twice already i’ve tried to open a new tab (flower-t) but accidently hit refresh (flower-r) and lost everything. pretty annoying but perseverence is the x of the n of life.

did my standard ablusions of going for a walk, eating lots of leafy greens, shaving with a new razor (and casually bloodletting the way one does), cutting my hair real short, writing a little bit, making a to-do list, getting out the warm clothes, and talking on the phone a little bit. now i just need to listen to music and see my friends, so hey friends, how about remembering that i exist?

the new room isn’t perfect or even halfway to OK, in fact at the present state it’s barely adequate but i’ve already started spraypainting the walls and putting tiny towns and sentinels on every available ledge. anyway who waits on perfection waits forever.

i recently downloaded the whole cremaster cycle– is anyone other than jon knapp down for this? maybe as a three day thing- #s 1 & 2, then 3, then 4 & 5 (#3 is 3 hours long). i would like to do a short presentation beforehand and no discussion afterwards. drop me a line if you’re in.

for previous pages see the category “comics“.

the new phone books came today, which is really not notable.

when cool breeze was living with his dad and they shot holes in the wall with a revolver so they could run water pipes through to the other room, they stacked phone books next to the wall to catch the bullet.

i don’t know where the idea “to knock someone out painlessly with a phone book” came from, but it’s an idea i use often, often as an offer to a griping person. on two occasions there were actual tries which were neither painless nor successful, once on ML (by me), once on me (by ML), each time during an exquisite and manic personal romantical hell. i guess they were successful in that they added a fine amount of drama and camaraderie, with an avowed “you brought this upon yourself and i’d do the same in a flash” on the part of the bookswinger. i don’t not understand people that don’t understand this, but i can’t say i exactly trust them either.

speaking of trust and casual near-obliteration, there was a party at my house a few days ago and i was certainly (as mike t says) into the night. i rarely drink, and was even against it for a while, so on the occasions when i do drink (always in celebration, always with others) it’s a sacrament. in other words, i do a good job. i was wearing my phone book shirt, which features two duck-headed people having seriously tantric sex while rainbow sprinkles rain down on them, and i realized the connection between the band and drunkenness (and other things), which is abandon. at the party i was saying some wild shit but i stuck to it, didn’t back down, and it worked. similarly, phone book was a chance for me to eschew musical rules, guidelines and safety nets i had always used, and prove (to myself alone) that i could have nothing, keep going, and it’d work out, even if (and actually, because), at times, i looked like an idiot. i’m not saying that everyone should get shitfaced every night, but i do think that periodically facing reckless abandon, in a positive, creative manner, is good for a person’s developement, which is ongoing. that night i had a dream about a 4-color comic book that i knew i would draw in the future, full of complete nonsense, but the sort of nonsense i am not, right now, able to create. the pages clicked by in a rapid-fire slideshow fashion, as if i were a ghost flying through the book while the book was shut.

in a few days jim (phone book drummer) is moving to minneapolis to go to grad school. i’m bummed for me but mostly psyched for him. he’s got a new tape coming out, with a lot of weird beats and fake rapping. to quote: “za za ra za wa za za hand / zabba labba za understand”. jim rules. PHONE BOOK!

i got the gary panter book “cola madnes” in the mail today, ordered direct from the source with birthday money. special bonus- it came with an extra comic book, and everything (the book, comic, and envelope) had extra drawings on / in it! this really made my day. the book rules obviously.

moving rapidly downhill, today at the store some kids came in and swarmed me and made off with $30, which totally sucks and made me so mad i went home. i guess that even though money is really tight right now (with the store and especially with me personally) $30 isn’t the end of the world. plus it gave me the idea to switch to summer hours, so that’s something positive.

oh, the new hours are:

• wednesday 4:30pm - 8:00pm

• thursday 4:30pm - 8:00pm
• friday 4:30pm - 8:00pm
• saturday 2:00pm - 5:00pm

got it?

oh, and i just got word that mel and carolynn are coming home tomorrow night, and marge should be back next monday!

pictured above is the jaybird in the summer swing mode of days of yore. note the shoes!

i’ve been getting too many books at once from the library, but i’m just now learning how to have it work out. too often idle time is totally wasted on the internet, and obviously i like the internet and there are gems and wonders and snapshots and shadows and butt prints still warm, but sometimes time is too much logged at the keyboard checking to see if the world is magical in a specific way yet. so now i’m cutting off and reading actual things more, and thinking about them and writing about them (sure, sure). incidentally if you want to talk about krishna, popeye, or classy freddy blassie, now’s the time, while my thoughts are undifferentiated flesh.

filming the next episode of the snow ghost community show (on which i am a guest) this monday at the store. the topic will obviously be dracula. i plan on wearing sunglasses as an indication of attitude, possibly a beard. if you have an idea for a good stunt or gimmick, now’s the time.

also, sam, work proceeds apace on the comic book (not the one i showed you).

well, i didn’t get to do anything i had hoped to do- i stayed up all night working on the planetarium and up to the exact minute before we opened on friday. as it is in all endeavors lately, 80% of the things i tried to do for it didn’t pan out. the important part is that on saturday i missed my sister elsa’s graduation from library school.

living so close to a college has desensitized me to graduation, and more than any real accomplishment, the standard “graduation” has come to signify a certain type of coming of age into a world i don’t care about, or the end of a waste of time. at best, it’s the turning of a page in a book so vast that the selection of any page to celebrate seems arbitrary. my sister going to library school is different though- she’s wanted to be a librarian for as long as i can remember and the graduation is, not the culmination of a dream, but a recognition and sanctification of a dream. i really wish i could’ve been there.

to sum up, it’s been raining and i’ve been a complete ghost- no shadow, incapable of grasping objects or saying full words. on the lighter side of things, the planetarium did get finished (to a degree), indian food is still good, and the cat at forbes st can reportedly say “hello”. elsa, i’m very proud of you.

busy as two bees even if i’ve been sleeping on the webpage[s]. yes, fuffin’, grubbin’, aw heckin’, nicklin’, dimin’, shuckin’, no noodlin’, no doodlin’; admittedly i’m not full-time destroying like i should be, and somedays i feel like i did nothing at all, but what can you expect from a universe that creates and destroys itself instant to instant?

• tomorrow matt carroll will be at the store from 5-8pm doing mad libs with people in the full guise of a 19th century british naval officer.
• today i did a mess of silkscreening (shirts and patches and finally bandanas (all for the store)) plus i went to the mall with pars, which was heavenly. not that it was great, i mean, every moment with pars is like getting a bottle rocket shot at you (great), but the time at the mall wasn’t especially super wonderful, it was just that, with the colors and lighting and architecture being so weird, and time collapsed in that weird mall way, and people looking so strange and clean, and everyone playing this weird game i can’t exactly discern, and there’s nothing to really do– it’s like a heaven as viewed by a person who for one reason or another has opted out.
• sunday i went down to providence to set up an art show at the
  stairwell gallery, which is haley’s gallery on broadway. the show was great, the theme was “creatures” and i made some new stuffed animals for it (which i showed alongside a select few of the stuffed animals i already made. many heads at the show but i have that thing where i can’t have actual conversations with people in a party setting, i can only say “hey, how’s it going?” and “what have you been up to?” over and over again. plus i was super hungry and frazzled from running late all over (and staying up really late working on the animals last-minute style), so i pretty much just stood in the corner plowing through free sushi but that’s totally OK.

• saturday working on the animals as stated (a la mode) and finally (reverse-finally)
• friday night total sweets party for JK’s birthday. dude is such a sweet tooth he just asked everyone to bring sweets to share, and i flew so high and crashed so fast and hard and with extreme prejudice that it messed me physically and emotionally up for from then until almost now. but if that’s what JK wants that’s what he gets because he’s an angel and what he says goes. my part in the potluck was a first try at “desert dogs”, which entailed frying plantains with brown sugar and putting them in grilled hot dog buns with chocolate syrup. sounds good but i burned the damn things, and i even burned the buns, which should if anything show my commitment to fucking everything up that can be up at all, or to put it another way, the simple ease with which i do everything wrong always and rep it.

oh, plus peter’s back from thailand and taking (indefinite?) time off from school, so take him out for coffee and he’ll tell you about going to a rave in a jungle. he came to worcester this weekend and totally creased my dome, wearing a lime green t-shirt with a flaccid anthropomorphic phallus on fire printed on the collarbone. you think he’s set for zig, he zags- psibs for emperor!

i just wrote up a nice big post here at the clark library, then i went internet searching for a nice picture of sun ra to include and the GD computer conked out. anyway here’s a terse UL of the important LIs:

• big up to whoever wrote “FUCK OFF” and “508 GORE HOUNDS” over the ICP neighbor’s “CLOWN” graffito on the fence outside my house (it wasn’t me).
• sun ra as a being who already holds all the music that will ever be written, whose job it is to release in an order that makes sense, and to progress the species, but the path from 1940s orchestral big band to minimoog elbow music can also be taken backwards, which is what i’m doing right now.
• i’m having an art show at the store, the opening is this friday from 5 to 8pm, with cookies and suicide soda.
• me and jon “angel” knapp are showing “space is the place” soon.

  sun ra freedom synth

  • sun ra vs john cage 7″ (mp3s) side 1, side 2 via ubuweb (which rules). the cage part is soooo slow, and it’s cool to see how bored you can really get.
  • sun ra keyboard solo on youtube