----
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"The Endless House is called the “endless” because all ends meet and meet, continuously. It is endless like the human body. (…) The coming of the Endless House is inevitable in a world coming to an end. It is the last refuge for man as a man." -- Frederick Kiesler: "Inside the endless house", New York, 1966
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'Marcos Cruz is a practising architect who lives and works in London. He is a co-founder of marcosandmarjan, as well as a Lecturer at the Bartlett UCL (Unit 20). His individual research is dedicated to a future vision of the body in architecture, questioning the contemporary relationship between the human flesh and the architectural flesh. In a time when a pervasive discourse about the impact of digital technologies risks turning the architectural ‘skin’ ever more disembodied, his aim is to put forward the notion of a Thick Embodied Flesh by exploring architectural interfaces that are truly inhabitable.
'Conceptually his work delves into the arena of disgust on which the notion of an aesthetic flesh is standing, and it explores new types of ‘neoplasmatic’ conditions in which the future possibility of a neo-biological flesh lies. He proposes Synthetic Neoplasms as new semi-living entities that are identified as partly designed object and partly living material, in which the line between the natural and the artificial is progressively blurred. Hybrid technologies and interdisciplinary work methodologies are required, leading to a revision of our current architectural practice. In his research Marcos Cruz proposes Flesh as a concept that extends the meaning of skin as one of architecture’s most contemporary metaphors.'-- InteractiveArchitecture.org
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'Technologic advances in science and art are affecting severely the current understanding of the human body. The increase discovery of its spectacularity runs parallel to the understanding of its limits. Recent studies about skin-substitute manufacturing, smart materials and textile engineering have lead to a hybrid construction composed of artificial skin tissue and sophisticated microfibres. In order to make this possible, the project suggests an interdisciplinary process that has as a result acts of design surgery. And although the laboratory-based work of doctors, architects, and civil engineers is in this case rather scientific and related to each device in particular, the design of Walls for Communicating People, in contrary, consciously exploits the unpredictable nature of its aesthetic.
'Hyperdermis is a project, which explores new aesthetics of walls and membranes in the realm of architectural space and programme. Its practical design is done applied on a project, in which the central issue is the design of inhabitable appliance walls that incorporate several service devices: Storage Capillaries, In-wall Seats, Relaxing Cocoons and Communications Suits. The scenario of Walls for Communicating People is speculative and rather weird: people creep into walls in order to sit, hang or lie in (hidden) chambers that are embedded within flexible and pliable surfaces. While essential everyday functions such as sitting, sleeping or communicating are transferred from traditional room-space into wall-space, the new programme resembles acts of parasitic infiltration routines. It encompasses a new haptic relationship between the human body and its sensitive-reactive environment, an architectural imagery punctured by moving bulges, sensory tentacles and stretchable orifices.'-- M.C.
References: Joel-Peter Witkin, Stellarc, Wrong Bodies, Orlan, Images/New Images or, The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, 1990, Omnipresence Conference, 1993 (Broadcast live from the Sandra Gehring Gallery, New York), Gilles Jobin, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Clemente Susini, Suspensions, Rebecca Horn, Louise Bourgeois, Mark Quinn, David Cronenberg, Spectacular Bodies
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'Fabric Epithelia is a device that aims to use engineered skin as matter for a new living fabric. As it results from an interdisciplinary work between an architect and a molecular biologist it explores the potential of "in vitro" grown tissue generated, by growing epithelial cells on a textile scaffold in an air-liquid interface. It is developed in two separate phases:
'The first stage is a laboratory-based process, in which human keratynocytes (skin cells), grown in culture are induced to differentiate into stratified epithelia. This raft culture floats on nutritive media under tightly regulated temperature and atmospheric conditions. The raft consists of a collagen coated mesh which will provide the scaffold for cell growth and differentiation. This raft culture floats on nutritive media under tightly regulated temperature and atmospheric conditions existent on a collagen, coated mesh, which provides the scaffold for cell growth and differentiation. For presentation purposes the raft culture is formalin fixed and embedded in resin.
'The second phase is concerned with the design of an installation, which presents and visualises the sample for exhibition purposes. The sample is supported by extremely delicate structures that keep the illuminated object isolated in a semi-dark environment. Stratified lightning equipment enables the viewer to visualise the sample, which is projected and amplified on a screen through a data projector and attached magnifying lens.'-- M.C.
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Clik here to view.![]()
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Marcos Cruz: I have been observing you and your toys for a while now. What still seems to me very intriguing is the way they work as the trigger for new ideas about inhabitation of space. Which aspects of your work reflect this?
Marjan Colletti: I may have to specify what kind of toys I mean. Generally, one could differentiate two different categories: ‘throw away toys’ and ‘keep forever toys’. The first group has very short life expectancy and a high ‘transience index’, as psychologist Alvin Toffler calls it. These toys are a product of the throwaway society and its high ‘rate of turnover’ of things, ideas and places. Soft toys belong to the latter group, and are called ‘transitional objects’, which means they serve the child to transit from the childhood to the adult stage. Psychologists imply separation from those elements. Why? I think that the act of playing with these toys reveals itself as an incredible demonstration of inventiveness, responsiveness and control over the environment and objects. And that is not much different to what I expect from the ‘professional architect’.
Marcos Cruz: I understand that as a principle or analogy, but you also take them literally into your design as physical inhabitants of two, and three-dimensional space.
Marjan Colletti: First unconsciously, then consciously, my friends constantly appear and re-appear in my designs, inhabiting the space and filling it with secondary layers of architectural information. If I say inventiveness, responsiveness and control, I mean it in internal, psychological terms. The playful, professional architect can re-create spaces and shapes of a secondary layer which are triggered by one’s emotions and mood. I still stick to the toys, and they turned out to be helpful designers... They show up for example in the project Besking (a hybrid between a BEd, deSK and intelligent thING) that re-introduces the toys’ softness and reveals their shapes in plans, sections and details. Every (technical) drawing has a secondary (private) story to tell. Since then, they re-appeared in other designs. For instance, in the interior design project for the refurbishment of a flat in Bozen, Italy, where they permanently inhabit empty space, thus, reacting to the Aristotelian and Freudian ‘horror vacui’. Aristotle’s ‘horror vacui’ argued the impossibility of ‘nothingness’ and influenced the pragmatism of Renaissance perspective realism, while Freud’s ‘horror vacui’ influenced Secessionist Gustav Klimt to fill the canvas with symbols, shapes and ornaments, representing an atmosphere of cosmic peace. I need ornaments and friends. That is what the toys are all about; shapes are not just shapes, they are friendly shapes and talk to me as friends. It’s my way to somehow escape my ‘horror vacui’. (read the entirety)----
*
p.s. Hey. Greetings from Halle, Germany where nothing of note will happen until a couple of hours from now, but where everything is fine. ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. Great, I highly recommend Jerome Sala's book. He's a great favorite of mine. To the point where there's a sequence of poems written as a kind of homage to his poetry in 'The Weaklings (XL)', as maybe you've seen. Thesis blurb, sure. That would be a first for me, cool. The traveling right now is super work-oriented, but it's nice, I mean maybe not as an Antarctica, but ... Mm, you know, there might a weird kind of Heiner Muller thing in the theater piece I'm working on, now that you mention it. Thank you so much for talking so clearly and deeply and enlighteningly about Kim Hyesoon. That's fascinating. I knew nothing about her until I read that new book that I spotlit yesterday. Thank you so much! ** Schoolboyerrors, Hi, D. Oh, huh, wow, that's interesting and kind of you to say re: the possible connection to 3rd generation NY School. I guess what I see as the 2nd generation vibe in the 'alt lit' poetry is the 'tossed off' quality, a quickness, a lean towards brevity, a faux-scribbled thing in many cases combined with some rapid fire tone and playfulness trickery that makes me think of the young Padgett, Berrigan, Brainard, etc. I feel like once the NY School got to the next and last generation, there was a heavy Ashbery influence in most of my peers, and in me too, that created a kind of, I don't know, solidity to the forms we employed or something, although Eileen makes sense, as she works outside that and very uniquely, and of course Tim Dlugos, although, again, there's a kind of connection in his work to the largesse of the 1st generation or like a historical knowingness or something. Man, I have had way too inadequate amount of coffee to try to think like this. I guess you're in the wilds right now. What are Irish wilds like? If they were in a police line-up of wilds, how would I pick them out? Have fun! ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Cool, I'll go check out that Kramer book. Thank you! ** Bill, Hi. The Lucas de Lima is really terrific. Oh, wow, yes, Berlin is pretty close to Halle, I think. To the point where people commute back and forth to work. I'm here from now until Saturday morning. Today through Thursday is pretty work-heavy: rehearsing from noon to 8 pm. Friday is a fairly free day with a big opening of an art show in which Gisele has work in the early evening. I guess that day would be the best one. If you want to come, that would be awesome! Let me know, if so, and we can make a plan. ** Kier, Hi, K! Cool, cool, cool! Malthus. Nice name. I got a weird vibe just from the word. Good weird. I'll go see if I can find anything online to fill me in about this hoarse earl. Rock your day, my pal. ** Hyrule Dungeon, Whoa, hi, Jose! It's so great to see you! I've missed you! Fantastic that you finished the book! And your attitude towards it, writing, publishing, etc. is so fucking good and strong and sane. I think the 'alt lit' world is as open a hand as there is in publishing. Its boundaries relative to pre-existing notions of genre are completely vague in such an exciting way, so, yeah. Very exciting about the journal happening! I mean, you can imagine how up one of my alleys that sounds. Man, you're on fire, it's so awesome. Of course, a call for submissions here when the time is right would be beyond welcome. You can even put together a 'call for submissions' guest-post, if you want. No, I don't know that album. Cool, I'll use your link and get a listen tonight when I get back from the theater. And your website too! Killer, man! So great to see you! ** Zach, Hi, Z. Yeah, that exuberance is weird. It's, like, off-putting in some way that's kind of an exciting challenge to stomach or something. Or the exuberance/content combo is. I don't know. I was surprised that I liked negotiating it. I'm going to find out how wonderful this little corner of Germany is today. We'll see. Biking! So nice! ** Torn porter, Hey! Man, it was so great to hang out with you guys! It was really fun, and, for sure, let's do that again asap. That would be great. I like Normandie. It's kind of lonely or something. I'll be back in Paris at the weekend. Let's figure something out. ** Kyler, Hi. Cool, say the word and send me the stuff re: the book post when the time comes, or, rather, a little before the time comes. So heartwarming, etc. to hear you sound so exuberant! ** Steevee, Ugh about your, yeah, not so good at all sounding day. I hope the night's sleep broke the spell. ** Cap'm, Hi, cap'm! You knew Jerome's stuff back in the Chicago days! He was so wild back then, so wild in fact that he almost died from the physical effects. But he has been sober as a bone for years, and he's doing and writing better than ever, yeah. He and Elaine are in NYC, and kicking ass everywhere. It's true that there's a clearness to your comments now, a difference for sure. That's interesting. I've been a big fan of Cap'm in all of your manifestations. Now we're in the same boat, i.e. I almost never drink, and I haven't done drugs for forever, relatively speaking, so that's cool. Congrats, man. Are you into clarity? I'm kind of really into clarity, by which I mean a substance-free state where 'real' things become the highs or something. I'm so glad things are ok. Ok kind of rules or is the truth or something. Ha ha, coffee is my big vice now, and I'm not nearly caffeined-up enough this morning. Man, it's always great when you're here, truly. Thank you for giving this place the chance. ** Grant maierhofer, Hi, Grant! Yeah, HTMLG is in a different place now, yeah. I still hang out there silently almost every day, but it's a different kind of visiting and studying. Your focusing on fiction gets a big thumbs from yours truly, needless to say. Only a few hours left to go? Whoa! That's cool! I envy you. Interesting about third person. I mean, it's interesting what becomes substantial when you understand what you do and want to do as a writer. I used to be into 3rd person when I wrote the George Miles Cycle and had that as the overall grid, but, ever since then, I'm much more drawn to expanding and tightening and tripping off and on the 1st person. Don't know why. I'm really good, very busy. Traveling to work on theater stuff at the moment. Great to hear from you, pal. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Oh, wow, ugh indeed, in theory, I mean even from way over here. But if it does the trick, it'll just be a flash nightmare, I guess. Yeah, long books, I can't even imagine. ** Rigby, Weird, I feel like you're the one spoiling me, but I guess that, 'no, you, no, you' thing is the magic ingredient or something. What the hell did that mean? Wow, wait, you talked to Adam Ant on the phone? Shit. That's really fucking cool. He was the shit for a while there. And that shirt sounds ace. ** Rewritedept, Being stoned around one's parents, scary. One time when I was a teen I accidentally ran into my mom when I was flying on acid, and I ended up thinking it was trippy to talk to her because I always avoided doing that, so we did, and, until the day she died, she always said, 'Oh, remember that time we had that great talk', meaning when I was on acid, and I never had the heart to tell her that the reason the talk seemed so great was because I was tripping balls. My day probably won't kick ass, but I hope yours does. ** Okay. Here's a rerun for you. Hope you like it or still like it or something like that. See you tomorrow.
The Endless House
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"The Endless House is called the “endless” because all ends meet and meet, continuously. It is endless like the human body. (…) The coming of the Endless House is inevitable in a world coming to an end. It is the last refuge for man as a man." -- Frederick Kiesler: "Inside the endless house", New York, 1966
Marcos Cruz
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'Marcos Cruz is a practising architect who lives and works in London. He is a co-founder of marcosandmarjan, as well as a Lecturer at the Bartlett UCL (Unit 20). His individual research is dedicated to a future vision of the body in architecture, questioning the contemporary relationship between the human flesh and the architectural flesh. In a time when a pervasive discourse about the impact of digital technologies risks turning the architectural ‘skin’ ever more disembodied, his aim is to put forward the notion of a Thick Embodied Flesh by exploring architectural interfaces that are truly inhabitable.
'Conceptually his work delves into the arena of disgust on which the notion of an aesthetic flesh is standing, and it explores new types of ‘neoplasmatic’ conditions in which the future possibility of a neo-biological flesh lies. He proposes Synthetic Neoplasms as new semi-living entities that are identified as partly designed object and partly living material, in which the line between the natural and the artificial is progressively blurred. Hybrid technologies and interdisciplinary work methodologies are required, leading to a revision of our current architectural practice. In his research Marcos Cruz proposes Flesh as a concept that extends the meaning of skin as one of architecture’s most contemporary metaphors.'-- InteractiveArchitecture.org
Hyperdermis
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'Technologic advances in science and art are affecting severely the current understanding of the human body. The increase discovery of its spectacularity runs parallel to the understanding of its limits. Recent studies about skin-substitute manufacturing, smart materials and textile engineering have lead to a hybrid construction composed of artificial skin tissue and sophisticated microfibres. In order to make this possible, the project suggests an interdisciplinary process that has as a result acts of design surgery. And although the laboratory-based work of doctors, architects, and civil engineers is in this case rather scientific and related to each device in particular, the design of Walls for Communicating People, in contrary, consciously exploits the unpredictable nature of its aesthetic.
'Hyperdermis is a project, which explores new aesthetics of walls and membranes in the realm of architectural space and programme. Its practical design is done applied on a project, in which the central issue is the design of inhabitable appliance walls that incorporate several service devices: Storage Capillaries, In-wall Seats, Relaxing Cocoons and Communications Suits. The scenario of Walls for Communicating People is speculative and rather weird: people creep into walls in order to sit, hang or lie in (hidden) chambers that are embedded within flexible and pliable surfaces. While essential everyday functions such as sitting, sleeping or communicating are transferred from traditional room-space into wall-space, the new programme resembles acts of parasitic infiltration routines. It encompasses a new haptic relationship between the human body and its sensitive-reactive environment, an architectural imagery punctured by moving bulges, sensory tentacles and stretchable orifices.'-- M.C.
References: Joel-Peter Witkin, Stellarc, Wrong Bodies, Orlan, Images/New Images or, The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, 1990, Omnipresence Conference, 1993 (Broadcast live from the Sandra Gehring Gallery, New York), Gilles Jobin, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Clemente Susini, Suspensions, Rebecca Horn, Louise Bourgeois, Mark Quinn, David Cronenberg, Spectacular Bodies
Fabric Epithelia
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(w/ Orlando de Jesus)
'Fabric Epithelia is a device that aims to use engineered skin as matter for a new living fabric. As it results from an interdisciplinary work between an architect and a molecular biologist it explores the potential of "in vitro" grown tissue generated, by growing epithelial cells on a textile scaffold in an air-liquid interface. It is developed in two separate phases:
'The first stage is a laboratory-based process, in which human keratynocytes (skin cells), grown in culture are induced to differentiate into stratified epithelia. This raft culture floats on nutritive media under tightly regulated temperature and atmospheric conditions. The raft consists of a collagen coated mesh which will provide the scaffold for cell growth and differentiation. This raft culture floats on nutritive media under tightly regulated temperature and atmospheric conditions existent on a collagen, coated mesh, which provides the scaffold for cell growth and differentiation. For presentation purposes the raft culture is formalin fixed and embedded in resin.
'The second phase is concerned with the design of an installation, which presents and visualises the sample for exhibition purposes. The sample is supported by extremely delicate structures that keep the illuminated object isolated in a semi-dark environment. Stratified lightning equipment enables the viewer to visualise the sample, which is projected and amplified on a screen through a data projector and attached magnifying lens.'-- M.C.
Inhabitation of Bodies and Toys
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Marcos Cruz: I have been observing you and your toys for a while now. What still seems to me very intriguing is the way they work as the trigger for new ideas about inhabitation of space. Which aspects of your work reflect this?
Marjan Colletti: I may have to specify what kind of toys I mean. Generally, one could differentiate two different categories: ‘throw away toys’ and ‘keep forever toys’. The first group has very short life expectancy and a high ‘transience index’, as psychologist Alvin Toffler calls it. These toys are a product of the throwaway society and its high ‘rate of turnover’ of things, ideas and places. Soft toys belong to the latter group, and are called ‘transitional objects’, which means they serve the child to transit from the childhood to the adult stage. Psychologists imply separation from those elements. Why? I think that the act of playing with these toys reveals itself as an incredible demonstration of inventiveness, responsiveness and control over the environment and objects. And that is not much different to what I expect from the ‘professional architect’.
Marcos Cruz: I understand that as a principle or analogy, but you also take them literally into your design as physical inhabitants of two, and three-dimensional space.
Marjan Colletti: First unconsciously, then consciously, my friends constantly appear and re-appear in my designs, inhabiting the space and filling it with secondary layers of architectural information. If I say inventiveness, responsiveness and control, I mean it in internal, psychological terms. The playful, professional architect can re-create spaces and shapes of a secondary layer which are triggered by one’s emotions and mood. I still stick to the toys, and they turned out to be helpful designers... They show up for example in the project Besking (a hybrid between a BEd, deSK and intelligent thING) that re-introduces the toys’ softness and reveals their shapes in plans, sections and details. Every (technical) drawing has a secondary (private) story to tell. Since then, they re-appeared in other designs. For instance, in the interior design project for the refurbishment of a flat in Bozen, Italy, where they permanently inhabit empty space, thus, reacting to the Aristotelian and Freudian ‘horror vacui’. Aristotle’s ‘horror vacui’ argued the impossibility of ‘nothingness’ and influenced the pragmatism of Renaissance perspective realism, while Freud’s ‘horror vacui’ influenced Secessionist Gustav Klimt to fill the canvas with symbols, shapes and ornaments, representing an atmosphere of cosmic peace. I need ornaments and friends. That is what the toys are all about; shapes are not just shapes, they are friendly shapes and talk to me as friends. It’s my way to somehow escape my ‘horror vacui’. (read the entirety)
*
p.s. Hey. Greetings from Halle, Germany where nothing of note will happen until a couple of hours from now, but where everything is fine. ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. Great, I highly recommend Jerome Sala's book. He's a great favorite of mine. To the point where there's a sequence of poems written as a kind of homage to his poetry in 'The Weaklings (XL)', as maybe you've seen. Thesis blurb, sure. That would be a first for me, cool. The traveling right now is super work-oriented, but it's nice, I mean maybe not as an Antarctica, but ... Mm, you know, there might a weird kind of Heiner Muller thing in the theater piece I'm working on, now that you mention it. Thank you so much for talking so clearly and deeply and enlighteningly about Kim Hyesoon. That's fascinating. I knew nothing about her until I read that new book that I spotlit yesterday. Thank you so much! ** Schoolboyerrors, Hi, D. Oh, huh, wow, that's interesting and kind of you to say re: the possible connection to 3rd generation NY School. I guess what I see as the 2nd generation vibe in the 'alt lit' poetry is the 'tossed off' quality, a quickness, a lean towards brevity, a faux-scribbled thing in many cases combined with some rapid fire tone and playfulness trickery that makes me think of the young Padgett, Berrigan, Brainard, etc. I feel like once the NY School got to the next and last generation, there was a heavy Ashbery influence in most of my peers, and in me too, that created a kind of, I don't know, solidity to the forms we employed or something, although Eileen makes sense, as she works outside that and very uniquely, and of course Tim Dlugos, although, again, there's a kind of connection in his work to the largesse of the 1st generation or like a historical knowingness or something. Man, I have had way too inadequate amount of coffee to try to think like this. I guess you're in the wilds right now. What are Irish wilds like? If they were in a police line-up of wilds, how would I pick them out? Have fun! ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Cool, I'll go check out that Kramer book. Thank you! ** Bill, Hi. The Lucas de Lima is really terrific. Oh, wow, yes, Berlin is pretty close to Halle, I think. To the point where people commute back and forth to work. I'm here from now until Saturday morning. Today through Thursday is pretty work-heavy: rehearsing from noon to 8 pm. Friday is a fairly free day with a big opening of an art show in which Gisele has work in the early evening. I guess that day would be the best one. If you want to come, that would be awesome! Let me know, if so, and we can make a plan. ** Kier, Hi, K! Cool, cool, cool! Malthus. Nice name. I got a weird vibe just from the word. Good weird. I'll go see if I can find anything online to fill me in about this hoarse earl. Rock your day, my pal. ** Hyrule Dungeon, Whoa, hi, Jose! It's so great to see you! I've missed you! Fantastic that you finished the book! And your attitude towards it, writing, publishing, etc. is so fucking good and strong and sane. I think the 'alt lit' world is as open a hand as there is in publishing. Its boundaries relative to pre-existing notions of genre are completely vague in such an exciting way, so, yeah. Very exciting about the journal happening! I mean, you can imagine how up one of my alleys that sounds. Man, you're on fire, it's so awesome. Of course, a call for submissions here when the time is right would be beyond welcome. You can even put together a 'call for submissions' guest-post, if you want. No, I don't know that album. Cool, I'll use your link and get a listen tonight when I get back from the theater. And your website too! Killer, man! So great to see you! ** Zach, Hi, Z. Yeah, that exuberance is weird. It's, like, off-putting in some way that's kind of an exciting challenge to stomach or something. Or the exuberance/content combo is. I don't know. I was surprised that I liked negotiating it. I'm going to find out how wonderful this little corner of Germany is today. We'll see. Biking! So nice! ** Torn porter, Hey! Man, it was so great to hang out with you guys! It was really fun, and, for sure, let's do that again asap. That would be great. I like Normandie. It's kind of lonely or something. I'll be back in Paris at the weekend. Let's figure something out. ** Kyler, Hi. Cool, say the word and send me the stuff re: the book post when the time comes, or, rather, a little before the time comes. So heartwarming, etc. to hear you sound so exuberant! ** Steevee, Ugh about your, yeah, not so good at all sounding day. I hope the night's sleep broke the spell. ** Cap'm, Hi, cap'm! You knew Jerome's stuff back in the Chicago days! He was so wild back then, so wild in fact that he almost died from the physical effects. But he has been sober as a bone for years, and he's doing and writing better than ever, yeah. He and Elaine are in NYC, and kicking ass everywhere. It's true that there's a clearness to your comments now, a difference for sure. That's interesting. I've been a big fan of Cap'm in all of your manifestations. Now we're in the same boat, i.e. I almost never drink, and I haven't done drugs for forever, relatively speaking, so that's cool. Congrats, man. Are you into clarity? I'm kind of really into clarity, by which I mean a substance-free state where 'real' things become the highs or something. I'm so glad things are ok. Ok kind of rules or is the truth or something. Ha ha, coffee is my big vice now, and I'm not nearly caffeined-up enough this morning. Man, it's always great when you're here, truly. Thank you for giving this place the chance. ** Grant maierhofer, Hi, Grant! Yeah, HTMLG is in a different place now, yeah. I still hang out there silently almost every day, but it's a different kind of visiting and studying. Your focusing on fiction gets a big thumbs from yours truly, needless to say. Only a few hours left to go? Whoa! That's cool! I envy you. Interesting about third person. I mean, it's interesting what becomes substantial when you understand what you do and want to do as a writer. I used to be into 3rd person when I wrote the George Miles Cycle and had that as the overall grid, but, ever since then, I'm much more drawn to expanding and tightening and tripping off and on the 1st person. Don't know why. I'm really good, very busy. Traveling to work on theater stuff at the moment. Great to hear from you, pal. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Oh, wow, ugh indeed, in theory, I mean even from way over here. But if it does the trick, it'll just be a flash nightmare, I guess. Yeah, long books, I can't even imagine. ** Rigby, Weird, I feel like you're the one spoiling me, but I guess that, 'no, you, no, you' thing is the magic ingredient or something. What the hell did that mean? Wow, wait, you talked to Adam Ant on the phone? Shit. That's really fucking cool. He was the shit for a while there. And that shirt sounds ace. ** Rewritedept, Being stoned around one's parents, scary. One time when I was a teen I accidentally ran into my mom when I was flying on acid, and I ended up thinking it was trippy to talk to her because I always avoided doing that, so we did, and, until the day she died, she always said, 'Oh, remember that time we had that great talk', meaning when I was on acid, and I never had the heart to tell her that the reason the talk seemed so great was because I was tripping balls. My day probably won't kick ass, but I hope yours does. ** Okay. Here's a rerun for you. Hope you like it or still like it or something like that. See you tomorrow.