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AussieAri's weblog Edit this message to change the title of your weblog. Thursday, July 31, 2003
Last night i heard tell of the 'American Express Black Card' the pinnacle of rich consumer absurdity , that is, if you use it like you ultimately can. It's invitation only; no limit to it and you need to spend at least a half mil a year for the odd little well crafted black box containing the card to show up in your mailbox. I'd be suspicious it were a bomb. Anyway, apparently some of the afforded luxury of this slip of plastic include 24/7 concierge service, upgrades on airlines to concords, instant passes to hoity clubs, and after hours shopping at designer stores, instant approval for large large luxury purchases and indeed, all purchases, but five grand a year to have the damn thing. Don’t even ask about the interest, because you pay the balance monthly. Wednesday, July 30, 2003
...thoroughly convinced it's rigged...
It's not a farmer's tan, it's a biker's tan! Sunday, July 27, 2003
Does anyone have a copy of the old Disney cartoon adventure called 'Donald Duck in MathMagic Land'? I remember it from my childhood but can't seem to find a copy anywhere.
No, someone didn't piss in my cherrios this morning but i think someone has been pissing in our well water...my laundry smells funky. Saturday, July 26, 2003
Back in Santa Fe and in another odd Johnny house with a room to myself till school starts. Looking for jobs, getting back into shape and surviving slowly. Updated all the lost files from June/July of my travelling and added some extras. I will probably spend the next month editing poems and writings that don’t get posted on this blog, so entries may be scant. Gone to the ape shit. My greatest disappointment on this trip has been all about my Aunt Carmel. Once I thought of her as having a wonderfully dry wit, a creative conduit with a intelligent but uneducated mind. She is now, something like a female orangutan though. I am not trying to be mean- it’s her posture (bent, curved shoulders, this hands and legs swinging limply), body shape (a generous old lady’s pot belly curled up even to met her chest before her), hands (long paw like fingers with curved nails), skin (tanned, worn like old hide with wrinkles from all the years on the farm and with a generous number of large freckles), face (calm, dulled and half sleepy towards the day), eyes (light blue, often weepy, wrinkle up when she expresses any emotion), and hair (though brown with highlights, the highlights give her hair a gingery color). She is racist and her wit isn’t dry, it’s parched. Her laughter isn’t rich, but pained. She talks to herself out loud or in mumbles almost constantly, a trait from my mother’s side of the family. She does not make her own quick assessments of what action is to be taken leaving that often to her younger sister, my mum. I haven’t seen her surprised or trilled at anything. She did however rattle at me when I first bristled with mum. And when I first complained of the insane pace of the trip she hugged my head to her shoulder that hay have been from anyone else, considered a headlock. As is by pressing me into herself I might collect some of her calm curmudgeon disposition. She has smoked for over 40 years. Her breath, needless to say, vons something like vomit or bile. With a fag hanging out of her mouth she really looks like a monkey. She has a little continual cough that goes ‘a huh’ with out much force. You want to give her a right whump on the back to make the cough effectual instead of just continually pitiful. She snores to, like an outboard motor that without a grill often comes upon trash and fish in the water. She wakes herself up with it and coughs again. She drives like she breaths- diaphragm contracting and up comes what should be a one smooth and full easy breath out only it is blocked in the throat until congested sinuses remember to release the breath in a burst that sounds of irritated effort.
I used ‘dissonance’ and ‘resolve’ in a sentence about internal emotional turmoil. I guess I really did pay half attention in Music class this past year Gallows Humor Why is what is alien what is what’s fashionable, attractive and largely of fetishistic appeal? Are people just trying to create something they can feel is unattainably desirable or is the elitist of beauty? This train goes throughout history in many cultures including both highly technologically advanced and tribal ones, foot binding, head binding, corsets, neck, ear and lip stretching, piercing, tattooing, being inordinately small and fat, being inordinately skinny and tall, and having perfectly white strait teeth. Admittedly, within their respective cultures each has some relevant reasons and still some others are not so much for beauty but rites of passage, protection and even to ensure some sort of prosperity.
Sometimes, when the worst gets to me, the thoughts that keep me civil are ones of things not entirely civil; the unique ways of those who love me and how they love me, fine alcohol and oral sex.
Now friends- if I do become famous in some way during or after my life, from something I am skilled in, most likely poetry or swords, I hope it won’t be to try and figure me out from my work. I sincerely hope it won’t be that superfluous and inane a fame that I will earn. And if you do see a biographer coming. Slam and lock your doors. Silence- souvenirs of sensations beyond the edge of understanding. Do you ever get that total sensation of a particularly distinct time brought to such an internal and personal level the memory sweeps over you in one grand sensation? Not that your nose smells anything new or different from the air you are breathing or did a second ago, or you taste anything differently, but you may breath in sharply, nostril may flair or twitch just as jaw muscles may go slack as your mouth water, your ears may listen to something far beyond the immediately engaged surrounding that is present or that you think may be. Things may become full and rich in an instant. This is how i will not of my own ability or desire, remember things if I’m lucky: my first semester at St. john’s, Hong Kong during monsoon when I was little, summers which were winters spent at my aunt’s farm, Ascham’s steps in fall during hockey season, falling in love for the first time, and a dozen other times I have lived in but can’t recall so completely and conclusively as a time unto it’s self as when this type of remembrance is sparked. There are entire durations I have concluded in sensibly forgetting, and realized in a moment much later. These are souvenirs that are symbolized by new feelings compacted of something dear and old that is always lost until that one second when doing nothing in particular to encourage the reception other than being blank, it is somehow found. It is times I remember like this with their place, objects, moods and impressions but every so often it is a person and this branches out to the sensations I know of them. If I try to describe this experience of the person, it turned into poetry. What is more puzzling than these occurrences are is I can’t say what it is that sparks these acute attacks, what combination if any, what absence, what selection and time. It is like receiving a perfectly worded, posted, pictured, marked, and written post card from yourself from long ago, in which you easily understand every element, delivered directly to your soul.
Percy sat atop the small cutting board/counter in the kitchen where he is fed one morning. He was meowing for breakfast and purring. He rubbed his head along the corner of the small clock/radio. This pushed the big button in and turned on the radio. Dad said to him, “Alright Percy, if you’re so smart turn it off.” I watched with knowing anticipation as he looked at Dad then at the clock and went back for another head rub. Sure enough this time he turned the radio off. Rules for My Liberal Arts Education: 1. Nothing ever learnt without something being lost, nothing really learnt if you can lose the learning of it.
The big cities can eat their hearts out for all I care. I’ll wear mine out on my own.
Last night in a place I’ve spent any significant time in I don’t sleep well. I stay awake- to get some quality conscious/subconscious process time in I suppose, or some cohesive closure. Makes the next days travel a bitch though. Anyone else have this? Ow, pretty. Comics Books I actively receive: The whole ABC line, Dare Devil, Lucifer, Lone Wolf and Cub, Charm School, Queen and Country, Kabuki, Strangers in Paradise,
I finnaly saw the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and behind superficial entertainment I was happy at first to see the faces of characters from the fantasy literature of my childhood but disgusted by the Hollywood treatment of them.
I got a pirate flag of crossbones for my motorcycle! Vrroom-arrr!
dreamt I was in a house in suburbia Dallas- typical one story, thin paneled, wood fence, in the back yard of struggling green grass. My cats were with me and that was it. Others may have been rooming with me, friends. I left the back door to the yard open on a hot summer day. In came a plain black, short haired three foot mini cougar with a domestic cat’s head. It was very confused and mad. It attacked me before I could reach the door to slam it shut. All I could think of was protecting my cats from this hybrid one. I somehow managed to avoid claw and tooth. I hurt the animal with a few quick strikes in combination. It ran to the yard and hopped the fence to the alley. Some time later (it was as if I was killing time in the house- the one violence almost unnoticeable and private) another look alike or the same cat came back. I doubt it was the same one. This time I went into the yard to met it. I had a rifle. I didn’t fire when it lunged, instead I pistol whipped it so after a showdown of noise and presence off this one went too. The third one however, I killed with a claw knife and my hands. My cats watched this all from a safe distance frightened and anxious. A day like these. Gray days caught between the cement and the muted sunset- Quotes of the Day. “You’re a life saver.” Ricky Stock Moves. I made an inventory of my life. Even of the things I don’t have that have any relevance or show any contrast. Mostly of what can be inventoried or counted: largely a list of possessions, awards and recognitions by others, certified accomplishments, events, and my loved ones. I’m not going to post it here though, some of these things are very private and when collected in one place on a public forum, the identity could just be to appealing to others. Anyway...it was scant really, all accounted for, almost all with some function, and almost pathetic in some ways as a whole. As is expected, there were only a few things that reached substantial numbers- my cds, my comics, my books, my letters, my photos, my poems, certain timed or numbered physical efforts. The things I don’t have were just as interesting as what I did. That’s the sum of what can be gathered though, and oh yes, you can tell it’s me, and you can tell I’m either highly eccentric, or just a poor young college kid.
I heard a dissonant say that dissonant have brought about most of the changes for radical policy. Civil Disobedience and all. I don’t know what these radical policies have been but I don’t believe it. Dissonant protests seem like only one possible step that can only go as far as one is able to act against common practice and thought, and then where are you besides out in the cold?
I wonder if displaying a sign saying ‘will fuck for food’ counts as prostitution. Well I’m not going to try it anyway.
My castle: Fougeres-sur-Bievre. Talkin’ Smack So in America I am really just a white girl and it is derogatory and has no connotation of any culture involved, just my complexion. I grew up where I was a minority constantly. Xenophobia is weird and wrong to me. In France- even if I didn’t speak fluently I got by fine speaking with people of many different backgrounds. France has never been oppressed by race- but class. In America it is quite the differance. Black people know that I know that we have been segregated through history in all kinds of ways. I Often have trouble just carrying on a conversation without feeling awkward or suspect. Especially on say, Chicano Built night at the Paramount. I also get more shit that night than any other on a much more consistent basis. It's frustrating. So what do I do next if at all? I’m not buying anything, but I’ll dance and listen. Why I hate the Swamp. The first introduction I had to the swamp was at my grandmother’s retirement village in Tampa, Florida. I’d lived in the tropics and islands where the vegetation was abundant but not totally stifling even if the humidity often was like breathing water. Upon Return. All they want in this country comes down to money. YOUR money while they’re at it. Someones I have known. Someone doesn’t have patience for people without endurance.
I wonder if Frommers really does sell a guide to Mongolia. Hummm…. Rock On Boston- damn cool city so far. Young and hip, no one has turned a dirty look at me, but not so frivolous or pretentious even in it’s business. I’m staying at an MIT dorm called ‘Random Hall’. The history behind MIT and Boston is slowly unfolding and bringing hilarious logical but eccentric reason to the name of the place, the bridge marked in ‘Smoots’, the subway’s ill co-ordination, the design of the MIT school ring (which I would really like to see the effects of in a bar fight), and the MIT buildings. I’m in a spare room vacant for the summer on ‘Black Hole’ floor. If I pop out on of the screens to the window I’m on the roof of an adjacent bar next door called ‘The Cambridge port saloon’ They definitely decorate here in their own nerdy chaotic way. A reflection of a cultural points that help hold this floor together- wall paintings and murals to reflect the name of each floor, a model structure of sticks and streams of twirly paper down the flight of stairs, chalk boards filled with logical arguments against bush, math equations and diagrams, coded personal comments, in the short headroom basement, a photo lab, mini weight room, washers/dryers hooked up to a computer telling you use/vacancy times, table top games, tech lab, wood shop, bike rack, AV room, and on every student floor a register pad for server link up on every <a href="http://bathroom.mit.edu
My parent’s dropped me at the bus station an hour early and we all waited in silence- tired and waiting. As always before a move of any note I was tired having not slept well the night before. Woken myself from two dream I didn’t want to be it. My father had given me $50 at my mother’s insistence- for traveling funds. I had $80 of my own already and another 80 in the bank I could use. He had of course spent far more than that sum on me while I was staying with them. He bought me blank cd’s on a trip for a new desktop for the house, new running shoes which I had mentioned perhaps two months ago (he hadn’t taken the request for a sign language dictionary or a flam thrower seriously, as any sensible dad might), movie tickets (to such shows that ‘didn’t matter’ as I was shortly at home and spending time with him was the point) and snacks I myself would never ever shell out the outrageous price for. Such is my dad’s generosity. I understand this too. Activities ease the attention away from needing to talk, and the short talk that goes on in-between, even about the deepest sort we are willing to approach. Dad and I have never really created anything together that I could put my hands on, and perhaps nothing I can put words to, I realize. No discourse in philosophy that provoked new thoughts, no exchange of inspired written works. He has helped provide the means always, and never discouraged any balanced work I put effort into. So they stood there even after I had boarded the bus, waiting until it had pulled away and I wouldn’t strain to look back any longer, behind the glass of the bus and the wall of the terminal I couldn’t bare it. My father had spoken of finances in case both of them should die at once. What he was most afraid of. This was so distasteful a subject to me, and for the first time actually talked of, I couldn’t help but pull a sour face the whole time we reviewed the finances. And also for the first time an emotional Impact on what was once my asinine mental pandering of my emotional attachment to my parents. I know I can’t live with my parents in their house. It doesn’t end up being healthy for me to do for extended times for many reasons- but I never knew I missed their lives so much. That I cared for them as much but in my own undiscovered deeply covered way. The test of life. No one else has my answers. I always hated tests. And I get mad at crossword puzzles that don’t accept my answer.
Here is the crux of where Socrates and I part- the man so long ago who I had as a childhood hero. It is not so much his process or any other particular of his approach but he, for most of his life, seemed to deny and stunt so much to put philosophy at the pinnacle of humanity. At the end of his life what did he end up doing though? Yes, putting old folk tales into verse. He had a copy of Aristophanies under his pillow too. For once, he was without words for where the words he received were coming from. Remember, his creator, Plato, was a poetic and tragic playwright hack. That’s when he turned to philosophy. That’s probably why he hated poets so much. I will not sacrifice art as superficial, imitation or less worthy than philosophy, and always not to be trusted. I’ve seen bunk philosophy do more damage in it’s wake than art.
Alright Enough. I’m sick of England because of the way we are treating out travel in it. while sleeping in the backseat. Rain slashes the window like new cuts in flesh beginning to bleed as a child looks on from inside the car but not at the green scenery anymore.
Vitamin gummy bears and vitamine water…coming soon, something absolutely without any nutritional value!
Rebel beer! Yes!
I changed my first flat on this trip, all by myself as my mum and aunt fussed about safety, helping, and my pants getting dirty. Go me.
More proof of English’s type of inability- think of the descriptive words for positive emotions. Are they so numerous yet distinct? Precisely descriptive? Compared to the descriptive words for negative emotions? Not so much or many. I don’t know if there’s a better trade to be made- to write poems in a romance language or in one so well versed in hate.
In the odyssey when you translate from the ancient greek, instead of ‘they were fearful’ or even ‘they were fearful to others’ it’s ‘they saw fearful things’ So reactions, appearances and impressions were always, so much so that it’s how the language works, a matter of habituation to environment. If you see harsh things, you are harsh.
In this court we battle
Prospero’s books line the wall
She doesn’t believe in anything Sounds I can’t stand: Pavarotti’s voice
I was reading some of William McGonagall’s (hailed as the world’s worst poet, ever) poems, or rather reading the first stanza or two of each. I can never make it further than that. For some reason I remembered one of the later Roman emperors who had two twins placed in isolation from normal human contact and society in an effort to see what language Adam and Eve spoke. As it turns out, he proved that language, or human languages of words, are learnt and not created intuitively along with life. So I will always think for sure now that poetry is a gift, and really my only religion is words. In Summary. I can tell you the story of my mother’s life in two words, one second. Too Late. But I can’t tell you who she really is; I doubt anyone can- even my father.
So as a good tourist I watch the Trouping of the Colors Presented to the Duke (it’s a practice run for the one where they present to the queen) in London. They looked very much like mechanical toys parading, arms swinging exactly and legs stomping staunchly. There were only 6 Scots men with kilts and bagpipes in the brigade but obviously the height rule has been struck from Beefeater requirements even if their numbers have been cut back recently. The wanting of exactness became hysterical the drawn out length of the whole thing boring. It was by far the most amusing and boring thing I’ve ever seen. After it you can see why this country produces the comic likes of Rowan Atkinson, Keeping up Appearances, Are you being Served?, Absolutely Fabulous, Faulty Towers and the whole Monty Python troupe. Then they brought in the cavalry, literally. The horses peed and crapped as expected- nodded and looked at one another not putting up with all this standing around for no reason. Bless them. Then the brass cavalry. Yes dearies, someone had the extraordinary idea that not only should those who have difficult instrument march around in formation and cumbersome uniform but hey! Let’s have them do it all on horses while they’re at it! They had Clydesdales with the bass drums. They were all old and probably deaf by now. So add to the hilarity of all the big fuzzy hats which threatened to gag the men that wear them and are stomping around two old vets who insisted on standing every time the guard’s flag carrier came within 100ft. So the whole of our stand was obliged to do the same. My mum complained loudly enough for others to hear that she didn’t mind standing for the anthem (Think Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen, see this episode of Ren and Stimpy if you haven’t), but repeatedly –“God, I paid to see this I’m not in church!” and she did; 11 pounds per ticket. A man behind her said to her, “We stand because that flag represents a lot of dead people.” And I latter wondered where the flag was that represented all the people they’d killed. No Empire ever remembers that in tributary form. He probably thought we were a bunch of ungrateful backwoods Australians that should just go home to their bastard country, not being sure if he should thanking us for conquering it or begrudge us republic ties with Britain. A large part of the time- 2 hours, I read ‘A Clockwork Orange’ or watching a cute red beret woman on the roof with mum’s binoculars. Fruit is Nature’s candy. I caught myself gawking at the candy at the checkout counter at our local grocery store in NY again. Such wondrous ends of mankind’s invented manipulations. But like most things manmade and even man, it’s not self sustaining, entirely good for you, or able to exist for more than a life time on it’s own without it’s source. And by god (or bog), man’s inventions are so quite different from the original model which we can so easily forget with all the business we make of these things. I bet humans taste awful.
At the docks there are many breweries. And as I walked by the air smelt like Marmite. Mirabai should have been there. It was glorious.
“If I ever find myself in another pathetically opulent palace/castle/chateau with bugged eyes, as I titter about uncertainly, and from my gapping maw I will continue to yelp in my best cockney accent, “Ooowwwrr…Aaarrrhhh! Look at all the dead things! *high whistle* Lar-de-dah!” On this trip. I have come to lose myself. I do mean all scenes of that phrase. When I go somewhere it is not because I so much chose to or that there is anything more than happenstance on my part (and highly over planned excursions of ping ponging about the country by my mother) that has placed me there. I look with blank not entirely fresh but tired eyes on everything. If anything strikes me it is almost by chance. Almost, I still can’t help my tastes. Most everything, however, does not receive my impression of feeling. The shapes and spaces get lodged in my memory though. I don’t enjoy much. When I do go to a place of my choice- rarely long enough- but always to remind me of how passing I am of any meaning myself. If what is in galleries that humans for so many lives have hung on to, however close to life, can’t strike me often when I see it every day here, what can I? So I finish my paid for Guinness and leave to roam the streets. I only know I should be back at the hotel before morning. Bluntly, I owe for nothing else to anyone for any reason that can be explained even under social graces. Even if I can translate all this, after all, I am still a foreigner passing. The thing about Scottish accents- -and why I believe that they don’t speak English. They speak the written words and the most part any slang has not made it impossible to comprehend. They certainly write and read English but their speech is a garble of a language whose undertones cause the speaking of English conform to Gaelic instead. Lesser forms of Bikers. If you own a motorcycle it does not make you a biker. I may just be mistaken for one, with a combination of liking old cruisers, leather, metal, chrome and fine machines. I however, do not like ‘retro’ bikes, many choppers, or hogs, I don’t drink that much and I don’t smoke, don’t wear leather in summer, don’t have tattooed arms, I wear a full face mask with visor instead of a bandana and sunglasses, I hate plastic race machines known as ‘crotch rockets’, and the almost as plastic ‘touring bikes’. Of course, there are those that are just sensible about their biking, and they enjoy riding. I’m probably one of them. Amongst those who aren’t sensible about their biking are two other lesser known kinds of motorcyclists: the most annoying are what I call ‘brainless crotch rocketers’, the other far less annoying are the weekend warrior wannabes. The crotch rocketers are those you see on city streets driving at unsafe speeds, popping wheelies, cranking the engine too quickly, probably wearing shorts, a t-shirt flapping up behind them and sandals. Helmets, it anything are their only protective gear. If they have a passenger who looks like they are right on top of the driver’s arse it’s a girlfriend holding on for dear life. Can we say flat street burger meat? The second group is the aging business men and professionals, often white haired, overweight, often wearing khakis, a polo shirt and loafers with a half face helmet and riding large touring bikes which include extra hard trunks, many extra controls on a console with a molded windshield/hand guard around the handlebars. They tend to not know how to drive their machines that well even if they don’t speed, not spending that much time with them and rarely fixing them themselves. Maneuvering these bikes is a bitch, let’s not forget. They’re like SUV motorcycles. This is not a primary form of transport for them at all but a lark. They are barely more protected than the crotch rocketers and to boot they often take their children on the back just as unprotected.
Oh yes. I miss my bike. All these people zipping around the city or ridding cross country. Trendy scooters and crotch rockets, classic bikes and scooters. Never seen so many in one place before. I even saw a monkey bike! First thing as I get back. I drive it out to Dallas or someawheres nice.
I had never seen so much fried ice cream in my life. I hadn’t ever seen friend ice cream before either. Reagan’s return with four one and a half pound servings shocked me. She pooh-poohed this and assured me that with four women in the room short work would be made. I don’t’ even remember what happened to the ice cream that night.
What is your earliest memory? Leave a short description of yourself including your name, nom de plume, or a name, age, hometown or where you currently live, and occupation. All copy write is given and credited to the author and if I ever get enough varied printable results, for one time publication in the future too. Dirt is not dirty. Water is always wet. What’s miserable here for me is that every body of water I’ve seen so far- the Thames, The Seine, fountains, ponds, moats, rivers, are as filthy as a muck pit. Don’t touch folks, wouldn’t even recommend fishing in them or inhaling too deeply. I didn’t get to go swimming this whole vacation. The water highlights of this trip were getting wet on the Lego land Pirate Ride, Getting my sleeves wet and pants spattered on the Tam while punting, rowing in the Serpentine and Versailles Grand Canal, and almost making it to the pool in Jesus Park Cambridge but for my mother’s being late, and god no we couldn’t stop for an hour at a blood lock in Scotland. My best and worst memories of my father: I can’t remember where we were of when exactly it was, it wasn’t an important dated event. I was still a young girl probably breaking into my teens just before you learn from your peers it’s uncool to show any affection towards you parents. Maybe we had even just seen the movie and were walking to the doors of a movie theater in down town Sydney. I asked him what his favorite movie was. I know what his favorite music was and the TV shows he liked and his favorite subject in books but I didn’t know this one. I did know that he cried suddenly at movie during the dramatic part and that he swept away the tears with his hand swishing across his face in a deep rub like when he was tired or had a headache. He answered ‘My Girl’ and smiled looking down at me. Puzzled, expecting him to say a war or history movie, it wasn’t obvious to me yet, so I asked why. ‘Because of my girl!’ he exclaimed and gave me a hug that crammed me to his big bear self hard and thump me on the back. That is the same pat-more-than-a-pat with the hand on the back I hate feeling anyone else doing to me. In fact I dislike most patting. The gesture just feels wrong coming from elsewhere as if it were a betrayal or false and it makes me weary of those who would claim some pseudo position next to the authority of my father to me.
Any of my friends would hold me if I asked- but I never have. They take their cues.
Velvet must be the reincarnation of a haughty upper class French women. She can’t stand to be second female in the house to mum, will bite when she wants to ‘play’ or doesn’t want to be touched and purr while she’s doing it. She has a very sharp and crisp meow. She hates other cats and hisses at them all. She is easily agitate, takes offence and is highly strung. She is sleek and deceptive. She’s a killer Queeeeen! Who’s sitting on top of the computer’s large monitor surveying everything in the room.
Now I wonder how the drug trade is doing with tighter security on mail and at airports in the US. I assume it would be harder than ever but if the security is more worried about bombs then who know what they could be missing.
Being in great pain and agony is the most exhausting thing that has happened to me besides wrestling and fencing. All of these things in under and hour, mind, including the pain will completely knock you out. They’re also among the sweatiest activities.
Things make sense now. Instead of smacking me up side the head the pieces fall slowly together. I have realizations not small potent epiphanies. Don’t be fooled though, I’d rather have the epiphanies.
In other wonderful news from around the world- the oil in Iraq is fine and well, sitting under ‘environmental protection’ as all the Museums with artifacts of man’s earliest civilization have either been looted or, the majority, was taken by loyal staff to protect and return. They have re-opened though. Some poor soldier was even shot in front of the place the other day. All for free. Besides writing a book in Norte Dame Chapel one day (not during services but also with my wallet well guarded against pick pockets) where there is no entrance fee, I’d like to write in the Louver but it’s have to find a way to get in for free otherwise it would quickly become horrendously expensive. Similarly but not really, I’d also like to live in a boat around Europe. Not so much to write though, it’s hard to write with any completeness to it and travel but maybe this would make it a little easier. Just a light house boat that’s storm and sea worthy or one I can make into a house, with a motor for when I’m tired and can’t punt/row anymore and set up for rowing when I want to and off I go. Sails too? I would need to figure these out depending on where I want to do. But the idea is if I get sick of one place, I pull up the anchor. If I like it, I stay a while, but never long- I’m not looking for a home or myself when I travel. Quite the opposite this trip anyway.
Alright, I can leave behind my last teen birthday and enter into numerical adult life confident now that I have fulfilled my childhood dream of going to Lego Land. They even tell you how to get there by sea. Is that not wonderful?
Look left and look right written conveniently on the road for all bent necked people, tourists, the forgetful and the dyslexic.
One of the first things I was in Britain as I came out of the Chunnel was a diamond sign in red which said “Heavy plant crossing”.
I swear that there are more cabs than cars in London. Parisians The women here are beautiful and everywhere. They also are all accompanied by a man and don’t look at you more than once. They’re usually very busy or not bothered, even haughty.
I asked for an Irish Car bomb for the first time on this trip at Windsor and low what did I find? They are happy to give you the ingredients separately but you must mix them yourself. No cocktail license you see. So I’m left to be bartender to myself again. Yes, England is not a cocktail place you see, or lounge lizards, but for lovers. And Paris is for killers. Before I read 'House of Leaves'. I dreamt I was in another dimension. Not a different one but another on top of this one. I was living in one of the big Johnny houses in Santa Fe, one that has seen many a rock party with a few grads and current students residing. One summer night friends and acquaintances gathered in the living room drinking. A few good friends of a grad friend looked at one another and then me, then asked their grad friend if they should. Should what? I followed them. They led me to the door to the basement (a very cool big basement at that). I had gone through it dozens of times but they all gathered round and began to explain to me that when I went through things would be different, as I had only imagined I could sense before I would not actual be. I went along with it not really believing but stepped through the door and suddenly everything was in a fish lenses. Not just sight but it was like living in a fish lenses of senses. Everything was enlarged, all around in every direction, alive and I couldn’t not see it. It was too much. I fell to my feet on the landing of the stairs. At least physics still applied. Or so I thought. A few of the walked right through the wall to come pick me up from the floor. They took me through the door which was a good thing. I was already so painfully aware of existing not alone that to have my body go though the body of a wall really would have made me go insane then. They also changed bodies as they carried me along, not the position of one body with the next but whatever composed the interpretation of their senses, that switched between the two bodies carrying me. So for the next few days I just wander around slowly and carefully in this existence through parties, conversations, streets and stores looking at everything and again, feeling everything alive. I didn’t playing with anything I hadn’t already been able to do before I walked through the door though. It was a little beyond me just yet. I did find much more peace existed seeing things this way. Until the dream turned. I was at another house party and who should show up but a not so friendly an awkward acquaintance of mine from town. So sat down on my lap pleased to see me. We talked a bit until I felt something was wrong. Not just that she or I felt wrong at that moment but that there WAS something wrong in the very fabric between us and this disturbance had its own existence. Suddenly a fork appeared in her hand and grinning she drove it into my thigh. (by the way, it’s really hard to get a normal fork to puncture skin) I screamed in shock but somehow remembered I could have it go through me if I wanted. After the initial piercing and jump of pain the fork went through and was gone and poof. She was also gone. There was just air and I couldn’t feel her anywhere. So, as my new friend told me, some people plot to monopolize the dimension and control the others apparently there were many more- we were just in one because we wanted to be, not because we were gifted. I didn’t believe them at first and I don’t know if I ever did. When we found ourselves accosted by a group who could bend things to their will but not reconfigure their structure, the least resistance served as did running, and fighting seemed pointless though they were bent on combating us and so for while we simply engaged those who wanted to harm us know this full well.
It’s not that I want to avoid human contact, just the miscontact that goes on every day, or the lack of it. I want other than human contact, or the necessary sort. Standards more than Bias. I’m a little butch bottom, short and stout..here is my…well, nevermind.
People have believed in my abilities more than I but it seems like I’ve believed in my possibilities more. So what am I undervaluing, my actuality? Probably.
Guinness- the original sin and supposed salvation of the Irish. Bless them. I drank so much of it in Europe; I’ve had my fill for a while. Not like I’ll get it on tap here.
“I got tears comin’ out me ears.”
A haha fence? HAHA!
Philosophy is easy if you can retreat to a well fortified imagination. Gum wrapper chain. Don’t throw those things away! Have them become part of something huge and handmade from industrial leftovers and almost totally useless!
‘British Rum’ was clearly labeled with a Royal Navy flag. I couldn’t stop laughing. Here was the beginning of the equation for Churchill’s description of the Royal Navy- ‘Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash.’ Also a good Pogues CD. The reason why I look at modern art is: 1) it surprises me far more often than other styles
In my juvenile exploration in to poetry I often got caught on preposition of action, what was doing to what? What was it doing back, weren’t both doing to one another in some way? It’s still a problem because reaction is part of action and English doesn’t seem to want to give up the superiority, aggressive mastery, and possession that falls out of most prepositional directions describing actions.
The difference of when I’m on vacation and when I’m not is if I am being or becoming. They do chance closely one another.
Incase you ever wondered how to crackle pork with scientific perfection. How to disappear completely. According to Michael Stipe, if you walk around a festival with your shirt off no one notices you. They look at your body instead of your face. You can be virtually anonymous.
!@#%. I forgot to get jumping magnetic jelly beans from the vendor outside Madame Tussauds Wax Figure Palace. What happened to all the vendors and entertainers in Paris and London anyway? I only was two doing or selling anything unusual. I know they kicked the performers out of the Subways without a ‘license’ but the streets?
I saw a British hedgehog that lived at the base of an old tree in the middle of a castle’s visitor parking lot. He took a look at me and then decided to waddle off quickly to his den in its roots. *ecstatic but contented* I also saw a marmoset being fed live crickets. The marmoset only made a sharp chirp sound.
Johnny Bravo. I think I have another Drag King Hero.
After visiting, I now know more about that Beckham bloke than I do about any British politics at the moment. My historical knowledge was not greatly improved upon, just added to (can it only be so after a point?). It’s true too though that footy player’s lives are often far easier and palatable to present on the nighttime news than any cabinet goings on. I can’t say the American news is any different. When I get back to Santa Fe, I will begin reading collected histories about the town I’ve lived in for two years now to see what it improves or reveals about my own bastard misadventures through time.
The old is ever gone to us as having meaning alive to a new; and the new has to come out of the old, linear of not.
In Paris, not totally to my surprise- speedy delivery pizza is by Motorcycle or Scooter. They attach a special trunk to the back of the bike behind the passenger or driver seat for the pizzas to sit in. I can see my career at Paramount Pizza going in who new directions. Mostly into the gutter covered with cheese and Luis’ tomato sauce.
All these years I have professed that anything can become a weapon in the right (or wrong) hands. I never thought of books as one of those things, physically or otherwise. Silly me setting things apart because of a fondness of wanting only one thing from them. Plagued by in Britain. First it was bad teeth and bones, fears of inbreeding and yes, now it’s an STD epidemic. Shops of Note: Demon Barber- Edinburgh. It’s all in the name. Don’t worry…versions of the Mohawk are alive and well all over the UK.
If anthropologists are the bane of Natives, then what are archeologists and collectors the bane of?
I want a kilt. Of what tartan I know not. Mum doesn’t care to try and find what scrap of Scotland on her Father’s side there was. Maybe I should just get it in leather or maybe a Utilikilt.
Extract of the blister beetle, cantharidin, is used in every dermatologist office in the US and abroad. Only in the US its illegal not having been approved by the FDA because the $ of researching would not be less than the $ of sales and use. So they all order from Canada, get a call from customs, have their secretaries say ‘Noooo, we didn’t order that.’ innocently and the matter is dropped.
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