First things first. Oranges.
Roll ‘em. The thunder of oranges coming to a big gulp container near you. Good, and good for you…
I won’t even make the pun from “Orange You Glad, etc,” or not all of it anyway. When we were kids in Tulsa, thirsty kids, we went to the Orange Julius and slammed OJ until burpage. Man, was it good!
Especially after a popcorn-and Duds-consuming movie. Orange Julius since 1920 (even predates me!) and still in biz today! This was what summer Saturdays were made for, OJ with sugar and egg whites (to smooth out the acidic citrus taste and make it, oh so, palatable) and, later, vacant lot baseball until dusk and fireflies.
This article about “Feel the Peel” (thanks again Moss & Fog!) was the reminder for all that, but how fascinating this would have been back then or any time. I’d go now just to be in the action. I can taste it.
Come to KC, Feel The Peel, and your 1,400 oranges! (Link)
The gentlest graffiti
Robert Janz (they call him the disappearing artist) paints with water. So what if he paints on buildings? The “graffiti” are gone in a matter of seconds.
Robert Janz, h20-ist…
Gentle souls make gentle marks, quick beauty, catch it while you can. He works in typography a lot and if you follow him, follow closely and bring a camera. Talent vs. time is his calling card and he moves on. Here today, gone today. But well-worth seeing. (Link)
The 4-minute Vimeo seems to stress the fact that all art is impermanent, something the art world is loathe to admit, but there it is. Someday, the Mona Lisa may be dust, or worse, stolen and trashed somewhere; Van Goghs, Basquiats and Caravaggios will be available only in books, if the visuals even survive. That’s apocalypse, especially to Sotheby and those billionaire collectors. Janz takes impermanence to a fare-thee-well. Hi art. Bye art. Now you see it. Don’t blink.
Books I’m reading or have read
Ok, here are four. 1. Dan Brown’s Secret of Secrets (Link) was…exhausting. Propulsive, yes, something dire happened every other page. Historically interesting, yes, the guy out-researches any author in the business. Writes a heck of a book too. The pages were a bit thin, hard to separate; but that was a money decision of Penguin Random House. I was glad to finish this tech-on-steroids tome, mostly located in Prague, but see why it’s #1.
Its epigraph is striking. And telling. (The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries. Nikola Tesla) Hmm.
2. Oklahoma Tough, My Father, King of the Tulsa Bootlegggers (Link) by Ron Padgett, a contemporary of mine while growing up in Tulsa. I tricked myself into this one. I once read something by Padgett Powell, not Ron Padgett, that I liked a lot, and in looking it up, could only remember the name Padgett. This book struck a chord, as my family had a regular bootlegger in dry 40’s Tulsa, who drove a Cadillac Yellow Cab, and dropped off name brand hooch once a week, like the milkman delivered dairy products. Well, while a rousing tale it didn’t give me my anticipated Padgett Powell fix, because Ron Padgett. You might dig it.
3. Jim Harrison, Songs of Unreason (Link) I was glad to find a book I’d not read by one of my favorite authors and it’s a delight; contrapuntal short and longer poems placed untitled short, left page, longer and titled, right page. It’s a beautiful sequence and pure Harrison. My favorite book of the four. Many re-reads anticipated.
4. Billy Collins, Ballistics (Link) Up to his old tricks of unexpected nuance but all new approaches to it. Zingers and bullseyes, he fires from the hip and forms ever tighter patterns of meaning. I enjoyed it immensely. I will return, as I do to all his books.
Unabashedly stolen from The New Yorker’s “Zadie Smith, How to write an essay.” The best explanation this word burglar has ever seen.
“An English teacher took me (Zadie’s words) aside and drew a rectangle on a piece of paper, placed a shooting arrow on each corner of the rectangle, plus one halfway along the horizontal top line, and a final arrow, in the same position, down below.”
“Six points,” this teacher said. “Going clockwise, first arrow is the introduction, last arrow is the conclusion. Got that?” I got that. He continued,
“Second arrow is you basically developing whatever you said in the intro. Third arrow is you either developing the point further or playing devil’s advocate. Fourth arrow, you’re starting to see the finish line, so start winding down, start summarizing. Fifth arrow, you’re one step closer to finished, so repeat the earlier stuff but with variations. Sixth arrow, you’re on the home straight: you’ve reached the conclusion. Bob’s your uncle. That’s really all there is to it.”
I had the sense I was being let into this overworked teacher’s inner sanctum, that he had drawn this little six-arrowed rectangle himself, upon his own exam papers, long ago. “Oh, and remember to put the title of the essay in that box. That’ll keep you focussed.”
And a message song
For all of us who have let the oompa loompas and the flying monkeys of politics into the doorway of our minds; sweep ‘em out. Because, hey, it’s all right, despite their worst efforts. Like the song says, lend a hand, hydrate, don’t be ashamed of the car you drive, and you’ve still got something to say. Well, maybe I said hydrate; it gets rid of toxins. Plenty of those going around. Link to music video, The Traveling Wilburys’ To The End of the Line. Uplifting in a time of need.
This is a static visual—clicking on it won’t do anything. Click on the link in the text. There ya go, now you’re connecting…
Well, that’s about it for this Sept/Oct batch. There’s a piece I wrote that was picked up by Hooghly Review a few days ago—here’s a link if interested. And a feast for the eyeballs, a sculpture I wish I’d done, here’s that link. But I think that’s all quite enough. You’ve got stuff to do and so do I. As usual, thank you so much for dropping by and looking in.
Remember the song, and take it easy on yourself. It’ll confound the wing-nuts who want you all stirred up. Be good to yourself and a few others. XXXXOOOO G-man