The Next Post

Writing is hard. Nobody warned me. There should have been a flyer or something; guidelines, a rough outline, some indication scratched on the cell walls. Freedom, as Kris said and Janis covered, is just another word for nothing left to lose. Glenn brought up several points, as they might relate to the script. "Sense" is over-rated, consider, for instance, the relationship, getting ahead of myself here, between water and what is green. Leaves particularly. Aspiration, transpiration; roots, and more importantly, root-hairs. Think about it. In a perfect system, nothing escapes. In your typical old follow-spot most of the light is lost, bouncing around inside the can. They improved that, later, but early on, efficiency was a wet dream. The Egyptians had learned to cast glass, I suppose because of all that sand and maybe a lightning strike, so you have a lighthouse that is essentially a big lens with a candle. Still, better than nothing, when it comes to sand-bars or shoals. The ancient mariner. Sense is concretion of data, a conglomeration. As I warm to the subject, I accrete information, Emily, for instance, or later, Pound and Olson. You could go anywhere with this, gaff-rigged sails in the sunset, or a bank of slaves, rowing against the wind. It's getting light already, which means another day, and I'm not sure I'm ready. I have to pack up two million dollars worth of paintings to ship to Wisconsin. Sense is a relative term. What you might make of it. I could discuss this further, but the next question concerned modernism and hemlines and I do have some thoughts about that. The fuck-me-shoes and short skirt so tight she could only take half-steps. An obvious fake blond, like something you would fantasize, perfect make-up, but her hair was asunder, and that drew my attention. Maybe it's just me, but I always watch the way everyone walks. She walked in those half-steps on six-inch heels. Coming out of the bank. Stopped in the parking lot and lit a cigaret. D said she looked like a blow-up sex doll, I countered that she smoked. She looked post-modern to me. D called, he forgotten his keys and needed me to come in and open the museum. My intention was to sleep for a few hours and eat a hearty breakfast, but I zip into town, meet him at Market Street Cafe and we go to work. He has a few things to design and needs to assemble the spring newsletter, I start hauling crates from the basement. My only plan, for the day, was to do what I needed to do, and get back to you. Stopped at the liquor store and library, then Kroger for a few supplies. Didn't feel like cooking, so I bought some brats and potato salad, but mostly, in the store, I was looking at people from the waist down. Hem lines and open-toed shoes. A crude survey. I adjusted the brim of my Levi-Strauss hat (the name/logo only appears on the back strap, very subtle) so that I could only see people from the waist down. Way cool. I have to be careful to not get arrested. But the results, of this single study, which in no way constitutes the basis for any conclusion. Mere observation. Merely observation probably sounds better, but using mere, there, opens things a bit, and I prefer open systems. The grader ditch, for instance, listen, I could tell some stories. Ditches have been a big part of my life. I learned to swim in one. Saw my first dead body in one, a kid up the street, when we lived in Jacksonville the first time, I didn't know him, a dead kid up the street. And I have my own grader ditch, that must be maintained, even now. Things, sometimes, it seems, follow you around. I don't think of myself as a ditch person, but I need to dig another one. Maybe my last ditch, but probably not. Once a ditch-digger. I'd always imagined I'd end my career, sweeping chevrons across the floor, I just didn't know where that would happen. Doesn't matter. My major was Mopping. I wrote a paper that's still quoted; won the highest awards, who needs another bronze mop-bucket? I knew the head janitor at the Met, we talked about movements, discussed modernism, as it was just a movement away from strict representation. Think about it. What was going on. Not so much me, as the thing itself. Whatever that was.