I give you a pear that was given me- would that it were a pair, but nature is penurious.

Louise Bourgeois- The Damned, the Posessed and the Beloved (The Steilneset memorial), 2007-2010
"a flaming chair surrounded by a ring of seven oval mirrors-each distorted mirror reflecting the flame differently" in Vardø, Norway

Best departing email ever

Hey Valerie. I'm long gone. Outta here. Vaya con Dios. Arrivederci baby. M.I.A.

I was sorry to have missed you at the party. You can keep the book if you want. Let me know what I owe and I can send you a check. And remember, if faced with a choice to go or not to go, always go. Unless it's a headless horseman offering you the ride. Then think about it.

Take care,
Ben

The brain has over a trillion neurons and every neuron has 10,000 dendrites.

Why haven't I made art in over 16 months?

I asked a co-worker the other day (he's a writer) whether he found words to always be sufficient. He said yes. Then I asked him if he's ever had a writer's block- the long term kind. He said no, because if he can't think of what to write, then he writes about how he can't think of what to write. Then I felt kind of like punching him in the face, but that was a fleeting second, haha..I find it fascinating that he's never experienced a sort of block. And I also completely disagree, I actually don't believe that words or images are always enough. Usually they are, but in rare moments of life I find them to be infuriatingly insufficient. For example, I was babysitting Giulia and Arianna today (prof's kids) and Giulia and I were talking about what little 7 month old Arianna must think about all day. We like to put her in this ridiculous contraption that supports a baby standing up but it also has wheels and toys all around the perimeter. It looks like a baby UFO on crack with all the bright-colored toys. She likes this one mirror in particular which is a bright purple color with hearts all over it. Today I was watching her really closely and I thought of two things: (1) I wonder if she's had her Lacan cross-over yet and (2) I saw her baby eyes look at the saturated purple and then look over at me in my bright purple T-shirt a moment later, making a sort of optical connection. This somehow almost compelled me to start bawling. I told her, Yeah, that's purple. Welcome to the world, baby. Then I thought about what it would be like to draw that moment...impossible. See what I mean?