cycloid sally

I didn’t have to close tonight. I didn’t expect it but Forager Girl met me at the bookstore and walked home with me. She was upset about something but wouldn’t tell me what. We had noodles but noodles didn’t help. Chain called and said he was going to be late. Forager Girl made me so nervous I didn’t have the heart to hassle him about skanks. Barris and Harry showed up. That was weird too: I didn’t get a chance to open the door for them because Monkey somehow did it. I don’t know how: the chain was on. And that is very high on the door. Just once I’d like to catch him at it.
So anyway we all sat down – on the floor, we don’t have four chairs – and Barris and Harry told us this amazing yarn about the forces at work in the city and I’m not supposed to repeat any of it but I am supposed to believe it all. The thing is, I think I do, and so does Forager Girl, or at least I think I believe that something’s going on that may or may not be exactly as they say it is, but is probably of some similar nature. So I promised to be careful.
Now that I think about it, I realize I’m not supposed to repeat this to anybody “not in the house.” And at the moment that Harry said that, Chain walked in. Harry changed the subject, so I guess he didn’t want to talk to Chain about it right then, but I also get the impression that he knew Chain was in the house already.
Anyway, at least now I have a reason to pin all those weird people on.

Brunch at the Universal with Chain and Forager Girl. Harry and Barris showed up when we were about halfway through breakfast ( noyummy yummy jook, but I was really hungry and I had eggs over easy instead). I told Barris about my envelope full of invitations and he was quite concerned, so I ran back to the apartment and got it for him. He and Harry perused each and every one of them, turning them over and over and squinting at them in the light. Looking for watermarks? Why would there be watermarks on that kind of thing?
Anyway, Barris confirmed that none of them was a legitimate call for entries and said that a lot of the independent artists – he meant me! – were getting them. Forager Girl said she got some too. Then Barris asked if he could look at her work so we all got into Barris’s car, which is not big enough for five people – the back seat isn’t really meant for people, or at least not for grownups – but we managed. And so I got to see Forager Girl’s work.
She lives with a couple of uptight hipsters, wannabes who can’t figure out if they wannabe yuppies or wannabe bohos. But she gets the biggest room in the apartment and that’s actually where she works. Barris said she shouldn’t do that because of toxicity but she just shrugged. What do you expect from a person who eats the botanical equivalent of roadkill?
Well, her work. What can I say? We’re sisters. I think her stuff is slightly more edgy, and my stuff is slightly more complex, but we’re on a similar path, I think.
He gave her the same offer as me, and said we might consider a joint show, which makes sense to me.

Forager Girl and I had a great day. We cooked lunch with the stuff she brought and it was fine, though odd, and I of course augmented it with noodles. I showed her what I was working on and some notes for some other stuff I’ve been thinking about and she asked all the right questions and gave me really useful critique. It was like drinking water on a really hot day, like hanging with Barris Mackey when he’s not going on and on about factions and politics. My next day off, or sooner if I don’t get one soon enough (fooey on Hugo), I’ll go to her place and look at her stuff. When she finally had to go I walked her down to the lobby and Harry met us there and made one of his usual remarks. He was really interested in the Cambodian piecework on one of her shoulder bags.

I want to go back and re-read everything I’ve ever seen about dynamic symmetry.

In other news, I’m getting weird mail. The kind of thing like those ads urging you to get some kind of credit card (Chain always talks me out of those and it’s annoying because I’d really like to use plastic now and then). But they’re not: they’re solicitations for art competitions, juried shows, and stuff like that. How did I get on those mailing lists? They’re so weird, not like the kind of letter you’d expect to get from galleries or foundations or schools or whatever – they look just like those credit card letters. Including the sticker that says “Yes” and the sticker that says “No.”
Chain says I should throw them away but I’ve been stuffing them in an envelope to show to Barris Mackey whenever I see him again.

Barris Mackey was at the Universal Café! And he paid for breakfast (yummy yummy jook, but Harry and Barris had huge plates of sausage and fried eggs and pancakes and and and). But they wouldn't talk about art. They kept talking about factions, and I tried to be a good girl and pay attention because who knows? someday maybe I won't be working in isolation, I'll have a whole "school" of mixed media artists that I belong to, and maybe this political stuff might become relevant. But it was boring. At least something concrete came out of it. Barris said if I wanted to have a show, to put together a new portfolio and call him -- and he gave me his number! -- and he'd introduce me around. He said under no circumstances was I to allow myself to be patronized before I had another public show, and especially not to take commissions from random people who seemed to know more than they ought to be able to. I guess Harry told him about that woman who keeps coming to the bookstore. She hasn't been back in a while and frankly I'd sort of forgotten about the intriguing cylinder project. For a minute there I felt like the naughty little girl who tried to get the liquor down from the top shelf.
So but that was good. That was not bad. That was an offer to get me a show when I have enough new work. I asked him how many pieces it took to make a portfolio and he said "I don't think you're going to like this, but it all depends." And then he laughed. "No, really, but you should have at least ten in your portfolio, and at least six of the pieces should be really new work."
That will keep me busy for months.
Work was work. A few quaint individuals, but nothing to get excited about. Found The Secrets of the Masters on the wrong shelf again, so I took some time to read it for a while.
After I got home I found a message from Forager Girl. I wish she had a real name. Forager Girl sounds like something out of a precious fantasy story, the kind with mystical sex in it. She was at Wednesday Wanderings last night, and she spent the whole time drawing these cool patterns. She said they were notes about what Harry was saying about universal symmetry, but I didn't get those from what he said. I didn't get much. I said so, and Harry, who was slouching around nearby, said that was a good thing and I should cultivate it. I said, "what, not getting things?" And he said yes.
Forager Girl and I are getting together tomorrow, when I am not working. I don't think Hugo has noticed that he has me working six days on a good week, seven sometimes, and only two days off in a row every month and a half. Or maybe he has and is playing dumb so he doesn't have to hire more help. That's probably it: my paycheck was way more than I expected again last time and when I tried to get him to fix it he said it was too much trouble and he'd take it out of some other check. The last time he said that he never did.
Note to self: remember to ask how come Monkey’s called that instead of a normal name.

Okay, this week has been strange enough. First, the coincidences. Chain and I met the same weird person at about the same time, it seems like, but on opposite ends of the city. I wonder how that works. Chain says I must be mistaken about when she walked into the store, but I know what time it was because I was doing the midday register snapshot (Josh insists, though it's stupid, and I only hope he doesn't get any more efficiency and accuracy ideas). So that was weird. She's pretty strange but I get a good feeling about her. She was toting around like four bags, each one different and filled with different found things. Sometimes I do art pieces with found things so we have something in common there, though what she was saying was that she does her whole life mostly with found things. I told her about the Wednesday Wanderings -- just for her amusement -- and she was more than interested, she was stoked. She says she's there. Well, there'll be another person in the store who's not eligible for Social Security, anyway. Other coincidences: I keep running into people who seem to know all about my work but they act like they're talking about something else. There's that lady that Harry said not to trust, and there's that Button-Down Guy who showed up again from who knows where and he was I swear he was talking about the Book of Crinkly Things. What's that about?
Actually, somehow, I kind of like Button-Down Guy, though Chain doesn't. Chain doesn't like anybody.
Second, there was Wednesday Wanderings, as usual. That's where Button-Down Guy showed up at. Forager Girl didn't, but she had said she might not make it this week but she'd probably come later on. Wednesday Wanderings is weird enough for any week. Something weird always happens. Always. This time it was some kind of psychodrama that erupted between the
guy who takes the weird notes and this lady I had never seen before. She was kind of overdressed by the standards of the Santos, sort of like the lady who wanted me to make a Wheel of Animals for her own self, with those same shoes that Harry objected to before, with the spirograph buckles. Anyway, about an hour into the lecture she interrupted with a question I did not understand about the role of moon phases and tides in -- the harmony of the spheres? That can't be right, that's too medieval. But it was something that sounded like that.
And note taker guy accused her of complicity in murder. Essentially. It took a lot more words and back and forth than that, but that was about what it amounted to. She naturally got huffy and she accused him right back and it went on like that for several minutes, Harry just laughing that weird soundless laugh he has and having a high old time. Finally he raised his
hand and said there was a time and a place for everything, and that this bookstore was not the place nor his lecture the time for factional infighting. They subsided right away but they were doing that dagger gaze thing ever after. So that was weird. I couldn't tell if anybody else in
the store knew what any of that was about, but Harry, who for once stayed behind while I cleaned up, though he did not actually help, wouldn't answer any questions at all.
So Harry's also involved in the other weird thing this week. He commanded my presence at some high-tone art wank event at the Feuer Mansion. I thought what they did at the Feuer Mansion was bigger deal stuff than simple art exhibits, but I guess I was wrong. He didn't tell me till the last minute where I was going, exactly -- I only went because Josh and Hugo and Chain all agreed that I should probably go because it would be interesting if Harry cooked it up, and he did tell me that it was someplace where artists would be, which made me think it would be a tumbling-down shanty on the beach at Avila Landing, but no, it was the Feuer Mansion and Harry didn't tell me until our ride came and I didn't have time to go change my clothes. "You're dressed perfect," Harry said.
And then his ride -- oh my, it was Barris Mackey, who is one of my heroes, this Renaissance man from the old days. I don't mean the literal Renaissance. I mean he does all these different kinds of art, and he also has a radio show, and he writes a column for a webzine. And he looks like he's maybe half the age of Harry Smith, which means he looks like he's at least eighty (which is about right, if I remember his bio right). So that was exciting, even though I was dreading the whole Feuer Mansion thing.
Which was about as bad as I thought it would be. How any of those guys have any time for art after they've finished gussying themselves up I'll never know. The event I never did figure out what it was for, but it was this immense party, filling up almost all of the bottom floor of the mansion, and there was practically no place to sit. Everybody was milling around showing off for each other. Barris and Harry abandoned me immediately though I tried hard to tag along. I ended up having these awkward conversations with men who were wearing makeup and they weren't even in drag. I mean these guys were in tasteful, subtle makeup, like they were actors in a movie just trying to look good, not like they were playing around or anything. Two of these guys seemed to be hitting on me and I couldn't figure out why. I just pretended I didn't notice, which is what Chain says he does. I don't have a lot of practice dealing with men hitting on me which is why I wasn't even sure. I wished Chain was there, or Monkey even, or that Harry and Barris had not abandoned me.
There was music. I can't even describe it. It was live, and it was very sophisticated I guess, but there was like a note every five minutes and some of them were painfully loud and some of them werfe too quiet to be heard even if you were pretty close.
So the art. Well, there was a lot of it, by the time you had gone all around the whole mansion, but it seemed like there wasn't very much of it for the amount of space. I'd like to be all superior and say it wasn't any good, that it was empty and soulless and totally sold out, but honestly, a lot of it was good. There were a couple pieces I wish I had done, actually. I guess maybe that was the point of me being there. Harry maybe wanted to show me that there's a place for my work in the City, but I honestly am not sure I could stand to operate at those levels. On the way back we stopped at the Universal Cafe where everybody seemed to know Harry and Barris, and well, they all know me too, so that was weird in a different way, an "excuse me, I didn't know we were family" kind of way, kind of good. So Barris and I had a long talk about art and Harry laughed at us the whole time and then Harry and I walked home because we were only a couple of blocks away and Barris drove back to Avila Landing.
Maybe the next time Harry wants to drag me somewhere he'll take me to Barris Mackey's place instead.