewish people living in and near the village of Jedwabne in Poland.
• 1991 - Boris Yeltsin begins his 5-year term as the first elected President of Russia.
• 1998 - Roman Catholic sex abuse cases: The Diocese of Dallas agrees to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by former priest Rudolph Kos.
• 2005 - Hurricane Dennis slams into the Florida Panhandle causing billions of dollars in damage.

+ + +

I nearly dyed my hair brown again, today. But then I watched a video that told me that I really should not. For me, it’s all about being The Blonde.

+ + +

I nearly decided to do nothing today, because I have no one to do anything with me. But then I remembered where I am, and all of the amazing things I could see, and do, by myself. So I am doing the Circle Island Bus Tour, by myself.

“Don’t cry,” he said.

And so I didn’t.

And so I won’t.

Atherton Spencer Bartelby | Martha’s Vineyard | 10 July 1980

Gay Horror Drama
I spent the holiday weekend at Turtle Bay Resort, in Kahuku on Oahu’s North Shore. This is rather like living in Manhattan and escaping to The Hamptons for a long holiday weekend, except with warmer ocean water and less attitude and pretension. Also, if you have been a fan of this blog for any amount of significant time, you will note that a weekend spent at Turtle Bay, for me, always begins with countless expectations of fun, frivolity, and fabulousness, yet nearly as always ends in trauma and / or heartbreak. Additionally, during production season, it is not by any means extraordinary to stumble across someone you recognize from, say, “Lost,” or that regrettable here! network’s homo series that no one really watches for any other reason than the triple super hott soft core pr0n scenes between certain actors, “Dante’s Cove.”

[I spotted two of the latter's stars jogging shirtless the last time my presence graced The Bay Of Honus; none this time, however, since I believe the show has been thankfully canceled. (But wait! A quick check of its Wiki indicates that it is remarkably still in production! Who knew?! And actually one would think that I would be a huge fan of this series, since "gay horror drama" kind of also accurately describes my own life, but alas, one would be incorrect, as I am most certainly not a fan of the series.) And "Lost" is not currently in production right now. Finally, oddly, this mini-vacation, for me, did not this time conclude in any trauma or heartbreak. Which, WTF?!]

Dwelling By The Seashore, A Haven For Ships
“It would have been Chagall’s birthday today, apparently, FYI,” he said to me, mouth full of Hawaiian sweet bread smeared with mango butter. “Mmmm?” I somehow managed to drawl, exhaling a plume of cigarette smoke before inhaling a mouthful of hot, sweet Kona while perusing Michael Kors’ latest men’s prêt-à-porter on my laptop. “What, I thought you liked him?” he queried, eyebrows arched in surprise. I raised my eyes from my laptop’s screen to assure him, “Oh no, yes! I do! I love him! I just had to work on this huge project archiving his pieces during one dark winter while working in Hadassah’s Creative Services Department, so my love for him was kind of darkened about the edges a bit thanks to that.” “What was his connection to Hadassah?” he asked, again genuinely confused. I laughed. “Um, he was Jewish? Plus he created the stained glass windows of The Synagogue of The Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, which represent the Twelve Sons of the Patriarch Jacob?” “Oh,” he replied, slightly mollified. “I always forget how almost a Jew you are.” I laughed and raised my coffee cup. “À maître Chagall,” I said, in a toast, “bonne anniversaire et merci beaucoup for making those early outs on Friday afternoons to make it home in time for the Sabbath that much more beloved by me during those long winter archive weeks.” “D’accord, salut!” he laughed, and raised his cup as well.

Garbage In, Garbage Out
I found out that Jesse Helms died from a fellow passenger, on a catamaran dinner cruise off of the Waianae Coast on Friday evening (to watch the fireworks from the sea and to benefit the dolphins). “OMG!” the college boy exclaimed, making his father look at his hand, “Jesse Helms died!” “Shut UP!” I couldn’t resist interrupting, peering over the boy’s shoulder at the headlines on his iPhone. “Finally?!” And then I tried, really tried, to adhere to my mother’s old clichéd advice of remaining silent if you did not have anything nice to say about a person or a situation. I was successful for probably an hour, at which point I failed, and updated my Twitter via text message with a brief and not-so-nice tweet update. The Gay Recluse, I discovered later, had done a far better (and far more elegant) job of concisely chronicling, in text and in images, the death of the North Carolina Senator, in “On Jesse Helms: A Life Spent Throwing Garbage From The Windows,” in which he also laments another nasty habit that always used to enrage me when I lived in New York: the whole throwing garbage down the internal building shafts thing. Anyway, his take on Helms’ death, as I wrote before, was far nicer than my concise tweet of, “OMG! Jesse Helms FINALLY died?! On JULY FOURTH?!?! HA HA HA! Best. Birthday. Present. EVER!”

Great Pâté But I’ve Gotta Motor If I’m Gonna Make It To This Funeral
“God damn it!” I exclaimed, dropping my lit Marlboro Light on the floor of the lanai and spilling coffee down the front of my white resort robe. “What?!” he exclaimed from across the table, spilling his own coffee at my outburst, the only sound before it having been the warm strains of Nina Simone emanating from my laptop’s speakers, as it had been for most of the weekend. “My MySpace code is screwed up again!” I wailed, angrily killing my cigarette in an ashtray. “Why do I still maintain this profile, why?!” “Because you’re an idiot?” “Oh yeah, that’s right!” We both finished, “You two,” laughing.

“I seriously need to assess my social media presence and edit it considerably,” I decided aloud. “Mmmmhmmm!” my friend, whose online presence is far more private than is mine, agreed. “You know what else I need to edit?” “Hmmm?” “My blog’s ‘Most Popular Articles’ list.” “Whatever for?” “Because it’s a joke! Those aren’t articles that people read and liked; they’re articles that people just found,” I sniffed in derision. “Why?” he inquried, “what’s on there?” I read the titles of the “Top Five” to him: “‘Small Dicks And Sideways Vaginas,’ ‘All About The Lubeless Anal Rape,’ ‘Now Is The Time For Guts And Guile,’ ‘His Hello Was The End Of Her Endings,’ and ‘The Spiderman Is Having Me For Dinner Tonight.’ It’s just perverts and emo drunk single girls and homos Googling phrases and ending up at my blog for two seconds before they realize the articles aren’t about what they promise or until they have enough time to copy and paste the phrases they were searching for into their LiveJournal or something. It’s inaccurate!” “Hey, I rather liked the ‘Small Dicks / Sideways Vaginas’ article,” he said, in defense. “I mean even though it wasn’t a ‘real’ article and only linked to your sister’s, you quite nicely debunked the stereotype of Asian men having small dicks.” “Yeah, well,” I smiled wryly, “I never have been one for stereotypes. I may have a limp wrist and a lisp but I can still throw a left hook, break your nose, and kick your ass if I need to.” He laughed. “Well, do that and edit your online crap later?” he suggested, picking up a snorkel gear bag from the suite’s divan and dangling it toward me, shaking it. “It’s ocean time.” I emitted a high-pitched squeal and grabbed the bag and my white D&G trunks in one fluid motion.

Of Course I’m Wearing Short Short Trunks. I’m Atherton Bartelby.
Speaking of Michael Kors’ fall 2008 men’s prêt-à-porter line, I am sooooo digging it. I don’t know how I managed to miss being able to figuratively ejaculate all over it back when it was premiered during New York Fashion Week in February (all right, I do know: February was not a good month for me; I was…preoccupied), but I am now obviously intensely loving it. Apparently inspired by the series “Mad Men” (which I also had not heard about, WTF?!), it is fabulous. I need the entire line and the DVD of the first season of “Mad Men” like, now, because: A) this entire line is so unbelievably me, and, B) clearly, I was born about twenty years too late, as I would have fit into the whole Madison Avenue Ad Game in the late sixties quite splendidly, thank you very much.

“Why are you looking at Chuck Bass?” he asked, with a derisive lilt to his tone. “I am not!” I said defensively. “I was just checking out Sadie Stein’s latest “Fashion Show” entries on Jezebel [because I have become alarmingly hooked on them!] and stopped in to see if there were any new Chuck Bass Snap Judgment captions.” He stared at me in amazement. “You’re a fan of ‘Gossip Girl’?!” “No!” “Um. Of Chuck Bass?!” “No! I just like the captions, ok?! They make me guffaw!” [Kors and "Mad Men" intel, by the way, via Make The Logo Bigger, credited for the find even though he appears to like both far less than do I.]

[Edited To Add: In a rather timely fashion, I came across a fabulous piece just two seconds ago written by Michael Bierut regarding "Mad Men," entitled, "Mad Men: Pitch Perfect." Nothing like having one's opinions validated by one of one's idols, now, is there? Via Design Observer.]

If All Else Fails? Vomit.
I had intended a far fuller list of “Remainders” but, well, it being a holiday week and everyone else forking over as little online content as did I over the last four days, there frankly wasn’t much. Although I do have quite a lot of writing links that I need to disseminate and discuss at some point later this week, as well. But this piece is already dangerously lengthy and free-write-y enough, as it is. “What,” he said, “absolutely no items from Gawker this week?” “Of course!” I snapped, although laughing. “Duh! Kittehs!”

“That’s just too…” Wincing.

“I know, right?!” Smiling.

La Dolce
“Blondie,” he murmured, fingers running through the curls at the back of my neck. I laughed. Handed the cigarette we were sharing back to him. “Did you enjoy the weekend?” he inquired, before inhaling deeply from the filter.

I clasped my hand around his arm that rested on my shoulder and smiled at him as I took my own drag before saying, softly, “Best. Birthday. Present. Ever.”

He chuckled. Looked down at the ground. Errant locks of black hair falling into his eyes.

“Safe flight,” I wished him aloud, then, “safe flights,” I corrected. “And knock them dead in London.”

He smiled. “Sure you won’t come with?”

I smiled in return. “I’m sure,” I said. “I have my own feces to get assimilated here during the next several weeks.” I chuckled, as did he.

His eyes met mine. “Are we cool?” he asked.

I winced only slightly. Smiled. “We’re…cool,” I replied.

He took one final drag of the Marlboro Light before handing it back to me, leaning in to kiss me softly as he did so.

We parted in silence.

I stood there for a few more minutes, squinting into the beautiful golden light of the HNL sunset, watching his lithe frame recede slowly down the long walkway.

My dear friend The Painter surprised me on Thursday with a mobile phone call announcing that he had arrived in The HNL from The SFO for an extended weekend on Oahu in order to treat me to a celebration of my thirty-fifth birthday a week early, as he will be away in London for [alleged] client meetings when my birthday weekend is actually occurring. One of the mutual pleasures in which we have indulged so far over the holiday has been a walk down the proverbial memory lane, reminiscing about all of the online design forums in which we first “met” and used to play around way back in The Old Y2K-ish Days.

Something we both always enjoyed were “Photoshop Wars” in which we used to participate on Dreamless and, later, the early Yayhooray. The “Wars” were always fun, creative, and inspiring, taking an image or a theme and batting it about between other forum members as we each added our own layers and visions to the projects. (Curious non-design-geeks who have absolutely no idea what I am writing about may see two of my very early examples here and here.)

Although both The Painter and I maintain profiles on the current incarnation of Yayhooray, neither of us have the time or inclination to hang out or be involved there nearly as much as we used to, so between a leisurely breakfast and horseback riding on a Turtle Bay Resort beach yesterday (yet another stroll down memory lane: I got to ride “Willie” again, oh joy!), I stopped by Yay to see if I could find any interesting project threads. And I did! Despite the project’s suspiciously meme-ish-sounding parameters, neither The Painter nor myself, as two people who cannot seem to get enough of, as an ex-boyfriend of mine once not-too-kindly referred to my craft as, “pushing words and images and fonts around on a computer screen,” could resist.

As it turns out, the project, “Your Album Cover,” was highly addictive.

1. The title of the first article on Wikipedia’s Random Article page is the name of your band.
2. The last four words of the very last quotation on Wikiquote’s Random Quotation page is the title of your album.
3. The third picture on Flickr’s Interesting Photos From The Last 7 Days page will be your album cover.
4. Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result.

And, because we are design geeks and insomniacs, that is what we have been up doing most of the night.

I have posted smaller versions of mine below; larger versions of 500×500 pixels are viewable on click-through of each, and also credit the Flickr user names of the photographers, as well as the DaFont.com typeface names and designers employed for each cover.

It felt exceedingly nice to feel the old creative design “juices” flowing again. (Even if none of the finished pieces actually showcase my “true” design skills.)

Now, if I am lucky I can just squeeze in an hour nap before snorkeling later this morning.

+ + +

Willie, An Old Friend
Turtle Bay Resort | Kahuku | Oahu | Hawaii
04 July 2008

“To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one’s freedom.”
— André Gide

Happy Independence Day, Everyone!

I have decided to take a vacation day here at “Curious Affairs” because I feel that my work (play?) for today has largely already been done elsewhere. Specifically, in the inaugural “Auto-Win Book Club” discussion over at the fabulous blog hosted by This Girl Called Automatic Win. We’re discussing Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, a book to which I am already oddly and profoundly attached. The discussion will, I’ve absolutely no doubt, be wittily insightful. (Obviously, there will be spoilers.)

I shall likely return here tomorrow, while most of you are off gorging yourselves on Nathan’s and beer and trying not to get yourselves blown up by fireworks.

Light a sparkler for me.