Personism

Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself

@caterina and @cdixon make some great points in support of NYC's nascent tech revival.

Chris:
New York City has many of the same strengths as Silicon Valley – merit-driven capitalism, the embrace of newcomers and particularly immigrants, and a consistent willingness to reinvent itself.

Caterina:
...it may be that creativity and invention are more dependent on the networks in which the creator participates than their individual genius or their willingness to put in the hours. As we've so often seen, great ideas occur where there is a confluence of ideas taken from the environment surrounding the creator or creators.

Having spent a good deal of time working in technology both in NY and Silicon Valley, I've found that the NYC network is more diffuse and harder to find a path into. I think it has something to do with the fact that there's so much else going on aside from technology — the valley might hold the title of the best place for start-ups in technology, but NYC is the best place for many things.

The diversity of experience on the 20x200 team is incredible and inspiring. Everyone I work with has done a bunch of other things aside from technology, and not one of them set out for a tech career to begin with. Among us are photographers, musicians, artists, writers, lawyers, teachers and wine experts. We all love the internet (a lot! too much?) but what drives us most is our love of art and the people who make it.

Does this happen in Silicon Valley? Perhaps, but my time spent there — which I loved, for the record — was about an immersion in technology. Here in NYC it's about the thing itself.

Both environments have their merits, and like Caterina, I get to enjoy both. As readers of the 20x200 newsletters know, I spend a lot of time in the Bay area. My friends there have a fluency and familiarity with technology that I find lacking here in New York. There's a drive for innovation that's almost palpable, and many are the true believers who are convinced that technology will save us all.

I love that way of thinking, and I'm also willing to put my money on technology as a solver of the many things that ail us, but all that innovation speak can be exhausting and then there's the fact that you can't hail a cab there.

My non-techy friends in NY can be downright phobic and I often find myself making sheepish excuses for Twitter and Tumblr and Foursquare. The fear of what's coming is incredibly exasperating, knowing as I do that it's already here.

Then again, if you live too long inside the echo-chamber, it's easy to forget who's going to be using all this technology in the end. The reality check is important, almost as important as being able to hail a cab whenever I damn well please.

Paired: Hido + Carver

2314c by Todd Hido

The Phone Booth

She slumps in the booth, weeping
into the phone. Asking a question
or two, and weeping some more.
Her companion, an old fellow in jeans
and denim shirt, stands waiting
his turn to talk, and weep.
She hands him the phone.
For a minute they are together
in a tiny booth, his tears
dropping alongside hers. Then
she goes to lean against the fender
of their sedan and listens
to him talk about arrangements.

I watch all this from my car.
I don't have a phone at home, either.
I sit behind the wheel,
smoking, wanting to make
my own arrangements. Pretty soon
he hangs up. Comes out and wipes his face.
They get in the car and sit
with the windows rolled up.
The glass grows steamy as she
leans into him, as he puts
his arm around her shoulders.
The workings of comfort in that cramped, public space.

I take my small change over
to the booth, and step inside.
But leaving the door open, it's
so close in there. The phone still warm to the touch.

I hate to use a phone
that's just brought news of death.
But I have to, it being the only phone
for miles, and one that might
listen without taking sides.

I put in coins and wait.
Those people in the car wait too.
He starts the engine then kills it.
Where to? None of us able
to figure it out. Not knowing
where the next blow might fall,
or why. The ringing at the other end

stops when she picks it up.
Before I can say two words, the phone
begins to shout, "I told you it's over!
Finished! You can go
to hell as far as I'm concerned!"

I drop the phone and pass my hand
across my face. I close and open the door.
The couple in the sedan roll
their windows down and
watch, their tears stilled
for a moment in the face of this distraction.
Then they roll their windows up
and sit behind the glass.

We don't go anywhere for a while.
And then we go.

— Raymond Carver

Notes:
Peter Buchanan-Smith recently redesigned Raymond Carver's backlist for Vintage Contemporaries, using Hido's photographs on the covers. You can read a conversation between Buchanan-Smith + Hido about the project on The Sun & Anchor.

A Road Divided, an exhibition of recent landscapes by Hido, is on view at Bruce Silverstein Gallery through October 24, 2009.

The Phone Booth is included in Hido's stunning 2004 monograph, Roaming. (Published by Nazraeli.)

Paired: Thiebaud + O ' Hara

Celebration Cakes by Wayne Thiebaud

Lines for the Fortune Cookies

I think you're wonderful and so does everyone else.

Just as Jackie Kennedy has a baby boy, so will you--even bigger.

You will meet a tall beautiful blonde stranger, and you will not say hello.

You will take a long trip and you will be very happy, though alone.

You will marry the first person who tells you your eyes are like scrambled eggs.

In the beginning there was YOU--there will always be YOU, I guess.

You will write a great play and it will run for three performances.

Please phone The Village Voice immediately: they want to interview you.

Roger L. Stevens and Kermit Bloomgarden have their eyes on you.

Relax a little; one of your most celebrated nervous tics will be your undoing.

Your first volume of poetry will be published as soon as you finish it.

You may be a hit uptown, but downtown you're legendary!

Your walk has a musical quality which will bring you fame and fortune.

You will eat cake.

Who do you think you are, anyway? Jo Van Fleet?

You think your life is like Pirandello, but it's really like O'Neill.

A few dance lessons with James Waring and who knows? Maybe something will happen.

That's not a run in your stocking, it's a hand on your leg.

I realize you've lived in France, but that doesn't mean you know EVERYTHING!

You should wear white more often--it becomes you.

The next person to speak to you will have a very intriquing proposal to make.

A lot of people in this room wish they were you.

Have you been to Mike Goldberg's show? Al Leslie's? Lee Krasner's?

At times, your disinterestedness may seem insincere, to strangers.

Now that the election's over, what are you going to do with yourself?

You are a prisoner in a croissant factory and you love it.

You eat meat. Why do you eat meat?

Beyond the horizon there is a vale of gloom.

You too could be Premier of France, if only... if only...

—Frank O'Hara

Thanks to Andrew Long for this perfect pairing!

Harvest by Wout Berger

Harvest (2007) by Wout Berger | 120x150 cm, ed. of 6

I have nothing to pair this image with, it's just one that I've loved for a few years now.

Paired: Soth + Stevens

Cone and Cigar, Falcon Heights, Minnesota by Alec Soth
From The Last Days of W

The Emperor of Ice Cream

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

—Wallace Stevens

Paired: Core + Arnold

Early American, Blackberries (Raphaelle Peale) by Sharon Core 12 x 17.75 inch, c-print, edition of 7 (2008)

The Heart Under Your Heart

            Who gives his heart away too easily must have a heart
            under his heart.                       
               —James Richardson


The heart under your heart

            is not the one you share

so readily      so full of pleasantry

            & tenderness



it is a single blackberry

            at the heart of a bramble

or else some larger fruit

            heavy      the size of a fist



it is full of things

            you have never shared with me

broken engagements      bruises

            & baking dishes



the scars on top of scars

            of sixteen thousand pinpricks

the melody you want so much to carry

            & always fear black fear



or so I imagine      you have never shown me

            & how could I expect you to

I also have a heart beneath my heart

            perhaps you have seen      or guessed

it is a beach at night

where the waves lap & the wind hisses

            over a bank of thin

translucent orange & yellow jingle shells



on the far side of the harbor

            the lighthouse beacon

shivers across the black water

            & someone stands there      waiting

—Craig Arnold
Published: The Paris Review No. 189 Summer 2009