the mercury day books

all photographs courtesy of M+B Gallery


This is what today feels like.
Mercury in retrograde.
Mercury's daybook.

feral for ferus ... and ed

When I moved to Los Angeles in January, 2000, I arrived in search of a suntan and a place I found no longer existed, a centerless stretch of art and beer blasts and big wide metal cars. I was 24 at the time, was from New York and didn't know how to drive so cars had a particular flirtation for me.

In truth though, I was searching for the Los Angeles of the 1950s, the Los Angeles of big hair sprayed hair, and clam-diggers and of course, of Ferus Gallery. And especially of co-founder Ed Kienholz, who's work has made its way under my skin and stayed there since I first saw his Back Seat Dodge '38 (above top) when I was in high school at The Whitney. In fact, when Back Seat Dodge '38 was shown in 1966, the LA Board of Supervisors declared the installation obscene and practically demanded that the LACMA close the exhibit. The LACMA wound up showing the installation but with a closed car door, a guard and the provision that anyone under 18 would not be allowed to enter the exhibit.

Though the piece depicts a car crash and two enmeshed bodies on top of each other in the backseat, there's a certain romanticism and peaceful stillness that creeps in, just behind its humor, vulgarity and garish erotic horror in color. I guess I've been trying to do something like that with my own poetry, capture that amazingly nuanced mixture that I think can only come out of Los Angeles because of its color.

This is the city that birthed Noir, red carpets and pink cadillacs and blue martinis but this is also the place where from about 3pm - 8pm is called "the magic hour" because of the luminescence that hangs over the hills, and dusts its entire expansiveness, through Figueroa, Vermont, La Brea and Centinella, past Pico and Olympic, past Venice, Washington, and out to the Pacific Coast Highway.


“I used to say, ‘John, what about the artist who just goes into his studio, paints paintings and tries to make them the best that he can? What about an artist that just does that?” He said, “Kienholz goes out at night in his pick up truck and tries to find them and run them down.” 
--Critic Peter Plagens in coversation with artist John Altoon

the gunslinger

 

 

If It Should Ever Come

by Edward Dorn

 

And we are all there together

time will wave as willows do

and adios will be truly, yes,

 

      laughing at what is forgotten

and talking of what's new

admiring the roses you brought.

How sad.

 

You didn't know you were at the end

thought it was your bright pear

the earth, yes

 

another affair to have been kept

and gazed back on

when you had slept

to have been stored

as a squirrel will a nut, and half

forgotten,

there were so many, many

from the newly fallen.

originally titled new york beat

you go with me my gentle boy?
-Downtown 81

I remember when New York looked like this. I remember a New York without yarn shops and baby boutiques. I remember when an anonymous band of poets raided the marquees of long abandoned showgirl theaters on 42nd Street with plastic letter lyrics. I remember the greatest noise.

beautiful child

from Tusk, Fleetwood Mac, 1979

sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name...

*all photos appear courtesy of www.ebcoho.org

Vestiges of American pioneerism have translated in recent years into a singular vision of modern lifestyle organization. In other words, you can't discover Utah. We've already done that. Just ask the Tabernacle. But the spirit of wanting to spread out, build the largest home on the greatest acreage with the most impressive and vast landscape architecture to individually dominate and exercise control over the space in which one lives, prevails.

And on one level, I get it. While I can't say I've ever cozied up in anything over 1200 square feet and have never ever had anything similar to a lawn, backyard or garden unless you count a pool dug in the center of a Melrose Place-style apartment complex I cavorted in the first year I lived here. I like to decorate as much as the next Domino Magazine aficionado, have been known to leave more than a few dishes in the sink for longer than I would like to admit and sadly have killed each and every plant that I've ever potted. I also lived for several years in a apartment complex with lots of lovely ladies, generally citing cheap rent for a big space (with wooden floors) as my main motivation.

But, when I think back to that experience, the real appeal was living amongst a group of inspiring individuals with diverse skills and talents. Not only did I enjoy their company but I learned valuable lessons from learning how to be a good listener to making jewelry to sewing trashy lingerie based on 1970s patterns to ripe avocados can be kept for literally weeks in the fridge.

I have another birthday right around the bend and with that I'm feeling the winds of change. We hear a lot about community in our culture, building community, the benefits of community, using your singular skill set to benefit a group i.e. truly belonging in just the right place, but then we all get into our cars alone and go home, maybe to a partner and kids, maybe to a pet rabbit, maybe to just your empty environs.

I have a birthday a comin' and I'm feeling a sea change. I'm kind of tired of not exactly practicing what I preach. I long for community, albeit, a one that both encourages and honors both the body politic and a person's need for private time and space. And you know what, such a place does exist. In fact there are many of them.

Of course, I'm talking about co-housing, collectives, eco-villages and sustainable intentional communites, all four of which do differ due to financial arrangements, legal specifications, and structural values. But no matter what co-community is right for you, as you're as invested socially and emotionally as you are financially, it's nice to know that there are several options for monthly rent/contributions/moratge & monetary obligations ranging from over $5,000 to $460 a month.

That said, it seems that that they also generally share certain ideals such as member designed dwelling or groups of structures and buildings aesthetically and architecturally agreed-upon that form a retrofit neighborhood. Generally, depending on the organization of the community, all decisions that affect the co-house are made by "one no-vote" or consensus practices, members often cook and eat meals together, have work shifts in which they upkeep and improve upon the homestead from building and tending gardens to installing gray water systems to cleaning the bathroom and make it personal and shred values to support and nurture one another through life twists, upheavals and magic moments.

Besides, who isn't kind of stoked about contributing their unique skills, creativity and resources to a community where the results of their efforts benefit everyone? 

Other benefits include the use of common areas and skill shares from my research may include: 

Art and dance studios, commercial kitchen, mixed use room, monthly dinner for extended community, regular social gatherings, meetings, shop space, guest rooms, shared office, healing & spiritual practice space, movement space, library, apothecary, pantry, hot tub, sauna, outdoor shower, garden shed, natural building, bike parking, bike maintenance, cob oven, cob bench, fire pit, outdoor gathering, garden, wheelchair accessible bathroom, laundry services, children play space, fort, music room, green house, nursery, hens, chickens, and livestock, fish ponds w/solar waterfall, excellent gardens, honey bee colonies,  fruit trees, lavender lined walkways, hot tub, and many other benefits. such as eco-friendly home elements like solar hot water, gray water irrigation, wind and solar-voltaic energy harvesting. 

And yes, depending on their ages, children also participate in work shifts, probably not rewiring the kitchen. But maybe feeding the chickens or picking the strawberries for that night's dessert or babysitting the younger kids in the group. And of course, parents are also encouraged to give one another a hand by carpooling school drop-off and pickup schedules, tutoring and mentoring, and supporting one another through parenthood, even if it is just figuring out how to deal when your teen keeps sneaking out of the co-house to catch Leftover Crack at 924 Gilman.

Of course, one should expect to find the pre-requisite ruddy-cheeked university students on board, but I'm much more excited about a multi-generational space. As my beloved and I have agreed, if we haven't hooked up into co-housing situation in the next few years, our senior years will most certainly be spent in community. If not, just push my wheelchair over to the window, give me a kiss on the cheek and let me get to it. I'm with Sophia. No Shady Pines for me.

Sadly, I believe that the few LA co-housing and community spaces have closed but there is still one eco-village, the LA Eco-Village, located at 117 Bimini Place, LA, CA 90008. Check them out toute suite. They really do have an amazing array of skill shares, lectures, eco festivals and celebrations, education, training and consuting for more environmentally sustaining neighborhoods, a green jobs listing, permaculture activities and resources, eco networks and resources, a list of important affiliations and how to join a time bank near you.

However, my real dream is to trek up north and set up shop in the East Bay. Here's an amazing intentional living website that focuses on LA's neighbor to the north and another site that addresses co-housing and cooperative cultures in all 50 states. Both just might tickle your fancy and hey, we might wind up being co-housees.

So, um, you wanna check out that Leftover Crack show at 924 Gilman?

www.ebcoho.org/ - East Bay Co-Housing. An extremely comprehensive website about intentional living in the Greater Bay area from Nevada City to Oakland, as well as a plethora of information about starting a co-housing lviing space, Co-housing Coaching and "EBCOHO events for members," plus "links to other events featuring a global network of friends and allies: pioneers in cooperative culture and sustainable communities: urban farmers,  affordable housing developers, green builders, and creative visionaries in the movements for more open, user-friendly and collaborative technologies, economies, and governments."

Are you interested in intentional living? Here's two really helpful websites:

http://fic.ic.org/ - The Fellowship for Intentional Communities. According to their website, the FIC "promotes community living and cooperative lifestyles across North America.
The Fellowship for Intentional Community nurtures connections and cooperation among communitarians and their friends. We provide publications, referrals, support services, and sharing opportunities for a wide range of intentional communities, co-housing groups, eco villages, community networks, support organizations, and people seeking a home in community.
Intentional Communities have for many centuries been places where idealists have come together to create a better world. Although there are thousands of intentional communities in existence today, and many others in the formative stages, most people are unaware of them or the roots from which they spring. The Fellowship is increasing public awareness of existing and newly forming communities. We offer information and referral fr those who are actively seeking or simply curious about, alternative lifestyles for the themselves and their families. 

Communities come in all shapes and sizes, and share many similar challenges -- such as defining membership, succeeding financially, distributing resources, making decisions, raising children, dividing work equitably, and choosing a standard of living. Many wrestle with questions about right livelihood, spiritual expression, land use, and the role of service in our lives. At the same time, there is limited awareness of what others are doing to meet these challenges -- and much to gain through sharing information and experiences with others exploring similar paths. The Fellowship documents the visions and experiences of life in community and actively promotes dialogue and cooperation among communites. 

oh, new york

Even amidst your chaos, there are city havens such as this farm in Queens.

I was so much younger then, wore a pleated silver floor length gown to a farm.

That; however, black tie to a waterfall style, is an ace way to get out of town and still stay.

Especially if rains a bit.

let it be tenderness

Way Out West

By Amiri Baraka

(For Gary Snyder)

As simple an act

as opening the eyes. Merely   

coming into things by degrees.

Morning: some tear is broken   

on the wooden stairs

of my lady’s eyes. Profusions   

of green. The leaves. Their   

constant prehensions. Like old   

junkies on Sheridan Square, eyes   

cold and round. There is a song   

Nat Cole sings . . . This city   

& the intricate disorder   

of the seasons.

Unable to mention   

something as abstract as time.

Even so, (bowing low in thick   

smoke from cheap incense; all   

kinds questions filling the mouth,   

till you suffocate & fall dead   

to opulent carpet.) Even so,

shadows will creep over your flesh   

& hide your disorder, your lies.

There are unattractive wild ferns   

outside the window

where the cats hide. They yowl   

from there at nights. In heat   

& bleeding on my tulips.

Steel bells, like the evil

unwashed Sphinx, towing in the twilight.   

Childless old murderers, for centuries   

with musty eyes.

I am distressed. Thinking

of the seasons, how they pass,

how I pass, my very youth, the

ripe sweet of my life; drained off . . .

Like giant rhesus monkeys;   

picking their skulls,

with ingenious cruelty

sucking out the brains.

No use for beauty

collapsed, with moldy breath   

done in. Insidious weight   

of cankered dreams. Tiresias’   

weathered cock.

Walking into the sea, shells   

caught in the hair. Coarse   

waves tearing the tongue.

Closing the eyes. As   

simple an act. You float