Al Qarara, Algeria

Finally got my Van Gogh wallpaper •almond blossom, February 1890•

“In + and -, Hatoum again uses large scale to create a motorized piece of machinery that rotates in a large reservoir of sand, pushing the sand into ridges with one metal arm while the smoothing newly-made ripples with the other arm. Here, Hatoum constructs a metaphor for the cyclic quality of life itself, vividly emphasizing the ephemeral impact that individual people or nations have, in contrast to the eternality of existence. As the cycle spins, it concurrently creates and erases the sand ridges, mimicking the mechanism by which experiences are created and forgotten with the passage of time. Hatoum re-imagines the hourglass, creating a system in which time does not “run out” with the flowing of sand, but instead moves cyclically, causing the sand to ebb and flow as the machine turns.”

The party was awful (I got food poisoning & I didn’t really know anyone there) but the books were good.

Enough. Maybe your 20s were the funtime years decades ago but not anymore. Don’t feel like you’re wasting your life bc you’re not hitchhiking in Europe or something. You’re doing fine. You’re doing what you can and that’s all that matters.

Mountain View, California; 1990