Wednesday, August 31 8:30 pm, corner of Foster and Clark. In much the same way as Ariella's choice of one of the 739 Words on Loneliness was a form of divination, I find myself leaning over my milk crate of 739 Cups to find one that feels appropriate for that day. It's a big responsibility when I only get to choose one of Eric Klinenberg's words.

A cup of water that said "denial" was installed in a shadow box in the heart of Andersonville. Photos by Katherine Klein.

Sunday, August 28 Ormes Lake, Upper Penninsula of Michigan. On Saturday afternoon I had blood on my mind.

Blood from the Earth and Water: installation of red rocks, leaves, and lillies at the public boat launch. When we cruised by it in the canoe, Indi assumed it had been left for us by someone fishing on the lake.

Saturday, August 27 Dusk, Ormes Lake, Upper Penninsula of Michigan. Collaboration with Indi McCasey.

In the absence of a religious or cultural tradition that we can call upon to express our connection to a place, we make up our own dances. Tonight Indi demonstrated how to circle in the road, pausing to gather a triad of breaths. And I demonstrated that such a gesture of reverence will never seem silly to me.

Friday, August 26 Highway B and Ormes Lake, Upper Penninsula of Michigan.

Left in mailbox:

Dear people whose box is number 43, you don't know us, but we are artists who would like to make a performance in your honor. On Friday, August 26, we will do 43 somersaults in the water.

Sincerely,

Nicole & Indi

Seven Things we Love about Summer:

(list to follow)

Saxophonists who died in 1995:

James Clay
George Richard James
Wilton "Bogey" Gaynair
Julius Arthur Hemphill
"King" Herbert Whitaker
Marshall Royal
Edwin "Russel" House
John E. Gilmore
Junior Walker

 Tuesday, August 23 7:00pm, Hothouse. Nick Bisesi Quartet CD release party. The CD is called Gemini, and Nick wrote all the songs and plays sax. Unfinished performance #2, documentation as yet incomplete. I spent part of my evening listening to jazz and combing through a long list of famous people who died in 1995, looking for saxophonists. Then I wrote an email to Nick:

I was wondering if you would indulge me a bit. Without doing research or going through anxiety, I was wondering if you could write me a little about anything you know and/or like about the following saxophonists who all died in 1995. If you could do it in the next day or so that would be awesome. Thanks so much.

Tuesday, August 16 Sunset. A Dozen Good Deaths: collaboration with Leah Mayers. Leah recently e-mailed to ask if I was ever going to actually plan/schedule something that she could come see. That feels like too much of a commitment right now while HEAT:05 is spiraled in. I told her I'd bring the art to her. Leah also told me about a TV program in which people were asked what they thought was a good death.

So I asked some people what they thought was a good death. I wrote all of these, and my own, on pieces of Joss paper and went to Leah's apartment. She wasn't home so I left them in a package for her with instructions to add her own good death and then burn them all. The photos on the right are her documentation.

Thanks to Joe, April, Monica, Henry, Tabitha, Edda, Heidi, Linda, and the security guard in the Congress building.

Monday, August 15 8:00 pm, Pratt and Ashland. Mis-labeling the Plants of Rogers Park: or, Wishful Thinking. The source material for this work came from Friday, August 12. On my way to the Garfield Park Conservatory for a meeting, I was stopped by a child of about 9 who asked me if I was going into the conservatory. I said yes. She said she had a project to do for school about plants but they didn't let kids alone into the conservatory. She was with an older brother (maybe 10) and their 14-year-old sister. I asked her if she wanted to come in with me. I don't remember her name. It began with an A. So in the wicked heat and humidity of Friday afternoon, A. and her brother and I took it up a notch by wandering around a greenhouse making a list of plants. When she was satisfied with her list of 15 plants to investigate for her school report, I delivered them back to their sister and went to my meeting. For the record, I asked her if I could take a picture of her making her list, but I try not to photograph the faces of children without permission from a guardian.

Tonight I took some plants from A's list and made copper plant tags, which I used to mislabel the plants and trees of Rogers Park.

Poem 739
by Emily Dickinson

I many times thought Peace had come
When Peace was far away-
As Wrecked Men- deem they sight the Land-
At Centre of the Sea-

And struggle slacker- but to prove
As hopelessly as I-
How many the fictitious Shores-
Before the Harbor be-

Saturday, August 13 8:30pm, NeoFuturarium. I can't lie. I left the house to go see my girl Lisa in Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind having neither a) made a performance, nor b) a plan of any kind. I did manage to take along my battered copy of Emily Dickinson's Poem 739.

While I was waiting for the show to start, I saw someone walk through the space, and I knew I knew him from somewhere, but I could not place it. Then I read my show program, which acknowledged the "technotastic technifitude" of...Scotty.

I think the techie for this show is the person who made newspaper hats for me and 6 other people on the train on Monday August 8. Obviously he would have to be the recipient of tonight's performance. I decided to borrow his formal structure: no words, no explanation beforehand, just presentation of the work, and then a handshake afterward. So while everyone else filed out of the theatre after the show, I walked back up to the corner where Scotty waited in his booth, looked at him, and read him Emily Dickinson's Poem 739. Then I shook his hand, introduced myself to him (for the 2nd time), and left.

Tuesday, August 9 & Wednesday, August 10 7:39 pm, 7:39 am respectively. Over the course of our friendship Indi has asked me about 15 times if people really swim in Lake Michigan off the coast of Chicago. Every time I say sure! Tons of people swim! It's great!

But I have a confession: I have never been swimming in Lake Michigan off the coast of Chicago. Over a decade living in the city, all this time spent making art at the beach, and I've never actually gone in the water.

So I took 3 of my cups (739 potential fluid ounces) and stuck them in the sand at Pratt Beach. At precisely 7:39 pm on Tuesday, and 7:39 am on Wednesday, I walked into Lake Michigan. I swam in the same waters I had stood on making beet juice stencils in January. I floated on my back among the microscopic remains of dying-wish bread and tabasco sauce. I saw the people I want to become: stocky seniors who meet their friends at 7:30 am for a dip, chatting in Russian.

And then I dripped these juices off of my body and directly into my cups.

Monday, August 8 Katherine writes this e-mail today from South Africa: it occured to me that this project has broken through to something very human in you that before came out only at certain times. don't get me wrong miss nicole. i just know that you tend to shield in public space and for good reason. i know how it is to be open to the world and have it go terribly wrong. i just have noticed that you are more open to the world and i feel it is a good thing. it only makes you more handsome. beautiful. full.

I had no performance plan on the train home tonight. But across the aisle from me was a person taking sheets of newspaper from his neighbor and folding them into paper hats. He then silently offered them to people on the train car: just made eye contact, smiled, and held out a hat. He got six people to wear them on the train, including me. Sometimes if people refused he would gesture around the train as if to say, "all these other people are doing it..."

His stop was Bryn Mawr, but before he left he shook hands with all of the participants in his performance and introduced himself as Scotty. I wore my hat all the way home. Coincidentally this costume was witnessed in the parking lot of the 7-11 by Nicole, to whom I gave the 3 cups of sugar yesterday.

Sunday, August 7 5:00pm. In the set of 1,000 Russian vocabulary cards Ariella gave me, #739 is "sugar." 739 grams of sugar is 3 cups. So I put 3 cups of sugar in a plastic bag and headed to the beach with a spoon, thinking I'd figure out what the piece is when I got there.

But on my way through the alley I was stopped by two girls who called to me through the fence to see if I wanted to some lemonade. I said sure. It seemed like it might have occured to them just that moment to have a lemonade stand, because they actually had no lemonade. But they offered me a milk crate to sit on while I waited for them to make it. This process took about 15 minutes and several apologies, but I wasn't in a hurry.

The girl who chatted with me while her friend made the lemonade was Stephanie. She also ran several times down the sidewalk to the apartment where the lemonade was being made, and then signaled to me from a distance that it would just be a moment. I found out Stephanie was raising money to buy school supplies. She had everything she needed except erasers. She had also been selling decorated picture frames and some of her clothes. I bought a beaded bracelet from her, too. She was asking 5 cents for the bracelet, I gave her a dollar. Her mother's name is also Nicole. The lemonade was pink and cold. Since I had so much time to get to know everyone, I pulled the bag of sugar out of my bag and asked them if they thought they could use it. I told them I had used it for something but this was left over, and I was trying not to eat sugar. They took the sugar.

Tuesday, August 2 Midnight. Waning Moon Ceremony of Gratefulness. It always makes me sad that the beginning of August feels like the end of summer. So knowing that the moon was waning, it was time to say thanks.