Incoming Mess

New piece on my wall, cut from a cardboard box in the trash. I'm a fool for International Symbols. I have the Dreyfuss "Symbol Sourcebook". The new piece is CORROSIVE, a diamond shape, bottom half black with white word, top half is white with two actions side by side, a test-tube pouring drops onto a sheet or slab of metal, etching a hole, with a suggestion of fumes; second is a test-tube pouring drops onto a human hand, etching a hole, ditto fumes. Excellent piece of graphic design. You really get the point. That damned dead poet, Harvey (25 years now) and I used to sit around with the book open on the floor, tripping our brains out, writing short novels using just symbols. Short on character, but the plots were sometimes intricate. I remember Harvey doing a "Not World" because there are so many NO and NOT symbols. Where we got the idea for doing an issue of the mag called "USE NO HOOKS", the sign was so cool. That issue was in a wooden packing crate with the symbol stenciled on top. Driveway adventures continue, the leaves are quite thick and hold a lot of moisture; I know the driveway well, every foot of it, but I was staying as far to the high side, the off-edge side, as I could, because the leaves were collected in the ruts, and I miss-judged a stump, bumped it with the right front bumper, not a big deal, I was going 1 MPH at the time, maybe less than that, but it was just enough, slow motion, to swing my ass around to the left, into the ruts, and wet, slippery leaves. I'm in 4-wheel drive, as a safety, back-up, fail-safe, state of mind; but I'm in neutral, with right foot tapping the brake, left foot free to use the clutch, if I need to do something. I did a nice recovery, shifted into gear, gave it a little gas, swung my front end around and gained control, regained. Called again. Here's one thing I think about Emily, reading her letters, she is so intoxicated by language. There are no bounds to what she might say. I was obsessing on her the other night. I had a dream I'm not ready to talk about yet, she was in it, she looked like a friend of mine, a real friend, a person, I mean, a real person, who is involved in another Emily project. Like one of the dancers in the Residency said today, god-damn it's a small world. Impossible task at the museum, mounting this show in the time remaining, and this is the problem precisely, with getting good at anything, because, then, the expectation is that you can do anything. Cut. Cut anything that doesn't advance the cause, cut to Emily, reading a letter she is about to send, and we all do this, another matter of course. You always reread yourself many times. That's a mouth full, and it's true; and it's true, you want to appear in the best possible light. The poems distillate the letters. Emily is all about language. Hard to photograph but not something completely unknown. You, and maybe me, join in a consanguine loop, who knows where blood crosses, I do a turn through the gallery, and it looks like a show. It is a show. This has not existed before now. I think about that for a while, get on my high horse. What we do when we install a show, what the natural world is anyway. A palate, a scheme, a sequence of notes, something other than nothing. I can handle the incoming mess, it doesn't mean I can walk on water, it just means I know where it's shallow. There's a Cajun joke in there somewhere, about ducks, and their short legs, and how they just walked across.

Tom

Everything reminds me of everything else.