I don’t write anymore. I just stare in to your eyes and read the story of your birthmarks.

I’ve painted a self portrait I don’t recognize. I read other people quoting me and don’t even remember what I said.

It’s all empty. It all disappears. It’s a campfire spark.
Sparks sometimes start forest fires but most of the time just float away and disappear.

The sky is so fucking big when you’re flipped upside down
There’s only room for eternity

Who broke my thoughts?
Was it you?
Goddamit, if you break it you have to buy it.
Pick up the pieces.
Glue me back together.

I am my thoughts. There is nothing without this dirty mind.

Brush off the dust.
Gently
I’m delicate.

These thoughts are fragile.
They contain entire worlds.
They contain dreams.
They are made of fairy dust and beer foam.
That’s why they call it head.

Let us make blood soaked sin offerings together. Let us have hundreds of babies and golden silent nights.
Let us go over budget, spend more money than we have
Turn the hotel room insideout and drink all the booze in the mini-bar.
We go for broke and then ask for spare change.
We skip out on the bill. Don’t tip the bellboy and run naked through central park. Push over garbage cans, scare all the children.

This is my traveller’s prayer, this is my business meeting, this is my conference call.

Why is the man writing in the littleblacknotebook the crazy one?
What about the man yelling into the littleblackphone?

It’s this pen on paper, these thoughts on a page.
This is as direct as I know how to be.

He slowly got up. Slipped on his underwear. Picked his jeans up off the floor, grabbed his wrinkled t-shirt and quietly eased the bedroom door open just enough so he could slip through. He checked the pockets of his jeans for his wallet and keys. They were there. Right leg, left leg he put his pants on and found his shoes at the door. He abandoned all hope of finding his socks. He hated wearing socks during sex. They were always the first things to come off.

Fumbling with the lock on the front door, he heard noises from the bedroom, like rustling leaves. He ignored it. He opened the door and squinted in the early morning daylight. As he heard her call his name from the bedroom, he stepped outside. All she heard was the door closing.

II
He walked quickly down the street, everyone seemed to know. He looked at his cell phone. No missed calls, no text messages, no emails. No one wanted to talk to him.

III
She stared at the empty imprint of his body. She put her hand on his pillow. Felt the lingering warmth. She lay on her back, eyes staring at the spotted ceiling. How do ceilings get dirty, she wondered and pulled the sheet up to her armpits.

She reached for her phone, it was next to her bed, next to the books she was reading. She always read more than one book at a time. It drove her mother crazy. That’s why she did it. She never finished a book. She liked protecting the mystery of the endings.

IV
He waited at the bus stop. It was chilly. Summer was bleeding into Fall, you felt it in the mornings now. His eyes darted around. He looked at his phone, for the time. It was 7:33am. He had to be at work by 8:00am. He worked at a coffee shop. It was Saturday. The bus was late.

V
She didn’t have anything to do today. It was 7:36am. She rolled onto her side, facing his side of the bed. She wished he was there for her to nestle her face into his chest. He didn’t have any hair on his chest. She thought that was strange for a grown man. He was three years older than her. She was 27. The sunlight leaked through her Venetian blinds. She reached for the book on her night table. He had made fun of it after they had sex last night.

“You’re reading this?” he said laughing.
“Yeah, I like that stuff makes me feel better about things, help me deal with stuff,” she grabbed the self help book, Understand Yourself Understand Others, from his hands. He thought he was much smarter than he actually was. She liked that about him.
“Whatever. I like stuff that makes me feel shitty. Then I can get back to my real life and appreciate that it’s not so bad,” he said.

VI
She opened to her bookmark and read with the morning light. She liked reading in the mornings.

I walk in the faded footsteps of my former life

80th and Broadway. Upper West Side.

Avoiding the memories like the water dripping from the air conditioners teetering in the windows sills.

But you can’t dodge all the drops.

Sometime you trip over memories.

That street corner where we kissed, that restaurant where we cried

You need air conditioners to stay cool and time to forget.

See my article on The Mark about the project and a piece on the MacArthur Foundation’s Spotlight on Digital Literacy blog.

Here is a short documentary video I made about the project.

Here are some photos I took while in Bella Bella
Click to view slideshow.

In the video below, Seth, demonstrates BeatBlox. You can see  when he places a block on the base a new track plays and a visualization appears. Sorry for the crappy sound.

The objective of BeatBlox was to create a playful user interface for an audio visual experience. The design challenge was creating a sensor system that didn’t physically tether the blocks to the base. We did not want to have a contact sensor in each bock as that would require wiring from the interface blocks to the micro-controller.

To solve this problem we used a Hall Effect Sensor. This sensor detects changes in a magnetic field. It is commonly used in engines to detect rpm’s and alarm systems to detect if a door or window is closed. We placed the sensor in the base and magnets inside the individual pieces. When a magnet is placed over the sensor it sends a message through the arduino micro-controller to our processing sketch which plays the tracks and performs the visualization.

Ideally we would have used analog sensors in order to be able to detect a range of change in the magnetic field but we were not able to source the analog version of the sensor in time for our deadline.
Click to view slideshow.
BeatBlox was designed and constructed by a team of three. Our hope is to refine the prototype with a sturdier structure and more engaging interactions. BeatBlox would be an ideal installation piece for a toy store, hotel lobby, lounge, or as a kids toy. We are open to development opportunities. The audio and visuals can be easily customized.

Download the source code. Please leave a comment if you download the code and drop a link to whatever you make. If you want to know how to setup the sensor drop me an email.

“Coming,” he shouted from the bathroom. He squeezed the last of his piss into the bowl and flushed. He looked in to the mirror, thought about his messy hair, splashed some water on his face, adjusted his shorts, flexed his bicep, and walked in to the living room.

The apartment was a small two bedroom. Melinda and Sophie had been living there for about six months. It was working out. They only had a few rules. Boys were only allowed to sleep over on weekends. No cigarettes only weed. And no Coldplay unless you have just been dumped.

“Music?” Josh asked. “Sure,” she said.  Josh opened her laptop that sat on the coffee table. He scrolled through thousands of songs. He put on this sad, indy acoustic guitar stuff, The Albert Wright Band. “Nice,” she said. She felt a little sad. She usually felt a little sad after having sex. They had morning sex. It was good. Not overly passionate, not restrained but fun, relaxed, enjoyable. She didn’t climax.

She had been seeing Josh for a few weeks now. This was the fourth time they had slept together. But it was the first time he had stayed at her place. She liked him. She liked him enough to want to get to know him more. It wasn’t one of those things where your world comes to a screeching halt and you throw yourself into somebody else’s life. That had only happened to her once before. When she was twenty five. Three years ago. She didn’t expect it to happen again. She was at the stage of life where you have to grind out these connections. When the disappointments and frustrations of your early twenties have created  protective barriers like mountains slowly built by a lava flow.

“Great coffee,” Josh piled some eggs on his toast. “Thanks, I get it at this place down the street. It’s expensive but everyone needs to splurge on something. Better this than shoes, cheaper,” she could her herself talking. She had that strange out of body sensation you get when you’re nervous. She thought she sounded stupid. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said with eggs in his mouth, “you have any ketchup?” She hated ketchup. Ketchup is the awkward silence of condiments, the thing you ask for when something is lacking. She got up and opened the fridge. The ketchup was on the shelf in the door. It was half empty. “Thanks,” he said and squirted it on his eggs. He was the type of guy who spread the ketchup over everything as apposed to making a little pile of it in the corner to dip. She didn’t like that. The way he ate reminded her of her dad, the loud chewing.

“I had fun last night,” she said. “Yeah, me too. The band was great. I love that venue. Dark, sweaty, low ceilings, good shit,” he sipped his coffee. “It’s a cool place, good vibes,” she said. “I had fun this morning too,” he smiled at her and put one hand on her upper thigh. She put her hand on his. She smiled at him. She took a bite of her toast. “So, I just wanted to ask, to tell you, I mean talk about, this. Us,” she said.

He put his fork down and took a sip of his coffee. He pulled his hand off her leg and wrapped both hands around his coffee mug. He stared in to his eggs. “Yeah, we should,” he said. They sat there. Each one waiting for the other to say something. A few seconds passed. “I like you,” she said, “I want to keep getting to know you.” He looked up at her. “Me too,” he said and reached to brush the hair out of her eyes. She pressed her face into his large, strong hand; she closed her eyes. It felt warm against her cheek.

Download the source code.