Pocket-Sized Pieces + Poems

A couple of weeks ago, mixed-media artist and good friend Liz Gardner debuted the first eight months of her Pocket-Sized Pieces series at the Hobbs Building open studios event. Basically, Liz is creating a small piece of artwork (roughly 3x3 inches, give or take) for every single day of this year, using thread, watercolors, ink, clear plastic, scraps of magazines and a variety of other materials.

While scanning in her pieces over the summer, I began writing accompanying poems in haiku form (technically, many of them should be called senryū) inspired directly or indirectly by each of her pocket-sized pieces, or PSPs. The poems are not intended to tie the PSPs to any specific interpretation, but rather to present some of the countless ways in which each piece can be considered.

The following is a sampling of PSPs from February, March and April and their accompanying poems. The goal is to put some kind of book or calendar together once they are all complete, in addition to an exhibit. If you like what you see here, be sure to check Liz's Web site to see some more examples of her art and keep up on upcoming events. Enjoy!

(Click on each piece to enlarge)

4/4

the rarest of birds
emerges through a red shroud
silently cooing

4/30

a golden collar
for the kitten with green eyes
and nine hundred lives

4/28

drink carafes of wine
find peace at the piazza
lazy Firenze

4/26

the heart of a dog
is easier to read than
the heart of a man

4/25

angry lover leaves
his laundry basket behind
on Liberty street

4/10

home appliances
forging dark alliances
in my new kitchen

4/12

social networking
interconnected lines show
just how I know you

4/1

vaginal machines
drones bearing pheromones in
service of the queen

3/9

glaciers on the go
projected trajectories
away from the poles

3/8

am Kurfürstendamm
returning from KDW
Kaufhaus des Westens

3/7

composition marked
by a lack of violins
but she still hears them

3/28

attention shoppers:
The Great Shopping Cart Face-Off
is about to start

3/26

escaped from the farm
a sentimental rooster
remembers childhood

3/22

following the flag
undaunted until you fall
off a precipice

3/19

rainbow rivulets
racing to the finish line
to snap the ribbon

3/18

ladies of the night
make a different kind of call
by the light of day

3/15

Earth's out of orbit
all the people in China
jumped at the same time

3/12

spin straw into gold
tell your secrets to no one
but the campfire

3/10

Cinderella team
searches for the right fit for
the silver sneaker

2/26

fair for the veggies
celebration of being
fare for the veggies

2/19

a square of lace torn
from the scrapbook of your past
life as a cherub

2/4

dismembered mallard
Nintendo's not innocent
for Duck Hunt victims

2/13

bloody sea serpent
what did you eat for breakfast?
anyone I knew?

2/15

your heart-shaped glasses
tinted windows to the soul
of a hot summer

2/20

seashells behind glass
tiny turrets, sea torches
on the diamond shores

2/2

swallow a snow globe
then get an X-Ray taken
it will look like this

2/28

mating rituals
between super guys and girls
involve lightning bolts

2/22

echolocations
leading to baroque caverns
black and red flowers

more information, videos and PSPs from January at www.lizgardner.com

Falling leaves and broken glass

So I found out what happened to my car window. It done got shot.

My neighbor Blue said she woke up at about 3:15 Saturday morning after hearing eight gunshots and looked outside to see police cars driving every which way. I wasn't sure the broken car window was related, but after the auto-glass folks pointed out a thumb-sized bullethole in the steel of the back hatch, it was pretty clear what happened. "This weren't no small bullet, either," they added.

I'm not sure how this makes me feel. On one hand, I feel bad about my car having been shot twice in less than a year. On the other hand, it's as if my minivan has unintentionally earned the street cred I've always lacked as a white suburbanite. Now I can drive around and listen to songs like this one by Ghostface Killah without worrying about being accused of doing so ironically. Nevermind the JoCo plates, my minivan has survived more slugs than 50 cent.

Speaking of Ghostface, while Jon and I listened to the skits on "Fishscale" this weekend, we were wondering what would happen if indie-rock bands tried to include on their albums the kinds of skits that are so prevalent on rap records. What would they be about? Would anyone take them seriously? It's not an easy question, but as always, you're free to discuss the matter in the comments section.

Rather than end on a violent note, I'd like to include a pair of November portraits:


This shot was taken by Megan after I purchased a bunch of glow things for 50 cents a pop at the CVS post-Halloween sale. By the way, have any of you ever been brave enough to break open a glow stick? I've always wanted to, but have been mortally afraid of doing so, to this day. However, I did hear that if you take shots of the glow-juice, your guts will light up, so that could be worth looking into.


I took this portrait of mystery leaf lady while walking through the woods of Weston Bend State Park, which is well worth a visit this time of year.

And while I'm sharing rap songs, I might as well include my favorite track by Outkast, 13th Floor/Growing Old. I thought about quoting the song's seasonally relevant lyrics here, but it's much more fun just to listen to.

Oh, and I didn't mean to suggest by the top photo that it was SuperArgo or Travis who shot out my car window. I just found the picture Jenn took of them at the old shooting gallery behind Blue Collar Press and thought it would fit the post nicely.

Take care.

To Galesburg...and back

I woke up on Saturday to find my back car windshield had been shattered the night before. As you might have noted from my last post, I was planning to drive to Illinois to visit brother James. Rather than let this latest act of mini-vandalism stand in my way, I duct-taped a shower curtain to the back of the car and drove there anyway. It's a little something I learned while working on my cousin's paint crew: how to implement solutions to problem areas.


The van drove fine, but as this photo demonstrates, the light of the sunlight through the semi-opaque makeshift window made it look as if we were high-tailing our way away from some kind of nuclear winter. As the space mask on the back seat indicates, I am fully prepared for such circumstances.

I've lived in Midtown long enough not to take petty vandalism personally, but I had to wonder what the motivation was. The last time my car window was broken it was at least under amusing circumstances. Some art kids, including a girl wearing bright pink hot-pants and a Russian fur hat, shot out the window with a bb-gun. They admitted it, apologized and helped pay for the thing.

This time, it seemed like blind violence -- at least until I remembered the sticker that's graced the lower left corner of the windshield for the past two years.


Now that I think about it, the kid does look like he's been kidnapped, and it only makes sense that some good-hearted drunk was doing his best to free the child from the suffocating clutter of my trunk. Bless his heart. I can hardly blame him.


So I'm getting the car fixed tomorrow, but I'm also considering alternate rides. Like a horse. Based on all the photographs I've seen of Kansas City in its boomtown days, horses were a vital part of having a vibrant downtown area. So if this whole downtown renaissance is really going to take place, we're in serious need of some steeds and people to ride them. And it would be really nice to ride a horse around town -- even kind of romantic. Though it probably wouldn't be so much fun for the horse.

On the way to Galesburg, John and I stopped in Lucas, Iowa to check out a few other alternate sources of transportation.

A motorsickle:


And a spaceship belonging to some non-specific nation states:

Our time in Galesburg was pretty fantastic. We fulfilled our mission of filming that night's performance by Ree-Yees, which blew both my mind and my right eardrum. I won't even try to describe it here, but once Jon's had some time to upload and play with the footage, I'll be sure to share it with you. Suffice it to say that Ree-Yees really kills it.

Little trivia question for you all: why is Ree-Yees (the character) named Ree-Yees? First person to comment with the right answer gets a free taco, in person or by mail.


We spent the rest of our time in Galesburg throwing the frisbee into some hedges, walking around town and eating at local hotspots The Gizmo and The Landmark, renowned for their value and their tastiness, respectively. We also stopped in the One Stop Smokers Shop, a cigarette store where you can buy booze, cigarettes and play deer-hunter. It really lives up to its name.

Later we visited the campus library of Knox College, a beautiful old building that houses some rare books, some really nice aristocratic-looking rooms and an abacus. The last time I was in Galesburg I spent a few hours leafing through books, but this time all we did was watch the Crank That Soulja Barney video, which I'm sure all those kids studying for finals really appreciated.

Knox College, by the way, has a pretty impressive history of public speaking. In addition to hosting one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the last three commencement speakers have been, in order, Barack Obama, Stephen Colbert and Bill Clinton.


The only problem with our ramblings through Galesburg was the unwanted attention we received from the local fuzz. After our walk through town on Sunday, a stern-looking officer got out of his car and asked Jon, "Any particular reason while you're walking all over town taking a crapload of pictures?" (he actually said crapload).

He said a female employee of the city had seen us taking pictures near the squad cars and sounded the alarm bell. We explained that photography is just a hobby and that we had no terroristic designs on the town, but it wasn't until he looked through our snapshots that he said what we had was fine. The whole thing reminded me of the mantra of new-wave poet/drummer Sun Moriarty:

"What we do. You and I. See something. Say something."


On the way home, Jon and I capped off the journey with the bangin' buffet at the Toot-Toot Family Diner in Bethany, Missouri.


If you'd like to see the complete set of photos Jon took during the trip, head on over to his flickr. Thanks to James, Eric and Alejandro for showing us a good time, and thank you for reading.


all photos in the post by Jon Allen, except for the one of olde Walnut Street

Road Trip

I'm driving to Galesburg, Illinois tomorrow with Jon to film a performance by Ree-Yees, the noise-rock duo that features my youngest brother, James, and his friend Eric. They're playing at some place called the P House, whatever that is. Eric was just featured in the Galesburg Register-Mail for his habit of setting up his drums in a field by the highway and banging on them with abandon. You can -- and should -- read that story here.


It will be a bit of a drive to west-central Illinois, but it's a nice time of year. If anyone wants to come along, just give me a call. We leave at the crack of dawn.

Photo credits: top photo is by me; photo of Eric by Bill Gaither. It pains me how small it is, but it's the best we got until tomorrow.

New Ghosty Video

New video for Ghosty's "I Can't Be Stopped" by Vamos.

Site-seeing

It's cold in Kansas City, and I'm washing down the temperature change with a nice bottle of economically priced port wine. It tastes a bit like cough syrup, but it goes down slowly and smoothly, so I can't complain.

As mentioned earlier, I'm sitting out from blogging activities for a few days, but that doesn't mean I can't recommend a few sites to visit for those with a few minutes and an eye for the original.

First of all, as far as comic blogs go, you can't do much better than Richard's Poor Almanac, maintained by Washington Post cartoonist Richard Thompson. Richard's daily comic, Cul de Sac, is one of the best reads in the paper today. You can read todays' Cul de Sac here, and find some additional comics and musings on his new blog, www.richardspooralmanac.blogspot.com. I got to join Richard and some of my co-workers for dinner last month, and he was kind enough to leave me what was left of his kung-pao chicken, which I devoured several hours later at 3:30 a.m.

Another worthwhile site featuring an entirely different set of sketches is "Pope-by-Pope," a daily sketch experiment carried out by Web designer/old roommate of mine, Matt Kirkland, in which he actually sketched every one of the past 265 Popes. Since the Popes date back to the time of St. Peter, Matt had to base his sketches on a variety of sources, including stained glass portraits and even mosaics. When we lived together, Matt was always building shelving units made out of giant plastic water jugs and scooters made of scrap metal, so it doesn't surprise me that he's taking on unusual subjects in his art. He also has a schnazzy site at www.mattkirkland.com, and does some freelance Web and industrial design. Matt is currently sketching all the U.S. presidents.


I've linked to a few artists lately, and I thought I'd close out my post today with a link to LittlePaperAirplanes.com, an online store and gallery featuring the prints, shirts, postcards and booklets from a variety of incredibly talented young artists. Little Paper Airplanes is based in Los Angeles and run by Silver Lake artist Kelly Lynn Jones, who I met at this year's comic con. Little Paper Airplanes is lots of fun.

Trees

I got stuck in a tree over the weekend and might not be able to blog for a few days. This happens sometimes.

There is a chance that I will have a guitar airlifted for the remainder of my stay, but I'd rather not risk transporting my laptop. Besides, the battery would not last too long.

Rather than leave my Monday readers high-and-dry, I had my hiking companion/rescue coordinator take down the first few lines of a Hoelderlin poem I felt was well-suited for the occasion. Unfortunately I could only remember the first two verses...

Was dämmert um mich, Erde! Dein freundlich Grün?
Was wehst du wieder, Lüftchen, wie einst mich an?
In allen Wipfeln rauschts,

Was weckt ihr mir die Seele? Was regt ihr mir
Vergangnes auf, ihr Guten! O schonet mein
Und laßt sie ruhn, die Asche meiner
Freunden, ihr spottet nur! O wandelt,

or, auf Englisch, courtesy of Michael Hamburger:

Why, Earth, around me glimmer your friendly leaves?
Why, little wind, as once do you breathe on me?
In all the tree-tops there's a rustling,

Why do you rouse my soul and stir up the past?
In me, you kindly ones? O be kinder still
And let them be, the embers of my
Joys! You were mocking me! Travel on then,

The poem, entitled Palinodie, has another few verses that you can read here. More interesting, I learned when reading about the piece that a "palinode" is a reversal of an earlier poem or statement. For some reason I'd never learned that.

Though I'd never consciously written a palinode of any kind, a likely subject arose in my path while hiking this weekend. I read on a placard that honeysuckle -- the plant whose appearance in midsummer always seemed to me so sweet, innocent and intoxicating -- is actually regarded as an invasive species in North America. It's sweet-smelling and attractive, but can hamper other growth.

See? I still learn things.

And lest you pick up the touch-tone and dial the volunteer fire department, I'll come out and admit that I'm not really stuck in any trees. I just might not post for a few days and thought I'd give a more interesting reason than an upcoming sales meeting.

Take care.

Fall and all

If you're trying to decide which of the million open gallery events to attend in Kansas City tomorrow, the biannual event at the Hobbs Building would be a good bet. Included in these open studios will be the first large-scale showing of Liz Gardner's "Pocket-Sized Pieces" collection. Some of my accompanying mini-poem/haiku-ish verses will be on display to complement Liz's fantastically intricate little pieces. The event goes all weekend, so stop by and see the Hobbs Building studios at some point if you get a chance.


Earlier this month I posted a few photos of murals in Kansas City, Kansas. It turns out these are the work of artist John Bonifacio Moreno, a Kansas City-based artist who has been traveling the globe for 17 years, doing murals and teaching art to urban youth. Mr. Moreno contacted me when he saw that I posted his mural pics, and I spent some time checking out his site, www.unmejormanana.com. There's some photo galleries up of his recent work, and a link to the trailer for his upcoming documentary film, "Un Mejor Mañana." Moreno says of his work:

"I want to create unique films and set up shots that share with the world how I see things. I want to awaken people who are asleep and bring them into another world, a world full of beauty and peace. I am especially interested in cultural issues and the struggle of the human soul. Through my documentaries & films I hope to help others better understand topics dealing with the psychic realm, faith, unexplainable events, the soul, spirituality, and life after death. I believe we create our own reality, whether it's good or bad."

Best of luck to John in his endeavors and a happy Día de los Muertos to all of you blog readers out there -- living or dead.

Finally, I'd just like to say Hello...

...to November