I was horrified to hear the reactions that you are getting from some of the other artists here. I didn't hear exactly what you said because I couldn't hear with all the noise and because I came and went a couple times, but I gather that they have reacted negatively both to your methodology (media you work with, perhaps seeing it as "too commercial"??? I wasn't sure what you said about this) and to the use of the imagery of the 9/11 scene. When I initially heard you were doing video work about how many times the scene had been looped and played on different channels, I was very excited about what you would do with it, what you would do to make an overt commentary on how this media saturation ended up feeding the frenzy of fear, fueling the fires for revenge rather than sensible discourse regarding causes of the act and reactions to it, and almost trivializing it over time by repeating it so often that everyone has it memorized now, it is almost like a horrible scene from "Sophies Choice" that makes us angry at the Nazis and makes us want to cry, but that also feels removed through layers of glass. Part of this will be in my essay for your second book, but my initial response to seeing the flipbook was shock that you would use that image IN THIS WAY as art, and a great welling of emotion at the memory of where I was when it happened. You have also compared what you are doing to Schindler's List being seen as a pro-Nazi movie. I wasn't sure how to react to that, since Schlindler's list puts it's message clearly into a context of a narrative. Your flipbook deliberately removes the narrative, and I felt stupid for not understanding the meaning of it's lack of narrative context the first time I saw it. (Remember, I'm a writer, not a visual artist!) Reading the book did two things. First, it made me feel less stupid about not knowing how to interpret the meaning of the flipbook. Everybody seemed to have a different reaction, although the negatives were fairly similar. Second, it gave me the opportunity to educate myself more about art, and about how emptiness and lack of narrative interpreation or explanation is filled by different people in so many different ways. As a writer, I have a message that I think I want to get across, yet there are levels of meaning that I am not even aware of as I write, and that I only see when I have spent time away from the work and look back at it. There are also myriad other interpretations that other people have of my work. I am working now on how holes in myself have been filled with food -- you first book shows how overstuffed holes feel to people when they are finally emptied, and they are at last freed to do nothing but simply experience those horrible few moments in solitude. Their essays clearly show that their reactions are subdued by the distance of time, and colored with layers of prior media interpretation (especially the angry ones), but also of intervening experience that may have enabled the development of a certain wisdom and ability to tolerate ambiguity. At least I see this as a form of wisdom. I feel I have gained more from from the experience of reading others' reactions and talking to you than I did from seeing the original flipbook itself.

Stephania