NAKED JUICE (work-in-progress)

In retrospect I can’t be sure which was the more obvious sign that our relationship was falling apart: the sudden and irrevocable disappearance of the two hummingbirds that came to our tiny studio apartment window to feed on the ultra-premium orange juice that we left for them and didn’t actually drink ourselves, or when she asked me what I thought of threesomes.

First, let me explain the hummingbirds. They were miraculous. They were a tiny little miracle in the middle of downtown Los Angeles and they were for us and us alone. When we saw them for the first time, about six months ago, they were flitting around the window while we, she and I, sat on our little couch from craigslist and watched Japanese news on our little television from craigslist. Neither of us understood Japanese, so we had spent the forty-three minutes leading up to that point narrating over the news anchors’ voices. In the middle of assuming that the young, professionally cute Japanese woman standing at the scene of a recent murder in a fashionable Tokyo district had simply chosen that spot at random in order to retell the Brothers Grimm version of Hansel and Gretel, we saw the hummingbirds and we were incredibly excited. At the time I worked at an independent bookstore and she worked at an independent record shop, so hummingbirds were rather out of the ordinary, relative to our daily existences. Mostly we sold things to assholes, or were assholes selling things to regular people, and sometimes everyone was an asshole; just in slightly varying degrees.

“What do hummingbirds eat? Nectar, right?” she asked, sidelong, as she focused on their movements. The two birds were white and rust and her eyes were a very light blue but sometimes they were almost green.

Read the rest of this entry »

Introduction: Teddy is the name of my sister’s black Newfoundland/Labrador mutt. She adopted him as a puppy from a rescue shelter when she was living in LA, and at first, he was incredibly antisocial and very, very afraid of people. It didn’t take too long for him to get used to being loved, though. This is an example!

P.S. Yes, that’s an iPod on the floor.
P.P.S. My sheets are not bright red, they are actually blue, but I laid out a sleeping bag over them for Teddy to lie on.

I just spent the past few hours reading the webcomic Anders Loves Maria from start-to-current page. It’s a startling conflux of a powerful narrative, great characters, and always-interesting artwork. The premise entails two young people in a complicated relationship, and the best part about the story is how it constantly pulls at you, making you laugh or tugging at your heart, or sometimes dragging you by the collar into a dark alleyway to beat you up (but only just a bit).

It’s probably the most emotionally resonant comic I’ve stumbled across since A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible, yet it’s completely different in just about every category. What the two comics share is a deft attention to detail; ALM’s artist, Rene Engström, plays with style while maintaining tone and knows how to use simplicity/complexity to complement one another. Read it for yourself, and see what I mean!

NAKED JUICE (work-in-progress)

In retrospect I can’t be sure which was the more obvious sign that our relationship was falling apart: the sudden and irrevocable disappearance of the two hummingbirds that came to our tiny studio apartment window to feed on the ultra-premium orange juice that we left for them and didn’t actually drink ourselves, or when she asked me what I thought of threesomes.

First, let me explain the hummingbirds. They were miraculous. They were a tiny little miracle in the middle of downtown Los Angeles and they were for us and us alone. When we saw them for the first time, about six months ago, they were flitting around the window while we, she and I, sat on our little couch from craigslist and watched Japanese news on our little television from craigslist. Neither of us understood Japanese, so we had spent the forty-three minutes leading up to that point narrating over the news anchors’ voices. In the middle of assuming that the young, professionally cute Japanese woman standing at the scene of a recent murder in a fashionable Tokyo district had simply chosen that spot at random in order to retell the Brothers Grimm version of Hansel and Gretel, we saw the hummingbirds and we were incredibly excited. At the time I worked at an independent bookstore and she worked at an independent record shop, so hummingbirds were rather out of the ordinary, relative to our daily existences. Mostly we sold things to assholes, or were assholes selling things to regular people, and sometimes everyone was an asshole; just in slightly varying degrees.

“What do hummingbirds eat? Nectar, right?” she asked, sidelong, as she focused on their movements. The two birds were white and rust and her eyes were a very light blue but sometimes they were almost green.

Read the rest of this entry »

From tinymixtapes

Requested by: emma
Compiled by: Kate Lucksmith

01. Mirah - “Make it Hot” (Advisory Committee) youtube
02. The Secret Stars - “Some Sinatra” (Geneologies)
03. Comet Gain - “Record Prayer” (Record Prayer 7″)
04. Loveninjas - “Meet Me Here” (Secret of the Loveninjas)
05. Saturday Looks Good to Me - “I Would Find It So Beautiful” (Saturday Looks Good to Me)
06. Pavement - “Passat Dream” (Brighten the Corners)
07. Iron & Wine - “Love Vigilantes” (New Order Cover)
08. The Halo Benders - “Love Travels Faster” (The Rebels Not In)
09. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - “Graceland” (Graceland EP)
10. Beat Happening - “Sea Hunt” (Music to Climb the Apple Tree By)
11. Voxtrot - “The Warmest Part of Winter” (Demo) youtube (no video, just music)
12. Broken Social Scene - “Lover’s Spit” (You Forgot It In People) youtube
13. Peter Bjorn and John - “Up Against the Wall” (Writer’s Block) youtube (unofficial)

LOOK AT ME

Look at me
the way Orion’s arrows sling
cross- galaxy or apartment floor.
Satellite photographs cannot depict
your shelves of glass and chrome
but they suffice for the banns
pleasantly. Presently I touch
the diagrams for cabinets
and unfinished television
stands for the vise, adjunct
lacking fingerprints.
This is not a space.
But you occupy it without regard.
Look at me.
Craft out of me some thing
more than the night: the might;
the constellation kings; or
two beaten silver rings.

GOLDRUSH

I think
it seems
that you are made of gold I think
that you are made of gold it seems
that you are made of gold I think it seems
that you are made of gold
that you are made of gold
that you are made of gold

SIR GAWAIN KNEELS AT THE THRONE OF GUINEVERE IN CHINATOWN

Footfalls shred the grass, which was crisp, had been crushed.
She pulls the curtains back to find the light
like mathematics, like schoolyard games.
She grins, tight, and her grin hangs
alongside slaughtered ducks on metal hooks.
Her voice smells of dust,
partitioned into fistfuls. The dust catches in his throat.
That lazy lean on the balustrade
when she was a shadow just before.
She could have been a king, and he,
he pays respects a certain way:
he eats the dust; devours; doesn’t hold the door.

YOU, LEVIATHAN, AND I

You, leviathan
with your ink, your 19th-century arms
which felt like 20th-century arms,
welcomed me with gatling guns.
It was a proud display and I did not shy away.
But maybe it wasn’t ink at all
that you spilled on the collar of my shirt.
Maybe it was your mythology, ferocious maw,
lipstick in a lighter hue, that threw
all those vicious, valkyrian spears.
They shattered as all spears must
when pressed against my thirst.
I held the blade
but it was not a blade;
only fingertips, reaching,
for your illumined cheek.