Archives : all posts by Dan

John Prine - "Everything Is Cool"

Miguel's cat walked across his keyboard and his windows went all crazy for a second. "Woah!" he said, "Are you still there, Rosa?"

Rosa was still there. "Is that Manojo? How is he?" Rosa looked small in the frame of his computer screen. As if the computer were at the top of a tall shelf. She looked like a child peeking over a candy counter.

"He is fine," said Miguel, petting hard on Manojo's back, pushing him down to the desk. He looked at the large crucifix on the wall behind Rosa's head. Her parents' house was still the same.

They spoke in not many words, but they talked about many things. About when he would visit next, when he might be able to send money, how his job was going, about where he thought it might be headed. He said he was thinking about going to school, but really that was all he could think to say about his life. They talked about that for a while, and his mind wandered. He picked up a piece of paper that he had written on when he was drunk one night:

"Rosa," said Miguel, after one of the many small silences, "I've got something to tell you."

Jimmy Durante - "We're Going UFO'ing"

--story, Christian militia groups such as The Hutaree are gaining ground politically in states like Michigan and Louisiana. Enlistment has doubled in the last three weeks, and the recent slaying of 8 police officers has yet gone unpunished but many believe The Hutaree to be respon--

click. "We should get some fireworks," said Abby, her bare feet up on the dash. Miguel looked at her and then back at the road. "It's late, everywhere's closed." They drove fast in the warm June night. The black trees on black sky cut the stars like little zoetropes. It was a community rental car, not meant to be taken out of the city, which just made it more exciting.

"Where do you want to stop?" she asked, looking through the few small books she brought. He smiled, "Anywhere you like."

Daft Punk - "Veridis Quo"

Beneath the sky and the stars, the moon and the trees, in a clearing on a soft hill, they began to make love. They were in one zipped-up sleeping back, and Miguel was a big man already, it was tight and funny and they were giggling. His pompadour had fallen back, it was just hair now.

"Which one do you want to do?" Abby had brought a small brown book with her. He bit his fingernail, he tried not to let on, but he was nervous. "What are the choices?"

"Health and Happiness of the Family, Money, Fertility, I don't think we want that one," she put her forehead on his shoulder and held up the flashlight. "Death to an Enemy, yikes, Communion of Partners, Communion With Goddess, Strength of Mind and Body, Freedom From Illness, Third Eye Sight, and a bunch more that look boring."

"Hmmm," said Miguel, "I don't know. Can we do more than one?" He silently hoped that maybe, doing two at once, they would somehow cancel each other out and nothing would be at risk. He had purposely started leaving his chain with the crucifix on his desk.

"I don't see why not. Let's do Freedom From Illness and Communion of Partners," she said and kissed his neck. He thought about meeting her at the flu clinic, how she had been holding a similar-looking book that day, "Sounds good."

She breathed the words silently to herself a few times, committed them to memory. They kissed and made love as they usually did, happy and diligent in their work.

As things progressed and began to crest, Abby repeated the prayers, the incantations, out-loud, full-voiced and confident. KAYNOCH! VLATA! AITHIR! MNAGHO! ES NIC VITUS HECULT! REMANASHI VAHT! Miguel thought that any animals nearby must be scared by this, at least as scared as he was. But eventually all that was forgotten as the humming blindness of a climax came to blur their senses. And as it happened the whole air, the whole forest seemed to bend sharply to a breaking point, and hold there. Bend to a crease, bend backwards over themselves, suddenly they came snapping back to position, as if nothing. They opened their eyes, kissed, smiled, and both breathed a heavy sigh.

The book lay in the wet dew on the grass, the cover starting to curl with the wetness. "Abiguel," said Abby, smiling at the stars.

[Buy The Missing Years]
[Buy Brain in a Box]
[Buy Discovery]

Elton John - "Bitch is Back"

Miguel hadn't made love since Rosa. With Rosa it was quiet and intense and there was a lot of "okay?" and "are you sure?" but it was warm and it always went on for a nice long time. With Abby it was much louder, and much faster, and there was even laughing. It was over quickly so there was room for a lot of things around the love-making that they could do.

"I'm studying Occult history right now," said Abby, out of breath and her bangs stuck to her forehead with sweat. She lay her head on Miguel's chest. "Do you know about Sir James Fite?"

Miguel kissed the top of her head and thought about Rosa, who always talked about food right after sex, "No."

"Lemme read you this," she flung herself to the far side of the bed and reached desperately for the thin brown book on the night table, smacking her hand on it as if it were a 6am alarm.

Miguel laughed and put on his underwear, feeling suddenly naked and a bit odorous now in the cold light of the room.

"Fite then made his way through the Orient to find new spices for his dark magick, staying in small villages along the way. At every stop, he would take a local girl as his mistress during his stay, testing his magicks and improving his craft on these young women."

Abby hadn't made love since Kevin, almost a year ago, and she was elated to find it was like riding a bike. "Can you believe that? 'He would take a local girl..' as if it were that simple, he must have left a wake of broken hearts." She said, folding the book back and placing it on the night table. Miguel was now up and looking at the framed photos on her desk. One of them had her and Kevin in it.

"Is that what you're doing with me?" she asked, smiling, naked, happy and proud. Miguel looked back at her and smiled, "Maybe."

Sparks - "Tryouts for the Human Race"

In the Nature of Science Museum, Abby was visiting her friend Laura. Laura is a 6th grade teacher, and was on a field trip to the museum with her kids. Laura is so busy with her job that field trips are often the only times her and Abby are able to see each other. Abby has tagged along on so many field trips now, that a kid one time asked "are you sisters?"

In the Undersea Bubble, they were looking at coral life and shallows-dwellers and were bathed in blue light. "So have you said 'boyfriend' yet?" asked Laura. Abby laughed, curling her hair behind her ear and stooping her head under the leg of a giant crab, "No. It's not there yet."

Laura used her teacher voice on some kids, don't bang on the glass, and language. "What does he look like?"

Abby paused. "Like Elvis. Like a Colombian Elvis." She thought he might be disappointed to hear her say that.

"Woah," said Laura, "not your usual type."

"I know," said Abby, and they moved slowly through to the Steam Engine section. The front of a big iron train loomed before them.

"What do you want from this?" Laura looked through her purse for lip balm as they entered the train, following the red cordoned path. She caught a couple of her kids with their hands in each other's back pockets, hey you two, knock it off.

"I guess I want to be someone else," said Abby, she looked at the switches and dials and the little chair for the conductor. People were much shorter back then. Or at least they could fit into much smaller places. "I'm sick of falling into the same patterns in relationships, I want to be the person I want to be and not the person that I usually am, you know?"

Laura nodded, "Yeah, I know," and they came out the back of the train engine, headed next to Water Purification. "It's a shame I don't think I'll get to meet him." Laura had been offered a job in the States and would be leaving at the end of her semester.

"You're leaving that soon?" asked Abby, and suddenly started doing the ranking of her friends in the city, and imagining who would take Laura's place. A kid about twenty yards ahead, suddenly spun around, earphone in one ear. "You're leaving, Ms. Decker?"

Laura's face dropped, "Uh, no, nothing's certain." The kid was satisfied with that and turned back around. Abby bowed her head. Laura, now softer, "Oops. Yeah, I'll be leaving right away as soon as school's over. James is so anxious to get out of here."

Abby, "Sure yeah. Well, be careful down there, don't get killed by any of those Jesus gangs." Laura laughed, at once dismissive and cautious, "Yeah, maybe I'll just join one."

They mixed desalinization chemicals, and pushed water through thick filters, in lukewarm silence. Abby wondered absently, since Laura was leaving, maybe she could put that time into her thesis. She also wanted lunch.

[Buy Caribou]
[Buy No. 1 in Heaven]

"Christmas in Hellville"

Aprilosaurus (a-prill-o-sore-us) n. - a big event in someone's life. Often magical or spiritual in nature, often referring to the astrological premonitions of a horoscope or tarot reading. Etymology: the Madagascar calendar centers on April as a hub of change in the year, despite there being no religious celebration or any holiday of note. When there is a death or birth in the family or a wedding or a coming-of-age, even if it does not occur in April, it is called by others "your Aprilosaurus".

Spider - "End Song"

Abby found herself at a poorly organized flu shot clinic. So poorly, in fact, that people were getting rowdy, there was mutiny in the air. Abby was going to be spending the weekend at her sister's out of town, where her two young nieces would be susceptible to infection, so she needed this today.

But so did a lot of people, apparently. The men in unnecessary suits and women in strange aprons, everyone paused in their day, taken a hurried hour to complete this chore, which suddenly became two hours, and then easily four. The vaccine was new and these clinics were new and everything was temporary but mandatory, these nurses were in over their heads.

Abby was waiting patiently and trying to smile, she put her book away, it was impossible to read in the lineup, instead she watched the news on mute. After the top story of flu vaccinations, a graphic that said "Religious Militia" beside the anchorwoman's head. Fundamentalist christians buying guns in Detroit. From way in the back of the room, near the doors, came a howl. A tall man with a long face in a grey suit came bounding up the line. He was shouting "You need to do it faster! You need more! Faster and more!" and he was shoving the whole way. He casually pushed Abby aside, and she fell over her bag. The nurses froze with their eyes wide, needles in the arms of scared patients. Instead of heading for them like some vaccine-mad Incredible Hulk, Abby imagined him cracking open hypodermic needles and drinking the juice like a sugar cane, he headed for the recovery area. A bunch of regular people, who had time to spare, watching the quieted news of the "Christian Warriors" and eating a cookie or two before going back to their day. In a strange show of what must have been jealousy, the man bellowed at them, the wretched cured, and picked up the pitcher of fruit punch and hurled it against the wall. As the fruit punch splashed all over the recovery area, and dripped down the wall, people started screaming.

Action was taken.

A tan burly man in a short-sleeved dress shirt, with a few nice rings, a big chain with a crucifix, and a perfectly coiffed pompadour complete with gorgeous sideburns, eventually detained the man and quelled his ravings. "It's okay, buddy," he kept saying, softly, "it's okay, my buddy." He held him against the floor with his body weight, his heft a soothing pressure. He looked up from his now silly position, and smiled at the lineup, to indicate that everything was going to be okay. This was Miguel.

Eurythmics - "Love is a Stranger"

Miguel reached for the note and smelled his hand: offal. He slipped the note in his pocket and headed heavy up the stairs. He looked for the kitchen and headed straight for the sink without taking off his shoes. The back door to the fire escape was open, and the sunset was coming in warm and comforting. He turned on the cold water and heard a yelp from the bathroom. He closed his eyes and wrinkled his nose: dummy. It was really the first time outside the grocery store, his work, that they were meeting, and already he was ruining her showers.

He looked around her apartment a little. He felt big in comparison to all her furniture, like he was in a doll house. He liked that very much. On her coffee table were a few books, "History of the Occult" and "Dark Magick" were the titles he saw, and the newspaper strewn on the couch: "Trouble in America". He ran his hand against his hair, caught a whiff of the meat smell which he still had to get rid of, and shoved his hands in his pockets, staring at the crumbs near the toaster.

They walked along the sidewalk in the sunset and tried to talk in as many ways as they could about who they were. The way one tries to describe all of one's sides so that a center, a core, can be inferred.

"I'm in graduate studies, advanced humanities, and I've lived here for 4 years, and my parents are hot air baloonists," Abby smiled, her goofy smile, and bunched up her wet hair with her hand, as if she were carefully making sure it would be messy when it dried.

"I come from Colombia, I've been here 2 and a half years, and my parents are farmers," Miguel laughed and threw his head back always when he did. The sky was bluing deeply, the sun was giving way.

"So, is your brother's band any good?" asked Abby, as they leaned and perched on kids play equipment in a park outside the venue. "They're okay," he replied, "yeah, they're good." Miguel produced, from seemingly nowhere, one cigar and one beer. Abby laughed and called it trashy, but they shared both and smiled as the dusk turned on streetlights in anticipation.

Miguel's brother's punk band was called VHS-HIT LIST, and they played a short but tight set, though neither of the two would ever call it "their thing". But in the middle of "Leave Me The Fuck Alone", during the bridge in fact, Miguel leaned down his head, and Abby lifted up her eyes to his and they kissed and he touched the back of her hand. He had forgotten that his hands still smelled from work, he had forgotten many other things at that point.

[Fihavanana is out of print]
[Buy The Way to Bitter Lake]
[Buy Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)]

Josiah Wolf - "The Trailer and the Truck"

[Buy]

[book software by Megazine]

Tomboyfriend - "Goldfinch Gluespoo"

I think you'll find the bottom of the ocean and the roof of the universe are very similar. After the stars stop and the void gets tired and the blackness is so bored it gets limp and grey. The roof of everything is like dry leather, like sand, like settled dust. Literally, nobody goes there. Like there are corners in your house, certain corners where the walls and ceiling join, where you've never ever looked, it's like that. Just forgotten and empty and nothing and boring and too far away and too lonesome to give a damn about. Can't give a damn about the bottom of the ocean, can't give a damn about every damn place, there's no time. I guess what I'm trying to say is this: certain people want to be forgotten, they don't want you to care about them, so stop tryin'. [Site]

The Therese and Mike Show - "Mike in Manhattan"

When Tom Scharpling cannot do The Best Show on WFMU, he will sometimes have his associate producer Mike and friend-of-the-show Therese fill in. Often their show is mostly low-impact, ungraceful, a bit bumbling. But every so often, and it happened on this week's show, the unguarded and inviting nature of the show's tone will give rise to a call so honest and hilarious that it bears repeating. Here is Mike in Manhattan, relating his story of the time he and his college girlfriend dressed up like his parents and had sex. And Mike and Therese keep referring to his "first call" (meaning a call he placed months ago during the Mike and Therese "childhood cruelty" topic that got him banned from calling The Best Show) as a legendary call, so I will include it here as well, but it's pretty entirely horrifying and hard to stomach, so proceed at your own risk.

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Also: GO SEE SMITH WESTERNS ON THIS TOUR. They killed it at Casa tonight.

[photo by Robby Reis]

Black Bug - "Beating Your Heart Out"

This song is a predator zebra, the first of its kind. It lies in wait in sun dapples, its stripes like switchblades. It's gorgeous sleek and mean. It sneaks in the dark and wears leather. Its stomach fraught with craving, it creeps expressionless towards a lone and weakling shadow. "Death comes to all," whispers the zebra, "death comes to all." [Buy]

Taraf de Haïdouks - "Hora Ca la Usari"

Your body is made of sticks, your body is chopped to splinters. Your body is dry and brittle and in need of water. Your body is long and thin and brown and it claps against the ground. Your body is bendy though it can snap if bent too far. Your body can be found in the woods. You can rub two sticks together to make fire, your body is kindling. Your kindly figure and lean knobby joints are the first thing to burn, the last ingredient to a big fire pile. Your body is important to the whole family, to the neighbours, to the village. Your body is yours but it would be wise to give it over to us, we need it. [Buy] [via Moss Bailey]

Explode Into Colors - "Coffins"

Sayat Nova was an Armenian ashik (folk singer) in the 18th century. He now has a pond named after him at a ski resort in the eastern townships of Quebec. A few minutes from Magog.

[Site] [video via Sofia]

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Elsewhere: Contributor Mayana has started a series of interviews for Monday Magazine. They're lovely simple brief encounters.