"...Magic"

I just got a FB memory. This missive had my pal Niall Abrahams saying regards weather: “…No place is perfect.” Good point. Um… Except for Maryville Idaho, Legend sez it had perfect weather. Yet all around was burning in 100f+ degree hell in summer or -25f below blizzards in winter. However, that spot stayed just fine thanks. 

Enchanted like them vacant lots in Flatbush that always bloom. Year ‘round. In fact, not far from there some dear pals have a cherry tree doing the same thing. I go visiting hot or cold. The damned thing blooms. Stories like this turn up all over the place. Magic spots. Ya know like a subway station where no one gets shot. A public crapper that smells like roses…even on weekends.  Could be a pattern. Someone should do a map of enchantments. 

‘Might have that glowing tunnel in da back of my closet in it. …a story for another time.

Above an enchanted tiny VW bus buried and stalled on my windowsill. It’ll probably be stuck there till spring. Anyone know any spells that might help?

 

"...Space Odessey"

 

Watching live streams from the ISS. Screen capture of them passing over an Aurora. I remember when nothing human made was in space. I recall the day Sputnik went up. So for a aged Boomer like me seeing live space streams is cool.

Speaking of Russkis and Yanks in space. I remember the scene in 2010 a Space Odessey when war between them seemed likely. They received orders from their respective governments to separate and come Home. Awkward. Life in da future has such problems. Could happen for real. ...soon.

See video below. It has synopsis scenes for the movie. The order for the separation of the Russian and American crews is in there...watch the whole thing. The film isn't as cheesy as they said back then.

 

14f~-11c tonight. 

Will be below freezing for the coming week. 

My windows frozen shut.

Glass glazed with ice. Frost on the inside of the sill.

I'm always amazed how the skies roar in winter.

 

A bit of snow lately.

 

"...paper"

Anxious and drifting so I made a paper doll.

Used what was handy.

I should do it over, but I like it.

No matter the static we can always make art.

It'll get us through the night.

 

 

"...lint"

Part of the earth blew up the other day.

Once this would have been worldwide front-page news.

No one noticed. It's already vanished.

News cycles didn't blink. It's gone.

Had the force of a 20 megaton Nuke.

Visible from space. Watch the Video below.

It's sobering to say the least.

Btw she has plenty more where that came from.

Meanwhile. 

We continued with our important business. 

Basically examining each other's asshole lint.

Hating each other over every bit of nothing we can find.

Part of a country albeit one full of unwhite people

has vanish off the face of the earth.

The Earth spoke trying to get our attention.

We ignore her even spat on her for bothering us.

Right.

Do the fucking Math.

The Earth abides.

We're just along for the ride.

 

 

"...notes"

During my homeless year I practiced invisibility. Move quickly carry nothing. The longer I was out there the more modes of life amongst the houseless I found. Some were experienced old-timers. Once called Hobos. These moved from city to city. The hoarders. ...see above. A type of Hobo but sedentary. They establish territory and hid/took comfort beneath mobile found objects. Greenhorns. Like I was. Temporary citizens of the streets. Others middle term wanders. If they stay, they'll join the hopeless.

The hopeless: ...disturbed or addicted. They are also temporary as their mortality is the highest. The very young or with children are an entirely different nation of want. They’re the institutionalized houseless. They exist within the System. …from which there may be no escape.

Mind this is based on what I lived more than 10 years ago. It has since gotten far more complex, and dangerous. Unlike in my time. There are now Homeless Encampments the size of small towns. The Darwinian dystopian social order in these I cannot imagine and hope I never have to.

"...welcome"

I was reading email correspondence with a friend. We ranted on current scary events. I replied to her vivid description of the ongoing fall of this republic: "The world is insane. I thank you for reminding me as I had quite forgot." Her reply: "You're welcome." Understatement is good for friendship.

"...funny hats"

 

End of da world or not I still need my meds. So I'm socially distanced at the pharmacy. The guy in front of me decides to share his theological revelations. Always smile, and nod when this happens. I decided not to tell him about my new religion which I based on Creme Brulee, and Comic Books. Someone should email paradise about this. A lot down here can’t handle divine vision stuff. They do annoying, and or dangerous things.

On da other hand…There’s folks like James Baldwin Whitman Dorothy Day Ginsberg, and Emily Dickenson. That bunch smoked da divine ganja big time. I think we all had a few puffs of that stuff. I sure did, and the sky grabbed me.

I was eight and captured by the heavens. I was sitting on the ground in the school yard. Gazing at the swift clouds of late October. Didn’t notice all the kids had gone in. Sister Alice had to come out and get me. The principle thought I was disturbed and told my Ma I might need help. How many Qu**rs have been martyred for loving beauty? Mom told her to bleep off.

Ma was cool. We're Buddhist Catholics and have another take on stuff. Which is why if the COVID era ever ends. I’m setting up a harmless cult with funny hats. One with Pastries, and Comic Books as sacraments. That or doing a one-person performance of my idea for a store-front temple. “Uncle Sydney’s First Church of Amazing Bewilderments” The more I think on it the more I may do it.

"...I also listen to this over and over"

 

"...A Temporal tale"

Once upon a time: Peach Bonnet Wisconsin December 21st 3:26pm 1904~CE. An early Tuesday evening. Quiet strikes you. Though a few snowflakes in the wind. Stars were appearing in early dusk. Yule decorations up very homespun. Warmly sincere. The street unpaved shops gas lit. So quiet.

A woman with a child came out of a Sundry store. A 7-11 to us. The child four? Born with the new century. The woman grinned and nodded to me the child openly smiled. People not yet afraid of strangers.

I walked this place. This peaceful though no doubt complex human place. So unknowing of the terrors and wonders to come. So confident of their past, and proud of the present.

I took a snapshot of a woman walking ahead of me. This with a period box camera. As new to them as 3-D iPhones would be to us. I’ll come back in their subjective Spring. Peach Bonnet will be in full leaf. With that I portaled back to a troubled wounded future.

I remember lying in bed as a child and listening. The branches outside my window heaved like the ocean. The house creaked and moaned like a ship. My curtains billowing as sails. I slipped into sleep. Into dreams of brigantines sailing seas of green gems, and skies full of shooting stars. Moments. They are all we have all we are. (Fairy Sailboat by children’s book artist Honor Charlotte Appleton.) A FB memory from last Spring.

 

 

Raw. 

Cold winds sharp rain.

We've entered that season which 

C.S. Lewis called:

"Always winter but never Christmas"

 

 

 

"...truth"

For over a century, and a half we unknowingly called to the stars. We pleaded for attention with Morse Code Radio, and now Digital Bursts. We even changed the spectrum of our atmosphere with industry. All this to mark our presence.

We called and were heard.

As is their way the Star Folk sent an Envoy. This to hear our story not from our machines, but from ourselves. A vessel of bright shimmers there, but not moved undetected through the clouds. Like a feather passing through a dream.

It came to rest not at the Kremlin Versailles or even Disneyland. It settled a meter above the cracked pavement of East Saint Louis, Illinois.

The Envoy mist disembarked and floated to those watching. They were enveloped and asked for the story of Earth. In response the Mist was led to a Homeless Shelter. There the people said: "...A truth of Earth".

"...460 B.C.E."

This a re-post of a dream from a few years ago. 

“405 B.C.E.”
I had a dream which took place in a library. I was reading works about Fifth Century B.C.E. cultures. Well Jimmy Carter comes by, and sits next to me, and we get into a chat about the subject.

The former President…and btw he’s the first head of State in or out of office to ever visit my dreams. Anyway, we hit’s it off and compare our contemporary world to theirs. We also seem to be having dinner…dreams are like that. The President sez how other than tech we’re pretty much the same as them folks so long ago. The center of our lives he told me, “…are family, and love”.

True enough.

We spoke further about raising kids. I helped raise my nieces, and nephews. Carter of course has a daughter, and grand kids. “…the center of our lives.”

Well, this reading room has a nice nap area…btw libraries really should. A pal, and I often discuss plans for a live-in Library, and Theater for Ladies, and Gentlemen with Artistic Proclivities. I think I’d rather enjoy living in such. I believe in ancient times such may have happened.

After chatting, and dining President Carter goes over to take a snooze. Me I continue reading and enjoying the dumplings…such are dreams. 

"...overtime"

Listening to Dave Brubeck's

"Take Five"

over and over and over.

 

 

"...folks"

We're all just folks.

The human soul is complicated.

Anyone of us can easily fall

into resentments angers even hatreds.

There are a million doors that lead from hell.

Ya only has to pick one.

Caution and Redemption.

 

 

2020/2021/2022

We are Angels

in a long-long Midnight.

 

"...I Dream a World"

I dream a world where man No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth and peace its paths adorn.
I dream a world where all Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul nor avarice blights our day. 

A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be, Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free, where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl, Attends the needs of all mankind--
Of such I dream, my world! 

Langston Hughes

 

 "...insane"

 

Virginia was the first state to declare racism a health issue.  Since then, several other states have joined her in this obvious conclusion. Malcolm X once said that racism makes "...both its perpetrators, and its victims insane". Yeah, I'd call mass insanity a health issue. Maybe it would be better illustrated if it turned us into Vampires, and Zombies. Then it might get more serious attention.

"...wind"

An alien geological expedition from the stars on Earth 4 billion years from now. These beings will find a thin black line. This through the deep strata. Our Isotope traces will guide them. That line will be us.

First Contact.
Humanity all we were and did. From when we walked out of the seas at our beginning to when we raised its level at our end. We'll be catalogued and made a footnote among sentient species.

It's 12 noon.

Temp: 14f/-10c.

Wind chill: -11f/-23c

Not beach weather today.

However!

I love this always loved the deep cold.

 

I borrowed Barbie's head for this shoot.

Being a show-biz trooper

she was cool with it.

Thanks kid.

 

The photography of action figures dolls miniatures 

is in its breakthrough moments of becoming a recognized art. 

Above by my artist pal Neil Burke.

 

Reading about awful shit happening to people all over the place. Democracies dictatorships all the same. This is what governments do. One country screws religious ethnics other's despised nationalities. Here we fuck over racial groups, and everybody bleeps up Queers. They all...all of them do it. Some for ideological religious tribal hegemony. Other places because the insane president for life feels like it.

People once organized do this.
As far as evolution knows we're all still on the veldt.
It hasn't yet noticed that we live in trans-tribal urban cultures swim in space fly the skies need money have anthrax bombs, and 24-hour online porn. Our reflexes are still about running from big animals that want to eat us, and nasty tribes with the same idea.

I should teach a simple course at Brooklyn College.
"Why shit is fucked up, and why you could still get eaten."
They'll be hats, and t-shirts.

 

 

"...sign here"

The Musician composer writer David Abram, in his book The Spell of the Sensuous. He there suggests that we owe our animal pals a debt for our ability to read and write. He notes that our ability to read abstract words and figures, as you are doing now, may have evolved from our ability to read the tracks of other creatures."

Write a word a story or poem using the above track images.

 

"...days go by"

It's near dusk tho' it was dawn moments ago. I opened my windows. Fresh air...cold fresh air. In those romantic 19th century novels, they mention airing out the sick room. They had no meds that worked so it was all intuitive remedies. If nothing else things would smell better. We should be clean and tidy to face the foe. In this case a mutating virus.

First things first.

Started today w/a hot-hot-hot shower. Made the bed tidied up read emails. Later went to market. See a few posts below what I found. Wandered home. No one shot at me this time. Read wrote bits of stories. Stared blankly at dark matter. Napped watched live streams of folks'n places around the world. I miss going to real places. Like when I woke up on Mars that time. See above.

Put dinner on.

An oddly collaged chicken soup. All manner of ingredients tossed in. I figure some parts of it are bound to work. Btw what they say about liquids is true. Hose ya self-down with juices teas water. Hold the Pepsi or Root beer.

Granted not a thrilling day...this time. But a day in the life.

I am heartfully grateful to have had it. Be brave be smart be kind.

 

Our dawn Moon.

 

"...Zap"

Was watching streams from the Space Station. 

Saw a meteor enter the atmosphere. 

Did a quick screen grab. Life in the future.

 

"...Plague years"

To market. Shelves near empty. No bread no soup no eggs few basics. Supply Chain disruptions. Whole world down with Omicron. I sure as shit am. Swell. Chocolate and Turnips. These we got. Bleeping row on row. 

Turnips. What da fuck was gawd thinking?! Chocolate. A wonder of wonders. The Former I'd rather die than eat. The Latter'd put me in Diabetic shock. Lose-lose. It just ain't fair. I got crackers with peanut butter and went home.

 

 

"...Brooklyn College"

 

 

"...innocence"

The topic of porn came up on a comrade's page. Some thought that the display of women in straight porn was harmful, and destructive. Queer porn is just as bad. Anyway, that kick started a memory of just this problem.

Porn as it was and is demeans those in it.

So we thought my artist comrades of back in the day. Is there a way to do enjoyable erotica that doesn't hurt people? I mean the template we had then as now comes from when it was mostly illegal. So the Mob produced it all.

In other words, generations were given as a model the Mafia's idea of sex.

Which is akin to autopsy pictures. So I proposed what in my earlier boyish innocence I believed porn to be. As a lad of 11 or 12 I'd see this stuff on newsstands. I thought the pictures were taken by the people in it. The women themselves took the pictures, and the articles interspersed were by them talking about why they did it, and how they had such a nice time with their friends doing it.

An interesting idea we thought.

However, when we did mock-ups and proposed this to some of the art rags. They thought we were crazy. Basically, a big "fuck no" to the idea. Too bad it would have worked. Anyway, by this time it was the mid-1970's. I started my own small press. I published Queer prose poetry weird art, and stuff. Which was great fun.

"...Dip stick"

On da what da fuck am I still doing alive front.

I can report that I have no idea. I just woke up still breathing.

That's it. However, walking is rougher than usual. My sight is crappier than ever in my fucking life. Fucking agonizing sudden cramps are fun. Did I mention my heart is getting my attention? The sucker slows down, and misses beats. I mentioned that at hospital, they said I'm fine.

Which is their way of saying... "Look gramps that shit is the least of your problems."

Otherwise, I'm swell! There I complained, and I'm glad.

  "...An Emotional Outburst"

We're living in a country with 380 millions of folks that have gone barking at da moon nuts. A willful hatful superstitious deluded deranged the earth is flat alternative facts cancel culture history don't exist angry selfish greedy vengeful mob crawling across g-d's microscope! ... Enough!!!

My reaction is emotional terrified hysteria. 

A 21st century Kristallnacht nightmare of Nazi Kluxer Brownshirts lynching everybody in sight. This with most looking the other way the way they did before. Would they really do that here...maybe. Certainly 30% totally would since they be doing the hanging.

Having Uncle Joe Biden and Ms. Harris as the only persons between me, and all that ain't reassuring. This calls for folks like Dr. Strange the Fantastic Fucking Four, and the Joker. That bunch would give us at least some kind of fighting chance.

This country is in a hell of a bleeping evil fix.

I quit from now on I'm an Inuit. ...if they'll have me. Com'on I tell funny stories and can cook! Lemme in!

The rest of the maniacs can go ahead and burn down the United Fucking States. Knock ya selves out. Just leave me Bob da Bunny, and the wild deer the bleep alone.

The only hopeful thing in this whole toxic dumpster fire is the "I Quit!" culture. Folk refusing to crawl back to heartless jobs that never pay enough to live. 

If we luck out something may come of this as million refuse exploitation. Might cut down on the mass insanity. 

The Midnight Moon.

 

The last light of the day.