Tuesday, November 30, 2010

tuesday afternoon WOW.

This is 2010, right? Right. Welcome.

tuesday afternoon 15 min. free-write, GO.

there's an itch blooming from between my shoulder blades
can't quite stretch my blood-starved muscles up to satisfy it
and my trigger finger's terribly preoccupied
with the will-she-won't-she face-the-music part of it
that's the rub, i can't even find a corner to lean into
truman show, two-way mirror everyone can see me through
lights off, fuse blown, feelin for the switch
jumpstart the engine, international circuit
reset the spring, cut away the final string
superfluous to flight, falling sandbags swing
sloughing extra weight and gaining height like a teen
head up in the clouds, conquer mountains like a queen
and if you feelin guilty it's the bile in your spleen
bundle up the past, douse it all in kerosene
it's how we clean, we destroy, fire after we employ
the final exodus, no lasting sight to enjoy

i'm loyal, and you certainly play favorites
and the timbre of your voice is so solicitous
fatally susceptible to cycles that turn vicious
subtly persuasive tendency toward superstitious
soliloquy so circular when solitude's addressed
leave yourself hard-pressed not to include me in your conquest
invested in the thrill of taking stock in temptations
earthquake can only terrorize the reach of its vibrations
and fault lines draw the cracking plates together then apart
racking my confidence, shattering my heart
and if we're categorizing geologically,
i fall into the lines and lines of sediment
the more i wish myself impervious bionically
the less success i have at dissolving the detriment
fierce blush when you catch me live and on air
unable to disguise my weakness for the debonair

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Spelling


These are the words you must spell correctly to join the North End Franklin Spelling Team:

Breathe
Achieve
Competition...

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Chicago Tarot

November 5th, 6th, and 7th were spent with dear friends in Chi-town. Ran a 5k, ate some chocolate fondue, cooked a pumpkin, drank homemade chai, slept on various items of furniture, extra'd a music video for the Ugly Sweater Store, drank some tequila, danced several boogies, and drove home on borrowed kindness packed into a little sedan with the right rear window taped into place.

Laurel and I walked by a tea shop on our way from Belmont to Boytown. My eyes got wide; the sign on the door read

FREE TAROT READINGS SATURDAYS 4:30-8:30

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

art, underground

"Street Art Way Below The Street" is a unique public spotlight for the Underbelly Project, an art exhibition whose location and curators remain anonymous.

What is it about abandoned space that is so captivating? It draws creation like a black hole, the void's existence immediately destroyed by the creator's gaze.
There's nothing here. Yet.

The photography's sparse, the scenes apocalyptic -- I can smell the musty air down there, the cloying humidity that is more reminiscent of fleshy cavities than empty concrete tubing. It's uncomfortable and comforting to be underground. It's safe and lonely, warm and chilling. I might temporarily feel good, but the inkling's unshakable -- something is not right.

When I think of all that time I spent on and in the Metro in DC, the melancholy creeps over me. No matter how many others milled around the platforms, no matter what time of day, I felt solitary under the domed brick, over the gray gum and the newspapers caught in breezes wafting from God knows where. The tracks glint from their beds, and the bells clang for you. Like the awareness that panic is coming but it's not yet here, my experience of underground structures has always been transport, a constant motion away from wherever it is you've been.

I imagine crawling into the bowels of the city and just... being there. Just for a while, the buzz of commuter traffic ceases and I climb along paths to nowhere, arriving at an art gallery wallpapered with the precious output of talented hands. A collection not only of their art but of the time and risk it took to be in that space and make something, and leave it there. By now, one of my imaginary selves is sweating profusely and tugging at her collar wanting out Out OUT of the suffocating dark, the tomb I can't trust. The other imaginary self is speechlessly oblivious to the surroundings in light of the fascinating work in that spacious cave, visually devouring, touching the wet walls and craning her neck up at the enormity of such a project. An abandoned space, teaming with life.

What is valued there? Is art for the beholder or the beholden, the maker or the made? If a tree falls in the wood... the tree will know. Is the act of creation enough cause to spend and risk so much?