Anth 06 25.1. 00

25/1/00 Linda (c/o Brunswick St. "Alimentari") is responsible 4 me having 2 write this account. She's the girl in the photo. My wife, Helen, is sensitive about me being proximate 2 girls less than 1/2 my age (unless they're my daughter Kate who with her partner Jock is slumming it in the U.S. of A.) so I had 2 provide an explanation. This is more or less what I told her except that its represented by writing. Of course I could have destroyed the evidence but I had promised Peter Homes 2 send him copies of the shots 2 pass on 2 a friend of his who was looking 2 paint a portrait of someone like me (Peter said a lot of things) 2 enter in the Archibald Prize comp. The shots were taken in the Bocadillo bar (Brunswick St.) where I had drunk only 3 sangrias for the night 1 of which had been bought 4 me x Peter. I start the story in the morning because I want it 2 be credible & when I told it 2 Helen I felt that a proper build up was required. The problem is that its true & truth, though everyday, is unconvincing because it lacks the coherence & flow of fiction. We had only been back a couple of days from our trip 2 the mid-north coast of N.S.W. & Helen was back at work. I got up later and rode the bike 2 the paper shop. Janet Lalor spotted me as she drove past & waved. The Lalors live in the biggest house in the street. Later as I was riding out again 2 do some shopping I glanced up just in time 2 catch sight of Jim Lalor out of the corner of my eye speeding by waving a hullo from his much bigger car. As I rode through the shopping centre I heard a loud "G'day John" from someone who always calls out 2 me but whose name I don't know. I think his kids went to primary school with mine. Hey! I thought, I'm home, this is Ivanhoe, back in the groove. A good feeling. Later I'm riding in 2 town 4 lunch. Most days I eat at Nam Lung's (where a meal costs $5.00 on average); on thursdays from 12.30 - 2.30 I'm at Stalactite's where Chris, the waiter, is teaching me 1 greek word a month (EFHARISTO, TI KANIS? POS ISE? JIA SOU...). He's promised 2 put 2gether a cassette of rembetica 4 me before he takes his family back 2 greece 4 good in a few months time. I'll miss his good cheer. It takes me 40 minutes 2 get in 2 town. As I ride I'm thinking how I'll answer the letter from Saulius Varnas. Saulius has sent me 2 x 90 minute tapes of music : things with a latin influence x Eric Dolphy; the latest recording x Marty Erlich's 'Dark Woods Ensemble' ; 4 pieces x Keith Jarrett. He's a mathematician in Adelaide. He says we should get 2gether 4 a week of walking around Burra in autumn (the Heysen Trail goes through there). He liked my x-mas card cut out from a beer carton & mailed with a fake stamp. He's got it on his desk & says his work mates ("colleagues"?!) can't believe that it got through the mail. The fact is most people I sent cards 2 in Melbourne think I hand delivered them. (Who the hell do they think they are!). That's coz the're not post marked. I must find out why not. What's got me thinking is the claim x Saulius that he's lost interest in filosophy bcoz it has no practical consequences 2 his life. (Must tell Michael Zelankovic). Saying that 2 me is like waving 1 red flag at a bull even though I don't no what 'filosophy' is supposed 2 mean. Its as if he's sayin he's lost interest in wonderin or Bin amazed. & if he means it why has he gone 2 the trouble of puttin in that heavy duty quote x Keith Jarrett? " " The music on this recording represents a participation in process, a way of remembering ourselves (not our personalities) and as such is also an expression of what is essential from the center of music, and what is changeless ... these pieces - not written, rehearsed, thought out, sketched or arranged - 'come up' in the middle of four distinctly different concerts ... Process is swifter and more accurate than thought, and prefaces every thought we have ... Our society has shown its priorities quite clearly : surfaces. So it is no surprise that centers hold no interest. And yet, whether there is interest or not the lie of surfaces, of styles, of disposability, is a lie. Whether or not we believe in depths there can be no surfaces without them. And whether or not we change clothes or personalities these are not what we are responsible to. Not when we sit alone in a room with only ourselves, not when we wish to participate in and understand creation."" I'm thinkin I'd

like 2 get stuck right into the matter of surfaces and depths in a really long 'filosofik' letter only problem is I haven't got the time. I'm in Melbourne 4 only 2 weeks B4 heading off to N.S.W. coast again on a snorkling trip & am not managing 2 fit in even obligatory visits. Not visiting the singing group at Edis's who according 2 Saulius has a new Louis Sclavis CD that I might like. Still haven't caught up with Andrew Saniga hoo claims 2 have been used & abused x me for the purposes of art but has forgiven me. Denis Spiteri is itchin 2 show me the bits that were edited out from Cinema Paradiso which he's imported specially from Europe (etc.) (etc.) What I'd really like 2 tell Saulius is that I reckon Derrida might be right when he claims that these basik dualities (divisions) like inside/outside, live/dead, surface/depth are based on common sense observations of tangible objects & may have no applicashion in diskushion of matters outside the material world of objects, in other domains such as politiks, effiks or discourses on human nature. Not even mutch applikashion in sofistikatid sciences anymore 4 that matter. Surfaces & centers or depths imply each other notionally, as all opposites do, & human nature nor musik 4 that matter may not work that way even though it may B the only way we R capable of talkin about it coz of the way language works. They may not be susceptible 2 B. in divided or understood by an applikashion of that kind of ordering. & anyway what is musik? or humin nature? Foucault claims that abstrakt notions sutch as humin nature R inventions of the ruling classes & priestly casts 2 further their interests. Nietzsche (5 konsekutive konsonants) makes the same claim about morality. 4 a diskushion of 'humin natcher' I refer u 2 a very illuminatin D bate between Foucault & Noam Chomsky which u can find in 'Foucault and his Interlocutors' edited x Arnold I. Davidson, published by The University of Chicago Press. I lean 2 wards Noam Chomsky on this 1. 4 though it may well B that although 'humin natcher' is purely notional how is it different 2 an idea sutch as 'gravity' which is also an abstrakshion but has proved itself so valuable in fiziks? On the ovver hand again, it may B as with the simple dualities of Derrida, a false justifikashion 2 say that coz a method works in science (world of objikts) it also works in the investigashin of a differink domain - humin B havier. Very konfusink. I also recommend Foucault's essay 'Nietzsche, Genealogy, History' in 'Language, Counter-Memory, Practice' published x Cornell University Press. Jorge Luis Borges has a nice spin on the problim of opposites implying (even necessitatink) each other in a short story called "3 Versions of Judas" where hee, or someone else on his behalf, argues that Judas should be the real hero coz without the Btrayal the krucif-x-shin & resurrektion could never have takin place yet Christ gets all the kredits & glory whereas Judas has 2 bear the burden of not only his eternal guilt but of B in the objekt of Drision by generashins of Roman cat holics. Sutch were my foughts as I woz ridin 2 Nam Lung's 4 lunch, & that there woz Buckley's chance of findink the time 2 write the letter 2 Saulius that I wantid 2 so its a good fink that in the brief note I'll B sending him I kan refer 2 the presant akount which I'll send him later. It will also add kredibility 2 the eksplanashin I gave Helen coz when she is typink it she'll note there R details here I hadn't menshioned before; not 2 speak of subsequent E vents. Chris waved as I road past the window of Stalactites & the waiter of Nam Lung otomatikally brought me a spoon & fork instead of chopstiks even though I hadn't been in 4 5 weeks. After a meal of kantonese style noodles I woz krossink Lonsdale street on the way 2 the state library 2 see if I could find Bas Salt hoo works (or pretends 2) there & had promised 2 lend me sum CD's from his kollekshin of kuban pop wen I bump in 2 Dave Harris go in the opposite way. Dave also works (or pretends 2) in the liabry but didn't no hoo Bas Salt woz. I asked him if he'd got my x-mas kard which he 2 had assoomed I had hand delivered. I sed I needed 2 find some 1 hoo works in the P.O. coz I wanted 2 no how the letter sortink machinery worked. Why weren't they stampin my mail? "R u kumin 2 the meetin on jewsday?" he arsed. He woz referrin 2 the get 2 gether of 'konkrete' poets & mail art types on the 1st jewsday of each

month at a cafe in Richmond. "See ya there" I said & walked on thinkin how like a villige Melbourne kould feel at times. 1 hundred yards (kan u tell my age? - nothink is seekrit) down the rode I stop to shake hands with Tony D'Urso, the brother of Sandra (Alessandra) hoo is the wife of 1 of my sons, (& a relo) Joe! Tony like Helen is a skooly & shood have resumed work 2 day. He tells me his kontrakt has ekspired. I invite him 2 the B.B.Q. I'm havin on sunday. I am feelin a bit strange. The peeple I no R mikst in A mong 3,000,000 other peeple; I'm meetin them 2 eezily. I am thinkink of sumthink Warren Burt had said. Warren Burt is 1 of the jewsday poets. He wears T-shirts with paradoksikal things writ on them & I had picked him 2 B an akademik or komputer nerd, perhaps a mathematishin. Instead he turned out 2 B a kompositor & P formants R tist. He had sed that if a knew neibour moves in u don't knock on his door, intro juice yourself & make him welkom. The kool way of doin it woz 2 buy a tikit 2 europe & you'd meet him in the lounge at the airport or in U rope. Heed no, hee travels a lot. The point he woz makin woz that these things R nothink ekstraordinary, just your normal koincidents. Tchantz events, thay hapin all the time, & he gave an eggzample that had hapind to him from that verry day. Borges disagrees. He says : "Chance - cept there is no chance; what we call chance is our ignorants of the komplex mashinary of causality ..." (from 'Seven Nights', pub. New Direktions Books). I favour Borges. 2 dismiss an unusual event with a word such as koinsidents or tchants is surely a cop out. The feelin of normality kums not from any eksplanatory power sutch a word has but merely from the frekwency of its use. The hidden ajenda is 2 konvints us x these turms that normality is banal in spite of our ekspeeriants that it is ekstrordinerry. That is what I woz thinkin. I speek ownly 4 myself. I woz also finking that at the poets meet nekst jewsday I'd have 2 eksplain 2 Frank Osowski (& may B 2 Leonie 2), hoo had wunce claimed bangin the table as if he reely, reely meant it that reality doesn't x ist, why his name wozn't in the pome in the program of the show in New York put on x Danius Kesminas & Mike Stevenson. Frank had gon 2 the gallary on the strenth of me tellink him he woz in the pro gram. The fakt is Danius & Mike had edited him out & seein as I m an anti copyright krusader (Dum-Dee Klarijo P lees A void 2 miks good feel new-age tork + bad vibe old-age legal tret) I have 2 kop it sweet. They did a pretty good job of rewwinning it in uther ways 2 B ing totally oblivious 2 its vizual aspikts. Wunce up-on-a-time, Frank, in medi-evil days, there woz no sutch fing as kopyright. People wood have larfed if u had told them that words, dreams, pomes, songs or knowlidge kood B owned, let alone tradid. Now everyfink is being divided into little pieces, labilled so it kan B klaimed. Minds R B ing deskribed, kwantifide & distribitted along normality kurvs. Soles R B ing kalibrated. Bodees artikoolatid. Bodees & seks R administred x medikos & owned x govirments. Thoughts, speshally thoughts a bout diks, fannies, bums & lips R owned x preests & shrinks. Its the long term direkshin of westirn sivilizashin so that wee kan B re arranged. Good B havier kan B precisely re warded with $'s, bad B havier eggzaktly punisht. All in the interests of E fish int produktion. In the 3rd millenium the gratest rewards will B re served 4 those new men hoo aksept responsibility 4 self administrashin of societees D mands. They will gladlee deevide themselves in 2 pieces & re arrange themselves as re kwired 4 the needs of industry. Teechers, gurus, pairints, meedia, assortid doo-gooders & well-meening othoritees will B klose at hand with plentifill advise. Artists will sell their soles 2 B part of the aktion. In musik masheen rhythms will kompleet the processis startid x the metronome. The yewsis of langwadge will B kodified, othorship defined x publishers and invites to writers fest-Evils. That's why, Frank (& Leonie 2 but off course), I'm aginst kopyrite, gallurees, othorships, & the hole shabang. These kould have been my thoughts as I mountid the steps of the State Library of Victoria knowing full well that on a day when the laws of probibility had been suspended Bas wood B (or pretend 2 B) there. I also thought nekst jewsday I must remember to bring the komplete skull of the Wedge-tailed Shearwater

(Puffinus Pacificus) which I had picked up on a beach north of Coffs Harbour for Tony Pigallo. I realize that this account of 'A Day in a Life' is getting long winded but then truth can B awkward. For the benefit of those who wish to get it over & done with & so as 2 proove that I'm not lieing, here is my journal entry for tuesday 25/1/00. Verbatim but with the addition of the quotation marks : "Back in the groove, Helen to work and me into town on the bike to Nam Lung for cantonese style noodles. I am 4 k's overweight and right off my best cycling form but it felt great. Met heaps of people : Dave Harris crossing Lonsdale St., Bas Salt at the library, he lent me a CD and will lend me more on thursday; Tony D'Urso, Sandra's brother whose contract is over and he's hanging out for work, I invited him to the B.B.Q. next Sunday; Frank Lovece in the library who said we should get together; a whole group of others that I knew from when I worked there. Boy, how social can you get but then it's my home town! Bought pow at Nam Lung's and filo pastry pasties at Garance's in Brunswick St. ... Tonight I'm going to "Improvised..." if its still on. Yes, right back in the groove. Clouds on the horizon : my knees are definitely dicky; am worried about what feels like the start of a pseudomonas fungal infection in my right ear (the one not operated on) with a major snorkelling trip coming up in one and a half weeks time. Rang Bill Sinclair, he'll catch up with me this or next thursday; haven't seen him for 20 years or so I think. Joe & Sandra popped in looking very cheerfull". What do you reckon? Does the journal entry lend or not lend support 2 Foucault when he claims that : "It establishes that we are difference, that our reason is difference of discourse, our history the difference of the times, our selves the difference of masks." ('The Archaeology of Knowledge', Pantheon Books, New York, P131). Sints I woz there so many years ago there's bean almost a holesale turn over of starf but as I walked in 2 the main room I notid that both the libarians manning the desk were familiar. I peered in 2 the dark recesses B hind where the attendints lurked. They had spottid me and were cumin out 1 after the other 2 shake me x the hand. "Johnny, the teacher!" yelled Max the cleaner. I walked over 2 the lady libarian hoo looked evin more desikatid than I remembered her. " Do you know if Bas Salt is in 2 day?" I asked. "Yes,its a kind of rock" she replied looking konfused. "Just like a libarian" I thought. "Sebastian Salt. Is Sebastian Salt in 2 day?" An attendint I knew hoos name I can't remember sed he woz just round the back on the fone. & there he woz, dressed in a black suit as if on a gig at the casino, cumming out with a hand in his front pokit pullin out a CD. 'Contrabasso con Amore', musik 4 double bass and pianner. Bas plays the double bass himself. He promised 2 bring the kuban stuff 2 Stalactytes on turdsday. He said he wantid 2 see my fotos from new years night. I had sed I was plannin 2 sit up 2 my nek in water in a tropik lagoon, far from the maddink krowd, on the north coast of N.S.W. with Helen drinking ekspensive wine prior to crawling back in 2 the womb 4 the 3rd millenium. As it turned out it woz rainin & we drank the wine sittin in the van 6 k's out of South West Rocks by the bank of the Macleay river with the radio on. I rekorded the grand event x taking fotos B 4 & after midnight with the date facility on by holding the kamera at arms length & pointin it back at us from various angles. It woz Joni (of J&J PTY.LTD.) hoo had put me on 2 this tekneek but no doubt he's got it from his bruvver Andrius hoo is a fotogriffer. Bas confirmed that he had seen Andrius fotogriffing that way. It worked 2, the fotos cum out verree unposed. I promised 2 bring the album 2 Stalactytes. Just then Frank Lovece appeared with a book slip (pretendin) in his hand. "Jus a minit & I'll sea ya out front for a smoko. (so what's new). We must have a tork." He sed he'd had a letter from Kate a few days back & that a frend of his had a stone kutting job for Jock if he were 2 B cumin back soon. I arsked him if he'd got my card & wether the fake stamp had B een postmarked. He hadn't even noticed the stamp woz a fake or 4 that matter that the quote by Artaud on the card titled "Holy Silence" woz the same one that years a go he had given 2 mee. How yew kan fail!

I'd add E nuff & @ 2.30 woz headin hoam were my chantzes of findin anno nimitty were mutch better coz the boys wood stil B sleep inin after a hard nite. Pass in the Trades Hall I spied the 2 gayguys that H & I (not F n L) no from wen wee met them in the Bocadillo years a go. I meat gay & guy B out twice a year so it woz natcherly that I'd meat them 2 day. U shirly I stop 2 tork but I'd had it with farmilier faces 4 1 day speshirly as I D B likely 2 bum P in 2 more of them 2 nite @ 'Improvised Tuesdays' nor what ever it now cauls it self. & I woz look in forward 2 a quiet sangria or 2 in the even ning @ Bocadillo Bar tho E van ther anno nimitty woz not komplete as Barbara Zira, the owner, had tort science 2 my dorter Kate wen she woz @ school. Even though I was sober the whole time I am not altogether clear about the exact sequence of events which culminated in the photos. Nevertheless, Linda, read this part carefully if you would so that if Helen rings you up you are able to confirm the substancial accuracy of this version of events which probably already diverges in some details from what I told her next morning as I cant remember exactly what I said. As she is typing this she will be wondering about discrepancies. Did, for instance, I tell her that I asked you to "lean closer and look dreamy" or did I say "lean forward show some cleavage" ? Did you reply "no way" or did you say "no later" ? The photos are of no help as they wont be developed for another month when this will have been well and truly typed as I've still got 30 shots on the roll. At exactly what turn in the conversation did I ask Peter Holmes to write down his name and address? Did I hand his card to you for your particulars or did he hand it to you? When was it that I gave my name, home phone and mobile numbers to him? As I remember it was a scattered sort of evening, unexpected connections were being made or suggested. I had come back from the Planet Cafe because 'Improvised ...' had been cancelled as the room where it takes place, upstairs, was being renovated. I can't remember, Peter, whether you started the conversation before or after that. I do remember that at the beginning you were an art historian but later it seemed you had become an art student at La Trobe. I was name dropping but surprisingly we could find no one in common, not at first anyway. I must admit that next day I asked Danius Kesminas whether he knew of you. Danius who lives totally within the archive (ART which has long since abandoned any representational pretensions and justifies itself solely in terms of its own narrative and the avant garde, its organ, that is forever probing, crossing and recrossing the limits as it seeks to create new spaces in turns folding over itself to probe inside its own navel or spiralling away into nonexistence. And with the AVANT GARDE a repetition of the process with its own organ, or an eye perhaps, examining its own arse. Mirrors reflecting each other back and forth in a play of infinite repititions. Minor artists never tire of looking at themselves.) Danius assures me that he knows every art historian in Australia and I believe him - but he hadn't heard of a Peter Holmes. I put in the bit in brackets for you Peter because I remember you said you were into the philosopy of art and theatre production. What a coincidence that was for as it happened I had a little essay/poem I'd written called ART right there with me in my pannier. Those magic words 'gallery', 'art', 'New York' hung in the air between us, illuminated by neon lights. You said you had gallery space available. I said I could have done with some a year ago coz I had a mail - art project that had been gathering dust in a a box hidden in a cupboard but recently I had sent it off to a gallery in france to get rid of it. I tried to explain that I didn't need galleries, only to do stuff to entertain friends. Then you said something about visual ecstasy and I said what a fluke coz I've written a commentary on Simone Weil's use of the term and you volunteered that she was a modern mystic and I thought shit we occupy overlapping domains coz how many people in Brunswick st. on a jewsday night have even heard of Simone and you said that what you do is have correspondences with people and I said that's exactly what I tell people I do, or long winded conversations, and I said I just happen to have a set of essay/poems on related topics from a visual project in the form of an album that cost me $500 to put together that I done in May of last year called 'Meditation on Lake Gairdner' which consisted of over 200 photos and

these little pieces I give ya because I had brought them tonight in case Ren Walters (who has promised to give me a CD of his stuff) was playing at 'Improvised...' coz I'd like to interest him in doing a piece of music that would do justice to the crazy intensity I was going through when I done it because I went from dark dark to brilliant white on the lake where I walked for 9 hours on the salt surface on the first day of my 1&1/2 week long vigil and its brilliance annihilated the darkest night even when I shut me eyes becoz I done that first 9 hour walk without wearing me sunglasses on that shimmering surface and what I'd like to talk Ren into doing coz the last time I heard him he was making great musik, continuing to travel deeper into new metaphysical terrain that I felt might parallel what I was doing in the album which I'd like him to see at my place (& his partner, who is spanish and explained to me the meaning of 'duende' and is interested in the flat country of the interior) so he could see how that visual poem moves from dark dark to excessive brilliance and then back into shadow, a more muted darkness, so that if a piece of musik maybe called 'Meditation' or 'Lake Gairdner' or some combination like 'Meditation on Lake Gairdner' to connect it in a specific way to my project which is also called 'Meditation on Lake Gairdner' so as I say if a piece of musik were to do justice to that trip it would need to have only a very simple 3 part structure or maybe its not possible for me to explain the intensity of that event to someone who's never been to Lake Gairdner by himself in that way. Yes, I think that's how it went Peter ... and then you suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence, thrust out your arm sighting over your thumb, with the words: "that profile, that profile". I think it was then that you first mentioned your portrait painting lady friend who was going to enter the Archibald Prise. I remember that I said what I was interested in was not my portrait or your friend, not unless she was beautiful, under 20 but over 18 and had the disconcerting habit of painting in the nude, but in someone who knew how the postal system worked. And amazingly, but it shouldn't have been on a day when the laws of probability had been discarded, it so happened, you said, that this desirable lady artist used to work for Aust. Post. Somewhere in amongs that Linda and her friend came in and sat down on the stools at the window next to us. I am konfewzed A bout the rest. Perhaps the 3rd sangria did affect me after all. Mee & yew, Peter, established other konekshins, sum of them tracible tho I havint done it. I liked the 1 A bout your eks-partner having the same rare sir name (& I hadn't promptit yew) as sum 1 whoo cood wunce-A-pon-A-time all most have B cum a frend of mine. Did yew say your former partner, whose name woz Kristina has a sister livin in Banksia St. witch is kwite klose to were I live in Locksley Rd.? How did the jewillry shoppe what we cood see A cross the road get in 2 the konversashin? Eggzaktlea 1 week later, yes jewsday (Ivanhoe --- Nam Lung --- city 2.30 --- Ivanhoe --- poats meat --- circle game) eve ning (1/2/00) I met its owna in the Bocadillo Bar ('Improvised ...' is still not on as revonashins at the Planet R not finisht) & am lendin him A nother spy book ('The File - A Personal History' x Timothy Garten Ash. Harper Collins Publishers.) I'll drop it orf at Wayne's shoppe 2 day on my way in 2 Nam Lung's (eksept I 8 at Babka's coz it woz 2 hot 2 ride furver) 4 luntch. Did I promise 2 ave a meel at Linda's rest-o-rent, the 'Alimentari' ? I rode past it last nite on the way 2 the Bocadillo, it looks O.K. I kan ree member tellin all A bout how the profils of 2 of my kids were 'spotted' in the street & how both were torked in 2 spendin heaps of $'s at designated studios havin foto-folios done of themselves so that they cood urn eve-N more $'s in the fewtcher as stars of stage, screen & krazee-kat-work. But yew still kept insistin on how wonderfilly suited my profile mite B 4 your nude artist frend 2 N tar in the Archibald Prise. It woz then that I dived 4 me pannier 4 amazinly, I just hapinned 2 have a kamera with me & 2 save yew havin 2 go 2 the trubble I woz able 2 take 5 shots of my mug ( a couple of witch in kloodid Linda) there & then x using the method given 2

mee by Joni (of J&J .PTY.LTD,) & witch I had yewsed so suksessfilly to fotogriff Helen & mee on noo year's nite evin dough I mite have B een tipsee then 2. Your sudgestchin, Peter, that I also take a full frontal woznt 2 smart coz with the kamera only at arm's lenth from my face (evin with the red-eye facility on) I wood have FUCKENWELL blindid meself. Anyway, that's the end of the explanation though not the story. I hope Helen is kind enough to type it while I'm away snorkelling in Jervis Bay. I will send or personally deliver copies to most of those mentioned by name especially to Linda at the 'Alimentari' where I'll have a meal as promised. I will certainly send a copy to you, Peter, and if you want the photos leave a message on my mobile. The invitation to have a look at the "Meditation on Lake Gairdner" album is still on and thanks for an interesting evening. * One thing I would like cleared up. I have a memory from a life time ago of teaching a kid by the name of Peter Homes. It would have been either at Thornbury H.S. or Merrilands H.S. If that kid grew up he'd be about your age and height, Peter. Should you have attended either of those schools, leave a message, we'll compare notes.

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