4/27/23 > Lots going on, our house officially went on the market 2day + open house = Sunday. Although Columbia housing didn't have anything for us in this months "hunger games," they have an apartment, that, although technically for "junior faculty" (on 3rd floor, sorta High-Rise situation), sounds like it might work. We had planned 2 go 2 NYC 2day in part 2 check out apartments if any became available, but then canceled our trip 4 reason we'll get in2 L8er in this post. Instead we're having our friend look @ this apartment + if it seems promising we'll go up next week. So this might be the week we both sell our house + find a new 1, in bocca al lupo.

2 days ago on 2sday we got our nu book back from the printer + quickly mailed off ARCs so there's less boxes/clutter laying around the house as we try to sell it. Any 1 interested in a copy let us know.

As we were showing our house this afternoon (highly orthodox, but we were showing another agent who was checking it out for their client... unless they were just being snoopy (they live on our block, which made it more awkward)), we finally received the much-expected package containing Michael Salu's Red Earth. It was sent from Berlin 10–11 days ago via DHL + we've been nervously tracking it as it 1st got held up @ Berlin airport + then again 3-4 days in customs @ JFK... part of why we canceled our NYC trip, 4 fear porch pirates wd snatch it in absentia. This leather-bound Red Earth is a 1-of-a-kind copy of the original "source code" for an ongoing art project of Michael Salu, an "artistic, interdisciplinary study centred on prose reflections and machine translation, drawing attention to the precarious status of non-western cultural heritage, knowledge systems and practices in the increasingly dominant western systems of data, virtual architectures and AI technologies."

We mentioned Salu in the last post, as the 1 who inspired us 2 read Italo Calvino's The Literature Machine... he used it as a writer's prompt for a recent issue of Writer's Mosaic + we contacted him about doing a similar thing for Sleepingfish/Calamari + then went down the rabbit hole of his Red Earth project + any 1 that reads 5cense knows how we covet 1-of-a-kind art books, so we procured it. And while it's bin held up in customs these past 2 weeks we've been scheming 2 publish it in paperback so the rest of the world can read it w/o being invited 2 the Calamari Archive personal collection.

The reason we show Red Earth w/ Dante will make sense if/when U read the book, Y Dante is in DC (Malcolm X park no less) is a whole nother ? (Joan of Arc is also in the park up the street). More D-tails on that soon, we're hoping 2 launch it in time 4 Brooklyn Bookfair @ end of September (4 witch we reserved a spot, sharing a table w/ Ellipsis, Black Sun + Black Square... just like the good ol' dayz, will be nice 2 be back in NYC w/ like-minded kin).

Input-wise we've been reading Don Delillo's Zero K, but not sure what 2 think... seems Delillo is put a bit on a pedestal, overr8ed. This in particular is contrived, cre8s this situation where sum billionaire's son (reminiscent of Cosmopolis) goes 2 visit his dad + dying stepmom @ sum cryogenic facility in Uzbekistan where they engage in philosophical deb8 about death, etc... typical Delillo, the problem is he has no range + his characters are flat, all talk/think the same.

Movies we've watched the past week or 2:

• all the bits + pieces of Christian MarClay's The Clock we cd find... how we wish sumbody wd stream this 24/7 on Inurnet, would love to have this az a clock, always running in the background
• Threads—learned of this thru Salu, in 1 of his talks he mentions how much seeing this movie (that apparently they show in schools in the UK) affected him
• I Am Not Your Negro (for 2nd time)—not sure anyone can speak off the cuff as eloquently as Baldwin
• The Diplomat season 1, good so far but nasty trick they played @ the end