Street Sweeping / Why the City Made Me Cry

So Much Happiness

2012-02-10T17:34:00.000-08:00

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.
But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records…..
Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

by Namoi Nye

'liberty calls'....hello sweepers!

2012-01-10T16:49:00.000-08:00

asked cooley windsor's writing class to take phots of dropping pencil

2011-12-17T12:03:00.000-08:00

myself and benny sweeping together

2011-12-17T11:54:00.000-08:00

...................dot dot dot ................

2011-11-11T18:56:00.000-08:00

i will try to look at my ........ written pieces for my cooley classes and post some here.....
i miss the street sweepers

swaine

Changing Educational Paradigms

2011-11-10T08:56:00.001-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

vegetable music....

2011-07-09T09:29:00.001-07:00

http://www.vegetableorchestra.org/onionoise.php

...

2011-04-25T07:38:00.001-07:00

Sleep, dream, and thaw.

"...august 11, 1958...

2011-02-27T08:51:00.000-08:00

an old fash. library
on corner the red brick building curving around - compassion for readers glimpsed inside - much wandering - only remembered warmth.
people interested in all kinds of malted drinks sketched in pencil on yellow paper "

(as taken from...joseph cornel's dreams)

Cities & Desire 4

2010-12-16T00:47:00.000-08:00

In the center of Fedora, that gray stone metropolis stands a metal building with a crystal globe in every room. Looking into each globe, you see a blue city, the model of a different Fedora. These are the forms the city could have taken if, for one reason or another, it had not become what we see today. In every age someone, looking at Fedora as it was, imagined a way of making it the ideal city, but while he constructed his miniature model, Fedora was already no longer the same as it was before, and what had been until yesterday a possible future became only a toy in a glass globe.
The building with the globes is now Fedora's museum: every inhabitant visits it, chooses the city that corresponds to his desires, contemplates it, imagining his reflection in the medusa pond that would have collected the waters of the canal (if it had not been dried up), the view from the high canopied box along the avenue reserved for elephants (now banished from the city), the fun of sliding down the spiral, twisting minaret (which never found a pedestal from which to rise).
On the map of your empire, O Great Khan, there must be room both for the big, stone Fedora and the little Fedoras in glass globes. Not because they are all equally real, but because all are only assumptions. The one contains what is accepted as necessary when it is not yet so; the others, what is imagined as possible and, a moment later, is possible no longer.

Invisible Cites.
Italo Calvino.

crow with no mouth...

2010-11-10T16:14:00.000-08:00

"...
stirring cold ashes with his eyes shut tight
another student weeps into the sparks
..."

.....

2010-10-21T06:27:00.001-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/science/19glass.html?ref=us

2010-07-08T20:03:00.001-07:00

A secret came a week ago though I already
knew it just beyond the bruised lips of consciousness.
The very alive souls of thirty-five hundred dead birds
are harbored in my body. It's not uncomfortable.
I'm only temporary habitat for these not-quite-
weightless creatures. I offered a wordless invitation
and now they're roosting within me, recalling
how I had watched them at night
in fall and spring passing across earth moons,
little clouds of black confetti, chattering and singing
on their way north or south. Now in my dreams
I see from the air the rumpled green and beige,
the watery face of earth as if they're carrying
me rather than me carrying them. Next winter
I'll release them near the estuary west of Alvarado
and south of Veracruz. I can see them perching
on undiscovered Olmec heads. We'll say goodbye
and I'll return my dreams to earth.

Jim Harrison
'Birds Again'

i am sitting in on cooleys class this is last thing i wrote-still needs some editing

2010-06-22T16:44:00.000-07:00

objects are often between us

{{note to reader:{THINGS WITH IN THESE TYPES OF MARKS {} SHOULD NOT BE READ :IT IS A DESCRIPTION AND REMINDER OF WHICH HAND SHOULD BE RAISED WITH A stone}
{R} = right
{L}=left
{B}= both }}

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

i am going to hand out these “stones”{B}

the “stones”{B} will be used as tools
we will also read this together
i know it would be easier if i had made copies for everyone
but that would involve lots of dimes which i didn’t have
so back to our gathering
to help this group reading lets do this
so when i say the word “stone”{R}
we will be saying it together
i will raise my hand with the “stone”{R} in my right hand
so if i say “i put one ‘stone’{R} in my mouth at a time”
we will all say the word “stone”{R} at the same time
and the cue will be that i lift my right hand up with the “stone”{R} in its grip at the precise time you should say the word “stone”{R}

however....

often i use the plural of “stone”{R} - “stones”{B}
in this case i will put one “stone”{R} in each hand
and i will be simultaneously lifting two “stones”{B}
and two hands in the air
and saying the plural word “stones”{B}
all at the same time
and you will join me
or we will all be doing this together
all lifting stones and all saying words and thinking of “stones”{B} as one group

one other exception
if i want to say
“you need to get ‘stoned’{L} before you go see the wizard of oz”
this is just an example
i have bad lungs
and i don't smoke marijuana
but lets just put the “stone”{R} in our left hand and
say “stoned”{L} together

now that we have walked down this yellow “stone”{R} road together
we must get to the whole point of gathering the “stones”{B}
i collected them for you
they are from the beach
and it was one of those days
warm and full of life
and i thought of you
and me
both of us
i want you to be the first
because there are so many “stones”{B} out there
but i want you to be the first to throw your “stone”{R}
i want the one that hits me first
to be from you
you throw the first “stone”{R}
as it hits me i will remember you
and the bad thing i did
i deserve to get “stoned”{L}

room to read....

2010-05-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

"The headmaster said something to me that would really change my life forever. He said, 'We are too poor to afford education, but until we have education we’ll always be poor.' And I think that really sums up the situation for the poorest people in the world. What a terrible conundrum to be in: too poor to afford education, but knowing that if your kids don’t get educated, they’re going to inherit the same poverty that their parents and grandparents have known. So that statement was really sad, but then he said something that was very hopeful. This headmaster said to me, 'Perhaps, Sir, you will someday come back with books.'"
-- John Wood, founder, Room to Read
author, "Leaving Microsoft to Save the World"

Press Release from Room to Read:

SAN FRANCISCO, April 30, 2010 – Room to Read, an award-winning international nonprofit organization focused on literacy and gender equality in education, today celebrated its 10 year anniversary with the opening of its 10,000th library in Nepal. This milestone was attended by founder and board chair John Wood, along with select Room to Read investors who have been participating in a commemorative trek that has taken them to the first Room to Read library that Wood first helped in 2000, and arriving at its 10,000th library today.

Over the last decade, Room to Read has scaled exponentially to impact over four million children in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Zambia through its worldwide network of more than 1,000 schools and 10,000 libraries filled with over seven million children’s books. Working in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations and governments, Room to Read has empowered children with increased access to high-quality educational opportunities – including 10,000 girls this year who are attending school on scholarship and receiving critical life skills education.

Founded in 2000, Room to Read is the unlikely success story of social entrepreneur John Wood, a former Microsoft executive who left the corporate world after a vacation in Nepal allowed him to witness first-hand the country’s dearth of educational resources. Motivated to help, Wood launched a book drive for one school and, together with co-founders Erin Ganju and Dinesh Shrestha, turned that one-time act of kindness into the basis of inspiration for a global education movement led by Room to Read. The organization’s founding story was documented in Wood’s highly-acclaimed book, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World.

Parable

2010-05-20T16:51:00.001-07:00

The parable of the pears was the one never repeated
because it has to do with sex, and more than sex it was Jesus at his best showing them secrets
about the different kinds of love. There was a pear
whose brown skin had the whole rough hillside in it,
but inside so sweet he had to lie down to eat it,
and a more rare, red-skinned pear. It had no shame.
The harsh Jesus of the figs and vines
was undone, thankful, he was brimming,
in his mouth that taste he could never confide,
they would never believe him, they still wore
the dullness, they still thought day to day,
something simple might change their lives if only
they listened, if only they forgot everything they knew, something of heaven would sprout
from their mouths if only they were ready for its flavor.

Anne Marie Macari

2010-05-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

'Watershed'

2010-05-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

Here the land is tilted
Like a gambrel roof. The world
Slopes away from the Great Divide,
And all the people
And all the trees
Lean in the same direction
Just to stand up straight.

Even lies that lean that way are true,
Like wilsome pines at timberline.
When I die and turn to rain,
I'd like to fall into the distance
And stay awhile.

I'd be happy to be smaller,
Where close at hand is out of reach
And everything nearby is blue:
The denim work-clothes of the men,
Their axes in the spruce,
The spruce, the sky,
The knife that cuts the rain in two, the lie.

--James Galvin

2010-05-13T11:02:00.001-07:00

02.8.10...The Whale..pp.74-85...

2010-05-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

"...and as they roam the oceans, whales observe neither night nor day. Like all whales, they are voluntary breathers, and must keep half their brains awake while they sleep, during which...they certainly dream. Sometimes they hang perpendicularly like bats, blowholes to the surface, dozing in a drowsy cluster after feeding. Sperm whale exhibit social skills that go far beyond the herding instinct. They enjoy the contact of their bodies, spending hours slowly rolling around one another just below the surface. 'They seem to love to touch each other....it is not unusual to see animals gently clasping jaws.'...'The females are very remarkable for their attachment to their young...which they may be frequently seen urging and assisting to escape from danger with the most unceasing care and fondness'. If one were attacked, 'her faithful companions will remain around her to the last moment, or until they are wounded themselves'....'the attachment appears to be reciprocal on the part of the young whales, which have been seen about the ship for hours after their parents have been killed......to humanize whale oversteps boundaries; but when entire families follow a stricken relative to strand on the beach, or when a wounded female, mortally gashed by a ship's propeller, is borne up by the shoulders of her fellow whales, it is difficult to resist the pang of emotion..."

04.09.06...S.F. Library...ravens...pp152-180

2010-05-12T08:59:00.001-07:00

"...on warm, sunny days crows will orient themselves perpendicular to the sun, spread their feathers, droop their wings, and lie prostrate on the ground in what looks like a semiconscious state... their partially closed eyes glaze over, and their mouths may open to help cool their sun-drenched bodies... whole family groups may litter the ground... seemingly dead... but if you try to approach they quickly come to life and move away..."

........................................................

2010-04-22T08:07:00.000-07:00

hello my sweeping friends.....

went to the library yesterday.....it newly reopened......i had heard on talk radio that the libraries here kept a baby grand piano in circulation to be played by any visitor.....currently the piano is without a home......i went looking.......no piano.

instead i saw many faces that made me smile......an old mainer with headphones on...wondering out loud (a little too loud) why his computer kept shutting down....and then of course the gentle hearted computer tech who had to explain to each visitor about the virus that was making the computers shut down......
more smiles for the ones who just couldnt understand it...

came home and blasted lisztomania.....danced for a couple hours...floor squeaking below me.....i live in a fourth floor walk up in a brick building from the 1900's......below my window is the soap box square of the city.....every morning i watch the sun unfold all walks of life.....but i have yet to join them.....presently i prefer my perch......

last nights short story read about a boy who became mad with the beauty of the world...

"...he shook his head and started off again--talking this time. Never have I listened to such an extraordinary speech. At any other time it would have been ludicrous, for here was a boy, with no sense of beauty and a puerile command of words, attempting to tackle themes which the greatest poets have found almost beyond their power. Eustace Robinson, aged fourteen, was standing in his nightshirt saluting, praising, and blessing, the great forces and manifestations of nature. He spoke of night and the stars and planets above his head, of the swarms of fireflies below him, of the invisible sea below the fireflies, of the great rocks covered with anemones and shells that were slumbering in the invisible sea. He spoke of the rivers and waterfalls, of the ripening bunches of grapes, of the smoking cone of Vesuvius and the hidden fire channels that made the smoke, of the myriads of lizards who were lying curled up in the crannies of the sultry earth, of the showers of white rose leaves that were tangled in his hair. And then he spoke of the rain and the wind by which all things are changed, of the air through which all things live, and of the woods in which all things can be hidden... "And then there are men, but I can't make them out so well." He knelt down by the parapet and rested his head on his arms...As far as i could see in the twilight he was crying..."I understand almost everything," I heard him say. "The trees, hills, stars, water, I can see them all. But isn't it odd! I can't make out men a bit. Do you know what I mean?"

woke this morning to dead duck playing on repeat....strong coffee....morning stretch....

thinking of you often sweepers.....missing you dearly....if only maine had a bigger airport...and i had a bigger bank account....id fly you all here for a cup of tea and a soap box parade.....

much love.....and many smiles!

Merci, Monsieur Swaine.

2010-03-01T11:12:00.000-08:00

In relation to tables.

2010-02-28T00:54:00.001-08:00

sweeper ward....

2010-02-16T18:44:00.000-08:00

Preparations for Dance Floors
(as taken from The Book of Formulas)

For waxing dance floors, the following have been found to be useful:

#1- Paraffin wax......1lb.
Boracic acid (technical) ... 5"
Oil of lavender or oil of Paris rose, enough to perfume.
The paraffin is melted and the boracic acid sifted in, beating until it is thoroughly incorporated. While the mixture is cooling, add the scenting oil and whip again. When cold, the whole stiff mixture is worked through a sieve made of fly screen. It is broadcast upon the floor.

#2- Yellow wax.......5oz
Stearine............1lb
Oil of turpentine ... 3"
Heat the turpentine with caution so it will not ignite and melt the wax in it, take off the fire and stir until nearly cold, then pour into cans.

excerpts from Braided Creek...

2010-01-29T19:54:00.000-08:00

by Jim Harrison

Under the storyteller’s hat

are many heads, all troubled.

Rowing across the lake

all the dragonflies are screwing.

Stop it. It’s Sunday.

Only today

I heard

the river

within the river.

I want to describe my life in hushed tones

like a TV nature program. Dawn in the north.

His nose stalks the air for newborn coffee.

Nothing to do.

Nowhere to go.

The moth just drowned

in the whiskey glass.

This is heaven.

Let go of the mind, the thousand blue

story fragments we tell ourselves

each day to keep the world underfoot.

If you can awaken

inside the familiar

and discover it strange

you need never leave home.

You told me you couldn’t see

a better day coming,

so I gave you my eyes.

The one-eyed man must be fearful

of being taken for a birdhouse.

Sleeping on my right side I think

of God. On my left side, sex.

On my back I snore with my dog.

The face you look out of

is never the face

your lover looks into.

Suddenly my clocks agree.

One has been stopped for several

months, but twice a day

they have this tender moment.

Fresh snow standing deep

on the phone wire. If you call me,

speak softly.

It’s nice to think that when

we’re fossils we’ll all be in the same

thin layer of rock.

Oh, to write just one poem

that would last as long as that rose

tattooed on her butt!

Last year the snake

left her skin on the floor,

diaphanous like the name

of a lovely girl you’ve forgotten—

but not her flesh.

Come to think of it,

there’s no reason to decide

who you are.

I prefer the skyline

of a shelf of books.

The moon put her hand

over my mouth and told me

to shut up and watch.

Like an old dog

I slowly lower and arrange myself

in a heap of sighs.

Old friend,

perhaps we work too hard

at being remembered.

Falling Whistles..

2009-12-28T16:10:00.000-08:00

fallingwhistles.com

The Wall and The Books

2009-12-21T17:13:00.000-08:00

He, whose long wall the wand’ring Tartar bounds …

Dunciad, II, 76.

I read, in past days, that the man who ordered the construction of the nearly infinite Wall of China was that First Emperor, Shih Huang Ti, who likewise ordered the burning of all the books before him. That the two gigantic operations—the five or six hundred leagues of stone to oppose the barbarians, the rigorous abolition of history, that is of the past—issued from one person and were in a certain sense his attributes, inexplicably satisfied me and, at the same time, disturbed me. The object of this note is to investigate the reasons for that emotion.

Historically there is no mystery in the two measures. A contemporary of the wars of Hannibal, Shih Huang Ti, King of Ch’in, conquered the Six Kingdoms and eliminated the feudal system; he built the wall because walls were defenses; he burned the books because the opposition invoked them in order to extol former emperors. Burning books and building fortifications is common task to emperors; the only thing singular about Shih Huang Ti was the scale on which he operated. So some Sinologists would have us understand, but I feel that the facts to which I referred are something more than an exaggeration or a hyperbole of trivial inclinations. To enclose an orchard or a garden is common; not to enclose an empire. That the most traditional of races renounced the memory of its past, mythical or true, is no small matter. The Chinese had three thousand years of chronology (in those years, the Yellow Emperor and Chuang Tzu and Confucius and Lao Tzu) when Shih Huang Ti ordered that history began with him.

Shih Huang Ti had banished his mother as a libertine; the orthodox saw only impiety in his severe justice; Shih Huang Ti, perhaps, wanted to erase canonic books because they accused him; Shih Huang Ti, perhaps, wanted to abolish the entire past in order to abolish one memory: the infamy of his mother. (Not unlike another king, in Judea, had all the children killed in order to kill one.) This conjecture is worth considering, but it tells us nothing about the wall, about the second facet of the myth. Shih Huang Ti, according to historians, forbade all mention of the word death and searched for the elixir of immortality and secluded himself in a figurative palace, which had as many rooms as the year has days; the data suggest that the wall in space and the fire in time were magic barriers intended to halt the advance of death. Everything persists in his being, wrote Baruch Spinoza; perhaps the Emperor and his sages believed that immortality was intrinsic and that corruption could not penetrate a closed sphere. Perhaps the Emperor hoped to recreate the beginning of time and called himself The First, in order to be truly the first, and he named himself Huang Ti in order to be in some way Huang Ti, the legendary emperor who invented writing and the compass. The latter, according to the Book of Rites, gave things their true names; equally Shih Huang Ti boasted, in enduring inscriptions, that all things in his empire had the name they merited. He dreamed of founding an immortal dynasty; he ordered that his heirs should be named Second Emperor, Third Emperor, Fourth Emperor, and so on to infinity … I spoke of a magic design; it would also be possible to suppose that constructing a wall and burning the books were not simultaneous acts. This (according to the order we choose) would give us the image of a king who began by destroying and afterwards resigned himself to conserving, or that of a disabused king who destroyed what he defended earlier. Both conjectures are dramatic but lack, as far as I know, in historical basis. Herbert Allen Giles relates that those who concealed books were branded by a red-hot iron and condemned to build the outrageous wall until the day of their death. This information favors or tolerates another interpretation. Perhaps the wall was a metaphor, maybe Shih Huang Ti condemned those who worshipped the past to a work just as vast as the past, as stupid and useless. Perhaps the wall was a challenge and Shih Huang Ti thought: “Men love the past and I can do nothing against this love, nor can my executioners, but some time there will be a man who feels as I do, and he will destroy my wall, as I destroyed the books, and will erase my memory and will be my shadow and my mirror and will not be aware of it. Perhaps Shih Huang Ti walled in the empire because he knew it was fragile and he destroyed the books because he understood they were sacred books, or rather books that taught that which the entire universe teaches or the consciousness of every man. Maybe the burning of the libraries and the construction of the wall are operations that in a secret way cancel each other.

The tenacious wall that in this moment, and in all moments, projects its system of shadows across lands I will not see, is the shadow of a Caesar who ordered that the most reverent of nations burn its past; it is likely that the idea itself touches us by, over and above, the conjectures it allows. (Its virtue can be in the opposition to building and destroying, on an enormous scale.) Generalizing the earlier matter, we could infer that all practices have their virtue in themselves and not in some conjectural “content.” This would be in agreement with the thesis of Benedetto Croce; as already Pater, in 1877, contended that all the arts aspire to the condition of music, which is nothing but form. Music, state of happiness, mythology, faces shaped by time, certain twilights and certain places, try to tell us something, or they told us something that we should not have lost, or want to tell us something; this imminence of a revelation, which does not happen, is, perhaps, the esthetic act.

~ Jorge Luis Borges

Lao-tzu’s Taoteching

2009-12-09T17:26:00.000-08:00

80

Imagine a small state with a small population
let there be labor-saving tools
that aren’t used
let people consider death
and not move far
let there be boats and carts
but no reason to ride them
let there be armor and weapons
but no reason to employ them
let people return to the use of knots
and be satisfied with their food
and pleased with their clothing
and content with their homes
and happy with their customs
let there be another state so near
people hear its dogs and chickens
and live out their lives
without making a visit

“The Taotechingis one long poem written in praise of
something we cannot name, much less imagine.”
—Red Pine, translator

the tallest man on earth....

2009-11-05T17:47:00.000-08:00

Nobody knew what the raven would do
If he found it was rain in your hands
Like a dog set on wheels you will lope down the street
From the sound of the scratch in his claws

As the buildings who hide you knew nothing bout time
But an arrow just brushin' your chin
You said, "Damn be this wind it's still movin' on in
To the bones and the bed of my soul."
You said, "Damn be this wind it's still movin' on in
To the bones and the bed of my soul."

Like a fox on the run from the well-informed son
With the bearin's for cannonball love
Just like nobody said where that eagle was fed
'Till you stood on the black cross in June
Just like nobody said where that eagle was fed
'Till you stood on the black cross in June

And nobody said that the raven was dead,
So you hid all your tears in the grass.
Sure, it could look like dew, but they're laughin' at you
And they'll send in their clowns when you're lost.
Sure, it could look like dew, but they're laughin' at you
And they'll send in the clowns when you're lost.

You said, "Damn be this wind it's still movin' on in
To the bones and the bed of my soul."

"This Wind" by The Tallest Man on Earth
(swedish born....beautiful music)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1295OIXm3jo

p.s...

2009-10-01T10:57:00.001-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/garden/03recycle.html?_r=1

check this out...

thinking of.... (with love).

2009-10-01T09:15:00.000-07:00

The Great Hug

2009-08-26T01:16:00.000-07:00

At the last breakfast after I told her, we had steak and eggs. Bloody Marys. Three pieces of toast. She couldn't cry she tried. Balloon Man came. He photographed the event. He created the Balloon of the Last Breakfast After I Told Her -- a butter- colored balloon. "This is the kind of thing I do so well," he said. Balloon Man is not modest. No one has ever suggested that. "This balloon is going to be extra-famous and acceptable, a documentation of raw human riches, the plain canvas gravy of the thing. The Pin Lady will never be able to bust this balloon, never, not even if she hugs me for a hundred years." We were happy to have pleased him, to have contributed to his career.

The Balloon Man won't sell to kids. Kids will come up to the Balloon Man and say, "Give us a blue balloon, Balloon Man," and the Balloon Man will say, "Get outa here kids, these balloons are adults-only." And the kids will say, "C'mon, Balloon Man, give us a red balloon and a green balloon and a white balloon, we got the money." "Don't want any kid-money," the Balloon Man will say, "kid-money is wet and nasty and makes your hands wet and nasty and then you wipe 'em on your pants and your pants get all wet and nasty and you sit down to eat and the chair gets all wet and nasty, let that man in the brown hat draw near, he wants a balloon." And the kids will say, "Oh please Balloon Man, we want five yellow balloons that never pop, we want to make us a smithereen." "Ain't gonna make no smithereen outa my fine yellow balloons," says the Balloon Man, "your red balloon will pop sooner and your green balloon will pop later but your yellow balloon will never pop no matter how you stomp on it or stick it and besides the Balloon Man don't sell to kids, it's against his principles."

The Balloon Man won't let you take his picture. He has something to hide. He's a superheavy Balloon Man, doesn't want the others to steal his moves. It's all in the gesture -- the precise, reunpremeditated right move.

Balloon Man sells the Balloon of Fatigue and the Bal loon of Ora Pro Nobis and the Rune Balloon and the Balloon of the Last Thing to Do at Night; these are saffron-, cinnamon-, salt-, and celery-colored, respectively. He sells the Balloon of Not Yet and the Balloon of Sometimes. He works the circus, every circus. Some people don't go to the circus and so don't meet the Balloon Man and don't get to buy a balloon. That's sad. Near to most people in any given city at any given time won't be at the circus. That's unfortunate. They don't get to buy a brown, whole-life-long cherishable Sir Isaiah Berlin Balloon. "I don't sell the Balloon Jejune," the Balloon Man will say, "let them other people sell it, let them other people have all that wet and nasty kid-money mitosising in their sock. That a camera you got there mister? Get away." Balloon Man sells the Balloon of Those Things I Should Have Done I Did Not Do, a beige balloon. And the Balloon of the Ballade of the Crazy Junta, crimson of course. Balloon Man stands in a light rain near the popcorn pushing the Balloon of Wish I Was, the Balloon of Busoni Thinking, the Balloon of the Perforated Septum, the Balloon of Not Nice. Which one is my balloon, Balloon Man? Is it the Balloon of the Cartel of Noose Makers? Is it the Balloon of God Knows I Tried?

One day the Balloon Man will meet the Pin Lady. It's in the cards, in the stars, in the entrails of sacred animals. Pin Lady is a woman with pins stuck in her couture, rows of pins and pins not in rows but placed irregularly here a pin there a pin, maybe eight thousand pins stuck in her couture or maybe ten thousand pins or twelve thousand pins. Pin Lady tells the truth. The embrace of Balloon Man and Pin Lady will be something to see. They'll roll down the hill together, someday. Balloon Man's arms will be wrapped around Pin Lady's pins and Pin Lady's embrangle will be wrapped around Balloon Man's balloons -- even the yellow balloons. They'll roll down the hill together. Pin Lady has the Pin of I Violently Desire. She has the Pin of Crossed Fingers Behind My Back, she has the Pin of Soft Talk, she has the Pin of No More and she is rumored to have the Pin of the Dazed Sachem's Last Request She's into puncture. When puncture becomes widely accepted and praised, it will be the women who will have the sole license to perform it, Pin Lady says.

Pin Lady has the Pin of Tomorrow Night -- a wicked pin those who have seen it say. That great hug, when Balloon Man and Pin Lady roll down the hill together, will be frightening. The horses will run away in all directions Ordinary people will cover their heads with shopping bags. I don't want to think about it. You blow up all them balloons yourself, Balloon Man? Or did you have help? Pin Lady, how come you're so apricklededee? Was it something in your childhood?

Balloon Man will lead off with the Balloon of Grace Under Pressure, Do Not Pierce or Incinerate.

Pin Lady will counter with the Pin of Oh My, I Forgot.

Balloon Man will produce the Balloon of Almost Wonderful. Pin Lady will come back with the Pin of They Didn't Like Me Much. Balloon Man will sneak in there with the Balloon of the Last Exit Before the Toll Is Taken. Pin Lady will reply with the Pin of One Never Knows for Sure. Balloon Man will propose the Balloon of Better Days. Pin Lady, the Pin of Whiter Wine.

It's gonna be bad, I don't want to think about it.

Pin Lady tells the truth. Balloon Man doesn't lie, exactly. How can the Quibbling Balloon be called a lie? Pin Lady is more straightforward. Balloon Man is less straightforward. Their stances are semiantireprophetical. They're falling down the hill together, two falls out of three. Pin him, Pin Lady. Expand, Balloon Man. When he created our butter-colored balloon, we felt better. A little better. The event that had happened to us went floating out into the world, was made useful to others. Balloon Man says, "I got here the Balloon of the Last Concert. It's not a bad balloon. Some people won't like it. Some people will like it. I got the Balloon of Too Terrible. Not every balloon can make you happy. Not every balloon can trigger glee. But I insist that these balloons have a right to be heard! Let that man in the black cloak step closer, he wants a balloon.

"The Balloon of Perhaps. My best balloon."

the Tip of a heart.....

2009-08-11T07:46:00.000-07:00

One day a young man was standing in the middle of the town proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole valley. A large crowd gathered and they all admired his heart for it was perfect. There was not a mark or a flaw in it. Yes, they all agreed it truly was the most beautiful heart they had ever seen. The young man was very proud and boasted more loudly about his beautiful heart.Suddenly, an old man appeared at the front of the crowd and said “Why your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine.” The crowd and the young man looked at the old man’s heart. It was beating strongly, but full of scars, it had places where pieces had been removed and other pieces put in, but they didn’t fit quite right and there were several jagged edges. In fact, in some places there were deep gouges where whole pieces were missing. The people stared – how can he say his heart is more beautiful, they thought? The young man looked at the old man’s heart and saw its state and laughed. “You must be joking,” he said. “Compare your heart with mine, mine is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears.”

“Yes,” said the old man, “Yours is perfect looking but I would never trade with you. You see, every scar represents a person to whom I have given my love – I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to them, and often they give me a piece of their heart which fits into the empty place in my heart, but because the pieces aren’t exact, I have some rough edges, which I cherish, because they remind me of the love we shared. Sometimes I have given pieces of my heart away, and the other person hasn’t returned a piece of his heart to me. These are the empty gouges — giving love is taking a chance.

Although these gouges are painful, they stay open, reminding me of the love I have for these people too, and I hope someday they may return and fill the space I have waiting. So now do you see what true beauty is?”

The young man stood silently with tears running down his cheeks. He walked up to the old man, reached into his perfect young and beautiful heart, and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the old man with trembling hands. The old man took his offering, placed it in his heart and then took a piece from his old scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the young man’s heart. It fit, but not perfectly, as there were some jagged edges. The young man looked at his heart, not perfect anymore but more beautiful than ever, since love from the old man’s heart flowed into his. They embraced and walked away side by side.

How sad it must be to go through life with a whole untouched heart.

Because of Libraries We Can Say These Things

2009-07-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

-Naomi Shihab Nye

She is holding the book close to her body,
carrying it home on the cracked sidewalk,
down the tangled hill.
If a dog runs at her again, she will use the book as a shield.

She looked hard among the long lines
of books to find this one.
When they start talking about money,
when the day contains such long and hot places,
she will go inside.
An orange bed is waiting.
Story without corners.
She will have two families.
They will eat at different hours.

She is carrying a book past the fire station
and the five and dime.

What this town has not given her
the book will provide; a sheep,
a wilderness of new solutions.
The book has already lived through its troubles.
The book has a calm cover, a straight spine.

When the step returns to itself,
as the best place for sitting,
and the old men up and down the street
are latching their clippers,

she will not be alone.
She will have a book to open
and open and open.
Her life starts here.

'ambition'

2009-07-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

if i were a rocket
shot high across the night,
id rather burst in silver stars
than green or purple light;

for then, perhaps, id fool the moon,
although she is very wise,
and thinking me a baby star
shed keep me in the skies.

-john farrar (as taken from 'poems for the very young child')

a weeping sweeper....

2009-06-30T18:38:00.000-07:00

leaving tomorrow for the east coast....

all my love sweepers...

The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz...

2009-06-11T08:26:00.001-07:00

-December 3, 1978

Walked among the tomb-silent buildings, marble structures pushing up from the ground with glass squares nodding sections of airless winter sky, rusty cans and newspapers drifted across dirt lots and the surfaces of walkways, a feeling of nausea at the soundlessness of things, at hands surging from the ends of my coat sleeves. i realized for a moment what madness is or can come from- the unstable relation of the body with the environment, a sense like a knife poised forever a centimeter away from the wet surface of your eye, sadness mixing with all that. At the lines engraving themselves into my forehead and palms, a time of aging when I feel I have not yet arrived at the unmarked X of my desires, the vortex of senses in relation to the world that always, elusive and indefinable, waits beyond, around the corner. I had a strange vision, dont know how or why, whether it was a product of the moment or a culmination of the threads of physical chance, turning a concrete angle of the overlapping walkways I saw up on a dirt mound high above the leveling of the field a bristly piglike animal scratching at the earth, pummeling it with its fore and hind paws, raising clouds of dry dust which immediately disappeared in contact with the slight and sudden rain. But somehow it seemed right. After all, here I was in the center of Paris, in the center of life itself, my life, a foreign animal who seemed not to belong anywhere anymore: the irises, retinas, the spherical orbiting balls in this head seeing everything now from a strange and unimaginable distance, like the distances of the forest in the eyes of the fish, in the sea swirling round within the thick blue heart of the horse. I wanted to embrace the hyena, that spotted bristled pig, lay down and pummel the earth alongside it, looking for the door, the door that leads away, the entrance into some semblance of recognizable and believable environment, something soothing for this weary heart, this weary head, something that would enable the two of us, foreign brothers in blood, brains, and sight, to lay back drifting, drifting on a huge and warm vellum of polar ice, in the Ferris wheel of night and do nothing else but stay up and trade blood with the stars, with the showering tails of lonely comets while a fragrant blue veil of life drifts through the night and makes us its own.

The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz

2009-06-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

-September 1, 1978

"He says, Hey look, I'm telling ya I thought the letter was beautiful. I'm gonna keep it 'cause of that. I understood what you were saying, how our meeting woke up all these things in you. Ya cant go back into the past and try to figure out my thoughts or anybody's thoughts, like did he take it this way or that way 'cause it doesnt matter, it doesnt make a difference how someone perceives something like that. You wrote it and said what ya had to say and what I take it as isnt your responsibility. if i take it wrong or other than you intended then thats my problem if its a negative reaction that results. Its just something that you cant do anything about. Thats the way it goes and you shouldnt worry about it. If its disappointing then still youve done what you thought was right and thats all you can do. When i first read the letter i went, uh oh ... oh no ... and then i said, lemme read this and take it just as it is and not add anything more, not read my own ideas into it. And i realized that it was beautiful -- it came from this core within you, straight from the core, and thats really good--"

Never Forget...

2009-06-01T00:04:00.001-07:00

http://www.myspace.com/shreddedfrostedminis

PICNIC Part III

2009-05-18T23:47:00.000-07:00

fulton

and

stanyon

high

noon.

will

romantic.

Picnic Update

2009-05-18T13:51:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, so it looks as if the picnic will happen this coming Friday. We'll be meeting at Golden Gate Park around Noon. The specific location has not materialized yet, however rumor has it that we will meet in a "special" area. This will be revealed by Thursday.

Bring whatever your heart desires. food, thoughts, and preferably yourself.

~Mr Jones

Picnic

2009-05-15T23:26:00.000-07:00

SOooooooo

M.SWAINE and MYSELF are having a picnic next week. yes, it will be romantic. Are you coming? if so, then let ME know when you are available. Otherwise, it'll be based on our time. But WE want you to be there. So speak up. Give me times and dates. Otherwise, its you and me Swaine.

Love to all of the Sweepers.

The Jones

PS. never say "i love you". it brings all sorts of troubles.

Borth so very very borth

2009-05-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

I got a new job!!!! I work the front desk at the bellevue club...it can get a little dull around here so maybe I post more often? I'm glad to see that this blog is still here! I miss all of you when are we all going to get together at limon and have some drinks?

when the name comes.....

2009-04-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

sweepers...

i am working on a project and could use some help....

i have been planning a trip...and i am taking the corkmen with me...

i need luggage..for the transport....

so far the san francisco corkies are tucked neatly away in a remodeled backgammon board....but the new mission corkmen are ever growing...and my current space is limited...

if i could use your eyes and feet...to help me find more luggage...traveling game boards..thin suitcases...anything that is relatively light and small and that can be gutted and compartmentalized...i (and the corkmen) will be forever grateful...

if you see anything in daily passing...please let me know...

also....

i have begun to name the corkmen....if anyone is interested in checking them out and helping to brainstorm names i would love to get together.....and now that the corkies are mobile...we can meet anywhere.....

i hope all is well for you sweepers....

all my love....

forget me (k)nots

2009-03-27T23:58:00.000-07:00

Ness & Librarian. I no longer have the cellphone of past; please contact me with your digits. i loathe not knowing how to reach you two.

{i love you both}

Walter B.’s Extraordinary Cousin Arrives for a Visit & Other Tales…..

2009-03-18T08:56:00.001-07:00

by Sabrina Orah Mark

‘The Traitor’

A few days before the first snow the soldiers dressed like children began to appear. “Come quick,” said Beatrice, fetching Walter B. away from his scripture, “and bring candy!” Walter B. pulled on his robe and joined Beatrice on the balcony. “Oh look,” said Beatrice, “you can see their small, sweet eyes peeking through the bramble.” Walter B. threw a handful of red gumdrops into the air and watched the soldiers dressed like children scatter, and raise their arms in glee. “Feels sinful, doesn’t it?” purred Beatrice. They watched them stand in the field and chew. “Which one,” asked Walter B., “do you think is the hero?” “That one.” Said Beatrice. “Definitely that one. The one with the mittens.” “Yes,” agreed Walter B., “the others seem less… festooned.” “And which one do you think,” asked Walter B., “is the traitor?” Beatrice bit her lip and looked around. “Maybe that one,” she said. “The one with the orange flower in the pocket of his vest.” Walter B. agreed, but to be certain he thought that he should ask. “Little traitor,” called out Walter B. The traitor looked up. “I knew it!” said Beatrice, clapping her hands. The traitor came closer. The wind shook the orange flower loose from his pocket, but he did not run after it. He missed his mother. The traitor came closer, but then he stopped. He curled into his flowerless vest and fell asleep. Walter B. and Beatrice yawned. The soldiers dressed like children opened their mouths as wide as they could, but there was no more candy. There would never again be more candy. And so they sailed away to another land.

'Great are the piths'

2009-02-19T19:26:00.000-08:00

There's a rumour that there are lions in snowdonia,
if you hop skip bump you can make them jump,
there's a rumour about to start that Loch Ness was an import,
it travelled from the sea via sky and air,
it tried to battle with the mountains,
but they burst its heart and it bled into a hole,
apparently there's a mist in a wood somewhere,
it never leaves even in the arrid sun,
its purpose is to get noticed,
and to moisten the imagination,
the lichen and the moss took a liking to it,
it hangs beneath the willow
who shouldn't really be there - this is no place
for a weeper,
there's a brook that you can drink from,
it's supposed to make you wealthy,
but if all else fails...
it'll make you healthy,
it'll charm you healthy.

-Stephen James Wilkinson aka Bibio
(Brandon you would love his music!)

A beautiful proclamation.....

2009-02-14T20:28:00.000-08:00

(..taken from Bel Canto...in honor of valentines day...with love for sweepers….)

“…
Fyodorov waited for a moment. He was rethinking his position entirely. After weeks of planning he was realizing now that the course he had chosen was not at all correct. What he had to tell her did not begin in school. It did not begin at the opera even if that was the place it had brought him to. The story he should be telling started much earlier than this. He began again, putting himself in mind of Russia and his childhood, the dark switchback staircase that led up to the apartment where his family lived. He bent his shoulders forward towards Roxanne. He wondered what direction Russia was from where he sat. “When I was a boy the city was called Leningrad, but you know this. For a brief time it was Petrograd but no one was happy with that. Better the city should have its old name or a new name, but nothing that tried to be something of both. In those days we all lived together, Mother and Father, my two brothers, my grandmother, who was my mother’s mother. It was my grandmother who had the book of paintings. It was a massive thing.” Fyodorov held up his hands to mark the dimensions of the book in the air. If he was to be believed, it was an enormous book. “She told us it was given to her by an admirer from Europe when she was a girl of fifteen, a man she called Julian. If that is true I do not know. My grandmother was one for telling stories. Even more than how she came by the book, how she managed to hold on to it through the war remains a great mystery to me. That she did not try and sell it or burn it for fuel, because there was a time when people would burn anything, that it was not taken from her as it would have been a difficult thing to hide, all of these things are remarkable. But when I was a boy, it was many years past the war and she was an old woman. We did not go to museums to look at painting in those days. We would walk past the Winter Palace, a marvelous place, but then we did not go inside. I imagine there was not the money for such things. But in the evenings, my grandmother brought out her book and told my brothers and me to go and wash our hands. I was not allowed to even touch the pages until I was ten, but still I washed my hands just for the privilege of looking. She kept it wrapped in a quilt under the sofa in the living room where she slept. She struggled to carry it but would let no one help her. When she was certain the table was clean we would put the quilt with the book inside it on the table and slowly unfold the quit. Then she would sit down. She was a small woman, and we stood beside her. She was very particular about the light over the table. It couldn’t be too strong because she was afraid of fading the colors, and it couldn’t be so weak that she felt the paintings could not be fully comprehended. She wore white cotton gloves that were perfectly plain and saved for only this occasion and she turned the pages while we watched. Can you imagine this? I will not say we were terribly poor because we were as rich or poor as everyone else. Our apartment was small, my brothers and I shared a bed. Our family was not different from other families in our building except for this book. So extraordinary a thing was this book. Masterworks of the Impressionist Period it was called. No one knew we had it. We were never allowed to speak of it because my grandmother was afraid someone would come and try and take it away from her. The paintings were by Pissarro, Bonnard, van Gough, Monet, Manet, Cezanne, hundreds of paintings. The colors we saw at night while she turned the pages were miraculous. Every painting we were to study. Every one she said was something that deserved great consideration. There were nights that she only turned two pages and I’m sure it was a year before I had seen the book in its entirety. It was an extremely good book, I think, expertly done. Certainly, I have not seen the originals of all the painting, but the ones I saw years later looked very much the way I had remembered them. My grandmother told us she spoke French in her youth and she would read to us as best she could remember the text beneath the plates. Of course she was making it up because the stories would change. Not that it mattered. They were beautiful stories. ‘This is the field where van Gough painted sunflowers,’ she would say. ‘All day he sat in the hot sun beneath the blue skies. When the white clouds curled past he would remember them for future paintings and here on this canvas he placed those clouds.’ This is the way she spoke to us, pretending she was reading. Sometimes she would read for twenty minutes when there were only a few lines of text. She would say that was because French was a much more complicated language than Russian and that every word contained several sentences’ worth of meaning. There were so many paintings to consider. It was many, many years before I had memorized them all. Even now I could tell you the number of haystacks in the field and from which direction the light is coming.” Fyodorov stopped to give Gen a chance to catch up. He took the opportunity to look at the people around the table: his grandmother, now dead, his mother and father, dead, his youngest brother, Dimitri, drowned in a fishing accident at the age of twenty-one. Only two of them were left now. He wondered about his brother Mikal, who must be following the story of his kidnapping in the news at home. If I was to die here, Fyodorov thought, Mikal would be alone in the world with no other family to comfort him. “Every now and then she wouldn’t bring out the book at all. She would say she was tired. She would say that so much beauty hurt her. Sometimes a week or even two could pass. No Seraut! I remember feeling almost frantic, such a dependency I had come to feel for those paintings. But it was the rest from it, the waiting, that made us love the book so madly. I could have had one life but instead I had another because of this book my grandmother protected,” he said, his voice quieter now. “What a miracle is that? I was taught to love beautiful things. I had a language in which to consider beauty. Later that extended to the opera, to the ballet, to architecture I saw, and even later still I came to realize that what I had seen in the paintings I could see in the fields or a river. I could see it in people. All of that I attribute to this book. Towards the end of her life she could not pick it up at all and she sent me to get it. Her hands shook so, she was afraid of tearing the paper and so she let us turn the page. My hands were too large for her gloves by then but she showed me how to use them between my fingers like a cloth so I could keep everything clean.” Fyodorov sighed, as somehow this was the memory that moved him the most. “My brother has the book now. He is a doctor outside of Moscow. Every few years we hand it off to the other. Neither of us could do without it completely. I have tried to find another copy, but I have been unsuccessful. I believe that there is no other book like this is the world.” Through talking, Fyodorov was able to relax. Talking was the thing that he was best at. He felt his breath come easily. He had not before this moment made the connection between the book and the point of the story and now he wondered how he hadn’t seen it all along. “It was a tragedy to my grandmother that none of us showed a talent for painting. Even at the end of her life, when I was in school studying business, she was telling me to try again. But it wasn’t something I was capable of learning. She liked to say my brother Dimitri would have been a great painter but that was only because Dimitri was dead. The dead we can imagine to be anything at all. My brothers and I were excellent observers. Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. Don’t you think? It is a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are the spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world’s greatest soprano. Not everyone can be the artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see.” Fyodorov spoke slowly. He gave long pauses between his sentences so that Gen would not have to struggle to keep up, but because of this it was difficult to tell whether he was finished speaking.

…..”

{...}

2009-02-07T01:05:00.000-08:00

{not a violin, but just as beautiful}

'A Violinist in the Metro'

2009-02-03T23:13:00.000-08:00

"...

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to met his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, tickets for Joshua Bell's performance at a theater in Boston were sold out and the seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

..."

hola sweepers!!

2009-01-29T09:40:00.000-08:00

I have seen three Zihuatanejo street sweepers....well...one was a beach sweeeper....

i couldnt get a picture because i keep seeing them on my way home from fiesta nights in ixtapa.....usually around 6-10 in the morning......

there are beautiful sweepers here.....

...

2009-01-04T21:50:00.000-08:00

"....whereas the truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars..."

(taken from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert)

happy new year sweepers......

sweepers.....

2008-12-05T12:27:00.001-08:00

how about getting together the weekend before christmas break...?.....

i am leaving for the east coast on the 22nd....i dont know when the semester lets out but maybe we can find a night that works the week before.....i work everyday (monday-sunday) until 6pm......so any evening works for me....they are all the same...

lets make it happen..!!...taste some of swaines sushi....discuss our future school for weepers...share some stories....and design the sign for our lemonade stand....

skys the limit sweepers......all we need is timing.....

love.love.love.

Deartest, Sweetest, most brilliant 'Class'!

2008-11-30T00:02:00.000-08:00

Wow...we're terrible sweepers....it's been far too long. well michael and i will hang out. Ness would be there in a anxious heartbeat, and taylor would groove to his own rythmin in our company. any other "die-hard" sweeper into group action?

If you like it....

2008-11-21T16:45:00.000-08:00

ummm.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVEGfH4s5g

Yes !

why this blog makes me cry

2008-10-20T11:51:00.000-07:00

i love that the blog keeps going

we are all streetsweepers for life

i have pictures of sweepers from london
but my computer has issues

more soon
with tears always

cotton..cicada..crane.....

2008-10-10T11:08:00.001-07:00

fellow sweepers cotton and cicada will be playing this sunday at amnesia.....

7pm happy hour.....

come share a drink with me.....

bubble-ness

2008-09-23T04:16:00.000-07:00

shorthanded........

2008-08-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

"...She likes to wrap relevant things round her feet. BRITAIN MASSIVELY MORE UNEQUAL THAN 20 YEARS AGO. ONE IN FIVE PEOPLE LIVES BELOW BREADLINE. These subheadings are cushioning her heel. Ha. She tore them out of the paper in the library. This historic city she's sitting on the pavement of, full of its medieval buildings and its modern developments teetering on top of medieval sewers, is all that's left of history now; somewhere for tourists to bring their traveler's cheques to in the summer. Actual history is gone. Else knows; she's clever, she always was. Today she can remember how to spell philanthropist. But all the same, today she can't remember which hand means which on a clock, whether it's the short one that means the minutes or the long one that does.
(Spr sm chn? Thnk y .)
Chn. Spr sm.
F y cn rd ths msg y cd bcm a scrtry n gt a gd jb.
First it's the thought of herself gttng a gd jb, with done hair and skimpy smart clothes from the shops, legs the fashionable colour of nylon and the right kind of shoe strapped on, coming out of an office building like that one over there above World Of Carpets. Then it's the thought of the way she imagined it when she was a small girl with her father on the Tube reading those gt a gd jb adverts when they visited London, sharp-eyed girl with her hair tied back and the neat clothes on that her mother had made, way back then when reading the advert, knowing what it meant, was one more proof of her cleverness in getting it right, the shorthand for what was possible. It makes her laugh. The laugh blurts out; she can't stop it. The coughing does too, loud and sudden enough to spook a passing dog who jerks on his lead and starts to bark, and as the coughing and the barking racket out and an arm drags the dog away, the coughing hurts, the stuck splinter of herself as a girl hurts, the combination of the coughing and the past gets her in its mouth like a dog gets a rag, and shakes her.
To stop herself shaking, to stop herself thinking of it, she thinks of them instead, all the gd jb secretaries over time, row after row of
(Spr sm
(pause to cough
too long, person's gone)
ch?)
shorthanders, 100-word-per-minuters. Think of them neatly filleting words, and their wastepaper baskets overflowing with the thrown-away i's and o's and u's and e's and a's. But they're all redundant now, she thinks, all those scrtries. They're history. Ha. They've all been made redundant by crisp shiny new girls with dictaphone machines and computers which print up what you say at the same time as you're saying it. They're probably all on the street now, the scs, doing the same day's work Else does. She doesn't need vowels either. She knows all kinds of shorthand. She imagines the pavement littered with the letters that fall out of the half-words she uses (she doesn't need the whole words). She imagines explaining to the police, or to council road-sweepers, or to angry passersby. I'll clear up after me, she tells them in her head. It's just letters. Anyway they're biodegradable. They rot like leaves do. They make good compost. Birds use them for lining nests, for keeping their eggs warm...."

-taken from Hotel World by Ali Smith

our time.....

2008-07-18T16:14:00.000-07:00

in keeping with the universal saloon practice,
the clock here is set fifteen minutes ahead
of all the clocks in the outside world.

this makes us a rather advanced group,
doing our drinking in the unknown future,
immune from the cares of the present,
safely harbored a quarter of an hour
beyond the woes of the contemporary scene.

no wonder such thoughtless pleasure derives
from tending the small fire of a cigarette,
from observing this glass of whiskey and ice,
the cold rust i am sipping,

or from having an eye on the street outside
when Ordinary Time slouches past in a topcoat,
rain running off the brim of his hat,
the late edition like a flag in his pocket.

..bill collins......

yes....

2008-07-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

the street of the lifted lorax.....

2008-07-04T12:44:00.001-07:00

at the far end of town
where the grickle.grass grows
and the wind smells slow.and.sour when it blows
and no birds ever sing excepting old crows......
is the street of the lifted lorax

and deep in the grickle.grass, some people say,
if you look deep enough you can still see, today,
where the lorax once stood
just as long as it could
before somebody lifted the lorax away.

what was the lorax?
and why was it there?
and why was it lifted and taken somewhere
from the far end of town where the grickle.grass grows?
the old once.ler still lives here.
ask him. he knows.

you wont see the once.ler
dont knock at this door.
he stays in his lerkim on top of his store.
he lurks in his lerkim, cold under the roof,
where he makes his own clothes
out of miff.muffered moof.
and on special dank midnights in august,
he peeks
out of the shutters
and sometimes he speaks
and tells how the lorax was lifted away.

hell tell you perhaps...
if youre willing to pay.

on the end of a rope
he lets down a tin pail
and you have to toss in fifteen cents
and a nail
and the shell of a great.great.great.
grandfather snail.

the he pulls up the pail,
makes a most careful count
to see if youve paid him
the proper amount

the he hides what you paid him
away in his snuvv,
his secret strange hole
in his gruvvulous glove.

then he grunts, "i will call you by whisper.ma.phone,
for the secrets i tell are for your ears alone."

slupp!
down slupps the whisper.ma.phone to your ear
and the old once.lers whispers are not very clear,
since they have to come down
through a snergelly hose,
and he sounds
as if he had
smallish bees up his nose.

"now ill tell you,"he says, with his teeth sounding gray,
"how the lorax got lifted and taken away.....

it all started way back.....
such a long, long time back......

way back in the days when the grass was still green
and the pond was still wet
and the clouds were still clean,
and the song of the swome.swans rang out in space.....
one morning, i came to this glorious place.
and i first saw the trees!
the truffula trees!
the bright.colored tufts of the truffula trees!
mile after mile in the fresh morning breeze.

and, under the trees, i saw brown bar.ba.loots
frisking about in their bar.ba.loot suits
as they played in the shade and ate truffula fruits.

from the rippulous pond
came the comfortable sound
of the humming.fish humming
while splashing around.

but those trees! those trees!
those truffula trees!
all my life id been searching
for trees such as these.
the touch of their tufts
was much softer than silk.
and they has the sweet smell
of fresh butterfly milk.

i felt a great leaping
of joy in my heart.
i knew just what id do!
i unloaded my cart.

in no time at all, i had built a small shop.
then i chopped down a truffula tree with one chop.
and with great skillfull skill and with great speedy speed,
i took the soft tuft. and i knitted a thneed!

the instant id finished, i head a ga-zump!
i looked.
i saw something pop out of a stump
of the tree id chopped down. it was sort of a man.
describe him?....thats hard. i dont know if i can.

he was shortish. and oldish.
and brownish. and mossy.
and he spoke with a voice
that was sharpish and bossy.

"mister!" he said with a sawdusty sneeze,
"i am the lorax. i speak for the trees.
i speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.
and im asking you sir, at the top of my lungs"-
he was very upset as he shouted and puffed-
"whats that THING youve made out of my truffula tuft?"

"look, lorax," i said. "theres no cause for alarm.
i chopped just one tree. i am doing no harm.
im being quite useful. this thing is a thneed.
a thneeds a fine.something.that.all.people.need!
its a shirt. its a sock. its a glove. its a hat.
but it has other uses. yes, far beyond that.
you can use it for carpets. for pillows! for sheets!
or curtains! or covers for bicycle seats!"

the lorax said,
:sir! you are crazy with greed.
there is no one on earth
who would buy that fool thneed!"

but the very next minute i proved he was wrong.
for, just at that minute, a chap came along,
and he thought that the thneed i had knitted was great.
he happily bought it for three ninety.eight.

i laughed at the lorax, "you poor stupid guy!
you never can tell what some people will buy."

"i repeat," cried the lorax,
"i speak for the trees!"

"im busy," i told him.
"shut up, if you please."

i rushed 'cross the room, and in no time at all,
built a radio.phone. i put in a quick call.
i called all my brothers and uncles and aunts
and i said, "listen here! heres a wonderful chance
for the whole once.ler family to get mighty rich!
get over here fast! take the road to north nitch.
turn left at weehawken. sharp right at south stich."

and, in no time at all,
in the factory i built,
the whole once.ler family
was working full tilt.
we were all knitting thneeds
just as busy as bees,
to the sound of the chopping
of truffula trees.

then...
oh! baby! oh!
how my buisness did grow!
now, chopping one tree
at a time
was too slow.

so i quickly invented my super.ax.hacker
which whacked off four truffula tree at one smacker.
we were making thneeds
four times as fast as before!
and the lorax?...
he didnt show up any more.

but the next week
he knocked
on my new office door.

he snapped, "im the lorax who speaks for the trees
which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please.
but im also in charge of the brown bar.ba.loots
who played in the shade in their bar.ba.loot suits
and happily lived, eating turffula fruits.

"NOW...thanks to your hacking my trees to the ground,
there's not enough truffula fruit to go 'round.
and my poor bar.ba.loots are all getting the crummies
because they have gas, and no food, in their tummies!

"they loved living here. but i cant let them stay.
theyll have to find food. and i hope that they may.
good luck, boys," he cried. and he set them away.

i, the once.ler, felt sad
as i watched them all go.
BUT...
buisness is buisness!
and buisness must grow
regardless of crummies in tummies, you know.

i meant no harm. i most truly did not.
but i had to grow bigger. so bigger i got.
i biggered my factory. i biggered my roads.
i biggered my wagons. i biggered the loads
of the thneeds i shipped out. i was shipping them forth
to the south! to the east! to the west! to the north!
i went right on biggering...selling more thneeds.
and i biggered my money, which everyone needs.

then again he cam back! i was fixing some pipes
when the old.nuisance lorax came back with more gripes.

"i am the lorax," he coughed and he whiffed.
he sneezed and he snuffled. he snarggled. he sniffed.
"once.ler!" he cried with a cruffulous croak.
"once.ler! youre making such smogulous smoke!
my poor swomee.swans...why, they cant sing a note!
no one can sing who has smog in his throat.

"and so," said the larx,
"-please pardon my cough-
they cannot live here.
so im sending them off.

"where will they go?...
i dont hopefully know.

they may have to fly for a month...or a year...
to escape from the smog youve smogged.up around here.
"whats more," snapped the lorax. (his dander was up.)
"let me say a few words about gluppity.glupp.
your machinery chugs on, day and night without stop
making gluppity.glupp. also schloppity.schlopp.
and what do you do with this leftover goo?...
ill show you. you dirty old once.ler man, you!

your glumping the ond where the humming.fush hummed!
no more can they hum, for their gulls are all gummed.
so im sending them off. oh, their future is dreary.
theyll walk on their fins and get woefully weary
in search of some water that isnt so smeary."

and then i got mad.
i got terribly mad.
i yelled at the lorax, "now listen here, dad!
all you do is yap.yap and say, 'bad! bad! bad! bad!'
well, i have my rights, sir, and im telling you
i intend on doing just what i do!
and, for your information, you lorax, im figgering
on biggering
and Biggering
and BIGgering
and BIGGERING,
turning MORE tuffula trees into thnedds
which everyone, EVERYONE, EVERYONE needs!"

And at that very moment, we heard a load whack!
from outside in the fields came a sickening smack
of an axe on a tree. then we heard the tree fall/
the very last truffula tree of them all!

no more trees. no more thneeds. no more work to be done.
so, in not time, my uncles and aunts, every one,
all waved me good.bye. they jumped into my cars
and drove away under the smoke.smuggered stars.

now all that was left 'neath the bad.smelling sky
was my big empty factory....
and the lorax...
and i.

the lorax said nothing. just gave me a glance...
just gave me a very sad, sad backward glance....
as he lifted himself by the seat of his pants.
and ill never forget the grim look of his face
when he heisted himself and took leave of this place,
through a hole in the smog, without leaving a trace.

and all that the lorax left here in this mess
was a small pile of rocks, with the one word....
"UNLESS."
whatever that meant, well i just couldnt guess.

that was long, long ago.
but each day since that day
ive sat here and worried
and worried away.
through the years, while my buildings
have fallen apart,
ive worried about it
with all of my heart.

"but now," says that once.ler,
"now that youre here,
the word of the lorax seems perfectly clear.
UNLESS someone like you
cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
its not.

"SO...
Catch!" calls the once.ler.
he lets something fall.
"its a truffula seed.
its the last one of all!
youre in charge of the last of the truffula seeds.
and the truffula trees are what everyone needs.
plant a new truffula. treat it with care.
give it clean water. and feed it fresh air.
grow a forest. protect it from axes that hack.
then the lorax
and all of his friends
may come back."

-dr.seuss

2008-05-27T13:18:00.000-07:00

and... CHA cha!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DBG_uDp8Qc

2008-05-24T20:15:00.000-07:00

I would love to get together,

my work schedule is a little crazy right now though.

Tuesday would most likely work out,
but I might have to leave early?

<3

sing it back!

2008-05-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

you know me better>>>>> !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dBi_aYXjuE

>>>>("A cinder cube is made for icebergs and the cha cha!")

BONUS S.S. Class!!!

2008-05-19T12:12:00.000-07:00

i had a brief encounter with the michael swaine, and we conversed about having a street sweeping class. however, he put it on me.

so, who is up for this class? what are peoples' availability? i am for our normal time (Tuesday or Thursay; 12-3), however i am open to other options. Can i see a show of hands?

***It is okay that you are not interested, and you will not be harassed. (just spited)

"SWIM TEAM"

2008-05-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

.......then a strange thing happened. I was looking down at my shoes
on the brown linoleum floor and i was thinking about how i bet this
floor hadn't been washed in a million years and i suddenly felt like i
was going to die. But instead of dying, I said :i can teach you how to
swim. And we don't need a pool.
We met twice a week in my apartment. When they arrived, I had
three bowls of warm tap water lined up on the floor, and then a forth
bowl in front of those, the coach's bowl. I added salt to the water
because it's supposed to be healthy to snort warm salt water, and I
figured they would be snorting accidentally. I showed them how to put
their noses and mouths in the water and how to take a breath to the
side. Then we added the legs, and then the arms. I admitted these were
not perfect conditions for learning to swim, but , I pointed out, this
was how Olympic swimmers trained when there wasn't a pool nearby. Yes
yes yes , this was a lie, but we needed it because we were four people
lying on the kitchen floor, kicking it loudly as if angry, as if
furious , as is disappointed and frustrated and not afraid to show it.
The connection to swimming had to be enforced with strong words. It
took Kelda several weeks to learn how to put her face in the water.
That's okay ! Isaid. We'll start you out with a kickboard. i handed
her a book. That's totally normal to resist the bowl, Kelda. It's the
body telling you it doesn't want to die. It doesn't , she said.
I taught them all the strokes I knew. The butterfly was just
incredible, like nothing you've ever seen. I thought the kitchen floor
would give in and turn liquid and away they would go...........

{p.15 -- no one belongs here more than you. stories by miranda july}

CONGRATS GRADUATES!!!

2008-05-12T11:05:00.001-07:00

happy summer!

2008-05-12T10:54:00.000-07:00

I am very happy to be 'free' myself but I only have a couple more weeks of free. I am leaving for summer school at the end of the month. I would love to get together this month before I go (5/29). Otherwise, I hope to catch up with everyone when I get back to the bay area in mid-July. In the meantime, send me your address & I will send you a postcard. I also want to send everyone my sorry-for-missing-the-last-class gift by the end of the summer. E-mail your address to kkdeboy_AT_gmail.com. Oh & I am hoping to occasionally sit in on Michael's clay/steel class next semester. Come visit us in the ceramics dept!
Ciao,
Kathy

sweepers a' limon...?...

2008-05-08T00:57:00.000-07:00

maybe a get together towards the end of may.....?......

(..i have a lovely backyard for tea and crumpets..)

many smiles......

sweepers, I weep in lack of you...

2008-05-04T10:37:00.000-07:00

What a semester! But it's over and with its overness comes freer time. And with freer time, I would like to have a class, an outing, a picnic by the sea - someone call me soon before I shrivel up!

hey folks

2008-04-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

Remember me? i'm brandon. i've failed keeping up as a sweeper. Give me one more chance?

BTW, what was the name of the last assignment of our class? Was it Devices for Human Contact?

B.jones

XXIII. WATER

2008-04-14T22:09:00.000-07:00

Water! Out from between two crouching masses of the world the word leapt.

___

It was raining on his face. He forgot for a moment that he was a brokenheart
then he remembered. Sick lurch
downward to Geryon trapped in his own bad apple. Each morning a shock
to return to the cut soul.
Pulling himself onto the edge of the bed he stared at the dull amplitude of rain.
Buckets of water sloshed from sky
to roof to eave to windowsill. He watched it hit his feet and puddle on the floor.
He could hear bits of human voice
streaming down the drainpipe-.I believe in being gracious.-
He slammed the window shut.
Below in the living room everything was motionless. Drapes closed, chairs asleep.
Huge wads of silence stuffed the air.
He was staring around for the dog then realized they hadn't had a dog for years. Clock
in the kitchen said quarter to six.
He stood looking at it willing himself not to blink until the big hand bumped over
to the next minute. Years passed
as his eyes ran water and a thousand ideas jumped his brain-.If the world
ends now I am free. and
.If the world ends now no one will see my autobiography.-finally it bumped.
He had a flash of Herakles' sleeping house
and put that away. Got out the coffee can, turned on the tap and started to cry.
Outside the natural world was enjoying
a moment of total strength. Wind rushed over the ground like a sea and battered up
into the corners of the buildings,
garbage cans went dashing down the alley after their souls.
Giant ribs of rain shifted
open on a flash of light and cracked together again, making the kitchen clock
bump crazily. Somewhere a door slammed.
Leaves tore past the window. Weak as a fly Geryon crouched against the sink
with his fist in his mouth
and his wings trailing over the drainboard. Rain lashing the kitchen window
sent another phrase
of Herakles' chasing across his mind. 'A photograph is just a bunch of light
hitting a plate'. Geryon wiped his face
with his wings and went out to the living room to look for the camera.
When he stepped onto the back porch
rain was funnelling down off the roof in a morning as dark as night.
He had the camera wrapped
in a sweatshirt. The photograph is titled "If He Sleep He Shall Do Well."
It shows a fly floating in a pail of water-
drowned but with a strange agitation of light around the wings. Geryon used
a fifteen-minute exposure.
When he first opened the shutter the fly seemed to be still alive.

(....Autobiography of Red....Anne Carson......)

XII. LAVA

2008-04-11T17:48:00.000-07:00

He did not know how long he had been asleep.

---

Black central stalled night. He lay hot and motionless, that is, motion
was a memory he could not recover
(among others) from the bottom of the vast blind kitchen where he was buried.
He could feel the house of sleepers
around him like loaves on shelves. There was a steady rushing sound
perhaps an electric fan down the hall
and a fragment of human voice tore itself out and came past, it seemed
already long ago, trailing
a bad dust of its dream which touched his skin. He thought of women.
What is it like to be a woman
listening in the dark? Black mantle of silence stretches between them
like geothermal pressure.
Ascent of the rapist up the stairs seems as slow as lava. She listens
to the blank space where
his consciousness is, moving towards her. Lava can move as slow as
nine hours per inch.
Color and fluidity vary with its temperature from dark red and hard
(below 1,800 degrees centigrade)
to brilliant yellow and completely fluid (above 1,950 degrees centigrade).
She wonders if
he is listening too. The cruel thing is, she falls asleep listening.

(....Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson.....)

i am back from pasadena where i was building a arc

2008-03-22T20:05:00.000-07:00

now i am in san francisco

hoping to sweep with fellow sweepers

i have some free time

lets meet up as a class???

what about sunday the 6th of arpil

we need all sweepers

high noon

bring brooms

how about meeting civic center bart melvin shows up at 1:00

what do you think

swaine --sweeper

with love always

2008-03-22T15:43:00.000-07:00

Vanessa, I've been working on something similar, thats so funny.

I'm probably the person with the biggest scheduling woes, but I would really like to get some coffee....if not in the city than at coles, or spazzos, or even hudson bay? I'm ok after 3 tuesday/thursday, but usually have to work thursday eve.

simply lovely......

2008-03-11T18:55:00.000-07:00

This American Life
110: Mapping

Five ways of mapping the world. One story about people who make maps the traditional way—by drawing things we can see. And other stories about people who map the world using smell, sound, touch, and taste. The world redrawn by the five senses.

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1211

Coffee...Tea...Life?

2008-03-07T12:52:00.000-08:00

Hello friends!

I could not for the life of me remember my password to post, anyhow unfortunately a box set of our films will not ever be available...technology is a bitch.

Michael is the clay/steel class happening? because my next semesters schedule will be based around it if it is indeed happening, also i saw mr.nathan adorning a lovely Morse code shirt today and was wondering how i would go about procuring one myself?

Everyone else! where are you? i miss you, my tuesdays and thursdays feel empty really ive only spoken to Vanessa about getting back together for a meeting of the minds, when are you guys available what do you want to do? Tea parties and other such things have been discussed. we just need to find out more about when and where

i miss my sweeping comrads---must start digging to get back to each other

2008-02-29T19:01:00.000-08:00

the tower of babel

if it had been possible to build the tower of babel without ascending it, the work would have been permitted.

the pit of babel

what are you building?- i want to dig a subterranean passage. some progress must be made. my station up there is much too high.
we are digging the pit of babel.

---franz kafka
---parables and paradoxes
---p.35

to share with friends.......

2008-02-29T00:18:00.000-08:00

"....with nothing can one approach a work of art so little as with critical words: they always come down to more or less happy misunderstandings. Things are not all so comprehensible and expressible as one would mostly have us believe; most events are inexpressible, taking place in a realm which no word has ever entered, and more inexpressible than all else are works of art, mysterious existences, the life of which, while ours passes away, endures." -Rainer Maria Rilke

Oakland Pinching Society on Oakland Campus - Icebox Performances Perfect for Sweepers!

2008-02-18T11:16:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone. Its been a while since I've posted so I feel guilty for only calling when I need something, just like my little brother!

So there is a week long event/performance at the ceramics dept. at CCA. Erik Scollon is hosting the Oakland Pinching Society. People have signed up for time slots to perform/pinch at our old venue, the Icebox. I signed up for this Friday night from ~8PM until ~10 or 11PM. Erik will be providing clay & coffee. Nighttime hours had the bonus of a blacklight.

My hope is to get the sweepers together for a Frosted Mini Wheats reunion performance for pinching, playing instruments & whatever else people want to do under the blacklight. It is a great opportunity for getting another Minis soundbite & attempting to out do the strangeness of the Grizzly Bear video.

The/My catch is that (once again) I cannot be there. I've had a death in the family & am headed back east on Wed. If you are interested, please take advantage of getting together again under interesting circumstances, or at least a black light. You can confirm this is a go by emailing Erik (eskull_AT_aol.com).

I thought Friday night would be convenient for some since Nathan's class is over at 6PM & there some time in between for a meal & some drinks. If this happens for us, I will be providing "thank you" gifts to those that participated at the end of the semester. These "thank you" gifts are in addition to & of higher priority that the "I'm sorry" gifts that everyone will be getting at some point this summer.

Below is information from Erik on OPS:

The Oakland Pinching Society is 47 strong and still growing....

The space is set up, the clay is waiting, now we just need you to add your magic to the mix. I'll send reminders of the date and time you signed up for, in case you forgot.

There are lots of way you can contribute to the Society. Think about how you can contribute.....

1. Pinch pots might be easy to do, but they are difficult to master. http://www.osartistsco-op.com/how_pinch.html Make some great pinch pots and flaunt your craft skills. You may keep your pots or donate them to the Pinching Society.

2. "Perform" your making. Last year during bringing sexyback a lot of the fun was seeing the creative costumes and themes of the makers. Build your guild and make your making enjoyable for people to watch.

3. DOCUMENT - DOCUMENT -DOCUMENT! Take pictures and video. Post it to Myspace and Facebook. And please send/burn me copies of the photos. Documentation is how a project like this lives on.

4. Add to the wallpaper. Take a photo, turn up the contrast, print it out, post it on the wall. It'll glow at night.

Other things to note:
A. There are two kinds of clay in there. A paper porcelain (which is a little bit smelly) and a mid-range porcelain reclaim. Both are soft. You might need to dry it out a bit to make it stand up.

B. You can turn on the black lights to make the wall paper glow at night via the switch by the plug.

C. I'll bisque everything left on the selves.

Thanks for participating!!!
Best,
Erik

to share with friends.......

2008-02-14T01:38:00.000-08:00

"This is a beautiful library, timed perfectly, lush and American. The hour is midnight and the library is deep and carried like a dreaming child into the darkness of these pages. Though the library is 'closed' I don't have to go home because this is my home and has been for years, and besides, I have to be here all the time. That's part of my position. I don't want to sound like a petty official, but I am afraid to think what would happen if somebody came and I wasn't here.
I have been sitting at this desk for hours, staring into the darkened shelves of books. I love their presence, the way they honor the wood they rest upon.

".....I 'closed' the library at nine, but if somebody has a book to bring in, there is a bell they can ring by the door that calls me from whatever I am doing in this place: sleeping, cooking, eating or making love to Vida who will be here shortly.
She gets off work at 11:30.
The bell comes from Fort Worth, Texas. The man who brought us the bell is dead now and no one learned his name. He brought the bell in and put it down in the table. He seemed embarrassed and left, a stranger, many years ago. It is not a large bell, but it travels intimately along a small silver path that knows the map to our hearing.
Often books are brought in during the late evening and the early morning hours. I have to be here to receive them. That's my job.
I 'open' the library at nine o'clock in the morning and 'close' the library at nine in the evening, but I am here twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to receive the books.
An old woman brought in a book a couple of days ago at three o'clock in the morning. I heard the bell ringing inside my sleep like a small highway being poured from a great distance into my ear.

".....The woman had a look of great excitement. She was very old, eighty I'd say, and wore the type of clothing that associates itself with the poor.
But no matter. . . rich or poor . . . the service is the same and could never be any different.
'I just finished it,' she said through the heavy glass before I could open the door. Her voice, though slowed down a great deal by the glass, was bursting with joy, imagination and almost a kind of youth.
'I'm glad,' I said back through the door. I hadn't quite gotten it open yet. We were sharing the same excitement through the glass.

".....Then she handed it proudly to me as if it were the most precious thing in the world. And it was.
It was a loose-leaf notebook of the type that you find everywhere in America. There is no place that does not have them.
There was a heavy label pasted on the cover and written in broad green crayon across the label was the title:

GROWING FLOWERS BY CANDLELIGHT
IN HOTEL ROOMS
BY
MRS. CHARLES FINE ADAMS

'What a wonderful title,' I said. 'I don't think we have a book like this in the entire library. This is a first."
She had a big smile on her face which had turned old about forty years ago, eroded by the gases and exiles of youth

"....Now it was time to register the book. We register all the books we receive here in our Library Contents Ledger. It is a record of all the books we get day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. They all go into the Ledger.
We dont use the Dewey decimal classification or any index system to keep track of our books. We record their entrance into the library in the Library Contents Ledger and then we give the book back to its author who is free to place it anywhere he wants in the library, on whatever shelf catches his fancy.
It doesn't make any difference where a book is placed because nobody ever checks them out and nobody ever comes here to read them. This is not that kind of library. This is another kind of library........

".....This library came into being because of an overwhelming need and desire for such a place. There just simply had to be a library like this. That desire brought into existence this library building which isn't very large and its permanent staffing which happens to be myself at the present time.
The library is old in the San Francisco post-earthquake yellow-brick stye and is located at 3150 Sacramento Street, San Francisco, California 94115, though no books are ever accepted by mail. They must be brought in person. That is one of the foundations of this library.
Many people have worked here before me. This place has a fairly rapid turnover. I believe I am the 35th or 36th librarian. I got the job because I was the only person who could fulfill the requirements and I was available.
I am thirty-one years old and never had any formal library training. I have had a different kind of training which is quite compatible with the running of this library. I have an understanding of people and I love what I am doing.
I believe I am the only person in America who can perform this job right now and that's what I am doing. After I am through with my job here. I'll find something else to do. I think the future has quite a lot in store for me........"

-Richard Brautigan (sections from "The Abortion")

2008-02-13T20:02:00.001-08:00

Swaine, I know you are alive!!! I saw you tuesday on the SF campus, I was on the shuttle.

whoever wants ice cream, I'm working on valentines at ICI, so come get it.

mr.jones......

2008-02-09T12:33:00.000-08:00

im scheming something and i need your help.......when can we meet for dinner and.or drinks....?....

2008-02-06T12:43:00.000-08:00

Michael Swaine,
Drink lots of tea and get lots of rest.
Lemon Verbena and fresh mint should help what ails you
take care so we can hold class and have coffee :)

some light yoga or stretches can help aid your immune system as well.

i am fighting the plague

2008-02-05T12:44:00.000-08:00

i am fighting the plague but i have been collecting my salty tears as i cry on my death bed
i will be swimming soon in salt water
did i tell you all that i am not a good swimmer
i am trying to make those arm floaty things that look like ducks
that would save me,right?

if you have any cures for the plague
please put them on the blog
with your help i will be cured by the end of the week

and then class will begin again

-----------------------------------

swaine on death bed

The Future of Weeping

2008-02-03T22:07:00.001-08:00

I think it'd be a good idea that those of us who would like to meet up, should do so....before we get to the point of using an ugly word such as "reunion." Perhaps we could all throw out dates and times, and narrow it to one (or two) specifically.

i miss the gang.

weeping jones

Two Piles of Dirt/Shovel SHOW

2008-02-03T22:03:00.000-08:00

Two Piles of Dirt/Shovel
CCA's Center Gallery, February 3-10
Opening Reception: Wednesday, Feb 6, 5:30- 7:30 pm

Come and get Dirty! There will be FREE Mudpie & Hot Cocoa at the Reception.

(this is a show put on by the Forsite/earthworks gang)

Greetings Friends

2008-01-31T20:23:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, hope the new semester is going well, life after school has been excellent this far.

For anyone interested, we are having an open house at my studio (the Firehouse) this sunday.

If you are interested feel free to drop by between 1 - 5.

Vanessa I brought you something special from Morocco, if you are around lets meet so I can give it to you...

bye
kjell

philz.....

2008-01-22T22:49:00.000-08:00

thursday...

?

...... .!.
.?.

to share with friends.......

2008-01-16T19:44:00.001-08:00

(..taken from "Color: A Natural History of the Palette" by Victoria Finlay..)

"The battle lines were drawn, so to speak, in 1794, when a Frenchman called Nicolas Conte was asked to find a substitute for the English pencil. Inventors had spent years trying (and failing) to stop the British near-monopoly on pencils, but Conte managed it in just eight days. He took low-quality graphite- which could be sourced in France- and found a way of powdering it and mixing it with clay so that not only could it do justice to the sketches of the most prestigious French artists, like the portraitist Jacques-Louis David, for example, but it could also be made in different grades of softness...The grading system came later, but it is because of Conte's discovery that today we can select our pencils depending on how much clay was used in the recipe...

"The next challenge to the world pencil dominance was also from a Frenchman: and it started unexpectedly in 1847 beside and icy river in Siberia. Jean-Pierre Ailbert was looking for gold that morning, although probably the twenty-seven-year-old merchant was looking for anything that might help pay for the mad expedition he had embarked on. I wonder what it was that- as his pan came up once again from the streambed with no buttery nuggets in its mesh- made him look again at the smoothed and rounded black pebbles that had washed in instead. Could it be that he knew this was a rare formation of carbon, and that it was valuable? Perhaps he recognized it from some half-forgotten geology class...Certainly the experience was startling enough to force him to divert his group by 430 mountainous kilometers as he followed the river back to the deposit. His determination was rewarded, and at a place called Botogol Peak, Alibert found the world's richest seam of blackhead, just a graphite pebbles throw from the Chinese border. English scientists reluctantly conceded that it was as good as the Borrowdale supply, which had almost run out. French scientists, naturally enough, testified that it was much better, and the Americans agreed...
"Suddenly everyone wanted "Chinese" pencils. It was therefore a brilliant marketing move a few decades later when mass-produced pencils in America began to be painted bright yellow. They copied the color of Manchu imperial robes, and symbolized the romance of the Orient, while suggesting that the pencils came from that valuable Alibert mine, even though they probably did not. Most pencils made in the United States are still painted yellow today, even though Siberian graphite has not been used for years...."

.......almost home......much love sweepers.!.
p.s..::..kid loco=tub time..

love.

#13 January 2008 or as listed 2007

2008-01-15T22:38:00.001-08:00

READY SET DANCE!

And I’ll Be Running Up That Hill…
January-2007-nice!

Chromatics
Electrelane
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
Burial
Nathan Fake
Glass Candy
Health
Roisin Murphy
Marnie Stern
Nathan Fake
Courtney Tidwell mixed by Ewan Pearson
Electrelane
Burial
Broadcast
Nathan Fake
Kate Bush

I like The Burial, Roisin Murphy, Glass Candy, and Sharon Jones the best. ohh....
the Courtney Tidwell mix is amazing too,
dancing underwater!

GET READY- February -Paula Abdul, Dr. Octagon and possibly The Sounds of Girls Aloud!

By the way has anyone heard -Sing it back By Moloko? = So good!

Today's Class...

2008-01-15T21:01:00.000-08:00

So, clearly nobody showed up for class. Tuesday at Noon....

So...what are we going to do about that?

2008-01-15T16:12:00.000-08:00

ps, coffee outings Brandon, really. Call me next time :) I forget to check this

2008-01-15T15:56:00.000-08:00

no, I haven't bathed in coffee yet sadly, I've been cutting down.

I hope everyone had a fantastic break, sorry for neglecting the blog.

I have a request/ big favor Michael Swaine. I told some of my residents in the AFC (artists for community) about your sewing projects in the tenderloin, and they were really interested in possibly joining you. We are continuing the guest artist lecture series from last semester, and my co-worker and I were wondering if you would like to come and be a guest lecturer. I want them to meet you and make sure it is something they really want to do this semester, if you don't mind the company. as far as a presentation is concerned, the students would love your videos and work involving the street. It can be as informal as you want. If you are interested, send me a quick e-mail and we can hammer out the best dates and whatnot. Fellow Sweepers, if this pans out, it would be fun to have you there as well.

bribes...

2008-01-15T14:25:00.000-08:00

I knew you weren't going to let me off that easy, Michael Swaine! I do have something in mind that I could offer to make it up to the class but it may take me a while for me to execute since the semester has started again. It may have to wait until after my senior show. Just keep reminding me!

Happy New Year Sweepers! Hope to see you on campus soon.
Kathy

taylor have you seen this

2008-01-14T02:07:00.001-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cYWfq--Nw

wow daft hands

this is for all street sweepers

i gave some of you an zerox about hands

this goesd with it

wow

i love this

daft hands

Justice

2008-01-13T23:45:00.000-08:00

ohh yeah... hey Kjell, this is Justice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCjheCusIso

Swaine... U will like this too!

The Pop Star

2008-01-13T23:38:00.000-08:00

This is it all of it...
http://www.youtube.com/roisinmurphytv
Let me know!
ps... the legs... flawless!

Street Sweeping / Why the City Made Me Cry

So Much Happiness

'liberty calls'....hello sweepers!

asked cooley windsor's writing class to take phots of dropping pencil

myself and benny sweeping together

...................dot dot dot ................

Changing Educational Paradigms

vegetable music....

...

"...august 11, 1958...

Cities & Desire 4

crow with no mouth...

.....

i am sitting in on cooleys class this is last thing i wrote-still needs some editing

room to read....

Parable

'Watershed'

02.8.10...The Whale..pp.74-85...

04.09.06...S.F. Library...ravens...pp152-180

........................................................

Merci, Monsieur Swaine.

In relation to tables.

sweeper ward....

excerpts from Braided Creek...

Falling Whistles..

The Wall and The Books

Lao-tzu’s Taoteching

the tallest man on earth....

p.s...

thinking of.... (with love).

The Great Hug

the Tip of a heart.....

Because of Libraries We Can Say These Things

'ambition'

a weeping sweeper....

The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz...

The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz

Never Forget...

PICNIC Part III

Picnic **Update**

Picnic

Borth so very very borth

when the name comes.....

forget me (k)nots

Walter B.’s Extraordinary Cousin Arrives for a Visit & Other Tales…..

'Great are the piths'

A beautiful proclamation.....

{...}

'A Violinist in the Metro'

hola sweepers!!

...

sweepers.....

Deartest, Sweetest, most brilliant 'Class'!

If you like it....

why this blog makes me cry

cotton..cicada..crane.....

bubble-ness

shorthanded........

our time.....

yes....

the street of the lifted lorax.....

sing it back!

BONUS S.S. Class!!!

"SWIM TEAM"

CONGRATS GRADUATES!!!

happy summer!

sweepers a' limon...?...

sweepers, I weep in lack of you...

hey folks

XXIII. WATER

XII. LAVA

i am back from pasadena where i was building a arc

simply lovely......

Coffee...Tea...Life?

i miss my sweeping comrads---must start digging to get back to each other

to share with friends.......

Oakland Pinching Society on Oakland Campus - Icebox Performances Perfect for Sweepers!

to share with friends.......

mr.jones......

i am fighting the plague

Picnic Update