Iced Confetti

Iced Confetti. January 1, 2014, 1:05 PM. West 42nd Street & Dyer Avenue, New York City.

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Autumn In America

Last month, my beloved wife & I enjoyed a good old American road trip between Brooklyn, New York and Louisville, Kentucky. My dear friend Todd Pate, the self-proclaimed hobo journalist behind El Jamberoo, asked me to write a little something about the trip for his website, so I did. Here’s the result, “Autumn In America,” which covers America’s most famous battlefield, a West Virginia lunatic asylum, why the government shutdown is like “Redneck Crazy,” and much more:

Smells like burning wood, my wife notes as we roll through Gettysburg in our little gray Honda Fit, a third of the way between Brooklyn and Louisville. Not sure if it’s the homey aroma of autumn hearth-blazes, or maybe a burgeoning forest fire.

Click here for the whole thing

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The Neurotic Of Today Is The Germ Of The Man Of The Future

Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller, just shootin the shit about living death, dream continuation, the romanticism of neurotics, and molecule rearrangement, among other heady topics. From Robert Snyder’s 1974 documentary Anaïs Nin Observed.

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Possible Concussion

Drunk Woman Is Tired, Pablo Picasso, 1902

At the local pub, a woman faints from too much beer and not enough food. Smacks the back of her skull on a stool. As her friend helps her into a chair, the bartender calls 911. When the EMTs arrive, one of them asks the woman for her name. “Why do you need to know?” she asks. “To see if you’ve had a concussion,” says the EMT. “Yeah but you don’t know my name,” the woman says, “so how do you know I’m tellin’ you the right answer?” “Just tell him your name, Jill,” says the woman’s friend. “OK, my name’s Jill,” says Jill.

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Graveyard Pinwheels

Eternity’s always slowest when it’s slimy-hot outside. How sweet to be laid in the shade with a pair of brand-new pinwheels cooling your plot.

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Surveillance

The False Mirror, Rene Magritte, 1928

I’ve been in kind of a rut lately, so I thought I’d shake things up a little. First, I bought a copy of “The Anarchist Cookbook” on Amazon. Then I called a bunch of my friends on my Verizon phone and ranted to their voicemails like “Let’s start a revolution against Big Brother and destroy the status quo!” and so on. Finally I went on 4chan and proposed that Anonymous should hack the White House and publish Obama’s browser history, or whatever it is Anonymous does. I was certain the government would quickly identify me as a potential threat to their surveillance-driven oligarchy, and my life would soon become much more adventurous and exciting.

Alas, I just received the following email from the NSA:

“Dear Mr. O’Brien,
We thank you for your interest in the United States Government, and are flattered by your desire to become an enemy of the state. Unfortunately, after careful examination, we have decided that you have neither the intelligence nor the influence to become a legitimate threat to us. Of course, we’ll still continue to monitor your every transaction and communication, and we wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors. But we thought we should let you know that we really don’t take you very seriously as an adversary.
Sincerely,
The Feds
PS – Your dog’s bowl needs fresh water.”

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We’re Making It Up

“Cynthia, World-Famous Mannequin – Making It Up.” Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images, 1937

We’re making it up… Us.  All of us.  All of it.  The, world, the universe, life, reality.  Especially reality… We make it up. We made it up.  We shall make it up.  We have been making it up.  I make it up.  You make it up.  He, she, it makes it up.

Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs And All

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Finally, Other People Want To Publish My Fictions

My short story “The Shortcut” has just been published online by The Rusty Nail.

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The Ruins Of Raceway Park

Photographs taken around Old Bridge Township Raceway Park

Englishtown, New Jersey, November 20, 2010

 

Demolished Car 1

Demolished Car 2

Demolished Car 3

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