Here’s my artist’s conception of Toni, who when I started at Matt’s was so welcoming, calling me Baby and making me smile. She has consistently won the hearts of diners as well, who have gone out of their way to forward compliments to our management about her superb service and professionalism. Ask her how she’s doing, and she’ll tell you “I can’t complain.” Truth is, she could, but she never does.
fields epithelial and fallow
elevate onward, windborne
and though unpossessed of persona
there is a seeming d e l i g h t
hopping hastening hopscotch
even a waltz-rhythmed dance
raising the sight of the Viewer
Epithelial cells comprise feathers.
“Cold Reading” is a method of fakery by purported psychics. The late, great Orson Welles did his share, and here describes both how it is done and how it is dangerous for the cold reader, who starts to believe the power is real:
And here are my few words, acrosticizing the subject:
Cast a spell to curl the hair
Oust some devils on a dare
Listen for the lost & bad–a
Daughter’s message 2 her dad
Here is the first page I’ve done since I moved to my new place. Much of it was done on the drawing table sketched in lower left. I do so feel more at Home, using my table.
The three acrostic takes on Home come from my recent move, my years of weight struggle, the tragedy in Orlando for which flags are now being flown half-mast, and that grab-bag feeling one gets when a lot is happening at once. But, for once, this page is not a dashed-off, gottagetitdone thing. I spent three days on it, and I hope it shows.
Awry Left Home
Avoirdupois and sleekness match
When you’ve a KEY and not a latch
O running Wafflers may make scream
Yet Value’s not in Hits nor Meme
away from home
a child lifts a stufféd pooh
whilst parents wonder what to do
as youngsters out for fun take aim
you need a someone whom to blame
Well Come Home
We go and cause the world to laugh
Enjoying Moo-Cow and Giraffe
O Laughter is a Marvel! I’m
Laugh-loutish till the end of TIME
. . . my own personal time, that is. “Steel in my heart, and laughter in my breast!” quoth Rostand’s Cyrano. 🙂
Here is an exploration in distillation, minimalism, irony, and association. It’s also another baby step in my quest for proficiency in oil pastel.
The first acrostic, “fecund second,” describes six rich actions that may take place in a single second. The second, “spin it minute,” is of six words, all nouns, that I am 100% sure have never been strung together in this order before. Reading them aloud in their order imparts, at least for me, a sense of a mysterious narrative with a lot left out. The first two words imply chaos; the next two pairs of words, “intersection nosferatu” and “integument testosterone,” have the same number of syllables, implying order. The last pair match stress syllables as well: inTEGument/testOSTerone. With minimalism details like this make a big difference.
fecund second
facing the Fates
echoing miracle
calibrating the cosmic
unraveling intaglio
nesting in the Moon
defining vagabond
spin it minute
spasm
potpourri
intersection
nosferatu
integument
testosterone
Strange things are on the up. A wrong-headed man has opened fire, his targeted victims members of the LGBT community. He happens to be Muslim. A wrong-headed man running for President accuses his probable opponent of wanting to do away with the Second Amendment, which I will undoubtedly slightly misquote from memory as being, “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
Yin and yang. Straight and gay. Gun-toters and gun-law-touters.
Bisexuals are said to “go both ways.” At least one of my best friends on Earth is bisexual. At least one other is homosexual. Any others are keeping a low profile, and who can blame them?
Lassie was a girl-dog whose movie and TV portrayal was often made by a boy-dog. Collies have concealing fur.
The folk song “Did You Ever See a Lassie?” Has another verse, unknown to most nowadays, that starts, “Did you ever see a laddie . . . ?”
My card advocates staying home and traveling afar at the same time via our E-Ticket ride on the Planet Earth. Since the Sun hurtles toward the Sagittarius constellation at 60,000 mph, the pattern the Earth makes through its tiny subsector of the galaxy is a marvelous slinky-shape, enhanced by the subslinky of the gravitational tether of the Moon. YouTube has video of this, and it is a joy to behold.
Here are the words to the messy double acrostic, made, I hope, more sensible via prosification.
Hie thee away to another land. It will be strangely fey and grand. By this time tomorrow Earth will go Headlong through a spiral arc–yes or no? Elliptical pathways in centric array respond to the pull with a hip, hip, hooray. Telemundo, tell Alice, then it gets intriguing: Nest nesting in travel and you will be singing.
Here is a little more oil pastel practice and a little more meta-wordplay. The five words I chose to acrosticize “WORDS” are each extraordinary, especially upon reflection. As for the image, the fewer words said of it the better.
“Temper, temper,” we say of someone who flies off the handle/gets Pee Oh’d/indulges in rage. But “temper temper” may be advice, when the first Temper means “serve as a neutralizing or counterbalancing force . . .”
temper temper
ten-second counting is the best
emotion checked with time & geste
marshmallow mellow pick & strum
permits this chum not be a chump
emergent calm need not be rare
reject the raging growling bear
. . . or lion. Lamb it up today, Friends!
I’m at a sports bar in Tempe, Arizona on a Saturday night, watching THE BIG LEBOWSKI on one of at least 15 screens simulcast in its splendor. A co-worker, to whom I am grateful, tipped me off about this fine event.
Must get back to the movie. CHEERS!
The Third of June rolls by again. That makes 48 Thirds of Junes since the song “Ode to Billie Joe” came out in 1967. And Bobbie Gentry, born Roberta Lee Streeter, is said to be living in seclusion in Los Angeles. If alive, she is 71 years old.
She once owned a piece of the Phoenix Suns, but hasn’t since 1987. She never told us what the girl and Billie Joe threw off the bridge, but said the real meaning of the song was about nonchalance and indifference, a family talking casually about a seeming suicide while not realizing the fellow’s girlfriend was right there at the table. (That does seem downright Faulkneresque, if not Kafkaesque, to me.)
Anyway–I was a fan. I watched “The Bobbie Gentry Happiness Hour” as few others did. I think “Ode to Billie Joe” is a classic. And I imagine many will remember her, this Third of June . . .
One with Clay, Image and Text 