Notes From Me

Monday, October 09, 2006

The Beginning of the End

Happy Birthday #2 to Notes From Me. Baby, this is your last post, in three parts. You were born in Japan, you've been around the world, and you landed in San Francisco, all by age two. Hats off. Much love.

The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in the thing makes it happen. -Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed this:

posted by lux at 10:50 AM
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I began to warm and chill
To objects and their fields,
A ragged cup, a twisted mop
The face of Jesus in my soup
Those sinister dinner deals
The meal trolley's wicked wheels
A hooked bone rising from my food
All things either good or ungood.

And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this weighing of the truth.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.

...My kill-hand's tatooed E.V.I.L.
across it's brother's fist
That filthy five! They did nothing to challenge or resist.

In Heaven His throne is made of gold
The ark of his Testament is stowed
A throne from which I'm told
All history does unfold.
It's made of wood and wire
And my body is on fire
And God is never far away.

Into the mercy seat I climb
My head is shaved, my head is wired
And like a moth that tries
To enter the bright eye
I go shuffling out of life
Just to hide in death awhile
And anyway I never lied.

-Johnny Cash

posted by lux at 10:38 AM
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posted by lux at 9:18 AM
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Sunday, August 13, 2006

Long Time No (Notes From) Me

S.F.

posted by lux at 7:12 PM
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Wednesday, May 24, 2006

retro

n.y.c.

draped on a mezzanine couch

lazing for the first time hearing mr. waits

smoke-raked poetry

watching steam pour from a great tin chute

up the side of a building

slower than the rain fell.

we should begin old and get new

ungathering useless details

able at last to bear

the slowness of time.

posted by lux at 1:43 PM
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Sunday, May 07, 2006

Radiohead, Radiohead, at the Greek Theater in Berkely in June.

Longtime friendships have always intrigued and impressed me, my own included. The getting-to-know is actually endless, though people can know each other very, very well.

guitar-learning, finally. singing, writing, lifting, hill city walking, the intricacies of psyches, working double jobs, tutoring on top of that, starting to awaken.

out of minutes at redtap.

posted by lux at 3:50 PM
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Wednesday, March 29, 2006

You Look Like Rain

And I was taken across the Channel, but all over the world, strangers talk not only about the weather, yet I love to hear Waits sing that song more than dozens of his others.

Having gone overseas within the first three months of this year feels like a right accomplishment. Fleeting coworker (more temporary work--engineering office this time) just said that when my hair is up it rains and when it's down it's sunny. If this were true I would make everyone happy, not by unending sun filled days of course but there wouldn't be October weather in the spring nor hot February days perforated with huge snowflakes.

posted by lux at 10:07 AM
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Friday, March 24, 2006

Trip of Fuels

posted by lux at 2:09 PM
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Thursday, March 09, 2006

rainflower

posted by lux at 4:04 PM
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Wednesday, March 08, 2006

In London For the First Time

I look in all my pockets. These are the things that for ever interrupt the process upon which I am eternally engaged of finding some perfect phrase that fits this very moment exactly.

What am I? I ask. This? No, I am that. Especially now, when I have left a room, and people talking, and the stone flags ring out with my solitary footsteps, and I behold the moon rising, sublimely, indifferently, over the ancient chapel-then it becomes clear that I am not one and simple, but complex and many.

-V.W., from The Waves

I am surprise-visitng my friend who goes to LSE. I have come from Paris where I found not two friends but three. We are hungry and will soon eat.

posted by lux at 11:16 AM
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Thursday, February 23, 2006

Berkely, Blakes, and Blake. And, Maxfield Parrish

There is a smile of love,

And there is a smile of deceit,

And there is a smile of smiles

In which these two smiles meet.

posted by lux at 4:36 PM
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Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Cotati (photo not mine)

Behind the counter at Tama Rama's was a greasy marriage of filth and disorganization. I would stand back there in a standoff with it. That shit was gonna attack you. The shelves and counters were already crowded to incredible bulging at the edges, and with the clown-colored candy piled everywhere, the place felt a little out of control.

In back of the counter was where the most chaos lived. If someone needed a straw or a napkin or anything, I would reach down for it, and as soon as my fingers made contact, an avalanche of papers, candy wrappers, pencils, and useless, plastic unidentifiables from bubble-gum machines lost their balance and tumbled from the shelf.

Cleaning and organization threw the usually sweet-tempered Judy into a barely-contained panic. If she and I were working together after one of my straightening attempts, she would whine urgently at me, "Napkin!" while smiling and handing a customer change. She wouldn't recognize the full napkin holder on a clear shelf below the counter.

"Fork?" she hit a caffeine induced high note, still not looking at me. So, I would let the chaos back in like a temporarily thrown out lover. And it wouldn't take long.

posted by lux at 2:31 PM
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Thursday, February 16, 2006

Dim Sum on the Roof After Hemingway

A Moveable Feast may be the only Hemingway I will ever read (aside from "Hills Like White Elephants"). How can anything move me more than his exemplary prose about a city I adore...It is the same with the first televised soccer match I saw that featured World Soccer Champion Ronaldinho Gaucho--all subsequent matches look like foozball assemblages.

Ermest should never have left Hadley. He did say he wished he had died before he loved anyone but her.

Here is the view from the office I am temporarily working in. (I didn't take it). All the views out all the windows are fantastic. But the sunset from my roof two nights ago was better.

posted by lux at 4:44 PM
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Friday, February 03, 2006

Aye, Sashiburi!

Upon contemplation, the combination of "Chotto mas" works much better than "Chotto plus." I am nearly finished with my first book. Living on 85 cents a day for a month, outside of rent and bills, requires only minimal ingenuity, even when fake food is ruled out.

I have a ticket (there was a sale) to return for ten days to Paris to visit Karim et Youcef in March. So I went to a temp agency two days ago and took a slew of tests. I was surprised that my typing speed/accuracy is 63 wpm with an average of 1 mistake per minute. After the two hours of testing I walked home in the heavy drizzle via Chinatown and then up over a few 45-degree angle hills to avoid bus fare. It was gorgeous. I made tonkatsu donburi later.

January ? 2006--my very first rap show, at Studio Z, Folsom and 11th. It was great! Equipto and Mike Marshall headlined. But almost better were the two guys outside, who hadn't gone in, who were making up raps on the spot. Rhyming, intelligent, imaginative, deep.

Rob Brezny used to have a thing against Leos. Every week he would write in his astrology column something like, everything could be cool, except that your a Leo. But now he's pretty chill. This week he said:

You may not realize how significant a role that architecture plays in shaping your moods, ideas, and decisions. I'm here to remind you that it does. The quality of the indoor space you regularly inhabit deeply influences what goes on inside your mind and body. In 2006, it will be important for you to become more aware of this fact, and to be aggressive about putting yourself into environments that bring out the best in you. As a gift to yourself, spend some time inside the most uplifting building you know.

Today, I got a phone call from the Temp People who said, "go to 155 Sansome St. ASAP. Reception work." Oi. Okay. So I did, and when I arrived, the building welcomed me like an old friend from New York. Someone's description:

...art moderne is nimble--and 155 Sansome's interior invites you to soak in heady splendor. The walls are black marble with deep white veins, the ceiling looks like faceted gold, and the elevator doors are bronze. There are sophisticated touches here, such as the way the long, tall lobby conludes with two shallow flights of stairs that lead to a column-framed door that's locked. But detached contemplation isn't the point. Enjoy. (Note: A trip to the 10th floor offers a chance to see a Diego Rivera mural along the stairway between the entrance and dining room of City Club, itself a fabulous place.)

The rooftop above my own, one-room sunny abode gifts me with a view of the Golden Gate, the bay, the ocean, and the mountains. Sunset is maybe best. For now, I gotta say thank you to Randy, only he will know why, and words from Bukowski the Motivator (he published more than 50 books in all):

...cautiously, I allowed myself to feel good at times. I found moments of peace in cheap rooms just staring at the knobs of some dresser or listening to the rain in the dark. the less I needed the better I felt.
...I no longer found glamour in topping somebody in conversation.
...(dont get me wrong, there is such a thing as cockeyed optimism that overlooks all basic problems just for the sake of itself- this is a shield and a sickness.)
...and finally I discovered real feelings of others, unheralded, like lately, like this morning, as I was leaving, for the track, i saw my wife in bed, just the shape of her head there (not forgetting centuries of the living and the dead and the dying, the pyramids, Mozart dead but his music still there in the room, weeds growing, the earth turning, the toteboard waiting for me)
I saw the shape of my wife's head, she so still, I ached for her life, just being there under the covers. I kissed her on the forehead, got down the stairway, got outside, got into my marvelous car, fixed the seatbelt, backed out the drive. feeling warm to the fingertips, down to my foot on the gas pedal, I entered the world once more, drove down the hill past the houses full and empty of people, I saw the mailman, honked, he waved back at me.