Desktop Diary #12
some things I saved to my desktop
I’ve released a limited run of Competitive Poem prints on my webstore. Edition of 50, 12x18 inches, 100 gsm matte, signed, get them while supplies last!
The last time I wrote a Desktop Diary (6 weeks ago) I had agreed to surrender to winter, but I didn’t know there would be historic levels of cold and snow. So I come to you from my bed, feeling mildly cooped up on the heels of the blizzard, to share some of the treasures I’ve collected and saved to my desktop this month. After this, I will venture outside for the first time in 48 hours to buy a bottle of shampoo and maybe a Thin Mint Frosty.
The second half of January was spent transcribing Inbox Full, a 10-hour video I shot via webcam in 2012 that consists of me reading the entirety of my Tumblr inbox. I don’t answer any of the questions. I simply read them aloud and move onto the next one, giving each compliment, insult, dream description, request for advice, and piece of gossip equal weight. As I read, I lay in bed, smoke cigarettes, pet my roommate’s cat, bring my laptop with me to the bathroom, and eat a bowl of ramen.
Why does everyone hate you?
Are you shy?
Are you afraid to break the illusion?
I hope to adopt your carefree attitude. Thank you.
Can you tell me something personal about yourself? Not too personal, just something interesting.
Oh my god, who the fuck can stand you? All you do is show off.
The process of transcribing something forces you to go inward, to give that thing your full attention, whether you want to or not. It’s a surreal experience, being forced to spend that much time with someone’s words, pausing to ensure they are right, regardless of the sentiment. The fact that these words were directed at me during the beginning of my time navigating some kind of a public spotlight, existing outside of myself and for strangers, only makes it that much more psychedelic.
This month’s Desktop Dump features more .gifs than usual. I struck gold after typing the right keywords into GifCities. Usually these searches lead to extended periods of pulling up archived webpages, bouncing between forgotten personal websites and dead links. Eventually, I’ll have hit enough dead ends that I’ll stop, but these sessions can last for hours. During my neverending search for more lo-res images of sexy women, the majority of the websites I encounter are dedicated to celebrities. I recently found one (Milla1.html) which features a single .gif of Milla Jovovich on a black background, the caption underneath reads “How can I meet her?” in cyan Times New Roman. The only other thing on the page is a hit counter in the bottom lefthand corner, stuck at 0000.
Usually when I’m deep in a downloading spree, I’m less interested in celebrity centered image aggregators and fan sites, and more interested in the personal. I enjoy finding early instances of women online taking and distributing their own images, whether it’s a cam girl in Mexico or a sorority student from the University of Michigan. That’s e-girl history! User gabif_85 has some great handmade photo galleries on her page. Shout out to Cassandra and Valerie as well.
There aren’t that many dancing .gifs I haven’t seen before. By 2018, I had sufficiently scoured the web for transparent dancers and had them join me for Me and My Gurls. Finding a new one wiggling on some long forgotten webpage is an unmatched thrill.
Last week, I constructed a faux strip mall parking lot in my tiny studio. While searching for parking lot images, I came across a very active Flickr group dedicated to Sears and Kmart store closings. Since 2014, the group has been updated nearly daily, with close to 30k photos of empty parking lots and picked over shelves. My favorite genre of photo, and the ones that seem to be the most frequent as of late, since only five Sears and one Kmart store remain in operation, are the pictures of former store locations showcasing what has replaced them: Goodwill, Rural King, Spirit Halloween, Big Lots. The most prolific posters are full-fledged strip mall historians, driving around the Midwest documenting the ins and outs of big box retail.
I have nearly 20 vintage photographs of women posing while wearing boxing gloves saved to my desktop. It all started with this 1927 photo of Joan Crawford and Dorothy Sebastian on the beach in Santa Monica. This was seemingly a popular style of promotional photo in the 1920s: women smiling while pretending to sock each other in the face. It’s glamorous, it’s absurd, it’s a carefully constructed site of potential distress. The file name for this one is Don’t-Be-Afraid-of-Being-Wrong-.jpg.
I often leave my laptop at the studio, which has drastically cut down the number of singing videos I make. On the nights that I do bring it home, I pack one of my webcams with me, armed with the potential to sit on the floor and sing karaoke to any song I can think of until I get tired or until my boyfriend gets home. I recently cut my foot badly while recording an impassioned rendition of “Possum Kingdom” by The Toadies (it’s staying in the vault for now). In this video, I sing about adultery while moving the webcam around my face, giving it a kiss at the 1:30 minute mark. One YouTube comment reads, “I’ve been kissed for the first time in 6 months.”