“- John Kovac: Lady, you certainly don’t look like somebody that’s just been shipwrecked.
– Connie Porter: Man, I certainly feel like it.”
—-Lifeboat
lifeboat propeller
The Last Lifeboat
Willis was on a cruise ship in the South Pacific, on the way from Bora Bora to Tahiti, when the asteroid struck.
As you know, the impact site was in the Atlantic, almost exactly on the opposite side of the world from Willis and his cruise ship. The North and South American continents protected them from the massive waves. Secondary meteorites, mostly hunks of seabed thrown into space to rain back down, were falling around them, but the sea seemed so vast it was more of fantastic light show than a real fear.
Most of the population of the main continents died out from the enormous Tsunamis and the fire raining down fairly quickly. It took days for the impact to impact their part of the world (sitting on miles of water depth, even the earthquakes were not felt).
There was increasing panic onboard as the radio contacts from all over the world went silent, one by one, with frightening rapidity. A cruise ship is largely self-contained – but the supplies wouldn’t last forever.
Willis wasn’t sure what sank the ship. Maybe it was struck by a random rock screaming down from the sky. Some said the crew went mad and scuttled the ship.
Willis had always taken the lifeboat drills too seriously, but this time it served him well. He made it to one of the enclosed survival boats and had it lowered and adrift just as the giant liner slipped beneath the salty waves.
There were about twenty souls on the craft. Looking around, they did not see any other boats. Some people must have been caught unaware, most probably didn’t care enough to save themselves. There was a lot, and I mean a lot, of drinking going on.
Now that this tiny craft was all that was left of the world to them, the twenty searched the emergency locker to see what they had. Unfortunately, a crewman seemed to have been making the vessel his home, an extra private cabin.
The survival supplies on the lifeboat had been replaced by an impressive bag of cocaine and a generous supply of shockingly violent gay porn magazines.
They were adrift in a trackless ocean without emergency flares or signal mirrors. Which was fine because there was nobody to signal. But panic began to set in when they discovered emergency biscuit ration and containers of fresh water were gone too. But there was the tiny engine and some diesel fuel, and when that ran out, there were oars. The compass was missing and they didn’t know what direction to go – but they used the sun and the stars to row in more or less a straight line, straight into the unknown.
Of the original twenty, ten, including Willis, were still alive when the top of a ragged volcanic peak poked above the horizon. It was a harrowing row across waves, rocks, and jagged razor-sharp corals to get to the beach and the line of coconut palms. Nobody knew how many people were left in the rest of the word (as you know, there were very, very few) but a healthy number had made it through the rain of fire on the island.
The lifeboat survivors were forced to trade with the natives. Willis was surprised to find out that the cocaine, though valuable, was less in demand that the pornographic magazines. The residents of the island had never seen publications of this type. They said, “The internet is just not the same.” And, of course, the internet was gone now… paper, as information and stimulation was again the gold standard.
A decade later, Willis found himself in the unexpected role of “King” of the island. The little society had not only survived, but it had thrived. But they were multiplying and it was obvious that their island, their little piece of paradise, was going to be too small soon, very soon. So Willis started a project to rehabilitate the little enclosed lifeboat. They stocked it with food, rudimentary sails, and a crew that knew how to row.
Then, at dawn, with the sea calm and the trade winds blowing, a chosen set of twenty set out again, to rediscover and repopulate the world.
“Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
Flora Street, Dallas, Texas
From my blog (I called it an “Online Journal” then), The Daily Epiphany, Monday, February 15, 1999. It is so weird to read about my reaction to technology from (only) twenty years ago.
Eyelid rub
Shit, what a long, tiring day. Oh, look at the top of the page, it’s a Monday. No wonder.
I sat the morning through a two hour Lotus Notes class, a professional trainer, twenty years younger than me explained in excruciating detail everything I already knew and displayed his ability to scrunch up his nose when I asked a question.
Meanwhile, the hourly folks in the class had a lot of trouble. I really felt sorry for them, the instructor would rattle off, “click here, go back, minimize.” He would always say click when he should have said double click. Not that the poor hourly guys can double click anyway. They are used to terminal emulators with tacked up dog-eared Xerox copies of lists of odd key combinations. They’ll be alright, they’ll get gooey eventually. Those tough callused hands trying to push a mouse around, that look of confusion; it’s a difficult world.
I spent most of the class leaning slightly forward with my eyes closed rubbing the corners of my lids.
The rest of the workday was meetings. More lid-rubbing.
I didn’t really do anything, did I? I sure was exhausted when I came home. My head was splitting, my right ear isn’t working again, I should have gone to a cycling class, but I booted. I should have played with the kids, worked on the garage, written some stuff, read some chapters, but I didn’t.
All I managed to do was flounder around horizontally, watching some sports on TV.
And rubbing the corners of my eyelids ’til the headache finally went away.
“No, but thanks for asking. We have people who clean your windscreen against your will, but, er…”
Joe barked with contempt.
“The thing is,” explained Dirk, “in London you could certainly walk up to someone and steal their car, but you wouldn’t be able to drive it away.”
“Some kinda fancy device?”
“No, just traffic,” said Dirk.” ― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
Highway 75 at Sunset
(click to enlarge)
Tiny Courtesies
The end of the week, danced around plenty o’ disasters (mostly rain related) at work, he feels alittle lucky. But sooner or later the bear’ll getya son, so he had better keep a keep eye out.
Driving in to his place of gainful employment was a springtime storm adventure. The faithful AM radio traffic newspeople (no choppers up today, though) talked to him from the waterproof clock radio in the shower, warning of accidents on the I635 loop and at La Prada & Gus Thomasson (his two direct routes into work) so he mazed his way through middleworkingclass two bedroom neighborhoods. Lots of running water, had to be careful, flash floods will kill ya. Looking through the blurrr of defective needreplacing rubber oscillating blades, his eyes gauging depth of street rapids, waves, rills, whitecaps where only asphalt should be, alternating the ventilation from too hot defogger as long as he can stand to cooler direct blowing outside air ’till the windshield fogs and he can’t see, back to the heat. Cycles oscillating: blades, ventilation, radio stations (The Edge, Classic, Stern, Talk, News, Sports).
At Motley and Gus Thomasson he had to make a bad left in front of Fazio’s Discount Emporium. It’s a left into six lanes of traffic, no light, only a red octagon. In front of him was a school bus. Now a little disposable paidfor dented car can inch out dodging through a turn like this (who wants to live forever). But a school bus has to wait for all six lanes to clear, there isn’t enough room for them to wait in the median. They sat like that, he was watching four kids in the back window, for twenty minutes. He wanted to yell, “Go for it, they’ll stop, nobody’ll ram a schoolbus for Christssake!” But he didn’t cut to the left, go around, though he wanted to and thought about it. He waited his turn though he was late for work.He began to realize that little bits of civilization, tiny courtesies, are what are missed, are important.
Especially when nobody knows (though I guess that y’all know now, don’t you).
“Got no checkbooks, got no banks. Still I’d like to express my thanks – I’ve got the sun in the mornin’ and the moon at night.”
― Irving Berlin
Thanksgiving Square, Dallas, Texas
From my blog (I called it an “Online Journal” then), The Daily Epiphany, Monday, March 01, 1999.
Lunchtime
It’s lunchtime on Monday, the first day of a new month.
The calendar might say it’s still winter but you’d never know by looking around. The temperature might get to eighty today but it’s ’round seventy-two right now, as perfect as can be. Candy gave me a dollar and I found seventy -some cents in the floorboards so I could afford two bean burritos. So I drove to the little park near my work and am sitting at my green picnic table. The winter sun burns down through the leafless trees, warm on my skin. It also washes out the screen of the laptop, hard to see, hard to type; but that might be my only complaint. Even my pager, my ever present belt-bee, is quiet today, I hope he stays that way for awhile.
Two little girls are at the new playground with their mom. It’s sort of a cheap, little playground, but the girls don’t seem to mind, they’re giggling up a storm. There is this green spiral pipe, set vertically around another central pipe. I think it is intended to be used as a ladder. The girls are small enough that they can slide down this spiral, spinning ’round and ’round.
“OK! Here I go!” one calls out and twists down, spinning like a loose wingnut on a bolt.
I wonder what about this day these little girls will remember when they are my age. The spiral will be a tall tower, not a six foot piece of pipe. Will they remember the weather? Of course not. I never thought about the weather when I was little, never thought about if it was hot or cold or raining or snowing. Well, I guess I thought about it if it was snowing. That was something special.
I splurged yesterday and bought myself an insulated-stainless-steel-spillproof-tapered-on-the-bottom-to-fit-most-cup-holders drinking cup. It was an impulse purchase, on a display in the aisle when I went out to buy some drain cleaner. When I found out it cost twelve dollars I almost put it back. I can afford it, but I’ve been well conditioned to the “thousands of starving third world children that can’t even afford a plastic spill-proof mug, let alone a stainless-steel one,” feelings of guilt about spending more that five dollars on something that I don’t actually need.
But I bought it anyway.
There’s a little blue paper, a flyer, on the ground by the trash can, let’s see what it is.
It’s from a local church, the Praise and Prayer Notes from yesterday. The scripture on it is from Revelation which is usually not a good sign, but this little note is fine.
A list of things to be thankful for:
C… N… is back from Russia and feeling better,
D…K… is recovering from a triple bypass,
J…A… has been accepted at Multnomah Bible College,
B…E… says that L… has been seizure free for 6 months and is driving again.
This is followed by a list of things to pray for:
M…S… is six months old and may need surgery, pray for the doctor’s appointment on March 15th,
R…P… has had an asthma flareup,
S… W… needs sale of property and finances for a wedding,
J… B… died in a skiing accident ten days ago.
I think I’ll praise this warm, quiet hour. The feel of the sun, the sound of the birds. The cheap, spicy burrito. My steel cup of ice and Dr. Pepper that doesn’t leak.
I think I’ll pray for those two little girls, pray that in forty years they remember how happy they were sliding down that green spiral. I pray they don’t lose those giggles.
“The mind can be trained to relieve itself on paper.” ― Billy Collins
This woman was waving a turkey leg out of her food trailer. When someone came up to buy one, she said, “Let me get you a fresh one hon, this is my demo model, I’ve been waving it out this window for hours.”
From my blog (I called it an “Online Journal” then), The Daily Epiphany, Saturday, September 29, 2001. Exactly twenty years ago.
Sidekicks
Nicholas had accumulated two free tickets and a two-for-one coupon for the Dallas Sidekicks indoor soccer team game tonight. He asked a kid from his team to go with us and Candy and I used the two-for-one.
Dallas has built a new sports arena – but the Sidekicks, practitioners of a non-major, second or third tier (for Texas, anyway) sport remain in the old, smaller, less tony, and luxury skybox-less arena. Fine with us. The smaller place is more intimate and you can see the game better.
Most important of all, the nachos (actually a skimpy paper holder with some stale chips and two tiny plastic cups – one full of motor-oil-like fake cheese sauce, the other loaded with some sort of brown bland bilious chili-resembling substance) are sold sans jalapenos, but there are condiment stands nearby with all the sliced peppers you can pile on. I piled on plenty. As a matter of fact, I made two trips from our seats up and back to the condiment stand for more hot peppers. I was going to buy a Diet Dr. Pepper but while I was in line the guy in front of me ordered a beer and it simply looked too good to pass up. The beer and nachos came to nine dollars and fifty cents.
That’s what sports is all about, isn’t it. I was sitting in a cramped plastic arena seat drinking a five-dollar lukewarm beer and eating grease laced with so many hot peppers the top of my head sweated. I had to keep rubbing my hair because so much capsicum-induced heat was rising up and shooting out the top of my head.
I can tell you something about this place. The boys around here call it “The Black Lagoon” – a paradise. Only they say nobody has ever come back to prove it.
― The Creature From the Black Lagoon
Beer Cap
Creature
Sammy Peeps lived by a park where a lot of people walked their dogs. He didn’t have a dog but since he quit working he had a lot of time and he’d walk by himself. There were little dispensers of plastic bags and he developed the habit of carrying one and picking up any forsaken piles of feces. He thought he looked odd carrying a little bag of dog shit with no dog, but he did it anyway.
There was a string of ponds lined with a few benches. On nice weather days he would sit and watch the dog walkers going around and around. As the days went buy he began to notice all the other critters that inhabited the park and the ponds. He was surprised at the amount and variety of wildlife, given that this was a tiny green space in the midst of a huge city. Squirrels would scamper in the trees next to his spot and cackle at him – either playing or pissed, Sammy couldn’t decide. Ducks swam across the water or flew through the air. So did two flocks of geese – Sammy was shocked at how large the geese were once he was able to observe them closely. His favorite sound was the whish and splash as the birds flew in for a water landing. Turtles – laconic red-eared or primordial, savage snappers – basked in the sun or moved underwater with heads poking up.
If he walked out at dawn or just after sunset he would see coyotes out for a nighttime duck snack along with rats, skunks, or other nocturnal creatures. The city had to wrap wire around the lower trunks of the trees to protect them from the beavers that lived upstream. On a couple of rare occasions he even saw the large, black bulk of these sliding through the water or crossing from pond to pond.
As the months went by he learned the entire menagerie of wild animals and the society of dog walkers until it was all very familiar and mundane.
That amplified the shock when something new showed up. It was small and slick and reptilian and slid from a drainage pipe into the pond. He stared at the slight V of the wake as it swam smoothly just under the water. Then he saw a face – part fish-like, part reptilian, and part shockingly human rise above the water for a few seconds. It seemed to be looking at him.
He would see the creature again and again, almost every time he went to the pond, which was at least every day. Now that he had found something strange and unknown, the pull became irresistible. The creature seemed aware of him, though it never came close – would simply swim this way and that, or climb a short way out of the pond, to rest in the warm sun. Sammy was confused that nobody else, none of the dog walkers, paid any attention to the strange creature. It was like he was the only thing that saw it and the only thing it saw.
He bought a pair of powerful binoculars in order to observe the creature better. He felt odd sitting there on the bench in public scanning the ponds with the heavy instruments – people would glare at him but nobody said anything.
Sammy had no idea what the creature ate, but it was growing. Imperceptibly at first, but the change began to add up over the months. It was getting undoubtedly bigger.
Then, one day it was gone. Alarmed, he went to the ponds in every spare moment, scouring the place for another glimpse. He even took to walking the creek up and downstream in case the creature had moved to another area, but nothing.
Finally, one night, he woke up to the sound of his doorbell. At first he did nothing, hoping it would go away. It was not the time of night for anyone to be trying to bother him. But the ringing continued and was interrupted by a kind of knocking on the door itself. The sound sent shivers up Sammy’s spine – it was almost like a human knuckle knock, but just a little soft, a little wet sounding.
Sammy finally gathered all the courage he could and went to the door. He looked through the peephole and saw what he was afraid to see, though he was expecting it.
It was the creature. It had grown to a human height and was standing on his front stoop, still knocking on the door. It’s face was covered with scales and it had some sort of preternatural gills hanging down from its neck – but it looked more human that it had at the pond.
Shivering with both fear and excitement, Sammy Peeps reached out, unlocked the bolt, and began to turn the knob.
In April of 2012, I wrote this entry on the destruction of the Nasher Sculpture Center by the Luxury High rise condo tower next door – ironically called “The Museum Tower.”
And for me personally, this wasn’t even the worst part. As the tower grew, it destroyed my favorite work of art – Tending (Blue), by James Turrell. You can read about that here:
It revealed itself with a white-hot intensity on Sept. 26, 2011. No one knew what it was — how it got there or where it came from. But all of those answers soon revealed themselves, giving The Glare, as it came to be known, a permanent place in Dallas history.
The Glare is still there, but a decade later — the 10th anniversary of this infamous discovery is Sunday — Dallas continues to be amazed by its force and power and the casualties left in its wake.
The Glare is not an invention of Stephen King, and yet, it had (continues to have) a sci-fi effect on the Nasher Sculpture Center, whose walls on a sunny day look as though they’re stricken with measles. The Glare is the shiny reflection emanating from the glass exterior of the building next door, 42-story Museum Tower, which in 2011 was under construction.
We turned to the Nasher for comment and got in response this statement, from its director of external affairs, Jill Magnuson:
“We are obviously disappointed that at this milestone the reflective glare from Museum Tower’s façade continues to have a negative impact on the Nasher Sculpture Center’s indoor and outdoor galleries. Nevertheless, we remain committed to working toward the restoration of our original conditions and are hopeful with technology innovations that we can realize this solution as we continue to serve this community as a vital educational and cultural resource.”
We promise to check in again on Sept. 26, 2031.
I doubt I will be around to check in.
The Museum Tower Condominiums tower over Tony Cragg’s “Lost in Thought”
One of the goals of creating the Dallas Arts District, of which the Nasher is a linchpin, was to attract the high-end buzz of the wealthy clientele that enjoy throwing their millions around in order to wallow in the coolness of timeless art. These folks are hard to pry away from the coasts or the ancient alleyways of Europe but a roadfull of expensive venues and billions of dollars of paintings and sculptures was the lure. And so they come. The first habitat for these rare birds is the shiny new Museum Tower, reaching skyward from an odd oval of property where a Woodall Rogers Freeway ramp arced up and around.
Now I have no problem with that. I’m not a wealthy person and will never be. I have to beg and save just to buy a pen, for example. Most of the art scene I enjoy comes on Free Thursdays and Half-Price weekend and such as that, when the upper crust retreats and allows the hoi polloi to enter and tread their hallowed halls. I depend on the charity or at least the indifference of the wealthy patrons – I exist on their scraps – like a roach under the cabinets I scurry out when they aren’t looking for any crumbs that might be left behind.
So if someone wants to build a tower and charge millions of dollars for a two bedroom apartment – so be it. I applaud their industry, toast their imagination, and do not begrudge them their profits. If they want to call their property The Museum Tower – in order to capitalize on its location right next to the Nasher, fine. If they want to charge an extra million dollars per unit simply so the residents can use the museum garden as their side yard – complete with landscaping and a billion in modern sculpture – great. There is plenty of room and if you don’t mind standing next to me, I don’t mind standing next to you.
But don’t forget what side of the bread you’re putting the butter on. Without the museum there is no Museum Tower. Without the arts, there is no Arts District. Do not roast the goose that lays the golden eggs.
It started out with Tending (blue). The high rise stuck it’s ugly head right up into the viewport of James Turrell’s skyspace sculpture, my favorite spot at the Nasher and the best place to watch the sunset in the Metroplex. But, I’ve written about that before. (go read it)
An oversight, perhaps… pretty damn sloppy, though, if you ask me. You spend that much money on a building, make that much profit, can’t you figure out ahead of time that it’s going to ruin a great work of art? Or do you realize it and simply not say anything until it’s too late. Turrell can fix it, maybe, but when? He’s got other things to do.
And now, it’s happened again. And it’s a lot more serious this time.
They have put the mirrored cladding on the building and it is reflecting so much extra sunlight into the building at the Nasher that they are having to install shades simply to allow the newest sculptures in the room. Sunlight destroys art – but is necessary for art and the Nasher has always been very proud of it’s carefully engineered sunscreen roof. The architect spent a lot of time and effort designing a structure that allowed light for viewing in while blocking the damaging direct rays of the Texas sun. It was a brilliant triumph of design and construction and made for a world-famous light and airy museum that was a strong point of pride for the entire city.
It was a brilliant triumph until a few weeks ago when someone installed a giant mirror reaching five hundred feet into the sky right next door that shot laser beams of killer sunlight into the Nasher from an entirely unexpected direction.
Nobody ever clicks on links, so here’s the skinny from the Dallas Morning News:
Officials at the Nasher Sculpture Center say that reflective glass recently installed on the exterior of Museum Tower, its new, 42-story neighbor in the Arts District, is compromising its indoor galleries, destroying its outdoor garden and threatening its future as a Dallas landmark.
Now under construction at the corner of Olive Street and Woodall Rodgers Freeway, Museum Tower heralds its proximity to the “tranquil garden” of the Nasher as a prime selling point for its residential units, which cost between $1 million and $5.4 million.
This makes me so angry I could spit. There is a city code that says, “A person shall not conduct a use that has a visible source of illumination that produces glare of direct illumination across a property line of an intensity that creates a nuisance or detracts from the use or enjoyment of the adjacent property.” For years I have had city inspectors quote much more obscure bits of code than this and made places I work do all sorts of crazy stuff.
But then again, the places I have worked have only employed thousands of ordinary people. They haven’t been home to a handful folks that can afford five million dollar apartments. They haven’t been owned by the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System (that’s who bought the tower).
When the Nasher was built, there was an agreement with Raymond Nasher, part of the covenant that helped him agree to build the museum and give his personal collection to the people of Dallas that stated the building next door would be a maximum of 21 stories and have a maximum reflectivity of 15. Now it is 42 stories with a reflectivity of 44.
So here we have a story of corporate greed and hidden scandal. Men like Raymond Nasher are no more. I notice that mere months after he passed away – a new LA based architect was brought in to fuck things up and the tower doubled in size and reflectivity, causing all these problems -, about the time the City Pension System decided to make its purchase. I guess they knew then the city would not put up a fight. Mary Suhm, the Dallas City Manager says, “It’s not something we have jurisdiction over.” Well, she certainly knows which side of her bread is buttered.
Meanwhile, the art continues to bake and the goose that lays the golden egg is cooked. At least they are using green solar energy to do it.
The condominium tower going up next to the Nasher that is ruining Tending (blue).
From my blog (I called it an “Online Journal” then), The Daily Epiphany, Wednesday, December 4, 2002. A longish entry, about falling stars.
Leonids
I have always wanted to go camping during a meteor shower. I’ve tried to schedule a trip to West Texas, Big Bend, during one but the timing has never been right. One year I did drive out with Nicholas, then only a tad bigger than a toddler, and ended out in a cornfield east of Rockwall; but Nicholas was impatient, we were still in the pool of city light, and ended up seeing nothing. Last year I was ready to go out and see the Leonids, but the state was swathed in a belt of thick clouds and nothing would have been visible.
Last Month I read that this year was going to be the last predicted good Leonid storm for a long time, and I didn’t want to miss it. I have a snotload of vacation left that I have to take before the end of the year so I scheduled a day off the next day and drove out after work into East Texas, heading for Lake Tawakoni State Park, where we had gone family camping a while back.
The park office was closed when I pulled in so I dutifully filled out a little envelope, put my fifteen dollars in (nine for the campsite, five for the entry fee, and one because I didn’t have change) and dropped it into the heavy metal tube. The park was almost completely empty – only a few RV’s scattered here and there. I picked a spot on the first loop, choosing one right next to the trail to the bathrooms. It only took me a few minutes to set up my tent.
While I wrestled with the aluminum poles I spotted a bright meteor crackling down between two trees. I watched for a while but didn’t see anything else. The peak was supposed to come somewhere around three AM, so I set the alarm on my IPAQ PDA and settled down in my tent to read myself to sleep. Even if I didn’t see another meteor, at least I had spotted one – and my trip wouldn’t be completely wasted. I tried calling home but was on the very edge of cell service. I could hear Nick answer on the other end, “Hello! Hello! Who is it?” but he couldn’t hear anything I said.
It wasn’t much longer until a big diesel pickup rumbled by, screeched its brakes, backed up, and started shining a powerful spotlight on my tent. I dragged myself out and walked over to the official truck. “I paid in the box out front,” I said. “Oh,” said the bearded, grizzled man in the truck. “You here for the meteor shower too?” he continued. “Yeah,” I said. “They say this will be the biggest one for thirty years,” he said, “and we’ll be at another park by then, for sure. There’s a bunch in the other camping loop that’s going to meet down at the dock at three and I think the wife and I will go down there to watch.” “Thanks.” “Well, have a good night.”
It was starting to get cold, so I slithered back into my bag and fell deeply asleep until my IPAQ started buzzing.
The full moon was out and very bright. The park was lit with what looked like a flat blue daylight. It was light enough for me to easily move around and set stuff up. If I had had a newspaper, I could have read it without trouble. There were some engines running and people moving around down towards the lake, and I thought about joining the folks down at the dock but ultimately decided to go it alone. The trees at Tawakoni are thick so I set my folding chair up in the middle of the park road and wrapped myself up in a blanket and my unzipped sleeping bag. My folding chair leans way back which is unpleasant for what I usually use it for (it stays in the trunk of the Taurus) – watching soccer games – but was perfect for stretching back and looking up at the sky. Some small animal, probably a possum (too quiet for an armadillo) shuffled around in the grass beside the road, and then shambled back into the woods.
The bright moon washed out a lot of the stars. It would be impossible to spot any faint meteors. I thought for a few minutes that there wouldn’t be anything and I’d go back home empty-eyed. But after a few minutes the shower started.
The meteor shower wasn’t spectacular; it didn’t make me think of the Fourth of July. Still, it had a powerful ephemeral beauty. There would be a pause, a minute or so, when nothing would happen, then maybe a single quick transient streak across the sky. That would be followed by a little burst – a cluster of four or five and the activity would keep up for a few minutes until it tapered off for another pause. A few falling stars were big enough to scream across a big arc of the sky, leaving behind a little trail of sparks for a split-second. I know they were silent but I could imagine a crackling sound as those fell.
It was obvious how the meteors appeared to flow from a single point, in Leo. They would radiate out, the big ones lingering, traveling across a big chunk, the tiny ones merely a fugacious slash across the dark. It was this temporary nature of the display that fascinated me – a tiny sliver of an instant… then they are gone. I had a big grin on my face, half-frozen there by the cold air.
I watched for a little over an hour or so until the show petered out. I never really went back to sleep – it wasn’t long before the sky began to lighten in the east and I packed everything up. Driving back into the city, I realized that I could go on in to work – it was early enough.
“It would not be until darkness had taken indisputable control over the land, until the flames of the bonfire created an unreal world of shadows, until tequila and mescal untied men from their somber selves.”
― Warren Eyster, The Goblins of Eros
Moore to the point (click to enlarge)
My Hovercraft is Full of Eels
Willard Waters had an undergraduate degree in accounting. He thought of himself as being an accountant’s accountant. After spending a couple of years at a desk staring at a spreadsheet to the left and a calculator spewing a long spiral of paper tape to the right he decided to go to law school. Now he was still an accountant’s accountant but he was also a lawyer’s lawyer.
He rode the foundation’s car service into a sketchy run-down industrial part of town that he had never been in before. The car disgorged him on the sidewalk and drove off. The driver knew a favorite burger joint nearby and would wait there for a call.
Waters looked at the rusty hulking warehouse in front of him and found the heavy steel door. Off to the side was a button and a small speaker. He frowned at the sign on the door:
Sacha Row Sculptress Extraordinaire “My Hovercraft is Full of Eels”
“What the hell does that mean?” Waters mumbled to himself. He smoothed the fabric of his expensive suit, adjusted his tie, and pushed the button. Almost immediately a voice crackled from the speaker, “Com on in, it’s not locked.”
He tugged, the door squeaked and gave way, opening into a dark, vast space filled with smoke. Waters coughed and entered. He knew the smoke wasn’t tobacco. Some sort of a massive sound system spewed out the deafening beats of overamplified electronic dance music. As his eyes grew used to the dim light the first thing he saw was a massive, lumpy pile of grayish clay heaped up in the middle of the room. He knew that must be the sculpture in question. It didn’t look like it was very close to being finished.
Waters looked around and spotted a group of three men sitting on a huge overstuffed couch. On a table made of a big wooden cable reel sat a massive hookah and a collection of plastic bongs filled with dark water. A galvanized five gallon bucket of ice and studded with bottles of beer leaked a puddle of water onto the concrete floor. Two women stood in front of the men, eyes closed, dancing to the pulsing rhythm of the loud music.
“Are either of you two Sacha Row?” Waters shouted at the dancing women. They ignored him.
“Sacha? Naw… She’s in the back,” said the guy in the middle of the couch.
“You wanna talk to her?” said the guy on the left.
“Sacha! Some guy out here wants to talk to you! Sacha!” yelled the guy on the right. He had quite a pair of lungs on him… he was able to out-shout the music.
“Jeez, Doc, I heard you the first time, who’all is here to see me?” Sacha said as she walked out of an office at the back of the space.
Waters felt his jaw drop and a warm pit form in his stomach when he saw her. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. “Sacha Row?” he managed to choke out.
“That’s me!” she said as she walked directly up to him. On the way, past the ice bucket, she leaned over with incredible grace and pulled out a bottle.
“Ms. Row… I am a lawyer and a forensic accountant here representing the Wintringham Foundation concerning the sizeable grant you received for the sculpture commission. The schedule is vastly past due and,” he said gesturing at the mass of clay, “the product doesn’t seem to be in a deliverable condition.”
“Well, first, call me Sasha, please, and second… well, great art can’t be rushed.”
“Umm… Sasha, we have noticed that you have withdrawn the majority of the funds allocated for bronze casting has been withdrawn… prematurely…”
“I’m not sure if either of us are in a mood to talk business right now… So, here, have a swig,” she said as she handed him the bottle. He realized it wasn’t beer – but some sort of cheap Mescal. In a trance, Waters raised the bottle. The liquid burned like liquid lava and he coughed as he swallowed. Sasha grabbed the bottle from him, stuck the neck into her mouth and tipped her head back. Waters watched as she held it there with the bottle sticking straight up, upside down. He was the worm sink slowly down through the clear alcohol, into the neck of the bottle, until it disappeared between Sasha Row’s lips. There was a gulp and a pulse in her throat… and the worm was gone.
Willard Walters was hopelessly in love. It was no use. He also realized that Sasha knew it too. He took another big, deep burning drink.
“Now, Willard,” Sasha said, “We’ve been using the money for a little ongoing party here… and we don’t see any reason to stop. Don’t you agree?”
Waters nodded. He took another drink. He stared at the hookah on the table. But one thought suddenly pushed into his consciousnesses.
“Sasha, you know that no matter what I do, they’ll send someone else.”
“I know. They’ve sent others before. You are not the first.”
“But what happened with them?”
Sasha Row merely gestured at the three men on the couch.
“I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach you at school. They don’t teach you how to love somebody. They don’t teach you how to be famous. They don’t teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love any longer. They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying. They don’t teach you anything worth knowing.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Kindly Ones
A wide angle view of Dealey Plaza at dawn on the morning henge day (or two days later). The brick building in shadow on the far left is the infamous Texas Schoolbook Depository. President Kennedy was shot on the curved road on the left, almost fifty years ago.
Took a day off work – the COVID-19 vaccination mandate is overwhelming everything – there are so many questions unanswered. It’s been a while since I had my jab and am thinking about a booster, but the FDA Booster Shot decision is putting it into the fog like everything else (I don’t turn 65 for a few months).
From my blog (I called it an “Online Journal” then), The Daily Epiphany, Friday, January 1, 1999 – More than twenty years ago. The kids, at that age, were connoisseurs of fast-food ball-pits – we knew all the ones in a ten-mile radius of our house and most of them along the highways radiating in all directions.
Saturday, January 1, 1999, McDonald’s with Playland
….. House is empty. Holiday is spent.
I needed to get the kids some exercise. Drizzling Wet Warm Fog No day for outside. So it’s off to McDonald’s with Playland.
Nick and Lee are good enough I can let them go around on their own. I can sit and write. notebook on green laminate.
Lee borrows my pen to follow the numbers on a placemat puzzle. He says he knows it’ll be a snowman. he traces the outline still.
Three amazingly fat women sit at the next table, here in the McDonald’s with Playland without any children. So close I can hear them talk. at least snippets. Recipes – they are trading “I get these headaches,” one squawks “Then I go eat me some chocolate.” Hmmmmmmmm – the others intone worshipfully.
Nick and Lee want ice cream I give them all the cash I have and send them to the counter. They come back with cones and a single dollar bill and three pennies. One so sticky I leave it behind.
A young mother excites into her cell phone in Spanish.
A toddler drops her Orange Drink. The thin liquid puddle grows as she stares mute
An older man- a customer cleans it up. A teenager- a worker appears with a mop and bucket. “Don’t touch that!” The old man growls. He rants on about how dirty the mop water is- and cleans up the mess with his own cloth handkerchief.
He must be nuts. Nobody carries a cloth handkerchief. Anymore.
Bill Chance 