never a dull moment

There are evils local and large and further out, interesting to watch my skeptic friends become convinced of hearts of darkness and the existence of hell to deal as a local creep justifies the unjustifiable, while meanwhile other abuse is justified higher up without the attendant outrage. I guess the one is closer to home, I couldn't bring myself to watch the proceedings.

And the night before I met up with a girl I went to school with in 7th grade who I ran into again this summer. She was two years older than me and one of the few people that year who wasn't mean. I guess she had an awful time of it too there, and we briefly touch on the past, having nothing there to be nostalgic for, and move onto other things. She majored in anthropology and is also eternally curious and up for random adventures so we go down to YuppieLandia to dance to Afro-Peruvian swank courtesy of Novalima.

There were some African and Puerto Rican girls with great moves, a Peruvian family waving their flags, and the white guy who was trying to get into everyone's personal space, and the usual hippies and hipsters, and I remember being at a party dancing to this stuff with a guy who worked at the kitchen at a mansion of some friends of friends, he was the only person who talked to me there, and the 4/4 time kept my feet from tripping over and it felt good to move and not care.

Too much mirth led to introversion the next two nights, of reading books on the porch and general slacking around. We lost our softball game but I singled in a run and caught a popup so it felt like a personal victory. My dad was home alone that night so I went over there and we had dinner together, listened to garage rock on the radio, and talked about stuff. He was talking about how bad he feels for the people stuck working at the walmart he delivers to and keeps trying to get them hooked up with better jobs. City life and racism and rock and roll, and things I never knew about their early married life, I'm glad I get this time with him because I'm always amazed at what an incredible person he is.

And then one of my friends is departing for out west, in hopes that things will work out better there, and there are so many things we want to say, because the guy she's married to seems unhappy anywhere and unwilling to try or deal with things not being perfect. You take who you are everywhere no matter how idyllic or not it is. I wish I could say I was happy for them, but I'm not convinced that it's the answer.

Thankfully I don't have to ponder this the whole day, because one of my fellow girl geeks who digs weird tunes invites me out to her parents' place so we can go hiking and explore her old stomping grounds, a state park with some abandoned buildings from the canal days, ample amounts of ravine, rivers, and woods, and all sorts of spooky haunting tales of Salem, Ohio, which had a witch trial of its own, as well as eccentric millionaires with dubious attentions and such. As she appreciates the true nature of darkthroning, that is indeed what we did.

After getting some fantastic Mexican food (since it's farmland out here, mostly owned by Monsanto subsidaries where the land isn't being fracked, there's migrant workers, which seems to correlate with good and cheap south of the border food in the outskirts of Ohiostan), we drove down Egypt Road, well known in local lore for having both a "crybaby bridge" and a grisly murder in the past couple years, and other tales mostly involving delinquent teens getting witchy or gangsta in the woods.

I'm an agnostic when it comes to tales of hauntings, but at dusk, with the desolation, the abandoned houses, it was pretty spooky.

spring has broken

I went to a Good Friday service with my folks last night instead of hanging out in an old cathedral listening to requiems, and I was kind of zoned out through most of it, not all religious experience is warm and fuzzies, sometimes it doesn't feel like anything as much as you'd want it to. But I'm sure a lot of this is what's going on with the body if not the soul. I have these moments of disbelief and skepticism still, it's a good thing we're not asked of anything larger than a mustard seed, and I guess I'd make a horrible Calvinist because that line of reasoning already amplifies my doubts.

And so sleep, and dosing with nyquil and dayquil, exiting music practice early because I felt like I was going to fall over and usually that leads to inflicting those I love with irritability, which no one wants. More sleep, laying out a sleeping bag on my balcony since there's no furniture on it, just a discarded drop cloth and some discarded liquor bottles from my landlady's lousy contractors, a walk with my neighbor, currently sitting at the local coffeeshop banging out more of the giganto paper, generously illustrated with pictures of reliquaries and Northern Renaissance art. Because. 700 more words and I'll be golden, though most of the relevant sources are in German or Latin and I suck American style at languages other people know. 


I know this fatigue of all kinds is in part the product of a stuffy nose and a tired brain. It's just so beautiful outside right now I just want to be awake enough to live it.

the morbidity and mortality weekly report

As a lowly undergrad, I used to shelve the government documents on a dark and spooky tenth floor of the Kent State public library while listening to mixtapes in a seemingly indestructible cassette walkman that went through a pair of double-A batteries once every two months. Most of the items were congressional hearings in paper that was falling apart but there were also volumes of statistics involving Schoolbus Rollover Fatalities, a journal called The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report,the PRMC hearings featuring testimony from Zappa and debates about the cultural merit of Twisted Sister, and Reagan-era coloring books to educate The Kids about drugs.

 Ephemerals are one of the reasons why I've opted for low-level bibliothequery, and why thanks to Arabella, I ended up at the medical museum last night for a free lecture involving swank and morbid photos from the Burns Collection of opium dens, world leader pretends, and dead folks. I get to see some of this stuff in my line of work, but not much on this level of swank. Most of the ones from last night are in this slideshow (be warned, there's some ickiness in there)

After the talk, we noshed on good food (because fresh berries, pear tarts and pumpkin ravioli are not regular things in my world) and wine while looking at archaic and disturbing methods of contraception in the medical museum (what the hell people shoved that up there?), straunge and vvonderful tomes about monstrous beasts from the Elizabethan era, and surgical implements of old.

Was in no mood to be inside on such a beautiful almost-summer feeling night so I called my partner in adventures and diner geekery and we met up at Algebra to catch up, talk girlstuff, and play scrabble and jenga, which quickly became slap-happy constructions of blocks and chess pieces.

 

It was almost balmy outside and the air was so fragrant with autumn leaf musk that we took a long walk through Little Italy looking in shop windows and soaking in the beauty of the last warm night of the year. Everything felt just a little bit magical.

Drove back to the west side, stopped up at the radio station to guest DJ a fill-in slot, played absurdity, no one called in. Reduced to giggles with the selections "Baby Bjork" and Old Skull. 

 

Somehow not ridiculously tired. Looking forward to the weekend, need to find the little sis a nice birthday gift and get into the whole Halloweenish thing. Nights like yesterday remind me of why I'm glad I stuck around Clevelandia.

geekery abounds

Due to employ in the Booklie Arts, we are much amused by advertisements and gratuitous and superfluous usage of the Kynge's English to tout such remedies as are to be found in both the cosmos and in snake oil.

A letter to Thomas Roche, son of Peregrine Roche, Son of Peregrine Roche, Of the City of Dublin; who, being cured of a violent scorbutic disorder, has lately relapsed; and the Habit is now so confirmed, that he is deemed incurable, and must ever remain a very scrub. By Abraham Rye. To which is added, by way of Postscript, an affidavit from the man in the closet.

For the convenience of ships at sea : and for Domestic, and all other Occasions where Lemon Juice is used. Concrete, or Crystalised lemon juice; being the pure acid part of the fruit in a solid and dry form, Resembling in Appearance white sugar candy. Prepared only by H. Coxwell, No. 200, Temple-Bar

De morbis fœmineis, The womans counsellour: or, The feminine physitian, enlarged : Modestly treating of such occult accidents, and secret diseases, as are incident to that sex, which their too much modesty, too often to their sorrow, causes them to conceal. Discere quæ puduit, scribere jussit, &c. Also a supplement touching agues and feavers, usefully applicable to both sexes. Whereunto is added, The mans counsellonr , healing of ruptures, and particular diseases belonging to men. The fourth edition. By R. Turner. Philomath

 This is the myrrour or glasse of helth : necessary and nedefull for euery person to loke in that wil kepe their bodye from the syckenesse of the pestilence : and it sheweth how the planettes do raygne in euery houre of the daye and nyghte, with the natures and exposicio[n]s of the xii sygnes deuyded by the xii monethes of the yeare : and shewed the remedies for many dyers infirmities and dyseases that hurteth the bodye of manne...

A friend to the sick, or, The honest Englishman's preservation shewing the causes, symptoms, and cures of the most occult and dangerous diseases which affect the body of man : with a particular discourse of the dropsie, scurvy, and yellow jaundice, and the most absolute way of cure : whereunto is added a true relation of some of the most remarkable cures affected by the author's most famous cathartique and diueretique pills...

A new treatise on the method of curing the scurvy, leprosy, elephantiasis, and evil, with other cutaneous eruptions  Shewing the Rise and Progress of these Diseases, and by what Medicines they are cured. Illustrated By Many Cases extracted from the Writings of the most eminent Men of the Faculty, and the Author's own Observations and Advice. The whole Interspersed with Variety of efficacious Receipts, collected, and now published for the Good of the Public. The Second Edition. By L. Mardon, M. D

what immortal hand or eye...

These nature illustrations are far more gorgeous than anything my brain could ever dream to conjure and the intricacy and practicality and the sheer exhuastive amount of species and interconnectedness that we humans somehow haven't completely destroyed only cements my childhood residual notions of Creator design genius that the majority of folk in my world would scoff at and tell me to move to Texas or something, but hey I'd prefer the company of William Blake to Dawkins & Co. any day.

Someday when I'm not hovering above the poverty line I'd love to have these kinds of things on the coffee table along with Harry Clarke and Fursy. In the meantime, there's the Internet, and it's for sharing such wonders and frequent fearful symmetry.

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?


What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

andy goldsworthy

The girl down the street from me was of a similarly geeky tendency, and we used to have her dad take us to cemeteries and museums and the Metroparks when we were very young. She's in medical school now, I'm ensconced in academic peonage. Who we were then is more or less who we are now.

Her parents had a house full of seashells and tiles and National Geographic magazines, Woody Allen movies, sunlight and houseplants. NPR or Enya was usually on in the background, and there were tangles of flowering bushes in the backyard that we converted into our own playland for fairytale adventures or chasing the neighborhood boys around with squirt guns.

I think her mom had this book, or it's something that I associate with them for some reason or another. I love the intricacy of the process and the transiency of the materials in contact with the elements, and while I'm generally not a fan of installation art, this has a sense of ancientness that I kind of love.

on Orientalism and rust.

A fabled city, built on plunder, a crossroads of civilization and trade, a place of learning, a bridge between the east and west, until the wealthy and the powerful sought greener pastures elsewhere, the ignorant maintained a grip on power, the buildings torn down in the name of brutalism and progress and lack of history, now a cultural backwater and byword, of dictators and fundamentalists, strategic but not as important as other places. As a native of a land with a similar pattern of decay, albeit industrial rather than raiders and power struggles, it's hard not to have some kinship with these kinds of locales, to admire the beauty inherent, of times long gone.

 I came across Vasily Vereshchagin's paintings in an art book on Russian Orientalism, and it seems he spent some time here during the 19th century. I can't help but feel like this intriguedness of forgotten locales and decaying architecture is universal. Ruin porn for everyone I guess.