Home again from drinking, I find wonder! The Triad is, indeed, turned back on! Passing the time has become so troublesome, so I'll just have to settle for the little teasers that this fine blog offers me. You as well, I think. I don't, necessarily, want to write about it, but what's on my mind tonight is the aforementioned wonderful little Estonian girl. Under different circumstances, I would be crazy about her, and as such, I've had to work fairly hard to stifle that. However, her company on nights such as tonight is preferable to that of anyone else in this metropolis and keeping my mind platonic is a small price to pay for it. Whew, with that said, I can think again. Anyway...I have a tentative itinerary of where I'm going to be and when (subject to change at my whim, within reason) during the entire month of July, so I should work that into a postable form and publish it here, for all to see. I may also be taking volunteers along on parts of my journey, if anyone is so inclined, so once I get the schedule posted, let me know where you want to get on and off of this scrambler machine!
Oh, yeah, and the snowcave is back up, as well...
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
The Ghost of Ben Kenobi Weighs In
Tyler,
Never before have I been so morose/elated as when I found your three most recent posts and realized I'd missed their arrival. We've got to tell everyone that the triad is turned back on. I'm really excited for all of the potential this summer has for reuniting our disparate members. Your posts have thrown gasoline on this fire. This also came down the facepipe recently:
Remember when...
Between You and šunkový Chlebíček
šunkový Chlebíček
May 17 at 8:10am
...there used to be Sockey? Apparently other humans have also been practicing strange forms of large ball-n-sticks sports games. The New York Times wrote about it, so I guess that means it's officially part of our history.
What's new?
No game trumps Sockey.
Sarah
Peter Johnson
Today at 10:07pm
Dear Sarah,
It is true, a great era of sockey has lapsed into inconsistency, intermittency... lameness. However, I maintain the hope that sockey will again be played in its true form, perhaps even this summer... sometime in july??
I was really pleased to receive your letter and it set me thinking anthropologically about sockey and what it means. Sockey is a game of wonderful contradictions and blatant oppositions: the gentile-sporting and the obscene; the furious and the lackadaisical; the individual and the group; rule governance/constancy and spontaneity/unpredictability/impermanence; the human body and the ridiculous equipment of sport. It is the revelation of these oppositions and their manifestations and relative intensities in practical instances of field sockey that we experience as a grandiose play of sensational tension, emotion, exertion, release, rage, and hopefully catharsis. Etc. Etc.
Things churn on in PDX; for how long, few can imagine. I hope you've very well and thanks for writing. Let me know if you're going to ioway in the summatime... we're well past due for a bonfire/acidtrip/mate/weed/games/music/chatter sesh
yours,
Peter
More to follow...
P.S. Because Eric does not care, we'll make him anakin. You, Tyler can be Yoda.
Never before have I been so morose/elated as when I found your three most recent posts and realized I'd missed their arrival. We've got to tell everyone that the triad is turned back on. I'm really excited for all of the potential this summer has for reuniting our disparate members. Your posts have thrown gasoline on this fire. This also came down the facepipe recently:
Remember when...
Between You and šunkový Chlebíček
šunkový Chlebíček
May 17 at 8:10am
...there used to be Sockey? Apparently other humans have also been practicing strange forms of large ball-n-sticks sports games. The New York Times wrote about it, so I guess that means it's officially part of our history.
What's new?
No game trumps Sockey.
Sarah
Peter Johnson
Today at 10:07pm
Dear Sarah,
It is true, a great era of sockey has lapsed into inconsistency, intermittency... lameness. However, I maintain the hope that sockey will again be played in its true form, perhaps even this summer... sometime in july??
I was really pleased to receive your letter and it set me thinking anthropologically about sockey and what it means. Sockey is a game of wonderful contradictions and blatant oppositions: the gentile-sporting and the obscene; the furious and the lackadaisical; the individual and the group; rule governance/constancy and spontaneity/unpredictability/impermanence; the human body and the ridiculous equipment of sport. It is the revelation of these oppositions and their manifestations and relative intensities in practical instances of field sockey that we experience as a grandiose play of sensational tension, emotion, exertion, release, rage, and hopefully catharsis. Etc. Etc.
Things churn on in PDX; for how long, few can imagine. I hope you've very well and thanks for writing. Let me know if you're going to ioway in the summatime... we're well past due for a bonfire/acidtrip/mate/weed/games/music/chatter sesh
yours,
Peter
More to follow...
P.S. Because Eric does not care, we'll make him anakin. You, Tyler can be Yoda.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
I'm on my way...
Things are more solid. Not concrete yet, but more solid. I poured the cement and I'm working on making it harden faster. I have the Jeep to drive me across the country and to all of your doorsteps. I also have the motorcycle to make myself grin. Now I just need to wait until the end of the month when I'll have enough money to get a hitch rack to put the motorcycle on the back of the Jeep. Time, I guess. The hardest part of concrete is the waiting...
On that note, I am looking forward to seeing you all again so much that the waiting has become unbearable. In your natural habitats no less! It's not a reunion back in Iowa around a camp fire in the Johnson's backyard, though that would also be awesome, and will also happen, though not all of you will be there. You will be in spirit. It'll be like Return of the Jedi where we're all partying and Peter, Eric and...Sarah, I guess...are standing in the background somewhere looking like holograms, smiling in their humble Jedi garb. It's been a long time since I've seen all of you and if you've changed nearly as much as I have since then, I'm especially excited to meet you all, all over again...
On that note, I am looking forward to seeing you all again so much that the waiting has become unbearable. In your natural habitats no less! It's not a reunion back in Iowa around a camp fire in the Johnson's backyard, though that would also be awesome, and will also happen, though not all of you will be there. You will be in spirit. It'll be like Return of the Jedi where we're all partying and Peter, Eric and...Sarah, I guess...are standing in the background somewhere looking like holograms, smiling in their humble Jedi garb. It's been a long time since I've seen all of you and if you've changed nearly as much as I have since then, I'm especially excited to meet you all, all over again...
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Lacks substance, but a placeholder is better than nothing...
I've reached one of those points in life where events happen fast enough to leave a sunburn but yet I feel like the lethargic, plodding steps of time are slowly bleaching my mind. Yesterday, I worked for several hours accidentally, bought a Jeep, was confronted with the fact that, for once in my life, the last thing I need right now is a wonderful little Estonian girl to kiss, and then went home and got ridiculously stoned for the first time in years (mostly because I wasn't entirely sure about that previous decision). This morning, while I was fashioning a new window for my Jeep out of plexiglass, I suddenly realized that it's only the twelfth of May. A month and a half. That's how much longer I have before I leave. A month and a half ago, Portia and I were still together and I had no inkling of any of this. Have you ever seen The Cell? You know that part where J.Lo is in Vincent DiNofrio's mind and she falls into that chasm where she is caught by water that isn't really there and her descent slows as she sinks in the water and then speeds up again when she reenters not-water? That would be a pretty good analogy. At least I exist in a time where I can carry absurd amounts of mood bending audio in my pocket. Reclaiming my Mac and thus rediscovering my music collection has been pure joy. The AKG studio headphones that I picked up from work have helped as well.
Saturday, May 09, 2009
The format is there, but I just can't bring myself to write installment fiction...
All of the things that I spent so much time wanting to do once the weather allowed have apparently been erased from my mind. Now that I know I'm leaving, I simply can't remember them. I guess, really, I should compile a list of things I want to do before I leave the city and just make them happen. Oh, wait...those are the same things that I've been trying to remember since I decided to leave. Well, at least I'll leave the city with some regrets. I'd hate to believe I'd accomplished everything there was to accomplish in this giant fucking matrix of retards.
Apparently, I've rediscovered the proper level of discomfort for writing. As though the perfect combination of boredom, loneliness and intoxication are stimulating that certain part of my brain that makes the words flow. The main problem with this being that it results in something more likened to sticking my finger down my throat rather than the well thought out escapism that I so elaborately plan on writing. I started working on a project a few months ago that I hoped would eventually form itself into a novel, though now it's fins seem a bit lethargic and it's tank has a weird green film everywhere. It's the story of Jeremiah Kyzlasov's survival in a possible post-apocalyptic Chicago, subsequent realization that, although the landscape could sustain them, the still relatively high population density is too much of a threat to his small community and their eventual trek out of the city to open, fertile lands where they can thrive. Intertwined, of course, with detailed instructions and diagrams on how to recreate all of their solutions to living without reliance on the unseen trappings of society. Basically, a survival guide and an apocalypse novel all wrapped up into one. The Journals of Jeremiah Kyzlasov, at it's most successful, would make ordinary humans, still woven into the fabric of civilization, realize that there are better ways to accomplish everyday tasks in a new, more efficient way, rather than continue to rely on our shrouded caste system of proletariat morons and gluttonous profiteers. Oh, look, now I've begun to rant. The problem with all of this is that, although Jeremiah's exploits are still in the making, so are those of his uncle Travis. Perhaps they should combine forces...
It's not late enough and I'm not drunk enough for me to stop writing just yet. Though, not in this vein...
Apparently, I've rediscovered the proper level of discomfort for writing. As though the perfect combination of boredom, loneliness and intoxication are stimulating that certain part of my brain that makes the words flow. The main problem with this being that it results in something more likened to sticking my finger down my throat rather than the well thought out escapism that I so elaborately plan on writing. I started working on a project a few months ago that I hoped would eventually form itself into a novel, though now it's fins seem a bit lethargic and it's tank has a weird green film everywhere. It's the story of Jeremiah Kyzlasov's survival in a possible post-apocalyptic Chicago, subsequent realization that, although the landscape could sustain them, the still relatively high population density is too much of a threat to his small community and their eventual trek out of the city to open, fertile lands where they can thrive. Intertwined, of course, with detailed instructions and diagrams on how to recreate all of their solutions to living without reliance on the unseen trappings of society. Basically, a survival guide and an apocalypse novel all wrapped up into one. The Journals of Jeremiah Kyzlasov, at it's most successful, would make ordinary humans, still woven into the fabric of civilization, realize that there are better ways to accomplish everyday tasks in a new, more efficient way, rather than continue to rely on our shrouded caste system of proletariat morons and gluttonous profiteers. Oh, look, now I've begun to rant. The problem with all of this is that, although Jeremiah's exploits are still in the making, so are those of his uncle Travis. Perhaps they should combine forces...
It's not late enough and I'm not drunk enough for me to stop writing just yet. Though, not in this vein...
Friday, May 08, 2009
Contents Subject to Change, As Needed
It's time to end this drought. Therefor, I'm here to relax the muscles and wet the ground with a diarrhetic torrent of mental sewage.
Externally, I continue to thrive in Chicago at a price. Enjoying my ever-accelerating thrift store empire and the deluge of must-haves that wash ashore has grown old. You can only possess so many antique gas masks and sets of custom tailored prosthetic legs before you decide that the sight of one more copy of Iococca by Lee Iococca is going to set off a chain of events that you refuse to be responsible for. This is amplified by the process of shedding such priceless garbage. Getting rid of a home filling amount of other people's trash that you once imbued with monetary value really makes you think. All of the hours of my life spent on this bit of junk and that, for I prefer to convert straight from units of time to objects of detritus exchanged for such time. That movie cost me ten minutes of my life and then another ninety-eight because it sucked.
I had a dream some time ago where I was living in a Morton shed on a small plot of land surrounded by trees. In the rear section of the shed, I had erected a humble kitchen and living area topped with a sleeping loft. The rest of the space was taken up with tools and workspace where I welded sculpture, repaired machinery, spat in the face of science and whatever else a Mad Engineer would find himself up to. It was beautiful. I'm not entirely sure how much of this was the original dream and how much of it has been romanticized in the following weeks. Since the initial dream, I've really fleshed things out in my daydreams. Wind generators made from old steel barrels and the biggest electric motors I can find, rewound to accommodate the added magnetic poles. An enormous wood burning oven/kiln/furnace/forge made from clay bricks hand formed from the nearby creek bed, complete with spinning chimney cover to capture the escaping heat and return it back into the system in the form of just enough electricity to power a thermostat and an automatic flue. A small grove of bamboo out back as quickly replenishing fuel? Okay, so there are some things that I still have to work out. It's become my "five year plan". As a person who finds "five year plans" repulsive, I can now understand their purpose, I guess.
Internally, the city has become a wasteland. Where I saw potential and untapped resources only months earlier, I now see uselessness and worthless cretins. There are still gems among the wreckage, but only in the form of people. I am not a city boy by nature and I think I've leveled up in Urbanity significantly since I got here, but it's soon going to really detract from the rest of my experience points. However, quitting cold turkey is not an option either. Not because I find myself addicted to city life, but because the concept of land ownership has become such a perverted and protected notion in these fine United States.
All of this in mind, I have been confronted with a decision that I have to make. Not a simple this or that decision, mind you, but an open ended, nigh rhetorical self-imposed question as to just what in the hell I'm going to do about this. I pride myself as a decisive person, but this isn't the sort of thing you can just proclaim. So, I plan. A plan is really no more than a fluid decision and my fluid decision is to leave this city, diddle around the country side for a month and arrive in a different, smaller city. The former being Chicago, IL and the latter being Eugene, OR. If you're reading this, I hope I spend some time with you on my way.
Externally, I continue to thrive in Chicago at a price. Enjoying my ever-accelerating thrift store empire and the deluge of must-haves that wash ashore has grown old. You can only possess so many antique gas masks and sets of custom tailored prosthetic legs before you decide that the sight of one more copy of Iococca by Lee Iococca is going to set off a chain of events that you refuse to be responsible for. This is amplified by the process of shedding such priceless garbage. Getting rid of a home filling amount of other people's trash that you once imbued with monetary value really makes you think. All of the hours of my life spent on this bit of junk and that, for I prefer to convert straight from units of time to objects of detritus exchanged for such time. That movie cost me ten minutes of my life and then another ninety-eight because it sucked.
I had a dream some time ago where I was living in a Morton shed on a small plot of land surrounded by trees. In the rear section of the shed, I had erected a humble kitchen and living area topped with a sleeping loft. The rest of the space was taken up with tools and workspace where I welded sculpture, repaired machinery, spat in the face of science and whatever else a Mad Engineer would find himself up to. It was beautiful. I'm not entirely sure how much of this was the original dream and how much of it has been romanticized in the following weeks. Since the initial dream, I've really fleshed things out in my daydreams. Wind generators made from old steel barrels and the biggest electric motors I can find, rewound to accommodate the added magnetic poles. An enormous wood burning oven/kiln/furnace/forge made from clay bricks hand formed from the nearby creek bed, complete with spinning chimney cover to capture the escaping heat and return it back into the system in the form of just enough electricity to power a thermostat and an automatic flue. A small grove of bamboo out back as quickly replenishing fuel? Okay, so there are some things that I still have to work out. It's become my "five year plan". As a person who finds "five year plans" repulsive, I can now understand their purpose, I guess.
Internally, the city has become a wasteland. Where I saw potential and untapped resources only months earlier, I now see uselessness and worthless cretins. There are still gems among the wreckage, but only in the form of people. I am not a city boy by nature and I think I've leveled up in Urbanity significantly since I got here, but it's soon going to really detract from the rest of my experience points. However, quitting cold turkey is not an option either. Not because I find myself addicted to city life, but because the concept of land ownership has become such a perverted and protected notion in these fine United States.
All of this in mind, I have been confronted with a decision that I have to make. Not a simple this or that decision, mind you, but an open ended, nigh rhetorical self-imposed question as to just what in the hell I'm going to do about this. I pride myself as a decisive person, but this isn't the sort of thing you can just proclaim. So, I plan. A plan is really no more than a fluid decision and my fluid decision is to leave this city, diddle around the country side for a month and arrive in a different, smaller city. The former being Chicago, IL and the latter being Eugene, OR. If you're reading this, I hope I spend some time with you on my way.
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