outside henry’s coffeeshop:

Girl 1: I really thought my parents would buy me an Audi* for my sixteenth birthday cuz my name’s Audi**–

Girl 2: (nodding in agreement) Yeah?

Girl 1: –and they didn’t..! (disgusted sigh of entitlement)

*german-brand luxury car
**teenage girl with apparently reasonable parents

more overheards from lawrence?
just the facts
punctual inflation

leonard is a sad name… is how i began the last poem. no one could be more sad than our man cohen.

so with the wind out of my sails and the sun to my back, i am drawn to his lyrical demons.

learn a leonard by his cover:

jeff buckley.. hallelujah..

deathly beautiful, filmed with a wicked shadow across the glowing white of his face. buckley earned posthumous fame for this recording and its sound and substance does seem truly ethereal, and articulated with the pain of a life cut short. “maybe there’s a God above but all i’ve ever learnt from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya…”

elizabeth & the catapult.. everybody knows..

this version is lovely for how triumphant it sounds for a cohen song. sure, the lyrics could chill your bones but that steady “con con” of the drums and the swell of the strings give it a shred more hope than the original. released on the spring 2009 album, taller children, it is a cohen for today for sure. “everybody knows that the boat is leaking. everybody knows that the captain lied. everybody got this broken feeling like their daddy or their dog just died…”

if you’d like to recommend a cohen cover, please do.

i am infinitely fond of people who leave interesting papers lying around.

as a child, i often collected small scraps of papers i found torn and tossed on lawns or playgrounds. they were usually mundane: grocery lists, to-do reminders, business cards. occasionally i would find something really interesting: a personal letter, an old postcard, a 1950s photograph.

now i work in a restaurant and people leave papers lying around all the time. they’re generally receipts, movie ticket stubs or gum wrappers. in the ever-more-evangelical overland park, diners often left “business cards for christ”– little pocket size pamphlets about jesus, or a particular church, damnation or salvation. this is not popular in lawrence.

what is favored instead is the gifting or “tipping” of small tokens. it might be a postage stamp sized sticker, a photobooth picture featuring an unrecognizable man in 3D glasses, or a card from an obscure boardgame (“your navigational experience is needed– move to the head of the fleet”).

sometimes people leave more substantial papers as well. today a couple left behind a 2-page photocopied document written in a wiry little script. i believe it is a poem, although the writing on the original document is quite large, making the line breaks seem very prose-like. nevertheless… this little piece of work was the most exciting thing i’ve found in a while.

here it is…

The Chef Baker
(c) 2009, Mr. James William Miller

Alive as the air became in
the kitchen, the wonderful loaves
of bread, hot as fresh pancakes
with the smell of maple syrup,
the chef baker left the hot water
faucet water running. At midnight
the loaves floated above the
bread pans as the water
ran out of the windows and
doors. Made you think that
a submarine was submerging
emptying the ballasts for
submersion. It all happened
on Massachusetts Street.
A police officer couldn’t
spell Massachusetts in his
police report, so he had
a hitch on the building
with rollers beneath
the building, and pulled
and rolled the building
to New Jersey Street.

under awnings and streetlamps
the weary-written signs
godblessed and begged us our dimes
we held our breath and tiptoed
over the sidewalk cracks
past the alley, out of sight

we bought two coffees and a book
on charity from the christian store
which we never read
or gave to the poor

oh, that i could have lived in a time when socialism was feared… um…? what…?

if you sense a bit of nostalgia, it’s due to a certain television series, The Prisoner! The Prisoner has everything i want in a tv drama… and more. subtle british accents, the shocking color of late-sixties film, orwellian devices, mind control, dated line delivery, thrilling score, incredible special effects and a hero so smug and self-assured he just might beat his pinko/double agent-ish rivals.

please refer to this brilliant trailer:

if that does nothing for you, please be assured Patrick McGoohan is a man of business and drives one of the smallest cars in all of britain. and he’s not a number, yo. he’s a free man. here’s the intro to the show… stick around for the compelling dialog at the end..!

mammoth life is due to release their sophomore album, An American Movement, in early 2010. What to expect? “It is a romantic and introspective account about the author, but also a passionate and fanciful doctrine that asserts individuality, creativity, freedom acquired from knowledge, ego, critical thinking, perseverance and drive, and attainment… for this is to be an American movement.”

we are within a holy war

this song immediately hit me. the concept of “holy war” is an interesting one to me because i feel as though our daily struggles are spiritual in nature. at the same time there are powerful systems that operate on fear and oppression. some of these forces claim to work in the favor of the people they seek to exploit. “every dark power… must take its fall from grace,” says the song. i expect the other songs on An American Movement to be similarly thought provoking.

the full album might not be available for a while but you can pick up their 7″ vinyl at Love Garden or buy online. check out their myspace for music, video, upcoming concerts..

how cute is that simon kid in this video? look at that scarf and that balance beam walk! and how sweet “it’s laughing and it’s loving [he] disdain[s].” and bless his heart he thinks “a rock feels no pain.”

i have my books

and my poetry to protect me

i am shielded in my armor

hiding in my room, safe within my womb

i touch no one and no one touches me.”

oh… how dear… in that scarf he almost makes me think of this guy.

i’d rather be a rose than a rock.

giant caterpillar said hello yesterday during morning cuppa joe.

she had been chasing after this little wisp of a thing called “beauty.” a fine and twisting line it was to walk– while purchasing the necessities for it, she had actually turned ugly. she had all the requisites for loveliness: a nose with a sort of subtleness, a waist cinched and trim, skin of a certain hue, cheekbones of a calculated angle, breasts of a routine size and shape, and eyes that shimmered with vapid pools of longing. each attribute had been painfully sought, each a celebrated achievement. but now the franken-sense of her composition made her look alien, sad and waning in the orange of summer’s last light.

thanks to david precht’s ever informative twitter feed, today i encountered this blast from hallmark past.

i was so moved by the monstrosity of it, that i decided to share a little hallmark moment of my own… once upon a time, i had the fortune of living in Panchgani, a tiny hillstation surrounded by mesas in the heart of Maharashtra, India. in the market, near the police station, and not too far from lucky’s bakery there was a little hallmark store (do not look for it now, last time i saw it, it had been transformed into an archie’s). a perusal of merchandise on one visit yielded great success… that is, i discovered hallmark truly has a card for every occassion.

the “i hate you” card. when you care enough to send the very best… to the very worst…

i promptly bought up every “i hate you” card i could find (in 2 varieties!– and only Rs 15 each– at the time approx $0.40) and i now bring to you… one of those very real and very moving cards. enjoy.