RSS SPIRIT

Item: Redheads who smoke are different from you and me. They come from a primeval sound and fury. Redheads who smoke make better lovers. Notoriously ferocious, they will put a butt out on your head if so inclined.

Exit: Redheads deserve a light, but give them your heart only after much discovery.


Item: There walk among us those who can speak with the birds and animals and also babies. These are called shamans, technically. Through solitary meditation, natural hallucinogens and a magical rebirth they have reached a state where no language is foreign to them.

Exit: Your dog is telling you to get a hair cut.


Item: Scalia fingers have become popular with the locally enraged. Yesterday these two drivers were going at it. He ended his side of the argument with the traditional one finger flip off. She concluded by giving him the razzle-dazzle fingers under the chin.

Exit: Consider throwing Scalia fingers to perk up tired digital symbolic notation which denotes a punctuated exclamation of displeasure.


Item: Old men in the corner bodega seem to have some sort of lottery strategy. One stood in the middle of the store while myopically scratching cards and another, feistier old guy rang up 20 dollars in MegaMillions. The bodega owner pounded out numbers without much enthusiasm.


Exit: There is no strategy to playing the lottery. Pick random numbers via 'quick pick' as all numbers have equal chance at all times of being picked.

###

Beauty ain't a player, she just crushes a lot





Last evening there were trees facing a white hushed light. Through black boughs lurked a background of sea. The sky was flush with a sea wind, light; dusky mist refulged then waned when the sun slid past a skyscraper. Joy evinced in light. How? Perhaps mirage, perhaps unintended consequence. Or: the thing that is fueling all of this.

Melancholy peeked out from behind old buildings. A stern stone canyon reflected evening sun obliquely. It cast a light one might remember for a lifetime. The buildings have been around since we were very young. How huge these buildings loom to a five year old. How massively they cut into the sky.

An urge to reject melancholy. An ambition to discover this moment for now, to not need the accretive emotional intelligence feeding it. To become a beginner.

Then, to accept all of it. The melancholy, the beginner's eyes, the simply walking down the street with a plastic bag full of books on a weekday afternoon. Is it dialectical? Maybe not. Maybe it is properly called classical. Banal, glorious and sad mingle without mercy. Quantum like they appear and register on various interpretive measuring tools.

In the evening sky by a sea a misty light invites passers-by to encounter a moment so lovely that it makes one scared. So strong it makes us question. So compelling it turns us into those most unholy of creatures, philosophers.

###

What Mexicans Call Love






This local storefront taqueria is a great place for families, workers and hot Mexican girls on spring break. Today dining in there were the most beautiful Callientas eating off wax paper covered plates like all patrons do.

Of course the most important thing is the food. This is always hot, fresh and fast. The kitchen faces the street and is the first thing you walk past when you enter. The guys behind the plastic glass are also hot, fresh and fast. The waitresses are numerous and also hot, but sometimes they do not speak English. They never fail to get the job done, except sometimes on a Saturday afternoon when the place is packed.

The ambience is the second best thing about Taco Veloz. Every single holiday on record, they decorate the place. Not just a couple things out, but lots of stuff, hung from the ceiling, on the walls, at the tables. You name a holiday, Taco Veloz energetically commemorates it. Every type of person goes into Taco Veloz, but not surprisingly Mexicans are in abundance. Mexican families (Mexicans have particularly cute babies), Mexican workers, Mexican out-and-abouters and the aforementioned hot Mexican girls.

But also frequenting are black people, white people and every sort who know a great food value. Taco Veloz is easy on the wallet, unless of course you start in on the Tecate and tequila. On warm days they put out beer in a cooler on ice to tempt diners. Actually there is beer on ice every day, even in the dead of winter.

A frequent customer says he has been going regularly for five years and has not once had a bad time. Not once. He does mention that occasionally you can be shocked by the sudden loud music, which periodically erupts out of the juke box. You should not be afraid, it is the way here.

There is a shrine in the back to the late Don who founded the place. One of those traditional Mexican shrines that is ornate, large and quite touching. It is said that those who get a blessing from this shrine are guaranteed a good day and good digestion.

P.S. On the weekend try the posole - this corn pone and pork soup comes with a side plate of fresh garnishes, and will keep you filled for the next 12 hours.


###

Can you spot the performance art?






You dash out to Kinkos, for finding Kinkos is the first grail, or cremaster moment as they say in hermaphrodartistic parlance. Enter the street to warm weather, windy but does that mean storm later? Appearances, apparitions and appurtenances appear without meaning or foresight. You pray, quietly as you walk, but are interrupted by something pretty waiting for a light. You will wait many lights before the day is through.

Scheming and wheeling dealing on the crossroads of bridges dumping cabs down past huddled walkers ignoring the news ticker and bad public art. So much bad public art. But that is a fight for another cremaster series, or grail quests, as these art works are alternatively known. You must find a Kinkos. To do that a question must be posed to a man bearing a Virgin Mega Store logo. He points the way. Into a hotel you enter. And stop.

Another life, another ecology. Black people in a cozy but abundant lobby. Black people in mustard suits. Black people sitting at marble tables, granite wheels in rows. Black person getting his shoes shined. A central American lady shines them. She knows where the Kinkos is.

Kinkos costs too much money and is overheated with the stuffy afterburn of handouts. Agendas, musical selections and color schemes are distributed to conference goers in the grand old hotel. The place has that old magic; a notepad and pen by the pay phone. It feels like hushed negotiations in wallpapered shadows and rich girls who haunt the place.

A conceptual roundabout appears on the street that leads from the hotel to library. For what is modern art if not high concept? Picture this: a guy is walking the street of the city, and he thinks up this performance art piece about stereotypes. The twist is, in the piece a guy walks the streets and sees the opposite of every stereotype imaginable. Such as - a sexy librarian, a friendly white guy, a teenage girl who does not answer her cell phone, a bum who tries to give people walking by something, and so forth.

Of course in this meta age (sublimely nuanced in this piece) you are thinking up this conceptual piece while walking and then actually see a scene of this performance in real life. It is a bum on a long row of bums by that unused park and the library. There is this bum and he, that is she, dispenses blessings to passers-by. There seems to be no cost for these blessings.

"God bless you," she says first to one direction of pedestrian, then another, then to you.

You know you have received a real blessing but feel vaguely uneasy about the free part. Uncertainly into the library you enter. Here odd shaped locals must be surpassed on the escalator. You ascend 7 escalators, past the long line to use the internet, and arrive at books with no waiting. Good ones are found. Hardcovers, the best way to read.

Check out, go up the street, under the tracks and over a river bridge. The five-o-clock whistlers herd into the train shed. You find a windy warm stretch that feels like multiple springs, layered sediment of sentiment. Yet not debilitating - a resolution, a moment of beauty. Two women lean against the wind. A wet grey smell wafts past. You run after it like a grail, or if you wish, a cremaster cycle of bundled life that lurches longingly to light.

###

Proper spoils of war



When Julius Caesar returned from Gaul, the grateful Romans threw the longest triumph holiday in the history of the empire. They were certainly glad he had returned safely from a long campaign of subduing European savages. But more important, he came home victorious and loaded with plunder. Thence commenced one of history's best parties.

Sadly such holidays do not exist in America today. All we presently distribute are the fruits of unconquest: recrimination, death, injury, impoverishment and despair. It is not enjoyable to dish out heaping scoops of loser loot.

One problem with handing out the failure, nobody seems to want it. It is hard to find anybody within a hundred yards of the shame ceremony. Try to pin blame on people and you will find the job impossible. For victory is a glorious glitter worn by all, while defeat is a gloppy glob hocked into the street.

Failure first arrives wrapped up like a winner. Those who lose hope to fool us into believing lies. After that gold paper has been ripped off to expose a steaming pile, then there arrives the muddle of 'shifting expectations.' What once would have been considered abject failure is now shined up as circumstantial victory. Alas, for the losers, the spoils are the same: blood and treasure go out of the country by the bucket full. Whither, we know not, and so do not arrange for imminent commemorative holidays to rejoice and put out more flags.

Wisdom, that dear teacher, is maybe the only real treasure of defeat. And even it is a bitter piece of booty. For all it teaches us: forever be vigilant that old men suffering cataracts of foolishness assisted by henchmen seeking easy money never be allowed to decide a contest in which victory needs be certain.

###

Let hand be flexible as bamboo and sting as hard



In the news recently was a story about how a famous auction house settled a dispute between two dealers - by having them duke it out with a game the French Canadians like to call, Rochambeau.

For those unfamiliar with this great time waster, begin the game with two (or more) opponents. Each at the count of three throws out, by means of standard hand symbols, either rock, paper, or scissor. Rock beats scissor beats paper beats rock.

During their lifetime most Americans will need to play high stakes RPS. Or as the thirteenth century Germans called it: stone, pulp and shear. (That previous statement not technically true in that I made it up.) As Americans who have embraced a newfound need for preparedness, let us take a moment to consider our own RPS strategy. If we can keep our skills sharp, we will be able to whip out a winning hand when literally, "the baby needs a new pair of shoes."

I think it is helpful to consider the fundamentals of the game. RPS is in large part a mental contest. The potential for a "psych-out situation" is plump. I was reading about these competitive RPS tournaments; there is significant effort to "freak out" your opponent. So one's confidence is critical. Also one should think about "freaking out" his/her opponent. Wear a garish hat or mirror glasses. Any way to get a "sporting advantage" should be pursued.

Consider the type of RPS game being played. Is it a sudden death one off? The classic two-out-of-three? Or perhaps a longer struggle to clearly ascertain RPS dominance. I once played RPS to 100. Exhausting, truly. I do not believe in going in with a pre-ordained throw strategy. I think there needs to be room for improvisation; to adjust one's own strategy depending on an opponent's behavior.

The number one FAQ: What is the best first throw? In a perfect world there is no best first throw. From a "poker face" perspective your opponent should assume that there is an equal chance that rock, paper or scissor will get thrown. We all need to create a random rock, paper, scissor generator in our head; then nobody gets a read on us.

But I also know that a preset rhythm can win RPS matches; or at least put you in a position to win by knocking your opponent off balance. For instance, in a best of 7 throw 3 rock, paper, scissor and 2 rock to finish. Like common chess strategies, standard offensive parries can be implemented, then modified as the situation permits.

I acknowledge being merely an enthusiastic beginner at RPS. One thing I do know, we should all take a moment to think about our personal RPS philosophy and fundamental strategy. For one day we will likely be thrust into a fiery pit surrounded by blood hungry RPS fanatics. We will need to throw down a power Rochambeau, whether for art work, money, or to decide, once and for all, who is champion of the back of the number 66 bus.

###