Tuesday 1.26.10

KPLU

I met with Paula Wissel of KPLU today. She is the Law & Justice reporter for KPLU. We met by chance, last week, at Counterbalance Park during “Studies in White.” I mentioned my residency at NBBJ and she asked if she could interview me. KPLU is starting a new arts programs and Paula will be contributing. We spent 2.5 hours at my office in Fremont talking about Adopt-A-Poet, my residency at NBBJ, and about past projects. She asked some pretty expansive questions. Why are you doing this? What do you hope to accomplish? How will this help? What's the point? Do we really need this? I had no trouble talking. These were things I knew. I was glad for the chance to articulate my thoughts. It is when looking at my larger body of work that I realize what is it I'm doing, which it seems then to be one thing, one overarching mission--to live. After the interview, we walked along the ship canal to my boat. I showed Paula how I cast off in the morning. I untied and paddled around while she captured the sounds of the water. I let Paula in on a secret. I'm planning a surprise installation for NBBJ in the morning. She asked if she could come capture some of the responses. I cleared it with NBBJ and we planned to meet in the morning.

SURPRISE

I spent the rest of my day sewing, selecting and purchasing music, seeking out items for other NBBJ projects further afield. At 11:30pm, my partner Clinton dropped me off in the alleyway at NBBJ with the materials for the installation. It took two trips to get everything to my desk. It was then I made the final selections and burned a CD, made signs and labeled the CD player. At 2am, I began setting everything into place on the 2nd floor landing. I rearranged things a hundred times and approached from every direction before getting it right. Perfection is the enemy of good. I was growing tired.