Work Is Love Made Visible

On Work

Then a ploughman said, "Speak to us of Work."

And he answered, saying:

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.

For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.

Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

lways you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.

But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,

And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,

And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.

But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.

You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.

And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,

And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,

And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,

And all work is empty save when there is love;

And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,

And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.

And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."

But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;

And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.

And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

from The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

Fuck Rock Stars!! (Bodies, Arrest, Emotion)

Summer is supposed to be a time of romance. Well, summer's over, and mine was not. Now that I'm over being a moody bitch, I have come to this conclusion: I need a rock star boyfriend. Why, you ask?

Let me count the ways -

Who is not happy to have vomit and other bodily excretions on the floor of their hotel room?

Throwing elbows at slutty fans trying to bag your boy in the band is good exercise, and keeps you from developing old-lady waddles under your arms.


If you've no artistic abilities of your own, you can fulfill creative ambitions simply by being a muse. If you aren't his muse, then you can content yourself with riding on the coattails of his glory. Whee!

He has money. Lots of money.

Who needs eardrums?

Sure, the risk of STDs is extra high. Hell, they should offer you hazard pay for the risks you're taking, but an immune system doesn't get stronger without challenges!

Eventually you'll get knocked up, a fact which could cause a separation, but will entitle you to naming your progeny something like 29 Palms, Spaceship Daydream, Jelly Bean, Iggy or Hagar.

Screaming fights and hysterical crying may run your mascara, but that's even more punk rock.

You hang out long enough and you just might learn to play a few chords.

The clothes. The swag. The parties. The travel.

Poolside.

Room service and minibar. Comped. Trashing the place just boosts his image, so throw something! Break the bathroom mirror!



You can be famous just because you were fucking him. This fame will be secured and augmented should any of the following occur -
He puts you in a music video.
He writes a hit song in your honor.
The FBI has a file on him.
The Queen knights him.
Parents of the last underage girl he bagged press charges.
In the event of an untimely death via overdose, suicide pact or small airplane crash in the Rockies, such a demise seals you to the legend for all time, even if he goes down without you.

Sanctioned inebriation, 24/7.

You are now the heroin.

You get to sleep in.


There is a strong likelihood you will find yourself in an open relationship. Don't waste this opportunity. There are just as many cute guys in the audience, road crew, and warm up bands as there are hot slags. Make hay!

Living fast and dying young means you neither have to invest in nor worry about your future.

Bailing your man out of the slammer means heaps of mileage points on your Visa.

However, you are essentially above the law.

You are cooler than everyone else.



If it doesn't work out, you'll always be able to sell the book.

Also, who says you have to content yourself with one rockstar relationship? Patti "Layla" Boyd married a Beatle and Eric Clapton, and the latter wrote five songs about her.

There is, unhappily, at least one tragic flaw in my plan - I cannot think of a single recent rock star I'd want to hang out with like that. The really good ones are of a bygone era. Except maybe one of these blokes (well, they're not famous yet). Hope they're treating my home town right tonight.

V.I.P., R.I.P

Though for the most part I had a good time seeing this band I know at House of Blues last Wednesday night, there were several things which annoyed me.

White Starr did not annoy me, though they aren't the band I came to see. They were extremely entertaining, and I'm partial to music that mixes southern fried rock with T. Rex, AC/DC, rockabilly and maybe even a little ELO. There was something kind of J. Geils about them, too. Lead singer Cisco Adler is a cocky smirky comedic little shit, but his everpresent smile is winning, and I love that he is exulting in his "I'm meant for rock stardom and so is my cock. So I'm going to swing it all around like a macho bastard, and for contrast, slide a little gay into my moves, kind of like Mick used to." He's got it, what ever "it" is. Banging Mischa Barton on a regular basis probably doesn't hurt his self-image either. So they were fun.

Another thing that did not annoy me was the moment at which I turned away from the annoying headlining act, Candlebox (Jeez, they are HORRIBLE), only to see who? Who, you ask? Dan Freakin' Haggerty, that's WHO! That's right, Grizzly Adams was over at the bar, all barrell-chested and hairy. I think I shrieked with laughter. I was laughing so hard and so excited, I grabbed my friend Andy's arms for support, 'cause I was falling to my knees with the sheer joy of ridiculousness. Where was Mad Jack? Where was Nakoma? 49er? Okay, they don't let mules in LA clubs (just jackasses), but maybe they'd make an exception for the bear? I LOVED that show as a kid. It's funny how seeing big stars can leave you flatlining, but you take a D-lister who figured into your childhood, and suddenly you're in awe. Did you know he did time for selling cocaine? Did you know he is the only person to have his star REMOVED from the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Blvd.? Genius. And he's still got all that hair. Well done, Man.

What did annoy me was being up in the Foundation room and having to listen to the so-called "v.i.p.s" shove their resumés in everyone's face the way they do out here in L.A. Am I wrong to believe that is a characteristic peculiar to the men of this city? Because I didn't experience that in NY or Paris, or back home in Portland. Unless of course, the guy was a complete donkey. In LA you're caught between the choice of spiffy button-down shirts and hair product or the no recent wash beneath a Sucker Hat, generally bearing a Coors label, or maybe John Deere. The first group tends to represent and the latter is represented, the "talent." Agents/producers/entertainment lawyers/developments types dress up, while actors/musicians/sometimes writers, dress down. Pick your poison, if they're flying the freak flag of a "costume," I'll guarantee you they are douchebags. Why is it that so many people don uniforms? Is that what like-minded folk do simply to find one another? I find it particularly ironic for folks who pursue creative careers - if you can't think of anything more original or merely individualistic to wear, what kind of mark do you think you'll be making artistically?

Anyway, in under a minute of being there, I ran into a pretty boy wannabe actor who tried unsuccessfully to shag me at a party two years ago. This time he gave me the once over and a sly smile, but I'm positive he didn't recognize me in the least. Raise a glass to the road not taken.

Immediately afterward, I was cornered by a guy who I went to college with, and whom I have seen only once since graduation, at Sundance in 2002. In the last four years, Ethan has gone from being a very average sized fellow (maybe five-eleven, approx. 165 lbs., quite lank and lean, no surfeit of muscle there), to an absolute ballooning whale of a man. I have nothing against people who carry around extra baggage, but it is astonishing to see someone change so much so quickly. He must have been at least two-fitty, no, 280, though it's difficult for me to gauge weight in men, and it all looked like fatty liver alcoholic bloat to me. Think Morrison, towards the end. If I had poked him with a finger he would have involuntarily giggled.

He embraced me, and I was overwhelmed by the stale and sickly smell of booze on his breath. It was day after a bender kind of breath, not just polished off a highball of Macallans breath. It was nasty. He was known in school for being annoying, though he ran around with a very elite group of Eurotrash and NY socialites. He was always very nice to me, and was in my painting class, so I was kindly in return, but I have never really liked this guy. He was always trying too hard to impress, with his erudition and his accomplishements, while maintaining a very cynical and disapproving persona. Turns out, he was a compulsive liar, and all his little histories crumbled. We don't really know who he is or what he does, or even what planet he comes from. But he is a person of means and access, so once in his orbit, you cannot escape him.

In the labor of the fifteen minutes I spoke with him, I answered this question nearly six times, "What are you doing here?" I was there to see my friends play, as I told you before, and before that, and the other time before that. I tried not to entirely glaze over when he pressed play on the accomplishments tape, blah blah blah, screen adaptation, blah blah, Jude Law, blah, blah. I asked if he kept up with anyone from school. Seemed innocent enough and might give us something more interesting and mutual to discuss. The question gave some strange offense, "You know, I have a career, I don't have TIME to be worrying about..." Uh-huh.

Then, in the next breath, he invited me to a surprise birthday party for another alum, a proposal over which I was all knotted up, because the couple is absolutely charming and lovely, and I haven't seen them in about three years. One of them is the son of an adored former professor. I was amazed they were still friends with Ethan. This one was tugging me hard - couldn't I just go to see them? No, it's strictly against my code of ethics to use someone, even if it's his own idea. In my sorry world of principles, I would have to derive some sense of enjoyment from being in this person's company to accept the invitation. I have no wish to be fake with people, and if simply standing there speaking with him is in violation of my desire to be authentic, I forgive myself in the name of social decency. As it stood, I pried myself away only when it didn't seem insultingly abrupt.

Once freed, I rejoined my friend, who was in a conversation with a stout middle-aged fellow. Looked like he once played football, then became a businessman. In under three minutes he brought up (apropos of what?), the fact that he had worked extensively with INXS back in the day, "before he killed himself." I always thought it was a case of auto-erotic asphyxiation gone awry, but in either case, WHEN ELSE COULD YOU HAVE WORKED WITH HIM? Then he asks, "What was his name again?"

"Michael Hutchence," I quickly supplied.

(Are you kidding me?)

I guess they really were close.

When we went to pick up my sorry little car from the valet, I saw two acid yellow sports cars. One was a Ferrari, the other some model of Porsche I have never seen. It looked like some limited edition model; the car was to oddly designed to be driven by regular LA douchebags. As we waited, my friend and I recounted the recent details of the evening, I went into a mini fit. "Michael, people in this town are so full of shit. They're so full of shit, it's spilling over. LOOK at those CARS. THOSE CARS ARE FULL OF SHIT." I'm fairly certain I was unnerving the valet staff. Um, lunatic female verbally assaults luxury vehicles. Egos strewn about the lot like limbs at Gettysburg. Attitude drawn and quartered. Somebody get her another Patron Silver.

I was informed recently that while walking home with a group of friends, I allegedly attacked a small barrier of orange safety cones. This purported incidence incidented on the way home from the Franklin Street Fair three years ago. We'd been drinking margaritas al fresco for hours on a perfect September Sunday. Anyway, as we got to the end of the cordoned off strip, I ranted something political, something about impositions of The State. Maybe I thought Ashcroft put those cones there for Security Reasons, but apparently, I wasn't having any of it. And the cones suffered for it.

I don't know what the hell they were talking about.

Anyway, were something like that at all likely to happen, I assure you it would only occur once in say, umm, three years. Okay, it's feasibly an annual event. However, I do believe such behavior is rather more frequently encouraged by my friends. So, I place the responsibility in their laps, on their heads - the blood's on their hands. May the cones R.I.P.

Saturn Eating His Children

I'm sorry of course that I watched this 90 minute documentary, and I won't say what I think is true at this point, because I don't honestly know. But if this is factual, the truth is even more horrifying than we've imagined. You should figure on that one for yourself, then tell me what to think. What really happened on September 11th, five years ago? If it is as it seems from evidence put forth in this film, then Goya's painting is as appropriate as the tarot card I posted in memoriam.

Watch Loose Change, 2nd Edition. If you lost a near and dear, the fillmakers will send you a copy for free.

Popular Mechanics published a cover story on this documentary in refutation. Here is a link to a debate between the writer/director of the film and the magazine's editor-in-chief.

Just spreading sunshine, whenever I can.

"Orangutans are skeptical of changes in their cages..."*

RPP and Rima were talking to a couple of friends, Liz and Brian, who had just returned from the LA Zoo. RPP said she'd never been but would surely like to go. So, Brian reached into his pocket and pulled out the ticket stubs, handing one to each of our ladies.

RPP: "Oh look, a llama!"

Rima: "It's a rhino."

RPP: "Uh, that's a llama."


(this back and forth goes on for what seems like five minutes)

Rima: "Rhino."

RPP: "Llama."

Rima: "Um, have you SEEN one lately?"

RPP: "I'm LOOKIN' at one right now!"

Brian grabs Rima's ticket in exasperation and disgust, "That's a rhino!"

RPP: "Let me see..."

RPP laughs, "That IS a rhino."

Then she hands over her ticket, upon which there is indeed a photo of a llama.

Because, of course, they were looking at different pictures.


*At the Zoo, Simon & Garfunkel

Raindrops on Roses

I had a realization awhile back that certain things aesthetic fill me with a dull and hazy sense of dread. The sensation is something like a foggy headache, not strong enough to really be called a pain, and coupled with a very thin paste of nausea. I should call it a slurry, really. Sometimes it feels vaguely claustrophobic. Kind of like the malaise of a too-long nap in the late afternoon, you just don't feel quite right. The only examples I can think of at the moment, and I'm sure there are others, are these:



The original Star Trek series
Planet of the Apes
the Carpenters' tune "Sing a Song"
That other insipid tune, whoever sang it, "Seasons in the Sun"
seashells
overly earthen 60s-70s decor
Sunday afternoon televised golf
seashell decor
depictions of seashells
overhead lighting
Keane paintings
acrylic knits (if I touch this material, the reaction is quite extreme. I literally get chills, the bad kind, up and down my spine.)
daisy prints
shag carpeting
small children singing in any sort of performance (I can handle it when they are simply doing it for their own amusement)
and seashells (every time)

Did I mention seashells?

When I recognized what these things had in common, the feelings of loathing suddenly made sense. These are relics of my very early childhood. These are icons of depression. What confused me is that I don't find that the sensation is, in all cases, linked to the relative value of the things themselves. There is some aesthetic medocrity here, to be sure, but why hate Star Trek? Even as ludicrous as that show can be, it certainly has value in its kitsch appeal and absurd humor. Interestingly, that show and the Heston pic are two things I am quite certain I watched with my father. I am not saying I hate those shows, it's just a gray area, a brume. Something to do with the bourbon and Coke on the end table, and me beside him in his easy chair. It's as if my body remembers the haze of his exhalations of alcohol and smoke, hanging in the room.

As to the seashells, you put one to your ear and you hear the sea. I press it to mine and I hear static. I hear the echo of an empty chamber, the hollow home of someone who isn't coming back. Less melodramatically, why is all seashell decoration so insistently little-girl-cloth pastel? Corals, baby pinks, robin's egg blue, peach and tan and it's all an unjustifiably optimistic mess. If it had a sound it would be "Seasons in the Sun." How can something meant to be pretty make me want so much to throw things or scream to break the deadening monotony? If I see a picture of it in a book or magazine, I want to slam the pages closed in the same kind of shocking fear I had as a child when my fingers landed on the photo of a dreadful insect or nematode or a diseased intestine. Genuinely, I was afraid to touch even the image of something disgusting.

I can only conclude that the aversion is something akin to an instinctual aversion to the threat of poisoning, or disease. The way the ignorant shunned the crippled, perhaps thinking their malady a symptom of plague, my memory sends me running from the images that recall periods of emotional trouble.

Or I'm just a snob.

Good Omens

This baby's a one in a million. Born August 25th, it's the third on the Heider farm in Wisconsin since 1996.

"When White Buffalo Calf Woman promised to return again, she made some prophecies at that time

One of those prophesies was that the birth of a white buffalo calf would be a sign that it would be near the time when she would return again to purify the world. ...she would bring back harmony again and balance, spiritually."

-Joseph Chasing Horse

Dear Adam -

I have a story rattling around in my head. Rather noisomely, and for years now. It's something about how you went and found love without me - a thing I still can't quite believe and yet believe entirely, aloof and strange a creature as you are.

I don't dare to speak of you in present tenses; I've no present knowledge of you.

Stephen swears you must have lost all your hair by now, then he laughs and laughs. Your gorgeous hair - I hope it's not gone. I hope you have a hole searing through your heart and a pit of absence in your gut that causes you periods of immense and unbearable sorrow every time you think of me. But the hair - I hope the hair, all the chocolate and soft lush waves of it, is all still there.

I stand so far outside of your life that I wonder if I ever existed at all. Feels almost like those wasted hours in grocery stores waiting for you to pick out a suitable spaghetti sauce. It was just one moment of the constant, intolerable anguish of witnessing you nickel and dime everything and everyone to death.

Was it a delay tactic? You always hated decisions.

What of those lazy afternoons at eighteen? What of dusky golden afternoons and your furtive caresses, when you thought I'd fallen asleep beside you? Hopeless for you, gone on you, as I was, you could never just reach out and touch me without the security of my ignorance. Was that it? Sometimes I only pretended to sleep. I loved you so, all of me was always yours, no matter who might distract me. And they couldn't have, if you had just been man enough to claim me. I know you watched me sleep; I know you pulled me close to you.

You left school after Sophomore year, and I blame Edward Hoagland for this fact. I blame him very much. I had always liked his work, but I can't even think of his name without remembering the loss he caused, so unintended. He told you to leave. He said you were already past whatever school could give you. You, nineteen years old and smarter than everyone else around you, but flailing about like everyone else around you. What did you know? What did he? You two dunces knocked your heads together during office hours and suddenly my sky grew dim. I needed you; you needed someone to ground you. Clever phrases aren't enough to make a life. I could have told him that, even back then. And now, so far as I know, you don't write at all. So that worked out well.

Then after college, when you finally told me you loved me, I was so confused because you never asked me to stay. I traveled three thousand miles across the US, stopping in Berkeley just to see you. But you never said move, you never said live with me. Then you went to Europe and invited me, but I'd no way to pay my way.

Did we only keep missing each other, or was it something else?

We never slept together, even as much as we slept together. You said it was a question of respect. So you read to me in bed, instead. And I listened to the induction of your hypnotic tones and breathed in the scent escaping your chaste t-shirt. Sometimes you'd kiss me and touch me some more. I thought I might faint.

You said you always believed we'd be married. You told me when we were eighteen, it was in the Spring, our halcyon days. That was the time I didn't remember, so you told me again when I was twenty-eight. That's the time I do. Then you disappeared within the year without so much as a good-bye, or a "maybe we shouldn't," or any sort of indication that things were about to go horribly awry. Horribly good-bye. It was that table trick with the cloth ripped out from under all the china and stemware, and maybe there's a vase. Except this time everything toppled and the floor was damp. The magician left the mess, so we just shut the door on that room.

Until next time, be well, dear Adam.

Another Evil Vixen

That Company Bitch, why is she not my best friend?

Evil Evil Vixen!

Love this comedienne, Natasha Leggero. Everything that comes out her mouth is a thing I abhor. God she's funny! She's fabulous! (I hate that word!)

Check out her Tonight Show performance.

In Memoriam

Monochrome

it's 4 in the morning July in '69
me and my sister
we crept down like shadows
they're bringing the moon right down to our sitting room
static & silence
& a monochrome vision

they're dancing around
slow puppets silver ground
& the world is watching with joy
we hear a voice from above
& it's history
& we stayed awake
all night

& something is said & the whole room laughs aloud
me & my sister
looking on like shadows
the end of an age as we watched them walk in a glow
lost in space
but i don't know where it is

they're dancing around
slow puppets silver ground
& the stars & stripes in the sand
we hear a voice from above
& it's history
& we stayed awake
all night

they're dancing around
it sends a shiver down my spine
& i run to look in the sky &
i half-expect to hear them asking to come down
will they fly or will they fall?
to be excited
by a long late night

- The Sundays, 1997



(One of my all-time favorite bands. You haven't lived till you hear Harriet Wheeler live, especially when she sings "Wild Horses." I just learned we share a birthday. She's a doll-baby.)

Pocket Full of Kryptonite

The internet gods are angry, or something. I linked, in my post below, to an HILARIOUS animated short on You Tube - "Superman: How It Should Have Ended," and what do you know? They took it all down today. After a brief Google search, I came across the offical website, where hopefully you can watch the >2 minute piece. I cannot, as I don't have the right plug-in "mime" type (whatever the hell THAT IS). Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, it was the whole point of yesterday's post.

Underoos Are Fun to Wear!

This is Super funny, (especially if you have a Savior Complex).

On Hiatus (and Generally Unfocused)

...mostly from men, but it seems to be impeding my writing as well. Trying to catch my breath so I can think clearly again. I'm sure once the oxygen returns to my brain the sense of dislocation will cease, and then I'll have something to share. You can always suggest topics. That might be amusing.

Till then, let me just say that I am irritated by signage in grocery stores corrupting the developing English language skills of children, immigrants, and the educationally underserved. It's not properly, "10 items or less." It should be "fewer," if my memory is servicable. But then, I'm oxygen deprived.

I saw a Thai restaurant today named, "Khun Dom." I'm just sayin'.

Better Than Ezra(?)

BE in me as the eternal moods
of the bleak wind, and not
As transient things are—
gaiety of flowers.
Have me in the strong loneliness
of sunless cliffs
And of gray waters.
Let the gods speak softly of us
In days hereafter,
the shadowy flowers of Orcus
Remember thee.

-Ezra Pound, 1885-1972

On the other hand:


Afternoon on a Hill

I WILL be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950). from Renascence and Other Poems. 1917.


Compare and contrast, children. Essays due Tuesday. Blue books on Friday next.

Someone Get This Man a Blow Job. Pronto!

One more reason why I looove Jeremy Piven (I even loved him when he starred in the half season of "Cupid." Who remembers that?), this time from the red carpet at the recent Emmy awards show, and I'm citing The Dooce here:

...At one point Billy Bush was asking Jeremy Piven about which celebrity babies he had seen -- Baby Violet? Baby Shiloh? what about mythical Baby Suri? -- when Piven whipped around and said directly into the microphone, "You need another job. I mean, you have potential as a human being. This may not be right for you. Seriously. Can you focus on other things?"

And this to her husband in regards to Katherine Heigl's appearance on the same strip:

I told him that this was one of those instances when he was allowed to look below the woman's chin because something that stunning shouldn't go unappreciated. Her dress was the color of liquid gold, and it hugged her body like the hand of God. "If it makes you feel any better," my husband said reassuringly, "I bet the only reason her chest looks that amazing is because right before she walked on stage a thousand tiny fairies appeared and licked an ocean of cocaine off her breasts."

Or maybe it was just Piven, back in the limo. Watch his Ari Gold montage (scroll down to his photo, you'll find it). Let's hug it out, Bitch.

Yeats, Verily

Dear Sir -

Here is my offering, as you requested. It might come as some source of disappointment to learn the which of my favorite, as one could deem it too easy, obvious or girleen.* If memory serves, someone of your disposition might rather prefer, say, a maritime theme, as in The Shadowy Depths.

I am fond of A Prayer for My Daughter, though some of the latter might give cause to those who insist on William Butler's "woman problem," and old Thomas Stearns Eliot's an anti-Semite, and "In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo," the homosexual. And what of it? Is an artist's merit in the life or the work? Neither, as they aren't really separable, and surely attitude and bias inform philosophy, which is present in art. So that must be attended to by a scrupulous reader. But as we discover beauty within the imperfect environment that is its setting, we must remember contrasts that offset and augment. We must remember that it is the very nature of the fragile human, and call it even more beautiful still.

Additionally, I care for The Stolen Child, among others. But truly, my simple favorite is what follows on this page and in the nature of my fool's heart. Just you be glad I didn't choose, When You Are Old.

Aedh Wishes For The Clothes Of Heaven**

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

-W.B. Yeats

I love it for the sentiment, for the love of the feeling world over the material one. I love the rhyming of the word with the same word, which seems like the self meeting the self through the other self, which is so much like falling in and making love. I love the hypnotic induction brought on by the meter, the aforementioned rhyme scheme, and the repetition of words, interspersed and creating internal rhyme and all the more hypnosis which, is so much like falling in and making love.


*(I am shocked not to find this word in the dictionary, though I learned it some time ago, I am quite convinced, from within the pages of the famed synesthete's,(Nabokov), sin, his soul, Lolita. I think it's simply Irish for "girlish.")
** (This poem is alternately called, "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven." If someone can give me an accurate and relevant meaning of Aedh, I would appreciate it.)

Well, They Don't Call It a "Good Fortune Cookie"

Yesterday, I ate lunch with a friend at my favorite neighborhood Thai restaurant, where the sweet old proprietress gives you trashy tabloids to read as you await your meal. The decor, almost always poor in Asian restaurants (sorry, it's TRUE), proves the rule at this particular place. However, I find it particularly charming, as the peusdo-wallpaper/vinyl panelling wears a 50s hunting-lodge theme. You get to look at earthen-toned pencil sketches of deer and pheasant as you sit amongst the plastic nosegays and under the acoustic tile. But the food is cheap and really good.

So I was trying to get over the flu and my summer-long badditude with hot coconut soup. It helped, though I was weak and woozy. Then the check came with our cookies. My fortune read:

"You would be wise not to seek too much from others at this time."

Help. The Water Is Rising. Please.*

This from my roommate, who, as you might recall, volunteered in New Orleans this May:
"Just an excerpt of what a friend I met at the clinic in New Orleans wrote. Hope you can take the time and
read." -RPP


"Hurricanes and typhoons have always struck me as expert dancers do. I admire them from afar and tremble violently when their beauty and passion brush up inches from my face. Living as we are in a nation that kills many a passion, it's only reasonable that we remember the times when the ferocity of a Category 5 Passion lays us low. It's only fair that we give them names.

But this, if nothing else, needs to be understood. I did not come to New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina.

I came here because of something very unbeautiful--something so cruel and vicious that, when unleashed, snapped all our bodies in half on August 29, 2005.

As you might guess, such a monstrous thing is simply too difficult for God or nature or the winds to pull off successfully.

I came, like many, repentant. You can only apologize to a point—for the people you and your ancestors elected and protected and pampered and blindly followed and falsely trusted, for the levees they didn’t build right and the money that wasn’t there to get them right, for the incompetence of Emergency Managers, for the folks like Barbara Bush who believe that the hundreds of thousands of evacuees are better off displaced than in their 'underprivileged’ lives back home. After that,
you get on your knees. You pray. You hurt. You think it's better for your eyes to be just a little farther from the harsh sunlight. You want to bend your nose to the earth to taste the moldy debris, the taste of rotting death. Maybe once you understand, you will begin to appreciate, and mourn more openly.

Well, that’s pipe dreams for ya. Almost a year in this city now and I feel even further from understanding, even though
during that same year I have grown and evolved and learned more than I fully realize. I’ve learned what it means to have a home and a family and a love for them, a place to be proud of because you helped build it. I’ve learned all the dreary yet fascinating details of the medical world, of running a nonprofit, of engaging in antiracist work, of basic neighborhood
planning. I’ve learned how to say ‘etouffee’ correctly, end my
conversations with "Alrightyallhaveablestdaynow,” wear nice pants torespect the dignity of others.

More exactly I’ve witnessed the consequences of a manmade disaster, the successful outcome of centuries-old racist and
capitalist policies that were all too painfully predictable and unsurprising to the residents here. I’ve seen politics at its ugliest, from photo ops to FEMA to cops to vigilantes to Bring New Orleans Back By Turning Black Neighborhoods Into Golf Courses. I’ve participated in hundreds of meetings, a segment of my life I sometimes wish I could rescue from the abyss.
I’ve marveled at how people use insanity (Mardi Gras) and blasting noises (brass bands and second line parades) as means of revival after a hit that many are STILL mourning each passing day. I’ve fallen in love with a city and its people, so financially and developmentally poor, so spiritually and culturally and creatively rich, and I’ve doubted often whether those less-trumpeted riches are enough to get us through. I’ve been swallowed by a large relief organization and its many arms that
entice me and revolt me, make me question everything I’ve ever believed about ‘relief’ and‘solidarity’ and ‘radicalism’ and ‘THE WORK.’ I’ve criticized less the Other Enemies and more our own (power, privilege,sexism, racism, unaccountability), took a lot of heat, discovered what it really means to be strong. I’ve focused on patience, patience for a slow rebuilding; yet
there is urgency, urgency to get people back homewhile they still can. I’ve wondered whether, for the betterment of everyone, I shouldn’t be hereat all.

All this, and I am still annoyed at how infantile I feel, how little I know. It will take me years in this place before Istart getting it. But I don’t have the resilience of these people, some who’ve lived through the great floods of 1927 and 1965 AND this one too. You can’t cultivate that will-do spirit overnight. Some days I stare at this crazy mess and just want release from it. Like, give us a break, dammit. I mistakenly offered my phone to a man at a bus stop who ‘needed to
call his girl, except it was his ex-girl, and most of the ensuing 30-minute conversation was him begging her for forgiveness. He wanted a bus ticket to go back to her home (only she had the money for it). He wanted to start again fresh. He wanted to marry her. He just wanted her. She wasn’t having none of it. Eventually he got stuck on repeating one desperate line—“Don’t do me this Tanya!” Over and over. It’s amazing how much you can say “Don’t do me this!” while you’re sobbing. I felt sorry for him, then I just thought he was pretty pathetic. Come on man, try harder. Say something different. Win back her trust.

Now, one year later, this city has made so little headway it’s embarrassing. Everyone’s getting hit while they’re down. Rent goes up, gas goes up, trailers aren’t available, eviction notice gets posted, friends and parents die, cousins go to Jail and definitely don’t pass Go. The hits keep coming, unrelentingly, and you’d laugh at how ridiculously bad it is if you weren’t so pissed off. Don’t do me this Tanya. Please. Don’t do me this.

I’m looking back at all I’ve just written and I’m frustrated. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say here. It totally shows. This is not quite a lecture, nor is it an apology. This is not a recruitment drive for the Movement to Rebuild New Orleans (if there is, or ever was, one). This is not a request for funds or volunteers. (It’s not that simpleanymore.) This could be interpreted as just trying to impress people with my mediocre writing skills, which I would concur with if I wasn’t so desperate to reach you all through the computer screen, grab you by the shoulders and not let go. Maybe this is me trying to
paint a picture, but words, alive as they are, are not colors, and this picture is for my eyes only. I’ve long since given up trying to imprint this image on the minds of others.

I think, in the end, I am asking for some recognition. Not necessarily the precise date. Recognition of this place, of these
people, of these atrocities and hopes, of what happened here a year ago, on a Monday morning. I think most of you have already done that. You’ve probably found the same struggles and experiences in everything you do, in who you are. We’re all trying to understand and there’s no reason for making Katrina a Bigger Daddy than it already is. There’s just been a devastating war in Lebanon, for gosh sakes. And the number of poor in the US keeps growing. And people keep organizing
and resistance keeps getting stifled and timelessness and changes and so on. All, all must be recognized and appreciated. And in some cases mourned.

And, I am asking you to keep such energies and memories alive by teaching them. Tell the stories, tell what we’ve learned and what we don’t know, inspire others to avoid the same old mistakes, to denounce the injustices. We’re never too young (or too old) to begin. I have a 2-year-old niece. I chat every day with an 82-year-old man just down the block. I can start
with them. And I will keep my ears attuned to what they teach me."

* (The title of today's post is from a photo taken of survivors stranded on a parking lot rooftop. In large white letters they wrote the message and waved American flags. The picture is on a Yahoo! slideshow, but the image is protected and could not be grabbed. You can find it in the slideshow, here.)

The Little Stars

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down, and little stars come out of you."

-Karen, age 7

In the Light

And if you feel that you can't go on. And your will's sinkin' low
Just believe and you can't go wrong.
In the light you will find the road. You will find the road

Oh, did you ever believe that I could leave you, standing out in the cold
I know how it feels 'cause I have slipped through to the very depths of my soul.
I just wanna show what I'd give you it is from every bend in the road
Now listen to me
Oh, whoa-whoa, as I was and really would be for you, too, honey
As you would for me, oh, I would share your load.
Let me share your load. Ooh, let me share, share your load

And if you feel that you can't go on
In the light you will find the road



Though the winds of change may blow around you, but that will always be so
When love is pain it can devour you, if you are never alone
I would share your load. I would share your load
Baby, let me, oh, let me

In the light
Everybody needs the light.
In the light, in the light, in the light


(Jones/Page/Plant)

Pluto Went J.V.

I just returned from a bar. If you lived in my world, you'd know that's about as rare an occurrence these days as Halley's Comet. Good thing, too, because I can get a hangover from merely looking at the margarita salt, sort of a Lot's Wife scenario.

Anyway, the pain I'll be feeling tomorrow might just be worth the gems I heard tonight. First, it was my friend (who we'll call "JM"), telling me, "I'm tempering myself with beer." I'm sure that's what Carrie Nation had in mind.

Then I had the bright idea of compiling a "top ten" list of drunken behaviors. Most of them are mine, and admittedly we not only omitted a few obvious ones, but also spilled over the limit:

1) overly emotional or earnest
2) calling exes
3) dancing with myself* (this is that solitary person who interacts with no one, and might as well be drinking at home, alone).
4) grandiose resumé.
5) cock-blocking (sorry, I couldn't think of a fresher way to say that).



At this point, I got the bartenders involved, which was my plan all along. Because, who better to comment than the constant observers?

Bob immediately jotted down three -
- ordering your next drink in Spanish.
- looking at your watch contemplatively before ordering next drink.
- saying, "I've got hers," really loud when any woman orders a drink.

Fair enough, Bob. Your second's my favorite.

6) under-realized self-realization* (pure genius, JM)
7) I've got your number (the guy who thinks he gets you, and can't resist telling you all about it).
8) love at first sight (this happened to me later, but we'll get to that...)
9) sad clown (I fear that if I visited these places with any sort of regularity, this would be my category).
10) feel my implants!

Number eleven was inspired by a fellow two stools over who, once my friend stepped out for a smoke, broke the fourth wall and insisted that he had some divine right to espy what I'd written all over the cocktail napkin because, as he put it, "I've dropped enought money at this place tonight." I told him I didn't see what that had to do with me, and let's face it, I'd been snubbing him all night. Mostly, I didn't like it when he thought my Britney Spears impersonation was real, and wouldn't believe I wasn't from the South. Not so much that he didn't believe me (and nothing at all against the South), but because he was so smirky about it.

After, there was another miscomprehension of double smirkiness when he saw my friend offer me a Ben Franklin. It was an expression I wanted to smear off his fool face. I'm sure it looked dubious at best, but really it was an encouragement to fulfill my threat of standing up on my seat and hollering, "Who here's going to knock me up?" Because, you see, I have this secret fantasy life of ways I'd like to act out, that I'll never likely do.

11) guy who keeps looking at you crudely, as if you've ever even noticed he exists.

12) Plan B.

Plan B could be interpreted several ways, which is generally the ways I like it. It was inspired by the muted television overhead, and a news story about the morning after pill. I just figure that drunk people often forget certain precautions, necessitating a Plan B. Still, it could refer to a consolation prize you take home, yet another reason I don't dabble much in this bar culture.

On the way to the door (that would be before eleven, cause I'm like an old lady, though sadly no one's old lady at the moment), I was stopped my a rather handsome, if overly shaggy, fellow in a basketball jersey who proclaimed as soon as I halted, "I'm in love with you," thereby validating my inclusion of number eight. "Really?" I asked. "How can you tell, did you read my aura or something?"

"I just knew when I saw you walking over." Then he politely said some very praising things, so I decided to refrain from further sarcasm. If you tell me I look like Michelle Pfeiffer, I'm unlikely to be bitchy. Still, that doesn't mean I'm going home with you, whether you're from Hot-lanta or not. The second time he professed his love, I said I didn't think one could really know that for at least a year after being with someone. The third time he told me, I replied, "Finally, someone is." Then I touched his arm, and tried to segue out with a, "nice to meet you." He clutched his chest above his heart (I'm not kidding), and said, "Well, you know where to find me." I walked away. Cute as he was, that was never going to happen.



*contributions of my friend. Thank you JM.

Who Loves Ya Baby?

A friend of mine recently went on an audition for a new Bruckheimer television show. This particular fellow is someone who worked in sitcoms for a decade and whose face and character name you would certainly recognize, so long as you had access to Thursday night NBC and weren't busying yourself with feeding orphans in Conchasa, hunting new species of Lepidoptera in the rainforests of Southeast Asia (in which case you needn't have bothered because I already checked, there aren't any more), or holing yourself up in the bomb shelter your grandfather built in your Wichita backyard when Ike was still brightening the skies with that shiny dome of his.

Anyway, my friend said he had the worst audition of his life, right in front of Bruckheimer, the casting director, and several producers. The lines he didn't fumble, he completely forgot.

Stunned by his own poor performance he requested another pass at it.

They replied, "If you feel it's absolutely necessary."

The second was worse than the first. The room was silent. He was tense.

Then he broke what he called, "the cardinal rule of actors," he apologized.

"I have been having absolutely the worst day..."

Then he reflected for a moment, "Well, not so bad as the people in Lebanon."

He looks up, scans the room, and after ingesting the ethnic composition of the panel, backpedals, "Oh, or the people in Israel!"

Stone silence.

In horror, he backed out of the room - "I'm very sorry for having wasted your time."

Why didn't he just call them "Sugartits"? Maybe put a little less Mel-ly and a little more Telly Savalas on it.

Which brings us to a conversation I heard at a hip coffee shop this afternoon:

Guy 1: "You know how I knew Mel Gibson was drunk?"

Guy 2: "How?"

Guy 1: "When did you last see a Jewish cop in LA?"

We danced our youth
In a dreamed-of city
Venice, paradise,
Proud and pretty
We lived for lust and love and beauty
Pleasure then our only duty
Floating then ‘twixt heaven and earth
And drunk on plenty’s blessed mirth
We thought ourselves eternal then
Our glory sealed with God’s own pen
But paradise we found is always frail
Against man’s fear will always fail.

(from Dangerous Beauty)

Newsflash

Mom's okay. Just a scare, or as my step-father said tonight "an attention getting device," that came in the form of a fatty mass. No biopsy necessary. Phew.

Thank you to those of you who offered your consolations; I really appreciate it.

Now, how does one get two equally sized and symmetrical fatty masses to grow in one's breast tissue, left and right?

Taking Your Lumps

It's genuinely vexing to me that I've had neither the energy nor the inspiration to write regularly, of late. I notice that many of you who regularly visit here are not writing so much these days, either. What's that about?

For me, it's still a period of change and too much disquiet. Certainly there's plenty to write about, but who wants to read a daily whine? Just yesterday I thought to call my mother and talk to her about how much I'm struggling with myself. She's not the best counselor, but every once in a while she offers the kind of support I need.

Wouldn't you know it, she called me first. She's got a new mass, in her right breast this time. What more, Heavens, what more? Bring it, fuckers. I'm about ready to knock the heads of the Fates together.

Requiem for the American Dream

Here's a good idea, squash all entrepreneurial impulses amongst American kids. That's right, better that they should be discouraged from innovation, industry, merit, independence, social skills, negotiation and responsibility. Rather, keep them indoors watching reality tv, playing Nintendo, and getting fat.

I guess you can kiss your neighborhood lemonade stand goodbye.

Go eat worms, Joey.

Barely Bloggable

Everyone around me is having funny blog-worthy experiences, except for the one person who actually has one of these things, me. Blame it on the dog days of summer. Blame it on my piss-poor attitude. Blame it on the administration, if you wanna. For now, I'll simply have to envy and thieve stories from others.

Like RPP, who went to a wedding at the Hilton last weekend, only to find that the hotel was hosting not just "Teenage Dance Competition" and "Cheerleading" (is there a difference?), but also a "Gay Cowboy Convention." Her mother could not stop commenting on their winsome backsides, callipygian lads that they often are. Let's face it, the gay men do tend to put some effort into keeping in shape. Would it be fair to say that all gay men are ass men? Breasts are out, clearly, and I don't hear too much excitement over a good set of legs.

What else? At the farmers mkt. Sunday, someone told me a funny story about a guy she knows who is so myopic that without his glasses, his range of vision ends at his belly button. So she, being an Enquiring Mind, asked him if he has to don specs to watch himself getting a blow job. The answer was a startled, "yes."

In other news, my dog terrified me the other day by chasing a coyote up the hill (actually, The Hill,), and disappearing for ten minutes. I administered a sound beating, I tell you. That was NOT funny. Little bastard.

Shore

i remember missives and map-making
longing for travel
charting hollows
all the wanderings
we coursed at eighteen

in my dream we're adrift
you and i
one sail amongst all the ragged junks in China
maybe it's Karachi
maybe it's Baffin Bay
all the same
any place
any hour
the dun cloths shivering
over azure breaks
like lovers
nervously unlacing
for the first time
while they tie up, tie down
lash into each other
for the first time
all the first times
after they've been apart
trussing fingers and clenching toes
one moors
while one lets go
oranges crush beneath our feet
naked as we are
and wrapped up
in evening clothes
indigos and aubergines
lips locked in bows of gentian violet
bodies linked
in the cursive of Japan

of all the dreams
the longed-for shores
all I've ever wished is this
we will come together
while the world comes apart

Barter

I want to give you and me positive things, beautiful things for me and you. Even if the best I can do is a painful memory that I'm okay with now. Because transforming something dark is hopeful. And I want to give out funny things, even if at their worst they are only funny cynical things. Because laughter ruptures the hard surface of cynicism, and then it's something else, something opened up.

But I don't have much of any of that right now, and so I feel like mostly silence is the best way I can give you and me just a little bit of love. Sorry if I'm pretty quiet for awhile longer.

Till then, here's someone else's bit, a little overly twee, but still...

Barter

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

- Sara Teasdale

Ran Out of Gas

I'm starting to think that maybe I have nothing more to say. Might have something to do with the great difficulty I'm feeling in regards to my life right now. Wouldn't be the first time feeling overwhelmed has rendered me speechless. I seem to be wishing my life away on a consistent basis these days. Just this Sunday I thought, and this on a more positive note, that I'd like to give everything away except my dog, some clothes, a few cooking supplies, and my iBook, and go live over in one of the shacks on Tommy's hill. Guess I'd need my sleeping bag too. Just simplify things, while still having access to canyon wifi. Just so long as I could recharge my battery now and then. But mostly, I'd be like a female Grizzly Adams, only without the bears and that jackass, 49er. Living in the wilds with the coyotes and skunks, right in the middle of Los Angeles. What can you live off of without a refrigerator? How to get through the day without a mirror? What about no light past dark?

Crazy talk, I know, but when I mentioned it to the yoga teacher guy who sells me my raw milk, he said, "if you do that, you'll change the world."

Well, he might be making too much of it, but I certainly would change mine. I always knew I was part feral child, but I think my fantasy has more to do with escape than enlightenment. I guess I'm tired.

The Truth Is Out There

As I told the blogger, this reminds me of something out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Love this story. And the movie, if you haven't seen it in awhile, is all time great.

Aargh!

I saw that pirate movie Tuesday night, something I'd thought to avoid, but rather enjoyed watching Johnny Depp flip-flop about. He really is hilarious, though they could have cut out all the rest of the scenes, so far as I was concerned. Or they might simply have written him into each. That would have been alright with me and my bladder which, after two hours, was hardly content to abide the next twenty-five.

I think if I were Keira Knightley, I would have intentionally botched the big kiss scene over and over again, so that many many more takes would be required. Johnny Depp with kohl blackened eyes, a drunk gay affectation, gold teeth and dirty fingernails, is still Johnny Depp. Maybe even more alluring to get the shades of goofball when he's usually so unswervingly cool. As my previous (and straight, btw) roommate David once wrote, "He is the sexiest fucker alive; there is no female equivalent. He makes my gay nerve twitch."

Shocker du Jour

Homosexuals in Boy Bands? Someone bring me the smelling salts...

Sex Without Love

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

- Sharon Olds

Sintax

I get so many viagra, penis enlargement, and otherwise sexually dysfunctional messages delivered to my yahoo bulk bin, that I have taken to calling it "bulk sin." Generally they get deleted without a second thought, but sometimes the subject line's to good to pass up. Today it was:

But now I can penetrate hardly and give the pleasure to every woman!

Of course the claim is both hugely ambitious and utterly feckless. I imagine the testimonial after using this product, "So, were you able to bang your mistress effectively?"

"Hardly!"

Here's the body of the message, in case you're curious:

Hello! Thousands of couples broke down because of them, making both
parties unhappy. Safe, efficient and covering all aspects, Extra-Time will
help you forget the premature nightmare. Don't let your partner leave
you because of being unhappy with the duration of your acts. Come in
here: "florexx." She just won't be able to leave you at
all! Be her number one forever! You'll have a huge crush on each other
again.

I don't know what the unidentified "them" is, but I always knew that "they" were behind it.

It's Just a Game to Them

This seems custom built for the east side Hipsters in LA. Love it.

Gettin' the Skinny on the Fat

A word to all you carbophobes: the scientific community has once again bowled me over with their astonishing insight and groundbreaking findings. I read this morning, get this, that obesity was linked diets low in fiber and fruit intake.

What? That's crazy talk.

Seriously, who comes up with this shit? More importantly, how much of our taxpayers' dollars subsidize studies that produce conclusions a common-sensical eight-year-old knows? Peas and carrots, peas and carrots, an apple a day.

I haven't been this underwhelmed since the LA Times ran a front page story proclaiming a link between air pollution and childhood asthma in California. What a complex cause-effect relationship that is.

And to all you diet freaks running amok about these parts: to hear frosted bubblegum-clawed bimbos and neckless weight lifting douchebags expressing horror at the calories in fresh juice or a slice of grapefruit, while they guzzle processed power drinks and swallow vitamins with growth hormone mimickers rankles all sense of reason. AND BREAD IS NOT BAD FOR YOU. Just get the really grainy kind, it'll work out fine.

Ok, that's enough of my sarcasm, I have to go figure out why my I'm so tired all the time. Do you think it could have anything to do with working in the oppressive heat every day? I should run some tests... Could it be making me irritable?

My Ancestors

I apologize for the glaring flash in the center of the photo, someone needs to cough up some dough for a scanner. The woman in the rocking chair is my Cherokee great-great grandmother. Her husband, a Scottish farmer, stands behind at their farmhouse in northern Oklahoma. Please tell me all those people didn't live in that tiny shack, packed in like clowns in a VW Bug. I guess having a black dog is part of my heritage. But my question is, why didn't any of that dominant gene Injun skin trickle down so that I might have just a pinch of melanin in my otherwise Anglo body? Even grandpappy is pretty dark.

Anyone out there know period costume well enough to say what year that is?

Durga Durga Durga

A fellow student gave me these two figurines this morning after a particularly strenuous yoga class. The deity on the left is the Baby Krishna stealing butter, which my friend felt suited me because, "you have a bit of the puer eternis* in you." Krishna, incidentally, wears a peacock feather in his hair. The other deity, on the right, I'd never heard of. She is the goddess Durga, with a lion and a man at her feet.

You might recall that I have a particularly strong relationship to the image in the tarot card, Strength. So here she is again, the lady taming the big cat. In this case, she rides it.

Synchronicities aside, I am reminded of how much I love knowing the traces of confluence in world cultures. All these things eastern that worked their way into the makeup of the West, it's a lush history. Except for the Bible, of course, spontaneously generated as it surely was. Nope, no influence there but for the hand of God. Right.




I might add that for the last few days I've been asking for a sign that I'm on the right track. Before receiving the gift this morning, I had been walking my dog on the neighbor's hill. I had a rather dark thought - something about feeling like giving up on some major things if I didn't see any movement in the next several months. I woun't tell you how dark a thought it was, but the moment it completed, I was startled by a large red-tailed hawk taking flight some fifteen feet away. The snap of those immense wings cleaving the air was quite loud, and the visual intense. Immediately I felt it as a warning to snap out of my bad attitude. That's right, go ahead and shake your fist at the universe; holler at the Gods. Real bright of me.

I also recalled that hawks are the symbol for "messenger." Which, incidentally, is synonomous with my name. Anyway, I think I got the message, or at least that hawk let me know another was on the way. So now I'm reading up on Durga, the beautiful Lion taming Goddess and killer of demons, and her nightstand companion, fat Butter Boy Krishna.

(*eternal youth. sometimes known as a Peter Pan Complex.)

Emotion can have two options:

Either it becomes devotion,
or it becomes commotion.
If it becomes devotion, and
devotion enters the subconsious mind,
then there is no pain.

- Yogi Bhajan

Dooced!

Why I think I really might want Heather to watch my kids, if I had 'em.

The Hamburglar

Don't know why exactly, but I think I'm posting this one for the Huckleberry. Probably to do with love of meat.

A man was arrested for bacon theft, in the Mormon capital of the world, Salt Pork City.

So Not Kidding About This

I can't even describe how I feel looking at the photo, except that it's a mixture of pathos* and mirth. Not laughing at it really, just a bit incredulous. Maybe it's too dear to bear, just like the little dog on wheels in Babe: Pig in the City.

Anyway, my other favorite's the fawn.

(*In terms of tragedy, there is both pathos and bathos, but does anyone know the term for humorous feeling? Is it just called comedy?)

I Made This

No Cause for Alarm

What my last roommate, David, likes to say when Duff is inspecting visitors with his muzzle: "Don't worry, he's just a cancer sniffer."

My dog, when he's not hanging his head upside down off the bed, likes to dangle his generous limbs. Oddball.








When Animals Attack -

If These Old Walls Could Speak

If these old walls, if these old walls could speak.
What a tale they’d have to tell, hard headed people raisin' hell.
A couple in love livin' week to week.
Rooms full of laughter, if these old walls could speak.

If these old halls, if hallowed halls could talk.
These would have a tale to tell, the sun goin' down and dinner bells.
And children playin' at hide and seek.
From floor to rafters, if these old walls could speak.

They would tell you that I'm sorry.
For bein' and cold and blind and weak.
They would tell you that it's only that I have a stubborn streak.
If these old walls could speak.
If these old fashion window panes had eyes.
I guess they would have seen it all.
Each little tear and silence step fall.
And every dream that we came to seek,
And followed after, if these old walls could speak.

They would tell you that I owe you,
More that I could ever pay.
Here's someone who really loves you,
Don't ever go away.
That's what these walls would say.
- Jimmy Webb

Reduce, Dispute, Recycle

I am grateful to people who plow through the blue bins every Thursday looking for deposit bearing cans and bottles, for their economy, thrift and perpetuation of goodly earth-honoring habits. However, I can't help wondering when I espy two on my street at the same time, do they have their own little turf wars?

Remedy

I've been thinking a lot about what could possibly be wrong that all the boys and girls I know are so impossibly set against falling in love. Or maybe it's just the boys, but there are some things I cannot know. What I do know is I'm tired of politely sitting on my feelings out of respect for where someone is "at." I don't want a jaded life. I don't want affection measured out a teaspoon at a time. Love isn't a runaway train, but it should feel like abundance. It should be clear that that someone is happy to see you when you come in the door because, well, because you just like each other. And if you don't, why are you wasting your time and hers?

I'm tired of people putting the clamps on and squeezing the life blood out of romance in an attempt to control their environment and stave off future hurts. Life hurts, get used to it. It hurts worse when you're denied the authentic feeling of really being present with another human being. People should be reaching for one another. I should feel confident about calling on you in my time of need. You should feel you could slip under my covers and curl up beside me until you feel alright again, if that's what you need. I want laughter and I want tears without the fear that I might seem crazy for living what every person experiences. Emotion isn't wrong, it's a wave that passes over you and delivers you to the shore. And I dare you to turn your back on it.

Here is possibly the best thing I've read about the experience of love in a long time. May we all grow up and start to live the philosophy of the guy on the long-haul.

“Suddenly the world had a center, and that center was Marianne.”

-A Trucker

Liquidation

I was requested to expand on an old comment about the rigors of my mother's "Stalinist Purges." Trauma rhymes with momma. Let me first say that I have done a TON of work on my relationship with her. I love her very much, and though she has apologized for nearly everything, she will never really be what I need(ed). That's ok, I suppose it's the lot I drew for myself.

Let's start with moving six times by the age of fourteen, not including the months we spent nomading up and down the west coast when she left my father. I was 5, and she was relying upon the kindness of family and friends. Each move necessitates a major unloading of garage sale fodder, and generally means you will never again see your friends, even if it is only a change of neighborhood.

What of importance got tossed? I think it was the indifference to my artwork that bothered me most as a kid. Somehow none of it got saved, except for a few ceramic pieces and those funny plastic plates I did when I was maybe four (you sent your drawings in to some company that would immortalize your scriblings in plastic), the contents of which are ridiculously telling. In one, the Man, dressed as cowboy, ties up wife and child to tree. In another there is a torrent of blue, green and maybe black scribblings, with figures barely discernible beneath the maelstrom. In yet another, the Man is separate again from woman and girl. The females, as I always depicted them, have absurdly long eyelashes which encircle and radiate from the irises like sunbeams. Each wears a crown. There is a mirror mirror, and the Man is on the other side of it. The girl wields a magic wand. There is a perfect acorn. Acorn? Don't know why, maybe it's the seed of something.

Mom loves to tell the story of my apple watercolour, which I painted while studying at the Children's Art Museum, at the ripe old age of four. Apparently they wanted the drawing for the permanent collection, because it looked as though it were drawn by an adult. I can not vouch for any of this, as I have no conscious memory of it, but it seems I was not amenable to such a donation, and my mother honored my wishes. Good for her. However, when we left my father behind, she decided to leave the painting with him, because she "didn't want to leave him with nothing." Again, a noble gesture, but ultimately tantamount to putting it curbside for Thursday morning pick-up. It's sad to me that I will never see it.

There were old records (45s from her youth, mostly), porcelain dolls, and even her vintage clothing that I would love to have. Mostly what was painful was being pushed to decide what I would throw away, when I wanted to turn loose of nothing. It was a task that became more and more difficult for my mother, as I became increasingly obstinate.

I know that from a Feng Shui standpoint, my mother was quite in the right - clearing out the clutter of your life prevents stagnation, and allows for new energy. Out with the bad air... The trouble was, I was being asked to give up so much so often - the real important stuff. Life demanded sacrifices of home, father, school, old friends, a dog, and even three siblings who I barely saw again. So I'm sure I clamped my little fists as tightly as I could around any artifacts of our former lives, especially the one we had when we were a family. It's a materialism born of trauma. To this day I will save a scrap of paper if it is some marker of memory. I am nostalgic. I am sentimental. I can't always let go of it. How much more could I be asked to give up? The answer to that seems to be, life will strip you clean. Is that why it's next to Godliness? If so, I've probably failed to absorb the lesson.

Then there are the things they make you release, things non-material, things you have to turn loose because they get you caught in a bind. You get squeezed so tightly that your very ability to breathe requires it. So in a way, it's your own fault.

When I was five I began studying piano with a well-known instructor - a woman who had graced the New York classical music world in the 60s. She was a comtemporary and friend of Eileen Farrell's; she was chair of the state music teachers association; there are scholarships in her name at the state university; she has students who have won international competitions and wound up at prominent music conservatories. After five years of continual success pushing me through city and state competitions, as well as testing for some sort of musical certification (the name eludes me), I was ready to become one of her proteges.

She told my mother I had "Bach hands," which meant something like my reach was greater than an octave; my fingers, like every limb on my body, were long. She said I could read and assimilate music faster than just about any other student she'd had. She wanted to turn me into a concert pianist, which meant a far more rigorous course of study. If I wouldn't commit, then she wouldn't teach me at all.

I knew there was a reason she dressed up as a witch every single Halloween. Perched in the post and beam structure over the front door, she would shriek like a Fury once the kiddies had rung the doorbell. It terrified them every time; Hell was looming. Of course, my daylight experience of her, though somewhat cold, certainly rigorous, and always tainted by the unhealth of age-worn enamel and coffee breath, was not entirely unpleasant. She did praise me when I succeeded, I liked playing the duets, and sometimes she let me play her antique harpsichord.

But consider the implications of a teacher giving a child this sort of ultimatum: if you won't devote the bulk of your life to what I'm teaching you, you can't have it at all. So, though ninety percent of my life I was demure and compliant, I did what I always do when someone really gets to a childhood quality my mother would describe as an unmoveable core: I said 'no.'

This was an act of self-preservation, there's no question about it. But it's a real shame, because it cut me off from something I was good at, and something I could really have enjoyed. It also severed the development of a part of myself - I dream musically from time to time. Music I've never heard before. Usually there is only melody, but somtimes it's lyrical. (Once and only once, I dreamed what seemed a complete Musical. Show tunes, sheesh.) Sometimes I get little bits during my waking life, but it's the nighttime when the melodies are more resolved. And harder to pull over into the day. Ephemera wants to dissolve like wet crepe paper when you hold on to it. So maybe it's not really there at all, like my bygone piano skills.

Mild Sexual Mischief

...my favorite kind, or How Laughter Evolved. It's just a theory.

Superbia Amoris

This image came my way last Thursday. I was getting a birthday reading from my dear friend who reads the stars and flips the cards. She used an unusual and beautiful deck I found for her in a Roman flea market, instead of the usual tarot. It has cards like "il lladro," the thief, and "sospira," the longing lover. Anyway, I got "superbia," which is a peacock with his tail feathers fully up and open like a fan. The card fell into the house of love relationships. Sounded promising, if you want to ignore the fact that the Italian word means pride, the deadliest of the seven deadlies. I Googled "superbia + peacock," because I know that iconographies tend to come out of established traditions, and because this is one way I have fun. Here's the first thing I got:




"Superbia eius humiliabitur. Osee 7 (750-725 BC)

Si l'orgueil veut hausser la creste
L'Amour luy fait baisser la teste.

L'Amour diuin est humble & debonnaire,
L'Amour mondain superbe, & temeraire;
Mais le diuin est bien le plus puissant;
Car le mondain voulant hausser la creste,
Ces deux amans luy font baisser l'aigrette,
Et de leurs traits le vont humiliant."

In addition to the line from Osee, the page seems to list both Ovid and Petrarch, each corresponding to the two stanzas, and respectively. But I'm unsure. Here's my hack translation:

"If Pride wants to raise the crest
Love for him lowers his head.

Divine Love is humble and good-natured.
Worldly Love is prideful and reckless;
But the Divine is the most powerful;
For the Worldy wanting to raise the crest,
These two lovers lower his tail feathers
and by their deeds* humiliate him."

(*this can also be a line, or harness)

Any of you Latin and French lovers are welcome to jump in here at any time.

So I'm meant to be wary of prideful love? In myself or in a mate? I agree with the poem's sentiments, but not sure how it applies yet. I've certainly suffered my fair share of humiliations in Love. One might argue I could stand to be a touch more prideful, though not in the "showy" sense. Or maybe it has something to do with a recent declaration that I intended to marry Bob Dylan. That's hubris for ya. Cuddled up at night to that craggy old face... but God I love him.

Addendum to The Beermuda Triangle, or How We Almost Became Thelma and Louise

RPP would like to add -

"You forgot to mention the extremely large knife he was holding in one hand less than a foot from my face and a shot of tequila in the other when declaring his need to get drunker before lighting them off. You also forgot to mention the $5,ooo in the file cabinet. shhhhhh...."

Why a guy tells complete strangers (ok we were friends of a friend, but still), that he's got five grand in his file cabinet, is beyond me. But funnier was the REASON it was there, to stand as bail money if he got arrested later! Presumably he thought he might be nabbed for the fireworks. The guy was mad as a hatter. The knife she's referring to was only a kitchen implement, and he was cooking (those ground steak empañadas were truly one of the best items of food I have ever tasted - the dough was like 600 thread count pillows), but the wild manner in which he wielded, well...

Anyway, the mad cash gave rise to fantastical plots of scheming. I mean, who gets that bargain basement bail price, anyway? But we are good girls.

The Beermuda Triangle

The evening of the Fourth was spent at a party up in Whitley Heights, an area that looks like a valley in Mediterranean Europe. At dusk it is quite beautiful, a quality less commonly seen in Los Angeles as we keep her these days. Up in a large 20s Spanish style estate, the festivities were hosted by a 50-something music producer, who looked like someone who might have run around with the cast of My Best Fiend. He was like a gene-spliced hybridized love/hate child of Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski. To be fair, he was maybe something less dark and more akin to Christopher Lloyd, as the professor-inventor type with crazy hair and totally outer limits.

RPP was kind of freaking out over the massive table load of pyrotechnic charges on display in the dining room. She's worked in the ER, and has seen the consequences of explosions on the human form; the effects are decimal. Having expressed her concern to the white-maned host, he replied, "YEAH! I've got to get really DRUNK, so we can set those off!"

Meantime, we four nestled into the couch-lined terrace. The air was balmy, and we had a view in the direction of the Hollywood Bowl, where the big show takes place. There really weren't very many people there, so the traffic was light, which can be a relief when you are tired at a party.

Still, for whatever reason, and maybe it's just that they were all drunker than I thought, every two to three minutes someone knocked over or dropped a beer bottle or glass in that 15 x 15 space. It was uncanny. I've been to plenty of parties with plenty of mishap, but I have never seen so much toppling with the tippling. It was like the necks were greased and the bottoms rounded. Laws of gravity were more strictly enforced in this zone. The constant clamor of thick glass on terra cotta tile gave me an idea for a drinking game, but one I was not rambunctious enough to instigate that particualr night, and at a stranger's house.

What if you took all the sandbagged beers (in college, that's what we always called it when people left the half-drunk and remnant bottles sitting around, 'sandbagging'), arranged them in pyramids, and did a little beer bowling? What's not fun about THAT? Somehow I think our host would have been up for it, but I'd already had a Stella Artois douse my white halter dress, and I wasn't in the mood for sticky feet, any more than I was up for tripping over that ottoman or having my flip-flop break as we were headed back down the hill.

One last thing. Think of this as a caveat to fumbling boys - do not use, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" as a pick up line. Furthermore, when it becomes clear that no amount of "where could I know you from," "did you work on this project," and "what school did you attend," is going to resolve the matter, LET IT GO. Because, face it Buddy, you HAVEN'T MET THE GIRL BEFORE. And no amount of wanting to know her is going to rewind history. Best to look forward and find something to actually talk about, so that some sort of bond can be formed. Devices don't work on all women, particularly when the conceit is so cleanly laid bare as deceit. So it doesn't really matter that you are a very good-looking twenty-something Director, if you haven't a speck of charm. At least, not to this one.

Call PETA on Me

and I will end you.

“If you bring forth what is within you,

what you will bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you,
what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

- from the Gospel of Thomas. Gnostic text, c. 2nd C

Passing Strange

Today I feel akin to the Director's cut of The Magnificent Ambersons, potentially wonderful, but quite possibly lost forever.

Perhaps tomorrow will find me, "passing light in spirit."

Happy the Fourth

More Evidence That I Am Quite Like an Eisenhower Era housewife

(though the graphic might not be)


I am thrilled to discover that fruitflies cannot outrun the vacuum cleaner.

Now, who's ready for a cocktail?

My fingernails are filthy

...I've got beach tar on my feet
and I miss my clean white linens
and my fancy French cologne...
-Joni Mitchell

For the last three weeks I have been building and remodeling every day without a break. I built a deck, retrimmed a living room, removed an a/c unit, ripped out kitchen cabinets, plastered, sanded and painted. Most of it has been filthy work. The last two weeks have been uncharacteristically hot and humid for June in Los Angeles, which makes the physical work more exacting and dirty. I'm sore and all dinged up, but I can tell my body's stronger, my wallet's fatter, and I love being in the company of the woman for whom I am working. She's a yoga teacher friend of mine, a brilliant, funny, beautiful, and exceedingly kind Aussie.

We are beginning phase two of the house project next Monday, but until then I plan to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. At least nothing that requires to do anything resembling construction work. Not because I dislike it, but because I need to rest myself. So, I will be poolside, reading and writing, beating my dog who chased a skunk late last night after I got home after a 12 hour plus day, hanging down on the Franklin strip, practicing yoga, and generally enjoying myself.

Life is meant to be danced...

- J.M Peebles