Podcast Travel Diary Entry, June 18th, 2008

So it was, that I was bored for a moment with designing a fake baroque parlor in which terry-cloth sweatsuits would be sold. I needed some background noise and I remembered having read something somewhere about how people should take "internet vacations" by traveling around the world via a system of linked pages. (Yeah, good idea! Don't worry about real vacations or experiencing life. Sounds fantastic) So I decided today that I would do this. But I would do it through podcasts. I was going to travel around the world based on user preferences. The rules were that I would listen to a full podcast, then I was allowed to travel to another podcast listed under "LISTENERS ALSO SUBSCRIBED TO". I was not allowed to skip ahead. My trip would be a cultural one; mainly arts podcasts. I started in LA, with Frances Anderton on KCRW's DnA. On the road next to SF Moma, where there was a great story about the misinterpretation on Frida Kahlo. I next visited MOMA's Think Modern lectures, but then I realized that it wasn't against the rules to plan ahead and craft my trip before listening to all of the podcasts. I quickly became frustrated that it would be difficult to get out of the country. I'm so sick of this country! I wanted to go on a real adventure- not some sorry road-trip back and forth on the 40. Think Modern wasn't getting me anywhere. I frantically hopped forward, browsing ITunes while trying to get through the gruelingly boring Think Modern artcast. Sze Tsung Leong, the Mexican-born Chinese artist, was lecturing along with slides that I was not looking at. I had no idea what he was talking about. I didn't care. I'd found a route. I'd located the Guggenheim through MOMA New York, and the Guggenheim linked to the Tate. I could be in London in less than an hour! Then, Leong quoted Mao Zedong on history to end his lecture: "Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past." Hearing that, I had arrived at my first destination on the trip, and I badly wanted to go home and rewrite the past. I guess that's the point of intellectual tourism, though. Peace of mind through complex contemplation leads to a certain- certainty- in the present.

I wonder where boredom will take me next.