Tuesday, August 31, 2010

veggiescape ring


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-In Balance Act, an owl cooed.
-And the Moon blinked it's Eye in the aether.
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from:
Rumors of Spring by Richard Grant

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titmouse and dust bunny

‎"But why is it taking so long?" asked the titmouse, impatiently grooming it's tuft.

"Because there is a vast, ugly and horrible chasm between concept and execution," replied the exhausted dust bunny.

from Dust Bunny Has a Freakout - Marcus' Collection of Fractured Tales For Kids

Monday, August 23, 2010

julie 2

James: It's not that I can't remember, it's that I choose to not remember.

Julie: Well, as I remember, you cried for a week over Tracy.

James: Ugh. I can't believe I once reacted to such a childish concept of beauty.

Julie: You've grown so hard, James. You were always the one we relied upon to find good in everything. That is too sad to think about. Have you thrown everything away?

James: No, but I store those kinds of things in a cardboard box in the garage.

Julie: (Stands and walks away.)

Friday, August 13, 2010

excuses

When I begin to think that any artistic inadequacies are due to a lack of proper work equipment, I play this to myself. I then take out the two most broken pieces of equipment I can find, (one usually being myself), and get to work.

jumping blindly

I grew up in a medium-sized city in the deep south. My best friend lived in a small town 15 miles north. Halfway between, a high bridge spanned a muddy creek cutting it's way through dirty red farmland. The lazy creek changed pace under the bridge, from slow to barely moving, and deepened into a filthy, but usable swimming area. Occasionally, driving past in the summer, there would be someone standing on the raised cement guard rail, encircled by admiring friends - the bravest of the group working up courage for the jump.

One hot summer day, my friend and I decided to try out the abandoned swimming hole. Inspecting the bridge, there were x marks spray-painted of the guardrail posts, apparently to denote where one could jump and survive to crawl back up the bank - too many x marks, multi-colored and faded, spanning the better part of the bridge. Looking down from some of the marks, where deep, survivable water should be, it was all too apparent that they were now in error. After climbing down the steep bank to determine an area in the center of the creek that was sufficiently deep and debris free to make the jump - trying to reconcile this information with the contradictory marks on the bridge above - we came to the conclusion that the only way to be sure of the jump's safety was to attempt it.

As usual, I was the chosen one, my friend the smart cautious one. My friend, black as the night, was a big muscular fellow that you would never want to cross. He was better than I was, however, at appreciating the value of prudence and discretion.

Looking down from the edge of the tall bridge, the distance to the water was much more impressive than it had been from the relative safety of a vehicle whizzing by. From the bridge, the swimming hole appeared to be a slow moving, unsurvivable vortex of half-digested bile. After doing my best to do a final decipering of the 'safe marks' on the bridge, and with my heart in my throat, I made the jump. On the way down, I learned a scientific constant: the distance from any bridge, to it's corresponding body of water, can be determined by the amount of time one has to contemplate the stupidity of jumping into this unknown body of water, before having to deal with the consequences of said stupidity. There was way too much time for contemplation in this particular instance, the level of stupidity completely off the charts.

The fact that I am alive to write this suggests that I was somewhat accurate on the jump - cut-offs ripped all the way up to the belt, and a nice bruise on the rear from some discarded appliance, vehicle or railroad fragment embedded in the bottom of the creek, but alive none-the-less.

I have since lost contact with most of the deep south, including my friend. Someone did tell me recently that my old friend is doing well, selling insurance at a large national firm. I am trying to sell handcrafted jewelry online.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

lost cd, rach 3rd - m argerich


oh where are you my lost friend? under what hoarded mass are you hiding? please, please come back.

there is a point at about 3:34, and again more fully at 3:44, where m. seems to relax and realize that she has just made something very wonderful

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2010/08/15 update: found cd. wahoo!

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as i sing madly, quiet. number 2

and yet this is an achievement in it's own right - to come into some peace and acceptance of a madness that at once falls into understanding...

...the transcending step, however, is to befriend this old, persistent enemy - to revere the disgusting - to find it's stifled voice

to control the uncontrollable

to coax keys into lush complexity

to sing of a Lenore sweetly

to sing madly, then quiet


~


horowitz died first slowly
then quiet
(from #1)


~

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

i am a girl


The wife and I are halfway through watching Julie and Julia, a film I would describe as somewhere between the dated 'You've Got Mail', and the chick-film 'Fried Green Tomatoes'. There is no other single element that would make a guy less attractive than for him to have J. Childs as a hero.

There are three things that come to mind as to why I am reluctantly enjoying this film:

1) At one time I was a kitchen manager of a restaurant. The movie reminds me of a time when my cooking was less 'curried' and/or 'stewed'. A time when I knew the excitement of getting a Hollandaise sauce perfect.

2) It is tap-off day for the cider keg, and I drink too much.

3) I am a girl.

In short, Julie and Julia is a biopic estrogen-fest, written and edited by a discordant committee, that the whole family will enjoy, or not.