"All right!" I said to my buddy, who was almost about to get struck by a speeding car. Whoosh. The tires hit a filthy puddle with tremendous splashing force, but no human fatality. The amplitude vector of splatter-sloshic impact made a gigantic impression upon me and Tony.
Tony was doing okay.
This was our fifth orange pylon theft of the night. Pylons, measuring about three feet tall and 2 feet wide, were what we were after. The springtime highway construction sites provided ample, albeit unauthorized, supply. We only needed twelve more. I had five pylons in the basement, gleaming in the murky moonlight.
My artistic vision was reigning like mental electricity in the bursting forth of stranger beholdings.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Thursday, April 13, 2006
I fail my bookstore interview
I wanted to get closer to books and CDs, and I needed an excuse to log off the computer and leave the house for some fresh air and physical movement.
So I applied at the local Wieman's Giant Bookstore. Every thing seemed to be going fine. Until. Until I unfortunately acted overly zealous and bookwormy. I really blew it, right at the very tail end of the interview process.
"What books are you reading now?" she asked.
I smiled. This seemed like a nice question, one I could answer without hesitation or shimshamming around.
"I'm reading Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay." I paused to collect my thoughts. The lady interviewer jotted something down, which I assume was the title of the book I had just recited.
"And Shelley's Poetical Works, the Oxford edition", I added like an enthusiastic idiot. Suddenly realizing that mentioning two poetry books in a row might make me appear to be unreliably effeminate, I switched gears.
"Remembrance of Things Past by Proust. The Last Man by Maurice Blanchot. Djinn by Alain Robbes-Grillet. The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Major Authors, Sixth Edition. Do you like Ben Jonson? Let me quote a sample to refresh your memory. This is his "On Something, That Walks Somewhere"...
"A poem?" she asked bitterly, with a definite sneer. I could see that she hated poetry, or men who like poetry, but I fouled up again, and it was too late to stop. I had to quote the poem, whether it do me good or ill. My mouth kept going, spilling forth the gruesome rhyme.
When I called my friend who works at the bookstore, he told me the lady interviewer was not suitably impressed with my overbearing gusto and verve. She considered me offensive, based on my reading several books simultaneously.
I noticed how she quite taking notes after I mentioned book number 6 in my list of what I'm actually reading now.
Anyway, I thought I'd quote the poem for you here, since the damage has already been done.
So I applied at the local Wieman's Giant Bookstore. Every thing seemed to be going fine. Until. Until I unfortunately acted overly zealous and bookwormy. I really blew it, right at the very tail end of the interview process.
"What books are you reading now?" she asked.
I smiled. This seemed like a nice question, one I could answer without hesitation or shimshamming around.
"I'm reading Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay." I paused to collect my thoughts. The lady interviewer jotted something down, which I assume was the title of the book I had just recited.
"And Shelley's Poetical Works, the Oxford edition", I added like an enthusiastic idiot. Suddenly realizing that mentioning two poetry books in a row might make me appear to be unreliably effeminate, I switched gears.
"Remembrance of Things Past by Proust. The Last Man by Maurice Blanchot. Djinn by Alain Robbes-Grillet. The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Major Authors, Sixth Edition. Do you like Ben Jonson? Let me quote a sample to refresh your memory. This is his "On Something, That Walks Somewhere"...
"A poem?" she asked bitterly, with a definite sneer. I could see that she hated poetry, or men who like poetry, but I fouled up again, and it was too late to stop. I had to quote the poem, whether it do me good or ill. My mouth kept going, spilling forth the gruesome rhyme.
When I called my friend who works at the bookstore, he told me the lady interviewer was not suitably impressed with my overbearing gusto and verve. She considered me offensive, based on my reading several books simultaneously.
I noticed how she quite taking notes after I mentioned book number 6 in my list of what I'm actually reading now.
Anyway, I thought I'd quote the poem for you here, since the damage has already been done.
"On Something, That Walks Somewhere"
by Ben Jonson (1572-1637)
At court I met it, in clothes brave enough
To be a courtier, and looks grave enough
To seem a stateman: as I near it came,
It made me a great face. I asked the name.
"A lord," it cried, "buried in flesh and blood,
And such from whom let no man hope least good,
For I will do none; and as little ill,
For I will dare none."
Good lord, walk dead still.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
killer unicorns and me
I entered the arena with trepidation. When my fans started cheering, I knew I was in trouble. They weren't cheering me. They were cheering the mechanical unicorns that were amassed against me.
Why did anyone think a horse with a sharp pointed spear on its head was gentle, peaceful, or kind? A horn is for attack and defense.
My fans had turned on me, and now, as I stared up at them, I could see the scowls and grimaces that seemed to unite into a consensus condemnation. They surely knew it was wrong to be so bloodthirsty, but they didn't care. Titans of hostility directed toward me, I wished them well as I prepared for the painful slaughter, culminating in mutilated demise, the end of what I fancy is me.
There I was, all alone, facing about twenty or thirty killer unicorns. Made of steel, with diamond sewage laser tipped needles, and electricity, their animosity, programmed by a human hater, was thickly set against me, to do me ill.
Why did anyone think a horse with a sharp pointed spear on its head was gentle, peaceful, or kind? A horn is for attack and defense.
My fans had turned on me, and now, as I stared up at them, I could see the scowls and grimaces that seemed to unite into a consensus condemnation. They surely knew it was wrong to be so bloodthirsty, but they didn't care. Titans of hostility directed toward me, I wished them well as I prepared for the painful slaughter, culminating in mutilated demise, the end of what I fancy is me.
There I was, all alone, facing about twenty or thirty killer unicorns. Made of steel, with diamond sewage laser tipped needles, and electricity, their animosity, programmed by a human hater, was thickly set against me, to do me ill.
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