2.13.2007

Watching a silent documentary, with lots of after-the-fact interviews, about a polyamourous multilingual compound. Then I find a sheath of blank paper near the printer, which turns out to have notes from the year I learned to write poetry on the other side. I arrive just as the previews are ending for a screening of a burlesque Glass Elevator. And afterwards the director wants me to score his documentary about a deaf-mute celibate compound. Hum me how it goes, I tell him.

2.05.2007

At the gallery of modern art there is a stage show that repeats every fifteen minutes. The uninitiated file up a set of black stairs to a sort of mezzanine where we wait in silence. Then a set of noble and melancholy bulldogs are led past us to an exposed chamber up another set of stairs. A canned narration begins with a recording of Fyodr Dostoevsky, then Gabriel Garcia Marquez, stating one full sentence each chosen at random from their complete works. Then there are a series of lines delivered by planted actors in suits of black lace. The theme is the alienation of the bride. I am asked to adapt this spectacle for the page.