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Martha Layne Collins Obit

I loved this ending to the MLC obit… “When she first became prominent in Kentucky, The Herald-Leader said that it asked Ms. Collins, ”What propelled her from teacher and homemaker to politician?” “I guess growing up in a funeral home taught me about the uncertainty of life,” she replied. “I’ve always tried to put a lot into a day.”

Shoplifters #9: Introduction

This is the introduction I wrote for Issue #9 of Shoplifters. This issue is about drawings. It is published by Actual Source.

I’d like to thank Davis and JP for letting me write this. It’s an honor.

—

As a kid, the Ouija board scared me. Out of nothing, it could access the unknown and somehow reveal the past and the future. When I have a blank sheet of paper and a pen, the feeling I got from the Ouija board returns. I’m never quite sure what will come out and that scares me. The fact that a drawing utensil can somehow bear the burden of being a conduit for all lived life, that it can help express a person’s truth and can bring joy and relieve pain, is exceptional. When I draw, there’s a tense moment where I have to decide if I can afford to draw something that contains the capital-t Truth. It might be about beauty or anguish or humor or stupidity—but as long as it’s about the Truth, it can make us reconsider who we are and how we exist.

When I look at images, each part feels like it reveals something to me, almost like a sliver of an artist’s portrait. Though we usually only see the final images, it can be easy to forget that each part is chosen. In fact, drawings are all decisions. The maker chooses the subject, the instrument to make marks with, the color or lack of it, the fluidity and thickness of the lines — and all of those things make the image. In making images, parts of our personality are revealed to us on our never-ending search for something real. I have a friend who has a sorta egalitarian approach and only draws with #2 pencils and BIC pens, and I think he does it so that everyone knows that it doesn’t take special equipment to make beautiful images. It just takes a monastic dedication. Another friend of mine loves the commitment of the un-erasable pen and thinks people who use pencils are cowards. As I write this and think of myself, I realize I draw with thick pens to avoid my natural inclination to overcomplicate things. The pen creates my needed limitation.

When I draw, I access a part of myself that feels foreign. Within me, there’s a hope-filled maker that believes an image can fix the world. And then there’s another version of me that wants to crumple every piece of paper I make that shows something earnest and sincere. In making images, I’m afraid of what could come out. Whatever does make its way onto the paper changes me. It might be a realization, observation, or even a capitulation to an idea that I’ve been avoiding. It all comes from the person inside me that when drawing is pushed to fully look, listen, think, and actually consider the world I live in. When I put my pen to the page, it feels like my pores open and the next version of myself starts to breathe. Drawing is a healing medicine and—like any working medicine—I resent its necessity and power.

Drawings can be lots of things. If you don’t purchase archival paper, it can be cheaper than therapy. Sometimes they’re a fun distraction in a boring meeting. Other times they’re a procedural stepping stone to a larger project. But often, they’re just a drawing, nothing more and nothing less. Drawings, like a serial killer in a scary movie, can never seem to be escaped. They control our world. Your IKEA bed was assembled through drawings. You turn on the light that’s on an electrical grid engineered by a drawing. You walk around your house that was, you guessed it, built from drawings. Our lives are lived as the 3D extension of a flat 2D rendering. Our understanding of and connection to the world is often driven by images that began in people’s hands. They’ve come to inhabit our fantasies and tower over our reality.

As we look at these drawings, I hope you join me in trying to remember that each artist overcame the nothing of a blank sheet of paper to make each image. Picture the artist just a moment before they started making the marks that would become each drawing. Try to imagine that it took their whole lived life to make that image. Whether afraid or not, the artist gave themselves away to the page and then at a certain point felt it was finished and stopped. Each drawing documents that moment, reflects the maker, and is a gift for you. Open it when you’re ready.

40 Notes on Japan (or How I Forgot to Wipe in the Land of the Rising Sun)

Around the New Years that transitioned between 2016 and 2017, I went to Japan with my girlfriend. These are things I noticed or thought worth noting…

The Japanese don't have a phrase they say after someone sneezes.

They have bootleg Kanye items with @caramelbobby-esque designs. (Which reminds me of people always jokingly saying, "I'm huge in Japan.")

I'm quickly realizing that if wearing fuzzy things were a religion, my girlfriend would devote her life to it.

Though the culture is very respectful and serious, a river of playful and adorable things run through the culture. Even animations on the subway are cuddly-looking.

In a restroom, a sign said: 'Please flush only toilet paper and what nature provides.' Which is the most poetic way I’ve ever heard that said.

I’m tall-ish, so I expected to hit my head in more places in Japan. Though I only ended up hitting my head in 2 places: leaving the Delta flight to Tokyo and on a stairway lamp in a shop in Daikanyama.

My girlfriend and I sat for an hour in Tsutaya Books' lovely upstairs cafe trying to figure out what is in a gimlet. We weren't able to remember, but it was the best drink we had in Japan.

I wish I had a guide for Japan called 'Places to Sit for an Hour'. It would feature wonderful places to feel a city's pace. Somewhere between visual feasts and a city's symphony, one could bathe in everything that isn't water. No photos because you should create your own picture of a place. Descriptions as encryptions, where each word helps you know more and less about each place. If I were to write a place, I'd start with the second-story Cafe of Tsutaya Books in Daikanyama. Each person gets surrounded by a kaleidoscopic background littered with literature. Text halos in sunshine, bound outlines in moonlight. Your ears meet taps, and trumpets, and loose pianos, and free fingers. Even the clanks of cups and steps of strangers keep time with the songs stretching out through the speakers. Darkened mirrors looks into other universes. 5000 yen gets you an hour of pleasure and a couple drinks.

Walking 12.7 miles in one day shouldn't he humanly possible. It definitely isn't humane. (Note: After this full day of walking and being fully exhausted, I considered walking down to the front desk to ask where I could get water. I had forgotten it came out of the faucet. And is after I just after showered.)

In Japan, noise feels like an art form. Studied, noted, and fully aware: it feels like everyone coos at the same frequency creating a friendly hum. People never really shout or boisterously laugh. Noise is almost always kept around a small choral swell of voices. Even stores that played Muzak seemed to never lose themselves to the human voice. When entering stores, the greetings from the salespeople seem to come out just barely above a whisper. The only truly loud noise I heard was a Lamborghini that seemed like it had lost its mother and was crying out. I'd assume even their chiseling jackhammers sound like lullabies that could put infant to sleep.

Small Coke bottles are the heaviest I've felt at the size. They seem like they're at least twice the thickness of American bottles, and a few pounds each.

The taxis of Tokyo are like the Catholic's idea of the Holy Spirit, they are ever present. And when a door is opened to you, seemingly with magic, it is brightly lit with colorful LED beams.

My father would love this place because it's quiet, clean, and respectful.

The Japanese wear a lot of doctor’s masks for hygienic purposes. For that reason, it’s hard to feel as if you could be friends with anyone wearing one.

Though people who wear the masks are only supposed to be doing so when they are sick (I was told it was to protect others from their sickness), I haven't seen one person wearing a mask cough yet.

In the same way that people who wear doctor's lab coats perform better on tests, I wonder if people wearing doctor's masks here also feel smarter.

The masks aren't as stylish as I'd hope they'd be. Maybe because they throw them away after each day. Though, near the end of our trip My girlfriend found a store that sold animal-style masks that resembled their faces. I assume their for children and kid-ults.

New Years celebrations at the Shibuya Crossing were akin to NYC's Times Square.

Smoking still has its hand on the throat of Japan. It’s everywhere, but in a restrained way. There are smoking sections in trains and restaurants and coffee shops. Thankfully their sealed in little glass and metal bubbles. Except in bars, where it is everywhere.

All of their transit will say the directions in Japanese, then repeat them in English -- which makes getting around impossibly easy.

The babies of Japan seem to mostly be carried kangaroo-style in little front-side pouches, and almost exclusively by the men. (Also, my girlfriend noticed that they don’t see to support the child’s neck. The baby’s head just seems locked back, and all of the necks of the youth look fully normal. So there’s that.)

I was in Japan for 12 days and it wasn’t until 2 days before we left that I heard a baby cry for the first time there..

Lots of poster boards menus line the crowded streets. To keep the outer casing of the lights from burning passerby that bump the lights, they wrap the lights in aluminum foil (which doesn't keep heat) to keep people from burning themselves.

In the whole of the trip, I only heard one car honk its horn.

Cars don't have dents in Japan. Or rust. Or bumper stickers. Sometimes, they'll have stickers on their back window, but none seem humorous or accomplishment based (like Americans proud of running half-marathons).

The restrooms in all public train stations don't have soap.

I've noticed that Japan, like the USA, dances deeply with alcohol and energy drinks. They're everywhere and advertised as much. I wondered how a country so deeply seeped with tea would handle things like Monster Energy drinks -- and it appears they've given them the full embrace. They're in every shop and convenience machine I've seen. (Though I haven't seen Red Bull anywhere.) At our Ryokan, we were going to take a calligraphy class led by monks and they requested that we not have any alcohol before. But there were not limitations for caffeine, which I think equally shifts my mental-state, though obviously in a different direction.

I have a feeling in my gut that when I leave Japan, the thing I'll miss most is the silence. The Japanese seem to respect the Quiet in a way that I've never seen before.

The bullet trains of Japan can take you across the country in only a few hours. It's truly magical and slightly perplexing, especially since this is my first time riding one. The insides of each cart resemble essentially an airplane's economy-class on steroids. Leg room for Paul Bunyan, and windows the size of a manhole cover. The ride is absurdly smooth at all times, but at night the effect is even more stimulating. Lights—neon, iridescent, street corners, et cetera—fly by at an incredible speed. It’s like springtime for blossoming filaments. Black and then a hundred blips of warm and cool light with a few dashes of color, then black again with only your reflection in the window. The rural emptiness and jumbled metro, each expressed in moments as small as a few seconds. All across a horizon that can't be met but does feel known, filled with lights waving goodbye from a city previously visited. And because the tracks outside the bullet train aren't visible, it almost feels like you're riding on a bizarro air plane, being piloted by the a penultimate Yves-Klein bluest-of-blue Blue-Angel of aeronautics only 80 feet above the ground. It's sublime in the way only the most terrifying things can also be equally, if not more so, beautiful.

I haven't seen anyone kiss. I've seen a few young couples holding hands, though they could be foreigners visiting. Love is not in the ocular-air.

Slurping is accepted and encouraged with noodle dishes. What I want to know is: can someone be considered attractive for how well they slurp? (And is all slurping accepted, e.g. finishing a drink through a straw?)

I saw a visiting white traveler run out of pure excitement that he found a sparingly seen public trash can.

The only construction I've seen is for towers. Nothing on the ground or near it.

When you call somewhere, the ringing of the phone that the caller gets to hear sounds like a cooing pigeon.

People look good. Because 99.9% of them are svelte, their clothes look great on them. Bright colors are rare in fashion. I don't know if this a recent thing or something they've been at for a while. While in Japan, I wore a bright red coat and, at times, I felt like a garish sun burst.

Snoopy and Mickey and Minnie Mouse are everywhere. Mario is nowhere. I saw one Mario Run ad while I was here on the subway, and that was it. People don't even wear him on clothes. I didn't understand this at all.

Most major cities I’ve visited smell pretty bad. Especially in downtown areas. Piss, trash, spoiled food. Tokyo had none of that, at least where we were.

As an English speaker, adjusting to Japan phonetically was a little tough. None of their words remotely resemble ours.

It's a Coca-Cola country. It's everywhere, and in most restaurants. Whereas Pepsi is only found in vending machines.

The country is filled with toilets that handle everything for you (except for the actual going). The seat is warmed. Water is sprayed. Lots of options and mild initial confusion, but it was great once I accepted the toilet’s offerings. Though, when I returned home to Los Angeles, restrooms felt odd. Somehow, when confronted with the challenge of wiping, I'd forgotten what to do. Or at least lost my natural, well-practiced motion. The self-cleaning toilets of Japan left me too rectally adventurous, and now I had to pay for my own sins.

If you enjoyed this list, in some ways I wrote it because of Jan Chipchase’s 61 Glimpses of the Future.

Advice From Dogs Conveyed Only By Look

Do you all know Yumi Sakugawa? She tells perfect stories, and makes me happy to be human. And this weekend, I went to a zine workshop of hers at the PMCA. This is what I made.

#Zine #AdviceFromDogsConveyedOnlyByLooks #CWMoss

Every SAMO© Phrase I Could Find

These are my collected writings of Jean Michel Basquiat and Al Diaz as SAMO©. These are the phrases that I was able to find online, so this is incomplete. I attempted to keep important [sic]-phrases and -spellings, as well as relevant line breaks (which to me are half the magic).

SAMO© is dead

SAMO© as an end to mindwash religion, nowhere politics and bogus philosophy.

SAMO© as an end to playing art.

SAMO© as a neo art form

SAMO© as an alternative 2 playing art with the ‘radical chic’ sect on Daddy’s $ funds.

SAMO© as an escape clause.

SAMO DOES NOT CAUSE CANCER IN LABORATORY ANIMALS!!!

SAMO FOR THE SO CALLED AVANT GARDE”

SAMO AS AN END TO THE 9 TO 5 “I WENT TO- COLLEGE” “NOT 2-NITE HONEY” ,,,BLUZ,,,THINK,,,

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING IS OMNIPRESENT? [ ] LEE HARVEY OSWALD [ ] COCA-COLA LOGO [ ] GENERAL MELONRY [ ] SAMO©…”

“MICROWAVE & VIDEO X-SISTANCE “BIG-MAC” CERTIFICATE” FOR X-MASS… SAMO©”

SAMO FOR THOSE OF US, WHO MERELY TOLERATE CIVILIZATION,,,

THE WHOLE LIVERY LINE BOW LIKE THIS WITH THE BIG MONEY CRUSHED INTO THESE FEET

SAMO SAVES IDIOTS AND GONZOIDS

(SAMO) A PIN DROPS LIKE A PUNGENT ODOR

SAMO ,,, AS A CONGLOMERATE OF DORMANT-GENIOUS,,,

SAMO,,, FOR THE URBAN RED- NECK,,,

SAMO AS A RESULT OF OVEREXPOSURE

SAMO,,, JUST IN CASE,,,

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS HAS THE MOST POLITICAL INFLUENCE? A. [ ] TELEVISION B. [ ] THE CHURCH C. [ ] SAMO D. [ ] MCDONALDS

HYPERCOOL SAMO IN THE MORNING HYPERCOOL POON TANG AT NIGHT,,, HYPERCOOL OH YEAH OH YEAH

HYPERCOOL POLYESTER UNDERWEAR HYPERCOOL COMBAT BEOT,,, THE GONZOIDS ARE ROCKIN’,,, IN LEISURE SUITS,,,

SAMO FOR THE PHONYS,,,

MY MOUTH / THEREFORE AN ERROR ©

Ones people have sent me since my initial post:

SAMO© FOR THOSE THAT ACCEPT “ETHNIC-ART” OUT OF GUILT

ORIGINS OF COTTON.

From Basquiat’s Résumé:

[Page 1] JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT

NEW YORK CITY

EDCATION(crossed-out) EDUCATION

EXPERIENCE (slightly crossed-out)

EMPLOYMENT (blacked-out) PATRICIA FIELDS (blacked-out)

PUBLISHED INTERVEIWS (sic)

VILLAGE VOICE HIGH TIMES (both in brackets)

[Page 2]

REFERENCES

PATRICIA FIELDS GLENN O’BRIEN JAMES CHANCE ANDY WARHOL ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG DIVINE DEBORAH HARRY(BLONDE(sic)) ELAN MIDGETTE DICK TRACY CHRIS BURDEN TENNESSEE WILLIAMS JOHNNY CARSON

[Note: Most phrases were found online, but I’d imagine there are many in books and journals that could be added. If you’ve found any, please send them my way: [email protected]]

Why an adult wants to live forever: THINKING ABOUT BONNE-MAMAN SONS HUSBAND SISTER BROTHER ANCESTORS PARENTS SKY OCEAN CAKE MADE BY OTHERS AS A PRESENT PANTONE 805 CANELÉS PARIS CEREMONIES OJAI MEMORIES POETRY THE WORK OF CORITA THE WRITINGS OF VARILLON THE BOOKS OF BAUDELAIRE THE FLOWERS IN THE FIELD OF LESCON THE PLUMS AT MOLIÈRE THE LONG BREAKFASTS AT BÉA THE LAYING DOWN AND TALKING WITH ELOISE THE NIGHT SKIES OF PÉRIGORD GOING TO THE FARMERS MARKET LISTENING TO SIMON & GARFUNKEL, AND BACH AND JANE BIRKIN AND NICK DRAKE KAVI AND IRA’S DINNERS WOMEN’S DINNER THE WEDDINGS TO COME THE TRIPS TO JAPAN & INDIA THAT DID NOT HAPPENED YET THE BEACH IN BIG SUR TEACHING SOME MORE MAKING COLORFUL THINGS GARLANDS PACKAGES SENT TO PEOPLE I HAVE NOT YET MET DELPHINE, MISSY, ALEXANDRE & GALETTE CAP FERRET MY GRANDCHILDREN (MAYBE?) OLD CHURCHES SMELL AND BEE’S WAX COMING HOME OVER AND OVER GOLDEN & PINK LIGHT ON SAN BERNARDINO MOUNTAINS HÉLOISE PLAYING PIANO VISITING GARDENS PICKNICKING BY THE RIVER DRAWING TOGETHER MAKING BOOKS TOGETHER EATING JAPANESE FOOD LISTENING TO INDIAN MUSIC AT JAN’S HOUSE ROCKS ON THE ROAD LEAVES MORE QUILTS DINNER AT AUDRIX FISHING WITH THE BOYS THE TALL TREES ARMADILLOS DESERT PLANTS CREPES DESROIS EATING DUCK WITH CREPES AND GARLIC POTATOES MAKING JAM GROWING PLANTS MAKING ORNEMENTS LISTENING TO AMADEO & CAVIXRE LISTENING TO MY PARENTS ABOUT THE POLITICAL REFUGEES THE GHOST GROWING TOGETHER

Bits from Matthew Weiner's Paris Review Interview

—

Matthew Weiner, Mad Men's show creator, gave one of his most open interviews in the Paris Review in the Spring 2014. In it, Weiner talks about his writing background (poetry, Sopranos, sitcoms), ideas of good story, and using his natural inclinations for work.

Their history and candor make this interview better than most. The back in forth is done well by Semi Challas, a writer and producer on Mad Men since 2012.

—

All emphasis mine.

On the importance of reading the Paris Review as a teenager:

"There were people talking about writing like it was a job, first of all. And then saying “I don’t know” a lot. It’s helpful, when you’re a kid, to hear someone saying “I don’t know."

On where the show came from:

"Everyone loves the Horatio Alger version of life. What they don’t realize is that these transformations begin in shame, because poverty feels shameful. It shouldn’t, but everyone who’s experienced it confirms this. Sometimes people say, I didn’t know we were poor—Don Draper knows he’s poor, very much in the model of Iacocca or Walton, who came out of the Great Depression, out of really humble beginnings. Or like Conrad Hilton, on the show. These men don’t take no for an answer, they build these big businesses, these empires, but really it’s all based on failure, insecurity, and an identity modeled on some abstract ideal of white power. I’ve always said this is a show about becoming white. That’s the definition of success in America—becoming a WASP. A WASP male."

On how he writes the show:

"At the beginning of the season I dictate a lot of notes about the stories I’m interested in. Then for each episode, we start with a group-written story, an outline. When I read the outline, I rarely get a sense of what the story is. It has to be told to me. Then I go into a room with an assistant and I dictate the scenes, the entire script, page by page. […] I can see it in my head. And I don’t look at the dictation. I try and keep it in my head. That’s why the fatigue gets so bad. And why it’s crucial to have the right assistant. It requires the chemistry, it requires them reading my mind a little bit so they know when I’m moving back to an earlier person who’s talking or which person is saying it—because sometimes I stop identifying the speakers. After a while I’ll talk in different voices. I don’t even know what I’m doing when I walk around making up those scenes."

I think this is the most revealing line in the interview:

"To me, waiting in line is one of the funniest things in the world."

#matthewweiner #mad men #interviews

Single-width lines, lots of 'em, updated just for you—baby, all on my site. *you blush* http://greyrainbow.com

The wind tells me how she wraps her thin arms around the hats of young girls and lifts them off their heads and flings them into rivers. She tells me how she has blown a jewel into the path of a beggar, a bullet into the heart of a banker. She has tickled the cheeks of babies, dashed ships against rocks and then, consumed with remorse, pulled survivors ashore by their coat tails and petticoats. She has fanned fires, destroyed towns and then comforted the cheeks of fire fighters with a breeze. She has boiled water for the tea of explorers, melted ice caps, irritated old women damp with rain, blown curtains open to reveal illicit kisses, pushed back the petals of flowers to show a child a dancing fairy, cooled the brow of the Prince of Denmark when he was a child. Her stories jostle for space in my mind until I beg her to stop. I can only hear so many jokes in one night. She leaves me, lamenting my exhaustion, and tell me, sighing. She is lonely again.

— —An excerpt from Jennifer Higgie's novel Bedlam

I'd like to introduce to my new project: the #Artlympics

Can't Touch This (5)

Can't Touch This (4)

Can't Touch This (3)

Can't Touch This (2)

Can't Touch This (1)

To Geoff McFetridge

Geoff McFetridge:

I've written a lot of thank you letters in my life, but I can't think anyone who deserves a 'thank you' more. (Other than my parents. Thank you parents!)

You work is always truly human. You're a passive boxer, pulling your pencil across the paper to create your own stage. The world is filled with people throwing the first punch, and you're just being fanned by their exertion.

At your recent talk at the Hammer, you said, "your response elevates the question." Now, I can't stop wondering what questions are stuck in your side.

I don't know how to explain you to others. It seems as if the world shifts to speak the language that is yours.

Thank you for making something for something. Your purpose gives me purpose. I hope to I can make the world as beautiful for others as you've made it for me.

[Original here]

#covers

To Kimiaki Yaegashi

Kimiaki Yaegashi:

I don't understand your work. I don't know where you're going.

Thank you for not being understandable. I can't wait to see where you go.

[Original here]

#covers

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