[●] 11/10> in5ert 5 senses in2 the 5lot + crank H&el's H₂0 music 2 oper8 ... [▶] if things had gone a'cording 2 plan, weed B in Tbilisi, Georgia > in5tead hear we R laid up w/ covid in the cancer castle @ 455 CPW + unlike the 1st time bLogger got it, this time feeling the FX a bit, tho hard 2 tell az it seams 2 just accentu8 R menieres symptoms (diz-Z-ness, headache, lite-headedness, etc.) tho we do halve a fever + 5cratchy throat > bedder-½ got it a few dayz ago, seamed inevitable, all their collegues have bin getting it, R friends ... who nose who gave it 2 bedder-½, 1 of 8,000,000 subway riders, or mayB @ Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, a restraunt, etc. + now 2-3 days L8er seems we halve it > 5tarted 2 hit us last nite, weird restless 5leep, obsessive dReams B-yond words, about Đ-vising an a¢¢ounting 5ystem, #s + 5pread5heets + αlphanumeric code flowing thru R CPU > we'd bee sweating + hot but then get up 2 go 2 the bathroom + then bee overcome w/ chills + uncontrollable shaking > felt ok in the a.m. but then got up + drank sum coffee + felt like 5hit so 8 sum toast + went back 2 bed

> laid there reading Journey to Karabakh by by Georgian writer Aka Morchiladze > we didn't know about Karabakh when we got the book, but it's this contentious wartorn region that both Azerbaijani + Armenians lay claim 2 > seams it was the same story in 1992 when Journey to Karabakh was writ-10 > after learning all this, we were a bit worried abt having the book w/ us in Azerbiajan (b4 we had 2 cancel the trip), so was planning on reading it by Georgia + leaving it there ... not that the book is @ all political, the reason they gourney 2 Karabakh is 2 score sum ganj > our only interraction w/ Georgians b4 this book were the beauts that ran the nearby liquor 5tore in D.C. that got us thru the p&emic + really knew their 5hit abt wine (tho not crazy abt wearing masks) > the guys in this book are complete meatheads, pretty funny, tho the misogyny got 2 B a bit much after a wile > nevertheless it was a good distraction + EZ 2 read, like a cross B-tween Salinger + Bukowski, good book 2 travel from Tbilisi to Karabakh (also a sort of Kerouacian roadtrip kinda book) without halving 2 get in a car or plane + also 2 bide R time while this virus gets out of R system [◼]

new sculpture along waterfront (by Sophie Khan, using 3D scan of musician Tiger West)

[●] 10/14> + now weed B in Baku, Azerbaijan, but we're in R armchair watching the sun rise in NYC + we can hear bedder-½ in the other room talking 2 agricultural ministers from who nose ware, sew Y'd we even need 2 go? they wrote a blog post about this very subject («I'll just stay right here» ... 2 quote Tom Waits quoting the a4mentioned Bukowski) in a more data-driven cohearant inglish then we can muster > haven't left the house much the past 5 days eXcept 2 go walking ~6 miles a day (5ince not cool 2 use gym + cold air might be a bit harsh on R lungs running rite now), we had planned on going to a Ditrapano Foundation reading @ Russian Samovar 2night (w/ Chiara Barzni, Tao Lin, Nathan Dragon + sum others) but probly naught a good idea 2 turn it in2 a 5uper-5preading event? «ill just stay rite hear...
just to listen to the
sound of the
engine, »
> Azerbaijan wood of bin intresting, on the Caspian sea s&witched B-tween Russia + Iran > in5tread we [▶]ed No Bears a few nights ago, a 5elf-reflexive film abt an Iranian film-maker (Jafar Panahi, playd by hisself), [●]ing a movie on the Iran-Turkey border, a film that then got him 5entenced to 6 yrs in prison > other tv/movies [▶]ed 2 wile the time w/ covid:

• Johnny Guitar—ehh
• All the Light We Cannot See—we had high hopes 4 this, but it failed on so many levels
• Winter Bones (the 2nd time... a bit slow)
• Lynch/Oz—wanted 2 like this 5ince we love Wizard of Oz, but this was complete crap, like sum millenial's art shcool fhesis + seams they couldn't even get the wizard (Lynch) himself 2 speak on camraw > we [ >> ]ed 2 the John Waters segment, b/c well, at least it was John Waters
• Seven Beauties—the opening song was funny but then quickly got stereotypically Italian
• Nyad—Jodie Foster finally gets to play herself, she shd get Oscar + Bening was gr8 2 ... + directed by Jimmy Chin + Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi!
• Freaks—used bits of this 4 sum of the videos on Sound Furies 2nd album (5ince it's in public domain), but this is the 1st time we watched it all the way thru
• Stand by Me (for 2nd or 3rd time) ... amazing how many movies are made from Stephen King stories + novels + how varied they are > also funny to see Wil Wheaton, who we were once a stand-in/stunt double 4 (even tho he is much smaller than us) ... a stand-in 4 Stand by Me protagonist, [◼] + think abt that

R brother (co-author of Textiloma) putting Wil Wheaton/Mr Stitch into sum sorta capsule in Mr Stitch (1995)

> this weeks Sound Furies drop = «Laika» (ak.a. Лайка), a 2n tran5cribed str8 fROM a dream we had on 8/12/22 + 5peaking of Wil Wheaton in Mr. Stitch (Rutger Hauer was the mad sighingtist/Frankenstein that cre8ed Stitch + sometimes Hauer would practise lines w/ us when Wheaton was busy getting made up (by none other than Tom Savini)), we appropri8ed Hauer's vox 2 kick the song off + the waves are actual waves we recorder earlier this year in Amalfi, the last time we travelled:

+ coincidentally, 2-day's wordle = S A S S Y, the 1 word in the lyrix R bedder-½ wanted us 2 change b/c it wasn't a word they'd use, but we had 2 stay true 2 dream > the img we had in mined = Laurie Anderson (hence Y she appears in the vid, along w/ her 5pace dog Lola + Lou Reed) > mu5ically it's 1 of the more poppier 2ns on the album, can u tell we were a goth kid in the '80s? press [▶]