Friday, November 26, 2010

being in and around...

It took the city extra time to wake up this morning. I drove down east 93rd and then through Shaker this morning and the sun was out but the world was still asleep and those who were awake were frantic in less economically depressed environs. I loved the way the November sun looks, the shadows, the signs of corner stores and storefront churches. I had my camera but I was alone in strange parts and there were enough stragglers that I didn't want to explain anything.

I took the sick kitty to the vet and it's been a long time since I've sat in an animal hospital waiting room. I wished I could take photos of the people and the pets without being creepy because it was just the best people-watching ever.

it really does seem to be true that the pet's looks reflect those of the owners... the crazy couple with the giant St Bernards on huge chains, yuppies with obscure purebreds, the hardcore punk looking guy across from me with the bulldog, high maintenance women with terriers, and elderly cat ladies with elderly cats. It was loud in there with the barking and meowing and I couldn't read the book I brought and don't know how the guy across from me was getting through "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" with all this noise.

I never go shopping on Black Friday but me & a friend of mine ended up at Pat Catan's in search of art supplies and I ended up getting some absurd and random Christmas gifts for my cousins, things that made us giggle like roaring dinosaur keychains, multicolored disco ball ornaments, and a giant inflatable Shamu. We drank coffee at Gypsy and pondered all the ideas and changes that have hit both me and her this year and then I met up with my sister, her mother-in-law and husband for dinner at a pub in Rocky River that was jammed with people who looked like they went to high school together.

They treated me for my birthday and we finished up at Half Price Books amused by puzzles with unicorns on them and I ended up scoring big in the dollar section of the CDs, came home with Astrud Gilberto, Quicksand's "Manic Compression," and Godspeed You! Black Emperor's "F#A#infinity" which is the perfect soundtrack for dark cold nights like these. The Youtube comments are ridiculous but I guess I have a thing sometimes for apocalyptic Canadian anarchists playing epic chamber rock, though seeing them live way back when was emotionally overwhelming to the point that I was dazed and thankful that my friend was able to drive me home.



I've been in a place where there's so much going on inside, it's really hard to explain, and that's when the music fills the gaps.

2 comments:

Toyin O. said...

Nice music, thanks for sharing. Black Fridays can be tough:)

Anonymous said...

from America Politica Historia, in Spontaneity by Gregory Corso

O this political air so heavy with the bells
and motors of a slow night, and no place to rest
but rain to walk—How it rings the Washington streets!
The umbrella’d congressmen; the rapping tires
of big black cars, the shoulders of lobbyists
caught under canopies and in doorways,
and it rains, it will not let up,
and meanwhile lame futurists weep into Spengler’s
prophecy, will the world be over before the races blend color?
All color must be one or let the world be done—
There’ll be a chance, we’ll all be orange!
I don’t want to be orange!
Nothing about God’s color to complain;
and there is a beauty in yellow, the old Lama
in his robe the color of Cathay;
in black a strong & vital beauty,
Thelonious Monk in his robe of Norman charcoal—
And if Western Civilization comes to an end
(though I doubt it, for the prophet has not
executed his prophecy) surely the Eastern child
will sit by a window, and wonder
the old statues, the ornamented doors;
the decorated banquet of the West—
Inflamed by futurists I too weep in rain at night
at the midnight of Western Civilization