This piece is in the power spot. The backgrounds in his other portraits are fairly nuetral - this one is really charged though, not just in terms of the saturated color, but the mid-century modern 'look' that carries a lot of explicit cultural baggage. Ran into Jason Falchook his partner Karen at the front door - a good omen.

From there went walked over to Charles Colwles. The Gene Davis piece they had up was awesome - still modern, still hip. Everyone there was nice, but I was pretty out-of-it with a migrane. Kenseth Armstead and his wife Marysia arrived just in time to give me the dirt on various folks. I was briefly introduced to Bob Colacello, and had my picture taken a few times by Patrick McMullen. Gary Petersen and Jose Ruiz stopped by, also.

Had dinner with Ken and Marysia at Bottino [steak and potatoes, of course! and the BEST beet salad] then back to their house where I collapsed.

Friday morning I went with Marysia into the city to get a glimpse of her new project - she's helping designer Maria Cornejo build out her business. Maria's store, ZERO, was super-cool [how many boutiques in DC have poetry chapbooks mixed in with the clothes?] and I got to see what it means when clothing is 'architectural.'

From there I walked over to Peter Ferko's studio, and then on to Chelsea. Tyler Green's curatorial debut at DCKT looks sharp; my only complaint is that a number of Dan Stienhilber's pieces are mounted on panels, which I think really diminshes them - they loose the freshness they have when they're running loose in the real world - like pinning butterflies into glass cabinets. Augusto Di Stefano's work is also worth a third look...

Stopped in Manfred Baumgartner's new space [new to me at least.] There's a nice Ross Bleckner from his Architecture of the Sky series - which is an interesting formal echo of the Yayoi Kusama piece across the room.

And Metro Pictures - There's a great suite of Cindy Sherman pieces, and across the room a suite of Mike Kelly pieces with the BEST titles of all time:

Louise Lawler is in the back - I've never really responded to her work, but seeing it in person, for the first time probably, I think I'll have to revist her. I saw some Luc Tuymans for the first time at David Zwirner - I've seen plenty of his work in reproduction and thought, 'so what?' But in person they have a presence that's similar to Morandi - goes to show the power of the physical piece - Walter Benjamin be damned!

On to Sarah Sze at Marianne Boesky. The best parts of her installation are the edges - the far corners of the installation, away from all of the piles of stuff, where the strings tie up.

Bridge Freezes Before Road at Barbara Gladstone kicked Rock'n'Roll ass. I've never heard of most of the artists in the show - a good thing.

I made a quick stop at Other Music before I got out of town; picked up:

• Another Day On Earth by Brian Eno
• Oak Or Rock by Phonophani
• duck-rabbit by alog

I've been downloading more spoken word for my iPod; my new favorite site is ITCoversations - I actually discovered it when I was doing some research on Malcolm Gladwell. Most recent post is a conversation with Cory Doctorow of bOINGbOING.