Good story. Thank you. I only knew Ray from phone calls and mail. He was doing very little mail. He had good arguments and advocated his view cleverly. We were in disagreement often. The discord made for good talk. G --- MATTHEW ROSE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In April, 1990 I had the first of three meetings > with > Ray Johnson, each on Long Island, and this first one > at my house. He would visit me, he said, at 5 PM. > On > the dot. And he was there. On time. > > We talked in my kitchen drinking black coffee and > moving through dozens of subjects from synchronicity > to Joseph Cornell, to my problem with bees (they > were > living in the crook of my window) to the double > Elvis > prints Warhol did and Ray said were given to him, > but > were at that time hanging in the Larry Gagosian > Gallery. It was quite enlightening in many ways. > > Towards the end of our meeting I showed Ray my > Macintosh SE computer. At that time I had e-mail, > although no one was on the Compuserve Network at > least no one I knew. "Ray, want to see my computer > work?" I said and flipped the button to turn it on. > > "Oh, no no no..." he said. I thought he might like > the different typefaces I could produce in > Pagemaker. > No dice. Ray, famous for watching TV (or leaving it > on > for company or ideas) all day long, had zero > interest > in computers or networks. Well that was what he > said. > From what I understood, the mail and its paper, > envelopes, stamps were enough for him; no attached > jpgs or PDFs or iChat for this artist. Ray typed on > some 1960s/70s typewriter (ask William Wilson what > kind), and I could hardly entertain the idea of him > sitting down and cranking out mass e-mails. > > Some time later I think I was speaking with Mark > Bloch > and I told him I hadn't received any mail from Ray > in > a while, but that I did get plenty of telephone > calls. > "So Ray is doing telephone art now?" > > Ray would probably remind everyone here, though, > that > there were many Ray Johnsons in the world. He wrote > them all. I'm certain most have e-mail. > > MATTHEW ROSE > > > > http://homepage.mac.com/mistahcoughdrop/ > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Looking for earth-friendly autos? > Browse Top Cars by "Green Rating" at Yahoo! Autos' > Green Center. > http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/ > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get your own web address. Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL
