It's Thursday and I feel horrible. I'm home, just finished transcribing some conversation I have with my parents last summer, which were good. I remember recording them and at the time feeling like they might not amount to anything useful, and maybe because a year has past or due more to the state of mind that I am currently in these days they seem more useful, concerning both the questions I posed as well as the significance of the responses given by my parents. They will be useful to inform the fascination with origins of being, my own being, by providing context to who they are and how they have come to answer such ambiguous aspects of existence for themselves. This transcription is the culmination of a process which has consumed all of my studio time for the last 3 weeks, compiling and writing out the ideas I have been brewing in, sewing together a personal history, an autobiographical narrative which accounts for how I have come to be here and now. This story can be read; I am actively reading it even as it is being written. After graduate school I felt like I was submerged in a dark morass, a nothingness of fluttering confusion and amorphous malaise, totally depleted after these intense yet superficial relationships formed during that time, balancing the importance of art as commodity... and for many other reasons as well which I don't need to account for here. To say the least, it took me a long time to get rediscover my determinism and I can't say that I just yet feel so completely founded upon stable substrate, yet I wonder constantly how much of this could be merely the aftershocks reverberating from this trauma endured in Chicago, whether it was self-inflicted, needlessly or necessarily and even intentionally, and what was in fact the diseased root of that blackened tooth: locating that room feels like locating the root of "me", but that in turn feels selfish, conceited. I am thinking about so many things in addition to this project, but also related to it... I just need to vomit it out a bit.

I'm thinking about Japanese screens and their division of space, the craft of the studio, of my studio and others, how I can craft here, what it is I am making here within this space, what am I to do with it, how is it divided or should be for what purpose? I have these big plywood panels with piano hinges which create rather unsturdy and unsatisfying walls - perhaps this experiment will not serve my purposes - which may proove to be more useful as a floor. Resurfacing the plywood to be walked on, what then would better serve as a wall? Curtains, screen, or other ideas, decidedly hand made. The curtain could be sewn from degenerate materials, a quilt, a tapestry, evoking the history of high and low status wall adornment, functional and aesthetic. The screens are traditionally crafted from bamboo and paper, natural materials sourced from the local environment - but I don't live in a natural environment, in fact feel quite severed from nature, and would craft screens according to (representative of) this alienation or alien resourcefulness, in house, in mind, in life. I want to use the crafting process of these items to invert the alienation, to amplify it into a strength: giving focus to weakness instigates a transformation: wabi-sabi. Another idea: what will happen in this crafted space, on the boards, against the walls. I am mapping out a time line, a spatial topography spreading out my mushy ideas like a thick film on a glass slide, yet it remains hidden, I cannot access it. Is this because I cannot reach the content, or is it physical access, touching the wall? As I read through this text I have written I hope to reverse engineer it and map its directions upon the spatial lattice drawn out upon the walls, floors, curtains... to rewrite the text - manuscript of my performed live - and apply a reductive design/motif/diagram upon it to make sense of it, because there is too much to take in all at once. It needs to be schematized, like charting the narrative turns of a novel, towards a process of semi-automating the writing of libretto - this is not the libretto, but a necessary step towards conceiving of what one could be! Currently the focus is upon the writing, so perhaps anything not conducive to this acitivty should be removed... what does that mean? What does it look like? What is the scale of efficiency? I must remember this is a transitional time, as I process many years of accumulated data which is difficult as I am also trying to keep moving forward even while looking back for clues to the direction I am heading. The result is a fluctuating mild/wild dislocation of the immediate present, a difficulty in being here as I am so involved with all the other places and times I have been and would like to propell myself towards - a recipe for disaster in my experience. A life must be lived, not merely ruminated upon, and this realization is ripping me apart sometimes, like today. Coping through this process is as essential of a component as attending to the writing, production of content, or transference into other media.

It occurs to me on a day like today when everything seems to askew that it is probably not a good idea to write, not a good idea to read, as I feel distracted, displaced, pulled towards any number of things which seem more pressing - as my mother's voice was just saying, the physical and the emotional and the spiritual must all be attended to and currently I sense a lack in one or more of these area, a feeling which I hope to sit with for awhile, so as to dissapate the anxiety and fashion it into a creative vessel. The dark moments are as essential as those that are light. I hope this exercise of speaking to myself will allow me to sit in the feeling like a warm pool, without causing destruction to my constituent parts, without being consumed by excesses. No sheer force or determinism can bring me back to equilibrium, so what is the strategy? Is it a waiting game, or some other game? Is there a practice of meditation or physical dislocation that I could perform - a desire to instigate a transition rather than sitting still. I can recognize desire disconnecting me from the writing of the opera, even though the opera itself is concerned with just this desire - at least for the moment - and the importance of analyzing its acrobatic contortions. Back to reading and books: there's so much I want to absorb yet the feeling oscilates between ecstatic inspiration feeding into my work and a sense that I am taking away from time/attention better spent in more practical ways - the same situation I have always dealt with, of course. After a series of recent conversations, it seems as though my engagement with the world of ideas is precisely the source of my alienation, yet my conflict stems from ruminating upon whether they are right or wrong, if I should be attempting to shift my perspective or challenge theirs in turn by reinforcing my own intuitions or rationality, certainly it's a negotiation of both but it's hard to feel through that, to find the time to read and expand as much as I want to, to challenge my own ideas and project while maintaing the focus to keep working on them, to attend to the past and the future - historicizing myself while determining the future. So again, I recognize the transitional nature of this process, which would benefit form a goal: to finish this stage of the development by the time we leave for our upcoming roadtrip - if I can thoroughly process the past so that I no longer feel as if its looming over me, allowing myself to hone my attention towards other spaces and time which may not be recognizable without this necessaty liberation. I would like to have a rough draft in physical form to give to my parents - this seems significant for my need for a deadline, to best take advantage of the offerings of the journey, and as a sybollic gift to pass forward to them as an access point to my mind - as well as proof readers for the editing process! Others could also read it, especially those indicated within the work. Perhaps this is the text I extend to would-be collaborators, to serve as a rubric through which a conversation may be conducted, or to represent what I may be able to offer within such a situation. Relating back to the diagrams on the plywood walls in the studio - the mapping out of my own psyche - its about locating the wholes, so that I may keep my focus steadily upon remembering what is known, deciphering where the unknown may lay, and continuously evaluating the difference between the two, informing how I will act next. It is a worthwhile goal to focus upon this text until August 18th - is it too ambitious to think I could have a rough diagram sketched out as well, on the wall, a brutalist image of what the future may hold in order to imprint upon my imagination and deram about under the open skies? After the transcription of this oration - after today - I will end the process of writing the past and beginning reading through it, editing actively, imposing more meta-level commentary upon the moldy logics and distill the emergent images into a form-language for the wall, to externalize and visualize the concept in relation to each other. While on the roadtrip with AP I will meditate upon some goals: to listen, to see, to be present with my partner, to observe the world around me and be sensitive to how it may influence my perspective, to refrain from projecting myself upon the situations in order to receive the experiences as they spontaneously occur - to remember to remember continuously that life itself is no project! The opera is not life, but is the container which attempts to capture it as it unfolds. I want to prepare to capture audio and visual - to be prepared to film situations as they arise without too much thought or interference - to be prepared to collect specimens and think about the possibilities of their presence, not of making, either myself or things. When I return I will have a few days to myself before having to get back to my job and I must make use of this time to compile the collected experiences. September will be a shit show: I'm committing myself to working long hard days to feed my bank account. I will be tired from this compulsory labor, so perhaps this will be a good time to make footnotes, to supplement my narcissistic text with readings from the outside - to be quiet and still and focused upon subject matter that is not my own. I can digest the experience of the roadtrip, read through my own text, amend the diagram on the wall, read the works of others, and prepare for the next phase: MUSIC. I will have a piano and my guitars, the text will be formed and strongly implying some directions for a libretto, if not already supplying some elements to work with. As the summer wanes and the world becomes darker I will want to bring the light into the studio - October, November, December will be a time to combine these elements in the studio, by which I mean: the text becoming performative through conversation, the music becoming performative and cohesive to the text which informs it, the wall map will begin to take on a form of notational logic which will radiate out and make more coherent the text architecture, music physics, and begin to imply possible movement trajectories and the spaces which will contain them. The wall is the image of the interference patterns emerging from the text, evoking affect through sound, represented by movements of body and vision, re-presented upon the world stage theater of the studio floor and its malleable walls. Movements will be through the space, through conversation, out the door and into the world at large - I just ordered some shoes and I will walk through the forest, through the city, through the landscape, relating to other bodies, other entities, other tracks, invisible forces relating to my active visualizations, quivering relations of being-borders, of my self and beyond. This physical place, here and now, this place I am in, this studio I am pacing around in while talking to myself outloud: this is the stage, at least initially. The screens and walls and curtains will need to be functional, to spatially delineate interiors (and exteriors) where activity may or may not be possible, to generate potentials for events (physical and psychical) to occur, to frame what is "opera" from what "is not." This reminds me.... I've been thinking about the table again, the carbon table, philosophical table, meta-form quasi-concrete fundament for relations: I want to build it as soon as possible, here, in the studio, hands-on craft work. I want to build a kitchen table to replace this shit Ikea horror we currently have, and to build it with great care and attention even though it's bound to be imperfect. In addition to being our kitchen table it will also be an essential prop - indeed, the first prop - of the first scene of the opera, for a conversation to take place, for a narrator to emerge. I want to orient the table towards functional purpose - for eating at, and it will be used - but also for conversing, converging beyond the practical, not of this world but a site for worlding-beyond. I want to populate this table with hand crafted (hand-mined/hand-minded) object, some of which have been hinted at, others which might be found, still others not yet conceived of - still held within the unknown but not totally unknowable. I will disrupt the "living" potentials of the space with clay forms, metal forms - to be more explicit: the table will be black, carbon black. I must consider the material I will make it out of, the process I will use to make it, how it will become black, through what process of alchemy or allegory; the language of the materiality of the table are so essential. There must also be some chairs, or at least two, possibly more - for our daily use of course, but also because there must be two to tango. The chairs should come in pairs, but perhaps two sit permanently upon the ground while two more can be suspended by special hook mounted to the wall, to clear the space and use them for another kind of storage function when they are not being sat in - perhaps. His and Hers. The making of the vessels, of our plates, of the functionally beautiful objects which fill the space - I think about clay drying, fired in the over? Is this possible? Can I buy clay and form it here and make functional objects within the home? ___ will certainly be of infinite help in this regard - but do I need to sign up for a ceramics class at a local community college? What of CCA, alma matter? Can the creation of our shared living space be a collaborative conversation? Can the making of the things which populate our environment serve as an interpersonal conversation? (I was reading about how the person one lives with is so significant an influence upon the person that one will become, or is currently).

___ and I had a discussion this morning concerning the clarification of an old idea: our desire to collaborate on a thing, the making of an object. I was reluctant to this, quite opposed at first, struggling to see the value for myself if I could not articulate the meaning directly, but I have now completely change my mind: I'm remembering the importance of making, how it informs our speaking, the dynamics between them and the capacity to care for these objects, and how AP can teach me through this method - take the lead so I might become more passive. We have been watching some programs about Japanese handcraft - another mode of research which seems essential, writing through the body, the practice of restraint and negative space, putting the body in formal relation to the world around.

So I'm dedicating the next 6 months to some rigorous OOFKAUU focus - with some small breaks - but towards the spring I will have to return to the academic rigors. I'm hoping that by next summer, by the time I return to EGS, I will have a new website portfolio/project with this text represented, the image/diagram/wall presented (Illustrator drawing perhaps), music recorded/performed and well documented, video footage of movement or POV or cinematic elements which can stand autonomously yet bound in supplemental relation to the OOFKAUU (without requiring excessive explanation). [The text seems to represent the voice, the potential of oration and language itself; the image depicts the emergent patterns of the material world or materialist ontology, a form-language of emulation; the music pertains to emotions/affect not necessarily bound to body/thing but evokes an invisible diffraction/diffusion through space-time, as space-time; the movement category (currently occupied by movement) directly pertains to proproception, of the body, the embodied states, specifically (but not exclusively) of the eye, beginning with the eye (since the whole project begins with the "I"), of the inside looking out; the stage is the physical attribute of space/place/area, referring back to the website presenting virtually the activities being conducted within the modeled/maquette/manifold of the studio, the physicalization of the diagrammatic space-time lattice matrix, suturing it all together. I want to have all this prepared to show/present to people by next summer - should not be too difficult considering my progress from last summer.

I must begin preparing for battle; I need to be reading constantly. I must dedicate one day a week to ravenous consumption, and EVERY day I should try to squeeze in a few hours of reading. Most days should be in the morning, with coffee and silence, to determine the conceptual directions of the day. Every day will be a walk - I must attend to the body. Weekend has been resigned to errands, but I should make better use of this time and integrate it into the productive work schedule. Sundays should be reserved to walking in nature, eating indulgent food, finding inspiration and relaxation in films, and investing some quality time with ___.

Thinking through all of this helps, but I still feel bad. Although I feel better in laying all of the plans out, I still don't feel like working. I suppose I can spend some time transcribing what I just dictated out onto the page, but it also occurs to me that I want more time to be silent and alone - these moments are increasingly rare these days, ever since returning to the USA infact. I miss the long cold silent winters of Scandinavia. Americans talk far too much for my taste. I need to remember to remember to make time for silence, for nothingness, even if I justify it by pacing circles in the studio, talking to myself outloud into a microphone. This monologue couldn't have happened outside - there are far too many distractions. I should learn this lesson and seek out the appropriate time, space, silence, and solitude while I'm writing the future elements of the opera. I feel guilty about my moments of "vegetation," like I must sneak around with it, hide it from all others, hide it from the world - this is ridiculous. This is what Fjola calls "being human" and we should all be entitled to it, all be allowed to die a slow silent death if we wish, if only to make us work even faster and more diligently when the breath normalizes and the vigor returns. I don't need to justify this, but somehow so many of my notes become oriented towards this. All of this makes me consider my "personality traits," how they could be psychologically classified, what neurosis or afflictions I may suffer by my own devices, inherited from my environment, or more subliminally endured. I should allow myself the guiltless space-time to do nothing, to become nothingness... but maybe it's unhealthy because of the mindlessness, lack of awareness, which is painful, alienating, suffering, and creates an addictive desire for the want of that self-eradication. Certainly I am human, but I do not want to classify our natural disposition to be depressive and melancholic, to define the baseline of existence as ennui, and so I wake up early, keep working, towards something more than nothing.