cake and pan toggles

to be sure, the Deadline is approaching! i am of the opinion that is has winged feet, or other means to so speedily chew through what i thought was quite a bit of time.

but it seems, as with most deadlines for me, that i do the best work at the end. maybe it is rush or maybe it is a need for closure (although i am wonderful at teasing anxiety out into finite tentacles and to savor each one in a sleepless night that wrecks me.) but whatever it is, they usual strange means of doing something Meaningful are upon me: no appetite, hipbones sharp like ploughs, watery sleep (although the moon last night is to blame, really), and manic scribbling of all kinds.

secretly i live for this hysteria, i think that's part of why RISD was so good for me, it said "forgo everything in  favor of this one small effort." and so I did. we all did, really.

and as I was hunting around for ways to bolster courage of any kind, this beacon blinked on and whirred

it is The Chromatic Typewriter(!)

And it paints- and...draws...and writes i imagine. it was submitted for the 2012 west prize competition and of course, as that's not yet happened, it doesn't seem necessary to use it as a means of justifying how brilliant the whole concept is.

So, a machine- a complicated one, heavy, cumbersome, maker of delicious sound and provider of crooked letters, broken ribbons, stuck keys and frustration. But this one with paints! And with keys mapped just so (pressing shift presumably allows the typer to toggle between colors.) there is no more tangible combination of word and image. this man paints loosely as is, but the typewriter imparts a kind of control that is otherwise inaccessible to an abstract process.

so it is a metaphor, for the ever-present issues of not looking but seeing. and at just the right time.

article 3 number 2

: :

Each man and his wet fist curl fiercely around

groves of standing candles.

(they are strangers.)

Each a stranded vessel

on the white throat

of flat water

among the traveling trees.

Some seas will still themselves in this way from time to time

and the thickening water, now mostly murderous mineral, will

flense the flesh of swimming things from their skeletons.

Thirst makes amnesiacs of everything, teeth drop out.

Each man's luminous chest,

in swimming postures of restless sleep,

will sometimes share

the other's dreams.

Of drowning in the glove darkness

of silt and decay just below trailing fingertips,

or of clear water breaking through skin

and, in reflection, blinding them.

Each will sway sometimes from his watch.

Roused by a hiss of singed flesh

or the bluely darkening bloom

of a clandestine bruise

he will look down to see,

striped in ash,

that in sleep he's put out the other's flames

with his own panicked breath.