Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Gunnre's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
11:16 am	Ummmm. Do I HAVE to start a cult now? Last night I dreamt God touched me. And yes, if you were wondering, God is a woman who apparently makes visits to light industrial warehouses. And also yes, upon contact I did enter a delirious state of powerful feeling, before losing consciousness. It is always weird to lose consciousness in a dream. Or actually, it is ALWAYS weird to lose consciousness. When I swam back into wakefulness onlookers were gathered nearby and they were frightened by my collapse. She was standing over me, And lo, she spake unto me, and her voice was not without reproach "I have not touched you in the past, for you hath kept yourself hidden from me" Current Mood: Not Unholy (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 8th, 2007
11:55 am	Who wants to eat a Human Salad? It was not so much a question as a declarative, doubtless, exclamation. Hair strands lay in place of shaved carrots, sometimes whole locks gelled into crispy asian noodle stand-ins. Loops of small intestine made a nice simulcrum of pasta dressed in vinagrette. Wedges of organs, various joints, sprigs of connective tissue were all arranged with a freshness and cool, delectableness. And yet, As the lovely plates scrolled by in illustration, I felt myself agreeing with dream, -certainly no one would want to eat a human salad. (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 26th, 2006
9:19 pm	practice to relinquish the exotic I miss you like the wooly mammoth. Miss you like the saber tooth tiger and the last wild horse on the russian steppe. Why are all the cool animals gone or living so very far away? Sorry I've been out of touch lately. Not much is going on but I thought I'd write anyways because it's been a while and if you wait long enough, anything can become interesting.... So I was down to my last dollar and applying to be a paid subject in a series of sleep deprivation experiments at Rush Medical Center when someone actually hired me on a (supposedly, let's hope) permanent basis. I'm working for a company that trains high ranking marketing executives to garner more of the collective consciousness for Hormel Chile or Master Card or whatever they're pushing. I rationalize it this way... how do I know what they are working on, maybe they are conquering more territory in the collective consciousness for Proust. Maybe someone has decided it would be good for everyone to just start thinking about Proust every now and then. I think that it is weird and funny that the marketing companies are always the ones that respond to my resume and cover letter. Authenticity is pretty much the Holy Grail in marketing, and as such, marketers are attracted to people who hate marketing. What they don't know is that authenticity no longer exists, having been utterly appropriated by the NEW new-age industry which spends a lot of peoples time and money in training them to be authentic. It really is too bad because I feel like I can't even use the word authentic anymore since it doesn't mean the same thing it used to, and now just strikes me as cheesy and embarrassing. Too bad, such a nice, unique sounding word too. The opening schwa melts directly into a flirty soft 'th' before grinding to a full dental stop -and then unexpectedly falling waaay back to the glottal. there just aren't a lot of words like that. I'm just doing some admin type stuff for them but there are alot of perks as enumerated below 1. I live 10 blocks away. It takes me 22 minutes to walk to work. or 6 minutes on the bus. 2. There are only 3 other people who work there. one is on her way out for maternity leave and the other two are out of the office on travel 95% of the time. 3. they are paying me enough to skim on by 4. I don't have to be there generally until 10 am. 5. I work between 20-25 hours a week. as it should be. keep the days off in the majority. I am so glad I didn't have to resort to selling myself for scientific experimentation. I really hope the job works out. My big fear is that when E gets back from Maternity leave they will let me go. Just finished an ink drawing class. it was ok. mostly what made it fun was that I was inexplicably sweet on my teacher. These days it seems all it takes is for someone to be marginally nice to me and somewhere around my age. I almost asked him out on a date after the last class but seemed to be able to hear him screaming inside his head "PLEASE DON'T ASK ME OUT, GOD DON'T DO IT" So i decided to take that as a sign to let it go. Besides, who wants to date some snotty artist who speaks in too long phrases which he always ends with "riiighhht...". very annoying. I did like his sweaters though. Nice but worn in. Also, I think he is German. He claims to be from Colorado but I am pretty sure that is jsut a cover story. I'm nearly certain he is a German agent of some sort, it's all there in that infuriating "riiighhhhttt...". Tomorrow I start a new painting class, sans fake Colorado-ans. Yesterday evening I ended up, at the end of the night, in a stranger's kitchen populated entirely by strangers and so fucking high I couldn't believe I had only just smoked a little. The last time I remember indulging at all involved climbing on the roof at a party in the mission and smoking up with some dude and getting so high that I wasn't at all convinced I would make it back down the ladder and later that evening my friend and I turned into 14 year old girls at Cala foods. it was like that but worse. How is it possible that I ever used to take liquid acid and extacy at the same time? Now, the thing is, being high in a strangers kitchen is not what is remarkable about this evening. What is remarkable is that I went to a bar alone to watch some NCAA basketball when I was forcibly adopted into a small drinking party of strangers who then took me to another bar, where a small drinking party of different strangers took it upon themselves to liberate me from their rivals and take me home and get really stoned. And I was like, yeah. ok. as if I go out by myself all the time and am commonly found to be so charming that flocks descend regularly to bare me off to valhalla for 1 evening friendships. riiiighhhhtt. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 20th, 2006
7:51 pm	was thinking today.... "just what do you have to say for YOURself?" it was "60% water and uncertain of the disposition and reality of my soul." (Comment on this)
Saturday, February 11th, 2006
3:36 pm	River West I live in River West. That is what they call my neighborhood. The Express Way is just east of me and I think of it as the river. When I cross the overpass at night the headlights stream out from downtown and it is one of two, maybe three, best views of the city from the north. There are many other great views from the west and the south; from the caverns of industry, and peculiar urban bald spots. Because a view is as much comprised by the character of the vantage point, as by what occupies the distance. To look at the city from places where no one looks for much, from around the other side, down a ridge of machinery and low-long running brick encasements, is to encounter a sensual priveledge. I don't understand the perverse thrill, I just like it. The questions are inevitable. Is this why men like to fuck from behind? (Comment on this)
2:31 pm	Feed the radiator There are times when the very force of my hunger clamps down over my midsection all at once in a cruel compressing vice. There are times when the hunger grows incrementally, unnoticed, until my hands wake into alarmed action: grabbing, opening, slicing, slathering. whatever it takes to surmount the monstrous accrual that had gathered over a period of distraction. Then there are the other times. The keen of my hunger rises into my ears, pouring its mournful need back inside, an auto-cannabilistic attempt to nourish through any sympathetic cavity. That sound is eery. The one you hear and feel roughly simultaneously, and confusedly source back both sensoral species to a shared origin. "such a hungry hungry creature"... as your attention, until that moment unaccounted for, gropes for a corporeal anchor with one arm and begins reaching out with another towards a mental menu treating of the contents of cupboard, shelf and fridgeration. And then the sound comes again. And then you realize how far gone you are. This, because you are unable to differentiate your very own self, and needs attendant thereof, from the radiator. You have become so still, your consciousness so far diffuse, dilute and diasporal, you are, in essence, unable to pick yourself out from the room. Aha. So I am not hungry. Current Mood: not unhungry? (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 15th, 2005
12:21 pm	Just some stuff I don't think my apartment has a fire alarm. I was making some microwave popcorn last night and never got a chance to sample the fruits of my labor. I'm not exactly sure how, but the bag ignited, and became a popcorn smoke bomb. At one point I had to take to the floor to fill up with usable oxygen before getting on task. I wiped most of the soot out of the microwave. I opened all my windows, of which there are many, and still the place reeks of dissapointed snacking. It is pretty foul. My ceilings are nearly 12 feet tall, Thank god there is no smoke alarm. I related this incident to a friend via telephone last night. She didn't suggest, but actually INVOKED that I should just be sure to follow the directions. There was something that transpired there in the space of that single remark, and it made me visualize her head, the angle of it just so, as a big mitt like version of my hand shoved it into a wall. I can't explain why her fairly benign response so pricked me. Sometimes, and granted it is usually following a period of prolonged isolation, I feel like friendship is a big bouncy balloon that you had best keep intact because the agency of its tautness is noxious spoiled breath. Thinking about different projects. Mostly thinking. Hmmmm. suppose I should be working. but thinking is so much more gratifying in the immediate present. HOw long can I think about projects before they eat eachother in an effort to gain primacy? We shall see. This could go on a while. I invite you to place your money on a contender: 1. continue paintings Of Blind residents from Friedman Place. Rejoice in knowledge that they will never know how poorly I rendered them. Ask residents to create soundtrack to accompany their portrait? 2. Begin construction of lamp scenes utilizing locks of hair. decide what the fuck this is about. Do these diorama depict a story line? are they a companion piece to something else? Are they a depiction of the salem witch trials? Visual aid to be used in some upcoming arguments to be heard by the Supreme Court? are they your imaginings of what it would look like if a fifth grade class was assigned to interpret some wholly innappropriate material (uhhh, like the bible... or Milton's Paradise Lost... or Phenomenology of Spirit... or Agammemnon...or Gravity's Rainbow) in Diorama form? 3. children's book choice A. Jonah the dinosaur beleives their used to be a time when back hoes and bull dozers and diggers and dumptrucks and steam rollers really did roam the earth. Everyone tells him there's no such thing and makes fun of his preoccupation with baby stuff like that. One day Jonah is out by the Old Pit where he makes an amazing discovery, an entire herd of fossilized Constructors! Will anyone beleive him? they will when he introduces Zeek, who, it turns out, is no fossil at all. 4. Children's book Choice B. Jacob is through with having nightmares. He is tired all day from trying not to fall asleep at night. At bedtime He fights with his parents until they make him cry. Everytime. It is time to make a stand. He decides to contact the Committee on Bad Dream Distribution and demands they back down. If that doesn't work, he will make a darktime expedition, in the guise of Jacob JackalBack the Warbler, and make his case to the High Council of Nightmares himself. 5. The Journal of Speculative Science. Oft misunderstood, Resol Latot is a little known pioneer in the field of Speculative Science. Early in his career his peers and critics wrote off his research labeling his area of study as Quotidian Science. Having toiled in near obscurity for decades, he has finally agreed to publish his findings for the rest of the scientific community. The first issue of Speculative Science will present definitive guidelines, (arrived at through extensive field work, experimentation, and research) that outline When it is biologicaly acceptable to devour our own young. 6. ????? Comic style story painted on a long strip of canvas that must be unrolled to be read. ??? what the hell is the story about? Van, a contentedly unreflective man, becomes something else entirely as he begins to question the context of his existence following his girlfriend's fixation with psychic fairs. A pigeon keeper, who spends his days being spied upon by a sickly adolescent, becomes the subject of a series of past life regression therapy sessions. 7. a conventional version of above comic for self-publishing. 8. something heretofore unknown, but that will spring from my head fully formed and waggle a little seductive dance murmuring "yes, I am the one you want" ...any moment now.... I do not have enough junk. I need junk in my life. I need material that collects in the corners and drawers and beneath furniture. I just need it to be there so that I have something to fall back on. Now that I have so little junk, it has become precious. That is no good. I need to feel there is no end to my supply of random artifacts. I need to feel only unconcern, not the pre-panic of imminent loss as I contemplate embedding all my marbles into a set of curtains. I need assortments, a supply of glue and tape and nails and string. I need to restock. the thing about a good stock, how you know you have a good stock, is that you cannot recall having acquired any of it. It has accumulated in the quiet spells of its own volition. In deference to this truth I have begun to save everything. This is leading to a very mediocre amassment of junk. One must never discard the discriminating eye, even, perhapse especially, in the pursuit of junk. Otherwise you risk hoarding garbage. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 8th, 2005
8:44 am	Ctrl-F to the Nth I woke this morning still thinking about the comic book that I thought I lost. I mean I was down to wondering if I was going to have to drop 20 bucks or whatever to replace it. It wouldn't be the first time, beause I keep losing the thing to well intentioned lendings. Then, and this is a little hazy, I remember opening some neglected box or roughly fingering my way through a stack of neglected papers and notebooks, and there he was - V's cherubic smile. I remember feeling an enormous sense of well being, that all was as it should be and all souls accounted for. I've had a little bite of that feeling each time I remembered that, indeed the volume had been spotted, was in my possession. Until last night. When I decided to settle down with it for a late night re-read. Great, Where the fuck is it? Where was I, for that matter, when the re-discovery occured? Maybe I wasn't at home, maybe I was at my folk's and I need to go claim another box from their basement? Maybe I had hallucinated the re-aquisition? So, I awoke this morning thinking about that book, how I would possibly discover it's whereabouts, or determine whether I had actually ever seen it here at all, in my new apartment. And then I relaxed cuZ I realized I could just do a ctrl-F on the sucker and at least determine whether or not it's here in my place. So glad to have that settled, to have a plan that makes sense. right. yawn. ... makes sense. naturally. keyboard commands work in 3 dimensions. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 30th, 2005
7:28 pm	Gunnre takes a shower with the champions On friday I was one of hundreds of thousands lining the street, seeking further evidence that we inhabited a world from which there would be no bitter waking. The White Sox rode astride double decker buses, wending through Bridgeport, Pilsen and finally along the impossibly crowded valley of cheering fans on LaSalle street in the heart of the loop. I stood on Clark and Wacker, right up against the barricades. The Buses turned onto Wacker from LaSalle, coming to rest within arms reach. Tadahito Iguchi wore a World Champion sweat shirt against the winds of autumn. He appeared grandfatherly, screaming unintelligible encouragements at us, while waving a champaign bottle over his head. Freddy Garcia wore white cargo jeans, his pockets easily accomadating a fifth of rum. His right hand rested easily on the bottle, as if grown practiced at the art of the draw over the course of this celebratory morning. He taunted the crowd with a White Sox cap, making as if to hurl it into the crowd several times before finally letting it go. It hardly arced at all, perhaps caught in a baseball crazed swirl of weather. "Hey, Freddy" I called up "you'd better rest that arm a little, man." Tadahito was still swinging the bottle of champaign and the crowd's cheers mounted with each circuit it made around his head. Tadahito gave another unintellible cry (I should say he was only unintelligible to the non-japanese speakers in the crowd.) and as he began working the bottle everyone's arms went into the air as one. Tadahito and Garcia took turns spraying champaign onto the gape-grinned crowd. I felt the mist of the championship on my skin and can still smell a bit of it in my hoody. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 26th, 2005
10:07 pm	Sox Win! suffering friends. Ice saves lives. A's cast off Jermain Dye gets the MVP? I watched the last game of the world series with my parents and brother and a sundry collection of inexplicably uninterested friends. It was kind of better once said friends had all vacatated my childhood home by the top of the eighth inning. We Hoyts mumbled our confused goodbyes while awaiting satiation, so long in coming. OK, what the fuck is wrong with these people. It's been 88 years since a chicago win, this is god-damned historic, (right now, an hour and a half later, at this moment as I type, I can hear a not so distant volley of fireworks detonated in celebration)this is BIG, this is "well honey, I was by my father's side on the day the White Sox won the last World Series", This is storifying. Some people have no innate sense of history. they just have no internal alert system to identify important events. Now they will have to make something up when their children ask. I will be on hand to break it to them, in a dark closet just vacated by their off-putting uncle, that infact mommy and/or daddy was waiting on the el platform, or huddled in a cab, as Uribe plunged head first and two rows deep into Astro's fans to come up with a crucial out in the bottom of the ninth inning. Moments after (We'll call him) Dave (ok, that IS his actual name) arrived at the Hoyt household, he confided that he wasn't really rooting for the Sox, he felt the scales had been unfairly tipped in the ALCS series with calls going for the South Siders. I calmly brought to "said friend"'s attention the home run that never happened in game three of the world series for the Astros. apparently an increase in score that shouldn't have been tabulated, did not overcome a couple of questionable batting calls at homeplate. I buried my torso in the cooler while fishing out "said friend"'s next beer, muttering "cat food" in order to cover my opinion of his stance. I calmly advised him not to reveal his true feelings in earshot of my father as I popped open his precious NewCastle. WhatTheFuck is wrong with these people? It occured to me this afternoon, a couple times, that the Sox were going to win it all tonight. It occured to me after each instance of revelation, that my father might not survive the ultimate win. The man has been so embittered by a lifetime of Sox baseball, for so long, that I feared a sudden infusion of sweetness might utterly unravel his patchwork consititution. Fortunately, in the eighth inning, following Dye's soon to be winning RBI single, all he needed was a homespun application of ice to his elbow. despite his off-handed reference to a case of tennis elbo (the man hasn't so much as swung a racket in 3 years) I knew this to be a life stabilizing action, and marveled at the cold miracle of life secured by the red, draggled, sash of his terri cloth robe. (Comment on this)
Friday, September 30th, 2005
9:21 am	I have seen the future, and it is underwater. Dreams Continued... Opening sequence: Underwater shot, through the greenish underwater light an indistinct object comes into view, suspended. Moving in closer the viewer is able to distinguish a figure, and closer still, a male, longish hair billowing out from listless, back tilted head... An ocean made corpse on it's final ascension perhaps? Suddenly the head snaps upright revealing open, focused eyes. The healthy young man executes an easy underwater twist away from the viewer and we peer over his shoulder to see a vast metropolitan area laid out in the distance. The lights gleaming purely through the water in a grid reminiscent of a night-time airplane's view. It is several thousand years in the future. Human kind has vacated the land in favor of undersea dwellings. It seems that somehow the race was able to develope waterlungs and all members took to the ocean floors*. There is a vague knowledge that humans used to walk the earth but these histories fade into stories, and then fables, and finally legends told with dismissive half smiles, in parallel to the species loss of its ability to air breathe altogether. Now it seems the ability to air-breathe has spontaneously re-emerged. Not everyone knows. Infact, hardly anyone knows. At the same time there have begun to be occurences of Mass Dreaming. More to come... *it is not clear how this happened. Whether it was driven by internal genetic necessity, tickled into existence by genetic-enviro scientists, or wholey artificialy manufactured by any number of circumstances including: a program of postapocalyptic recovery, a resource driven population redistribution or simple gaity at what had become possible. (Comment on this)
Monday, September 26th, 2005
1:51 pm	has everyone else seen this but me... go to google and enter "failure" and hit the "I'm feeling Lucky" button (Comment on this)
10:37 am	Dreams continued... and you know, come to think of it, it is sort of like a cricket. There are some things that shouldn't be blithely plucked from ones own unconscious and dropped into the collective consciousness. After an internal panel review this item just made it into Live Journal, which, upon reflection, is really only a small local eddy in the greater Soup anyways. and anyways, I'm coming to think that the closer you can get to the line between worthwhile and gratuitous the better. Particular if you are able to land indescernably close to the line and require multiple reviews in slow motion and it's still ambiguous. But this is getting discursive, so: In the midst of routine genital reconstructive surgery. I balk at my specialist's strategem of implanting a live cricket to serve as a clitorous. The doctor reacts with good natured surprise and bemusement that I should be disturbed by so unremarkable a procedure. (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 25th, 2005
8:42 pm	Now that I have accomplished a total denuding of technical knowledge from my brain... I think I want to buy a couple domain names. Anyone know if it matters where you register a domain? I figure the cheaper the better but why does it cost 30some dollars a year at network solutions and only 8 or so somewhere else? Anyone know an even cheaper alternative? I suppose it is kind of lame to not have posted an entry in, shit I don't know, has it been a year? And then post a boring call for advice on something that I mercifully no longer make a living at. Apologies. (The kicker here is that I used to be editorial lead on the Network Solutions account back in the day.) On the other hand, perhaps you will see this post as evidence of a nascent scheme. Mysterious. Pending Intrigue. Hope everyone is well. I'll be making a visit to the Bay the weekend of October 8th for a wedding celebration. Note that first round baseball playoffs will be in full swing. This means I will have to make a concerted effort not to spend the entire time I am not required to attend wedding activities snugly burrowed into a cushy bar stool facing a wall mounted television. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 12th, 2005
6:13 pm	It LIveS OK, after months of experimentation, sleeples nights spent in the laboratory that sleepless nights just naturally turn into, I think I have finally done it. I had to salvage chunks of tissue from already malformed, more than slightly retarded siblings. Some bits couldn't be harvessted from my clone farm and had to be animated straight from clay. sleepless nights I tell you. Without further ado, allow me to introduce: Cellita the Perfect Cover Letter. I've only taken her out - run her through the paces- once, and I've yet to get the diagnostics back. So you might ask..., why the optimism, what makes Cellita different from all those other little freak abominations? OH THE DOUBT THE DOUBT, just now it crept in, I was so sure... agony. breath 234 breath 234 breath. ok. The thing is, this time, I actually believe just about everything there is in there. It is about the closest aproximation to sincere correspondence as I can muster and yet it still functions as a cover letter. Miraculouse! here she is, my lovely girl Dear Benevolent Hiring Person, I have recently moved back to Chicago after a long west coast experiment. I am now seeking work as a content developer with an e-learning outfit. I can’t wait to explore new topics, invade their most treacherous areas, capture complex ideas and provide the world at large with means to enslave them. The tragedy is, my only foray into distance learning proved largely unsuccessful: health class, back row, sophomore year of high school. On the other hand my varied work history has taught me that the same basic qualities are crucial to success in any environment. As adept with numbers as words, I am also amenable to moving furniture. My versatility has served me in meetings with VP’s of large corporations and in warehouses with no heat. Most important though, I’ve come to understand that people are at their best when in the act of acquiring knowledge. I want to be part of an organization built on what its staff has come to know, where success means inducing the acquisition of knowledge in others. Previous employers have profited from my clarity of thought, knack for problem solving, affability, and love for transforming information into knowledge. At DeBasement I used these tools to make my colleagues’ jobs easier. While working as an Editorial Lead at Ass Cheeves I developed content specific, question-answer interfaces for Byzantine corporate sites in order to simplify my clients’ customers’ experience. Since returning home to Chicago I have been painting my parents’ fence, organizing my father’s computer files and transferring my brother’s business transactions into QuickBooks. Making my family member’s lives a bit easier feels a lot better than it pays. It’s also kind of boring. More recently I have been helping residents of The Kagan Home for the Blind relocate to a new facility. I suspect Noggin Labs has its pick of qualified, engaging, smart people. So reading this far has earned my gratitude; thank you for your time and consideration. If for some reason there is a dearth of qualified candidates, consider contacting me in their stead. I might persuade you that summarizing thousands of pages of angry dialogue for lawyers, followed by carefully crafting sequences of search results, has been the perfect feed for Grade A content producer. If I am not a good match for you right now, I hope you will keep my resume on file or, better yet, call me up for an informational interview. In closing, I am not proud and will happily discuss any opportunity at Noggin Labs including an internship. Sincerely, Gunnre (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 14th, 2005
6:40 pm	The Perpetual Candidate And the winner for most "at ease putting" opening line of an interview, spoken by the jobbed to the jobless... "you aren't qualified for this position at all, we just wanted to meet you because you're funny" and so the search continues. Or so they think. They don't know this now, but I am going to get this job. They are going to hire me for their hubris. While they have their meetings with the other 21 potentials lined up over the next two weeks, I will be hitting the library and I will be in my studio. I will be studying, and crafting, and finally sending over a neat little package wherein they will find my handiwork. I will write an entertaining and informative overview of important sculptural work from antiquity to the present. I will include a materials box containing an array of sample materials, with descriptions of how each is used to create forms. I will develope a key explaining how the inherent characteristics of a material predetermins their uses. I will create charts meant to predict the weight of an object given its size and make-up. Fuck all those School of the Art Institute grads, all of those Museum Studies afficianados, all the Art History majors, all the Exhibits Specialists, all the wanna-be curators, all the genuine article actual artists- because I made them laugh. I did, and they sat and talked with me for an hour and a half; and they made confessions and tried to get me to make my own. I made them laugh, but I'll never tell them who has my heart, north or south cubs or sox. They'll have to give me health insurance before I do that. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2005
12:52 pm	Horrific, or truly horrific, - malapropisms of the unconscious I dream. I dream a lot. I sleep a lot. you would too if you had so many dreams. Also the heat in my cubicle of a room comes rushing down on my head and keeps me sedated. I escaped from a house and from what I think were 3 intruders, though I only saw the two with my own eyes. To look at them you might not take them for pleasure-murderers. they may seem like they would have a fun time camping, or playing a rough version of beer fueled tag in the park. And you may be right, maybe they do. they also walk into houses, without even a moment of apprehension, and kill whoever is inside. they take no pains over inhabitants with a developed sense of mortality. Cut, cut cut. done. just long enough for the victim to recognize their predicament, not long enough to say a prayer. It is the young, the senile and the slow-minded they take care for. the ones who beleive in bargains. The ones who beleive rewards exist independent from contractual mechanism. An old man will never make a deal with the devil, or at least not his first. Anyways, this particular house was in Oklahoma and just a few hours shy of celebrating a birthday. I had always found the parents of the birthday girl annoying and grating; but on this day I felt the affection one feels for figments of childhood that have ripened into harmlessness. There would be icecream cake. I don't recall by what stroke of luck I wasn't seen, I guess the tie goes to the dreamer, but it was clear from the first knife stroke there would be no bargaining. I left quietly, never for a moment considering if I should intervene on other unlucky occupants' behalves. Once outside I stopped traffic, and there was a lot for a residential street. Infact it was such a tangle of cars my progress was hopelessly slowed as I crept back around the bend to spy out the address for 911. If those 3 kniffers caught so much as a glimpse of me from out the window, they would know me, and I would be dead. As I clambered over the front bumper of an old purple station wagon I heard the broadcast issuing from the driver side window. Somehow the radio was reporting on events, simultaneous with events, as they unfolded from within that house. The children were being forced to play a game of ducets wherein the winner is promised a great reward. (escape, what greater reward, escape, and they all felt certain and safe because they would win, each of them, and be given the reward of escape) Alas, the report continued, the children did not appreciate the great malice and facinorousness they had fallen in with, for in fact, the reward was to be "repeated ritual ablution TO the spine." I woke and replayed the violent dream, especially the promised strangeness in that last wavering report "ritual ablution OF the spine". Yes, I vascilate between prepositions. my recollection is not perfect and I admitt this with regards to "of" and "to". I struggle in the half wake of consciousness to commit the phrase to memory, both versions. The voice on the radio sounds grainy with repetition. I fall back into sleep where I meet a nice young man wearing a red t-shirt, he is (i realize now, right in this instant as I write) Laoation. I know this because he is the boy from a painting I have seen in the Terra museum, but in my dream he is an adult. He has come to my house in his professional capacity as a tatoo remover. His is in a very specialized niche. He is one of only a handful of people versed in the art of removing tatoos from walls. We smoke a couple cigarettes. He teaches me to pronounce his name. We talk about his time at harvard and his work on Nagle. (I do not know who Nagle is, is there a prominent Nagle who warrants study?) I express my doubt as to the existence of wall tattoos until he shows me. They can only be seen from a precise angle. they appear in gloss or matte, as contrast to their host. They mean things, but I am not sure what. they mean things but I am not sure what. I do not know what a game of ducets would be, but a ducat is a coin or sometimes an admission ticket. A ritual ablution of the spine would be a repeated washing of the spine as part of religious rite. I can imagine this might be fairly uncomfortable depending on how often it was done, or wether the spine were exposed. I have a feeling though, my dream may have meant to say "Repeated ritual ABLATION to the spine" that is to say the repeated surgical excisement, a piece by piece ritual amputation, of the spine. My own vocabulary is a mine-field of malapropes, and I guess the dream doesn't fall far from the me. It is weird that my dream's vocabulary of malaprops is so damn big though. I guess that's what happens when you dream a lot. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 4th, 2005
8:12 pm	"The Key Maker" in the collective consciousness the keymaker has acceded to a distinct coordinate within the collective conscience; his little box-shop occupying an intersection of knowledge at arcane and practical. His physical manifestation crosses right in front of frail and continues clear on to utilitarian. The position of the key-seeker is far more vague. to be continued... (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 13th, 2004
5:07 pm	On not grasping it. the soul of a city. more? Over the past week I have been indulging in the glut of cultural offerings brought to town by the Chicago Humanities Festival. Of the daily programs I have arranged for myself, Today's has been the most satisfying. First stop was the Newberry Library. I had wanted to see Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist, but his event was sold out. He was appearing with his wife, a famous british actress whose name and figure are utterly unknown to me. I only know of her because she is always mentioned in any press or account or review I see pertaining to Dawkins. I imagine that she played one of the girls on Dr. Who but the only girl I remember from that show was the one who wore overalls with bob-length hair. That said, I should cop that the only Dr. I remember is the wild haired one with the scarf. Anyways, from the manner in which this wife is always brought up, -the tone of it, a sort of cheese-cake ogle reluctantly refined to overexcited-respect by the proximity of science and academia,- suggests that if she appeared on Doctor Who at all, it wouldn't have been in the guise of an inexperienced tom-boy. OK, so instead of resolving the mystery of dawkin's famous, though to me unknown, spouse I saw a panel on the Encyclopedia of Chicago. it seems like it is in vogue (so if you don't know listen up cuz the style might not last long)right now to infuse cities with a concentrated identity of itself so that citizens know where they live and understand the import of their living there. Behold the resulting Meta-City laid over the existing hard surfaced metropols. do the citizens know the city, or is it the shadow of an idea of a city that they learn in its place? Examples: 1. That plexi-installation on fillmore and geary. Blue. Is it a memorial to culture, a memorial to the city that used to live there? a ghost. JaZZ, BLUES, new blood sleeping in shifts, a sense of poverty and poetry. I suspect that poverty isn't so poetic when you're right there in it. Can someone who is older than me tell me if there EVER was a time when poverty was dignified? Did well dressed folks ever stop in the street with a suck-in of breath remarking knowingly to one another "my, My" and tipp their satin hats and shake their heads. shake their heads with hallowed respect at the bearing of the impoverished, bearing poverty with dignified carriage. 2. Declaring a city-wide book. Beginning in 2001 chicago declared To Kill a Mocking bird to be the first selection. This inaugural volume was followed, spring and fall, twice a year by successive choices. I do not think chicago was the first city to take up this practice. I do not think it is a bad practice. I feel proud to live in a city that does this and feel it is my civic duty, as a newly returned chicagoan, to prove my fidelity by reading all seven previouse books. I am certain everyone else has. Just because you are absent doesn't mean you don't have to do your homework. 3. The encyclopedia of Chicago. I beleive there was, first, the trend setting Encyclopedia of Cleveland. This was followed by the Encyclopedia of New York. Recently I heard a radio program about the almanac of Danville. Danville is a little town in the eastern (north, south? Most chicagoans would consider any locale outside the chicago metropolitan area as southern illinois. There is a Northern Illinois university located beyond these boundaries. I do not know if chicagoans are allowed to attend.) part of the state. The almanac is a compilation of local wisdom. Where do Almanacs fall, In the hierarchy of reference books? And encyclopedias...? Exactly. The panel of speakers at the Newberry Library was comprised of the three chief editors on the project. they spoke, in turn, about how they decided what would go in the book,their determination that the information as a whole could be synthesized as an interpretation, the mechinizations behind how the book was to be organized, the rules they used to define ethnicities. An audience member asked how chicago's project differed from other city encyclopedias. The chair of the panel explained that they decided not to include biographies of living people. In explanation he pointed to the NY entry for Woody Allen which ends with the sentence "At the time of publication Mr. Allen is involved WITH a custody dispute." when the chief editor went on to remark that the NY edition has no index, the room unsettled itself, and a murmur rushed through the audience from whisper to voluble gasp. Still to come - - an encyclopedia of Naomi's 2005 -- William Gibson, locative computing, nostalgia and tokyo -- Kim stanley Robinson is not a woman but speaks eloquently on Modernism, time, Narrative Vs. (what?... dramatic action... dialogue...showing not telling?) and he also talks about Olaf Stapleton when no one else is, excepting Virginia Wolf. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 10th, 2004
9:46 pm	hectic times in the life of a layabout, and... INTRODUCING JJdub: a natural born Zen beat boxer for an unemployed loafer I am exhausted. Monday - woke at 3am to catch plane at sfo (1am chi time) managed to get to bed by midnight the previouse night in SF and the following night in Chicago. Got up early tuesday to make it to my brothers new condo and let the contractor in. Planned on running home from brothers in fancy new warm reflecto running tights. stepped on pumpkin mid stride and sprained ankle. Also ripped up brand new tights on maiden voyage. That should teach me about gear. I know gear is evil and I have been riteously punished. spent tuesday afternoon elevating and icing ankle while also vacuuming and setting table and generally tidying for Mom's bridge party. extracted sympathy $20 from parents for cab ride with bum ankle to see Peter Greenaway deliver his very smart but, for me, mostly opaque thoughts on cinema. took public transit home so as to pocket other half of sympathy $20. received phone call at 11pm that my sister in law is in the hospital with slowly emerging baby. received update at 3 am that baby has fully emerged. hobbled to bed. woke at 8 wednesday to catch train to hospital. got on wrong train. wondered if i shouldn't just go to sleep instead. deliberated. got on right train. used other half of sympathy 20 for lunch. looked at new nephew, played with not as new nephew. insisted new one be formaly known as Jacob JackelBack the Warbler. Took train back to chicago to see Neil Gaiman talk to some other SciFi writer whose name I do not remember. Found myself nodding off with wandering thoughts of venge and menace-ful pumpkins. found myself nodding off with rude wandering thoughts of a certain segment of d&d adventuring-costumer girls and their preoccupation with displaying what is, in their highly rarified niche, sexual alure. felt bad. tried to listen in earnest to neil gaiman who, I learn, now shares a birthday with the eerily quiet Jacob JackelBack the Warbler. Wondered if I am so weak a geek that I must ply myself with derisive thoughts about other more readily identifiable geeks. Kept hearing the flick noise of an unnerved old woman abraiding her great grandsons cheek with a thumb-sprung index finger, whilst her anxious demands of "why won't you speak, speak little one" are met only with the peculiar, low, gruntled sounds of thick bubbling stew and, yes, windchimes. (Comment on this)