i was looking on the harper's website because i wanted to see what the name of this article i was just reading in erica's dad's copy was called. but alas, the copy must not have been from this month. it was really funny though, and i still haven't finished it. i was hoping to now but apparently it won't be on the newstand shelves. here's an excerpt:
He lived "off the grid"--no electricity, no gas bills, grew most of his own food, shit in the woods. every aspect of his comparatively ascetic existence involved thinking about the relationship between his desire and nature's. he strived for a kind of simplicity that I, as a man with more than a decade of manhattan life behind me, could only listen to as some charming and exotic idea, like hearing a zen monk explain that he can grip a prickly burr with the muscles of his sphincter and transport it backward via reverse peristalsis until it reappears at the other end, still sharp enough to catch on the bristly surface of his tongue.
Impressive, but, you know, why?
more fun stuff from harper's:
Estimated number of audience cell-phone calls that constituted a "telesymphony" performed last year in Austria : 5,000
Projected duration in years of John Cage's "As Slow as Possible," whose performance began last February in Germany : 639
Projected duration in months of the piece's opening three-note arpeggio : 18
posted by Liza 19.6.03