Observations from the Road 1.22

When I got the bus this morning it was so effing cold, 12 degrees it said, and that's even too damn cold to smoke a cigarette. I know it got cold in the mountains but I never remember feeling this cold when I was there. Of course one can’t bundle up in parkas in the Village, it just doesn’t look good at all. The only other option is to wrap yourself in faux fur and look like a mongoose chasing a track rat down the street. Not that I haven’t seen this, I have, but damn if that’s going to be me.

Something the art geek in me thinks is important for you to know is the fact that I totally love the scent of color. So you are probably now wondering how color can have a scent but think about it. I get a head rush from a new box of crayons or the woody smell of new pencils. Painters will argue till the end of time which smells worse, oil or acrylic paints. I don't care who wins that argument because I like them both. Or maybe I just like the way my brain purrs after a day of painting and drinking Corona. Now don't even get me started on linseed oil.

After the Tuscon shootings I had wanted to write a post about guns and gun control but I never did. One thing I was going to admit was that I own a gun myself which is a long story that I'm not going to get into now. I haven’t touched it in years and I don't have it in the Village, which is kind of idiotic to add because if I haven’t touched it in years how was it going to get there? Besides just to apply for a handgun permit in NYC is $350 plus another $100 for fingerprints. Anyway I decided I need to do something so I am turning it in to get melted down or dropped in the tar pits or whatever it is they do with them. It may only be symbolic in a country as well armed as this but it’s something I think I to do it anyway.

On the bus home I was reading an article about Patti Smith in an old copy of ‘New York' magazine ("Remembrances of the Punk Prose Poetess"). It's a good article and worth a read and two things totally jumped out at me. The first is ".... an anti-feminist feminist icon who dressed androgynously, used dirty slang like William Burroughs, and argued that words like Ms. were “really bullshit,” as she said in 1976. 'Vowels are the most illuminated letters in the alphabet, and these assholes take the only fucking vowel out of the word miss. It sounds like a sick bumblebee, it sounds frigid.'” I like the way she speaks, sounds familiar to me. The second is just a quote from one of her band members, guitarist Lenny Kaye. “We’ve always had a little maxim, in our band, that the guardians of history are soon rewarded with history itself."

And where have you gone Keith Olbermann? Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

Bullet For My Valentine - Hearts Burst Into Fire