For my modern art history class I went to First Thursday tonight. On the First Thursday of every month, many of the commercial art galleries around Union Square stay open late so working people can view the artworks in their galleries. Many of galleries serve wine and some even have snacks.

It's kind of fun if you're interested in viewing contemporary art and getting free glasses of cheap wine. Plus it's a great for people watching because some people definitely dress for the occassion.

My art history teacher said that if we went to First Thursday and saw artists that we really liked, we could write about them and maybe compare and contrast their styles.

One artist in particular really stood out, Travis Somerville whose work was showing at the Catharine Clark Gallery.

I really liked his work, and out of everything I saw tonight, his stuff really stood out. He definitely has singular vision, and it's very fascinating.

I saw one artist's work, who actually lives in my new neighbourhood, and it was kind of cool because I recognized many of landscapes she painted.

As I was looking at work, I started to get an idea for a story. Many of this artist's painting featured people, and I was thinking, you know how artists are always sketching people in public.

Well, what if you were to walk into a gallery one day, and you saw a picture of yourself on the wall as one the background people in a painting. How interesting would that be.

And what if unbeknownst to the artist, she had capture some kind of dramatic moment in your life. Does this kind of thing even happen? Would the artist have to have permission from someone if they wanted to hang a picture of that person in a gallery. What if it was some kind of random crowd scene, that you just happen to be in?

I don't know. I think it would make for some kind of interesting story line to have a character discover the art in a gallery and then tell the artist that they're the one in the picture, and what was happening that day with them.

Was it american indians who didn't allow pictures to be taken of them because a picture captures your soul? Or was this some kind of Hollywood myth? Anyway, if a photograph can capture your soul, why not a painting?

I suppose I could have the artwork be a photo show instead of a painting show, but I like the idea of a painter rendering the likeness and emotion of the character with paint and brushstrokes.

An artist would just be interpreting the character and what they saw, but the question would be, did the artist get the character right? Or does it even matter that the artist got the character right, it's just an intepretation right?

From Gordon Zaft's blog, I read about this game called "In the Bag" which was from a blog by Terry Teachout, the drama critic of the Wall Street Journal and the music critic of Commentary.

Here are the rules "you can put any five works of art into your bag before departing for a desert island, but you have to decide right this second. No dithering: the body snatchers are banging on your front door. No posturing: you have to say the first five things that pop into your head, no matter how embarrassing they may sound. What do you stuff in the bag?"

Here are my picks as of this second.

1. cd - The Cure - Wish
2. artwork - Vincent Van Gogh - Vase with 15 Sunflowers (London, National Gallery)
3. book - Japan at the Dawn of the Modern Age, Woodblock Prints from the Meiji Era (MFA publication from Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
4. book - The Bible, NRSV
5. book - The Riverside Shakespeare

Interesting, huh?

There was a man strumming his guitar and singing "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd at the Powell Muni/BART station last night around 10 pm. He had a pretty good voice, and could definitely play guitar.

Memories of other troubadors crooning in public places flooded my tired brain.

The guy with the beautiful dreadlocks at the Picadilly tube stop in London, singing "Wonderwall" by Oasis. The escalator leading down into the station was steep and reminded me of the escalator at the Dupont Circle station in DC.

The man's voice drifted up to me as I rode the escalator down, and his beautiful face came into view at the bottom. I smiled at him and he smiled back, and the I hurried on my way to catch a train to Earl's Court.

When I was vacationing in Bali for a month, I stayed at a hotel in Kuta Beach that had a piano in the foyer. There was a man from Boston, playing "Knocking on Heaven's Door" on the piano at all hours of the day and night. He didn't sing, but played beautifully, slowly, meditatively.

Hearing the song at night was beautiful, and it blended wonderfully yet at the same time eerily with the sounds of the gamelan player who played in the gardens at night.

Then of course, I have many memories of hearing some guy playing a saxaphone in downtown San Francisco during the evening rush hour, serenading the commuters home. There is nothing like hearing a jazz saxaphone soundtrack with its music floating to the top of the highrises to make you feel like you're really lucky to be living and working in a big city.

Where there's a will, there's a way. I was all set to buy a usb to parrallel cable to connect the free office printer my friend gave me, when I decided to try to connect it to my ethernet 10/100 base_tx network and the home portal device I bought for my DSL connection.

After much searching on the internet and stumbling around, and even calling the people who made my home portal who blithely told me that they don't support printer sharing, I figured it out and now I have two printers. YEAH!!!

I used to curse the time I worked for that startup and had to work the helpdesk for six months, but not anymore. The best thing I learned from the "Hi I'm the helpdesk" experience" was how to troubleshoot a computer problem.

I mean, it was the three of us at the startup and if we couldn't figure it out it's not like we could ask anybody else. I learned how to fix things out of sheer survival. It would take all day sometimes, but at least I got it fixed.

The laserjet printer is great. It prints so fast!