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: Forer + Tennyson

My friend to live with you alone, Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee by Taj Forer
From the series Threefold Sun
Released as a 20x200 edition on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
Taj and I had a lovely chat about Threefold Sun, Rudolf Steiner, biodynamic farming and raw milk.
You can read the transcript on the 20x200 blog.

Ode to Memory

  I.

    Thou who stealest fire,
  From the fountains of the past,
  To glorify the present, O, haste,
    Visit my low desire!
  Strengthen me, enlighten me!
  I faint in this obscurity,
  Thou dewy dawn of memory.

          II.

    Come not as thou camest of late,
  Flinging the gloom of yesternight
On the white day, but robed in soften’d light
      Of orient state.
Whilome thou camest with the morning mist,
  Even as a maid, whose stately brow
The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss’d,
      When she, as thou,
Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight
Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots
Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits,
Which in wintertide shall star
The black earth with brilliance rare.

          III.

Whilome thou camest with the morning mist,
  And with the evening cloud,
Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast;
Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind
    Never grow sere,
When rooted in the garden of the mind,
  Because they are the earliest of the year.
    Nor was the night thy shroud.
In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest
Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope.
The eddying of her garments caught from thee
The light of thy great presence; and the cope
  Of the half-attain’d futurity,
  Tho’ deep not fathomless,
Was cloven with the million stars which tremble
O’er the deep mind of dauntless infancy.
Small thought was there of life’s distress;
For sure she deem’d no mist of earth could dull
Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful;
Sure she was nigher to heaven’s spheres,
Listening the lordly music flowing from
    The illimitable years.
  O, strengthen me, enlighten me!
  I faint in this obscurity,
  Thou dewy dawn of memory.

          IV.

Come forth, I charge thee, arise,
Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes!
Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines
    Unto mine inner eye,
    Divinest Memory!
  Thou wert not nursed by the waterfall
Which ever sounds and shines
  A pillar of white light upon the wall
Of purple cliffs, aloof descried:
Come from the woods that belt the gray hillside,
The seven elms, the poplars four
That stand beside my father’s door,
And chiefly from the brook that loves
To purl o’er matted cress and ribbed sand,
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves,
Drawing into his narrow earthen urn,
    In every elbow and turn,
The filter’d tribute of the rough woodland;
    O, hither lead thy feet!
Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat
Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds,
    Upon the ridged wolds,
When the first matin-song hath waken’d loud
Over the dark dewy earth forlorn,
What time the amber morn
Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud.

          V.

Large dowries doth the raptured eye
  To the young spirit present
    When first she is wed,
      And like a bride of old,
    In triumph led,
      With music and sweet showers
      Of festal flowers,
  Unto the dwelling she must sway.
Well hast thou done, great artist Memory.
  In setting round thy first experiment
    With royal framework of wrought gold;
Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay,
And foremost in thy various gallery
  Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls
  Upon the storied walls;
      For the discovery
And newness of thine art so pleased thee
That all which thou hast drawn of fairest
Or boldest since but lightly weighs
With thee unto the love thou bearest
The first-born of thy genius. Artist-like,
Ever retiring thou dost gaze
On the prime labor of thine early days,
No matter what the sketch might be:
Whether the high field on the bushless pike,
Or even a sand-built ridge
Of heaped hills that mound the sea,
Overblown with murmurs harsh,
Or even a lowly cottage whence we see
Stretch’d wide and wild the waste enormous marsh,
Where from the frequent bridge,
Like emblems of infinity,
The trenched waters run from sky to sky;
Or a garden bower’d close
With plaited alleys of the trailing rose,
Long alleys falling down to twilight grots,
Or opening upon level plots
Of crowned lilies, standing near
Purple-spiked lavender:
Whither in after life retired
From brawling storms,
From weary wind,
With youthful fancy re-inspired,
We may hold converse with all forms
Of the many-sided mind,
And those whom passion hath not blinded,
Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded.

My friend, with you to live alone
Were how much better than to own
A crown, a sceptre, and a throne!

O, strengthen me, englighten me!
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.

—Lord Alfred Tennyson

Paired: Sinclair + Tate

Fourth of July #2, Independence, Missouri a 20x200 edition by Mike Sinclair

The Motorcyclists

My cuticles are a mess. Oh honey, by the way,
did you like my new negligee? It’s a replica
of one Kim Novak wore in some movie or other.
I wish I had a foot-long chili dog right now.
Do you like fireworks, I mean not just on the 4th of July,
but fireworks any time? There are people
like that, you know. They’re like people who like
orchestra music, listen to it any time of day.
Lopsided people, that’s what my father calls them.
Me, I’m easy to please. I like ping-gong and bobcats,
shatterproof drinking glasses, the smell of kerosene,
the crunch of carrots. I like caterpillars and
whirlpools, too. What I hate most is being the first
one at the scene of a bad accident.

Do I smell like garlic? Are we still in Kansas?
I once had a chiropractor make a pass at me,
did I ever tell you that? He said that your spine
is happiest when you’re snuggling. Sounds kind
of sweet now when I tell you, but he was a creep.
Do you know that I have never understood what they meant
by “grassy knoll.” It sounds so idyllic, a place to go
to dream your life away, not kill somebody. They
should have called it something like “the grudging notch.”
But I guess that’s life. What is it they always say?
“It’s always the sweetest ones that break your heart.”
You getting hungry yet, hon? I am. When I was seven
I sat in our field and ate an entire eggplant
right off the vine. Dad loves to tell that story,

but I still can’t eat eggplant. He says I’ll be the first
woman President, it’d be a waste since I talk so much.
Which do you think the fixtures are in the bathroom
at the White House, gold or brass? It’d be okay with me
if they were just brass. Honey, can we stop soon?
I really hate to say it but I need a lady’s room.

—James Tate

Paired: Taylor + Dickinson

Bird's Nest by Keith Taylor

It did not surprise me

It did not surprise me—
So I said—or thought—
She will stir her pinions
And the nest forgot,

Traverse broader forests—
Build in gayer boughs,
Breathe in Ear more modern
God's old fashioned vows—

This was but a Birdling—
What and if it be
One within my bosom
Had departed me?

This was but a story—
What and if indeed
There were just such coffin
In the heart instead?

—Emily Dickinson

Paired: Alexander Beeching + Robert Frost

The Constellation of the Elephant, a 20x200 edition by Alexander Beeching

On Looking Up by Chance at the Constellations

You'll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may as well go patiently on with our life,
And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun
For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane.
It is true the longest drouth will end in rain,
The longest peace in China will end in strife.
Still it wouldn't reward the watcher to stay awake
In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break
On his particular time and personal sight.
That calm seems certainly safe to last to-night.

— Robert Frost

Jen Bekman Gallery @ PULSE New York, Booth I-12

Seven Stumps by Beth Dow

Jen Bekman Gallery is exhibiting at the PULSE Contemporary Art Fair, Thursday, March 5 - Sunday, March 8, 2009. Please join us!

PULSE New York — Booth I-12
Pier 40 (353 West Street @ West Houston)

On view:
Beth Dow's critically acclaimed series, Fieldwork.

Additional featured artists:
Ian Baguskas, Mara Bodis Wollner, Christian Chaize, Gregory Krum, Holly Lynton, Carrie Marill, Brad Moore, Hosang Park, Jason Polan, Kent Rogowski, and Carlo Van de Roer

Left to right: Ian Baguskas, Carrie Marill, Brad Moore, Gregory Krum

Paired: Luke Stephenson + Alberto Blanco

Not a parakeet but close enough: White and Gray Canary by Luke Stephenson

The Parakeets

They talk all day
and when it starts to get dark
they lower their voices
to converse with their own shadows
and with the silence.

They are like everybody
—the parakeets—
all day chatter,
and at night bad dreams.

With their gold rings
on their clever faces,
brilliant feathers
and the heart restless
with speech...

They are like everybody,
—the parakeets—
the ones that talk best
have separate cages.

- Alberto Blanco
(Translated by W. S. Merwin)

Paired: Clifton Burt + John Maeda

think-make-think by Clifton Burt

Words by John Maeda.

Interpreted Clifton Burt. (aka Mr. KBB.)

Right now my ambitions are considerably less lofty. All I want is to kick this damn flu.

Paired: Juliane Eirich + Naomi Shihab Nye

Balloons by Juliane Eirich, one of two new photography editions introduced on 20x200 today.

The photo above, by Juliane Eirich, makes me happy. It's also destined to make at least 222 other people happy since we just released it as a 20x200 edition today.

Another happy discovery, via the lovely Sara Distin, is the poem I wrote about in today's newsletter:

So Much Happiness
by Naomi Shihab Nye

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
A wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
Something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
And disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
And now live over a quarry of noise and dust
Cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
It too could wake up filled with possibilities
Of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
And love even the floor which needs to be swept,
The soiled linens and scratched records...

Since there is no place large enough
To contain so much happiness,
You shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
Into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
For the moon, but continues to hold it, and to share it,
And in that way, be known.

Pressing Matters

Holly Lynton, Brad Moore and Diane Meyer photos in my apartment.

Easing the Pain of Collecting, which appeared on the front page (holy smokes!) of last Thursday's New York Times Home section, answers all your burning Jen Bekman questions. Does she have a trust fund? Did she graduate from college? Can she make a bed? No, no and, um, clearly no. (Pictures don't lie.)*

Seriously, it's actually a thoughtfully written piece that I'm very pleased with and flattered by. Staff reporter Julie Scelfo frames out my history using my apartment to shape the tale. We talk about my art, my various collections of things (pottery, stuff from eBay), how I got started in the art business and how everything in my life is totally and completely perfect now. Woo!

Don't miss the audio clip (all "likes" and "ums" miraculously edited out!) In the clip I give some tips on getting your art on. There's also sidebar that includes many of my recommendations on places to get awesome art affordably, online and off.

In other media news: 20x200 is the best! The best of New York that is. Their big fat Best of double issue is on newsstands now, and 20x200 is proclaimed to be the best Starter Art Collection.

Ok, that is all. I will now return to my glamorous New York life of takeout, heavy-footed upstairs neighbors and pet hair.

*I also don't do dishes.