January 2012
4 posts
1 tag
Jan 26th
70 notes
Our function in the universe is unclear, while our...
Why that “happiness thing” is so difficult for all of us human beings, caught somewhere between true beasts & pure angels. A theory.
Jan 15th
21 notes
Literally holed up in a beautiful dive in North Beach yesterday evening drinking Irish Coffees & lost in a book when a former poet laureate interrupts me… ‘buy a newspaper,’ he says. (?!)
Jan 10th
15 notes
The New Year came to me on a high roof in San Francisco w/fireworks over the Embarcadero & wine euphoria & one of my favorite people suddenly singing ‘it’s the end of the world as we know it’ beside me while the explosions intensified in tempo & color. A real moment. Earlier there was a feast among friends & blind Cab Sauvignon tastings & maybe just a touch of apprehension...
Jan 5th
19 notes
December 2011
3 posts
Dec 26th
10 notes
2 tags
Washingtonia Robusta If California could only dye the fronds of its common palm tree yellow, the entire state would resemble an immense field of dandelions.
Dec 13th
9 notes
1 tag
You are walking on the moon, reader. I am under the waves of the sea. This point seems overdone, but your life is only obvious because of what it is & who you are in relation to each other. If we had been born somehow among the rings of Saturn, we wouldn’t understand the swirling violence & noise at the surface of the earth on a quiet sunny day in December.
Dec 11th
12 notes
November 2011
1 post
Nov 6th
27 notes
October 2011
2 posts
I feel, at 30, like I thought I would at 20 years… that is, almost ready to be serious. Here is unserious: Could the mild, unspeakable guilt we feel as hosts when entertaining out-of-town visitors during a spell of bad weather be in any way related to the horrible, misplaced guilt a child of divorcing parents feels? Here is serious: What if we told each other the truth from the start?...
Oct 21st
26 notes
1 tag
Oct 3rd
5 notes
September 2011
3 posts
1 tag
We’re redefining a ‘good night’ based on the last: an impromptu, beautiful concert of Bulgarian folk songs played on violin in our apartment at midnight. Thank you, Isabel.
Sep 29th
9 notes
THEMED MEMORIES (consumables) Coffee & croissants in the palm tree gardens of the Fairmont on weekends. Argentine empanadas consumed along the oil-slick Embarcadero. Barbecue afternoons on the rooftops of Telegraph Hill, drinking sunlight. Secret rooms & expensive cocktails in the speakeasy ghetto. Games of tag w/the surf at sunset, slowed by Greek food & honeyed custard.
Sep 28th
12 notes
Sep 11th
22 notes
August 2011
3 posts
Aug 18th
17 notes
1 tag
Aug 4th
20 notes
A question to ask yourself: Is it that this place has no soul or is it me?
Aug 2nd
30 notes
July 2011
4 posts
1 tag
I found a file named nonsense.doc. When I opened it & scrolled through the text, I forgot how to breathe… the document was words to song after song after song I had written in the fall, winter & spring of my first year living alone in Portland, while I should have been studying or keeping up w/family half-way across the continent. Among the lyrics, there were dozens of songs that I...
Jul 30th
45 notes
1 tag
Jul 18th
24 notes
2 tags
Jul 14th
22 notes
1 tag
Photographs from Big Sur
Early morning, I let the house dog out into the yard to distract her from the fact that I did not know where to find her food. She looked hungry. The plan worked well - though I later learned she had conned me, as our host had already fed her & gone back to sleep. I went into the yard, too, because I am easily distracted. The large old oaks were strong-armed & stunning, the orange tree...
Jul 6th
13 notes
2 tags
Jul 1st
8 notes
June 2011
5 posts
5 tags
Jun 22nd
24 notes
1 tag
“Damnit we’ll do this telephonically.”
– OVERHEARD in SF.
Jun 17th
12 notes
1 tag
Jun 16th
12 notes
2 tags
Jun 2nd
7 notes
1 tag
Day 1
My eyelids push closed, chin pointed up for a moment. I reopen my eyes to a holy white ceiling &, dropping my head, to a holy room in a holy city next to a holy sea. This process will be replayed a hundred times before the sun sets, or more truthfully before California turns away from its light. I will retrace these steps - eyes closed, up, opened, down - each time my hurried mind refuses to...
Jun 1st
17 notes
May 2011
7 posts
May 23rd
31 notes
May 23rd
7 notes
May 23rd
9 notes
2 tags
May 8th
34 notes
A NOTE TO SELVES: The most tragic, most important,...
May 6th
12 notes
5 tags
May 4th
15 notes
April 2011
6 posts
Apr 25th
24 notes
Why To Get Out Of Bed In The Morning
Money is the root of much unhappiness. Happiness, too, unfortunately. The masters say simplify, but: Love is the root of much unhappiness & happiness. Family is the root of much unhappiness & happiness. Even the pursuit of happiness is a source of much unhappiness. … so the elements themselves are clouded. The masters say nothingness is truth, but: Nothingness is not happiness,...
Apr 19th
16 notes
Wherever you are now, I am sure, is a great...
Apr 16th
28 notes
4 tags
Apr 8th
24 notes
4 tags
WatchWatch
VIDEO STUDIES | SAN FRANCISCO I carried my p&s camera around, thinking in video instead of snapshots… an experiment. Everything is sort of rough as I have no professional equipment. The song is an old demo of “I Don’t Know” by my pal Leo London.
Apr 4th
3 tags
Apr 3rd
12 notes
March 2011
7 posts
3 tags
PUNS THAT ANSWER THEMSELVES
What is a funny-looking creature you might SEA LION on the beach? Why is what like a writing desk? Are you stark RAVEN mad? Which animal cannot BEAR to stay awake through the winter? What sort of beast breathes fire while DRAGON a serpentine tail behind? Which bird still might sing all NIGHTINGALE force winds? [ ps. let the above also serve as instructions & create your own. Share. ]
Mar 30th
21 notes
4 tags
Mar 28th
28 notes
5 tags
WatchWatch
Selections from my Love Letters to Saint Francis: The Impossible Ladder The elegant plan, the simple inarticulate hope the incessant dusting, the uncovering that hovers here the unremarkable rungs of the impossible ladder
 that you think of these things at all.
 The cups that are clean, then filled, then cleaned the nowhere fear, the terror of arrival the sad spaces in front & above, the...
Mar 23rd
25 notes
3 tags
WatchWatch
Noah Kalina stopped by to help w/the housework.
Mar 18th
11 notes
Time Change
After days of feeling pathetically helpless & stupidly overwhelmed by the staggering tragedies in Japan, I tore myself away from the news (itself a sort of intangible tsunami) when I realized I’d been listening to endless, hopeless broadcasts & staring distrustingly at the bright blue bay water out the window for an unknown amount of time. The thing that shook me “awake”...
Mar 14th
21 notes
Mar 6th
43 notes
“I’m kinda training for a marathon. Well, not kinda… I am training...”
– OVERHEARD in SF. Dude on a cell outside Bob’s, smoking.
Mar 3rd
10 notes
February 2011
7 posts
1 tag
I Think I Just Annoyed Tom Waits
Could it be possible? First things first. The great San Francisco snowstorm of 2011 never happened… bastard bought a ticket, told everybody in town & then never stepped off the train. Hell, it hardly even rained. I was having a delicious sandwich in the park during “the worst” of it, & I couldn’t remember a nicer lunch. The sun was strong & the air, somewhere...
Feb 28th
19 notes
1 tag
Feb 23rd
22 notes
1 tag
Feb 18th
37 notes
1 tag
Feb 17th
9 notes
1 tag
FEVER MATH No. 8
These two phrases have an identical letter progression: A spa’s tickings troll E.D. together A spastic king strolled to get her ps. like crosswords w/out clues.
Feb 16th
16 notes