I found this one and a few others fueling up across the street just now. Higher than usual numbers are traveling south through the eastern U.S., and apparently avoiding the dry Midwest on their way to Mexico. Let’s hope they make it, despite an even longer trip.
Posted by sean on October 3, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/10/03/peak-monarch-migration/
The One and The Other are on vacation this week. Or they may have time traveled or transcended reality or something. It’s hard to say for sure. They are unreliable narrators. I overheard them jabbering about surfing wicked eddies in the space-time continuum. As I left the room, I saw them out of the corner of my eye, a brief flash. I think they were holding towels. Perhaps they’re now cavorting with mattresses on Sqornshellous Zeta.
I saw many birds this weekend. Birds. Birds. Birds. I went to the park. Twice. I saw a Chinese Mantis (Tenodera aridifolia). It flew across my path and landed in a tree. Fun!
On Saturday night I played Bananagrams. I felt sure I’d win on account of all the anagramming I’ve been doing lately, but I did not. Win, that is. One of my opponents was a known fierce competitor. Fastest bananagrammer in the West, they say. Now, I’m an anagram purist and do not think you should be able to dump letters, even considering that you are penalized by having to take extras when you do. When I mentioned this I was accused of being difficult. I ended up screwed several times at the end of a round when I picked up everybody’s crappy discarded letters. I think I prefer Boggle and Scrabble.
Work is work is work is work is work. Bah. Read poetry outside at midday near the water. So many old white men in suits. Just wait until they get the corporate nudity memo. Bloated bellies, sagging flesh tubes, scraggly grey chest hair…THE WORLD WILL SEE IT ALL. No one will be intimidated again by your fetid air of combed-over superiority.
Reading again about how the lucrative used tire market is the nefarious cause behind one of my summer woes. Isn’t that a bitter pill. I can’t get over it. Me, who hates cars and doesn’t even own one. I dream of an apparently pre-1987 world where I could actually enjoy my deck instead of shrinking from it in fear for months at a time. Where assassins did not invade the sanctity of my home, lurking in the low shadows, inserting their proboscises into my flesh to make a blood withdrawal. Used tires? Are you kidding me?
So here I am with my brand new 1970s rec room molester carpet, my office looking much tidier as a result, the shaggy blunt brutality of Monday closing in on me. The horror, the horror. And those brats The One & The Other not even here to entertain me. Damn them.
This didn’t really go where I wanted it to go.
Posted by sean on September 17, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/09/17/tenodera-aridifolia-one-riot-a-failed-raid/
It’s possible I saw more mosquitoes than birds during my birding expedition. I probably now have West Nile Virus. They are going to spray stuff from airplanes to kill the mosquitoes where I was looking at birds. Really. I wouldn’t lie about that. Think about not ever going to work again. Just think about it. For one. heart. beat. Fuck. I saw a dead slug on the sidewalk. I can’t take it. Why is it so easy to dislike people without even knowing their faces or their names. And yet. a squashed slug. crushes me. Farley walked right past a cat. Didn’t even see it. I think the cat was mocking him. There were a lot of vultures at Soldiers Delight. Hanging out on the cancer towers. Airing their wings and such before kettling up. It’s a vulture’s world out there. So many dead things to feast on. Because life is too much of everything. And so things are always dying and being replaced. And if you’re a vulture…well, I don’t feel the need to explain any further. There are too many people. And there are too many things. Too many people things and too many thing-people. The other night I dreamed I was living in an outdoor camp in a forest. I was part of a team. Our job was to watch over the forest, to help people traveling through it and to keep poachers out. We slept outside in little beds and watched informational films that helped us do our jobs better. How is this relevant? Let me put on my Jungian hat and pontificate. I guess maybe I want to help people instead of rot at a desk all day? Maybe not a job, per se, but something. Why not. Jung said many of his patients were successful middle-aged people who suddenly realized their lives were empty and meaningless. Hooray. Nothing changes throughout modern history, does it. It. just. gets. worse. But what does ‘successful’ mean in this context. I suspect it means the opposite of what I consider success. I am not interested in ‘social standing’. I am not interested in ‘moving up the ladder’. Of course that kind of success is going to make your life feel empty and meaningless. Of course it is. I hate your filthy money and everything. it. stands. for. I just want my time. That is all. Why is it so difficult. It seems like it belongs to me. But actually right now it largely belongs to a mammoth financial institution by way of a prominent American university by way of the United States Government by way of taxes paid by my friends and neighbors and complete strangers. So, in a way their time belongs to me, but not really because I give it to a big faceless bank, which means the people ‘moving up the ladder’ own it all. And their lives are empty and meaningless because of it. If they just stopped the process by which they are taking our time, I think we’d all be better off.
Where’s my cave. I have some paintings to make. They tell a very different story.
And yet…at work the ghost of Edouard Levé was haunting my mailbox. So there is that.
Posted by sean on September 5, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/09/05/mosquitoes-o-quiet-moss/
There is a Grand Prix auto race going on in front of my work today. Cars that reach speeds of 175 mph are driving on the city streets. That’s a good idea isn’t it, isn’t it. They sound like giant alien mosquitoes, whining at high pitch. Where is my giant fly swatter. Oversized things are always funny. You should know this. Any object that is much bigger than its normal size is innately humorous. This is some sort of natural law, I believe. I’ve seen forks that are like five feet long and I immediately fell on the floor seized by paroxysms of laughter. There is no denying this. Think about those giant foam cowboy hats. They are not funny because they’re foam; they’re funny because they’re huge. Let’s just agree to agree on this and I won’t say anything more about it.
As you’re pondering very large things that are usually smaller, here are a few anagrams:
EVERYTHING IS IN EVERYTHING = THE TINY GREEN IVY HIVE GRINS
AMERICAN HANDBOOK = A MOAN CHOKED BRAIN
ELF GENDER = FERN LEDGE
Today is Thursday and I just ate some pretzel sticks. This means it is the last day of work for me. Hooray. I feel the shackles loosen. Soon I will hulk out and roam unshackled for four five whole days [just made an executive decision to also take Tuesday off]. I thought about taking today off, too, so I could go birding because it’s been awhile since I’ve visited my bird friends. But I decided to come in and make anagrams instead. Plus the creeper carpet is creeping my way and I have a few last minute preparations to make. I am sure I will see my bird friends this weekend instead. Or Tuesday.
This afternoon I plan to drink yerba mate again and do some things. After that who knows. I might write a short play. As F.K. would say, don’t touch my chains.
Posted by sean on August 30, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/08/30/anagrams-an-arm-gas/
Your shoulders bend forward to keep out the world. I see it. What is the point. Why do we insist on throwing ourselves out into the fray. Retreat! Climb onto this liferaft I have constructed from a few termite-riddled planks bound together with the discarded hairs from your head. It’s all different but the same. Longing and self-denial: our life’s work, the unrequitable nectar from which we feed, desperate fools that we are. I can’t bear to look.
Today I took Farley to Spiderweb City. I heard a Black-billed Cuckoo, a bird I identify with. Common but secretive? Rumored to predict rain? Maybe not. I came home, ran around inside the house with my paint bucket, sweating, the futility of it all welling up inside, allegro. Mainlining futility, hoping someday for the pure uncut junk that blows your mind.
Later: party time. An invitation not refused. Perhaps the strangest party I have yet attended in a lifetime of suffering strange parties. Now here I sit, a party of one. Freebasing dictionaries and dreaming of foreign scents. The window is open to let in the rare cool night air. The city crickets patch together their ragged symphony. I am restless with the other music, but not drowning out the crickets. The stage is set for insomnia. Cue white noise…aaand, ACTION.
Observer versus participant in the steel cage match of life. Who wins. I wish I knew. Not that it would matter. I can’t change now. I feel like a bad character actor playing myself when I go out in public. The superficial bumbler. Kafka talks about being alone and how it restores himself to himself. How he comes alive when alone. The noise in his head quiets. He says, “Being alone has a power over me that never fails. My interior dissolves […] and is ready to release what lies deeper.” When two people are together in aloneness it is a curious thing. In some ways it is liberating. I think it may be the best we can hope for, but I still can’t see how it ends.
So we are afloat on this rotten raft held together by your hair. And I reach to pull your shoulders back but they no longer move. Like my spine they are stuck out of place. It’s dark now and the sea grows rough. I know the morning will come, but what does that even mean. At what point did the day really end. Some weeks stretch like taffy. Others make Friday the pin on this grenade and you’re stretching your long thin arm to it all week but it’s always out of reach until all of a sudden you’re yanking the pin out and it all blows up in your face. Or it’s a dud. Either way you lose another seven days. The box of grenades is not bottomless.
The rain is falling now, again. Like the cuckoo sang it would. Rain crow, rain crow, sing us a shower. This bird is killed by pesticides; this bird collides with TV towers, with tall buildings that house banks and corporate overlords. Let us all share the blame for killing a bird that sings when it is about to rain. For there are few sounds so soothing as gently falling rain.
Posted by sean on August 18, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/08/18/why-does-this-channel-play-such-a-peculiar-strain-of-white-noise/
The trepanner known as Stan mopped his brow with a faded bandana. The desert sun, high overhead, rendered all thought impossible. Crouched next to a rare trickling spring, Stan cleaned and sterilized his drill with the kit hanging from his belt. He was from the old school, scoffed at the new electric trepans on the black market. Besides, many of his clients weren’t even on the grid. When attending them, he couldn’t count on a reliable power source, so he relied on his own strength: a right forearm bulging from years of manual drilling. Now, as the metal parts of his drill dried in the arid air, he oiled the wooden handles to a glossy sheen. Satisfied with his work, he re-cased the tool and slung the strap across his chest. He had one more client to visit before calling it a day.
Mariela was a special case. Over the past decade, Stan had trephined her three separate times. The last time her family had tried to take him to court. He crossed the border and went into hiding for a few months, until Mariela herself sent word that her family had withdrawn the lawsuit. He’d resumed his practice only recently, and had yet to visit Mariela. Just this past week, though, she’d called several times, demanding a consultation. Mariela made him wary. Most of his clients were pleased with the initial results of his work and he rarely heard from them again, except for occasional check-ups. But he worried that Mariela had become addicted to the first rush of euphoria that follows a treatment. It was not something he had encountered before.
Today Mariela met him at the door flushed and breathless.
“You’re here!”
“Mariela. Yes, I am here.”
He stepped inside the cool adobe house. Mariela ushered him to the sitting room.
“Would you like a drink?” she asked.
He made a gesture. “Just water, if you please.”
“And how are the termites?” she asked slyly.
Stan chuckled. “They are fine, Mariela.”
“To think…a grown man consorting with such horrible….eeensects,” she said in a low voice.
“Please, let us not rehash this. I know how you feel about them. Now, what is it that you have called me for?”
“Ah, yes. Always so to the point you are,” she replied. “Well, I have been experiencing headaches.”
“And when did they start?” Stan asked. “Are they mild, severe…do they last long?”
Mariela sighed. “It’s been months. Sometimes they are mild, only lasting a few minutes…other times for hours, leaving me confined to bed.”
“Any other symptoms?”
“I have not been myself, Stan. The good feelings…they are gone.”
Stan rubbed his salt-and-pepper beard. He’d heard this before. After the first trepanation. And the second.
“Mariela. I think you are expecting too much. This procedure…it’s not meant to cure what ails you.”
Mariela glared at him. “And what is that, Stan?”
Stan took a sip of water and cleared his throat. “Well, I am not a psychiatrist, of course. But I believe you are profoundly depressed, Mariela.”
“But I thought the procedure is supposed to prevent that?”
“It cannot cure a pre-existing condition, my dear. That is not what it is intended for.”
“Why, I believe you have been less than straightforward with me then, Stan. Why did you not tell me this before? I could have saved myself a lot of trouble, not to mention money.”
Stan sighed. He had told Mariela all of this before. Each time she had come to him seeking treatment he had patiently explained to her the procedure’s limitations. But she had insisted on proceeding. She even made vague insinuations bordering on threats. He had almost been thankful when the lawsuit presented itself. It seemed to him a chance to sever this problematic relationship. And yet here he was again in conference with her. He decided to sidestep the larger issue at hand for now.
“If you would permit me to examine you, Mariela? The headaches may be the result of some swelling at one of the sites.”
She consented to his expert touch. His fingers passed lightly over her scalp, seeking the healed indentations. He found all three, holding his pen light close to the skin. As he suspected the sites all appeared well-healed and healthy. Mariela’s headaches were likely either psychosomatic or possibly even related to some other condition. Here was a delicate situation that he felt an urgent growing need to extricate himself from.
“Everything looks good, Mariela. I see no reason for your headaches to be related to the treatments I have administered.”
She pouted. “What about another treatment, Stan? Maybe there is some pressure built up inside, something you cannot see?”
He shook his head. “It’s not possible. The procedure is very exact. Not once have I had a patient experience swelling of the brain. I take great care in that respect.”
He was growing agitated. This woman, she…how do you say? Pressed his buttons? Never in his long career had he encountered such a troubling patient.
Mariela now slumped in her chair, eyes glassed over.
“I am sorry, Mariela, but I must leave. It is growing late and you know how far I yet have to travel.”
Light flickered in her eyes. “Oh yes, your termite friends. Of course. Please give them my reegards,” she sneered.
Stan rose and strode to the door. “Goodbye, Mariela,” he called. There was no answer.
He stepped out into the cool early dusk. Shreds of pink and purple cotton clouds latticed the open sky, tinged with gold by the sun’s waning light. He followed a faint narrow path out into the desert. By the time he reached the termitarium it was almost dark. The termites, overjoyed at his return, milled around his feet in the sand, chattering about the work they’d completed that day. With his last bit of strength, he knelt down and climbed inside the mound. There the termites clustered around him, eager to hear his own tales of excavation.
Posted by sean on August 12, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/08/12/the-trepanner-and-the-termites/
This has nothing to do with the following post.
Good evening, this is your onomatomaniacal captain speaking. While I ruminate over a possible second section of the previously published story, I’m returning this blog to its regularly scheduled program of automatic writing, arcane ramblings, and sudden bursts of intentional confusion. I feel excited and relieved about that, although I realize others might not. To those folks I will relate the following anecdote. I have always been curious about the wasp they call the cicada killer. Now, I like cicadas, so much so that I even have a tattoo of one on my arm (people usually think it’s a butterfly or a bee, but to hell with them). So I was shocked when I first learned that there was a wasp feeding on cicadas. To me, they seemed untouchable. I just figured they showed up, made a lot of noise, and then fell dead on the ground. I had no idea about this cicada killer and I wanted to know more. Well, today I finally saw a cicada killer. IT WAS FLYING WITH A CICADA THAT IT HAD JUST CAUGHT. This was at the country estate of my sister and her boyfriend. The cicada killer flew past me with its cargo and descended from the sky to the edge of the garden, where it promptly disappeared into a hole in the ground! I was flabbergasted. So if you’re feeling disappointed about the story not continuing right now, just be thankful you’re not a half-dead cicada being dragged underground by a wasp. And if you’re not disappointed, that’s good, too, because you must be reading this blog for the aforementioned rambling confusion and such, which is what we now have plenty of here.
More about cicada killers here. Side note: my favorite part of that link is the droll observation made in the photo’s caption that “Tall grass does not seem to keep them from locating the entrance.” Indeed it does not, as I saw with my very own peepers earlier today!
P.S. I may post a few more photos later from “Weekend at the Country Estate,” starring cicada killers, muddy dogs, giant gardens, and ancient abandoned vehicles.
Posted by sean on July 22, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/07/22/ignotum-per-ignotius/
Channel 6 anchorman Kent Brockman mistakenly reports on a master race of giant space ants.
Welcome to the Kingdom of Ants. I don’t know what goes on here, but I like it. Actually I don’t care for ants. I particularly don’t like when they start that business of traveling in lines. Nor do I like them crawling incessantly around on my kitchen counter or invading the hummingbird feeders (even though there are no hummingbirds this year? where are they? hello?? I created an urban paradise for you and you never showed up?). But enough about that. I enjoy the idea of an Ant Kingdom. Do you remember the Simpsons episode where Homer gets sent into space? He bumps into an experimental ant farm, letting the ants loose into the space shuttle. Footage of the accident, depicting ants looming large in the camera lens, is picked up by Springfield’s Channel 6 News. Anchorman Kent Brockman subsequently reports that the shuttle has been taken over by a “master race of giant space ants.” Brockman goes on to state: “I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.” On the wall behind him, Brockman has hung a homemade “Hail Ants” sign. Now that’s funny. My roommates and I hung an identical sign in our apartment many years ago. But in reality I’m pretty sure I would not enjoy living under insect overlords. They would likely make me march in lines, which I would hate.
Brockman shows off his obsequious nature.
Mondays are so absurd. Lately I’ve been away from work more than I’ve been at work, which makes being at work now seem all the more ridiculous. I’ve got this sticker at home in a box that says “Why do you work?” I hate that sticker. That’s why it stays in the box. It’s so cold at work and it’s so hot at home and this is a source of perpetual confusion for my body and my mind. This morning it was raining so I suited up in rain gear and then the sun came out as I rode to work sweating in my non-breathable rain gear, as was expected according to this fundamental rule of bike commuting. This evening I rode into the alley and the kid whose grandmother always screams at him was walking toward me, banging a long metal pole of some sort against the pavement. And it was like that scene in The Warriors where David Patrick Kelly clinks the beer bottles together, yelling “Waaaarrrrrriiiorsss, come out to pla-ay!” except substitute a little kid for David Patrick Kelly, a long metal pole for the beer bottles, and a cold blank look for “Waaaarrrrrriiiorsss, come out to pla-ay!” I got off my bike and I was sad.
But I digress. Here are two mostly unedited short pieces I scrawled in my notebook a few months back while riding south on the light rail. I’m not exactly sure where I was going with these at the time. I think I was pondering the 1950s and the beginning of the suburbanization of America. Maybe imagine these as entries in the American Handbook™ that we give to our insect overlords so they’ll understand us better. If we’re lucky maybe they won’t force us all into subterranean caverns and we can keep our decks and our pools and our acres of green green grass.
Deck: A deck is a popular structure attached to a house. When people tire of feeling closed in, they retire to the outdoors, without leaving behind the comfort and security of their home, the deck being an extension of the house and not a separate entity vulnerable to attack. Homeowners enjoy inviting over acquaintances to sit on their decks with them. Often this is accompanied by a meal cooked “en plein air” on a grill that sits proudly on the deck. The man, clad in a masculine-themed apron, always controls the grill. It is his domain. His wife brings him platters heaped with sanitized animal flesh, which he slathers with sauce before neatly placing on the foil-covered surface of the grill. After the meal, the deck people continue drinking themselves into oblivion before finally driving home and/or passing out in their bedrooms.
Pool: A pool is a status symbol popular among the wealthy. In-ground pools are the only ones that anyone cares about. If heated and covered by a screened room to keep out bugs, so much the better. Teenage girls enjoy laying out by the pool as their bratty brothers plot to splash them with water or inflict some other heinous act upon them. Rich mothers bring trays laden with glasses of cold lemonade to poolside. Their daughters sip daintily before applying more tanning oil. Their snotty sons then sneak up and snap the bikini tops of their pretty daughters. When the man of the house arrives home from a tough day at the office, he may, if of a certain disposition, change into his trunks and swim a few laps. But first he tousles his son’s hair in greeting and gazes briefly and uneasily at his daughter before finally kissing his wife on the cheek. He may then pop open an Amstel Light if feeling particularly spent.
Stay tuned for more entries!
Maybe. Depends on if the ants come, I guess.
Posted by sean on July 9, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/07/09/hiding-under-my-deck-from-the-insect-overlords/
Some friends purchased a cabin and 15 wooded acres in the North Carolina mountains so a visit was in order. On Saturday we hiked up Max Patch Mountain, a bald mountain in Pisgah National Forest that was cleared for pasture in the 1800s. The Appalachian Trail crosses the top, where lucky hikers are afforded dreamy views of the Great Smoky Mountains to the southwest. Off to the distant west rise the dark ridges of the Black Mountains.
The trail to paradise.
And then there is the reward…
The Great Smoky Mountains seen from the top of Max Patch Mountain in Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina.
Such beauty is all the more poignant when shared with old friends.
A/T on the A.T.
Farley was beside himself with joy for the entire trip.
Farley in his element, bounding through the tall grass on top of Max Patch Mountain.
There were also non-mammals enjoying the outdoors.
A Common Buckeye butterfly alights on one of the plentiful blackberry bushes growing along Max Patch Trail, Pisgah National Forest, Hot Springs, NC.
Back at the cabin, we cooled off in the creek.
I walked up the middle of the creek and found damselflies consorting with each other.
My walking stick used for navigating the creek.
For some reason this little sun-dappled tableau struck me. I don’t think it comes across in the photo, but it was the sort of scene into which you wish you could miniaturize yourself for the purpose of better enjoying it.
And here is where we retired for eating, sleeping (although some of us camped outside), and reading during the heat of the day.
Farley exhibits signs of extreme boredom outside the cabin.
Posted by sean on July 4, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/07/04/escape-to-hot-springs/
A distracted worker bee buzzes from bloom to bloom. Brushed with pollen, it rubs its hairy legs, one against the other. Zigzagging through the hot still air, it follows ancient steps coded in its fuzzy abdomen. With twitching antennae, two worker bees greet each other and fly away. This insect life strips life to its core. There is only work to be done, in a distracted kind of way. But it’s okay. No highs and lows, only this pick-up and delivery.
Posted by sean on June 27, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/06/27/distracticon/
s. d. stewart 