perpetual huddle: 05

buy a dead squirrel on ebay

on the same page

after a long drive up the coast
as we re-entered our neighborhood
my best friend said. "i kind of want
to go to that ... comic book shop...?"
i just nodded.
nothing says "three day weekend"
to me quite like standing
in a fluorescent-lit storefront,
"casually" browsing
the trade paperbacks
for new compilations
by my favorite authors
or "just looking" at the selection
of TNG action figures.

i left data behind,
but i walked out with fell,
a promising warren ellis
and ben templesmith collaboration
about a homicide investigator
exiled from downtown,
sent across the bridge to a haunted
wasteland called snowtown.
sadly, it turned out to be an awkward read.
the panels are almost all close-ups,
drifting with luminous aquatint clouds.
templesmith uses computer-aided
blurring in lieu of action lines.
the images are gorgeous,
but they're an uneasy fit with ellis's
in-your-face gross-out prose.
detective fell with his suit, tie,
and little shock of neon blond hair
just can't pull off the muscular straight-talk
that makes you love spider jerusalem.
forget the feverish gunmetal menace
of snowtown, ellis needs the gritty
sprawl of transmet, its bustle,
its blunt lines and bright colors.

i love smoking

our new roommate brought
with her tons of i love lucy on dvd.
it is bizarre to watch as a woman,
but it is also shocking
to see a celebrity
openly shilling cigarettes.
there she is, lucille ball,
lighting up, taking a long drag,
and repeating the name philip morris,
without a hint of irony.

skip the speech-bubbles

another random find from the sfpl
graphic novels cart, bluesman book 2
bills itself as "the second stanza
of a 12-bar graphic narrative
in the key of life and death."
the artwork lives up
to this ambitious jacket copy;
it pours out of the page,
with some of the same weary
and uneven power as the music
it seeks to imitate. the bright scratches
feel like an old-time recording.
the writing, on the other hand,
is more than uneven.
the dialogue swings so disconcertingly
between the tough-talking wisecracks
of a gumshoe in a hard-boiled mystery
(I don't think you rightly appreciate
the ever-deepening pile of shit
that you are standing in, Mister Johnson
so pardon me as I waive a handful
of it under your nose...)
and the sweeping platitudes
of an unspecified narrator
reflecting on a parable
of u.s. race relations
(There is a dignity,
I think, in celebrating
our fortune together
this way. Rather than
as you would have it--
forever divided.
Until there is not enough
left for even one man
to bother calling his own.)
that halfway through
i just stopped reading
and listened to the pictures.

they do?

They say a moonlit deck
is a woman's business office.
--the lady eve

hankie parachute

at the maker faire
the folks from techshop
gave me the chance to machine
my own brass weight
on a metal-lathe.
i wore safety goggles.
i tightened chucks
and turned cranks.
the gold coils shivered
away from the spinning rod,
as the bits pushed inward,
cutting the base, the shoulders,
the cap, and finally, shearing
the whole thing off to drop
onto the shavings below.
the finished product looks
like the antique brass
weights in granddad's bindery,
only it is brand new.

it has a magnet inset
in the base, but i can't bear
to part with it just yet,
so the fridge will have to wait.
i like to feel it
heavy in my palm.
i like to run my thumb along
the sharp edges.
technically, it is insignificant,
an elementary exercise,
a trinket from a hipster conference,
but holding it, i call my dad.
"i miss granddad" i say.

i get lost trying to explain
how it reassures me of something
i can't seem to put words to,
so i try to explain the whole faire instead.
the botanicalls booth was clever--
your plant telephones you
and asks for water in a funny voice!
the homeschooler in me rejoiced
at madame ovary's shameless eccentricity,
and her sticky wands made of trash.
charles benton's kite aerial photography
is both neato and transcendent.
he uses rubberbands and balsa wood
to form images of the world
that couldn't wouldn't exist otherwise.

at this, dad interrupts me to
tell me that granddad
used to trick out his kites too.
in fact, granddad rigged up a device
to send parachutes
made of old handkerchiefs
sailing up the kite string,
and when it hit the top,
they released.

the brass of the weight
holds the heat of my hand.

amazon.com

I remember Dole pineapple rings
on a bed of lettuce with cottage cheese on top
and sometimes a cherry on top of that.
--joe brainard, i remember

i tried green apple and i tried the strand,
but guess who came through for me in the end...

walkman time capsule

um it is now um 12:05am on october 24th, 2005. it is now technically the last day of long weekend. i have gotten almost exactly no work done. i'm 22 years old. my father was married at this age. and to motivate myself i am making this record of what i'm doing. uh-- it's supposed to be a record of the fact that i'm working. ... so, i'll, uh, just keep you updated. my room is a pile of shit. i have upturned umbrellas. i have typewriters separated from their typewriter containers. i have, um, fork and knife sets that you might use when you're camping. ... anyway ... i'm just gonna keep cleaning until i've got organized piles for each of my classes, and even if i don't get any work done tonight, if i just get prepared to do work, if everything is just clean and prepared to do work, then i'll just fall asleep on my sheetless bed and everything will be o.k. ... cause i feel like i'm capable of doing work, but. alright! better get started!

mother's day

my best friend loves
the movie shirley valentine
and said the main character.
reminded her of me.
i saw it and it reminded
me of my mom, so
i sent it to her
for mother's day.
in retrospect,
maybe not the best gift
for a holiday celebrating
sacrifice in the name of family.
i should have clarified on the gift tag:
mom-- please don't abandon everything
and move to a foreign country without warning!
just don't be afraid to enjoy the view
from a table for one every once in awhile.

homesick

the internet can never
bring me the smell
of fresh baked bread
wafting out of le panier
as i pass, but now,
thanks to streetnote,
at least i can listen
to this guy rap about pot
in pike place market.

loyal porter

last night, as i packed for
my weekend trip to monterey,
the tag on my discount jeans
caught my eye for the first time,
"the loyal." a name that sounds
a little boring, but trustworthy,
like a girl who spends her weekends
birdwatching with her mother.
then, today, on the drive south,
mom and i stopped at REI
to get me another pair of pants.
the ones i found are perfect.
they're asphalt gray ripstop fabric
and the pockets zip shut.
i love them.
but, i have to admit, for a moment,
the name of the style stopped me short.
right in the midst of all that adventure gear
i chose "the porter pant." the porter,
a person hired to carry burdens
up and down the same trail day after day.
its not that i'm especially brand-conscious,
but the marketing types at these big corporations
spend a lot of time and energy
matching visual aesthetics,
intuitive word-assumptions,
and a consumer's desire
for an certain identity.
why couldn't i have chosen
a pair of the "ventures"?
why not lead an expedition,
plant a flag? why not "the riptide,"
for that matter, irresistible,
and just off the shore?
my hesitation was ended
by two thoughts.
1) i know, at least,
that i'd just look silly
in the "overboard short"
and 2) if you read further down
the tag, you'll notice the porter pant
does have "a gusseted crotch for mobility,"
which sounds both
almost unendurably practical
and perversely comic,
which sounds about right to me.

perpetual huddle

Thursday, May 31, 2007

buy a dead squirrel on ebay

Monday, May 28, 2007

on the same page

Sunday, May 27, 2007

i love smoking

Saturday, May 26, 2007

skip the speech-bubbles

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

they do?

Sunday, May 20, 2007

hankie parachute

amazon.com

Sunday, May 13, 2007

walkman time capsule

Friday, May 11, 2007

mother's day

Thursday, May 10, 2007

homesick

Friday, May 4, 2007

loyal porter