is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Chocolate. Alison. Las Vegas.
Chocolate. Alison. Las Vegas.
I�ve found the best brownie in the world. I had one for the first time about a year ago, and over time it achieved a status in my memory that I was certain it could not live up to in real life. But I just had another one today, and I have to let you know that it is still the best brownie in the world. If you are in San Francisco, march on over to the Ferry Building and buy a brownie from Recchiuti, stat. It�s only $2! If you�re smart, you�ll split it in half and eat it over two days, because it is RICH. The first time I took a bite of one it made my knees buckle a little with its goodness!
Recchiuti specializes in fancy fancy truffles and artily decorated chocolates, so the brownies are just sitting in a dish somewhere, looking like an afterthought. You might not notice them, distracted as you are by all the more fancy chocolate goodness. However, believe me: the brownies should be at the front of your mind, OK?
You should also read this book: Judging the Image: Art, Value, Law, by Alison Young. I just finished it last night, and boy is it good. I think it is the kind of book that many people would like, though also many will find some of its sections to speak too much academese. Do not worry, there are plenty of sections that do not. In fact, sandwiched between every chapter is a short piece about how the author herself has been affected by art or loss or the way art is valued in society. These sections allow the reader to think about the material of the previous chapter in a new way, perhaps even ending up feeling implicated in the practices of valuation that operate in his or her society. And that�the responsibility that falls on a person who is �only� a witness�is one of the themes of her book, especially since its overall theme is about the relationships between art and law and justice (law and justice not being the same thing, of course). She writes about: photographing nudity and public nudity; what it means to be �disgusted� by a work of art� and to want to censor a work of art because it is �disgusting� (Mapplethorpe, �Piss Christ�); the criminalization of graffiti and what graffiti contributes to urban landscapes; how law treats gay men with HIV/AIDS� and how art can give us a more respectful or humane sense of how to think about death and disappearance; artists who use or injure their own bodies� or who use bodily injury in some way that makes it impossible for viewers of art to be merely passive (such as Jenny Holzer�s I am awake in the place where women die), and, finally, she writes about what kind of memorial could stand in the place where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood. The book made me think, a lot, and it made me cry a number of times, not only because it is occasionally beautiful, and often sad, but also it is very brave. She made herself naked for this book in more ways than one.
But no, that is not her on the cover.
Also, I don't know why the book costs so much on Amazon. I bought it at a bookstore for much less. Maybe ask your library to obtain it?
Tomorrow evening I�ll be at a resort just outside of Las Vegas watching Alison give a paper in one of the plenary addresses of the Law and Society Conference. Because Alison Young is the same Alison who I�ve written about on and off over the past months, because she and her partner Peter and their daughter Sophie, though they normally live in Melbourne, Australia, were in residence at Amherst College this year. Peter cooked me many meals, and opened many bottles of wine, and I taught Alison how to bake cakes, and Sophie taught Hans Blix how to use the telephone! On some tally sheet somewhere, I know I owe them all many, many meals and a lot of life-saving friendship.
I will be at a resort until Sunday! And I am hoping that I will be irresponsible enough to take advantage of the spa and crazy outdoor pool with fake beach and waterfall! Unfortunately, the panel on which I am the Chair/Discussant is on Saturday at 8:15 am. So Friday night will be no fun for Jill. But that still leaves Thursday, and Saturday nights!
Today, as I was working my way down my to-do list, I got to the item called �pack for vegas,� and all of a sudden I realized that ALL OF MY QUOTEUNQUOTE PROFESSIONAL CLOTHING IS IN BOXES IN AMHERST. So I�m going to be looking a bit less refined than usual this conference. I have with me here one of the skirts that goes with one of my suits, but no matching jacket, and, really, no shirt to go with it. So I�ve thrown together some nice-skirt-with-cardigan-sweater outfits. Because even though it�s hott in Las Vegas, I�m sure the conference rooms will all be over-air-conditioned anyway, so I�ll be happy about the sweaters. I hope.
I had promised (Alison and Martha) that I would bring some Hott Dresses for some nights out on the town, but, upon trying on a number of my Hott Numbers, I found that I could not picture myself wearing ANY of them in front of people I refer to as �colleagues.� So I put together some cute but less hott outfits for the evening times. VEGAS! These two paragraphs give you very little indication of just how much time I spent trying to figure all this out today.
Also, I don�t have the right bags. I don�t have a bag for carrying around a notebook and some files during the day at the conference, and I don�t have the small computer-carrying bag that I usually bring on short trips. THEY ARE IN BOXES IN AMHERST. I actually went shopping today to find a bag or two, but I learned that Evany was right when she said that it is very hard to find the right bag for the right purpose. (OMG! Who are these people making so many bags that ALMOST fit an ibook but simply do not. WHY?! WHY!?) So I will be carrying the wrong bags. The End.
In short, over the next four days I�ll be attending lots of panels listening to people talk about law-related and justice-related things, and attending cocktail parties and lunches and, you know, it�s a conference held by a professional organization. However, I do hope that I will be able to talk some lawyers into taking the shuttle to the strip. Then I hope to talk them into riding the bull at the Gilley�s in the Frontier casino. Ha! Because that seems like it would be funny. Lawyers riding the bull! Or maybe we can go get drinks at the bar made of ice in Mandalay Bay, or the bar with the flames and the water in the walls. Or, Or, Or.
In other news, there are now a bunch of straight guys hanging out at my gay-guy gym. It bums me out because with gay men I am invisible. And that is what I want at the gym.
8:50 p.m. - June 01, 2005
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