oakland's fruitvale

overheard quote number two:

I’ve been to a catholic wedding;
The incense ruined my pantsuit.

Obrigado Dilla

there is no reason to sleep on this

union pacific

i have been feeling sluggish since sunday: slug'gish·ness

"Find me a picture of a violin"

http://www.stewartkummergallery.com/

collage number one (this one's for you officer tom hanson)

a shoe's photo shoot (shoot those are nice shoes)

Finders Keepers VII

[hived]

It has various shades from nearly white to deeply golden that are honey-lipped and dipped in evening by the simplicity of sweet wine,
Enriched with frequent light and patterns chasing stalks of clover and Hawaiian honey-creepers twisted sweet with words;

As if music's instrumental heart broke,
As if with beekeeper hands he tries to touch the perfect female,
Four wings and in a somewhat crazed bout of antiquity,
she displays the beautiful expression of honey suckle.

And her golden spots cast shadows against the glare of sunlight.

self portrait number two

self portrait

an artist's statement

here is a semi-autobiographical commentary that i created for my friend mark for his first gallery opening. the title of the show was ballast.

Ballast: A [little] gust that shifts or changes position or direction

A long time ago, say around 29 years, Mark Thomas was born. Although there were several attempts at different careers Mark eventually found his way toward painting. He began, more then predestined one can assume, as a young lad when his mother denied him of any real coloring books. It was the cleveland paper shortage of '82 and his mother, who had a penchant for the miniature, always said "The real world has no thick black outlines. You have to make your own mark, Mark."

At age 15, Mark was partially scared on his right arm while attending the Dyslexic School for Future Left-Handed Marine Biologist (DSLMB), when one of his semi-handicapped classmates mistook his arm for a Northern Snakehead Fish. If you ask the student, even after all these years and clearly past the statute of limitations within the state, he still sticks to his story. His story is that although native to Asia, there was the rumor that two similar fish were caught by anglers and being frightened when Mark was drawing big circles with chalk on the chalkboard; the student was reacting on instinct and attempted to attack the fish. After the incident, a school code of Sea Ethics was drafted with Mark sitting on the advisor board. This statement can be found on the school's website and is recited at their yearly graduation ceremony.

Following his parents' suggestion and the advice of mutual family friend, Mark began to stay landlocked. He finished high school and attended the local university with an undecided major. With a series of awkward encounters with the locals and after a cup of coffee with a man they called Bob, Mark found himself upon a brief stint at Kent State University's Architecture Program. Mark eventually spearheaded the program that landed students in the designer's shoes. Each student was assigned a group to collaborate and design a bus stop on Kent State's campus. Although this lead to a mass deconstruction of said bus stops and the loss of millions of dollars, Mark is still proud of his accomplishment; however, cannot use that achievement as a reference nor on his resume.

From there, Mark went on to the Fine Art's Program but was promptly expelled in an incident that involved graph paper, non-sauced spaghetti, a v-neck colored t-shirt, and a promise that he would return. Later it became known that Mark didn't return because he was fathering the idea that Denny's should have a semi-annual, semi-formal dance with an open bar. This came to be known as Denny's Dance Hall. After some time, Mark added the minor stipulation that during slow dances no reggaeton would be played.

Finally, after a semi-public apology, Mr. Thomas graduated from Kent State with a BFA.

Mark has been hit by an ice cream truck, been almost arrested for his t-shirt, pretended he is a gulf war veteran, had two appendixes (or appendi) removed, convinced his parents he was vegetarian, refused to drive for three years and continues to keep his recipe for hot and sour soup a secret.

ballast:

The Backwash Squeeze and Other Improbable Feats (part II)

The Backwash Squeeze and Other Improbable Feats
A book by Edward Mcpherson Part II

Edward is currently on a book “tour”
When asked about his tour, Edward thought the word “tour” was too grand

Have a listen:
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2007/08/09

Overheard quote:

I have a beef with cattle ranchers

ocean blue

The Backwash Squeeze and Other Improbable Feats

The Backwash Squeeze and Other Improbable Feats. A book by Edward Mcpherson.

The Backwash Squeeze and Other Improbable Feats, comes out tomorrow, August 7, from HarperCollins.

The book is about bridge, the card game, and the people who play it.

http://www.amazon.com/Backwash-Squeeze-Other-Improbable-Feats/dp/0061127647

An excerpt that appeared in Salon this weekend:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/08/04/backwash_squeeze/

And the book was reviewed in Saturday's Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118617994052187798.html

colorwheel

Overhead improvements prevail like subtle shifts in an evening hue,
Like finding new colors
From the colors you grew up with.

persephone

i heard falls knock on summer's door.

"i have no idea where persephone is, honestly."

defining the word by using the word part one

the palatal speech of sound against the tongue, in the direction you, repeated vocabulary. represented in the structure of semivowels,
and palatal vowels of sound change
as we connect paragraphs of conversation,
to the distinctness of individual creativity.

aeroplane

(at this exact moment) i wish i headed somewhere via aeroplane





at this moment, i wish i was headed somewhere

maybe here:

broadcast

button love while listening to tender buttons

Portland Oregon part III

finders keepers IV, V, VI

IV

I saw a silhouette from the alphabet while seeing sound collide; coinciding like centuries of art drawing senseless shapes, eating grapes, and another piece goes untitled.

V

(chanting: from lithium onwards) hydrogen created a new document

VI

a sea-dove, cold from wind and wings fastened with wax--
fly by all means was just a part of speech.

Portland Oregon part three

Portland Oregon part two: for carl--wherever you are (thank you john)

U is a great letter

alphabet soup number three

then i recommend numbers:


specifically number eight.


eight being eight as the cardinal numeral next after seven with its nouns expressed as viii.

Finders Keepers III

simplicity over compensating for color as nouns as categories of words.
used in the frequency of early conversation adjectives, attempting to qualify the density of essential.

Portland, Oregon part one

the city of roses.
78 (125 km) miles to the ocean the largest wheat export port in the united states and more asian elephants (27 to date) have been born in portland than in any other north american city. http://www.travelportland.com/

(i used the font elephant)

Humboldt County

finders keepers part II

[obscure]

i have a secret.
a vowel sound
unaccented,
illustious and humble, but mine.

adaptations melt gradually into the calm of you.
as colors fade
i will hide under language to blur the qualities of sound.

finders keepers part I

[quiet]

everyday i count a handful of calm,
a breath will not disturb our smooth glass spots of air

"this is a matter that concerns my calm"

hurry my friend, hurry,
we are without verbs of being,
remaining and maintaining ourselves.

mmmmm soup

an exclamation. louder then expected by some to attract the attention to the speaker, or to give some sort of time to (re)consider what to say; also, you may vocally express disapproval by a factitious clearing of the throat. Hence ahem.

More alphabet soup please

In the smallest of quantities in ordinary air,
susceptible only to combustion,
I found what I was looking for.

alphabet soup number two

It was night: Quiet and calm spoke the birds, laughing at nouns added to the verb of a sentence to complete the predicate. It was night that was reminded whose head is a noun or pronoun, or a hot air balloon safely off the ground. (And you whispered, “hence they are used for observing atmospheric phenomena.)

Alphabet: part one

A personal word is a verb and a noun is a word of one person with gender and case. (case: thing that befalls or happens to any one; an event, occurrence, hap, or chance.)

fiddlehead fern (via portland)

upstate new york train ride

sheep (closely allied to the goats)

"a formidable character is often met with amazement"

Love Theme From Kiss

hot air balloon 1-3

part V: theory two on the autobiography of red

part IV: one theory on the autobiography of red

hairnet paradise

its weird and beautiful and just what you need to hear right now.

Santa Cruz part three