It's hard to know, i suppose, if a sound can be confused with a thought when a window is left open. Passing through thought like stumbling out a window, braced against the pane, one arm holding the frame, trying to answer a call from just beyond the glass. Only the call was bird, a pretty parakeet, whispering gangsta rap as it pecked sunflower seeds and dribbling bits of resonance into the dirt. Birds are sounds, something like phones in a garden. --i didn't mishear or mistake, but the parakeet had cut the cord when no one was on the other line.
I will soon be entetaining a habituation where i'll have to write and read a lot. I need to make my thoughts simpler and my language flow more easily. I would like to create a daily exercise with three typewriters. The first would have the word "Complex" above it, the second Simpler, the third Simplest. I'd move down the row applying 15 minutes of thought directly to each machine, repeating the same thing on each but in different formulations.
Soon i'll read and write a lot. I need thoughts to flow simply. I would like to create a daily exercise with three typewriters. Above each, I would post the words "complex," "simpler," "simplest." Moving from one to the next i'd write the same thing differently.
i will read. i will write. thoughts simply exercised on typewriters will flow in three variations.
does something like this require context? just listen to it.
haven't been here in a while. maybe i'll come by sometime soon.
I was hoping to amuse you all with thoughts and clever photographs from my NHL experience this evening, like the cool picture I took of Santa riding on the zamboni. I don't usually take pictures, even though I bring my camera around in my flugelhorn case most everywhere I go. I was reminded why. First, I am a horrible photographer. I don't know how to work the thing to get the light and the flash and the zoom right. My dad was helping me, and I made a marked improvement. Second, you have to keep fresh batteries in the thing. It runs out of charge faster than a BOSS chromatic tuner. Third, you have to plug it in to your damn computer and download the pics. Then you have to upload the things and give them clever captions to amuse all your friends. For me, this is about five steps too far removed from having the actual fun. All I want is the fun. I don't want to share it with anybody the next day. I'm not even too concerned about remembering it. I'll just get some new fun... you know? I even had a photograph of my parents and sister sitting at the kitchen bar, all of them working on laptops. "What I did on Christmas Vacation..." I updated my facebook status every 25 minutes or so.
Pops got a couple of free tickets from his work, and so we had some pretty nice seats in the company box. I've never sat in box seats before so I was pretty excited. You could only order beer by the six-pack. I had pictures of the little suite, pictures of the beer cup that said "sobriety is no accident," (I got drunk on purpose) arm-length pictures of me and my dad laughing it up, pictures of Santa taking a zamboni ride, (that shit is hilarious, to me,) I took videos of the human bowling. That was pretty great, that was better than the whole stupid hockey game, at which the Blue Jackets were shut out, 3-0. During intermission, they stretched a slingshot across the far blue-line and some college guys took turns on a plastic saucer sled, they pulled the slingshot all the way back to the goal, and let it fly, and it flung the guy all the way across the rink into a set of large inflatable bowling pins. I was really amused. I was pleased to have pictures and videos of all this stuff. I was getting ready to post it on the web, to be droll and ironic, to prove to you that my Dad and I went out on the town and had a fine time. Like I said, I hardly ever take pictures. I've been to New York City, I've been to France, I've been to the Ohio State-Michigan football game, and I have no proof.
The whole thing about the internet is proving that you exist, proving you went to the game, proving that you were having more fun than whoever else doing whatever, wherever... and wouldn't this have been a better blogpost if it had a picture of Saint Nicholas riding a fucking zamboni?
I'll write a thousand words here, and it won't be worth a fraction of all the blurry, poorly framed photographs that just got lost into the ether. iPhoto was having problems and collapsed unexpectedly... and all the evidence that we had fun in Columbus tonight was lost, forever.
Not long ago, I had a photo on my phone of 2 Goodyear blimps doing a test run over Ann Arbor the Thursday before the football season started. I was riding my bike to Dave Schall's house, and there overhead was the Goodyear blimp. Cool! Everybody loves the Goodyear blimp. I'm a Scrooge and I love the Goodyear blimp. Then, as quick as you could say Jiminy Christmas, there appeared a SECOND Goodyear blimp! I freaked out. It was unprecedented. I screeched my bike to a stop, got my phone out, and clipped THE BEST photograph I've ever made, of 2, fucking TWO GOODYEAR BLIMPS. It was almost a spiritual experience for me. I showed that photo to everyone I saw for the next 2 weeks.
I didn't have a way to get the thing on to my computer, and several months later, my phone had an unknown incident inside my backpack, which resulted in a crushed LCD. It looked kind of pretty, but it was totally useless at that point. When I went to get a new phone it came to light that none of the data was permanently saved and couldn't be transferred to another device. My art was lost. (Never mind everyone's phone numbers.)
So tonight, while the Empire was crumbling all around me, I went to the coliseum to addle my senses and observe the gladiators crashing in to each other on a frictionless surface while attempting to put a tiny morsel of rubber into a net not much bigger than a Leslie cabinet. I was amused and amazed. The fascinating thing about the Columbus Blue Jackets is that it's a masterpiece of public relations and marketing. They're, at best, a mediocre hockey club. It will be another 12 years before they even make the playoffs. Most people don't even know they exist, I think. They're an expansion team that opened in 2000. Nevertheless, the arena was about 2/3 full, and about 2/3 of those people were wearing Blue Jackets hats, jackets, and jerseys. (The proper term is "sweaters," I think, for hockey.) They raise money for kids with leukemia, they give you a free burrito if a guy gets a hat trick, they fling T shirts in to the crowd with an air gun. (Those things have an impressive range, by the way.) They make it easy for you to find a special item for that hard-to-buy-for person on your list. I wanted to get on the big screen during intermission, but I had no chance. The only people they showed were very pretty girls or people wearing Blue Jackets clothing and Santa hats.
The team name, "Blue Jackets" is derived from the color of the coats of the Union Army in the War Between the States. Ohio boasted the largest number of soldiers in either army. Interestingly, my great, great, great grandfather, George Washington Huff, was a veteran of that war, the 83rd Ohio Infantry. He died, years later, building a barn. Another man was chopping some wood, or some such thing, and on the back-stroke, the axe head flew off the handle and buried itself in George's skull. I would not lie to you, that is how he died. He made it through the Siege of Vicksburg and died in a freak farming accident. Anyway, the thematic slogan of the Blue Jackets is, "I will carry the flag." That comes from the old battle tactic of picking up the flag when the bearer is shot down. For the glory of the Union and the honor of the flag, you couldn't let the thing touch the ground, so when the defenseless flag bearer got mercked, the next guy had to throw down his weapon, pick up the flag, and lead the charge. Abject stupidity, in my opinion, but then, I never had to bear arms to preserve the Union. At any rate, they have little film clips of each player saying, "I will carry the flag," with a star-spangled background and rousing music. There's no way any red-blooded Ohioan couldn't support this hockey team. Also, it's the only professional sports franchise that the city of Columbus has. Cleveland and Cincinnati have one MLB and one NFL team each, and Cleveland gets the NBA team. All Columbus ever had was the Buckeyes, until the noble Jackets came along.
Jesus, I always freak out at four in the morning when the newspaper delivery comes around. It's a weird feeling (whether in Ann Arbor or Columbus) when the whole world is quiet and suddenly someone in a minivan drives right up your driveway. What do they want? What's going on? Is it a burglar? Is it the cops? Oh, it's only tomorrow's paper. Why do they have to creep up on me so ominously? Am I paranoid? There are certain times when it's better not to see any other human beings. It can shatter the peace that is only available at this time of night.
The nights are getting shorter, now, and before we know it we'll be running our asses ragged playing rock and roll all over this tortured continent. (I don't know what you do for work, I guess I'm only speaking for the Macpodz and Bathgate and Josefina.) It's raining like a bastard in Columbus, Ohio and I hope the snow hasn't melted by the time I get back home. I like the snow, I like the cold. People that complain about the cold are probably not wearing their long johns. The seasons seem to change much faster now than they did when I was a kid, but I still love Hershey's Kiss cookies and eating ham and scalloped potatoes at Grandma Huff's. It's pretty amazing when you can have a good belly laugh with your Grandma and Grandpa about some dumb thing that happened 20 years ago.
Anyway, forget taking pictures, forget blogging, all we need is love, all I want is fun.
Be good to each other, okay? And I'll see you in the New Year.
Love.
R.
P.S. OK that was 1,597 words, which should make up for all the stupid blurry pictures I lost.
Good Night and a Happy Christmas to All.
I have been logged in for days, now that we have a proper router and wireless transmitter...
The end is nigh.
Well in fact its here. Now.
Goodbye goodbye, the travel agent resumes her peripatetic peregrinations.
After a springtime of wonder and delight, of discoveries and invention of growing and greening, of ordering and disordering, its time to no longer be Elsewhere and instead be somewhere else. I haven't really decided where yet, but I have me the wheels to get there now. YES! I bought myself another Ford Escort, ride of champions.
So without further ado let's strike up the wondrous strains of the SuperPiano (the first musical instrument I've ever been able to play with true success, consequently I love it to bits) and roll the closing credits....thankyou, thankyou, you've been a wonderful audience.
Singled spaces taken from the point perspective of a lean. My head lays down on the pillow and hands move in a trusty fashion even though the letters fall solidly beside their own turf. Here is the piece of the puzzle, here is where the idea lies just behind a sulking stone, here is when stars find their...stars are an unfathomable concept. i regret to write about them. Nothing more incomprehensible than entire galaxies bending like reeds to a moving sphere. how intolerable that we are them. Cities like spotted constellations, sun spots with thoughts spread by her napkins. "no one cares" they say, a surprisingly un-sophisticated statement by a star, "not us nor them." Celestial ecologies sound like an intake--of breath, of distance between the lens and the pupil, of the space around the elbow facing the (hear)t, something like the sound of that farce. Have you ever been driving and you think to yourself that you are like them and they are you and you think, but moreso you shiver, the reception of your own thought. Shiver or thought, which offers itself as a symptomatic offspring? Intuited ideas or ideas form intuition?
signals are to their importance as suddenness is to its caveat.
--spoke
Yay come and play! Don't know the game? Doesn't matter! No idea what's going on? Unimportant! Forgotten your name? Make up a new one! And dancing is always a good option.
About once a month Elsewherians play CITY.
This is a performative game that, in the words of the director's at a recent conference in Toronto "allows players to collaboratively participate in the simultaneous conception and production of an alternative social imaginary based on fictional exchange, play, and pretend." In other words let's dress up and play around with the things we've built.
The game is open to the public so there are people who've played before, people who haven't played but know what Elsewhere is about, and people who think they've just landed in an insane asylum and are nervously looking for the way out - or fully participating and having a great time despite not having a clue. Which is fine, you don't need a clue, there aren't rules, no script, no overall plan.
Here's how it panned out on Friday night. These photos are all courtesy of Elsewherian intern Katie Minton.
New immigrants are processed at the station and welcomed to Elsewhere. Citizens present claims for buttons - you can claim for anything - I got some buttons for "Bein' mighty nice" and some for plantin the tomaters.
New citizens quickly become valuable members of the society.
Others, sadly, sicken. However luckily Wendy had set up the hospital for just such emergencies.
Many citizens came by TNT and booked a pleasant holiday
Citizens Mr Andrews and Mr Barclay wanted to go to Egypt.
Unfortunately some well known troublemakers decided to protest the setting up of TNT and the disestablishment of the psychiatrist's office. Guess some folks don't like a change as much as a holiday.
but worth it to see all those happy holidaymakers romping around.
So the game went on, multiple stories playing out spontaneously in multiple places, until at 11pm we closed the doors and collapsed exhaustedly into a dance party. Lots of fun. Hope I get to come back and play again sometime.
