1932

Opening lines, "Exercise"

2011-01-04T08:25:00.003-06:00

When the story begins, I am a Caucasian college freshman girl. I have blond hair, and you can tell. When I go cycling on stationary bikes in the gym, I like to tie my hair up in a high blond ponytail, such that it swings madly and almost rhythmically. I enjoy the occasional brush against the sweaty nape of my neck.

In the middle of the story, I am no longer biking. In fact, I have turned against the activity. I scorn and deride exercise bikes and the people who straddle them.

At the end of the story, I am no longer Caucasian. I am still blond, but you cannot tell.

Chicken Paprikash

2010-08-03T16:51:00.002-05:00

Sitting indoors in a Hungarian cafe, I ordered a chicken paprikash with Nokedli, choosing to look at the man at the next table instead of at the menu offered me. I chose the dish because it was laksa-coloured, orange and red and complete with translucent oily film bubbles dotting the surface. I ordered it even though it was 30 degrees outside, too hot for a stew.

Because I was expecting something, I was disappointed. The dish came. I ate a bite. The colour of laksa had tricked me into letting my want for sour spiciness run unchecked. But the chicken in my mouth was bland, the deceptive liquid kickless.

I wondered if what I felt was very remotely similar to what rich first-world people feel when they buy counterfeit items while vacationing in third-world countries. And then I wondered where that earlier thought had come from. It didn't make sense, like the colour of the chicken paprikash stew.

Red Plum

2010-07-14T16:15:00.006-05:00

I found a red plum. Being foreign, at first I thought it was a peach, but there was nothing sexual about the thing I held in my hand, so I knew better. Yet I still foolishly bit into the plum whole, tearing off inky blue skin.

I bit into the wound-coloured thing tentatively.

Mocha

2010-07-12T16:40:00.006-05:00

I never used to understand the coffee drinkers I encountered in foreign literature, until I found myself, blinking, in the land of decadence.

Last week, alone on a Friday, on the eve of promised thunderstorms, I went into a tiny coffee shop. On the counter were Chemex flasks. The most expensive thing on the menu was a mocha. I asked for one.

It came with surface-deep, frothy mocha art. I chose to sip at the bottom of the heart, where the voluptuous halves met in a sharpened point. The more I sipped, the more distorted the frothy heart became, but oh, each sip was like a kiss from a very weak lover, who leaned forward, covered my lips with coquettish, ticklish delicacy, and then fell away, backwards, leaving behind a tingly, slowly evaporating coat of memory that simultaneously made me burn for her and yet want to delay our next rendezvous.

Deeper and deeper into the cup I drank, my hands tilting the cup at greater and greater angles, the cup obscuring more and more of the coffee shop, until my world was the world of the mocha, the cup's rim pressed against my face, a strange kaleidoscope. As I watched, cock-eyed, the coffee waves wash toward me, I wished that I could make this narrow concern my life. And then I was with the dregs, and the waves were no more, and I cried unnoticed, my face pressed into an upheld coffee cup.

Of course, this is all very melodramatic without a context. And yet if this were tacked onto the end of a narrative, no matter how clumsily, you would be moved. You might even cry too. But that is not what I want to give you. What I want to give you is the moving qualities of a good mocha, because that, a mere material object, you can replicate. You can own.

7. Lydia Davis

2010-02-02T20:35:00.005-06:00

Over-packed room + Rude, late-arriving women standing directly in front of you as if you were there, not to see Lydia Davis read, but to stare at their buttocks = You stand up on your plastic chair, a socially unacceptable person at a posh and polite literary reading

A representative Lydia Davis story:

BORING FRIENDS
We know only four boring people. The rest of our friends we find very interesting. However, most of the friends we find interesting find us boring: the most interesting find us the most boring. The few who are somewhere in the middle, with whom there is reciprocal interest, we distrust: at any moment, we feel, they may become too interesting for us, or we too interesting for them.

(taken from McSweeney's Internet Tendency, here: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2001/10/25davisweek4.html)

6. Nuyorican Poets Cafe

2010-02-02T20:24:00.003-06:00

http://www.nuyorican.org/

A New York City establishment. Didn't figure the name until I saw the physical sign hanging over the entrance: It's supposed to sound like "New Yorkian?"

Way crowded on a Friday night.

It was an elimination round for an ultimate slam poetry contest; I'm hazy on the details. 3 contestants had 3 rounds to win over 5 amateur (as in pulled from volunteers in the crowd) judges. Snapping of fingers by the audience may or may not influence the outcome. Same for booing of judges when scores seemed unfair.

I've never been good at listening to lyrics. Slam poetry is even harder for me. The atmosphere was lively. A wise-cracking emcee had plenty of punchlines. She even tried to get us to dance. At one point she asked for the house lights to be turned waaaay down so that she could croon some baby-making music. It turned out to be the Reading Rainbow theme.

Aja-Monet, youngest Nuyorican Grandslam Champion, was there as a guest. Girl sitting in front of our row let out a loud burp when Monet was about 2 lines in. Flustered her. She had to start over. Twas amusing. Talented woman is doing her MFA at Art Institute of Chicago now, I believe.

A taste:

5. Jaime Davidovich

2010-02-02T20:08:00.005-06:00

An exhibition of Argentinian-American Davidovich's "art on cable" programming, called "The Live! Show."

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/events/davidovich.php

It ran from the late 70's to early 80's, i.e. the Downtown heydays. It seems a little bizarre now, I suppose, for us to imagine artists using cable TV as an art medium. After all, not many people use YouTube to make video art - by which I mean, not many artists tailor their video art to YouTube as a very specific medium. Sure, a lot of video art is uploaded onto YouTube, but that is not the same thing as using YouTube as a creative medium. Perhaps a parallel in the literary arts would be Rick Moody's "Twitter short story," which was basically just a normal story chopped up into disruptive blocks. Criticism from certain quarters pointed out readers' dissatisfaction at it not being "actual" Twitter fiction - but then no one seems to have figured out how to do it "right" yet.

Anyway. The exhibition was interesting on many levels. Davidovich took on the role of Dr. Videovich in his show, claiming to be an expert on curing TV addiction. (Levels of irony?) Many artists were guests on the show, including John Cage and Borges, if I am not wrong. I know I'm not really giving anything on the exhibition itself - it's hard to describe. There were a lot of physical objects, such as piggy banks shaped like TVs, fake wrist TVs, toy TVs with swappable "screens"...you had to be there, be surrounded.

Here's a taste, in which Herbert Wentscher traces the origins of video to Biblical times:

Yes, it is very much tongue-in-cheek. Nobody got a PhD out of it. Worry not.

4. Robert Blanchon

2010-02-02T19:52:00.006-06:00

The title of the exhibition is

You Make Me Feel (Might Real): The Work of Robert Blanchon

Taken from a song by Sylvester.

Sponsored (?) by VisualAIDS; Blanchon died of AIDS.

2 items particularly touched me. One is an impossible eyeglass, made to fit one eye, viewable here: http://www.franklinartworks.org/exhibitions/blanchon.html

And the other is not viewable online, even in this age (what does this mean?) when we say "everything is on the Internet."

A description that does it no justice: It's a video, comprised of snippets culled from 80's gay porn. There are no sex scenes; the snippets are from the "narrative" parts of the porn films. In just one of many badly-acted scenes, a guy in running attire awkwardly pretends to fall and hurt his hamstring, whereupon he is helped to the "infirmary" by two other men. In the background, sometimes there, sometimes not, is The Manhattans' hit song:

What at first seems incredibly cheesy and laughable made me cry when I read the placard, which reminds us to link the video to what was called the "AIDS epidemic."

3. Bang, Wheeler

2010-01-14T20:10:00.003-06:00

As countless people have probably pointed out, Mary Jo Bang has a bombastic name. She is a small woman in person, and she reads in an almost-monotonous voice. I fell asleep through her last piece, a long one which is part of a project to slant-translate Dante's Inferno. Must remember to down coffee before attending readings after a full day of work. While being sick, no less.

For me, Bang's most memorable piece was an erasure-collaboration, as she termed it. Bang's father had abandoned/left her when she was four. After he died, she inherited, among other things, his unpublished autobiographical memoir. The phrase "all of a sudden" recurs a lot through the manuscript. Bang's poem, A Equals All of a Sudden, is a result of taking words and phrases from the memoir and adding five lines of her own to the end.

Susan Wheeler was a much more dramatic reader. She performed. Kept it up even when bookstore browsers were chatting or laughing in the background as they walked by. Playful, cheeky rhymes hooked me in.

Briefly spoke to Bob Holman, who was there for the reading, because I had seen his audio collection donated to a special collections library. He suggested first that I was born in the early 90s, then tried to place my age at 18? 19? It got very awkward after that. I didn't know what to say, or how to be joke-y or coy. I simply did what I do best -- shut down. He walked away from me to talk to somebody else.

A ban don

2010-01-13T18:37:00.003-06:00

Walked past the public library branch down the street from me. A small branch, to be sure, with many shelves dedicated to books not in English. It serves a particular neighbourhood, you see.

Walked past it, saw boxes and boxes and garbage bag upon garbage bag of books left out as trash on the curb. The sight punched me in the face. I didn't know what to think, so I didn't. Think. Instead I felt. Sad. Shocked.

I started prying books out of a partially open box. The first one I held in my hands was called "A Samurai Never Fears Death," a book co-written by two people with identical, non-Asian last names. I stared at it for a while, wondering if I should take it home. Then I put it back, pried out a couple other books under it. Put them back.

I wish I had a house so I could take all of them with me, but unfortunately I am a poor loser who moves from rented apartment to rented apartment every year. You see, poor people cannot change the world, or the community.

2. Downtown

2010-01-11T22:25:00.006-06:00

This one is close to home. These names I encounter regularly; names of important people whose work and legacies I, in part, handle, care for and guard.

The exhibition is called "Downtown Pix: Mining the Fales Archives 1961 - 1991." "Downtown" is not just a location marker; by now it is a symbol, a keyword. In fact, the quintessentially "Downtown" play depicted on the sidebar to the right was not staged in downtown New York City at all.

Exhibition site: http://www.nyu.edu/greyart/exhibits/downtown%20pix/dphome.html

One panel had vivid stills from Carolee Schneemann's performance art piece, Meat Joy.

Attractive, almost-naked people rolling over each other, smearing skins with raw chicken, fish, sausages, paint ... The word "Dionysian" is used at some point in the exhibition description.

I had to walk away from David Wojnarowicz's allocated spot because I was tearing up. There was a letter from a doctor diagnosing Peter Hujar with AIDS, and W. had drawn headless, legless torsos of two topless men kissing on the upper-right corner. I had seen Hujar's death photos up close before, but that plain piece of office paper was more powerful than a space full of gelatin prints.

1. Burton

2010-01-11T21:40:00.004-06:00

I'd rather not call it a resolution. I prefer to think of it as a promise I made to myself.

Two of my friends live in Manhattan but work in New Jersey.

I used to hate New York City.

Then I thought about what my two friends are doing -- spending hours commuting back and forth every day, paying higher taxes -- and I thought about my hatred for the city they so love. That led to thoughts about where I am, and I was suddenly dumbstruck.

Who ever thought that a girl from a Third World "sleepy city" (Reuters, 01/10/10) could ever live in New York City? What quirk of fate allowed this to happen?

The point is not the supposed greatness of this place. I hope that gets across.

---

I am here.

The promise is to attend at least one "event" per week. Readings, performances, exhibitions, tastings, screenings, whatever. Being un-rich, most of these will likely be free. In other words, small names and multiple "offs" preceding "Broadway," with stellarities (not a word) scattered here and there as my wallet sees fit.

I should note that I will not apologize for being a more-or-less philistine/ignoramus in any of my documentation.

---

Here I am.

Went to see MoMA's Tim Burton exhibition with a friend. He called Burton Dr. Seuss' evil twin. I thought that was apt.

Exhibition site: http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2009/timburton/

Found out that Burton is a very, very prolific artist meddling in many mediums. The commercial films -- tip of an iceberg.

Was shocked to discover that he directed a music video for The Killers. Quite a "WTF?" moment.

Bedtime stories for sulky adults -- #5 or: How Bestiality Came to Be

2009-11-09T20:28:00.005-06:00

(Probably NSFW, disturbing, gross, etc.)

Once upon a time, there was a kittycat. She was a house kittycat who was very well-taken cared of by her owners, having nothing to do all day except sit on her pretty hind legs and lick herself.

One day kittycat was licking herself when suddenly she started coughing and hacking. She stretched her neck taut, opened her jaws and coughed and hacked, and finally a large hairball shot out of her throat.

After she had recovered, kittycat swiped at the hairball. It half-rolled, half-slid across the floor, until it stopped near an open window.

Kittycat lost interest. Kittycat yawned. Kittycat walked away.

When kittycat came back later to take an afternoon nap in the ray of sunshine coming through the window, she saw, to her delight, that a bird had made its nest in her hairball. With an elegant pounce, kittycat leaped up to the hairball, swiped up the bird and swallowed it.

Mmm.

In her haste, kittycat found that she had destroyed the hairball. She pushed the pieces and strands around with her paws for a bit, but she couldn't put it back. Desperate for more bird, kittycat started artificially coughing and hacking, sucking in air and then constricting her throat until it was raw and hurt.

Kittycat tried and tried until her throat was on fire and still nothing came out. She then tried to lick her paws and her torso, but she soon got a crick in her neck from twisting around so much.

Frustrated, kittycat ran noiselessly into the bedroom, where her owner was napping in bed. With a crouch and a springing leap, kittycat was on the bed. Kittycat went up to her owner's head and started licking at the mass of curls.

"Stop it, kittycat!" Kittycat's owner pushed her away.

Kittycat retreated to a safe distance and sat down to watch, her tail waving occasionally. After a few minutes, kittycat advanced again and started to lick her owner's bushy hair. Again, kittycat was received with annoyance.

Cocking her head, kittycat decided on an alternative harvesting site. Slinking into the bedcovers, kittycat made for her owner's crotch and started licking and gathering. She found that her owner was able to tolerate this much better, and kittycat was able to hoard up enough hair for her next bird trap.

And this is how bestiality came to be. Notice how "beast" becomes "best."

Fail Better

2009-10-20T22:27:00.002-05:00

http://www.failbetter.com

Oct 20

Nina Simone: "Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood"

Ever tried.
Ever failed.
No matter.
Try again.
Fail again.
Fail better.

Dust

2009-08-06T18:34:00.001-05:00

She woke up on a low, narrow bed she could not call unfamiliar. Still, her upper body recoiled onto the twin thin points of her elbows. Strands of her hair stuck to her cheeks, matted and damp. She looked up at the ceiling fan. Lazy, she thought. Lazy was the word that came to mind. The arms were not making the violent sounds and wild but predictable motions that had seemed to rock her to sleep.

Somebody had entered in the night. Entered and tampered.

The young woman pushed herself off the bed. Her feet were two slabs of brown on the parquet floor. She remembered who she was to be, in this house, at this time:

Flowchart for certain twenty-something writers

2009-06-02T16:50:00.011-05:00

Scapegoat Review

2009-04-01T21:13:00.002-05:00

Spring 2009

Edited by hostess of Upstairs with Erika, proud inhabitant of a way cool loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn -- hipster central

Scapegoat Review

Going Home

2009-02-25T19:44:00.002-06:00

, I want to race before myself
, hide behind the bush
in front of my parents' house
, witness my homecoming
, forlorn.

Do turn the bathroom light off before you go

2009-02-17T21:27:00.000-06:00

Enter the author, wearing a starry mantle and a crown of light. Nothing else.

The bathroom light is still on. The hum sings.

Down lies the author, sitting first on the edge of the bed, then back-crawling up to the headboard.

The room is not dark enough.

“Arrange my hair in a fan,” instructs the author.

The room smells like somebody else’s cigarettes.

I stand with my knees dug into the side of the mattress. I arch my long arms to reach the author.

The author lies, eyes closed, impassive.

The ceiling fan wobbles.

I gently lift the supine spine and smooth the starry mantle upward. It spreads like a picnic blanket showcasing the neck, the head, the hair of the author.

A trail of ants walks down the room’s southeast corner.

I hold my position as if decorating a giant cake.

I jerk the weightless neck, snap it upward, retrieve my gasp, sweep long hair up and out, release. I arrange, with my fingers, a fan of hair that matches the fan of mantle.

On the ceiling there is a pointing arrow showing the way.

The crown of light has tumbled under the bed.

“Bring in my nine o’ clock,” the author sighs.

Hey kids!

2008-12-19T06:31:00.001-06:00

Kids! To loosen your dress means you're one 'o' too fat; to lose your marble means the 'o' rolled away. OKAY?

Bedtime stories for sulky adults -- #3

2008-10-17T00:01:00.003-05:00

A man was busking on a streetcorner when a policeman approached him and told him that he was going to be fined.

"Is it my skirt?" the man asked, tugging on his tartan kilt.

No, the policeman said.

"Is it my bagpipes?" the man asked, lifting the instrument.

Well....not exactly, the policeman said. Just responding to public complaints, he said.

"There was a guy playing guitar with an amp before I got here. Why didn't he get in trouble?"

Because he wasn't playing funereal songs at ten in the morning, the policeman said.

"I was playing happy songs, songs of celebration in my culture," the man said.

He was fined.

Bedtime stories for sulky adults -- #4

2008-10-17T00:00:00.002-05:00

With a sigh Genevieve finished going over last month's household expenses and, pushing away from the kitchen table, she decided, between the contracting of her knees and the straightening of her back, to tell Arthur when he came home that they could no longer afford sex.

The Taiping Letters

2008-06-29T12:36:00.003-05:00

http://taipingletters.blogspot.com

Simple songs and stories, featuring Long Story Short.

A surprise for Mike

2008-06-01T20:25:00.003-05:00

flashquake, Summer 2008 issue.

http://www.flashquake.org/

Eclectic, lowbrow, fun.

Tea time

2008-05-06T20:56:00.002-05:00

Third issue of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal is out. Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, a poet whose work I studied with much interest, is in it.

Things I do not understand

2008-05-06T20:45:00.002-05:00

* If you happen to be one of the authors of these articles below, please contact me.

HANGBI (May 24, 2007)
Thinnai (scroll down to end of page) (September 27, 2007)
آدم بر فی ها

Bedtime stories for sulky adults -- #2

2008-02-24T21:24:00.002-06:00

The Untouchable Ursa
as told by UJ

Once upon a time, there was a fisherman who lived with his wife in the north.

Every morning the fisherman would get up, put on his thickest coat and gloves, and walk out of the door quietly so as not to wake his wife.

He always carried a fishing pole and a bucket, and sometimes a stool too, on the days that his arthritis kicked in.

The fisherman would walk west. When he reached the lake he always went to, he would cut a round hole in the ice. Then he would dip his bait and line into the small hole and wait.

There were not as many fishes as he would like.

After a morning of fishing, the fisherman would go home for a quick lunch, prepared by his wife. After lunch he would take that morning's spoils to the market in the east. There, he sold the fish he caught.

He did this every day, but

one day, a polar bear lumbered into the fisherman's view while he was daydreaming.

"ROAR! Give me all your fish!" The polar bear said.

The fisherman leaped up and gathered his pole and bucket in a panic. He ran from the lake. The bear ran after it. The fisherman ran. The bear roared.

The fisherman stopped running when he realized he had nowhere to hide within the north's wide open spaces. He stopped and turned around, panting. The bear lumbered to a stop in front of him. It was panting but slightly.

The bear repeated: "Give me all your fish!"

The fisherman tried: "But I can't give you all my fish, or I will have nothing to eat!"

The bear said: "You won't have anything to eat with if you don't give me all your fish!"

So the fisherman gave the polar bear all his fish. He went home with an empty bucket and ate the lunch his wife prepared. Afterwards he did not go to the market in the east. He slept instead.

For one week the fisherman returned to the lake in the west, where he resumed his routine. The only change was that he needed his stool almost every day of that week.

Exactly one week after the first encounter with the polar bear, the fisherman was daydreaming when the polar bear once again lumbered into view with a roar.

"Give me all your fish!" The bear growled.

"No! What will I sell if I give you all my fish?"

"You won't have anything to sell with if you don't give me all the fish! ROAR!"

And so the fisherman gave the bear all his fish. He went home with an empty bucket and ate the lunch his wife prepared. Afterwards, he put on his thick coat and gloves and walked to the market in the east. He visited the blacksmith and returned home with a black box.

He did not sleep.

The next morning, the fisherman did not put on his thick coat and gloves. He did not walk to the lake in the west. Instead, he sat just outside the front door of his house and waited.

Sure enough, just before lunchtime the polar bear lumbered into view at the fisherman's house.

"ROAR! Give me all your food!"

"No! How will I feed my wife if you take all my food?"

"You won't have a wife to feed if you don't give me all your food!"

The fisherman entered his house. The bear entered after him. The fisherman's wife was crouching behind the door, waiting for them.

The fisherman announced: "Now!" And the fisherman's wife sprung a trap right on the polar bear's left paw.

"ROAR!" The bear said.

"Haha!" The fisherman said.

"F.B.I! FREEZE!" Someone on the roof said.

The fisherman looked up. The bear looked down. A square of the roof fell in to reveal armed and uniformed men, their hair tousled violently by a hovering helicopter.

The uniformed men swarmed into the house. One of them twisted the fisherman's hands behind his back and said: "Sir, you are under arrest for attempting to kill a member of an endangered species. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

And they dragged him away to go to prison, but not before they freed the polar bear and nursed his wounds.

"ROAR!" The polar bear said after everyone had left. He lumbered around the house and ate all the food he could find. And then he lumbered over to a corner and ate the fisherman's wife.

The End

Bedtime stories for sulky adults -- #1

2008-01-22T14:06:00.001-06:00

The Mutton Messiah
as told by UJ

Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lived with his family and their sheep.

Every morning, the little boy would take his family's sheep out to a pasture to graze.

He always carried a stick so that he could chase off any foxes that tried to eat his family's sheep.

There were many foxes.

One day, a fox sneaked up to the boy's sheep while he was daydreaming.

The fox almost got one of the sheep, but the boy leapt up at the last second and chased after the fox with his stick.

The fox ran into the woods. The boy ran after it. The fox ran. The boy waved his stick.

The fox ran into a clearing in the woods. It stopped and turned around, panting. The boy stopped in front of the fox. He was also panting.

The boy held his stick up to beat the fox. The fox said: "Don't kill me. You can't kill me."

The boy asked: "Why can't I kill you? You were going to eat my sheep!"

The fox replied: "You can't kill me for wanting to eat your sheep, because you eat your sheep too. We are both murderers; we are both guilty."

The boy thought about this. He lowered his stick. Finally he said, musingly: "You know what, you are right. The sheep are innocent." The boy then raised his stick thoughtfully and killed the fox.

The boy went home. The fox went after him, dragged by its tail on the ground. The boy ruminated the whole way home, his head down, his stick dripping.

The boy entered his house. The fox entered after him. The boy's family was gathered around the dinner table, waiting for him.

The boy announced: "From now on, we are not going to eat sheep anymore, because sheep are innocent. Instead, we are going to eat foxes, because foxes are guilty murderers who prey on innocent sheep." And then he dropped the fox on the table and said: "Dinner is served."

The boy's family chewed thoughtfully on the fox.

From that day on, the little boy and his family did not eat their sheep.

Every morning, the little boy would take his family's sheep out to a pasture to graze.

He always carried a stick so that he could kill and bring home any foxes that tried to eat his family's sheep, which they kept as bait.

The End

For Mike || Part 0.2: Cover

2008-01-17T22:06:00.000-06:00

There was no cover to view the Kerouac exhibit. Free admission. I walked in and there was a long, long glass coffin, thin and long, very long, built for a giant with anorexia. Inside was the first half of the original script of On the Road; the first 60 feet of 120 feet, in fact, all rolled out and yellowed like toilet paper, or is that too gross an image, but why was it all in one piece or rather two pieces and who glued them together and who divided in two?

There were drawings. They looked crude. There was copying of Chinese characters in diaries (Kerouac was very interested in Buddhism). They were cruder.

The brochure cover has a side profile of Kerouac and the title

BEATIFIC SOUL:
JACK KEROUAC
ON THE ROAD

printed above his head, slanted. There is a slanted yellow dashed line running through the words and in front of Kerouac's face, meant to conjure up the image of a road, like such:

BEATIFIC SOUL:
JACK KEROUAC
ON THE ROAD

Except only the spines of "K" and "E" are yellow, not the whole letters. Also apparently it is New York Public Library, as the brochure cover tells me, not whatever I called it in the last post.

Turning the brochure over, there is very very small print at the bottom of the back:

On the cover:
Allen Ginsberg, photographer. Detail from: "Jack Kerouac Avenue A across from Thompkins [sic] Park 1953 New York, his handsome face looking into barroom door-This is best profile of his intelligence as I saw it Sacred, time of Subterraneans writing." Silver gelatin print, October(?) 1953.

There are more, but that is the part that got me, perhaps my favorite part of the exhibit: the fine print on the back of the brochure.

If I cannot be a Kerouac (and I cannot), then perhaps I can be Kerouac's friend and take his pictures and give them ridiculous titles. I think that would make me happy.

Edwin Land, photographer. Detail from: "Mike W. in bar, his Buddha smile disappearing like his hand disappearing into a woman's purse--This is best picture of him without his guitar, unarmed, unshielded, not in costume, time of KL jam and pudding and blueberries dressing." Digital print, November(?) 2007.

---

be·a·tif·ic /ˌbiəˈtɪfɪk/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled
–adjective
1. bestowing bliss, blessings, happiness, or the like: beatific peace.
2. blissful; saintly: a beatific smile.

[Origin: 1630–40; (< F) < LL beātificus making happy, equiv. to beāt(us) (ptp. of beāre; be- bless + -āt(us) -ate1) + -i- -i- + -ficus -fic]

—Related forms
be·a·tif·i·cal·ly, adverb

—Synonyms 2. serene, exalted, angelic, rapturous.

For Mike || Part 0.1: Introduction

2008-01-17T21:53:00.000-06:00

Dear friend--

We have not spoken for a while. Perhaps that is good, I don't know. The holding in of pee can be beautiful? I guess I never did answer that question. You assured me that it was "cute," and perhaps that is enough.

I have bacterial infection. I got it while I was in New York city. While I was in New York, I also visited the New York main library, the famous one with two lions perched in front. (My first memory of the New York library dates back to when I was a toddler; there was a Disney cartoon, an extended piece detailing the mayhem when the two library lions come to life and terrorize the city; I have retained this cartoon in conscious memory over so many years without knowing that the lions guard a library, without clue of location to tie it in, make it significant; why?)

The New York library was having a Kerouac exhibition while I was visiting. I looked around. I thought of you. I saved brochures. And now I will describe a little, type (almost the whole) brochure out, and then taint it by adding my unwanted thoughts.

It is what I do for a friend.

#1

2007-11-21T23:28:00.001-06:00

I have been accused of being a thief before, yes, a stealer of hearts. My modus operandi, if you will forgive me that lame phrase (which has its uses), is to pick up girls who have low self-esteem. They are easy to spot, eyes scampering the moment yours try to hold theirs. They smile nervously and too much when obviously undesirable men hit on them, being unable to say “Fuck off.”

The other night I was in one of those places where they place bar stools right next to normal chairs with seats and backs. I’m always ticked off by the sight of that arrangement, without reason. That night I chose to sit on a ground-level chair; a good spot where I would get a good long look when girls on the higher-up bar stools got drunk-mouthed and loose-kneed. Any other night I would have sat on a bar stool for a pale view of hills, but hey—variety is the spice of life, right?

So there I was, in the valley of the shadow of drink, when a girl plopped down next to me, feet planted on the ground. Now, I am not choosy when it comes to being a thief; I go for accumulated wealth and accrued value, not big and risky one-time heists. Sure she was plain, this girl, from her shirt and jeans to her big dull black bag. I turned my back on the bar stools anyway. I chatted her up. I asked for her name. I forgot it.

Ten minutes later she coyly said she needed to go to the bathroom. As I watched her back weave through the crowd I decided that the hint was for later gratification, not an instant invitation for a rendezvous in a semi-public bathroom.

Now, I want to stress that before that night, I had never done what I did next. It was only because money was tight, and I had promised myself to be economical. So I picked up her big dull black bag, snapped the magnetic clasps apart, and searched for a pack of condoms or a row of pills.

What I found was sorely disappointing—instead of protection of the sort I had in mind, she had protection of her panties in the form of tampons. I don’t know about you, but I don’t do bleeding girls. No way. So I left. And I’m sure it was just me, but all the tools on stools seemed to be sniggering, their faces turned away from me.

(Thanks to Mike W., brave soul, for sending in the photo.)

Edit: Yes, a little misogynistic; I was trying for a character as far away from the "real" M as possible.