WHAT I WANT TO HAPPEN TO MY BODYIF I SHOULD EVER HAPPEN TO DIE[SOME VIDEO FOR THE NEW YEAR]

But, of course, dear reader, I shall never die; obviously I shall have all of my parts systematically replaced ad infinitum, thus living forever.

Happy New Year.

 

THE MATE WAS A MIGHTY SAILING MANTHE SKIPPER BRAVE AND SURE

I have, dear reader, returned from my holiday in Venice, but worry not; I did not forget you. For along with the expected slew of tourist snaps of the city, its canals, and its churches [as well as dozens of pictures of the wife – who's face shall remain unseen in this location – looking radiant in the sunshine while riding the city's vaporetti]:







I kept my ever vigilant eye out for images for you, dear reader. I know your appetites, your lust for signage from everywhere I go, for those ephemeral bits of words and images that guide us safely through this life. So be not disappointed, dear reader; I would never let you down.

 

IRONY???

 

DID YOU BLINK?THEN YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED IT

As the shortest day of the years draws closer, and the minutes of daylight wane, I thought I might share one last depiction of the light situation here in E________ before the wife and I jet of to Venice for the holidays, thus missing the Winter Solstice in Scotland, and trading up to an extra hour, forty-five minutes, and thirteen seconds of sunshine.


[12:14 PM: The sun barely peeking through the chimney-pots]


[3:57 PM: The Moon, high in the sky]

 

A BRIEF DETOUR TO ROSSLYN[WHICH IS IN ROSLIN, JUST SO YOU KNOW]

Yesterday the wife, the mother-in-law, and I took a quick little jaunt out to Roslin to take a gander at Rosslyn Chapel. You know, the one of unfortunate DaVinci Code fame. Just in case you are wondering, Jesus' brain is not suspended in a jar of formaldehyde on an alter in the sub-basement; I checked. Twice.







Alas, these next images were taken in near-darkness, so please forgive the quality, dear reader.







And this is just a door I liked along the way. No reason; just there. If you are demanding some sort of ideal narratological continuity you are probably in the wrong place. So you can just like it, or lump it. Harrumph!

 

A PICTURE'S WORTH...ACTUALLY I HATE THAT PHRASE, BUT FUCK IT;I DON'T FEEL LIKE WRITING TODAY

 

THE ART OF QUALIFICATION

At last, after week upon week of ranging far and wide along the streets of E________ searching for scraps, slips, and the general detritus of daily human activity, my eye can return to its path leading to the signs of the city. And already this morning that eye has been rewarded:



"With all due respect, you are a royal arse."
"You can be such a total douche-nozzle. I'm just saying."
NO PARKING. polite notice.

I have always loved this subtle art of mitigation, of bluntness – and often crudeness itself – purportedly rendered gentile by a little attachment, a small phrase meant to reassure the listener that all is well, that no, I the speaker, am not really completely tactless; I have your own best interests at heart; it is not as bad as it sounds.

Have we – and by we I mean us, humans – really let the boundaries between, things, actions, and words become such a diaphanous veil, one that allows such fluid slippage? I know all the PostModerns – yes I used the word, dear reader – would say it is so. Heck, I'm normally right there with them, but somehow this one sticks in my craw; it needles me so.

Thus, I felt compelled to stand in front of this sign in the moderately frigid E________ morning air for about fifteen minutes imagining the car that is in my garage some 3,202 miles away parked right here in front of this very sign. There I stood, cup of coffee in hand, smiling to myself perhaps inanely – or at least in the eyes of the general passersby. Damn your polite notice; there's nothing polite about the threat to tow away my shiny blue car. Show some conviction and maybe I'll listen to you Mr. and/or Ms. SignMaker, but as is I laugh at your notice and it patently false attempt at civility...

I'm just saying.

 

A RAMBLE PERHAPS?

Today I feel like writing; it has been a while hasn't it. I feel like writing, but I wish to defer what I want to write about. So, instead, I shall attempt to thread together some of the many things that have come to mind, and eye, as of late. A bit of a wander, if you will dear reader, through the rabble and rubble of my consciousness.

Hence we begin with Chickens. You may well ask, why chickens? Good question. Well a few days ago I was poking around for flights – a quick jaunt off to London later this month – and accidentally came across the airport code for one Chicken Airport [CKX]. Yes, it exists, and I am now rather enamored of it. I am unable to find an image of the airport itself – for this I apologize, dear reader – but have at least found this image of downtown Chicken, Alaska.



Just as my childhood vacation destination was Reykjavik [it is a long story for another time perhaps], I am now obsessed with going to Chicken, flying into it airport – whatever that might be, and having a coffee in the Chicken Creek Cafe in downtown Chicken. That would do it for me, for the vacation; that is all. Just fly in; have the coffee, perhaps a danish or something; fly out. My needs are simply, if you can consider traveling to Chicken, Alaska for a cup of joe simple.

But you see, I am rather fond of chickens, or at least the concept of them. I cannot quite tell you why; it is just there. But it must explain why I sometimes daydream of the nearby Chicken Cottage.



Not as it is; no, I don't particularly like the premise of a basement restaurant serving all manner of fried chickens. What I imagine is another, alter-Cottage, one that is a nice retreat for chickens visiting E_______ for the weekend. Something of a B&B for poultry. I imagine that hidden behind that frying oil façade resides a pleasant little inn with comfy armchairs complete with antimacassars, afternoon tea set out on silver trays, and well-appointed nests upstairs in the bedrooms. Perhaps I am a bit odd, but I rather think the Chicken King would approve.

Of course you remember the Chicken King, dear reader.



That odd little project – complete with paper-doll action figures – I did about five years ago. The series that was to be my splash at the my first Drake Faculty show; the things that said things are going to change a bit around here; this is not your father's – or mother's, or really anyone else's – graphic design. I grew rather fond of the Chicken King; he developed a bit of a following, His absurd authority has somewhat stuck with me, even across the years since his arrival. It is he that I channel when dreaming of charming settees in the Chicken Cottage, or when I consider a nice chat over coffee in Chicken, Alaska. I know it is perhaps slightly strange to channel a fictional character one has created, especially when it is a chicken, but, alas, it is far from the oddest thing my mind has done.

Speaking of the Chicken Cottage though, I just found what might just be a neighboring environ for the Cottage, maybe just a day-trip away. POTATOLAND.



I sure you can guess by now the types of things I envision: frolicking spuds of all types working and playing together to make a better world. Reds and Yams living in communal harminy with nary a worry over being peeled, eaten, or utilized in a physics-class air-gun to demonstrate the power of air pressure. Can't you picture it, dear reader. A wonderful place where all potato-kind can live free and be happy. But, unfortunately, POTATOLAND is far too similar to the real Chicken Cottage; here taters are baked, fried, or boiled for our consumption without a single thought for the potatoes' well-being.

But I do like the names of these places nonetheless, but not as much as this last entry in today's ramble: Thematic Evangelistic Literature



I am left, perhaps for the rest of the day, wondering just what athematic evangelistic literature might be, maybe some rambling general diatribe on all things Jesus. Or maybe it would be even further from any particular theme, spreading out being Christianity to a broad-based, widespread conversion effort pointing to something that is never quite defined. It is "evangelistic" after all, not strictly evangelical. Again, my mind's eye opens up; I see whole new literary forms being brought into existence. Passionate, zealous, but uncertain about what; arguments of Kantian precision concerning something that is just a bit over there so that you cannot quite see it, maybe if you walked a little further on you'd know. Possibly this new writing could be what gets done on a Saturday afternoon in the Chicken Cottage, or maybe it is already the magnum opus of the poet laureate of POTATOLAND.

Ah, the things I will never know.

 

ITS A BIRD; ITS A PLANE...

It came as a relief, this morning, as I sat at my computer in front of the living room window. It seemed miraculous to look up – up I say – into the sky and see something there, something perched high in the sky overhead. It was a comfort, as though a bit of home had arrived to offer a longed for security.

Then I realized something; I looked at the clock and put the proverbial two and two together. That's the moon; what the hell is it doing there. It is half past nine in the morning; shouldn't you be the sun? Ach, no; that's way over there, down south, barely peeking over the building-tops.

I point it out to the wife; she wonders whether, then, someone in Japan is likewise looking out their window wondering just where their moon has gone. I can only reply, "Aye."

I suppose I should be grateful, though, for the small blessing of something up there at all, for the rare opportunity to look upward for something other than the crown moldings in our high-ceilinged flat, for the chance to actually stretch my underused neck muscles in that direction. I probably just ought to enjoy this moment, for in far too few hours this sky will inevitably return to its now seemingly native cloud-covered blackness of night.

Ah, the wonders of the E________ sky.