December 29, 1985 4:53 pm

I should be working but I feel more like sitting around doing nothing. I could be painting but I think I'll watch movies on TV. Perhaps some cleaning up. Maybe not.

Brunch with Bill and Bob this morning with their friends Matt, David and (I think) Laura who were at the Christmas party.

Suzanna called supposedly to talk about typesetting (a friend was interested in working in that field) but we ended up talking about things in general and it felt good to do that.

I'm not getting organized. I have to go to the bank again (Jess borrowed the last of my money last night to buy coke) and get something to eat or else I'll pass out.

5 September 1997

I don't remember what I was working on at this time, probably thinking about the image of "landscape" and how to picture it.

Bill and Bob are Bill Oster and Bob Carvin who lived on Bleecker Street a few blocks away. Bill was one of the first people I met in New York and is an architectural draftsman. I helped him move into a smaller apartment about a year or so ago but haven't seen or heard from him since. Bob was a painter who also did contracting and I worked for him off and on painting lofts and apartments. He died of AIDS a few years ago. Matt was Matthew Ward, a writer who translated "The Stranger" by Albert Camus. He died of AIDS a few years ago as well. I don't remember who David and Laura are.

Suzanna is Suzanna Heller, a painter from Canada and a friend of Bob. I haven't heard from her in years. She showed at a gallery on Grand Street and has a very old-fashioned romantic vision of art. She made messy landscape paintings I always found interesting but she was always surprised when I went to her openings. She assumed I wouldn't be "sympathetic" but the truth is I like most things people do if they do it with commitment, even careerism.

I was still working in type shops at night, probably TDC. I don't remember what I told Suzanna about typesetting. It was a good way for artists to earn a living -- it needed skill but wasn't demanding -- but those jobs have pretty much disappeared.

They were all part of an older New York Art World that was both out of sync and the cause of what was current. The irony is that Richard Howard, who translated a great deal of Barthes and other post-modern icons, was part of that group. They were Francophile rather than post-modern.

Jess is Jess Greenspan and had a big cocaine problem at that time though I admit I always liked it when he brought a gram over. He's now living in Florida and coping with AIDS.