Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Bunnyman in Austin
On 1 Jan. 2007, as I drove with friends to get my traditional thai new year's meal along the low unfamiliar warm streets of Austin, TX, I saw, along the side of the road, a man with twin blotches of pink on the top of his head.
I wondered what these could be. As it happens, they were ears made of crinoline (a Simon and Garfunkel song played in the back of my mind as soon as I noticed they were made of crinoline...but I couldn't remember the title. Only that it was the only elegant use of the word crinoline, much less of the material, that I had ever seen). I also, at that time, noticed that the man was paunchy, older, balding and wearing metal somethings on his legs.
He tossed a casual wave in our direction, and then he took a little hop, as though to keep pace with us slowing at a light. Turns out that the metal thingies were twin pogo somethings that he had attached to his legs. The man kept pace with us, leaping more gracefully than I thought his ears or his pogo whatsits would allow until we reached the restaurant, the arcs of his leaps high enough that I felt sure his crinoline ears would lead him to a fate not unlike that of Icarus. But he made it.
I was left, then, to eat New Year's first pad thai. It was only toward the end of the meal when I opened my fortune cookie, that I wondered what the Bunnyman could possibly portend. Would he flap over my New Year like a crow? Hang around its neck like an albatross? Or would I feel the luck of his steel, spring loaded feet whisking me away from danger and toward good fortune?
For good or ill, I knew, in any case, that I would have occasion to write the word crinoline many times. So excited was I by this that I didn't even read the fortune.
I wondered what these could be. As it happens, they were ears made of crinoline (a Simon and Garfunkel song played in the back of my mind as soon as I noticed they were made of crinoline...but I couldn't remember the title. Only that it was the only elegant use of the word crinoline, much less of the material, that I had ever seen). I also, at that time, noticed that the man was paunchy, older, balding and wearing metal somethings on his legs.
He tossed a casual wave in our direction, and then he took a little hop, as though to keep pace with us slowing at a light. Turns out that the metal thingies were twin pogo somethings that he had attached to his legs. The man kept pace with us, leaping more gracefully than I thought his ears or his pogo whatsits would allow until we reached the restaurant, the arcs of his leaps high enough that I felt sure his crinoline ears would lead him to a fate not unlike that of Icarus. But he made it.
I was left, then, to eat New Year's first pad thai. It was only toward the end of the meal when I opened my fortune cookie, that I wondered what the Bunnyman could possibly portend. Would he flap over my New Year like a crow? Hang around its neck like an albatross? Or would I feel the luck of his steel, spring loaded feet whisking me away from danger and toward good fortune?
For good or ill, I knew, in any case, that I would have occasion to write the word crinoline many times. So excited was I by this that I didn't even read the fortune.
A list...Tim Martin's Request
I thought is best to leave Pandora in the of night...and take her box with me --- The Mural Outside The Apartment Where I'm Staying.
James and the Giant Peach Roald Dahl
Peach and Blue ????
Green Eggs and Ham Dr. Suess
The Hobbit JRR Tolkein
The Lord of the Rings
Demian Hermann Hesse
Wanderers Nachtlied Goethe
Sorrows of Young Werther Goethe
Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey Hayden Carruth
Elements Euclid
Critique of Pure Reason Immanuel Kant
ABC's of Reading Ezra Pound
That's it for now.
James and the Giant Peach Roald Dahl
Peach and Blue ????
Green Eggs and Ham Dr. Suess
The Hobbit JRR Tolkein
The Lord of the Rings
Demian Hermann Hesse
Wanderers Nachtlied Goethe
Sorrows of Young Werther Goethe
Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey Hayden Carruth
Elements Euclid
Critique of Pure Reason Immanuel Kant
ABC's of Reading Ezra Pound
That's it for now.
Blogging Austin
Just a couple things to love about Austin, TX.
They project a giant eyeball on a water tower on New Year's Eve. Its a live feed.
The sky is real big here.
Its warm.
There is a live jazz club in a basement. And its called the elephant room. I like elphelints. Lots.
There are many dogs here. In fact the place is lousy with dogs, and I like me some dogs.
There is a dude randomly playing the blues on a harmonica at the coffee bar behind me because he broke up with his lover.
Everyone's yard is pimped out. Like with lights and tin foil sculptures. I think people made a spontaneous unanimous decision to make sure the aliens will not detect the brain waves of their lawns.
I am in coffee shop next to the Groovy Lube. Groovy Lube, folks. That's what they called me in high school. For serious.
All of you need to check this shit out.
Wyrd Up. 60 degrees and sunny down here. And more harmonica. And a dude just walked in with a cowbell.
They project a giant eyeball on a water tower on New Year's Eve. Its a live feed.
The sky is real big here.
Its warm.
There is a live jazz club in a basement. And its called the elephant room. I like elphelints. Lots.
There are many dogs here. In fact the place is lousy with dogs, and I like me some dogs.
There is a dude randomly playing the blues on a harmonica at the coffee bar behind me because he broke up with his lover.
Everyone's yard is pimped out. Like with lights and tin foil sculptures. I think people made a spontaneous unanimous decision to make sure the aliens will not detect the brain waves of their lawns.
I am in coffee shop next to the Groovy Lube. Groovy Lube, folks. That's what they called me in high school. For serious.
All of you need to check this shit out.
Wyrd Up. 60 degrees and sunny down here. And more harmonica. And a dude just walked in with a cowbell.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow
Often I am permitted to return to a meadow
as if it were a given property of the mind
that certain bounds hold against chaos,
that is a place of first permission,
everlasting omen of what is.
- Robert Duncan
I have begun re- reading the books that had a significant impact on my life.
Here is my list... (in attempted autobiographic order)
as if it were a given property of the mind
that certain bounds hold against chaos,
that is a place of first permission,
everlasting omen of what is.
- Robert Duncan
I have begun re- reading the books that had a significant impact on my life.
Here is my list... (in attempted autobiographic order)
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Howl by Allen Ginsberg
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Sonnets by Ted Berrigan
God is Red by Vine Deloria
Complete Works of William Carlos Wiliams Vols. I & II
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Being There by Jerzy Kosinski
Some other Kind of Mission by Lisa Jarnot
A Humament by Tom Phillips
OK, Blogmates, my request of you is to post your own list of books (or plays or movies, or songs) that made an impact on you.
