I admit i have been slacking.

here are a few things i have been working on. some are projects, others personal. it may not make a difference to you though.

wootberries.

anything with design takes 1000 years.

my newspaper.

fuck art

half done. probably wont finish it. got to the point where i add all the pretty textures (to form the figure and background) and such and i thought...fuck it.

scratch that. finished.

better things in the weeks to come, now that im re-familiarizing myself with this whole "art phenomenon"

Book (part I)

From the syllabus:

3) Final Project: You might notice that most of the books we’re reading are book-length poems/projects. Your final project will be a book that is a thoughtful extension of the work(s) you’ve created during the semester.

so I came up with this:

FINAL PROJECT

Text message

Week of every message sent and received. I want to record them all and then construct poems with what I send and receive. Some poems will only use text messages, some may be poems inspired by the content, some will use articles about text messaging and its impact on modern communication, some will use WebMD information about the dangers and harms of text messaging. I also hope to conduct interviews with individuals and find specific situations where texting played a significant role, or possibly recreate scenes or situation using only language from text messages. I’m thinking Nowack meets Goldsmith meets Nelson meets Brathwaite meets Coultas.

As far as the physical project goes, I hope to make a chapbook. I’d like to have a physical book, and I have a friend who majors in printmaking and book making who offered to help. If not, then I’ll just compile it into some sort of .pdf. I’d like to use the pictures I send and receive to help make the project a little more pretty.

Questions:

I know the project is very broad, what can I do to focus it?
Is a week long enough or too long to compile the text messages?
Should I bother making a book, or would another medium work better?
Should I include the picture messages?
Would anyone want to read this? Why or why not?
Should I tell the people I text that this will be recorded for a project? Do I legally have to?

which turned into this:

So I met with Jena and she really helped me focus the project. It's going to be split into three parts:

I. A transcription of the all the text messages I receive and send for one 24 hour period. The text messages will be heavily annotated / footnoted with historical references, google explanations, quotations, references, and other nonsense. When I say heavily, I mean almost every word. Text messages are supposed to be the most simple and convenient form of communication, so I want to make them complicated and academic and hopefully somewhat funny/interesting. the annotations will be on the same page, below I think I want to title the section "monday." or whatever day of the week I happen to choose. the section would probably be broken up into hourly sub sections.

II. I'm going to ask as many people as possible to divulge the last text message they sent, and to whom it was sent. I did this for another poem earlier in the year and the results were pretty solid. This time around I want to get more people involved and possibly ask them 2 to 3 times throughout a single day. I will map / transcribe the texts and allow the reader to see the connections between people and the conversations people have through the small snipits of text. In terms of formating, I pictured squares of text information like:

From: Jonathan
miley cyrus is the voice
of all generations.
To: Nick

with something like 9, 12, or 16 a page depending on page and font size. Or i could just do a list poem with who said what to whom right down the left side of the page. Possible section name: "he said. she said."

III. This one I'm not too sure about. I'd like to do something more creative, possibly experimenting with the line breaks the screen forces, a concept Jackee brought to my attention, possibly by taking texts and trying to mess with meaning depending with the line breaks. Or taking only misspelled / words with improper grammar to form a poem. Or by use only messages sent to me to try to form a conversation between the other people who are not actually talking to each other. I don't know about this one yet.

A few names I came up with for the title of the book: "texting." "what a waste." "some language." "some words."

Questions
1. Is this better or worse than my first idea?
2. How much / many actual text messages should I use for the first section? Is a day too long / not long enough?
3. How can I format the second section? Is the block idea or line idea or some other idea the best and most practical and interesting?
4. What can I do with the third section? Should I attempt to be creative or just stick with more experiments?
5. I came up with titles as I was writing this, suggestions?

I could use some more suggestions, if anyone reads this thing.

Coastin'

First consumer product for my thesis show, S. Kiefer coasters. made 55 of these, double sided with face and signature logo, 3.5" diameter, letterpressed face / screenprinted logo. (picture does not do halftone justice, click it to see enlarged version)

published

I got a feature story in the Temple News  Arts and Entertainment section.  Read it please.

POET

ENCOURAGES

UNCREATIVE

WRITING

I hate newspapers.

The Beginning of the Legend

After a 30 minute sitting silence without the ability to move my face, see, and barely breath, it was well worth it to create the first step in a main piece for my thesis. So the first casting of my face is complete, and now through the amazingness of Nick Poyner the next steps of the eyes and hair are now being completed, and by April 6th a bronze Legend will emerge.

getting back in the game.

a little something or other.

to re-re-re-learn photoshop.

more on the way.

love, matt.

i rushed again and this happened it looks better on word but i like found text.

It Happened To Alexa Foundation Fundraiser

March 19, 2009

Bill O’Reilly from “The O’Reilly Factor” will speak at a luncheon in Palm Beach on Thursday March 19, at the Ritz Carlton, Manalapan, Florida

So anyway, these two girls come in from the suburbs and they get bombed, and their car is towed because they're moronic girls and, you know, they don't have a car.

Supreme Court of the State of New York County of New York
ANDREA MACKRIS, Plaintiff,

-against-

with all proceeds benefiting the “It Happened to Alexa Foundation.”

BILL O’REILLY, NEWS CORPORATION, FOX NEWS CHANNEL, TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORP., and WESTWOOD ONE, INC.,

So they're standing there in the middle of the night with no car.

Defendants.

The purpose of the It Happened to Alexa Foundation is to help support rape survivors 

At all times mentioned here in, Defendant BILL O’REILLY has held himself as a morally right, independent political pundit.

And then they separate because they’re drunk. They separate, which you never do.

through the trauma of the criminal trial,

Throughout her employment at Defendant FOX, Plaintiff ANDREA MACKRIS has reported directly to, and been supervised by Defendant BILL O’REILLY

in the hopes that more survivors will go through with the

Defendant BILL O’REILLY, invited Plaintiff ANDREA MACKRIS out to dinner purportedly to discuss her future at FOX.

All right.

Defendant BILL O’REILLY, lavished Plaintiff ANDREA MACKRIS with unsolicited advice regarding her handling of future relationships with the opposite sex.

Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff.

Within defendants FOX NEWS and WESTWOOD ONE a permissive and encouraging environment for gender discrimination and sexual harassment reigns among supervisors, managers, and employees for the companies.

prosecution in order to put these perpetrators behind bars.

Defendant BILL O’REILLY, advised Plaintiff ANDREA MACKRIS to avoid future contact with her ex-fiance, to have manicures and pedicures and “pick up 23 year-olds in bars,” to attend charity events and meet men with credentials

Also appearing with Mr. O’Reilly will be Wendy Murphy, advisory board member of It Happened to Alexa Foundation, Author of “And Justice For Some” and frequent contributor to Fox News and MSNBC.

After these words during the course of the dinner in early May 2002, Defendant BILL O’REILLY’s demeanor abruptly changed.

Now, again, there you go.

With little preamble, Defendant BILL O’REILLY launched into a vile and degrading monologue about sex.

So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning.

During the course of this dinner, Defendant BILL O’REILLY bragged that he had telephone sex with other women.

Established in 2003, the foundation assists rape victims’ families with travel expenses 

Defendant then stated he was going to Italy to meet the Pope, that his pregnant wife was staying home with his daughter, and implied he was looking forward to some extra-marital dalliances with the “hot” Italian women.

She's walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug.

Defendant O’REILLY then boasted that the woman had her first orgasm via masterbation as he spoke to her on the telephone.

All right.

O’REILLY told Plaintiff ANDREA MACKRIS she knew the woman from FOX.

Now she's out of her mind, drunk.

during the litigation process and is the only organization of its kind in the United States.

And the thug takes her over to New Jersey in the cab and kills her and rapes her and does all these terrible things to her.

O’REILLY further suggested that the women needed to be trained so that they’d be equipped and ready to go when a “real man shows up in your lives,” and offered “lessons.”

And the thug is so stupid, he uses her cell phone,

Defendant O’REILLY repeatedly begged Plaintiff to have telephone sex with him that night.

and the cops trace it back to him and they -- and they arrest him and charge him with murder.

VERIFIED COMPLAINT.
Index No.: 04114558
FILED Oct. 13 2004
New York County Clerk Office

He had a prostitute girlfriend with him, and she's charged as an accessory to murder.

He suggested that Plantiff ANDREA MACKRIS purchase a vibrator and name it, and that he had "one shaped like a cock with a little battery in it” that a woman had given him. It became apparent that Defendant was masturbating as he spoke.

But Jennifer Moore is in the ground. She's dead.

Plaintiff ANDREA MACKRIS felt angry, abused and disgusted.

If any woman ever breathed a word I'll make her pay 

so dearly that she'll wish she'd never been born.  I'll 

rake her through the mud, bring up things in her life 

and make her so miserable that she'll be destroyed.  

And besides, she wouldn't be able to afford the lawyers 

I can or endure it financially as long as I can.  And 

nobody would believe her.  It'd be her word against 

mine and who are they going to believe?  Me or some 

unstable woman making outrageous accusations?  They'd 

see her as some psycho, someone unstable.  Besides, 

I'd never make the mistake of picking some unstable 

crazy girls like that.

You are not alone.

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