Waaaaaaaay below you will find my thesis abstract that was revised again and again at the request of my committee. I'm still not sure what the project is exactly. I hope the sparks are there enough to imply the flame will come. These words did inspire a new splattering of rec commended readings from my thesis committee. Right now I'm in the limbo process of waiting to see if the application goes through with the graduate school. It looks like I'll be selling my car in the mean time to raise the cash I'll need for Germany.

I've decided to forget about the bureaucratic crap for a while and get back to doing the things that I need to do, no matter how flaky those things may seem to the well educated folks who tower above me dangling a degree. Sometimes I feel like a horse trying to get a carrot. A million pieces of paper can't give a person talent and ability.

Today it started raining with the sun shining (devil was beating his wife) I grabbed my camera and headed to the front porch. I've been trying to get images of that for a long time. It's tricky because it's a random occurrence that ends quickly. I was surprised at the best part of the image, the reflection. I guess one of the reasons writing about my work is torture could be the element of chance.














My thesis, The Barest Threads, includes video production and a written component. The written component will be an interpretation of class theory and an exploration of how class relates to the production component. The production component of The Barest Threads will be compiled from an ongoing series of video vignettes. Often inspired by instances in the artist’s life, this series will depict moments when the status quo of class relations is undermined, subverted, or inverted through role reversals, mayhem and defiance. This project will refer to the theories of Bakhtin, Nietzsche, and Marx, who will be heavily relied upon in the written component.

The Barest Threads will undermine traditional rules of behavior such as politeness and manners by displaying the discomfort that emerges when individuals are confronted with resistant practices. It will seek to illustrate a space where difference is embraced as a means to discover and reveal “real issues” concerning the nature of class structure and struggle.

For example, a child is from a rural area. When the child’s mother takes him to an urban shopping mall, the child feels extremely uneasy. The child looks down as his Wal-mart shoes. They have text on them that reads "Franklin" across the side. The ten-year-old child is uncertain where the source of his discomfort originates, but we can assume that one probable origin is in his latent understanding of commodities as class signifiers.

When the child is a teenager he will find an old Franklin tennis shoe in a garbage can in public. He will remove the shoestrings, and tie them together at the ends. Then he will tie one end of the joined strings to an eyelet of the shoe. After that, he will walk the high school halls dragging the shoe behind him like a dog on a leash, while telling the upstanding students he passes “This’ my pet, Franklin Beasley.” His friend will laugh so hard that she has to lie on the ground and hold her stomach to stop herself from peeing in her pants.

The Barest Threads will seek these moments of disruption of traditional class rules of behavior. The Barest Threads attempts to turn boorishness into a tool for cultural critique. The “Franklin” example could be a section shot on location in my hometown, Adairsville, GA. Many of the sections will be shot in Weimar, Germany during the fall of 2005. Video will be planned, shot, edited and distributed using a one-chip DV camera and an Apple laptop. Editing will be completed with the aid of Final Cut Pro, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Photoshop. The final distribution will be in DVD format. The DVD’s will be freely distributed in bathrooms nationwide.

The boredom of small town life is finally sinking in. I wish I could have been hydrated. It was nice to see pick of millbrand in lady clothes. I wonder how Holly's thing went?

I managed to track down an old friend today. His name is Slim Dog. He's a postal worker by day and a punk rock drummer by night. He's completely enthusiastic about his band and has been promoting other bands as well. Slim was one of my buddies in high school. He taught me how to drink. We started with Jim Beam and moved on to the Beast. I wonder if he would drive me around in his mail truck. I could make some kind of pamphlet to stick in the adairsvillian's mailboxes. CHILDREN UNITE! IT'S TIME FOR AN UPRISING.
I'm sure parents would love that. I've been reading about theories of social stratification, which is boring me to death.
more interestingly I've been reading bits of Schopenhauer's essay On Women. It's incredibly entertaining. Here is a choice tidbit.

The fundamental defect of the female character is a lack of a sense of justice. This originates first and foremost in their want of rationality and capacity for reflexion but it is strengthened by the fact that, as the weaker sex, they are driven to rely not on force but on cunning: hence their instinctive subtlety and their ineradicable tendency to tell lies: for, as nature has equipped the lion with claws and teeth, the elephant with tusks, the wild boar with fangs, the bull with horns and the cuttlefish with ink, so it has equipped woman with the power of dissimulation as her means of attack and defence, and has transformed into this gift all the strength it has bestowed on man in the form of physical strength and the power of reasoning.Dissimulation is thus inborn in her and consequently to be found in the stupid woman almost as often as in the clever one. To make use of it at every opportunity is as natural to her as it is for an animal to employ its means of defence whenever it is attacked, and when she does so she feels that to some extent she is only exercising her rights. A completely truthful woman who does not practice dissimulation is perhaps an impossibility, which is why women see through the dissimulation of others so easily it is inadvisable to attempt it with them. – But this fundamental defect which I have said they possess, together with all that is associated with it, gives rise to falsity, unfaithfulness, treachery, ingratitude, etc. Women are guilty of perjury far more often than men. It is questionable whether they ought to be allowed to take an oath at all.


(this reminds me of the whole run away bride argument. It's nice to know this stereotype of women applies universally and not just to southern women)[inlink]joshua,5[/inlink]

this is the picture kiah drew for you Arzu.

My sister has a drive by stalker. It always comes late at night when we're outside smoking. A car will stop and turn around at the end of the driveway. It's kind of freaky when you are out in the middle of boonfuck nowhere surrounded by the cricket brigade that's continuously rub rub rubbing those wings together.

Lori thinks that the car is potentially her ex husband but she's not sure. She's dated lots of nuts. The last time I was here we went to the end of the driveway with a video camera and waited to see if the car would come back. It never returned that night. I have some footage somewhere of us waiting for it, drunken night vision footage. Lori says the car circles the block sometimes. A block out here is miles long. I waved at the stalker last night. Lori got freaked out. Oh, the joy of being victimized.

I can be impulsive when it comes to defending my friends. Unfortunately I'm still the subject even when writing of another's subjectivity. My friend would never describe things the way that I do. She is to classy for that.

As far as giving someone a chance even when you're not immediately attracted to them goes... I think that's ok. Often it takes time to become attracted to a person. I'm sure every person on the site knows what it's like to receive unwanted attention. I tend to ignore it but I enjoy my solitude. I'm guessing that most people are not so content to be alone.

I think Paul has good points about the comments feature. I guess we're not to the point of estrip utopia... yet