The book

I acquired this a long time ago. You can see it in one of the pictures of my Fix It With Fire proof. That was in 2006, when I began working on this task, The Beautiful Letter.

scratching like a crazy man

I scritched out these outlines of the cherubs and the D+L on the cover (both sides, btw) with a paper clip while riding the bus to work. I did this back in 2007.

Inside cover

This is the inside of hte front cover.

The letter begins

Dan begins with a more or less conventional note, a letter within the letter, describing what he's going to do. I wrote this page in the summer of 2006.

my quaker and my light

I don't know anything about Quaker parrots except that they are beautiful rich green. I saw the phrase "she is my quaker and my light" somewhere and it was very insistent and I felt drawn by it. And it was said with a sense of deep, confusing loving, like Dan feels for Louise.

dream

From a dream Dan had,and communicated in half whispers to my dreams.

Heat Lightning

The Surrealist Love Poems translated by Mary Ann Caws rearranged my entire poetic vocabulary back in 2002. Completely altered my thinking. "My love whose hair is woodfire/Her thoughts heat lightning / Her waist an hourglass / My love an otter in the tiger's jaws / Her mouth a rosette bouquet of stars of the highest magnitude / Her teeth footprints of white mice on white earth." - Andre Breton. When I think of that, it infects me. Dan and I conversed about it often and it gave him the inspiration you can certainly witness here.

spider plant

This is the flower from one of my spider plants (cf. Spider Plant Army in Document Growth, cf. Potted Plant Distribution by my other face) It is still not brown, trapped there under the tape.

Dan Loves Louise

You need to listen to Yum Yum's "Dan Loves Patti". They sold like fourteen thousand albums. This song (Apiary) is almost too romantic to be believed.

doggerel

Sometimes you can't be afraid to write your lover some true doggerel.

hyp MO TIZED

I still get a kick out of this

Dan has a wicked funny sense of humor.

losing a little momentum

IN mid summer 2006, Dan was losing momentum, unable to say exactly what he wanted to say. He skipped a page. I argued with him, but then we compromised with another joke: This Space Intentionally Left Blank.

square peg round hole

The shape of those circles was caused by the bus ride in to work late summer 2006.

love birds

there's a lot of subtext here.

Departing

Lots of energy around separation, distance, and taking leave of one's self. Dan wants to travel, and gets to a little for his work. But he wants to be connected to Lou. He wants her to come.

softer world?

Probably inspired by A Softer World, these captions applied to the images are that longing for runaway...

but there's a mountain there

Lou works at Crazy Horse Memorial. She's worked there in the gift shop and in other parts of it. They worked there together. And nearby. Dan and Lou were both in the tourist industry of the Black Hills. But she is connected to the mountain, to the mad project they're up to there, building this monument and planning the great university and cultural center. Dan is restless, but she may not be so restless.

Prankster Dan

LIke me, Dan has a desire to make Crazy Horse into a political statement. Perhaps Louise feels more that the mere existence is strong enough (living well, the best revenge?)

childish drawings

But childLIKE hope behind them. This was drawn and written in fall 2006.

slow reveal

Dan is often inspired by other women.

reveal 2

There was this beautiful dancer in a magazine and he felt struck by her from toe to head.

reveal 3

Her planted foot, her elegant face, her high reaching pose.

reveal 4

He couldn't quite put into words that he has this thing with women, but he could direct some words at Lou. (the turn to bronze phrase is inspired by some other things, and crops up elsewhere)

reveal 5

It's both beautiful and worrisome.

dan really feels this

This was naked feeling, unashamed. He really felt totally changed by her. He retreated from the force of this emotion shortly (the next page in fact)

this is real

But the shading on the page next to it was not. This page on the left was written second, after the shading ...the tombstone rubbing, really ,was done on the right hand page. This page was early 2007

this is not real

This red heart is the same as the little red dressed girl in Schindler's List. A somewhat heavy attempt to encapsulate the whole of everything in one dash of color. The rubbing and the embossed paper glued on the next pages were done out of laziness, not wanting to try to fill a whole book. Dan couldn't admit this, and colored the one heart instead.

see?

In some ways, the capital letters give it away.

boredom setting in?

By playing with calligraphy, he's trying to make it visually interesting. Which is too bad, because the sentiments on the left are quite lovely.

dreams

Dan often places his lover's face upon the dreams and visions he has of other women. These legs are no exception. Did he see Louise really? I don't know for sure.

trying the experiment

actually tried to draw the aforementioned flowers blindfolded. a nice thought, one thousand words per picture. hard to deliver on.

hot child in the city

Here in the later winter of 2007, Dan comes *back* to this page, and begins to tell about the experience of being more engaged by his new home city than by his relationship, and of course the relationship he's formed with this object

locked pages

pop up book

Dan joked about making a popup book. I said this was about the best I could do.

stickers

Lou didn't say if she was serious about babies or not. Dan must have freaked her out with a reaction, and then this lengthy reconsidering.

triplets of belleville

images inspired by a viewing. The poetry, that is some surreality I hope to capture again someday.

triplets part deux

wormholes

trip to SF

This was spring of 2007, and Dan came with me to SF where some of this was shown to Sam, Sean & Ian.

suicidal

Dan is feeling suicidal. There's a limited range of interpretations to this period in the letter.

the death card is change

paranoia?

Here dan is playing with cutups (poorly) and redaction. Around the periphery runs his worries about what Lou is doing now, her time is apparently spent "partying." Dan parties too, and he knows what that means for him, which means a high anxiety about hers.

anger

the tip of the pen ripping the page

covering

Dan is anxious that he tore the page and is going to literally redact these emotions. There's a rorshach here, too.

missing

what's missing?

the mountain

"how important it is you are it all is...."

The cat

They had a cat, Charlie, together in SD. Louise sent it to live with Dan. The photo is a magazine shot of a guy teasing a cat with a banana. But Dan co-opts it here.

cat II

and a non sequitur

a momentary beauty

A break in the arch distance for some mythic longing of her face. I think this was written before some of the pages that filled in behind it.

hold my hand!

The absence is very strong here.

skipped ahead

This was written before a lot of the preceding pages.

hottentot venus

There was a show about the Hottentot Venus in the Twin Cities a few years back. Actually I think Dan was having feelings for a black woman.

lacuna

A month went by before turning the page on the other woman, and then another month went by a few lines down. Dan is feeling the pressure of keeping this project going.

drugs?

Possibly.

the dangling plug

There's some interesting reality insights in these few pages, however.

the extension of my self

running out of ink

running out of dream

one of the last additions to the letter

again, a strange alienation and displacement

origami?

three pages of it I guess

in profile

back cover

This was written in back very shortly after the front cover pages were filled in.

see it?

Sutro... the only clue this is for SF0

some of the tools

doing it for real

The book went with me for three years. I think Dan and Louise's story brewed and festered and took wing the more worn and realistically aged the book became. To honor that, for a couple days after I declared it finished, I carried it in my pocket. I planned to place it somewhere that it would blow a few people's minds. I didn't know where.

Until April 2

When I had a doctor's appointment at North Clinic. My original plan was to drop this in an office of one of the local media here in town, where it could potentially fulfill both A) and B) of the task instructions--I focused on part B and tried to pour so much love and effort into it I believed that whoever saw it might have their minds blown. But I also reason that if that someone happened to be in the right news office they might print a column or story about finding this thing. I gave up that dream and sought instead to simply, purely, let my movements through places guide me. I arrived here today and the rest followed. North Clinic is across from North Hospital (which is the site of my Fiery Rain of Apocalyptic Trinkets task) so I thought it fitting when the decision stole over me.

waiting room weighting room

The book felt heavy in my pocket as I sat here. Really heavy. I was about to give it up, surrender it to fate. Where? How? Oh dear. Even now as I type this I realize there are at least three pages not shown in these photographs and I said to myself, oh I'll just set up the tripod and shoot them and re-import them. But ... but...the book's gone now. It's in the hands of fate. . . That's how heavy it is and accustomed I am to having it.

exam room

wait. what's that?

literature file

This file on the counter in the exam room had some interesting tabs in it. HAPPY FEET. ANTICOAGULATION. LIVING WILLS. And then... FIVE WISHES. Wait. What??

Five Wishes?

What the hell is that about? I have no idea. But I put the Letter in there without hesitation while the nurse was out getting the doc. I pushed the tops of the folder back together and wished it well. I hope it blows SOMEONE's mind. I wish I could be there to see.