Thursday, February 27, 2003

posted 5:50 AM
"THE HUNT FOR THE WORLD'S COOLEST SNEAKERS..."

Someone asks about this phrase of mine, describing the book before it was completed. Well, *way* before it was completed, and intended mainly to make the questioner leave me alone. But, note, this was pre-9-11, so it refers, to the extent that it refers to anything, to a narrative and world other than the ones you're reading and living in.

The sneakers on the back of the book are black leather Pro-Keds, purchased at Barney's in Seattle on my way to Karen Moskowitz's studio to take dustjacket pictures. Evidently the editorial minds at Putnam liked that particular shot because of the sneakers. I like the way the sneakers look, but think the expression on my face probably reflects my awareness that going to Seattle to have my picture taken is the first step toward actual publication, touring, etc. A "here we go again" expression.

Caycewise, I assumed these Pro-Keds to be a response to the recently born-again Converse All-Stars, which are also available in leather.

In any case, and again re apophenia, a great deal of the detail around publishing a book is accidental. Indeed, a great deal of the detail in any book (or any book of mine, anyway) is more or less accidental as well, as I like to work with "readymades", things I encounter either during or before the period of composition. This means that some of the detail will be accidental, in that it came along with the found object, and wasn't invented. I have a sort of half-conscious theory that this furthers an experience of mimetic texture, for the reader, that differs from the one that would result in my simply having made up some "random" detail. It also has something to do with my fondness for Cornell boxes, which consist entirely of found objects, framed, as it were, by a device akin to narrative.

WTC MEMORIAL DESIGNS

Toward the end of the tour I declined to write an essay for TIME on the various proposed designs. Had I been willing to do so, I would have had to say that this is the only one that I'd be entirely, joyfully, satisfied with:

http://24.46.42.210:1818/Sinehead/Gaudi2.html

NAME "PAVLOV" RING A BELL?

No? Never mind.

But "Bigend", like "Wintermute", is a strange-looking but actual surname, though I hasten to add that I had no real individual in mind in either case. My hunch was that Bigend is a Belgian surname, or possibly French (hence the nationality of the character) and would be pronounced, perhaps, something like "BAY-shend".

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