When I rode the elevator up to the sixth floor of 17 West 17th Street were the offices of art.systems is located there was a citrus-ey smell that comes from something more chemical -- either cleansing or cutting -- than what would be expected. This is the phototography district and there is a lab on the fourth floor but those odors don't usually permeate the building. Photographers have learned to contain both the odors and sounds of photography.The walls of the sixth floor were covered in words drawn in paint the color of dried blood -- something about "Love" and "Fuck You". The floor, recently refinished, was a mess and there was tar on the door of the office.
I asked Doug what happened and he explained: something about the man who had refinished the floor in the hall, badly, not getting paid by the landlord, revenge. Workmen were repairing the damage, making a great deal of noise in the process and speaking in a foreign accent while navigating the sander.
I thought about passion I had felt, and what it had led me to then stopped. I worked on the Warhol database for the first part of the morning, then updated the commercial Web site of an artist I would never admit to thinking about but also admit to being fascinated by. The Web site was originally done with a demo version of Net Fusion that was no longer available so a nightmare to revise. A very simple layout done in the most difficult way that made small changes impossible. I did my best and spent six hours when it should have taken two.
But, that's the lesson I've learned and I get paid for learning. I'll make a little more by redoing the site in a more agreeable format.
Beards are in vogue this winter in New York. Mine has been growing since Thanksgiving and though I imagine I look like Brad Pitt in the Himalayas I also know there is more possiblility I look like an english professor. Of the five males in the office (including me and not including the dog) four have or are growing beards. It's one of those perks of masculinity even if the result is sorry. Mine is much more gray than the time before, but still looks sort of blond. I'll probably shave it off come the spring but for now I like stroking it and triming and in general treating my face better than I would without it.
I expect Remo will reappear, after the New Year, with a growth. He's been hinting. I listen to old Bob Dylan records and Philip Glass, who lives around the cordner, down the street from Quentin Crisp.