this is a mess

i have to spit out this story, late as it is, because i haven’t got the ability to resist. mike stumbled in formal dress, late to the assembly of welsh nobility off in the distance. i like jumbled messes that modulate and assemble themselves gradually until they are crisp. soggy cereal gets me twenty-first chromosome down. i can only get up again when the cheerio in my heart is filled. at long last it has come in apple cinnamon, no citrus. my dreams are not spicy but sweet.

blueberry, i hardly knew thee

i was sniffing my dry erase markers today and found that blueberry wasn’t as crisp as she was before. part of her tip had been separated from the rest and had been peeled back like the scalp of a native’s enemy. i tried to fix her until i was blue in the hands but there was nothing i could do. now i am stuck with this guilty conscience and intermittent hypothermia on my fingers, both of which will endure as i mourn my loss.

historically swearing politely

i watched some of the united states inaugural proceedings today in an attempt to be stirred for the first time ever by witnessing history first hand. after president obama’s speech my insides felt noticeably better. i don’t think it was the content of his words that moved my stomach to unclench but rather his honest eyes. throughout his abbreviated history lesson and his rough sketch of the hard road ahead he consistently looked like believed his message of hope. and that is a good thing since hope is contagious but rare. i was quite moved when he mentioned nonbelievers in his laundry list of religions as i can’t remember any other president including that group of people before (although my memory only goes back to the end of reagan).

i was a little freaked out when mr. obama botched the oath of office twice, but i was told that in fact he doesn’t need to wait four years to do it over again and become president for real. all the same, it’s going to take a lot of horseshoes, salt, magpies, and bells to break this hex. and, luckily, i have three of those four hex-breakers right now for just such an occasion. i’ll pick up some salt on the way home.



UPDATE: the president has taken the oath again. i'm not sure what this means for my hex cure. i wonder if it will now re-hex the united states, causing a plague of horrible luck to rain down on our purple mountains. one thing is certain: justice roberts should leave the freestlye oath-ad-libbing to the bass from boyz ii men.

listening to landscapes

i watched a documentary about a man with severe synesthesia who sees numbers as three dimensional images with associated feelings. He sees the answers to complex mathematical problems as landscapes, and this helps him to solve these problems in unbelievably short periods of time. while i envy this ability, i think i would rather see sounds. i love numbers like i love the summertime but colorful music would be much more fun. it’s selfish, i know. i can just imagine seeing sigur ros’ “svefn-g-englar” and tearing up even as i smile. it would be worth the nightmare i’d see in diminished chords and the endless merry-go-round that pop radio would appear to be. i do wonder, though, if would have to stop listening to music as i fall asleep.

a whistling chill over my feeble flame

in an interview with harper’s arthur krystal restates that he simply cannot enjoy contemporary poetry, prose, or literary criticism because it does not have the ability to make him change the way he views the world. in essence, those art forms have run their course:

one has to be a genius, a veritable genius, these days to write an original and historically significant poem or novel. The same applies to painting and classical music. And by “significant,” I mean something that will not only astonish but will change forever how we regard the form. And as you know, I don’t think this is possible anymore. And this, too, is a function of age, the world’s age. When an art form is just emerging, when an aesthetic movement is still developing, genius isn’t necessary to create memorable works. Talent and knowledge are sufficient. Geniuses arise, of course: Beethoven, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Vermeer, Picasso, Joyce, but you’ll also find a great number of tillers in the field who do interesting work by virtue of the fact that such work hadn’t been done before.

i have not progressed to the muted, sepia-toned world arthur krystal must live in, but only because i am ignorant of many works of genius that, over the years, i have set aside for later consumption. krystal’s problem is a scary one, and his philosophy is depressing for anyone who fancies themselves a writer. does it make sense to try to fly with a four-foot ceiling? i suppose it does, but only if the few people lying on their backs looking up are enough. if you like the crisp air at a thousand feet then you have been doomed, once again, by the concept of time.

michael finnegan

repetition in life is inevitable. it only gets dangerous when it causes a person to pay less attention to (and eventually ignore) their daily lives. in this fashion huge blocks of time can be lost. relationships can be eroded. red flames can be cooled so gradually that their color appears not to change at all. whenever i feel time slipping like that i try to do something original. if i do something i’ve never done before i am sure to remember it. and if i remember things vividly then they can no longer be part of a slushy chunk of time lost in the past. most recently i conceived a short play in which none of the interesting characters were ever on stage and most of the monologues were poorly veiled advertisements for info-mercial products. here is part of act one:

GENEVIEVE: [sitting in a train car, sings] Look at these grizzled nine-to-five-ers! I am just the same. My hair is flat, my stomach fat, my taste in music lame. If only there were a d.v.d. to take me where I want to be… Oh wait! There is. It’s “Hip Hop Abs” created by Shaun T.!

i am hoping for a limited run off broadway.

51 weeks later

the very least that can happen in a year is nothing, give or take some expanding and contracting of the diaphragm. my least, however, expands upon this definition with bouts of worrying over aging and frequent recitations of passages from bret easton ellis. and even while i feared the least i dreamed of the most. but i never expected such a year as 2008. there were high wires and low tides but the sweet, chewy middles were something altogether different and special. i felt far away early in the year and yet so very close at the end. i met someone whom i love and i unmet lots of other people. i can only wish such a year upon you 2009.

after a year hiatus phlox loves arthur is back. it is genuinely sorry for any harm caused by its absence, and has already begun rosary penance. things to look forward to in the new year:

• new contributors
  
• thematic postings
  
• hangovers from overdosing on wit
  
• nudity
  

hold on to your wristbands everyone.