The Critter

I showed Sally some pictures of Stephen from school days and she asked me if I'd send her copies. I post them here that others might enjoy them as well.

We, too, are glowing

Merry Christmas!!

For those of you who are just getting around to having Christmas today, or skipping it, I thought I would share this picture of the gift that Ellen had delivered to the house the other day. You don't get that many opportunities for such a shot, although it is perhaps more common in Invercargill than other localities.

 Check Facebook under James Lee Preston for more photos of Christmas Roses and other stuff.

peace,

jim

Last Week in Dapoli

Ce que l'aino

Grab your marmites, mes amix: it's Escalalde!  Time to dress up in late-medevial garb and hit the bars!  I'm sure you all remember the song: la la la la-la-la....

Something Else

You know what's a great song? "Love Me Till The Sun Shines" is a great song. I also just realized that "Harry Rag" is British rhyming slang for fag = hodie ringdad. Or did everyone else in the world but me already know that?

Happy Birthday Jymn

Enjoy your Jubilee Year.

What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?

Thanks for your concern. My little family and circle of friends and acquaintances has so far survived safely the ongoing assault in Mumbai. It's disturbing and saddening because the city is by nature very open, freewheeling, and nevertheless safe. This well-planned and coldly executed operation is like a war practiced on unarmed non-combatants - , yes, "innocent bystanders" like you and me who hadn't a clue they were engaged in mortal battle.
It's a massive bummer to see the places you frequent and the people you see everyday being savaged on TV by clear-eyed, baby-faced soldiers.
I'm hoping it doesn't escalate -- here or anywhere else.

Today's Verse: 24 November 2008

Linger about
Close in
Alight
Extinguish

Jimmy Carl Black passed away.  He was the Indian of the group.

Election Day

Well, well, a president of African-American descent who's younger than I am.  That's pretty cool.  Of course I expect we'll still need those exploding meat puppets, same as ever.

Many Happy Returns

Multos annos, Johny. Is this your 50th?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHNY!

Though I really don't much care for Julian Schnabel, I must give my highest recommendation to the recent "Berlin" movie.  It's the first album I ever bought, you know.  "Now you said that you loved us/ But you only made love to one of us..."

"That can't be what you really want"

Who recalls the words to "Forget about Him (Come back to Jim)"? Was remembering it on the guitar yesterday. Is it in the nice book you sent me a little while back Johny? That's in Mumbai, while I'm here in Bengaluru for Diwali.
Apropos, Jimmy Osterberg was in my dreams last night: one-armed and bearded.

Got tickets

I got my plane tickets yesterday. I'll be in Mumbai from Dec. 9 (evening) until Dec 15.
Send me an email address so we can connect more easily.
peace,
jim

Everything in its place

I dreamed the other night that Johny, Juliana and I moved into a new apartment together. It had many extra bedrooms filled with beds. My room had at least four bunk beds, and another room had several twin beds. I felt very happy with the place, but Juliana was concerned that the blender was inconveniently located a long way from the butter. So she went to take a shower.

Today is the day

I about three hours I will take the girls to the airport and they will depart for LA, Auckland, and then Invercargill. Everyone is excited. I think that in December I will go from NY-Paris,Mumbai,Christchurch,SanFran,NY. Meet me in St. Louis?

There are crows everywhere this morning: on the telephone wires, in the trees, on the roof.   It might be that they were brought out by the bugs that were in turn brought out by 1/100th of an inch of rain we had yesterday (thus theoretically ending the draught), though Juliana thinks it's the acorns.  They're making quite a ruckus; Chaitzel is very interested.  "Youth is in danger, but not from the source you might suppose..."

I'm off to Wally Sound this morning to record some new Mad Maggies songs.  This album is to be pirate-themed.

Last night I dreamed that Sarah Palin was a docent at a Natural History Museum, which at least was not as scary as my Dick Cheney dream.

Hooray for our friend Tracy
Her photos are so micro
Which means they're very tiny
And never really quite grow.


Happy birthday, Tracy. I hope I see you this year.

Old News

Sorry to have neglected to describe much of the action at the Democratic Convention. I spent most of the week trying to avoid heatstroke in the parking lot where we kept our prop-shop. We did some marches, set up a 'Make Out, Not War' aerial photo, painted the buses, etc. The ladies were doing all kinds of stuff, but I was mostly just staying calm. I wore my new suit to our end-of-convention party.



More photos and writeups of our actions at codepinkalert.com. Liz Hourican, who interrupted John McCain's speech at the RNC is one of my closest pals, who rode out to Denver in our bus (which is not the pink one in the pictures, oddly enough).

Word of the Day

iatrogenic = that which is caused by a physician's diagnosis or treatment

Juliana taught me that word after I mentioned a word someone sent me as a typo, iatrical, of or pertaining to a physician (iatros)

Rhinestone Underground

Have just read that Glen Campbell has now covered Lou's "Jesus". What a lovely idea.

Way to Sea

WAY TO SEA

or: THE UNDERWATER JOURNEY BY RAIL FROM NORTH BEACH TO CENTRAL SQUARE

When I lived in San Francisco, I used to live in North Beach, and our apartment looked down over the bay, and you could actually see Alcatraz. Lying in bed at night I could hear the foghorns. They're so pretty and tuba-like, I began to wonder if you could make music based on the foghorns. It probably wouldn't be as pretty. But what if I could write myself out of the music? Could I make something as nice as the foghorns? What if there were no me, just sound? Who'd be left to play the tuba?

I went down late one night to the ferry building, to take the bus that takes you to the train. It was dark and I could hear the foghorns and the sea lions. I didn't even have to wait, I was on the bus already, going along the harshly over-lit Embarcadero. The bus started filling with smoke, and it was getting hard to see, and I turned to Paul and said, I think we're going underwater. I wonder if the bus has been hijacked. And Paul looked back at me and smiled with mocking delight and nodded his head, yup, and pointed out the window and we were still driving down the Embarcadero but it was the streets that were underwater, somehow there was a flood or something and we were going by the same buildings, traffic lights, billboards, but it was all underwater, and beautiful glowing fish went swimming by, all different colors.

Way to sea is swimming

Long to see you swimming

Slipping through the morning

Stretching through the bay

I guess I was riding the train then, but outside the night was a deep dark blue. Paul had gone to the bar car I guess, and sitting next to me was a man wearing stupid hat folded out of newspaper like kids make and across from me was a goat wearing a jacket with patches on the elbows and little half-glasses and they both made me nervous so I looked out the window and I saw giant orange jellyfish flashing, deep at the bottom of the ocean now. They were spelling out words, or signs anyway which I couldn't read or understand, but still they were beautiful to look at and I felt happy and easy looking at them the way I did listening to the foghorns.

Float, don't drown

Blow, don't smoke

Words often fail

Exposing you

Way to sea is swimming

Long to see you swimming

Slipping through the morning

Stretching through the bay

Exposure

Cool water does

Exposure

Crawls rocks love it

Exposure

Spreads everywhere

Exposure meets burning air

I guess I fell asleep, but anyway when I woke up the train was going along the coast and it was just before the sun was about to come up, you could just see the streaks of light orange on the blue horizon, and the grapes in the vineyards along the coast were glowing. The train turned right off the tracks and I thought oh no, it's going to go into the water, but somehow through some sort of hydraulic miracle we went over the water, we were actually airborne. Just then a school of electric colored flying fish came out of the water, right towards the train, and plunged back in before we collided.

Way to sea is swimming

Long to see you swimming

Slipping into evening

Rolling through your hair

Sit bum naked

Supple coverlet

Rose purple coverlet

Above what not remains

We arrive at the station on track three and I switch trains. Opposite the station is a beautiful cathedral, looking like something from a Monet painting. James gets on and sits next to me and I'm happy to see him. He wants to kiss me on the mouth, and I don't mind, but he's obviously been up all night and his beard is scratchy and he smells like cigarettes.

The train starts going down the tram tracks, faster and faster, and we go over the bridge where the ions are supposed to cure depression. It's finally starting to get light, and I think we can go to the University and meet Tracy there. She's been there taking classes all night and we can take her home.

Way to sea is swimming

Long to see you swimming

Gliding in the wake you make

Emerging into light

Dive serene

Breathe evenly

Feel your length

Extend to me

Way to sea is swimming

Long to see you swimming

Slipping through the morning

Stretching through the bay

I hear the scream of the break shoe and feel the train stop and that wakes me up; it's my stop, Central Square. As I hurry to get off I realize, in a flash, two things: I realize that all the time I've been on this train doesn't count against the time I have to live, because the train is somehow outside of time; and I realize that every good band has a train song.

Kind of cool or just lame? A Marin brewery is producing beers named after Zappa albums.

Today's Verse: 20 August 2008

One day I too will limp
Life will lose continuity
Disintegrate into many parts, episodes
"Today I walked the hall ...
I vaguely remember a book I lent
Someone I thought would be a friend."
Never saw them again. What was that book?

I'll be sick and weak like the others
Wondering at the waste
Yearning for bygone pleasure
Re-imagining the world in my cell
Increasingly self-reliant
While decreasingly able
To excite, amuse, please

Staring at the wall or the glass in the window pane
What will I have learned then?
To love you would suffice.

The next beauty salon show, this one featuring "Way to Sea" will be presented this coming weekend.  It's a benefit for somebody's kid's preschool.  Details here.

Today's Verse: 8 August 2008

I know many stories
(Neither true or false)
Whose people search the padding
Of the guilt and justice trap
For an escape hatch
Squeezing wriggling writhing through little cracks
Deeper ever deeper in a dark pocket
Binding themselves tighter
With each effort
To the sickening ends
- Transfixed, impotent, immobile -
They struggle to avoid

Kosmos: World as Adornment

One day last spring, when Cosmo was still fairly spherical, he was lying on the bed and I started thinking about what it would be like if the Kosmos were like our Cosmo.  I didn't get very far, but I'll probably never finish this, so I offer it as a tribute to our sorely missed friend:

Cosmo is big and round.  Cosmo is a prefect sphere.  The sphere is a perfect shape.  The sphere is all points a certain distance from one point and so it is perfect. The points are on the surface of the sphere, so you can see them whenever you want.

Cosmo never answers any questions.  Cosmo doesn't like to answer questions.  Cosmo doesn't need to answer any questions because the answers are all on the surface.  They are all on the outside where they can be seen so there is no need to answer any questions.

Someone wanted to spell it with a k and a z.  She said otherwise it would be too heavy.  Cosmo is a little heavy but that’s no reason why not to spell his name correctly.

Cosmo is very watchful, but he includes all things in himself.  You just have to calculate the distance from the center and you realize that it’s all there.

Cosmo’s unity delights us.  Cosmo cannot be divided, even in perception, without sorrow.

Farewell to Cosmo Lemurstein

Last night we said goodbye to Cosmo, our dear friend for fifteen years. Mira had it right when she said, "It's very unusual to have a space alien for a housepet."

Holiday in Berlin: Full Blown (Reprise)

Back in Berlin after 30 years or so. Been traveling with Indi across Germany over the past week, picking up Mira and Jai in Rot-an-der-Rot and Leipzig respectively, with a stop-over with friends in Hamburg in between. Never really thought of this as a holiday destination, but it is interesting and you know plus ca change ...

I had a Spartans dream, and a nice one: we were driving in James's old 88 and he was singing a song he'd made up, a Beefheart howl called, "I Can't Couple" and Stephen was riding shotgun, gentle as a lamb and Jimmy had a bunch of new songs he wanted to teach me. I had my ukulele with me and I couldn't wait to learn the new songs.  I was happy that we were all together.

Weekending

My blind and disabled friend Pat the Peacewalker and I brought our message of large pink tricycles and happy smiles to Takoma Park, Maryland's annual fourth of July parade. The weather was nice. Jessie marched with the swim team, and Ellen and Annie helped fill out the audience.

The Flag Day performance was fun. We had a capacity crowd of 35 or so, peanuts by Washington Mall street performance standards, but capacity for the hair salon/loft. The hostess made some beautiful food and bought plenty of drinks. I had expected just some cheese and raw vegetables and a bottle of white wine, but beauticians know how to throw a do. We'll be presenting a new show at the end of August, this one with music, text and film. I'll be doing a piece I presented a few years ago, based on the "Way to Sea" section of Witchenbye. I'll be in the market for texts, sounds and songs, so Jim please take notes during your Jubilee Sabbatical and pass them on. (I'm always counting on Jimmy and Peter for material). The texts of the other pieces that were performed are now available at http://www.betweenartandlife.com/ for the interestial.

Family travels

Since Jimmy regaled us with the globe-trotting exploits of his crew, I thought I would tell you a little news of my own. Ellen and the girls are headed off to Invercargill, New Zealand (see map) for a year in September. Ellen has always wanted to take advantage of some of the international opportunities that exist for medical professionals, and now that the girls can take care of themselves, they are all going to go for it. For Jessie, it is a unique opportunity to get two summer vacations in one year, and for Annie, it is chance to stay out of college and do some backpacking and stuff for a year. I will probably go down for a visit in January, and I hope to turn it into an around-the-world adventure through Mumbai and Europe. I am planning a career change myself, since I have lost interest in computer programming (I was never really that interested in it), so I hope to spend most of the year at one of our local universities, meeting new people and ideas. On the other hand, I could just hide in my office and sink more deeply into depression. What do you think?

BTW: When you've had your car break in half in Zell am Ziller, Rot am Rot is entirely believable. Other folks, however, have been known to refuse to acknowledge the truth about both Rolla Costa and Regula Pickel. I try to forgive them, and I pity them.

peace,
jim

Hey, Bartender

Well Spain won it and I'm now back in Mumbai. Monsoon is in full form -- rain and wind and monsoon flowers blooming on the terrace. The five cats and Mary, our maid, and her baby Preston (not making that up) for company. Mira and Jai are on their ways to intensive German courses in Rot-an-der-Rot (not making that up either, but you won't find it on a map) and Leipzig respectively. Indi's taking them, then heading to Pietrasanta in Italy to visit friends and draw.
Bartender, I'll have another.

Wish I Was There

Hey Johny, hope your event is a great success in every way today. Look forward to the photos and video. I'm in Zurich with Jai enjoying the sporting mob frenzy of Eurocup 2008. The Swiss are out. The Spanish look good. The Romanians are surprising. And the world cheered at the mighty Germans defeat at the feet of the feisty Croats. Of course it rains every day and the trams are floating on beer.

Today while I was walking the dog, at the railroad crossing on Third Street I actually saw two trains going down the track.  There was one a-going forward, and the other going back.  Hey look at that!

Seven Rooms You Never Imagined In Your House

These are Jim's "programme notes" that we'd like to get printed on cocktail napkins for the performance next week. Sorry I couldn't figure out how to include the accompanying illustrations.

1. The Instrument Room is dominated by an ominous moaning, growling sound coming from a large metallic cone, shaped like a flower bell. Discarded instruments litter the floor and shelves. Some are rusty and bent, some new and brazen. It’s dark, dusky in here. The whole room kind of vibrates dully. Your palms get sweaty, but you’re smiling like an idiot as you seat yourself at the drum kit and start swinging. The windows are covered by a uniform coat of grime through which you can barely make out a red cardinal in a yew tree.

2. The Mourning Room alternates black and white tiles. The walls are bare. The cupboards closed. There’s a phone but no one calls. There’s a slat for memories in the floor. You put them in there and they leave you alone. The window opens on the sea, dark and still. You see a very long way to the horizon.

3. The Show Room has always a little more air being sucked out of it than comes in. They do it carefully so you don’t suffocate right away. You expect to meet your friends here and sometimes you do. This is where you try not to talk about what you really want. And fail. You want to be here until you get here.

4. The Fast Fun Room – talk about a good time! There’s food and smoke and beer and music and everyone’s talking loud and laughing hard. Your pulse is racing and there are some wild ideas in back of your eyes. Everything’s accelerating until you pass out. When you wake up it’s empty, you smell bad and hurt. You struggle to remember what you told whom. You vaguely remember something you promised or threatened. One by one your friends awake and drag themselves out from under the furniture. They look much better than you feel but still pretty bad. Can’t stand seeing each other.

5. The Temple Room is where you worship temptation. Here you gravely measure and confine the full extent of your desires. It’s a small room without a ceiling. There’s no door but you find it difficult to enter, which you do with breath held and an obsequious tilt to your body. Start here by thinking about everything you can’t have, can’t do, don’t want until your spirit rises above and beyond the limits of the room to encompass the vast reaches of the unknowable.

6. The Room of Dregs is where you’ll find everything you've thrown away and discarded. They collect it at the recycling center and make installation art of it. When they've got enough they bring it home to you and put it right here.

7. The Cameroum is like a foreign country. Everybody’s talking but what are they saying? Everything’s familiar but slightly different. Everybody seems friendly, but what are they laughing at? You’d like something to eat but are afraid you’ll get sick. It’s frustrating but nice – nobody knows you here.

Witchenbye: Hotel

This is Room 100.  It’s bare except or the television screaming in white.  It never goes off, just gets bigger and smaller.

You may get the Tower Room.  It’s exceeding long with high ceiling.  Children make their noise en masse outside in the schoolyard.  It comes with a fever.  Not many choose it or can find it.  It may no longer be there.

Room 612 has a view of the parking lot.  It’s very reassuring.

On the fourth floor, all the rooms are one.  Desks and beds are laid out for efficient work and rest.Please keep the lavatories clean.  Or else.

Some choose to stay in the elevator.  Saves choosing.  They’re pleasant!  And they work.

The north staircase is the most used.  It doesn’t clean easily and still carries the smells of smokers past.  Cockroaches can occasionally be seen.   Some food trays may not have been cleared.  It can get hot.

Room 202 has vast curtained windows.  All the furniture is large.  The carpet is thick.  There’s a table for the Board of Directors.  They’re not here; they rarely come.  It’s very clean.  You feel someone might walk in at any moment.  With a request for you, or to take your request, or maybe with an order.  Whatever it is you know you’ll accept it or maybe they’ll accept it.  Whatever it is, it will be acceptable.

The central landing on the fourth floor is simply appointed with a couple of desks, chairs and framed pictures from old magazines.  The window ledges are rather high.  You have to stand almost on tiptoe and lean over to see the busy students and professors hurrying in the courtyard below.  It’s a perfect place to consider suicide.  Never been done, though.

The terrace is a good place to meet and talk.  There’s a flow of people and there are spaces for little groups to form and dissolve naturally.  Most people are happiest here, in between where they’re coming from and where they’re going to.

Here’s the first floor reception area.  Remember: waiting is not the same as striving.

The men and women who work at the reception desk see you as an object to be processed by screening.  Just do what they say.  Don’t be affronted if they appear to regard you with curiosity or without curiosity, with or without interest, in a friendly or unfriendly way.  They don’t care about you at all.  You’re just passing through.  Do so quietly.

In Room 100, you’re trying to figure out what the TV’s screaming about.  Actually, it’s you screaming.

The power plant is very impressive.  Nobody works there, they just oversee it.  It works by itself, making power and moving it, heating and cooling.  Always turned on and pumping--for your benefit and mine 

You can get there by train.  Who are all those people, heads nodding?  Are they waking or falling asleep?  Some are fresh and some are wilted.  They all seem to have been riding for a long time.

“Which room is mine?”  Which would you like?  Choose one you can have and make it your own.

Room 617 has a small kitchen and dining room.  A couple of plants here and there could make it quite cheery.  Put a home entertainment system with cameras, speakers, phones and screens.  Watch yourself or allow someone else to watch you.  It’s like picking at a scab or eating potato chips though; you can’t always stop when you want to. 

Some prefer the dormitories.  They make it easy to be oneself by resembling someone else.  Deserted throughout the day, by night they’re saturated with the warm, heavy smell of communal somnolence.  What a thrill to escape from the severe rows of identical cots and lockers into wild, turbulent dreams.  And how satisfactory the relief at returning, your departure not noticed or remarked upon.

Sometimes you don’t get enough privacy.  The sound of someone else shitting, or trying to come, or sobbing may disturb or arouse you.  Pretend you’re not aware.

A little more Witchenbye (but not much)

Another project wrapping up

Just wanted to pass on the into that we have basically finished the building at our local swimming pool club. I got involved a few years ago with flipping burgers at swim team fundraisers and just kept getting more involved as the old building deteriorated and we had all kinds of hassles keeping the place afloat. Eventually, we had a reasonably good group of "Board of Directors" and I decided that we needed to replace the building. After a long battle over costs, planning, etc "Why should we get a new building when Jim can duct-tape the old together each Spring (for free)?" etc, etc. we went for it, and it has been a long, stressful Winter and Spring. We passed our final inspection the morning that we were supposed to open and everybody brave enough jumped into the freezing water. Like so many things, it was a huge hassle, but it is done enough that other people can take care of it now, and I can move on to other things. I never did make that exploding meat puppet, but I think that I want to do more appealing art. No clear idea yet.

Witchenbye: Hotel

Jim, in about a month I'll be performing a tuba-n-text version of the section of Witchebye that begins, "This is Room 101.  It's bare except for the television screming in white.  It never goes off, just gets bigger and smaller" and ends with, "Sometimes you don't get enough privacy.  The sound of someone else shitting, or trying to come, or crying may disturb or arouse you.  Pretend you're not aware."  All performance notes gratefully accepted.

It is, briefly, quite hot here in Berkeley.  I shall have to open the famous skylight.

I've been reading Bolano's "The Savage Detectives", do you know it?  I find it suitably entertaining.

Oh and here is a poem I like by Bill Knott:

      Even when the streets are empty,

      even at night, the stopsign

      tells the truth.

As long as we're talking golf...

Here's one of the exhibits I did for the USGA Museum. It not only features the exciting rivalry between Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, it has a stack of vintage TVs! As we all know, one TV is nice, but nothing sucks you in like a wall of glowing screens.

I had originally given this program a cool, jazzy soundtrack. But the client didn't like it. So now the music is more than reminiscent of an old Marlboro commercial. Palmer was quite the smoker in his day, but I think he smoked L&Ms and I don't know if they had a song.

Flying Lady

Well well: they have a little putting game here that my colleagues enjoy, and what should I find next to it but a pile of pink golf balls, of the distinguished Flying Lady brand. Now sing it with me, my friends:

“Flying lady’s in the rough
Didn’t know love could be so tough…”

I'm back

I was out in Pennsylvania and New Jersey last week, visiting my family for Passover.  I also saw Professor Gilbert, who had returned from DC where he welcomed the Pope to our United States.  He tells the story here.

Kevin Ayers has a new album that I just got.  He was never my favorite in the Roxy/Soft Machine/Henry Cow axis, and I find the album less exciting than, say, a new Robert Wyatt album, but one still can't help but be pleased that he still making music.

This obituary was sent by correspondent Stephin M. of Los Angeles, California.  Monsters from the id, indeed.

James, I received a ballot for the June primary.  If you have any friends running for Green party nominations in Alameda county, let me know and I'll offer them my support.

Physics anyone?

On Friday, we took the Peace Bus around town for some adventures and kicked off a new campaign to promote the resignation of Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice. We walked around the State Department some and then went over to the Einstein memorial for a photo shoot. I thought it would look nice since we all have such big heads. Albert's was the biggest.
Today it's rainier, but we're planning on going out to the big Earth Day concert with some of our magical machines and serving Pink Lemonade to the kids. I thought it would be nice to serve cucumber sandwiches as well, but have not generated great interest in that idea so far. A little nosh goes a long way, I always say, when I'm not saying something else. Indeed that is Johny's neighbor and Trinity college professor Brenda in the center of the picture. She lives up the hill from Johny, a block or two from the house I grew up in. I look forward to visiting California again soon.

I spoke with my 95-year-old Uncle Milton today. He called Grandma while I was visiting her.  He told me the discovery he made about human motion: that it is like a wheel, which goes forward by falling.  One side of a wheel goes down while the other side goes up, but the wheel goes forward.  He asked me to think about this carefully, and I have been doing so.

Tiny Giants

Since I was asked, macro photography is done using a lens that allows you to focus on a subject that is inches away, basically so you can take close-up pictures of tiny things.  I don't know why it isn't called micro photography, but it has something to do with the fact that the image on the negative is the same size as the object.  On the other hand, if you take a photo of your head, the image is much smaller than your head.  

Anyway, the above is a part of a photo display in a window that had been there so long the image was peeling off the paper.  I couldn't tell what was going on until I took the picture.  To the eye it looked like some strange fungus was growing on the photograph.  The display showed what this plaza in Berlin looked like before it was bombed in the war.  And now the photograph is self-destructing.

Today's Verse: 11 April 2008

There's a spinning vortex of refuse
A thousand miles offshore
Where currents meet
Chase in a circle
Then flow on
Girdling the globe
Eventually to return
With more trash

Nothing's lost or forgotten
It's displaced beyond our ken
Pity the souls who lived there
Suffocated on the remains
Of somebody else's good time

Wash away my guilt and care
Wash away, wash away shame
I never wanted to hurt or kill
(Since school)
Come sweet redeemer and purify
Relieve me of desire for plastics,
Polymers, petroleum products
Wash away
Let my bath water cleanse and sanctify
Bring forth everlasting life

There's a fountain, fed by a spring
Flowing since birth
Last year it gushed a flood
Now it's drying up
Exhausted

Today's Verse: 10 April 2008

The head in the sack
You brought
Distracts me from my game

Can't not imagine
Its lifeless gaze
Of displacement

I know it's not human
Anymore
But animation souvenirs
May linger over the immobile
Clump of its "features"

When I serve
Its dissembled presence
Intercedes between the toss
And contact
And looms up in my mind's eye
In the brief interlude
That the ball hangs over my head
No longer rising
Not falling yet

What prompted you to bring it here?
Now I can't get rid of it.

Tiny Giants

Since I've been crazy about macro photography lately, I thought I'd share some.

Here's that funny German double S letter in front of some government building in Berlin.

When the picture's bigger, you can see all the individual etching lines sharp as a tack.

So cool.

How those kiddies do love the big horn

More pictures from the Sunday farmer's market

Today's Verse: 9 April 2008

I lament
On the way back home
All the way back home
I received your vision
Of a better future
Of maps and charts
Too late I saw
The lines that connect
Near and far
Ease stress
And improve the quality of life
Although some misfits
May bemoan perceived aesthetic defects
(The median of gray, concrete phalli bound by wire?)
How could I but applaud your enthusiasm
Selfless devotion to engineering
Global approach and ambition?
It all comes too late
I'm returning to the past
Where problems don't require resolution
In fact there are no problems
It just is
Was
At the same time
I'm happy here there
Good luck and keep in touch

It does seem odd that I’m marketing software, although I’m not exactly marketing software, I’m an Account Manager for a company that makes admissions software for colleges, but you know, whatever, in any case the real question is what I’m doing in Cincinnati. For a long time I used to come back here almost every year around this tine, Passover you know, but not for a while, I think the last time I was here I went to opening day with my brother, and before that I went to opening day with my dad, and the umpire dropped dead in the third inning so we went home but we came back the next day. It was sad. Opening day is the first day of the baseball season, I suppose not everybody knows that, the Reds always have the first game of the season and that was Monday, the first day I was here, opening day for the Reds. Nobody lives here that I know any more, except my dad and Jimmy Eichmann, that’s all I can think of, but the trees are still the same, even though the temperature is the same as in Berkeley, high of 62 low of 48, the trees know where they are and as I was driving down the street past the white brick houses—never brick in California, you know—it was the look and smell of spring here, it was like driving to Grandma’s house. Even though Cincinnati is a grotesquely middle-aged city, I’m somehow too old to be here; when I make a joke about Bob Braun or Kash Amburgy, I might as well be talking about Fred Allen or Edgar Bergen. The women who do the same job I do here are in their twenties and are like the girls with whom I went to school, with their straight blonde hair and flat Midwestern vowels, business majors from the University of Dayton, except of course they are the daughters of my classmates from Wyoming High School. And last night I dreamed about Paul Trupin, my high school friend who died at 33, but every time I see him I remember that he’s not really dead, that was misreported, everyone thinks that but no, he’s back in Cincinnati, but just passing through. Usually I’m trying to see him but can’t, but this time he wanted to stay with me while he’s here, which of course there are some friends to whom one never says no. So it’s good to see my dad and to see Paul, and as for the rest, you know, some things don’t change, vis-à-vis Moronicity, and to think I could be a podgy rock star with bad hair and make-up. Tracy, maybe it’s just the picture, but you look about one hundred and fifty seven times better than Robert Smith.

I am Cured!

I was visiting a friend in Berlin recently, and we went to Rotterdam to see the Cure. She is a huge fan, I was just curious (pun thought about and rejected).

So, we had these meet and greet passes, and got to spend 15 minutes alone with the band before the show. Last I remember Robert Smith, he was standing in a child's wading pool wearing too much makeup and singing about Japanese babies. He still wears too much makeup. But he and the band were so hospitable, I had to give them high marks for fan relations. And they played for over three hours, showing an admirable level of dedication for a band that's been around since we were living in Morges.

Anyway, just another entry for the "Who would have thunk it?" file.

Well, I'm no longer working at the California Institute of Integral Studies.  I'm going to start in that paradigmatic yuppie job of marketing software.  Tomorrow I'm off for training in, coincidentally enough, my hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.  From now on I'll have to inegrate in my own time.

Today's Verse: 27 March 2008

It's news: two slaves
Rescued
From an Italian circus
Tortured for the public
By fish and reptile
Their fellow freaks
Regret
Their good fortune
A sad affair
It reflects poorly on us all

I dreamed I saw Brother Robert last night.  He asked me to give you all his regards.  He said with a chuckle, "There are many monkeys on the mountain where you live."

The Blushing Groom

I finally got back this not-very-good picture from Stephen's wedding, but they actually did look all happy like that.

Congratulations to Annie.  Juliana and I are of course always delighted to see either of the Miss Prestons.  UCSC is as you know a beautiful campus, and offers a sterling education and opportunities to improve one's surfing and hacky-sack.   I hope she decides to come out here.

I just heard "Bongo Fury" for the first time in many years and was happily reminded of James's 1977 Halloween costume: the Channel 13 Masked Wrestler.

We said goodbye to Tim the Cat last night.  She was known variously as: Timsy, Stim, Smitty, Mitts, Skibbitty, the Kid, The Boo, The Boodle, the Bandit of Love, Mean Little Kitty, MLK and the Baby Nurse Shark.  She was rescued from under the Grand Teton Music Festival Hall, where I was working when Juliana were first living together in 1992.  I was cleaning up at the end of the season and kept hearing a loud meow.  An intrepid electrician named Tim Jacobsen crawled on his belly and rescued her from a hole beneath the Festival Hall.  She was so small she fit in his pocket.  She was black and white and matched our other cat Random, so we kept her.  We named her for her rescuer though she was, of course, a girl.  She had blue eyes, a little pointy tail and a mask on her face.  She was only a few days old and had to be bottle-fed, but still had the loud meow that had first brought her to my attention.

When she was only a few months old, she took a stereo speaker to the head, which was nearly fatal.  It left her dizzy, cross-eyed, averse to being touched or petted and frequently bad tempered.  She once held Juliana’s mother at bay when the latter was in our kitchen baking a birthday cake.  She gave my mother the kitty come-on and my mom, despite having been warned, reached in to pet her and was rewarded with a bloody scratch.

Though she wasn't too partial to me, or the other cats or the dog, she was somewhat overfond of Juliana.  She liked to lie curled up in her armpit at night, growling if she dared roll over or shift her weight.  She always had a favorite warm place: under the table by the heater in our first house, in the patch of sunlight that moved along the floor throughout the day at the Linn ranch and in front of the floor-to-ceiling radiator that we called The Wall of Fire in our place in North Beach.  She would lie there contentedly with her eyes closed, growling slightly as I walked past and occasionally taking a swipe at my bare feet.  She spent most of our time in Woodland under the daybed upstairs in her so-called Norma Desmond phase.  Like the rest of us, she seemed to prefer Berkeley, and found new favorite perches and slept on the bed again.

Juliana had told me a while ago that Tim was undergoing kidney failure, though she seemed as cheerily ill-humored as ever.  In the last week she stopped eating, not even tuna or scrambled eggs.  She still could jump in the shower to lick up the water, an old favorite activity, and had taken up yowling in the middle of the night, the same famous meow that saved her life fifteen years ago.  Last night was the end.  It’s tough to lose a friend and we miss her.

 

Blood Booger

Thought this would be a good name for something. Just not sure what.

If anyone's looking for me, I'll be in Texas at the Blixt-Leach nuptials.  

Today a priest theatened to kill me.  That's never happenned to me before.  Usually Juliana has the more interesting stories when she comes home from work.

Jim Jones of Pere Ubu died.

"The Muse laughs to scorn all those who believe that she will appear to them merely because they practice her art diligently and devotedly.  Now go practice your horn."

--Bertolino Bourboni, "Amusing the Fuse"

auld lang syne, baby

Here's a

happy new year's

picture of our Joanna

and her daughter Lili.



Dance Away...

Today's Verse: 11 February 2008

Draw around the hole
The Mystery Channel
Occultish devotee of
Transcendence
Transformation
Grub

The void's hungry
Makes the animal
Locomote
Makes the engine
Makes the vehicle
Move
Can't stop making
Swallowing

Quicksand
Can be slow
Torture

Polka Grammy

Yeah, Jimmy Sturr won again.  Why do they even bother having nominations.  The Klezmatics won Best Contemporary World Music, that's very slightly cool.

Stevie Wonder called me today to say he loved me and to ask me to vote for his good friend, Barack Obama. I'm really sorry I missed his call. Also, Robert Fripp will be giving a talk at school next week.

"But when the devil says to you again, 'You are damned'," St. Francis said, "You answer him confidently, 'Open you mouth--and I will [empty my bowels] in it!"

Note: In the Actus an Italian expression is used which corresponds to the English "four-letter word."

    --The Little Flowers of St. Francis

"There's even some evil mothers who will tell you that everything is made out of dirt."

     --Lou Reed

Tell it to the judge

Last week's 'Shut Down Guantanamo' event at the Supreme Court provided some pretty nice photo opportunities that did not get as much play as we would have liked. Here is one of the money-shots that I think more newspapers could have used if they were into that kind of thing.

Other Brothers Twain

and occasional visitors to the Spartan Bar

I'll tell you one thing, and ask you another.

The peace and justice movement has been largely ignored by the mainstream media and political leaders in the United States. Do they really understand who they are dealing with?

Papa just laughed

Greetings from Vandoeuvres, a stone's throw from the golf course in Cologny. Had the great pleasure yesterday of re-listening to some old Fast Fun tapes that Mary and John have kept. Remember the "Christmas tape" of 1984? Listened to it after lunch at the Auberge de la Ferme. The smell and feel of our mouldy, damp recording facility on the Rue des Alpes (?) by the gare in Lausanne was recalled in full force. Of course, it sounds better than we thought. Mira compared it favourably to demo tapes of some her current favourite bands. And of course, "it sounds like the Velvet Underground", especially Jim's singing and Jesus in general. Also played a pre-demo demo with 3 versions of Reagan on it. Jai was able to discern a preference for the first, "better but less musical" version. Myself, I still get a warm chuckle from that tune. And am still a sucker for "Big House" with full synth flourishes by J Blood, and the ecstatic fury of Waving and Maybe I Will. Ah well, les neiges d'antan or something like that. Gran'pa? Yes, Jimmy ....

Merry Christmas.  War is over.

Tina: Remember?
Ike: Remember what?

Tina: You used to call me Daffodil
Ike: Yes, those were the good old days.
Tina: A thriller...
Ike: That's me!
Tina: Every woman's loving man.

If the death of JB and the trial of Phil Spector have not sufficiently raised the question of the man vs. the artist, we now have yet another case to consider of a drug-adled, control-freak, wife-beating egomaniac who changed the face of popular music. If the man can be separated from the music, or indeed even if he can't, there remains the genius in the body of work and, especially, the funky down-home guitar playing of Ike Turner.

I've been coughing so much my diaphragm is sore and it hurts to roll over in bed.  The frog in my throat feels like a Scarlet Crapaud.  Yesterday I had the cold sweats which nonetheless did not make me feel any closer to James Brown.  I'm a little worried because the Maggies will be recording our new pirate-themed LP on Sunday.  But I'm trying to keep a cheery spirit in keeping with the season.  Better to be sick in Berkeley, I suppose.

Wow, both Brave Combo and Bubba Hernendez were nominated for Polka Grammys.  Too bad Jimmy Sturr will win it, same as always; the Academy has its head stuck in 1954.

I dreamed we were all together again, playing golf.  I wasn't very good at it. Happy birthday, Jim.

Today's Verse: 27 November 2007

I can't keep death away
From your little door
All I can do
Is stay by you
Face the silent roar
While you sleep

I found a bottle of Pikesville rye at a local liquor store. Slogan: "The Aristocrat of Straight Whiskeys". I was initially baffled to learn that it is not made in Pikesville MD but in Kentucky, but of course you can find anything on the web, so here's the story that not only tells what happened to Pikesville rye, but includes Old Setter whiskey and Natty Boh.

Antique British Dessert of the Day: Syllabub

Try that with your treacle, Dick.

The Two Roberts W

Quite a while ago, so long I don’t remember it, Jimmy sent me a book of short pieces by the early twentieth century Swiss writer, Robert Walser. I found a recent translation of Walser’s novel “The Assistant”, about a clerk who goes to work for an inventor who is going broke. For a while I didn’t think I liked it, since the only plot is the inventor’s slow inevitable descent into ruin, and I thought it was one of those books in which the reader is supposed to laugh at the character’s increasing misfortune, you know, things are so bad now at least they can’t get worse, but are really about the author feeling superior to his own characters, so why bother. But then I started really loving the straight-ahead, affectless assistant, who regardless of circumstances, pretty much likes everything: his coffee, the sunshine, the Swiss woods, his boss’s wife’s neck. It’s actually a strange and really wonderful book and now I’ve started Walser’s weirder and wonderfuller “Jakob von Gutten”. Bircher muesli, Vita-merfen and Robert Walser: these are why the Swiss will never be defeated.


I dreamed that I met the other Robert W., who had invited me to a little gathering of some sort. I asked him who did the original of “Yesterday Man” (“a bit of a music nerd question, I know”) and he teased me gently when I refused some food he offered because it had meat in it. “Everything eats something else,” he said in his adorable working-class accent. Do we think that Robert Wyatt might himself be a vegetarian? Men: he is a British hippie. De: he did once write a song from the point of view of bacon. (“I’m delicious when I’m crunchy, even when I’m almost black”.)

Expression of the day: treacle dick. A British dessert, custard in molasses sauce.

Election Day

My close friends may recall that Election Day is Johny's Birthday (celebrated). A few years ago I wrote The Elcetion Day Polka, since it's a holiday with no song; "Hip hip hooray/for the USA/Everybody jump for joy 'cause it's election day/ Yippee yahoo/ For me and for you/ Oh boy it's election day, we'll have a big to-do." And yet here it is election day and for the first time I can remember since I came back to the States, there's no election today, at least not in Berkeley. No ballot issues, no city council election, no recall, nothing. I'm familiar with the "don't vote, it only encourages them" arguement, but man, I really love going to the fire station or church or somebody's garage, going behind the curtain and punching little holes in the cards. (Nowadays, post-hanging shads in California, we draw a nice dark line on the card, which isn't as much fun.) It might be a pointless exercise to opiate the masses with the illusion of choice, or it might not I suppose, but I miss it all the same today. Happy Election to all.

Happy Birthday Dear Johny

Happy Birthday Mr Blood

Dear Johny,
I know it's a day early but am on my way to an island in the Arabian Sea to celebrate Diwali far away from the smoke and noise of Bombay and so will be out of reach of telephone, GSM, GPRS, etc. Indi, Mira, Jai and I wish you a very happy birthday. The kitties are all well, though Juhu's become a bit of a refugee since Patch gave birth. We see him every once in a while but he's terrified of the little mama, which confuses her more than she is already. Her teenage pregnancy has messed her mind up, in the immortal words of Jeff Simmons.
Jai, in addition to baritone for the school band, has now taken up the bass. First riff: White Stripes. Thought you should know.
Love

I read a book recently called "A Tour of the Calculus" by David Berlinski, written to describe the calculus and what it does, rather than teach it. There's a couple of pages of analysis in most of the chapters, which is to say, just slightly more than I can take in. He thinks through the ideas of integration and derivatives, and includes things like the relationship between mathematical objects, physics and "la vie vecue". I like best that he calls it the calculus, the way Sir Isaac did.

But Euler's e, I still don't think I get it. It's a transcendental number, yup, it a logorhythmic function, it can be used as a base same as we commonly use base 10 or computers use base 2, right, and...it's the number whose...log is itself...no, but it loops back on it self somehow...Nope. Dunno. It has something to do with ants on a Moebius strip somehow.

In the jailhouse now?

I wonder if Firestone is one of those arrested yesterday on the steps of the Capitol. If so, you should get cracking on your prison memoirs.

This just in: the Tomatis Method comes to CIIS. Matt Egg and Augusta Dora rejoice.

Actress Margaret Whitton?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aY9iM2A4uDt4&refer=home

I'm happy today because I wrote "Moron rules" in wet concrete.