Sunday, September 29, 2024

Lyric: Elf Collar

Thnx do mild elf collar redo is so harm uh fan yah if do oz FL if roofline is sa we we we is sick Leia zucchini jack zx S98D5654SXSW 

fan yah if do oz FL ifOL roofline is sa we we we is sick Leia zucchini YT6+*

O52LM, jack 
    Thnx do mild elf collar redo is so harm uh fan yah if do oz FL if roofline is sa we we we is sick Leia           zucchini jack

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Lyric: There Or?

light off window sill

washed out pale

Katje into Nico

then a whisp of smoke


there’s a frame of ghost

passage, a frame of

oiled and polished mahogany

around a vacuum


there are other frames

a hole becomes a tunnel

if you follow it out

a ghost who’s not quite


there


Sunday, July 28, 2024

Pocket Check: Folders

 Pocket Power Rankings, main pocket folders

  1. Swiss Army Alox Farmer - classic budget pocket knife, this one features a saw blade as one of the secondary tools, which is sweet. If I have to replace this, I will get a Farmer X to get the scissors as well. Made with pedestrian materials, this is nonetheless a classic for good reason. Also, no one freaks when you pull it out of your pocket, so it goes almost anywhere.
  2. Spyderco Manix 2 Cru-Carta - brushed Cru-Wear blade paired with unfinished brown burlap Micarta scales backed by full sized liners - a balanced knife which locks into your hand a myriad of ways. Useful and casually elegant, it is a bit big & aggressive to pull out in some situations.
  3. Benchmade Bugout - the archetypal lightweight folder in the classic 20V/blue grivory format. Super light with a yeoman drop point blade and the revolutionary axis lock, it pretty much goes everywhere though, at 3.25 inches, the blade is not small.
  4. QSP Penguin - brass handle/black stonewashed D2 blade with a liner lock, this budget workhorse is very effective with its slicey-but-solid sheepsfoot blade. Simple, understated design, and the brass scales develop a beautiful patina.
  5. Spyderco Endura 4 - a big work knife (fully serrated 3.75" VG10 drop point blade, black FRN scales), this one has the characteristic Spyderco multi-grip lockup, and will cut through damn near anything.
  6. Spyderco Native 5 - another classic Sypderco leaf blade model, in most ways a smaller version of the Manix 2 (street-legal 3" blade). This version also has a Cru-wear blade, this time with a DLC coating to protect the less-than-stainless blade, along with black G-10 scales sanded smooth. Like the Manix 2 the Native 5 attracts a little attention when it comes out.
  7. Ontario Rat - the basic budget model (Aus-8, tan nylon handle and full stainless liner), this thing is a big workhorse beater. If knives were trucks, this would be a 1978 3/4 ton Silverado with a 454 V8. And it would burn oil.
  8. Benchmade Mini Griptillian - a small street-legal knife with some heft. I could use a little more length on the handle, but it's a solid three-finger grip with room to choke up. This is a blackout model in S30V.
  9. Benchmade Shootout - a lightweight out-the-front automatic, this feels a little less tactical and a little more EDC than your average Microtech OTF dagger. The Cru-wear black DLC blade shoots out solidly and reliably, but the knife remains suprisingly lightweight. And, though it may not scream "tactical" (especially with the seafoam green grivory handles), it still has some attitude and will raise eyebrows when it makes an appearance in most spaces.
  10. Spyderco Watu - Spyderco tribute to traditional Central/Southern African blades & useful (if eccentric) EDC. Even Syderco's simplest handle shapes fit into the hand beautifully.
Also in rotation: CIVIVI Sokoke, CIVIVI Vision, Bestech Swordfish, Boker Kalashnikov Auto, Ruike P-801 SF. Opinel #8.

Thursday, July 4, 2024

Another Fucking Draft of The 18

 The 18

 

Preston Highway

hard yellow brown

suicide lane

down to the Snyder

Ohio Valley temperature inversion

parks stink

on top

the Watterson overpass

 

churches

check cashing joints

the 18

runs down Preston

every 15 minutes

ebb and flow

you’re standing

in the aisle

eight,

nine,

noon,

four,

five,

six,

nine-thirty

the wrong 18

dumps you short of Outer Loop

at the Cash America on Ulrich

 

Mexican places for Mexicans

Mexican places for whites

bare tube fluorescent

gold-flecked white Formica

Tecaté

can’t order in Spanish

can point

secret menu

all the Latins under curved glass

at the front of a converted Wendys

 

bus stop

hammered wet cigarette tar

poison fumes

busted catalytic converters

broken cars

making the right

off Outer Loop

accelerating up Preston

in a trail of stink

late

catching the 18

stragglers

they’re not

turning off

the lights

obviously

pull knit cap

down over burnt eyes

up Eastern Parkway

the 18, then a mile home

 

*          *          *          *          *

 

pulling on a Tecate 24

up Preston

dank night

up about

where Indian Trail

slashes across

oily dark

swimming across

broken asphalt

dirt

you feel as much as see

breathing

chunked petroleum

sloughing off

strip malls

perhaps

not dark so much as light

at crazed angles

coming in

as negative light

always

people

crossing the street

in the dark

you don’t see them

just sort of hanging out

there

in the double turn lane

Mexicans

Africans

Koreans

Whites

strollers

lumpenprole

defying death

hanging

on the edge

broken asphalt river

 

all it is is

you wake up

in the morning

and find yourself

back

out on Preston

fucked

Sunday, May 26, 2024

Contra Kenkō

Funeral Prayer:::

One who is truly wise

has no knowledge

or virtue

nor honor

nor fame


who will know of him

speak of him to others


this is not

because he hides his virtue

and pretends foolishness


he

is 

beyond

distinctions

such as

wise and foolish

gain and loss


I have been speaking of what it is to cling to one’s delusions

and seek after fame and fortune

All things of this phenomenal world

are mere illusion

they are worth

neither discussing

nor desiring



Contra Kenkō, if the world is illusion

then illusion it is


fix it


Galileo per Brecht


 God? Where is God?


Old cardinal: I am informed that Mr. Galilei

transfers man from the center of the universe

to somewhere on the outskirts


he is an enemy of mankind

and should be treated as such


1. He tried to sell himself to you, but you underbid

2. not only is man transferred –

3. the center will not hold


Sunday, October 29, 2023

Excerpt From *The Recursive Shadow of Empire*

 II.

 

1.

 

Clare is the “rootless” “cosmopolitan” nomadic . . .

the extension à 80s Euro cocaine ennui jetset

to its Ballardian xtreme, rootless center

of a disintegrating, metamorphosizing (“corrupt” per H & N),

CULTURE.

 

In every place the nomadic “Clare” shows,

there are recognizable markers of place

smeared across the landscape

like oils with a pallet knife

 

 Clare, who “never sleeps”, is continuously falling asleep –

on trains and buses, in taxis and waiting rooms –

asleep almost as much as awake – continuously in motion,

continuously weary

 

Paris à Berlin à Lisbon

            narrow streets wind up and down,

            hillsides, stairs, levels, paths,

            lines of flight

 

Moscow by 747

            (TRANS SIBERIAN EXPRESS SUNG LI STATION)

                       

            Beijing

           

            Tokyo

                        labyrinth

                        levels 

                        arcade

line of flight, like Harry Lime in the sewers of Vienna

 

            by ship to

            ààààààà

San Francisco

            (“the biochemical event of seeing”)

 

blindness, motion, and vision. impermanence and flux.

 

2.

 

Australia

            going to that arid place at the end of the world

            “my bag? traveling separately.”

 

The Y2k of self-consumption

The horror of open space

 

                        cesura

 

terrible things have happened

happens in the worst of times

 

down into the tunnels

down

caves, canyons, valleys, mountains –

 

When we touch the earth, it will kill us.

 

Dreams and visions

Creation and theft

The unbearable sadness,

the unbearable ugliness of creation

“You can’t just decide to die.”

“I don’t decide anything. I just let it happen.”

 

 

3.

 

They have become addicted

to their catalog of images.

They wandered in and out of lost worlds –

feelings and figures emerge

from a lost past – their dreams

become black holes of isolation –

they suffered finally from a complete loss

of identity reality.