Life in the NohoDome: Mercury Retrograde Madness!

Okay modern humans of the 21st century. Are all of your machines screwed up? Is your computer fighting you? Is your cell phone acting up? Mercury is in retrograde people, and even a cynic like me has learned that Mercury shows no mercy in this period of skewed planetary alignment or parallax or whatever the John Thomas is going on. My camera is not recognized by my iPhoto after never experiencing problems before. Hey, iMac G5...it's Canon SD1100 here. We've been sharing pictures for months now and you act like you don't even know me. Off on. Plug unplug. Reboot. Eat me. A big David Byrne concert announcement I sent out today bounced back from newspapers and radio stations and just plain friends who I annoy by keeping them on my press list at IHEG. My cellphone battery is low three hours after a charge. I locked myself out of my apartment. This is the short list. Other things get unstable too. Mercury retrograde gives rise to personal misunderstandings; flawed, disrupted, or delayed communications, negotiations and trade; glitches and breakdowns with phones, computers, cars, buses, and trains. And all of these problems usually arise because some crucial piece of information, or component, has gone astray or awry.

I forgot to photograph them but I just found three abandoned bags in front of Chameleons on Pleasant Street with a cellphone, knee high leather boots, books about Wiccans, origami, and knitting, a leather jacket and folded women's underwear...I hate the word panties....though I'd just paid a visit to Wee-Ping at Wee-Ping on Main Street to wish her well in her store closing and next endeavor.

The lingerie and the dildos are buy one get one free. She is a translator, a good one, and is returning to that world as the next chapter in her life. We both agreed 8 years is a good approximation of how long a life's chapters should be. I asked her how much the mannequins were and they were reasonable so if you need some mannequins or floating half torsos, head over to Wee-Ping. So I took the bags to the Northampton Police Station. It was about 10PM Friday. I picked up the phone and it rang on the other side of the window. The officer on duty picked it up and without looking up at me said, "Hello?" I said, "Hi this is Jim calling from out here," and I waved at her a little. She didn't look up but said, "What can I do for you?" I said, "I found some bags and I thought they might belong to...well....I don't know... someone who was abducted, forgetful, high, or maybe even already arrested. I thought it might be evidence or at least a likely place for someone to come looking for them." She finally looked up, eyeballed the bags and said, "thanks, just leave them on the counter." At this point she recognized me from last week when I dropped off a New York license plate I'd found at the corner of Main and Pleasant and she sorta smiled. They'd taken my name and info then so I guess she knew they had my data already. Maybe she recognized me for some other reasons too. But that's history and the statute of limitations is a wonderful thing. Or maybe they take personal data for license plates but not bags. Look. All I know is shit falls off of people and cars. I take it to the cops to hopefully reunite parties with parts. That's why I'm here. To glue shit together in a world that's coming unglued.

Wednesday night I went out to South Deerfield with Rachael to watch the VP atrocity exhibition on TV at her friend Shawn Durret and her Opa-Opa brewer husband Ben's house. Mmmm. Opa-Opa Growlers. Ben explained why a growler is called a growler. Shawn says that the morning after watching Palin's mind-numbing appearance, "I felt stupid the next day (I even prepaid for gas and then drove off without getting the gas...)...is stupidity contagious?" Shawn was one of the five readers at the Drive-By Poets reading at Forbes Library on Wednesday. I've gotten better at not letting worry creep into my thoughts about things that are coming up. For example I don't get nervous before dates anymore which is a freakin' miracle. The poetry reading was certainly a candidate for worry. But I didn't let it happen. It was really a pretty great experience. All five of us got a chance to present our work to real people, and I don't think any of us are in the habit of doing readings so it was not ordinary. Readings are not slams by the way. Scoring poetry is odd to me. The whole win/lose dynamic just exacerbates a black and white, Red Sox vs. Yankees mentality toward things that are not competitions. The McCain/Obama debate on CNN had that annoying meter at the bottom of the screen powered by the audience twisting a reaction dial. I HATE the debates, or maybe just the format. It's like a bad game show. The pre-game and post-game aspect of the debates is worse than the debate itself. (Below: Late afternoon Main Street)

My friend Katie, a kindergarten teacher in Springfield, had this to say about the debate:

"As for the debate...well, I actually thought it was interesting. Biden had a lot of substantive things to say. Comments that were based on knowledge and experience. To me, he seemed more informed and real and intelligent. Maybe not completely eloquent and poetic, but straight up and informed. Palin, on the other hand, speaks to the majority of America- dumb fucks who want to see an image of themselves, or their neighbor, or their mom in the white house (or wherever VPs go). She has so blatantly been spoon fed the information. And is so rehearsed. And such a beauty queen. A woman of the stage. Very unauthentic. But that seems to be what our peeps like. America craves ignorance and loves it when the village idiot runs the show. Is that because "we" (meaning typical Americans) so identify with the village idiot? Or is it because we don't want to feel inferior to our leaders? Is it some kind of egocentricity that keeps us from wanting those whose intelligence and experience and intentions really do surpass the typical everyday person from rising to some sort of power? Do we just crave an image of ourselves, or some lesser being with whom we feel safe, staring back at us from behind the podium as another war, or crisis, or reason why poor people are still being screwed is fed to us? What is our problem?!?! I vote for the intelligent. The righteous. The well intended. The person with a vast world of experience beyond what I have lived. I vote for someone who is not me. And I'm okay that the image I see is not my own. And am grateful that it is someone I respect. Someone whose vision I stand with. Though we view that same vision from different angles and have reached it via different paths. Unfortunately, I am not the voice of America." (Below: Moon over Main)

Kris Delmhorst played at the Iron Horse tonight. I saw a woman collapse in tears during the song prior to the one I videotaped below. Her boyfriend or husband or what have you was completely disengaged and barely acknowledged what she was going through, whatever it was. It was a strange an moving sight to behold. I felt like I should intervene. But then, I always feel that way.