Finding the formula again

 
Albert Goldbarth
Various Ulia

      Did we say it loud? Eventually
we said it. Cancer. Somewhere someone else
said AIDS. But only toward the last,
near the end, when the dying was
the fear‒and not the dying's being invited.
For such is the power of utterance.

      Susie says that even ten years since the divorce,
she refuses to drive alone at night
‒that's when the words come back.

      Although the infamous Mercury Theater production
of The War of the Worlds (October 30, 1938)
was intended to horrify, still,
"CBS cut the cries of the invading Martians
('Ulia, Ulia, Ulia') as too frightening."

      A song comes on; she won't say why, but
she needs to turn off the radio.

* * * * *

I have, again, come into an understanding of how my 'formula' for making work functions - after a talk with Allie about my poetry reading this past weekend. Simply, it isn't just a matter of soundly conceptually constructing a piece (that is important), but there also needs to be room, running room. As Tony Tasset would say, "Make it weird."

luck and function

Adam Farcus - My Universe and Yours (light bulb, water, dust, star confetti, clamp light, and extension cord) 2009/2011

Our (me and Brandon Anschultz) opening reception for Ingredients for Humble Magic, at the Hills Esthetic Center, was last night. It was pretty well attended, the show looked really nice, I organized a few trades, and has some good conversations (a few of which I took notes on).

• dice - use up your luck really quickly
• non-function function - much of my work (Map of the Universe, ][][][][][][][][][, Conduit, & My Universe and Yours [image of this piece installed at the show above]) all propose a function but deny it in some way

Today at 1:00pm is my reading. Hope it goes well.

Letter to...

Adam Farcus - Insufficient (college, stamp, postal markings, and typewriter on envelope) 2011

12:35pm, May 17, 1983

I have received very few emails from my grandmother. Today I got the second ever:

Subject: It's your day!

Hi

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADAM

Hope you have a great day.

Love,

Pa and Grandma Mimi

Glowing Steps

 
GLD-013 [LUMINOUS FOOTPRINTS]

Anonymous; Nature , 12:564, October 28, 1875.

      A correspondent of the Aberystwith Observer, the Rev. James Lewis, of Llanilar Vicarage, writes as follows to that journal:

--"whilst returning from service at the parish church of Rhostie, at about 8.15 p.m. on Friday, the 24th ult., in company with two members of the congregation, my attention was called to a remarkably strange phenomenon. In walking across a field on the farm of Cwmclyd, it was noticed that our footsteps were marked by a peculiar light, which could be traced back for several yards, each footprint being as distinctly marked on the ground as when one walks in snow. When we got into the adjoining field the light disappeared until we came near to the end of it, when it was observed that our footsteps were again marked by the same luminous appearance. In colour the light was similar to that of phosphorus rubbed on a wall in a dark room, or a mass of glow-worms, or which insect, however, there was no trace on the surrounding ground."

Since no electrical storm or other atmospheric effects were mentioned, this luminous phenomenon may be chemical or biological in origin. There are, however, cases of terrain made luminous by some sort of electric discharge phenomenon.

-from Strange Phenomena: A Sourcebook of Unusual Natural Phenomena, compiled by William R. Corliss, 1973

Halley Comet Farcus

Last of Her Litter (digital photograph) 2011

Rest in peace, Halley Comet Farcus. Born in early May, 1991, and put to rest, at my grandpa's farm, early May 2011. She was brought home on my birthday, and under Halley's Comet.

Matt and Halley in my parent's kitchen

Fiery Whirl

  
GLD-040 THE NOTES OF CHARLES FORT

Fort, Charles; The Fortean Society Magazine, 1:12, Spring 1944

      August 26, 1826. Fiery whirl. Carcassone (Aude), great heat in the morning. At noon massing clouds in the west. Then a thick black cloud suspended over a field. Crackling and hissing and air rushing toward the cloud. A loud detonation and an enormous column of fine hovered the field--throwing down walls and picking up and killing sheep. A strong sulfurous odor. Nobody said it burned anything.

-from Strange Phenomena: A Sourcebook of Unusual Natural Phenomena, compiled by William R. Corliss, 1973
(same source as in this post)

More Hands

To everyone who may be fan of my hands/stars/maps post, the blog "Strange Maps" just put this up!