../melody in chaos
just launched an alt substack called The Dark Slope focused on my very recent dive into cryptocurrency investing. My second piece for the publication centers on how we are now turning energy into money (current into currency, that is), and how that upends the value of work.
substack mirror:
In early May 2018 for a couple weeks, while I lived in LA’s Laurel Canyon, a mockingbird set up shop atop a utility pole just across Gould Ave from our cottage. He spent his time flitting and flipping on his perch, calling out across the hills for a mate.…
continued...
medium mirror
on the metro now,
a sunday at 0815,
everyone’s either on the phone
or asleep.
difficult to tell
which from which.
i was not wrapped up in a device,
until now,
as i draft into an app.
typewriters are difficult to wield on the Q,
no pen or paper on me, either.…
continued...
CVS, NYC / 20240125.1521
I spent ten minutes last Thursday afternoon wandering a Brooklyn CVS while waiting for an Rx. This was my first time back in a city pharmacy since returning from 2+ months in Florida. Amazing how many more shelves are inaccessible than when I left.…
continued...
The big epidemic of this age is not Covid, or some other transmissible medical sickness, but rather, an epidemic of certainty. Everyone is so effing sure that they’re correct about everything.
I may be wrong, but I’m never in doubt.
— Marshall McLuhan
The nanosecond we learned the world was borne of quantum uncertainty, and that life is just a random Card Sharks play, we embarked on a paradoxical defensive adventure to narrow the scope of accepted truth.…
continued...
“I have pickleball, bridge, yoga, pottery, then beading. I won’t be able to shower, or change all day.”
“You could skip bridge.”
“No I can’t! I cannot afford to miss a lesson.”
“Blackwood’s easy. I can teach you.”
“I will skip something else, then.”
“Hey, did you hear me?…
continued...
yesterday
against better judgment
for the first time
i can remember,
i rode the underground
with noise cancellation
switched on.
i had a far off destination,
under 2 rivers across 3 boroughs,
the luxury of time –
motion as an excuse for standing still.
lol i missed an announcement,
looked up,
and the F was now an E.…
continued...
This “advice to self” list has grown, plateaued, and shrunk through the years and ears, and continues to evolve. I return to it every once in a while to add and pare, and laugh at some of the sillier constraints I’ve set on my happiness and contentment as time rolls.…
continued...
Sometimes only lyrics can bring salve against the world’s absurdity, so no wordless vinyl made it to the turntable in this edition. I kinda needed to escape to the familiar of late, and there is no warmer embrace than some fav records, no?
I can’t eat vinyl, but if I could, there’s a ton of comfort food in my collection.…
continued...
If the web was scratch ‘n sniff, how many posts would you bring to your nose?
If sites and blogs emitted odors, how far would you keep your phone from your face when you check the subway status?
The internet, as with a war epic or a make-out scene in a barn or a Victorian-era period film, is easy to romanticize (and project ourselves into) because it doesn’t smell.
90 minutes
1x / week
give or take
holiday suspensions
78 hours =
3¼ days
every year
give and take
time suspended
sitting
idling
avoiding citation
on the alternate side
standing still
in the driver’s seat
nothing but space
on the alternate side
to
go figure
the moon out
yourself out
the odds
the risks
in my ny city
fruit hangs low,
so low,
aamof,
that
parking enforcement officers,
none the wiser,
sweep the vehicles
even when
the street sweeper
never shows to
sweep the streets
and no one
with a fresh ticket
on their unattended car,
nestled between
wiper blade and windshield,
is any the wiser
to the unswept grit
left underfoot
or the inside grift
right out in the open
on the alternate side
