1982

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7om6nxgj40t1nht/AYouthNotWasted%20copy.pdf

follies

She loosened the tie that held her dress wrapped tightly around her rib cage. The laces seemed to cut her in half, like a stage prop, like a beaming female assistant: one hand on hip, the other presenting whatever fool act was taking place beside her. Hip to rib cage ratio – what was the golden number? With the dress tied as tightly as it would go, she looked like a 50's pin-up. Rib cage, she thought, sounded like the painting nailed to the wall above her bed. A canary – or was it a parrot – with bright yellow feathers smashed by the door of its own cage, exploding like a confetti bomb. No one knew if it had been caught trying to escape and the door slammed shut in punishment – crushed bones and feathers in return for sought freedom. Or, if it had been mangled by a housecat thanks to a door left ajar by a vengeful domestic contessa – prized possession lost in a moment to one so sly as an orange Tabby called Bates.

Rib cage, she thought, sounded like a printed pillow she once saw at a fair in Aberdeen. Satin pillows stuffed with lavender and tattooed with phrases like “spoiled rotten” “spiteful and delightful”. But there was one pillow, orange as fire, with the black silhouette of a domed birdcage and a bird caught in the sliding door. Stay in the cage, she thought, why risk losing the coveted gift of flight? Even a bird behind bars can hope for another chance to see the earth in ways a spotted deer or sleek cheetah cannot imagine. But a crushed bird--wings broken by desire for elevation and velocity—is reduced to ornament. Safely ensconced in routine and blessed with provincial seeds, her heart and lungs were content to retire all hope of escape. 

morada

november first.

drawers holding the dead are stacked in hollow white walls. orange and purple petals fall in bunches -- liberal handfuls of paper petals cascading from the wall tops. black porous edges line the white concrete walls like singed doilies, heaven and hell, a crustaceous erosion as if the walls had risen from the sea. death is arranged neatly in rows and call numbers, labeled with five, six, sometimes seven names denoting kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.

mort. mortimer. moribund. morbid. mortal. mortuary.

the dish of the day is a purple pudding: colada morada. making it at home is bad luck. one must wait to be invited to share a glass and spoon with neighbors, where the orphan pudding lacks any known origin but exists, just the same, for the deserving.

quietude. reverence. sunday best. no fun-size butterfingers or porch brujas fueled by duracel. in ecuador, death inspires superstition, more drugstore marias on the the dashboard. white walls and snowing petals, drawers containing abandoned ships.

 

remedy

for every evil under the sun

there is a remedy, or there is none.

if there be one, seek til you find it

if there be none, never mind it.

mother goose

caldera

blue stone embellishment -- makes my ring finger press random keys, under its weight...heavy o, accidental p...sapphire typos.

i learned my lesson long ago: jello fruit cups are prelude to a false takeoff.

the pants are like chaps, only more ladylike.

songs from the 90s about blue things or by blue-themed bands.

at 32, she kicked the bucket -- four months after discovering melanoma in her neck, riding around on her lymph nodes. i picture pond gorgons latching onto flimy lymph rafts, taking them hostage, fangs piercing bleeding bottom lips. she was on song 19 of her debut album when, like a doomed canary, she couldn't make a sound.

the lolly pop notion of a rustic fishing lodge, five mysterious players, and one ancient secret too far-fetched for fiction ... with red adirondack chairs and my morning coffee by the river...i let it stay there for now.

words sewn together -- wordwhore -- pen for hire.

pink jello is particularly bad.

hot springs in the caldera region -- what did we find that couldn't possibly have lived in the black sand crab cooker? the dairy cows' jacuzzi?

 

paris

Last night, I went to Paris. I was chasing my sister through the streets around dusk, and her boyfriend was scattering diamonds like breadcrumbs along the cobblestone streets, across lamp lit bridges, bats hovering overhead. She laughed, grabbing handfuls of pebbles and diamonds, and stuffing her pockets. I followed along behind, kicking through the dust with my toe, wondering how many of them were real. The streets grew darker. Firelight from the city lamps glowed in their black metal cages. We followed him, collecting diamonds, clawing like kids at the taffy entrails of a piñata.

His hands were drained, all the diamonds scattered across a bridge over the Seine. We thought that was the end, the game was over – but then, we saw him toss a silver cuff that landed heavily in the black gravel. An oval amethyst gleamed in its center, bolstered by turquoise stones set into the metal. Our eyes locked on the ring at the end of a thin silver chain set between the amethyst and the turquoise -- a pink half-moon diamond, fresh as lemon wedge, reflecting the moonlight.

ride

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juno

after sunset, the sky was the color of a swimming pool at night. black rock city looked like a demented moonscape rife with freaks, fairies and frat boys huddled in the dust, forming a perfect circle around the temple. lamplighters walked silently inside the temple with giant torches, while the crowd watched their sharpied wishes, memories, prescriptions, pet memorials, apologies, proclamations of love, prayers, pleas, vices, mantras, agonies and lost loves alight. the moon rose -- and after a week of looking at art, humans and construction that the brain usually reserves for acid trips and lucid dreaming -- it took me a moment to realize that it was not an amber egg glowing, rising, lying on its side and yawning. it sat low on the horizon, like a groggy couch surfer lifting an eyelid and scratching its nether regions to see what all the commotion was about. people started howling. at first, it feels silly, ridiculous. but howling in public can make the hair on your digits grow, your incisors sharpen, your stomach prickle in a metamorphic way. especially when you're howling with thousands of other homo sapiens fresh-baked for days in sedative heat. 


the howling subsided as a woman began to sing. oh holy mother earth, to the tune of ave maria. she stood on the top of an art car, parked near the edge of the crowd, surrounded by a small choir. her voice fell over us like a satin veil, like rain, like a needle looping our hearts together on a necklace. the moment i heard her voice, my heart split open like a tree stump speared by lightning. sorrow is physically experienced and released in the throat. wonder and ecstasy (of the organic variety) are experienced in every corridor of the body -- butterflies in the sternum, sunshine in the veins, a sensation of the soul being held upside down and spanked in a room somewhere deep within, taking its first breath. sorrow, closing the windpipes. wonder, a solar crown on the brain. ecstasy, opening the heart.

embers soared like fireflies until at last, white light pulled the tower down like a flaming ball gown, a fallen swan. juno: an offering to the residue of the world.

quick

some days we are merely meant to be useful, she said. immobility showed me a broken butterfly (or was it a moth?) green details on a mediterranean house, and gutter pot pourri. it has tied me to a chair more than once, but i wriggled loose.

visitors from different countries -- countries that are not our own -- share similar eyes when they see a foreign human in his or her natural habitat for the first time. they see quirks, hairs out of place, hinges and knobs in need of replacement, who talks and who listens. to be observed as a local can be as thrilling or disturbing as the observation of foreign locals. all gestures and slang tossed into table talk fall more slowly from the lips, followed by befuddled explanations.

quick and the dead
fishes and loaves
apothecary, your poison is quick
love is a tortuous road -- torturously tortuous
she felt a quickening.


a stretched reflection on the meaning of available words. then there are idioms, expressions, metaphors, movie quotes -- biblical references formerly attributed to bruce willis movies or shakespeare -- salting common exchanges and turning a newly-englished brain upside down, the sound of it washing over pink wrinkles, mapless, unsure which end is sharp and which end is threaded. eventually the sounds weave a discernible tapestry, a stencil for navigating slurred speech and double contractions: like wouldn't've.

cholera

Cada día pienso en ti
Pienso un poco más en ti
Despedazo mi corazón
Se destruye algo de mi
Cada día pienso en ti
Pienso un poco más en ti
Cada día pienso en ti
Pienso un poco más en ti
Cada vez que sale el sol
Busco un algo el valor
Para continuar asi
Y te veo así no te toque
Rezo por ti cada noche
Amanece y pienso en ti
Y retumba en mis oídos
El tic-tac de los relojes
Y sigo pensando en ti
Y sigo pensando

persona

makes bold assumptions. slaps around, rewards with inside info and killer wit. no stroking, no painted fans or fishnets, zero preference and blind to demographics. a waterfall braid of comedy, tragedy, satire, realism, abstract impressionism and crystal clarity. whimsical vision that slices into common river stones to reveal the amethysts within. it's what everyone sees, hears and experiences but cannot articulate. like simple block art in a modern art museum, it's genius because it came first -- it surfaced sooner than the rest. it cannibalizes, chews the old into a pulp and molds it into something obscenely gorgeous. quotable, notable, sometimes it rhymes -- aerosol ideas transported like burrs on wool. pressed in dirt, germinated, pruned and harvested. like math, it's an illumination for the mind -- the dimmer parlors with dusty daybeds -- aired out for company. biting into it thrills the teeth and tongue, it has a sensory landscape ribbed for pleasure. bitter and at times sloppily sentimental, the filters are fraught with holes. it's the raw, uncut version that wraps a vine around the soul and sends a spoonful of vitamins down a champagne river.

it sends up a flare, draws eyeliner messages on mirrors, steals roadsigns and redirects traffic. encourages sloth, purple daydreaming, and the putting in of two weeks. swift, agile, with an economy of motion that defies black holes and blasts the stars with neon shellac. so easy. so obvious. so simple. 

nostalgia tour

and we're off: palm trees with mullets, road like a fat gray ribbon, striped with glittering cars.

into the chalk drawing of my three-paneled tryptich, from left to right: the top corner of a human dwelling space, the bigscreen freeway where cars wait, idle, zoom over a hill that vanishes on the horizon, and a tree with a combover crossed by white plastic window panes. first stop: here comes the sun. plopped on a wooden patio replete with chalk drawings -- messages of peace, floral depictions, and solar hieroglyphics in honor of the establishment. yards from the highway, reclining in frontrow spectatorship, cars like contractions -- one, twooo, threee -- dashing down the coast.

 

a viewing. a wake.

we sat in sturdy plastic thrones: a mad tea party with adirondack chairs.

your wallet looks right at home, he said.

sure enough, it posed in shameless kitsch against a mud colored pot, shaded by the grass skirt shadow of a dying succulent. aztec red, cross-stitched and acceptably worn in all its thrift store glory -- it napped lacking only a cactus, sombrero y cerveza. feet up: sandcrusted like sugar donuts. walled off from the traffic.



birds have died here.we witnessed one CRACK its neck--a dirty trick of the avian eye. a deceptive horizon beckoned them from the rooftop --  each diving head-first SMACK into the invisible forcefield. be still, let the heart take its vital roll call, all systems check. pink clawed feet retract from the crash, like baby hands burned on a hot stove, lesson learned. little wheels are pulled into heaving feathered breasts, frightened eyes, visions of blue skies and giants. fretting, feathers flexing like useful goosebumps, the bird scanned around for escape routes. flit. gone.

 

 

 

how can you text at a time like this? you're sitting in a plastic lawn chair, the ocean is just behind that glass, we're live in 3, 2, 1...

 

 

 

nothing like a city of ghosts to kick the lid shut. childhood. high heels tramping around downstairs, or on the roof, does she EVER just sit still? stare through her own glass, watch the world go by like a dream mobile?

here comes the sun roadside coffee...where life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, but learning to dance in the rain. charades: mother orders daughter, daughter fires mother in mock punishment for screwing up the drinks. mother knocks on the window with the broom handle, a cartoon pout and slouch. daughter forgives and rehires, finishes writing out the lyrics of another george harrison song -- one word purple, one word yellow...purple yellow purple yellow -- a new song entirely. on the wall, a clipboard with pages of compliments written on tabs, words of encouragement in lieu of digits for banjo lessons, lost kittens, pathways to wild wealth. were compliments like fortune cookies? one calls louder than the others: let all that does not matter, truly slide. slide. devil's slide: when we were six and seven, the entire house shook like the rippled reflection of trees on water. dad was on his bike, somewhere near devil's slide, and didn't feel a thing.

 

 

 

nostalgia tour resumes: high on a hill of orange ice plant, where drowning by ocean or spanking by my own mother was a guarantee, dare we scale that hill alone.

hold the phone. fingers pressed against thick glass: a separation of sound, filtration of frequencies, no way to whisper requests or share secrets. contact would be limited: memories captive. stand back, cotton candy face, watch the world like a pacing lion--matted, blurred, sedated under inches of dust but caged nonetheless. the nostalgia tour meets a woman in a red car...she's lived here for 20 years, bought it when the house was the color of driftwood, when the entire facade had to be replaced: wood rot. life on the beach! a salty shrug.

 

 

 

where is the abalone man? his collection must have come under the scrutiny of a more conscientious townsfolk. roads are still unruly, the soil still impossible. would you like to see inside? no.

 

 

miles down the road, to the spanish fishing village -- a southern anomaly packed with antiques, a red rusted birdcage with twisted spindles, a rampant bulldog known for biting visitors, and a general store. church was locked up tight, ladies streaming out the backdoor in hats, erected exactly 147 years and two days before he was born. seedstore. two oval ova that saw two weeks of sunlight each, then thought better of it and hunched over, nodded into death. sleeping seahorses, tails locked in the shape of a heart, better that way.

nos tal gia tour. two kites crossed their lines -- one in texas, the other in new york. one was called gia -- her eyes were always large enough to fall into, great puddles of molasses. all stories are serious and all inquiries hysterical when your eyes rival aliens. gia on main, a close almost, a close cut of the eyes -- might have escaped blindness, might have loved a normal love. both kites knew eachother, without realizing they had a third kite in their midst -- a butterfly kite, swallowtail bound for tulum.

 

 

 

 

nosotros sampled wine, fruit hybrids, farmers cutting peaches with pocket knives, dirt under their nails, added colors and flavors. why is everything described as savory these days? leeks, are savory. onions, savory. was savory a flavor -- not something you do? savory lingers on the tongue, shadows all flavors to follow, dampens bitter and makes you cry.

tal taller tallest trees i've ever seen. que tal? what happened and what is up? pescaderos catching comets in their nets, a summer snow, selling samples. aurora borealis. birds again! red turkey hawks, those damn RTH's, swooping in, we'll take them out. orange toys, fighter jets, mini UFOs with eight propellors and a viewing window on a tripod. up up up and arms crossed, eyes skyward -- bored birds amused on the hilltop, picking fights with hobbyists.

 

 

 

nostalgia winds to a close. stillborn seeds upside down in a glass cubicle, naked roots exposed in toxic moss, left to dry over london rooftops.

monarch

It's not as coordinated as it sounds. More like wars and rumors of wars. Locating this crazy broad is alarmingly simple--and in my alleged experience, she seems to find you. All you have to do is think of her.


Yeah! and then she just kind of emerges like a...like a Satanic Venus rising from the figments and froth of quotidien hardship!

                                                                                 -o-

Resilience allows trauma to trickle into the backwaters of memory for the sake of survival. But it's not to be trifled with.

Resilience also cuts tags off of mattresses, tampers with and disables smoke detectors, and encourages blow drying in bath tubs. Last time didn't do me in so what's another go?

Because it's a lot like "love". And we've talked about it. We've been over it.

                                                                                 -o-

She showed up again, looking really pretty.

And all of a sudden: rational decision-making is for the birds, am I right?

O disfiguring burns! I don't learn. Not from you, not from the scars and the lights, or from the dark holes for that matter. No one told me this would happen. Just-say-no booklets neglect to say that basements, matrixy lasers, questionable youth...some of that might lend itself well to the dismissal of prudence. It just taps you on the shoulder, like the devil in a little pink dress. Love comes knocking in a similar fashion. She doesn't use the front door.

She comes in through the bathroom window?

Protected by a silver spoon. What can I say? Sanity looked a little too comfortable in the cockpit. Smooth sailing charted a course too straight and narrow for any sort of candied catastrophe to get a word in edgewise...the too-goodness triggered a sort of black swan intervention. And where were you?

I suppose the dark side locked the night nurse in the broom closet.

The Big Nurse.

By one gambling fool, McMurphy! You've always been my retarded understudy. When I'm out sick. You just slide on into the driver's seat and tie that blindfold tight -- cruise control, naptime, toes at 10 and 2....and the characters you'll pick up and drive anywhere they want to go...for miles, hell, for years! Don't think I'll ever forgive you for the last one. Because I won't.

                                                                             -o-

So how was it?


After the rush, reason goes out with the bathwater -- the electrocuted bathwater. By the time it hits, it's too late.

That's when I peered in to see just what, exactly, the hell was going on.


Yes, and I ran you over.


And then giggled. Carry on.


Every minute cost me at least ten in the trenches. Everything sounded like tangible lightning, like I could bend it. People were like pipe cleaner: cradle me! let me knead you! It reminded me of the vanilla twist cones that I loved when I was little.

"When you were little"... isn't that the tail on just about every donkey-assed sentence? I think you left the barn door open.

I took inventory: six hours of jumping in place, two withered cochlears, a mysterious bruise. Then you showed up with a hot spatula.

Nursey kicked the door down.

I heard the whistle blast. Cucarachas retreated, pedestrian lights revealed unpleasant truths...and then I suppose I woke up --marooned, as it were, on suicide island.

Only one way off.

Even the palm trees looked flat...oddly Seussian and indifferent to the apocalyptic serenade still playing in corroding cavities that I believe are yours. You looked like a horror-struck parent!

You looked like something out of Dark Crystal. I found you sleeping in the piano, on the strings, turning your teeth into sand.

Perhaps that's why the dream felt so real.

You were grilling a cheek in the sun, all the blinds were broken. You sheepish idiot; that stamp on your right hand had been reprinted via sweat several times across your forehead. What, my dear bastard, had I ever done to you?

                                                                          -o-



I do wish to apologize – I want desperately to take it all back. But I rode a black horse into Versailles, became the horse, galloped through the Hall of Mirrors and slept with Marie Antoinette. White lasers cut across her breasts – she hunted men across wheat fields, through ancient forests to find me. And all without losing the blue velvet ribbon that held her together. And the music: like Goa, like angels, like melted chocolate--

Like Headquarters.

Exactly.

And whatever do they serve for breakfast in the Hall of Mirrors?

Birthday cake.


                                                                         -o-



Sit up, you're bleeding, the piano strings are cutting into your bones--you're getting blood everywhere.

Shall I play you Something?

Something in the way, she moves, and all I have to do is think of her.

venus

poetics of life.

venus went on walkabout today. she traveled between us and the sun -- a cosmic tour she hasn't taken since 1882, and the stress and strain will be so taxing she'll need a 100 year nap before she does it again -- just like sleeping beauty. to us, she's a mere chocolate chip in the sky, a mole on the cheek of the sun. to watch her on her heavenly hajj would mean a certain forfeit of vision. too much light, too much to know, too much left unobscured always comes at a price.

she sent herself packing this afternoon, on a celestial transit. i took my own transit -- muni 33 to 33rd avenue and geary, then the 18 to the legion of honor, to see the cult of beauty before it evaporates on the 17th of this month. aside from giving birth to a cupid or surfing a clamshell of cartoonish proportions to the shores of ocean beach for a dramatic, aphroditic rebirth...how better to evoke the moods of venus than to observe acrylic depictions of beauty in an urban palace-- laced with french words and rodin's thinker at the gates -- high on the cliffs of a foaming sea, with pearls of the aesthetic movement breifly tucked inside?

the cult of beauty began with getting lost. i found men in bushy black wigs looking annoyed, plenty of plucked chickenish baby jesuses in the arms of crusty-giving diabolical marys, grandfather clocks with melted pendulums, and dead pheasants stuffed in ratty baskets surrounded by fruit and feral children.

lunch was calling.


lunch was a salad called dame edna. the man who sold it to me looked like an escapee from the ice cream shop in disneyland -- red and white checkered shirt with a red and white-striped aprion. i sat in the garden, in speckled light, where the bellows of a wild 4-year-old had to traverse afar in order to reach my sensibilities.

dame edna came 15 minutes after i ordered her, my number was 22. it usually is.

after dame edna was banished from sight, i watched an older chinese man watch me, an older, school bus-driver looking woman take pictures of the sky and knit a lapis-blue pot holder. i heard two women lament the wind, the cold.


the cult of beauty was like a souffle left to cool in the kitchen -- waiting, melting, imploding with every passing second.

as i passed between silent onlookers, main-attraction hoggers, vapid old ladies with dandelion bouffants and hyperactive yorkies, i decided only to look at what seemed relevant to me in that very moment. to be thorough, i read the introductory plaque at the entrance -- i was about to enter the world of the "aesthetes" -- painters, artists + provocateurs who gasp -- made art for art's sake. apparently, this was a rather shocking and french thing to be doing in victorian england. fortunately, not everyone lived in england at the time, so the shirts came off, the ladies reclined, and fleshly apples were replaced with fleshly flesh. most human depictions were clearly of the female persuasion -- though many were neutrally gendered and unconcerned about it. clothes were loose -- one esther had turned her mustardly overcoat inside out and began ripping the pearls from her hair -- in preparation to reveal her true roots to the man in charge. evidentally, the chinese exported to persia in the days of xerxes, and esther had her hands on hottest haute couture from the orient.

pavonia -- peacocks -- abounded..eth. one designer, whistler, was commissioned by a shipping baron to create a display room in said shipping baron's house where he could display his baronly blue and gold crockery for all to see. whistler made the room one big indigo ode to the peacock. the baron did not approve. whistler needed this deal to go well because he was on financial rocks and when the baron decided he wouldn't pay him for his peacockery, whistler painted a parody of the baron dressed as a peacock, pounding on a piano, and sitting on a miniature version of the house that whistler sullied, without compensation. the title of the sheet music reads "the gold scab: eruptions in filthy lucre" as a welcoming banner to the creditors who then seized whistler's property and possessions when he lost his battle with the baron and plunged into insolvency.


it's the pieces that i remember now, hours later, still searching for the beauty mark on the face of the sun -- tempted to run next door to the old folks' home to borrow a pair of solar shields.


i remember one life-sized painting of a fat-bottomed woman -- a gypsy, i'd imagine -- running up two steps and into a starry night -- pausing to glance over her shoulder at whomever was chasing her to recover their filthy lucre. i couldn't find any title or placards to go with her, so she is just the gypsy under the stars, escaping the shelter of an indoor life for the chance of survival on the outside.


i also remember leighton's bath of psyche -- a woman who would be called fat in 2012 was the subject of dangerous beauty, conjured from greek mythology and placed in a long, rectangular frame. she was plump as a grape, sensuous as a sun-warmed peach, good enough to bite even in two dimensions. she was wrapped in a purple satin sheet, standing near a pool...as myth would have it, she was so nerve-fryingly beautiful, she often deterred would-be suitors with her looks alone...the original and accidental aesthete.

and of course, the essential "midsummer". two ladies fanning one special lady dozing in a chair -- a throne it seems -- draped in monk orange robes. marigolds are strung across her chair -- like an indian bride -- suggesting feigned napping in order to evade arranged nuptials. the two fanning ladies seem mildly perplexed, should we wake her up? oh it's too hot...let her sleep."

paintings, garden chairs, tea pots, japonisme  -- remnants from an era that sought to "evoke a mood" and "prompt vague associations" ...no more strict and lucid narratives adhering to a plot or plan...just prettiness on a page that unnerved a public set adrift from traditional signposts of content.

luchador

lychee

the only thing you have to do, is die.

plants.

i planted two lychee seeds (pips) in a clear, cubic vase with two scoops of potting soil. the soil was sitting in a large plastic bag, folded over, on one corner of the deck. i couldn't remember the last time i had intentionally touched dirt, or touched it with the intention of putting it to use. i felt like i was freeing some kind of black but wholesome magic from a rubber body bag. dirt, soil, in a bag, kept in the corner.

i filled the vase, pressed the soil down and was reminded of tamping espresso. manipulating earth, pressing natural matter into itself for a desired affect felt a lot like praying for the first time in years. pushing dirt into a vase evoked tactile memories -- hands pressing clay, plunging into barrels of dried legumes, smearing red clay on my chest. dirt -- even the kind that comes premixed and aerated -- is a kind of mana ingredient like blood and anything with potential energy -- a womb for life, an egg, chlorophyll. it is nothing and everything, common and miraculous, filthy and sanctifying, dark and magical.

i stopped. i can't plant these seeds without reading a how to. i need to google "planting lychee seeds" before i continue. spliced into my dirt euphoria was this idea of not knowing how to plant seeds, an awareness of how long it had been since i'd purposely touched dirt paired with the shock of not really knowing how to plant a seed. was the seed too dry? should i soak it first, suspend it with toothpicks in a glass filled with water and set to bake in a windowsill? had i waited too long between the time i pulled the seed from the lychee and now, and what about this pot, was it the right shape and size? anxieties that would rattle ancestral chains and made me wonder if basic respiration would someday require directions.

instead, i pressed a forefinger near the center of the vase -- just deep enough to leave an inch above and below the tips of the seeds. i guessed which end should go up and which end would sprout roots. i had no knowledge of lychees, their seeds, or basic horticultural experience aside from sprouting beans in first grade. what i knew about them came from picking them up at chinatown stalls on canal street in a blue plastic bag that said 'thank you' at least a dozen times. from mantle to core, lychee anatomy begins with a hot pink geometric helmet, a pale membrane, and a phallic layer of middle jelly around a mahogany seed. the seed is ornamental, something that should be kept and not discarded.

i dropped the seeds in the holes and covered them with dirt.


curiosity ensued.

i googled it.

several variations on planting lychee seeds -- water the soil, don't water the soil (water the gravel beneath the soil), give it plenty of air to breathe, choke it with saran wrap and rubber bands, high humidity, low humidity, full sunlight, cool dark and damp.

my lychee-planting method -- however ill-conceived or unresearched -- followed intution and best guessery. before this morning and several thousand mornings before it, someone had to guess which end goes up, how much sunlight is necessary and whether to water the soil or the gravel long before the days of saran wrap, rubber bands or google. maybe ignorance is the new final frontier.  

soundtrack

on a standard stroll through the park i found this *everyday exotic* view of the conservatory of flowers. i like the chipped-tooth, torn edge of the fence and the branches straining for a peek at the great white nipple that houses first class flora, conserves them.

i remember being six and sitting in the passenger seat of a bright yellow ryder truck with the windows down, listening to tracy chapman sing revolution and crossing the golden gate bridge with my dad and my sister singing along. 

it sounds like a whisper
and finally the tables are starting to turn

i thought of the lines cut into a pond, with sisters and skates. how many lines are recut--rigid against new lines and directions, rejecting right angles, covering the surface with oblong laps and figure eights. over and over the same lines until the surface is scarred with overlapping lives -- five-fingered reincarnations of the same dizzy girl on the same solemn pond, year after year. i thought of my dad singing american pie, playing his guitar alone in every basement i can remember:

oh, and there we were all in one place
a generation lost in space
with no time left to start again

i want to write a love letter to my generation. weeks before i finished graduate school, nyu discovered an indian burial ground beneath the fountain in washington square. native american holy land, desecrated by decades of poets, students, lovers, dealers and sidewalk chalk. the famed graduation ceremony at the replicated arc de triomphe would be canceled so the fountain could be moved into alignment with the archway, by a matter of inches. exceptional circumstances, a year suspended in construction, redirected pathways, undesirable detours, and a city built on bones -- all harbingers of a new soundtrack. we set out early, only to find the road signs painted over with hot tar, to deter the invaders. stamped, soaked, dried and processed for a world that didn't exist, we stepped into a ring of tigers with handfuls of daisies. and as they told us, as all good christians should know, nothing is new under the sun. but the events of the day are recaps of past lines cut into a frozen sea, towers falling at rapid speed -- a dramatic mock-up of cataclysm. quietly offed and sent downstream, mine are casualties of a revolution. water-carved canyons cleared the canvas for a new order,  where death was a prerequisite for life. and the gifts of death are the great lakes, the urgency to act and the atoms of stardust in our bodies. cutting and clearing the old to allow the new to emerge -- to be a part of an evolution -- is the organic fate and folly of the ones caught in the crosshairs of a new cycle. we aren't the last, we're the sacred mulch for a more fluid and amorphous disorder -- a place to love and belong once it's finished. in the meantime, we keep reaching for the fallen railings of then:

I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away
I went down to the sacred store
Where I'd heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn't play.


.outside the conservatory of flowers.

adios mariposa

mother

the next time someone asks me what i do, i am going to ask them, when?

the next time i ask someone what they do, i will follow it with, what else?

a human's capacity to burn up the things that humans create constitutes that human's value. who are we outside of that?

the next time someone asks me what i want to do, i will tell them "i want to be a lighthouse".

i have a friend in yemen, working with usaid. he sent me a long, instructive email outlining the chicken + the egg conundrum associated with finding a job. he is helping yemeni people transition from a turbulent past into a turbulent future -- problems that money and weapons can solve, problems that money and weapons conceived. humans are tools used by their own tools, solutions to the problems they create. problems are not opportunities, they are problems. so many mantras are geared toward denial of emotion. you aren't sad, you are disconnected from true self. you aren't isolated, you are temporarily removed from your essence.

where is truth in all of this?

the inside outside nature of our world becomes religion--it becomes rote--because it is never questioned.

i'm thinking about hope versus expectation.

what are we taught to expect from life? how much of that actually comes true?

if you do this, if you are good enough, if you persevere, if you kiss enough ass, you will get where you want to go.

and where you want to go is also preordained.

try to think outside of institutions for a moment...if someone asked you what you would like to be when you grow up, and you aren't thinking within the confines of institution, would you even know what growing up means? let alone, the concept of being some thing?

i've been thinking about hope in love. being asymmetrically conditioned to believe in expectation rather than hope leaks into every aspect of being. take relationships for an easy example: think of the last relationship you had that ended in disaster or tragedy. was there an expectation that was unmet? or a hope that was mutually undefined, mutually forsaken? perhaps there was both. expectation is man made -- a synthetic construct that stems from stories made up in our minds about how a person is meant to behave in certain circumstances. the rules for living are defined from an early age, with very minimal derivation from what is dictated. who benefits from these rules?

today i went to church. there was coffee in the lobby, with a sign that said, "strong coffee. you are welcome to enjoy it in sanctuary". the rules of sanctity, of decorum, of church and sanctuary were thus broken. i sat in the chapel, children were wandering the aisles, and two of them brought me gerber daisies in appreciation of womanhood -- specifically, motherhood. the sermon was about the gift of motherhood. i thought about being a mother -- something i have given up on as a prospective milestone in my life. i wondered why motherhood was such a mark of honor, aside from the obvious "days are long, years are short" mantra that mothers have to recite in order to avoid infanticide. for a woman, within the confines of institution, a child is not just a symbol of human propogation, of mankind being promoted through the sacrifices of womankind. it has become an individual status symbol. if a woman is married, a child in a stroller signifies value. someone valued me enough to choose me as a mating partner. i have been entrusted with the propogation of a socially competitive member of our species. a child born to an unmarried mother also boasts something -- despite the stigma. her attraction, her temptation, is a two-in-one shame and a glory. or, it is evidence of a lack of education. someone somehow somewhere failed to inform this woman. or, she took the information and ignored it, leaving ignorance as the gateway to the survival of humanity.


fewer women are having children now. why?

what if, instead of parents, everyone had a mentor? what if, instead of adhering to socially or religiously mandated expectations, people adopted mentees and cared for them the same way they cared for their own or prospective children? to foster the growth of just one other human being -- regardless of whether or not they came from your reproductive DNA--to create this buzzword/verbal bullion/award-winning element called change...is it all a matter of demanding individual accountability? fidel castro saw education as a compelling alternative to imprisonment. he also predicted that by the mid 1980s, education would be unnecessary in cuba because cuba's population would be so educated that simply living in cuba would be education enough. that the children of an educated cuba would be naturally exposed (not entitled) to adequate education. maybe they would not be competitive in a globalized world. but what are the virtues of a globalized education? as long as hegemonic ideology abounds, as long as headlines are dominated by agenda, a globalized agenda is only euphemism for the ability to afford a peek into the control room of a faux wizard, one who wishes to propogate rules that serve its own narrow agenda. how brilliant to farm humans through a conveyor belt of beliefs that serve a minority? that rob them of humankind's only hope for survival, and that is independent and uncorrupted thought and insight.

what are we taught to hope for? is hope discussed in school? is hope implied, or is expectation the currency of compulsory "education"?

i ask people who go to high school and junior high, what did you learn today? the answer is invariably, "nothing". i don't chock this up to hormonal disinterest. i think the people that are currently being educated are not being prepared or encouraged to lead. they are being discouraged from thinking outside of pre-approved religion. a religion of creation, consumption, and status.

how cool would it be to visit an earth filled with humans who believe or know only what incidental and informal education has taught them? humans unchained to ideas that build false constructs that seem to satisfy needs for survival while destroying hope for true existence?

what if we were unconcerned with development. what if countries were not defined by their level of "development". what if development itself did not look like a steeled industrial machine. what if millions of people sharing one toilet was unheard of, because someone imagined a better way that didn't step on any financial agendas, if the way your body and soul felt every single day was more precious than any other commodity?

air, space, sound, silence, health -- the things that are irreplaceable and sacred, sell for more imagined wealth than anything else. quality of life. backward people. modernity. we cannot look eachother in the eye. we reject the religion of our parents. but we have nothing to replace it with. what is less absurd about using man's random choices to explain social and global phenomena than using ancient deities to explain the seasons, the existence of an afterlife, the lots dealt to men in this physical life?

in this return to the green, to whole foods, to using recycled grocery bags, to the rich hijacking sustainability as a mark of eptitude...where is the return to original thought? why do we still value "higher" education as the key to a better life?

the key to a better earth lies in this distinction between hope and expectation.

what do we hope for? what do we expect? what was expected of us? what is hoped for for us?

what do we do as a matter of course that builds hope? what do we do as a matter of course that fulfills expectation?

as science is eroded by truth -- and humans recall their roots in magic, in the inexplicable and the incalculable, maybe we will allow for hope to be a more widely accepted pasttime, instead of amplifying expectation as the shortsighted solution to unforeseen disaster.

it's what lies in whitespace, in the silence between the notes, in the words that aren't spoken and the forgotten topics that will elevate humans from formulaic chains to the infinite realms of pure existence.

when the words that we speak create a texture that can be felt and make the eyes of the listener engage and recall a more primitive rhythm, we can begin to make the paradoxical journey -- a forward movement that requires a dedicated return.

unschooled

lately i've been thinking about institutions and experts.

some of the smartest people i know did not finish college. in fact, to imagine them sitting in a university classroom is to imagine smog teaching a field of lilies a thing or two about purity.

i want to be unschooled. i want my mind back. i want to be able to imagine without wondering if i'm right or wrong. i want to know who i would be if i could forget everything that i think i know.

everything is questionable, even questioning itself.

writing has become harder than ever. i question every word i put down, question my authority on any subject i write about. approaching a subject, picking up a pen, typing a paper has been institutionalized as an academic or personal affair. if hours have not been logged, certain formulas adhered to, it is usually garbage. in rare cases, when a text or work of art is so subversive, it can skip a few steps. but with that comes jail time.

i was in the grocery store and i thought about the movement of people in the room, in the world, doing ordinary things that seem strange when examined. anything unpredictable or off the rails of what's expected is immediately noticed. then there is a reaction. then there is a consequence. and the unpredictable action doesn't have to be harmful in order to be abhored. it only needs to be counter to what everyone else does, to the institutions in place. i put a bottle down on the bread shelf and garnered a filthy stare from an old lady carrying a basket. i felt a thrill of liberation. i thought, maybe i need to break some rules--maybe even some laws--to feel my own agency again. what are we all so afraid of? how far are we from being reined in? who benefits from this automatic programming? it is psychologically numbing.

being unique is a marketable commodity. as much as people tend to march in line and to avoid subversive behavior, they are also hungry for ways to differentiate. nonetheless...words are usually automatic, even if they're all your own. responses are rehearsed, reactions archived in memory, derived from soap operas. this is how i act when this happens...this is how i act when he says that. layer upon layer of learned behavior beginning with institutions that were in place before we got here.

the people who change the institutions are unpopular, at least in some circles and for some time. i thought today, how easy it is to go to jail. i thought, how much of what i do and think are not actually from me?

questioning institutions is the new black. the people who do it well, however, go to jail. or they make a lot of money.

just like the brilliant people whose imaginations are pristinely unschooled, those unbound by preexisting opinions (rules) break them. and in so doing, institutions are eroded. and the people who worked hard to build them are the same ones who have the authority to punish the ones who did not.

it's hard to write when your words just look like silly string on a straight line...what's the point? it's just another programmed behavior and not the primitive eruptions of an unpolluted mind. most of that is conditioning: thoughts about who "should" be writing and who should not. who are the experts, what makes a person praiseworthy, who the public trusts with prestigious titles.

you write to prove a point. you drive to get somewhere. you eat to have energy. you work to survive. you run to be healthy. you love to find meaning. all purposes like flashcards with a front and a back, a question and an answer. reasons for everything and still, nothing makes sense.

what is the value in forced compatibility? if you do not fit within a given framework, is it possible to break the frame and paint a new picture without getting caught?

alembic

E got a promotion, so we went out to celebrate.

we took the 33 Sacto. + cherry to haight, where we met em and van. em used to be a professional organizer -- she has firsthand stories about hoarders-- mostly men--people who could not be separated from towers of keepsakes, squalid crap bonanzas. her boyfriend, van, is studying library science. when we arrived, he looked like mr. rogers from the waist up, saturday morning cartoons from the drawstring down. em introduced her cat, jezebel, who matched the color scheme in the living room (gray, white, lime green). van's cat also greeted us -- a gray velvet conniver known as copernicus.

me: do you use his full name every time you call him?

van: no, his nickname is fuck ass.

we pryed van away from his take-home final and walked down haight in search of a bar called alembic.

van: you know what i can't stand? when people use digital terms in place of traditional words like, 'the four of us should find a time to interface about this issue'. '

E: right? have you ever hugged someone and said, "yep, i'm downloading this..." someone used the wrong tense of 'marinate' in a meeting today...'let's let them marinade in it for a while"...
 
alembic was packed.

em: alembic. leave it to san francisco to name a bar with a word that no one knows.

van: it's a tool used in the distillation process.

we stood in the clogged lane between the bar and the wall ledge where drinks passed by on damp trays, dirty looks exchanged, geometric prints on sheer tees, a man with a beard longer than the hair on his head.

the drink menu had a [23] in the upper left corner, and each drink had a paragraph describing the history of churned butter or porcelain china.  

i ordered the gilded lily (complete with gin and a drop of gold) em, the love in vain (finished with a dash of orange bitters) van, a white russian.

no white russians, only vice grips. van settled.

vice grip: ¾ ounce araku rum
coffee liqueur
3 ounces brachetto d’aqui, chilled
2 ounces porter foam

van: you know what i hate about being a so-called "grown up"? that you can't do certain things anymore because they're "inappropriate". for example, i'd like to just jump up and sit on the ledge here, but you know i'd be asked to leave, or it would just break and fall off the wall...

E ordered a manhattan, told a story about his friend in ohio who used to make infused vodkas. cherries, sugar, brandy in a jam jar.

we sat down, in the corner. i faced the room, E sat to my right, van on my left, Em on the far left.

E ordered the entire appetizer menu: truffled popcorn, cheese platter, olives, sliders, potato chips and meyer lemon aioli, olives, shishito peppers. Em described her boss as a woman who is on a liquid diet but is, nonetheless, 300 pounds over the legal limit. she drinks potato leek soup for lunch. her first name is an adjective (with the vowel purposely reordered to spell mysti). i hoped her last name was a noun. and it was: a type of fruit.

van also has a boss. after checking a book out to a kindergartener that turned out to be a story about two male penguins that find an egg and raise the resulting chick. the kid's parents were inflamed. van was told by his boss that he must be informed, read: know what every book he scans and hands to a child is about.

the cheese inspired inappropriate references, anti-table talk.

E ordered a bottle of rose, which we drained over talk of hometowns. all refugees from some non-coastal town where dreams get squashed by religion or PhD's bag groceries... all generic and familiar tales of shelving shabby origins for a more glamorous spot on the map.

we left.

the 33 squeaked to a stop and without a farewell, E and I rambled down arguello.

we need to get you a bullhorn and a director's chair. and we still need to bake you a cake for mother's day. x

animal

clarion

field trip to the mission.

dolores

swingle

"Just touching base +"...."Just wanted to touch base to"....

the jcc had individual screens on each machine...a guard who half-assedly glanced inside the car when we pulled into the garage, pastel schedules with mind/body classes, wine specials in the lobby. E fell off the elliptical machine -- the drawstring on his vibram shoe unfit for indoor activities and all of its crevices, pulleys, plastic shields and foot plates. for a moment he just laid there, unamused, his back arched along the snailhump of the machine's rear wheel. a large plastic cover fell off and rolled to a sad cradling wobble on the floor. E ambled to his feet, ignored the damage, and found a new machine.

 a girl with a lanyard placed a sign on the machine within minutes "This Machine Is Temporarily Out of Order. We are aware of this situation and an attendant has been notified. A technician will be remedying the situation shortly. Thank you for your patience". perhaps a first line of defense against riotous dawn-loving gym goers? and "remedying"?? inbox gained a 1, hugged by parentheses, subject line: so gd funny!!!! focus on this. get this out of the way first, then find out what is so gd funny!!!!!

E picked a machine 11 treadmills to the left, where he could still see me in the mirror. occasionally, he would speed up when he saw that his up down up down had synchronized or fallen behind mine.or maybe he saw nick the trainer, his secret crush. he had a towel, but when the sweat dripped he used his hand to swat at in a malarial stupor.

the (1) burned brighter...what is so gd funny!!!!!! ?

"Just touching base + seeing if you might have some time next week..." might, may...should "touching" and "seeing" really hold hands in the same sentence for an unknown entity?

click.

smelly trees! smelly trees in boston...a common spooge tree...all interspliced by text-inspired "ads by google".

this tree seems to be really popular around greater Boston. it has 5 white petals on each flower and the leaves look similar to this alternate drawing. the worst part is that while it's flowering, the tree smells like semen or vagina, depending on who you ask. what kind of tree is it? it's definitely not the Chinese chestnut

make it conversational, casual, friendly...don't overthink it. don't second guess and start splitting verbal atoms.

Don't feel bad. I was recently at a friends house and smelled semen all evening, finally realizing it was that damn tree. One of their housemates had taken a branch of the flowers and put them in a vase. They looked like the ones in the third picture from turgid dahlia's post.

click. reply. HAHAHA so what are the sperm trees actually called?? "common spooge tree" ha.

send.

oh.my.GOD. gym brain. distraction and laughter. too many windows open closes one big port cullis. possibly nails it shut. maybe it sounds editorial. maybe spooge is an actual tree? consulting google... Also known as “the spooge tree”, because its blooms smell like semen. Using an annoying and invasive intruder to take out another annoying and invasive intruder…that’s absolutely brilliant.

no redemption.

The Web's Bitter Afterbirth. Cruel.com's squeal sequel, worshipping coarse & offensive satire, the ridiculous and subslime in ...

maybe she's from boston. maybe this is a google query she has been dying to investigate -- and look, research is done and delivered. maybe spooge means springtime where i'm from. some clever explanation, some anecdotal reasoning for saying "spooge" to a perfect and professional stranger is in order... Scientific name: Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle.

valencia mud

San Francisco’s Four Barrel Coffee is one of those neo-Cheers hipster hangouts where nobody knows your name and no one really cares as long as your Toms are in season. If any of the vinyl records on the shelf behind the barista are on your iPad, 5 points. If your ‘look’ is some shade of dapper lumberjack, sexy bag lady or Spock in Ray-Bans, 5 more points. If you can explain why coffee just tastes better with taxidermy and mad science in the background, I’ll buy your eco-friendly house-roasted expertly handcrafted latte.

help

I'm considering a blog transplant -- a new URL, a new theme, or perhaps, another one... Every day, I hear advice, wisdom, aphorisms, little pieces of advice that sometimes sound out of place or off-topic. Sometimes they come from startling sources. They may take a moment to settle, for the relevance to develop like a polaroid...but when they do, I want to collect them into a shining case, share them like shells gathered on a beach. So that would be the theme of my new blog. All of the overanalyzed thoughts and musings of my mind throughout the day. The coincidences, the reverie, the words shared that connect the dots. Today, I was crossing a bridge -- a very famous one -- with someone I respect and admire. The topic was accomplishment, and the dopamine rush that comes with achievement -- however small. For her, it can be as simple as making granola, and hearing how good it smells from anyone who passes through her kitchen. Or, it can be as triumphant and validating as a casting call with a major catalog -- regardless of the outcome, there is a sense of being chosen. We also talked about help. My aunt lives in Algeria. Her mother lives in Marin, California. Every week, my aunt sends her produce from Sonoma, in an artisan bucket, replete with charm and the novelty of having it delivered every Tuesday morning. This is where technology intersects the ancient imperative to care for one's parents, to pay them a visit, even if it's in food form -- delivered by someone you've never met. This is our world -- it seems impersonal and far too convenient to nurture something as primordial as mother-daughter relationship, or to render real care for the elderly. But the impact is exponential. Her mother -- my grandmother -- knows that her daughter sat with her two daughters across the ocean and "handpicked" everything that gets delivered each week. Purple fingerling potatoes, golden beets, quail... an ode to bygone luxuries. She said, "It's like I'm eating with her. It's such a gift, such a surprise, it warms my heart". But she has never told this to her daughter, my aunt. Why? Because she doesn't want a voluntary gift to become a burdensome chore, obligation. I wonder, though, who benefits most from charitable acts? Who receives the greatest soul satisfaction from giving, serving, volunteering? And it's not a new concept -- the Peace Corps volunteer returns with tales of having gained/learned more from the people "in need" than they themselves shared with the needy. The missionary who discovered that spirituality is amorphous, unassigned to a single sect or Sunday, after living with people in need of "saving". Who is the needy person, if the giver is ultimately the receiver? Is this what we base our concept of "work" on? Giving to receive, time for money, energy for security....What if work was modeled after giving -- where everyone wins, everyone benefits -- giving comes from an entirely different place -- a place of security, of abundance, of empathy. You have to have before you can give...whereas traditional work becomes a necessity out of lack. So we talked about helping people. The human inclination, NEED for a sense of accomplishment -- in many different forms -- but specifically, making another human feel good by giving, by sharing. Showing love. Showing support. Empathizing and taking action. Who benefits, and why is it so difficult to be the recipient? Why is it unclear or unacknowledged that in many cases, charity yields more than one beneficiary? And the need to accomplish is intense. Aside from giving-- a gateway to that dopamine rush of having done something "good" -- the need to get something done, overcome, build, create, use your hands, is tremendous. And work, as it has been defined for decades/centuries, is often not really work. It doesn't yield the same sense of accomplishment that blue collar work might. And now, even that seems insufficient. I think we need a new kind of work. One that gives everyone a chance to be the giver and the receiver. One that makes your hands feel like powerful tools, rather than appendages that obey the mechanized commands of the mind. Operating in a digitized world, we are still warm blooded humans. It is interesting to see where that river has flowed, and comforting to see that it hasn't dried up.

burning uncertainty

In the wake of 2011 – a year that inspired Time magazine to crown “The Protester” as Person of the Year and one that Forbes dubbed “The Year of Uncertainty” – it’s no surprise that more people want to stick it to the proverbial Man than ever before. Perhaps in anticipation of The Man’s soaring unpopularity and a first-ever sold out Burning Man 2011, Black Rock City LLC (or BRC, organizers of the annual Burning Man festival) introduced a lottery-based ticket sale for Burning Man 2012. But rather than promoting its self-proclaimed culture of “radical inclusivity”, the lottery method left thousands of would-be Burners feeling, instead, burned by The Man.

The lottery churned out more losers than winners, divided integrated groups (“theme camps”), artists and veteran Burners who have long been the torch bearers of Burning Man tradition. True to the times, disgruntled Burners took to online forums and social media to vent, compare notes and lament the halo of uncertainty that looms over Burning Man 2012. San Francisco Bay Chronicle summed up the worst of it with an article titled: Burning Man Ticket Fiasco Creates an Uncertain Future.

As a potential first-time Burner (or birgin, in Burning Man lingo), the apocalyptic appeal of 2012 inspired an inaugural hajj to the desert – a notion that I shared with about 80,000 lottery entrants. I imagine their rationale was similar to mine: If the Maya were right, and life as we know it is trending toward a cataclysmic halt, it’s time to check the bucket list. And when it all hits the fan, where better to find yourself than wandering in 105 degree heat, butt-naked in Nevada at a week-long desert festival that includes a pyrotechnic “F---You” to The Man? After everything The Man has dealt us in 2011 (and the past decade for that matter) at least 80,000 people agree that burning him to the ground would be cathartic.

Ticketless Burners and tribal schisms are one thing, but the 2012 lottery gods also favored a high birgin to Burner ratio, leaving many to riddle: How can Burning Man be all that it has grown to be in its 25-year history if it is rife with birgins? Will it be a ringmaster-less circus with children taming the tigers? Addressing this year’s deluge of birgins, Burning Man's Communications Manager Andie Grace blogged: “You’ve arrived at a very interesting time, can you tell?...We love newcomers. However, if new Burners are the lifeblood, the existing community of collaborators, projects, and creativity is the corpus of Burning Man.”

As the lottery dust settles, uncertainty emerges as the red-headed step child of good intentions turned sour. But to say that the miscalculations of one festival’s organizing committee have single-handedly created an uncertain future is hyperbole at best. As long as turbulent uncertainty insists on showing up as the uninvited and party-fouling guest of the past decade, it might be time to give it a formal place card.

Uncertainty – the byproduct of abrupt and unwelcome change – is to now as free love and peace signs were to the 60’s. Change is often labeled positive when it means regime change, social progress, and opportunity. But when it leaks into hallowed tradition, change loses its charm. Although change has been a singular constant throughout history, its wavelengths seem to have shortened as it comes in higher potency, higher frequency, and greater intensity than ever before. The Burning Man 2012 ticket fiasco is a microcosmic sample of this all-encompassing brand of change that takes no prisoners and spares nothing in its mission to usher in a new era – or to escort us out of existence.
Dissecting the effects of change and uncertainty on a macro level can be overwhelming and virtually impossible. Fiasco aside, the circumstances surrounding Burning Man 2012 offer a finer lens for examining how our perception of uncertainty can have a greater impact than uncertainty itself:

Uncertainty is what we make of it.

Uncertainty is not a cozy word. But when the track we’ve been on has landed us in hot water, the only certainties that come from expired ideals are those that ensure the same unsustainable results. Certainty and uncertainty have been typecast as hero and villain respectively, but pervasive change has allowed them to swap roles. Certainty for certainty’s sake is no longer serving us. Adaptation requires something new, something experimental, something that might fail. While the Burning Man ticket lottery system backfired in some ways, it successfully underscored the power of perception. In hindsight, BRC organizers speculated, “We can now see that some of that happened simply because the perception of scarcity drove fear and action for all of us….Game theory won out over good wishes.” Attempts to lessen the blow of change and uncertainty can yield unintended consequences – not all of which are inherently negative. The wild card nature of uncertainty means that its power is unpredictably neutral. While fear of uncertainty can destroy and divide, tolerance can cultivate possibility.


Facing Uncertainty: Fight or Flow

Change and uncertainty are not controlled substances, and they cannot be selectively applied. We can’t route for democracy in the Middle East, accountability in Washington, and a viable planet without expecting uncomfortable changes in absolutely every area of our lives. Uncertainty can either be a force that inspires futile resistance or it can be the momentum behind a miracle. The paradox of uncertainty is like an ocean swimmer caught in a riptide: fear kicks in and instinct says, “Swim ashore!” But fighting the current can be fatal. Swimming parallel to the current – away from the certainty of dry land – is the best chance of survival. The fear of scarcity and exclusion spurred by the Burning Man ticket lottery may be the metaphorical equivalent of fighting the current. For those still hoping to get a ticket, going with the flow is the best bet. It’s not about giving up and accepting defeat – it’s about trusting that the forces of uncertainty will carry you to safer waters without a fear-induced struggle.


Mitigating Uncertainty: Embracing Structural Change, Preserving Tradition

For veteran Burners, passing the torch to the newcomers, novices and birgins will require some forfeit of creative control, a foray into the unknown, and faith in uncertainty. Change can tear at the fabric of tradition and familiarity – threatening the way it’s always been, the way it “should be”. Change and uncertainty, like the twins in The Shining, appear at the most inopportune moments. We can’t outsmart it, we can’t put a muzzle on it, and there is no such thing as Change Zero with lime. Moreover, attempts to mitigate the shock of change can have adverse effects. But where do we draw the line on what we’re willing to give up? Can Burning Man be Burning Man without its creative corpus? What can be salvaged, what is worth preserving, and how can the old compliment the new? Perhaps the answer lies in the Burning Man 2012 theme: Fertility. Fertility is the midpoint between uncertainty and certainty. It is the potential --not the promise – of a rebirth. Fertility belongs to youth, to Burners, virgins and birgins alike. Fertility also involves a necessary cycle of destruction – a literal shedding of the old in preparation for the new.

Whether you hold a golden ticket to Burning Man 2012 or not, change and uncertainty is here to stay. The power of perspective will play a pivotal role in how things shake out. In that vein, an alternative to the hyperbolic Burning Man Ticket Fiasco Creates an Uncertain Future might be Burning Man Ticket Phenomenon Reflects an Uncertain Future… and that’s not such a bad thing.

v


_________________________________________________________________________________________


Jonathan Fields /// Author, Uncertainty:
Rather than trying to snuff out uncertainty and fear and taking down your endeavor along with them, honor their role as signposts of innovation, and find ways to be able to embrace those seeming demons. When you learn to dance with uncertainty, the doors to genius swing open.

3934

is it a frivolous luxury to believe that you can do whatever you want?


life overlaps are interesting to me. sometimes i think that my older self, Self 27, will collide with Self 9 or Self 6 in the same places where she once walked, or rode a bike, or sat by a fountain and read books from the imaginarium.

sometimes i think certain spaces will always be mine. i think, would i believe someone if they told me that one day, that space would no longer be mine? would no longer be open, or safe? there are some spaces that i thought were immune to loss. like misplacing a mountain -- impossible, improbable, unthinkable.

visiting old spaces that used to me mine is like walking on an indian burial ground. i want to take off my shoes, i want to respect Self 6 who still plays there, i want to feel the ground again as i did when I was self 3. i want to see if the bricks are the same, if the windows have people inside of them, i want to know what kind of life they have in those walls. i want to know where they drive that car, why they need so much space and what they carry in the trunk. i want to know if the rose paint is still stuck to the walls, under that layer of sage and terracotta. i want to know if the lemon tree is still in back yard next to tchaikovsky's grave -- i wonder if they even know he is in there. i want to know if there is a bald patch where adam and eve's clay faces used to peek out of the ivy wall -- if they also keep a key hidden there in case someone forgot, in case the door slammed shut in the wind. i want to know if it smells like chlorine, like martinelli's apple juice, or spider webs on light gray linoleum lawn furniture. i want to know if the garage smells like cardboard, like bungee cords, like sun-faded beach towels.

is that little apartment under the stairs -- the one he built for tigger -- still there? do they know all of the little secrets of the house -- where the poem is buried, where the chalk drawing was erased, where the bubble fell and bounced down the stairs into a pile of shattered glass? do they know that the piano was played for hours, antiques and jelly beans bartered and sold for pencil-drawn currency on notepads -- stacks of notepads -- little novelties of a more organized life -- an ironic vacation -- held together with a red wax strip?

do they remember the parties -- with salmon, with lamb, with a sauce that burned and shoes baking in the oven? what about the white pig that sat on a pink marble counter top, scarred and spotted from years of scotch tape and reminders, missed phone calls and dates, codes and account numbers?

what about mary? her socks leaving dark shaded marks on the butter yellow carpet?

palm

half-moon pietersite:

palm trees, puddles underfoot.

delayed, weather pending.

focusing the inner eye.

protection.

stopped on the way for a big hair pat down.

stopped again on leg two, curiosity and suspicion over
ganesh and my hand of fatima.

the world, a ropes course, is designed for the slow, the uninspiring brand of bizarre, the elephantic land masses that breathe loudly and show up late.

you do not have to be nimble, considerate or small enough to fit in a chair in order to fly.

note to self re: seat selection...empty rows attract procrastinating customers with no business wedging into a middle seat.

left side, pick odd. right side, pick even.

hide your sports section.

do not travel with religious symbols hewn from heavy metal in your carry on.

check for delays before rushing through foolish lines with distracted blue shirts chattering about shayla and what she did on friday.

dodge overzealous sparrows eyeing your pesto.

wild geese

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver



You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

curiosity

to eloquently quote albert:

my dear,

creativity doesn’t come from doing what you’re supposed to diligently (that’s discipline). no. creativity comes from trying things we’re not supposed to, from not using those ticking seconds efficiently, from avoiding work, from adding fun to a boring task, and from the mind that says to itself, “wouldn’t it be funny if…”

and what other time is this not more apparent than when we’re procrastinating and wasting time?


creativity is the residue of time wasted.

the creative being is at first, a horrible user of time; a time-waster.

Falsely yours,

Albert Einstein

************************


wasting time is luxurious, reckless, decadent. paradoxically productive.

and it makes people curious. annoyed. indifferent. alarmed. obsessive. laugh.

the tallest poppy is the first to be eaten, lopped off.

appear to waste time, to willfully squander it without documentation, without counting, without the seconds meaning money or the minutes meaning production.

others will wonder. ponder. inquire. conspire. construct theories. move their pawn in front of your knight, their bishop next to your queen.

they are dying to know what would happen to them if they did what you do...

scorn, they believe, is the punishment for pleasure. so is it true -- they demand to know. you play hero, they play villain. the battle begins.

jealousy is like the tree avoided on a hill -- avoidance creates a backward magnetism. no no no becomes a certain yes.

what would happen if the worst became true? rather than finding out for themselves, it becomes a game of synthetic circumstance.

how would a human -- unfettered by a common brand of inhibition -- react to opposition x? y? z?

and so jealousy is the cousin of curiosity -- a sort of fear braided into fascination and contempt. an unconscious longing, sparked by an imperceptible void.

your piece is my piece, it says. i can't have mine if you have yours.