Mock Assembly

Maybe not mock, we like it so much it might stay. It's inside the house but it could be an exterior wall. Six foot wall section, way too busy, but it was a photo-shoot, and we wanted to show-case some interesting pieces. We cheated, screwed the rails to the posts, the crooked sticks for the window jam, and lashed over them. We only had two hours to set it up. 49 feet of wall in the installation, could be done in 25 hours, I've allowed 32. We'll have a week to "dress the set", the final step in setting a stage show, re-do, re-position, and clean up our mess, which will be significant. Certainly could leave the wall, an extra, as it doesn't interfere with any other planned walls; clever of me that I didn't take any of the really good sticks, not wanting to use them in a mock-up, so as not to hurt their feelings. One thing we noticed, as predicted, was that certain sticks want to be used certain ways, dictating what they will do. Easy enough to build the wall and secure it in place, "the wedge and jamb" principle. The stumps make great pedestals, the two sculptural were lovely, mounted and lit. The Bull Head floats about four inches above its pedestal on a piece of rebar. A few balls. D brought a sandblasted piece to hang in the window opening, I hung the feather-dagger off a rail upper right. Looks good, looks like it might mean something, you know, if someone took the time to put it together, they must have had something in mind. Kate arrived to photo and interview right at noon and we'd been done for a hour, standing around, talking about it, retreating outdoors for a smoke. She is attractive, bright, quick and funny, very professional;she shoots and asks good questions for an hour and a half, we invite her to the opening. Shoots a lot of close-ups, grain patterns in blasted wood, my horrid hands (workman hands, bad nails) cradling the Bird On A Bolt. She got it, which was important, because it was a kind of validation of the idea, for an audience of one, admittedly, but the first other, outside, person to see what it was we thought we were doing. It looks great. Even before Kate got there, D had shot it, plugged it in to his computer, sent Glenn images, and Glenn had responded, said it looked like artifacts, and I think Grave Goods in a cave, right. It's neolithic, this is the stuff that isn't preserved because it's organic and turns to dust. Those dudes in the caves, they needed places to hang things, they had things, so they found a tree with a branch and wedged it into a corner. Then they started thinking about attachment. You knew this was coming, I telegraph myself, my every gesture is a tell: first thing you know we have tapcons, which in my universe, along with really good glues, tyvec, and performance enhancing drugs, wait, metal roofs, battery drills, fiber fucking optics, have expanded what we can do, allow us to do things we hadn't previously considered. I don't even want to smell political but I washed my Obama tee shirt, and I'm going to wear it straight through the election. Probably smell pretty bad, but I've been reading about these baseball players, they're crazy, who won't change their socks after they've gotten a hit, keep the streak going. I'm going to do my bit, smell bad for the cause. Consider your water use, consider mine. I could stand up anywhere and be better than anyone's "concerned assessment", shamelessly, you present, rearward. I really have considered some of these things, that nothing would be there, that everything would be, some combination. In the moment, this is becoming overwhelming, what we talk about becomes real. You and me, babe, you and me. Late breaking news about a squirrel, word is he went into a bar, met a parrot, they talked, the crow said nothing happened. Believe what you will.

Tom

This is fairly fluid for me, one thing
becoming another, what I think
you are, I know you're out there,
I sense you, I know you exist.
Something other than me.