Notes on not eating mussels

Wonder ugly and hop a leaf. A ponytailed girl with fish lips, puckering wood-grained graffiti is left hoisting a tangled ball of orange extension cords. Noguchi using Japanese paper instead, smirks. Are the cut-ups really enough to arouse guffaws? Hopefully under a pseudonym, Chow Yun Fat displaces the neon cool of the John Woo ilk. And the hapa haoles surface en masse, driven from their cubbyholes to seek the daughter of a man whose paintings live only overseas, an indictment on the previous administration fumbling the football.

Beads of plastic sweat cling to the pigmented surface but who knew how to figure out the complicated formula to figure out square footage? Murakami can, though and proceeds on a superflat beeline to that imaginary vanishing point. No one sees Toulouse Lautrec drinking out of the blue-faced lady, his beard shorn.

Six males of Asian descent, mildly drunk but majorly aghast, rant about an impending catfight, placing bets of varying odds. Go ahead and order the duck brioche as the Earl of Sandwich.

Jerry Yee

He draws a charcoal line, wavery in the misty rain as the doppelganger reflects a weird shadow from underneath a tree limb overhanging a grassy plot. Naturally it dissolves, washed away by a torrent of tears. But no one is near to hear you ask, "So who will come and wipe clean the memory?"

Waxen, the prone figure rests comfortably, undisturbed by the surrounding begonias and lavish carnation bouquets. Vertical rows of ideograms on long ribbons of satin argue against the logic of upright Roman text, nearly causing a Trojan War. The walk home is uneventful until the third kidney shrinks out of proportion. Only then does the luncheon resume. Luckily for the pastor, his nephew, the parking lot is empty in front of a leaking restaurant.

Afterwards, all lights, red, yellow and green lead a direct path, illuminating the ranch as if stranded in the Nevadan desert. Throughout the wood panelling sits a fuzzy zoo, thousands of miles removed from sustainable bamboo and inedible bramble. Visitors rest at the dinner table while old acquaintances examine the backs of quarters, looking to make sense of green tea leaves and pistachio shells.

Disembarking off the jet, sad faces pop hard candy into their mouths. And a week goes by quickly for the slow ride back.

A conclusion

Up the middle lies the remains of two horned and bloated goats. Visitors march by in disbelief, asking to themselves, "How did this happen? And who is to blame?"

On the far wall, dimly lit by flickering candles is the gospel, finally.

LARRY LEE
Led the league in least runs scored upon assisted in small part due to his ability to induce batters to "hit his pitch" but mainly to his All-Star middle infield and outfield. Usually stoic, if not downright blase, the robotic "Lar" underhanded a variety of lollipops, slow and high trajectory pitches with heavy backspin that curved back into the strike zone from either side or arced straight down "into the well" consistently for called strikes. Despite, or rather in spite, of his control, his inability, when the game was on the line, to "throw a 'can of corn'" when the umpire squeezed the plate in the championship game led to Simon's Tavern's big inning and eventual (and improbable) comeback in their last raps to win their fifth consecutive title as Lar simply unravelled, giving free passes and frozen ropes to a succession of opposing batters, loading the bases. Alas, the nervous fat pitch he lobbed "right down Broadway" to their weakest hitter whom he previously stuck out twice, nearly snapped his neck off, rocketing over his outstretched (more in self-defense than athleticism) hands headed toward short centerfield and forever in infamy. To compound his lack of intestinal fortitude was his inexplicable brain cramp by not sufficiently covering home plate to field a quick relay throw from his shortstop Matt that would have gunned down the winning run and thus coaxing extra innings. It was not to be as the hit so demoralized him that he simply forgot how many outs remained, rooted on the mound, flabbergasted.

YETTA STARR
Versatile to a fault. Utility fielder "Yettaanotherstar" possessed a strong throwing arm that presented a dilemma in where to play her regularly. Whether at first or third base as well as behind the plate as catcher and in short centerfield, she centerfield throughout the season. In fact, yetta played short centerfield for the first time in the championship game. Fate dealt her and the team a cruel blow. With two outs in the final inning and runners in scoring position to win the game outright, Yetta, out of position directly behind second base, moved instinctly to her left, reached up, stabbed at and deflected the infamous liner from centerfielder swooping in for what would have been the third and final out to win their first title. Instead bedlam ensued as the winning run crossed an unguarded home plate.

And a slick neon sign advertises a free prize for any returned patron interested in reliving a tragic moment anew.

The saddest of possible words...

"Tinker to Evers to Chance."

Or just as worthy, Earney to Miller to Bauling to May,
Our quadruple-powered vacuum, sucking in all debris,
Cleaning dusty pathways, forever linked,
who upon summons take a bow,

ALYSON EARNEY
Defensive mainstay at third base, Alyson guarded the line and prevented grounders from becoming extra-base hits. She formed part of an "Iron Curtain" on the left side of the diamond as anything hit in that direction "got eaten up" for outs. Her quick reflexes and accurate arm in the "hot corner" forced many a hitter to pull the pitch foul, hard to muscle the ball by. Alyson upended by the runner representing the tying run sliding hard into third base in the final inning of the championship game. The runner was ruled safe on a controversial call as league rules dictated a runner is automatically out for not avoiding collision on a slide.

MATT MILLER
Named team MVP. "The General" showed amazing defensiverange at shortstop. Matt could "go into the hole and come up firing" or glide behind second to trigger the forceout at second base preventing baserunners from being in scoring position. His soft hands and cannon for an arm easily scooped up and threw out all batters on any type grounder. Other teammates could cheat "down the lines or into the gaps" because of Matt's ability to cover so much ground. In the final game, Matt made a crucial error in judgement as he broke the cardinal rule with two outs (when any baserunner ran with the pitch) to always make a play on the batter on a grounded ball. Instead of throwing to first base for what would have been the higher percentage third and final out to seal victory, Matt flipped the ball too late to force the runner at second.

TRINA BAULING
Part of the All-Star double play tandem, second baseman Trina often covered the bag with runners bearing down on her hard, intent to break up the force out or double play. Cool under pressure, she tied for the league lead in combined putouts and assists as opposing team continued to test her defense on the right side of the infield, possessing a knack for making the crucial defensive play to "put out the fire". Trina tried in vain to reposition the out-of-position short centerfielder just before the pitch that resulted in the deflected liner that lost the championship game.

CATHY MAY
The heart and soul of R & M Trucking. Sure-handed team captain Cathy threw out a slew of baserunners "going first to third" on slow rolling ground balls and ranked highest among league leaders in fielding her position at first base. Opposing baserunners respected in fear her strong and accurate arm. The team name reflected her competitive fire and blue-collar work ethic to outplay opponents. Cathy dropped a low thrown ball for what would have been an out at first base in the bottom final inning of the championship game. This error allowed Simon's Tavern to prolong their at-bat to eventually win the title.

And with heros are their counterparts, the goats.

Notes on a hall of fame

A partition blocks the entrance into the sacred place, a memory palace long forgotten. On the opposite side is a vitrine housing a dusty satin athletic jacket whose reflective gleam shines off the bronzed bas-reliefs and glossy text covering all the walls within. Frozen in time, such a personal moment transcends historicism beyond legend yet fights together to immortalize loss and commemorate something quite mundane as a specific time gone awry. Remember that defense, not offense supposedly wins championships.

The story unfolds from left to right first, position by position as the throngs sardined around the opening passage, read to themselves the words printed below:

RANDY HONOLD
Literally, death to all flying things reincarnated. The best "pure" athlete on the team, leftfielder "Doctor" routinely demoralized opposing teams by casually robbing batters of seemingly easy extra-base hits on montrously-hit balls way over his head. His ability to come in or go back on a ball plus his deceptive giddyup speed enabled him to quickly make up ground to track down any batted ball for an automatic out. Opposing teams frustrated themselves trying to blast the ball past him on the fly and eventually gave up hitting anything in his direction. In the championship game, Randy raced in and watched in disbelief as the deflected liner hit ground and bounced away from him and the prone centerfielder allowing the winning run to score.

CARLTON MOK
Arguably, pound for pound, the strongest man on the team. "Mo" patrolled centerfield with veteran craftiness. What he lacked in size, he more than compensated with desire and intensity. His encyclopedic knowledge of opponent batting tendencies permitted "our Itsilbitsilar friend" as he is often called, to position himeself accordingly to maximize any angle to :get on his horse" chasing down a ball hit in the gap. Ironically, it was "Mo" who dove helplessly at the deflected liner off the mispositioned short centerfielder for what should have been the final out for a championship victory.

WILL CASEY
Never say die. Stentorian six foot eight inch high rightfielder Will intimidated the opposing teams with his size and voice. An incessant chatterbox, he dared hitters to "feed me leather". Slow of foot, Will played any hitter unusally deep. His defensive strategy was to use his height and very long stride to ramble in, building enough momentum to engulf any flyball with his massive iron-grip hands. Playing the first five innings of the championship game, Will rotated out of the lineup for another teammate to play. He coached from the sidelines, screaming encouragement even when the team lost its composure in the final inning.

Visitors now stop to genuflect.

The Year That Almost Was

R&M Trucking, leading by three runs with two outs and the bases empty in the bottom of the seventh and final inning of the title game for the 1995 Chicago Park District Margate Park Co-Rec Monday Night Softball Championship; lose by the score of 7 to 6 to the reigning champions and perennial powerhouse Simon’s Tavern formerly K-Dugouts when a hard liner is deflected into short leftfield allowing the winning run to cross homeplate.

Further color analysis after the postgame.

Notes within my seldomly used living room

Cloisonned gold interlaced, wraps around his neck just below the larynx, a dangerous knotted scarf that Von Ryan twists violently as steady, even pressure strangles each Nazi guard, all seated abreast like ducks on the pond. It is red dawn and his successors, streamlined mainstream knockoffs effusing angst, are boys lost. Frankenstein whose bellowing voice disrupts the radar screen full of commercial jet liners in holding patterns, frightens away the captive audience, reciting dense Brechtian monologues. Eyebrows raised and jaws dropped because the pitch is out of the strike zone again.

In the flowered bowl sitting atop the black-stained circular endtable, three satin mushrooms-one deep pink, one cerulean blue, one flaming orange, wrestle for the rite of passage of a nuclear family formally looking on, posing relaxed. Heads do roll after a tumble and tuck. But the young boy appears to be crippled, his red cane an optical illusion fading away in purple. Again two right hands offset biometric logic but how fragile is a frayed nerve? An acoustic guitar sits in the nooked corner, a lonely wallflower dwarfed by the imitation rehabbed curio cabinet. Hidden inside are a band of artists content to wait out the Trojan war, making innocuous trinkets to pad the coiffers at the expense of silkened pillows, barefoot and pregnant.

The Art God is well represented in the yellowed space.

A fantastic voyage sedated

Endless miles of plastic highways swerve underground deeply into encrusted tunnels, an arterial labyrinth to be navigated by a microscopic submarine armed with laser beams. The theater of operations is antiseptically sterile as white jumpsuited technicians wearing safety yellow hardhats sidestep one another checking the numerous lighted gadgetry beeping irregularly. Uniformed men peer from behind open Venetian blinds covering thick glass window, ready at the last moment to abort. And an automated voice can be heard throughout the complex mechanically counting down the remaining seconds until ignition.

The tough, old coot lies jaundiced, awaiting Armageddon. Every so often, furled brows reluctantly Morse code short dots and long dashes of convulsions, spasms that belie an intestinal fortitude. Memories like his cherished boat float adrift morphined dreams chasing both King and Queen squarely ahead and well within sight. Soon he will digest a liquid concoction dyed for easier visibility.

Twice removed, the point of this exercise then is to build double indemnity before the shrunken crew leaves the triple airlock to release a huge weather ballon as all converge upon the alien intruder. Around his spleen, glowing radioactive pus choke off his own climate control usually synchronized to an atomic clock. The battle itself remembers the Alamo because the handful of Davids stave off wave after wave of Goliaths disguised as renegade antibiotics in attack formation. It is the art of war, constantly struggling to attain medicated bliss.

A domestic exercise of the democratic process as curatorial practice

Blinds drawn, a silver puff of opium smoke obscures intermittent white noise from broken static emitted by a massive equipment shutdown. The minions so scrubbed-faced do scramble, an ad hoc exodus that violates celestial hierarchy. Ghosts of disarmed MIGs do fly by as a matter of encounter versus displacement.

Unbeknownst to him, though, Tony Randall materializes speaking in tongues, his long wizened whiskers trailing behind entangled tumbleweed. A pair of slanted eyes, prosthetically applied, smiles an effeminate yellow face at Sybil whose seven faces alternate between Pan, half-man, half-goat and the Abominable Snowman. Meanwhile, Medusa awaits for Apollonius to arrive but his flight is delayed by great flying serpents in the sky. Where is the egress?

But the air suddenly clears and history repeats itself, fondly recalling kinships lost, ideas milked and theories impossibly collided. The lack of preparation fuels a stream-of-consciousness, wildly extrapolating anecdote as legitimate artform. Hench, a day in the life of over three thousand miles of undetected crime compressed as Powerpoint wears many hats in a parallel universe.

The performance per se is quite performative though snickers can be heard above bored snores. Truer words may never be spoken.

Once upon a twilight doubleheader...

circa 1969

In a sea of red and white dotted along the periphery, vertigo loses surrealism. The resultant encompassing fisheye view, panoramic in Cinemascope, of the diamonded greenery below, though joyous, distorts all contiguous space/time continuum, elongating heretofore husky torsos. Beauty fully realized as cognitive concept beyond normal parameters, inexorably slides head first, a conscienceless Charlie Hustle.

FADE out.

To the north on the lost horizon bounded by geopolitical fissures encasing a gold mountain stands a faded nondescript three-storey building, heads and shoulders above its siblings, the perfect height from where Alfred Hitchcock looms, arms outstretched holding cotton candy peering in awe of the spectacle of battles won.

Boom goes the successive bangs, a manmade flurry of thunder and lightning framed and contextualized by three thousand years and a great wall.

SWIPE in.

Hands holding two hot dogs semaphore a nautical message from one corner back to home as a thumb lost in the jungle rematerializes before a stunned knuckleballer, his fractured knee cap aquiver.

The ghost of the Polish cowboy is finally dead and can be put to rest in peace.

"...like the willow in the wind"

The dynamics of geographical orientation often form uneasy allegiances between natural enemies because which way the wind blows determines obtuse tracjectories launched from solid sphere impacting against oblong cylinder. This process reflects the superficiality that is the madding crowd at the proverbial fork-in-the-road, the penultimate flip-of-the-coin. Go deep or run shallow; stay true or fly the coop.

Yet stereotypes persist as to how meteorology affects individual behavior transformed into a collective consciousness. North means industry while South represents agriculture. Fast versus slow; cold against hot.

And in the city that Carl Sandberg associates with big shoulders, the equation so historical flip-flops. Blue collar work ethic then borne of the union stockyards immortalized by Upton Sinclair gravitates southerly suffering from an inferiority complex explainable only in terms of perceived classism.

Inevitably the Brahmin caste is left holding the door as the untouchables hurry through. So join the meek (or downtrodden) to inherit the earth.

Notes on an entirely different solar system

Oversized shurikens, each a lovely shade of baby pastel twinkle, embedded as if thrown along the perimeter of where ceiling meets wall. Around their orbit hang miniature Alexander Calderish mobiles in itself another self-contained universe ad infinitum.

The constellations then form haphazard patterns all over Jackson Pollock armwrestling Elsworth Kelly that appear quite dangerously razor sharp. Yet the weight of these Oldenburgian worlds feel heavyhanded to the degree that nothing light exists about how these pentagrammic forms behave in the modest company of chevrons, poured drips or target circles.

Following the trajectory of an open face club, a sand wedge, though, so intently often strains the neck muscle beyond the normal stratospheric airspace violation. Neil Armstrong does take aim and drive the capsule several light years away.

The heavens full of pent-up fury descend.

Notes on nawa shibari

Streamlined tubular chair in black leather handsomely upholstered over hidden birchwood ergonomically hogtied in suspension adjacent an upturned vintage vinyl barstool frozen by not-so-hidden puppet strings. Each knot the perfect bowtie, looped so its tapered legs thrust awkwardly in pain, lower back twisted, upper torso bent over. Hemp cords bruise the matte finish as bound limbs in limbo risk major injury to fragile anterior cruciate ligaments. Imagine Cornelia Parker meets Araki where submerged libidos reach a strange climax and sleek vogue design bends over to grab its ankles.

Extra

As simple as disposing trash, an automatic act, almost like riding an upside-down bicycle attached to an upright stool repeated regularly recompenses a good salary. One day of waiting albeit sated from junk food equals two weeks of pay. That was the happy meal offered by Ray Kroc and an inebriated Ronald McDonald. Under the golden arches a food stylist dawdles away the afternoon light tweezering immaculate fries. You do deserve a break today, actually three or four.

Each hour worth every Big Mac consumed gratis is cooperative business management training, a vigorous set of calisthetics in preparation for all Japanese salarymen on company expense accounts.

A classically tailored black suit absorbs about ninety per cent of harmful ultraviolet rays as do horned-rimmed glasses or wire spectacles worn dangerously low.

Fame impends.

Notes off the Lao Sze Chuan menu

Crenellated bittermelon hardened to a straightedged rectangle, each furrow a striated plane from a bird's eye view lands ever so softly on the abstracted tarmac. Architecturally related, intersticed strip malls of triple-hued firm tofu stand at ease, lounging around a five-city-block radius, arousing the ire of female passersby indignant of the nonstop catcalls in salute. At the end of the street sits a multidecked eggplant, gracefully violent as it backs against the wall.

An imaginary peppery smell wafts sideways through the oyster sauce drizzled atop gai lan stalks. Two hours before rush hour, Chef Tony is overcome, overpowered by licoriced peppers that numbs tongues and reddens faces.

Notes on video orientalia

Disassembled Ming replica footstool in seven pieces form a Chinese puzzle of three faux cloisonne vases huddled inside the decorative fireplace hearth of ecru brick.

A cluster of bright satin embroidered pin cushions connect its mushroom tops like famous Siamese twins Chang and Eng plus one pair of baby China doll slippers atop Remembrance of Things Past.

Greasy porcelain Kung Fu master in White Crane pose basks Kikkoman aglow as the afternoon sun sets.

On the finality of trifocals

Top for long distance, the center for intermediate looking, and the bottom for reading equals no peripheral vision because of how the sides blur. Now to adjust, the whole head moves. Vision unlike its counterpart and namesake Simon Williams, he who is a red-faced, yellow-caped, green-skinned android capable of passing through solid form, deteriorates like a scarlet witch as parts continue to break. In the meantime, Richard Petty shows up on time as expected driving his stock car, screeching rubber and carrying a scythe.

Nearly twenty eight years ago the nonchalance of a basket catch suddenly grew out of focus as the customary reactive nod that confirms destination arrival produced a faded muscle memory. Racing in, ready to swoop were the vultures of time, intent on every bit of continuously rotting flesh. Every Tibetan shuddered, avoiding the Grecian whose formulaic approach promises only empty calories.

Notes on "And Master Po asks.."

Galvanized pipes threaded by teflon elbows or steel tee joints and rubberized, so as to better resist inclement weather transform into the perfect storm that drowns Dirk Diggler. Embedded, the concrete anchor of arachnid legs balances a fragile fulcrum precariously haunched upwards. Little school children who fall from lack of coordination or upper body strength during their recess scuff up their delicate knees but nonetheless curse Buckminster Fuller.

His geodesic self, though, recalculates the angle of repose at a maximum of forty seven degrees latitude and dares the urchins to swarm the goal post, guaranteeing that its tensile resiliency ought to withstand the combined weight of swinging primates imitating Tarzan (as played by the redoubtable Miles O'Keefe) willy nilly.

Jane simply gasps at the spectacle of ascension.

Ode to Meat Bun

Simple egg glaze,
shiny on top,
dome-backed
like a fat turtle
without its shell

concealing swine innards
sometimes sausage, sometimes ham
always pig

cha sui baos
what makes the world go round
barbequed and pulled gently
sweet manna of pork

Grab one piping hot
near its center
and like Moses
lovingly part its Red Sea
to the Promised Land

which entreats glands
and salivates drool

steam rising
mouth watering

a compact meal
not complicated
of vegetable

and such trivialities

bread as it should be
surrounding meat

If the Earl of Sandwich
were Chinese
civilization would ask for it
by this name
instead.

The Burden of the Summer of Sam

Last night Henry Giroux pronounced his disgust during break for Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick’s last film. He thought the movie to be about the privileged “white” male and misogynistic among other criticisms that failed to address anything of interest for him. He also felt betrayed by the Jonathan Rosenbaum review of the film that affirmed his curiosity to see the movie.

These ideas of his assessment in of itself prompted me to reevaluate another controversial movie Summer of Sam in terms of the reading, an interview from Cultural Composition: Stuart Hall on Ethnicity and the Discursive Turn with Julie Drew. Hall states that, “I’m expected to speak for the entire black race on all questions theoretical, critical, etc., and sometimes for British politics, as well as cultural studies.” This is said in relation to address his burdens of representation, which pertains to questions of the privileges and obligations of being a black public intellectual. For Hall, his reluctance to assume a position of leadership, to attempt to represent the life experiences of others was something he felt called upon to do. His experience of going to Oxford and his middle class education is not representative of those refused housing and decent public services. But this is not to say that Hall shirked any responsibility to identify himself with this class.

I think of this example being somewhat similar to the doubled edged sword that director Spike Lee faces by his critics. Previous to his new film Summer of Sam Spike dealt with accusations that his films often portrayed the black perspective of the black experience exclusively. Lee often defended his position and vision as his cultural imperative to give voice to the oppressed and the conditions of such oppression. Often he hit upon sensitive white nerves in his criticism of the white dominant power structure because he accepted the expectation of his role as an artist to advance a political and moral position in his films. Through his specific cinematic scope, Lee is part of this pedagogy to question the conditions that come to bear on issues of race and its politics, thus effecting the voice of the other that gives “body” to these issues.

So when movie critics dismiss Summer of Sam, is it because as an African American Spike Lee is unqualified to make a film that shows the Italian American living in the Bronx in the disco era reacting to the crisis of a serial killer on the loose?

I recall a noticeable number of African and Latino Americans who got up and left in the middle of this movie. Were their preconceptions or expectations of the film skewed into a specific category of what a Spike Lee movie should be i.e., a film about Black culture? The question then becomes ironically, is it only viable for Spike Lee to only make movies about African Americans and their concerns? Is he damned for “selling out” by these people who walked out? What about other directors of color who choose to cross race lines?

More notes on a heavenly mandate

A Mies Van Der Rohe block, tall as any unadorned skyscraper but obviously painted yellow stands connected to its little brother, the low-to-ground squat horizontal rectilinear cube. Like Big Bird on Sesame Street chirps, "one of these things don't belong; one of these things is not like the others..." So who decides which one is the natural question. Maybe Linda Montano tied up to the great Sam Hsieh for a whole year can help.

Or the unnatural byproduct of an incestuous marriage between Charles Ray's Family of Man and the starkly colored tilted pillars of Judy Chicago to cobble a new Bride of Frankenstein more grotesque than a freaked-out Elsa Lancaster. Somehow visions of many little Sons of Godzilla following in a straight row behind the Monster of all Cookie Monsters seem appropros. Minimalism through puppetry then falls prey to a Pinnochioed appendage in rainbow colors that gooses its bitch from behind. And then how to dispel accusations of sadomasochism especially to explain the handcuffs.

We cross that bridge, cutting a wide swath around Sean Connery, when we get there.

The Lie of the Land (unedited version)

As published in the recent issue of ArtAsiaPacific...

It is no coincidence that Indian artist Jitish Kallat chose religious fanaticism as the subject of his latest work aptly, playfully and collectively entitled “The Lie of the Land” at Walsh Gallery in Chicago. Given these uncertain times, this ambitious installation featuring seven paintings, six works on paper and a fifteen-foot long text-based work on acrylic mirror deftly mixes art, religion and politics. But what Kallat creates is not trite agitprop. In fact, the artist employs the dispassionate vocabulary of Pop Art and Minimalism to comment on the state of current global affairs, in particular, “a new era of religiously motivated violence” in his own cool ironic tone.

What is coincidence though centers on the strange fact of Swami Vivekananda giving a speech in Chicago on September 11, 1893 about the dangers of religious fundamentalism. Kallat incorporates this twist of fate, which alludes to our present political climate and questions the happenstance and irony of these connections by using it as the basis for “Detergent”. The centerpiece of this exhibit, this shadowboxed triptych contains the entire text from the actual speech, literally burnt onto three larger-than-life mirrors, distorting its surface much like its funhouse relative. Each mirror encased in cold steel and propped against the wall generates a wavy and reflective sheen through the glass that echoes and superimposes the melted letterforms onto the viewer. The effect as such resembles the topography of a flag unfurling and disintegrates the original message advocating the universal truths of harmony and tolerance.

The paintings and works on paper, on the other hand, rely on a more formal approach to illustrate his social commentary. Kallat’s series of paintings entitled “Covering Letter” depict familiar images of global unrest culled directly from the headlines as propaganda poster art albeit painted in the style of Sigmar Polke. These canvasses resemble high-end magazine ads with its vibrant palette electrifying the graphic design of manipulated images from the media, Internet and popular culture such that it becomes whimsical as with the painting, “Cover Letter No. 2” showing prisoners tortured at Abu Ghraib whereas the works on paper continue Kallat’s love of the pun. In this series also entitled “Lie of the Land” Kallat disguises the red text, that vaguely recalls Russian script to spell out its title against a backdrop utilizing images from the media which he keeps intact to trace scenes of rioters, protesters and other so-called Third World types into recognizable blotches and smears employing a stark black linear style.

Overall the terse power of “Detergent” carries resonance as text objectified and the paintings and works on paper tread tough ground to balance art and politics without falling prey to the usual tropes of proselytizing.

"The apple never falls far from the tree."

So without further adieu and in its glorious unedited entirety, a very proud uncle proudly presents:

The Love That Seeks Revenge

When a family member dies, relatives of he or she mourn the loss of them. Some families bury them in a cemetery. Some families have the body cremated. Even some families write their name in an obituary. But, the Sarayashis differ from each aspect of mourning of a family member’s death. They seek bitter revenge.

“Excuse Father,” said, a nineteen year-old girl with long, brown hair named Jade. Jade Sarayashi was a nineteen year-old girl who had a talent for cooking up delectable evening meals. “ Father, the gas can for the hot pot tonight has gone out. I am going to go to the store for some extra gas cans and raw beef for Vincent. I’ll hurry.”
“Take your time, Jade. It’s only eight o’clock and Vincent and Azoru won’t be home till nine o’clock. Plus, I have to do something around the house. Take your time,” replied, Father Sarayashi.
“Okay. See you soon.” And the door opened and closed.
“I’m sorry my children” said, Father Sarayashi and he went up to his master bedroom.
On the way back from the supermarket, Jade noticed a blue light strike and break one of the windows of her home. As fast as her athletic legs could carry her, she rushed to her home praying that her father was not injured. When she got to her home she saw to twin brothers.
“Who are you two?” yelled, Jade with tears in her eyes. “Why did you slaughter my father as if he was a nuisance!?”
“My name is Annak.”, said, a twenty-six year old boy with short black hair and a blood-dripping sword in his hand. “And this is my twin brother Calex.”
Calex had black hair with streaks of brown towards the top. Calex wore a long, black cloak with a red streak up to his shoulder on both sides.
“We killed your father because he didn’t keep his end of the deal.” sneered, Calex.
“What was the deal?” Jade asked.
“ He was to give us your sister, Satori.”, remarked Annak.
“I have no sister named Satori. You were mistaken.” And Jade punched Annak in the face.
“Why I haven’t felt pain in years.”, said Annak. “We must go, Calex, but don’t think that I won’t kill you like father.” Then Annak threw a smoke bomb directly at Jade. After the smoke cleared, there was no sign of the twins.
“Father, speak to me. Who is Sa…”
“Never mind that. Go in to the top drawer of my dresser and take out the black key before it’s to late. Once you have taken out the key, open the silver chest next to my lamp-stand. Inside the chest…”
It was to late. Father Sarayashi body went cold. Then, his body just disappeared into thin air.
“FATHER!!! Mark my words Annak and Calex, you will pay your lives for this miserable deed.”

Just then, two boys came in the house. Their names were Vincent and Azoru Sarayashi. Vincent was a twenty-one year old boy with dark brown hair. Azoru was a fifth-teen year old boy with dark brown hair who always wore a dark blue shirt with jeans.
“Hi Jade.”, said Azoru, “Why the long look on your face?”
“Father was just killed.”, replied Jade.
“What!”, said Vincent.
“Father was killed by some evil twins.”, said Jade.
“By some chance, were their names, Calex and Annak?”, questioned Vincent.
“Yeah”
“This is a serious problem.”, said Vincent. “Was there any thing else Father said?”
“Yeah, he said there was some key that would open up some chest in his room.”, said Jade.
“Okay let’s go open that chest”, said Azoru excitedly. “ But, where is the key?”
“In the top drawer of his dresser”
“Okay. Let’s go!”
When the Sarayashis got to their father’s room, it was locked shut.
“Let me break it down.”, said Azoru.
“Be careful.”, said Jade.
With all the strength Azoru had, Azoru knocked the door down.
“Hurry. Get in.”, said Vincent.
The Sarayashis quickly ran in the room. When the Sarayashis where in the room, Jade opened the top drawer of the dresser and seized the key. Inside the drawer was a medium-sized mirror. With curiosity, Jade tapped on the mirror three times. To everyone’s surprise, a girl’s face appeared.
“Thank you for awakening me.”, said the unknown girl. “My name is Satori. I know that we haven’t met before, but I am your sister.
“You are not our sister. I bet you don’t know even know our names and ages.”, testified Azoru.
“Azoru-15, Jade-19, and Vincent-21.”, proclaimed Satori.
“Okay. She is our sister.”
“Hi nice to meet you. I don’t mean to be impolite, but why are you in a mirror?”, asked Jade.
“ It was before all of you were born. Our father vowed to keep it a secret from all of you. It was a sunny day. I was out in the meadow playing with this mirror that enables me not to be in life form with you. Without my knowing, it was the day of a solar eclipse. But, this was not any regular eclipse. This eclipse was the eclipse of a new century. Little did I know, this mirror has a strong demonic aura and didn’t do well with eclipses, so it sucked me right into it. That is why I am the way I am.”, said Satori
“Is there any way of saving you from this everlasting fate?”, asked Jade.
“You could have an exorcism on the mirror.” , said Azoru.
“Good idea. Get the strongest monk you can find Azoru.”, said Jade.
“Wait, get the ashen salt, (A salt used to ward off demons) we can use the mirror again.”, implied Vincent.
“What are you going to use it for?”, asked Satori
“You’ll see.”, said Vincent, “Now hurry and get the salt and once you get it throw it on the mirror.
“ Yes brother.”, said Azoru
When Azoru came back with the ashen salt, he threw in right in top of the mirror. When the ashen salt hit the mirror, vivid colors of came out and so did Satori.
“Thank you. Now I heard you were going to open that silver chest over there.”, said Satori.
“I almost forgot.”, said Jade.
When Jade opened the chest, she saw a golden horn with a note attached to it.
The note said:
If you are reading this note, I am probably dead. This golden horn enclosed is the horn the belonging to my murderers, Calex and Annak.
If you seek revenge, just blow this horn and the twins will come to the harmonic sound. If you intend to do this, just use extreme caution.
Sincerely, Father Sarayashi

“That’s it”, said Azoru expectantly.
“Yep. That’s all.”, replied Jade.
“Okay, if we are to seek revenge, we must be prepared.”, said Satori.
“You’re right. If we expect to blow the horn, we have to have a great defense or the same fate will occur like father’s fate.”, remarked Vincent. “Okay. Here’s the plan. We all go in to the woods. Jade, you will be pretending that you are helpless and lost. Azure and I will be up a tree or hiding in the bushes and I will blow the horn. Then Calex and Annak will appear and recognize you. Then you, Satori, will walk out and aid you, Jade. When they almost kill you I will unleash the secret.”
When the Sarayashis entered the forest, every thing went according to plan.
“Which one do you think we shall shred into pieces first, Calex?”, asked Annak.
“Keep your filthy hands of my sister you fiend!”, shouted Vincent.
“What are you going to do about you brat”, said Anna.
“This”, answered Vincent.
Then Vincent held up the mirror and shined it directly at the evil twins. Suddenly, the mirror devoured both of the twins into it. After sucking the menacing twins into it, Vincent shattered the glass so that Calex and Annak wouldn’t cause any more problems.
“Why, Vincent, I never knew you were that heroic. Now I know that family comes first and nothing will get in the way of that special bond.”, said Satori.
“That’s right.”, replied Vincent.
“ Can we go home? I’m starving!”, whined Azoru.
“Is that all you can think of.”, teased Jade.
“You’re right let’s go home.”, said Vincent.

God bless J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and the host of British-born authors with letters of the alphabet for first names like G. K. Chesterton, A. A. Milne, D. H. Lawrence and ilk.

Each and every one of them.

An ESPN classic, already

"Rupture" sight unseen:

Bladder-related, water-laden and exceedingly colonic, this film
positively urinates a stream-of-broken-consciousness heretofore
unmatched except for expansive Flubber as our protagonist suddenly
discovers the true meaning of…

Now that is the type of movie worth its weight in gold.

A disappearing act

To be so scarce for so long usually indicates foul play.

Kind of like walking innocuously along the pier, minding your own business when suddenly swoosh! A big white canvas bag is thrown over your head, engulfing your body as a rope wraps tightly around your arms and waist, squeezing out the very air you breathe as everything fades to black. And when the cobwebs finally clear, you awake later aboard a rusted freight steamer chugging across the China Sea amidst disheveled and disorderly crew sleepwalking about attending to the operation of the boat, who also find themselves shanghaied.

That might explain the circumstances of being away. Out-of-control as the body is invaded, a blitzkreig that renders your defenses harmless. Yet despite those loyal soldiers who stay behind, the effort at resistance is sporadic at best and quite guerilla in its lack of coordination. Small blows that represent moral victories but inflict little else in terms of measurable retaliation.

Sometimes these small skirmishes tend to implode, lasting well beyond the projected figures.

A newer linearity from the free throw line

The hiatus prompts a very useful dream. Suddenly the ground shoots up and new walls thrust toward the raftered ceiling. Or the open field, a wide expanse converging past either horizon line, ruptures as if from plate techtonics though not organically and fissured in a broken or shattered fashion but orderly and geometrical like neatly stacked Lego blocks. The terrain becomes a preNintendo video game landscape of sharp right angles gradually stepped into curved peaks or valleys. Lines that used to indicate increments, territory, stated goals are now thrown out-of-whack subverting its spatial identity (and metaphysical space).

Rethink actual markings as an overhead blueprint rather than demarcations and invert delineated flat planes (sometimes distinguished by color) into volumetric space. Extend the areas above, below, laterally, diagonally beyond the floor or ground to create new form which fractures the implied notions of border. The area, the surface constituting what is inbounds functions as figure that manufactures an exterior shell while what was out-of-bounds, its perimeter no longer acts strictly as the opposite ground is obliterated through the addition of perspectival directionality. Reinterpreting and transforming the field of play as such suggests a metaphorical dislocation that speaks of culture as well as politics too. Perhaps an appropriate model to use might be a scaled-down version as either maquette or sculptural object.

The sequel

The platform made of medium density fiberboard sits about six inches above the floor and acts as a shallow pool from which the rusted legs of three steel office chairs submerge into. A foot deep wall about four feet high stands directly behind, attached to the base of its adjoining structure, forming a reverse L-shape. On the opposite side is a twenty gallon aquarium perched atop a narrow pedestal, its guts revealed. From room to object, the whole feeling of this piece transforms physically, embracing a newer yet traditional formalism. The three spigots connected by hose to the tank from underneath slowly leaks, drips a droplet of water every minute or so onto the cracked vinyl seat of each chair.

Exposed lumber studs replace mudded surface in deference to its cardiovascular system that is hidden plumbing dangle as intertwined knots. Perhaps milk replaces water and video, the photographs which acts to update the original translation beyond the politics of representation.

The Art of War

Wait and see because the cat and mouse suddenly decided to observe the proprieties. So who outlasts whom squeezes the breath out in a gasp. The first one to flinch loses usually but the deck is stacked with many aces up the proverbial sleeves. March off ten paces on his mark, turn and shoot. So much for that theory as strategy. But somehow the ball bounces away freely on the other side of the basket, an electron buzzing about willy nilly and the crowd reacts, screaming backcourt violation. Sacrifice the body and launch shoulder first out-of-bounds to save the possession or start backpedalling fast, getting into a strong defensive position depends on instinct. Stop and go, stop or go before the referee blows the whistle for travelling.

The race is on, the game is afoot.

Notes on sash

Black then red then blue then green then yellow then orange then white represents but one order of many viable systems of belief whereas an antiNeoplasticist world by contrast or bias opts for a palette of white to yellow to orange to green to purple to blue to brown to black instead. But Maurice Chevral advocates the optical rather than sociopolitical effects of hue that becomes basic color theory. Yet the abstract quality of such groupings of color suggests otherwise. It also speaks of other associations related to the mental as phenomenological in direct response to visual stimuli. Thus the reference to the martial arts. Color transcends the spiritual as artistic record of process.

But the subtractive process relies on the interpretation of an appropriate architectural role model which functions to convey the coded information. That is precisely why the VanderRohian concept of less is more shakes off its Bauhausian roots to perfectly fit within the constructs of the larger project.

Scottsdale calling...

Nothing, and I mean nothing, beats free because the sound of gratis is akin to "cha-ching!" So to be connected in such a place only compels random thoughts about the place in general. A somewhat tough proposition given the red-eye timing of arrival, complimentary shuttle and mad dash to the bar for a rather disappointing interpretation of something foolproof like a rib-eye steak sandwich.

Still, passing by the silhouetted mesas even in the pitch black darkness recalls Monument Valley and the specific cinematic vision one learns by constantly watching classic old John Ford westerns. Aside from the nouveau riche, where do the cowboys reside? And such is the dichotomy between manufactured memory and great expectations as the reality of the old frontier being yuppiefied by retirees versus the fantasy of Ponderosa and Adam, Hoss and Little Joe. Be quick on the draw, Marshall because God only knows when every which way is loose.

And this romanticism with family but maybe a few long hours drive northeast away. Indeed, to set foot on his land so many years removed from the gray concrete of cramped inner city claustrophobia in contrast to the plethora of low horizontal architecture which rules the desert landscape, mimicking a stark and arid rendition of suburban mall sprawl. To see such juxtapositions of cultures once indigenous, proud and independent now just figments interspersed and coopted by Manifest Destiny causes one to pause about how absolute is the whitewash that expunges and dominates any will.

Yet, he managed to raise his children here who as it were choose either to fly the coop eastward forsaking the mythos or to embrace its Hispanic roots staying close to the roost. Was it the promise of winterless weather that drew him or the call of the wild, uncharted territory unbuilt by Chinese railroad workers? That per se might be reason enough to justify his pioneering spirit, seeing how his black sheep status broke traditions, ignored rules and blazed new trails that ironically some of us followed. Sure enough, he absorbed the blows and accepted the blame to some degree but his definition of self, though inherently selfish, never strayed.

So within family history will he be the scapegoat or the visionary? Only his legacy can tell.

Notes on achieving masterhood, part one

Originally the plan called for flimsy rice paper to lead a path to Enlightment. But treading softly enough so as to not rip its surface betrayed heavy feet borne of a carnivorous diet and an unsteady step. So the alternative is to find a shortcut instead. Rather than suffer the pain of arduous and lengthy apprenticeship (who can really invest the time anymore?) to master said feat, newer configuration circumvents lower body balance and center of gravity for pure upper body strength. Build monkeybars over the test strip in question. Climb over as opposed to stepping through. If Kirk can rely on guile to overcome the Kobayashi Maru simulator then changing the rules or context in this case is justifiable by reason of exhibiting initiative. A simple matter of brain over brawn maybe. Or of overintellectualizing the intended purpose as something else. Such is the zeitgeist the work hopes to portray. That the easy route is, well, easier.

But often the deceptively simple disguises the overtly complex. The linear, or that which heads inexorcably in a singular albeit straight direction, can also involve tangents which shift, rotate and figure-eight between points thus mathematically speaking, the distance from point A to point B is the endless road much travelled and rarely completed. So to punctuate this point requires either purchasing old-fashioned wooden ladders perhaps twelve to fifteen feet in height be suspended from the ceiling underneath which runs the Japanese paper runner or handcrafting a variation to reference and indeed lampoons the particular functionality or lack thereof of the object. The latter offers additional breadth and depth though.

A knotted looping open conduit if you will whose purpose confounds the philosophical and physical as it resembles a snaking stepladder gone awry; each step, a potential leap of faith. Such a Minimalist structure overall emulates an intricate latticed Chinese screen except for its chaotic dysfunctionality. Perhaps cover the gapped spaces with the rice paper itself to enclose its form but doing so may evoke the Isamu Noguchi lamp too readily which goes against the grain in terms of aesthetics. Fragile versus sturdy, fragile in spite of sturdy, fragile in unison with sturdy strikes an appropriate yin and yang.

Now revise the official paperwork.

Deliverance, again

Squeal like a pig (Insert telltale banjo twang) prolonged and loud so as to last a whole week enough to really damage the vocal chords.

Finally the kinfolk arrived atop their pickup truck after chancing upon some black gold albeit disparately and immediately fell prey to the Drysdale curse. The dollar only stretches so far above the Mason-Dixon Line. So imagine the sticker shock of being in rush hour traffic watching the taxi meter literally roll. Someone please tell Miss Hathaway to be careful around the cement pond because Jethro forgot his spit cup.

After much ado about nothing what seems to ail the Bodines is cultural laryngitis and very unseasonable monsoons downpours. Traipsing around the magnificent mile in search of bargains amidst the elan certainly stokes enough sitcom material but truthfully I saw that episode before rerun just last week. God's Acre is no Green Acres and Mister Haney disguised himself, illegally impersonating an officer, namely Deputy Barney Fife outside the Petticoat Junction speed trap.

Who knew?

Row, row, row your boat

It was an overcast sky that chilly Saturday morning in Ping Tom Park named for the man who made a fortune selling the ubiquitously white and rhomboid take-out carton as folkloric as chop suey and moo goo gai pan. Crowds wandered in early and often, expectant to see the dotting of the eye but as usual became subjected to cretin officials waxing unpoetically about sponsors and other unrelated agendas instead. A scan of the place revealed a few pitched tents hawking their weird affiliations scattered atop the terraced bank overlooking the murky sludge of the historic Chicago river, a former industrial causeway once the main artery as the hub of a fledging nation. Two fiercely whiskered heads stuck above the rivershore floating precariously just to the left of the facsimile pavilion made of steel and concrete painted in traditional red and green. Yet conviviality spread throughout as young senoritas garbed in flowing hooped skirts danced a hybrid mariachi amidst befuddled Chinese grandmothers hauling their preschool scions on by as easily as flipping the dial past the jibbering Univision and Telemundo channels. And hip hop preteens queued around the inflatable basketball court, the only carnival game, waiting their turn to hoist free throws for a lovely sticker as consolation prize. If not for the different groups of similarly tee shirted men and women exhorting different degrees of encouragement and invective, one could easily mistake the entire event as yet another but very politically correct version of that very famous George Seurat painting.

Back up the hill, eighteen very green-around-the-gills strangers minus two two hundred and fifty plus ringers huddled together for some hasty lessons about the ancient practice of rowing a boat in unison. Distributing equal weight so as not to capsize seemed to be the top priority in determining our seating arrangements as everyone mimicked the proper motion of paddling while seated on grass. Our team as it were could be categorized as a puny bunch of ragtag artists.

And of course our foe who blatantly flaunted their machismo in hopes of ultimately intimidating us were appropriately the cops from District Twenty Five. It would be not be wrong to assume from just size and brawn alone that a mismatch existed. But their strategy of literally flexing their muscles and talking trash backfired. Off the street and in gym clothes, their potbellies and doughy physiques elicited complete disrespect as David set forth to best Goliath. Our wit and creativity proved more than ample to immediately disarm the louts accustomed to bulldozing their will on unsuspecting dolts. Verbally it was a slaughter as chants of "Doughnut! Doughnut! Doughnut!" permeated the air. Besides who could resist ribbing an emasculated officer of law completely naked without their gun. Biting sarcasm, our weapon of choice, proved more effective as all they could muster was a resigned shake of their heads under our unrelenting torrent of "No guns allowed on board" or "Don't mistake your flak jacket for the life vest" and "Hard to paddle fast just using your batons."

The race against them was three hundred meters long from the Twenty First Street Bridge to the Eighteenth Street Bridge, a good distance considering our ignorance of the metric system. The day before during practice, the oarsman steering the boat taught the motley crew the necessary basics of the how to board, how to sit and how to stroke. We learned vitally important instruction like what it meant when he shouted, "Go!" or "Let it ride!" or "Stop!" which in hindsight proved to be the deciding factor as the cops characteristically understood the meaning of these words in water better.

In a tight race that saw the underdog lead three quarters of the way, the physically larger cops came back and just narrowly grabbed the flag a mere half second ahead of the artists much to the derision of the crowd who implicitly understood the irony of the situation and immediately chose sides. Authoritarianism tends to provoke an ugly response, you know.

But since the overall competition was based on best cumulative times rather than head-to-head elimination, by the end of the day our team who got better and faster actually made the playoff round as the vaunted cops shot their wad early losing later races with horribly slower times.

Beauty before the beast, always.

The Mothership landed

And barely kissed the remaining nine-ball along the outside rail. Slowly it rolled into the far pocket but not before the blue-light special ended a mere stroke after midnight. The coliseum, full of hoarse and bedraggled spectators, erupted at the sound of its plop. And suddenly the warrior appeared in full regalia amidst the dense smoke, his shiny mane wrapped around his neck longer than even Samson. A true hero stood among us, ready to battle the discordant.

In slow motion, the stick traced a ghostly path.

Moving on up...

That deluxe apartment in the sky now does smell of burnt beans because she who gave birth to yet another popular cultural icon Lenny Kravitz gives new meaning to the phrase, "What you talkin' bout, (Tom) Willis?" And Flo who left for 227, quite the far cry from Karen Valentine being bossed around by that Zorba of lesser Greeks, Michael Constantine back in Room 222, comforts George. So make room up there Lizabeth. No more let Good Times Esther Rolle. Though John Amos comfortingly does resurrects himself militarily in the West Wing. But that might only explain why the Dyn-o-mite Kid looks Barry Bonds bloated.

So what next? Chachie loves Joanie hates Isaac does Arnold. Mister Miyagi would be proud except that Korea is no longer spelled with a C. And sadly Weazie is dead.

Ides of July

Last summer it poured around this time and appropriately as if preordained, an off-remark said in total jest completely backfired. In a soaked crowd, the words first wafted overheard before sinking below flesh. The emperor surrounded by his senators fell. Unfortunately, the knife shone red in my hand.

And just as quickly the connection severed quite unexpectedly. Who knew the repercussions would be so totalitarian? But the proverbial handwriting on the wall started to drip even more blood. No need to fight the inevitable winds of change as it were because his final message required no translation at all.

Et tu, Brute, Hurtus Maximus begone.

So strange then it is, not having to shepherd the flock as the carnival outside sort of reflects the controlled mayhem inside. Yet the clock ticks slightly off still, probably the residue of habit. Six years straight tends to do that.

Free at last, free at last

The world disconnects and the said revolution permits an ambulatory freedom heretofore unheard of. The joy felt upon hearing the doorbell ring and seeing the man in brown (wearing shorts no less) bearing the instrument of my liberty.

Twirl the hands clockwise like a tornado and behold the future, Pompie. Lee Marvin, bless his soul, passed by like Mariko Mori surfing a stream of radio waves. And the world as Isaac Asimov envisioned draws ever increasingly closer. To be tethered by gravity or otherwise speaking of mere ohms and amps is outdated. Life that exists as scattered molecules transported by narrow beams instantaneously in a blink of an eye, as dreamed of, pulsates from a box hooked up and plugged into the wall.

And I dance an extraterrestrial dance of hyperelectricity.

Notes on semi-gloss

Societal detritus amassed as collectible nostalgia, too sentimental to relinquish and therefore more precious than common junk. That is the premise from which to converge. Two separate paths, two distinct styles representing a palpable sense of aesthetic that must be dovetailed in order to co-exist. Larger metaphysical mores dictate such redesign, inflict a moral obligation beyond the connective and conjugal to regulate that thing called beauty. Postmodern man sees this adventure as a subconscious pilgrimage, an evolution of the modernist edict toward a better world. Even popular culture in its infinite wisdom demands it, brainwashing acolytes with daily dosages of Merge, Trading Spaces, Clean Sweep and Designing for the Sexes to coerce a new look, a new life, a new order.

Because disorder from disorganization equals buried conflict, anathema to crucial infrastructure of healthy relationships. Yin must merge with Yang to achieve balance. That is the not-so-sublimnal message promulgated by mass media. The individual must acquiese and become a singular identity from its disparate parts whether by predestiny or by design.

So who are we as purveyors of such fashion to resist?

Semi-gloss then refers to this urge to combine and merge, to create from the preexisting, to preserve so as to reinvent. Apply a new coat with sheen and its slick surface is pure eye candy. It mimics these methodologies to transform and reform the whole process of process as process. Call it mixed media deconstructed and out of control, reacting to the architecture of spatial realities and definitive objects as the politics of the room versus the formalism of decoration and pattern. Literally the room itself is the defacto and proverbial blank canvas except that instead of one artistic vision, see what transpires via a collaborative effort of differing ideas governing what defines art, craft and simple interior decorating.

Perhaps employ an exquisite corpse technique to affect a hybrid installation, transforming the gallery into a hodge podge chop suey of divergent tastes and influences.

From two minds comes one work. Or so one says.

Not to win or place, but show

Tuesday afternoon before the Pepsi half-price night rendezvous to see Schoenweiss versus the Gambler, two veteran lollipop lefthanded curveballers, threatens to be washed out. But then the missing sun reappears and just like old times in a snap of a finger, the scenery changes almost instantaneously from drab gray to lush green. So why not squeeze in nine holes to properly acknowledge the forthwith male bonding?

No elaborate planning, no forethought, just consensus and be done. The course is surprisingly empty upon our arrival which means no crucial warmup prior to initial tee-off. Grab your bag, dust off Big Bertha and pray for distance. The anticipation that springs from those wizened old pros, ad hoc judge and jury eyeballing your manic practice swings, an idiosyncratic ritual superstitiously followed ostensibly to loosen up but really a convulated and complex checklist of do's and don'ts, only increases your adrenalin and no doubt, testosterone.

The trick is now part of muscle memory. Address the ball, right hand overlapping left thumb rather than the prototypical interlocking pinkies, and backswing, making sure the torque of the motion forces the left shoulder to contact chin before releasing. Naturally and of course, the head remains absolutely still, eyes locked on the tee. Over and over in your head, one word repeats to quell the performance anxiety in the face of the madding crowd: smooth.

And whack! Long, straight and most importantly aloft, the ball flies.

That is what was said in defense of driving for show yet failing to putt for dough. Something wicked goes awry trying to get up and down as if all that came before simply becomes amnesia.

Way below the Mendoza Line

It returns. The greatest slump of all time continues. But not from a lack of trying.

What beguiles is that things started off very swimmingly. First a ghost from distant past revealed themself to be a guardian angel in disguise pointing the way, shining the proverbial light. A name I heretofore only read about shook my hand. Then before you can say "abracadabra", the secret door opened. Suddenly these gatekeepers knew who I was and weirdly beckoned me in. That never happened before. This time, though, being in the company of she who is annointed, cast me in a different light. No more queuing among the throngs just to glimpse the booths. An usher escorted us to where the ministers convened, a curtained backroom that few knew about. Inside, other heads of state gladly said hello, exchanged pleasantries, even sought counsel. But then it was too late. I fascinated only because of being garbed in the emperor's clothing, just another oddity.

Of course, the bottom fell out as is the case recently. Looking over the game film pointed out specific foibles in overall strategy. The eye in the sky rarely lies as everyone knows. To place all my eggs in one basket trying to backdoor numerous applications proved disasterous. Rather than follow up hot targets individually the carpetbomb approach failed to yield the anticipated collateral effect. The chain reaction ready to set off never detonated. Now the many commando strikes ineffectually bounce off steel-plated armor.

Forever with one knee on the on-deck circle, waiting. It is much better to be lucky than good.

"But she sure can cook..."

And just like that, it ends. Only a cascading and snaking trail of fallen dominoes remains, her evidence of being here three weeks after arriving eight hours late. The time itself competed with other coinciding events preplanned well in advance so what eventually happened involved more hopscotching than is usually normal. But as is the case when cultures clash and egos fray, basic communication broke down and a minor hell broke loose.

First the medicinal broth so pungent that it reeks of immigrant roots followed by an unfortunate aversion to catfish. Then a high fever blamed from not dressing warmly enough that results in the emergency room. Next an unfortunate relapse misdiagnosed initially as an uterus but subsequently changed to kidney infection. All bad luck compounded by strong independent wills unaccustomed to maternal instincts counseling (nagging) post partum caution and preaching tradition.

Naturally the whole thing exploded. From the safe distance afforded the mute and preoccupied, such needles in the haystack only bug the extraordinarily thinnest of skins and of course no amount of bandaging could stop the bleeding. Hopefully her flight back will heal the open wounds as she is happy to be home.

It is fortuitous to be on the periphery looking in, able to jump in and apply a torniquet.

The Wonderful Life of Henry Wong

Yesterday was as good a day as any to be born. Just ask an officially seventy-four year old paper son. He managed to wingding double celebrations by way of flippancy for nary six score. But the crisis so to speak passed for the expectant parents-to-be. Both deemed the cursed day marked by its lack of gravity inappropriate for the grand entry of their scion. And this from those who would curse an offspring with a nickname rhyming with "spank", "stank", and no doubt "wank". A boy named Sue suffers less cruelly.

So what used to be a matter of luck, pacing back and forth, wearing out a rut of a miniature racetrack now is a predetermined shot-in-the-ass away. Where except in reruns of sitcomed fiction can you find the slapstick of childbirth anymore? Then puritan antiseptic hospital linens whitewashed the blood and gore. No wonder reality television rules nowadays.

Demon Redux

And so it goes, the madness continues...at least one more chance to bleed blue. Is the monkey in this year of the monkey ironically and finally off their back? Can it be laid to rest peacefully? Will the pain after so many years subside? Bring on the leeches before I faint.

My Linda Blairesque head swivels aghast dreaming the redemption, that day when the pit churning deep in my stomach acids ripped another ulcer. No nails left, it was supposed to be a forgone conclusion. But such is the expectation of promise, of rank, of nobless oblige hurtled against tenacity with a lousy six seconds left. A mighty blue demon toppled then and now a frail shell of its former self peeps forth. How many poems need to be written to exorcise the purgatory infecting his mind?

This Ides of March so far bode well to erase past failings because those boys back then died for their sins. Someone please ask the Father to lead us in prayer.

A fortune cookied story

Her name is like a weeping willow, a black sumi-e brush drawing of a lovely tree with flowing branches. Not so long ago, she cried every night for her mother to return. But no one came.

The two strangers plunked her down between a stuffed rag doll, three bronze taels strung together by red yarn and the year you were born to choose a future. In the oak-paneled room, incense burned as the congregation clapped softly at first and then loudly. A little boy wearing a fireman's helmet scribbled his wishes in green felt-tip marker on a small pink cotton shirt. She pointed toward her fortune, oblivious to family lurking beyond the altar.

Her fate, like the twenty helium-filled balloons touching the ceiling, is sealed.

The Return of the (other) Devil Monkey Child

The last time she slept over, all hell broke loose.

Then teeth gnashed, egoes rankled and a pretty nasty pillow fight ensued. Not quite the maelstrom of white zigzagging feathers abruptly slashed through midair by the centrifrugal force of whirring eight-point cotton on reddened flesh but enough pounds per square inch applied rapid fire to barrage any target to smithereens. Natural enemies, the two battled as if in a Texas cage match because no blood, no foul. Finally the sugar rush from their respective thirsty two ouncers of raw Coke, pure intravenous caffiene, subsided. The hard shell ground beef tacos smothered with two packets each of medium hot sauce from Taco Bell induced a food coma sometime past two in the morning and she passed out, a Shetland pony neighing aloud while he crashed and burned at the edge of the futon.

So lesson learned. This time, divide and conquer. One at a time reduces the migraine factor by half, hopefully.

Notes on technochinoiserie

Twenty four ninety-degree angles gridlock to obscure gelid eyes intent on gentler curves. But who cares if no one remembers Hector Guimard. Yesterday a drip of red ink on watery paper shot down his femural artery, undulating past many white blood corpuscles as he looked into shards of mirrored mosaic.

Across the boulevard, east meets west. Raw silk made from celadon worms mask the worn-out squares Hans Hoffman pushed and pulled back and forth by himself. Yet flat is flat no matter how far from the Black Mountain. So does anyone besides the forgotten craftsmen really know how to reconstruct a reasonable facsimile? The old wooden model is rotted from too much sun and too many tears and will not last the winter.

Head back to the savannah and ask him to teach you a newer way. It is our only recourse.

Give Peace A Chance, Part Two, or because someone asked about Yoko again

Back in the last century during one of the graduations for the School at the Medinah Temple when staff then was "volunteered" to assist with the proceedings, my role/job/task was to police the backstage area and direct traffic as new graduates who received their diplomas walked offstage. Of course, one of the speakers receiving an honorary degree that day was her YOKOness and believe me, she put on a show worthy of her best Fluxus performances. First, in the middle of her acceptance speech, she excuses herself to potty, I mean, interrupts the flow of the entire ceremony to take a whizz. How great. Later she horns in on Bill Viola, the keynote speaker, to interject a nonsequitor or two enough to frazzle his speech. And finally she involves the whole audience in participating in a time-based conceptual piece she announces midway through the festivities. Now that is a bona fide graduation.

But of course, I digress. The real gist of the story is when a fastidious middle-aged fellow immaculately dressed in a blue blazer with gold buttons, from the looks of it, an Ivy League type, approaches me to request, "Listen, young fellow, can I ask a specific favor of you?"

No doubt, I snap to with, "Yes, sir."
"I need for you to go onstage and tell Yoko that her party will be waiting for her in the backroom backstage."
"Yes, sir."
"But, and this is very important, you must escort her to the backroom personally, understood?"
"Yes, sir. I understand, sir"
"Please do that as soon as possible."
"Of course, sir."

So when a lull occurs, I strut out onstage and nonchalantly whisper like a Secret Service agent into Yoko's ear the instructions that I've been commanded to pass along especially the part of my job to be her personal escort. Well, the ceremonies finally end and I again strut onstage and offer my arm to a weirdly discombobulated yet frail Yoko who dithers along, weaving and bobbing as we walk back to her "party". The woman is blabbering away as if stricken senile the three or so minutes it takes to go backstage and I'm literally hauling her along. Well, we arrive and first thing I hear from the guy who asked me this favor is, "How are we feeling, Yoko?"

"I'm fine," she answers in a sort of singsong but faraway tone.
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"It's going to be a long ride. Do you need to use the bathroom?"
"No."
"You absolutely sure?"
"Yes."
"Yoko, please use the washroom NOW."
"Okay."

Wow, I am flabbergasted. Then I realize that this guy is her manservant and she must be drugged up for whatever reason to be treated like a three year old.

The gleam shines less brightly.

Notes on an antediluvian Gigantor

Under her varnished pavillion, she is frozen, forever gazing westward.

A wooden robot made of filligreed ramen lattice interlocked in feudal fashion to turn back the atomic clock stands watch. Ancient rusted cogs chugging incrementally forward, slowly rotate the axis of a platformed pagoda only two stories tall. The noise it makes deafens. But still the monks gather, praying to the sleek slabs of concrete faux finished to resemble shiny jade and studded along its ribbed walls.

Eyes automatically avert as the Medusa walks by lest be blinded its mirrored sunglasses. The burning man merely burns in retaliation as an abstract elephant, its trunk an ascending escalator, offers solace while children play about, oblivious.

And he wonders when the next time will be.

Why "team" is spelled with an "I" nowadays and rightly so

The game of any game is after all simply a game. The glory of the individual whose skill or talent or perseverance or courage in concert with or competition against other such combatants reinforce the character of man under pressure. Or that is what the traditional Modernists, those who revere the purity of the contest, the status quo, would have you believe. But playing to win no longer holds as much sway within this context because popular culture elucidly identifies a newer motivation of the participant which demands, "show me the money." A not-so-sudden shift in attitude that elicits much misunderstanding among the underinformed minions who form the ticket-buying public. And where better than to hear their rantings than listening to sports talk radio while driving about as caller after caller bends over and grabs their ankles, spouting their particularly vituperative brand of homily, an American anti-intellectualism incapable of distinguishing their income from that of their often tragic heroes overinflated by the excesses of their undeserved accomplishments. For them, money (in vast and unjustifiable sums in compensation for services rendered or specifically lack thereof) corrupts aptly describes the current state of sports affairs. So blame the messenger instead. How can they be paid so much for doing so little?

It certainly functions as the perennial soap box from which the vox populi self-righteously pollute the airwaves propagating the hackneyed accusation of the ballplayer as overpaid, underachieving lout as if in this day and age to simply play professional sports for the love of the game ought to suffice. Ever inflicting their archetypal blue collar logic that demands equating hitting or shooting a ball as labor, a job to be done. Does it matter that their salary is based on what the market bears? But misbegoten economic theory that badly account for play notwithstanding, who can blame the postmodern athlete for intuitively understanding how the nature of sports evolved into spectacle.

But more troubling is the underlying tone of racism disguised as accusations of showboating. For how often do veiled remarks abound denigrating the inner city nee undisciplined athlete freelancing outside the constraints of proper coaching, disrespectful of authority in favor and praise of the precious and sacred "system", team players with "lunch bucket" ethics schooled in the fundamentals. Or of the underprivileged star being manipulated and exploited by the almighty dollar too soon into self-destruction. It now represents a politics of representation, an individualized identity dependent on capitalism, on creative expression bordering on entertainment. Is it that difficult to sway with the wind and accept that Jim Crow ended a long while ago? And you can thank Curt Flood profusely for that. But still corn rows and Sharpies as touchdown dance prop logically validate a demonstrative egotism indicative of a postmodern sense of irony inevitably affecting popular culture including sports. Why not superimpose and juxtapose these variant cultural elements to harken the self? It pays to look good. Style as Madison Avenue taught us sells and in droves. Who notices a two-handed chest pass when the crowd goes bonkers over a thunderous windmill tomahawk dunk? And therein lies the contradiction for the so-called, self-acknowledged true fan of the game who deride the trash-talker as cocky but applaud the no-look, behind the back pass as artistry.

So in order to get paid, he got game.

A Valentine's Day lament, or sometimes a great notion, part two.

The cottage industry that is red roses, red lingerie, red hearts and chocolate, chocolate, chocolate always manages to dry-heave deep pangs of regret, of missed opportunity, of the special one that got away. So young, so stupid, so inexperienced back then as to not pool any and maybe even borrowed resources to start up what should have been "Cads and Heels," a convenience store for dysfunctional romantics desperately in need of special last-minute gifts. A public service, if you will, open twenty-four hours, seven days a week and especially on holidays. Those "in the doghouse" could stop by the drive-up menu to order any variety of flowers, stuffed animals, confectionaries, perfumes and of course, jewelry, all at jacked-up prices.

Or my express ticket to early retirement. It struck, like all brilliant ideas do, straight out of necessity, more than likely years ago, to be truthful, probably after yet another forgotten anniversary or birthday or equally important date. The business of love, or more appropriately, the racket of heartache costs a small fortune. Market research proves this group of lost souls as target demographic. Just ask any guy who find themselves in hot water because of faulty memory capacity. Love is expensive and the price of an elevator ride back to the penthouse means forking out some deniro. Only in America can such a dumb idea but the perfect business scheme actually work. But naturally nothing ever materialized. No prospectus, no potential investors, no franchising opportunities, no going public, no stock options, nothing. The time then suited a better entrepreneurial moment for such a venture to exist, survive and flourish.

And now to freely advertise this pot of gold is probably copyright suicide. But ultimately what began as an idea whose time has come, an idea whose purpose is noble, somewhat belongs to every "Dear John". Besides why kick a dead horse on the ground again?

Mudville rejoices

"Pitchers and catchers, this Saturday."

So what more needs to be said
except the national pastime redux.

Notes on a broken stand

Why not a small gesture?

Since or perhaps because it fell apart from being unglued, paint the disjointed sections of discarded and possibly fake Ming stool a rainbow of pretty colors. Then reassemble it but (or not) into chinoiserie version of Bauhaus or more correctly Rietveld chair.

Now comes basic color theory of which ones will work dynamically.

He shoots (from way downtown), he scores (finally)

Knock on wood because the trey no longer veers right or left but actually swishes through. The lost range prompted a retooled jumper that actually elevates off the floor. The tried-and-true knock-kneed Bob McAdoo over-the-head rainbow failed on more than one occasion from the top of the key. Or no longer money in the bank as some would say. Besides it telegraphed the shot being so deliberate a release that anyone guarding the perimeter could easily close quickly. So to adapt against all that defensive length meant back to the drawing board deconstructing why beyond the three-point arc, the smooth rhythm of shooting a bomb felt so awkward, unnatural and strained. The culprit, ultimately, proved to be poor mechanics bred of bad and, no doubt, lazy habits.

The answer after analysis literally hinged on the wrist. Think of how Pippen shoots, the ball on his fingertips directly underneath with his wrist cocked at a ninety-degree angle and elbows perpendicular to his squared shoulders. In coordination feet come together before jumping into a simple flick of his wrist at the apex. The power propelling the ball emanates from the momentum of the controlled leap straight up into following through the motion of fish-hooking your shooting hand. This is what I emulate, visualize when hoisting a three.

Recent three-point attempts fell short because of the tendency to muscle up the shot, pushing the middle of the ball on a line-drive to generate enough speed to overcompensate for the longer distance. Of course what happened was the typical "right shape, wrong size" montrosity that mostly if lucky clanged off the front of the rim.

The advantage of jumping also creates separation offensively, making it more difficult to get blocked. Which also pays off in the paint considering the big target painted on my back posting up. Just to explode off my feet again not only legitimizes a low post presence but allows for an extra step off the drive.

After all, the game is played above the rim or in our case, a foot or so below. It feels good to drain the open or even contested shot.

Trading spaces and so forth

Out of sight, out of mind, lost in space, up to no good and dreamweaving like crazy.

And for what purpose except simply to primp. Gary Wright stuck in neutral because cyberspace addicts. But worse than that is the blankness of white backgrounds to recreate old and tired looks. The terror of visually communicating an attitude, a definable aesthetic. So how much of what is said about spatial organization rings true and pertinent? Vainglorious explains the fashion of change disguised meekly as keeping idle hands busy. Is it a form of sketching this update or something deeper related to watching way too many makeover shows?

Rehab for sake of self-improvement or updated clothes that make the metrasexual, whether trading spaces, a queer eye, what not to wear, designing for the sexes or even curb appeal, all of it matters as a matter of postmodern discourse. Funny how a white or beige room now comes to signify status quo cookie cutter uneventful drab surburban bland. How the modernist edict toward the purely and simply universal continues to reinvent under the banner of colorful subaltern sleek. Talk about stuffing ten pounds of potatoes into a five-pound sack as the masses obediently redo in an attempt to "color me beautiful." And Bill Beckley reacts by lifting his classicist pinkie up in the air.

Remember not long ago generations clinging to tradition in the name of values in the face of social revolution. Well that instinct is now nicely co-opted by Madison Avenue who understand how to Middle-Americanize the Benetton message. Do the politics of representation demand an upgraded identity? If so, where does Maury Povich and Jenny Jones fit in this picture? And forget Oprah, her mainstreamness breaks the mold.

An interesting premise while uploading the "made-over" site...

She Bangs

Every winter, see Pappy fall.

And not the momentarily-losing-your-balance-before-slipping-on-your-ass falling down, the kind where your embarrassed face blushs red, betrayed by the laws of gravity but momentous, gorgeous flights of fancy, legs kicked forward, arms flailing, what aerodynamic engineers refer to as sheer horizontal. The type that Looney Tunes animators masturbate about.

Previous theories as to her malady centered on her high center of gravity. That her long, scrawny barely chicken legs ill-supported her top-heavy torso which to complicate matters further threw off her already skewed sense of equilibrium when carrying the additional load from a huge backpack slung over either shoulder (her noticable lack of calf muscle in itself lacked the necessary ballast to offset any imbalance). This awkward and uneven distribution of weight caused teetering steps that lacked firm footing on any icy surface. Someone once even suggested ankle weights to prevent further accidents.

But last weekend at night coming home from a wedding picking up the boy gingerly tiptoeing down eight concrete steps on unseen black ice scored a perfect Nadia Comaneci as she went face forward, a projectile arc that resulted in five hours in the emergency room, a CAT scan, seven stitches above her lip, two chest x-rays and a whole bottle of prescription Vicodan.

It is her birthright, an annual tradition and painfully, a bloody curse.

An adjunct life

A noble act based on friendship relies on patience and sometimes, good timing with even better luck. How else do you explain disembarking into fifty degree weather from single-digit temperatures without the slightest clue? Naturally this is what happens just as soon as I leave town.

It seemed a foregone conclusion that both my classes cancelled but oddly enough (or maybe not), wheels began spinning almost immediately and then suddenly two messages appeared. From the void came hope, a respite from the powers that be which sounded too good to be true. And so it was, this instinct proved correct. My good fortune as the deck of cards shuffled meant that another colleague, my good friend who recommended me in the first place to teach here, bend over and grab her ankles.

If not for foresight and an itchy trigger finger to finally follow through the proposed bait and switch might have screwed certain parties involved royally. Given the hierarchy which enables those tenured to usurp any adjunct, the unlucky loser left holding the bag usually ends up with nothing. As would have been the case as trading spaces meant relinquishing a preferred time slot more suitable in terms of convenience and schedule. Finally and fortunately a contingent plan (paying more salary) called back to confirm.

So the endgame of playing an awkward shell game while sweating bullets finally yielded bountiful fruit for the whole gang. When the merry-go-round stops, when the music ends, the three circling the chairs do find enough space for all to sit.

And despite the surreptitious phone tag, all is well that ends well.

A solemn duty

Another sad, snowy day by which to measure terms of closure.

It became in its mourning a tally of sorts, to see who in such circumstances simply shows up. No doubt, someone kept count. Eyes stared and heads swiveled about, all noting those in attendance and those conspicuously not. And of course among that select company the most glaring absence betrayed a lack of manners. Their impropriety as such then is an inexcusable trangression against the rules of civility, a symptom of vast and misguided egoes so self-involved that it failed to do the right thing.

But paying respects is more than giving face. Let bygones be bygones, no matter the vitriolic of past wrongs because that moment should not be the time for such pettiness. Sooner than later, though, the time for reckoning will arrive on hand.

Behind door number one is...

Monday Night Basketball or Survey of Art, Part Three (From Impressionism to Contemporary)...which shall it be?

So nothing like being on pins and needles awaiting whether next week will be the last evening of shooting hoops until the end of the spring term (which might be a crying shame considering that the nephew gave me a brand new Nike indoor/outdoor basketball for Christmas). Therefore to teach or not to teach depends quite simply on enrollment and to be honest, it looks bleak. So far, only one student is enrolled and the magic number ought to be double-figures at the minimum in order for the class to run. Not many people appear enamored of learning about modern art willingly. Too many bad cliches still persist.

But crossing your fingers sitting in front of the computer monitoring the real-time registration smacks either of desperation or dooficity. Somehow the latter says it all. It is after all good and needed income.

Our tax dollars at work

Try as hard as you may to walk the straight and narrow, life is full of minor annoyances. And like clockwork, it happens unsuspectedly. If you will, free-associate a rotating, swirling bolo flying out of nowhere that hogties your ankles from which, before any instinct can react, cartoon physics apply, yanking the rug from under causing your mug to be smashed flat against the pavement. Case in point:

December 29, 2003

City of Chicago
Department of Revenue
P.O. Box 88298
Chicago, IL 60680-1298

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to contest the parking ticket # 0043884120-14 issued for code violation 9-64-190 (b) Meter Violation, Central Business District.

On the date in question of the supposed violation listed above, I parked my vehicle across from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago located at 280 South Columbus Drive in a metered parking space. The relevant parking meter numbered 900067 was inoperable and/or malfunctioning as indicated by a code “JA 77” which flashed from its display.

Just to avoid any possibility of a meter violation, I consciously pressed the button labeled “right” to indicate which parking space my vehicle actually occupied because another vehicle parked to the left of the meter wrote a note stating that the meter was indeed broken AND, to be doubly sure even sacrificed two quarters into the meter to no effect. In fact, one of the quarters sat in the slot without falling into the chamber.

Imagine my irritation to see a ticket placed underneath the windshield wiper upon returning. I incorrectly presumed that any competent parking meter attendant would notice the broken meter. However, such is always my mistake to give the benefit of the doubt especially to that most treasured of what our wonderful city offers---the civil servant. Again my only evidence to support my defense is the code “JA 77” (the first 7 was actually backwards) on the parking meter display as it is not my habit to lug around a camera to document any perceived parking infractions that I overtly seek to transgress.

Please allow me to thank YOU and the exceptionally wonderful work of your ever-vigilant office. It is, I might add, a pleasure to do business as always.

(sigh)

On watching Thunderbirds are GO! late night

Time to remember S.H.A.D.O.

Or Supreme Headquarters, Alien Detection Organization, the good guys of "UFO", a long-forgotten Gerry Anderson vehicle from the early seventies that used to air eight o'clock Sunday nights on Channel Nine right before bedtime. Naturally I begged Mom the extra hour just to see Commander Straker and his ultra-secret (super-technological) forces based in a hidden defense base on the moon battle those evil extraterrestials who crave to harvest human flesh as a food source. Not to be confused with its better-known counterpart "Space: 1999" featuring the then-husband and wife duo of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, both cast-offs, of course, from the original cast of "Mission: Impossible" (It seems the two gravitated toward adventure/fantasy series containing colons).

Which differs from S.H.I.E.L.D.

Or Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage and Law Enforcement Division that Marvel Comics issued with Agent Nick Fury, former sergeant of those "Howlin' Commandoes" from the Big One, World War Two and his cronies, Dum-Dum Dugan and Jasper Sitwell to fight the crime syndicate HYDRA.

Childhood heroes like childhood memories never ever die.

Technologically Lazy

Five-eight-eight-two-three-hundred, Empire...

The automated telephone system plus the proliferation of interactive web sites online really equals easy living. Those who thought jumping into your car to drive somewhere quickly ought to know that complete lazy-ass convenience of planting your butt comfortably typing or dialing some numbers away. Why find an excuse to stay home anymore? Real-life "human" contact is overrated. Besides any craving of flesh and blood can be satisfied watching any of the multitudinous "reality" programs on prime-time television. That in and of itself is enough to embrace your keyboard.

Because life as hard as it can be only gets better with machines. A blasphemous sentiment given the cynicism of cybernetic paranoia which foretell of gloom and doom from epic battles of man versus that very dangerous thing, the computer. Beware the circuitry rebelling, becoming sentient to overthrow the weakling that is the frail human race, as every Asimov-to-be whines. Growing up enamored of revisionist, modernist utopias supersleek and abstract begs for the modernity of science and technology that manufactures comic book gizmos into actual, workable gadgetry. Being George Jetson pressing a minimum of buttons, buzzing around in a bubbled flying saucer two-seaters or having a robot maid named Rosie clean your already antiseptic digs is our popular cultural (and technological) birthright.

So damn your lion-clothed Charlton Heston for screaming "damn". Tobor lives.

Frankly speaking

God knows (and He does) I love a hot dog. I can seriously eat one for each meal if left to my own devices. And this from someone who cooked Oscar Meyer weiners for breakfast between the ages of eight to eleven until a classmate perished the thought. Back then, the mush of pig parts and entrails wrapped in casing that functioned as my convoluted pre-adolescent logic basically lumped the frankfurter into the overall sausage family.

Charred, boiled, or even sliced in half to be pan-fried like Mom used to, any way, it matters not so long as these puppies ended up in my stomach. And dressed up, too. My motto is "Drag it through the garden, baby" or Chicago style. First a steamed bun-some say a poppy seed; others plain, either is good- and then the dog. After which follows a long squirt of yellow mustard and narrow furrows of raw, chopped onions, sweet neon green relish, two or three half slices of tomato, several whole but small jalapeno peppers and the piece de resistance, a shake or two of the celery salt. VIOLA! All your major food groups piled in one easy-to-eat packaged meal-to-go. A joint like Byron's even offers additional toppings like shredded lettuce and sliced green peppers for the ultimate choice of "Everything".

But for damn sake, NO KETCHUP (or catsup) ever. That stuff belongs on Coney Island red hots along with grilled onions or sauerkraut. The difference is geographical like deep dish to thin crust pizza. In Windy City hot dogs we trust.

The King is Dead, Long Live the Queen!

The inevitable happened and who can blame her, really.

Year after year listening to the former Trader Vic's barbeque chef critique the "tookey" prepared annually by his son as being "too dry" or the smashed, not mashed potatoes not being smooth and creamy enough like it used to be prepared in the Army by him for an entire battalion. And the weak culinary excuse of "it's supposed to be that way" for the lumpy consistency of viscuous gravy.

So no more willy-nilly recipes concocted from memory or wildly creative interpretations of tried and true traditions or slipshod, half-ass stop-and-go cooking just to catch the latest replay from the football game because the lady of the house now demands precision, exact measurements. "Follow the directions, actually read those cookbooks stuffed away up in the cabinets behind the cans of Van De Camps baked beans (that taste so damn good alongside a frankfurter, i.e., weiner sans the bun) AND FOCUS...stop going off on tangents being easily distracted while the food burns!" she commands. Those days of laissez-faire holiday meals belong to the distant past as sadly, meekly and humbly I relinquish the spatula.

Tomorrow the wife dons the toque, assuming all responsibility to roast the bird as well as all the fixings. The king is dead, long live the queen!

A Manhattan Night

Sad to say, but Charlotte continued a recent trend to imbibe heavily. Ordinarily, a cold soft drink of the Coke family suffices to quench my thirst but somehow the temptation of a per diem on the road justifies the frill of liquor. Sitting at the sushi bar downing Kirin after Sapporo to chase warm sake tastes so much better washing down expense account sashimi. Of course, this is succeded by a nightcap of single-malt whiskey at the bar watching the latest scores on ESPN.

It started innocently enough in Boston actually with the Pappy. The two of us passed the evening away, waiting over an hour and a half for a table at Legal with a couple of Black and Tans. After the surf and turf and trekking in blustery chill about a half mile only to discover that all showings of Lost in Translation sold out, the remaining option left meant activating the backup plan to locate a bar for drinks. So to avoid the cold weather, we headed back in a cab to the hotel bar, a lovely place called the Encore Lounge which immediately proved an inspired choice. The bartender played the straight man for the comedy act that was the piano bar and subsequently Amateur Night. Five Manhattans later listening to the semi-professional wannabes from Ole Blue Eyes to imitation Ethel Mermans only added to the illusion of the booze going down smooth.

Imagine shooting the whole wad drinking. What next...discotheques?

Year of the Monkey (Devil Child)

Time does fly.

The devil monkey child himself turns twelve today. And for someone composed of genetic material predisposed to Sumo proportions, his lack of food intake-which is not to be confused with his appetite as the boy loves his sweets- beguiles the whole family especially considering that his former linebacker dad Willie is often mistaken for Bolo (think Asian muscle man/karate killer from Enter the Dragon) and his mom, my sister, the former high school cheerleader, packs on some meat herself.

But his aversion to eating seems not to affect his height at all. He already stands five foot, two inches tall, with an adult shoe size of seven and a half, weighing a mere eighty pounds tops, a veritable skinny beanhole much like his uncle was at the same age. Those genes rarely fall far from the tree, you know. Or perhaps what really accounts for being thin as a rail might be his strange and very un-Asian dietary habit of eating cheese as if born in Sicily, a weird medical hypothesis given my lactose intolerance that resulted in years of my father every Saturday morning hauling me on the Clark bus headed all the way north to Howard for an allergy shot in my butt at first and later my upper left arm (which may explain why I never flinch at the sight of blood, or sharp needles for that matter).

Yet given his size, the perplexing thing vexing his parents especially because of their former athletic glories is his complete disinterest in team sports. When asked by his sports-obsessed family who religiously golf, hurt themselves annually playing full contact tackle football at the family Turkey Bowl, play league Chicago-style Clincher slow pitch softball (no gloves allowed, baby) or shoot four-on-four indoor basketball which sport he likes the best, no doubt the not-so-subtle pressure weighs heavier than the two hundred and fifty pounds of barbells and dumbbells on a bench in his basement. It somewhat pained them at first to slowly realize their son is not the next coming of Ichiro, but to their credit, both resigned themselves to his lack of hand-eye coordination. Simply put, my nephew is a bookworm prone to mathematical geekiness, the chatty, studious type who loves geography, Mario Brothers and Harry Potter.

So good for him that recently he began taekwondo lessons out of his own accord. Already he broke a couple of boards to achieve his yellow belt.

So for his birthday, another book might be in order. Perhaps, the whole set of the Chronicles of Narnia.

Yeah, not a bad present at all.