Legend.

Stephen J. Billick

Although I could thank him for any number of exceptional things, including his perspicacious insight and band-of-brothers-esque camaraderie, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Stephen J. Billick for Deceptuary's handsome new banner.

Stephen, you're absolutely one in nine billion.

Me and Dan.

Dan and I went to Scotland together a few years ago I need to show the pictures.

Now that we can look out the window.

Jules et Jim me détruit.

Tim moved into my apartment and we cleared the spare room.
It's now half a dining room and half Tim's painting studio.
Below is a garden that the Rzonca's cultivate.
There are many sorrowful kitties living in the courtyard.

What I did on my Saturday vacation.

I went to the water today and started playing with rocks. Then I found some heavy nasty wood and started playing with it too. Now I'm bruised and fatigued, but I think I found a new hobby. Oh, and I also came across a cat. Here are some pictures.






THE CAT

I also want to mention that I finally viewed Truffaut's
Small Change. I thought it was terrific.

Should children have the right to vote?

Let cake be.

"Mohair"

"Mohair"

All real-estate is valuable, including this suit. Maria tells me it is not real estate, this gorgeous Mohair three-piece, but I contend that, yes: it is real estate. It is a sheath and I am its sword. Besides, I truly love this suit: my father never owned a suit like this.

Maria came up with the box of baking soda and my newspaper, The Wall Street Journal. This is my preferred paper, though naturally I read everything within reach. I am a businessman in the fullest sense - that is to say, I take pleasure in life's great commerce - and distrust ideologues. Growing up, my special phrase was, "Just the facts, ma'am," as they say on television. The facts suit me fine.

Maria makes certain to point out when I have become encumbered by the rungs and railing-bars of routine, as she says, rolling her R's. Of course, Maria is a poet—though not as "all women are poets"—but, as she likes to say, as a woman with a difference.

Moments of difference interest me greatly, though as I say, almost colloquially, all real-estate is valuable. What I mean is, I'm happy to be here, among such good company. Maria came up with the baking soda and the Journal, which she handed to me and then she leaned on the counter like a woman in a painting. While she appeared to turn over the thoughts in her mind, Maria touched the silver cross that dangles above her bosom from a brown necklace. When she does this, my next thought is always: vampires.

Even logic has its limits.

Bathers.

Home Economics.

Farm Frame.

This is a look at my Gramps' farm out my parents' kitchen window.
I took this while home for Thanksgiving, 2007.

This is where I grew up and it's where I'm starting a gallery.
The first piece is a small painting (5" x 7") by Matthew Feyld, called
"Untitled (green sweater)," which I purchased at the lovely
Cinders Gallery, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Below is the same view, facing thirty degrees to my right.

Variant.

I found this piece of sincerity/doggerel in my jacket pocket.

XX

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that I could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

-Pablo Neruda

(translated by W.S. Merwin)

Tibetan prayer stones. Sichuan, China.

Endgames.

Endgameshesophicaryatidallentriestartedyingoterrestrophysicalibrarsenallentriesys-
temperattitudderlyricallingnomusicolographicaltechniqu'est-cequestionalismallereali-
smallerealisticalongitudinaltitudentistryanobodyingamersatzoolongeeringatoraspect-
yourselforoncellularcenycynicalifornightyleringitintannabulousedentarpaulinsiderever-
sageweatherselfulgencemergenerationationalistickledbellyricannedromedaringleade-
readagentilenderridandysfunctionallentriesonofabreadwinnereadingtokidsomemories.
I WOULDN'T TRUST DURESS: YOUR OWN DECISIONS
ofwhatstocomeditragicalifoundatingonlineareasonablemish.
allgauliscomprisedofthreepartisandwichinghourglassestuaryandrewardentedamhave-
regardstopulencentralalalalalalalalatitude. I admit :slowingamesmitherestoforher-
epiphanywhere cast for those who love her. a boon to all mankindnessencesquest.
Inourtimesirredeemabundanceriffyingledappledtocertainanityedulocusamoenusbaum-
gescheftsfraulinearealismelterrificlenientitypogratiatorphanniemalicenteradiushinterd-
untillerpullsthewooloutofmyeyeswhatcanIsay:rulessayImustplayonuntilthegamesend.

Just merged.

A hypocrite is a person who - but who isn't?

-Don Marquis (1878-1937)
__________________________________________________

Recording: we're working to try and improve the sketches we've done so far.
Marathon to keep the spirits high after weeks and weeks and months and months of grim days in offices in Midtown.

Songs include:
Drugged on Lotus
Rejoiner
Alfa Romeo
Mint Condition
No Comment
Red & Purple/Mesomorph
Bloop Control
Midnight Moms
Roses
We're Friends

This also roughly makes up our live set. We're playing next at Pete's Candy Store
in Williamsburg, BK. on February 25, 2008.

Basement Books.

The mind tends to wander at work, especially with the silent encouragement of books surrounding me.

Basement Books

The basement books can wait a while
Their jackets’ dust cannot defile
What lies within, belabored words
Of spirits hoping to be heard.

For I am writing my own mind.
It found me, I sought not to find.
And locked in rhythmic lengths I stride
To sew some seams I cannot hide.

Or maybe something darker lurks
Within the mildewed cellar works.
That keeps me cuddled to the sun.
Down there I’d be the only one.

It would be nice to have a friend.
To face the call of lonely men.
‘We’re not them!’ I’d say to him.
‘Our futures, they are not so dim.’

But where am I? Now the sun is slight.
Am I so different in the light?
Up here or there, I’m still alone.
And through my dust, we’ll all be one.

Written at the New York Public Library