05 December 2007

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.

 

1 Comments:

Blogger Gryphon said...

Doesn't the Chicken Cottage website seem just a little too fancy for the Chicken Cottage itself? Whereas the Chicken, Alaska site seems just about right.

I also hope there's a nice retreat somewhere for visiting poultry, complete with well-appointed nests, silver tea service and antimacassars. I would go to visit. But if I were to stumble into PotatoLand, I might have to eat them.

12/07/2007 9:30 AM  

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