Bo's Request (an Art Thread)

[pan]

Been writing cover letters for job applications (two submitted yesterday). More of a movement artist than a wordsmith but, to get things started, here is something I wrote for Migrant, my section in Train.

Where is home?

Moved twelve times in the last 16 years. The transient in transit. Pierce Transit runs through it. Before I came here I was in Rush Limbaugh’s home town before I was surrounded by corn fed Norwegian bred Lutherans singing praise in perfect four part harmony to that Home on the Plain before I’m taken Home – Praise Jesus. I grew up in Iowa, Little Town on the Prairie an island afloat in the ocean of corn. Lived in SoCal, in the Desert where golf and plastic surgery reigns, might have the grit to stay in rainy Tacoma, but, I always say I’m from San Francisco - though I rarely visit anymore.

Home, where is home?

Home is where you are. Correction, home is where you and the two cats are.

What is home? That safe place. That place with love. I love that old car, it always brought me home. The ’75 Westphalia could be home. Or rather, the place that used to be home. Too old, too unreliable to be trusted anymore. Baling wire and duct tape. Just like the U-Haul I drive to the next place, hoping for home.

Searching for home. Migrants with heavy furniture. U-haul. Our orange travois with wheels keeps getting bigger. Full of stuff. Heavy Stuff. Stuff that anchors us. To a home of nostalgia. Anchors to a home that never really existed. That place. This is the place! Well bully for you Brigham Young. Bring ‘em young. Not young anymore, with more stuff each move to stuff in the moving van and every move leaves behind anchors that are mourned in passing.

A house burns down and the anchors are cremated and the past has passed on.

The bubble is burst. The house is on the market. The anchor is weighed. The trees we planted are left behind. Do the new owners love that Japanese Maple we planted as our 10th anniversary gift to our dream of home? Have they maintained the landscaping? Have any of the plants, the dreams, the love we planted been cared for in our absence? Or have they been torn up by the roots to make room for the next owners’ dream of home?

Where are the anchors? Is there a home port? Adrift. Without a home. Drift wood is picked up for beach fires to warm the beach rats without a home. Their shacks have been bulldozed like West Bank ancestral olive groves to make room for more condos and home-loving dreamers blowing a bubble. Pop!

[pan]

"That's mighty wight of you" has a very different connotation when the homophone "white" is utilized.

[waldopaper]

(English wight is considered a revival of the Middle English word), Germanwicht "dwarf, imp", Dutch wicht "little girl" and Norwegian vette "being, creature (especially supernatural)". 

[pan]

Is fear of homophomes homophobia?

[waldopaper]

Phonephobia, maybe. HERE is the April Fool post.  

we are approaching our own night and fog,,, and those of us who became elves for decades are going to want our little suits  "Sind wir nicht Knaben glatt und fein?  was sollen wir länger Schuster sein!"  Ain't we boys smooth and fine?  Why should we keep being cobblers?  Is this the Cobbler's Petition?  

Hell no- we want to be poets sulking in our tents.  "The little men have made us rich"  is said in Grimm tales.  Meanwhile don't mess up a good thing.  Black Union soldiers put on their suits too, but they didn't make to Gburg in time for the party.  The smooth fine white boys put on a hell of a show.  

Nobody thanked them for it until they started thanking themselves.  For what?  Who knows anymore.  Saving the Union?  Pursuing the Lost Cause?  Abe mojo wearing thin... of by and for what people?  Like all things for profit usually drive prophets away.  You are not a loan.  Everybody must get stoned.  

"We fight wars and talk gibberish to defend them," said the cobbler, "The hour is getting late."  So let us not talk falsely now.  It's time to offer many fine Volk here in Dominionist Krakkerland a nice hot cup of STFU.  See The Facts Unfolding... or something.  Otherwise the Volk will start breaking heads.  

They are already breaking our shoes with gibberish about lime in the coconut is somewhere in the Bible so we don't have to cater gay weddings.  Meanwhile the oceans are dying and the monetary system has collapsed.  So what did Jesus have to say about catering gay weddings?  Nothing?  Then STFU 

Night and Fog come innuendo and make magic shoes.   

 

[waldopaper]

Or maybe the cattle will go on strike.  Debtors' prisons are coming back.  We sure could use a paradigm shift... and the next person who says "game changer" will be beaten with a waffle iron.  

[BO]

At least the Nazi's were forthright in their ideology. The rising tide of American Christofascists have based their ideology on a perversion.     

[pan]

The black dog has grabbed ahold of Jo.  She has an interview for a job coming up (very big, very prestigious) and she just got forward an email from a "colleague" who was chair of the tenure committee that the search committee have contacted her for a reference.  We don't trust this woman at all.  Jo is feeling like her career has been terminated with no chance of resurrection - and my job offer isn't at a high enough salary to allow her not to work.  And she has a ACL reconstruction surgery coming up as well.

I really don't know how to deal with this dark cloud.  I wish I could make it go away but that isn't within my power.  Meanwhile I tire of the snipes made at me for the slightest irritation.

[BO]

Been there. As one of my many therapists would have said, 'Just remember, it isn't about you.' Take the bullets and give her space until she's recovered. Hard to do, as we manly men like to go into rescue mode and often end up making things worse.

I have no doubt that better things lay ahead for you guys.

[Mouse]

jolly good advice , Bo. all I would add to that is Thai chilli crackers with a glass of creamy milk followed by proper chocolate.

[pan]

Hard to find proper chocolate in the US but we managed. We have a couple squares each with a glass of red wine every night.  Using most of the milk to ferment kefir (got hooked on it in Latvia).  Thai chili crackers....gonna have to look a little harder to find those.

[pan]

Thanks BO.  I've been with her for over 25 years and I still take it personally even when I know better....  It is so hard to see such a strong and deserving woman being brought to such a low place precisely because she has always done her best.

[pan]

Jo came back from the 3 day interview exhausted but valued.  This is a faculty that seems to actually like each other and understand that what best serves the students and the art is far more important than massaging their own inadequate ego structures.

This is the first time after an interview she has reported that she felt like she did a good job.  Not counting on getting the job as these searches always have hidden confounding variables but it is great for her to get that reality check - quality people aren't threatened by quality people.