After getting some work out of the way Will called me from the MOMA and was like get over here. He told me to take a cab. It was three in the afternoon and stopped traffic all along Park and Fifth. I finally just got out and walked. The cabbie said, “I don’t feel right charging you ten dollars.” I didn’t even know what to say to him I was so disgusted.
Once I showed up at the museum, everything was quickly copacetic. Will spent about ten minutes figuring out what exactly what we were going to see, then we went straight to the cafe.
The cafe at the MOMA has an extremely pretentious setup where you order and they bring it to you, but they do offer free available water, which is roughly akin to a stroke of genius. Even on a crowded Thursday in the summer the museum was comfortable and not completely full, which I gather isn’t making the trustees happy but is perfectly fine with the visitor.
By the way this Heather Graham photoset is just flat out disturbing.
We had a poem contest which Will won and he made me pay for his espresso. I honestly don’t know how he can order soup at three in the afternoon. That made me nauseous. Will’s poem was titled “Buttons,” mine was titled, “You’re A Fucking Asshole.”
It’s made of metal. Whoo. This is the sculpture equivalent of Ian McEwan, only McEwan at least has a sense of humor.
Will was all into the Richard Serra exhibit. Conceptually I find Serra quite interesting, and I like to look at books about him, but seeing him live and not on a regular basis is pretty boring. On the sixth floor they had some non-crap stuff by him but there was also this What Is Painting? exhibit that features the museum’s new acquisitions. This is a top idea. They had a sweet Philip Guston.
“A Little Longing Goes Away” — Hot Chip (mp3)
The author is drunk. Art!
The first thing that irritated me was on the second floor where some kind of homeless Romanian man had drawn on the wall. I will admit it is cool that he drew it during museum hours.
They also took down the classic Cy Twombly and put up some Joan Mitchell paintings that quite frankly sucked my balls.
I didn’t really know what this is about.
Will just called. He doesn’t know what to teach for his course on prose. Probably because he doesn’t know fuck-all about it. All I could really tell him was that I liked the part in The Great Gatsby where Nick is like, “It’s my birthday today,” and also the part where he fucks Daisy.
Update. Will has sent the list for his course:
The New American Poetry, Ed. Donald Allen (University of California)
A Test of Poetry, Louis Zukofsky (Weslyan)
The Arkansas Testament, Derek Walcott (FSG)
Three Lives, Gurtrude Stein (Mondial)
As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner (Vintage)
Henry Miller On Writing, Henry Miller (New Directions)
Eee, do not misspell Gertrude Stein like that. I probably just misspelled misspell.
They went with JoAnn Verburg for a big exhibition which she doesn’t really merit, although I like her photography.
The museum was open until 9. We ran into Jake and his wife and a fellow William Morris associate named Nick. It was Nick’s last day. Jake looked like Harvey Weinstein.
A girl Will drew an indecent picture of was offering dark chocolate if you filled out a survey. Will and I sat down at a table with three octogenerians. “How are you honey?” one of them said to Will. He just stared at her. I asked mine to recommend a good bridge column.
“Feeling on Your Booty (remix)” — R. Kelly
“Staring at the Sun” — TV on the Radio
In three D this looks really good. It’s like the whole is space. The guy in an attractive couple in front of me observed, “the black is stultifying.” She asked what that word meant.
Then came this exhibit on the following Picasso painting. It was all the rage in Paris. It offended plenty of people. I’m guessing it was all overblown, but they did a little making of thing and it was really well put together, and it only took up one room. Serra took up like eighty.
On the third floor was this photography exhibit by an Israeli, which is probably why they hid it in the back. The guy’s name is I believe Barry Frylander. Let me look it up. It’s Frydlender.
This is my favorite Frydlender, with Israel hurtling towards a Photoshop-tastic precipice, and the settlements hanging on like they’re about to slide off into the abyss. This is almost as good as photoshopping my body onto Britney Spears is.
I bought a notebook, but I didn’t write any good poems. Then Will left to meet his dad and I took the V down to fourteenth street. I walked to the Strand but they didn’t have any good books. Then I walked over to Kim’s but they didn’t have any good movies. Then I walked to St. Mark’s and bought this:
It’s almost August, you know?
“It’s Been Awhile” — Staind (mp3)
This Recording 
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