"On Wednesday afternoon, helicopters begin lifting evacuees from shelters to a designated stretch of I-10, where dozens of school buses wait to take people west toward Houston. National Guard military trucks packed with people barrel out of town toward the makeshift transport hub, but tens of thousands of people remain stranded in downtown New Orleans, without any idea of where to go, or how to get there.

Rescue efforts did not begin in earnest until late Wednesday afternoon, although the worst of the storm passed mid-morning on Monday. Initially, Coast Guard helicopters transported a few stranded flood victims to storm shelters around the city, while camera crews beamed the images of rooftop rescues. Mayor Ray Nagin had warned before the storm that shelters would be places of "last resort," and in stifling heat that reached 95 degrees, with no running water or electricity, they became chaotic scenes of desperation.

We talk to a few of the thousands of people for whom no shelter was provided. Tourists have been some of the unlucky ones. "We were kicked out of our hotel several days ago; we were thrown out onto the street with no food or supplies or anything," says Betty Ellanson, a 60-ish woman from Sumter County, Ga. "We're on our own. We've been told that by law enforcement and the National Guard." Ellanson is camping out, sleeping on a cement pedestrian bridge that runs between the convention center and the Riverwalk shopping mall with a makeshift clan of 50 other tourists, who had been expelled from the same hotel for "liability reasons." They have been scavenging the streets for food and water, hoarding peanuts and soft drinks among their Samsonites.

Lacking any reliable source of information about how to proceed, residents from the flooded eastern parts of the city and stranded visitors wander westward in a state of desperation. People shout at cars, pleading for rides to anywhere, and ask each other where they're headed. Several thousand residents forced from their homes line Convention Center Avenue, where rumor has it evacuations were set to begin. National Guard personnel say they had no immediate plans to begin evacuations from that location.

While chatting with some of the National Guardsmen, another guardsman approaches and informs us that a woman is in the middle of a stroke around the corner. The guardsmen shrug. There is no emergency medical tent in the downtown area, and many people in need of medicine have no way of getting what they need, even inside the shelters. On our way into the French Quarter, a wild-eyed man flags down our car, begging us for insulin or information about where some can be found. We cannot help him.

In contrast, some residents of the French Quarter appear comfortable, well-fed and relaxed. About 150 New Orleans police officers have commandeered the Royal Omni Hotel, part of the international luxury chain of Omni hotels that is housed in an elegant 19th century building, complete with crystal chandeliers and a rooftop pool. "All of the officers that are here, I can tell you in a classical sense, are gladiators," says Capt. Kevin Anderson, commander of the Eighth District of the NOPD (French Quarter). "To be able to put your family's concerns aside to protect the citizens of New Orleans, it's just an awesome job," he says.

Across the street from the Royal Omni at the Eighth District police department, several police officers keep a wary eye on the street with shotguns at the ready, while some fellow officers grill sausage links over charcoal barbecues. They are under strict orders not to communicate with the media. Capt. Anderson does confirm, however, that locations where officers were housed came under gunfire on Tuesday night. No officers were injured. "It is a very dangerous situation that we're in," Anderson says.

Apart from rescue operations, the police department patrols for looters, who have ransacked stores in virtually every part of the city. Looters are visible on every street corner. Every kind of business, from rundown corner markets to the Gucci storefront on South Peters Street, has been looted.

We walk half a block down Royal Street from the Eighth District headquarters and come upon Brennan's Restaurant, one of New Orleans' most venerable dining institutions. The Brennans are a high-profile family of restaurateurs and run several of the highest-end eateries in town. Jimmy Brennan and a crew of his relatives are holing up in the restaurant along with the chef, Lazone Randolph. They are sleeping on air mattresses, drinking Cheval Blanc, and feasting on the restaurant's reserves of haute Creole food.

The atmosphere in the French Quarter, while relatively quiet, is decidedly tense, but Brennan isn't worried. "We're not too concerned. The police let us go over to the Royal Omni, to take a shower, freshen up, and we cooked them some prime rib. We take care of them, they take care of us," says Randolph. Two Brennan emissaries whisk past, bearing multilayer chocolate cakes, headed toward the precinct. "This has been working out real well for us," says Jimmy Brennan.

Contrary to many reports, the French Quarter remains undamaged by flooding. The streets are dry and damage to the 18th and 19th century buildings appears to be minimal. Heavily pierced French Quarter denizens are emerging slowly, almost groggily, and some are looking to evacuate. One woman, wearing a black lace slip and fanning herself with a souvenir fan from a production of "Les Miserables," makes her way toward the Superdome, carrying no luggage.

"The Quarter always survives!" declares Finnis, the owner of Alex Patout's restaurant on St. Louis Street, who declined to give his last name. Standing in front of his restaurant, he sips champagne with several friends, insisting that his restaurant's gradually warming walk-in fridges will provide them with sustenance for up to a month.

Indeed, food doesn't seem to concern those who intend to stay through the rebuilding process. Back Uptown, Jerrell and her sons will avail themselves of the local A&P, which has long since had its doors broken off. It will be a long time before it reopens, and until then its shelves will be a lifeline for many.

While the water appears to have ceased rising since Tuesday night, the French Quarter is hemmed in by water on three sides. Four blocks away from the Eighth District headquarters and Brennan's restaurant lie mile-long stretches of the stinking floodwaters of Lake Pontchartrain.

Back on Canal Street, no one seems to be going anywhere. Despite the city having shut off the water supply in an attempt to force evacuation, many New Orleans citizens don't seem intent upon leaving. Others, who wish to leave, are in the dark as to how. With authorities saying that services may not be restored for one to two months, the question of what will become of these thousands of New Orleanians remains the most unresolved issue in Katrina's aftermath.

As the afternoon begins to wane, we hasten to leave the downtown area. Nighttime is pitch-black in New Orleans now, and martial law has not succeeded in quelling the sense that total anarchy is just a few more hot days away. "

salon.com


- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writers

Kathryn Jezer-Morton and Gray Miles are freelance journalists based in New Orleans.

shacks, mississippi 

Bryant Park and the back of the NYC Public Library the other night. Went to see Jaws on the big screen as bats fuffed overhead and ate cold mickey dees with lite beer with the rest of my office. best line in the movie is "Wanna get drunk and fool around?"

hustle and flo, dirty ho 

I can't believe how this thing in the gulf of mex keeps getting worse and worse. You guys who usually check in on me here, could you post up some answers to this for me?

If your city disappeared tomorrow, what would you miss?

I'd miss the fragile, casual, snotty NY irreverence we've tried so hard to hold on to since 2001 (Year of our collective wake-up call)

I'd miss Lupe's and Elora's and Tea Leaf coffeehouse in the Slope

I'd miss Brooklyn sidewalk sales

I'd miss the park (Prospect. Central, too, I guess.), especially the lake and the drum circles, watching little kids boogie down in the dust and big fat ladies shaking their mega-groove-thangs, and everyone's having a good time. Sometimes I wonder what a suicide bomber would think of such a scene. Would he take out his stabber and start striking down infidels, or would he tap his foot and look at the okayness and think that maybe this wasn't the Great Satan or whatever nonsense they're on about if all these folks can eat bbq chicken and dance like fools on summer weekend afternoons without setting anyone on fire or crying over tiny corpses or whatever terrorists like to watch for fun and personal growth? Ugh. HATE.

I'd miss the NY Public Library - all the branches, even the ratty ones, because you walk in and it smells so safe and filled with all possibilities. Whether you need ideas for new window treatments or you want to read Aristotle, you can find real answers. And movies.

I'd miss (hell, I do miss) the rastas in Washington Square.

I'd miss belonging here, at least

To me, the main thing is that there's a certain joie that you can maintain, as long as a certain amount of what you love is saved. After 9/11 we all wondered, I think, what would become of this old, dirty bitchy old queen of a city, but we just gathered up our size-fourteen Fredericks of Hollywood heels and our LouisV knockoff from Chinatown and we fixed our powder and hiked up the falsies and ignored the terror level colorwheel and kept on keeping on. We were able to do that because there was enough left. Enough untainted ground, enough space, enough will to fight, enough anger and bloody-minded capitalistic will to power-walk. This is what frightens me about New Orleans. How bad can you beat a grinning old bawd before she can't sing or smile or dance anymore? If you manage to put her back together with steel pins and send her to a halfway house and get her a job at Walmart washing the lino, then what?

New Orleans and Baton Rouge constitute the largest shipping port in the country. Before too long, someone's going to find a way to put the big pieces back together, but who will be in charge? Will the restaurants reopen? Will the Preservation House? Will there be music coming from every doorway? Will they remember to drape the trees with years'-worth of Mardi Gras beads? Will they keep in mind that even though it's a nuisance and a disgrace, that drunken fools on Bourbon Street ought to be able to carry a giant takeaway cup of Rum Hurricane? Who will have the heart to stress that New Orleans was once called 'the safety valve of the South'? Will coporate streamlining and disaster relief and the cost of a barrel of oil leave room for the moldy old history and the million-calorie dinner at a four-star restaurant where you can walk out of the dining room in your best evening gear with a plastic cup of sixteen dollar brandy, and just go strolling down the street?

swamp 

Mississippee, Natchez 

Lake Pontchartrain, courtesy NASA

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/pontchartrain_143_amo_11feb05_250m.jpg

add these to the list:

Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge

Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge

7612 Oak St. New Orleans, LA 70118

(504) 861-2802

Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge opens at 9 P.M. daily (nightly?) and stays open until sometime near sunrise.
Snake's is a friendly neighborhood bar until things really start to swing around 2 or 3 A.M., when just about anything can happen.
So, if you are looking for mellow, come early. If not, stay late.
Super groovy Snake and Jake's sunglasses available for purchase if you stay a little longer than you expected...
Oh, yeah, and... abandon hope all ye who enter here...


Cooter Brown's Tavern
& Oyster Bar

Cooter Brown's Tavern
& Oyster Bar
509 S. Carrollton Ave.
New Orleans, LA
phone: 504-866-9104
Welcome to Cooter Brown's zany and slightly demented "Obeertuary and Barsoleum." OK, the tour begins: Over on one wall we see big John Wayne with a 10-gallon hat and a Lone Star beer. Ah, the
cowboy motif. There's Richard Nixon with a Tsing Tao, obviously because of his China diplomacy. Then there's Judy Garland drinking a Hexen Brau, which translates as "Witch's Brew," conjuring images of "The Wizard of Oz." Mickey Mantle in his Yankees uniform has a Michelob, as he and the beer are both commonly known as "Mick." A wonderful Alfred Hitchcock with a bird on his shoulder is downing a bottle of Rogue's Dead Guy Ale, and not far away, the unmistakable top-hatted W.C. Fields with his bulbous nose, and a bottle of Pennsylvania-brewed Rolling Rock in his possession. ("All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia.")

Cooter Brown's features 400 different kinds of beer, 350 of which are imports and 42 of which are on draft. Nationwide, these kinds of bars are very trendy, but Larry B., as most people call him because of obvious pronunciation difficulties, started his imported beer gig 19 years ago, long before it was popular. "You gotta have a gimmick," the native of the Bronx, N.Y., said. "You just don't open a bar and make money."

For years, locals and tourists who ventured into this Uptown beer-taster's oasis frequently made the comment after seeing the enormousness of the stock: "I'm in heaven." So Larry B. and his artist simply took the comment to heart and created some heavenly residents...

the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas' Gulf of Mexico exhibit

Audubon Aquarium of the Americas
Canal Street at the River
#1 Canal Street
New Orleans, Louisiana 70130
Phone Number:
800-774-7394
"You’ll be glad you’re on the outside looking in when you visit the Aquarium’s 400,000-gallon Gulf of Mexico exhibit featuring a replica of an offshore oil rig. Residents of the exhibit include endangered sea turtles, stingrays, the largest tarpon in captivity, and 10-foot-long sharks."

Jazz Funeral

oh, goddamnit. they had better sort this shit out. all the servers for new orleans sites are down. how odd.

please help? donations:
http://www.redcross.org

Blind Idiot God 

Clem Cats 

cry, the beloved country
i've been to new orleans four times in my life. each time i go, i come away with a sense of alternate reality, as if there's a version of me that's been there for years. back when i was making decisions about what college to attend, i narrowly missed landing at tulane university, courtesy of a last-minute deal with my parents and a slightly heftier scholarship from nyu's gallatin school, where i ended up. i have a feeling that a vanessa in new orleans at seventeen might have ended up staying there, and things would have gone very differently for me.

all speculation aside, i've always been in love with the place... with the attendant music, past and present ("house of the rising sun," the be good tanyas' "lakes of ponchartrain," and even "bloodletting" by concrete blonde") and the historical mystique and the marvelous food and the horrifying, carnal primality of the flesh-hot air and the swamp and the bayous and the roachy, lizard-spotted, banana-leafed immediacy of it all.

if you shuffle back in the archives here till you reach june, you'll see copious notes on where i went, and what i ate, and about a million photos of everything i saw, save for the goddamn roaches because i just don't have the presence of mind to take snaps of insects which are skittering about at excesses of the speed of sound. i could go on, here, but i guess what i am leading up to is the big storm, Katrina (a category 5 hurricane, to be precise) which is even now plowing mightily over jefferson parish on its way to points north. i didn't take any pictures of it, but if you've driven over the Lake Ponchartrain causeway, you'll have an idea of what i'm talking about when i recall the seemingly endless shallow-water flats of glassy silver reflecting the sunset in shades of dove-gray and blush-pink. it's something. the city and it's environs, under the folkloric-sounding name jefferson parish, which is a nifty euphemism for 'county' i guess... are all clothed in a palpable sense of deep, purple, tropical gothic mysticism. it's not so hard to imagine half-mad voudons gleaming with sweat under fragarantly smoking bonfire shadows, or nattily attired vampires abroad in the garden district, for god's sake, when you find yourself in a place as determinedly backwards, (and beautifully so) as this...

with the palpable sense of mortality that hangs over the whole shebang, it ought to come to no surprise that the teasers of it's own doom sound like this:

"NEW ORLEANS — When Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans, it could turn one of America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries. -AP Monday, August 29, 2005"

What a way to go...

So here's a list of things I'd miss, if the Atchafalaya Basin becomes the Atchafalaya Memorial Landfill today:

Trey Yuen Cuisine Of China in Mandeville, LA

http://www.treyyuen.com/

especially the monster crab rangoons and the crayfish in spicy lobster and black bean sauce, which i never would've ordered if it weren't for Andy nagging my ass. also, the gorgeous gardens with the biggest man-made fishpond i've ever seen, just crawling with frogs and crayfish and god knows what else.

Audubon Park, Garden District

http://www.auduboninstitute.org/park/index.php

A very pleasant, if horrifically steamy, place to run, with the most gorgeous lake populated by what seems like hundreds of snowy egrets and mossy-backed turtles.

Oysters

Rockefeller, Bienville, Arnaud, on the half shell, and best of all, Drago's Charbroiled...

Drago's Restaurant in Metarie http://www.dragosrestaurant.com/

was the first meal I had off the plane the last time I was in the city, and I'm never not going again.

from the site:

"About ten years ago, Tommy Cvitanovich, manager of Drago's, was thinking about the dish that bears his name. (Drumfish Tommy is broiled drumfish napped with a superb butter garlic sauce.) He wondered: How would that sauce taste drizzled over one of the fat, tasty oysters for which Drago's is known? And what if that oyster was then cooked over an open fire? There were other oyster dishes cooked in a shell, but those were baked with a stuffing. Tommy's idea was simple. Almost too simple. We tested it. It was extraordinary! We tried to improve on the sauce by adding wine. We tried bordelaise sauce. But the unofficial tasters at the restaurant, who had the enviable chore of sampling countless oysters, all came to the same conclusion. You can't improve on perfection!"

paralysis

kenny salvini is two years younger than me and now he's a quadriplegic. he has no feeling below his shoulders, just stuck in a - what? a bed? a chair? forever. before his accident, he was an athlete and an amazingly gorgeous and obviously very smart person, with every reason in the world to be happy and to expect to enjoy his life, and then one day, he broke his neck skiing with his dad, and now he's facing the prospect of always being reliant on people for the most personal and basic tasks. bless him, though, he's been writing it all out so lazy fuckers like myself can look into his head and see the movies of memory and hopes he's replaying. i came across his weblog in msn spaces and was amazed when i started reading his posts as often as he refreshed them. eventually i figured out that he had pictures up on his site and was even more dismayed that this guy was just unfrickingbelievably beautiful to look at, too. somehow that made it a bit worse. does that sounds shallow? would it be even more terrible if he was a brilliant, sensitive horse-faced pigmonster stuck in a pressure bed for the rest of his life? i don't know, so don't ask me. i'm just saying that he's so gorgeous, and it makes my heart hurt a little to think that this is what he's got to work with from now on.

today he writes about making weight for wrestling and i was just shattered by the determination and the clarity of purpose. (two things i'd do anything for.) towards the end i caught myself wondering if it was worth it. all that rigor and early mornings getting to know how to use this body, honing it down to it's peak, starving it and working it till it was perfected, so that he can now recall in such details the sense-memory of electric impulses jagging down every nerve fiber, or the sharpness of hunger after a week of starvation. would you be glad you'd made the most of it? relieved that you'd proved your mettle before it was stripped away? or would you wish you'd smoked up and eaten brownies and mac n cheese and taken the ease of your body.


what makes every minute count? when i'm lying in a bed i know i'm not getting back out of, am i going to remember the roasted foie gras with peeled grapes and brioche and sauternes or will it be coming to the top of the hill in the park and seeing the lake and feeling the pain fade away and the wind buff my cheeks and chill my sweat? will i remember being loved and falling asleep in someone's arms, or the sheets on saturday morning?

(to some extent, this train of thought is lawrence's fault, as his blog from this morning got me thinking about the astroglidelubed texture of time, about how fast each good minute flows past.)

back when i was taking scott's classes, i remember talking about the arrow of time, and about how there is not any particular reason for us to percieve time as flowing from past to future. although that has since proven to be untrue, (http://www.aip.org/pnu/1998/split/pnu402-2.htm) having to do with 'T violation in the observed decay rates for neutral K mesons,' (whatever the fuck that means...)

it seems to me that i was on the right track back in sophomore year of college in thinking that time just rushes us through like a snotty waiter.

i deserve this... punishment? for my life of fornication and pot-smoking, wine-swilling, cigarette-huffing sensualism far more than killer kenny salvini does. at least he gave it his best shot... what in the fuck am i doing with it? making amusing comments, i mean...?

check it out: http://spaces.msn.com/members/smalls149/PersonalSpace.aspx

I'm famous!
http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/001884.html

the ship of now has sailed
and glides like night into the port of evening
through foggy voices
like shouts in pillows
or birds calling in a downpour

the rattle of the subway
is the ringing of the telephone
and the empty platform
is the hum of an open line
and friends brought home by the cops
after long wandering
were disconnected, but fine

certain particle-board futures
have the bland mouth
of bread and flesh
the pallor of swedish modern
the knotted hardness of knuckles on toes
without the utility of the other kind
and after long discussion,
do we agree that these are just as dangerous as
the hardwood forest
the undisclosed source of the blackest river
the well that fills with sleep
and then starts to seep past its bounds

sparkly with denial

like coal, i resist,
and my hard black center
is the backlash of gravity,
the impurity of spirit.
looking closely you will note
that my inclusions are exclusions
my flaws are in relief
my false color, an overdose of
flourides and sulfur.
army world, you're making indestructible
shatterings of me.
my foaming black life
into stark formality
in crystal facets.
no engagement ring or
weeping innocent tears,
but a navel ornament
for a trophy queen.

i refuse to be blamed for what's been
wrought of me.

Was there a time

Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles
In children's circuses could stay their troubles?
There was a time they could cry over books,
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.
What's never known is safest in this life.
Under the skysigns they who have no arms
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost
Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best.

-Dylan Thomas

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

TS Eliot, Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock


I'm feeling very small and very fallible these days.

pictures of you

a thousand years from now, when our work
is gravel and rubbish, and a broken moon
rises over white corpse-dust that once was us.
going to meet a line of lovers
whose names i don't yet know.
in the heart of a gleaming cloud
between stars, great silence presides
over immense beginnings.
amid my many twins back at the beginning, being
borne through the years, and still safe from the future.
my own reflection in the subway window.

this is how i try to imagine
not knowing your face.

best. beer. ad. ever.

http://www.plazafilms.com.au/promo.html

This morning I was going through my usual search of internet news when I found two articles, seemingly unrelated, that point to the bleak future in store for us all. Yeah, it's been that kind of week, and I wanted to share the love.

The first is that no one is reporting UFO sightings any more. From Area 51 to England, UFO societies are shutting down for lack of members. It's possible that after 60 years of failing to convince the public that aliens have been visiting our planet, UFOlogists are giving up, except even the hard-core X-files people out there just aren't getting enough celestial pings to make their nightly vigils worth while. Maybe the aliens are waiting until Burning Man before they visit again.
The second is that the permafrost in Siberia has begun to melt big time. The ground in Siberia has been frozen solid for the last 11,000 years. In the few settlements that exist in this wasteland that's bigger than Texas and Oregon combined, toilet pipes had to be built above ground, because the permafrost was as hard as concrete. Not anymore. Scientists report finding new lakes a mile across, and peat bogs that haven't see the sun since the last Ice Age ended.
Forget about China cranking out millions of new cars every year, or the United States and Australia committing themselves to another generation of burning coal. Even if everybody in the world woke up tomorrow with Ralph Nader's brain, the permafrost melting means that the amount of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will double in the next thirty years.
The more greenhouse gases, the faster the temperature will rise. In Siberia where there's nothing but dirt and water and both trap heat, the permafrost will begin melting at an accelerated rate, liberating more methane which will raise the temperature faster. What's really depressing is that this means it's officially too late to stop global warming.
It no longer matters whether we save the rain forests. This is a point of no return. Thanks for trying Tony Blair, even if the G-8 accords, which the US, Australia, China and Korea refuse to agree to, are like trying to put out a campfire by spitting on it, but it just doesn't matter any more.
Maybe that's why the aliens have stopped coming around lately.
A species so stupid that it didn't realize they were wiping themselves out just isn't worth studying. The aliens have fifty years of images and specimens like cow parts and Elvis for the museum of failed civilizations.

The rest of us might as well be burning fucking tires on our lawns, cooking American eagles for supper and huffing freon from the air conditioner. If natural processes happened in a time scale humans could easily understand, everybody on the planet would be screaming like bitches right now, because holy shit, we're all going to die.
The folks over at the Union of Concerned Scientists, who can visualize time on this scale, are most likely scoping out cheap land in the Andes and Nepal, making friends with survivalists.
Those of us who have been following hurricane season already realize how whack things are. Everybody else will figure it out in the next five to 15 years, in a direct ratio to how much time they spend watching Fox News or listening to Rush Limbaugh.
This is like that scene in Titanic where some people wait until the boat is at water level to jump in only to be pulled down by the weight of the ship.
There isn't even a good way off this dying planet.
NASA recently announced that they were scrapping the space shuttle in favor of a return to the Mercury capsules.
This is like your grandfather trading in his 1968 Buick for a 1950 Studebaker.
Just when we could really use some alien spacecraft they stop coming around. There's never a Vogon around when you need them.

-not me. nuff said...

what these little hurts make is
sticky pudding, black with dates
left awhile to wait
and grown crass and gross
with mold and moss and age,
liverspotted like damning words, which march
in regiments across a page
and, denying understanding in their martial movements,
lose context as they go
so i lose my shape and
i bend and break with the hard elbows and
jabbing umbrellas
and proofs which i must offer of goodwill and faith

don't we all look for quiet?
but i lie in my bed and the thundering feet
and the harsh teutonic squeals
and the furniture movers at four am
are like the poltergeists of my perished heart
tapping out a message i would prefer to ignore
cracking knuckles and slamming doors
making manifest the truth of this long and harried wait
while in my stomach, hidden by analgesics and coffee
coil the overripe mysteries of life
which i may yet accept or deny

this is all borne
moment by moment,
and distractions come and go.
i'm not without hope, though sometimes i fear
hope may have gone on without me.

alex winter? meh.

dear alex winter,

last night while i sat watching entourage, laughing at a jeremy piven gag at your expense, i realized that i have never liked you, even before i had reason to really actively think you're a poop man-sculpture. bill n ted? who sucked more? lost boys? come on, with your pretty girly blonde curls. i am considering a movie marathon so that i can mock you mercilessly, but wait... there are only four movies that anyone's ever heard of... and no one wants to watch Bill n Ted 2 again. Ever. So that leaves me with Lost Boys (vampire), Freaked (Ricky the bonehead) and B&T's E. A. (otherguy the bonehead.) Great. as long as no money of mine ends up in your pocket. who's in?

go to hell, alex winter, with your pretentious interviews and your cold, cold heart. i'll see you there.

v

below, jerk.

ObscenitiesUttered byJesus Christ.
BY CARA JENNISON AND ANDREW SUTHERLAND
- - - -
"Dad damn you."
"Holy Mom, mother of me."
"Dad."
"Myself almighty."
"Good me."
"Me, Mom, and Mom's husband ..."
"Me."

McSweeny's Lists and Open Letters. (http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/)

"Knock hard - life is deaf."
-Mimi

telephone pictionary: http://www.mbinde.com/games/telephone-pictionary/


sounds like fun. why doesn't anyone play parlor games anymore?


also: "all camels look like mick jagger"

simplest best like the cool air beyond the threshold
best like the white sheets amid your limbs in the gray morning
easiest is the first bite that sharpens my hunger
the melting ice cube at the bottom of the glass
which is as crisp as the word itself
or clean hair, smelling of soap and sun
sweetest and no less is the lap around the park on saturday afternoon
napped in sweat and prickled with goosebumps
running in a fog of green, green clorophyll smell
through garlands of barbeque smoke
best yet the moments after loving you
before sleep sets in, with my ear cupped to catch your hearbeat
tickled by your hands as they come to rest
and, oh yes, the memory of ferries and fried shrimps
at tables wreathed in familiar faces above
and bare feet below

"The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."
-Ecclesiastes

oh, me.

Confucius say "Man who stands on toilet is high on pot."

the long dark snacktime of the soul

growing up is like being a recovering alcoholic, i think. it seems to me that just like a dry drunk, a person's never over their inner 'tween, you never get the cred you feel you deserve, someone else is always having more fun, and even if you're the most popular kid in school, some authority puppet's still kicking your ass over something.

the reason i mention this is that i realized that just as i'm getting over the fact that i'm kind of a slut, and plenty happy about that, thanks, a whole bunch of other issues are cropping up all uninvited... forget all that hooey about being talented and special. it would be nice to be the prettiest girl in school, and not a curvy, pleasant-faced midsize sedan. it would be nice to have my own company or have invented the post-it note, or just something. it seems unfair that after getting over the boring but pervasive neuroses of a private-school upbringing and immigrant family, i'm still just ordinary after all. don't get me wrong- i'm not complaining about my numerous blessings of health and vigor and brains and so forth, not to mention a high-quality education and my own brand of smiley stubbornness. (i'm a great cook, too.) what i mean is that in the end everyone turned out the same. the great, the good, the stinky, the mean and the golden are all working nine to seven and trying to furnish our apartments, eat a decent meal and get some exercise before we turn into tastycakes, or else we're living at home with our folks and slicing cold cuts at King's. no one tipped the scales and erred on the side of fantastic. (at least not yet.)

so it turns out that the prize for forgetting all their bullshit is that ten years after high school graduation, i finally start to internalize that we really are all the same? well, shit.

recurring dreams of loss and pain
featuring actors too often seen
make the waking world into a sham
and find the truth in sleep


Brown Penny
William Butler Yeats

I whispered, ‘I am too young,’
And then, ‘I am old enough’;
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
‘Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair.’
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.
O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

Online text © 1998-2005 Poetry X.

sans souci 

sorry about the repeats, but i just found thse 

andy 

Know your rights: Subway search tips from Alert Reader Matt


When Refusing a Search, Be Cool
If you choose to walk through a random search area and are stopped, you may refuse to be searched. In fact, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said that you are free to "turn around and leave" any subway system where police are conducting random searches.So if you are stopped, remain calm and courteous. And don't ever -- under any circumstances -- talk back or raise your voice to the police officer. You have nothing to gain -- and everything to lose -- by escalating the hostility level of the encounter.

Calmly and clearly say "Officer, I do not consent to any searches. I'm going to exit the station." Then immediately exit the station -- and do not return through the same entrance.

Refusal is Not Guilt
The police directive states that individuals who refuse to be searched can leave the subway system, and that such a refusal "shall not constitute probable cause for an arrest or reasonable suspicion for a forcible stop."
Warning: If you refuse to be searched and attempt to enter the turnstile anyway, you may be arrested.

Shut Your Mouth and Your Wallet
Some media reports state that police are requesting identification and in some cases immigration papers.You do not have to answer any police questions or give any information -- including your name, ID citizenship or immigration status -- whether or not you consent to a search. But remember, anything you say can be used against you.

Do Not Physically Resist
Again, it is illegal for police to search, detain, or question you just because you refuse a search. But if the police proceed to detain, search, or arrest you despite your wishes -- do not physically resist. You may state clearly but non-confrontationally: "Officer, I am not resisting and I do not consent to any searches."

WARNING: DO NOT RUN!If you refuse to be searched and run into the station, you could be shot to death! On Friday, an innocent man was shot in the head by police in a London subway station. The man had run away after being approached by an undercover officer.If you're approached by anyone suspicious in the subway, walk to the nearest uniformed officer for help -- but don't run away.

For more tips on maintaining your civil rights and safety while helping to prevent terrorism, look here http://www.flexyourrights.org/subway/

one thing here: while i may occasionally have left my house with a small amount of pot for recreational purposes only, and would prefer not to be searched, or for there to be any reason for searches at all, i'm also grateful to the nyc police in particular and law enforcement authorities in general for putting their lives on the line to stop the bad guys who want us all bloody and crying and then dead. fuck you, terrorists.

boyfriend, mom 

bryant 

fer de lance, as of july 22nd

well first thing's first, armstrong takes his seventh and self-proclaimed final tour de france. is there anything that's beyond this guy? armstrong, buttstrong, headstrong... dickstrong? er, excuse me. anyway, go lance!

before i go get some work done, i wanted to bitch for a moment about the newest subway announcement, which goes like this: "as of july 22nd, police are authorised to conduct random searches on your backpacks and other large bags..." while i appreciate that someone up there wants to make sure no one's carrying a bomb, i am pretty sure that wouldn't stop them from arresting those among us who might happen to be transporting the kind of things one might put in a bong.

ugh.

frickin laser-beams

fuck fuck fuck shit shit shit hell hell HELL. deep breaths. hmmmm whoooo. hmmmmmmmmm whoooooooooooooooooooooo. mmhhhmmm whhwhwhw. ok.

bombers all together, luton station, bedfordshire on morning of 7/7 attacks

love sick

my aunt, who raised me along with her sister, my grandma, has cancer. this is a long stomach-aching nightmarish kind of thing that i hate, like when my grandmother had to go on dialysis and then had a hysterectomy and died.

i am such a pessimist, such a hypochondriac, myself, that i feel i lack sufficient faith. i want to believe so hard in the miracle that the miracle imprints itself into reality, but instead i fear that the sheer weight of my cowardliness is a danger to the people i'm worrying about. am i so selfish that my fear, my knowledge that someday something terrible will happen to me, outweighs my ability to be brave and to love and to have real hope? (oh, hell, am I so ruinously self-involved that, like a black hole in the center of the galaxy, i believe that the black gravity of my miserable heart swings the stars around?)

how do awful illnesses sneak in when no one's ready and bite out chunks of living flesh while we cry and wonder what happened to the so-real time when everything was different and okay?

when grandma was admitted to the hospital, it was because her legs were swollen, and then it was because she had kidney failure, and then she was diagnosed with uterine cancer and then, on the last day, when i got there too late, she was dead. swollen legs, kidney failure, cancer, death. it's like stomachache, bad clams, neurotoxins, paralysis, death. or ski injury, slight scratch, infected cut, necrotizing fasciitis, no arms. you start out with a flesh wound, and you end up pale and cold with your tongue sticking out a little, quiet forever, but still smelling just like you always did, surrounded by crying people who can't understand how yesterday grandma was sick and just look, she's lying right there, but she's never, evern getting up again. oh, mercy.

okay maybe not totally over
the not-smoking continues

i had a great lunch with mom and dad today. mom made a pork loin with amazing baked peach haves all brushed with butter and peach schnapps, which was really amazing, and grilled polenta and shrimp and tarragon garlic bread and salad and apple pie with ice cream. we washed it all down with montepulciano and vin santo. oof.

i watched "a home at the end of the world" just now. farrell might not have the best grip on the bobby character, but he's so transparent that i just forgot who he was, despite the caterpillar eyebrows. it made me think of wilcox and gerard. i didn't expect to like the film, so it was a pleasant surprise, plus ho-yay.

one more thing: the power of air conditioning. shout out to mymandy for procuring and installing the four-hundred and thirty-three dollar monster and propping it up with disused paperbacks and videotapes. oh, bless him, now the apartment's not a torture chamber and there's the added benefit of white noise, and being able to close the windows so we don't hear every single person in brooklyn walk by on the way to the park and the F train and the sidewalk sale, not to mention the xylophone weirdo down on the subway platform just noooooooooooooodling away like decent people don't need some blessed peace on sunday at ten am. also, germans upstairs, SHUT UP.

er, the not smoking. i had a cig last night after six days, and as i told the man this morning, it was like scratching an itch and not having get any less itchy. odd to think i've been smoking all these years and it turns out it's not what i wanted anyway. if it's not nicotine i was after, then what is it?

Ew. Damn him and his penis nose.
i've said it before, but i'll say it again. at the risk of feeling like a complete idiot, i have to confess that i am in love with Owen Wilson, and that we belong together. we are gonna have the cutest little babies. Leave your pussy brother at home.

Come to mama, Owen, and let's get freeeeaky...




also, nice hair... jesus.

death: really not an option?
the non-joys of non-smoking and the aftermath of big Steve's retirement: an top-level analysis of why i feel like packing it in.

i just had the miserable, sadly unsobering (in that i am not drunk, because if i was, not only would my colleagues be pissed, yo, but because if i was then i'd be smoking a fucking cigarette, goddamnit...) realization that my life is over.

two things went into this, and they're both pathetic and shallow, so if you're looking for depth and scope here, then fuck the fuck off. okay, ready?

why my life is over:
1. i quit smoking and i have realized that i have one extra mouth and brain, and two extra arms and lungs and,
2. no more new stephen king novels, ever, not even terrible ones.

you see where i'm at here? they cancelled buffy, i'm a size eight, the world is just going to hell AND i can't smoke a goddamn cigarette or look forward to being creeped out by El King. dude, fuck it. game over.

grandpa and grandma

i had a dream last night that i was on vacation with my dead grandparents. my grandfather was trying to tell me that he was going to die and i just couldn't believe that it would really happen that way. the funny part is that it is usually my grandmother that i dream about and wake up calling for her, but this time it was my grandfather. i miss grandma so much, and not a week goes by that i don't dream about her, but in all these years, i never have dreamt about grandpa. i also never realized that before, and now feel strangely about having not thought about him that way in all these years, though he did leave when i was six.

hmm.

parrot with a prosthetic leg

one-eyed, with attendant tunnel-vision,
compassionate accessories aside,
no one will be climbing trees like we used to.

in a state of permanent drizzle,
of thin gray spittle flooding up the deep pores of the world,
from the deepest subway bores and river-crossings,
all the way up to the porch, the door, and across my floor.

how long before we all go in?
we one-legged, one-armed ladies,
hook-handed half-blind villains,
crippled housecats,
handicapped husbands, mad fathers,
mothers in comas,
friends locked behind portholed chicken-wire doors,
lovers with bloodied hands, and bloody eyes,
midget movie stars with bribed brides, heh.
cat-scratched final resting-places,
ringed with fingernail half-moons
for us all.

bombs just equal bombs (photo credit: oringejellow)

if i stop hating Scott's robo-whore ex girlfriend, do the terrorists win?

 

boys! 

ichthyology, etymology, epidemiology, entomology

this is a wild of shadows
shadow had it almost right
here, the pilot-fish, silverfish,
house-centipedes

this is archaeology and anthropology
I see the beginning
but it's all bugs to me-
comfort of symmetry
scattery in the brake lights
and ferny shadows
deeply gray and brushing my calves.

these words lose their meanings
in the proud nose of the world
and people in overhanging branches sing along
at shake and jake's christmas club,
while lovers whose old kisses wink here still linger drinking
and bits of shrapnel glimmer where they landed
like schooling fish in their underwater library silence.

Urf. I'm at the Flash Forward conference at the New Yorker Hotel today. It's not quite the learning experience that I had hoped for, nor are there any useful agency contacts to be found... At least not so far. On the bright side, there's a cocktail hour from five to six, and then I'm heading downtown to Pete's on Irving to have a drink with my buddy Tim from Businessweek.com.
My old company's sent over some lovely documents legales, bless them, so that's one more thing to worry about. Making me wish I was on a beach in Mexico... or maybe Vietnam? Not the Kim Jong Illin' part, of course. Whatever part has got a nice beach and good food, I guess. The fuck do I know?

Note to self: take meds.
Maybe the weather's getting me down? Or maybe it's just that as soon as one thing starts to go well, something else starts to look like its going to crash and burn. (Take meds regularly.) In this case, I'm starting to be less, well, 'porky', I guess is the word, but I've got a new job to handle and MymAndy seems to have flown off his... handle. Really, I guess everyone's just stressed out and hot and miserable and it seems like no progress will ever occur. I need a real vacation. At least I have opportunities, anyway. Beats the alternative.

So... what? I feel so blahhhh. I've been sick all week and when I talk, it's Thelma (or Selma) Bouvier, which is so unappealing. I wish I could make some progress here, but it seems everything's on hold for the now. Mercury must be in retrograde...

Pisces: (Feb. 19—March 20)There will be little change in your uneventful life this week, which is too bad considering you've been hanging from those manacles for a couple decades now.
http://www.theonion.com/horoscopes/