Read as if July 30

As if I remembered to record a small bit of last night's band practice and share it

As if I had some delicious beer while sharing company with great folks

As if I had delicious wine and delicious conversation

As if I started to find something I can work with in the eddies and didn't immediately spit it out

As if I remembered the power of stating the obvious when you are carrying around the obvious in your head for too long and it is starting to eat little obvious-sized holes in things better left intact

As if I finished writing that song with the slow, disassembled disco beat, and repetitive monotonic bass line, and micro guitar silos and "hands were made for hand grenades and howitzers and hellfire and holocaust" and "EVERYBODY DANCE NOW" over and over

But you made progress and you are going to remind yourself that means something

Everybody dance now!
Everybody dance now!
Everybody dance now!
Everybody dance now!

Are You Ready, Yet?

You both thought you were there. You kept moving because you realized you weren't. Or you realized you weren't because you were still moving.

Three cities in three days.
A break. A space. An object.

Objections and protein.
And protein and protein.

Reading in Atlantic City This Weekend (no sirriously)

Click the picture to embiggen.

I'll be reading between 6pm and 8pm along with 10 other people (including my Narrow House co-conspirators, Justin Sirois and Lauren Bender) at the Boardwalk Pavillion -- which is apparantly near Bally's.

Other readings on Friday and Saturday include a buncha people that I've never met but are no doubt worth checking out (again, click the piktur to embiggen).

And then there is the gambling (and hanging out)... I'll be convincing my co-conspirators to bring all our i.e. Reader pre-sale cash (a fund you can contribute to with your own pre-order!) and turn it into years of funding. YEARS I SAY!

Stay Classy, Beta-Carotene!

Carrots will help you see at night. Rain won't.

These eyes were made for seeing.
These hands were made for

Open the doors and see all the people.

You'll Be Happier

You will make grand lists. You will capture everything until you are immobile. You will try. You will be immovable. You will be the storm. You will eat in the morning. You will shift imperceptibly. You will eat at night. You will start over. You will sleep. You will read. You will want to get more done. And you will sleep.

July 25: An Instruction Manual

Young Kimchi

Cucumber Kimchi
Scallop Ceviche
Watermelon + Tomato salad (that name undersells it)

Crab Mac-n-Cheese (Justang!)
Black beans

Guacamole
Red cabbage slaw
Chipotle mayo
Pico de gallo
Tropical salsa

Fish marinated in
lime, tequila, cilantro, chipotle
(varying per fish):
Catfish
Red snapper
Tilapia
Tuna

Bacon-wrapped scallop skewers with butter-maple glaze

Beverages galore.
Friends galore.

This is how we barbecue.
Come join us in Baltimore.

(And yes this is totally my four horseman post for today. Though there may be more.)

Make Up (for July 23)

Click the image to enlarge!


Elephant with boombox picture from Laserbread -- who has no idea that he/she has become VMG's official house illustrator. All other photos / illustrations borrowed liberally.

An actual July 24 post will come later today.

Stay Classy, Friends!

Sometimes you feel like an apple.
Both put down and let down play
Many roles in this fitting drama.
Can you hear it? Can you?

Can it all be said?
Will it all be said?
Has it all been said?
When it's all been said.

I once wrote about a
A trick that involved
Both an unravelling
And an ending.

On the Grid / On the Grid

Alternate title: Stay Classy, Mtv!

Stay Classy, River Sprite!

Saturday is past.

Can you stop with the counting?
Your pulse will be.

 

Something About Taxes; Something Like For Adam Good

Some Posts Are Dangerous!

I am testing a new phone

Bear with. The crazy skull case is osm.

Lightspeed's Promise / Lightspeed's Threat

Jon and Kate Plus Eight (Make Up Post for July 14)

(Click to englarge photo. Need to sort out the "true sized" photos in this here blog template.) Still blurry because I don't have time to code it as a table right now so it is a big honker of an image. I will pretend that polish is overrated for now so I can sleep at night.






And for the record... I thought of what this post would be and gathered all the pieces of it / did the writing yesterday... just didn't have the time to put it all together.

Weekend Report After Justin, Just Sunday Edition with Dan Deacon, and an Adam Robinson Echo

 
Despite my utter lack of hindquarters, I was a giant ass.
I stared myself down and got crazy with scissors.
I regretted.

I realized that it wasn’t the text message that would rule them all.
I got clear-headed with clippers.

I got in the car.
I got outside.

It took a while for the sky to open. But open it did and The Crystal Cat rained down in a giant oval with group gesturing, and running, and jumping, and collisions, and not even sweating shoves from a no-doubt-asswipe. I left my head for my belly. I was well-warmed.

Thanks, world. You know who you are.
Good job, everybody. You know who you are.

The Dead (excerpt, draft)

Setting up this piece (scenes that haven't been written yet): our glad-sashed Heroine had been battling a gang called The Assembly for months. Some battles were won, some lost, as she thwarted their escalating criminal activities.

The Assembly eventually constructs a device that unleashes massive destruction upon our world. Our glad-sashed Heroine stops the destructive force, but in doing so must take drastic actions with terrible consequences.

She strains, tears seep from the corners of her eyes, then blood, then bile. Something breaks inside her. People suffer horribly throughout the city even as complete annihilation is averted. This piece, not yet completed, is an accounting of the unthinkable cost of saving the world.

from The Dead

North Ring
Orville Allen (hemorrhage)
Ursula Carroll (heart failure)
Raphael Curtis (stroke)
Gary Davis (stroke)
Lea Espinosa (heart failure)
Anton Eutsler (asphyxiation suffered during seizures)
Danny Gallagher (stroke)
Son Hawkins (heart failure)
Amos Kennedy (massive exsanguination)
Shelton Kraft (internal hemorrhage)
Harold Loeffelholz (organ failure)
Earnest Lujan (unexplained asphyxiation)
Deloris Magee (heart failure)
Haley Mays (heart failure)
Eileen McClure (shock)
Ruth Mendez (hypothermia)
Odetta Morgan (stroke)
Ida Morris (stroke)
Nettie Page (heart failure)
Edward Parker (organ failure)
Will Pruitt (excessive fever)
Ian Ramos (kidney failure)
Lelia Stickland (asphyxiation)
Leonard Tackett (heart failure)

---
Note to my fellow Horsemen and others... I have a big reading next week in Baltimore (on Saturday, 7/18) and so I'm sure a few of my posts in the coming week will be more leading up to that -- working out bits that need working out -- and less in response to the other Horseman. Though, I'm hoping the Horsemen help lift me over stumbling blocks with their own work.

This piece is certainly one of those "prep pieces."

“It’s all arbitrary.”

- The Raven-Headed Interloper

“You’ll always be a representation to me.”

- The Quantum Twin

Vote for My Colleague's Threadless Design

A tshirt design from one of the programmers I work with. Yeah I said one of the programmers, not one of the designers or illustrators. What a country!

Redacted Secrets

I'm not sure why the text is so blurry. Tips?

One Two

A Gentle Poll For You, My Gentle Readers

Whenever I stay in a hotel, I fold my dirty clothes. I think this might not be all that normal. You?

Novel Apple Trails and Matchboxes and Industry

“eGovernor, laws of motion (if I may so express myself) which are the source of, and give direction to an universal freedom, choice and liberty...”

My name is John

“HTML Corvette, I submit the following information…”

My name is Patrick

“1991 Aluminum, productivity trends in the United States of freedom, are the incremental change in reference – the very chi-squared of freedom for the Similar.”

Here I made you a mix tape

My gmail account has been hacked!
Two reviews happened.

So what I decided to do was to do something.

“Cell Phone Themes, now I can say thank you.”

Lounge, wear, freedom, smartwool, women’s sophististripe, crew, unlisted.

It Is A (Face (Forward))

Lately, people have been noting there are no "forward facing" photos of me. I hate those kinds of pictures of myself.

I used to take the worst school photos -- facial expressions, hair, carriage -- all the way through college. (A) is a bit like a school photo. It was taken for work, back before the economy fell apart the time before the latest economy falling apart. What was I thinking with that soul patch gone wild? I miss those glasses.

Sometimes it happens when I'm less then sober, like (C) when I was in Amsterdam or say at a holiday party. Sometimes I get caught off guard. Sometimes you don't see it coming.

Other times I'm just worn out (B). It's not always best to fight it. This is a difficult lesson to live or learn.

Hat Trick

If I was Kate or Adam or Jon I would have some wicked software to cut and splice and mix and overdub these into something you would dig. But today you will have to do all that with your mind.

Layers of emotionally fraught imagery, childhood memory, and pure magic. It was the order of the day...

Some Walls

Stonewall

Climbing wall

Berlin Wall
Great Wall of China

Wall Street

Wall of Sound

Proudly Full Of

As if the day is too long

Sighs are signs are steadfast

Beds for bellies believe this Spring

Timely temperature, timely turnabout
Forbidden fruits de mer you will be mine

tested
wooden
over

---
This is a post-published make up post (actually written / publishing on 7/4). I don't have an Internet connection at home right now... which makes the weekend assignments harder to get done. Yes, yesterday was actually Friday and not the weekend... but I wasn't at work. Hopefully I will have found some work around by next weekend.

I Just Remembered How Much It Scared Me When You Stopped Digesting

(Second day. Third hour. Fourth, horses.)

Acceptable violence. Accept violence. Invite.

Lesson learned and lesson followed sound good together,

but sounds good isn't worth much at 3 a.m.

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Every you in

every moment makes black spots dance across your eyes.

It will be a comfortable weight.

They are of sinew and massive. And we all

Rapid Response Force (Five)

It is July 200 B.C.
It is the height of tailoring.
It is the sheer height.

It is July 1945.
My skin has yet to be ravaged by sun and sea.
An invisible architecture of wrought mist.
You can look now.
No really.
Look.

It is July 1066.
The ceiling is in the basement.


It is July 2001
And I'm only going to ask you once, Ma'am,
Stop making so much sense.