Videos, in wet socks

I'm going to keep this brief as I'm currently standing (sitting) in a half gallon of NYC's vaunted public water, borrowing as I am from an old Army trick for breaking in jump boots.

Yes, I stood in the shower with new leather boots on. Not jump boots.

And now I'm reliving the punchline to the old Army trick: I get to wear them, my feet soggy, sopping, until the shrink and fit is molded perfectly to my feet. Apparently the method involves keeping them on throughout a full day. Thus, forgive what I write here.

* * *

Exhibit 1. Having now finished the Krasznahorkai, and being completely lost as to what my next literary expedition should be, I turned to the place where all discerning readers go: Youtube.

randomly generated moments of reflectivity

I am writing this with a bit of a cough, so please excuse this and my relative lack of coherence, if it happens. A three-dots post:

One. With the death of Patrice O'Neal, I'm remembering my only story involving the guy. (Great comedian, btw, in the few places I saw him -- he was the flamer on Arrested Development, although I remember him as a regular on the earliest iteration of Politically Incorrect and Comedy Central Roasts.

Subjects, or the Mailbag

1. Crazy girls gone wilder. [Ed. note: The writer of this blog does not condone the exploitation of the mentally disaffected, nor should they be used in a suggested reboot of a once-ballyhooed reality series "Survivor: Lizzie Borden All-Stars."]

2. Scare people with your tool today. [Ed. note: The assumption and accusation that he in any way resembles Michael Myers or O.J. Simpson or Freddie Kreuger or Leatherface, et al., is a complete fabrication and should respectfully be struck wholely and completely from the public record.]

3. She will surely pounce on you. [Ed. note: The writer loves letters from the SPCA, owing to the warm fuzzy he receives from the usually included photo kittens: one tuxedo and one russian blue.]

4. Singer-Songwriter Competition, Win Your Transaction and More. [Ed. note: This was immediately deleted due to the likelihood that the content would be of an adult nature.]

* * *

My first lost post. I had started it around Labor Day, today I let it go. Read it, but understand it's not complete. 

The theme: Aspirations. 

The setting: The Berkshires, Labor Day weekend. 

Where I lost it: the aspiration to not exist. 

Is it safe for work?: Yes.

Tangent: In which the writer tries to draw a parallel between the works of Sol LeWitt and John Cage. The term aleatoric is mentioned (quite a bit). The loss of identity, the abnegation of identity, the hubris brought about by the fact the artist might have touched or otherwise been involved with the piece of art is questioned - and those particular concepts of identity, post-human and post-artist - are brought up. The idea that post-art - as wrought by conceptual art - is the world of design (which we're in) and marketing campaigns (which we're also in) is also broached. The notion that these are wrong for the ongoing continuation of the human species is included. That we abnegate, allow others to make our sense of taste; that we deny the glory of ugh anger love beauty. That's in the piece. That we're in the new Dark Ages. Not as much (but it's hinted at oh so slightly).

Summary: Geof is an abnegation; we are in the dark ages; go fetch your zombie hat before you die. And Cormac McCarthy was right. 

Or something like that.

* * * 

Did I mention I saw Drive last week? So exciting. Although to be fair and granted, the film had its problems all up and down the map (map read as the Character of Ryan Gosling's the driver), but as a noir flick it was immaculately shot and needs to be seen on a big screen. When given a full character, the performances were tight. 

The end.

Or Fin.

Or...

Berkshire Mountain High

[Ed. note: This will be the ultimately unfinished start to a failed post, ruminations on the now long-done Labor Day weekend trip that spared me the shootings that hit my neighborhood (and which surprised no one).]

I.


It was upon the fourth or fifth passing of a car dealership that I turned to my navigator-cum-lady-companion and said "This is what America looks like." We were driving along Route 9, towards MassMoCA from the city of Great Barrington, Mass., and the two lanes running alongside were empty, people vacating for the Labor Day weekend. We drove through the trench between two lines of the cloud-covered Berkshires. Unmowed grass on flanked us on either side. Breaking the ranks of the untamed ground were said dealerships. Breaking the ranks of homeless autos, a gas station or turnoff diner. Breaking the ranks of those were the occasional stagnant creek or still runoff lake. And breaking the sight of that was more asphalt and road.

We were listening to Mogwai, a dreary ruminative track most suited for the dreary overcast sky. It was 80 degrees, it was muggy. It had been raining intermittently, and were it not for the mountains I could have been back in Maryland. Even with the mountains it had that same lost rundown feel. Maybe it was more like Pennsylvania.

II.

That Tuesday, I told a coworker and UMass alum that I had been to the Berkshires for long weekend. He asked "Which Berkshires?", a concept alluding to the stark discrepancy between haves and nots: the summer holidayers from parts richer who forgot that the summer eventually has an end (New York, Boston, or any place where there is a fortune to be made), and the leftovers from when there used to be a vibrant industry, manufacturing, etc., at least judging from the factory shells that still dot the area.

The level of poverty is below that of the rest of the state (9.5% versus 10.1% statewide), but with its primary industry being tourism, it's easy to see how this divide can take place. For simplicity's sake, I will define the two groups as the Nose-uppers versus the Nose-downers. If I refer to them again.

III.

I've always held a belief in that you can tell a great deal about an area by the types of car-dealerships they have. Especially as the symbol of American-ness-writ-large in the latter half of the century, the car at once embodies a certain momentary status as well as the general aspirational zeal of its owner. And make no mistake, we saw our fair share of BMWs and Benzes and Cadillac dealerships, especially focused around the hubs of Great Barrington and Pittsfield. As the region denigrated to something more rural, these were supplanted by Chevrolet and Hyundais. makes both less lofty in ambition and strictly utilitarian, dependable, the vessels of mere survival.

The stores changed as well, from boutique outdoor-goods vendors to Dicks Sporting Goods to Marshall's. Predictably, the cars in the respective parking lots carried forth with these distinctions.

IV.

The houses were the type of blue and fading that tend to procreate in old mill towns, Victorian with white picketed porches and a crowning steeple, conical and wooden thatched. These were the type of houses that one would see in a magazine and would assume would be out of place. Due to the homogeneity, they defined the location they were in, and they articulated the probable ambitions of the original homeowners.

As we drove through North Adams these leered separated from the highway road, the road opened up to a webwork of downtown; with a light we were at the brick behemoth of the museum.

V.

What is the level of irony when your trip, to two unaffiliated museums is bookended by a pair of installations from the same artist? The artist in question: Sol LeWitt. The other museum: Dia:Beacon.

At Beacon the exhibit was line art, with geometric patterns being forced into 9x9 boxes to form a penciled-in texture. On a wall, in a room, with only a small white frame of unmarked paint and the light streaming in from skylights, they were weblike and claustrophobic.

At MassMoCA, they more dimension-plays, in the type of shocking hues that is a prescription for the color-blind.

At both places, they were missing the artist. In some ways, this was the goal of an era.

VI.

Cue the Song for the Harbinger as a Swan

And what if it did start with a song? What if the Earthquakes, hurricanes, the incoming pandemonium portending an eventual apocalypse portending what, what, what exactly? What is it if it's not a feeling of comity through shared victimhood over the sacrosanct power of Nature over all? Or God's creatures and dangling shits, the skyscrapers as subtle re-envisionings of the Towers of Babel we line our fair fine fluid city with?

In shortform, those are the facts. And they bring us up to date for the litany of disasters here within.

* * *

beach battle imbroglio

I'm writing tonight, so forgive anything that might happen, as this is happenstance from calling out (again) from work and essentially fearing to co-exist. I will also warn you, I'm sitting around, snipping my rollies and marveling at the shapes that I can make with the smoke.

Basically, be ready for the "Notes from the Field" post that this is:

1. Rick Perry. A blast. I mean, can the guy be more of a caricature of all the things men do to try to convince people they're not gay? (Granted, that also works for Mitt Romney.) I will not be voting for him - either of them - should they get elected. But fuck. Perry couldn't be any gayer were he to walk around with an electrified butt plug and pink-feather in his cowboy hat. I think he would. Maybe he does.
2. Why do we still pretend that 'summer reading' is actual reading? I mean make no mistake, reading is itself a decadent act. But the idea that I read some shlocky bullshit regarding times of strife or crime or endearment (oh, why can't you love me?!) and that means I read, period, is junk. Reading is decadent. It's not for betterment, it's just junk and anger and really not a lot of time spent doing something else. Summer readers would be better served by drinking. Because that's what the reader is probably best served by doing. At least then it's actually decadence
3. I've become enamored by kitchen comedies. Whites. Kitchen Confidential, in particular. With what I do I liken it to a kitchen. Customers produce the ingredients, we try to shape it into a palate-able dish, and we do so in ten minutes per malleable ingredient. This would probably be a good idea for a pop-up. I know it's been done with drinks.
4. And finally, because you're bored and we all want it (and I needed to make this unsafe for work somehow):
   

The Butterfly and Satan's Backwash

The thermometer cracked today at 92 degrees. Which in common parlance means that the air outside was thick, like being suffocated under a down comforter while a fire rages on the floor below [Ed. aside: in my earlier times, I would rather naively assert that the masses would assert their distaste for global warming through pursed, smiling lips, en route to sand-draped shores and ocean breezes.]

In other words, with all heat, dry or otherwise, the air becomes murky. Adjunctly, bugs like murky, but in this heat, can they survive it? While walking out to get toilet paper, I saw this at my doorstep:

Yes, that's a dead butterfly. Yes, it means some form of curse or another, meaning that yes, I have inspired the wrath of Satan or a tengu, does it mean anything else? I inquire.

* * *

I have two main problems with living on graveyard:

1) Meeting up with people. I've been playing phone tag with a friend of mine the last few days, attempting reconnect with old friends from SF. Generally, this results in my getting together before work. Generally, this also means an abbreviated meeting and/or the second problem:

2) Brunch. As somebody who takes great joy in the new, especially in forms decadent, As is well known in culinary circles, brunch is the castoff meal where all manners of largely dull, unsophisticated palates mingle together with their children, their parents, their large gaggle of friends and lord over angrily and in the throes of hangover their servings of mimosas and variations ova. In other words, it's passionless, largely as a means of survival.

And if it's one thing this largely inconsequential writer can't stand, it's the passionless.

In some ways, this summer might represent Young Orpheus's descent to the Pied-Piper of Hell. Who wants to help me edit my resume?