Saturday, July 22, 2006

well, today, i cut my grass, took a long, long shower, cleaned my legs, brushed out knots in my hair. it felt good. and then, i got my wireless to work. not completely, but i am writing this on my laptop with my british shows on in my room. it does not work downstairs - but i have a booster, that apparently will help with that. but i don't know how to do that.

just now, a drunk man was stumbling down the sidewalk and an icecream truck, playing the world's most irritating song "it's a small world" drove down the street...

yup.

you can't relive the past, Gatsby...

yeah. you can't. things change. people change. i don't think that i have changed all that much, but maybe i have. lately, i feel scatter-brained, i've become unaware of things around me. and subsequently, i'm not in control of my universe. yeah, there is a lot going on. but i should be able to take it by the reigns and get the horses under control. instead, i'm climbing to the top of the stage coach, my hat blew off, the ladies underneath are screaming, luggage is strewn under the wheels and left scattered on the road, and the horses are headed to the edge of a cliff.

oh dear.

relationships change. and maybe hesitancy is a bad thing. maybe to dive into something is okay. but it is scary. and i never thought of having that nervousness to this extent, i mean, i fall fast and then something happens, circumstances change and it takes a while to get back. and maybe, as optimistic as Gatsby was, maybe its pointless. but it shouldn't be. i have felt transient for so long. nothing is permanent, i go away, my friends go away. and now i'm here, with the villita. i'm staying. even at that, i am having trouble thinking i will be here, potentially, forever. i've lived here for 6 years. that's awhile. i've worked the same job for nearly 4. i guess, i just am not sure what i should be doing. i mean, i can do little things around the house, laundry and such, i can work and make a pretty catalogue, i can do lots of little things. i guess, that is what is confusing - i'm not sure what i should be doing. maybe that is why the horses are on a crash course.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

The Shooting of Dan McGrew

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.
When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head--and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway,
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands--my God! but that man could play.

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A helf-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow, and red, the North Lights swept in bars?--
Then you've a hunch what the music meant...hunger and might and the stars.

And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowded with a woman's love--
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true--
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge,--the lady that's known as Lou.)

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through--
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

The music almost dies away...then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill...then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell...and that one is Dan McGrew."

Then I ducked my head and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark;
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two--
The woman that kissed him and--pinched his poke--was the lady known as Lou.

Monday, July 17, 2006

The Extraction of the Stone of Madness


1475-80, Hieronymous Bosch

so, the sun might go down - but until it does i will water my half dead plants. i'm hot. i just spent an hour with the mothership. had a cold gin and tonic. maybe do some more laundry. it's funny how in the heat of the summer, i think about the snow and cozy winter time. i couldn't wait until the locus sang a few months back. but it's not fun hot. it's a draining heat that tears at your soul. and i would like to go outside and weed - move shit around - dig holes, but all i am doing is trying to keep my poor plants alive. and actually, i don't know what i'm doing. been working alot - at least i feel that i am. i think my catalogue is almost kinda on its way out the door.

i wonder if the end of the world is coming. the horsemen will ride through the streets of the earth, sickles and axes in their hands - and instead of 4, there are millions of them, so it all occurs simultaneously.
1498, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Albrecht Dürer

i hope WWIII doesn't happen. i don't have a gun. i have a mouthy pup and a machete. i am dangerous with a machete... almost chop my leg everytime i use it.

so yeah. that's today. even though it's hot, maybe i'll go wheal on one of my dead trees in the back.


1504, Last Judgement, Hieronymous Bosch

Saturday, July 15, 2006

by E. A. Brininstool from Trail Dust of a Maverick, 1914

Juanita

Drear are the prairies; the ranges are silent;
Mournfully whispers each soft, passing breeze;
Down in the canyon and eddying murmur
Echoes the sigh through the giant pine trees.
Lone are the trails on the brown, dusty mesa,
Up where the gems of the star-world peep through;
Sadly the night-bird is plaintively calling --
'Nita, Juanita, I'm longing for you!

Out where the herds dot the range in the Springtime;
Out where the flowers you loved nod and sway,
Memory brings me a vision of sadness,
Brings me a dream of a once-happy day.
Over the trails you are riding beside me,
Under the canopied heavens of blue;
Smiling the love that your lips have repeated --
'Nita, Juanita, I'm longing for you!

When steals the night with its grim, dusky shadows,
As 'round the herd I am jogging along,
Your gentle face seem to lighten the darkness,
Each vagrant breeze seems to whisper a song;
Whispers a melody sweetly entrancing,
Telling me, dear, of your love ever true;
Whispers and echo which sets my heart dancing --
'Nita, Juanita, I'm longing for you!

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

cat and mouse



evolution - this is what it's come to.

the drawbridge







...still under construction...

and while posting, the little critters...



Tuesday, July 11, 2006

the drawbridge of the villita

and my door, now with its lead lines, is starting to show some color. the corner flowers with a splash of pink and a hint of yellow - the central diamonds hold the color of a late summer day sky...

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Thursday, July 06, 2006

unfortunately you missed how our heroin escaped from the piles flying bugs.. with lazers and flips, and a big can of bug spray... but the next day, as she was heading home from another arduous day of work, she looked in the sky and saw how the setting sun hit the tops of the trees, making the trees glow a green only seen at dusk. It's a calming green, telling you everything is right with the world, and nothing is prettier or more important than that moment in time.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

booms and bangs

And last we saw our heroin she had just found the cave that she so badly needed, one with an inside spring and no bears lurking around the corners. She has moved in, settled in, painted her corner of the kitchen yellow, put her bed in a spot where there is a break in the rock and a slit of daylight beams in at dawn. She is happy.

Yesterday was the 4th and interpol never called in. The day was free to banter around the forest looking at all the neat things - things that she had forgotten. She took the furry creature out to mingle with other of the species. And later that evening, went to see a pathetic attempt at fireworks - with the only redeeming factor was going with someone who she had lost touch with for awhile. She was happy.

And so, on the way back from the celebration, dark creatures lurked behind the trees. Our unsuspecting girl walking back to the cave, in a state of complete oblivion, unaware that anyone would want to pounce on a day such as this...

But they did - in a frenzy of red and blue and white streaks across the sky - they came - blasting around her head like fire flies on Ritalin - they came. Dive bombing and scooting by her ear making loud zipping noises... and did she have her laser??? No. Why would she need it? Everyone should be on holiday. She jumped into the air and clung onto a branch. The critters kept buzzing by her -- she climbed higher - but as she climbed the critters became denser - where finally the thickness became suffocating....

tune in next time to see how she escapes from these crazy flying aliens...