Glenn O’Brien talks to John Currin in Interview Magazine. I’m not sure why I read the interview, but I’m glad I did. I generally respect but do not admire (as we say around here) his work. It has always felt a bit vicious, distinctly satirical, so I thought it was interesting that he comes off as so cheery and excitable here—endearing even, though it goes to show how distinct a life from the maker art can take on. Much more like a child than a possession. The painter is still chatting about how his work is utterly unironic and a model son who’s never caused a moment of trouble, while the painting is off in the corner sulkily cutting himself a line and throwing nasty sneers at the back of the painter’s head. It is a brave thing to make art of any sort.

The MOMA line portraits. I love portrait sets. Actually I love sets of nearly anything. I think perhaps repetition is a little like the verbal explanation that’s not supposed to accompany art.

Mapping the structure of science, i.e. the citation network within publications, based on Eigenfactor data.

The fanciest kicks around. I can’t help digging the suede-pink and the pure red pairs. I will certainly buy some as soon as I buy everything else I have ever wanted and ever will.

My sewing machine finally bit the dust a few months ago after years of extracting approximately three hours of torment from me for every inch of stitching. If the thread tension wasn’t wrong, the bobbin was loose or the pressure foot was popping off or it was recovering from a long illness and would faint dead away if I spoke harshly to it. However, I am going to borrow a machine to throw together one of these single seam dresses. I have a very old pattern from the seventies for one of these, but using jersey makes it much simpler. No zipper or fasteners to wrestle with, and a nice flowy full shirt (You can use a zigzag stitch if you don’t have a serger; I still wear a dress I made that way fifteen years ago). And speaking of lady things like sewing and housewifery, I was remembering the other day that I once took a charm class. I was attending Pioneer Girls, a Christian response to the secular threat of Brownies, of which I have very little recollection other than wearing a blue and white uniform involving some sort of neck scarf; and they decided to append a charm class presumably to help us become godly and modest wives someday. Since I was only seven, and the prospect of becoming even a teenager seemed theoretical, I was very excited about such grown-up topics. We studied titillating themes like dating, posture and deportment, skirt length, makeup, and most memorably, hairstyles. The class was accompanied by a sort of workbook, a large pink soft cover workbook that detailed the range of cranial deformities and the corresponding appropriate hairstyle to render you as homogeneous as possible. For example, if you had a head shaped like a peanut, you were supposed to wear your hear in two little bushes about your ears. If your head was heart shaped, you were on no account allowed to wear your hair in two high ponytails. I can still visualize that page perfectly. I think it was an object of fascination for my sisters as well. Maybe we should try to recreate it.

Aure and I went out between the bursts of rain into the steamy interval of sunshine this afternoon. We swung on the dripping swings and sloshed down a wet slide alone before anyone else showed up at the usually packed playground. After a while Aure and a tiny ponytailed girl paddled in the monstrous pool around the playground sprinkler’s blocked drain, the fountain a cold bubble in the center, which they first approached with some trepidation; though a few minutes later they were squashing and squeezing the water hilariously, putting their faces close and shyly dropping empty handfuls on one another’s heads. Eventually some other kids and parents showed up, but no one was allowed to join us in the interesting froth of leaves and popsicle sticks (and a few cigarette butts). The other equally foolhardy mother seemed to be enjoying herself and not too worried about germs. I thought a bit about cholera but then Aure fell in so I stopped. When the hordes of cabin-fevered teens arrived, we waddled back down the block in our wet clothing.