{"id":52,"date":"2008-02-22T13:26:25","date_gmt":"2008-02-22T17:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/?p=52"},"modified":"2008-02-22T13:26:25","modified_gmt":"2008-02-22T17:26:25","slug":"lifework","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/2008\/02\/22\/lifework.html","title":{"rendered":"Lifework"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tI knew an artist who groused that his life’s work<\/b><\/a> could fit neatly onto a single compact disc.<\/p>\n

“My life’s work,” he said with a grim, cheesy smile, “fits onto one CD. One piece of plastic.” I later imagined him flicking that shiny CD into his kitchen sink with the dirty dishes.<\/p>\n

He had actually described a condensed version of his project. The total of his “life’s work” would fill hundreds of CDs, and my understanding is that his legacy today comprises hundreds of cassette tapes sitting in the room he called his “hubble.”<\/p>\n

His “hubble” was a converted closet in which he created the project that occupied much of his life for nearly 15 years. He showed me this room the first time I met him, and I remembered that space a year later when he made the “life’s work” comment.<\/p>\n

At the time it impressed me that he produced his lifework entirely in one room, in one place. I was a huge fan of this artist and maybe a little excited to see where the mad man worked. At the time I equated his use of one room (and one room only) with a singularity of purpose that put his work first with little regard for environmental niceties.<\/p>\n

My present work space is a corner of my living room. I sit on an old, falling-apart office chair that tilts drastically to the right if I sit a certain way. Yesterday I pulled a lever under the seat, raising the chair 4 of 5 inches and providing a clearer view out the window. A Posture-Pedic pillow meant for human heads at sleep instead cushions my ass at work.<\/p>\n

Today I work on this. These words are my day’s work. The works of your days become, of course, the work of your life, and most of my work is done at this table, on this spot.<\/p>\n

I report to work by 10am each day. The commute from my bedroom to here, usually uneventful, includes a detour to the kitchen. If I wear anything before noon it is a solid colored t-shirt and a torn up pair of pants with holes in the crotch and at both ankles. I am 40 Goddamn years old and I dress like a 22-year-old hipster barfly. I write poetry into a book, a form of masturbation that produces a more permanent discharge. Today’s masterpiece:<\/p>\n

\n
\nwoman inside my\nbible radio,\nvoice crackling like a\nfrozen river,\ntells of\nsuicide jesus,\nsuicide satan.\n\"destroy me.\ndestroy<\/u> me!\"\ndaddy was charismatic,\nloved the women.\npossessed of smoothness.\npossessed of alcohol.\n<\/i><\/b><\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Someone once referred to a set of my photos as my “work.”<\/p>\n
“I see your work up there,” he said.<\/p>\n
It seemed strange to hear my photos (on display at a restaurant) described as my “work.” It seems strange to think of anything I will produce anywhere in my life as “my work.” I have done plenty of “work” but to call it “my<\/em> work” sounds inappropriate.<\/p>\n
I had several window offices in Manhattan but none compare to the one I have now. It is not the 8-window corner office spectacular I had in midtown, nor is it the floor-to-ceiling view of Central Park I had at the 9 West 57th Street building. This view is better than those, and better than any corporate window office I can remember occupying.<\/p>\n
The view of Central Park was like a picture from a jigsaw puzzle or a post card. The view of Radio City Music Hall, too, was one for the tourists. Those views did nothing but present themselves, and they bored me. Most beauty bores me.<\/p>\n
A beauty-related conversation I had with someone at the Central Park window has stayed with me. I was in my early 20s when my boss (a woman in her 40s) told me “You deserve the best, most beautiful women in the world.”<\/p>\n
At the time I took the comment in the spirit of flattery with which she intended, but today I want to find that woman and tell her that beautiful is boring, and that beautiful is usually a pain in the ass.<\/p>\n
 \t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I knew an artist who groused that his life’s work could fit neatly onto a single compact disc. “My life’s work,” he said with a grim, cheesy smile, “fits onto one CD. One piece of plastic.” I later imagined him flicking that shiny CD into his kitchen sink with the dirty dishes. He had actually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-181-2","category-apology","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/saumAn-lifework","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}