A surface that absorbs my oils as well as my spills and scratches
A veneer permeable to the material beneath
Wearing with age, aging with wear
Prepared to decay, strengthened by care
Altar for reflection
For candles summoning the dawn
still sheltered from time
though light will pierce the bunker
as it abandons others
hot wax drying on your pillowcase
reminding us that real life is
managing energy—has the handle cooled yet
and should I ever take down the calendars
Plant names tend toward abrupt poetry.
Yarrow. Calendula. Fennel.
I pick at my scab but not pry it loose.
The same shield that, marred, let pus ooze through
Where my knee might unsuspectingly press it into your blue-white bedding and I might wonder how recently you had washed that duvet.
How you might look upon those chartreuse stamps the following day, considering activities we had not, yet, engaged in. And might not then, might not ever make such choices that could hurdle our emotional received or accrued intelligence.
Prayer flags tatter in the wind, betraying both truth of the decay inevitable and, likely, their own budget manufacture, though the reminder they perform is only made that much more immediate.
Tell me something
What’s on your mind
Let me hear the song you sing
Hymnal, in my heart, enshrined
Describe it all
Those things you feel
I crave the verse and thrall
Your lips alone make real
Portray your self
Lines as stanzas
Relate every pore and nerve
Just use me as your canvas.
Time can be a balm
If patience you can muster
They say that time is money
I say that sounds like bluster.
I admit, we spend them both
Though earnings really differ
The analogy is cheap
But could you make it cheaper?
The 'work' part of artwork is perhaps most visible to others that attempt the practice. Without endeavoring to create that which you love, it is often inscrutable and mysticized, alien and attributed to some idea of 'genius' or ‘gift’. Talent certainly plays its part, but it is a manifestation of devotion, of care, of efforts in aggregate, singularly expressed. This does not mean one cannot appreciate or enjoy an artwork of a mode unfamiliar to them, only that it will be a more exoticized, crush-like notion, less concerned with the how or why, and mare enamored with the magic tricK.
Measure twice, rick once. Then risk again. Life’s became rote, she wrote. When laying flat is a radical act, we need rest, but so much more than that. Less clamor, more calm. Our cures are far less complex than our ailments. Our basest needs oft-neglected by our ceaseless deeds. Food and water, sun on skin, deep breath and rest, time to feel what you’re in. Allow yourself to be confounded if you’d like to make sense of much at all.
Seek to transcribe any transcendence into daily life; there’s more fertile ground in the lowlands than on peaks above. Be thankful for the chance to challenge yourself on the climb, and use such views to plot the lay of that land. Sometimes you will crest a ridge and another valley will be in view, laying flat before you. Be present in every sense, aware how time fleets and you’ll again descend. Carry that downhill’s momentum with you and scrub your skin with your own dried salts, at peace with the self you brought up, and in peace as the self that carried you down.
Steady footing can be hard to recognize
Even ground beneath difficult to apprise
It needn't be perfect
And of course rarely is
'Cause two sheets of paper
Can’t fit together like this.
It's groves that make the needle move
Cracks that give us something to hang on to
Hairs that make a yarn feel soft,
Brushstrokes' texture that sends hearts aloft.
It's the lumps in the batter
A loaf's crisp, burnished ear
Though looks may still matter
It's texture to which I draw near.
We met in the parking lot of the Safeway in Westside Olympia well before sunrise or even first light of the dawn. A group of sixtyish riders assembled in a 35F rain for this event, a gathering of those with the desire and means to spend a December Saturday using their bodies to travel through various dozens of miles of the Capitol State Forest and were undeterred by a weather report that was more than a bit daunting but well within the expressed realm of atmospheric possibilities. The mood was slightly nervous but clearly positive; after all, this was just a bunch of adults out to ride their bikes.
After sign-in, a chairperson of the Squaxin Island Tribe spoke to the group, focusing our attention on both the history of the land on which we would ride and inviting us into the tradition of connecting to the earth with the appreciation of our breath, consciously taking in the air given to us by the trees and great sky and being thankful for what it allows us to do. This was greatly paraphrased on my part, but it was the thing I kept in mind on every climb that I would face in the day to come.
The ride was everything I had hoped it would be, physically taxing to be sure, but much more mentally challenging. It started raining around 5:30am, and the forecast of rain all day was accurate. I rode from 6am to 6pm, bookending the ride in dark hours, but making the most of what daylight did come through the ever-present cover of rainclouds. I knew I wasn’t the only one facing this stuff, and was happy to share the difficulties with these other riders, in from across Washington and Oregon to ride there on that day.
The path was a beautifully designed route on gravel forest roads with names like D-4000 and C-3000A, as well as broad trails called things like A-Line, right down to tricky singletrack with more personal but somehow less noteworthy names like McKinney and Greenline Climbing. Misty clouds hung in the trees, majestic in the distant views, wet when up close. Extra wet, I suppose I should say. Despite careful layering efforts, my toes went numb within the first hour or so, to remain such until after the day’s end. Fortunately, the gravel surfaces that made up most of the day’s riding were damp enough to be predictably packed and grippy, with relatively few muddy parts or truly unavoidable puddles.
My goal was simple: treat the ride as a brevet, aiming first to finish (not so much to finish first), and second to push myself to finish with a time I’d be proud of later. My strategies were also simple: bring plenty of food, water, and warm layers and don’t wait too long to adjust to maintain comfort. Another strategy emerged on the trail, once the climatic truth of the day presented itself: pedal hard or get cold.
And so it would be, with me aiming to push my pace whenever I could, though so much of the course’s actual direction seemed to be either up or down more so than sideways. This made finding company much easier on extended climbs than on the would-be flats, which I wasn’t so much using for recovery. Not that my overall pace was all that blistering. I ended up with approximately 90 min of stopped time across the 12 hours, which I can attribute to wringing out wet gloves and changing layers and eventually spending a prolonged period tightening my v-brake cables to adjust for the amount of the brake pads that had been removed by prolonged downhills and the grit plaguing us all, disc and rim brake users alike. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been trying to do this trailside mechanical work in gloves and/or rain mitts. Somehow it seemed reasonable at the time.
The mix of ups and downs and riding surfaces was indeed an indicator of the ride’s mental character, pushing your body temperature up with ascending’s effort until surely, surely you had to be done with that climb, then a bit further, then no kidding just a little bit further then wow wow wow what a fun descending line this is great jeez it keeps going, okay dang this rules but I am getting CHILLY gosh am I going to have to stop and layer up?? it is pretty cold and certainly wet and surely this is how people lose extremities or at least catch a nasty cold… And the short cameos of pavement that linked up the gravel routes seemed so expertly choreographed to give some reprieve when an extended singletrack climb was getting to be perhaps a bit too technical to keep at for another 1100' or maybe the rooty switchbacky descent was super fun, but you wouldn’t mind just getting a bit of a smooth section on which to do some mashing and much-needed munching.
This was certainly the most head-game of a ride I’ve done, with the soggy cold and limited daylight allowing my mind to create all sorts of reasons to doubt or excuse me from the challenge I’d set out to meet. I am so very glad I did the ride that I did, and am thankful that I was able to finish it without any serious incident. Riding twelve hours through cold rain might not sound like luxuriating, but I chose to play that ride’s head game, and I left with the prize of so many thanks. When things got challenging, for harsh grade or harsh chill, I was able to return to the chairperson’s advice to focus on breath itself, calming my heart and warming my mind in some gratitude. This route through what we call the Capitol State Forest was something truly magnificent, and we were all fortunate to be there. For me to be able to steal away with a ride to Olympia, a place to crash, a capable bike and warm clothes to ride in, an able body, not to mention the relative freedom from other obligations—well, this brutal bike ride was true luxury to be admired and delighted in. Maybe next year we’ll all add the luxury of fresh brake pads.
It noticed him before he noticed it. Mabel took no notice whatsoever, at least of her new observer, but nonetheless it observed her. Or at least recorded her activity. His too. Its eye indicated the potential of an actual observer, now or at the very least at another time, when it would recount its recordings. Unaware of this one matter (present matter, at least), but aware of vastly more present inputs, Mabel went on with her investigation. He watched her surveying yet unaware, and considered the eye's relay.
Oral tradition had reached the immediate conclusion. Through fable and drama, literature and film, so through reality TV and Twitter, YouTube and the Ring Smart Doorbell camera. He felt the wave break and emerged nonplussed, imagining the viewer of this particular vision, their sentry alerting them to his intrusion. A quick glance through the portal would tell the story, but why not linger and observe this trespass?
It was clear now that Mabel would soon shit in this person's yard. He didn't think it was illegal or anything, and it was Berkeley—nobody was going to shoot him over something so petty, even if they WERE watching and recording the whole scene from their "device" inside. She pivoted, then turned on a dime, swiveled back, rotated, and finally tucker her rear end toward the ground, tail protruding upward and clear. The car horn in the driveway blared twice, and suddenly, movement from inside the vehicle. And a voice? He hadn't thought twice about the Chevy in the driveway, shadowed from the streetlight by a dense tree canopy—at least not of this car in this situation, now. Cars in general seemed like a trap to him.
We both knew. We’d been avoiding it for years. There were little cracks in the mug, hard to see from a few feet out, but we knew they were there. It had taken a few knocks in normal, everyday use, and had started to splinter. One would think that the hot contents inside would make their way out, either through osmotic pressure, capillary action, or in a sudden, dramatic rupture. And yet the vessel held as we drank from it time and again.
It was as if there were some sort of force field keeping that thing pressed together—inexplicable to those who sipped it and invisible to those who admired how it looked in our hands and on our shelf. We’d thought about gluing it, but there was something unnatural and unsettling about the chemical nature of the bond. Just not something you wanted to press to your lips, really. The glue would be plenty visible, that’s for sure.
When amply distracted, we too would forget about the latent seams. The mug’s contents were often plenty good, and they made the days go better.
But sometimes when we would forget it had that splintering, we would use it less cautiously, set it down too hard, and merit scolding by one another. After apologies and ginger handling, we would test it again, watching that line to see if it held firm. And so it did. We’d been making that same mistake over and over, as though mad.
I think we both started wondering if we would have that mug forever. In spite of its known issue, it had still been the best mug either of us had, and we knew some of our close friends whose favorite mugs were also cracked a bit. They seemed to be just fine with it, most days. Only one or two had actually fallen apart in hand, and all those burns had healed by now anyhow. Plus, people love wabi-sabi.
But one morning neither of us had anything warm to put in it, and the cup was left cold again. And that was it. The thought of trying to fill it once more, only to then find it not empty but cold as it reached our lips was worse than the now-normal worry that it would just shatter in our hands or on the kitchen table or bedside stand, loosing on us its steam and stain.
The mug had to go. It never truly broke, but it would never not be broken.
I yip into the night
Aware of the disturbance
But so piqued by the delight
Each bark one less perturbance.
The first foreign thing
I've ever done
Is drinking hot water
In an oven
It's the only way
It will be safe
I'll get used to
That funky taste.
PEK T3
An ironic place
For an American to worry
About plastic waste.
As the heat rises from the open flames,
It warbles the horizon.
No better lamp than this unnamed,
When scarcely yoked,
So much as entropy encircled,
Corralled but left to its devices,
Disorderly insofar as I can tell,
Or just interested instinctually,
In differentials of all kinds.
It was dusk and I sat in the passenger seat. She was excited to tell me that the cute guy she was into from that place finally asked her out and they were going to go to La Houangiania. I hadn’t even thought to ask her to go there. I hadn’t even heard of that place, actually, but I could tell it was really cool. Her eyes and teeth shone dazzlingly.
“Oh ooooh look at you!” I intoned and smiled.
I think she continued to drive, but time may as well have frozen. I thought that I always knew that this was possible, but in it actually happening, I felt like I’d been pistol-whipped. She’s more than a catch. She’s surreal. She’s a reverse UV ray. She’s a jaguar’s spots. She’s maple syrup. She’s the feeling of being slung over the edge of the wake on an inner-tube. She’s an Alp and a meadow. She’s the propane burner of a hot air balloon. I felt every fiber of my being stretch as my insides strained to get out.
Was there anything that I could have done to prevent this? Had I simply hit my limit? Our time was finite after all? Things were supposed to remain light. Easy. Nothing labelled. If it ended tomorrow, I’d be glad that it happened at all. Lived and lust, you know?
But that’s if it ended tomorrow. Not today. It was always a step removed from the present, no matter how much I thought I was really living in that present. This isn’t to say that I had regrets. I had questions. I had to wonder if there was something that I could have done differently. I had self-pity. I had hard feelings, but none of them were for her.
A rush of insecurities marred my mind, assailing my recently-vibrant hopes and nourishing my long-dormant fears. I felt ugly and unfortunate, and was upset with myself for being upset. My uvula had either disappeared or become numb, and it didn’t matter, as no words could help this.
She was happy.
I woke feeling hollowed-out and lonely, but looked to see her next to me. What was inside her? Was she feeling full? Will she be pulling the curtains off the window to wrap herself in warmth? And could I blame her? Of course not.
Nor could I shake the truth. It’d been years since a dream meant something to me. This one was a slow motion lightning bolt to my rusted weathervane.
What I could do is breathe. She was happy. And I did have hard feelings. And none of them were for her.
Our planet is in peril. Short-sighted planning and selfish greed are having their way with the innocent world, and things are at risk of getting a whole lot worse.
I, for one, have been well-intentioned but nearly silent on this matter. Now that there is such a tangible threat to what small progress has been made, I no longer have that luxury.
The air, water, and soil of the only known livable planet are in jeopardy, and it won't just be the world's poor having their livelihoods ruined by the effects of the fossil fuel abuse and externalization of costs by the wealthiest few.
Not so long ago, we were content to think we could just buy new light bulbs, a hybrid vehicle, a low-flow shower head, and do a few meatless Mondays and turn this ship right around. While it's a nice thought, it pales in comparison to the careless and consumptive destruction of the world's few remaining forests, the relentless exhaustion of underground "natural resources" at rates 1000s of times greater than they are being replenished (and the matter of damage inflicted to obtain them), and the ability of massive private corporate interests to force the hand of our government at seemingly every level.
It's bad. It's probably worse than we even know. There's a whole lot of easy money to be made by weak hearts throwing the rest of the world and its future under the bus. There's a whole lot of easy days to be had by those who choose to ignore the science. There's a whole lot of work to be done by those who choose to unite and overcome this manipulation and slothful complacency.
Maybe you don't feel like you're part of the problem. But maybe it is not enough to “not do evil”. It's a strong and frightening statement, but consider the possibility that it might also be wrong to “not do good when given the chance”. Suddenly you have a lot more on your plate. On your deathbed, it will be a lot easier to consider the things you tried and failed at than the things you never did. Michael Jordan and missing all the shots you don’t take, ya know.
So don’t give up the ship. Don’t cower in fear of what might happen. Fight back, in whatever ways you believe you can be effective. We must be our own guardian angels—a Dumbledore's Army, so to speak, united in our defense against these dark arts. Politicians are (at best) a reflection of the public, and the public must present a united front.
I’m giving money to the Sierra Club because their staff, interns, and volunteers work in a professional manner to take part in and raise issues with a variety of matters, from public comment on specific agenda items of an Air Quality Management District Supervisors meeting to organizing major protests. They operate on the front lines, appealing to humanity, science, and reason in opposition to selfishness and corrupt policies.
Check out sierraclub.org if you have any questions. Join or donate directly to a different local chapter if you would please (this page is for the San Francisco Bay chapter).
Earnestly,
Alex Applegate
The senses are incredible, translating inputs tactile, photic, chemical, and sonic into outputs more difficult to explain in principles and rules, yet theoretically far more honest and axiomatic. April is a band that has the subtly striking effect of at once ascribing and inscribing feelings, the way sitting in an elliptical room of Monet’s water lilies (Les Nymphéas) may convey as much in its treatment and expression as it will elicit in response from your own memories.
To say that they’re a band best understood in a live setting is obviously subjective. The live performance is a gracious experience, and one I highly recommend, though I would also (subjectively) aver that they are a band best understood in a live mindset. To except that statement at nominal value is one thing, but to allow the muscles in your face to relax from brows to jowls and feel through the synapses alone is far more significant. Synapses are part of what makes their sound a proper place for your own ritual or devotion. There is something both defiant and precious in the spaces between the sounds comprising the more obvious melodies or rhythms. The wavering of the tremolo picking or gradually crescendoed and panning textures provides a more infinite tempo, offering a wind on which to take flight, bury underneath, or simply allow to traverse your skin. Though floating unencumbered, these seemingly-backdrop sounds lend an enormous gravity to every motion that accompanies them.
They present an aesthetic of black and white, but I think the sound speaks as much to Yves Klein as Pierre Soulages or Robert Motherwell. Klein often sought to reveal the power and freedom of the sea or sky with, offering the beholder a chance at peering into the universe’s infinite, which could truly reveal that the infinite could just as well be interior.
Scroll stop scroll
My feed a strobe
First thing in the morning
While I put on my robe
A twitching thumb
Takes me away
Oh the places I've been
Already today
I'm awfully tired
And I sure don't know why
My sleep cycle app said
My sleep quality was high
Though I monitor my diet
And get lots of rest
I must have my coffee
To perform at my best
Running 10 late
I text my colleagues
Me too says the one
The other agrees
We'll get it together
Maybe someday
Can't be doing so bad
With the rent that we pay
I’ve just been reading dystopias and quote unquote postmodern lit and Naomi Klein too much
wigs me out about the world ending itself while watching ads in 10K 4D IMAX
that’s why music is still so good to me
there’s so much that’s systematic and commercial and patriarchal and competitive and perverse surrounding it
but when I’m listening
it is its own world
expressive and reflective of our own
but somehow disparate and self-contained
like being in the mountains