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friday, october 19
”...the worms that spired about his bones...” Last night we were doing our patriotic duty by consuming a standard, hourlong serving of domestic network television programming, and during this mediocre episode of a medical drama we saw a monumentally revolting/delightful commercial. It featured a new instant-ziti-with-sauce-n-cheez, and used the latest in digital technology to animate the little tubicular bits of pasta themselves. As a happy family whipped through the E-Z steps to turn the packaged product into home-cooked meal, a pair of appallingly worm-like zitis narrated the process; twisting about and chattering with glee about the satisfying dinner they would soon comprise. One had a chirpy male voice-- the other was a sultry female. Their little circular “mouths” waved in a horrible fashion. At the commercial’s close, they reared up on end, covered now in melted red and yellow goop, for a final comment: Male worm-pastoid (lasciviously): ”You look good enough to eat!” Cut back to the medical program, in which Eric La Salle was pretending to pull a dying man’s ribcage apart with his bare hands. thursday, october 18
You're looking at a first and very amateurish attempt to redesign the File; here in the Brooklyn back offices we found a copy of this book, and although we haven't really learned much yet, we are having fun with tables, yes sir. The pic on the upper left is of an inflatable spaceman doll, which some casual Dadaist had propped on a WALK/DON'T WALK sign a couple of blocks from here. We snapped this picture at night, and a good thing we did: by morning, some greedy Gus who didn't appreciate the perfect placement of our silver friend had made off with it. wednesday, october 17
Ceremony At about six this morning we were awakened by the loudspeaker on a police cruiser outside of our window, apologetically telling everyone on the street to move their vehicles. The cause, I discovered later, was a funeral today at the beautiful neo-Gothic Catholic church that stands just about 50 yards from my front door, for one of the lost members of Rescue Squad 1. The squad is located just around the corner on Union Street. I heard the bagpipers warming up and went out to find at hundreds of firefighters in full dress uniforms, waiting for the procession to begin. There were firefighters from Baltimore, Chicago, and other cities and towns besides the many from New York City firehouses. They were milling around, chatting with each other and shaking off the cold as the bagpipes warmed up a block away. Many of them had that slightly old-fashioned brushy mustache that seems like an optional part of the uniform. One guy who had come to the city with the Worcester, Massachusetts force had left his black tie on the bus; I went up to the apartment and found him a spare. It was nice to feel slightly useful. The procession was one of the most stirring things I’ve ever seen. All of the uniformed firefighters turned and stood at attention as the procession passed in review; the pipers played flawlessly and then marched past to the sound of muffled drums. The sun shone between quick-moving clouds; the leaves in the trees hissed in the wind. A old fire truck from perhaps the 1940s carried the flag-draped casket. As the body was removed from the truck and carried inside the church, the body of firefighters – a long line five deep that stretched for more than a city block – held a salute. They remained rigid at attention for a long while in the chilly breeze, as the mourners passed into the church. Then the firefighters finally dispersed into small bands, walking up to Seventh Avenue in search of lunch or a beer, or huddled with each other; like one bunch that gathered in front of my stoop, grim and genial at the same time. monday, october 15
Detritus Lost keys have their own peculiar kind of sadness. I’m almost never without my keys, and when I am, I feel somewhat naked and helpless. That’s only moderately practical; I could easily get my neighbors to let me into my building; my girlfriend, of course, has her own keys to our place; and the locksmith could let us in easily if both of us somehow lost ours. In any event, the place is hardly a bank vault. The fear of losing my keys has little to do with the practical inconvenience it might cause me; it's more that my keys are tokens of myself. They are signs that I have a home and thus a legitimate place in society. I used to have a cardkey at the office, but the connotations were not very strong. A cardkey is just a pass, a thing that can be rendered inert in the same way an expired college ID ceases to mean anything. But a physical, metal key always carries around its sheer weightiness: it is one of the few icons we carry that connects us to the industrial world; we get keys “cut” by a man with a machine which is closer to the technology of the 19th century than to the 21st, and it happens at the hardware store, a place full of objects from the world of physical labor. Its symbolic value – the familiar sign of access, of power and sometimes of privilege, even honor (the “Keys to the City” is an image with which we are all familiar, even though none of us live any longer in cities which are locked up at night, and “gated communities” don’t generally give out access passes to honorees) – stems from this; the key is a sign, however muted, of the ancient and involved craft of civil defense. I think of the city-states of Tuscany, of medieval moats and portcullises, of Robinson Crusoe and his palisaded cave. Most of all I think of the lock that this key once fit, was cut to fit. Does that lock still exist? That strange little involuted cave that requires its inverse partner in order to function? Of course there are copies, sometimes many copies, of the same key. So it doesn’t matter to the lock, which (although it balks a bit at some of the replicas) will shake hands with any key that presents the right shape. So, this key, this particular key, whether an unused spare or the regular key on someone’s chain, doesn’t really matter. Which makes it, in the end, even sadder.
We hate to make any further posts concerning "new features" --but you may now comment on any post by clicking on the [comment] link. Thanks to BlogBack. sunday, october 14
This story proves what sane people have always believed in their hearts: that no good could come from the idea of filling a greeting card with confetti.
Wombats in the News In 11th grade, All The Presidents Men was my favorite nonfiction book. I've finally gotten into the paper they made famous, although with some admittedly less exalted journalism: a review of William Vollman's big fat new historical novel. |
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