Answers to Questions Posted on the Blog

received by any other method than via blog comments do not count as answers.

RB User Poll

Am I threatening or non-threatening?

One More Project to Never Complete

During the DNC, commuter trains that originated northeast of Boston terminated in Lynn, Mass. The Globe called Lynn a "gritty North Shore city." Ever since then I've been obsessed with capturing that grit--in Somerville, Medford, Malden, Everett, Lynn, Revere, Chelsea, etc--with my lens(es). Too bad I haven't started yet.

More on Art Theft

Here's an interesting piece from CNN/Money on the Munch Theft (see below for a BBC article).

In San Diego last fall, I saw a traveling Italian torture instrument exhibit at Balboa Park. Since then I have always wanted to write a fun novel, set entirely in Queens, about stealing weird shit from museums.

De Lempicka and The Queen

Two developments:

Waiting for my #3 at longtime favorite lunch/dinner/2am spot Espresso's I got bored and walked to the bus stop across the street, where I was sure I'd find a copy of the poorly-copyedited Metro. Instead I got an outdated copy of the Boston Phoenix, returned to my restaurant booth, and extracted the weekly paper's arts section.

What I saw was this--Tamara de Lempicka's "Young Girl With Gloves"--gracing the cover. Clicky clicky, and see how this Polish-Russian-Parisian artist mechanizes and eroticizes her green-dress-and-gloves wearing heroine. A stranger to both de Lempicka and her work, I was a little surprised when the internet told me she was the "goddess of the automobile age," and perhaps the most famous [female] art deco painter of all time. I guess I've been missing out. No worries; she's be part of the MFA's Art Deco exhibit, which opened yesterday. By the way, the MFA is having its last cocktail part of the summer this Friday evening; let's go. Oh, and Taschen (German art publisher) has this neat little de Lempicka book, which I of course want.

Second development: I bought a queen-sized mattress today. My bed now occupies 1/4 of the surface area of my bedroom/office. It's damn big, and I'm going to like it a lot. Much more than my Williamsburg twin, with less than three feet of headroom.

Half development: typing this and listening to my Curtis Mayfield, I think an art deco-styled loungey bar that played rare 60's and 70's soul-funk would be the coolest looking, sounding, and feeling environment on earth. Send me some of your trust fund money so I can set this place up.

all claw their labels

Back in Boston after a rather exhausting conference in Montreal. We talked a lot about books; I ate and drank in the presense of important people. The head of Thames & Hudson USA, Peter Warner, turned out to be another Queens native. I discussed the ramifications of Wal-Mart's buyout of NPR with entertainingly obstreperous Brit Colin Robinson, who happens to be publisher of the radical nonprofit house The New Press. And I had the opportunity to ask one of America's most compelling, well-known, and hilarious political scientists how to lead my family from its gay-fearing, anti-choice, shrub-loving stupor. And he told me. More on that will come.

I will be in Boston for six days. I have not been in any one physical place for more than fourteen consecutive days in the past two months, and that's starting to disturb other people who hear about it. I feel at home everywhere I go. I feel homeless everywhere I go. Hmm.

In semirelated (heretofore semipurposefully, literarily unconnected to the rest of this post) news, two of Edvard Munch's most famous works have been stolen. Munch, of course, made himself a legendary career of converting being totally fucked up into a visual art form. And now we steal whatever is left of him.

Sales Training Is Fun

In Montreal. Blog not dead yet.

Now I've Done It

I've gone and turned 23. Thanks to those who came out to the East Village to celebrate.

A Letter from Dan Barry

From: saturnine23@juno.com

Subject: surgery has published a piece of mine!

Date: August 9, 2004 2:30:47 PM EDT

hey everyone!

first things first: i know i've been an uber-flake about picking up the phone. i have no excuse for this except to say that it is actually quasi-broken, and i've also been spending a lot of time with my family, which is a very good thing. i'm sorry if i've been a pain to get in touch with. i owe a lot of you phone calls -- we'll talk soon.

second, my big fat piece of news! an awesome avant-garde lit website, surgery of modern warfare, has published a piece of mine this week. it will be one of the last pieces they put up before they close sometime next week. it's a short piece i'm pretty amped about -- a somewhat-fictionalized account of my recent trip to the psych unit (!!!) of UCONN medical center. (i play with the idea of being more psycho than i really am. although i'm pretty psycho.) check it out -- i hope you like it. dig through their archives if you get a chance -- there's good stuff in there.

third, some upcoming news: the wonderful rob bellinger and i are actually, finally (we're not kidding this time) completing work on our first self-published books. we've selected cover art, finalized layouts, and we're in the process of putting on the last finishing touches. my anthology, "sticks and rocks and stars" (which we're so sick of by now we've been calling it "sticks and rocks and SARS") and rob's grindfolio, "proclivities," will be out by the end of the summer. check out www.rbellinger.com/name_tk for more info on name_TK publications.

that's all i have to report for now.

love,

dan

Traveling. Sales. Scranton.

**Apologies to Wilkes-Barre. That's where the place below actually is.

Sunday nights in Scranton are wilder than most Saturday nights in Manhattan, if you ask the right people or visit the Woodlands Lodge. Pocono tiki bar, big bouncers in tuxedos, killer escargot and filet mignon, the EVOLUTION discotheque, the locals' fear of newfangled "gangbangers," and the one natural d-cup in town serving Yuengling bottles on a tray. If only there were meaning to it all/God Bless America.

How To Be A Social Climber

Never talk to anyone about anything. Buy several silk ties decorated with efficient, geometric patterns. Always look well-maintained. Stop smoking and eating fast food. Be born under the sign of Leo. Never cry or be wrong.

Digital Dysfunction: An Awful but Fitting Title

Now you can use Blogger to squabble with your parents.

A Visitor in My Own Home

I'm staying in a hotel on 40th Street in Midtown. All I've been doing lately (and instinctively) is stream-of-consciousness travel writing/blogging. And checking into another frigid hotel room makes me think I should look out the window and start writing about whatever I see. Trouble is, when I look down or walk to work on 5th Avenue, I'm just bored. Same faceless tourists, same lions in front of the library, same butterlike August air.