Do not be alarmed.

(poem) Hello?

2010-05-23T15:58:00.001-07:00

Hello?

I heard Something whistle;
Not someone -- some Thing.
Startled, I spun but saw
Nothing.
Deep in my sleep, I felt
Touching and breathing,
Next to my face some Thing
Resting.
Walking to work in the sun
I felt foolish, emboldened,
But close on my steps I heard
Laughing.
Now day's work is ending and I
Must be going. I look toward the
Door and it's
Gaping.

The Stripping Year: An Epochal Adventure

2010-05-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

The Stripping Year: An Epochal Adventure
Chapter One: Let's Start In The Middle

On your knees in a Georgia cornfield at two AM is no place to rethink life. But thats what i was doing. And searching for my glasses, clawing the dirt and dried husks in vain for spectacles or a shred of dignity. No luck, no luck.

Over my scrambling sounds and short breaths, close by angry redneck male voices not quite shouting but clearly cursing about whores and liquor, I heard Janey, invisible a few feet away, announce, "Time to go" in that voice I knew meant not only was it past time for finding glasses or luck, not only time to go.

Time to fucking RUN.

(poem) Truth/Untruth

2010-03-25T10:30:00.000-07:00

Truth/Untruth
To Baudelaire and Charles Forte

At high altitudes locusts freeze,
Drop from the sky,
Thousands.
Hard to believe
But so am I.

The lazy man does not roast his game;
Catches it, eats it raw.
Style is character is
Not important after all.

The diligent man prizes his possessions:
His gilded tortoise shell,
His locusts,
His jaunts nowhere,
Twirling the ends of his moustache.

It is not hard to believe:
We find nothing final because
There is nothing final to find.

Animal Homonym

2008-10-14T14:33:00.001-07:00

Joseph Cornell (versus mediocrity)

2007-08-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

Momentarily, altered art projects tempted me to pull out the blunt scissors & elmer glue. Y'know, try my hand at an altered book, or a collage box or screen.

But after googling "altered art," I see amateur DIY kids and housewives long ago seized upon altered art to set up shop. Lots of sloppy, cheap, community art class crap out there involving fairies and/or angels. For sale all over etsy and eBay. I'm sure a lot of it's okay, or at least fun, but . . .

I no longer feel the urge to contribute my own de'coupaged layer of crap.

I know, I know, I'm being crotchety, but "If I can't stand my own mediocrity, how could I tolerate yours?" *

Anyway, I still enjoy (and feel motivated by) the masterpieces of:

Joseph Cornell

He also made wonderful films.

http://webmuseum.poboxes.info/wm/paint/auth/cornell/

http://www.ubu.com/film/cornell.html

*quoting yours truly

Images of Galvanism: Beautiful Electrical

2007-07-19T07:23:00.000-07:00

Not so sure about the "beautiful" but, yes, quite electrical. Fascinating macabre victorian images relating to galvanism, named after Luigi Galvani.

In 1771, Galvani discovered how to make a dead frog's legs twitch. Science and magic!

Galvanism - noun
1. electricity produced by chemical action
2. the therapeutic application of electricity to the body (as in the treatment of various forms of paralysis)

Galvanize \Gal"va*nize\galvaniser - verb
1. To affect with galvanism; to subject to the action of electrical currents.
2. To plate, as with gold, silver, etc., by means of electricity.
3. To restore to consciousness by galvanic action (as from a state of suspended animation); hence, to stimulate or excite to a factitious animation or activity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Galvani

"Do"

2007-07-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

From the ever-engaging often raunchy (thank god) VICE Magazine:

http://www.vbs.tv/

Spike Jonez is creative director.

Guilty secret: sometimes when I'm getting dressed, I self-consciously picture myself as a Vice "Don't," but resist the urge to change clothes.

I like drawing. And Ian Stevenson.

2007-07-17T15:25:00.000-07:00

Ian Stevenson's childlike quirky drawings never cease to delight me.

http://www.ilikedrawing.co.uk/html/work.html

2007-07-16T06:39:00.001-07:00

It is time to be drunk. So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue, as you wish.--Charles Baudelaire

How about pomegranate vodka, dear boy? My new favorite. Buy stock. Van Gogh's Pomegranate Vodka.

(I'll not become a commercial tool, but damn, this tastes so good.)

What the world needs . . .

2007-07-14T20:41:00.000-07:00

. . . is not another blog.

But here is mine anyway. Do I have anything interesting to say? Not tonight. But tomorrow I might. Or the next day. I'm sure I'll think of something by Tuesday.

I've not yet clearly decided my intent. Maybe to shorten the distance between us without the usual awkwardness:

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Rilke would've LOVED the internet.