 |
Three days a week, I
wake up around 7 a.m., drink a glass of
water, meditate on the good luck and
luxury of it. I feel it go down and into
my stomach, then start diffusing to all
the thirsty cells in my body. It's like
savoring a deep breath. I like the way
water fills the shape of the glass and
wonder what shape it takes when it joins
me. Ahhh....
Then it's off to work, out the door at
7:45 by the oven clock, onto my bicycle
for the breakneck ride down 39th street to
the Burke-Gilman Trail--Seattle's
17+mile lakeside bike path. It's an easy
commute to the RE Store just 2 or 3
miles away. I read the sky to get a sense
of the day's weather, nod to passing
cyclists, wonder if bird populations are
really diminshing or whether it's just me.
Today I got to work, put my
steel-toe boots on, loaded my tools on the
truck, then was told I could go home to
work on www.re-store.org. (I
didn't design it but I do help keeping it
current.) It was a nice ride back. The sun
was shining. I sat upright on the bike,
hands in pockets, enjoying the ride while
it lasted. I stopped at the PCC for breakfast
and other goodies, munched peanutbutter
covered pretzels as I pushed my bike up
the hill--sometimes I prefer walking. |
 |
I paused to photograph this graffiti
on a sidewalk electric box. Really fine
art. The stencil with drop shadow is
subtly done. The laminated C-note might
have been real--it would have been wrong
to peel it--but my guess is it's a
printout or color copy. The days are
numbered text echoes the opening of Ayn
Rand's Atlas Shrugged,
but I'm guessing the philosophies behind
the statements are radically opposed.
While rerereading Conversations with
Kurt Vonnegut, I came across
a mention of Clarence Day's This Simian World,
so I used some of my quarterly amazon.com
kickback to order a 1936
cloth-bound edition from a dealer in
Maryland for $1. It was so cheap because
it was a library copy stamped and
discarded by the ARMED FORCES
INFORMATION SCHOOL LIBRARY.
The GOVERNMENT/CANCELLED
stamp overlay seemed to echo the
graffiti's prediction.
The book itself is a darkly humorous
appraisal of the human race which acts
as a link between Mark Twain's later
stories and Kurt Vonnegut's
anthropology-influenced novels Galapagos
and Cat's Cradle.
It's a tidy little book and I wonder
what those Information Officers in
training got out of it.
|
|
|
