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art_part
foreword
prologue
introduction
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part_2
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Sunday, January 5, 2003 09:56 p.m.
FROM KRONOS TO JOVE:
ALKA SELTZER PLEASE!
Our peoples' understanding of the universe is circumscribed by their lack of understanding of the subjectivity of their instruments and measures. Light is not bound by seconds and miles though it has some boundaries of time and space in this dimension. Thus, our people are bound by their own inventions. Perhaps, the phenomena they observe (or miss) are not.
Thursday, January 2, 2003 06:20 p.m.
If she could get back onto Rt. 191, somehow, Allison might make it into Moab by sun-up and have a room, a meal, a bath, not necessarily in that order. Then, whoa, how will she explain to Philip she wants to go to Yellowstone before meeting him? The idea of the trip was to get to Yellowstone and do dawn and dusk shots of those geysers, get some shots of the hot mud pools, and that wonderful vapor. She really wanted to go in the winter, snow for a backdrop and all that vapor. Summer was when she could get off, get away from the family. And she had good maps for Yellowstone, but the damn map for Utah didn't even have *this* road on it nor this gas station. So much for AAA; they got her to Monument Valley, why couldn't they get her from there to Yellowstone without going through Salt Lake City? She did *not* want to take Philip with her. So she'd struck out on her own, figuring the fastest journey between two points was a straight line, sort of--Rt. 163 to Rt. 70 to Rt. 191 then 191 all the way to Yellowstone. Now look at her. Lost? Too bad there wasn't someone awake at this gas station.
Allison caught a flash in her mirror. Looked like a big eagle, maybe an owl. Birds at night on the wind. That's what the desert is all about, huh? Close-up photo of a large raptor. Cool. No. What she needed were good directions to a motel room not nighttime photo shoots. Another flash this time in front of her car. Weird. She turned the car on. Searched for a radio station. Navajo talk radio. Crappy country station. BBC World Hour. She switched the radio off and put the car in gear, rolled the window down to get the breeze, hit the gas, moved out.
Thump.
Sounded like it came from the trunk. Didn't hit this bird did she? Or a flat tire? Allison put the car in park and got out to look.
Nothing there. Except a feather near the left-rear wheel. Allison picked it up and stuck it on the dashboard. Drove off.
Wednesday, January 1, 2003 09:45 a.m.
Allison put her Buick back in gear and drove over the hose next to the last island. No bell. Then she saw the coffee can on top of the middle pump, "Honor System." So far this trip had been a horror not an honor. She'd promised Philip that this would be a brief photo expedition before she met him in Salt Lake City. The rented Buick had already broken down twice: first in Page, the battery, when she'd left the headlights on and the buzzer didn't warn her; second in Shiprock, the brakes when the idiot light stayed lit mile after mile--"Simple adjustment," the mechanic said before he discovered the Buick's rotors were scored then said they needed polishing: forty-five bucks apiece. Both breakdowns forced her to stay whole days in tiny towns with nothing but dust for photo ops. Now here she was in the southeast corner of Utah and the Buick was nearly out of gas. Not her fault. She'd watched the gauge. What happened is that the last quarter of a tank seemed to rush out a hole in the engine or something because the next time she looked, Wham! Empty city. Well, Allison thought, I could knock on the office door or something.
She got out of her gas guzzling beast. Took another look at the coffee can. Hell. "Honor System." Maybe the pumbs work. Allison grabbed one of the nozzles and flipped the lever. The pump zeroed out and started humming. Cool. The smell of the gasoline died on the night breeze. Allison filled the tank with fifteen dollars worth and put a twenty in the can. No change. Got back in the car and hit the dome light. Got out her map.
Tuesday, December 31, 2002 07:07 a.m.
CLUB OF MAN
I liked that light that filters
through the fog and shines on spots
of dew, and I walked in the night
that closes where the 4th wave
is really the last wave
(where Cubans who survive
on homemade rum
imagine tippling on the Champs Elysses
where the free market will
become the marquetry
under the workers' boots)
chasing you through the dunes
past the subs
along the channel
on the jetty
then out
waves crashing around me
--no. way. to. climb. up.
You're reaching down to help me.
The rocks are cutting me up.
Twice, my feet stuck, you pull me up.
You pour Strawberry Hill on my wounds
--our Club of Man towels stained
red and brown.
Monday, December 30, 2002 01:31 p.m.
FROM JOVE TO MERCURY:
IMPORTANT!
Information has a personality, an ethos. Some have mistakenly thought that the ethos, the character of the information, is an applicable quality, a construction of the informer. However, what becomes apparent as one examines information is that the ethos rides along with the information, part of it, and is immune to any shaping that the informer might attempt. One can call the ethos the informer's style, medium, vision, or voice, but what it always is is either attractive or unattractive. This personality, this character, this ethos has much the same effect on its concomitant information as the presentation of a meal has on the meal's recipe. Not only the presentation of the meal but also the many things that accompany the meal--guests, conversation, beverage, lighting, utensils, and more--affect the success of the recipe. All of these things contribute to the ethos of the meal; perhaps, they contribute more to the meal than the recipe itself.
Monday, December 30, 2002 01:26 p.m.
When Allison arrived at Phoenix's Sky Harbor, she realized that the question of renting a car had never really been the question. The real question was what was she doing here (whatever she was doing)? Was this a good plan? Photography was one thing but meeting Philip in Salt Lake City after having told him to shove off was probably not the best move she'd ever made. The booths with t-shirts and silver didn't intimidate her nor did the large signs about high fashion shops in Scottsdale. She was thoroughly intimidated by the thought of seeing Philip again. Not a slow learner, Philip had given her the heave-ho a few times, too, but, yesterday, when she'd told him over the phone that this was it, he'd broken down like a big baby (or dope) if you like. And she'd promised to drive to Utah to meet him after her meeting at ASU.
Thursday, December 26, 2002 11:38 a.m.
When MacPhail and I used to arrive at work on Monday morning, we'd compare notes on a weekend of grading. We hadn't been grading tests; we'd been grading papers, poems, and stories. MacPhail had coined a term, "surfing," to describe how most of his students' papers hit the surface of their subjects but that was as deep as they went. If the subject were pizza, for example, a student might deal in toppings but never more than that--never dough, oven, or sauce, for instance--much less how to throw one or how to afford one or how much a delivery person might make in an evening or how dangerous it would be to be a delivery person.
Then we'd bore each other with ideas about how to get our students deeper into their material. How to help them avoid surfing whenever possible.
Wednesday, December 25, 2002 12:38 a.m.
Philip France hadn't been inside the 33rd Street jail since the last time he bailed me out. Now it was me doing the bailing and him doing the sheepish look and thank-yous. And him doing the yakfest on the way back to his office. Like he hadn't talked to a soul in thirty-six hours. Like he knew I cared.
"I didn't kill MacPhail," Philip said. "I just wrote a story about him. Why would I kill him?"
Tuesday, December 24, 2002 11:54 p.m.
A BIRD
came down the walk,
man.
Boy,
was she down,
hop,
hopping
like the one-legged sea captain
who
chases
lesbians on shore
leave,
leaving
like the beads of rain, of dew,
man.
Boy,
that bird was down,
hop,
hopping
like that captain, my captain,
rowing
rows
of lesbian lovers
through air.
Monday, December 23, 2002 01:07 p.m.
ALL MORNING
the deer lie
(on their bellies)
on our hill's terrace
and chew
--what, I don't know.
I throw bread
on the hill, sometimes.
Maybe, they've found
tortillas I've thrown,
or, rotten potatoes,
sprouted onions.
Saturday, December 21, 2002 09:03 p.m.
Allison pulled into the gas station and waited for someone to pop out of the office because the signs over both islands said, 'Full Serve.' No movement. Allison was a tall, blonde, college woman, sunburned and slim. She wore hiking shorts and a thin woolen sleeveless sweater that clung to her breasts like a spring-break wet-Tee-shirt. Her eyes were bright blue, almost grey, and they shone in the dark of the gas station. The moon was up. The stars were ON, big time. Shadows and rocks. Tall shapes against the dark and light. No lights on the road. Only the billboard--Last Chance Gas--one bulb out so that the 'Gas' part was unlit. Some lights in the station, but the bays, dark. Basketball hoop over one bay. Two Willys in the lot. Three engines near the back--torn down and spread over saw horses. Off to the right, a long shed with a tow truck beside it. No lights in back. The station, two-story with rooms on top, the bottom of the station sunk into the south side of a hill, a rock, a butte. On the office windows in old-timey script was written, "Art for Sale."
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Ishmael
Development
Waypath
Kapor
Rosenberg
Dominey
Marshall
Macleod
Gizmodo
Heh. Heh. I taste like beer. I like beer. Buy me a beer. I'm not drunk, I can drink plenty without... What was I saying? Beer. What Flavour Are You?
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