newsflash: fish chides tourist, bloggie

the tourist seems to be incommunicado. damned if i know why. i can still view the posts individually, but there's no way to let y'all do that, is there?

damned bloggie, you ate my tourist.

tail of the fizzywizzy fish

or some suchlike. as mysfit so accurately mentioned, i started a pure 100% photoblog.

i felt my fish was wandering too far afield (a-stream?) from the bubbles & castles that make it so fun. the fish looked too long through the camera lens & it started to steal its soul...ahem.
the truth is i'm a fiend with a camera. i'm everywhere, & i'm probably taking photos of you, whether you know it or not. also perhaps your sidewalk & maybe your lunch. at any rate, the fish cannot keep up with the volume of my visions & still notice other things about the world (fish have very small attention spans. surely you know the tale of the goldfish who kept discovering a castle.)

therefore, & with much fanfare & aplomb, i introduce the tourist of everything (think Twoflower but digital instead of demonic).
well, i would introduce the tourist, but mysfit already did. pbbbbbth.

the tourist is over yonder in the updated links section. you can also shop the fish or check out my updated bathroom reading & wonder what the hell goes on in my head. or do you do that already?

shower curtain
Staten Island, September 2004

& no, the title of this post makes no sense.

reality squares my fish

What goes on inside those strange places that create such wonderful things like cookies, crackers and tea-biscuits?

Everyone wonders this at some point in their lives - usually while eating one of the aforesaid snacks. It's one of the main questions of the universe. Well, I found out today that some of the things I imagined are actually true. On Monday, March 7th, McVities (producers of tasty tea biscuits and chocolate-covered digestives) revealed their new crumb test dummy. Now instead of just enjoying the cookie, count and weigh the crumbs to make sure you are getting your money's worth (and not destroying your keyboard).

There's a new visual force in the blogosphere. My esteemed compadre has let her fish lead her to sharing her view of the world with all of us lesser mortals. Since she has always been an aesthetic detail in my own little world, this makes me very happy. Visit the Tourist to see the world through her eyes.

Perhaps I see the world the way I do because my brain lands exactly in the middle of the brain sex ID test. In some ways I think more like a female and in other ways, more like a male and it all evens out to the fact that I think entirely like a mysfit. But then I already knew that.

See the strange thing about all of this is that reality almost never falls in line with my fish. In fact, I often have to do things the other way round and square my fish with reality, retaining the altered view somewhere in a back-up file.

So let's celebrate Thursday, for tomorrow may never come....

BE PREPARED!

They have artist eyes

“I am trying…to achieve this…by rendering our impassioned expressions, by using…knowledge and appreciation of color as a means of rendering & exalting character.”—Vincent Van Gogh, June 1890

Vincent you madman with your
nebula eyes of color, sweeping,
rain in Provence fields, oh Vincent

your portraits of children frighten me,
you’ve painted them all with
the crazed eyes of haunted you, sadly swirling

Vincent manic greens swoop like
sparrows out of skulls, your
smirking asylum gardener is
smug among vines, your
Zoave watches your descent
into his stones, his incongruous
soldier tones like steel
worn men crouch a moment from
speaking, your children stare fiercely

at you, veiled in canvas, moments from
speaking in oiltongues, you
crouch behind a portrait wall,
an exalted vaudeville gallery of capture
shields you, your whispering song of
sorrow & vision in the flicker of
your hand

Vincent your models are old, cheekbones
& curling lips of the old, portraits of the dead &
the still struggle, the paint flies out of your brow
like wind, visions of you & your vivid
madness loom like genius out of your oil &
cry, See, is this not joyful. See, exalted.
See, I am brilliant & sad.


Autumn 2000(?) after Van Gogh portrait exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

this is an old one, & had much more interesting spacing, but bloggie doesn't like spacing.
c'est la.
for you, Vincent (cue Don McLean).

Happy Birthday, Vincent!

"And my aim in my life is to make pictures and drawings, as many and as well as I can; then, at the end of my life, I hope to pass away, looking back with love and tender regret, and thinking, 'Oh, the pictures I might have made!'"
-Vincent van Gogh, Letter 338, 19 November 1883

Today is Vincent van Gogh's birthday. He was born in the Netherlands in 1853. For more info about him and his paintings just follow your fish to the Van Gogh Gallery. (Sometimes this site is a little slow, but it is well worth the wait.)

Most definitely.

To understand just how important the above sign is follow your fish to the Darwin Awards and learn about those who have done the human race a favor by removing themselves from the genepool. For example:

"3 February 1990, Washington
The following mind-boggling attempt at a crime spree appeared to be the robber's first, due to his lack of a previous record of violence, and his terminally stupid choices:

1. His target was H&J Leather & Firearms. A gun shop.
2. The shop was full of customers - firearms customers.
3. To enter the shop, the robber had to step around a marked police patrol car parked at the front door.
4. A uniformed officer was standing at the counter, having coffee before work.

Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a holdup, and fired a few wild shots. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, covered by several customers who also drew their guns, thereby removing the confused criminal from the gene pool.
No one else was hurt."

the fish is infinite

if the universe is 28 billion miles across from horizon to horizon but only 14 million years old and, given that nothing can travel faster than light, how, then, could the microwave radiation at the horizon's edges have achieved the thermal equilibrium we now observe?  a cosmologist's nightmare, that.  maybe i'll have to figure it out.  i may even reveal the solution at our next show.


happy anarchy
sat 4/2 11pm
wild spirits
1843 1st ave
ny ny
w/ dead language

check us out on podcastnyc.net.  you can get our music and more local artists to put into your ipods or brand new psp, which i have on good authority will revolutionize the way we deal with personal media.  we're going from appointment gaming to whenever gaming, he said to me.  those are some fun new buzzwords.

myspace?  be our friend!  myspace.com/happyanarchy.

cabbie, quick!  follow that fish!

see us: www.happyanarchy.com
write us: happyanarchy@happyanarchy.com

-t-

ten things to eat whilst reading the Chronicles of Narnia

garden lion
Garden Center, Rt. 1, NJ, March 2005

in no particular order:

1. any kind of apple with any kind of cheese.
2. grapes.
3. salmon.
4. chocolate-covered almonds.
5. really good soup.
6. wine of any sort.
7. venison.
8. any kind of pie.
9. roast anything.
10. Turkish Delight*. or truffles**.

i was in a tiff & now i'm not, so i'm in a tasty mood.


laughing buddha
Carkaff(?) Garden Center, Rt. 1, NJ, March 2005

*i'm lying, i've never had this.
**these neither.

challenge in the blogosphere, part two

find it here, courtesy of forgottenmachine.

so, it took a while for me to get to this but here's my poem, for posterity as well:

I have fifteen minutes to
worship at your feet,
my lady of abandon--
but where others hear
the whispers of gods,
and see the goddess
in your shadow,
--I see only desecration

In despair
I would wrap fists in your hair,
Smash blood from water,
And sit in your empty throne.
But I am stuck staring at your picture
and there is no time for miracles.

Behind your divinity veil
your eyes are closed
and Cerberus stands resolute before you
but if you can't face the world,
how can I?

DON'T PANIC!

This is really true - try it.

I got this from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy website. As a big fan of Douglas Adams and all his works, I was worried about how bad a Hitchhiker's Guide movie could be.

I'm not so worried any more.

The movie comes out in April, Douglas Adams wrote the screenplay (though he died in 2001 while working on it) and Alan Rickman is playing the voice of Marvin, the paranoid android ("Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to help you navigate. Call that job satisfaction? 'Cause I don't.").

If you are a fan of science-fiction, have a sense of humor and adventure or are an alien who has been trapped on earth pretending to be an out-of-work actor - read the book, then see the movie. At least check out the website.

Remember, the guide is always right - it's reality that's often inaccurate.

radial balance: which do we like best?

unfortunate unidentified plant
Lawrenceville, NJ March 2005

chandelier
Staten Island, March 2005

victrola
Staten Island, March 2005

anyone? fish?

ichigo wants to know.

the easter fish

happy [fill-in-the-blank spring rite] to you all.

a tres symbolic time of year. expect reflections on the subject sometime later.

for now, by request, the Pope Special:


ap photo


ap photo

this one's for you, catpants.

cranky fish wants spring & green growing things

roots,
Staten Island, March 2005

samurai fish; or, thank you shinsen.

so i promised a review of Samurai Champloo, but the more i thought about it, the more i remembered that certain dear friends haven't finished the series yet & i may wake up in the middle of one night in a field of katana as they prepare to take their revenge if i reveal the end.


battlecry (all these images are from the title sequence)

& the end was truly amazing; fantastic storytelling & complicated, symbolic, & wickedly well-drawn characters (both in the literary & visual sense.)


jin

one of the appeals of anime for me is the storytelling in the original language--no, sorry to disappoint you, i don't yet speak or understand Japanese, though i hear it in dreams sometimes. but the original tone & voices are there, which is really the first thing to go in translation, & the sounds & screen together communicate the story (er, with some help from subtitles--thank god for fansubs). we're talking about damn good cartoons here.


fuu-chan

the story itself is a classic journey myth, a traveller's tale (which i've always been fond of. bring on the gypsies!) & a sort of quest. but the best kinds of stories are strung from the archetypes & then twisted & welded & shaped into something greater (the worst kinds of these are strung up by their toes. or their figgin.)


mugen

want it? i know you do.
anyway, this is one of the greats. i love tv that's just exhilarating to watch & is truly gleeful & enthralled by the power of the medium.

& i have a small crush on Mugen.




post-script: all these images (except the top wallpaper) were captured from the video with Topaz Moment, which i've got on trial at the moment & am quite ecstatic over.

fish in color

i wish i had a blue sky
Boulder, CO, January 2004

illuminate(d)
Atlantic City, NJ, March 2005

linkety fish

i know i promised tales of champloo, but i have got to get rid of some of the links in "favorites" that i've been meaning to post because it's getting ridiculous in there.

for Sandman fans, a fantasy artist by the name of Micheal Zulli has been painting what he calls "The Last Morpheus", & he's been logging his progress from the start. the process is interesting: it's strange to see a painting take shape, & a testament to the process of Art in general, as the power to create something from nothing.

let's go vintage for a moment:

i found a fantastic page of images from B&W 1950's animated commercials; i think the lunatic pirate in a crow's nest is my favorite. further exploration around the site yields a cartoon artist telling the tales of Mr. Toast, archives of marketing strategies of the past, & oldschool supermarket photos. a web site for everything & everything on its site.

& going even further into the imagery of the past, some stunning color photographs of World War I; apparently the French had already invented color film.
thanks to fishtown chatter for the link (yay fish).

found some very vivid, slightly disturbing works in the paper gallery of Nahum Tschacbasov. the colorful etchings are strangely appealing. i have no context for this artist whatsoever.
if i learn more i'll share it; if you know, please enlighten this poor scribe. i am only an egg.
incidently, the main site seems to be a color slides for art ed thing (ah those darkened rooms, with only slightly vibrating color-distorted light to see by, as you wrote by the gleam of David or Ingres, or the architects of Rome...sigh.) the upshot of this is that you seem to be able to view a shitload of works for a shitload of artisits. yay! such bounty.

another eye-opener: NASA scientists have detected light from alien planets for the first time, on a powerful telescope named--Spitzer? anway, bring on the babel fish & the translator microbes, i'm ready.

some other scientists--having a good week, i guess, that science--have recovered soft tissue from a T-rex. soft as in, may contain blood vessels. eww, & yet, so cool. of course the article mentions Jurassic Park. cheers for pop culture & scifi.

& in continuing the Cuban theme underlying this week (a theme of coincidence more than intent, unless i'm missing something), there was a column in the NYTimes about Sergeant Carlos Lazo, serving as a military medic in Iraq. apparently, due to our charming foreign policy, while he was on leave he was blocked from visiting his sons, who live in Havana, due to tougher restrictions on travel to Cuba. Yay us. here's a man who's become an American, serving in our forces as a healer, tending to the wounded etc., & we won't let him see his sons (what if they're commies? eek.) we're bastards, we really are. our gov't is a playground bully.
anyway, it's one man's story, & you can contact him if you like, say hi, offer support, whathaveyou. tell him your favorite color.
as for the rest of Cuba, well, follow the slightly nonsensical Human Rights dialogue bubbling in the UN at the moment.

keeping with the "this makes no sense" theme, here's 13 other things that don't make sense, courtesy of the New Scientist & Neil Gaiman's journal. now there's a man who knows how to make sense without making sense. there's a frood who really knows where his towel is.

& if you want to really, super not make sense, start churning these babies out: Randomly Generated Postmodernist Essays. ta da!
thanks to the Postmodernist's Guide to Idol Worship for this one.

the Scots, on the other hand, tend to make (their own special kind of) sense, in this case, exhibited in the approval of a gay Episcopalian priest. the American Anglican church, fyi, has elected to elect no bishops whatsoever until it decides what to do about this whole gay phenomenon. boy would i like to be in on some of those debates.

in American politics, liberals & conservatives have--give me a moment, i'm in shock--well:

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), long vilified by conservatives, has joined forces with right-wing groups the American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform, and the Free Congress Foundation to spearhead the ''Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances'' coalition.

they're up against the USA Patriot Act, which is apparently an acronym, which i didn't know. it stands for ''Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism" Act of 2001.
shudder. twitch, shudder.

i was struck in some inarticulable (word?) way by these images of the Kyrgyzstan revolution. something to do with the colors & the expressions together.

& more cheerfully, Europe's getting its own continent-wide (or union-wide) internet domain, .eu. for those of you holding your breath.

personally, my computer's making strange noises like it's singing to itself.

final words of wisdom: if you ever have to go into hiding, go as a poet. no one will suspect you of being anything else.

bonus: guess how many times i used the word "yay" in this post & win a cereal box prize.

from the journal of the fish

still from way back in November 2003. it's a mighty journal of years.
this one's going up basically unrevised because i'm amused by its wandering.
comes of writing in a bar.

Dock Street November

Like Abbot & Costello, my mike yr mike
(Paging Doctor--)
he's standing in the Roman wall
holding up the arcade

What's been done to this series of arches?
Why are they stranded on this
divefloor chessboard & where
are my rooks to clear you
"like a snowplow"?
(Paging Doctor--)

With the horns in a tin can like that
he sounds like he believes there's an angel--
he sounds like Orson Welles in a weather balloon--
"I could sing Edith Piaf through this"
he giggled & looked
diagonally into the light.

"Actually I'm right in front of you.
If you don't know I'm in front of you,
how are you a doctor?"

he says THE PROGNOSIS IS DIRE

& the bathroom looks like a mental institution,
all pinwheels & the wrong kinds of lines
etched with slurs & little hates as if they were
Really Intended--I hope
it's as old as it seems in there, &
the mirror makes me nervous.

Certain bars should have kept smoking alive
to cover that sulfuric rotten-egg presence
but They never listen, do They.

I'm listening, are you. Listening.
& I was looking at you.
"Revolution, that's easy enough."

Those lights on the ceiling are the skin of an alien girl
& you're there, like a headline on the brick.

I was Out Back
when they left, wind whipping
like a god-cry or something portentous
frantically trying to get my attention--
all helter-skelter in the echoing hall--
look at me, these faces I'm getting stuck on.

Did I tell you that in the alley
the chainlink fence hanging on for dear life
frames elevated fire hydrants
held up to motion-sensor lights?
That's a lot going on, isn't it.
"Let's do Beautiful."

In that corner, insidious in its
Novemberesque nostalgia,
a music box chimes over what seems to be
a cemetary--need I say more?
but I do, & something smells of burning.

A trio of undercover cops
leered at me
as they ducked drunkenly
out the filigreed door
up the stairs
all the way
over there--
all shoulders I am twitch-cringing--

I should say something here
about Fair-weather Fans,
all those musicians
plunging in & out
of Sydney seeking endless summers
or Staten Island dives
over feedback & spires
but
I saw them--him--you--
I did.



later i brought a dear friend to this bar for her birthday & they served her rusty beer & vinegar wine. i had warned her it was a dive, but even so.
i don't think it exists anymore.

catch of the day

So I had a great idea.

Unfortunately like most great ideas, accomplishing it is 1) taking longer than expected because 2) the path to reach it has changed and 3) it may not be practical in the end.

Actually, I did accomplish my goal. Quite easily, I must say. All it took was a little research and a little programming and voila... However, there were unforeseeable consequences such that no one else could see the wonderful thing that I had made.

So until further events occur, the catch of the day may or may not have a picture on this site (mostly dependent upon the fish, of course). But, for those of you who care, I will aspire not to let you down. I catch new fish everyday and to find out what today's catch is, you must follow your fish to catch of the day.

Today's catch shall be posted, picture and all - see below. For today's catch has a special place in my heart.

The White Shark

For more information about this beautiful and dangerous creature check out The Monterey Bay Aquarium where they have one of the first White Shark to survive living in captivity.

you want to make a movie of the fish!

tomorrow i'll tell you the tale of sake & champloo. (New Brunswick, 3/2005)

for now, all i can say is: tell me that's the Staten Island Ferry capsizing.
what am i talking about?
War of the Worlds, baby. um, lessee. ahem: "in the first years of the twenty-first century, no one would have believed that we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm & multiply in a drop of water...& yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes, & slowly, & surely, they drew their plans against us."
HG Wells, sort of. a bit updated, & from memory, anyway, & my memory is severely influenced by the psychedelic-rock-opera version of the 70s. (it was a favorite of my daddy's, & i was a strange kid. still a strange kid. woman. whatever.)
anyway, the new movie trailer gives me the shivers.

as does this behind-the-scenes featurette for Sin City. i'm so there.

& i've just heard about this movie, & i'm not sure what it's about, entirely (seems vaguely Brazil in nature, if not so weird) but Ewan McGregor & Scarlet Johansson? i'll take the lot.

also the new promo pic for Batman Begins.

& Finding Neverland's out on DVD.


t's chess, Staten Island 3/2005
checkmate!

so there.

proxy sees all

fish in the spring rain

(i loved this scene.)
i feel very free. although that looks suspiciously like a snowflake out there. i will ignore it.


not daylight, Atlantic City, 3/2005

they've built a Cuban quarter in the Tropicana in Atlantic City.
i've always had a soft spot for the Trop--it was one of the first casinos i knew of, & it used to contain an Olde-Atlantic-City-themed amusement park. many birthday parties revolved around Tivoli Pier : i never had a birthday at a roller rink or a Chuck E. Cheese. i had Tivoli & the Bally's Park Place spa. 20 12-yr-old in 10 hot tubs. they outlawed parties after one last one for my brother, tho--a roaming tribe of 9-yr-old boys stealing cologne & opening all the sauna doors.

shit. it is snowing.

anyway, now instead of the boardwalk chair ride where holographic showgirls sang about the joys of cocktails & the diving horses at Steel Pier, or the ferris wheel numbered like a clock that overlooked the casino floor (keep in mind there are no clocks in casinos anywhere--this was very surreal), they've got a Havana-style courtyard with a fake sky & uber-shops, & an enormous bronze of Lenin standing authoritatively outside the Red Square bar with its columns of ice & frescoes of propaganda. how quickly times change. whatever happened to "dirty commies" & all that Castro nonsense?

mind you, for all our policies etc., instead of a young fiery dictator in Cuba we have an old fiery dictator.
by the by, the original promotions for the Quarter (this started a few years ago, mind) involved billboards of Castro with a grin & a cigar. people were irritated, to say the least, & public opinion insisted on painting those red circles with a line (as in "no smoking" or "no parking") in huge proportion over every Castro ("no Castro?").

insert Castro here

the art reminded me of those art history classes i'd taken at the Zimmerli Museum in New Brunswick, which has a random (to me) assortment of works of the Russian Avante- Garde.
many contain writing of some sort; the strange alphabet always appealed to me as part of the work. kinda like abstract art.

in Red Square, Atlantic City 3/2005

as for commies (what?) we turn to the plight of NYTimes journalist Zhao Yan in Beijing. i don't know that there's anything to do to help, but awareness has to count for something, no?

which topic reminds me of corporate culture (or any i'm-bigger-than-you system) & i thought that fans of the Weird Little Store might appreciate Louisville's campaign for weirdness.
vive la weird!

weirdness? did someone say Monty Python? Spamalot has clip-cloppped onto Broadway, Tim Curry (joy) & Hank Azaria starring. bring your children.

& if you've actually registered for NYTimes for all the billion articles i link too, here's an editorial from a former Brit Parliament member about the dangers of overstepping the bounds of majority, as it were. considering the bizarre federalist antics of out current admin, it seems a timely warning.

ah, timing: the snow seems to have ceased.

fish of the gods

hmmm. what would that be?

i like saying things like mahi mahi & orange roughy.


nike on the boardwalk

the atlantic city boardwalk is a cornocopia of potential images for a girl with a new camera (even if said girl grew up there. hey, what can i say, i'm a tourist in my own backyard).
on the one hand, i realize how much i have to learn about how to use the damn thing. on the other hand, i look at the first shots i took with other cameras, & i just get giddy with the thought of what i'll be able to do later.


framed in the bathroom at the Sands, room 1212

i love random hotel rooms, especially when they're free.

in other news, today is World Water Day. whatever that means.
love your water! it perpetuates the fish!

this says it all about this place, really.

the fish in exile: Elba is pretty this time of year.

guess who got has rejoined the land of digital photography. no, not the cat, though i'm sure proxy's just pleased as punch that she's a model again. can't you see it in her eyes? i must say it's nice to be back. i'm rather delirious, actually; i haven't slept more than 4 hours in days. SPRING! whee!

& so very many blossom-covered thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. it was. & oh so much more, though i'm too wifty to get into it now.
believe you me, i felt the love, & it was good.

the fish sings

(la la la la la la la)
(mi mi mi mi mi mi mi)

Happy Birthday to you! (one day late)
Happy Birthday to you! (one day late)
Happy Birthday to Jenn See!
Happy Birthday to you!!!!!

love me

finding the fish

i love the fish! i will return to the fish.

trying to post a few photos. don't know if it's gonna fly.

spring rain!

ps the party of the gods was exactly that.

zoomquilt

maybe the fish is hungover

The fish is awefully quiet today - probablly still recovering from yesterday - so if you feel you must comment, please keep the volume down and the lights low.

The Zoomquilt
This is one of the collest thing I've seen in a long time.

A most amazing collaborative graphic art project. You'll see a strip of text and instructions to click on the bottom. Then there's a scene. Click and drag upward very slowly and you'll move forward. Drag down and you'll move back.
It's a loop so you'll eventually end up back where you started.

Stop frequently and take a good look. It's way-cool!

top o' the mornin' to ye

& yes, part of my Muttdom includes the Merry Green Land. so kiss me, dammit, i'm irish.
whilst we're getting shitfaced on this fine spring day, let's not forget that what we're actually celebrating is Saint Patrick chasing the serpents (er, Catholics) out of Ireland, a high point in the island's endless religious conflict. Yay!

somehow this

St. Pat chases the serpents (ahem) out of ireland

turned into this:

Victorian card
(although the Victorians were admittedly & shamelessly sentimental.)

tho even in this day & age St Pat is a deeply religious figure. Patron saint, remember.

pilgrimage of st pat?

just some potatoes for thought (tee hee).

post-script: mmmmm, Irish Potatoes. from the candy store? they only make them this time of year...the way it used to be with Cadbury eggs.

cheers.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

May your glass be ever full.
May the roof over your head be always strong.
And may you be in heaven
half an hour before the devil knows you're dead.

When we drink, we get drunk.
When we get drunk, we fall asleep.
When we fall asleep, we commit no sin.
When we commit no sin, we go to heaven.
So, let's all get drunk, and go to heaven!

-Irish Toasts courtesy of the Unusual Trivia Collection

The Unfinished Fish

I don't know why the fish always leads me back to fractals - to pieces of itself - building pictures within pictures and selves within selves. Here we find the fish has many alleys to explore and a myriad of marvels to wonder at. Have you followed the fish enough to learn something new, see something pretty, or challenge a long held belief? Have you faced the threat of choas and returned unscathed? Have you faced your fear? Have you followed the fish?

challenge in the blogosphere

find it here, courtesy of forgottenmachine.

i like a good challenge. here's my response, for posterity.

Kore
Archetypal every-woman,
Figure Enthroned circa now,
circa sepia tones, her knees
& the way she holds them,
parallel, a sphinx.

Still-Life: Supervillainess
with White Dog.
Featureless, characterless,
an ancient Kore resurfaced.

Movement is evident &
surrounds her limbs; her sphere
revolves. Light & shadow break away
& turn on each other. She's
the chiaroscuro in the nightmare,
shape of evening waiting
with the Dog-star.



this poem took 1 cigarette to write. that's what, 7 minutes?



Chios Kore

scraps from the journal of the fish

i fear that bloggie will mess with my spacings, so editions of these poems (in their semi-state) might be different from how they end up.

on the other hand, it's an interesting kind of discipline; i'm one of those all-over-the-page writers.


Incident

balcony warm autumn day. leaves like light, like light is colors when it earths itself in waves. in particles like leaf mold or the changing refraction of shouts as they almost smash a glass. a woman & a man struggle in the red & gold. he throws her down in the green & gold. she screams for me to call the police & i do. i do even though it may only be her anger i am calling in, or maybe her fear. the rage of a woman for her man.
Is she black too? Yes. Are there any weapons? There are too many trees I can't tell.
the police are here & the couple has disappeared. the cruiser waits, u-turns, waits, & rolls away. they've disappeared. a howling dog in that same direction is all that disturbs the peace. they've taken it inside, now it is only me.

balcony, Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ, November 2003



& this one seems like a piece of something larger:

I was thinking about outside
have i seen you
where that line
of yr throat
sticks in my head
earworms
over crevices, in gullies
lurking science enigma
& the beat of yr lashes
yr vessels like superstrings
redtinted in this light
those or electric strings
those are electric
you are


November 2003


ahem. thoughts, comments, shrieks of outrage?

the first fish

my original navigation system (in La Luna): i am following my fish.

Mystic, CT, 2003

spring baby

my birthday crown last equinox. can you tell i'm ready for spring?

photo by mysfit, March 20, 2004, Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ

no reason for this fish

except that i was listening to it.
cheers.


hallo space boy!

Halloween 2003, Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ

a few words about today's catch of the day

If you'll notice on the side-bar I added a section called "catch of the day", which will most likely change every day. I wanted to say a few things about today's catch: The Puffer Fish.

Not only will this amazing fish help us to better understand the human genome but the toxin in its skin can help ease pain in cancer patients. For more information see:

GNN: The Pufferfish

C&E News: Painkilling Puffers

the fish is a cult classic

i've been watching The Two Towers, because there's nothing like elegant characters on a hopeless quest making a last stand in a siege to cheer one up about one's current situation.
some other movie bits:

Star Wars trailer, finally, thanks to rob.

also the trailer for Sin City, which (i think) will redeem the comic-book-to-movie efforts going on lately (ahem, constantine, hack, sneeze). completely & utterly redeemed. as it were.

also a brilliant rendition of the batman story--
& this is from an old-school Batman TV of the 60's addict--
my first (age 8? or so) crush was on (don't laugh) Burt Ward (okay, fine, laugh)
--made entirely out of legos. bonus points for the use of Adam West, Dick Van Dyke, & Mark Hamill.


burt ward. what can i say?

tho i'm having a bit of trouble playing the vid at the moment.

apparently my personality is stuck in the 60's, by the way. news to anyone who knows me i'm sure.



what decade does your personality live in?
quiz brought to you by lady interference, ltd



& The Incredibles comes out on DVD tomorrow.

cheers!

it's monday, let the fish fly free

It's amazing how one thing leads to another, often totally unrelated thing-- (which is probably how you got to the fish). So now, join me in following the fish, from one thing to another...

Follow the flying fish

to see some "picture pages" as my esteemed partner refers to them -- beautiful, nay? Pause for a moment and then it's off to Easter Island,

the fish takes us through the Bermuda Triangle on the way to Monday, March 14th.

(Note: just because you have an explanation for something - like static electricity - doesn't mean you have a reason for the disappearances - three more last year.)

Today is Einstein's Birthday.
This most notable man was born in the year 1879.

Also, Karl Marx - the social philosopher, not the part of the Marx Brothers comedy team - died today in 1883.

And here the fish will leave you with a closing thought:
"If you cannot convince them, confuse them." -Harry S. Truman

the fish between life & death

my [great]aunt Kas died yesterday at 80. i saw her very rarely (she's not actually a blood relative, as tends to happen with "aunts") but i'm very saddened by her absence in the world. she was always exuberent about life & i will greatly miss talking to her. she did great things with her time, & went quickly & quietly, which seems a fine way to go. i'll miss her bright spot in the weird tapestry that is my [very extended] family.

i'm also depressed, & this may sound selfish, because her funeral is the day of my 25th birthday party, which has been in the works for weeks. i'm going to be running the emotional gamut that day instead of relaxing into festivities--if festivities still go on.

i'm a little consoled--& a little bewildered--by the aptness of my costume. see, the gathering is a party of the gods: a costume party, come as mythological figure of your choice.

me, i'll be 25, which i see as more or less the demarcation between youth & adulthood. also, i was born on the Vernal Equinox (smack bang on the cusp between the end & beginning of the zodiacal year--i'm an astrologer's nightmare--or wet dream, i'm not sure which) so i thought, since this is my party, & it bubbles over to the day of the Equinox itself (i'm a little bit pagan), why not be Persephone?

very clever & appropriate, neh?

& now i truly will be journeying from the land of death (a chilly cemetary northwest of philadelphia) to the festival of the return of spring. so apropos it scares me a little. & a true chance to celebrate life & rebirth. sigh.


Sierra Chincua, Mexico. photo by Adriana Zahbrauskas for NYTimes.

also a little depressing is the disappearance of the Monarch swarms. another bright bit of the tapestry...wherever Kas goes i hope she's surrounded by the kings of the butterflies.


post-script:
on a lighter note, someone's taken it into their head to digitally archive every Doctor Demento broadcast. good luck to them.

picture pages, picture pages

picture pages, picture pages

the goddam new trailer for Star Wars Episode 3 is still only available to subscribers to...i dunno, whatever star wars geeks subscribe to. but the official poster's out.


star wars: revenge of the sith poster


also officially released is the cover for the new Harry Potter.


harry potter & the half-blood prince

proxy's got the collar off today; we'll see how she does. i just hope the damn incision doesn't start bleeding.


here she is with sweet basil, si, ny.

the phrase "picture pages, picture pages" is circling around in my head. i still remember the sound of the pen.

friday & the fish

actually, this title inspires a whole lotta tangents: bang! zip! zooom! wheee!
but i'm not going to follow any of them at the moment.
this is:

a short post about movies! & other things.

i'm fond of !!! today, it seems.

i have no desire to see Robots, but i read this review ("Machines who rage against other machines") anyway, & was very amused by the opening paragraph:

"Robots", directed by Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha, is a new 3-D computer-animated feature from 20th Century Fox's Blue Sky Studios, the outfit that brought us "Ice Age," and like that movie it's a reminder that when it comes to innovative animated entertainment for all ages, there is Pixar, there is Japan and there is everybody else.

also, a clip of the Jim Morrison public service announcement. still gives me weird vibes.
my goodness, how i did love Jim as a teenager.
i remember my stepfather used to make fun of me because all the little-girly posters in my bedroom were of dead people.
(before that sounds too weird, specifically folks like Morrison, Hendrix, Joplin, River Phoenix, Bob Marley, Kurt Cobain...ah, those were the days. i thought i'd never get to see a show with any of my favorites. i have been much relieved at David Bowie's continued existence, for example, even if he & Iman are superaliens who never age.)

looking forward to the Star Wars Trailer. caught a bit last night when someone who actually watches the OC called to inform us that it was on.

working on a poem about last night, which i spent at a birthday celebration at Falucka.
there's a belly dancer involved. will post it when it's fit to see daylight.

& what the hell were they filming at the corner of Thompson & Bleecker? someone said an ABC pilot...i stole a grannysmith apple from outside a trailer marked "Desi" & "Lucy". & me without a camera.

my united states of whatever & the etc. etc. etc. fish.

yesterday i killed the fish. last night i resurrected it, with a little help etc, & it now seems to be bubbling along cheerfully more or less as usual. my theory? i held the fish too tightly in the aquarium that is my own little world[s]? or was it all down to the html?

at any rate, it checked me for a moment, so on returning i thought i'd open the windows a bit, even if it is chilly out there. go forth, into the world, etc.

there's a man in Hong Kong politics who warms the heart of any Tom-Robbins-character-loving soul. in other words, as the nytimes says, "The Honorable Mr. Leung Kwok-hung, better known in Hong Kong as Cheung Mo, or ''Long Hair,'' remained on his feet. For a moment he said nothing, pausing to let the effect of his disobedience -- and maybe, also, his appearance -- sink in."


Long Hair, photo by James Nachtwey

what's extraordinary--& also vaguely Tom Robbins-like--is that today, just days after this article was published, Tung Chee-hwa resigned.

have i mentioned that i worship the Times? (well, maybe "worship" is a bit strong. "addicted to" or "constantly reading" would be more accurate.)

another item of immense cultural value is the obsession with schoolgirl socks in Tokyo. am i wrong? i am not wrong.

of course, if we're talking locations in the wide wide world, i can't forget Paris, etc. dear Paris. i'll live there someday. there's a cafe who's name i can't recall on Rue des Martyrs where my mother & i drank Grand Marnier concoctions before skipping off to the market & later to the cemetary to visit Baudelaire. sublime. (the "looking for Baudelaire" saga is a whole tale for another time).


jenn see in paris, a more innocent time

throw a look back over your shoulder at the state of journalism in our own country. shiver with disgust & proceed to get along gloriously with the French, though i'm nowhere near fluent enough to Rant Political in the native tongue. even if sometimes i'm on their side.
(what can i say? i've been hit on by frenchmen. i've got a soft spot for the place.)

in Canada there's a woman who's looking to speak to young Islam. i hope it works.

if you're looking for an exhibit in the met area, i was struck by how amazing these photographs (of reconstructions, sometimes of photographs) must look in the flesh. & how surreal.
i don't know if i'll get to it, but someone ought to.

if we open the window really wide, out there in the universe, there may be no "dark energy"--which is s'posed to be antigravity etc.--at all. rather, what gravity we do have is leaking out of the universe. where to? why, other universes, of course. it's turtles all the way down.

while we're looking around the globe, i might as well look inward--or backward--to the land where i was born, or close enough to it. i saw Mount Saint Helens erupt way back in '80, though i was too young to remember it. apparently she's at it again.

& as far as the world goes, i must say that as much as the power of american evangelicals irks me, it's just that power that's encouraging as they throw their weight behind measures to stop global warming. stewardship of the earth & all that. but i think the environment'll take what it can get at this point.

& of course, if i'm looking at the world, i'm doing it through Media!Media!Media!.
along those lines:

--somebody in Florida found a way-old Jim Morrison film. gives me the shivers & i'm not sure why.

young jim morrison in florida.

--draft-dodger William Gibson takes us on a tour of 1960's Yorkville, Canada. it's swirly.

--ifilm's got an anime collection up. temptations to eat your time.

--i somehow came across this My Chemical Romance video. if they made a funeral musical, this would be it. not so sure bout the music but they're from jersey, so it's a shameless plug between brothers, as it were. etc.

--speaking of funere[a]l musical, Shockheaded Peter wants to scare your children. in an oh-so-delicious, very Victorian way.

--somewhere else on the net, perhaps en route to the video, i came across the DragonBallZ game. which makes me smile, because i know people who've wanted nothing more, really, than to be Goku.

--& if you're always looking for new & strange things to do to music, Q-Burn knows how you feel.

--speaking of which, Beck's got a new album. let there be rejoicing. yay!

the title of this post was shamelessly stolen from this strangely amusing video.

(edit: nytimes follow-up article 3/11)

aaaargh!

i killed the fish!

kick-boxing shrimp and the definition of bullshit

"But what is bullshit, exactly? By which I mean: What are its defining characteristics? What is its Platonic essence? How does bullshit differ from such precursors as humbug, poppycock, tommyrot, hooey, twaddle, balderdash, claptrap, palaver, hogwash, buncombe (or "bunk"), hokum, drivel, flapdoodle, bullpucky, and all the other pejoratives"?

Defining Bullshit;
A philosophy professor says it's a process, not a product.
-If you, or any of your fiends have ever wondered about such things, as I know I have -- I mean I often stay awake all night worrying about the Platonic essence of bullshit in all of its plethora of forms -- many of your answers can be found in this article.

As for the kick-boxing shrimp, I think there's not much I can say until you read the article. One thing I will comment on though -- there is no way that this:

could possibly have "the most brutal, attack of any predator".

geekdom & the fish

(tom baker)
thanks to mysfit for finding this photo.

so wandering about internet-never-land, came across a "what makes you a geek?" list thing at the Sheila Variations. lately i've been thinking a lot about the state of my geekiness:

• if there were species within geekdom, i would be more of a nerd, i think. it's the bookworm thing.
• having existed, more or less, within a geek environment for the past 6 years or so (the college years?), i now find myself in a world which is...not necessarily less geeky, but differently so. music geeks & theater people, all of 'em. such varieties of geeks have usually been around in my life, but balanced out by other sorts of geeks. no longer. i have moved into a new realm of geekdom.
• the monotony of this was broken this weekend. there was a wee bit o' the ol' social life, down at the Court Tavern with Roadside Graves & Skyline Rodeo. there was also a concentrated mainline injection of anime conversation peppered with other sorts of statements, such as "the chronicles of narnia movie is the best christmas present ever, already" & "crichton's such a cowboy" & "FF7 movie blah blah etc!!!" for awhile & "mugen & his steel-plated sandals!"; the sources of some of these quotes were a more-than-pleasant surprise. i love surprises. & i have missed sharing these aspects of my geekiness with others.

all this considered, what follows is my list (in no particular order) of ten primary examples of my glorious geekiness:

1. Farscape, & my obsession therewith.
2. when surprised by a question needing a positive response, i'm as likely to pipe "Hai!" as anything else. in other words, my joy in anime: the art! the imagination! the endlessness!
3. my long & lasting relationship with certain notorious literature (to list them separately would be pointless): Dune, the Chronicles of Narnia, the Lord of the Rings, Earthsea (mind you, we're talking boxed sets from the 70s here), Harry Potter, the Chronicles of Prydain, the Sandman series, the Dark Tower, the Anne books & everything else LM Montgomery, Stranger in a Strange Land, the Secret Garden & A Little Princess, & anything by Terry Pratchett (which makes me one of the coolest geeks you know.)
4. my sheer & lasting glee at any movies made from the above with the passionate exception of the SciFi miniseries of Earthsea, which was a complete travesty. i've even got the Wonderworks production of The Silver Chair with Tom Baker as Puddleglum. Jealous?
5. Pirates of the Caribbean. over & over & over. only movie i've seen 7 times in a theater. that was the summer of the pirate.
6. shakespeare. all of it. shakespeare theories are a hobby.
7. theoretical physics. but, um, without the math.
8. my anglophilia when it comes to tv. Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, Ab-Fab, Eddie Izzard ("I've got legs! Do you like...bread?") etc etc etc.
9. i have a crush on Jon Stewart. (remember his show on MTV?)
10. i have every episode of the State. & i love Terry Gilliam too. & Invader Zim. yes i know that's a bunch of reasons in one but so what.

you'll notice that nothing Star Wars makes the list. my boyfriend takes care of all that. do not, i repeat, do not attempt to play star wars trivial pursuit with this man. you will lose.

i have other obsessions, but not so geeky in nature.

kitty kitty

kitty kitty

for those hoping to see proxy in her Elizabethan finery, i'm afraid you'll have to wait; the vet techs forgot to put one on her. ah, human error. so instead here she is in all her feline glory.

photo: summer 2004, somerset street, new brunswick, nj

Train Bridge

I left the city with its foundation
in surface tension. I left the Garden State
to it gardens. I have one tomato left,
which in my palm thinks of you.

It's the song you wrote for me, distinctions
between knowing & correct. Me with my hair
down, a sauna at the nape of your glance. I
am learning the Shao-Lin way of the Island.

My knowledge of bridges is intimate. You are
subject to archetypes of my substrata; if
this is unclear, you are in the space
between stalactites, stalagmites, the floor.

New towers grow under the train bridge.
In the archaeology of the future
the absence of our shapes there
will be the temple I've built for us.

New Brunswick, NJ September 2004


reading back over it this poem, it feels very John Ashbery-y to me. was i going for that?
dunno.

as my high school English teacher used to say,
"Thoughts? Comments? Shrieks of outrage?"

john ashbery

proxy will be having an operation today. wish her well, the beautiful creature.

standing on the fish

today i will stand on the fish

So--Enough!
that my head will not touch my feet before the altar
that there is enough weight in my body to let my mind float

free but not clear
that i am still sick and cannot see
that my job does not understand me not understand my job
that it is friday but not late enough
that i am still me that i am still me that i am
Enough!

i can't create enough paper dolls to fill my day
with paper dresses and paper cars
let's fly paper airplanes to Jersey
and we will be gods for a day
(if we could just get out of Vegas)

i will not get to break today
and i know this is my choice
i cannot write poetry writes me
i don't know if i add to productivity
or just convolute my convulsing friends

i will not stand for this

hey babe, are you still there?
will you look over my shoulder
to hold my hand as i peer through misting eyes
to engage the start button?
will you look over?
I hear half heard beats and rhymes from
somewhere
behind my addiction and there is still a hidden fee
somewhere

why does my liver quaiver at the idea
of getting well enough to stand on the fish
today i will stand on the fish and forget
that your testing eyes
have nothing to do with me

mysfit is in da fish

advent children

the final fantasy fish

briefly--because i'm drunk all day from the st. patrick's parade here on the island--here are the trailers for the final fantasy 7 movie, advent children.

love me.

fish can be Polish

now, there's about as much Polish in my heritage as there is anything else, but the traditions of that side of the family have come down, through my mother, such that family occasions are marked with (cue phonetic spelling) Vigilia, pirogi, schledge (have NO idea how to spell that--it's whitefish, & i don't like it at all), babke, kilbase, etc.
there's something very beautiful about these traditions.

one of my favorite authors, Jeannette Winterson, speaks of her trip to Poland in this month's column:

Strange and dream-like. An unknown journey. Long frozen miles. Icicles hanging from the train windows. The steaming red buffet carriage serving tea with rum. The night train to Moscow that I watched leaving Warsaw. Clothes, layers of them. Breath betraying any thought of stealth. Steam talk. Words in vapours. Snow falling daily. Snow in the Jewish cemetery at Krakow. Snow in Auschwitz. The river silent and solid in Gdansk. Sleeping over the silent river of snow. Amber. Vodka. Borsch. Black bread. Dumpling. Pike. Black market caviar. Russian diamonds on a tray.
Warsaw, all fog and swagger. Concrete apartments from the USSR. Birch trees. Birch trees. Birch trees.
Five o'clock in the morning and the city empty but for a taxi driver listening to Radio Kremlin. The Russians have gone but perhaps the Chinese will come next.
All dreams share this quality of familiarity and strangeness. The streets where we walk rapidly. The sounds through a door opening into a bar. Food we didn't order arrives. Three Red Dogs lined up; drink them one shot each.
The night porter is asleep. It is Minus Eleven. There's a girl in a mini skirt and leather boots. From the Ukraine, she explains, waiting for business. Hotels mean business.
The cream face of the station clock smiles six. The trains are always on time. Here it comes, massive on the iron rails. Another city. Sleep again under the snow.

she's so amazing at capturing the qualities of space & time.

it very much made me want to do the ol' family pilgramage thing. unfortunately no one's really sure where we came from, except that the same geographic cluster of peasants was alternately Austrian, Polish, Hungarian, & German, depending on who was winner what war at which time. & all the records have been burned.
French heritage, same thing--stops 3 generation back from me, with some French aristocrats sketchy about their descendants.

my father's side of the family, for the curious, is a Irish & German [lapsed] Catholic & Jewish mix, wherein family gatherings consist of sports, beach, & enormous gatherings at which relatives i've never met before introduce themselves.

fire face

fish sees figures in the fire

above: face in the fire, the cove, staten island, november 2004


woman in fire, somerset street, new brunswick, nj
august 2004

fish? fire? what?

neither of these are at all doctored, by the way.

& i'm experiencing photoblogging difficulties, so i apologize.

for awhile i had a really strange camera that did bizarre things with light. it was a Largan Mega +2, & it came free with my boyfriend's boss's computer. it had a display that looked like a digital watch, & had 2 settings: flower & mountain. it lasted a little over six months of constant use before it died (i'm scary with a camera). i sent it back, they sent be another one, & it never worked. i figured i'd had my time. it was great though, like found art.

the visual fish

ventnor, nj, hurricane season 2004

currently the documentary for the Buena Vista Social Club is playing in the other room, & my apartment has wonderful acoustics, it's just bouncing all over in here. don't speak spanish, don't know what they're saying, but still. i caught a bit of it & it seems really--real. something about old Cuban musicians. & trumpets. i'll have to catch the whole thing at some point.

i am not at a show in Asbury Park tonight. i don't like the Saint, & i didn't feel like it. comes of being unemployed; weekends aren't as valuable.

couple of image things i intend to investigate more fully when (if?) i ever get a digital camera again. Self-portraiture, anyone? nothing so cool as van gogh, but interesting. i'm vain, so i'll be looking back at this.
& i've always been a scavenger hunt fanatic. also of anything that refers to itself as "adventures in reflective surfaces".

cheers to that.

a little fishie told me

that the Amazon warrior tribe can be traced back to Mongolia.
maybe mysfit is the descendent of an Amazon princess. she certainly kicks enough ass.

link courtesy of hans, whoever that might be.

statement by a fish

(from a harvard math page)


data entry blows bubbles. & not the nice kind. so there.

thought: i'd like to see a glacier before they all melt & float away.

how many years do you think i have to do this in? hmmmm. at least ten, right?
i'm in no condition at the moment to climb a glacier.

the fish has a riddle for you

What fish has six senses (possibly even 7)?

For the answer and an explanation click here

i wish it were Saturday, but if wishes were fishes...

Feeling a bit under the weather today, so one simple post:

SICK

by Shel Silverstein

"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more--that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut--my eyes are blue--
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke--
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is. . .Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"

the inactive activist

or the active inactivist.

feeling existential?

want to save the environment? the rivers, the birds, the ocean, the wildlife, the world?
want to know how the law helps?
want to tell your government what you want them to do?

then do it!

or don't, but i do.

"beautiful ladies"

the baron's opinion


ziyi zhang

(pretty ladies thanks to the ny times)


audrey tautou

(because february is over, & spring has begun. it's still snowing, though.)