Automated Day Dreaming

Television is a strange thing; The seemingly fictitious scenes and characters imitating a life with the will that seems all too familiar to the passive surveyor; oblivious, he forgets such a world exists upon exiting the room, and then proceeds with the very act himself. It's a circular function, whose source can no longer be sought. One can't help but wonder what goes on when the television set goes off...

Creationism

The distinguishing characteristic between humans and other species is that humans question their existence; all other forms of life need not be vexed by such trifling matters. - Ossiping, Sheldon, naturalist. 1729.

Devious Horseman

In response:

Who enjoys being the recipient of bad new? From taxes to notices, the often foreboding feeling of knowing something is coming, something that only the mailman can bring to fruition, is naturally terrifying for some. You owe money, your car is being repossessed, you are being sued, you are needed for jury duty. The hands of the mailman deliver these horrors, so while one may await the mailman, it is often with trepidation and hesitation. All this aside, the mailman works a courageous and noble job, a sentient of the establishment and a failing union.

Sincerely, Jonah Rumpert
Kansas City, Missouri

I recieve mail; therefore I am.

The role of the mailman is alarmingly underplayed in relation to the value of service he offers to such an auspicious yet thankless society. Already about and conducting his business hours before the most esteemed of men have awoken from their luxurious slumbers, this invisible agent of information is with a light heart dispatching the paltry dialogues of indolent and entitled individuals, which cannot wait until a later time in the day, for nothing pleases the average person more than opening the mailbox shortly after waking and discovering that someone has cared to relay their sentiments and magically succeeded! What would there be to read otherwise? The newspapers are far too impersonal. The mailman of course is above all this. He knows the world as gathered from his own perspective and therefore needs not be bothered by someone else's feeble attempts at imparting knowledge. He is like a ghost, up at dawn and ahead of the world, reveling in his own narrow window of silence, until all is muddled by the noise of envelopes opening and the outflow of their contents, signifying a job well done and a withdraw from the world until tomorrow. He executes his influence merely out of duty, but lives with the mirth that accompanies the dignity of not needing to be reminded. His pursuits are surely of a noble nature.

Some things can be done as well as others

I'm a big fan of sports, though the rules have often been found to hold back my spirit. I just like to jump over shit, and no one does it better.

At Least You're Alive

- It gives us all something to look at, it's the simplest of lies, and it is within the lack of
conviction that the fault thrives

Between Marseille and Montpellier
We did sit and toast, the dead
Kings and Queens, to men and holy ghosts.
The arduous journey; seated we remained,
Light were our heads, water and sin seemed the same.
The couple seated opposite became quickly unpleasant,
And as the clouds collated I became feverish with resentment.
It all fell down in a seemingly pre-determined path,
Like water running down a long pain of glass.
With heads still spinning the hills began to bleed
Into one nauseating and pernicious, intensifying scene.
Nuclear reactors as common as flowers
Decorated the hills like looming modern towers - we pulled into town.

- And all that needs to be known can be found
By means of party and civility

Buisness is Good

We're looking for people who like to draw

The Big Ship: A Lugubrious Affair

Do not be hasty for it is nine past eleven and the devil waits for no one.
- Fortini, Lorenzo. Florence, Italy. 1301.

A Repelling Approach

To be cool is to be detached from one's self. (Dublin, Ireland. 1918.)

To be cool is to be in harmony with one's self. (New Delhi, India. 1920.)

- Earthvowel, Jepruda.

The Chandelier Ballroom

Chamber of thorns, grotto of glass,
The icicles drip in a hidden pass;
Sharp as a barb, each flank cast its own flash;
The dancers are dwarfed in a frosty masked glow,
Down in a cavern of brandishing mirrors, hollowed and hallowed below;
Ensconced in a dwelling fit for the Divine,
The chandeliers jaggedly jutting and branching like vines,
Like copses of crystals sprawled over the sky;
Exceedingly dazzling, outdoing the Sun,
For the Sun in a feverish fit will one day lapse,
Yet endure this eternal ballroom of stateliest stillness, this heart of hum.

Fur Traders Descending the Missouri

Evening Harmony

The hour has come at last when, trembling to and fro,
Each flower is a censer sifting its perfume;
The scent and sounds all swirl in evening’s gentle fume;
A melancholy waltz, a languid vertigo!

Each flower is a censer sifting its perfume;
A violin’s vibrato wounds the heart of woe;
A melancholy waltz, a languid vertigo!
The sky, a lofty altar, lovely in the gloom,

A violin’s vibrato wounds the heart of woe,
A tender heart detests the black of nullity,
The sky, a lofty altar, lovely in the gloom;
The sun is drowning in the evening’s blood-red glow.

A tender heart detests the black of nullity,
And lovingly preserves each trace of long ago!
The sun is drowning in the evening’s blood-red glow …
Your memory shines through me like an ostensory!
- Charles Baudelaire (April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867)

Motion Picture

You come out into the sunlight after being locked up inside for weeks, and slip away in the middle of a large confused crowd, like being hypnotized. Suddenly nothing becomes something...

The Actor

"I've always had two principles throughout all my life in motion-pictures: never do before the camera what you would not do at home and never do at home what you would not do before the camera." (The Loved One, Waugh)

Clothes Lines

I never realized how thirsty I was
Until I stopped drinking.
By that time the well had run dry;
I had created a desert from within.

The width of a room
Becomes much larger after the party.
And when they come to clean up,
You wish they wouldn't.

The little things we cling to
Can be so amusing
Under immoderate circumstance.

You live your life
By the flick of a switch,
So graceful and slick.

Clothes lines are of use
For hanging all the outfits,
Bound to a near number of roles.
Actors of course, need their costumes.

When alone in the city
I'd pray for shoe shine.
When alone in the desert
I'd pray for anything.

The well was my hideout.
There I could complain
And not drain.

I'd carry an empty tin can around my neck,
And the feeling of falling through empty space
Hurt more than the fear of hitting ground.

Ego Death

"the object of life is to make sure you die a weird death. To make sure that however it finds you, it will find you under very weird circumstances. To live that kind of life..." (Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon)

The Great Blondin

Jean Francois Gravelot, or as he called himself, "The Great Blondin," arrived in Niagara in 1858 after fleeing his native France under mysterious circumstances. He soon became obsessed with the idea of crossing the Falls by way of tightrope. On June 30, 1859, after extensive training he finally accomplished his goal, walking across a 1,100 foot long and 3 inch in diameter manila rope stretched from Niagara, New York to Oakes Garden, Ontario. Using nothing to support himself but a 30 foot pole for balance, he walked across Niagara Falls in twenty minutes. He crossed it eight more times that summer, culminating on August 14, when he accomplished the act while simultaneously carrying his manager, Harry Colcord, on his back. Bravo!

Plight of the lumberjack

One would not be altogether incorrect to consider the pursuits of the modern lumberjack futile. The lumberjack cuts down trees, which are then sent to a factory where they are stripped of their bark, condensed to a pulp and bleached white, from which we derive paper. If all goes accordingly, a person of esteem is then relied upon, if he may be so generous, to scribble some particular marks on the paper, as a reward to the grateful lumberjack for his hard work. Alas, the refined tree remnants make a full circle and return to the hands of the lumberjack, who goes on with this routine without realizing the seemingly absurd irony of it all.

Bed Spring Jaunt

Sometimes the best way of arriving at somewhere new is by abandoning a sense of direction. - Gluff, Harold. Oxfordshire, England. 1932.