Constance, On the Moral of Our Story

 
Careful, Timmy. You'll poke your heart out.
 
 
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Another quick aphorism while two regular-sized pieces teeter on the edge of completion.

After Years of Searching and Solitude, the Professor Found the Oracle of the R_. They Laid Together 14 Days, and This Is What She Taught Him

 
Don't waste another Spring with thoughts of Harvest.
 
 

Quick Study for a Longer Piece with Bands

The Animal Collective meets a big chicken in Leeds.
Big Star chats about its background, its work, and its approach.

The Cold War Kids wonder what picture I’m going to take next.
The Deathset embraces the recreation opportunities that make the area attractive.

The Faces worry the camera has fallen into the wrong hands.
The Killers drive me bonkers, however.

Ladyhawk embraces the F-word. No not that one.
The Most Secret Method parts ways and then returns.

Pavement ponders the last item, “Is the brain in gear?”
The Pixies dream about dancing skeletons and people leaning out to shout things at them.

Iggy Pop wishes he could speak to him.
Prince considers joining the scurrilous R_, but eventually reforms his ways.

Radiohead talks about a recent flight to Vegas.
Bruce Springsteen distracts the ref for a second.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs endanger California birds, study says.


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This is what happens when the (almost) one-a-day process puts it all on display. Otherwise this would never see the light of day... or maybe I just wrote for robots without meaning to Thanks for bearing with.

Initial Micro-Environmental Impact Assessment of the Greatest Bubble Ever Blown

I want to offer you warmth, Aulbach, but am fresh out.
Torn in half; would they, could they kill you off.

You can fight it just like fighting a wave.
First, you get a moon and then start resetting expectations.

I fell down the stairs. I fell up the stairs.
I’m not sure of the rules at this site, Aulbach.

Blind me gently with a chainsaw, Veronica.
Your eyes could cut through stone, Bear.

I couldn’t sleep, but still awoke to his flaming embrace.
The you always find it in the last place you look cliché.

Creature-feared.
 

Who Feels Stupid Now

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Posting an oldie to make up for a missed day here and there. It all comes around.

Even Heroines Jot Notes on Napkins

 
I'm going back to Cali.
I'm going back to Rockville.
I'm going back to Bainbridge.
And I'm going back to Nashville.

I'm going back to L.A.
To PA and Del Ray.

I'm going back to Newark,
To New York, to New Hope.

Jersey City, Park City, Slab City,
Salt Lake City, the Ukranian Village and Boy's Town.

I'm five-foot ten and tired.

The professor was afraid all this time travel
Would rot my memory from the inside out
Like the mystical fruit of the Powder Tree.
 

When You Go So Far in One Direction That You Can’t Imagine Going Back Cliché

She sings of volcanoes and sobriety,
Late arrivals and miles traveled.

Birds would eat breadcrumbs,
So where are you?

Potatoes and tomatoes and rain.
She sings explanations and survival.

Sometimes you feel like a satellite, sometimes you don’t.

What makes you think an escape pod is going to be any better?
 

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This is yesterday's piece... I'm cheating.

To Be Continued

Hope grew up on the East Coast and attended public school. She had great teeth.

Constance always said, “Want in one hand and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first.”

June was tough and quick-witted. She moved to Germany after college. Later she moved to Texas, I hear.

Will lived through his job. Late at night he could be found in his office, staring out the darkened window.

Charity was a serial monogamist. Some people habitually change up their style to match their partners. She was the kind of person you’d do that for.

Chastity was never very close to her family. She had to file multiple state tax forms year after year, too.

Happy was never very credible. Beyond the ridiculous name (what were they thinking?), he always had horrible breath.

April lived in a 70s-style split level ranch and came from a traditional “broken home.” She was good people, though.

Our heroine sees all these faces and more when she closes her eyes, and yet manages to get out of bed every day.
 

In the Face of Long-held Prejudices

 
Poetry is rain.
Fiction is snow.
Heroin is a monkey or a horse.
Addiction, a demon.

But gauze blankets, room temperature
And erosion are all subtler nemeses.

Sixth sense a distant screaming,
She’s certain they are catching up,
But can’t see a thing over her shoulder.

You, loyal reader, know she was overtaken miles ago.

Soon it will be time to pay.
And then maybe she’ll know, too.

The Day Goes Out

There are no time machines
Only repetitive manual labor to propel you forward.

Natalie Portman says she wants to drink and fight.
Natalie Portman says she wants to fuck all night.

Whoah whoah, whoah whoah!
Natalie needs to get a hold of herself.

I’m guessing that this is what you’ve got.
I’m guessing you managed to want in one hand.

From trucks to elephants to explosives, a ton is seldom one ton,
But, I heard on the news that it was still five times enough.

Our heroine, with her sequins and squandered moments,
Is doomed to fight the same battle until she burns the bleeding stumps

Or decides on the second path of less predictable non-violence
And commits to animal husbandry over and over.

Every crimson battle uncomfortably closer to the city’s Last Innocent
And nobody’s noticing.


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I guess the April one-a-days are more like the April a-few-a-weeks, and that's ok with me.

Emily brought that cake for Justin's birthday. It made me very happy and was yummy, too. Just like the party. Here's a bunch'a photos from Emily herself that you may or may not be able to see, I'm not up on the permissions.

Pour Some Out for Dave Arneson

Dave Arneson, 61, lost his battle to cancer this week. I should be embarrassed re how much D&D was a part of my young-young life -- it was definitely the gateway drug to a whole series of role playing stuff that occupied my imagination until puberty re-tuned my life to an entirely new set of goals.

I never had any trouble with mythology in lit classes, though, I'll tell you that. The number of D&D jokes I could make are endless, but I'll just end with respect for the man.

The Quietest Death Trap Ever Told or Next Time

Will our heroine trade her sash for sequined slippers?

Isn't there a world where she can have both? That just might be up to you, loyal listener.

Just a Great Photo (by Noah Kalina)

See more on Noah Kalina's flickr.

He May Have Visited Iraq, But I Still Crushed Obama Along With More Than 1.4 Million Other People

(In the key of HTML Giant?)


I want your first offer to be both best and last.

You’re the season’s It Girl, but I’m no It Guy.
You have vandal eyes.

Fantasies.
Celebrating good times.
Thanks for the weather; it was feature-filled.

We lived through an evacuation, but I was a shirt and belt the poorer for it.

A couch is one couch, but a minute is rarely one minute.
That’s Mr. Gaughran-Perez to you, my friend.

And then and then and that and when.

You mugging me? You know I’ll mug you back.

I won’t wear Bond suits if the reborn bursts into flames,
And I sure won’t fend off blonde intruders if bricks do the same.

This is a sentence of average length.

I don’t care whether you show or not, just don’t tell.
It’s all writing from here.

The Name Tag Project (4/3/09 & 4/4/09)

"Imagine a total freak show of an arts event, with over 1,000 people, moving among 6 floors of insane interactive performance, dressed up in all kinds of god-knows-what. Then, picture our friend Jamie, in a crisp suit, with a name tag, passing out name tags. To over 800 people.

"It really changed the nature of the space, and led to lots of great conversations and good connections.

"Simple action. Big impact. Maybe you had to be there to really get how awesome it was, but trust me, it was awesome."

That's Adam Good describing the performance piece I did on Friday and Saturday nights at the Transmodern Festival (an annual performance and installation art festival in Baltimore, six years running). In the photos, the blue tags are from Friday, and the red ones from Saturday.

If you have pictures from those nights of people wearing the name tags in any setting (some of my faves were the folks that wore them out on the town all night -- they had great stories) -- whether they are legible in the photo or not -- reach out to me through flickr, I'd love to include them in the slide show! (And sorry if a few extras show up -- like that hangman kid -- I'll make the tag crazier next time.)

Otherwise get your google on and see more about all the great things that happened at Transmodern this year.


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Note, this counted for my "one-a-day" pieces for Saturday, April 3 and Sunday, April 4. I wrote over 800 names by hand -- it counts!

Penalty!

I should've eaten more often this weekend.

Vs. Some Pretty Serious Stuff

 
Our glad-sashed heroine was up all night again being conspicuous.

Freddy Mercury fed off the crowd.
Ghandi went on hunger strike.

Our heroine’s new mission is about the Force of Will
And finding the source beneath the Great Alone-ness.

But sometimes she feels like she didn’t quite escape that last death-trap
And imagines gaping maws around every corner.

There’s power in the fall of a sparrow.
There’s power in the right hand of a southpaw.
There’s power in the pen
If it contains a tiny thermonuclear device.

I eat and eat and eat and eat.
And eat and eat and eat and eat.

By definition, plastic is organic.

There’s power in Sunday.


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The April pieces will accumulate here.

JGP vs. Lamination Colony

Michael Kimball just guest edited an issue of Lamination Colony and picked two of my Skull Pieces for it. Thanks Michael.

Justin included a picture of what the issue index looks like over on his announcement post. Which was the right thing to do. But I felt bad being a copy cat. So that's a picture of a truck I saw on 95... I thought it said VAGMASTERS on first glance. I like 8am holy shit moments.

Sometimes There's a Me

Sometimes there's a me I want to be who lives his life by, "Say Less. Share more." Good luck with that, me.

(originally on mah Twitter)


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I've decided to do the one-a-day for April and will put record of them here as I go. I don't know that all 30 pieces will be things that are written down. Living in Baltimore does that to you.

Back in May 2007 I did one-a-days; the set of 31 is over at Our Daily May