Two coffees arrived. Smile lines on the corner of big, bright white eyes. Leaning in, placing most of her weight on both elbows, her necklace scrabbling, she wanted to know everything.
Tibet via North Philadelphia
My gut tells me the signs are half art, half reminder and half hopeful introduction.
Bukowski is family
The fact that he wrote prolifically, with an uncommon blood alcohol level, begs an analysis of the benefit of a disconnection from sobriety.
Mindfulness, meditation, parking meters, poems, love notes and library books
When Center City parking meters still gulped quarters, Pierre would encourage friends and neighbors who had yet to meet to drop a quarter in an expired meter to save that friend a ticket.
Six tongues and the sugar face
Speaking six languages, his brilliance was matched by his charisma. Among a group of twenty Danish exchange students who visited my eldest son’s high school, Rune was the best.
Tequila, cops and grace
Tequila, rubbed on scabs, often results in the boys in blue showing up to make suggestions.
Feeling the machinery
He remarked of that feeling of an older woman’s soft loose skin wrapping around the bones of her hand. Knuckles evident. Tendons strung. The geometry, evidence of genetics taken and given.
The futile fury of a final letter
The arithmetic of Abraham, plagiarized from that textbook, would be a phosphorous round tracing every word spoken from the stage.
It all begins with the word
In the quiet, he said six words and left: “It all begins with the word”. Despite being an artist, my mind has always made my hands appear to be hopeless blobs. In one second, my blobs were made eunuchs, but my mind was freed.
Hate in the abstract. Love in the specific.
The singular ingredient in the media’s recipe for stoking hate is their ability to shroud their viewers’ ability to look into the eyes of a suffering human being.
Dirty hands drawing a circle
Closer to the water, the mud, sand and muck that coat the rocks begins to cover one’s hands and, with the passing of enough time, begins to dry on the skin.
A singularity built from many pieces
The choice to reveal a single feather behind the eyes of a figure begs so many questions of the artist, as does the choice to open a figure’s head like a jewelry box or a tool box.
Resurgent feelings and the Bowery's Blitzkrieg Bopper
A profound oddity, few people were truer to themselves, and you didn’t need to meet him to understand this fact. Stories abound.
Channeling my inner Iggy for the third time
Most of the world never channels one Iggy, instead preferring safety. I’d prefer safety, but that ain’t the way the Godfather of Noodling built me.
A golden eagle's echo will carry forever
Standing on San Juan Island in northern Washington state, four o’clock had just passed. The wind was swirling symphonic.
Seven crappy poems
If you write well, you know crap when you read it. If you have a sense of humor, you’ll love this crap.
Words from the white space
Words matter. And, while they do become visible when printed on a page or pixeled on a screen, those manifestations are almost as invisible as is any word that remains unspoken or unwritten.
Bursting between the beasts
I remember feeling a sense of community among the writers. Handwritten, and in some cases typewritten, the connection I felt was overwhelming. What began as a open-ended walk down Fifth Avenue became a brief glimpse into enlightenment.
Mindfulness, meditation and the Yah-Yah contraption figure
An inner monologue — sawed, glued, painted, wrapped, snipped, pierced, punched, twisted, burned, loved.
The Beastie Boys, potato salad, the number 12 and a phone call from a Buddhist monk
A second suggestion, if you aren’t up to demands of the potato salad shitstorm, is to offer a lesson in the history of Hip-Hop. In particular, stand firm on the observation that The Beastie Boys were the first true rap act.