What the walls buzz at me

Each cycle has its reason to teach. I reach the end of one, and when it’s done, whether I guess it or not, the next season comes to teach me anew. I knew that I’d done this before. Before I could count the cycles, count the seasons I’d lived through, I still knew them and that there’d be more. For me and for others. I may not pass through the last. It may not last as long as I want it to. But, the last cycle will come, and when it’s done, whether I make it to its end, what will come after is what came before, and I will be a me I’ve both known and could never guess.

Your train has arrived

A Turing bird
whispered to me:
"The announcer's words
you heard, and her
pauses, could be more
human."

when the wolfe fell into a beckett

I know, the going can
.............. as homes go, never again
I will, go again
.............. never home, but you’ll go, or you can
the home I knew, it never was
.............. not it? but then, wasn’t it? it was
once, maybe once. lots were, once
.............. and now not, and then it was, once. ah, that once!

Flibber T. Gibbet

I don't know exactly how I'll use it yet, or whether it's even very original, but I'm considering building a series of short verses around a recurring character named Flibber T. Gibbet.

I'm envisioning a spritely young woman with the general appearance of my Feeling Green drawing. This is all a very sudden inspiration, so it's still percolating. I may even use her for something else entirely.

Cafe Society: Opening the Wine & Grind

Knowing my fondness for marrying musical lyrics to randomly inspired thoughts, my good friend the Poetress at Binding Ink left me a lovely little comment that re-imagined the words of Cabaret to suit yesterday's Café Society posts. Ever one to recognize true genius, I am giving her creativity a place of prominence.

Poetress had the intriguing idea of combining the gourmet realms of coffee and wine into a new bistro-like establishment called Wining and Grinding, where the slogan would be "No Sour Grapes Allowed, But Lots of Spilling the Beans Welcomed!"

Given the propensity for wine to lay low and coffee to raise up, I think my mind could achieve quite the equilibrium at such an establishment. The picture above is a detail from Edouard Manet's painting Au Café and it perfectly captures the equanimity that I imagine settling upon my own mien at such a place.

With no further ado, here is Poetress's contribution to yesterday's randomness:

What good is sitting alone in your room?
Come hear what’s brewin’
Life is a Carafe, old chum,
Come to the Café.

Put down the metaphorical pen,
The book and the broom.
Time for a holiday.
Life is a Carafe, old chum,
Come to the Café.

Come taste the wine so fine
The java lava,
Come hear the gossip.
Come blow your horn,
Start celebrating;
Right this way,
Your table's waiting

No use permitting some prophet of doom
To wipe every smile away.
Come hear what’s a brewin’
Life is a Carafe, old chum,
Come to the Café!

Bearing in mind that a Carafe is ironically both: 1: a bottle with a flaring lip used to hold beverages and especially wine 2: a usually glass container used to hold and serve coffee. Which goes with the Wining and Grinding!

Cafe Society: Randomness Part III

When the caffeine spell begins to wane, it's often best to shift into listening and learning mode. Sit back, relax, and drift along with the free flowing conversation.

III. Life is a Cabaret, but not all fun and games

At my final resting place for the day, I imbibed one last cup o' joe and drank in the witty yet educational observations of my good friend George Kokines. Having been well-met by a theatrical friend about to direct a local run of Cabaret, the conversation circled around the artistic, dramatic and political scenes in Chicago and New York.

George is very good at dropping names, especially those of artists with whom I have only the barest familiarity. Riffing on our friend Fred's musical endeavor, he mentioned the drawings of George Grosz, which he thought would make a great back-drop for the performance. This was an occasion for physical and mental note taking, as I'd never seen or heard of Grosz's work. A political and social satirist, Grosz lampooned the corruption and decadence of the German bourgeoisie between the wars; certainly material appropriate to the action of Cabaret. The above picture is a detail from his painting Street Scene 1925. He eventually left the country for New York City in 1932.

From there the conversation morphed into the politically riotous, with George giving us first hand accounts of his experiences at the time of the 1968 Democratic National Convention (which he skipped out on, knowing the bent for brutality of that era's Chicago cops) and 1969's Stonewall rebellion (which politicized the gay community in New York). The radicalism of the late 60s eventually gave way to the "free love" decadence of the 70s, and so we found ourselves back in the world of Cabaret.

It was a round trip worth taking, but now having returned home java lagged it's time to put down my metaphorical pen and seek out inky sleep. Tomorrow, I will be back at the café fuelling more thoughts of randomness.

Cafe Society: Randomness Part II

Continuing on with the random observations and inquiries generated by the java-injected brain ... for the low, low price of 2 bucks you too can become a coffee mischiever.

II. Languishing over language: Tasting quality versus quantity

Whenever my friend Terry, a chef and self-proclaimed foodie, is in the coffee house the conversation will inevitably turn toward culinary delights. As he and fellow free thinker Tom W compared notes on cooked books, I had to interject a bit of mischief — not wanting to be left out of the fun despite a lack of subjective interest and relevant intelligence. And so it was that I met their Gourmet with my Gourmand.

What you may ask is the difference? Gourmet describes a person who appreciates fine food and wine, with an emphasis on the quality of the meal consumed — a good variety of discrimination. A Gourmand is also a lover of good food, but the word has the implication of someone who is more concerned with consuming mass quantities — a gluttonous fondness when taken to the extreme. In many ways, I fall into the latter category due to certain penurious tendencies; preferring a filling meal to an expensive one. I can, however, display fits of snobbery about some food and drink — wanting my pasta served al dente and my ale good and hoppy.

Digging into the root of the two words, I found a dash of irony to add to the stew pot. Both words derive from Grom, a Middle English word for valet or servant, presumably the fellow in charge of procuring the wine. So it is that those who embrace the gourmet life of high-class habits, are carrying on the best traditions of indentured servitude — ever slaves to good taste.

For those in the neighborhood, an opportunity to sample some quality food in ample quantities will avail itself shortly as Terry showcases his skills in a jumbalaya cook-off to benefit charity on July 26th at the No Exit Café (6970 N. Glenwood Ave., Chicago). I'll provide more details on that later.

My bean-soaked brain is quickly losing its edge, but I might just have one more post left in me before I crash into uncaffeinated sleep ... stay tuned.

Cafe Society: Randomness Part I

If you spend a lot of time socializing in cafés like I do, you've probably experienced the wonderful chaos of well-caffeinated conversation. There's something about the coffee buzzed mind, when it gets to whirring, that spins out some pretty interestingly random trains of thought.

As evidence, I offer up three different examples of the divergent branches of digressive discourse that I navigated with friends across two different local chattering holes (with a stop at the police station in between). I'll divide the wide-ranging topics into 3 posts: anagrams, acronyms and the PATRIOT Act; linguistics, gourmets and gourmands; theater, gay rights, and George Grosz. Yes, I have way too much time on my hands.

I. Packaging ideas for mass consumption: Mmm, taste the misinformation

Our conversations at the cafés always start out innocently enough — a piece of witty banter, a joke, or an off-handed obsevation — but we soon find ourselves inevitably winding our way into the political realm, wonkishly impaired as we are. So it began once more today: the chance observation of an anagram used in the same sentence with a friend's name (take and kate).

From anagram to acronym is a pretty easy mental jump, and trying to determine if the initials of organizational and legislative names configure themselves into any interesting combinations is a personal pastime (derived from years of listening to Chicago play-by-play great Harry Caray's old habit of pronouncing batters' names backwards). My friend George had to fill out a police report for a stolen license plate sticker (one of the incidental joys of living in the 'hood), and the name of the form that the helpful officer handed him spelled MIER, which sounded close enough to "mire" to amuse me.

Ah, but my mind-game amusement didn't end there, as the discussion of acronyms led me to cite the PATRIOT Act as one unshining example of their pernicious use by our dear leader. As hated as that little piece of unconstitutional shennanigans is in my circles of activity, few realize or recall that the name of the legislative trickery is actually an acronym. It's such a long and convoluted series of words, I haven't ever been able to commit them to memory. A few incorrect but more accurate possibilities did come to mind:

• Perpetrating Atrocities That Really Increase Our Terror


• Persuading Americans to Trample Rights Indiscriminately Over Terror


• Politicians Acting Tough and Realizing Income from Official Terror

Upon later investigation, I learned the preposterously extended true full name of the Act, which includes a USA in front (brace yourselves): Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act.

Once you get past the name to take a much closer look at what's in it, you'll see the degree to which this piece of political perversion opened up a pandora's box of domestic snooping; giving license to here-to-fore illegal searches and seizures, as well as general violations of your rights to free speech and privacy. The American Library Association is a good resource for understanding the implicaitons of the Act. See, USA PATRIOT Act and Intellectual Freedom.

It's amazing how well George W. Bush masked the absurdly nefarious details of the Act with his catchy little play on post 9/11 patriotic fervor. As they say, a spoonful of sugar helps the poison go down — not to mention the coffee.

Ah, but my java fueled musings have just begun ... stay tuned.