He walks by sliding his chin back and forth through the air, swimming forwards, the rest of his body trailing behind. He wears the blue uniform of an off-duty athlete proudly. His hair is slicked back impeccably, like a real Italian, or perhaps an _American Psycho_.
Trains and Bostonia
>The physical condition of the traction properties in Chicago is now at its maximum, and unquestionably is above that of any other city in the United States.
–Bion J. Arnold, Chief, Board of Supervising Engineers. _Citizens’ Bulletin_, Cincinnati. June 15, 1912.
In the old days, back in 1630, it took two days to get a shipment of frieght from Winnisimet (Chelsea) to Boston, and by ox cart at that. Today, the trip via passenger train takes 10 minutes. This may not be true.
>On a normal saturday in June, 1909,… the number of passengers compelled to ride without seats was 88,490. –Ralph E. Heilman, “The Chicago Subway Problem.” _The Journal of Political Economy_, 22:10. (1914) pp992-1005.
The first chartered transportation service on the continent was born to replace this frustrating circuitous journey through Malden, Camrbidge, Brighton and Roxbury. Of what did the Boston air smell? Surely, the stifled city breeze was not yet even a speck on the horizon… What colors were the waters of Boston harbor? The infamous Charles river?
The railroad, it means many things to this people. _Tink… Tink… Tink… I’ve been a-workin’ on the_ the metronomic slaving of sledge against iron, spike inexorably driven deeper into the virginstolen earth. Our ancestors, or perhaps the slaves they brought, or the workers they hi4red — those who built a country out of blood, sweat and tears. Good ‘ol fashioned hard work. Don’t see much of that anymore, not these days. The few who wield a hammer do so with righteous indignation, and only between catcalling a passing piece of ass.
>As if the first railroad workers _didn’t_ ogle women? If they didn’t, it was only because there were none. Whatever version you tell, it is still just that, a story. You join in with all the other bodies. Down, descend into the bowels of the city, hot stale air rushes past, floating to freedom. Further into the holes carved by sandhogs, or those huge tunnel-driller machines that chew through the bedrock pillow, it’s seismic shocks lost to those above. The ground-rodents, if there are any left, are the only ones who sense that something is wrong, something is different. They run into their burrows to hide, safe with the young — but the feeling only grows stronger– deeper, darker, louder. Instinct has failed.
I rode the T to work almost every day of almost every summer since I was 16. A quick, lonely walk down Beacon St. in Newton Center. Beacon St. in Newton Center is similar to Beacon St. in Boston by name and association only. Beacon St. leaves the quaint Victorians for the anachronism that is Newton Center proper. When we first moved here, my parents remember for me a 2 screen movie-theater, and an assortment of other stores that sold things beyond boutique jeans and mortgages. Newton Center is the new banking capital of Newton. Who knew there could be so many banks? Everyone I know goes to one of two banks. In Newton Center alone, there are _at least_ 822 separate bank branches. Sky scrapers cast morose inky shadows and blot out the daycare I remember. They have since posted floodlights above the playground, which are used only during daylight hours. The buildings are comprised of alternating shops and banks, one to a floor, a thin winding twisting monstrosity of a structure, all the way up up to the reaches of our little slice of ionosphere.
H&M Newbury St. Boston
Teenage girls, fresh from inoculations
Uggs are ugly, and are everywhere.
He blow-dries his hair, but his girlfriend has a bulbous forehead.
The asians always shop together, as do the skinny white girls with long pony-tailed hair, but the three black girls are alone.
>The grey one that she left on the bench was the last one
>I know it seems like an excuse, but you’ve never seen me like that —
he’s fat, each ass cheek requires dedicated real estate in his motor cortext. They are anti-. _Fuck conventional standards of beauty. Tattoos creep out of his Finnish heavy metal hoodie, “COBHC”. He is one of the Hate Crew, he proclaims. She has self-conspicuous dreads. Neither look especially comfortable in their own skins; their only hope for avoiding pity is dashed.
_Mommyy wears her fur when she takes me shopping, she says it keeps the dogs away._
>Come this way…
>…I’m coming!
The lymphatic system was a mystery of science until the invention of women’s retail clothing stores. Suddenly, as is often the case, the volume of lymphoma-and-related cases exploded–all were husbands forced to endure retail hell for their post-war wives.
One male sales clerk is clean, and standing too straight to be straight. He fades to the first floor like a wanderlust ancient sarcophagus, poised and stationary in his rigid dimension, arms solemnly crossed across neat t-shirted chest; he is facing off against an imaginary adversary. The Jets and the Sharks.
>This is kind of bohemian…!
An asian girl wears gold flats and jeans, but her lipstick is too pink. She looks surprised because her lips are glowing subtly.
A girl is a relief, etched from soft stone. Her face is caked in color but swarthy skin glows through. Hair shoots, out and unnatural straightened-down burned frayed, infirm and imprisoned. Her legs are darker than the leather of her Uggs and are bare despite the chilly winter afternoon.
Green stripe wags her finger, bouncing to the pretentious indie-share [sic?]. Mellow, reassured; the world is at peace. Spend your money…
>I mean, if you lost eight pounds, you wouldn’t be _emaciated_…
…without reservation.
>I see what you mean…
>I mean, weight _sucks_!
Young asian man, clean-cut-model. Places with purpose his ear-warmers –mufs behind the head. A similarly clad girl mounts the escalator behind him, descending to embrace him. She rests her muffs next to his, and they ride in warmth to the first floor — menswear.
Even the man cleaning the floor conceals his ample gut behind a tucked-in polo shirt. His feet flash with black sneakers, puma’d in yellow.
The North Face® girls swing off the escalator with ease and are carefree. Their hair is the same.
All the men wear grim-set faces–they are _not_ having fun here. Hrmph.
>Please excuse our appearance during renovation
Roxy <3 Syracuse Lax Fresh-faced Emo boy waxes his mope-over, just so-- one strand at a time. Emo boy has a lazy eye.
writing over break
French music sounds like Klezmer when they pull out the clarinet.
—
A balding jittery white man plays on his iphone, what is he drinking there is no teabag, must be coffee. He looks like a tea-drinker. An iphone and coffee on a weekday afternoon in Newton. He was raised in New York says his voice.
turns out he was waiting, a dimpled black man with a lilt.
The epic showdown
Blackberry vs. iPhone. the old vs. the new. Rotary vs. shear-tactile. the owners stroke the hard, slick plastic bodies, mouths pursed with the concentration. The newcomer has a Jawbone® on his jawbone. Maybe they are lovers. Now the money clip vs. wallet take the stage. The second man is not American by socialization, his is an exotic voice– or speech impediment (one and the same). The Islands. A voice sweet with the smile of spice, sour with the taste of slavery and diaspora. But the man’s deep dimples reveal neither.
The bald guy moves closer, puts his glasses back on his nose–the case reveals they are folding spectacles, reading glasses.
“The phone was ringing, the IM’s were coming in, emails…!”
And I was like, “And when do I get my money”. They both laugh, appreciate. Left-right, up-down, press click press click — a chorus line of Crackberries. Electronic appendages. A life em bodied in silicon, glass, glossy sex. max sweet love to the iPhone. Dance your fingers across the wet shine of the screen, caress the Cupertino curves.
The man with a Blackberry glares — jealously fondling his, spinning its wheel endlessly cyclical.
Their lovers will wonder, _is it them?_ Have they put on weight, or is there some[one] else?
They will swallow the tears of doubt, and fall asleep to the sound of the aching loins and aching heart. _Maybe I should get one of those phone-things_ they will think as the roar of sleep drowns out the pain.
He blogged his commute, which was also his job. While the suits consulted their embedded hearts and minds, he tapped away behind the shiny of his set — righteous apple. ThHe really preferred to write long-hand, the slick moleskine lay dormant in his sidebag, crying, eeling neglected, the wet ink drying along with its tears. but a moleskine would be too obvious. .The other bald man, he sneezed a while ago– his balding head is evolving–a tuft remains over his forehead.
The first bald guy is not yet his lover — they are business colleagues, they met at the cafe in newton, the man is a programmer – a consultant who works from home.
—
The T, the only subway to go by the eponymous letter, the self-fulfilled debut from Boston’s finest, MBTA.
Is it Train or Transport or Taking your soul®?
Streetcar suburbs are green and purple, the commuters run to catch their double-decker diesels, while th einner ringers walk with ease–theirs is a five minute interval during rush hour. The first line to be laid was the messy, underdog, only pseudo-underground green line.
The train was first invented by the Persians. After inventing the wheel in the 10th century B.B.C. and iron, one Hypocampus E Trainicus was tasked with piecing the two together …
when erecting the pyriamids..
First logs, logs as wheels, then logs as axels — a transition that is less than obviously easy as anyone who has spent hours engineering lego racecars can attest.
The cute french girls have nowhere to sit
The greenline is the ultimate suburban metaphor. We begin deep in the urban heartland, our
—
Draft of a Goat Manifesto
>If you’re short of trouble, take a goat.
_–Finnish saying_
The goat saunters by like a pimp in a cadillac: regal and cool as can be — until one look from a cop (me) and they’re frozen in terror — then back to bizness as uzual.
Several events over the course of human/goat-history have shaped our Goat consciousness, at least in the Judeo-Christian world.(empire?)
First, deomestication: 10,000 years ago.
Goats are not people.Q: Why do we anthropomorphize?
For the same reason dogs dogropomorphize; it is all we know. THough seeing a dog owner crawling around the floor — rope-toy in earnest mouth growling wholeheartedly, neck-snapping tug-of-war juices flowing. One begins to wonder. nor are they bricks or pieces of lead pipe. No, but are we really wrong to ascribe to them our own abstracted behavioral metaphors? If the model works, then what’s the harm? Now we can’t be kidding or deluding ourselves, creating expression where it isn’t; but neither should we needlessly ignore evidence of emotional complexity beyond that of a brick. Goats are not people, true;(or robots)
But this is dangerous territory. We have already gone this way with our dogs — and those who see their dogs as pals recoil in utter disgust at the thought of eating one of their beloveds. But do we lift the goat and sheep and cow and pig to such a place? Never. To protect our selves from self-condemnation. _You_ try watching ___Babe___ then sitting down for a nice meal of porkchops.
The life of the goat is driven by a raw spontaneity that has little human equivalent outside of childhood, senility or mental illness — and perhaps those hippie free-spirits who dance around in fields all day or drop lots of acid.
The kinetic momentum of a stampede, in the middle of the night, out on the empty step. Not a real stampede, like the kind that killed Simba’s mother. More like a shuffle-pede. One goat gets startled by a thought or a shadow or a gust of wind, and runs, headlong into another goat, who then runs in another direction. Rustling builds, then fades out as the energy dissipates. A self-reorganizing system — to the tune of their own internal “il-logic”.
The herd is ever-moving–a mile, two miles, three miles, each day. Out, then back. Again until grass turns to snow and howling other-worldy winds. Were it not for the endless blue sky resting behind, waiting to thaw the hearts of its people and the soil of its earth –the shoots of grass reawaken and the air is again filled with ambling calls.
The kids lag at the back, always, their short legs iterating walk walk ruuun MAAAA… walk walk walk ruuun MAAAA tongues slightly hanging, human-like in their maaaaah for mother.
Then, the pagan traditions which are eventually immortalized in the Bible (Sheep go to heaven, Goats go bring the plague to thy neighbor so you can return to village bizniss).
Third, medieval expounding on Biblical ideas, and the Knights Templar trials.
>The diuell..dooth most properlie and commonlie transforme himselfe into a gote.
_–R. Scott. ‘Discov. Witchr.’ v.i.89. (1584)_
Goats have had their share of rough treatment over the years. It started as far as we can know, about 10,000 years ago in the Zagros Mountains of Persia.
The goat and the sheep, two animals locked in perpetual binary harmony. Like some star system, they graze together, but in realms beyond their comprehension take paths impossibly dissimilar.
In the Bible, it was decided that Sheep and Goats were Different and goats Bad.
>Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever ‘twixt that darkness and that light.
–J. R. Lowell, The Present Crisis. St. 5.“Sheep go to heaven, Goats go to hell.”
Must’ve been those pesky pagans. Who worships sheep, anyways?
>They must no longer offer any of their sacrifices to the goat idols [a] to whom they prostitute themselves. This is to be a lasting ordinance for them and for the generations to come.
–Leviticus 17:7 (NIV) [a.] or demons
Herd or flock? A herd is a leisurely grazing through lush Biblical hills and valleys. Always following dumbly, sleeping soundly, until snatched in wolf-jaws.
The sheep blankly staring, flatulent falls, curled hair spiked with barbs for spinning and itching. Some have horns, and all follow. Their tails hang down. Some cultures dock the tails of their sheep. Others savor this, the finest piece of the sheep for eating–even if the herders must spend hours plucking maggots from oozing open slow-bite holes. Festering, crusted in shit. All fat.
Goats were given the humble and thankless duty of carrying the sinsread: bubonic plague-ridden clothes of a village into the woods.
>The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert.
–Leviticus 16:22 (NIV)
You can eat goats.“Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so I can prepare some tasty food for your father, just the way he likes it.” (Genesis 27:9, NIV) Goat meat is called _chevre_. Goat cheese is called _ooh la la_.Why does ice cream taste better in the morning? Are we really so biblically cliché? Perhaps it reminds us of the sweet sucklings at our mother’s (or father’s) teat.
I have an idiosyncratic taste for food. I call it simple, others call it picky, or naïve, or even just boring. I say it’s simple; nay, elegant. But I have done my share of experimentalizing: boiled sheep heart, lungs, liver, blood sausage, spinal chord, fish, sushi, raw beef filet, mussels, fine goat cheese and wine on fig almond cake; whatever. Just give me a slice of sharp cheddar, or pizza; a nice chocolate chip cookie, and I am content. It’s not that I don’t enjoy food – I just need less exoticism to satisfy my culinary appetite, as it were.
Goat cheese–it all tastes the same (except for aaruul, more on that later) like it smells. Pasty, thick, herbal and congealed; like cream cheese gone horribly, horribly wrong. Sour, sickly sweet tart turned sideways, always a bit past not quite there. (It’s not really that bad…)
Now chevre is another matter. Cut up some fresh slabs, throw in a bowl layered with hot rocks; ladle in some water, then cover and let simmer until ready. To seal the seam between the top and bottom bowl, lay wet rags along the crack to keep in the steam.
Pass the time by drinking airag, vodka and singing joyfully. If you are not Mongolian, try to ignore the food-poisoning paranoia-gremlin that turns every gurgle into a prophecy of impending gastrointestinal doom. And drink lots of vodka.
Cashmere is the hair of the goat. Of this fine hair, the holy tabernacle found its curtains.
“I will KILL YOU, fucking GOAT!” I calmly explain, “Then EAT YOUUU!” I kick the flank of my horse gently, and we trot over to the goats that just don’t seem to get the idea of following the herd.
>The damned goates he doth despise; Poynts out his lambs, whose sinfull dyes hee purgde with bloody streame
_–Sir W. Mure. ‘Spiritual Hymme.’ 326. (1628)_
They fan out in directions, wider than my sphere of influence, and are lost in smashing skulls or chewing grass, or staring into space, pondering their own existence.
All it took was a few days herding and now the light I see. The bible is wiser than I ever knew.As it pertains to goats.
On Anthropomorphism and More
Q: Why do we anthropomorphize?
For the same reason dogs dogropomorphize“Are you a dog?” from Milton is a Shitbag, a short film by Courtney Davis http://www.miltonisashitbag.com/; it is all we know. THough seeing a dog owner crawling around her NYC penthouse — rope toy in mouth growling wholeheartedly, neck-snapping tug-of-war juices flowing. One begins to wonder.
—
Goats have had their share of rough treatment over the years. It started as far as we can know, about 10,000 years ago in the Zagros Mountains of Persia.
In the Bible, it was decided that Sheep and Goats were Different; those of the Nineties know the refrain: “Sheep go to heaven, Goats go to hell.” So true, indeed.
Goats were given the humble and thankless duty of carrying the sins (read: bubonic plague-ridden clothes) of a village into the woods (i.e. Carrying the “sins” to the next village…).
—
Words: Fire Truck, Purple, Ger, Goat
The goat saunters by like a pimp in a cadillac — one touch look from a cop and they freeze in terror, but then they’re back to bizness as uzual.
The life of the goat is driven by a raw spontaneity that has little human equivalent outside of: childhood, senility or mental illness — and perhaps those hippie free-spirits who dance around in fields all day or drop lots of acid.
The kinetic momentum of a stampede, in the middle of the night, out on the empty step. Not a real stampede, like the kind that killed Simba’s mother. More like a shuffle-pede. One goat gets startled by a thought or a shadow or a gust of wind, and runs, headlong into another goat, who then runs in another direction. Rustling builds, then fades out as the energy dissipates. A self-reorganizing system — to the tune of their own internal “il-logic”.
—
Why does ice cream taste better in the morning? Are we really so biblically cliché? Perhaps it reminds us of the sweet sucklings at our mother’s (or father’s) teat.
I have an idiosyncratic taste for food. I call it simple, others call it picky, or naïve, or even just boring. I say it’s simple; nay, elegant. But I have done my share of experimentalizing: boiled sheep heart, lungs, liver, blood sausage, spinal chord, fish, sushi, raw beef filet, mussels, fine goat cheese and wine on fig almond cake; whatever. Just give me a slice of sharp cheddar, or pizza; a nice chocolate chip cookie, and I am content. It’s not that I don’t enjoy food – I just need less exoticism to satisfy my culinary appetite, as it were.
—
Goat cheese–it all tastes the same (except for _aaruul_, more on that later) like it smells. Pasty, thick, herbal and congealed; like cream cheese gone horribly, horribly wrong. Sour, sickly sweet tart turned sideways, always a bit past not quite there. (It’s not really _that_ bad…)
Now chevre is another matter. Cut up some fresh slabs, throw in a bowl layered with hot rocks; ladle in some water, then cover and let simmer until ready. To seal the seam between the top and bottom bowl, lay wet rags along the crack to keep in the steam.
Pass the time by drinking airag, vodka and singing joyfully. If you are not Mongolian, try to ignore the food-poisoning paranoia-gremlin that turns every gurgle into a prophecy of impending gastrointestinal doom. And drink lots of vodka.
Goats are not people; but are we really wrong to ascribe to them our own abstracted behavioral metaphors? If the model works, then what’s the harm? Now we can’t be kidding or deluding ourselves, creating expression where it isn’t; but neither should we needlessly ignore evidence of emotional complexity beyond that of a brick. Goats are not people, true; nor are they bricks or pieces of lead pipe (or robots).
But this is dangerous territory. We have already gone this way with our dogs — and those who see their dogs as pals recoil in utter disgust at the thought of eating one of their beloveds. But do we lift the goat and sheep and cow and pig to such a place? Never. To protect our selves from self-condemnation. _You_ try watching ___Babe___ then sitting down for a nice meal of porkchops.
Bondage Goat Zombie
Several events over the course of human/goat-history have shaped our Goat consciousness, at least in the Judeo-Christian world (empire?). First, deomestication: 10,000 years ago. Then, the pagan traditions which are eventually immortalized in the Bible (Sheep go to heaven, Goats go bring the plague to thy neighbor so you can return to village bizniss). Third, medieval expounding on Biblical ideas, and the Knights Templar trials.
>The diuell..dooth most properlie and commonlie transforme himselfe into a gote.
_–R. Scott. ‘Discov. Witchr.’ v.i.89. (1584)_
5. Black metal — the most tongue-in-cheek and heavy form of goat bedevilment. (See: bondage goat zombie)
—
Song of Solomon 4:1
[ Lover ] How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes behind your veil are doves. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Mount Gilead.
—
Job 39
1 “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?
2 Do you count the months till they bear?
Do you know the time they give birth?
3 They crouch down and bring forth their young;
their labor pains are ended.
—
Jeremiah 50:8
“Flee out of Babylon;
leave the land of the Babylonians,
and be like the goats that lead the flock.
—
Daniel 8:5-8
As I was thinking about this, suddenly a goat with a prominent horn between his eyes came from the west, crossing the whole earth without touching the ground. 6 He came toward the two-horned ram I had seen standing beside the canal and charged at him in great rage. He came toward the two-horned ram I had seen standing beside the canal and charged at him in great rage. I saw him attack the ram furiously, striking the ram and shattering his two horns. The ram was powerless to stand against him; the goat knocked him to the ground and trampled on him, and none could rescue the ram from his power. The goat became very great, but at the height of his power his large horn was broken off, and in its place four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven.
9-12
Out of one of them came another horn, which started small but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the Beautiful Land. It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw some of the starry host down to the earth and trampled on them. It set itself up to be as great as the Prince of the host; it took away the daily sacrifice from him, and the place of his sanctuary was brought low. Because of rebellion, the host of the saintsOr rebellion, the armies and the daily sacrifice were given over to it. It prospered in everything it did, and truth was thrown to the ground.
Turis Fatyr the Viking Goat Pirate
Words: Flight, Root Beer, Viking, Title: Turis Fatyr the Viking Goat Pirate (Turis?)
Turis the Viking Goat who sailed the seven seas — with trusty crew manning the ropes, for Nature is a cruel mistress, who saw it fit to deny Turis Fatyr the use of opposable thumbs (one day!).One more seemingly impossible obstacle to overcome, one more leap for Goat-dom.
And here he was , sailing the seven seas with trusty crew of roughshod sailors. He stood atop the poop deck, front legs planted solidly, gazing over the sea’s vast expanse. Wide open ocean as far as his goat-eyes could see, and see they could. Oh, how he longed to feel the cool waves lap against his skin — yet again, nature was cruel.
Warmups & Fragments
On my desk: Some old stains of paint and glued-ripped paper pulp. An unopened bottle of Borland’s Natural Root Beer, sweetened with pure cane sugar! A light blue lamp. A Boston Vacuum Mount Self Feeder pencil sharpener. Some papers on goat quotes (don’t ask).
I ate goat once. It was delicioius.
—
3/24. From the exercise “Fighting with the Tofu” from one of my writing books (I forget, google it). Basically, write about anything. Anything. For 10 minutes. “About how terrible a writer you are…” whatever. Then rip it up.
—
Photoblog Up: Sh00t N0thing
My spiffy new photoblog is now up and running: “Battlestations Operational”
New Footnotes
So… I’ve been using Markdown Extra, mostly as a way to get footnotes working. But the system is a bit clumsy. Not to get into details now, b/c I don’t have the patience to write it all out, but suffice it to say, I’ve moved on to a new footnote plugin that uses mediawiki-style inline footnotes. You put a < ref > tag around the note, inline, and it replaces the tag with a footnote, and puts whatever is between the tags into the note at the bottom of the post. The markdown system requires two tags, one for the “where” and one for the “what”. Which is unwieldy unless you put them all into one table at the end, but who does that?
Anyways, here’sto footnotes (todo:style the footnotes so they’re not ugly)
EDIT: Well, the notes block at the bottom is both an ordered list… and has the footnote numbers (redundant). Todo:fix that
a.footnote {
font-size: 50%;
css.append: ":";
vertical-align: super;
}
ol.footnotes li a::after { content: ".";}
ol.footnotes li { list-style: none;}
ALSO: Figured out why my blog was spitting out blank pages every time I tried to print. The stylesheet for the lightwindow.js script was set up for “screen” only. Yay stickmanlabs.