Monday, December 24, 2007

feeling blue



Boosted from: caminoalcielo.com

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Response Re:Re: Student Complaints

The meat of my response is in the attached exhibits (please download Quicktime for sound archives). To accompany this evidence, I can only add that I speak from my heart, an organic instrument which, while rhythmic, is also prone to chemically-induced pace changes as part of a chain: a chain of movement and reaction. If movement can cause my heart to tell you this, it can do anything.

Across our desert, all around our campus community, and within our very hearts, time is a liar.

I reference Exhibit A, jpeg files 001 and 001a. Photo of 4-color Christ print, framed [001], and me at San Felipe beach, poolside, two summers ago [001a]. Please note color of pool water that fills background as compared to Christ print indigo tint. Similarity of hairstyle, facial features, and contented expression. Translation of Spanish title on poster: The Smile of Christ.

I contacted Ediciones Libra, still at C/San Mateo 1221, Mexico, D.F. I was put in touch with a retired foreman of the art department. He himself claims responsibility for the poster, printed back when Libra was a struggling Protestant/ Santaria print shop just behind D.H. Lawrence's hotel, the Monte Carlo, still crumbling gradually under the weight of the leaning Biblioteca Nacional. He was inspired to sketch out the face and write the verse, which he never wanted credit for, on a trip to San Felipe with his girlfriend and their kids. In 1960.

[Sr. Miserias (Paco) was delighted to hear that a copy of his most original work for Libra had reached me and lamented the fate of the company, which had made it big in devotional/ white magic/ gothic candle inserts for a while but then folded and resurfaced for tax purposes without any obligation to make good on his pension. He added that he would grant full rights to his creation including the original water color either to our Desert School Museum Foundation or the Smithsonian for somewhere around US $1500.]


artifact

Religious text recovered from modestly-framed image of Jesus, by Ediciones Libra, Mexico City, circa 1970. 4-color, on newsprint:

LA SONRISA DE CRISTO

sonrisa que
el pintor
no se atrevo
a plasmar

sonrisa que
el escultor
nunca pudo
cincelar

sonrisa que
el historiador
preferido olvidar

la sonrisa
de cristo lleva
mensajes de:
amor, alegria
y paz!

Saturday, December 22, 2007

7. Time is a Liar

Tom's hands and knees were numb but he stopped anyway to look up at the cliffs and bleed. He'd parked the station wagon at the chain link border to the Desert Pavement Glyph Monument. He'd crawled across the restored desert pavement and its markings to get to the side-of-ribs rock formation he was resting on now. He'd fashioned a loin cloth from a fox coat inherited from his great aunt, Reptily. His neck ached from holding up his head on his punishing 100-yard scamper, so he let it fall back. The sun was setting behind the sandy cliff edge. The last tip of the sun made a blue and painful silvery star just where the smoke was rising a bit beyond. Tom watched the smoke and felt the star blazing down on him. The smoke grew and tormented itself into a thunderhead and shook the bushy creosote that dotted the sacred wasteland.

"Now that this phenomenon has entered my body and the circle of time is nearly complete, I consecrate myself as a host to these and every creature who shall reap sustenance from my flesh into eternity."

Tom came out of it for a sec and then look surprised, and then lightning flashed, and in the light of electricity, which was all that was left, Jesus's face appeared instead of Tom's, and anyone who might have been there could have reported it. Tom only felt a flush of understanding, a surge of tender pity for his former self, and then a singular curiosity at the events unfolding at the cliffs edge, now bathed in gentle sun. A fire crackled just out of view.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

6. Time is a Liar

A few weeks later, Sylvia and Tom finished their conversation at the Scantron machines.

"You and I both know that was before psychosis was considered to be a manageable illness."
"You're such a droll boy," Sylvia smiled.
"Remember 'Herpes for Christmas'?"
"Uh-huh."
"That's when I decided to devote my life to being an asshole."
"I know, Tom."

For a few moments, Tom and Sylvia each knew the other was experiencing meaning in the sound of the wrong answers clicking as their students' final exams were scored.

Zen of Larry

Zen of Larry

As the situation is,
One finds interest in the situation:

the inherent experiential value
in any given result

of an action taken by a human
because all experiences go up to God,

and what one must do is to have an agreement
that all experience is passed along

to the Greater Deity, for that was
the purpose of Christ's stay on Earth.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

5. Time is a Liar

"Yes, but you know as well as I do that we've got an unnatural number of these creatures here. No one cares about us, Sylvia."
"But I could be at home right now-- I've got the bait traps and spray, I..."
"It's an military-industrial desert. You think they're going to send somebody or even put it on the news? What-- it was about six years ago wasn't it? The pterodactyl? And you said yourself you saw something funny in that tree about a week ago. They'll believe us once we can form a consensus."
"A consensus?!" Sylvia was livid, now, in every possible way. "A consensus, Tom? Last person listened to you got a split schedule and six preps for the entire length of the 5-year contract, didn't he, Tom. There's your consensus. Get me my purse."
"They'll be here in a minute. Do you want to lay down?"
"On that oviparous filth pit? And it's lie, you prick." She was fishing a little plastic bottle of Benadryl caps out of her purse and weeping softly.
Then she puked yellow all over November. The pages became immediately gold-opaque, backed with the deep brown of wet cardboard at the end of the year.
"Oh, Tom! You *burble* suck so much!"
The bubbled remains of a time-release Wellbutrin continued to spin in a bile puddle on the ghostly diagonal line between 12/24 and 12/31.
"Huh huh huh..." Sylvia was sobbing now, and her face was magenta. "Don't you know I once loved you?"

4. Time is a Liar

Sylvia had been bitten by a black widow spider. They were common in those parts-- no one thought twice about them, and it was no exception when Tom put in a high-priority maintenance voucher through to his departmental secretary several weeks prior to the intense pain and nausea Sylvia was now experiencing. There was a dead one in the desk drawer near where Sylvia was finding it more difficult to bend over and rub the back of her heel. Tom had put it there for proof in such a case as this. Now his wide stance filled the doorway, the AirSpring still gasping, his hair blowing lightly in the desert winter breeze. "Oh Tom, how I hate you!" Sylvia whimpered.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

3. Time is a Liar

Peggy leaned back in the boss chair in the Attendance Office. She had been burning a cherry mochachino candle. The fumes were overwhelming. But she did not want to get up out of the boss chair and open the window behind her. So she arched back like a seal, pulled on the cord, and opened the window with her other hand. All done upside-down. Little did she know, several large fluffs of lint had shaken loose and landed, one in an eyebrow, and another somehow hanging from her chin.

Friday, December 7, 2007

2. Time is a Liar

Tom went into the attendance office. Someone had a dog in there. He called Sylvia on the speaker phone. "I'm here Tom. Oh! Sorry it was a... okay let's go..." said Sylvia, fading a little. Then from another desk he called Mr. Sousa, someone who was normally very shy. Jim? Ready? "Oh, yes Tom." Peggy? Peggy was side-saddling a desk behind him. The November 8 on that desk's blotter calendar was disappearing into the rainbow pine trees of her lycra skirt just over the dorsal cleavage. "OK, Mr. Foury."

Fingers on the button. No Flash, two, three, snap! Tom clicked his camera with the patience and determination of bomb squad technician.

Tom posted all of the pictures on his Grammar Hints website at Yahoo. Sylvia's photo of the clock in Tom's office was yellow and streaked, but the clock clearly said 8:09. Tom's picture of the Attendance Office clock was glowing with flourescent light. It said 12:15. Jim Sousa had been sitting in total darkness at his post in Classroom B. He had not thought of turning on the light, but he had allowed the flash to ignite by mistake. His clock was an eerily shadowed 12:19. Peggy's clock, one minute later than Tom's, had something that looked like a third hand, but it was a very pointy Jack Russel tail, smeared.

Tom declared finally, That's proven it. There will never be a late-to-class advisory in my file again.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Charms of Brutality

What kind of mess would bring one to
Crave the homespun bustle of urbanity?

Guts laid out to dry on a rail;
Rowboat floats unmoving in a big sand pail.

Wanting to just get on a plane
And leave the hatchetings and cow urine mist?

Guts laid out to dry on a rail;
Rowboat floats unmoving in a big sand pail.

You think that with me, awe comes cheap.
Less you've seen them quit their belts in the sugar.

Guts laid out to dry on a rail;
Rowboat floats unmoving in a big sand pail.

Free teeth, and good folks watching it:
Guys and their wives who want to settle down.

Guts laid out to dry on a rail;
Rowboat floats unmoving in a big sand pail.

Ones who thirst lust and lust peace and
Other stuck freaks who stick it to each other.

Guts laid out to dry on a rail;
Rowboat floats unmoving in a big sand pail.

Fat lambies munching in the dew
Something smells bad and they nominated you.

Guts laid out to dry on a rail;
Rowboat floats unmoving in a big sand pail.

Gone to the city with my crew;
Times of loathing and po-pity will be few.

Guts laid out to dry on a rail;
Rowboat floats unmoving in a big sand pail.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

WD4.0

To get to the quarry, Kug had to descend four ladders, crawl across two ladders, and climb up six ladders. It was a jagged bowl of dry grey steam. Some men and a strong woman worked with a dragony, scaled ox to push some of the rocks out of a hole in the quarry wall. The rocks rolled down a hill to the river, where rafts were waiting. The water and the rafts looked furry grey. On the opposite wall ladders disappeared into the dust cloud. Skinny men carried rocks in shaggy woven cones which were near to their own heights and strapped to their backs. They moved up and down the ladders like timid palm weevils. Someone had fallen, and a shiv priest was administering the scorpion from behind a heavy dust veil.

Women and children and old men sat indian-style everywhere in the silt, vaguely pink and black. They rocked back and forth bringing medium rocks down onto small rocks to make gravel.

1. Time is a Liar

Tom decided to gather together five people to make a point. Each of the three he was able to convince by offering money equal to a community college course overload teaching hour was provided with a phone or walkie-talkie and a camera. Tom let Sylvia sit in his office, as her ankles had been aching. "OK I'll call in a minute." "Okay Tom, I'll be here. Bye!" She ran her fingernails through her hair as the heavy metal door shut. It had been connected to the same AirSpring hinge device since 1978 and now whooshed like it was supposed to at first, paused just before contact, recoiled for the kill, then slammed hard. Syl was still shaking out her bangs absentmindedly as she peeked into Tom's desk drawer for a moment, realized what she was doing, and closed that, too. Then she planted her elbow like a compass pin on his calendar blotter, propping up her chin, and let her eyeballs roll this way and that. It was November 27.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

You Have Entered a Restricted Area

in the flouresence
each imagined the other's thoughts

*gasp* oh my dear god
that's the scent of a working man

it dries out your skin
it's not Oil of Olay, either

now i understand
you just have to get into it

try this... manly now?
do you think that will slow me down?

you seem to like it
i'm hoping for something better

can't do both at once
this is called Riding on the Beach

you favor mine, then
it hits me in a certain place

you are so my bitch
you wanted me to come like this

this is really gay
but a guy has to use something

think i'm ready too
doesn't last very long, does it?

we should go wash up
Macy's might have better stink juice.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Can the jacket be lighter than the pants?

The next day there was a special skin grafting ceremony of matrimony. Kug felt funny because he didn't know the people and also that this was a ritual that he would never have the privilege of experiencing, at least not from under the chrys. Yet, he had been invited as a trophy escort by the third work honk's quarry mate, and flattery, he had made it clear, would always work with him.

He had a dark green loin cloth and a nice summer shoulder skin which was felicitously in the same range of hues but happened to fall on the lighter end of the spectrum. He'd heard, perhaps, that it was considered bad form among those who wore the dress of trade on a daily basis; the top mustn't be lighter.

He recalled Bif's reaction when he decided to move to the Outer Shelves more than twenty WD's earlier. "I gave you the best... I gave you my forties!"

Looking forward to grafting was now something that belonged to the young.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Disqualification and Rescue

It is called the chrysanthemum dog because its face looks very much like the flower.
So high-stationed as to appear leggy. So low-stationed as to appear dumpy or squatty.
Any such faults are to be penalized to the extent of their deviation from the standard.
A missing or slightly misaligned tooth is not to be severely penalized.
An overall well balanced and pleasant expression supersedes the importance of any of the individual parts.
A false image created by grooming techniques is to be severely penalized.
Hindquarters...are straight when viewed from the rear.
Trimming is done on the feet and at the anus for neatness and to facilitate movement.
The Shih Tzu is to be shown at its own natural speed; neither raced nor strung up.
Disqualification: Albinism.

Ganked from:
http://mail.ukcdogs.com/

Monday, November 19, 2007

Gross Appendages

I am a head that can only speak,
But I have come to terms with the dis-
Use of my body.

At first I thought it was them did it,
But then after the drugs took effect,
I see it was fate.

I freaked out at first, but there's a les-
Son here about a connection to
The spiritual.

Waking up paralyzed is waking
To a lot of things, a black morning
Revved up with lightning.

In my suffering, blossoms started
To seep in like stains in wet cement.
They were your faces.

I can move my mouth and ears and scalp.
Your bodies are gross appendages
That carry your heads.