The Things I See

in America
As I'm walking around everyday.

As I'm flying over land and sea.

Handbills.
Post-it notes.

Good times.

Location:New Hampshire Ave,Silver Spring,United States

I'm on the Bay

...and I like this life.

Location:Hoopers Neck Rd,,United States

The Road, Today

Whenever I talk to people about how much I loved Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" I talk about how he pulled together all these tried and true storylines, plot moments, and happenings from a long tradition of post-apocolyptic literature / film, BUT did it with so much style, so much emotion (under the surface), pitch perfections, pacing, etc. to lift it from a ho-hum collage of things I'd read before to amazing.

And in those conversations, I eventually come around to the sparseness of the story and  how it reads like allegory to me. And how through the whole story-on-the-surface there is a second story for me. This second story is the story of a father who has lost his wife and is just trying to survive the everyday life of bringing up a child on his own and all the attendant fears of child-raising turned to 11. So much fear that "finding meaning" in his new life is out the window and then some -- that The Road is this depressed-and-scared mind's halluncination of "just making it" in today's world. One of the brilliances (not a word, but a word I need) of the book is that the sparseness creates a canvas for projecting your own fears and fears onto this archetypal story of loss, fear, and hope. And yes, I've just provided you a key to a recurring nightmare of mine -- I'll share the details of that actual not-fun-dream sometime (over a drink).

But I'm writing this post, because it sounds like this second-story-in-the-story just happened. Instead of it being a depressed man's view of the world around him after a post-wife's-suicide mental breakdown... this guy actually picked up his life, his young son, and headed into the woods to survive.

Five year's later... the father dies and the son wanders back to civilization...

Holy shit.

I'm sure if the father kept a diary, it would be read shockingly similar.

What I Could Tell You

What could I say that would make any sense?

Yes, you may.

The space that connects two rooms.
The space that isn't the threshhold.

Hearth, window, doorway, foyer, modern times.
Great room, breakfast nook, closet, contemporary times.

A time of prosperity after the War.
A time for interviews.

Chrono-everything
Synchro-everything

The man of beautiful knots is resting easy.

The man of focus-grouped greetings tucks into a deserved feast.

The man with a wandering eye is picking up tickets at Will Call.

The man of unbroken testimony is considering a move to decaf.

At least I know I'm free.

Location:Penn St,Baltimore,United States

I Hab, Fake It, Make Model

Difficulties

Time with people you know
And people
And tired

Time, The Nature of

Time, Feels Like the First

Time, Feels Like the Very First

More people you know along with people new to you
How do you think they feel?

Years pass.

Hair is shorter and then longer.

Sneakers are puffy and then square-toed and then flatter and then puffy again.

I love the sneakers I got in Philly.
I love some green in a sneaker
Or some orange.

Designers. Oh, designers.

Homer Simpson. That's pretty damn brilliant.

I have a piece of Ethiopia.
I have a piece of France.
I am a piece of America.

Like entropy for chocolate.
Like elephants
Like luge
Like the robots are at it again and it ain't even gonna rain today.

A little view makes a line less straight.

Again and again
Like a hairpin
Like a dog-leg

Bunkers and water hazards and sand traps all take day labor.

I now know acts of nature.

A really big spider ready for a rather reasonable lunch

And then there's a place to sit.

No, take it.

Please

Be with you. And also with you.

Location:Penn St,Baltimore,United States

It's a Big World Out There

For serious.



---

I'm thinking about the title of that great Charles Simic book, "The World Doesn't End" -- sometime I read that as a threat, other times as a positive outlook -- and at times like this it cycles back and forth between the two and so many shades in between. Like when you learn the electrons aren't going between the shells, but are in all of them, all the time (sorta).

---

This got started by coming across Mark Leidner's poetry over at HTML Giant...

And then stumbling into pieces on the whole BlazeVOX thing I'd successfully avoided until 2:30am on a Friday (avoided because I didn't want it to be my business --complicated, ugly, sad the state of all things -- just things I didn't need to cross paths with)...

And I only ended up there because after reading Mark's poems I'd wanted to watch his video interview about collage and it wouldn't load so I started to wander...

But having finished reading some of the BlazeVOX drama (hey Justin, your comments on some blog about it were good -- sorry you went through all that, but also I think we are all sorry for a lot of people involved in all this, including Gatza) and having all the reasons I'd avoided it confirmed, I really needed a piece of GOOD so then I had to get a copy of that Leidner interview, cuz the poem with the secret agent and the Scarsfaces was that good and so how could the interview not be the mental breath mint I needed. Get thee to YouTube then young man, and this thee's search there turned up a motherlode of Leitner's stuff including a bizarre photocollage over a Beach Boys track that was good stuff.

And I looked and there were a half a dozen or more videos from Mark, and I got to holding in my head that there are thousands of people like Mark -- good writers doing good different things, video collages, text-to-video cartoons, and a hundred other things. And not just writers... Photographers and artists filling Flickr and Facebook and blogs around every cornerwith strange and beautiful things. And people that would never call themselves writers or photographers or artists doing the same -- and so many people striking so much gold.

And I'm not naive, also so much crap in between and all around.

Piles and piles of good and bad and better and worse and shit.

And I get to thinking about an illustration of the world and how big and connected it is (or can be) that I use in conversation every now and again:

If just one person in one million can give you a funny, then in America alone you can get a funny a day for the whole year.

Numbers are staggering.
The world is staggering.

I still don't like Pet Sounds (though I return to it every handful of years thinking my tastes will just change at some point -- hell, I used to hate orange juice).

Reader, go check out Mark Leidner's work.

Jamie, go to bed, silly boy.

This is a blog post.

Location:Dover St,Baltimore,United States

I AM Ready For Some Football

Thanks for stopping by.

Reminder this, reminder that.

When you're not tired, what are you?
When you're not exhausted, where are you?

Remaindered shoes

We spell colors in black, around here, and we value your opinions

Ever-forward motion and growth and some day learning that if you can go to the right then there must be some way to go to the left, if going is your thing

Light doesn't go, it decides

Seeming vs. sounds good vs. being

That feels right when that is right

Wherefore must've once meant something other than just "why," but it's been lost on me and/or to history.

In a sci-fi coming-of-age story, there are always stars.
In a British coming-of-age story there is always the Church.
In an American coming-of-age story there is always blood, and often guns.

There are still drunk drivers.
There is still heart disease.
There is still rope.

I'm working my way south.

Overpasses, ties, trees, inclement weather, stone walls, grass, brick buildings, letters, puddles, chain link, exposed roots.

Almost Baltimore.

Location:Schuylkill River Trail,Philadelphia,United States

Camden Line Now

I know what I'm looking for and I know when you aren't.

5 Great Meals in Under 30 Minutes is no way to live your life.

And I'm still caught up on fake plastic trees... What are they made of?
Most people guess rubber, but I'm guessing most things we call rubber are plastic, too.

How are you doing with all the violence lately?
How are you doing with all the acts of God?

Do militant atheists ask that their insurance policies be changed re references to acts of God?
Or do they just go to court on coverage in earthquakes and throw down on the differences between acts of tectonic plates and who is this God guy in my policy anyway?

Courts are funny enough.

I still wear my Baltimore juror badge on the inside of my red jacket. I'll show you if you ask.

It's more a sticker than badge.

If you had a citizen badge, would you wear it?

Have you seen Starship Troopers?

When was the last time you referenced Nazis in conversation?
I did recently, and I was serious.
I get a pass because I read the Diary of Anne Frank earlier this summer.
And yeah, I know that's not its real title (I just read it this summer, remember) but that's what everybody calls it, and its real title is in Dutch or something anyway.
I finished it on a Sunday morning and cried before anyone else in the house was up.
August was wild like that.

It's still August.

I wish I got a little sun-fat this summer, myself, but didn't make it to the pool as much as I was hoping.
The sunburn is still showing on my feet.
I should get that looked at some time.

Let Fall be for looming.
Let Fall be for doing.

Let Fall be for surveying and pointing and going and counting and going again and again and cooking and getting things in place to be getting things done.

Let Fall be for accounting and forgiving and getting better and better.

Let Fall be for asking forgiveness and learning and grace and gracefulness.

Let Fall be for new jackets and new shoes and favorite sweaters and love.

Let Fall be for trying and trying and always more trying.

September is my favorite month.
Look the fuck out.

Location:Junction Dr,,United States

Green Line More Now

I guess my blog is my microblog until I figure out how to fix my Tweetdeck account entanglement issues, huh?

Falcons away!

Location:Lehigh Rd,College Park,United States

Green Line Now

By the time I write this, I'll be far from here.

I've been trying to get into the mind of a glider, a bird of prey, the Pacific Ocean, salt, and the Sun.

Humans and giant reptiles cross paths in Hollywood.

Humans and giant humans cross paths in sports arenas in many major metropolitan areas.

Metropolitans dream of October and look forward to April.

I grew up outside Boston and outside DC. And then inside DC and all kinds of places.

People used to not get along very well, so they created the telegraph, telephones, guns, and Facebook.

It's amazing what you can accomplish with a digging tool when you apply yourself.

Seriously, does Tinker Bell ever just die? I think it was Joe who wondered this aloud at me.

This is your best work.
Everyday. Forever.

This is your best work.
Green line. August's end approaching.

This is your best work.
Granary floor. Sun-fat bees.

Toes.

Hello.
How are you?

Location:Lehigh Rd,College Park,United States

More Lost Falcon

I've been up to a lot that isn't writing lately. This is what I've been up to that is.

The Second Lost Falcon

Follow here? The 2nd Lost Falcon

Started with this: "Contact Lost with Hypersonic Glider After Launch"

I need to gussy up the profile with a pic and bio and such (but I can't seem to do that from the mobile site -- headsup Twitter developers). UPDATE: Gussied enough now. Not sure if this will be a fruitful something or just a one-night midnight something, but when I read this news headline earlier today, I couldn't help but think of all the things that might have happened to the second Falcon... It was that word "anomaly" in the article... It made me think of aliens and adventure and loneliness.

Limbo (literally), mistakes, and the unforgivingness of social media / Twitter. But surely something wholly different tomorrow and then the next day and then the next (if alive at all).


And pardon the affectations on the image... I wanted to see what this iPad-based Photoshop could do (snap verdict: not much). Hopefully I can make everything clearer when I get some time at my laptop for it. UPDATE: Good enough now, I hope.

Location:Pacific Ocean?