theft – Pol Rosenthal

Terrible Thieving Thieves, the update

it’s really hard to write any more about this. the theft has been traumatic. i actually started crying the other night. and i get panicked if i’m in the art space for too long, convinced that the thieves are back, running amuck, while i’m there. it’s absolutely horrible at times.

i’ve been talking to everyone about it. and all my friends, you, have been so very supportive. and i couldn’t ask for better friends. thank you.

the only advice i’ve been getting is to move on and how to do so. and i am taking that advice. i’ve made the move to do something i’ve been wanting to do for a long time and that is making my first film. i mentioned that before, i know, but i’ve actually set a date for shooting. july 27th. it’s the most exciting and frightening thing i’ve done in a long time. even more than chasing down that lovely woman in korea last year for a two month date to europe and africa. well, maybe not that scary…

last year i decided that i wanted to make the move to photography. and secretly i had decided i also wanted to get into film making. photography was no problem, but stepping into motion pictures? that was tough. no equipment. no training. no connections. how to start?

luckily it just fell into my lap. like so many other wonderful things and opportunities. dk pan just looked at me one day and said, “why don’t you make a movie? you can use my camera.” jesus, dk, are you ever going to stop accidentally upgrading my life? thank you!

so i’m working on it. and it’ll debut in august. i’ll let everyone know the details of the showing and you can all watch me whimper and freak out in public. and if you have any comments i will be open to them. scared, but open.

turn it on.

since i’ve been through so much in the last week i have barely been taking pictures. it’s just too depressing. my biggest decision has been whether to get a new laptop or buy a smart, new camera. at this time i’m thinking of a camera; the canon rebel series comes highly recommended. and now that i doing a worktrade with the photo center northwest it seems like a great idea.

maybe the transition into a new field of operation for me, from dancer/musician/performer, will actually occur. i hope so. i’d like to think that all this work in other fields will translate. that my work in the other genres will be beneficial to my new eye. and i have ideas. just wait. you’ll see. and hopefully i’ll continue to keep you amused so you’ll keep inviting me to dinner and drinks. thanks for the dinner and drinks!

some old shots to keep you entertained. enjoy:

a crumbling building in cheunchon, south korea — a mobile sound device in japan

working on an old dance theater piece with anna b as the mummy — a mobile sound device in japan

Best (to) Face Forward

I’m trying to hold a formidable countenance in the face of a blow from a completely unexpected corner.

earlier today my studio was broken into.
the thieves were bold; they absconded in broad daylight with my last half year of work.
on a crowded street and no one saw them.

i was at work at my new job in the pike place market.
it was kind of sad to be at work while pride was happening in the streets above me,
but i saw it as an opportunity to continue strategising my further entry into the art world.

the phone rang a little after 1 and it was my old cohort, ___.

pol, j just got to the studio and he’s freaking out.
someone’s broken into the space and all his art supplies are gone.

oh no. oh no. this can’t be real.
i was convinced that it had to be a mistake.
but it wasn’t. it isn’t.
on the phone with my fellow studio dwellers i had someone survey my space for my laptop.
gone.

i didn’t feel sick. i felt relieved.
i had backed up everything only days ago to an external harddrive.
i could lose one box secure in the knowledge that another would save me.

the computer is just a palette knife.
i didn’t want to lose the painting.
i consoled myself thinking of how smart i was to have backed up all my new photo essays and videos, my latest writings.
i’d lost a lot of digital media in the past and i had bought the drive to specifically avoid that scenario ever again. i even kept the drive in an obscure location away from the laptop to prevent someone from grabbing them both.

i couldn’t guess that my own personal thieves would be so meticulous as to destroy my rooms in their search for valuable cargo.

arriving at the space, i went straight to recover the drive.
i’d take it to a friend’s to leave for safe keeping until we could further secure the place.
but i opened the door to my rooms and realized that wasn’t going to happen.
the motherfuckers had tossed my things every which way.

my books were dumped on the floor. except for my noboyushi araki volumes; they were gone.
favorite sweat shirt: gone.
two laptops: gone.
new audio inbox for making digital noise: gone.

but the only thing that mattered was that the back up drive should be there.
and you can already see the arc of this tale so you know where this this is going.

today i lost something i can never replace.
two different photo essays on strange objects of everydayness from korea, japan and the states.
4 different sets of nudes i had planned to publish over the next year as a series of handmade books.
my first forays into video art. about 7 near completed pieces.
and a lot of writing. a lot of writing.

i just felt sort of null.
as if a part of me was gone forever.

i got dumped earlier this year by the person who might have been the culmination of every desire i have.
and that nauseous sensation of despair i felt that night is approximately similar to what i am feeling now.
and it makes sense: all my approaches to my own work come from my confrontations with love and sex.
so now i am impotent and heartworn.
and some one has breeched my area.

well, thank god for booze.
i am drinking the first of what might be many beers and soon i will go to a secret convocation of seattle poets to gaze through a telescope at heavenly wonders.
and apparently we will be requested to read a lot of verse of a cosmologically significant nature.

sounds good.
my whole life just dropped into the sky.
i could use a fluid tongue.

perhaps the only way that this can be viewed without risking personal destruction is as a meditation on moving on. not that that is an easy choice. i could just as happily drink myself into oblivion over it. but i think i’ll have to find a more positive approach to survival.

you know, i wish i could i drop some crazy photos into this post that have next to nothing to do with the text, but the lousy creeps also took my camera cable.

ah, pathos. and i am not even angry at the thieves. just hurt. really quite hurt.

Art Idea: books on tape parade

get a public domain work (text)

have people from everywhere and anywhere read a single line

record it

send it to me

amass all those voices into a single giant book on tape recording

post online for any and everyone to hear

better yet

get a grant to have some codey write up software that lets people
do it over the internet

each line has a record button next to it

the line gets cleaned up and is instantly added to the mix

site collects people’s info and when the whole book is done they are
contacted on how to listen to it

a person can record as many lines as they want to