Hello everybody. I've been on here before a few times over the years for a stretch here and there. Not all of those stretches were well-behaved that's for sure. Hopefully I can manage to avoid getting myself kicked out again.
I've wandered a whole lot in my days and it's kindof a mystery that in all of that i've kept showing back up around here over the years. Maybe five or six years ago I first joined. This is neither here nor there but I remember Andy Goldsworthy the artist said in an interview that he views himself and thinks of his work as being a sculptor, doing sculpture. 'Even when I'm taking a picture, it's still a sculpture.' Ever since I heard that I've found myself thinking more and more in terms of sculptures.
It gives shape to how I think about things. So if i'm writing or doing a drawing, i think of them as sculptures ultimately, and any collections i put together as sculpture gardens. And then it went even further to where I started 'seeing' other peoples' works and other things as sculptural. Including this web site, which is where I was going with all of this babbling. I logged in today and saw that somebody had posted a new photo to the 'photos yet unseen of Hank' thread, which of course bumped that thread to the top of the 'what's new' subheading.
Not that anybody will read all of this. But when I looked at that 'pics of Hank' thread I was blown over all at once by the power of the images, but also by the different dates that they were posted and the gaps between posts the way that the thread gets longer over the years. And of course the content of that thread, those old pictures of Hank in itself thats super powerful if you've been reading Hank as close to your heart as I have and I'm sure so many of yall have.
It's all pretty mind-bogglingly massive, and then there is the whole collaboration part where different people seem to riff off of each other, the little subplots where newbies come in and act like idiots and so on .. there doesn't seem to be as much of that now. Back in the hayday of newbie drama it seems like every month or two some newbie was getting their ass handed to them by one or more fed-up regulars. I remember one guy did a comic strip version of ham on rye or something and ...
Anyway point being that this here is a pretty fucking impressive sculpture. I saw on a thread at one point or maybe on a few different threads people will refer to this as a place, as in 'this place is so cool, amazing.' But for me it wasn't until I saw it as a thing (after having not been back for a year or so at at least) that I was most taken aback. The amount of work that must have gone into it is one thing, then there is all the writings and photos and infos about Hank himself, and then beyond that there is the insights and the style and the yallness that yall have been posting over the years.
I oddly even miss a lot of you every now and then, none of whom I ever met. And occasionally as I go through life I'll still flash on little threads or little conversations that I had on here years ago. And I got some postcards sent to me from one person, a copy of Hamsuns Hunger from another person, an issue of Milk .. so I've got some buknet mementos that I bump into from time to time.
How's everybody been? I don't see any new stuff from Stargazer or Danny Mac are they still around? What about Ponder? I was a total dick to Ponder a long time ago in an argument about i-have-no-idea-what so if he is still around somebody let him know I'm sorry. And if the moderators want to kick me out again, I'll totally understand.
-Mike
(I don't even remember what all usernames I've had over the years, definitely Growing Beard was my most unsavory and active phase, but YouGetSo was a username I had more recently when I set up a new email address and snuck back in the side door to hang for a while last year at some point.)
I've wandered a whole lot in my days and it's kindof a mystery that in all of that i've kept showing back up around here over the years. Maybe five or six years ago I first joined. This is neither here nor there but I remember Andy Goldsworthy the artist said in an interview that he views himself and thinks of his work as being a sculptor, doing sculpture. 'Even when I'm taking a picture, it's still a sculpture.' Ever since I heard that I've found myself thinking more and more in terms of sculptures.
It gives shape to how I think about things. So if i'm writing or doing a drawing, i think of them as sculptures ultimately, and any collections i put together as sculpture gardens. And then it went even further to where I started 'seeing' other peoples' works and other things as sculptural. Including this web site, which is where I was going with all of this babbling. I logged in today and saw that somebody had posted a new photo to the 'photos yet unseen of Hank' thread, which of course bumped that thread to the top of the 'what's new' subheading.
Not that anybody will read all of this. But when I looked at that 'pics of Hank' thread I was blown over all at once by the power of the images, but also by the different dates that they were posted and the gaps between posts the way that the thread gets longer over the years. And of course the content of that thread, those old pictures of Hank in itself thats super powerful if you've been reading Hank as close to your heart as I have and I'm sure so many of yall have.
It's all pretty mind-bogglingly massive, and then there is the whole collaboration part where different people seem to riff off of each other, the little subplots where newbies come in and act like idiots and so on .. there doesn't seem to be as much of that now. Back in the hayday of newbie drama it seems like every month or two some newbie was getting their ass handed to them by one or more fed-up regulars. I remember one guy did a comic strip version of ham on rye or something and ...
Anyway point being that this here is a pretty fucking impressive sculpture. I saw on a thread at one point or maybe on a few different threads people will refer to this as a place, as in 'this place is so cool, amazing.' But for me it wasn't until I saw it as a thing (after having not been back for a year or so at at least) that I was most taken aback. The amount of work that must have gone into it is one thing, then there is all the writings and photos and infos about Hank himself, and then beyond that there is the insights and the style and the yallness that yall have been posting over the years.
I oddly even miss a lot of you every now and then, none of whom I ever met. And occasionally as I go through life I'll still flash on little threads or little conversations that I had on here years ago. And I got some postcards sent to me from one person, a copy of Hamsuns Hunger from another person, an issue of Milk .. so I've got some buknet mementos that I bump into from time to time.
How's everybody been? I don't see any new stuff from Stargazer or Danny Mac are they still around? What about Ponder? I was a total dick to Ponder a long time ago in an argument about i-have-no-idea-what so if he is still around somebody let him know I'm sorry. And if the moderators want to kick me out again, I'll totally understand.
-Mike
(I don't even remember what all usernames I've had over the years, definitely Growing Beard was my most unsavory and active phase, but YouGetSo was a username I had more recently when I set up a new email address and snuck back in the side door to hang for a while last year at some point.)
