Fact: On this day in 1904, Fats Waller was born in a building on a city corner which would eventually become a video store.



Bonus! Sesame Street version with animation by the incredible Sally Cruikshank!

Addendum/Pudendum: I love Mia Farrow.

A handful from the box in the corner of my apartment. All I can tell you is that they come from my step-great-grandfather.

This entry was going to be called Slides For Nobody, referring to the strangeness of unknown pictures, unknown people, unnamed landscapes and buildings.

But in just one picture, I found my father.

Dear Dream-Me,

    While we rarely break the consciousness wall of communication between us (unless I have a crazy story to tell about you: "Dream-Me was a rodeo clown!"), I feel I must quit this radio silence to discuss an issue with you.  As it has been years (3, in fact) since I have ever had to sit down and do math homework, I would greatly appreciate it if you could get over this increasing loop of math-related anxiety scenarios.   It's silly, when we could be spending our time on other, more interesting matters: lion-taming, flying, talking to dead authors, traveling through Oz.  You see?  Perhaps you can't do this alone, so I'm extending my hand.

Ideas:
    -a Dream-psychoanalyst or therapist (or analrapist).  Doesn't have to be Freudian.  In fact, I think I'd prefer it if he wasn't.  Jungian, yes.
    -focusing on some other anxiety.  Public nudity, perhaps.  Doesn't really annoy me that much, and sometimes pretty funny upon awaking.
    -Dream-math tutoring.  If this is the route you're going to go, you can at least get some super-professional help from famous mathematicians, like... erm... Mr. Peabody?

Please take the time to consider these and keep the dialog open.  I promise to not go all Heather Langenkamp on you.

Respectfully your Dream-Me,

Zac

Tom Waits. Tulsa. June 25th.

You don't even understand.

Elvis Costello, Janet Jackson, Ben Folds.

I'm retired now, all four of them. Mechanics say "bald" with such disdain, and don't understand at all when I ask if they can just be combed over for a bit.

Pinky ears and pinky receding hairline, though I don't feel so utterly vampiric. Frisbee, a mountain of turkeys, and saying hello to a three-legged dog.

I want to have an art attack.

I read several short stories which used the word "burbled."

Playing Scrapple with my family while watching old ANTM reruns. My favorite moments are when Tyra explains "You were like this." She makes face A. "You need to be like this." She makes face A, but squints her eyes just a little.

Phonecall to my friend!

I'm better. I found my old glasses and now they're my new glasses. Old-new glasses? New-old glasses? Right? Write.

Leaving the library yesterday, I swizzled down the gentle curves of the sidewalk. Noticing a gleam in the wet grass right near the edge of the concrete, I abruptly stopped and gazed down. Something was moving not two inches away from my black-shoed right foot! And I immediately thought "Yow, that's one, big scorpion!"

But he wasn't a scorpion; he was a crawdad (crawpappy? crawfather? crawmom? crawcousin? crawprogenitor? crawncestor?). I knelt down and said hello. He peered up through beady little eyes. I told him that he was quite a ways from the creek bed, and he waved his pincers in agreement. By then it was time for me to take my leave. We both waved goodbye.

After my dad died and I had written a play loosely based upon the life of Sequoyah which was performed by my fourth-grade class, my mother got the position of director of the Ada Arts & Heritage (helpful exterior picture here). It had been the public library, and was imposingly colonial, a marble rotunda, and multiple rooms full of formal furnishings. So I would lounge on couches of seafoam green, reading my Poe and Dickens and L. Frank Baum, watching folks set up for events--weddings, dinners, art shows, DARS meetings. But the room of complete power was upstairs. Upstairs is always a magical place for children, drawing and calling for little footprints.

Only one room, it had the feeling of a board room. A big table dominated the center, and one could almost see cigar-chomping small-town-big-fish talking free trade and corn futures. Perpetually dim-lit, the room was a museum within a museum, tables and walls colored with beyond-yellowed photographs and books and memorabilia, which my tiny eyes could never associate with anything specific, only age.

But the most important feature of the room was the most disturbing for me. Standing firm and staunch at the end away from the stairs were two figures--bride and groom, absolutely headless. Stiff sleeves with no digits, no hands, no rings. Being somewhere around four feet tall, I was still under the height of these Washington Irving castoffs, and warily tried to look away. I couldn't help but imagine heads and hands gone. Scars? Glasses? Firey red eyes? Although it was one of my favorites, Beetle Juice never helped--Alec and Geena's promised amiability added sad history to headlessness. I'd often snuggle some stuffed animal in my bed, listening to the peacocks crying "Help!" and wonder if those clothes animated at night, holding hands and dancing above that boardroom table.

Fig 2. - In such curious Cuban confusion, one hombre is waiting in the wings to step in.

Yesterday a patron requested Donde Viven Los Monstruos. Whilst checking it out to her, I stated, "Es muy fantastica," pointing my index finger dramatically towards the ceiling, "y misterioso."

"Si," she said, nodding her head, "si."

Entry Divider Entry Divider Entry Diver Denty Reviver

Sure-fire Strategies For Duck, Duck, Goose:

Offensive
-An immediate and unexpected "Goose!"
-At least forty or fifty indecisive "Ducks..." followed by a "Goose!"
-goose... i guess
-Act as though you've forgotten the word, and whenever everyone reminds you, "Duck," craftily utter, "Oh yeah, Goose!"
-A crazy, super-extendo arm, allowing for awesome reach (calculated reach awesomosity)
Defensive
-Amazingly thick headgear so one can feign unawareness whenever tapped
-Condensing the game to just two people; other player's within arms reach
-An "understanding"
-Upon group-sit, subconsciously directing everyone into more of an oblong, resulting in long straightaways, where one can gain track
-Taking advantage of the Goose's natural abilities, namely the squawk, for surprise--practice at home, or remember to bring an airhorn

The best part is the end.

Good news for PRaniacs (Runway Projectors? PR People? Kluminaries?). Last night's episode was great: Chris won, Christian seemed cool for once, "and I've known some Fierce bitches," and Ricky was sent off to a waiting wading pool of his own tears. Luckily he had just the orange bathing suit for the occasion!

Fig. 1 - Portman sporting a rakish moustache on the new cover of Flash Art

Things Which Bear a Mysterious Link That Eludes You and Me:
1. Peeking out my blinds this morning, I was afraid it had sniced last night, but it was just snow, maybe a snizzle, but certainly not a snownpour.
2. Listening to some internets radio yesterday and Fraud in The '80s came on and on my bulletin board Elvis Presley (wearing gold lame and balanced by crotch on a pin) liked it so much he jumped off.
3. Exercising my rights, I wore my "I Voted Today!" sticker all day yesterday, but kind of wished that I got a sticker that said "I am a Superfat Tuesdanian?"
4. It's so important to court the fictional place vote. For fictional electorates, of course.

"I've been entertained and inspired by Garrison Keillor's work through the years," Obama said in a statement. "As president, I will wake up every day thinking about how I can help make life better in places like Lake Wobegon all across the country."

And apparently Chabon wrote a discussion for some internet newspaper website that I can't see because I'm not registered--here's where the promise of the internets breaks down.

5. My three hundred two volume project is coming to fruition tonight and I'm sort of sad to see those brown hardcovers go. Empty Book Nest? I remember watching that show with my mom when I was a kid.
6. When the clime gets more tropicalian, I must find a tree for my lunches and compose songs on my mandolin whilst eating avocados and two ideas of my own design (don't tell anyone, please--you're sworn to secrecy now): pizza soup and pizza burritos.

For future reference, creating a crossword puzzle is a labor of love (I have no idea what that means either). Print it out and take a vocabular stab at it. Answers to be posted eventually? I am Ron Burgundy?



( Latitudinal? )

( Longitudinal? )

Notes on a lost weekend--

Took a vacation from weekendery and barely left my apartment, instead

-reading a regency novel that had a cockfight in it
-drawing a strange monster character
-dancing in socks and underwear to Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
-putting up curtains in my bedroom and managing to not hit my thumb with the hammer (a small victory, but I assure you, it counts)
-turning on my Christmas lights and watching an episode or two of Jeeves and Wooster on my laptop
-playing my mandolin improvisationally (note to self: learn more than three chords), though I did play it to one of my Devo albums sock-scooting across the floor, twisting into those beautiful mando-chops
-reading the first four years of Doonesbury
-sleep sandwich
-watching from my second storey window
-composing a letter to _________

* * *

Postscript- Oh, and I saw you called. Didn't miss anything exciting, did I? Like an impromptu moustache contest, or some sort of circus fight? You know how I love both.

Postpostscript- My mom goes to court this week, against a crazed neighbor. Please wish her well for me.

Postpostpostscript- You can now choose whether your entries have adult content (grown-up stuff)? Do I ashamedly check "Adult concepts" because my entry includes the admission that I read old Doonesbury strips? Or is the image of a Zac in socks and red briefs, prancing around to R&B music simply too much for the younger mind's eyes? Who am I kidding? I'm such a seven-year-old.

Postpostpostpostscript- And when I was seven I drew the letter "O" with either a line or a dot in the center, because I figured it should look vaguely like an overripe doughnut or a great googley eye...

Postpostpostpostpostscript- And my favorite musician was Mr. Roy Orbison.

One of the most impressive statements ever made on Project Runway--a well-deserved win for Christian and Team Fierce! I was kind of impressed with him Wednesday, even though he does have a squid-arm.

Ricky-Jo-Jo ( Follow the cut for my helpful illustration! ) apparently has made human sacrifices to the god of stupid hats to continue to be on the show. Either that, or he's sleeping with Michael Kors, which I don't like to think about...



Ricky and Sweet P are the kisses of death on team challenges--I was genuinely worried for Rami.

Vladmir and Estragon wait in New Orleans.

(If I had a real monster in my closet I think I'd leave him cookies, but the imaginary one at least gets imaginary cookies, made with imaginary flour, but real chocolate chips.)

Z A C A T T A C K Z A C A T T A C K

-ididn'tsleeplastnightidon'tknowwhy
-Zodiac is a fine film, but why did they make Roger Rabbit so scary in it?
-INLAND EMPIRE is Goodnight Moon but with terror, and unmitigated Laura Dern.
-A coworker gave me a bottle of wine last week, Vintner's Reserve and everything, and it marks the first alcohol across my apartmental threshold, as is apparent because I lack a corkscrew, or a slithy tove, which would be useful in its stead.
-I got a haircut the other day ("Which one?" is anticipated.) and read I Am America (And So Can You!). Coincidence? Perhapsably (which is a word I've been cooking up for my Zactionary--needs more spice).

And Christmas morn, sugarplum faeries flittered away as I padded downstairs (and into my car to drive to my grandparents' house where we exchanged gifts) and what did I see?



I don't have a name for it yet, but for a few tics I've toyed with cleverly naming it after .

But I think that only one person who reads this will get it and everybody else will just think it corny.

Highlights:

5. Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski
9. The Annotated Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll
21. Lost Girls by Alan Moore
23. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer - Although somehow I still like it better as Extremely Loud & Incredibly Up Close
24. People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia
25. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
29. Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
31. Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling - The best of the series. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, need I say more?
47. The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius - The Spears Dynasty hasn't got anything on Caligula, Nero.
61. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy - Extra points for having a main character named Llewellyn (Simpsons reference anyone?)
64. Child of a Rainless Year by Jane Lindskold
66. The Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan
69. The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer
75. The Purple Book by Philip Jose Farmer
92. Shadow & Claw by Gene Wolfe
99. Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell
107. Pastoralia by George Saunders
110. The Breast by Philip Roth