Notes on Nothing 17.0: Simultaneous Selections

Listening to "A Field Guide to Western Bird Songs."
Reading "The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer."
Eating a fried Taylor ham sandwich.

Notes on Nothing 16.0: Morning Gets Broken

I get to the office before most of the co-workers. The atmosphere exudes an almost peacefulness. Especially on these rare sunburst mornings. Driving to work, we saw the rays pierce the cloud cover like a golden tripod. Soon the overcast was over.

The hum of the fluorescent lights and the whirr of the hard drives persist, but there is a clip of silence soon to be spliced with inane chatter once 8:30 rolls around.

Ten years ago I joined the retail advertising staff at the paper (or rather, papers -- we're a "media group").

Ten years has obversely built up and destroyed my tolerance for coworkers. Outside of work, my frustration instantly dissipates, as if Work is Wonka's dark tunnel (my soul as "Le Wonkatania") where "the rowers keep on rowing" until 4:00 when the clock yells "Stop!"

I don't want to call the thing that disturbs me "stupidity", but rather an inability to commit to even the edge of logic.

To be asked about the sun by the shadow or asked about the shadow by the sun are queries I endeavor to entertain.

But, no, I get this:

Me: Is this ad running in color or black & white -- you didn't mark the insertion order.


Sales Rep: Uh, I don't know...is it?

I'm out!

Notes on Nothing 15.0: Egghead Likes His Booky-Books

I'm reading a book as thick as my thumb is long. That's a big deal for me. My attention span has been limited since I discovered television when I was one. Sure, I read a lot, but I prefer thin volumes, short chapters. This omnibus, Rudy Rukker's "Ware Tetralogy", offers short chapters, just lots of 'em.

The joke, containing more than a kernel -- let's say a vat -- of truth, is that I'm a book collector, as opposed to being a "reader"; a small-time hoarder (our place is never buried in books -- indeed, I shelve them all! Oh, wouldst that I possessed a high-ceiling-ed library with 10, 15, nay 20 foot bookshelves!

Ye Olde O'Shaughnessy Librarie

That said, concerning unshelved books, a book store so overstocked with used books that the floors are stacked with paperbacks are my favorite book stores! Good god! Anything could be in there!

Case in point: Longfellows Bookstore on SE Division. I'd never been there before this weekend. I said as much to the owner. "Well, " said he, "this is our 35th year."

[Embarassed trumpet]

 

I spent an hour in there, emerged with a Bruce Jay Friedman two-fer: "Stern/A Mother's Kisses"; and Nat Hentoff's "Jazz is." Coulda bought more, coulda spent more. But where to put 'em?

The O'Shaughnessy Public Library Basement Annex

Gotta go. TV's on.

Notes on Nothing 14.0: Flung

A blog, as I have seen it, serves, for the most part, as a modern-day message-in-a-bottle. Flung to the waves of information, crashing on the shores of society.

Or forever floating in cyberspace, a voice disembodied, beyond context.

Or fated to distant discovery.

From extinct antennae to future receiver.

Dead space scrolls.

Lanternfish works.

Notes on Nothing 13.0: Burrell/Guitar

Downstairs listening to "Downstairs." Kenny Burrell/Guitar Forms, arranged by Gil Evans, produced by Creed Taylor, engineered by Rudy Van Gelder. $2 at Crossroads Music. One of those dynamite Verve gatefolds. You know what I mean. $2 and not a skip!

White smoke.
Chapel & shrine.

They're gonna play a blues.

We could sit and cry all day
in Englewood Cliffs.
We could sit in there all night.

I would climb the walls, I think,
like a spider swinging to the moon. 

Hancock of Behlehem
Jefferson of Jazz
Men & Women

in Heaven

on Earth.

Notes on Nothing 12.0 (The Return of...)

Today I walked to the library. I've walked back from the library before (having been dropped off at the library previous times). But today I walked to and fro(m) the library. I love the library. I always vote for any levy to support the library. Any library. Every library! Goddamn, it's amazing! Thank you, Benjamin Franklin (who certainly did NOT invent the library, but, I don't know, has something to do with libraries in America [I could google it, but I don't feel like it]).

Back on Long Island, I spent many, many hours at the Library. The Plainview-Old Bethpage Public Library on Old Country Road! Ah, I discovered "The Mothman Prophecies" and Philip K. Dick there. I took out all those Film Worlds by John Willis as well. The library is an important ingredient in the O'Shaughnessy recipe.

Music, movies...oh, and books! Today I checked out the Burt Bacharach Collection, Cartoons Songs from Merrie Melodies & Looney Tunes, and Destroyer's new album, Kaputt (had that one on hold).

And a coupla books.

Why would you care what I took out from the library? Don't know why, but you might.

The Library: America's Greatest Thing!