Hendrix, Jagger and Burroughs

I went out last night after work with two friends, it was to celebrate a 39th birthday, his.  As we were talking we inevitably started discussing age and its effects.  I had an image in my phone of a rock band that still performs after many years and I showed it to them laughing, thinking it was preposterous because the guitar player had his shirt off.  He was never somebody that would have taken his shirt off to make himself appear more attractive, but rather as part of his performance, to represent the very raw and unfiltered nature of it, etc.  I found the image to be hilarious and something to laugh at, they still had reverence for the band and saw it in a different light.  I showed it to a few people and didn't win anybody over to my side of the thing, so I put the picture away.

I said, I can't stand to see my heroes get older, though this rocker was never one of my heroes I did appreciate the tempo of the music they made.  It was perfect for what they were doing.  They claimed that I would still want to go see the band if I had the chance.  I said no, again, I can't stand to see my heroes get old, much less those guys.  The only time I ever really listened to this band was when I was young and they were likewise young along with me, though they were all at least 10 years older than me, or more, at the time.  My friends smiled at me in bemused disbelief.  They seemed to assert that I would go see the band and love every second of it.  I let this peace between us remain, though I did summate by saying that the band seemed to be stuck in a perpetual state of puberty.  Perhaps I am also.

When I woke this morning I said to my wife and our Canadian guest that, old people are nasty, vile creatures, right?  My wife responded as she always done when I say things like this, she said, of course not, but without really qualifying or offering a supporting argument, which makes me think she agrees somewhat. She said that it helps if people gain a little bit of weight as they get older. I thought, yes and losing your hair must help also.

I was kidding a little bit, of course.  I just resist both the idea and the reality of getting old.

Look what it did to these guys....

Rock On.....

Sinbad

I rarely have the time to just sit and read the way that I used to many years ago.  I romanticized the act and art of reading then.  I would envision myself sitting by candlelight and reading through the summer nights, translations of Lorca and Rimbaud.  Now I simply romanticize having the time to read rather than the candlelit setting in which I might do so.  I have bemoaned New York living much and often here, but this life does not easily lend itself to solitude and continued concentration.  New York lends itself to many things, but tranquility is not one of them.

Wine helps.

It is not just New York that keeps me from reading though.  It is the changing structure of my life. My values have shifted and I have to struggle to subsist.  I used to have a life of moderate leisure.  I could spend my days doing as I pleased with enough resources to pursue either interests or trouble, sometimes both.

I suspect there will be little return to that barely remembered state.

I have all but given up on The Count of Monte Cristo.  It is literature, I guess, but it does not stir me.  It simply isn't engaging my sensibilities the way that more serious works do.  I feel as if I'm reading the 1st draft of a runaway film treatment, one that is waiting to be edited down to a shooting script.  The characters are merely types and the plot twists are rigid, forced and predictable.  I suppose it could be said that perhaps it only seems that way to me because the plot is so well known and often imitated that I know many of the devices beforehand, because of its success.  This hardly matters to me and that is far from its only failing, for me.  I have become bored by it.  I am disappointed because a few suggested it so highly and embrace it so lovingly.  I will give one more honest attempt at it and hope that imagination and adventure alone will carry it.


I just want time to play the guitar and experiment with my camera, and even more so: the flash that I bought with it.  There is much to learn, and re-learn.  I wonder where I'll get the time.  As I sit here and write these words I reflect on all the lost months and years of my life, almost too many to count.  Too many to count peacefully anyway. There is a bum downstairs screaming at the morning sun and its intrusive rays.  His invectives darting up through the window with winter crispness.  He is on fire for something unsure, an un-grasped theme seems to run through his barely coherent ramblings. He works his way around and through his inflamed ideas as the sirens of the firetrucks drift both far and near. The dopplers switching forever towards us and then back again, as if tides on the great cry of oceans, and he merely Sinbad the sailor... awoken by fate, imprisoned in a foul and testy mood once more...

Stella

I took the picture above without giving it too much thought.  There were many of them lined up side by side on the construction boards that run along a particular street a few blocks from my house.  Most of the posters had been defaced and I took this picture without really realizing what I was taking a picture of.  I only saw the pregnant woman and I snapped a quick picture of it.  It is not uncommon now for my wife to be several steps ahead of me, sometimes waiting patiently for me, sometimes not, sometimes walking ahead.


When I was young, perhaps 3 or 5 years old, my mother became pregnant.  This would be a little brother or sister for me, I was told.  I remember acknowledging that she was pregnant and that she was where babies came from, her belly.  I remember asking her details about babies and the process, and wondering aloud what the baby would be like, a boy or a girl.

At some point during the pregnancy my brother and I were placed in the care of the neighbor across the street and I was told that my mother was very sick.  I remember having to get ready for school in the unfamiliar surroundings of my neighbor's house, with her kids.  I remember special care being taken with me. The mother from across the street consoling me though I didn't grasp why.  I recall the embarrassment of being nude and taking baths in front of this strange woman, the unfamiliarity of her, the strangeness of her not being my mother.

I'm not sure exactly who it was that began to talk to me about sickness and what it might mean, and that my mother was sick.  But I do remember becoming very scared from not having seen my mother in some time and being talked to about her in this way.  I could detect the level of concern for me had everything to do with her.  I remember extra cookies being packed in my yellow metal lunch box.  I remember going to the empty place of school and being told to not worry about it.

When she came home from the hospital there were many people eager to help my father.  My mother was in her bedroom, mostly alone. I remember strange foods being brought over by neighbors that I hardly knew.  Each night the dinner we ate and each day at school the lunch that I brought was a mystery, filled with unusual foods.  I remember seeing her, and knowing that she was sick, being able to see the weakness in her body.  I could see bandages on her chest when her gown would fall one way or another to reveal the partial result of what had happened to her, the empty spot that used to be her.  I remember finding my father sleeping on the couch some nights when I would wake from fear, wanting desperately to go to the room where I would usually go at those times, wanting the consolation of my mother.  I remember my father not getting mad at this, being patient, gentle, trying in his own way to calm me, but telling me that my mother needed her rest, that it was very important that she get her rest, that she could not be disturbed.

It was not explained to me at the time, but a few years later, that she had lost one of her breasts from the cancer they had found.

The baby brother or sister that I was not going to have required a more immediate explanation.  I remember my mother trying to explain that not every time a woman gets pregnant does it always make a baby, that sometimes God decides that the time is not right, that God makes all of these decisions for us, that we can't always know his plans for us.  I remember being upset about it and not being able to hide the disappointment, but also recognizing the gravity of some other thing, something more important was going on and my mother had a way of letting me know that.  I don't remember any of the details of what she said, but I remember the way that it made me feel.  I remember her emphasizing that she would love me forever.


As I grew up I became ashamed of what had happened to my mother. I knew that she was missing a breast and that it was difficult for her.  In turn it became difficult for me.  I remember being ashamed of my shame, knowing that it was wrong, but being resentful for having to deal with those emotions at all.  The more my mother tried to get me to understand what had happened the more uneasy I became. I see now that she needed me to understand and love her and I was repulsed by it and afraid of what had happened, of what could happen.

Years later my mother became sick again, eventually dying from lung cancer.  The feelings of helplessness that developed in me through those last years have had a lasting effect on me.  A few people have recognized that certain aspects of my personality seem to have developed around the frustration of not being able to help when someone is sick.  I get feelings of intense frustration that have no other immediate cause or explanation.  It is something I have tried to become more conscious of.  Less shame, more life, etc.


Once I had realized what I was seeing in the picture above, that there was more to the image than just the pregnancy of the woman, I went back late at night, after work, to try to find a better poster to get a snapshot of.  They had all been replaced with an advertisement for some series of shows called The Rock and Roll Circus. There were only fragments of the posters visible and in the darkness they were difficult to photograph, the camera seeking focus, the white balance skewed towards the red, many of them were scratched away in full, or in part.

I found one where the scar from the removed breast was visible.  It is somehow exactly as I remember it, impossible and unending.

Damian

The virus has subsided for now. I am back to work and preparing for the winter of the new year.  There is still much to learn with the new camera.  I am too busy for any of that, but I try to pick things up as I go, hopefully learning by my mistakes and trying to reproduce whatever successes I luck upon.

I went to visit a friend in the hospital this morning. He has gotten a shiny new steel ankle and they are waiting to see if an infection will prevent it from being useful, or if they will have to remove the new ankle and replace it with Bondo putty.   I am trying to get him a deal with the 3M corporation as a spokesmen and sponsor, a NYC correspondent and internet branding consultant.

He is in traction at the hospital around the corner and has softened his mind with internet pornography for far too long. So I dropped off a book about the best films ever made, to try to elevate his tastes and put his Netflix account to good use, keep him from going blind, etc.  He is a good guy and must be looked after sometimes in this regard.

I warned him never to watch "Old Yeller"... All movies about dogs will make you cry.

Those monsters over at Disney released that film on Christmas day, 1957.  What assholes....


Ok, nothing much to say here today. I'll leave you with this contemplative picture of the churchyard on Broadway and 10th St.  It has a very Omen-esque vibe to it, minus the priest being impaled, of course.

Interesting plot inversion, that... a Catholic priest being impaled at the will of an evil child.

A twist, one might say....

Apples and Apples

The phrase, "Well, you're comparing apples and oranges" is absurd.  Apples and oranges can be easily compared: they're both fruit, they have seeds, an outer protective skin, they are both basically round, about the same size, grow on trees, can be eaten by themselves, they're similar in classification and usage, orchards and groves are basically two words for the same thing....

You arrive at the color orange by mixing yellow and red, two of the most popular colors for apples.

Intelligence can be used to compare all things, though intelligence can also be used to discern when it is perhaps best to restrain from doing so.  I won't bother again with attempting to dictate or define the uses and limitations of intelligence. I've embarrassed myself enough for one month's posting, even if it was last month.

I suppose the phrase is meant to be used when the focus should be on comparing two things of the same kind, rather than two separate kinds.

But again, if you're using the same criteria or basis of comparison, then what's the problem?  Isn't that the very essence and usefulness of analysis? To find and define corollaries, analogous attributes, differences and distinctions? To investigate the component parts of the whole, and their relationships?


It is precisely this sort of talk that has gotten me into trouble most of my life.  Well, things like this and the illogical extension of things like this.  Comparing beer to whiskey, etc.  I always seem to question the idioms at just the wrong time, or just the right time, depending on how you look at enjoyments and advancement.

Or is that comparing apples and oranges again?

Or is that just another abstraction...

New Year's Virus

My first action of the new year was to vomit.  I awoke at 3am and walked towards the toilet. I never made it.  Everyone around me had been sick for days. I had only felt depleted but not outright sick, not to the point of vomiting anyway.  

That all changed.

I spent the next day-and-a-half in bed, craving only wellness and water, wondering what fun was being had by the rest of New York, almost thankful that I wasn't obliged to participate in it... where I might sicken myself in other ways for days on end, for years, for decades.

I felt almost guilty that I didn't post a blog yesterday.  Funny, that.  I wanted to.  I wanted to further ponder the relevance of time. Though in reality all I really wanted was the necessary time to pass that would allow me to feel good again.

Well, not exactly good, but I just wanted to return to feeling normal again, old again, which isn't a good feeling, just one I'm slowly, assuredly, getting used to.

Viruses have been a big subject in the news in the last few years. Almost everyone I know in New York has been sick with a variety of them in the last two weeks.

I had vainly thought that I was impervious to them.

Vanity is one of the first things a virus will rob from you, vanity and modesty.

New Year's Ever

I have no idea where the 21st century has gone.  The first decade went.  I barely felt the breeze of it as it was passing by.

Time is accelerating for me.  It is mathematical.  Each year represents less of a portion of my life, so my sense of time passing is ever diminished.  More than half of my life is over.  When one considers the richness of youth it could be said that much more than half has passed.  I suppose it depends on how you look at things.  But no matter how you look at things, nothing changes.

They say that time flies. It does. It also never stops to refuel. Time never tires. Time should start an airline.

Sometimes I wake up and a month or more has passed.  Sometimes I wake up and it is a new decade.

Sometimes I wake up and it is many, many years in the past. I find myself looking at old pictures, questing through the lives of others, driving through the years, listening to the am radio, into the sepia smiles of that ever was...

Sometimes I wake up and it is just the tomorrow I knew it would be... all dancing in the diner gone for good, gone for now.

Shhh.......

This is my wife, she seems very happy in this picture.

If you see her please don't tell her I want a new iPhone, or this, or  a Hasselblad....

Please don't tell my wife....

After a good night's sleep the talk of cats eating my eyes has all but left me.  I woke up feeling well and rested.

The double-expresso is busy preparing itself now...

My wife was Canadian-sitting over at a friend's house in Brooklyn so I had the apartment to myself.  I drank a beer and went through the menu settings on my camera, further convincing myself that I need some actual instruction in photography. A friend is coming into town that I might go shooting with for the day, and she just finished an intensive photography school, so I will drain her of knowledge and procedure.

It occurred to me this morning as I was looking through my pictures (to find one to post) that my interest in photography did not really develop with the purchase of my digital camera, the DMC-LX3, but that it really emerged once I had the iPhone.  Having the camera on the phone is what really prompted my interest in photography, not as I had claimed previously with the purchase of the digital.  I crave the new iPhone, and its advanced 5mp camera. I have spent so much money on my current camera setup that I know not to mention it openly in front of my wife.  I'm praying she doesn't read this post....

The picture above is of my eye.  I took it at the Dr.'s office with my phone.  It is an image of my inner-eye.  It was from my last appointment with him, when I got the prescription for the glasses.  It has been two years and I fear going back, fear the news that he will tell me my vision has gotten even worse, that I will need a new pair of glasses and that eventually I will need to have my skull removed and replaced.


That is what I fear, total cranial replacement surgery...




The results from my last attempt did not go as well as I had hoped...

(photo-edit by Tricia Jutras)

Subject: Dog Park

I have tired of my recent, somewhat misguided, though well-intentioned missives.

I believe part of what I've said, even less of what's been said to me, everything that's ever been said about me, and none of all else.

Dogs appear to be such noble creatures, especially when survival concerns are no longer an immediate consideration. Once survival is accounted for then they just seem like dogs, lovable and devoted, but prepared to eat or fuck anything, though rarely in that order.

It is astonishing what attributes we will heave upon the canine species, expecting those qualities to right and balance themselves there, and then to breed pure-bred racing metaphors.


There are no cat parks.

That is something I would one day like to see, like my cobra society...

Much can be said about dogs, and I have promised to try and not misapply attributes, but they seem more prepared to defend and participate in my happiness than cats are.

Cats just seem to enjoy living in my apartment.


A dark aside: I've always felt that if I were to commit suicide then whatever dog I had at the time would do everything in its power to stop me, to help me, to console me, to save me, to alert the world...

...to suffer loneliness in my absence.


A cat would simply eat my eyes first.





....

Doubt

Some truths only speak from the well of exaggeration.

As is usual I was only trying to make a point with last night's post.  We all know that humans are evil and selfish, incapable of untainted generosity, love and gratitude. I had only thought of experimenting with a fictionalized definition of the world.  It was a silly indiscretion.  I blame the blizzard, Christmas, love, etc.

It is interesting that certain emotions can only be expressed when accompanied with (and buffered by) doubt.  There is never any implicit need to buffer doubt or suspicion in this same way, only benevolent emotions are suspect and in need of correction or augmentation. Suspicions and criticism are allowed to run free in the heart and mind unquestioned.

Or worse, the only way to question doubt is with an increased level of doubt, an advanced criticism of criticism.  This is the joy of solipsistic thinking as it spirals ever inward on itself.  Why bother knowing another, or believing another to be knowable, the self is all there is?  Mistrust all sentiments unless they confirm, or at least acknowledge, the evil of the world and the darkened heart of man. The very idea of doubting doubt strikes the literary mind as shameful, or callow and naive.

A teacher I once had relayed a thought to me, it was something to the effect of: freedom is the feeling one gets when they're not aware of what is truly controlling them.

This thought has been with me ever since and it has proven to be very useful when considering certain things.  But we all like to feel free sometimes, so I also try to be aware of moments when it is best to not repeat this line to myself, or focus on it, or relay it to others as they are experiencing the feeling of freedom themselves. Like when Barack Obama won the election.  But a healthy doubt about all things will also only get you so far, there comes a time when it inhibits experience and certainly acts as a retarding agent on the enjoyment of that experience.

Now, I would never reprove any honest use of the intellect, but intelligence is arguably not all that we are. Intelligence can be self-limiting when misapplied, though very few who believe they possess any of the stuff will ever attack it as limiting. The modern mind is educated to believe that analysis is supremely expansive and intellect boundless.  So, try openly discussing the implications of Heidegger with your friends sometime....

When I say that very few will attack intelligence, I mean their own.  The intellect of others is worthy of all the doubt that the human mind can muster.  Intelligence is self-correcting only to a point, that's what makes doubt so useful.

Ah, the freedom to doubt....
...the silliness to believe.


What does one call the feeling one gets when they are aware of what is controlling them?

Doctrine is not thought, it is the retreat from thought.


What are we to think about such things?

Blizzard

Well, the news is out. New York got hit with a massive blizzard.  Most people didn't have to go to work.  I did.  I walked there with my new snow boots on, a Christmas present from my wife.  They made me quite happy, thankful even, to have them, and have a wife who thinks of me so.

Enough about the blizzard... one or two of my friends seemed to take personal offense at me expressing thankfulness at Christmas not being its usual personal cluster-fuck disaster.  I'm sorry I disappointed a few of you this year.

Thankfulness, contentedness and even the secular use of the word "blessed" are not abbreviated or misrepresented versions of any other feeling, they are terms for the actual feelings themselves and can be expressed unpretentiously by unadorned usage.  They are not necessarily saccharine or false by being expressed simply, and they certainly shouldn't be an affront to anybody else's misery, or the conventionally assumed authenticity derived from such said emotional privation.

Expressing thankfulness or a sense of contentedness is not a retreat from character, nor does it reveal any deficiency or flaw.  They are both subtle forms of joy and can be expressed simply, without need for embellishment or restraint.  In this regard simplicity is neither negation nor false sentiment.  There is nothing Hallmark about actual satisfaction, only vulgar and selfish minds would claim otherwise.

There is no shame in sharing of yourself, even the artless or seasonal feelings of appreciation and affection.  Be wary of those who would tell you something else, among them there must be thieves and motiveless malignants.

I once read a quote by Picasso, though I haven't been able to verify that he actually said it, and it sounds somewhat out of character with what I've read of him elsewhere, but it was something to the effect of: To admire somebody, and not tell them, is keeping something that does not belong to you, it is a form of stealing.  

Gratitude is a form of admiration.  I'm not sure what the opposite is, but I could make a guess.

So, to my friends who would wish me to say anything else, who would wish me to utter something more cynically endearing, or sarcastically humorous, to touch everything with the poison stick....

No thank-you, for now.


Joy to the world, smile while it lasts.

Boxing Day

Well, Christmas went well.

There are no lingering shameful memories, thankfully.


I do feel very, very blessed to have the people around me that I do.


I have begun to understand what makes a good picture, and why every picture shouldn't be taken at f1.4.

I look at my friends and I think that they are lovely and beautiful.

Kiribati

(Colonel Douglas H. Wheelock, NASA)

I found a vacation spot that I want to visit. 

It is about 1200 miles south of Honolulu, part of the Line Islands.

I either want to go to this island, or to orbit the earth for a few days taking pictures, or both.

All In The Family

"Boy, the way Glen Miller played. Songs that made the Hit Parade. Guys like us, we had it made. Those were the days! Didn't need no welfare state. Everybody pulled his weight Gee, our old LaSalle ran great. Those were the days! And you knew where you were then! Girls were girls and men were men. Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again. People seemed to be content. Fifty dollars paid the rent. Freaks were in a circus tent. Those were the days! Take a little Sunday spin, go to watch the Dodgers win. Have yourself a dandy day that cost you under a fin. Hair was short and skirts were long. Kate Smith really sold a song. I don't know just what went wrong! Those Were the Days!"




Ah, nostalgia... be careful, it can be a subtle fear of the future, or denial of the present. 


Other people's nostalgia can be anyway....

Those were the days.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_in_the_Family

We were next

I tried to go shopping today on Broadway, in Soho.  It was the last chance that I would have to buy some Christmas presents.  I only had my lunch break, one hour.  From the moment that I began the single hour break it felt as if I was on an obstacle course of some sort. I understand that with crowds there will never be much unanimity of purpose, but it was as if they were being sent towards me with noxious intent from some unseen malevolent force.  They were everywhere, all going different directions, or worse, not going anywhere at all.  There would be groups of them in a doorway, discussing one thing with some people outside the door, and something related with another group of people inside the door.  This didn't seem to be abnormal behavior to them in any way, completely unaware of what doorways are actually used for. They only seemed shocked by the idea that somebody would try to physically traverse their boundary-breaking conversation.

They were lined up in slow-moving groups to carpet-block the entire sidewalk. This is easy enough to navigate around because there's always the street that you can hop onto for group passing.  But even the street was crowded with bag wielding wanderers, alone or in groups of two.  Every shop and store that I walked into had decided to re-stock the entire store, every aisle and walkway, while they were still open, rather than employ the traditional after-hours practice, even though the shelves were packed with product there were blue stock bins arranged in such a way that there was no easy exit.  One woman fell into one of the blue bins and I could hear it scanning her credit cards, there were red lasers, the sound of modems, etc.

Ok... so I made it to lunch, where they were also restocking the entire place.  I navigated myself towards the counter-line to order and after some effort, waiting and gentle gymnastics began to place my order.

A voice intoned, "We were next."

This was odd, I turned and looked and there were two people behind me, but I hadn't seen them anywhere at all, and there was a semblance of a line.  I eat at this place all the time. I know the very simple procedures and protocols.

So I said, "Lucky you, you're still next."

She retorted, "No, we were before you."

I said, "That's impossible, I've been everywhere long before you, specifically here. That explains why you're behind me now."

This misguided dimple corrected me with nearly bovine rage, "You are an awful man."

I stopped trying, "Perhaps I am, but you will get worse now at a much greater rate than me, much of my decay has already occurred. You will be losing more, and much faster, than I'll ever be able to again." I took this moment of confusion to give my order to the girl who I know recognizes me from eating here all of the time.  She took my order without giving any indication that she was going to back me up or enter the discourse is any decisive way.

I moved forward as the LINE progressed and began wishing that I had a stealth-X91-fart I could leave, to mark THEIR spot in line for them.  But alas.... always there when you would wish them away, never there when you're getting written a ticket by a cop and could use some olfactory ambiance.  I took my food, after a quick hurdle setup, then a 10 meter sprint between the registers and the tables, I found an open spot and sat towards the window, where I always sit, facing the tunnel traffic.

I put my headphones on and wished the awfulness of the world away.  I had 7 minutes or so to eat.

I sprinted back to work in the cold, bags flapping in the wind like cardboard parachutes, spinning and hacking into my legs as I dashed north on Wooster.  I must have looked pretty crazy, running down the very middle of the brick street, against the flow of traffic, in defiance of Santa's record-keeping gift list, gift bags flapping in the wind, a crazed, desperate look around my eyes.


The mania of Christmas will soon be over, I prayed.

I will tell myself that it was only the extra sugar that I was eating that made me feel the way I did.


I've learned to live within a range of truth.

Felines and Canines

(Jennifer)

My friend over at selavy recently suggested that I am like a cat and he is a dog, sort of.  I forget exactly what he said, but it was something like that.  He said that cats are edgier.  Perhaps.  He is currently trying to shake his addiction to Nyquil, wondering why doctors won't give him the morphine he's always demanding.  It's a mystery, he claims to have insurance, etc.

I've always found it funny... the conversations people have about their preferences between cats and dogs. They apply all sorts of traits to the species that they believe they themselves possess. Then they align themselves with one species over the other, only to sing their own praises through the poor unwitting creatures, as if the dog or cat understand and share these ridiculous notions.... I am thinking of one friend in particular and his vague detesting of specific dogs.

When I was typing the word vague I accidentally typed fague instead. Funny. Freudian typing... When relaying these conversations to my wife, and discussing my friend's alignment with cats, and his supposing of their advanced intelligence, her response was simple, "Then why aren't there any cats on David Letterman?"...


I've always liked both dogs and cats, having grown up with both.  For my 2nd birthday my mother gave me a cat, Skippy.  He lived until I was 17. My mother used to love to tell the story of his death, about how he held on until he could see me one more time, knowing that I was coming home from school.  He didn't wander off like cats will often do, but instead came in and died right in front of us, right in my mother's arms, meowing at me.  It was strange. He seemed to always know that he was my cat.  He would sleep in my armpit when we were both young.  He far outlived his bluejay stalking partner, Bo, who also used to sleep in my armpit until I got a boil from it and my mother nixed the sleeping arrangements we had.

Both cats, and a collection of dogs, mostly a little mutt and and greyhound, whose names I never liked: Ginger and Farrah, were always around when I was growing up.  Ginger was named because she was the color of ginger snaps, a cookie snack I'm not sure if they still make, and Farrah because her fur was the same color as Farrah Fawcett's hair (my mother named these poor beasts...).  So, it wasn't until I moved to New York that I didn't have a pet, or several, around me all the time. It is one of the things I miss about living in Florida: having plenty of space, and a yard.  Though we have a great dog now, Barkley, that we shower with love and perpetual affection.

My friend in Rhode Island says that her favorite posts of mine are when I write about Barkley.  Animals have a strange power over us, over some I should say. They certainly charm me.  They redeem life in a way, remind us how to be about certain things.  It is a simple arrangement. Very little makes me, or Barkley, as happy as me coming home.  I can hear his scurrying feet against the wood floor when my key hits the lock in the door, searching desperately for a toy to present me with.


Isn't that the way to be?

Wouldn't life be much better if we all just had stuffed toy bunnies to present one another with when we haven't seen each other for a couple of hours...  that, and morphine, of course.

(Barkley, w. bunny)

The Massachusetts Melanoma

(a shaken picture of the moon, during a lunar eclipse, or a cancer cell)

This is a tragic tale, as my friend would say. Her and I have had an ongoing conversation about the differences between what constitutes "tragic" and what is merely sad, or worse... pathetic.

This story is a little bit of all of those things.

I have been asked to use no details or the insider information that I've been privy to. That will be difficult, but I will try. In doing so, this means that I might editorialize a bit. Let the chips fall where they may.

Several weeks ago....

We were chatting with our friends when the wife-hostess announced that one of her friend's husband had just told her that he had cancer and he only had 3 months to live. They had recently been going on an increased number of vacations and family events. It had been wonderful for the wife, and their child, she thought.

He explained that he didn't want her to know, that he had done this to hide her from the oncoming pain, the eternal loss, he had chosen to face this knowledge alone, to save them from the anguish. It made perfect sense, to some of my friends. How noble, some of them thought. What good could the truth have brought? Why prolong the shock of mortality, the stab of loss., etc.

Others said, well... no, if not truth and disclosure about the most important and mortal of all concerns, then what? People need time to prepare for death, however ill-equipped we all might be. That's one of the reasons that suicides are so shocking, and as some claim, selfish. By committing suicide you've denied those close to you time to either bid you farewell or convince you of the meaningfulness of life and its many merits.

None of us saw eye to eye on this subject... the silent sufferer of cancer, the noble patient, the quiet one, dignified in death.

On this point I will draw out a specific conversation:

To simplify the conversation we had... I tried to further explain my point to her, that a suicide is sad and perhaps even pathetic, as they quite often are, but tragedy is a literary device employed when a hero dies defending a great cause, roughly. So, suicide does not often qualify as tragic, though it might be infinitely sad, it is not tragic, that is a function of high ideals and literature alone.

She said that no, a life wasted, a life of potential can be seen as tragic, because it is a life given over to the unknown, and if any signs of promise are lost in that sudden and unredeemable act of self-destruction then that also qualifies as tragic.

We agreed that perhaps we were addressing related but forever separated worlds, that of literature and that of the world we live in, the world of bodies and the warmth of life.

It is an ongoing conversation.

I reserve the word "tragic" to address things other than the death of a salesmen, etc., though the word is flexible and can be used many ways.

Some clarity: Each person can choose to live and die in whatever way they choose. I do not believe in punishment or retribution in the after-life. But I have more stringent ideas about how we must deal with those who are still with us in body, only because they have the potential of causing increased and recurring suffering in others. This cancer victim was apparently of that sort, one who is able to cause additional suffering.

He was described as a loving and attentive father, a man who was always on time to pick up the kids, his word was apparently implacable.

So, the next part of the story is where it gets really strange, and I have to assume, or suggest, but have been asked not to use specifics.

He was found, still alive, an apparent attempt at or a move towards suicide had been made.

He had been involved in some series of drug-related badness. There was a stabbing, a getaway, a witness in the other room, a series of ill-schemed crimes, and all of this on top of a life of reasonably carefully planned maneuvers, but a desperate drug-addled money grab nonetheless, one with severe implications. The witness in the other room had some knowledge of the crimes. The victim lived, I believe, though barely. A thing that is alternately good or very bad for the perpetrator, depending on a total getaway or measured in years served.

 Grim fact, that.

I've never been able to understand people who are able to live double lives, I struggle greatly with a single life. Of what cloth is a man made that lives as a reversible jacket.... It is not envy I have, but wonder and disbelief. The more that I try to invest into the commitment of one life the more suspect I become; the more honesty I deliver the more doubt and incredulity is returned. There are these other types of guys that have two or more lives and the more lives they lead the more well-balanced they seem.  That is, until the theaters catch fire, the rooftops come crashing down, and a hidden addiction is discovered by the police while investigating a stabbing. They then patiently and judiciously distribute the information to the local newspapers, to be consumed and then forgotten, by most.  But they pursue, it is what they do.

Perhaps the requirement of leading a double life is a strict adherence to schedules, unnamed and unknown protocols, only giving the appearance of order and commitment.  It seems that it requires a series of calculations in life that most aren't capable of, an immense pattern of scheming. A full lifetime of it done in double speed.

I don't know what drug this man was addicted to, but if I had to guess: heroin. Heroin is an addiction that can be hidden more easily than some others. It has literary appeal in that it sounds like heroine, though I have no idea if this guy could read or not. He seems like the type guy to take up serious reading in prison. A hidden addiction to heroes and heroines.


Well, I somehow didn't get around to telling the story of what actually happened, too much digression, I suppose, that and an avoidance of the more interesting facts concerning the guy and his wife.

Now I've run out of time and the needs of the normal, screwed up singular life that I'm living are making their demands.

I perhaps need another cup of coffee, some more time, and the permission to tell the secrets of others.

Addendum:  It seems that the subject of this story did not actually have cancer, I was not clear about that.  It was what he had told his wife and friends, knowing all along that he had plans other than going to prison.

Lunar Occultation

Well, here is one of the pictures I took of the lunar eclipse.  My tripod was rickety, it was freezing cold, I couldn't quickly figure out how to set up a self-timer shot to avoid vibration, I didn't have a 300mm telephoto zoom, or a remote control, or a satellite tracking system.

I had been drinking beer.

I'll find another, perhaps better, shot in the morning, Zeus willing.  But both of these pics were taken from Avenue A in Manhattan.  Not bad...

...

All of that said, today is my friend's birthday, the one who passed away.

Bob is his name, was his name.

I never know which to say.


...


As the earth was passing between the sun and the moon I could see the curvature of the earth as it consumed the moon and I tried to figure out which part of the earth was casting the shadow at the time.  It was somewhere out in the vast Pacific ocean, a huge blue curved portion of it.  I thought of Hawaii, friends there in Maui.  All of that water somehow clinging to the earth, the moon volcano-orange-red.

It is all absurd, and it keeps me from sleep, the immensity and insignificance of these things.

The wonderful spinning significance of it all.

Addendum:  What occurred last night was not a Lunar Occultation.  I just threw two words together, one meaning "moon" and the other meaning "eclipse", basically.  Though Lunar Occultation was occurring simultaneously with the lunar eclipse, this is not what is actually being represented in these pictures. It would more rightly be called Earth Occultation if it was being viewed from a stationary spot from the opposite side of the earth. I invoke poetic license....

Solstice Eclipse

Tonight there is a lunar eclipse and it is the winter solstice.  There is no relevance between the two, but a rare event nonetheless, I'm told.  I'm waiting for the eclipse.  I have seen lunar eclipses several times but am always fascinated by them.  I will go outside and watch it in a little while, and for a little while.

Once when I was driving home with my girlfriend, late on Sunday night, having left the house on Friday night, I pointed out to her that the moon was passing through the earth's shadow.  We seemed like gods to one another at that moment.  We were high on ecstasy, eclipsing.

It was only a partial eclipse but it was still quite impressive.  Anything that can pull a curtain over the moon must be immense in relation to us.  For some lost souls it must be akin to a lucid moment.  So many stories have been told about jokers and jesters predicting a solar eclipse and being misunderstood as gods, or messengers for the gods.  I want to write the story of a crazed pied-piper of the moonlit lost, one who is able to calm and restore the unending wandering regiments of lunatics by a last-minute prediction of a lunar eclipse, preferably on a precipice...

How he whispered the words into the ears of wolves, became the eyes of mucho peligroso banditos...  con lobos, con locos.... danza con la luna, y escuche.....

...

Tomorrow is the birthday of a friend who has passed away.  I am going to dinner with his widow, a good friend, tomorrow night.  I didn't want her to be alone on this night, the first birthday with him in absentia infinitum.  So we will go have sushi, something that we all three used to do together from time to time.  Something that we all three often enjoyed.  I will tell her stories of him and his charms, and listen to hers.  It is a strange thing. I am looking forward to it, and not just because I love her, but because I miss him, and perhaps I haven't taken the time out to come to terms with his death.  I have avoided it, The only time I am confronted with it is when I am comforting her, mostly, and that is not the time for my emotions to matter, but rather hers.  Tomorrow will be no different but I am prepared to be there for her, and for me.


Somebody once told me a possibly apocryphal quote by Jack Kerouac. I don't remember ever reading it, but I hope he did say it...  "I wrote this book because we're all going to die."

Well, I'm writing this post because every atom in your body that's heavier than hydrogen has been in this universe before our sun was even born... take that, Kerouac.  Atoms are quite durable. You have approximately 50 atoms in your body that were also in the body of the man, Jesus of Nazareth. They are incredibly useful, these atoms, and they don't go away easily, or without an immensely dynamic and energetic fight. There were billions of them in his body and when he died, those atoms didn't leave the earth and ascend into heaven, they stayed here and were recycled. Elvis too, though you probably have less of Elvis than Jesus in you, perhaps as few as 3-5, maybe 7 Elvis atoms, because of time, depending on how old you were, and whether or not you've lived in America that whole time.  It is science, I promise, but there is much speculation when it comes to Elvis atoms....

Here is where it gets weird.... Because Hitler apparently set ablaze himself and his fruitless Eva, his and her atoms were spread across all of Europe, and into the life chain of all those there at the time.  As simple combustion only speeds up the rate at which atoms travel, it has virtually no effect on the strong nuclear principle which makes them the fundamental thing of what they are. So, each of us, Jew and Gentile alike, has perhaps as many as 10-20 atoms inside of us that were also in Adolph Hitler, or Eva.  Disturbing, yes.  But thankfully these atoms do not have any known political affiliations.

Every single bit of gold in the universe came from the center of an exploding star.  Again, all of these atoms that we have shared throughout the ages came mostly from other systems.  Intense galactic and universal events are the stuff we're mostly made of, not just shadows, and führers, and saviors... Even light, or something very much like it, was slowed down over millions and millions of years to become physical, with weight.  That is what we are, slowed down light, sort of.  Weight seems to prefer weight, so atoms congregate and stick around. We are all star miasma.


Ok, the eclipse is starting. I must go now.....


Kerouac, his name sounds like a type of arcane and specialized karate.


I want to go tent camping again soon.

My wife wants babies.


Watch the skies.