From "Out of Sheer Rage"

graffiti by the inestimable Jim Owens

Writers always envy artists, would trade places with them in a moment if they could. The painter's life seems less ascetic, less monkish, less hunched. Instead of the austere mess of the desk there is the chaos of the studio: dirty coffee cups, paint-smudged cassette decks, drawings of the artist's girlfriend, naked, on the walls. - Geoff Dyer

Upon listening to TAGO MAGO for the 1st time

Before

After

A veritable tour-de-force of tartare sauce

I set out on the morning of the 14^th of September. The air is cool and fog hangs wispily around the treetops. 

A very good morning of a very good month, I say, for I am alive and in good health. My destination is Central State Hospital, formerly the Georgia Lunatic Asylum. I intend to observe architecture festooned in ruin, while frolicking in the pecan grove with the squirrels. My push bike, a hybrid fit for an old geezer, nearly plops into a ditch as I am cut off by a white sedan who fails to indicate they are turning and there almost goes my very good morning.

I am standing in front of the circular driveway now and the dried-up fountain between the white hospital and the pecan grove, the center of a vast quadrant of brick edifice all gone to seed.  Water-damage is visible on the façade, as are rusted screens, broken windows.

I see no faces inside the security cars that patrol. At one time, the Asylum housed 12,000 patients. Two examples:

•       22 year-old white female mentally ill for eight years; indecent and immodest, ulcerated legs and other somewhat minor complaints.
•       23 year-old female lunatic and epileptic convulsions followed disappointments in love; violent, hostile, auditory visual hallucinations. 

I wonder if an ex-lover friend would have been eligible, who in the throes of an indefatigable psychosis accused me of a death-defying frippery beyond compare.

I brandish a banana from my manbag, my purse, my murse, if you will. It is bright-cold. Wincing from its brightness, I gaze up at the sky. The sky is all white with enumerable shades of gray — at least fifty. What comes to mind is the tartare sauce that W.G. Sebald uses in The Rings of Saturn, a compelling depiction of un-great condiments, a veritable tour de force. “The tartare sauce that I had to squeeze out of a plastic sachet was turned grey by the sooty breadcrumbs”. My banana is cold as ice. Suddenly, my brain starts to turn over handsomely. It is possible, I reason, that if I were to set the banana on the yellow painted curb that I would not be able to find it. Eager to get this pertinent, yet uncaffeinated thought down on paper, I locate a pergola next to the decrepit fountain. Admiring a magnolia tree just off to the right, I haven’t gone ten feet when I run right into an enormous cobweb. A squirrel cackles at my blunderings.

Reality check

In class we were asked to represent our work in art at present with where we'd like to be. I thought I was Garfield with an aim to be Hockney.

Trying to cope with feeling dismal.

I have a host of muddling posts that I wrote this summer that I hope to share. 

Why did I just drink a big thing of gin  Near-fatal last words. I was in bed by ten, full of despair. Summer muddle. The things that used to work for me, or get me through, no longer work. Mostly what I am saying is my wonderful ability to laze about and contemplate the beauty of the world that has lately just imposed numerous grim realities upon me, which suggests that I need to modify my philosophy.

No explanation as to why I feel so goddamned great today. I’m writing with clarity and more purpose than I have in a week. Keep it up.

I am absolutely loving my life as a man

It's a book!

Plum-pud

Plum-pudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary parts of the whale’s flesh, here and there adhering to the blanket of blubber, and often participating to a considerable degree in its unctuousness. It is most refreshing, convivial, beautiful object to behold. As its name imports, it is of
an exceedingly rich, mottled tint, with a bestreaked snowy and golden ground, dotted with spots of deepest crimson and purple. It is plums of rubies, pictures of citron. Spite of reason, it is hard to keep yourself from eating it. I confess, that I once stole behind the foremast to try to eat it. It tasted something as I should conceive a royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have tasted, supposing him to have been killed the first day after the venison season, and that particular venison season contemporary with an unusually fine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne.

— Herman Melville

Secret Secret

Dad's great, called him up sitting on the porch with news, while the cat ate the grass that makes her throw up. She probably knows this and does it anyway, just like there are things that we do that we know we shouldn't, but we do them anyway. Anyway, Dad said he saw little Mike for the second time in a week at another golf course and I said dad little Mike already texted me about seeing you and I told him to stop stalking you. Meanwhile the cat was producing otherworldly squalls. Ultimately she puked next to the rhododendron bushes.

— Guess what dad? A hummingbird flew up to the hanging plant and then buzzed around to a pot plant that was resting on the rail for some nectar. Then after that...do you know that shirt I have with the dragons on it?
— I think so, he said.
— The hummingbird flew into it and tried to extract nectar from the yellow tails of the blue dragons.
— I'll be damned.
— I could feel their wings buzzing against my tumescent bicep. I was worried that their beak would stab me.
— On no they wouldn't harm you. I feel their wings on my face when I'm out near the feeder.

I later sang Fred Neil to Tim with some weeds

I told dad about my secret mission. I was going to Centralia, the Milledgeville of Washington state in that it was central. Mcmenamins refurbished a prohibition-era hotel there and I was going there on a secret mission that was secret insofar as I hadn't told anyone barring a few here and there (one contact in Australia). Mcmenamins are great with their lamps (see above). He said he wouldn't tell anyone. I said you'll tell your wife! And he said no I won't. I said you mustn't. He said she's taken Shari's twins to get physicals.

— Do you remember when I got my physical, dad?
— What?
— The doctor who wanted to check the curvature of my spine?
— What about him?
— He made me undress and walk back and forth for him in a straight line. He gave me a proctology exam and his wife had their living room in Better Homes and Gardens.
— Oh geeze.

my enhancing view 

Ba-di-da

Abby took two giant shits on the carpet when Prairie Wind arrived. I'm surprised they weren't accompanied by a disruptive yelp given the unfeasible magnitude of them. Whether this has to do with Abby having a crush on me I don't know, but Praire Wind seemed unfazed by it and showed me a photo of this cat who had laid on her shoe a long time yesterday, which got her thinking that maybe her feet exposed an unphysical feline threat into the air and Abby consequently decided to evacuate her bowels in our footpath to say hey don't. Whatever you are doing just stop. GET.OUT.

 I didn't expect Prairie Wind to leave so soon, but i said a lot of things I instantly regretted like associating drinking with biting my nails. She asked to see my nails and they really are the worst and if the state of them could be associated with drinkers it's some ugly stuff like Charles Bukowski who is terribly unattractive but very brilliant in the mind, something my hands are unable to fall back on.

Made a cheese plate that was met with a shrug. Dried fruit was on special at Safeway and in retrospect I know why. The pineapple chunks were okay, but the other container I picked up I thought was ginger slices, it was cantaloupe and a cantaloupe so sugary I nearly had an anxiety episode inside Little Axe records today looking for a present for matt Neff whose fortieth it is tomorrow. Why I chose to eat more of them after last night I do not know.

Guess the reason I am so effusive is I picked up Fred neil's first album for $7. I asked the proprietor of Little Axe how come so cheap and he said oops, deal of the century. I'm listening to it now and some albums are so strikingly poignant on an overcast summer's Friday when you don't work again until Sunday and you still feel lonely except you have Fred Neil's song and Abby's talking about you, but you can't hear a word she's saying...BA-DI-DA I texted Prairie Wind this morning. She's in town all weekend and I made a joke about how I should have made a to-go box of cantaloupe slices for her. She has yet to text me back and it's now hours later. Ba-di-da

Dark Side in the Art of No 2014

I was sitting in Tim's front room reading Bartleby and Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas, who had this to say about Herman Melville:

He was never one to go to Church, but we know that during his years as a recluse he would approach his window and watch those making their way to church, and his look is said to have contained the brief history of the Dark Side in the Art of the No

At the same time I was reading, Tim made a follow-up phone call to a concerned client of the appliance service company he works for. So while Tim said: "Hi MIndy... "I was also reading about Melville doing that. No relation apart from those two things happening at that given moment in 2014. Below is what Tim said to Mindy in full.

I got your message about your squeaker. The thing about squeaking dryers is this: they aren't terribly dangerous, but they can be...(repeating what she said) obnoxious, that's right. If you can get the serial number off the back of the door, I can drop by with some parts...,"

ever grouted?

wisht I had a photo to remember the new trade I just learnt. Goes by the name grout. my hands hurt. Mayb its grout. Can you get gout from grout? I'm watching tim's cat bathe herself. She's orange and likes her belly tickled so she can bite me. If I could feel my hand itd probably hurt. Funny she runs out of the bathroom when I shower. This happened another time at least once a day. But she never seen me naked, wouldn't care if she did. I used to care when pets see me naked, but either I or they got used to it and now it's no biggie. Remember that humanity began facing your pet with utter nakedness (derrida). I'll post a photo on another occasion of his animal, but for now here's two people who, let's face it, have a considerable claim on my well-being. Actually it's a photo of a hotel room at the hotel that I work at.

Ahem

Writing, he thought, had “always been a simple craft as far as its geometric description. Write a beginning, middle, and end, and thrill them.” — Barry Hannah

Took a raincheck on the spaghetti

Oh my gosh, my favorite professor says this, oh my gosh, william gaddis, the recognitions, oh my gosh, it's so good, he says, but seriously oh my gosh, this is me now, I am like totally fried, but what a life, huh? and such glorious weather and the secretary downstairs made me spaghetti to eat yesterday that I couldn't eat because I was a marathon of nerves running high, still I managed to inform her of this fact as I scooted out the door to present some information that I found worrisome (and why I couldn't eat) to transmit due to my lack of engagement with it, but I hoped the jokes that I had embedded in the document would mask the inherent insipidness and lack of findings. subject: spaghetti, can I save it for tomorrow?

S, can I have the spaghetti tomorrow. I am giving a presentation at two o' clock and I am really nervous about it and can't eat! I am so sorry. But tomorrow I will definitely be hungry. Many thanks, I can't wait to eat it!

S: Of course – it is in the refrigerator whenever you want it!! 

Stop stressing – that presentation is a slam dunk!

She was right too, I nailed it. Approximately 24 hours later she gives me a light bulb and I read baraka's Dutchman then dive face-first into her delicious spaghetti and i can't even breath. The meaty meat sauce is intoxicating and I do not care.

A true thinker

I have been called a lot of things before...

- out front of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta last weekend, heading towards a Rodin mold

Birds are great, love them squirrels too

Squirrel had a nut in its mouth and saw me as a threat. I was talking to it - on the approach. In tail-wagging fear (whether wagging the tail constitutes fear I don't know, they do this a lot), the thing darted up a tree and then cruised out on a branch. The squirrels here, I have noticed, love to jump and launch themselves across giant voids and this one was no different. But the branch didn't have enough strength to support it and started to droop. Still the squirrel leaped and not surprisingly it missed! Fell right on its face fifteen feet or so down. I stood there in shock. The squirrel didn't think anything of it though and didn't make a noise (acorn in its mouth). Ran up the telephone pole with the acorn in its mouth. They are a dominant creature and I sometimes see five at a time, two of which, maybe three, will be chasing each other around a tree, while I'm outside chuckling into my drink.

It was a blustery, near-dusk night, the other night, we had been getting tornado warnings, but not on this night, there was thunder I think and a dark sky and I glimpsed a gorgeous bird, brown, yellow, its coloring was superb, a yellow band on its tail shining like fresh paint. I was on campus in the writing office on the third floor, making copies with no one else in the building, which is somewhat atmospheric and I went to get a closer look. In the tree to the right was a treeful of these birds, who soon flocked to a tree along the next building, nibbling on the red fruit present in the picture below.

Then two days ago, I saw a blue jay. My first sighting. They're mean, my friend tells me and I told her I did hear a squawk as it zoomed by my office window.

Lordly Mexican and he still likes the books

I have wanted to post about this now for some time, but don't believe I was capable. See similar to an architect who doesn't design a great building until he's ready to die of old age, I feel I did not have the necessary weight of world experience behind me that I could make a statement of the kind that I am about to make with any reasonable authority. The grilled streak tacos are delicious to behold at El Tequila. We were alarmed to discover that they will no longer be doing their $1.75 margarita specials however. Still it is the place to go in Milledgeville. In other news,  Dustin and I are going to Atlanta to the High MUseum of Art today. Actually I need to arouse myself. I am already notoriously late in life, but this time I need to be ready like my life depended on it. It will be swell to get my brain charged on something that's not the books, though I still like them.

32 oz of magic

The Unconscionable 2: Athens, Georgia Booze-up

Striving towards the upward reaches of mediocrity; goddamn it bill

It's perhaps worth me considering my worth in this community. So far this semester I have contributed two worthless documents and an increasingly wild hairdo. One that is worth salvaging perhaps, the work on the other hand is not even something a dog would like to nibble on. Nevertheless I am here, striving to mediocrity. I can afford a martini once a night and wahtever. I am not an intellectual because I am too much fun. Will my brain grow larger than it is. My teacher told me to stop using notes!

Dave Graney told me to do that too, or he would look at me with bemusement, when I attended his radio show with Lady Clarkey. So I used my notes in cass this time because I didn't know what I was talking about and I needed them, but the notes were worthless they didn't say anything to me. My arrogance to teach the class William S Burroughs was inexcusable. I stared at my notes. The class was silent, jostling uncomfortably. I wish I had today back. It was one of those days I would do differently for sure and there aren't many of those days that I have much anymore except right now!

Dear Fredd Blogg

Last week I laid down next to Flannery's grave.

Today I saw a lizard that was more human in its expressiveness than a lot of the people in my writing program in Milledgeville and that's not to say that they are inexpressive (full disclosure: my first submission was eviscerated like the plague), just that this lizard was unexpectedly lifelike. That said, there's not a lot of expressiveness occurring among the writers - everyone gives off a sort of terrified countenance and that is kinda neat. I am keen to win them over.  I'd be crazy not to try. Furthermore, Flannery would have hated my story and there I am posing seductively over her grave.

OMG so there's a band called History of Apple Pie. What can I say the history of music just got a whole bunch interesting.

My teacher bought me a beer to cheer me up after workshop, but i was already drunk. The film Fried Green Tomatoes was filmed in Georgia. My friend Sarah served me them the other night.

The rap group De La Soul just made all their stuff available for free. How fresh is it? It is so fresh. I am astounded with their taste. I am identifying the dopest samples that I only recently discovered. Fried GGreen Tomatoes.