LOS ANGELES, CA-
In Los Angeles
October is the time of month
When the hot, dry Santa Ana winds kick up
Whip through the passes at 100 miles an hour
And make breathing difficult
AUVERGNE, FR-
Without much in the way of fanfare, Halloween has arrived here in France.
There are no little Spidermans (or Speedermans, as the character is called by French children) roaming the streets.
No girls taking advantage of their big chance to dress like Paris Hilton.
Halloween is just the day before All Saints Day. (more…)
SALT LAKE CITY, UT-
A poetry teacher I once studied with has a poem titled Pecked to Death By Swans.
Coincidentally, the other day at work, my coworker Nick spontaneously created a sculpture that visits the same theme, using some plastic toys he found on the desk of our other coworker, Bill.
I can’t really reuse the poem’s title for it, though, since technically speaking the plastic figures in Nick’s creation are ducks and chickens.
Therefore, I hereby present to you, “Pecked to Death by Fowl.”
CHARLOTTE, NC-
It’s fall.
Thank god.
Summer’s long gone and I couldn’t be happier.
In total I’ve spent twenty-two years in the desert and after twenty-two scorching summers I acquired a deep hate for summer.
PARIS-
They don’t do Halloween in France.
While I fondly recall spending cool autumn nights as Yoda, pioneer Jim Bowie, and an artichoke (left over from a school play), my poor French fiancée and all other French people have no such memories of paper grocery bags stuffed with snack-size Mr. Goodbars, candy corn, or razor blade-apples.
It’s just not popular here.
Of course, the acceptable age at which I could trick-or-treat passed me by about twenty years ago, and since I stopped trick-or-treating… about fifteen years ago… I really shouldn’t be too concerned about the fact that here I am not afforded even the most hypothetical of such opportunities.
Still, the thought of asking people for free candy and knowing they’re going to give it to me (never in all my years did I actually have to play a trick on anyone) remains appealing to me.
That is why I thought it was a sign when the posters started appearing around town a couple months ago, proclaiming the arrival of the famed Salon du Chocolat, a convention of chocolate confectioners from all over the world, to take place over the weekend before Halloween. (more…)
MELBOURNE, AU-
Yesterday I went to the opening of an exhibition at a small art gallery.
I love exhibitions. Especially when they’re small and quirky.
The invitation to the opening was nondescript and black, and gave no indication of what the art was going to be like, or even what medium it was going to presented in. All we could discern from such an oblique invite were the artists’ names, ksubi and Kane, and the title of the new collection.
The title of the show?
“Sunglasses For Dickheads.”
We thought we were prepared.
We weren’t.
Being unprepared leaves room for surprises.
I love surprises.
This is what we were confronted with when we walked in the door.
Rocking cocks.
And I don’t mean the rooster variety.
There were no chickens there last night.
Nup. No chickens at all.
SAN DIEGO, CA-
As promised, the third and final installment on my posts about street art, unless something else comes to my attention.
Whilst roaming the streets in search of Stue or Nomad or my next cup of coffee, I came across this work of art:
LOS ANGELES, CA-
Find the angry dog
The dying houseplant
The noncommittal monosyllabic babbling idiots having a tailgate party
In your first chakra
SEATTLE, WA-
We all make mistakes.
At least that’s how the saying goes.
Mistakes are just like defecation… You do it, I do it, celebrities do it, clergymen do it, and politicians do it more often than the rest.
SARANAC LAKE, NY-
There are certain things you aren’t supposed to admit to—things, people might construe as faults in character.
For instance, say you admit you love spandex—tight, shiny, full-of-flesh fabric.
Some might assume you’re an exhibitionist trapped in an ’80s Aerobic Queen’s unitard.
CHARLOTTE, NC-
I work in the restaurant business.
For better or ill.
I don’t know how many of you folk have ever worked in this business but if you have then you are fully aware that there is a restaurant “lifestyle.”
SALT LAKE CITY, UT-
Years ago, when I was still a student, a professor told me that the ancient Roman poet Catullus was the poet of the verb.
One of his most famous poems, for example, starts
Odi et amo
I hate and I love.
Look at that, the prof said admiringly.
The implication was clearly that poet of the verb was the best possible poet to be, and that other poets were stuck with other, far inferior, parts of speech.
MELBOURNE, AU-
There’s a certain sort of person who fits in nicely at big important art galleries. A person who can marvel at the various and often bizarre eccentricities, affectations and vague nuances that make some artisits stand out above all others. A person who understands–no, lives–for art. These people are educated, smart, sophisticated, earnest.
All the things that, apparently after today, both Dean and I are not.
The final day of the Picasso exhibition at the NGV is clearly not the ideal place for two juvenile, half-baked, insincere, sex-obsessed, overly-obnoxious idiots with an aversion to serious.
PIC-ASS-O. (more…)
THE DEEP SOUTH-
So there’s me and my buddy Qube at Showbiz Pizza on Friday night, swiping pizza slices from birthday parties.
The manager, comb over thin short sleeve white shirt wide royal blue tie, quick stepped over to us.
LOS ANGELES, CA-
I’m flipping through the Los Angeles Magazine Best of LA issue
One of its Best Of picks features a miniature golf course out in Valencia
It’s called Greens
SALT LAKE CITY, UT-
As a citizen of corporate America, I have certain responsibilities.
For example, I have the responsibility to attend lots of boring meetings, in Dilbert-like fashion.
I also have the responsibility to sit on a bunch of committees.
One of the committees I belong to has as its sole purpose the creation of decision trees.
I like decision trees. They appeal to my desire for order.
PHILADELPHIA, PA-
By far, the most overused marketing buzzword of the day is “extreme.”
Within the past week advertisers have asked me to:
use Right Guard’s Extreme deodorant,
SEATTLE, WA-
I hated the sixth grade.
Twelve is perhaps the most ridiculously confusing age in a young boy’s life. It’s an age filled with erections, guilt, panic, paranoia, hair, sweat, baseball, girls, grades and uncertainty.
Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like twenty-nine. (more…)
LOS ANGELES, CA-
Every time I get a job, my father says to me these exact words: “This is your first real job, Lenore!”
And every time he says these words to me, I remind him that it is, indeed, not my first real job.
Except for when I got my first real job. That time he was correct.
