Vitrine Shuffle

In the literature that came with the wood show "Far From The Tree" the plexi bonnets that top the pedestals are called vitrines. Someone with a foreign accent talking about a plumbing fixture. So we cover everything but the two largest pieces with vitrines. At the pub for lunch, bar TV is on to ESPN, as usual, with the sound off, also as usual, but the closed captioning is totally screwed up, creating, instead of language, a kind of phonetic bullshit. Very entertaining. Get through the afternoon, barely, D and I both dragging ass, agree to a beer at the pub after work, quiet and cool, very cold draft Red Hook ESB. Hot and bright outside, leisurely drive home, windows down, not a thought in my head. A strawberry-banana smoothie for dinner, no chewing. A bucket of water over my head clears some cobwebs and a chunk of ice air conditions my computer. Needed some language for the Wrack Show today, Sara writing a piece for the newsletter, but it was late and all we could come up with was " a skeleton framework of a house, inside and outside, furniture, a pergola, part of a porch roof, some sand-blasted stumps, a quantity of Ohio River Balls, an interesting burl, several natural frames" which is all true, as far as it goes. Installation as state of mind, flood-plain detritus, specific gravity of less than 1, whatever floats, you get the drift (or, we get the drift), the floating opera (Barth, of course, a wonderful book), what lodges ashore, backwater, eddy, standing wave, the confluence, some items selected from the debris pile, barge watching, the Praxiteles that got away, life below the floodwall, a few things we collected on the way to work, a tumble in the river, lost bark, crotch attactment, the desk (a case history), the best stumps always end up as catfishermen's seats, the top plastic bag represents high water, a brief look at hydraulics, some things we don't understand, the prolate sheroid in nature, the army corp of engineers as an evil thing, particular sticks, river sticks, three sticks on the way to an opening, bowling balls float!, swept away, washed ashore, some time spent along the riverside, a summer with my crazy uncle, nothing means anything anyway, everything means something. There was an interesting discussion around the staff table today, a new Art News or Art In America and there was this really graphic crotch shot of a woman, a photograph, and everyone took offense, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT THE PHOTOGRAPHER INTENDED, so it was art, because it called into play 'what is art'; and what is offensive, really, about a crotch or a penis right out there in plain view? Georgia O'Keefe is very naughty, all those stamens. Degree of offensiveness. I'd love to do a really offensive show. We might learn something about ourselves. We could do a show of found crotches and penises, they're everywhere in nature, natural forms. I remember a walk with the Utah Kid and B, we were way over in Lost Gap Hollow somewhere, and there was a tree that was absolutely obscene, we all three squatted and stared, we may have giggled, it was perfect, where disease or lightening had deformed a poplar into the perfect reproduction of female private parts. And dicks are everywhere, any broken branch or limb. We should do this, send me your images, I'm sensing a show here, D can curate, I'm just the janitor.