April 28, 1997, Monday

Empathy for the inanimate: The full beer lies on the table hoping to serve as an ashtray so that, sullied, he might survive long enough to experience the coolness of earth instead of the hell of digestion.

There are worse fates to befall a bipedal anthropoid ape.

I

  was at UVA's Cocke Hall for an incredibly long time today, starting just after 8am and continuing until 3:30pm. There is something pathological in me that makes me create, and the Woild Woid Web is my chosen medium. It's as valid a medium as any other, it's just new, and who its heroes are has not yet been settled. Ideally for me, of course, I'd become the hero of the World Wide Web by remaining obsessed with it. And one day I'd roll out of bed and find myself proclaimed the web's Michelangelo or Picasso or Sir Isaac Newton or Joseph Stalin. There are worse fates to befall a bipedal anthropoid ape.

Back at the Dynashack, I talked with Ian Cohen about graphic design. His work, which often ends up being 20 Megabyte TIFF files, usually finds its way onto fliers that promote raves he organizes.

Raves, by the way, are all-night dance parties where people ingest designer drugs and weild glowing "toys" while moving their bodies to techno music. And techno music is rhythm-based music made with synthesizers and samples by a DJ (a term that means far more than "disk jockey"). There, I just spared you from having to slog through the Big Fun Glossary.

My work, on the other hand, is mostly text, but the small amount of graphics I do normally falls within the less than 20 K range.

John invited me to go with him to UVA's Fayerweather Hall, the Art Building, to attend Ches' (and others') art opening. No, I don't know why UVA art openings are held on Mondays. He brought lots of vino, which was good, because otherwise there would have only been one large jug of white wine. The eats were good; for example, there was hummus, an art opening rarity.

Ches has a strong Francis Bacon influence in most of his works. The order has broken down further, though. Literally; he's gone around and found bits of broken picture framing elements and included them in one of his works.

Someone showed the results of a three dimensional interactive digital animation project. It was impressive in as much as I had no idea how such things are created. But when upon thinking how common such interactive animations are becoming, it looked more prosaic, like arts & crafts.

As I had a similar Fayerweather opening some months ago, I felt oddly ignored by everyone at this opening. Many of the people present know me, but they act distant in their home turf. It's a subtle feeling, but it's there, and it's eerie. This is in marked contrast to the attention paid me at openings on the Downtown Mall, where I (and even my mother) frequently feel like the center of attention.

B

y the end of the opening I was actually pretty drunk and don't remember things so well. Someone showed a video project that was a spoof of a horror flick.

Meanwhile, diagonally across the muddy plain that adjoins Rugby Road, a fraternity was having a big party. Lots of smartly dressed frat boys could be seen whooping it up under clouds of grey barbecue smoke so thick that the police had been called.

I made it back to an empty Dynashack and took a bath, though I barely remember doing so. My pre-work nap began not long past 8pm.

At Comet, I found myself gnawing sticks of uncooked spaghetti as I surfed the web.

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