caneabel

cain and abel were brothers one god loved the other he ignored so cain slew abel simple as that I don’t know how he did it don’t remember my bible because its been a long time I just remember the story you know the way it can be and the moral give to god the best of what you have or he will cast you out but even if you do give him the best of what you do he will ignore you and instead torment your brother then when cain raises his hand god will let it fall and you will be dead and cain will be marked but given certain protections and a long life and many children for what he did and can we be any different we who think we are so far above animals but really are we

I used to love the world all the things in it but something has always felt wrong I could never put my finger on it just a pall or shadow that obscures something that I should see I always wonder if when we die that shadow is lifted and we can see whats behind it does god vouchsafe us that moment or is that too hidden in the end

in my dreams some struggle is occurring and its on the level of a lord of the rings struggle good and evil order and disorder all sorts of portents and cataclysms and a world that doesn’t quite hold together its disturbing and yet night after night I climb into it and crave these dreams wishing that I could remember better wishing that there was someone to tell them to but nobody listens anymore nobody sits down with me and says eric what did you dream about nobody says I’ll meet you there in your dreams like that girl who was she once did I don’t remember her name she was kind of punk and out of place it was a small group we had there that winter and I was glad she was there I used to daydream about her and once I told her so and she said lets try to meet together in a dream so far away there is a room I dream about she said so meet me there and she described the room to me I thought I could find it in my dreams and for night after night all that winter everytime I tried to dream I looked for that room and although sometimes parts of it would show up usually a rug a big oriental carpet and sometimes a strange balinese marionette puppet I never succeeded in finding the room or in meeting her there strange that I can recall her face and the strange coat she wore and the cigarettes we sometimes shared in the snowy moonlight by the frozen lake but I don’t remember her name cynthia perhaps something like that also around that winter were richard and roger and boyle and liz but I don’t remember her name damned if I do

I was in carlisyle once and it was warm it was a dream place not a real place it was a town by the sea and there were long boardwalks and tunnels going from place to place in that place as in many dream places I can fly but effortlessly like feather on the breeze but with utter control of where I’m going

I remember a dream about uncle jack he was in the backyard of a house which isn’t the house he lived in in phoenix but a different house but I always knew it was his house in dreams and he was mowing the lawn with a push mower I flew out the back window and called out to him – look uncle jack look at what I can do I’m flying and I’m wide awake but he didn’t hear me he never looked up in those dreams

sometimes my parents were there too just like uncle jack and they would never look up either even though it was an incredible feat to fly like that

one time I remember driving away from someplace in a red datsun stationwagon and my father was chasing me with a flamethrower which splattered fire on the rear windsheild later in that dream there was a nuclear explosion and we were all forced to hide out in a mall where everyone could fly but for some reason I stayed on the floor which was covered with snakes of every size shape and color some of them were mating by leaning together and then using the pressure to push them upright so that they looked like tall grass waving in the wind

another mall dream that comes now and then is a mall which I recognize as being in harvard square but only the dream version of it and I’m always looking for the empty shop that is mine

sometimes I go back to a place I used to love but find all the nature is gone and replaced by some big military complex or else a college of some sort I usually see richard there but he is too busy to be bothered by me

sometimes I think that I am in rome

sometimes I walk and walk in the dreamtime like I did when I was in college walking in the dark night and whistling classical music as I walk I can even hear the dogs bark they way they did when I really walked there and I can see the mist over the benches in the park and the moon with a big orange ring around it

sometimes I dream of the english girl and we meet someplace in london because I am travelling and she takes my hand over a restaurant table and says don’t you think we should marry don’t you think we should marry I wake up saying yes before realizing that I’ve never met that english girl and that I would marry her in a heartbeat if I ever met up with her in the real world

some things in dreams are a simple and clean as that even though I have no history for or with her she emodies love of the deepest kind and I would marry her in a heartbeat if I ever met up with her in the real world

sometimes I just see lights or strange balloons

sometimes I make love to strangers

sometimes I am a sculpture made out of wood in the shape of a man but carved from the same piece that I am laying on in this dream I can feel the trees all around me as if their limbs and leaves were a part of me as if I can extend my mind out into them only to feel the flames as evil men rampage through the forest with torches setting fires as they roam

I rarely dream of people I know in the real world

when I do they are usually in a different room and I can hear their voices or even talk to them but I never see them they never enter my presence nor I theirs

I have dreamed once or twice about my friend Kyle – usually he is onstage playing music and I am waiting to take the stage to play my set

when I think about being a child I am always alone

where was my brother and my sister on those days when I got home early and mom wasn’t there and I went crying to aunt frances into her frigid airconditioned house where she let me watch jonny quest on the color teevee until mom finally returned from whatever errand she was doing

I remember being outside alone and mom had locked the door for some reason and I was in the backyard and even though I was toilet trained I crapped my pants and cried because I was ashamed and felt the warm ball of shit there in my pants against the side of my leg finally she let me in after I cried and hollered for awhile

I was lying in a bed not a crib and the nurse picked me up and raised me up and tickled my belly then flipped me over and jabbed me in the ass with a needle and after that I was always afraid when she came in even though I don’t remember her jabbing me ever again

I do remember that time seemed to move very quickly and that it puzzled me in its movement I lay in that bed watching the shades open and close open and close or ac tually I think they were venetian blinds

I remember a hospital room with a toy that was gears in some kind of tray a fisher price thing designed I guess to teach the abstract principles of differential gears to near infants

I remember having the croup and mom taking me into the bathroom and running hot water to fill the air with steam

it rained outside and I went into the kitchen to see big black beetle all over the place mom called them water bugs she went around killing them with a rolled up newspaper and when she smashed them they became piles of white powder

my brother accidently cooked his turtle and mine only my sister’s turtle survived but it grew and grew until it was too big even for the big swimming pool rim that we set up in the backyard for him

it was a very big turtle with striking red splashes on the side of its neck

Freewrite 12

genie was blossoming like a petaled grape and asking for simple things like juniper berries and frosted flakes/I had no map or article of direction/the lady in the corner was beckoning to us saying george webbs hamburger parlors rock/I had to laugh because it was late and amy and I were drunk/there was a guy next to us at the counter named roger wearing an aluminum foil cross on a string around his neck/his skin was anything but smooth/ he had a nose that looked like it fell out of a painting by the brothers hildebrandt/ he smelled strongly of listerine/ I think his eyes were grey but I can’t be certain/he asked amy if she was in love with me/she said that it was none of his business/then roger stood up and raised his arms like he was trying to scare away a bear/its my business because I’m the devil/he said/ amy and I laughed at that/ she said that if he was the devil/then he already knew the answer/ he chuckled and said yes well/so the hamburgers came and they rocked/ but the drink made the flourescent lights in there look lemony yellow and it hurt to look at them/ on the wall two clocks/each set to a different time/to get around the law that said it was illegal to be open twenty four hours/ rather than close for a minute/you could just look at the other clock/ cops never enforced the law anyway/ most would come in and get coffee and most had a story or two to tell/the first time I heard about the banana queen it was in that place/the cop who told me was in plainclothes/she was a bag lady/he said/I didn’t know what that was so I asked/ he explained about homelessness which was something which at 18 I’d never thought about/ and that bag ladies carried their belongings in paper shopping bags the irony being that they were usually the high end ones you got at macy’s or marshall fields/well he said/the banana queen was one of them/one day mack my partner saw her in a restaurant/ he went over and asked her if she needed any money/ or a cup of coffee/the restaurant owner called him over/ he told mack that the banana queen had stolen some silverware from him and could he get it back/ mack went over to her and asked her to show him what was in his bag/she just grinned/reached into one of the bags pulled out a hammer and clocked him first on the hand breaking his fingers and then in the middle of the forehead/he fell a dead weight and she beat it out of there/for his trouble I bought the cop a cup of coffee and a slice of banana cream pie/no irony intended/a few years later I was in milwaukee at the peter pan family restaurant where they had excellent greek lamb with noodles/and in the corner I saw a woman with two macy’s sacks with a tarot spread on the table in front of her/she had what looked like a child’s crown made of plastic and shaped like a ring of vertical bananas/ I didn’t talk to her that day/in fact it was more than half a year before we actually met/ but I’ll never forget how she looked that day/her eyes were bright and gleaming with intelligence/her hands moved the cards with expert precision/it was hard to imagine her swinging a hammer to end a man’s life/she was pretty/there was a slight resemblance to julia roberts/something in the mouth and the smile I think/back then of course we didn’t yet know who julia roberts was/when I saw her again after that first time I always averted my eyes and pretended not to see her/I didn’t greet her or acknowledge her in any way/but I was always aware of her and I’d watch if we were in the same place/circumspectly out of the corner of my eye/not wanting her to catch me watching/the way you watch a girl you have a crush on although you don’t want her to know it/and every once in awhile our eyes would meet/when that happened her face always exploded into a smile/one day I was on a bus going to the mall to see a movie/she was in the seat behind me/ I heard her talking/I thought to herself at first/ a monologue that seemed almost musical in its rhythm/but at some point I heard her say don’t look back eric/they can’t know that we are talking/but here I am and here you are and that’s as it should be/ I was wondering how she knew my name/but I sat there and listened to her talk/she meandered into a story about a patti smith concert and a broken collarbone/then at brady street she got off without saying goodbye or looking at me or anything she was just gone/and I was left alone on the bus with her last words something about the vast wilderness on the outskirts of western slobbovia and the turquoise vermillion atmosphere on sirius/later that night I dreamed we were sitting together at a table at peter pan and she had that smile and a moony look in her eyes and across the table we were holding hands/a very long time passed again before I saw her/when next we met she was dressed a little better and wasn’t carrying her bags anymore/I was at the coffee connection having a cup and she just sat down in the chair across from me/as in my dream she reached out and put her hands over mine/at last we meet/she said/and I just nodded/the waiter came over it was somebody I knew from the university/I said/charlie a coffee for the young lady/for I could see now that she was a good deal younger than me/and charlie brought her a cup too/ she grinned when he set it down then lifted the cup to her mouth/careful its hot/I said/ but she drank and drank/ when she was done she said you have to drink coffee as hot as you can or it might get away/before too much evaporates you know/then she pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to me/it was a drawing of some sort/abstract shapes in white on black/she said/see I know you/I’ve captured your essence/I looked at the drawing clueless/thinking it resembled me not at all/I really did think it that way don’t ask me why/occasionally I have thoughts in an archaic mode like that/now looking at the memory I can sketch her/the light was to her right/no overheads it was midday and there was sunlight streaming through the window/delineating everything like a dali landscape/she had on a cross made of aluminum foil which I reckoned had come from roger/when I mentioned him she smiled and said I met him in the bin/the bin I asked/ the looney bin she said/where I just spent a few months learning how to be self medicating so that I can be a productive citizen/don’t worry its not contagious/so I smiled/I wondered if you could be truly sane and utter so unambiguously the truth that you had just been in a psychiatric institution/actually she said/ it was reagan let me out/ you know small government means no hospitals for the insane and so forth/ I was there/ now I’m out/ thanks to the government both ways/but it wasn’t bad in there not really/good food/ and good drugs/ roger did make me the cross/he’s gone now poor soul/they took him off the psyl and he took too many sleepers that was that/janey also did herself in when she heard they were springing her/her folks had left her there a decade ago and she couldn’t think of how she’d live outside on her own poor soul/and you/ look at you/she said/ just as crazy as a loon but you you don’t know it yet but you’re finding out aren’t you yes poor soul/I lost my cat while I was in/she said/ poor thing used to go with me everywhere even sometimes under the table at george webbs/did you know/ you never saw her I bet pretending as you did that you didn’t know me/ but we don’t have to pretend anymore do we/because now we are talking the best of friends/ now we have touched hands and shared coffee/which is just the same you know as sharing water/have you read stranger in a strange land/ oh if you haven’t you must/drink deep share water/grow closer/then she started to talk about jim morrison/have you listened to his music/she asked/ he was a god you know/ a shaman/ he didn’t really die there in paris/you know or if he did they killed him/they were there and they killed him/then she took her voice down way down and whispered/they’d kill us too if they knew if they knew they’d kill us/then she took my hands in her’s again and looked down/that one’s your lifeline and that one’s fate/and that one there that’s the day you first saw me at peter pan and that one there’s the day the cop told you that lie about me/ I never killed him with that hammer although I must admit that breaking his hand was done rather artfully/ and it wasn’t his partner that did it it was him hisself/because I wouldn’t let him touch me and it wasn’t the stuff in my bag he was after it was something there buried under my skirt and anyone who tries to touch that uninvited deserves to have his hand shattered/men/she said/must always ask for and wait for permission/that’s when I first saw her halo and realized that she was a saint/she smiled realizing I’d realized/don’t worry/she said/you are too/we must walk together for a time/so leaving the coffeeconnection and moving out onto downer ave watched the buses go by and walked to the oriental theater looked at the marquee and she saw the george webbs next door and said/seems like we are back in waukesha she said/we went in to theater and watched the little shop of horrors and plan nine from outerspace/you know/she whispered in the dark of the theater/if you stay until the end watching all thirty of the movies during the bad movie festival/they refund your ticket price/but about halfway through they saved hitler’s brain/we walked out forsaking the refund/and went to george webbs

that night it was midnight before we split up I back to the dorm she back to her new apartment/ remember she said/ this was not a date/ you are a guy and guys never know/and just before she left she kissed me on the cheek and disappeared into the darkness/I ran and ran back to the dorm to beat the rain that chased me all the way

FIRST DAYS AT THE OFFICE

First days at the office are always just a little strange. You always think that you know more than you do. But the faces area blur, and the names go right by. You've done this before, but everything looks just a little off. Computer out of position. Two monitors and an uncomfortable chair. Nobody Is quite sure of you and you are not sure of anybody. Then you open up your screens. None of the programs are quite the same either! CS instead of CS 5. a new program, vector drawings alright but both similar to ones you've used before, but also just a bit strange. Everyone knows the filing system, and so they assume you do too. There is always new shop vernacular and again they all know it and think you do too! They say things and dart away, leave you sputtering and saying" what, what, he Lat "feeling like a fool, feeling rather dumb. Then you sit down shaking your head and wondering if. oh! They meant you need to use a stroke here, a fill there, a gradient over at the corner. And you think "aha-I can do this." Three days and things begin to look familiar. Memories of other jobs start to merge with this new one.  In fact, after three days the computer and desk area have become yours and are beginning to reflect just a tad of personality.   After a few days you are beginning to get the hang of some things. You remember, if not necessarily names yet, at least the faces and you are getting an idea of who does what. You pay close attention to learn the hierarchies and who is approachable. and all is at least quiet when you leave on Friday afternoon.

freewriting

write draw paint dream have a pee walk the sidewalk hike the mountains you look mahvellous into white this time maybe this time is the winner she dreams and the door opens flies scurry in outside the cutting of grass the moving of stones a truck drives by a truck rumbles loudly shakes the foundation a dog barks the page turns the book falls to the floor a dog barks again this toe this thought the miners in the well the symbol of fate the tripod the bunyon looking at trees what if god mocks us what if who is the pope anyway a man a demigod who knows who cares but they say that he travels in a bulletproof vehicle so how divine can he be the dalai lama now there is a religious leader walks around sometimes with an entourage sometimes not we met once he and I and he told me we knew each other in another life there was a door that opened then just for a moment and I had a dream thought that perhaps he was right so long ago no drifting intrusive beliefs about transmigration now no beliefs really but ideas images thoughts in the head that dazzle like thick music that take me places even as I sit still that cause the world to both grow and diminish that let in the world and shut it out that milling sound in the distance what is that a lathe perhaps in the shop next door or a motor running idling in some rude neighbor’s yard perhaps I was thinking just then of the value of the dollar then and now back when you could buy a whole full meal for a dollar or two when a record album was three dollars and a ticket to a movie was fifty cents back when the illusion of time was in place before the reality of time came in and we were in the symphony hall when the singer sang here time becomes space and it was like a magical phrase because we both joined hands and were somehow distanced from time somehow bound together so that even now with you so far away you intrude into this typewritten memory and if there is a small thought of food and if there is a will to power off on a comet they say the time is an element they say that god and time are somehow in cahoots they say that doctrine is firm and unchanging the don’t know that the map is not the territory and when I think the thoughts are fleeting like butterflies they dart in tickle stealing nectar dart out spurious untrustworthy but gentle and fulfilling just the same and you can look there is a place that is full of roses I can’t remember where it is but it was there when I was young and they kept it cool in there so the roses wouldn’t fade to fast in the cool air you could smell them the air so thick with the perfume johnny sometimes stole one for his ladyfriend it think it was ruthie yes that was it we called her crazy ruthie and I hated that she dated him I wanted to date her myself but you didn’t do that to a friend you couldn’t touch a girl if a buddy had aims on her you just didn’t in the city the castle dominated the hill and everything seemed an extension of it but the bridge I can’t remember which was older the bridge that was made by ancient romans without mortar to hold it sheer brilliant masonry a kind of magic sure sure but the cobbles on the city streets and the dinging of the trolleys ding ding a trying to stay abreast of the hippies who terrified us all of them druggies papa said all of them looking to steal an edge from you all of them cole banged on the door he had the knock just two fast raps tap tap you knew it was him and he’d always bound up the steps knock without hesitating first his hand just fell on the door like that back in jersey the door was outside not this stairwell door and the windowed stairwell you could see out but the apartment oh it was not a giant place but it was sufficient you could sleep in your own room and there was that ancient huge porcelain bathtub fill it up dip into it sink in right up to your nose if you wanted to oops dropped the book and had to set it in the sun three days later it was still damp it was a library book too the hobbit that juanita special ordered for me from the USAREUR central library in frankfurt and that was nearly an hour away it was an endless drive in those day that long long hour but thankfully we rarely went there but the time when glenn drove us in the mercedes to see emerson lake and palmer and I got stuck dead center where the lights mirrored blinding me off of palmer’s bass drum but the music so big and travelling I’m saying oh I didn’t know that one was theirs when I heard tarkus and after for the next few weeks scouring the record stores to find the songs we’d heard so we could deconstruct them learn their lessons like that I was thinking as we drove home that there was an undefineable feeling created by the amber-lit towns and villages we sped past at 100 km but it was an intense feeling and wondering what it was the sounds of other cars hissing by us passing as if we were standing still and the endless smooth beauty of the pitch black autobahn no stones no gravel nothing on the road to impede the drive a bit of perfection a bit of precision finally back to heidelberg and phv and san juan hill into my room to sleep and sleep thankfully tomorrow was sunday no school once we all took a bus there to frankfurt to see Eric Clapton another dream of a show evonne elliman standing on the apron of the stage looking like a beam from god’s own light and at the end all the men rushing forward in hope of touching her and she backing away away no I can’t I just can’t and finally the security men guiding her backwards and forcing the would be suitors away clapton who we’d all thought was dead of heroin years ago now he was there again this time to stay blues and reggae I shot the sherrif ringing out tho none of us had ever heard of bob marley yet that came later there was susie who never talked to me but in the teen club always wanted to slow dance with me the day I graduated she came up and kissed me once on the mouth her lips smooth soft and very warm she said good bye that way  two years later I saw her in sierra vista but she pretended she didn’t know me because her husband would beat her otherwise in those days you walked away and didn’t say anything it was their life after all I saw the ghost of heidelberg in that restaurant in chicago but even though I went in and looked at murals of the castle I never did eat there because it cost too much the day I arrived in waukesha it was cold as cold can be now that is the winter break arrival I was dropped by the bus near the dutchland dairy place with my enormous suitcase and I walked to campus by the back way seemed to take a year my fingers frostbitten I had to keep setting the suitcase down because it was too heavy and I had to warm my hands under my coat in the dark arriving at swarthout just as the first flurries of snow began realizing how lucky I was because an hour later we were in the midst of a blizzard but there I was sitting the television lounge barefoot on the headed floor and I think her name was nikki the girl who transferred from another college nestled against me we were all waiting to see who the last couple would be because they’d get to neck there in the lounge and it ended up being me and nikki I was so tired in the morning because we’d stayed all night because she shown me a new thing something with her mouth and I was still dreaming of it and in the morning I could still smell her on my hands and I didn’t want to wash them but feared embarrassment if anyone else smelled it on me who were you with they’d ask and taunt me when I told them because nikki was a scholarship girl they didn’t know that I was a scholarship guy even though I was always shabby clothed even though I didn’t have a car and couldn’t even afford a barber once a week because everyone effected the hippy look back then it was after all 1975 and the war was over none of us had to register for the draft anymore there was no rotc on campus and everyone was vocal in their love of peace and nixon had resigned everything was good nobody knew that reagan was right around the corner we hadn’t had the hostage crisis yet chevy chase every saturday night aping president ford we laughed so hard we pissed ourselves emily latella boy the nose on the gretal said tony I’d like to take her down but that nose is just too be but I had eyes only for magda she was my daydream once I’d pointed her out to tony and said that she was really cute he said no she isn’t so I assumed that he’d tried to lay her but not succeeded piss on what you can’t have he was that kind of guy although we were friends I could never say that he was nice all those people I can see them if I thnk of them clear as if we’d only parted yesterday but I have to summon the memory have to call it up its like that sometimes and the calling is difficult but once I’ve done it there they are clear as if they’d been with me an hour ago there were nights of such cold air you step outside and if you breathe through your mouth forget it your teeth will just shatter you look at the surface of the snow and every now and then there is a puff and a smokey cloud rises here or there like magic crystals and this snow has a crust so thick you can walk on it its not surprising that the eskimos have so many words for snow its all the same thing and yet its not blessings everywhere in the snowy night or on the nights when rain began but the cold wind froze it into glass coating everything so the ground is slick and we can’t walk safely it took nearly an hour to get from swarthout to old main.

No longer my own boss

Well, as of Monday I’ll be working days for someone else.  I’ve agreed to work for a local signmaker, designing business signs, car wraps and other promotional artwork.  I’ll have access to some great tools – a Roland plotter, diecut vinyl printing, large format plexi and decal printing and so forth.  It’s a small shop, not far from home, with a nice crew.  I’m looking forward to being in a deadline driven position again.  Its nice sometimes to have someone else cracking the whip!

To that end, this weekend I have to launch ancient versions of Photoshop and Illustrator – the shop is still on CS2, and I’ve been working exclusively in CS5 since the beta testing started over a year ago.  It’ll be strange losing some of the terrific workflow tools the newer version offers.  It’ll also be interesting to see just how patient I am with their old computers and slow processors. 

Last night I taught part two of a bookbinding workshop at Cochise College.  In part one, last Wednesday, we covered the coptic bookbinding process, and the participants each bound their books.  Yesterday in the tie-up session, they hardened the covers, primed them for painting and illustration, and we discussed the process of making a fine-art journal, further applications of the techniques they learned on the first book, etc.  When the group left late in the evening, they seemed fired up about the process, and psyched to get to work on their new books.  I’d forgotten how much fun it is to do a participatory class demonstration like that.  I’ve always enjoyed working with other people around – this workshop, I made a book of my own, demonstrating the process.  The students followed along, step by step.  It was gratifying to see twelve tight, evenly bound coptic books! 

So – now I have a weekend to tie up loose ends and get ready for next week.  I think the most difficult thing will be waking up at 5:45 every day.  I’ve been on a darktime schedule this past year, working on my books until 3 or 4 AM   everyday and then sleeping until 9AM each morning.  I’m going to lose my late night hours, hopefully without losing out on productivity.  It will, thankfully, mean not watching hours of television every night – I’ll be doing the book work in the evenings after dinner. 

The Argument for Homemade Books

 

I was working on a book the other day in my favorite venue (the Sierra Vista Public Library’s Café Sierra) Normally I’d have been either writing or painting in my current book, Mind at Work – Mind at Play – or one of the smaller satellite volumes that I carry for when I need to loosen up a bit.  That day however I was actually binding a small new volume, to use as a sample for a bookbinding workshop that I was going to teach that evening. 

A man stopped to watch for a moment, then began to ask questions.  I’m used to most of the questions tossed at me, but one made me stop and think a bit.  After I had explained that I was actually binding a book, he asked me why I didn’t just buy one. 

I think that this is possibly the most complicated question I get. 

On the surface, there is a simple answer.  I enjoy the process.  Binding a book is rather easy to do, doesn’t take an overwhelming amount of time, and is a pleasant break from the much harder work of writing or painting.  I enjoy the entire process, from selecting (or sometimes even making) the paper, to designing the cover, and stitching the spines.  Once you’ve done it a few times, much of the process is done on “automatic”, using the physical memory to work while the mind is free to do other things.  And the end result is very satisfying too.  I love books – all books – but I have a special love for the ones I’ve made from scratch (even some of the early attempts, which have uneven stitching and many glaring flaws in the workmanship!)

I carry a small but complete bindery in a little fishing tackle box, which means that I can make a book anywhere – in a café, out in the desert, on top of a mountain, by a campfire.  That means that I can create memories that go along with the physical object.  One thing I want to do in the near future is to make a book at the Grand Canyon so that every time I open it to work, it will summon the memory of that amazing place.

If I’m traveling, I can buy local papers to give the books I make a regional flavor – especially if there are small papermaking shops that produce unique pages with distinctive surfaces or colors or smells. 

One thing I’ve always loved about the process of art is its transformative qualities.  I studied intaglio printing in college, and the real joy of it for me was in taking a plain metal plate and putting it in acid to watch the magic of chemistry infuse it with my ideas and images.  I used to get breathless watching the plates etch and my heart always beat faster when I cleaned off the etch ground and got the first glimpse of the plate surface. 

I get some of the same thrill making a book.  I always start with large sheets of paper, which I fold score and tear into the dimensions I want.  The flat sheets get smaller as I tear them, but then when the binding begins, they become something oddly much larger than the original sheet.  Something about the way pages work in a book makes its dimensions inside seem infinite.  A page is just a page, but a book can be an entire universe in and of itself.

There are loads of blank books available, some of them not very expensive, some of them even pretty good.  If I have the money to burn, I can even order a hand made book and have in the past, with a fine leather binding and marbled covers and extraordinary Italian paper from Amalfi.  A large book like this is a pleasure to work in, but the cost for one starts at just over $100, and can range as high as $800, if I order all the bells and whistles. 

There are other reasons too, possibly enough for another entry on another day.  Oh – and that guy who asked me why I don’t just buy a book?  I gave him the simplest answer I can:  Because its fun.

When I tried to write or paint while applying thoughts or principles learned studying art history or literature in college, I found it impossible to work. For me, the impulse has to be the guide for creation. Meaning is something that comes later.

A Little Rant about writing that digresses to other things

Wacom tablets are terrific. I'm sitting at a desk with my laptop, writing this by hand with my Wacom  tablet. The software reads my awful handwriting (imagine your doctor's sig. on a very had day!). The software reads it and posts it in moveable type! Better still, If I write a message out as a Photoshop file, I can take the image into a translations program and have a "hand" written image as well as the moveable type version.The best of both worlds! Another item  I'm toying with as an element of my book project is using my iPod touch with a voice translation program (Dragon Dictation) so that I can record thoughts on the go, and have the translator output it as type.  I wonder what James Joyce might have accomplished had he had access to this stuff... He could have actually walked the strand beach and dictated as he went. This will definitely add a new dimension to stream of consciousness writing! Lately work on the physical book has been largely images. Long days painting and little energy for writing with pen and ink. Now with the new software I  can write or dictate my thoughts and use them later as basis for writing in the physical book. A friend suggested printing out the pages on my ink jet and pasting them into the book, but I think instead I may just use in Design or Photoshop to design a print version of the type and then either import scans of drawings and paintings, or add native photoshop images to spice things up. I want to create a bridge between the physical book and the digital one. I also need to think about ways that the digital becomes PURELY digital. I.E., moving images, live recorded segments, animations. A digital book should definitely do things the a physical book cannot. So: Dreamweaver, InDesign, Photoshop, Final Cut should all be a part of it. How Do I: get the two sides to interact in ways that make sense? It should be easy to make a digital copy of the physical volume, but what elements of the digital work world be appropriate to include in the other? I'm enjoying the challenge of trying to do something traditional in a contemporary fashion. So much has evolved over the past few years. The other day it occurred to me that if I attach my computer to my television, I can create imagery in photo shop that is native to a large screen television. I can use my kindle reader to read books on my television. So: my television becomes a book. My laptop becomes a book. My iPod becomes a book. Conversely, my book can become a webpage; my book can become a movie. My book can become an email or a text message, or a sound file (if read aloud) accompanied by a typeset version of the type file. Reading this now. I think that Science Fiction as understood it as a child is no longer FICT ION is no longer fiction. All the things that Dick and Heinlein and Ellison predicted are at our disposal now. Its an amazing time to be an artist, And we haven't even started to make a dent in what we can accomplish. There are new art forms waiting to be born, forms nobody has even dreamed of yet, forms that have entirely in the digital realm, things that are both concrete and ephemeral, art that exists in a new dimension of words and colors and movement and time. In the new art world, we can find ways of communicating ideas and stimulating thought that are immediately more powerful, useful, and accessible than anything we have had in the past. Here is something that I know for a fact. Call it my prophecy or my science fiction if you wish. That in the very near future somebody will create a form of information vehicle which beans no resemblance to a book a but it will be so efficient and easy to interact with that it will move through the human community the a virus.tall. It will function wholly in the digital realm. It will have no pages-and it won't be a scroll. It will take advantage of the sheer depth of memory and retrieval and imaging that a computer has to offer. or, perhaps, will use a new technology that we will not even recognize as a computer Something else that hasn't been thought of or invented yet. Hopefully will get there sooner rather than later. And I also suspect (though I won't say predict) that the mystical transformation that we hear about from the esoteric community will use this new form as its delivery system. For a change of cons Lives ness to occur instantaneously, in "the twinkling of an eye", all that would be necessary is for every human mind to see/ feel/ experience this one idea, P.o.V., image, thought, whatever at the same moment. I think that we are on our way to that, within reach of that, its nearly here. We should make our minds up as a species that we are going to get there. Set a date even, say December 21, 2012. That seems convenient Not the day of the great apocalypse that some are predicting: rather, the great revelation. Forgive my little rant.  If you’ve read it, you should know that all these writings are spurious, extemporaneous, off the cuff, written as I think them, without censoring.   If I am completely wrong on this, I will say that it was just a thought I had, there and gone, no deeply held belief
(beyond, perhaps, a wish that it be true!) If I’m right, I’ll say that I knew it from the start and pretend to be smart. 

Houston

 

When the dark days come, Wendy sits and thinks.  Wendy is thinking of the crust of the world which sits safely on the crust of the universe.  She is thinking about the veils of Isis, how each one is like one of the emanations of the Qabalah.  You were feeding the fire but not the flame and a tourniquet was the benefit.  You cannot be lucid with  your head in the clouds Wendy.  You cannot dream buckets but elicit surrender. 

If the morning comes and the division bell rings,  if the Chapterhouse opens and the king sits on the throne, then an epoxy madness will reveal testy puddles of integers, neither prime not  odd, but illusory just the same.  You can lift the mettle of the significant loss without defending Wendy near her washer.  She has a turnstyle and a trusted friend, but neither gun nor hoe has she.  Wendy is as Wendy is and she sips sultry sodas in a sad café.  Oh roach, or embezzeler of robust carnage heed the sinful simplicity of a statuesque and marvelous martyrdom.  And finally, when Saturday comes, have bananas and sequins.

Hummingbirds

There was a place where the hummingbirds lived, and a place where they drank their nectar and taught their young to fly with the precision of small helicopters. There is no sign there, but the miracle remains to be seen by any who have eyes. Those who cannot see may hear the hummingbirds as they fly close and distant.
 
They make that sound – hum, hum, hum. That’s why they’re called hummingbirds. In the nests of the hummingbirds there are no cellphones or stereos. The talk and music of the world close by is enough for them. They laugh at us with all our tools and devices saying “You don’t need that! Put that down! Look, I have only myself and my wings, and this nectar. I have only what God gave me!” Except of course the ones who are atheists – they say, instead, I have only what I need and I need only what I have. I was hatched this way.” Among hummingbirds, there are often disagreements about who can suck on which flower, but they never argue about religion. They know better than that. And none of them, not a one, is a politician.

Art In The Park, Sierra Vista, Arizona, 10/02/10

My parents with John Vaughn, the sculptor.

Art In the Park is one of the things that Sierra Vista has gotten right!  It’s a well organized, large scale, open air art festival, with artists from all over the Southwest.  Today was a perfect day for it too – not hot, a bit on the cloudy side with bits of blue popping up every now and again.  When we first arrived, there was a sprinkle of rain but it passed quickly. 
The sculpture pictured here was made by a friend of my brother Joe.  I took the shot pretty much off the cuff with my point and shoot Kodak camera,  then added a few flourishes with the Topaz Adjust and Topaz Detail filters. 
There was a lot of good work on display - I was surprised at how many more photographers were represented, some of them very, very good.

One of John Vaughn's sculptures - Was a perfect match for the
dark clouds today! see my NAPP Portfolio here

  

Succint

Life has its moments.  While we live them, they seem to be separate and distinct, one from the next. The longer we live, the more moments we accumulate.  Finally, when we begin reaching a certain point, the way we see those moments shifts.  They begin to lose their singularity and to blend together into a larger singularity.  I think that when we reach the end, we finally get to see the thing as a whole, and suddenly the entire life transforms into something unique, succinct and ultimately comprehensible.  Time is not plural.  It is singular.  And our lives are not plural either.  Like all those moments coalescing into a life, all those lives coalesce into a world, also succinct and comprehensible, but to the mind that comprehends the myriad lives as something singular.

Lazy Saturday

Saturday and woke up late. The alarm played slow marimbas for me at seven; I got up and moved about, then lay back down again to listen to some music. Instead, dropped off again and had strange dreams. It was something that has been recurrent lately, thematically anyway; I was somehow involved in checking in to a new dormitory room at a college somewhere. I recall something about problems with the locks on the doors – someone had broken in to my room and filled the toilet and the sink with bottles of some drug – I think it was Tylenol, but I can't be sure. At some point also, I was flying at a low altitude as someone looked on and I was explaining that I had to practice because I hadn't flown in quite a while. Then I was in a remote place, some kind of loading dock. I said "I'm lost – I don't know where I am." Then I found myself on my knees polishing a boat or surfboard. Someone handed me a brush, and when I saw that it was Laura, and she was praising how glossy I'd made the board. It was black like obsidian and very shiny. We talked for a while like old friends, and then I wandered off. It was very dark, and where I thought the road should be, there were instead thick woods. I walked further down the trail and eventually came out into what looked like a combination of a mall and an industrial park. There were two people standing in work clothes there. I told them I was lost and the woman laughed saying "Mass Ave. is right there!" I looked up, relieved to see a sign reading "Massachusetts Avenue". Then I asked the woman how far it was to Boston proper, and her companion answered "about forty five minutes" indicating the direction. I asked if there was bus service, and he said there was, and pointed across the street where a bus was just pulling in. I remember thinking that I'd have to figure out, once I was on the bus, what the transfer points were. When I crossed the street to get on the bus, I found that the bus was no longer there, but there was a station selling tickets. Just as I was about to move to the front of the line, I woke up.

Inception got one thing right - when DiCaprio's character says that you never remember the beginning of a dream – you always start someplace in the middle of the action. I wonder whether that is because the dream memory is only partial – or whether the dreams actually begin midstream. I do remember dreams though in the past where the beginning of the dream was waking up in a bed. I wandered in the dream world, unaware that I had woken up someplace other than the world I know. I followed routines that were clearly established – no hesitation, no questioning why I needed to follow the routine. Shower, shave, dress, go to kitchen, kiss wife, eat breakfast, go to work in the field. Later in the dream, I came home after working in the field, kissed the kids, had dinner, showered, went to bed with my wife, made love to her. I Woke up after going to sleep there, disappointed to find myself alone. That dream – was that the whole memory, or had I actually dreamed days before and after the events that I can remember. Was that first remembered moment waking up part of a longer dream? The oddest thing about that dream is that I never felt the disjointedness I usually do when I am dreaming, the oh gosh I have no idea how I got there why I'm doing this, I know that person but I don't know how quality. It was laid out factually – a day in the life, just not the life I know. I had other dreams in that place too – I don't know how many. I know that there were lots of fields that needed work, and I also know that the fields belonged to me. That much I know for certain. I called my wife by name in the dreams but when I woke up, I couldn't remember her name, or mine. In the dreams I was thinner, taller, handsomer. Blonde with a bushy beard. In fact there was a time when it seemed that I was actually leading two lives, and at one point I remember thinking that this side was actually the dream, and that it wasn't a very pleasant one. I more recent years I haven't remembered dreams as regularly as I did back then. I often wonder whether some of the dreams that I don't remember are dreams of being that man in that place with that wife. An old girlfriend suggested that they might be a past life memory but that doesn't seem likely. The place seemed very real, but it also didn't seem like I was in the past. The time in that dream seemed to be my time, and although the setting was different from my own life, the world seemed very much my own world, in that the gadgets, cars, even thoughts I had as this other person, were all things I can recognize. It was the modern world as I know it in waking life; I was just in a rural setting, living the pleasant life of a farmer.

The sky this morning redefined blue. I looked out the window and was entirely startled by its purity. It has since clouded up but that sapphire quality us still there, only in patches.

I was planning to use the trimmer to start cutting down the tall grass this morning, but got waylaid by my own indolence.

Everyone here is dressed for vacation – shorts, tees, sandals, the clothes I wear every day. Since it's a weekend there are more kids around, and it's noisy. Behind me there is a man with a laptop on his table, who is tying balloon animals for the kids. Strange – I looked up, and there is a kid, maybe eight or nine years old in a soccer uniform, staring at me. It's as if he's never seen a bald guy typing on a computer before. Even when I look back at him, even when I grimace, he doesn't look away, just stares as if at a fascinating bird in the zoo. Outside the wind whips the mesquite trees. I'm on level with the people going through the drive-thru, and every once in a while I'll look up to catch one of them looking at me. Usually they smile shyly and look away when I catch them. The kid isn't staring anymore. He's been joined, apparently by his parents and his little sister, and the girl is now occupying his attention. The guy behind me slipped, and his huge balloon construction hit me on the shoulder. Kids eating voraciously. Behind me and off to the left a woman in a plaid top is gesticulating wildly, trying to make a point of some kind. Her husband is shaking his head as if in agreement. The little girl with them has just put a French fry up each nostril and now she is banging on her mother's shoulder, demanding to be notices.

It looks like the rush hour is hitting its stride. The line isn't long, but it's constantly replenishing and there is a constant stream of automobiles going by the drive-in window. It's amusing to watch their hands as they pass, trying simultaneously to drive and to get the money ready, even to juggle a coupon into the mix. One guy careened wildly to the right, wheels over the curb, and now he's trying to right himself. The woman in purple is pumping her right foot as if nervous. She looks up and I have to translate what I see when she smiles, because she is wearing braces and I really don't expect to see them on someone as old as she is. When I was a kid, only kids got braces.

Thinking about braces, my tongue finds the ragged line of my lower teeth. I had braces too – they were on for two years, and when I was done with the braces, I got a retainer for the top teeth. We moved overseas before I could get the retainer for the lower teeth and since military health didn't include pre-existing dental work, my parents opted not to get the retainer and within a year, the lower teeth had reverted to the way they are now.

The name on the fat kid's jersey is Bland. I knew a man named Bland once. We worked together as janitors in a catholic high school. I remember Eva there too, the three of us cleaning up bathrooms after tampon fights and mopping buffing waxing floors. Later I worked for another janitorial company in a large office building where they designed engines and motors. I used to love going in there at night and looking at the discarded blueprints in the trash bins.

I used to love Waukesha at this time of year.

In early September the days were still warm, and there was seldom any rain. I'd sit out in the grass between the campus buildings to study, or just to stare at the clouds. I still do stare at clouds now and then. Different configurations will remind me of different seasons, different places, and different people. Looking at clouds is like going into a time machine and moving, back and forth, back and forth.

Now the traffic is picking up on the highway. The left turn lane is full, but cars are breezing by in the right lane. Now the light has changed and the turners are moving too. The lane cleared out. The yellow pickup looks like a scene from "the grapes of wrath" with what appears to be an entire household of furniture in the back. Tied up haphazardly, it looks as if the bed may fall out if they hit a bump. Little blue cooper mini. A girl with a ponytail drives, "We heart U" written in soap on the window. The soccer team is still savagely murdering its hamburgers. Two fisted drinker at the counter alternately sipping from a smoothie and a soda until his mother slaps him in the back of the head saying "that's mine" and he gives her the smoothie. The banners and ads are like a slap in the face. Everywhere you look there is an order to buy something. Look out the window and see buildings, each one looking like a massive logo, Target, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Burger King, Sutherlands, Lowes. Ad after ad after ad. They make the street signs and warnings look paltry and weak by comparison. Too much study of Marshall McLuhan and pop art. Everything I see is branding or salesmanship. Buy me, visit me, eat me, put me in your car, your computer, your backpack. No matter that you already have everything, get more, get more. She has one hand on the wheel, with the other counts bills – three fivers by my count, gray Nissan Altima.

Mexico in Sierra Vista

I went to the local Golden Corral restaurant for dinner this evening.  I do that once in awhile when nobody else is around.  It reminds me, and not in a pleasant way, of the galley on board a cruise ship I once traveled on.  The ship's galley had good food - as does the Golden Corral.  Its not gourmet food, but it is very good, homey, comfort food.  They even use salt in some of their recipes!  But there was also something about the ship's galley that didn't feel real - as if it was a theme park version of a mess hall.  That's what I was reminded of inside Golden Corral - it was like going to a fake restaurant. But what was really strange tonight is that it didn't seem as if there were any other Sierra Vistans there.  I scanned the parking lot on my way in, and all the license plates were from Sonora, Mexico.  At least, I didn't see any US plates tonight.  The people who charged me as I went in were Mexican (and they had the nerve to ask me if I was a senior citizen - me!  With all those years left to go...) and they addressed me in Spanish before they realized their error.  All around me in the seating area, I heard Spanish spoken, except one table where the two men were Chinese and speaking their own language as well. On the PA system they were playing Salsa music, which definitely set a South of the Border tone.  I imagine that I felt tonight as most of the Mexicans who visit Sierra Vista do when theycome here, like a stranger in a strange land, more of a curiosity than a person.  I don't know whether it was the Aloha shirt, or the shaved head, but everyone seemed to know that I wasn't one of them. They looked away as they passed by me.
I did enjoy my dinner in Mexico though.  Very nice, tender pot roast and an ear of very tender corn on the cob.  Driving home into the sunset was a delight, once I got the visor over the windshield to the appropriate level, and started driving in the correct lane (which I couldn't see before that!)
Well, I think if I could go back in time and redo some things, one thing I'd do is sign up for High School Spanish.  I learned German pretty well, but mine has grown very rusty and childish from disuse.  Spanish is a language I could have put to good use - I wouldn't feel so dumb in the presence of the Mexican visitors here who have courteously learned to speak excellent English in addition to their native language.

Yellow

Near San Pedro

Everywhere I look, yellow. Yellow sun, yellow clouds, yellow flowers. The sun in the sky yellow and the flowers, also yellow, pull it to the ground. All around the hummingbirds whip back and forth, their tiny wings fanning my cheek as I pass. I am drenched in sweat and watch happily as dust wells up around my feet with each step. That lizard with the yellow spot is talking to me. He is saying eat a lemon, eat a banana, eat some yellow food. A turkey buzzard wheeling around above me is carrying a yellow snake in its talons. The yellow snake calls down to me: its not so bad. I'll be his dinner, but the view from up here is worth a death or two. In my dream, there was a yellow mushroom. It pulsed as though it had lungs. On the mushroom, a yellow ant and a yellow spider. I picked up the ant on my fingertip and read its mind. Suddenly I could see the yellow lightbulb on my lamp through its compound eyes. Yellow pulsed and sang to me. In the shower, I used yellow soap and yellow shampoo, but they did not turn me yellow. The imp inside me laughs when yellow comes. Welcome yellow, he says, come in yellow! Vincent loved yellow and his house was a yellow house. In it, he kept fresh yellow sunflowers and he painted them into immortality. He saw yellow with a magic and perfection that no one before or since has seen. He was the high priest of yellow, the president of yellow, the dalai lama of yellow. He tried to share his yellow with Gauguin, but the beast wouldn't have it. He was too consumed with his island girls. He was too involved with his pure cinnamon girls. He pried their legs open with promises and devotions, and paint smeared on canvas, never understanding the curative value of yellow. Tomorrow will be a blue day, but I say that today was full of yellow.

Talk, Talk

A History of Illuminated ManuscriptsI talk a good game when it comes to writing. The other day I was talking to a woman at the library. She asked where I get the ideas to write so much. I told her that I don't bother to wait for ideas. I just start writing and follow the words wherever they take me. Yet this morning, sitting here in front of my computer screen, I was doing the opposite, struggling to find an idea to get started with. Finally I remembered my own advice and just started in. 

In "The Plague" by Albert Camus, there is a character who is working on a novel. He is so obsessed with getting the first line just right, that he never progresses beyond the first line. I remember laughing at this guy when I read about him for the first time. Later, I read a brief excerpt from one of Camus' letters and he talked about "writing everything as it comes" not forcing organized thought on the words until after they'd found their place on the page. That passage had a profound effect on me – and its what I strive to do when I'm writing. In the format of MAWMAP I don't take the next step, which is to go into the work, pull the good from the bad and start revising and polishing. The task would be anathemic to the work. MAWMAP is about the raw material, the unpolished, unedited, unholy mess of it. The writing is haphazard, sometimes good, but often slipshod, grazing ideas but rarely delving deep into them, writing thoughts without considering them first, letting them go like water over a waterfall, hoping that the whole will be considerably more than the sum of its parts.

That may or may not be the case in the end. We never know really what the worth of the things we create may be. This I know: I find a great pleasure in the work. When I am working, writing or painting, I feel that I am in my proper place in the world, doing what I was made to do. When I find myself in a place, as I have this past year, where I have the freedom to work on MAWMAP and nothing else, I find that I enjoy everything a lot more than usual. I love working. When I stop working, I enjoy the break. If I go for a walk, I enjoy the walking and then enjoy stopping when I get home. The sky looks bluer, the air seems more substantial, the food I eat has a distinctly cleaner flavor and I feel like all is right with the world. If I stop the work, I start to worry about things, I get anxious and start dwelling on how I look to other people, wonder what I'm doing here at all, and so forth. Those worries and anxieties go away when I am working. It's a very simple equation: when I'm working on the project full tilt, I am the happiest and richest man in the world. When I stop, even if its to earn money, I get poorer with each day I don't work.

This was at its best when I lived in Boston. I'd work part of my day to make money by playing music. When I made my daily bread, I'd go to a café, library, or other public place and work on MAWMAP and would work until I couldn't work anymore. I'd go home, pleasantly exhausted, and fall into happy sleep.

Here in Arizona, it hasn't been that simple. I've held down a few full time jobs, and they were involving enough that when I was done I'd have no energy to work on the book. The jobs were not particularly difficult, but they were exhausting spiritually. One job was working for an inbound call center, providing customer service for a health insurance provider. That one was more draining than the others, because very frequently I was required to put people off without providing any meaningful assistance. Another was designing ads for a newspaper. That one was a bit easier to take – I enjoyed the work in that it utilized my design and art skills – I enjoyed it enough that when I was laid off, I was sorry to leave the workplace. It took me awhile to find my way back into MAWMAP though – during the years when I worked for the paper and the call center, I did not work on it at all. I got the volumes I'm working in now nearly 4 years ago – they sat on the shelf for a long time. So after the layoff, I spent all my time looking for a new day job, and worrying about what I was going to do for money and so on. I was feeling very empty, kind of lost and very, very depressed. I couldn't find the ambition to do much of anything. Occasionally I'd pick up my guitar, but when I tried to croak out a song and found my voice still essentially useless, I'd quit fast. Last year in early autumn, I took out the current volume, and started to write. It didn't take long to hit my stride and to establish a routine and within a few months I'd begun to feel I was on track again. I stumbled like a blind man through the early pages, looking for a format that worked for the scale and surfaces the book had to offer. I went back to images and styles I've worked in before, and started trying to loosen my rusty voice (written voice, that is) and to find some of the narrative tools I'd used in earlier books. When I look at the early pages of the volume, I have to say that it was like clearing my throat. About three months ago, the current format asserted itself, and the book started to jell. And right now I am totally involved.

I've since stopped asking what its for – I know what its for – its for enjoyment. Right now, its my enjoyment. Someday soon I hope that other people will be able to enjoy it too – either in gallery exhibits, or in some published form. I don't want to dwell on that aspect too much at this point because I need to learn a lot more about marketing before I can decide where best to apply the finished product. What I do need to focus on is how to produce the modest income I'll need to continue working.

just quick thinking/the sun is out but the interruptions by clouds are more alarming and beautiful/i dreamed that i was wilhelm reich and that the two of us/the original wilhelm reich and me as wilhelm reich/were discussing the merits of the cloudbuster and its longterm effects on orgone energy/ i looked up/surprised to find a very young nikola tesla/who told us that we needed to speak to the orgone energy the way he had learned to speak to lightning/all these spirits/he said/have languages/it angers them that we don't learn to speak with them/somehow it was dark outside and the laboratory had become a shotgun shack/i was with and old girlfriend/one i still love in memory/although i haven't seen or heard from her in 30 years/and she was telling me that the orange slime on the floor meant that there were pteradactyls nearby/and when I looked through an opening in the door I could see that she was right/then there were other people with us/more worried about checking in to the dormitory than they were about the pteradactyls/after awhile I started telling them that I was not crazy/just tired and a bit angry/and that they should leave me alone about it/ thats when the voice over started in/opining about the tragic state of American youth/ as it turned out I was being filmed for an advertisement as part of a US Military propaganda campaign aimed at selling parents on the idea that death in war was far better than a life of juvenile delinquency/the director screamed that my delivery wasn't intense enough/and bill/who was standing nearby/was suggesting that if I attacked the director with a hatchet/he might find the performance more intense/ I felt the axe in my hands/ as I hefted it to learn the balance/it became a ruler/and now i was looking at a single sheet of perfect parchment paper/ it was blank/but my mind had superimposed a brilliant golden line drawing/which i knew was the intended subject for this scroll to be/and I dipped my pen/which had been first the axe then the ruler but was now a dip pen with a speedball tip/ and started to apply the image/which showed a dragon breathing fire/surrounded by the words /beware the bookstore/in a very ornate french letter style/ then we were back in the shack and the pteradactyls were slamming against the side of the building/I was talking to an alligator who had sidled up next to me/asking whether he was afraid of the pteradactyls/ he said that he was more afraid of me than he was of them/fearfully I picked up a harmonica and started playing olde lange syne/ and hoping that the alligator would not remember that he was a carnivore/meanwhile my ex was wandering about gathering candles lamenting that they were a synthetic parraffin and not truly beeswax/ the harmonica kept sounding sour notes/ so i just looked down at my hand and couldn't believe that the palm was now entirely inhabited by a sunflower/I wonder weather this is what Van Gogh saw/ I asked out loud/thats when the alarm went off and I woke up

Just a quick link

I was browsing earlier and found this link to a very good description of using Gouache paint for manuscript illustration.
http://www.jehannesjewels.com/2.4GOUACHE.pdf

Journal not Journal

(When is a journal not a journal?)

It's so strange to be thinking about Suley. I saw someone yesterday who reminded me a bit of her – the olive skin, the dark, dark eyes. I didn't know her very well at all. But since seeing the look-alike, I've been thinking about her almost constantly, conjuring her face, hearing her name in my head. I've been getting flashes of our work area at the call center, I've been replaying memories of shared work. It would make more sense to be thinking about other people, people I knew well and really cared about. Suley was just someone who sat next to me once or twice.

I've also been having a song play in my head to the point of distraction – something I heard in a video, a woman rolling around in a bed whining "Its quarter to three and I'm a little drunk and I need you now" that kind of crap. Unfortunately her voice reminded me of Jonatha Brooke, so initially I paid attention. The song has a memorable if awful hook, and it's been playing ever since. The lyric is as silly and obvious as the worst country songs can be – I've been thinking of recording my own spoken word version of it – but rather than a nubile post-teen rolling around on a bed in a satin nightgown, it will be me, ugly faced and drunk slurring my way through the lyric like a stalker in a late night telephone call.

I guess on a day like this with these loops going, I can honestly say that my thoughts betray me. Too unruly and (there it is again I need you now) intrusive. Today was my big shave day. My head is bare as a baby's bottom, and I'm looking clean again for the first time in a while. My hair was getting long – no longer attractive, it grows in lank and oily, and hangs limply over neck and ears. So this morning I took off most of it with the sideburn trimmer on my electric razor, and then followed up with the Sensor. My face is bottom heavy now. The "Just for Men" is on the medicine cabinet shelf calling my name. Its saying "Eric – do the skunk stripe again." And yet I may.

After talking so much with people about how "different" my book is from a journal, here I am using my laptop to produce a journal which is much more like a regular journal. So far, the blog has not been creative at all. Its all observation. I have to be more disciplined to create more free form stuff. Maybe it's because the blog is published instantly, so I have to contend with the idea that someone else may actually read it.

Well, I'm thinking about "Pan on the Diameter" again. It deserves, at the very least, a rewrite. It shouldn't take too long, and now that I have the laptop in tow, I should be able to produce ten pages a day, or thereabouts. It would be nice to start putting the polish on it, eliminate some of the crap (and I'm sure there is a lot!)

The weather is a repeat of yesterday – clear skies, no clouds. The sun sits up there like a demon, an enemy implacable that people want to defeat. They try to undermine his power at every turn – air conditioners, curtains, swamp coolers, fans. Everywhere you go you see places designed to banish the sun – rooms without windows, awnings. The restaurant have outdoor seating, with misters to try and mitigate the hot air. Its September. The days are much shorter. Sunset comes at seven, and earlier every day. Birthdays are coming up, including my own. And I'm looking forward to October, when the evenings will start to get col

The tattooed duo was here just a while ago. That's what I call the couple I see around town every now and then. One is a tall, statuesque brunette – the other is smaller and a bit more stocky, but with a pleasant face and a dazzling smile. I'm not certain that they are gay, but that is my guess. They are also tattooed. The tall one has nearly a full arm of them, like a sleeve. There is a small dark one on her neck, and when she is nearby I find my eyes drawn to it almost obsessively. Her companion has tattoos on her arms, neck, and face. She also has a few piercings, small glittering studs. I love seeing them. In a town like Sierra Vista, where so many of the expression of self tend towards the gaudy or downright ugly, the tattooed duo has a class and an elegance that I appreciate. A few weeks ago, the taller of the two came over to look at my work – I had a page open with an image of a feathered creature of some sort – looked part human, part bird. She told me she really admired my work. I wanted to talk and introduce myself, but found myself retreating as usual. When I work I tend to be only superficially social. Don't get me wrong – I like it when people talk to me as I work. I wouldn't work in public spaces, cafes and libraries if that was not the case. But I also find myself retreating into "public" mode, as I did when I played in the Square, open, but only to a certain level. I never introduce myself unless someone specifically asks me for my name. Even then, I tend to give them a nickname or just the first name, and they are often put off by that. Its something I've tried to change over the years, but for some reason haven't managed to.

I was out with my parents yesterday, and I saw them then too. My mother made a comment which bordered on rude, and I immediately told her that I knew the two of them, and that they were really very decent. I also mentioned that I found the tattoos, not bizarre, but very, very beautiful. Then mom and dad went into one of their patters, comparing notes about how accepting they are of other people. "Look how well we took it when Uncle Bill told us that Lucilla was gay!" Very self-congratulatory.




 

Excerpt from 1996 journal.

Downtown, April 22, 1996

Fucking cramps in the worst spots. I had a tank of coffee this morning. Maybe it was that or maybe just the shitty hamburger at lunch. Codfish sounded good last night but this morning the farts smell of it. I'm in the grip of the constipator. No toilet nearby. Offal, the books are green and faded. You looked like a noose, coming to get me. Your eyes were big as the Eiffel Tower and you had a generator in you backpack. I was a swordfish and the lists got longer and blossomed into singular travails.

Fucking cramps but I can still walk. That guy he can't even stand up. From here he stinks of Listerine. It's fucking cold down here too. The Russian dude with the electric guitar was there again at Park Street. He's going to get shut down if he doesn't lower the volume and learn a few more tunes. Folks will only tip for "Dust in the Wind" so many times. Jealous of his gear though. I'm jealous, especially of the Roland synthesizer. I want one of my own and that's a fact. How can you not? But I know I won't get one either. I like what I have. Its limited, but ample, loud but not overpowering. It makes me money, see, and that's what you need down there.

The Russian gave me his name the other day (I've since forgotten, so I just call him tovarisch) and suggested sharing spots. Thankfully, he's an early riser and has no objection to sharing hour sets. So tomorrow he'll go for Park Street early, I'll join him around ten and we'll work in shifts until we drop from exhaustion. Later we'll arrange more equitable sits for the morning grab. I'll have to talk to him about migration too – he wants to play PS every day. I can't do that, don't want to piss on the spot so to speak. I'll meet him for coffee - maybe Saturday. I really want to meet the wife anyway.

Rumor is that ML hooked up with Curt Cobain at a nightclub on Landsdowne Street and blew him in the doorway. Now his chick is after her. I heard ML's agent talking about how cool it would be to set up a fight between the two of them – Rolling Stone might give it a bit of space, as Courtney's pretty hot right now.

There's a new girl at Harvard Square, playing crappy keyboard and singing Cat Stevens songs. She's not terrible at least – and she's cute, so she'll make a bit of money. Has to stop calling herself Astarte though! Everyone knows she's from the Bronx. They're already joking that her name is something a whole lot worse. I won't say what it is, but its something ugly and degrading, in fact. And of course the anti-Semite crowd is already calling her Myrtle Cohen. She'll learn, and if she's good enough, they'll learn too.

Suod is crowing about the rent again. Its more than a week before the first, but he's bugging me already. Considering that the heating oil ran out last month again, and that the oven has still not been repaired, he should be less aggressive. I've always paid him on time and in full so this anticipatory crap is a pain in the ass. The guys downstairs from the Indian Restaurant was saying that he's going to raise their rent.

I was at Passim for lunch on Thursday and was shocked to see Peter there with a brand new laptop computer. The damned things look so weird. I can't imagine wanting to use one, but Peter swears that they're great for booking gigs. He was talking about email, and all I could think of was the time we emailed a photograph from the Ranger to the JFK and it took us nearly 48 hours to do it. So Peter is becoming a technocrat. He's been staying away from the streets and working on legit gigs, so I shouldn't complain. The more gigs he books, the more often I'll be able to get Davis Square.