tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-179841532024-03-13T14:01:40.228-04:00ONE PER DAY By: Andrew Marathasselections from daily volumesAndrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.comBlogger241125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-19355224647324205082011-02-24T16:00:00.003-05:002011-02-24T16:08:24.612-05:00February 24th, 2011 -- "Generation, Loudmouth"<br><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MkVAXOlNlXs/TWbHNwlfojI/AAAAAAAACtA/xaugIjIs2TA/s1600/2-23-2011.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 292px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MkVAXOlNlXs/TWbHNwlfojI/AAAAAAAACtA/xaugIjIs2TA/s400/2-23-2011.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5577364227739329074" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">February 24th, 2011 -- "Generation, Loudmouth"</span><br /><br /><br />"This is not coffee. You want coffee? <span style="font-style: italic;">You want coffee? This is not coffee. </span>Granted, it's winter. I'll give them that. I'll give you that. It's cold, getting the right stuff is difficult, but there are better options. There are better options for a bit more money, but what's money anyways? Money is an institution that defies the great tastes of the world. Better to be rid of the bucks in the winter and to be full of hot coffee.<br /><br />Know what I mean? It's <span style="font-style: italic;">tough</span>. Pass me one of those napkins..."<br /><br /><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-25748797727654200342011-02-22T20:41:00.007-05:002011-02-22T21:04:06.882-05:00February 22nd, 2011 -- "Murray, Friend of the Land"<br><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EEbFXHC8ylk/TWRo33_QowI/AAAAAAAACs4/8pGZNNzQYG4/s1600/murray.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 287px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EEbFXHC8ylk/TWRo33_QowI/AAAAAAAACs4/8pGZNNzQYG4/s400/murray.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5576697547722892034" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />"Murray, Friend of the Land"</span><br /><br /><br />Warm.<br /><br />A warm day in the summer when the sea breeze from the west rides calm in straight lines and the pollen blends with air to create the healthy smell of sunlight. A warm day where the soft, short grass in the yards of all stands on end in the hot air, in a multitude, paying homage to last week's morning rainstorms. From below, the electric cloud pop of the sky reaches up and away, pushing the black and the steel-cold of space to the very edge of things with a very soft, flexing blue the color of a young robin's egg.<br /><br />In the land of giants, it is Murray, and no other, who sits with nature at the table of friendship.<br /><br /><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-37950350732174971122011-02-21T22:48:00.004-05:002011-02-21T22:57:36.820-05:00February 21st, 2011 -- "Pooling Skies"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rnacDU3Nv1Y/TWMyjGwBgYI/AAAAAAAACsg/YRMcBkU4qdg/s1600/2-21-2011.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 243px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rnacDU3Nv1Y/TWMyjGwBgYI/AAAAAAAACsg/YRMcBkU4qdg/s400/2-21-2011.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5576356342303654274" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;">***<br /></div><br /><blockquote></blockquote>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-66081262460073655322011-02-03T18:20:00.002-05:002011-02-03T18:23:14.223-05:00February 3rd, 2011 -- "3:44PM, Geranium observation #1, late winter, 2011"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TUs4Xj9gD4I/AAAAAAAACsQ/cwkXYMU7iOg/s1600/andrewmarathas_geranium_02032011.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TUs4Xj9gD4I/AAAAAAAACsQ/cwkXYMU7iOg/s400/andrewmarathas_geranium_02032011.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569607341615091586" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"3:44PM, Geranium observation #1, late winter, 2011"</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;">"Damp, white, red, pink petals chilling in a literal sense against a thin pane of storm glass. The natural press of a plants reach. Many chunky leaves with a fine, grown fur. Fine fur like a kiwi, like soft skin smelling like organic, chemical life. A miniature forest of lime green, the slender stems giving way near the base to rough casings of hard, bending, plant branches. The tray sitting wide with many planters, small boxes of black plastic, dusty with light brown potter's soil. Yellowing, dead leaves dropped flat in piles in the dirt. Dirt taking leaves to make them part of the system of the room. The sill covered in water spots. The watering can, an empty soda bottle. "</span><br /><br /><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-7484709985426097762011-01-13T07:33:00.002-05:002011-01-13T07:37:50.207-05:00January 13th, 2011 -- "Palace"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TS7xszE1y7I/AAAAAAAACr8/17BXAsFAAFc/s1600/1-13-2011.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 306px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TS7xszE1y7I/AAAAAAAACr8/17BXAsFAAFc/s400/1-13-2011.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5561648341776190386" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;">"Palace"<br /><br /><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-57004119614218430852011-01-12T22:38:00.000-05:002011-01-12T22:42:50.369-05:00January 12th, 2011 -- "Super"<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TS50gv7H_dI/AAAAAAAACr0/7yeUYozSxLA/s1600/1-12-2011.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 322px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TS50gv7H_dI/AAAAAAAACr0/7yeUYozSxLA/s400/1-12-2011.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5561510695818231250" border="0" /></a>"Super"<br /><br /><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-34410395271661682612011-01-04T20:53:00.003-05:002011-01-04T21:00:09.727-05:00January 3rd & 4th, 2011<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TSPPZTq9IlI/AAAAAAAACrE/prvEsIjBhXk/s1600/1-4-2011.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TSPPZTq9IlI/AAAAAAAACrE/prvEsIjBhXk/s400/1-4-2011.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5558514398789444178" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">January 4th, 2011 -- "Altair IV"</span><br /><br /><img src="file:///C:/Users/Andrew/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.png" alt="" />The speed and stream of the bubbles and the vivid pink of the cylinder left the four scientists amazed. Was this really it?<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">***</span><br /><br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TSPPZHZJyOI/AAAAAAAACq8/UobmiNKe7Gk/s1600/1-3-2011.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 319px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TSPPZHZJyOI/AAAAAAAACq8/UobmiNKe7Gk/s400/1-3-2011.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5558514395493550306" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">January 3rd, 2011 -- "The Batman"<br /><br /><br />***<br /></span></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-90358760743940076252011-01-02T19:46:00.007-05:002011-01-02T21:04:05.763-05:00January 2nd, 2011 -- "The Star Chutes and The Worlds Below"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TSElno3EeZI/AAAAAAAACqc/uG_o37T2qFw/s1600/1-2-2011.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 290px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TSElno3EeZI/AAAAAAAACqc/uG_o37T2qFw/s400/1-2-2011.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557764778065426834" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"The Star Chutes and The Worlds Below"<br /><br /></span>A fine, swirling mist.<br />Massive strings of hot, cosmic space stuff.<br />Rings of blue hot radioactivity.<br />Crisp cracks of radio chatter.<br />The cold expanses of starry, black nothings.<br />In space, a light blue gray speck of space station.<br />Planets thick with choking atmospheres.<br />The multitude of debris and ghostly particles of worlds long past.<br />The painful freeze of disintegrating energy in the shadows of heavenly bodies.<br />Many men and women drawn bright white against black like little dots of spit in space.<br /><br />A sun.<br />Many suns.<br />Stars of globed, orange fire, pulsing and alive, each with a place to sit.<br /><br />This is their home.<br /><br />City-sized blasts of space metal rotating slowly in an insane tumble.<br />Hair-like streams of fading space gas, the contrails of the quickly moving.<br />The blackened and fired morsels of silhouetted earths.<br />The ancient, the storied.<br />Small points of lacked light blotting out the surfaces of nearby stars.<br />The pull and struggle of time against the weight and the vertiginous relativity of objects, the confused distance seconds travel through space with no one in it.<br /><br />Distance:<br />The idea of distance between the worlds.<br />Vast stretches of things with nothing nearby to tell the difference.<br />Many things in much space with little outward importance.<br />Ideas of destinations as things set aside,<br />islands of reality, the disconnection of the crucial.<br /><br />In it all, white spots.<br /><br /><br />***<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-48422441900236995032011-01-01T19:03:00.002-05:002011-01-01T19:06:34.583-05:00January 1st, 2011 -- "The Year of The Rabbit"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TR_A7Cah-BI/AAAAAAAACqU/A7NKMIX7INA/s1600/1-1-11.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 348px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TR_A7Cah-BI/AAAAAAAACqU/A7NKMIX7INA/s400/1-1-11.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557372585691445266" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"The Year of The Rabbit"</span><br /><br /><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-25253903761341220762010-12-30T22:51:00.008-05:002010-12-30T23:35:56.410-05:00December 30th, 2010 -- "Galaxies from Kitchen Spice"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TR1T12ad9qI/AAAAAAAACqM/SXALr4BfHCA/s1600/12-30-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 235px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TR1T12ad9qI/AAAAAAAACqM/SXALr4BfHCA/s400/12-30-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556689699849762466" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"Galaxies from Kitchen Spice"</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Belinda held her magnificent hands in the bright, soft light over the dish, her large bands and bangles jangling half-dull, heavy with gold as she worked, sparkling with all manner of earthly jewel, clinking rich with music as if to accompany, seeming forever timeless in the air in the night with the precious, imbued quality of old jewelry.<br /><br />The children watched as the old woman they had known for years as the quiet, curious merchant in the corner apartment; as the old, kind, storied woman seemed to take hold of the dusty swirl of colorful, glowing, desert spices with invisible strings, things drawing impossible, fragile power from her fingertips and connecting to the edges of the matter in the bowl.<br /><br />She paused for a moment in the light of the dish and the candles, as if to steady or remind herself - all of this warm, mind you, all of this calm and serene and nearly melodic under the full moon beaming bright, cool blue through the window, the stuff on the plate spinning idly in cosmic circles, every so often a bit of it flaring up with the light sound of a burning leaf and grouping together in a spitball of bright, tiny light, the feathers of fire reaching thin from the tips of candles in the corner glowing orange on the surfaces of rich emeralds, the entire room a soft, vital red.<br /><br />She spread her fingers wide and lifted the thing with magic unknown to the children. Like a small tent, the tiny dunes of kitchen flavoring rose high above the plate into a new dimension. Now, what had previously been an incredibly flat pool of dry magic took life as the fired dust expanded and broke free in its small form from the thin strings to build out into a small, living galaxy.<br /><br /><br />***<br /><br /><br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-35320728205402785192010-12-24T02:01:00.010-05:002010-12-24T14:28:12.599-05:00December 24th, 2010 -- "Walter's Dapper Holiday"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TRRK8qcssFI/AAAAAAAACqE/35HHI-wFuH8/s1600/character_concept1.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 257px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TRRK8qcssFI/AAAAAAAACqE/35HHI-wFuH8/s400/character_concept1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554146646501929042" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Tinsel. Silver tinsel and egg-shaped bulbs. Bright, metallic garlands run with tinsel draped over blinking glass. Shimmering, spidery rivers of plastic ornaments in bounding rows. Hooping arrangements of colorful, ornate globes. The mysterious, glowing caverns found in the warm gaps near the trunk of the thing. Thin strings of stale, blooming popcorn. The clear smell of candy canes and evergreen. His suit, neat and mauve. The grandfather clock in the shady corner by the window facing out to a holiday parade on main street floors below, 4pm.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-67195411088797652162010-12-23T00:39:00.009-05:002010-12-23T02:19:51.665-05:00December 23rd, 2010 -- "Welled"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TRLo9afE_KI/AAAAAAAACpo/_1oyDsXqVdw/s1600/12-23-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 303px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TRLo9afE_KI/AAAAAAAACpo/_1oyDsXqVdw/s400/12-23-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5553757432280579234" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"Welled"</span><br /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-77515339796133945172010-12-22T17:57:00.006-05:002010-12-22T18:33:26.633-05:00December 22nd, 2010 -- "Nathan Tyler, Ocarina of Time"<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TRKCaQwFdDI/AAAAAAAACpg/KbxpCt9DisY/s1600/nathantyler.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TRKCaQwFdDI/AAAAAAAACpg/KbxpCt9DisY/s400/nathantyler.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5553644678186103858" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"Nathan Tyler, Ocarina of Time"</span><br /><br />In an interview, Nathan Tyler once remarked that the quality of everything old-seeming to feel as if it had a fine layer of chalk, not dust or death, he said, but chalk, forms a fine example in the winter months, the months where the coldly bright and the awful wind draws everything out and thin, where the objective of most men is to appreciate the wet dark wood of the dead season from the dry inside, to keep the murk and the dreariness for the air of the wilds and to keep everything on the inside of things arid and hot with fire, there accentuating and perpetuating - or, rather, he went on to elaborate, continuing, preserving the effect of dry, clean, chalky, old, as he would have it, effects - old books, clean pages, dry socks, cool sheets that skiff above mattresses with the most complete of airy sounds.<br /><br />He talked of days by the window, the days he would sit by the electric, breathy film of cool atmosphere near the dusty panes and wonder about the sheer amounts of sunlight bringing a cold, halved illumination to the boxy room. He would remark about the absurd glow of a world so frozen, the strangely alive light, he explained, that remains and pours outward when the world goes to sleep for months. All the while wondering this, he would, as he said, close in on the glass, real close, and keep his nose in the airy cold for long enough of a moment to feel the moisture bounce from the tip of his face to the window pane as frosty dew, small snowflakes that never make it. Tiny circles of human fog, he stated quite plainly, as if the thought had been with him for a while, would hug the outside through clear plate for some seconds before giving up and vanishing completely.<br /><br />Once done with the interview, Nathan adjusted the left lapel of his wool coat and continued with his coffee.<br /><br /><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-82972372314843797812010-12-21T19:50:00.003-05:002010-12-21T20:00:06.729-05:00December 21st, 2010 -- "Reggie"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TRFLkGnlC4I/AAAAAAAACpQ/d42_mdK6rI4/s1600/12-21-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 224px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TRFLkGnlC4I/AAAAAAAACpQ/d42_mdK6rI4/s400/12-21-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5553302899148524418" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"Reggie"</span><br /><br /><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-48619754538662025242010-12-20T23:36:00.007-05:002010-12-21T00:12:06.306-05:00December 20th, 2010<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TRAu_0EolEI/AAAAAAAACpI/eL12LrN9m1E/s1600/12-20-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 334px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TRAu_0EolEI/AAAAAAAACpI/eL12LrN9m1E/s400/12-20-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552990014392538178" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"The First of Ten Trillion"</span><br /><br />With a fleshy, ozone burp, the small point of light in the center of the room spilled out of itself into a watery sphere of tight, light, liquid fire. Miles away, the windows of the seventy-second floor pulsed a strange, dull green, subdued by the UV screens of the laboratory's solar shields. By dawn, the planet would be no more than a small stream of molten solids in a huge, new sun, and the history of the two doctors' brief experiment with formula A would remain only in the scratchy, desperate radio transmissions sent last-minute and ahead of the initial, explosive pop and growl of the newly-formed star.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"....-hnson! Th-...-an't control th-.....slipping out of the d-sh! LOOK! LOO--..."</span><br /><br /><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-34373270288958399122010-12-18T00:02:00.003-05:002010-12-18T00:27:42.643-05:00December 16th, 2010<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TQxAf8OOQiI/AAAAAAAACoo/zeIYJcm_EFc/s1600/12-16-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 255px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TQxAf8OOQiI/AAAAAAAACoo/zeIYJcm_EFc/s400/12-16-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5551883358126883362" border="0" /></a><br />"visions of 2025"<br /><br />A cell phone rumbles on a wood desk in the close dark of a side bedroom, the air of it dry and hot. Stiff warmth from a small, clanking radiator vibrates off dusty paintmetal to make stuffy, invisible odors, air that hangs in the room like a quiet, tasteless soup. The dark is mixed by climbing, slanted, salty light that slides up, over, and through distant trees set far back behind sleeping houses, light in through dusty panes, flimsy like clear paper, cold and stuck in wood, a twinkling sunlight that doesn't bend or gather in pools on the plaster white of the far wall, far off blinks that code the morning in hot yellow on the cold black green of waving trees. The winter is the future.<br /><br /><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-56118466805222470122010-12-09T18:34:00.008-05:002010-12-09T23:58:28.905-05:00December 9th, 2010<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TQGzVNsWsVI/AAAAAAAACog/vbwkaku-Pr4/s1600/RIFT_CITY2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 333px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TQGzVNsWsVI/AAAAAAAACog/vbwkaku-Pr4/s400/RIFT_CITY2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548913392931483986" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"10:34pm, on the 130th Floor of the Faucet Street Apartment Tower in Downtown Riverbank, HAN-ter01; October 28th, 2034"</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />On the night of the 28th - a Tuesday - it was cold, wet. Mona stood chilled in the modest back bedroom of her cube apartment and filled a brown suitcase as best she could with clothes. With each armful, she allowed the pile to dip down an inch and spring back up with a light, careless toss that seemed nearly pleasant, while Mona scrambled back to gather up shirts and paper and clothes hangers in a frantic, balled fist.<br /><br />Outside, time was ticking bright in the clouds over the skyline of buildings blackened into silhouettes.<br /><br />The other cities were quicker, she thought - <span style="font-style: italic;">went</span> quicker. She had heard from her sister in 03. There was never any real warnings beyond rumors. It was said there was a light light, a tight shriek, a breath inward, a small, arterial pop, and you were gone, just like that, everyone gone. This idea did not sit well, and her ears popped lightly. She began to weep. More clothes.<br /><br />The crowd in the square was much larger now, and the large displays showed maps and evacuation routes out of the city, the screens beaming bright, hot, purple slants of shifting glow through a sprayed mist on the surge of people too stupid or too stubborn to run. One woman flipped the screens the bird and shouted something awful, another looked skyward at a distinct kind of mindless nothing and wept, many others just watched - millions of glassy eyes in watery awe, a horde of the dead before dying in their city, their shouts and worries mixed together perfectly into a monotone song that, at a distance, could be mistaken for an ocean.<br /><br />Mona's fingers hurt, were sliced and banged up in places where she wasn't careful. Her hands shook as she snapped the lid shut and grabbed the case. She hefted it with a certain amount of strength and, all at once, all of the lights in her apartment flicked off. Everything was, momentarily, very quiet and far off.<br /><br />In the distance, the long sounds of losing power danced along down the street as, one by one, the impossibly large, steel brothers of the city switched off with huge, solid, thumping sounds.<span style="font-style: italic;"> BUMPF! BUMPF! BUMPF! BUMPF!</span><br /><br />Mona stood in her apartment at last, suitcase in hand, the effacement of accommodating light complete, the only light in her life now being that which hung in a shroud above the world, a choking smoke the color of pneumonia. The electric yellow light of weapons flashed distant and little on the horizon. The light, bumping sounds of explosions played a small symphony of lights in the sky.<br /><br />She looked out the large plate of her front window and noted the crowd now darkened in the absence of power. So far down and confused, the sea rolled away in streams of running, some scared, some just very simply in a hurry.<br /><br />The suitcase was heavy in her left hand. Her right hand lay still over her mouth, covering the inaudible expression of shock.<br /><br />Pop.<br /><br /><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-15787355604158282112010-12-08T21:31:00.002-05:002010-12-08T21:43:46.632-05:00December 8th, 2010<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TQA_mIZOafI/AAAAAAAACoQ/A0AQXblTXuw/s1600/hyena.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TQA_mIZOafI/AAAAAAAACoQ/A0AQXblTXuw/s400/hyena.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548504665241315826" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;">"Hy"<br /><br />Small.<br />Gray and small.<br />Brown with wet-looking spots of spiked, dry, and oily animal hair.<br />A small face with a small laugh.<br />Pearl teeth that grin past a small, simple, pitch-black smile.<br />A coat in the heat.<br />Ears.<br />Two small, round ears the color of young coal.<br />Straight patches of long, white hairs that grow out of the head like thin sawgrass, trembling in fragile strands of body hair when it's time to run.<br />Small feet.<br />Padded bits of chocolate kisses that make tiny dashes in orange piles of earth.<br />Hot blood, glassy and red on the dog.<br /><br /><br />***<br /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-2109883657914771752010-12-07T21:14:00.000-05:002010-12-07T21:15:48.101-05:00December 7th, 2010<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TP7qJ_Xe9dI/AAAAAAAACn4/yarq3ryyUb0/s1600/woods.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TP7qJ_Xe9dI/AAAAAAAACn4/yarq3ryyUb0/s400/woods.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548129248316683730" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"X-Ray"</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br />***<br /></div></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-53612456684643418382010-12-06T13:52:00.005-05:002010-12-06T14:42:28.415-05:00December 3rd, 4th, 5th, & 6th, 2010<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TP0wPqLmDlI/AAAAAAAACnw/5XhuyikmY6o/s1600/12-3-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 375px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TP0wPqLmDlI/AAAAAAAACnw/5XhuyikmY6o/s400/12-3-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547643361569410642" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"dreaming as the last bastion of good hope"</span><br /><br />The thing was dead.<br /><br />The brain of the thing, the silent thing, the metal, boxy, quiet figure of hot gold, sat clean and vibrating in wiry aluminum grips in the inside dark of the thing's head, hung firmly in place by tight, bright, dangling supports of thin metal. Accompanied within by a peculiarly sweet smell, like oranges, citrus, the brain of the thing on the inside of that thing's head twinkled with the microscopic and slow flashes of liquid, living glows, soft, mixed lights running in slow rivers as it dreamed warmly.<br /><br />Better would be to say that the thing was not alive - animated, but not officially among the living; thinking, careful, aware of the world around it through synthetic endings of electric touch, but not of spontaneous life, not from the loins of humankind, but from instead its tables, from the categories of science that smash together to produce wildly imaginative ideas that end up thinking on their own.<br /><br />Warm dreams. Dreams of flashing air and pumped stuff. The pleasant and screeching sounds from within a mind within a head within a box that produce heated light behind the things eyes. Animals. Bright, neon creatures - or, better, animations that dance in exotic leaps by fires in the dark. Wide open spaces and illusory landscapes that blow out time like a candle, leaving the thing alone in that world as a thing present. Spaces that stretch out and never stop expanding. A figure that twinkles in the lights of the dreams and observes.<br /><br />A flicker, a twitch, the slow-rolling and tiny roars of enclosed motors brought to whirs, and the thing comes to life, giving rise to gold body and colored wire that lurches forward and up and out with a punch. Directives stream in ticker tapes that line the special kind of invisible in the air in front of it. Unknown servos make the arms and legs to move in fluid, jerky movements that betray the grace of the followed dream. Thick steams gush from vents with the sound of choking or puking, and the thing is gone in the violent display of hurried, directed action, the calm, singular voice of the dream swept for a time into the insignificant floats of nothing behind the something.<br /><br /><br />***<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TP0wOpxSLDI/AAAAAAAACnY/czs0I3ntfRM/s1600/12-5-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 260px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TP0wOpxSLDI/AAAAAAAACnY/czs0I3ntfRM/s400/12-5-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547643344279186482" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"9:32pm, McDonald's, Boston"<br /><br /></span>The large man stands in line in a sport jacket smelling strongly like after shave, his jacket frayed in random places to suggest some amount of calm time. He jiggles a wallet out of the back pocket of his worn, loose slacks and thumbs it open with a soft clap. He parts the middle and whispers out a few bills. All ones. Counting them twice, carefully, he stops for a breath of a moment that most would miss to do the worried math.<br /><br />Is there enough?<br /><br /><br />***<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TP0wPYQ6GxI/AAAAAAAACno/uyxaPHnQcqE/s1600/12-4-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 264px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TP0wPYQ6GxI/AAAAAAAACno/uyxaPHnQcqE/s400/12-4-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547643356759857938" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"Sun and Lake"<br /><br /></span>All that is offered by the sun is left to spread in the early hour of the evening like milk across ripples of water.<br /><br /><br />***<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TP0wO2trMyI/AAAAAAAACng/FZKPzQyWmJI/s1600/12-6-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 321px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TP0wO2trMyI/AAAAAAAACng/FZKPzQyWmJI/s400/12-6-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547643347753710370" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"GOLD RUSH"</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">The dust of the day rose up in puffs of vapor sand as the new river bolted from the gapped recesses where dynamite punched through mountainside. The clear cold of the west river pushed the sand into piles of slick mud and tore away layers of sediment to reveal the gleaming yellow of everything Rupert had bet his life and family on. He reached down, grabbed at the rusted buckle of his screening pan, and dismounted with tears in his eyes.<br /><br /><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-88540179975926312022010-12-02T02:03:00.007-05:002010-12-02T03:24:33.080-05:00December 2nd, 2010<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPdJWl4ELBI/AAAAAAAACnQ/vd_aI-CPzE4/s1600/12-2-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 302px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPdJWl4ELBI/AAAAAAAACnQ/vd_aI-CPzE4/s400/12-2-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5545982118603271186" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"Flight Simulation, 1998"</span><br /><br />Larry stopped along the way to scratching the tip of his nose to tighten the sleeve loosely rolled one half of an inch above his left elbow. He reached over and grabbed at the cotton blue of the shirt, his aviator's watch catching white, glassy sunlight in a flat dial and sending it in an upward beam toward the cabin's padded, upholstered ceiling in a perfect circle. He grouped the handful of shirt into itself firmly, making a small, neat roll like a small, hallway runner, folded the unbuttoned cuff in toward his arm, and went on to scratch his nose as the small aircraft's engine breathed small, precise amounts of fire in a steady hum behind the cockpit's dash.<br /><br />The divorce had been finalized last week. On the eve of his new life, Larry sat in a hotel room in Bangor, Maine with a TV Guide open in his lap. A warming cup of soda sat in a wet ring on wood by the desk lamp creating a dark, slick circle next to a pile of crappy, cork coasters.<br /><br />He stared from bed at the soft, off-set, dark gray of the pulp newsprint pages in his lap as a phone pressed between his left ear and shoulder grew hot. The slanted, bright, yellow light from the hotel 60-watt in the lamp next to him lit the room up to his elbow and made everything else seem that much more dark. Every couple of minutes, Larry flashed the phone to keep it from blaring inactive in his ear as he waited to never make a call. Across from him and the bed, the large television set sat square and quiet in the entertainment center - off.<br /><br />The plane bucked playfully as Larry brought it about thirty degrees to the east. The horizon glided in a tilt to the sky without any real weight, and light from the sun poured at angles that would seem strange in a room from the ground, with licks of soft, healthy light fingering their way in from the small, bullet windows to form pleasant bangles on objects throughout the cabin. The world shifted effortlessly beyond the glass, the sounds of it drowned out by the constant song of small-body flight.<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-58630516820314904982010-12-01T19:10:00.003-05:002010-12-01T19:19:58.631-05:00November 30th & December 1st, 2010<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPbj4RnBIpI/AAAAAAAACnI/fZ0ChWXMuIc/s1600/12-1-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 334px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPbj4RnBIpI/AAAAAAAACnI/fZ0ChWXMuIc/s400/12-1-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5545870547092578962" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"2:13PM in a Parking Lot in New England in the Winter"</span><br /><br />The cold, bumpy iron of the dark gray handrail seemed to glow backwards in the shade of the roof's overhang as the bright snow behind it created a blanketing wet so complete, taking the place of everything dry. The air, thin, denied the fat and the warm of the world, fading the dark, black treeline across the lot into a velvet.<br /><br />In bursts of time over the course of the afternoon, cars mumble to life under packed snow and let it all slide off like sweat.<br /><br /><br />***<br /><br /><br /></div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPbj3Ru92bI/AAAAAAAACnA/AIMJzZ6VolQ/s1600/11-30-2010%25281%2529.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 303px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPbj3Ru92bI/AAAAAAAACnA/AIMJzZ6VolQ/s400/11-30-2010%25281%2529.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5545870529946048946" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPbj3Ru92bI/AAAAAAAACnA/AIMJzZ6VolQ/s1600/11-30-2010%25281%2529.jpg"><br /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"November Men"</span><br /><br /><br /><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-34821482032264700302010-11-29T14:12:00.002-05:002010-11-29T15:37:51.475-05:00November 29th, 2010 -- "Life in the Sun, 1894"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPP8XO24s9I/AAAAAAAACm4/PMHwzEFYPgc/s1600/11-29-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPP8XO24s9I/AAAAAAAACm4/PMHwzEFYPgc/s400/11-29-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5545053042278708178" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"Life in the Sun, 1894"</span><br /><br />Todd placed his tools in the dirty dry of the wood bin, the heavy things hitting the cracking, splintering planks with a heavy metal clank, a hollow plop and metallic tumble as they rolled over each other awkwardly in a slide to the leaned side of the rusty cart, the dipped end frying in the sun and mixing in the brightness of it all in a near-white beige like a far off dynamite fire. Shade cut the shape of the box in sharp triangles that led off and out of the cart to the cooling ground beneath. Far off sounds of many bugs in heat filled the sweating air with an electric, living hum, a moving buzz with frantic shifts in tone, a sound with a smell.<br /><br />It was 1894, he was thirty-six years old, and Grover Cleveland was the president of the nation. Todd had purchased the plot of land he was working as part of an expanded, free, labor deal that allowed for the buying of land on the cheap for the purposes of cultivating a thriving, rural economy in otherwise arid, tough regions - places of grit and salt, places where you grow things far in the damp ground deep down under the dry tops near the sun.<br /><br />Potatoes. Peanuts. Legumes. Tubers. Candy from the planet that will turn a buck pretty slowly and steadily until there is no hot weather left in the tank, until the water from the world tosses itself up and into the air and comes back down in the frigid snap of winter as bright white, a hoary toss down a windy flume that puts all activity to sleep for months.<br /><br />Sweating, Todd pulled liquid off the back of his neck with one hand while swiping away the cooling wet on his chest under the sun-bleached bandana around his neck. He pulled at the fingers of his gloves, took them off, clapped them together, and tossed them into the cart with the tools. Black, glossy leather and worn patches of light brown animal skin heated immediately in the bright in the back of the cart as Todd picked up the rig by the handles.<br /><br />Two o'clock hot, wood wheels bolstered by plates and pins over blasted rocks, the shifting sounds of shoes that need a cobbler, dust-colored everything.<br /><br />Todd walked home, ate an early supper, and spent the rest of the hot evening on the porch with a stinky pipe, smoking slowly and watching the nineteenth century count away before nightfall.<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-64033236923772692982010-11-28T18:47:00.012-05:002010-11-28T19:53:02.305-05:00November 28th, 2010, not to mention some previously neglected works from the past two weeks or so...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPLuGvuuQTI/AAAAAAAACmw/9C1w-rtEycE/s1600/11-28-2010%2528select%2529.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 311px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPLuGvuuQTI/AAAAAAAACmw/9C1w-rtEycE/s400/11-28-2010%2528select%2529.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544755890905563442" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"The Ocean as a Comfortable and Forced Transition"</span><br /><br />The wonder in his mind and in his head in the sand by the sea was made huge by the tides of water lapping in hushed pulls as he sat - or, better - sank in sand, the sand the last smile of the land before cupping or being cupped by the ocean. The great sun in the sky screened the beach in a film of hazy, salt yellow that made everything leading to the water feel very close and very hot, made from some gel of the land, some firm, juiced air with a body smell and real weight, a substance that could be better used to describe the junk pulled away from sleepy eyes in the heat of a room before noon, the lisping smack of a morning mouth thick with old spit and the taste of yesterday's garlic.<br /><br />He had arrived at a line of change, an event marked by the animated horizon of dark and clear, salty liquid, the line of the land with regard to the sea, the cut and overlap of old water made new by movement, all swirls of excited, bubbled air and swells of cold water from the blind, silent deep.<br /><br />There was a freshness, here, a dark collection of pools bright cold above packed, ancient mud. In a line, the air changed from thick and close and buzzing to something ultimately cleaner, something more open on the water with a missing weight, a misty day of blue gray clean backed by the electric pop of light behind floating water. Walk into that water to cut the line and feel the halving, the distinct split from bright discomfort and entrance into a coldly spraying clean, a curing mist that would dew lightly on top of small arm hairs to mix temperatures with the traveling blood below.<br /><br />Pulling himself up and out of the sticking sand, the man clapped the bumpy dust from his hands and thighs. He bladed away patches of itchy salt from tanned dips in his shoulder bones and thought about the long walk through land that had come to this line, this forced place where things change without so much of a plan to consider it expected or good or bad or anything subjective like that. White turned blue, hot into clean cool. He got to his feet and stretched, the sun swearing into his back and sweat with a gradual, burning yawn, the ocean ahead of him roaring in an impossibly large and flat pile of much and dark, comforting weight. He neared the edge, there a filling wind, the hinted connection to the streams of quick and moving whispers offshore that travel along waves in bumped trajectories, purposeless, completely benign and without forced direction. In with a dive.<br /><br /><br /><br />***<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">November 14th - 27th, more or less...</span><br /><br /><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPLuGLJeyLI/AAAAAAAACmo/nsLFuLz2VME/s1600/11-3-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 315px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPLuGLJeyLI/AAAAAAAACmo/nsLFuLz2VME/s400/11-3-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544755881085683890" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPLuF4RfgNI/AAAAAAAACmg/XohTnaLNs_A/s1600/11-10-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 287px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPLuF4RfgNI/AAAAAAAACmg/XohTnaLNs_A/s400/11-10-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544755876019011794" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPLuFp5bxGI/AAAAAAAACmY/OjFRm4zJBTs/s1600/11-8-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; 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height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPLrOiGKHcI/AAAAAAAAClQ/mzk7XytpZ4o/s400/11-28-2010%25289%2529.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544752726149832130" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPLrOYd3CUI/AAAAAAAAClI/hnuMm8E4by8/s1600/11-28-2010%252810%2529.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 357px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPLrOYd3CUI/AAAAAAAAClI/hnuMm8E4by8/s400/11-28-2010%252810%2529.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544752723564890434" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPLrOO5rClI/AAAAAAAAClA/e0qd-zFSAi0/s1600/11-28-2010%252811%2529.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 399px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TPLrOO5rClI/AAAAAAAAClA/e0qd-zFSAi0/s400/11-28-2010%252811%2529.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544752720997190226" border="0" /></a>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17984153.post-41457511314987119072010-11-15T21:54:00.006-05:002010-11-15T22:29:52.494-05:00November 15th, 2010 -- "Forever Celebrating"<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TOHyU4MvnVI/AAAAAAAACkw/87qCD-uSS1E/s1600/11-15-2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 283px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4tb5X7kmZY/TOHyU4MvnVI/AAAAAAAACkw/87qCD-uSS1E/s400/11-15-2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539975457139563858" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;">"Forever Celebrating"<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br />The blue black darkwater in the ocean turns emerald green and then white with a hush as it sweeps over dots of sand packed wet and hard in a flat cake to make up a salty ocean bar. The sky, a smack of pale, comfortable periwinkle, sits high and large and unobtrusively in the sky on the brink of the cosmos, playing as a kind of watcher, some kind of backdrop slapped back as far as it could be to hold everything that's real or far off in one large and blue sound that could not ever become confused or be confused for anything else.<br /><br />The smells are everywhere. The churning of the ocean at the end of its lap, the salty smell of waves giving up to gravity and falling with a slap of water on rocks and sand. The cool smell, the clear smell of water dripping in the dark places between jetty breakers, the clear sting of the water's drop's life in a brief salt whiff before dropping in and mixing with everything forever. Everything is clear.<br /><br />The young woman dressed in a warm-black swipe of deep and heated cloth stands barefoot in the drier piles of beige by the dunes, bits of lime green and dead grasses folded or twisted into soft bends that poke for a time through the soft of the beach earth before being shifted by clean feet that hang down naked from garments made for celebration. Some distance beyond the dunes are the beginnings of feasts being righted in circles of stone dug down inches into the salty shakes of the beach. Adults, groups of sweating men and focused women, gather in crouches by the bright beginnings of bonfires and add things in piles to smoke. They grab at ingredients with dark, smooth hands. For all the motion, there is hardly a sound above the constant sharing of the sea.<br /><br />Above, a star gleams yellow through the dying soft blue of the mid-afternoon in a pinpoint and flickers in place to herald in the night.<br /><br /><br />***<br /></div>Andrew Marathashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10231542052101887611noreply@blogger.com0