Starbloggin


Wherein our narrator finds out his words reach around the world.

The sysadmin for the digital media group, a lovely red-haired woman named Nicola (who has invited me to brunch on Sunday, incidentally) lives just a few blocks away from me in Redfern. (My place is on the border between Surry Hills and Redfern.) I asked if she might have a pointer to a dentist, someone close to us, and she did. I'll be seeing the dentist next Friday at 2:30 PM, and here's hoping they'll be able to perform a little cosmetic surgery. It's funny because while I should be self-conscious of it, I kind of feel even more like smiling my wicked grin than normal, knowing it's all quite cracked.

Late in the afternoon, a lazy, tired, slow Friday afternoon at AFTRS, I ran into Nicola in the library, and thanked her for the reference. She mentioned that she'd been communicating with an e-friend in Seattle. And this friend had asked "So, how did the big presentation go?" Meaning my presentation to the AFTRS students & faculty, the one that went off more-or-less flawlessly yesterday.

Huh? How did this guy know about the presentation?

Well it turns out this person, whoever it is, has been reading this blog. That's um, somewhat unnerving, because, as far as I know I've only given the URL (which is a weird one) out to about maybe 15 close friends and my immediate family. I haven't posted it to Yeschaton, or spammed any other lists with it. Or have I? But somehow this fellow (apparently a big fan of my work and who really liked The Book of Lies) managed to find the URL and has been faithfully reading this blog.

Dear god. I guess I really ought to be more interesting.

It does confirm a decision I made early on, to obfuscate the names of certain of my friends that I'm probably being far too honest about in this blog. No need to spread everyone's dirty laundry out in public. Must more fun to muse, anonymously, about their problems. But here's the weird thing about a blog: Yes, it's a diary. But it's a public diary. So although I am tempted to say things in it that I would never say in public (and I've never before kept a diary), I'll have to resist the urge, or put the blog behind a password-protected page. Interesting trade off.

Anyway, for you legion of folks who don't know me but who are reading my personal thoughts, drop me a line. If you want. Or remain anonymous. Your call.

It was a slow day at AFTRS. Thank god. Can't take too much more of the breakneck speed of interviews. So I had some time to read a number of obituary pieces about Elliott Smith. Some of his colleagues could tell something was going horribly wrong, that the demons of addiction had taken hold of him, again. That he was grumpy and bitter and fighting with the police at some recent show. That he stabbed himself at 12:30 in the afternoon at his girlfriend's place, which may be in Echo Park, even though Smith lived in Silverlake. That he has probably hundreds of recordings that could be released, and enough material for a double album. That'll be interesting. The autopsy of a car wreck, on a double CD. I listened to the rest of his album, noting that the last song he released when he was alive was titled "Bye".

Tonight I will install OS X 10.3 Panther, having somewhat carefully backed-up my important files on the AFTRS server. Just in case. And if everything goes all sideways, well, it'll be a few days before I'll be blogging...

Posted: Fri - October 24, 2003 at 05:32 PM        


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