What sort of lamb?

It's that time of the year where I go outside wearing a sweater even if it is really too cold for that. Because I keep hoping if I act like it is Spring, I'll find out that it really is Spring. Then days like this happen. Inches of snow on the ground, my car covered, and the wet nasty stuff coming down in chunks. You and I are not friends Snow.

Fig 1 is a

{
Maybe the best thing is to immerse yourself in things you barely, if at all, have the capacity to understand.
}

loving random

Good things about this weekend:

:: Last nights poetry reading at The Beat
:: Sleeping in
:: The Ten Commandments is on tonight (I know, I'm a nerd)
:: Working on my book

with what eyes? --sappho

List of remains left in my keeping:


Jar One
Remains stationary:



He sat it on a table, empty with possibilities. When she saw it, she told someone else to take it home. She did not know how to fill it and she could hear it laughing. A series of (one big?) jar poem(s) I am working on:

List of remains left in my keeping:


Jar One
Remains stationary:



He sat it on a table, empty with possibilities. When she saw it, she told someone else to take it home. She did not know how to fill it and she could hear it laughing.



Jar Two
Stored on a chain that hangs from left wrist:



Grandfather’s eyeballs are of course contained here; the blue is not so brilliant, glazed by death and no longer shaded by lids. A scrap of purple robe our mothers stole one Christmas absorbs the moisture that tears create from time to time. The gold plated pipe creates negative spaces to keep my own eyes from hazing. His flowered davenport was a tight fit but we saved it for the power it gave him to sleep.

In reviewing the contents I’ve decided to keep his sight for myself.



Jar Three
Sits between the two front seats of my car and I rummage through it habitually:



Nothing but buttons.



Jar Four
A two part mixture given to me by my mother:



Here too, a set of eyes because she always remarked on my hawk-like vision. We made silly putty impressions while we mastered the English language with a sharp tongue.



Jars Five Through Sixteen
Marked MEMOROBILIA—BASEMENT—STORAGE, rescued from darkness though it temporarily resides in my bedroom closet:



Hundreds of eyes; brittle illuminations with acidic stained backings; tattered photo corners; cobweb writing I try so hard to decipher; the last letter she wrote, her own eyes on the future (vision so impeccably clear), or was it her mothers she later projected?

These have yet to be properly catalogued, an incomplete list.



Jar Seventeen
The smallest in the collection, gripped often in right palm like some sort of talisman:


Holds only air but weighs heavily anyway.



Jar Eighteen
A beacon similar to a jar in Tennessee (not in my possession), guarded by one of the dogs who roams Pompeii:


Here some bone fragments—unidentified—clatter against the glass and long for sunlight.

Strategic blog names

Somewhere out there, an AOL search user is very disappointed because they thought they would find the key to time travel by visiting my blog. I wish I had an answer for you.

This is not the first query.

The best poems

involve lists.

Like these two from the last Summer's issue of Jubilat

This is an excerpt from a poem called Entry Forbidden by Deborah Gulob which borrows from a manual of "Conditions for Mailing" put out by the U.S. Postal Service. One of my favorite lists was for Italy.

Italy
Artificial flowers.
Bells.
Bonnets.
Chloroform.
Hair.
Leeches.
Ribbons for typewriters.

I can't think of a more beautiful list. I suppose Italy has enough bells of its own.

Kate Hall's poem, Dream In Which I am Allowed 12 Items reminds me childhood lists and games in which we tried to bend the rules, but so much better...

like an overloaded purse let me keep
the tools I have saved
needle-nosed pliers, severed
bird wing, cat-gut sutures let them be
tools let tools count as one thing

This weekend is a good time for some list-making of my own.

This is Spring.

In the North, we drive with our windows down as soon as it gets close to 40°.

frame by frame

I stumbled upon this video and fell in love. It is so simple, but the music pairs so well with the images and there is something about hand drawn animations that I really love. It reminded me of a video I saw at the Venice Bienalle last summer by Francis Alys. He filled a room full of the individual cells from the animation. The video is not the best quality, but it gives you an idea.



The juxtaposition of the lyric with the different postures of shoe shining is brilliant. In person, the subtleties of the animations were great. You can see in the gallery that each drawing is rather detailed. It's done on a translucent paper so it smudges easily, but to nice effect. A very feel good piece.





Images from Design Boom

I wish I could post my own photos from the Bieanale here, but my camera was long out of service by that point.

sketches from my roma moleskine

Since Italy has been on my mind lately, I thought I'd share some sketches I made there last summer. If you want a closer look, you can view them on my flickr set: paper bits.colors.collages

text in dialogue

A new show is up at The Beat coffee house today. I watched the artist, Annette Hartman, install and took a closer look. Many of the pieces are text oriented and very graphic, though sensitive and lovely. I enjoy her use of color and that each piece has something attractive and unique about it, while still dialogging with the others around it.

Much of the photos seem to focus on text in pre-existing environments, while other examples seem to be extracted from unknown sources. The justaposition works well, and the installation of each piece from a wire hanging at different levels on the wall creates an interesting conversation.

You can view more at annettehartman.com

dogs of pompeii find comfort in historic shade

blurred memory
the dust settled at my feet

eruption—thought—burial—
no regret welcoming
postured for adoration
filed away
with numbers
huddled in a cage

outside we thought some fossil
just a dog molar

Tuesday has become my favourite day of the week this winter. Given my internship and current non-employment, I have a long weekend (Friday night through all of Tuesday). Friday and Saturday are usually spent vegging and sleeping, and often not reading because that is what I do all of Wed, Thurs, and Fri. Sunday and Monday are spent doing any number of odd things, often still indulging in the weekend-ness of it. By Tuesday though, I am usually ready to read and write and think and fully immerse myself in those things (not that this does not happen on other days, but lately Tuesday has seemed more conducive to it).

After a week-long (short) stint with me in Minneapolis, Ian returned to Florida yesterday. Although a little lonely, this Tuesday has been especially kind to me, with little niceties such as:

:: Almost 50° weather today! It is sunny and a little wet, but the air is so light and refreshing, and so welcome after such a long spell of cold weather--it makes everything seem more attainable.

:: Good coffee. I just finished a perfect mocha at a local coffee shop here. The sunlight sneaks its way in and the music seems to bounce around the room and I find myself wishing I had remembered my sketchbook so I could transcribe the patterns left on my glass from the foam. Somewhere between crocheted lace and spiderwebs.

:: This video, via Black*Eiffel's blog:



:: A stack of manuscripts, photocopied poems, and library books to peruse

:: A whole day to soak it all in

I hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday too!