founders objects

January 31: Goat ATCs

2009-02-10T17:50:00.002-05:00

This was a private swap just between me and one other person who wanted to help me out to get all my 31 swaps in by the month-end deadline. Which, I want to reassure you, I did; it's just the blogging that's late. We quickly determined that we both adore goats, who are just like big cats, only not in the big-cats-can-bite-your-head-off way, but in the want-to-sit-on-your-lap-and-explore-things kind of way. She sent me the amazing goat below, which is getting framed and hung on the wall. I got it before I'd even started mine, and I loved it so much I made her two, pictured above.

January 30: Crazy February holidays

2009-02-10T17:43:00.002-05:00

Speaking of Groundhog day, February is chock full of weird holidays. For this swap we were supposed to pick five of them and send our partners presents for those five. I chose:

National freedom day (February 1, an Independence Hall magnet - I could've done better)
Groundhog day, naturally (February 2, the card above - 6 more weeks of winter)
Send a card to a friend day (February 7, four one-ounce letter stamps)
National chocolate mint day (February 19, Newman's peppermint patties)
Love your pet day (February 20, three tiny little "greenies" bones for my partners extra-small dog)

January 29: Groundhog day cards

2009-02-10T17:36:00.003-05:00

Happy groundhog day! Belatedly! I realized at midnight on February 2 that groundhog day is my favorite holiday, because, I mean, wtf? Poor Puxatony Phil, held out for all the world like a bloody sheet. And he doesn't know why any more than we do.

Just-in-time realization aside, I signed up to exchange groundhog day cards with two people. I've always projected onto good old Phil a bit and assumed he's not really looking for his shadow, he's checking out the state of the world to see whether he wants to wake up now or go back to sleep for six more weeks. Do groundhogs even hibernate like that? I don't know. But that's my story and I'm sticking with it. The top card is a day when Phil would go back underground, although what's going to be better about that scene by ignoring it a little longer, I can't say. The bottom card is a day when he'd decide it's okay to go about his beesness.

Incoming: Handmade buttons

2009-02-10T17:22:00.004-05:00

Remember the buttons I made that I was so happy with? That I sent to three partners? I only got one set back; the other two stood me up. But I'm pretty sure the ones I did get make up for the missing mail. The wooden ones above are from the heartwood of a yew tree that was struck by lighting in the maker's yard; the linen button she threw in (she only had to send four to fulfill the swap) is in a wagon-wheel style made in her hometown as a cottage industry for two centuries. Now I just need to find some equally incredible button-needing thing to which to attach these.

January 28: Four ATCs of the Apocalypse

2009-02-05T22:05:00.004-05:00

Yay! I mean Boo! Apocalypse! I love books about it. I love movies about it. Sometimes I think it's why I'm crafty, so I'll have the useful skill of being able to make things people need out of the piles of consumer goods that will suddenly become so much pointless trash when the infrastructure breaks. For now I also make collages, which don't really do anything but make me laugh.

Here are Conquest:

War:

Famine - that is, being held hostage by industrially farmed monocultures that dictate how we eat and lay wide open the possibility of disease wiping out whole families of fruits, vegetables, animals and grains:

and Death:

January 27: Mini collage

2009-02-05T22:00:00.002-05:00

I signed up for a whole bunch of ATC (artist trading card) swaps to give me an excuse to collage, but this swap asked for a collage by name. Here's what I came up with.

Just as this prim couple is about to get down to it, the cat comes along and decides it needs all the attention. Why do they always have to step on your book?

January 26: Home Grown swap

2009-02-05T21:44:00.003-05:00

The person who initiated this swap (anyone can on swap-bot, you just write an explanation, wait for people to sign up, then click a button when it's time to assign partners) wrote, as introduction, a diatribe about the wisdom of eating locally-grown foods. How could I not sign up? Being the middle of winter in Philadelphia, I couldn't exactly send a potato or a bunch of kale to San Francisco where my partner lives, but I could send things manufactured here and purchased from the Fair Food Farmstand at Reading Terminal Market, both big players in the burgeoning local foods movement here. I had a really hard time not eating the Pennsylvania Dutch apple butter, Ross' chocolate espresso bar made in Kensington (with Fair Trade chocolate of course), and from the bulk candy guy down the aisle from the Farmstand, Goldberg's Peanut Chews.

Here is a 45-page downloadable pdf booklet on why local foods are better for your body, your mind, the economy, animals, and the planet in so, so many ways.

Incoming: Handmade postcards

2009-02-05T21:33:00.004-05:00

Four out of the five of these I anticipate have arrived, and they're all so great I can't wait for the fifth to show them off.

First, a lovely and heart-felt collage:

"I started with a cereal box and went from there," says the back:

This one is entirely hand-drawn, painted, stamped and stitched, and I got it just days after its creator wrote me to say it would be late because her mother had just died:

This one I'm pretty sure had another word after "in a whole ..." which fell off in the mail, but I love it this way: See the world in a whole.

Incoming: Handmade pincushion

2009-02-05T21:29:00.003-05:00

This thing is amazing, and so incredibly well-crafted. I can't believe someone made it for me, who she doesn't know from anyone. I am so, so happy to have it. Usually I just drop all the extra little strings on the floor while I'm sewing, intending to sweep them up later. I have little threads on me like other people have pet hair. But this invention keeps a pincushion right where I need it while the cushion's weight (and non-slip foam rubber bottom) keeps a thread catcher dangling next to my knee. I put it to work immediately.

January 25: Fabric postcard

2009-02-05T21:24:00.003-05:00

Yes, I know, it's February 5 and I'm still writing about January. I got all my swaps out on time, I just wasn't writing about them in real time. I sorta wish I had, but I didn't, and now even if it takes me another month I'm going to get everything documented here. For the record, and so I don't feel like an ass. Or a half-ass. Plus, I made some things I like that aren't on here yet, and even if no one ever sees them I'd like to at least present an opportunity.

I didn't actually mail this postcard naked; I put it in an envelope. I'm not too good at the free-hand machine quilting, as you can see. But the seaweed was fun.

January 24: Six photos

2009-02-05T20:52:00.004-05:00

I cheated at this swap by accident - I was supposed to send photos of places, not people, and hadn't read the swap description closely enough to see the "no people" rule. Two photos of people snuck in, but I've already heard back from all three partners I sent these to (they all got the same six photos) with no complaints. These are some of my favorites from travels over the last several years.

The first two photos are of farmers and their kids in Chiapas, Mexico, taken when I went to visit Fair Trade coffee farms there and in Guatemala. The farmers are members of the Maya Vinic cooperative, which sells its coffee directly to roasters, often members of a buying cooperative themselves, thereby skipping several aggregators and manufacturers who buy low and sell high at the laborers' expense (sometimes at such an expense that farmers sell for less than it cost to harvest, and they lose their land). Taking the photos on a digital camera and showing the subjects their images on the LCD screen was an eye-opener. We'd already established that the farmers earn about $300 per year from coffee, and that's with a Fair Trade price. When one of them asked me how much the camera cost, I thought "more than you earn in an entire year," and said I didn't know, it was a gift. I'm not sure he believed me. The kids loved it though; even the kid on the right smiled a little bit.

It's funny what you can find on the internet: While looking for a good link to Maya Vinic, I found this photo of our wonderful group on that trip. I'm third from the right, in front of the magnificent Bill Harris, founder of Cooperative Coffees.

The rest of these are from Europe. An electric votive stand at a church in not-terribly-religious Holland - drop in a euro and a candle would light up:

A happy bird and an unhappy moth just outside of Edam:

A mama duck feeding her only baby from a plastic bag that blew into the port at Hoorn:

And sheep racing to the Daubensse in the Swiss Oberland Alps, during the annual meeting of Walliser and Berner shepherds on the pass between the two cantons:

Wow, do I miss Europe right now. And Mexico. And just about any place that isn't Philadelphia, love it though I do. I've been in one place too long.

Incoming: No-spend swap

2009-02-01T01:13:00.003-05:00

My partner for the no-spend swap, in which we were supposed to go around the house and stuff an envelope full of whatever we thought the recipient might like (see what I sent here), wrote in the accompanying note that she hopes I don't mind if everything in the envelope is handmade. I think it's brilliant. Owly earrings, decorative envelopes and a cool notecard complete the package.

January 23: Kitchen towel

2009-02-01T01:04:00.002-05:00

I knew there'd be days when I couldn't find the time to make something, so I gave myself some freebies, like this kitchen towel swap. I found a whole bunch of vintage linen tea towels at the Hartville flea market last time I was visiting my parents, and since they're too awesome to use and hence still in a drawer, I thought I may as well mail one to somebody. Another freebie I gave myself is not bothering to make the photo special. I hear tea towels are really, really hard to catch in an interesting photograph, so I didn't even try. I did take a detail shot of a rooster in a soup tureen sweat bath though:

January 22: Year of the ox ATCs, hither & thither

2009-02-01T00:39:00.005-05:00

Have I told you how excited I am about 2009? Officially it's now February 1, which means I'm way behind on posting about fun-a-day (but not behind in the actual project). But it also means I have a whole month of evidence to evaluate whether my faith in 2009 is justified. And the answer so far is yes! (I had a week there where I felt I was losing my grip, and then I figured out that in the grip lies the problem - I don't need a grip, I need to open up and let things happen.)

One of the reasons 2009 is my year is that, by the Chinese zodiac, I'm an Ox. A water ox even, so I'm really in my element. I love the ox attributes (truncated though the are on wikipedia); they are things I either am to the core or aspire to. This being the year of the ox, it seems like the aspirations should be within close reach, and I have the energy to work for them.

Naturally, I joined the Chinese New Year ATC swap! I'm still not keen on ATCs by themselves, but they give me a good excuse to collage, which I am keen on. Partners were supposed to make two ATCs for this swap; one for the ox and one for whatever sign the maker is. I didn't want to send my partner two oxen, so I chose to make a Rat. The year of the Rat will be when the Rats fight back. I think I got the beret wrong (it looked better in the sketches), but the idea is there.

Here are the ones I received (nifty 3D effect of the main elements only slightly detectable in the photos), with a genuine Year of the Ox card I like as much as the ATCs:

Incoming: The last of the 10-postcard swap

2009-02-01T00:26:00.003-05:00

The last card to come in from the postcard swap with 10 partners is this orchid from Costa Rica. I lived there for a year in 1989-90, and I think this may be the first postcard I've ever gotten from there since I came back. It's been a long time coming. I thought I'd never want to go back, but now I'm itching to. Who wants to go to Costa Rica with me?

Incoming: Glucksschwein (good luck pig)

2009-02-01T00:08:00.002-05:00

I had a lot of hopes for this swap. I love how smart, loving and resourceful pigs are, and this swap was supposed to bring me a year's worth of good luck in the form of a pig. But I'm not certain what to do with either of these things. The sender said she fell in love with the pig when she saw it, and it's nice that she'd send me something she loves. But it doesn't really speak to me (some people might think that's a good thing). It just sits there and looks at me with an accusatory expression.

Maybe it recognizes itself in me a little bit. Maybe it sees my potential to sit and do nothing myself, just collecting dust (it's my job to sweep & mop the common areas of my house, so that can be taken literally). And it's asking me, "Hey, I have thin skin, no guts, and rusty nails for kneeless legs; what's your excuse?" I think it's telling me that luck won't come roll in the mud with me if I don't open open the pig pen for it. No, I still haven't cleaned my room. But when I do I'll put this pig somewhere where it'll remind me every day to use my smarts, love and resourcefulness.

The canned ham recipe I'm definitely not using.

Incoming: Six-word friends & family memoirs

2009-02-01T00:04:00.002-05:00

I'll let these speak for themselves:

Incoming: Vegan recipes

2009-01-31T23:48:00.003-05:00

The vegan recipes I got from two partners couldn't be more different. Unless one had meat in the recipes, or unless one wasn't actually recipes, but a giraffe. Neither of them are giraffes, so they have that in common. Pictured above is a mini-cookbook written, designed and sent by the manager of a food coop in Urbana, Illinois. The recipes look easy, nutritious and cheap: Garlicky Asian kale & tofu, tempeh avocado sandwiches (with directions for marinading the tempeh), tamale pie, and chana masala. Yum! The recipes even smell delicious, having been packed with a bag of garam masala. It also came with one of my very favorite snacks in my favorite flavor, mesquite lime vegan jerky*, and a long, thoughtful card.

Another partner sent me two recipes that looked like they'd been well-used already, or maybe the envelope got wet in the mail. I'm all for reuse, it's just a strong contrast. The recipes are for a weird-sounding milkshake with ingredients I wouldn't normally have around the house, and tofu tacos. At first I thought "well that's useless," but then it dawned on me that as obvious as it seems, I've never thought about putting taco seasonings in crumbled tofu. And I freaking love tacos. Also? I love milkshakes. So I'm grateful for having gotten both of these envelopes!

* not pictured, because I ate it immediately.

January 21: "F" Animal ATCs, hither and thither

2009-01-23T00:17:00.011-05:00

There were three partners for this swap, so I made three ATCs and I got three ATCs of animals whose names start with the letter "F." Here's a long list of those. What are the chances that I'd get two flamingoes who look like they called each other that morning to see what each other was wearing?

The ones I sent are speed-collages. I just had to make a flamingo card. With a falcon, naturally.

This one I call "foxes shoe shopping," because of a little drama I imagined while I was taking its picture:

This frog laid eggs in a tv. All the fish are coming to check it out.

Incoming: Another postcard

2009-01-23T00:11:00.001-05:00

The returns are still trickling in from the 10-postcard swap I mailed on January 2. Here's the latest, with some good advice.

Incoming: Writing-prompt notebook

2009-01-23T00:09:00.004-05:00

This is the one thing that jumped out at me from the writing prompt notebook my swap partner sent (the rest are about fun or children - what is it about fun and children? I'm not sure I want to fill a notebook with the answer):

Yup. Projects and Hedonism, what it's all about.

January 20: Friendship star quilt block

2009-01-23T00:02:00.003-05:00

I had no color constraints for this quilt square except to make the background dark and the star light; my partner says she likes making scrappy quilts so just send whatever I like. I chose fall colors again. It's been a long time since I made a quilt, but I think I was more exact with this one square than I've been for any quilt I've finished. Here's the one I got in return.

January 19: Destash Swap

2009-01-22T23:56:00.003-05:00

For this swap I had to send at least ten craft items to my partner. I sent a skein of cotton embroidery yarn, a square of felt, a score of buttons, a purse frame, a wheat-colored sharpie, a roll of quarter-inch navy ribbon, a roll of quarter-inch silver tape, a measuring tape (why did I have so many?), a half-yard of floral cotton fabric, an eight-inch purple zipper, eight gold filigree beads, forty-some round gold beads, and some origami paper (not pictured). I still have lots of craft supplies I've had forever without using, and I'll be getting at least ten things back, so this isn't much of a destashing.

Incoming: Fabric postcard

2009-01-22T23:47:00.003-05:00

This is a miniature quilt, made in Finland! Its maker says about herself, "I have been a quilter for 20 years and a crazy one since 2005. I love stitching by hand and use almost all my leisure time to do it." With so many different elements of handwork, it must have been fun and time-consuming to make. It's a work of art to live up to. Here are the back (it got sent in an envelope, though these can go through the mail) and a detail shot:

January 18: Historical Fiction, hither & thither

2009-01-22T23:19:00.004-05:00

I was really, really excited about this swap, first because I got to share a great book with somebody, and second because I could use a new fiction book (Big Box Swindle is still my daily non-fiction). Right now, my third reading of James Harriot's "The Lord God Made Them All" is sufficing; it reads like fiction. At this point in the author's life, he's returned from WWII and resumes his calling as a vet in rural Yorkshire. One chapter describes the odd help he got to put a cow's rear leg back in its socket, apparently a four-person job at least. There were no near neighbors to the farm, but the government had assigned prisoners of war to stay on farms until they could be returned to their countries of origin. In all cases, Mr Herriot relates, the prisoners were grateful for the hospitality (they ate fresh farm meals while other parts of the country were still on rations) and eager to help out around the place. To the day of his writing, their hosts still visit the prisoners in Germany and Italy on holiday. This does read like fiction: What if the government decided to quarter the people still at Guantanamo on farms?

All my books are in storage in the attic, but I had a good time visiting them in their boxes to find my beloved copy of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth about a farmer growing up and old on the meniscus of revolutionary China. I was actually looking for Marge Piercy's Gone to Soldiers about ten intertwined characters during WWII, or Kamala Markandaya's Nectar in a Sieve about an Indian woman struggling to maintain family traditions in rapidly colonizing India. But I must have given those away already; they are three of my favorite books after all.

So I was sorely disappointed to open up this avon romance of all things, which was stuffed with "bookmarks" that were actually ads for more romances. Avon categorizes it as "historical romance," but it doesn't care enough to mention on the cover when and where it takes place, and even so, I doubt it pays any more attention to history than you would if your loins were quivering all the time. Oh well, I can pick my own books. Anyway, the message board for the historical fiction swap is full of references to (and only to) novels about middle-English royalty I wouldn't have liked either. Yes, I'm an intense fan Arthurian legend, but that doesn't count as history.

January 17: One pair of socks

2009-01-22T23:16:00.003-05:00

This is the pattern from the ankle socks I sent. I got them from The Black Cat, which is probably closing and everyone is sad. Do you know anyone who wants to buy it?

January 16: Handmade buttons

2009-01-18T20:11:00.003-05:00

I am SO happy with these buttons hewn from peach pits, which since 2005 have been sitting patiently in a little box waiting for me to figure out what to do with a peach pit. Let me tell you, now I know why they're called peach stones in places where language reflects reality better. They are hard, and I bent over them for unnoticed hours with sawdust building up on my cuffs and thighs. But in the end I had twelve little coins that slid and clicked together in my palm in a most satisfying way.

I've heard from two different people that I should sell these. But the point of this month-long exercise is to make stuff that's not for sale. Even so, while I was making them, I thought to myself a few times, "really? really? You're just going to send these fruit stones of your labor off to some stranger who might not appreciate how much you put into them, instead scorning their lack of uniform symmetry? Are you sure?" And each time, I decided again that the process is the point, not the product. I'm challenging myself to make new things, to make things with no profit at the end, to make things with confidence that the universe will get them where they need to go. I was sorry to turn them over to the post office, it's true, but non-attachment is a good lesson.

I attached them in sets to a card cut from an atlas cover:

I like this photo particularly. They look like cookies, but they'd break your teeth:

January 15: Handmade postcards

2009-01-18T19:38:00.002-05:00

This swap directed me to make five postcards and send one to each of five partners. I tried not to be too much of a perfectionist, so that each collage didn't take more time than I actually have and so they could retain some spontaneity. I only read my partners' profiles when I finished, and discovered that I'd made a perfect card for at least three of them. These coincidences cease to surprise me, although I still give them their due reverence. It's just the way things work.

This one went to a woman who loves nature, the ocean, vintage things and zombies (the entertainer just has to be a zombie if he's dancing with a colossal squid):

This is my favorite of the bunch. The list of things starting with "F" is from a Life Magazine ad for an illustrated encyclopedia I have a few volumes of, including the "F" volume. I love this group of words. Fairy Tales, Frogs, Flowers, Farms, Fossils, Feudalism, Foreign Aid, and (the hidden one) Flouridation, while surely meant in this list to elucidate how far-ranging the encyclopedia is, have something in common fifty years later: They are the fantasies, public relations coups, and social and environmental disasters that our society is built upon.

This postcard is made entirely of stuff that might otherwise have gone out with the trash. Honestly, when I started making it, I didn't even know it was for this swap; I just had strips of maps and calendar pages (leftover from cutting origami squares) and a piece of card I'd been using to transport them without creasing. The escalator image and the luna moth print on a piece of plastic bag came later. I mailed it to a Californian "artist/engineer/mom/gardener/recycler," whose "artwork is 99% Garbage ... I use dumpster treasures to make my collages."

This I mailed to a woman in Florida who loves vintage/retro photos, "off beat and dark humor," and who still wants a cigarette though she quit ages ago:

I think maybe next year I'll do a collage a day.

Incoming: Independent Label mix

2009-01-18T19:23:00.003-05:00

I include this background to the incoming indie-rock mix CD swap not only to make the photo interesting, but because my swap partner mailed me a whole yard of this fabric, which is just begging to become my favorite spring skirt. The mix looks good too, although I haven't been able to play it yet without my computer crashing. I need to fix the CD drive. Here's the playlist, chock full of capital letters:

1. State of the Union - David Ford
2. Breathe Me - Sia
3. Coconut Skins - Damien Rice
4. In Circles - Sunny Day Real Estate
5. The Walk - Imogen Heap
6. They - Jem
7. Sorry About That - Alkaline Trio
8. Dear Josie, Love Robyn - Sarge
9. Zebra - John Butler Trio
10. Umbrella - Marié Digby
11. I Know You Love Me - Smoking Popes
12. Jolene - Mindy Smith
13. I'm a Loner Dottie, a Rebel - The Get Up Kids
14. Friend X - Pohgoh
15. Frozen - Tegan and Sara
16. Imitosis - Andrew Bird
17. Around the Bend - The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
18. Nothing Is Real - Fisher
19. Toxic (live) - Local H

January 14: Handmade needlebook

2009-01-18T01:51:00.004-05:00

While making this needlebook, I realized how quickly I've grown to be dependent on the one I received. It's stored in its envelope still, awaiting exposition at the fun-a-day finale, where I will showcase every swap I've received this month, but I keep pulling it out of the pile to use it. My mini-adventure trying to find non-acrylic felt, and coming up with only brown and navy 80% wool felt, makes me appreciate the incredible quality of materials Rochelle used to make mine. I would even venture to guess the pages are cashmere, they feel so good to the touch!

My partner likes birds and autumn colors, and luckily I had just such fabrics in my stash. I lined the cover with thick paper to keep the needles from poking through, added two pockets on the inside covers, and some snaps for closure. The nest (from a print I made for these) doesn't have much to do with needles, but I asked my partner to imagine it was built with all her thread ends.

The remaining felt may find other incarnation as a small stuffed groundhog; I haven't decided yet.

January 13: Handmade pincushions

2009-01-18T01:25:00.003-05:00

The handmade pincushion swap started a series of swap projects I'm pretty pleased with. First I made the red & aqua one, great for portable handwork, with an old bottlecap as a base (superb tutorial here). Since it's so small, I wanted to special-fy it by filling it with emery sand instead of synthetic stuffing. So with Sara along, I set out to fabric row, one of my favorite institutions in Philly. Whole blocks of independently owned specialty and general textile stores, most of which have been there for decades, refer patrons to each other when they don't have what you ask for. Maxie's Daughter made us feel like insiders when they escorted us to their basement in search of wool felt (they had brown and navy blue, and have had the bolts for 15 years at least - the only place I asked which had any non-acrylic felt). Fabric Row is a lovely example of how independent businesses build community and encourage civic interaction. And there is so much more variety than at a chain; I just wanted to touch everything!

Still - no emery sand. I resorted to purchasing a strawberry needle sharpener and using the emery from that. The offering looked meager to me, so I whipped up the funny-looking green one, which you wear like a ring on your thumb (ingenious tutorial here).

I packed them up with an extra piece of fabric I thought my partner would like and sent it off to the Netherlands, with a longing to mail myself there as well.

Incoming: Firsts of the New Year

2009-01-16T14:48:00.004-05:00

This postcard came from Mary, who made a list of her new year's firsts a lot longer than the one I sent. She signs off saying, "2009 is going okay for me so far and I hope yours is even better." I have to say it is going a lot better than okay. I found myself making a list last night of all the things I have going for me: Without hardly trying, I'm cooking more and eating well, going to yoga regularly, and drinking only rarely. I'm not doing too much or too little of anything. I'm spending lots of time in my kitchenette studio and I've made some things I'm proud of. I have old friends I love and new friends I really like. My project revising the Switzerland guidebooks for Untours is a lot of fun and I'm doing a good job. All my jeans fit great. So I haven't had time to clean my room and I don't have any long-term employment plans in a tanking economy - I feel happier, more grounded, and more capable of dealing with the problems that do rear their heads, than I ever have while being cognizant of it. And in January, too! If this attitude sticks around until Spring I might overload.

January 12: Vegan recipes

2009-01-16T14:24:00.004-05:00

I've been known to eat meat when I know it comes from a local farm where the animal was given free rein to act on all its natural instincts, but because of the environmental, economic and karmic consequences of factory farms, I've been leaning towards a vegan diet lately. It's not something I've had to put effort into, it's just what my body is asking for. Until about a month ago, I couldn't eat enough cheese. Now I'm even using Earth Balance buttery spread instead of butter. Still, despite the quotes I wrote on the recipe cards for this swap, I'm not militant about it. (Not like I am about fur, which to my surprise causes me to yell at people on the street and in elevators. My advice to anti-fur citizens: stay away from the Kimmel Center during an event unless you're packing rotten tomatoes.)

I sent recipes for making seitan, chocolate cupcakes with orange frosting, and my favorite, African ground nut stew, from the Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes cookbook, which has lots of super meals. Here's the stew:

1 T olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 or 2 chiles, seeded and chopped
1.5 t peeled & grated fresh ginger
.5 t brown sugar
.75 t cinnamon
.25 t cumin
1.5 pounds winter squash, seeded, peeled and cut into bite-size chunks
1.5 c water
.25 c creamy natural peanut butter
salt & pepper
1.5 c cooked black-eyed peas (or 1 15-oz can, drained & rinsed)
.5 c chopped roasted peanuts

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, cover, and cook, stirring a few times, untiil softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic, chiles, ginger, brown sugar, cinnamon, and cumin and cook for 1 minute. Add the squash and stir to coat with the spices. Add 1.25 cups of the water and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low.

2. Put the peanut butter in a small bowl and slowly add the remaining .25 cup water, stirring until smooth.

3. Stir the peanut butter mixture into the stew, cover, and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes. About 10 minutes before the end of the cooking time, add the black-eyed peas and peanuts and simmer until heated through. Before serving, taste to adjust the seasonings.

Serves 6.

January 11: Independent Label CD

2009-01-16T13:53:00.005-05:00

The actual title of this swap was "indie rock CD" but for reasons not examined here I feel a little squeamish using the word "indie." Jamie, the person I was assigned to make it for, said in her profile she likes "hard rock music and emo bands," so I tried to give her a mix that would satisfy both of those while still being music I really like and want to share with people. It ended up having lots of Dischord bands on it, but there are others too. Including people who are my friends, so I'm a bit of a nepotist, but I might not like them so much if I didn't like their music!

I spent almost as much time on the CD folder; just in case Jamie hated the music I wanted her to have something cool at least! I used an index page from an atlas, so the part of the index title that ended up on the front of the folder became the title of the mix: Locations of DIVISIONS: pop. pop. pop. ("pop." was the column heading, for "population" of course.) Inside there was one sleeve for the CD and one for the playlist. I got a response from Jamie already: "It's going to take a couple listenings to really decide on the music. The packaging, though, is awesome. It made me want to pop the cd in and give it a listen, right away, that's how packaging for a mix should be." So my ploy worked.

Here's the playlist:
Ganger - Cats, Dogs And Babies Jaws
Q And Not U - So Many Animal Calls
Kaiser Chiefs - Everyday I Love You Less And Less
Sun City Girls - Blue Mambo
MAKE-UP - (I've Heard About) Saturday Nite
Mission Of Burma - Red
Propagandhi - Natural Disasters
Stinking Lizaveta - Stupid MF
Ex Orkest - Kokend Asfalt
Via Audio - Enunciation
Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin - Anne Elephant
Mr. Blanding's Dreamhouse - Khaki Baby
Maria Taylor - My Own Fault
Joshua Marcus - So Low So Love So Long
Mischief Brew - Roll Me Through The Gates Of Hell
Slim Cessna's Auto Club - Pine Box
Built To Spill - You Were Right
Karl Larsson - Devil's Strings
Calexico - Deep Down
The (International) Noise Conspiracy - Breakout 2001

January 10: Six word memoirs

2009-01-13T00:18:00.003-05:00

The idea behind this one was to write six-word memoirs relating to family and friends and mail them to three partners. I've received them from two of my partners, and the first to come in was so poignant, it inspired me to meditate on mine for awhile (I'll post it when I have all three). The majority of the ones that came out of me turned out to be about two people who aren't my friends anymore, which doesn't make them less important to me. I sent them in cards I potato-printed in 1999 to be invitations to a party that never happened. Click on the image to read them.

Incoming: Photos

2009-01-13T00:13:00.003-05:00

Like me, the person who was supposed to send me one photo in a photos swap couldn't decide, so she sent two: birch bark, and a gargoyle under construction. The more I look at the gargoyle, the more creeped out I get.

Incoming: Ocean Life ATCs

2009-01-13T00:03:00.008-05:00

I've gotten the ocean life-themed artist trading cards from both of my partners; very different from each other and from what I sent. I don't have the patience to draw, and would never draw an ATC, so the ones at left, drawn by a woman who met her husband and a friend who made her wedding dress in the same internet chat room, will be unique in my collection.

These ones are from a retired schoolteacher who lives with her parents, taking care of her mother who has Alzheimer's. This is one happy ocean:

January 9: No-spend swap

2009-01-12T23:49:00.005-05:00

If you don't count what I spent when I bought stuff before the idea of swapping something for every day in January came to me, I haven't spent anything on any of my swaps yet. Oh wait - there was the origami paper. And postage! But that's all. Still, I liked this idea of this swap, which was to read your partner's profile then walk around the house finding stuff they might like. My partner likes mini things and making stuff, so I sent her some mini-bunny earrings and a heart patch, both of which are available in my etsy shop. I also included some tea bags and some things from my craft supply stash that she might find more useful than I have so far: a few four-inch squares of fabric, another print of the heart but on a plastic bag, a piece of ribbon, a plastic whale from the dollar store, two skeins of yarn with sequins on it, and probably a few other tidbits. There was a minimum monetary value for the swap (as if you were spending - the point was just not to send throwaways) which I far exceeded, but if I'm not using it, it has no value anyway.

January 8: Origami papers

2009-01-12T23:46:00.004-05:00

Here are the origami papers I sent in exchange for receiving these. I hand-cut half of them from maps and calendars, but just in case the recipients want actual Japanese designs, I threw in some storebought papers too.

Incoming: More postcards

2009-01-12T23:30:00.005-05:00

I've gotten three more postcards from the postcard swap; the one just below of which is the most interesting textually so far. Ithas a picture of Tolkien's map of Gondor on the front. Apparently the sender lives there with Èomir, whom she makes bathe twice a day. Why, I wonder? Is it the horsey smell? She asks about a haunted restaurant in Philadelphia, which I can only guess is the Cresheim Cottage Cafe, where a 10-year-old Victorian girl haunts the second floor. I've eaten there twice, once with far, far too much brie, and never noticed. I'll invite the sender down from Canada and take her there.

Funnily enough, the person who sent this card also mentions Lord of the Rings, since she lives on the South Island of New Zealand where it was filmed. I wonder how many hours of my life I've spent watching that movie?

January 7: Firsts of the New Year

2009-01-12T22:51:00.003-05:00

In Japan, the first time you do anything in the new year marks something special, so for this swap I was supposed to pay attention to my new years firsts, write about them, and send them over to my partner. While trying to feel better about spending new year's eve by myself, I thought about about how irrelevant the date is. It's not tied to the solar circumnavigation; there are no crops to harvest or solstices to honor. The reason January 1 begins the year is because that's the day Roman consuls took office. It really doesn't mean anything in the universal scheme of things, which is the only scheme I ascribe to these days. Armed with that attitude, I didn't notice the first time I did anything, except for what I wrote on this postcard of drunken root vegetables.

I flirted with someone I hadn't even met yet, not just for the first time in 2009, but for the first time in ... seven years? I don't usually feel instant connections with anyone, but something about this person made me want to ask questions, find out about him, get him to talk to me, try to seem interesting. I didn't do a very good job of it (my housemates are incredulous that I couldn't think of a reason to ask for his number), but it felt really good just having the experience, and knowing that I'm not an alien who only likes the people she already knows.

After I'd already mailed the postcard, a more momentous first happened that I wish I'd written about instead. As meaningful as it felt to me, flirting is a silly thing to be telling a German guy who is married with two kids, likes to cook, and is involved with civic affairs (all this from his swap-bot profile). I'd rather have told him what happened at the end of a vinyasa yoga class. We were in shivasana, and I'd been imagining a balloon of light expanding in various points of my body as the instructor called them out. When we got back to my brow, I felt tears welling up - not an uncommon occurence lately, but usually I stifle it because I'm on the trolley and I don't know why I'm crying. This time, I let it go. My head started buzzing, then my whole body, and I thought, "this is what joy feels like." I have been either profoundly depressed or emotionally deadened by antidepressants for longer than I know, and this is the first time in my memory when neither is true. Even when I feel bad about things, I feel good. I'm happy even when I'm sad! Hooray!

German man didn't mind the flirting tale, by the way; he wrote in reply, "That was a really impressive story."

January 6: Glucksschwein

2009-01-09T10:26:00.006-05:00

Here's the Glucksschwein explanation directly from the swap sign-up page: "When you are lucky, the Germans say "Du hast Schwein gehabt." This means You Have Had Pig. The saying dates back to hard times, when having a pig to eat meant you were fortunate indeed." The pig, not so much.

My partner and her husband spend their summers planting trees in the Canadian Rockies, during which time they live in a van. I thought Pass the Pigs, one of my favorite games, would be perfect for them (that's what's in the present at left, I forgot to take a picture before I wrapped it up). It's small, portable, and can keep you busy for hours. Trust me.

I had a terrible time finding one, though. It seems there is only one independent toy store in Philadelphia that isn't an hour away by transit (Happily Ever After at 1010 Pine), and although it looks like a good one with local owners and workers who know their product and are eager to help you find the perfect toy - a great plus to any locally-owned shop - it's not exhaustive and they didn't have Pigs. Did there used to be locally-owned toy stores around here before ToysRUs and then WalMart took over the market? There are several toy stores in the suburbs, mostly on the main line, and I beg Philly locals to support them next time you're toy shopping. Starting a business is the primary way people lift themselves out of poverty, and the more the big box stores control the market, the more impossible it is for people to help themselves.

The postcard up top is one that moves when you tip it back & forth. It's printed in Germany and even said good luck on the back! Perfect! I ended up mailing my own Pigs game to my partner. Next time I'm in Chestnut Hill I'll replace it at ODoodles.

Incoming: Friendship star quilt block

2009-01-08T10:22:00.003-05:00

Some of the swaps on Swap-Bot are serial, like the animal ATCs where you have to make an ATC of an animal for every letter of the alphabet. One swap will be the letter A, the next the letter B, and so on (I joined Animal ATCs - F; that'll be mid-January. Frilled lizard? Flying fox? Firebelly newt? Finnish spitz?).

This is a serial swap that results in a friendship star quilt top at the end, each 12 inches of which is made by a different person. There's a new friendship star quilt block swap every month in which one 12.5-inch block is exchanged. This being my entree into the serial swap, I didn't have any other blocks to match, so I didn't request any specific colors (except I've written on my site profile that pastels are to be avoided at all costs). @Quiltluver, my assigned partner, was so dear as to ask me what I wanted, but I left it up to her. Serendipity has always worked for me, and it didn't fail this time either; she got my colors exactly right. These rich, royal tones are my favorites when it comes to comfort bedclothes. I doubt I'll keep swapping much when January is over, but I do want to keep up with the friendship star swaps until I have enough to make a quilt.

Luna liked the quilt square too. That, or she stopped being the center of attention for one second and had to reassert herself.

@Quiltlover also included a bazillion extra little things, including more triangles cut from the quilt square fabric, some matching fat quarters (a fabric square measuring 18x18 inches; it's a quilting term), and this amazing postcard. I assume it's prompted by the part of my profile that says I love terribly boring postcards. She gets me! Kyoto, you know I've always wanted to visit you, but you're not representing yourself well here:

January 5: Ocean Life ATCs

2009-01-07T20:39:00.008-05:00

No matter how much my mom loves them, I've never been inspired to make artist trading cards. But the fascination of jellyfish, sea fans, dolphins, coral, pufferfish, diatoms, skates, and general teeming alien biodiversity of the sea drew me in to this swap of ocean life ATCs. When I signed up I thought I'd just dress up some lobsters (oh no! That was figuratively speaking; I hadn't thought of actually dressing them up like Little Bo Peep or Peter Wimsey - I sense some more collages coming on).

But I can never stick with the most obvious thing. That's why, my mom said, other kids made fun of me when I was growing up, because I was weird and all over the place with my non-linear thinking. I always thought she was just saying that, but now I'll claim it. At least, if a general snapshot of the depth and breadth of the people who do like me as an adult means anything, I think she was right. I mean, my beloved friends are weird, weird people.

So on this one I had to go with honoring ocean life by highlighting its destruction and wrath. Industrial fishing is as heinous and dangerous as big box stores and agribusiness, and as much a result of the prosperous world's senses of entitlement, dominion, and blind faith in technology. Even this Greenpeace video about bottom trawling refers to "our oceans" (at :54); where the possessive indicates that the oceans are ours to do with as we please. Also? Orange Roughy? Used to be called slimeheads, but no one would eat a slimehead. They had to make people eat something other than cod, because the cod were disappearing, so the renamed the slimehead. Now? The slimeheads are disappearing.

The set of ATCs depicting the re-taking of the ocean floor (from tourists anyway) went to one swap partner. The collages are mounted on that kind of picture, which must have a name, that appears to move when you tip it back and forth, cut from an old placemat. The set of ATCs immediately above, with the always/never list (and some runaway paste) on back of both went to another partner. I hope neither recipient feels bad that they didn't get something cute, but, my mom was right.

January 4: Envelopes

2009-01-07T03:47:00.004-05:00

These are what I sent for the handmade envelopes swap (see last post for what I got in exchange). My coworkers at Untours have been giving me their old calendars at the end of every year for a few years running, so I had Rail Europe, Carl Larsson, puppies & kitties, English taverns, etc. to work with, plus an atlas of Maine I recently acquired from the Second Mile Center. The calendars had all been used as calendars before they became useful as envelopes (reuse is better than recycling!), so my partner can see what day my coworkers had dinner with friends or gave the dog his heartworm pill:

Here's an aside if there's ever been one: While searching for Carl Larsson the illustrator to get the spelling right, I found this Karl Larsson. Holy crap am I going to see that man when his band tours the USA.

Incoming: Envelopes

2009-01-07T03:37:00.003-05:00

I think I got better than I gave with this one (see next post for what I sent). The object was to send my partner 12 handmade envelopes, one for each month. Hannah sent me some supremely colorful envelopes from diverse sources, fun to look at on the inside as well as the outside. She sent more than 12, and two were origami, folded in a manner I had only just learned to do myself at the Philosophical Society. I love the coincidences involved in these otherwise random exchanges.

January 3: Writing prompt notebook

2009-01-07T02:02:00.005-05:00

My commitment is to complete a swap for every day in January, not complete a swap every day in January start to finish. That's my own loophole. My friend Mark said that fun-a-day (or any one-thing-a-day project) is really about the discipline of repetitive action - not in a carpal tunnel of the mind kind of way, but in the zen and fulfillment of sticking to a commitment kind of way. Even with my loophole, I agree wholeheartedly. If I did 31 things on January 31, I'd be a cheater. (In any case, that would be impossible because this swapping business is practically a seventh job.)

This project is very much about having some discipline and fulfilling a commitment. Especially in January, when the clockwork-like winter depression nears the witching hour, I need something regular that I can point to as accomplished, so I don't feel like a lump of too-wet clay that just oozes and farts whenever I try to effect something (that's effect, verb, not affect, noun, for you picky grammar people). That's why I was attracted to the idea of swapping as an art form. I'm not responsible to only myself, but to other people who are depending on me to mail them stuff. The nebulous receivers of my envelopes and packages offer an extra carrot, and just maybe the discipline of being accountable to other people will become a habit, and I'll learn to be disciplined all by myself. And then maybe all those ideas that have been on my "to do in 2006, no 2007, no 2008, no 2009" list will get done. Yes! 2009! Year of the ox! Did I mention I'm a ox?

This is all working up to say that I started this writing-prompt notebook in December, in order to have it done by the deadline imposed by the person who designed the swap. I got it in a little early. The assignment was to paste found words and images throughout a notebook of at least 70 pages, and mail it to my partner, whose imagination would hopefully be sparked by them, and she would immediately start free-writing all these feelings and ideas she never knew she had. I had a thoughtful time making it, especially because my partner is a Muslim journalist who lives on a farm, has homeschooled her kids, and does her best to make from scratch everything that her family needs. I really wanted to do a good job for her.

There were at least 70 prompts in the finished notebook; I'm only including three here that made me think as I worked. They all come from children's encyclopedias from the 60s or 70s, and are indicative of how prosperity-centric (if not plain old US-centric) these books that claim to teach kids about the world are. Are sunflowers and dandelions really common weeds that everyone knows? And really, weeds? I don't know about dandelions, but there must be billions of people who have never seen a sunflower. And anyway, sunflowers are crops! Huge crops!

And then there are Building Materials:

It's true, they do throw in "and can afford." But that's a little backhanded: See, we can use any material we want. Can you? This was not, by the way, part of an entry about globalization, colonialism, or the rape of the Earth. It was about houses. The book presented the ability to use any material we want as a measure of progress. Those poor, sorry people who had to use what was at hand! They had it so rough, what with the needing to be creative and feeling the economic and ecological boundaries of the world! We all know what happened to those people:

No wonder so many of these kids grew up to give tax breaks and other incentives to enormous big box stores, so they could deliver unto us all the forests in Siberia.

When I was done with the book, I took a good look at the outside and discovered it was ugly. I wanted to leave it more of a blank slate instead of pasting more stuff on the cover, so I sewed a sleeve for it. Voilà:

Incoming: postcards

2009-01-04T16:12:00.006-05:00

My January 2 postcard swap receipts are trickling in; I have four out of ten so far. The one from @MistyLynne has the best backstory: she sent a postcard with a photo by Harvey Finkle, a Philly photographer whose work I've had the pleasure of displaying in the White Dog Cafe twice (coordinating the art there is another one of my jobs). I particularly love the postcard photo.

Misty writes on her profile, "The latest news from my house in Maryland: My husband and I decided to throw darts at the US map (without looking - that was humorous) and travel to where they landed. The results? This spring/summer, we will be heading to Socorro, New Mexico (his dart) and Jackpot, Nevada (my dart). I can't wait!" I bet all kinds of crazy coincidences will happen on that trip.

This card arrived from @JustMeTH81. My favorite part is the back! In fact it's just why I have ammonite tattoos, to remind me that anything worth doing takes a long-ass time:

I also got one from Battle Creek MI, by which I learned that Battle Creek is a world leader in breakfast cereals. (I'll store that away for the next trivia gameshow I'm on.)

And this one I particularly love. I thought boots were hard to run in:

Semi-related: two random but connected arrivals

2009-01-04T15:31:00.008-05:00

The first comment on my explanatory post was from Boo Cartledge, who referred me to sendsomething.net, a site to which if you post your address, someone might mail you something. Not a week after I signed up, I got this from postmuse, a person smart enough to start mailing people her blank postcard collection one-by-one so she could get them back not so blank. My card depicts the signing of the Declaration of Independence - particularly appropriate since one of my jobs is at the American Philosophical Society not 100 feet from Independence Hall. During the 10 years when Independence Hall was the nation's capitol, the APS hosted Charles Wilson Peale's museum that boasted a menagerie of live animals in the yard, so while the framers were doing important business, every now and then they were interrupted by the roar of a caged mountain lion out back.

Not much later I got this handmade card from commenter Boo herself, who is tearing up her 2003 book Grace: A Memoir and turning it into mail art. The full quote on the card reads "The only way to prevent the agonies human beings inflict on each other, I concluded, is to annihilate the human race." Whoa. It much be cathartic, ripping up this memoir.

January 2: Postcards

2009-01-04T14:48:00.006-05:00

Day two didn't involve any particular craft either, though I did invest some time here. I was to send 10 postcards to each of 10 people. I've been collecting blank postcards for years, and there are some I won't let out of my collection (like the one captioned "early days of radio" that pictures a postage stamp from Antigua with Mickey & Minnie Mouse and a gramophone on it. The back is printed in Czech). Others I love enough that I want to share them, so I was glad to send these out. They went to Illinois, Michigan, California, Mississippi, Wyoming, France, two to Wisconsin, and two to Malaysia.

The swap specified that I should write what I do for a living on the card. This was fun, since right now I have several part-time jobs, half of which are on hiatus. Honestly, I don't know what the hell I do. So each card said something different; as I wrote I wondered if I have multiple personalities.

Pictured are a selection of the ten I mailed, all picked up in the Netherlands. The boek illustratoren card went to @Marineko, who works in the best bookstore in Jalan Melati Utama.

I spelled "career" wrong on this cat card, which went to @ladyrn. Sorry. To make up for it though, right this second Nova is sleeping on the part of my lap the computer isn't on, in pretty much the postcard cat's position.

This Donald Evans postcard, procured from the Stedelijk museum in Amsterdam the day after I biked all the way around Texel (known for its unique breed of sheep), went to a stamp collector.

And this labor poster facsimile went to @scowlette in Chicago, student of history and labor studies.

Incoming: handmade needlecase

2009-01-04T14:35:00.008-05:00

This swap introduced me to needlebooks - I'd never heard of them, even though they're uber-useful. Most of my needles were stored in an old pharmacy vial, just waiting to draw blood while I looked for the right one. But then Rochelle in Ireland sent me this amazing needlebook, which she completely tailored for me, right down to using natural fibers and reused materials, and even embroidering my name on the cover! I instantly installed my needles and took great pleasure in doing so.

Incoming: origami paper

2009-01-04T11:59:00.005-05:00

I joined the origami paper swap (send at least 12 pages of origami paper to each of two partners) because I only know how to fold one thing from memory and figured it was about time to expand my repertoire. What better way to get inspiration than through the mail? The one thing I know how to fold is a lily (click for instructions). This lily made me many friends when I was traveling from Turkey to Barcelona over six months in 2000. If I wanted to meet someone I would fold them a lily in their line of sight which peaked their attention, and for the flourish at the end, I'd hand them the lily. It got the point across even when we didn't share a language. I still have two lily friends (if mostly on facebook).

@buzzbuzzbee and @swan already mailed me pages of origami paper for that swap, even though it's not due out the door until 20 January! @buzzbuzzbee went so far as to wrap it up impressively in this deer tree box. And she even designed and printed the images herself! Wow!

Inside I found these:

plus lots of smaller pages:

And these lovely sheets came from @swan. I love the dragonfly one on top best; I think I'll try this owl with it.

January 1: Photos

2009-01-04T11:38:00.004-05:00

Obviously, I've pledged to mail a swap every day, not blog every day about mailing the swap.

I heard somewhere that whatever you do on NYE portends what you'll do most in the coming year, so I spent New Year's Eve making stuff. Specifically for swap projects. I wasn't particularly happy to be doing it alone, so I decided that new year's day counts in the prediction too, and we had some people over that evening for a lovely soiree. Even with all the previous night's preparation, I let myself off easy on January 1 with a photo swap.

The idea was to mail your partner one photo of any subject that you've taken. I couldn't decide between two I took on a trip to visit Fair Trade coffee farms in Chiapas, Mexico in 2005, so @IssueGirl got these two:

A candle stall in the San Cristobal market. My favorite thing about this photo is the single incandescent bulb that lit the shop. If it burned out, would the shopkeeper burn his stock?

I wandered around a bit while our guide Monika and the Maya Vinic cooperative farmers worked out a deal for shipping some containers of pergamon to the US (they were all sitting in a circle in the grass instead of around a glass table in a board room), and I found this radio facade stuck in a tree next to the warehouse where Maya Vinic stored their bagged coffee.

The story so far ...

2008-12-21T18:04:00.002-05:00

I started this blog to squirrel away some of my found poems, hiding them in plain sight and not drawing attention to them. But now that I'm posting for public consumption, I have to lay them out: There they are, the first posts, for everyone to ignore, because they're not the point anymore. Until another one comes along, then it might sneak in here.

The point now is, I've joined the fun at the fun-a-day project by artclash again this year, having chosen a project and pledged to do one thing for that project every day in January. At the same time, anyone else who wants to is working on their own project, then we all get together at Studio 34 on February 14 and show off our goods to each other and everyone else. This will be the fifth year Artclash has been at it; it'll be my second year participating. My first year, I made 31 stencils, and those became the custom prayer flags I make.

This year, I'm making art for its own sake, for its exploration and communication value. As soon as I start making stuff for the purpose of selling it, it becomes not-so-much art to me. It's the process that I get the most out of, not the finished product, so I constantly need to be making something new if I'm going to learn anything. The year 2008 has mostly been about laying fallow, grounding myself, taking things in and breaking them down. In 2009 it's time for things to start pouring out again, having magically recombined into something not immediately recognizable. It is, after all, the year of the ox.

I'm using this year's fun-a-day project as a jumping off point and doing a swap a day, making stuff and mailing it to somebody I've never met, in exchange for getting something similar from someone who's never met me. Every day I get to make/mail something completely different from the day before, while under the same rubric. Brought to me by swap-bot. Then at the end of the project, I'll show off everything I've gotten next to pictures of everything I've sent. And I'm gonna blog about the whole thing too!

Moncho

2008-06-27T20:23:00.000-04:00

Long ago, no animals had voices.
They used their rough tongues
A well developed sense of touch
pieces of fur caught on bushes
showed which way one had walked.

Leave a note at campfire remains
A candle or two where the air is still
Bend your head down
lie down and curl up
then take your hand away.

Fish hooks from the bones
directed toward survival
will note their comings and goings
and their sense of balance
could keep watch over the universe.

struggling or becalmed

2008-06-13T19:34:00.001-04:00

This man is telling you that it is raining.
resistance - blind, dogged, desperate,
a rehearsal in my hotel,
almost anything you want,
these things were of equal weight.

other oceans compare
days, events intimately connected
only records of arriving
will note their comings & goings.

Shallow edges would recede
when a boat splits open on
heads which explode with heavy rains.
the powerful forces present in large structures
bring it to safe harbor
until the boats are safely beached beyond
the answer that could, and often did,
in a word vary slightly
would trade hopeless fragments
its processing would gain, and
artifacts of little value would own history.

domodossola

2008-06-13T19:29:00.000-04:00

who built these homes?
who left them?
who named these stations
the train overlooks?
once people came,
overlooked the valley,
scratched moss off of stones,
cracked nails, split them just there
piled them just so
and lived under them.
No one wanted the
stones when they left.
Moss came, and split the stone
where it always would have
on its own.

august 2006

on the moon

2008-06-13T19:27:00.000-04:00

aid to
forces
forced to
as guarantor
guarantee
war
with
the new
larger role

april 2003

christine in michigan

2008-06-13T19:22:00.000-04:00

vegetables for the big cities
supply the blood with food
pressed into wine, dried and pressed
into the cloth and comes up again quite close,
immense distances away from us.

swells come in and swirl
will people be pushed aside in a few
found in the ruins of ancient cities
where it went in. In again, out again,
fine needles of bone, ivory, gold, and bronze
protect the finger that is pushing the needle
push the blood around.

beginnings: places that preserve one small
building, a neighborhood, an entire town;
each stone helps to support every other stone in
places that preserve customs transplanted
different crops on the same land
their fortunes on the necks and arms.
necklaces of pieces of stone, horn or the teeth
and your home truly you
bones and thread from grass.

Bone is as strong and tough as concrete.
needle is a thin steel shaft with a sharp point.

may 2006

lala in guyana

2008-06-13T19:20:00.000-04:00

descendants of slaves and laborers
work on the plantations:
pockets of the ruling few
wheel anxiously about in
aluminum plants.

rocks that promise to
crash over precipices
bear the brilliant costumes
of creatures
of the north.

leave-taking is
a colony for convicts,
a drowsy empire deep in the heart.

2004

root canal

2008-06-13T19:12:00.000-04:00

This part is the root. The part that shows
our teeth help give shape to our faces.
The diagram shows It is not a science.
We make some sounds, laying it underground.
It may be down below the surface.

I have loved you
very close together
farther apart.
in such a way that when it moves down
one would try to drink wood or build a fire
There were riots,
But most houses do not burn down.
the movements of the stars
were kept warm in a different way.

the hardest material in the human
is held down, is hidden in the jaw.
held down a longer time.
and nerves are found
cutting, tearing and grinding
forced from the lungs out of the body.

A strange thing happens
organized armies, a dinner plate of silk,
memory, imagination, ability to think,
they come to seem life-size.

2003