2004-07-12 - 12:10 p.m.

things that happened to me this week:

• walking down berry st, i watched two bicyclists riding in opposite directions. they both got distracted, and ran headlong into one another. one bike was slightly damaged, and both were mad, but it clearly wasn't anyone's fault.

• after more than six months of a strict periodical diet, i bought a stack of new books. i picked one up on friday night ('holy cow' by sarah mcdonald), read the entire thing, and picked up the next one ('what's the matter with kansas?' by thomas frank) and read half of it.

• finally had a studio visit with the gallerist, who wants to hang my work for a spring show. we then sipped white bordeaux and tasted cucumber soup in the backyard of dumont.

• miss caprino rode her bike over to my house and we went for beers at east river. i ran into my new neighbors j and s and they joined us for a talk about the artmaking process. east river has a beer special, $2 for a polish beer called 'warka' in a tallboy can. j was persuaded to order one, and we all tasted it. it was easily the worst beer i've ever had, with an aftertaste like an ashtray. j felt betrayed enough to return it to the bartender and demand a corona in exchange.

• i ran into ja at yabby, who was thin and tanned. he was sad at not selling out his last show but i know he's gonna be famous someday. in typical rockstar fashion, he is just back from mexico.

• when i finally peeled myself out of bed on sunday morning, i got a coffee, a muffin, and a Times and sat in the sun at marlow. i found a flyer for a used bookstore i'd never seen before and they were having a buy-one-get-one-free sale. for $19 i acquired:
  • 'lightning on the sun' by robert bingham
  • 'radicalism in america' by sidney lens
  • 'the art of looking sideways' by alan fletcher

• sunday afternoon i spread out the times on the bar at the lounge, shmeared a bagel, and ordered a bloody mary. i found a typographic error in a perfume ad, which extolled the virtues of the 'uninhabited woman'. i love new york.