#425

Thinking about the potential inherent in combining cellulose and proteins, as well as cellulose and polymers. Thinking about frames and armatures in wire and rebar and pvc pipe. Thinking about ways of draping, of enfleshing these armatures with all kinds of cellulose/polymer/protein/pigment combinations, and encasing those new bodies in different combos of protective chemical formulas. Wooden sculptures, with meat and scales of fabric and glass! Sculptures made from destroyed kitchen equipment and broken chunks of discarded masonry! 

These are old dreams, these dreams of living paint-spattered, gluing fried motherboards to shattered porcelain and nailing sheet metal to plywood, spray-painting and englittering the whole deal. I used to draw and paint and smash stuff together almost as much as I used to write, but time and circumstances narrowed the frame till I was basically a writer that doodles with unusual fervor. 

No more! I've talked about reclaiming these parts of myself and let it fade. Not again. Shit is about to get insane up in here. 

Praise be! Rejoice! Rejoice! We give way before a mighty immanence!

*

Cutting and tearing up these New Yorkers is a real trip, man. I hate some of these articles and ideas so fucking much. Some of these images and jokes are so fucking deadass stupid. I don't like being made to feel that way, but hey. It is what it is. I feel what I feel. 

Lots of usable stuff, though. And each issue represents a great quantity of papier-mâché and collage background/filler, not to mention plenty of good images and photos. Usable. Practical. High-yield. That's what's important about this magazine. Very upscale garbage, something to be grateful for.

*

Right on, people of Earth. Hell yes, fellow Terrans. More painting to do today. But first, some videos game. Been on my feet being productive almost the whole time since four this morning. The good schedule. I think I'll do one of those crazy person protests if they don't repeal daylight savings time this time. We need to leave it here. I need it to be over. The nightmare cannot continue.

Ok peace

--JL

#419

Man, there is no pain at all like going through a box of keepsakes from past lives. It is the spiritual equivalent of what I imagine it is like to be fatally shot several times in the torso and limbs--a series of hammer blows so powerful they are numbing, followed by pain unlike anything that has ever spread through your system, the pain of pulverized bones and shredded organs, before a dizziness and lightness of being washes over you and you are gazing into an absence from which there is no return.

Except the spirit does not die, so you can open the box and feel it all again over and over again, lord knows how many times before death claims you.

Hey! Good morning! Happy Monday, as some say with their tongues in their cheeks and too-bright eyes.

*

The sky is a pure, sheer blue. It is a kindness on the vision, but I was reading about how the ocean waves areosolize more PFAS than like, human activity at this point, and how far the heat this year exceeds our frail projections--I mean, everyone should have seen this coming. A pot has fire under it for a long time. For a long time, nothing happens. Then you can kind of see some movement. Then it's like, okay, it's gonna boil, but it's not boiling. Suddenly, ferociously, it's rolling. Why did we think it would look any different? So I'm basically struggling with feelings of "there was hard evidence as far back as the 1960's that were were going to destroy this planet and every year it piled up and piled up as the little bubbles started floating up from the bottom of the pot, and now here we are. Decades before I was born you assholes knew and you did nothing. You delved deeper, greedier! You doubled and tripled down! You went all in and now the rest of the world needs to go all in, four billion more motherfuckers need a washer-dryer combo and a big TV! And still you scream for more power to fuel your twisted, useless dreams, to forge ever more numinous empires at the expense of all we hold dear! You are burning coal in West Virginia to power data centers in Virginia! What? What in the hell? Who are you people? Can't you see? Wake the fuck up!"

You can't change the past, of course, and there is no profit in indulging in resentment and bitterness about chances missed and etc. So it goes. And you can't stop a fool from swinging their pickaxe and spending their money how they like. Fuck it! Why get mad about it? Why even worry that your small life and its efforts are in no way an offset for these coked-out maniacs?

Sky is a pure, sheer blue. For now. For today. Focus on that. It'll be what it'll be, as it has been what it has been, for it is what it is and that's all it can be,

Trying to breathe more. Breathe better. Haven't hit my skill ceiling there. Anywhere, I hope.

*

Perhaps it is important to lift as much as you can, nice and early in the morning, and let it go. It is painful, but just putting your head down and one foot in front of the other seems to me tro be the way we got into and stay in this messy soup. 

We must give meaning and purpose to our lives ourselves, of our own volition, using our own materials and drives. An easy to thing to forget and leave in the hands of others, who would have us as their pawns.

Gonna make art out of trash today. Pretty excited. 

--JL