free travel advice

While walking at the harbor, it’s best to avoid large groups of people wearing matching shirts. One is never quite sure what these people are doing, but whatever it is can’t be good. Particularly insidious are the seemingly disparate groups whose members are all wearing plain white t-shirts. No identifying marks indicates a sure sign of criminal activity, or possibly a cult.
Insider tip: Avoid at all costs.

While walking at the harbor, it’s best to avoid the urban pirate ship. Individuals paid to dress up like pirates gambol on the ship’s deck in the midst of a gaggle of confused tourists. Why did I allow my family to badger me into paying $20 per person for this nonsense, thinks that one morose guy on the port side. Other tourists walking around the harbor spot the ship and excitedly take photos. The guy who drives the weird boat that scoops up trash from the harbor looks bored and/or disappointed with his life as he waits for the ‘pirate ship’ to circle around, thus freeing his vessel from temporary bondage. Potential for heckling from the ‘pirates’ is suspected to be high.
Insider tip: Walk fast in the opposite direction.

While walking at the harbor, watch out for tourists riding bicycles, most of whom appear to have not ridden a bicycle since their training wheels were mistakenly removed at age 6. If one finds oneself in the path of one of these hazards, stay calm. While it appears that the bicycle is on a collision course with your personage, anecdotal evidence suggests that these people do have some semblance of control over their vehicles. It’s likely that, at the last second, they will veer off into the path of some less-suspecting pedestrian.
Insider tip: Get your own bike and challenge these villains to a bike jousting match.

first review of rain crow

Rain Crow received its first review last week at DJ Frederick’s excellent site One Minute Cassette Reviews. His description of me writing ‘like an alchemist’ is a good reminder that… I must return soon to my laboratory.

If you have some time, I recommend poking around among DJ Frederick’s many other projects, including his various radio shows (my favorite so far is his folk show Night Train to Mundo Fine), links to all of which can be found at his Cottage Industry site.

unsolvable word problems

the indivisibility of a single word leaves a remainder of yesterday. a woman is overwhelmed by the memories of the first time she ever did anything. a man has no recollection of the last time he did anything. a child does not appear in this story.

the indivisibility of a single word leaves a remainder of scent. all separate parts join together as a whole. name the value of a single part. prioritize a single recurring sensation. freedom to breathe in, a conscious act of breathing out. this is some semblance of life.

the indivisibility of a single word leaves a remainder of shadows. add up the things and people no longer here. also, the activities, the rituals. stretch a taut coalescence of the before over a bony skeleton of songs. e.g., little maggie and mathey grove caper in the yellow lamplight spilled across the hardwood floor, a dream of distance as anchors tug, hold fast.

the indivisibility of a single word leaves a remainder of dreams. of dusty corners. of regret. of a swallowing up. of a diving down. of a spreading out. of a lossless life. of listless eyes. of a luster tarnished by your breath. of every day, an ending, every day a sort of beginning.

the indivisibility of a single word leaves a remainder of nothing. fill in the blank to receive extra credit: _________________.

thomas bernhard poem

Beyond this black forest
I stoke this fire of my soul
flickering with the breathing of the cities
and the blackbirds of fear.
With bare hands I kill these flames
that climb the air into my brain
and shiver in my name.
My heart drifts as a cloud
over the rooftops
along the rivers,
until I return, a later rain
deep in the fall.

—Thomas Bernhard, In Hora Mortis / Under the Iron of the Moon (p. 103)

[My review of this book]

moleskine miscellany (annotated)

i.

the sky in the glodes between masses of cloud was irenic blue—j. gardner, ‘the warden’

ii.

in the dream, people called it a giraffe but it wasn’t a giraffe—it was orange, maybe shaped more like a zebra—someone was leading it for a time, and then it was running along the river with the migrating birds. we all saw it.

iii.

when i ceased to be alone, solitude became intense, infinite—m. blanchot, the one who was standing apart from me

iv.

to be alone in public is true freedom. to be alone in a private residence holds a spell of constriction, resulting from the receding of the outward-facing gaze into an inward-facing position. as self-consciousness fades so too does presence of mind, of the rooting of the self in its role, be it outsider or not, within society.

[post-transcriptional annotation]

1. outward-facing: infinite possibilities; heightened awareness from surging external energies

2. inward-facing: finite possibilities; shrinking awareness from negative self-generated energies

(my talk show starts tomorrow. during a series of six silent sessions, i will expound upon the nonsense listed in part iv. tune your magic dial to eleventy-six-oh at quarter past the slowest hour of the day or if you don’t have a cardboard box with day-glo dials painted on it, tune your peepers to the suspicious-looking cloud formations in the western sky, which i have arranged in advance to spell out the answers to all of your questions. that’s all.)

severed rat head portends…something…

The extreme is only extreme when seen through another pair of eyes.

If there’s a problem someone has studied it, but likely not solved it.

If you were to invite disaster to dinner, what would you serve it.

If everybody hurts, why do they keep inflicting more pain.

Are certain things actually bad for us or are we just bad at handling certain things…

Removal from one’s environment alters perception.

(But for how long. For. How. Long.)

Places feel a certain way and it’s hard not to notice.

Somewhere else slows time’s passing (is this why some people love to travel).

A wall is a wall until one climbs on top and then it is a perch.

The familiar done in new ways is better than the new done in familiar ways.

If you run in circles you always finish what you start.

The end of the world no longer frightens me.

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