Talking Stones Project

I Should Warn You...

2007-07-21T17:40:00.000-04:00

I should warn you…

I am confused

I tire easily

I know sadness

I can be weak

I search without knowing what for

I need, sometimes without reason

I try while not understanding what I’m doing

I yearn

And I rarely feel like I know what I'm doing.

This started as fiction. Now I'm not sure...

2007-02-27T02:16:00.000-05:00

First, the apology: This may be completely incomprehensible.

I don’t know if this can be adequately explained. Unless you’ve waited, and I mean really waited, for something. I mean the kind f long, agonizing waiting that usually means sitting with your head in your hands in a crappy, pink-vinyl chair next to a bed that’s on wheels, counting every second in your head with a beat like a drum. If you’ve waited like that, with every nerve tuned completely to detect the first moment when waiting turns to having, then you might have and idea. But only if what you were waiting for was for something to stop.

Today I woke up, and something amazing didn’t happen.

I didn’t reach for anyone.

Let me say it again, brothers and sisters: I didn’t reach for anyone.

I’ve been something of a serial monogamist for a while. I haven’t been out of a relationship for very long in a while. Like half my life. Now, part of that is because my relationships tend to last a while. But mostly, I’m coming to realize, it’s a problem with me. I think I’ve had so many problems being by myself that I have run from partner to partner in tight, tiny spirals. Don’t believe that this means I wasn’t really in any of these relationships--I have actually loved every woman I’ve ever told that I loved her. I threw my heart and soul into every one of them—I was as committed, as honest, and as on-board with being a couple as I must have seemed. But I also needed somebody to keep me from being alone.

And, because each and every time I was actually as in love as I said I was, I woke up every morning reaching for the girl I was with. Even mornings when I was away from them. I’m even a little proud to note that I never once reached for a woman other then the one that was actually in the bed with me. I guess my expectations have lowered.

And this morning I woke up the same way I always do, except completely differently.

I don’t know when it stopped. Somehow I doubt it was today. But somewhere in the last month-and-change, I stopped looking for something. Or, the optimist in me sings, you started looking in the right places for whatever you were reaching for. Fucking optimistic voices.

Either way, it stopped. And it feels like something titanic has shifted. I still want crazy, whacked-out love with somebody who’s going to want to go places with me and stay home with me and drive me crazy and let me sing to her and make out with me in the car on long drives and, well, everything. But the desperately hungry feeling is gone, and that makes me feel sane in a way that I forgot existed.

So. There.

Bunnyman in Austin

2007-01-09T03:18:00.000-05:00

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.

A list...Tim Martin's Request

2007-01-09T00:48:00.001-05:00

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.

Blogging Austin

2007-01-09T00:41:00.000-05:00

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.

Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow

2007-01-04T17:36:00.000-05:00

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)

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.

LOVE LIKE WAR (excerpt from the First Installment)

2006-12-12T10:38:00.000-05:00

…so few exchanges because of my famine of words for you both and I am unable to manufacture any understanding of complications we were never isosceles friends, yes?
I think this is why you speak of tribes and smoke and subways and concrete and city things and drinking alcohol and streets I have not seen and fibers and things you may touch with fingers I feel spirited to speak on the title of this exchange…”First Installment” does not do this justice, no? Perhaps a name like…well I do not know this…I am not a real writer yet.
Plusily, I must inquire as to why you both produce large spaces in you writings is this to feel aloneness between thinkings? Or perhaps to give white noise to the correspondences?

In response to your letter, kind friend, I must first ask why you are so very interested in the holes of nothing rather than the mounds of something…Space, lovely partner, is the balance of liberating fear. A large nothing made up of something and anything you wish to fill it with…It is in breath, silence, blindness that allows us to really begin to understand what we mean. When you can hear silent movement and see straight through dark air into something other than now. It is here, in these sheets of space, where you can make love without anyone ever knowing,… the collection of space that brings these poets together. It is not about what they say, but rather what they know… without recognition, we disappear. But, after all, isn’t that our primary intention? Exist without out existing… poets are strategic subconscious animals. Simultaneously, pompous, existential beasts and total recluses who would throw themselves into the canal for everyone and no one to notice. And so this correspondence does bring joyousness for I’m sure I couldn’t without your empty space.

I must commend you with buckets on your last division I am now easily thinking that the words are words and the spaces are action I think then I am trying to make lightness does this understand you? my space is action of feeling the happy intoxicatingness of drinking or the sad intoxicatingness of drinking as you say, the space is of many many actions and volumes and many people, yes?
Or do I lift up yours and you lift up mine? Does this mean that whether we are kissing against large blocks of stone frozen in buildings or moving many paces from each other, we are carrying the identical things. Does the space mean we both love like war? Not like lovers?
I will tell you that I am with big eyes when I am reading it. I am with great joy when you write about Technicolor, salsa, sex and Coney Island. I am wishing that Coney Island is a place like where I live, many people with many white spaces.
What is a Hardy Boy?
Plusily, I would like to ask you, when you are you speaking of the 2 girls kissing in Time Squares. Is this fiction?No,donottellme.
Epiloguely, I would like to ask you truth and understanding something are these 2 the same things?

I am awaiting your next discharge with a toothache in my heart.

Effervescently,

Venice

Planning the autobiography

2006-11-23T21:24:00.000-05:00

Autobiographical Lists.

1. Freinds, acquaintances,work buddies, etc
2. Enemies
3. Lost objects
4. Geography- Places I have been
5. Intention- Places I would like to go (hypothetical biography?)
6. Heroes
7. Consumption- Books I have read, music I have listened to
8. Expenses- reciepts, mileage logs, grocery lists
9. Google Calendar- of everyone I know- what intersections are there?
10.Emotion, Love- philial, fraternal, romantic (log duration, intensity, and expresssion)

5 count

2006-11-16T17:11:00.000-05:00

Shut One Eye, it turns half gray
the 5 count in the silent war
calends shades the allegorical play

with belly, she was the cavalcade
her sparrow on twilight sings more
Shut One Eye, it turns half gray

faceless ghost bleeds papier-mâché
and lies awake as is sure
calends shades the allegorical play

pinch of whirlpool, tear of day
i twirl in Sundays on the floor
Shut One Eye, it turns half gray

one o’clock voice in deep delay
breathe stop 5, count 4
calends shades the allegorical play

I live deep inside a blue parade
with no change at the door
Shut One Eye, it turns half gray
calends shades the allegorical play

2006-10-23T13:30:00.000-04:00

where is my village
it burns
touches found histories
in private accounts
inflame sense of occupation
an american vesuvius
in time of video isolations
is this an installation
when the longest march
still plans ahead
this was my lifetime
to lock & unlock doors
in a tension of thumb & finger
where are my children?
cleansed
what we find appropriate
drops conversation sudden
it senses my motion
forbids whistles in the dust
subverts my text
in masculinated packs
that some could be a party
i am consumed in the corner
or every peopled room
whispers about me
without my village
this is an array of education
texture of flame
earthbound gatherer
armies of defense
call an advantage
resemble my blood
reassemble trails of tears
how one feels involved
in imaginary theaters of
war

buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight

2006-08-21T15:41:00.000-04:00

and so
you can’t bring
little girls back from
the dead
but you can call yourself
outside
to the cedars
bury something deep
in the earth
and that should make up
for all aching

now it is very late
and C-Span says
Iran, stand up
U.S.A., stand up
Singapore, stand up

now it is very late
the ghosts run between the thickets
this forked branch reminds me of
the spirit inside
and these water finders
have never been wrong

Daytrip 3

2006-08-16T10:12:00.000-04:00

Today's timcast comes from Philadelphia on the heels of Tim's trip to see Mike and Evy in their secret lair. They have a nice secret lair.
There was indeed a fry bread riot. Mike's bread is still the best around (other than Grandma's). And yes, there were games. Mike and Evy won dice games and Mike won a close game of Trivial Pursuit. Although, when i remythologize the trip, i'll probably claim to win all the games. Dice is a very serious business. It's a game that involves luck, some serious gaming medicine, and of course, the most vital part of Native culture... harassment. Dice work best when you psycho out your oponent. We laughed for hours over few games.
So, Mike's Indian Tacos. These are the best tacos I've had since I left the west. We feasted, we sat, we feasted some more. Lela waste, Kola.

The next morning we moved on to breakfast. A lovely diner called Stacks gave us omletes and more than enough breaksfast meats. The diner is situated on the Passaic River which seemed very low today. We ate while we watched mallards and black ducks swim passed.
Then we moved on to Evy's mother's house where she was cooking the best smelling spanish rice and chicken. I drove home listening to an excellent mixed cd that Mike made of powwow music.

daytrip 2

2006-08-12T22:54:00.000-04:00

“So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey…” Jack Kerouac

Today’s timcast comes to you from 39°24′8″N, 74°22′45″W. Here in the City of Brigantine, New Jersey, it is an enjoyable day. Some Brigantine acclimation: The Lenni Lenape camped here, referring to the island as “watamoonica” or Summer Playground. Henry Hudson was the first white guy to record his observations of the island , stating “This is a very good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see...". Located just outside of what is now Atlantic City, there is a bay on one side and the ocean on the other, creating what is thought to be the windiest city in the world (sorry, Chicago). Historically, it was used by whalers looking for whale migration to wreak havoc upon and by Privateers (America’s first paid for terrorist group- or rather “patriot” paid pirates that attacked and stole from British ships much like the current day CIA in South America). It is even rumored that Capatin Kidd left treasure on the island. In the gay nineties, there was much development on the island, a railroad connecting to Philadelphia, trolleys running up and down it, and many hotels. With the great depression, that crashed and fell by the wayside. There was a turn around with the legalization of gambling in 1978. Today, it’s very much a residential community (in the 1980’s mostly hotel/casino workers) but now the working class is being outplaced by astronomical taxes (boo, city government- fight the power prolitariat Brigantine- vote them off) and sprawling industry of mansions for the rich. Many stars have their shore houses here, so they can play the casinos in Atlantic City. On the island are the Brigantine Wildlife Refuge and the Marine Mammal Stranding Center. No mammals present today. Hurray, safe mammals.

Wildlife sightings: innumerable seagulls (more innumerabe than the poor in a Dickens novel), a vole, several domesticated dogs, racoon tracks, a merganser and an egret.

Note: In fact, we at timcast, stood at the spot the former famous “Brigantine Castle” stood before it sucame to arson in the eighties.

Accomplishments… Read parts of Big Sur while on the beach. Walked to Wildlife Refuge, reworked Anansi scenes, wrote some Joe Hill scenes, bought a bottle of wine for a party tomorrow at Jerry Puma’s.

Daytrip 1

2006-08-11T11:24:00.000-04:00

This blogcast coming to you from Aaron's, out on the road as part of our Poet Relocation Program (PRP). Thanks for breakfast, Aaron. Aaron tells us that the Peresid (sp?) meteor shower is nigh and that this weekend is a good time to be out of light-pollution-istine to watch the metor shower anytime from midnight until dawn. Yea, Peresids. Hope to see you soon.
Here in the hills of PA, it's in the 80's and sunny and just plain nice to be tooling around. Gas prices- between $2.93 and $3.63. I've seen many rows or corn, and rolling hills and cattle. Crows abound, and there are a few feilds out of a Wyeth painting. Several circles of Redtail Hawks and Turkey Buzzards have also graced our day trip. Pennsylvania is the largest producer of dairy (no, not diary) in the US. So, there's many cows. Most of which appear to be Holstein, but there may have been a Danish Red or two in the mix.
Now, for fieldside meditation and tea.

Be back in Philly tonight for rehearsal.

Coming this week... Mike and Evy confront Tim in a dangerous game of dice & maybe a fry bread riot, we at timcast will sample tomotoes in Jersey roadstands and learn about sand retention and coastal wildlife of Brigantine. Tim will rewrite scenes from Anansi and His Stories and Write The Ballad of Joe Hill.

Peace.

Conquistadors, Run Up the Stairs

2006-08-10T16:11:00.000-04:00

the wooden bell cuts
like disco in the bedroom
Thick
fluorescent
the no swans sing the no songs and flap their no feathered tails to the
beat
it’s a good idea
to see the sky in the colors they don’t make at the crayon factory
highwaymen with daggers
high men with guns
men with high style x-ray specs
laugh it up

and she says she’s not a daughter of the homeland?

it’s all business
in this surveyed field
grow tall yellow grass
break apart plaster steeple
the braided imperfection of two people
or two beings
whether they light or air
is Thick with obsession
and she says that

you are proud
like I was

2006-08-09T10:49:00.000-04:00

If Time is Money and Money is the root of all evil,
Then.. is Time the Root of All Evil?

From the Sea, I Have Come to Destroy Tokyo

2006-08-02T15:47:00.000-04:00

destiny.
this is not a test.
seven sessions alike. this is no generation
warning but admonishment
of my atomic rebirth
close
closer
these will not be bullet points.
confidence at the hesitant breath
wait one beat.
air pulls from space
and i strangle in the dayroom
bright
white
without declaration
this is plaintiff
for a throat is only as useful
as the oxygen it pulls

here to expel the succubae
with an ocean-rest
overcome with peace
this cold sea change
i could have clouded
over antarctica
fenceless land about
exhale
exhale & finally speak
exhale with only two words

My Army Is Waiting For Fire That Will Not Come

2006-07-20T11:06:00.000-04:00

if I were to press for the miracle
it would not come
furiously
nor in silence
perhaps under the guise of a carbon copy
asking me about my low rates
a pro rata distribution of
failures and flattery
but mediocre breeds mediocre breeds mediocre
and didn’t you know
the only new thing you can do
is get ill and feeble for weeks
out of style is 2000 and whatever
this is a new season
with new jeans
new sex
new hair colors for sure it’s something we need
because it provokes without fervor
it is blind like love that gains sight with age
and yet
you can still run from nothing
and still be running for your life

Meeting Notes July 12, 2006

2006-07-12T19:35:00.000-04:00

communication
alienation
connection connection alienation

communicae
communicas
communicorum
alienopium

add "legend." It may spark or thicken. It will be hard to know beforehand.

Stir in a soupy room in July.
When the dog yawns and goes to bed, gone off to write her own tall tales, the job has officially begun.

TO TAKE UNDER ADVISEMENT WHILST PONDERING:

What serves what when?
What is our arc?

Biography/Autobiography/Abscence of the Other/Ghost in the Machine/Hard Jazz, people. I'm talking hard jazz/Meaningless sex props up the bar/20-30something wasteland/"No one has ever, historically, been isolated like this for this period of time. You can actually spend your whole life never seeing another person."

a man who never left his own home
struggles with trying to ensure that his son won't leave either

Imagine that you've never ever met the people writing this blog.
Imagine that every blog ever written is exactly like this blog.
And that everyone is essentially just like you.
And vice versa.
Erase the possibility of individuality.
Erase the possibility of conformity.
Assume there is no choice other than to be.
Alone.
And with this one question over and over.
Unanswerable.

JAFIMVKMV DAICVHEA....AIJFEAMFS....XOXOXMAIEFHAS....

Please use your decoder ring to decode the above message. If you do not have a decoder ring, you may have lasagna. There is some in the microwave. Please use your decoder ring to find the microwave. If you do not hav a decoder ring, you may have lasagna. There is some in the mircoscope. Please use your decoder ring to find the microscope.

To find your decoder ring, please open your spleen. You may use your spleen opener. It is in the lasagna. It's too hot for lasagna.

Fuck this decoder ring.

fja;enjiejhaifhsdakcfmd....faefhaifjdslk.....afehaifej;aife....kfas;eifjea;

"Ma would say I was tempting Kali." Fritz Leiber

Buy a Gun

2006-07-07T15:06:00.000-04:00

here is the F word written in Ferris wheel light bulbs
insult in burlesque boots

and the letterhead supplier says
he never got the check in

bull
shit
!
ass
hole

do you know what it is like to work
in this place?

you don’t
no

Steep Mountain

2006-06-30T15:32:00.000-04:00

don’t count them as decade
: lost more relations
…. than gain
by value of years, months… season
is this the surface of a map?

by presentation, power
points of time, signature, rotation, occupation
estimate cost/ benefits

of silence
if moral
enough

let’s face it
we
like to watch

if risk is an audience…..
then my biography was too long ago
& milk can escapes like study
this was schooling

where was that career
my geologist
my chemist
my pharmacistmy office space
my practitioner
my hot dog concession cook
my compassion
my prayer

with other lost things
call st. anthony or
paper & smoke
kiss the word
it doesn’t hurt
to ask

to end the question
every mountain
a degree of access

this note
a mockery
to hold on

But it’s better if you do

2006-06-22T16:38:00.000-04:00

before you were born
you were a sloppy
anti-social
taboo
limitless bastard
you were a better writer and used words that great writers should use like
“smoke”
“bone”
“woman”
And it goes on
These were strange
times
or so people said

now look at you
you go to work
you put on a tie
and you haven’t seen 3:00 sunlight on your living room floor for months
months

there is this kid down the street who drives a hot new sports car.
he muscles heavy air through the steering column and out the windshield
and the stereo guitar singes the color from this tired block
but we both know
you could
if you wanted
still kick the shit
out of him

Things I wish I had written (volume 1)

2006-06-20T14:58:00.000-04:00

An excerpt from "Killing Yourself to Live" by Chuck Klosterman:

In autumn of 1995, Quincy had a very short haircut, much like Winona[Ryder]'s hair in this particular film. There is a scene in Girl, Interrupted where Ryder sits on the floor and plays "Downtown" on an acoustic guitar, and – the moment I saw it – it completely reminded me of the Saturday morning I walked down into Q's basement bedroom while she was sitting on the carpet playing "Maggie May" on her acoustic guitar, real sad-like, and sporting that same severe haircut. It was the morning after we had drunkenly had sex for the first time, four hours after attending a screening of Leaving Las Vegas: That sexual encounter was something that was never supposed to have happened between us, and she was certain it was going to ruin both our lives. I remember feeling extremely guilty because I was so not-so-secretly ecstatic that it had finally happened. But when I saw her playing the guitar, I could tell that we were about to have a bone-wrenching discussion about what had happened the night before, and she was going to tell me things I did not want to hear, and that the only reason she slept with me is because she thought it would make me happy, somehow. And even though our relationship lasted for a year beyond that morning, and even though lots of things happened and lots of things changed, it is hard for me to reconcile that she probably hated herself on that overcast Saturday, and I'll always wonder if the remorse she felt while she strummed her guitar never really went away. So, when I finally saw that aforementioned scene from Girl, Interrupted-and when I saw this image of Winona playing a guitar that looked exactly like my memory of Quincy playing a guitar-that overcast Saturday morning was immediately what I thought about. It was like getting smashed in the throat with a 38-ounce Louisville Slugger. And the irony is that I've always loved the song "Downtown." It's one of my 50 favorite songs of all time; it's either the happiest sad song ever recorded, or it's the saddest happy song ever recorded. But now, every time I hear Petula Clark's voice from December 1964, I think of a scene from 1999's Girl, Interrupted, which makes me think of the morning of February 11, 1996, which makes me feel guilty for prompting a woman to perform a heartfelt rendition of a Rod Stewart song from 1971.

Artists who believe they have any control over the interpretation of their work are completely fooling themselves.

Newest Projects

2006-06-12T14:34:00.000-04:00

The Remote Controlled Car Rocky Run Experiment

Materials:
One RC Car and Wireless controller
One Car with driver and full tank of gas
Replacement Batteries
One portable stereo with Rocky Run music cassette tape

Location:
Philadelphia. Route of the Rocky run from the film Rocky 2.*

*Though to a non-Philadelphian it seems this run is fairly connected, local residence know better. Running from South Philly, to Kelly Drive, to Market Street and back to the art museum seems geographically ridiculous. Therefore, it is suggested to start on Market Street and just head east to the art museum.

Procedure:
Place your remote control car down on the corner of Market & 2nd Street, facing east (use right lane so as to not block traffic). Turn on Rocky Run theme music so that pedestrians on the sidewalk may hear it. Drive RC car east toward city hall. Follow at a close distance behind RC car in automobile driven by other party. Be sure to give acknowledge and credit to driver as he/she is an integral component in this experiment. Round City Hall and take the Ben Franklin Parkway toward the Art Museum. Flip side of cassette tape and play track over again. Upon reaching the art museum stairs, unless you have a newer model RC car that can scale steps, you will have to run your car up the steps by hand. Either way, do so. Once you reach the top, set car back down and do a victory lap around the perimeter of the walkway.

Goal:
As the Rocky run has become somewhat of a quintessential event for non-Philadelphians, tourists and visitors, Philadelphians must now embrace this run a part of there culture and identity. That is, the Rocky Run is part of our Body Politic. The ultimate goal of this experiment is to see how may genuine Philadelphians follow your RC car through Philadelphia to the Art Museum and celebrate atop the steps. Document names and addresses of participants. Further, have them sign petition to erect RC car statute atop the Art Museum steps to celebrate the true Philadelphian.

The El Train Relocation Project via the Pennsylvania Ruffed Grouse (a/k/a The “Good Shadow” Project)

Materials:
One El (the Market Street line) Train car.
1600 pounds of bird seed
5000 jars of peanut butter
One kitchen knife
2000-2500 Ruffed Grouse (state bird of Pennsylvania)
One Sufjan Stevens
Ear plugs

Location:
63rd and Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Procedure:
Obtain one passenger train car via Septa Legal Department. Tow car to 63rd and Market Street El train station. Cover bottom and sides of car with peanut butter using kitchen knife. Once completed, cover peanut butter with bird seed. The peanut butter will act as bond for birdseed, plus most animals seem to like peanut butter. Obtain 2000-2500 Ruffed Grouse with the aid of wildlife habitats and veterinary specialists. Release all Ruffed Grouse under the car. Be sure to have Sufjan Stevens present for this event as it will surely be a top track on the Pennsylvania Album in his project to write a music album for each of the 50 states. Be sure to wear ear plugs as the Ruffed Grouse creates a unique drumming sound with the beating of its wings.

Goal:
To get the Ruffed Grouse to lift the El Train car and relocate it to the Pennsylvania Woodlands. Further, to cause a media sensation speeding the construction and restoration of Market Street and its El Train along, seeing as they have been doing construction down there for years. Further, to make people aware the Ruffed Grouse is the state bird of Pennsylvania. Finally, to meet Sufjan Stevens.

The Logan Circle Samba Project (in honor of the World Cup Tournament)

Samba: when a group stands in a circle and juggles a soccer ball and every person gets a touch on the ball without it hitting the ground.

Materials:
One standard size 5 soccer ball

Location:
Logan Circle, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Procedure:
Designate a time and date to gather as many people at Logan Circle as possible. Have these people make one giant circle around the fountain. Begin juggling soccer ball from one participant to the next. Make sure it doesn’t touch the ground. If it does, you must start over.

Goal:
Set the world record for largest Samba not performed by a European County.

chat #4

2006-06-11T16:04:00.000-04:00

3:59 PM Andrew: talk to me, baby
4:00 PM me: hey sweetheart
Andrew: Can't get you the measurements right now.
me: i can wait a day to tape out the floor,
Andrew: rad
when do you want to chat tonight?
4:01 PM me: after diner perhaps. i am thawing pork
Andrew: sounds dirty
me: that came out wierd

Andrew: would you mind coming to westy?

4:02 PM me: not at all. i have some writing to attend to this week and i have to light fires under various theatric asses, and that's it really. i am going to see a show with an old friend tomorrow and moving you on thurs

4:03 PM speaking of which, there might be thunderstorms.
i can get another truck but not sure if it's worth it
Andrew: when? thunderstorms? its about time I gave thor a taste of my hammer anyway, and then it will be andy lord of thunder
How do you like that?
huh?

4:04 PM and then we'll see what kind of weather there is on my moving day?
won't we?
that's right bitches
me: with your spear and magic helmet?
Andrew: there\'s a new viking in town
4:05 PM no, much more soulful than that... and street, baby, all street... in any case, will call later.
me: graze
Andrew: off to conquer thousands
me: let me know when/where onward",0]
);
//-->

W/ Andy Merkel

Prologue from "AMERICAN INAMORATA"

2006-06-07T09:50:00.000-04:00

Grandmother walks the earth, her path a list of our origins, the web of our universe.
Each step in its time, expressing intangible truth - if there is to be any truth at all, it may be this. She exhales a song so old the sound of it changes the tides:

“These things you now to be true, deep in the marrow of our bones, we are all one, all rock river stream wind all fire hail demonspit all angelblood oxtail all witchthumb and garden path all red wine and succotash all scream and all whisper all cave painting sculptors.”

Grandmother, ancient and damaged, she walks tall inside though her back looks bent, her bones curve in rivers of elegy in her son’s eyes as his soul breaks the horizon at the crackling voices transported to concrete homelands that spit deviant deities from eternal skies damning things with wings to union jobs that betray the pact we made with nature the night the first man growled “good dog” to the creature on the other side of the fire that licked the skyscrapers clean off skylines replaced seasoned hard cracked bonecold reason with the storm-heavy sway of ghosts through palm leaves on the breath of the Tradewinds when they follow stiltwalkers through homes laid bare by hurricane autopsies revealing the indigenous moan and the divine-sent meaning of dreams and rainfall in a time of no buffalo and the shrieks of chosen dancers succumbing to trance or inducing nose-to-the-dirt floor reverence in a round white temple above a ritual-infested village where the are warriors dance to save Princesses and where stories of gods and monsters become tangled with cling-clang gold-laced processions for motorbikes and babies’ heads where the dead smolder in bull effigies and witches demand dances and curved knives with purpose dart into dark flesh left to the rattle of a goddess immune to time and order and wraps her tongue around heroes taken in the incalculable promise of human affection between victims of terrorist belief machines and victims of terrorist blindness in a steamy slow rice field where mist hides the damage of too much and too rough in moist bungalows but mist also reveals shapes and contemplates “would-bes” and crawls with half-breed pilgrims over temple, shrine, and rock though she wears business suits she and cries in her sleep like the sound of the sirens over virgin oceans their operas race to echo in the dreamlife of sailors and their waking pursuits become tied up in lust for the one thing they can’t have the paradise escaped them when they banished the animals who fear them like they were banshees or demons or leyaks or witches or angels or priests, lawyers or kings and the myth of man circulates through dark forests “If you see one, run quickly and never look back till you’ve run round the world sounding the warning to one thing to all things that the rumors were true and they’ve come and you’ve seen them and they’ve got a gun they call God and they’ll send a bullet through you if you praise the wrong one so keep running, keep jumping, all stories, all creatures, all things rooted deeply, all underground rivers, all suns burning orange, all nightfalls, all creatures exhale and the edge of the sky starts to tear.

Fear sends some to their knees but she in the business suit climbs over their backs till she comes to the point where she sees the roads that lead beyond what is known to a point of connection with all beings that are with infinite ways to the center. It takes only a moment to accept the invitation and become part of the solution.

Can you hear this?

2006-05-26T12:12:00.000-04:00

making disparate connections while lying in my bed like superman equals clark kent equals everyman if everyone is everyman then why can’t the jocks and the nerds get along and maybe go to a kegger together its probably ogres fault i also wonder if every part of the buffalo gets used does the buffalo feel better about the whole thing is there a special place in the afterlife for those whose deaths were useful if so martyrs and livestock are all pretty much ending up in the same place which is cool if saint stephen likes hanging out with cows and JFK is into photo safaris is it possible to be more still and more silent and more patient and more ready to recieve because if it is i think that that is what i want to be to be ready to take in anything that drives by and waves or smiles from the roller coaster or holds open a door that i was just going to walk past on my way to work what if i disappear into my own head or the austrailian outback or venus and what if i could bring everyone i wanted along and what if i cant?

Hymn for the modern man

2006-05-26T11:50:00.000-04:00

O Lord, I have made you a place in my heart

Around the bags, the boxes and the dirt.

There’s a pile of lies near the catbox, and a trunk of self-doubt near the fridge

A crate of unreasoning meanness, taller then you’d ever believe.

O Lord, I have made you a place in my heart

Now take a good look, and then leave.

Psalm 9 point 0

2006-05-22T16:30:00.000-04:00

great things have been growing out of my floor, O LORD
the furies have taken to Simon and Garfunkel
circa 1966
what the hell, right?
actually
the nets have become electromagnetic froth
wooden tubs, choice rustic charm architecture
and who’s to stop all the hypertension

i’ll tell you plain
the world
is still a roman one
for a short time
blood was blood
men were just that
cold beer was a contemporary dream
but all the Rockwell’s have relocated
to Cologne or Copenhagen or somewhere, i don’t know
i’ve been reading and it said that over 60% of americans
suffer from …sion
mercy me
mercy you, mercy everybody

by the way
amen to you and yours

Thread

2006-05-19T14:17:00.000-04:00

TO: AM@hairofthedog.com FROM: TDM@doesthebodygood.com

Hey,
how's the body chemistry treating you this morning? After coffee 3 normality set in.

Tim
####

TO: TDM@doesthebodygood.com FROM: AM@hairofthedog.com

I'm not really here. 3 body chemists set in? confused.

On second cup. not functioning well 'tall

you?
AM

####

TO: AM@hairofthedog.com FROM: TDM@doesthebodygood.com

Half here.
starting serious reseach on project. cup 4.
will be at full steam by showtime.

T

####

TO: TDM@doesthebodygood.com FROM: AM@hairofthedog.com

cup 5. my thinker is beginning to function.

####

Equal and Opposite Reaction

2006-05-17T10:44:00.000-04:00

Existence is really water. An arugment against the external. The cleanest violence is liquid. Outbursts that lie in our minds; meditates on the law of cause. When we removed ourselves from the ocean, we lost the abosluteness of water to spend the rest of evolution in attempts to strike against everyone just to reclaim the feeling. The violence of water crashes against physical evidence. Our fists, our scalps, our mouths urge the third law of newton. The evidence: Surrounded. Complete. Whole.

Latest Projects:

2006-04-19T15:43:00.000-04:00

The Morse Code Bugles Experiment

Materials:
Morse Code Alphabet Chart
Bugles snack bags (multiple bags)

Location:
Washington Square Park- 6th and Walnut, Philadelphia

Procedure:
To effectively transmit message, say a greeting, from person A to person B using only Bugles snacks and Morse Code as method of communication. Cracking (short) and Crunching (long) of the chips in person A and person B’s mouth act as the beeps in the Morse Code. For example, if person A was to say, “Hello” to person B, they would do so as follows:

“Crack, Crack, Crack, Crack
Crack
Crack, Crunch, Crack, Crack
Crack, Crunch, Crack Crack
Crack, Cruuuuunch, Crack”

Refer to Morse Code Chart for letters and numbers.

Goals:
To eliminate city noise pollution while fully hunger cravings among citizens. Also, to reduce the risk of cancer via cell phone use.

The Kite Love Letter Project: (ongoing)

Materials:
One standard kite
One love letter written on blue (if male) or red (if female) paper.
One self addressed stamped envelope

Location:
Philadelphia (between 23rd and Front Streets)

Procedure:
Write one anonymous love letter, for males use blue paper, for females use red paper, attach it to a standard wind kite and launch off of a rooftop or elevated surface. Be sure to enclose the self addressed stamped envelope in your letter so as to receive a reply.

Goals:
To initiate a wind propelled relationship or even penpal friendship with a complete stranger. To finally put truth to the cliché, “love is in the air.”

The Hot Potato Parking Garage Experiment:

Materials:
One microwave oven.
One bag of potatoes.
12-24 participants depending on the height of the parking garages.

Location:
Philadelphia, any street with open air parking garages on both sides of the street. Premiun location would be between 16th and Broad, Spruce and Walnut Streets.

Procedure:
Have one participant take place on each level of garages so that they may see participants in the opposite garage, and on all levels above and below them. So that the directions can be explained more simply, call one garage A and one garage B. (Hypothetically, let us say that each garage has 10 levels). Further, let each participant be numbered as per the floor they are assigned. Therefore, participant 1-A is on the ground floor of parking garage A.

1-A is to heat up the potato in the microwave oven until hot. Once ready, he is toss the potato to participant 1-B who then tosses potato to 2-A, 2-A to 2-B, 2-B to 3-A, etc. 1-A is to time the event. Once potato reaches 10-B, 10-B is to shout out “Hot Potato! Parking Garage!” Repeat the experiment. See if you can do it faster. If you drop the potato in your tossing, do not fret, but start over with a new potato. This is why we bought a whole bag.

Goal:
To initiate new trend in urban gaming. To introduce Hot Potato Parking Garage to pop culture. Ultimately, to see Hot Potato Parking Garage being played in the next big hip-hop video on MTV (Will settle for MTV 2 or the Fuse Channel).

This is Not a Memory

2006-04-13T16:45:00.000-04:00

The night is the hollowest I've seen.
Soundless. The thud it makes is practical
and here and tangible.
You can feel it.

There I was waking and this is reality.

My dream was local.
I was in a hospital, diseased not breaking.
And there was a cure.
Therapy was wearing glasses.
Cure was color. Mine was chartreuse with a Middle Blue spot
that I believed was my cause.

Causes were big there.
Blue under chartreuse. No one told me what it meant.

Found poem as per the Flight 93 cockpit tape transcript

2006-04-12T14:51:00.000-04:00

Ladies
and Gentlemen
here
the captain

please

sit down keep remaining seating
we have a
bomb
on board

so sit

don’t move shut up
shut up stop sit

Jassim
In the name of Allah, the most
Merciful
The most
Compassionate

Finish no more
No no no no

Lie down
Down down down down

No no no no
No more

Please please please
Oh God

Sit down shut up
Sit down sit down

I don’t want to die
No no down down
I don’t want to die I don’t want to die

No no please
Go back

That’s it
Everything is fine
I finished

Ah. Here is captain; I would like to tell you
All to remain seated. We have a bomb a board
And we are going back to the airport and we
Have our demands so
Please
Remain quiet

United ninety three go ahead
United ninety three go ahead

This green knob?
Yes, that’s the one.
Oh man
This does not work now.
Turn it off
Should we let the guys in?
Talk to the pilot bring the pilot back

In the name of Allah. In the name of Allah. I bear witness that there is no other God, but Allah.

Allah knows.

They put the axe into it. So, everyone will be scarred. Yes. The axe
Let him look through the window
Open

You are…one

Is there something?
A fight?
Yeah?
Let’s go guys. Allah is the Greatest. Allah is the Greatest. Oh guys. Allah is Greatest.

Ugh Ugh Ugh Ugh
Oh Allah. Oh Allah. Oh the most Gracious.

Stay back. They want to get in there. Hold, hold from the inside. Hold from the inside. Hold hold the door. Stop him sit down sit down sit down What There are some guys All those guys Let’s get them What what what Trust in Allah, and in him.
Ahh
Ahh
There is nothing is that it shall we finish it off
When they all come, we finish it off
I’m injured
Ahh
Oh Allah. Oh Allah. Oh Gracious.
In the cockpit. If we don’t, we’ll die.
Up down up down
Roll it
Is that it? I mean, shall we pull it down?
Yes, put it in it, and pull it down.
Saeed
…engine…
Cut off the oxygen
Cut off the oxygen cut off the oxygen cut off the oxygen cut off the oxygen
Up down up down
Ahh
Ahh
Ahh
Ahh
Go
Go
Move
Move
10:02:17 Turn it up.
10:02:18 down, down
10:02:37 Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me.
10:03:02 Allah is the Greatest.
10:03:03 Allah is the Greatest.
10:03:04 Allah is the Greatest.
10:03:05
10:03:06 Allah is the Greatest. Allah is the Greatest.
10:03:07 No.
10:03:08
10:03:09 Allah is the Greatest. Allah is the Greatest.
10:03:09 Allah is the Greatest. Allah is the Greatest.

Slice of a day

2006-04-11T11:55:00.000-04:00

It was very loud. That was how he knew, at the beginning, that it was something. He would lay awake at night, not thinking, and the rush of it in his ears was louder then the train around the block, or the humming of the power lines. The problem was, once he recognized the loudness for what it was, it was always there. Even when he'd turn the stereo up full blast and take a shower, the combination of the water and the music didn't really muffle the loudness. So, over the course of the days after, he just learned to live with it, like a person in a crowded room will learn to filter out the noise of a hundred conversations so he can hear the one that's happening in front of him.

But the first night, the important night, it was loud and it was everywhere. He tossed and turned, and kept trying not to think of anything so that he would sleep, and kept hearing it. It wasn't like any other sounds he had heard, or even like any combination of them. It would just roar in his ears like a train in the subway as he threw the sheet off, then pulled it back up, then threw it off again. Eventually he fell asleep, he knew this because the drone of his alarm clock pulled him out of the sleep with a jolt that sent his glasses and a CD flying from the nightstand. But, trying not to make too much of a feeling that was so strong that it would manifest itself in a deafening blast, he shrugged it off and went about the business of preparing for another work day.

It was during the drive to work that the next thought hit him. How, he wondered, would she feel about this? He knew that there was no way he could communicate this feeling to anyone else, let alone the one who inspired this din in his head. Even on the phone he would usually end up tongue-tied in normal conversations, and with this girl it only ever got worse. He usually chalked it up to nervousness, the butterflies in the stomach he'd always gotten when talking to a girl he liked. But this was bigger then liking her. I mean, God, he thought, I can HEAR it.

So, he went to work, prepared to force his way through a typical day that left little time for independent thought in more then short bursts, and let the matter rest until he had time to pay it more mind. The closest thing to a resolution of his feelings he felt was possible was the thought he had as the light turned green: This is going to a weird day.

* * *

She lay in bed, reveling in the lack of a 9 to 5 job like she did most days before she forced herself up and into a chair. The writing she had to do today was more then enough to keep her busy for a few hours, but it was hardly taxing. She would relax, take it easy. Luxuriate in it a little, even.

When it came, it was fast and hard, like a baseball thrown by a major league pitcher. Except it was nothing so physical, or so easy to understand. Instead it seemed like a concentrated ball of sound and light that deafened and blinded her. Her eyes closed involuntarily, and they wouldn’t open again when she wanted them to. She lay there, shaking, waiting for it to stop, hypersensitive to the light on her eyelids, the sheet over her legs, even the places where her hair fell over her face. It was suddenly all too much, and the last thing she saw in her mind’s eye before giving in to the panic was his face.

When did you first recognize that you were alone?

2006-04-10T15:55:00.000-04:00

spiderman
must have been
not yet four years old
& in a duplex front yard
built like suburbia
spinning

that lightness we forget
spinning
outside like persian poets
but firstmind and young
free
then just from gravity and real
senses

it was spiderman

reflection i think it was glass
front
door
single
pane
glass
single reflection
full stop

myself bounced through
no soul behind

shortwave/burst transmission

2006-04-03T23:49:00.001-04:00

you’ve got these shows about people locked in the attic.
a likely story.
about people who drop handguns and they go off and
naturally
somebody gets hurt.
and I don’t buy too much into that
but I am very spoony
and sometimes the victim of
defenestration

here is where the people
talk
________________________________________
and here is where they
hear
_____________________
and here is where I tell you
something

“drew is in your extended network
drew is in your extended network
drew is in your extended network
drew is in your extended network…

Paraying is to blogging as...

2006-04-03T15:07:00.000-04:00

He prayed, not to his God, or to a holy saint, but to his daughter, lost in your fire. Here is his prayer, stranger. Hear it, and then tell me I have no quarrel with you. Each day this simple man would stand before his God and weep for his daughter, saying ‘Your name is Julia, and when you were born I was not truly pleased. I am a blacksmith, and a blacksmith needs strong sons to tend the fire and help with the shoeing, but before a year had passed you had stolen my heart. You grew more hair, and then some teeth, and then some wisdom. You learned to say ‘Daddy’, and your pronunciation was perfect. When you were three you would run outside to knock on the door, and then run back inside and ask, ‘Who is it?’ When you were four your uncle came to visit and you played the host. Lifting your cup, you called out ‘Toast!’ and we roared with laughter and you blushed and covered your mouth with your hands, but I knew you thought you were very clever. Now they tell me it is time to forget you and move on, but it is hard to forget you.’
‘You were so smart, and could count the nails in a box when you were five, no matter how many there were. You played at guessing games, and picked flowers, and ran around the house laughing. You were also very brave, and when you fell and cut your knee you did not cry because you felt it wasn’t right. When you picked up a piece of fruit you always looked at people’s faces to make sure it was all right to eat it, and you were always careful not to make a mess.’
‘Julia, you have died, and you are probably very scared. It is all right to be scared, but you must not cry or make loud noises because Heaven is not like being at home with your own people. When it’s your turn to be judged, you tell them ‘I am young and innocent. I was born to a poor family that loved me very much, and I was content with scanty meals and ragged clothes. I was never willful or careless, and I never wasted food. Please protect me.” You should put it just that way, and I am sure you’ll be fine. ‘
‘I will miss you Julia, and if you are allowed by God to visit me from time to time, I would like that. I will be here. In the meantime, I will weep for you and cry out “Julia! Your father is here!” Since that is all I can do for you, it is what I will do. And I will not forget you.”’

Before we had blogs, we had prayers. It seems to me they serve many of the same functions: we take the things we can't or daren't say to other people face-to-face, and say them instead to a faceless thing-that-is-not-us, and look for our release there.

question: what is your name?

2006-04-03T13:18:00.000-04:00

This time, let us turn to Somoa and learnabout the possibility of intelligent Cephalopods
under the scrutiny of Racing
with teaching and research responsibilities in Tree Physiology
for his adolescent years. ...

Pharmalicensing
from Stillwater, Minnesota
Former Copy Chief.
and is a fourth-generation carver,

He carved Indian heads, realistic

A collection of scenes of the Scottish Highlands and Islands
Devastation of a locust plague
Strictly Business
The Phantom of the Opera
the field of Christian counter-cult evangelism, apologetics,
MILD-MANNERED HEATING AND VENTILATION

serves up the fish.
and his groovy loos any day
. Moon Marathon
creator of pub empire
has three great loves: his family, bush flying, and the spectacular "color country"
the obsession is "Hamlet."
transportation chief
didn't post any project comments yet
A Protocol for Remotely Managing Sieve
won the individual Big Sky title
for he is Maps & Diagrams
a career patron

this was a very bad tattoo
three great loves: his family, bush flying, and the spectacular "colorcountry" of southeastern Utah.

shafted?
joining the Centenary family

oncamera image.

enlargement and its implications for the Translation Service
In the prolific was expectinga slick, powersuited cynic world
pre-human subject research efforts for consensus on the changes and they were approved unanimously
the unusual demands of doing science in the Antarctic

Pavement Life Cycle for the highway projects
Very much a one-man-band

Argument- Talking Stones Project

2006-04-03T13:09:00.000-04:00

This is a space for a theatic performance on the blogosphere. In this time, we are so connected to one another without being close. We are so available through cell phones and email, that surface information plays the largest part of our communications. Real communication the kind used in telegrams and letters. Urgent discussions of states are being are no longer necessary. I can pick up my cell and tell anyone anything as it is happening. This leaves us isolated in a way.This is the theme of the poject: how to communicate in this world. Here, by way of a blog, we are going to create a space for theatre. 5 writers will post letters, diary entries, hold conversations and ask questions. And whatever event comes from this need to communicate.