Of My Own Invention

a recipe synthesized all by myself


chai tea ice cream

8 large egg yolks
3/4 cup honey
2 tbs sugar
pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup loose chai tea
2 1/2 cups heavy cream

in a large bowl beat the egg yolks with sugar and salt

in a saucepan scald millk, remove from heat and add tea. cover and steep for four minutes, then strain. add heavy cream and bring to a simmer over medium heat. ladle 1/3 of cream mixture into the eggs and whisk well. add all of mixture to pot and cook over low heat, until thick enough to coat back of spoon.

cool for about two hours.

pour into maker, and voila,

chai tea ice cream.

A Master Plan

a master plan in




one. apply and get hired for the night manager position at mr. whisker's liquor store.

two. cut back hours at starbies while still working enough to remain elligible for health benefits and stock options.

three. apply my ass off at many many jobs in the dc area.

four. get hired at one of those jobs.

five. move to dc.

six. live in a well lit, high ceilinged, wood floored, gas stoved, deep bath tubbed apartment with rtb where we will

seven. through the best damned, literate, dinner parties in all the nation.

A Colossal Waste of Time

video games.

Re-Contextualizing Vessels

a simple way to bring a touch of the regal to everyday life.

i have taken up drinking water from old wine bottles, an idea borrowed from a little eating and drinking establishment in new york. next time you are in brooklyn you should check out moto (www.circa1938.com).

Maynard G. Hands

my hands are dry and rough; they spend their working hours in near constant contact with super-hot liquids and abrasive cleaning products. this is fine for work, i have lotion.

my hands move, in ther lotioned state, ably across many surfaces in both my apartment and car. during these movements i have begun to notice that the hands are growing bored with simply holding things. when i am reading, or driving, i occasionally am surprised to notice one hand has let go the book or steering wheel, and taken upon itself to glide over the sofa's upholstry or the vinyl on the car's door. it is, as if, my hands have reverted to an infant like state where they are begining to understand that world around them through texture.

grown ups, like us, have come to a point where being so used to touching things, we have forgotten to take notice of texture. this is why i am surprised, when my hands take it upon themselves to brush up against a brick wall, triffle through the dirt, or mulch, or even linger longer than necessary on an eggshell when i am so clearly focused on something else.

that something else seems to be, typically, "who am i and how do i relate to the world? where do fit in? am i meant to move here? jobs? why isnt it easier for me to create? etc." perhaps my hands are trying to remind me, through there simple textured wonderings where it is that i am and how in fact i do relate to the world.

Le Petit Meany

it seems to me that, perhaps, exuprey's little prince was in some fashion a model for john irving's owen meany.

of course irving's creation has been tempered by forty years and the "american i" which might explain his hieghtened self conciousness and his irrefutable humanness.

Possibly, it was not baby time.

excerpted from the january 16th, 2005 new york times article written by ginia bellafante

"That, at least, is the narrative constructed by magazines like People, Us Weekly and In Touch. They attribute the breakup not to, say, drugs, abuse or reckless indifference to the principles of fidelity, but instead to differences about what makes life meaningful - what could almost be called a philosophical dispute.

"Mr. Pitt has been depicted as the anguished victim of his wife's professional ambitions. Apparently, he has wanted a child - desperately, according to the tabloids - but his wife, acting as a First Wave feminist, was reluctant to abandon her acting career.

"In addition, he is being portrayed as someone hungry for a life of substance. In one of the more peculiar third-party images ever invoked in a celebrity breakup, he is shown in the most recent issues of Us and In Touch clutching the same small African boy during a trip to an orphanage. He has become increasingly involved in good works, the reader is told, consumed by liberal politics and the AIDS crisis in Africa. One is left to assume that his wife remained committed merely to herself.

"In one photo montage, carrying the headline, "Were They Too Different?" Mr. Pitt was effectively cast as the woman wronged. In Touch paired a picture of his wife exiting a store in a tank top and laden with shopping bags, with one of him, his hands on the shoulders of Nelson Mandela.

You Are a Millionaire

You realize it's time to make a decision. You can't keep piling things up in your closet unless you tell Theresa and your friends about the money--and maybe share it with them. Otherwise, you'll have to hide it, and hide it well. It almost seems like the money is more trouble than it's worth. Maybe you should just bury it. Then when you're older, you can dig it up and figure out what to do with it.

Theresa is still looking at you. "Wait until we get home," you say.


If you tell Theresa about the money, turn to page 23.

If you bury the money instead, turn to page 36.





jay, liebold. "Choose Your Own Adventure, 98: You Are a Millionaire." New York; Bantam Books, 1990.

Knockdown Society

one. dont expect the bartender to recognize you after a two month absence from his drinking establishment.

two. its important to be reminded, from time to time, that even sloppy musicians can create some entertaining and occasionally brilliant music. the blues where meant for this reckless abandon. only in the wake of wankers like ec do we see the shift to middle age middle class white blues. punk rock died with the eighties.

three. saturday night? home alone? i recommend dipping into donna summer's greatest hits. nothing says i am a lone in a city and loving it like her hit, 'on the radio.'

Life, As Perfection

i wear denim on my legs and drink makers mark from a class. no water, no ice. its january in nashville and i am listening to a music grown in the metropolitan st. louis soil, watered by nashville's own country and fertilized by new york's punk. i am home alone. mtb is currently on the road playing a glizty and popular variety of nashville country that curdles many stomachs on the coasts.

tonight's whiskey is sweet and my LPs are finding a new order, mostly on their own. "turn up the volume i say," from my dusty place on the floor. there is no response. denim molds as i stand, flip the switch and say "much louder," then, miraculously, it is. the shuffle has moved from the afforementioned brand of alternative country, forged in this incarnation by uncle tupelo in the early nineties, to a branch of the music that is more country and less rock, but noticeably rocking. nashville's own br-549 sing as their chorus, "no matter which way you move / it takes a lifetime to prove to yourself / i could have been more / i got one foor in the door, i just want one more."

thoughts start circling my head. i itch to write, markdown these thoughts, and commit them. by the time i lift myself and crack my nuckles to trace these circles with the keyboard the shuffle has again shifted, away from noticeable country altogether, via hank williams' "jambalaya (on the bayou)", into the dirty southern accordian drive sounds of cajun and then zydeco music. while the musical center has dropped five hundred miles to the south, the circles remain noticeable, and in tact.

zachary richard's , "jolie blon," and buckwheat zydeco's, "hot tamale baby," do not distract me as i type the realization, perhaps the first hint of this round discovery, that i am really glad that i moved to nashville. in part it is noticeable in a strangely superficial way, the music that i listen to, or the food i want to cook. but more than that, life in nashville acts like a megaphone projecting these curiosities and interest, that i have had for a while, in a very natural way.

its ridiculous to imagine that life in boston would have brought me any closer to any appreciation of country music, however cheesy, or pulled pork shoulder, cornbread, or hell, i dunno, tennessee whiskey, than nashville has. perhaps what i am trying to get at is this:

physical space resonnates, and this resonnance is shaped by the physical lyout of the land in addition to its history and countours as it presents itself to those currently living there. this resonnance favors certain frequencies, or at least the remarkable thing about this resonannce is that, because it is different, from one place to another, each place picks up and amplifies different frequencies.

so life in boston peaked an interest in urban yankee living, favoring organic markets, fancy avant classical and jazz musics, and public transportation. life in nashville, while not replacing the previously accrued interests, piqued interest in sweet iced tea (seriously?) and dirty, sad, aptly performed music.

not only is this great realization, because i still have some time to stew in these tenessee juices, but because it makes me hopefuly and curious about the marinade that i will get in future home, washington dc.

i gotsta split and hit up a show at my favorite nashville bar, the radio cafe, where i will see a rocking blues band of the local sort open for one half of the frontmen, for the squirrel nut zippers, perform with his blues rock trio, the knockdown society. i must find money and ballard.

oh nashville. oh joy.


**sorry about the spelling, dont forget that i have been drinking

laundromat (affinity)

the laundromat is quiet excepting the tumble of the dryers, the cough of the smoking blonde, and the six year old running about, pushing carts. i focus my attentions into my quiet reading. mrs. wheelwright had her wedding and funeral in the hurd chapel, with the space of only one year in between. in both instances the place was packed.

choosing to avoid the smoking female and uncomofortable bus station style chairs i placed myself high up on one of the folding tables near my dryer. i turn the pages quickly absorbing the weathered terrain and people of fictional gravesend, new hampshire, and at some point prior to mr chickering's sobbing the little boy i want to call jason has abandoned his laundry cart and is sitting next to me.

i hold my hand up, "up high," the boy smacks and i lower my hand, "down low." again a smack. now, "in the middle," i move my hand to the median and the boy fearlessly swipes at my hand, however he misses, and i respond, "too slow." he laughs, stands up on the folding table and climbs onto the 35 lbs washers behind me. he jumps down and as his feet hit the floor his mother yells, from across the flourescent room, "johnny, dont jump down from there."

his name is john, but i still want to call him jason, and watch him climb back onto the folding table to sit next to me. "where is your wife?" he asks. perhaps in east nashville rings, like the one i am not wearing, dont signify marriage, and similar to cultures ranging from israel to northern india, beards do, like the one i am wearing.

"she is in dallas." i lie.

"whats she doin' there?" we make near eye contact.

"spending some time with her family."

"do you live alone here?" bringing his hands together, without a steeple.

"yes." another lie.

"you dont have any kids?"

his little black head drops, as i respond, "no," and in the same motion he rolls off the table landing next to a cart. without missing a beat he launches the cart into motion, halfway to the finish line before i am able to read more about owen meany, sitting on eight hymnals to see over uncle alfred's head.

A New Start?

two poems in under three days.

thats hot. in fact, its incredible.

this is the closest i have been to a streak in a long while, and it feels good. and better yet i feel another poem coming on. guss i know what i'll be doing tonight.

Eve

Eve Oh Eve

by Taslima Nasrin


Why won'tEve eat of the fruit?
Didn't Eve have a hand to reach out with,
fingers with which to make a fist;
didn't Eve have a stomach to feel hunger with,
a tongue to feel thirst,
a heart with which to love?

But then why won't Eve eat of the fruit?

Why would Eve merely suppress her wishes,
regulate her steps?
Subdue her thirst?
Why would Eve be so compelled
to keep Adam moving around in the Garden of Eden
all their lives?

Because Eve has eaten of the fruit
there are sky and earth,
because she has eaten
there are moon, sun, rivers and seas.
Because she has eaten, trees, plants and vines,
because she has eaten of the fruit
there is joy, because she has eaten there is joy,

joy, joy--
Eating of the fruit, Eve made a heaven of the earth.

Eve, if you get hold of the fruit
don't ever refrain from eating.

translated from the Bengali by Carolyne Wright and Mohammad Nurul Huda

commentary:

these days i am inclined to be like, eve, you've eaten the fruit once, please do me a favor and lay off. i don't think i can take anymore of that sweetness, that sky, that earth, those vines, this heaven and its joy.

perhaps these days i am stuck with my white male anglo friend mr milton who has lucifer say:

To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Hean'n.

methinks this is founded in a little uncertainty. when i am away from this place of confusion, and instead in the realm of confidence, perhaps i will sing along with taslima and eat along with eve.

We've Got Music, Yes We Do...

within our nashville apartment one can find, at a casual glance:

a double bass
a five string electric bass
a fretless accoustic bass
a banjo
two mandolins
an organ
an accoustic guitar
a drum set
three harmonicas
and a kazoo

four microphones
a coffee can microphone
a four track tape recorder
a motu 896hd, digital interface

audio desk
logic

fender champion 110
ampeg b2r
peavey 410sx
and possibly a trace elliot 715s

g5
two monitors

cassette deck
cd player
record player
minidisc deck
two portable mini disc recorders

approximately two-thousand compact discs
two hundred LPs
three or four armfuls of audio cassettes

A Prime Example: Today

ah hum.
any of you, hmmm, notice, perhaps,
today's date?


january third, two thousand-five. right?
also written 01.03.05, or even 1.3.5.


notice anything? anything at all?

ah. yes. mmmm. you see it now, dont you?


that is right! today's date, in shorthand, is full of prime numbers*.

1*,3,5




* DILEMMA

is one a prime number? i dunno, but in some places that i have looked a prime number is defined as:
a number that is only divisible by one and itself, which means that one is a prime number;

however, in other places a prime number is defined as:
a number larger than one that is divisble only by one and itself, which means that one is not prime.

perhaps my base intimacy with math prevents me from knowledgably qualifying the question, "is one a prime number," and therefore preventing me from ever learning the truth.