my glamorous life
episodes & recollections
#67 the dot com chair
I spent fourteen hours in this chair today. If I were Pamela Anderson, this chair would be worth money.
It’s a cheap little chair from a cheap little East Village store that caters to the first–apartment–away–from–home crowd. Over–the–shower–head shampoo–and–soap holders, trash cans, spice racks, that sort of thing.
I love those kinds of stores the same way I love the first three Talking Heads albums, and for the same reason.
This chair was labeled “dot com chair” when I bought it in June of 2001. Somebody should tell them.
I bought the dot com chair in June of 2001 because I was temporarily unable to work in my studio due to a Personal Situation and I had to sit on something.
By October of 2001, when my studio was restored to me, I had formed a sentimental attachment to the dot com chair, so I brought it with me and here I sit.
After fourteen hours, even an Eames chair would start to lose its charm, but the dot com chair loses nothing, because it is uncomfortable the moment you sit down in it.
It’s like a long trip in an airplane, but you can smoke and the food’s better and you’re not encouraged to report the suspicious behavior of the passenger sitting next to you.
I spent fourteen hours in the dot com chair today mainly because our client needs functional interactive demos by Monday to sell one of our site designs to his client.
On Monday, when our client’s client buys one of our designs, my partner and I will have two weeks to produce a light version of the site.
One of those weeks is Thanksgiving week, and the following week I’m traveling to New Orleans for a web conference, so we’re not looking at a lot of extra room in the schedule. It’s about as compact as the dot com chair I’m sitting in.
Many people hate work, and with many jobs you can understand why. I love what I do and that makes me lucky. It’s not art, but it sometimes feels like it.
Today I spent two hours time–sliding events in Flash to make them line up with sonic events in a piece of music I edited together from a track composed by a better composer than I used to be when I was in that line of work.
Sliding dots around in a timeline today reminded me of composing and producing music ten years ago, like the store where I bought the dot com chair reminded me of furnishing my first apartment.
When you work, the front of your mind pays attention to the problems you’re solving, which relieves the rest of your mind from focusing on the problems you can’t solve. And that’s why God gave us work.
Actually in this case it was Warner Bros. that gave us the work, and if they keep doing that I may get a better chair.