Sunday, February 12, 2012

Of Works, IV

This is a collage piece, and it will be the death of me.

I'm not sure if I'm finished with it yet.

In another universe, I'm still writing it, will always be writing it.

Diseases You Get Through Consumption
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Prion diseases have an unknown incubation period. It can be anywhere from a few years to five decades. Maybe more.

We drove to the edge of the Mojave and started looking for a dream.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Of Works, III

Stage Magic
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“If you ever want to see your blender again, you’ll call me back,” he says, over my shoulder. I turn around, ready to fire my incredulity, but he’s not looking at me: he’s on a cellphone, face deadly serious. He looks like he’s trading Brazilian teenagers for cocaine. I imagine a blender tied to a stool under a bare-bulb lamp in the office of an empty warehouse by the docks. Two neckless goons stand by, popping their knuckles, ready for the appliance to launch its daring escape.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Of Works, II

The Gears

One moment we’re riding our bike and the next we’re on our back, trying to figure out how the sky got down there. Nothing hurts, until we try to move, then everything hurts, so we lie on the ground until we can handle breathing again. We sit up and assess the damage: the front wheel of our bike is toast. It looks like a strangely stylized letter D. Thinking without thinking: Destruction. Dimwit. Derriere. We stand, heft the frame onto our back, and start walking home.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Of One Year Gone

2011 has slithered off into the nether regions of history and I, for one, am glad of it. For me, it was a year marked mostly by heartbreak (at my friends shuffling out of my life for one reason or another) and frustration (at the incessant fuckmuppetry of humanity in general and our government in particular).

It isn't that nothing good happened; it's that those moments were mere punctuation in the novella of raucous bullshit that was 2011.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Of Vegas

When I finished Fallout: New Vegas, I spent a lot of time thinking about what my motivations were for playing. I realized, about halfway through the game, that I had subconsciously developed a narrative for my character, independent of the framework of the game proper. I started the game and set out on the main quest reluctantly; as I walked through the wasteland to the Strip, each step came down with the force of a heavy sigh. I did not want to be involved with the machinations of this man who'd shot me in the head. I wanted to be left alone, and so it seemed that in order to live my life peacefully, I'd have to do what I could to stabilize the region. To that end, I aligned myself with House. I did not want to involve myself with the NCR, as they merely wanted to reinstate the broken democracy that led the world to its current state of decay. Caesar's ideology was intensely repugnant; I cannot abide slavery. I think of the idea of owning people and something inside me recoils and snaps, hissing and spitting. I could have seized power for myself, I suppose. But no. No, I did not want the responsibility, and in the vacuum of my inevitable abdication, there would have been only more strife.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Of the 53%

I have spent my adult life thus far working to feed, clothe, and house myself.

I have faced hardship and adversity on occasion, and done so with a small amount of grace.

But I am a thinking person.

As such, I am capable of recognizing a few things: