Talking Stones Project

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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)

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

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.

“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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

####

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.