18/01/2008

Worlds within worlds and poets under glass


Okay.



Santee Alley and Chinatown



two days rolled into one, with a passing glance at the tar pits.



We started at Santee Alley, which proved to be a great fun maze



like markets in Mexico





merged with a Hollywood





madhouse







a jumbled, swirling



temporary escape



from corporate



America





After the market we went to Chinatown, had lunch at Yang Chow's



and walked around



taking in the sights.



One morning, two worlds
then we went on to LACMA with hopes of also visiting the La Brea excavations going on next door.


Unfortunately, we just didn't have time to visit the tar pits. LACMA is just so huge. By the time we
were done, we were done but I did get a glimpse of the mammoth family at the pond. I've written about them here before. They haunt me. There they are, right on Wilshire Blvd, locked in a life or death drama. I know a guy here in Nevada who grew up in the La Brea area and remembers when giant fossilized skulls still protruded from the tarry sludge, mouths open, tusks thrust skyward, unchanged since the animals sank into the tar thousands of years ago. Now the bones, and so many more, have been excavated and this diorama stands in place as a memorial. The mother's feet are stuck in the gooey tar bottom of the pond and her mate and their baby, wild with fear and grief, watch helplessly from the shore as she tries to free herself. It's heartbreaking. The way the baby is stretching his trunk out to her, I can nearly hear his screams. It's as though the three of them have been struggling for the last 20,000 years to save her from an almost certain death.

We thought we might visit them and the excavation at Pit 91 after LACMA but as it turned out the museum was more than enough. M. Lee and I have been there before but still it was incredible and overwhelming. Along with everything else, the museum is currently showing Southern California Art of the 1960s and 70s and included were excepts from Semina, a "hand-printed, free-form, loose-leaf art and poetry journal privately published and distributed to a handful of friends and sympathizers" by Wallace Berman between 1955 to 1964, considered a "brilliant compendium of the most interesting artists and poets of its time."

The pages are displayed under a glass case. I looked for something from my uncle, not that I expected to find anything. Insanity and alcoholism scrambled him well before death finished the job. But I always check when there's anything about poets from the Beat era. I was just ready to move on and, to be honest, totally self-absorbed. Pointless. Why bother? Blah. Blah. Kathy found him. That's M. Lee's mom. She noticed that there was a poem by John Chance in the collection. She knew him in North Beach in the 50's, heard him read in the bars. Knew him from the scene. Mother of Beat Baby, don't ya know. She's a very cool lady. Bob Kaufman asked her to be godmother to one of his children, back in the day. In fact, it's her treat that we're in LA this week. She'd be in China now but her Chinese friend and traveling companion/interpreter had to opt out due to health reasons so the three of us came here instead. She found him ... Uncle John ... at the tar pit ... under glass.

The Security wouldn't let me photograph his poem. Museum rules. So I copied it and one more near by.



Talking Buddhism With My Lawyer


Every idea we took was carried to a point,
where it disappeared
into the infinity of possibility.

So there we sat.
There was something humorous
About charging out to the edge of the infinite

Only to find ourselves in that moment
Looking blankly across the table at one another
Locked in the same little room.

The ticker-tape clicking ignorant staccato
Outside the glass like a Zen Master.


~ John Chance


Excerpt from Pantopon Rose


Stay away from the Queen's Plaza, son ... Evil spot fuzz haunted by dicks scream for dope fiend lover ... too many lives ... heat flares out from the broom closet high on ammonia ... like burning lions ... fall on poor old lush workers scare her veins right down to the bone her skin pop a week or do that five-twenty-nine kick handed out free and gratis by NYC to jostling junkies ... So Fag, Beagle, Irish, Sailor, beware ...


~ William S. Burroughs




RIP Uncle John.



[next]





16/01/2008

Getty and the goats



The first time I stood before Van Gough's "Irises", I cried. As far as I am concerned, it is the jewel of the Getty. And I cried again yesterday. I don't know why. I don't cry easily. I tear up over animal videos on YouTube and am outraged when children are drawn into the gruesome atrocities we adults spool and strut but, beyond that, I am dried eyed. Fool's tale. But this painting makes me cry.




"Irises" is part of the Getty's permanent collection but currently the museum is temporarily hosting a very disturbing exhibit by photographer Graciela Iturbide and good for them. Otherwise, they are merely caretakers of a lovely, very expensive archive of safe antiquities.




One section, titled "The Goat's Dance", I found not just provocative but heartbreaking. It put me in such a very dark place. I am in Los Angeles with M. Lee and his mother and at this point, they had the good sense to go their own way. We decided to meet in an hour and a half and I sat in front of the photos and wrote for a while. Sometimes, it's the only thing left to do.








After the Getty, we stopped by New Dvaraka, the Krishna temple on Watseka Ave. I lived there years ago, and at the temple's original location on La Cienega Blvd. It is so strange going back. We were there for the 4:40 darsan with the dieties, (viewing). I bought a new pair of kartals (cymbals) then we went across town for falafel, which turned out to be too rich.






So tomorrow in our little excursion de culture , off to Santee Alley, Chinatown, the LACMA, Rodeo Drive, followed by a drive through in Beverly Hills.









[next]





15/01/2008

Notes on the fly


We are in LA




for the week




staying in a condo



in West Hollywood




with M. Lee's mom. Her treat.



This morning we are off to the Getty.



Bye.







13/01/2008

Etude



I want to thank Roy for suggesting just the right name for the little Christmas card battery that earned his soul by playing on for weeks after being thrown in the trash. Etude. For warbling songs in the dark to the mice.

Etude. [French étude, from Old French estudie, study.] A short composition for a solo instrument featuring a point of technique but performed because of its artistic merit.

Etude. Like Mike the Headless Chicken who slept with his phantom head tucked under his wing until he died, six months after he was beheaded.

Etude. Life takes care of life.


Naming souls in the lateral universe



Béla Bartók + tiny mouse + one handed Santa + warped robot calliope music = ?



That Christmas card battery in my garage as been playing carols from the lateral universe for 13 days now and that, in my magical thinking, earns it a soul. Imagine one part Bartók on a macabre calliope (Roy's image), reincarnated as a tiny mouse (the mice in the garage get credit for that part though I have since relocated them to their new home along the Carson River.)

And the battery plays on. In case you can't make it out, in this clip it's belting out, "Santa Claus is coming to town". But it can't be long now, although I also thought that on the 31st when I made the first video of its plucky little concert. Yesterday, however, Santa with the missing hand took up the death watch.

I'm not meaning to start a debate over the existence or nonexistence of the soul just accept that everyone and thing gets a complimentary soul just for making it out here to the language barrier. So the little battery, the Christmas card dude, needs a name before entering the Great Silence but I haven't come up with one yet. Any suggestions?





Shut brain, open wallet


The other day I found this creepy little homily in a store dressing room. In keeping with the principles of perception management, which works best when the mechanics are hidden, it was placed high on the mirror, slightly out of sight but not out of range. I love the phrase, "This unattractive word". Obviously they are hoping to make customers feel "unattractive" if they don't splurge. I say tacky, desperate, and yes ... sinister.


12/01/2008

The days of desks without roses

It's a dreary Saturday morning here in Nevada. Rain is washing away our fluffy white snow and after reading various posts about the horrors of the modern workplace cubicle, I found this sweet little NSFW clip at Drifty's which fits my mood to a T. Why T? I don't know. T has been the gold standard for fine fits since I was a kid. Glengarry Glen Ross has it all. Great writing. Great acting. And an office from the days when a desk was a DESK, real estate was HOT and men were, well... losers. Plus I love the line, "How should I know? I'm not a leash."

Glengarry Glen Ross

07:22

A similar scene has been playing in my head lately. In it, I am all the characters. It's chilling but I did get up early and write a new poem this morning and finished another I started a couple of days ago. I think it has something to do with my new desk which screams "crunch time", "do or die". "Coffee is for closers only".




10/01/2008

Yep

In case you're wondering, the Christmas card battery is still warbling its little heart out in the garage. It's been going 10 plus days now and, I must admit, I have developed both respect and fondness for that little thing. It has won a life of its own.


08/01/2008

The Bounds of Sense

Dadaist Rock Band Album Cover Meme

I found this on Roy's blog. His album cover turned out to be "eerily appropriate" and it seems mine did too. He got it from UV, who found it at Mini-Obs and so on. According to the inexplicable whims of fate, the name of my band is The Bounds of Sense and this is our album cover. As you can see, we are a force to be reckoned with. And who are you?


Instructions:
1. The first article title on the Wikipedia Random Articles page is the name of your band.

2. The last four words of the very last quotation on the Random Quotations page is the title of your album.

3. Any appropriate picture in Flickr's Creative Commons licensed photos will be your album cover.

4. Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result.



Restore paper ballots



Congress is poised to consider a new emergency paper ballots bill next week. This could be our one last chance to get this right before the election in November. Transparency and accountability are essential if we are to restore our democracy.

Please sign the petition here.
Thanks.


In case you haven't heard, electronic voting machines are incredibly easy to hack. Watch this video from Princeton University. They demonstrate the procedure. After you see it, I think you will agree. We need a paper trail!





MoveOn

Hashbrowns with a side of Bush


Breakfast in the Bird Park this morning is hashbrowns and popcorn but the usual tiding of magpies was not impressed. I thought they'd love some tasty leftovers from a very greasy spoon, but they did not. Magpies are a bit picky. Even the starlings were freaked out. Maybe they don't like potatoes. Or perhaps it's the spices. Damn. If they don't clean it up by the end of the day, I'll have to do it. Before the mice. But I'll be surprised if the starlings don't polish it off. Where are the crows when you need them?


Did you catch the Cafferty File last night? His question, following McGovern's call for impeachment, was "Time to IMPEACH Bush and Cheney." We all know why it's not happening. Congress is owned by the corporate lobbies and won't touch the issue because they themselves are as guilty as Bush but there is some satisfaction hearing Cafferty read comments from people all over the country clamoring for Bush and Cheney's removal. Collectively we have woken up and smell the ... uh ... "coffee". America the beautiful.




07/01/2008

Local new at 7


Another mouse in the PETA humane trap as Bartok plays away in garage, 7 days now, the magpies had popcorn and peanuts for breakfast, the starlings are mopping up, and the snow is still on the ground and white under a the blue Nevada sky. I hope your day is a good one, wherever you are.


05/01/2008

Ghostwriters in the sky


And speaking of ghosts, for you writers looking for a little extra cash, ever thought of being a ghostwriter?



Snowy morning



Now for the Saturday local news.

The spécialité du jour at the Bird Park this morning is delicious, albeit moldy, Christmas bread. The birds are delighted. As there is snow on the ground today, I put all 3 feeders out and that's caused quite a fuss. Naturally, the occasional fight has broken out. Those chipper little birdy songs we like to think are happy hearted odes to morning aren't always sweetness and light, you know. Birds can cuss like sailors on Saturday night. And, as you might have noticed, the Santa in the foreground of the above photo is missing his right hand. I accidentally broke it yesterday while re-organizing my office so he is now awaiting repairs. Poor bastard. I'm going to fashion him a little hook. As for last night's snow, we got about a foot here in the valley, but there was four or five feet in the Sierra. M. Lee is talking about cross country skiing to the park today and, although I don't feel like interrupting my coffee high with exercise, I may drag my self along lured by the possibility of a photo or two.






Today I will put the finishing touches on my new office space. I thought about taking a "before picture" but that area was so oppressive I decided against it. But here is the NEW IMPROVED version. M. Lee is amazed, even jealous. And, for him, that is saying a lot. He fancies he can wander in here any time and threaten me with an intervention clean up. Now too bad. My tons of stuff at the moment all has its very own place.



The laptop is new from Christmas, an Acer Extensa 4620Z with Tablet PC. I have barely used it so far as its arrival necessitated creating a space for it, hence the Great Re-organization of 2008. It has Vista which so far I don't care for, but I've learned to live with worse. And I hear Microsoft has fixed some of its initial problems, if you trust them. So far the most obnoxious thing I've come across is the cheesy elevator music that goes with the Acer Tour. What the f$@#!ck were they thinking!#!%? I haven't even tried the stylus yet but soon I will shake the pen and see if any strange creatures fall out. I also added some atmospheric blue lights to the invisible theatre which are very cool.

By way of a footnote to the holidays, I lost weight over Thanksgiving and Christmas in spite of eating grand feasts and am now down to 113 pounds. They are right. Nothing tastes as good as thin feels! I suppose this will brand me as a total dweeb but... I love you Weight Watchers.

And yes, the ghost of Bartók continues its microcosmic surreal concert in the garage. Day five. I wonder what Rimbaud would have to say about it. He was adamant that "the air of hell will tolerate no hymns" but then it's not hell. It's my garage.