rock/paper/scissors

If nothing significant has happened recently,
go to a travel agent and purchase the airline ticket advertised three down from the top. Do not buy a map or a guidebook before departing, do not buy a map or a guidebook upon arrival; take a train from the airport to the city center, take a cab to the hostel, and walk. Walk to a bus stop and take the bus to the terminus. Find a train for the return trip, exiting at the seventh stop and walking five blocks towards the sun. If it is cloudy, turn left. Once you are in a small neighborhood, buy a sandwich or kebab, sit on a bench, talk to the man selling flowers, ask an old woman pushing her cart how to find the market, buy a new pair of shoes or an old top hat or a sports trophy from 1972 or someone else's high school yearbook. Send a postcard to your best friend from third grade, write a letter to your grandfather even though he died a decade ago, throw your watch into the river, go to the zoo and feed the monkeys. Find a local train to downtown, visit an exorbitant and trendy salon, become the person you see in the mirror, and smile.

If nothing significant has happened recently,
say hello to every single person you pass in the next seventy two hours: make eye contact, smile, shake hands like it matters, speak to toddlers and be charmed by dogs; introduce yourself to the postman, the librarian, the crosswalk guy, the receptionist, the minister, the newspaper boy, the farmer running the stall at the market, the bookstore clerk, the barista, the tango class members, the life guard at the pool, the person on the bar stool two down from where you are seated, the local town board of selectmen, the newspaper editor, the students filming their final project at the coffee shop, the docent at the local museum, the train conductor, the ice cream vendor, your best friend's ex-boyfriend's best friend, your grandmother's bridge club, your nephew's soccer coach, your niece's choir teacher, the local band who just performed, the insane homeless man ranting on the street corner, the driver of the car with esoteric bumper stickers, the person next to you on the train.

If nothing significant has happened recently,
take everything out of the fridge and the freezer, and clean. Throw away, label, repackage, wash. Scrub. Discard the magnets and drawings and invitations and postcards. Arrange everything alphabetically by scientific name divided by food groups, move on to the pantry, and repeat. Give away any pot, pan, utensil, bowl, accessory that has not been used in three years. Give away any cookbook that has not been used in five years. Buy new dishtowels, sponges in a different color, an unlikely scent of dish soap. Mop the floor. Repaint the walls away from the forbidding expanse of the current beige and into terracotta or honey or bright white or kiwi or strawberry or melon or faded daffodil. Dust every surface of the living room, rearrange the bookcases alphabetically by publisher, organize the music by size of performing group, fix the knocking radiator, change all the lightbulbs to novelty bulbs, hang Christmas lights, and throw a party for everyone on your Christmas card list, their families, and all your neighbors.

If nothing significant has happened recently,
visit the local thrift store and only purchase items you would never wear. Wear them: wear them with head held high, shoulders back, smile with contentment, wear them with conviction and flair. Rename yourself to fit the clothes: become Ethyl or Bert or Humphrey or Rose or Angelica or Parks or Ernest or Lila. Remember the hat, the shoes, the cane, the purse, the hair, the jewelry. For the next week, this is who you are. At the grocery store, buy the food this side of who you are most craves. Go vegan. Go Atkins. Go locavore. Eat take out. Give up coffee. Take up cigarettes. This is who you are. Don't forget the car; rent the model or borrow the bicycle or buy the rollerblades or beg the surfboard, and go. This isn't just a character, this is a you you hadn't yet met. Become acquainted. Make friends with the person you could have been, the person that, unbeknownst to yourself, you are.

If nothing significant has happened recently,
take three weeks of unpaid leave from your job. Read every local and regional paper, every section, every morning. Every day, write one letter to the editor, one letter to a local representative, answer one classified ad, place one classified ad. In the afternoons, volunteer at the local hospital, nursing home, homeless shelter, soup kitchen, church, environmental advocacy group, nonprofit dance or chess organization, clean litter from the roadside, read to school children, walk dogs at the animal shelter, help out at a fundraiser, bake a cake selected at random from the index for a high school band bake sale. Attend the local basketball game, watch a ballet recital, purchase tickets to a musical, fly a kite at the park, have one drink at a different bar each night, but always a drink you've never had before, watch a movie in the theater that you've never heard of, with popcorn with extra butter.

If nothing significant has happened recently,
shave your head, have a butterfly tattooed over your left ear, learn how to play the trumpet. Join a local brass band and learn patriotic standards and show tunes. Perform at every local outdoor concert venue, busk on street corners, find a few band mates to add in a Sunday brunch repertoire, design new band uniforms, and tour through fairs, markets, open houses, open mic's, jamming sessions. As your hair grows out and covers the butterfly -- it doesn't matter, you have the trumpet, you have the band, you've got rhythm.

If nothing significant has happened recently,
wake up, open the windows, say thank you, kiss with conviction, find your best self, look under rocks, watch the birds, sing in the shower, make paper hats from the newspaper and paper airplanes from household bills. Dance at the sun rise and sigh at the sun set. Breathe.
Repeat.
Repeat until you care.
Repeat until you believe.
Repeat until you are.

---

from Learning to Love You More [Miranda July & Harrell Fletcher]:
Remember exactly what you were wearing during a recent significant moment.
...
If nothing significant has happened recently, ...

---

reading works of Geoff Dyer, which amuse in process but leave a bitter and slightly unsatisfactory aftertaste
weather blissful

home

The long, winding, twisting hallway, not wide, perhaps enough for two friends to walk alongside, but insufficient for two strangers to do so; wallpapered in a floral stripe pattern which has faded to the point of lost recognition; wall sconces burning bulbs that aren't quite bright enough to illuminate the darker corners; a wooden floor neither recently refinished nor distressed to the point of unseemly wear, covered in stretches with a threadbare oriental runner, but mostly bare.

And doors. Countless doors. Stretches of hallway continue unbroken for minutes of echoing walking, only to be punctuated by an unexpected flurry of doorways. Most of the doors are the same: heavy oak, planed smooth, patinated with age, two or three panels, a skeleton key lock, a doorknob of brass or marble, or, more rarely, faceted glass reflecting the light. Surrounded by moldings, also unpainted, but mitered at the corners to fit into snug joints, surmounted by small insignificant carving.

From the hallway it is impossible to discern if a room is a grand public salon, filled with embroidered chairs, damask curtains, a forte piano, the atmosphere hushed with the stifled conversations one is not permitted in formal company, the air thick with polite boredom, a sense of gloom underscoring the pouring of tea and settling into chairs and glancing out of the too arranged scene into the gardens beyond, where in the shadows of the boxwood hedge ducklings march disorderedly towards the pond and an impassive flock of something half seen progresses acros the sky. The groundskeeper trundles past, pushing a wheelbarrow and with a heavy heart from his morning argument at home; the conversation turns gently from the recent holiday in any interchangeable city to the timing of the first batch of June strawberries.

The clock chimes the quarter hour, excuses are made, and one backs gratefully back into the quiet solitude of the awaiting hallway, which in the unsupervised interval has become the downtown expressway under construction at rush hour, but instead of cars it is filled with people chanting their identities slowly to themselves:
" Mercedes driver, lawyer, woman, blond, manicured, tapping impatiently on steering wheel"
while "truck driver, young, male, holding beer" lurches in front of her,
leaving a space in the center lane for "minivan driver, natural hair color unknown, angry, angry at soccer practice, angry at child in back seat eating Little Debbie snack, angry at school teacher from conference, angry at television reporter, angry at husband who forgot the dry cleaning"
in whose wake rattled "beat up white Volvo filled with garage band on way from first stop on ten city tour to second stop and still flush with the excitement of being on the road"
and trying to merge into this bustling mass dodging traffic cones and unmarked lane closings, one realizes that the reliable compact car has disappeared and one is left unprotected in the angry mess with nothing but a bicycle helmet and a paperback novel whose cover is missing --

The first exit ramp leads to the door of what looks like a linen closet and, on closer inspection, is in fact a linen closet, filled with an unpredictable array of shelving and lit by a single bulb with a pull cord to bring the memory of each sheet set from childhood jungle prints to 400 thread count to embroidered linen into sharp relief. No one has bothered to sort the heaps of flat, fitted, blankets, pillows into any semblance of order, and one's high school comforter nestles unpredictably with a particularly lumpy pillow from a graduate school rental, upon which towers an unsorted heap of the recently laundered. The closet it quiet, the bulb turned off, a rather uncomfortable, cramped space to hide in, escaping the present ruckus with the very untidy detritus of the past.

The scents of detergent fill the air, and everything is silent, but a recognition of an exboyfriend's sheets is sufficient to return one to the hallway, which has once again reverted to being slightly bedraggled and ill lit but an empty meandering hallway. The wallpaper has changed, where before there was an impression of blue there is now a quiet, subconscious grasp of pink, and the sporadic oriental runners are replaced by wall to wall carpet. There is a minor change about the doorways, just perceptible: a lack of attention to detail in the woodworking, keyholes and knobs less recently polished, a general air of indifference.

The doors are locked -- not just the first one or two, but ten, a dozen, until one is opened a crack, the light spilling into the hallway, a record playing midway through an old Beatles album, the room otherwise vacant. There is a folding card table, with neither cards nor chairs; there is an ottoman, once upholstered, and sent away when deemed bedraggled; a rickety bookshelf with some old Agatha Christies, but only Miss Marple; and a pitcher of water and plate of Fig Newtons. The room is low ceilinged, raw rafters showing, an attic space carved out as an indoor treehouse, dimly lit, and full of the presence of those who just left and those who are soon expected. The Beatles croon on, the songs not played in any order from any of their albums, mixing up Sergeant Pepper and Abbey Road and generally disappearing into a cloud of melodic pandemonium, as John and Ringo begin on two separate songs and the others banter back and forth. The water in the pitcher turns cloudy, and it seems an opportune time to abandon the room to the approaching chaos.

The hallway now is a roller skating rink, and one emerges into what is either the hokey pokey or the team races and in the midst of struggling to pull one's right foot out one is suddenly being propelled forward at unlikely speed by a stranger pushing at one's shoulders. The floor is smooth and waxed and the impossible corner turn ahead seems dangerously unsafe until the disco ball and the strobe light and the uncompromising 1980s pop music suddenly disappear and one is rollerskating along an empty hallway. There doesn't seem to be a compelling reason not to, the hallway is sanded smooth and the skates, though heavy, are propelling one forward with delightful speed, until the carpeting returns and roller skates are no longer a worthwhile accessory.

The next door, surprisingly, is painted white, the molding neatly matching the door itself, the knob of painted brass, and it opens into a room lit only at one end, by a fireplace. There are bottles of brandy and men smoking cigarettes, but a sincere sense of welcome and a comfortable armchair. The fire has been built for style rather than warmth, and a window opened to let out both the cigarette smoke and the excess heat. The decanter and the snifters are of blown glass, and one falls asleep sprawled in the arm chair to the murmur of voices and the crackle of logs. In the morning the fire has burned itself out, the cigarettes are memories in the ashtray, the brandy surrounded by the residue of unwashed glasses, the air filled with the melancholy absence of good friends.

One's shoes seem to have disappeared, but the hallway is still carpeted and there is not a chill in the air. Further down the hall is a window, the first source of natural light, and in the nook of the corner, a small wooden table and chair. The table has been set with tea and toast, a pot of marmalade, and from the window the voices of children waiting for the school bus. The toast is still warm, the china embossed with blue and white flowers, the tea strong, the morning light cutting through the window across the hallway and illuminating the landing of the staircase.

Tomorrow has arrived.

---

It would be nice to have a room / you could not enter / except in your mind" from "Parlor" by Rita Dove

---

reading the article about neuro-enhancers in the New Yorker, and distressed that these reports rarely mention the perspectives of onlookers; it is heartbreaking to watch friends disappear into a haze of Ritalin or pot and become washed out shadows of who they once were [even with my own moralizing laid aside for a moment].

weather the clouded perception of days of cold damp drizzle

diacritical markings

He has carried out each and every one of his duties to his entire satisfaction. These duties include, but are not limited to,

organizing his cohorts into a barbershop quartet which sings sea shanties every hour on the hour between 17.00 and 05.00 on the quadrangle lawn in front of the president's house;

inciting the dishwashers of the dining hall to first riot and then organize into a labor union demanding uniforms in shades of white custom dyed to suit the tone of each individual complexion, with alternative uniforms provided for winter and summer, and hats available in both pillbox and beret style;

inspiring the groundskeepers to trim the bushes flanking Memorial Drive into topiary shapes resembling medieval grotesques lunging towards one another in maniacal homicidal rages while feeling the final throes of death;

forcing all visitors, on both business and pleasure itineraries, to provide the human fodder for a life size chess board enacted on the roof of the downtown parking garage, and refusing to permit said visitors to depart on their anticipated plans until the final state of checkmate has been declared;

issuing false foreclosures and forged condemnation notices to homeowners throughout the district and then repurposing the properties as, variously, a private gambling hall; a reenactment of a speakeasy; an opium den; a house of ill repute; an orphanage; a greenhouse for rare orchids; a greenhouse for the cultivation of medicinal herbs; a distillery; an unaccredited institute of secondary education offering coursework solely in Latin and Greek, with breaks and luncheons conducted in Italian, excepting on Thursdays, when all courses and breaks are in Portuguese (Brazilian); an animal shelter for three legged domestic pets; an a home for unwed mothers over the age of thirty;

purchasing majority holdings in a range of stocks related to esoteric fields of personal hygiene such as ear wax removal, weight supplement pills, herbal remedies for the causation of menopause, and glow in the dark fingernail supplements, using U.S. Treasury bonds which were acquired through extortion and blackmail of successful businessmen using photos from their high school albums, and, in certain documented instances, baby books;

filing false applications with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for medications taken in tea or broth formulation which variously cause wisdom teeth to fall out on their own accord, shrink the appendix, smooth the skin on rough elbows, change the shape of eyebrows without waxing or plucking, define the sex of an unborn child up to eight months into a pregnancy, convert birthmarks and moles into more attractive shapes or colors, rearrange male pattern baldness to reflect local street or traffic patterns, extend the flexibility of the cranial skeletal system, enlarge the inner cochlea drum mechanism to change the tone of one's hearing, and improve the vocal chord alignment to produce greater singing ability;

producing unregistered and unlicensed performances of Rogers and Hammerstein musicals, with an emphasis on the "Sound of Music," in public parks, parking spaces, open spaces on sidewalks and at street corners, the produce aisles of grocery stores, the seafood counter at grocery stores, the foyer of the town hall, the auditorium of the local high school, the pulpit of a sanctuary on Sunday morning, the 0300s section of the public library stacks, the top of the bar at the local pub, the roof of the mayor's house, on rowboat in the city pond, in the cemetery, and even in the county jail cell, using combinations of a 1980s vintage boom box, a kazoo constructed of a plastic comb and tissue paper, a harmonica in the key of C, a harmonica in the key of B-flat major, an entire sampling of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas cd, a hollow plastic flamingo played as a trumpet, an assortment of bird calls, and, in the instance which led to the performance at the county jail, a high-jacked school bus full of kindergarteners from the Montessori school on their way to the zoo; ticket prices to these performances range from 10c in the pit, participation required, to $125 in a custom decorated balcony box, costume provided for an additional fee;

publishing an underground newspaper printed using a Vandercook press onto paper from 1960s telephone directories which had been taken for shredding and misplaced for thirty years in an abandoned warehouse, charging the market rate for advertising supplements and classified listings, and reporting on only the local news for small towns in foreign countries, and filling out unknown facts or quotes with excerpts of Lorem Ipsum, and selling subscriptions with various membership options including delivery before six a.m., into bushes; delivery before six a.m., onto car roof; delivery before six a.m., through open second story window; delivery before nine a.m., including ringing of doorbell; delivery before nine a.m., including small black morning coffee; delivery before nine a.m., including walking of dog; delivery before five p.m., with or without verbal report of neighborhood gossip; delivery after five p.m., with scotch on the rocks; delivery after nine p.m., by a girl of legal age in bunny or elf costume, seasonally dependent;

constructing a suspension bridge 25 feet above the city's primary street grid, charging drivers fees of up to $5 per quarter mile to drive above the potholes and stop lights, forcing all motorists to acquire a specially designated driver's license, car registration, and participate in a series of driver's education workshops, as all traffic was instructed to follow British driving patterns before one in the afternoon; South African patterns from one to three; Australian procedures from three to 5.30; American (Southern, handguns supplied at no additional charge, rifles rented for a nominal fee) from 5.30 to 7.30; and American (New England, rotary turns only) from 7.30 until daybreak;

inhabiting a treehouse constructed of materials scavenged from home remodeling and building sites, incorporating stained glass windows, mahogany doors, and a sunbeam pattern tile floor surrounding a copper tub filled with mineral water tapped from the hot springs on the side of the mountain, and establishing said treehouse on a floating pier construction which would drift to either side of the county line dependent upon which set of officials had arrived to investigate whether appropriate permits had been acquired, whether the electricity was up to code, what the maximum occupancy was set at, to whom the inhabitants owed taxes, and which precinct they should be registered to vote at;

translating the text of the SAT mathematics examination for an entire semester's worth of high school students from base-10 counting to base-8 calculations, and configuring both the test questions as well as answers and the master answer key so that the only correct responses required full student recalibration of the numeric system;

publishing a pirate edition of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" where the dialogue was rendered in French, all periods were replaced with semicolons, and all commas replaced with ellipses, with illustrations provided on every fourth page with photocopies from an equestrian supply catalog of 1893, each autographed on the title page in fountain pen with Samuel Clemens;

gallivanting shamelessly through town in a green taffeta skirt and red wig whilst humming Scottish ballads and waltzing around each lamp post, electrical pole, fire plug, and parking meter;

and picnicking on the pedestrian island at the main intersection with champagne and strawberries for all who passed.

He has carried out each and every one of his duties to his entire satisfaction.

---

reading
The most amazing article published in the New York in some time --
"The python’s potential range is roughly a third of the contiguous United States."
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/04/20/090420fa_fact_bilger

weather
almost, almost, almost gin and tonics
and, oh!, do I miss parties where everyone was sloshed on Pimm's!

In which the reader pauses in their quest for literary amusement and looks at photographs of Storm King, while waiting somewhat impatiently for the arrival of spring.

Rather than blatantly breaking copyright law, consider incorporating an external soundtrack, in addition to the wind / rustling grass / tree noises which occur unpredictably throughout. Some obvious options might include:

Philip Glass, possibly Island (Glassworks, 1982) or Metamorphosis (Solo Piano)
otherwise anything by Kaki King, Massive Attack, or Spiritualized
or, if you must, Bob Dylan

Technology can be used both for good and for evil; and I must admit that this is an example of a less admirable use thereof. Demerits for over-use of Ken Burns effect, unsteady movie quality due to lack of gloves, and the need to be ruthlessly cut to about half the length -- the original intention was to only have the moving clips of the mobiles, trees, and grass -- but I was seduced by the beauty of the setting.

However, the general B movie effect of low-resolution film clips taken with the digital camera (which thus resembles 1960s documentaries) is an interesting result that merits further study.

---

reading Outliers [Gladwell], which raises some interesting points in an easily digestible manner

weather moody, somehow fitting for the time of year. Depressive skies set off by flamboyant daffodils, random bits of snow, and the overall threat of rain. The off-stage organist is about to break into the soundtracks for one of the gothic silent films -- Nosferatu or Phantom of the Opera or whatnot -- and we will all cringe before the terror of . . . .

police blotter

1.44 pm Magnolia Ave – no location given
Suspicious circumstances [1]; gone when officer arrived.
Piedmont, CA police log

There had been reports of the two men for several weeks now. One of them was youngish, twenties, wore a flannel shirt. A bit scruffy: hair that needed cutting. Descriptions of the second man were less consistent, more vague. Average build. Average height. Darkish hair. Jeans. No one could remember anything noteworthy about him, but everyone swore they would recognize him in a moment.

No one had interacted with either of them, but the youngish one was said to be from Alabama on account of his accent. No one had actually observed the two men together at any time, but it didn’t make sense any other way, two strangers just happening to appear in the same town, at about the same time.

It started around the time of the spring potluck. Usually it was held at the start of the Pentecost season at the Anglican church, but Easter fell late that year and the Ladies Auxiliary and the Altar Guild ladies knew that if they waited too long that the spring potluck would be lost in the Memorial Day barbeque rush, and so it was discussed with the rector, who shrugged indifferently and allowed the engine of the ladies’ planning to continue unchecked. They had been running the community for years; there was no need to interfere now.

So the spring potluck was scheduled and so it was held, but after that time people began to notice the presence of the two men in town. It was commonly believed that one of them – the nondescript, older one – was a professional poker player, barred from the nearby casino on account of counting cards or some similar attack on the gentlemen’s rules which govern such establishments.

No one could recall who first heard the card association, or whether they just knew it to be true from his inexpressive face, from his lack of conversation. Only a hardened gambler could communicate so little, and the parish ladies were experts in reading body language. He just didn’t broadcast, remained just outside their sphere of comprehension.

The younger guy was obvious. He was drink and girl trouble all the way. His entire bearing was of a man unmoored, and, well, whatever caused that woman to finally kick him out, they agreed it couldn’t have been soon enough. She probably had a toddler, with his father’s sandy hair, and another on the way. Another single mom and deadbeat dad; they could only disapprove.

How the two men met up, though, and what was holding them together, was the subject of much conjecture. Was there a gambling debt, a blood bond, a drug running, a stolen car, a promise sworn after too much whiskey, were they improbable brothers or had they murdered someone and were laying low?

So the stories circled. Still the two men were never actually seen together; still even one of them was a rare sight in town, only caught out of the corner of one’s vision.

Were they traveling in an old Ford sedan with a middle aged dog? Did the dog have water? What was it eating? Was it getting into the Smith’s garbage, or was that the raccoons again? Were they aware that this town had leash laws? Should animal control investigate, check for an unlikely rabies vaccination, make sure it wasn’t harassing the school children or the mail men?

But no one could exactly describe the dog. It was brownish, forty or fifty pounds, not chunky, not starving, hadn’t been seen getting into yards or dumpsters or chasing cats; but they were pretty sure there was a dog.

Then the advertisements started. They were normal enough, but not for this town, where everyone was well aware of who owned what and what they were trying to pass on.

Rottweiler puppies, 10 weeks, $500 each, parents on premises. Well, no one in town had, much less bred, Rottweilers, except old Lucy, and she would never place an ad in the local paper.

Baby grand piano, white, new condition, recently rebuilt soundboard, enquire for price. The only person who owned a baby grand was Lewis, and his was black, and why would he be selling, anyway?

Antique Victorian sofa, recently reupholstered in burgundy brocade, with matching footstool, sacrifice, must sell, $800. Of course Debbie had just gone through her grandmother’s estate and was trying to sell off the larger pieces, but everyone knew her grandmother hadn’t changed a stick of the furniture since her grandfather had died in the war, keeping it as it was in his memory. So, really, there was no way it could be Debbie, and, anyway, she was a nice girl who would want to hold on to a family heirloom like that.

Landscaping services, lawns mowed and edged, pruning, firewood splitting, brush clearing, references. It would be unheard of for someone to try and compete with Ed’s business, he’d been at it so long and knew how to keep the lawns facing Elm Street just so; the neighborhood association had seen to that.

But there it was, these inexplicable mundane classified ads which just didn’t belong to this town, these two men who could only be described as suspicious shady characters, the mongrel wandering around upsetting the territories of the other dogs.

And at the Fourth of July celebrations, after several months of this invasion upon their town, the citizens decided to act. They were going to find these men and that dog, and they were either going to settle in and get to work and explain themselves or they were going to move on.

As the recorded 1812 Overture cannons burst and the fireworks flared out over the reservoir, the ladies nagged and cajoled the husbands into action. These interlopers were men, and it was a man’s job to deal with them.

The husbands weren’t interested, doubted the men even existed, but knew the price of domestic peace was licensing a nonexistent dog, so they brought along the sheriff’s deputy and clambered into groups of cars to find the old Ford, the source of mysterious Rottweiler puppies and white baby grand pianos and antique reupholstered sofas. And when they found those men they were damn well going to assimilate them, run them on to the next town, or at least say that’s what happened. There wasn’t room for those sorts around here, not in this town.

---

reading feigning an interest in “The Shadow of the Winter Palace,” & wishing the Russians were just slightly less intensely morose
weather unequivocal